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Policy

This NASA Advisory Council Wants to be Heard

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 1, 2014
Filed under ,

NAC Wants Independent Cost and Technical Estimate of ARM Before Downselect, SPacePolicyOnline
“Traditionally, NAC findings and recommendations are sent to the NASA Administrator in a letter from the NAC Chair. Eventually the Administrator responds and the exchange is posted on the NAC website and they receive little notice. Today, NAC member Miles O’Brien suggested that NAC issue a press release to raise awareness of these issues. The other NAC members, including Squyres, were enthusiastic about the idea. It apparently would be a precedent-setting event. Squyres seemed to feel it is in keeping with the goal he and Bolden share to make NAC more effective. Squyres says he will try to have a press release issued after he formally transmits all of NAC’s findings and recommendations to Bolden in about two weeks.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

21 responses to “This NASA Advisory Council Wants to be Heard”

  1. e_ballen says:
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    From the linked report:

    “ARM is divided into three elements: (1) identifying targets, (2) sending a robotic probe to capture and redirect an asteroid into lunar orbit, (3) sending a crew to get a sample once it is in lunar orbit.”

    “… NAC concludes that the first and third elements have merit even if the second element does not take place.”

    If the second element does not take place, the third cannot take place, whether or not it has merit.

    That leaves #1 as something they think has merit, identifying targets.

    But the ARM targets are few-meter size chunks that would otherwise be of no interest. They pose no threat (can’t get through the atmosphere in one piece), can’t be seen or tracked for more than 2-3 days as they zoom past Earth and disappear into orbit statistical noise. Plus substantial additional effort is required to find and deal with them.

    Without #2 having merit, #3 is impossible and #1 is pointless.

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      Although Option A of ARM would be searching for 4-10m asteroids, if they go with Option B they would be searching for much larger asteroids which they would fly to and pluck a 1-5m boulder from its surface. So presumably they are saying that developing this search capability has merits even if ARM is cancelled.

      However they do give some indications why they think sending a crew to lunar orbit has merit even if ARM is cancelled, as they say that they endorse “intermediate missions to cis-lunar space that allow development of systems that can later be used for more distant exploration”

      Of equal interest are their comments about Mars and SLS:

      Regarding Mars they effectively state that the current plan is unsustainable (reminiscent of Augustine and CxP) and they only see four possible ways to fix it, either: increase NASA’s budget, or cancel other things, or lower costs by being more efficient or by getting outside partners, or forget Mars and do something else.

      Regarding SLS they are concerned about the low launch rate of every two years as they believe it will be less than optimal in terms of maintenance of supplier base and launch and operations teams. They recommend that a study be done to determine the minimum launch rate needed for efficiency and safety.

  2. Michael Spencer says:
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    I expected some sort of rabble-rousing from Mr. O’Brien, This is a positive step.

    • Todd Austin says:
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      I will permit myself the indulgence of going a step farther. This is a truly exciting development, as it means that the members of this public body intend to use their position to demand that NASA projects make sense before the money is spent, rather than after the billions have already been wasted.

      • Spacetech says:
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        They can demand all they want but it will not change a thing, NASA does not have to answer to anyone but Congress and the White House. NAC recommendations are nothing more than that……recommendations.

        • fcrary says:
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          Actually, NASA does have to answer to the NAC. By law (passed by Congress) NASA has to get advice from the NAC and respond to their advice. That doesn’t mean the have to follow that advice. They just have to respond in some way (e.g. explaining why they aren’t going to follow that advice.)

          • Spacetech says:
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            Agreed, a response to recommendations by NAC is required (usually from the administrator)

        • hikingmike says:
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          So this gets the ball rolling. The response can be something like: CONGRESS (ok it won’t be that but you get the idea). Then after the response, NAC can rouse some more rabble.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        Too late for that 🙁

  3. Larry Lemke says:
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    Karma definitely is a bear, isn’t it? …….. Basically, the NAC is (quite
    correctly) asking NASA to impose the same rigor on itself that it imposes on others who propose missions to NASA Announcements of Opportunity: Show that there is a Science (or Exploration) benefit to be gained by the proposed mission that is traceable to the strategic
    plan for Science or Exploration. Discuss the proposed technical approach together with the key trades that show that the proposed approach is the most cost-effective/lowest risk. Show that the technology is at TRL 6 or above. Show that the technical approach will achieve the objectives. Estimate the cost and schedule, complete with reserves of at least 30%. Show that the proposed implementers of the mission have a record of competence, cost credibility, etc. State the performance floor, below which the mission will be recommended for termination. Have the plan reviewed critically by a group of non-advocate professional peers.

    Be prepared for a lot of embarrassed throat-clearing, hemming

    and hawing, changing of the subject, etc. ………..

  4. Spacetech says:
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    If NASA wants to go capture something, why don’t they concentrate on identifying, locating, capturing and deorbiting some of the space junk in low earth orbit. This is something that will have to be addressed sooner or later and it would be a far more productive ongoing mission.

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      That is the best idea we have heard in a long time! Even doing a rendezvous with a piece of orbital debris would be a good development task.

  5. Steven Rappolee says:
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    recently at a hangout on the ARM mission I hear one of the potiential targets was bennu the same target as Osires X so i thought that’s silly to send two space craft to the same target but then………………..

    http://yellowdragonblog.com

    so I have a warped mind right?

  6. Todd Austin says:
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    From what I’m able to find online, it appears that Charlie Bolden and his staff are responsible for selecting the members of the NAC. In that case, they need to be granted the appropriate credit here for a courageous choice that has the potential to drive NASA in positive new directions.

  7. Anonymous says:
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    So – as “NAC asserts that there are only four ways to fix the mismatch:
    increase NASA’s budget, remove content from NASA’s portfolio, offset
    costs by new efficiencies and/or contributions from outside partners, or
    adopt a different goal” what are some conclusions here?

    What is the probability of NASA’s budget being increased to a degree that makes a difference? The NRC also stated as much. Considering abundant indicators that a budget increase enough to matter will not be the case in the foreseeable future (past trends, demographics & future trends, voter sympathies for how money would be spent if choosing between things, as expressed in polls, etc.) we are left with three.

    It would seem adopting a different goal and removing content are close cousins, the changing of “what” is to be done, rather than changing “how” (as with the budget increase item). Assuming we don’t want to change “what” – that leaves us with one remaining item: “offset
    costs by new efficiencies and/or contributions from outside partners”.

    If outside partners are international space agency contributions, notably these are under the same pressures of budgets as NASA. So we can not expect anything there other than the marginal difference-the kind where every little bit helps and is worth pursuing, but this would not be key.

    This leaves the inevitable – “offset
    costs by new efficiencies”. This could be new acquisition approaches, such as commercial approaches where NASA must to foster the growth of the industry for non-government users before it can take advantage of the same as a service for NASA missions. Yet consider that the current SLS/Orion driven spaceflight portion of the NASA portfolio is one that awaits the end of ISS, and of commercial cargo and crew capability, in order to redirect the money to the SLS’s Earth departure stage, advanced boosters and then -if there is any money leftover-to some in-space elements to actually go explore. Do the math-it never adds up. Even then, even after that decimation takes place if we continue down this path.

    So, advocates of SLS/Orion and this path, what is the logical defense of all this?

    No money rains from heaven, asteroid heading to Earth, one day people wake up and want more NASA and less healthcare scenarios please.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Oh, so it’s the health care options that are constraining NASA’s budget. Hmmm.

      • Anonymous says:
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        Choices, choices in a democracy that we make, but also inevitable choices as we face an aging population. An economist or politician may wish there were other choices, and balances, but theres no reason to believe the balance chosen will give NASA the budget increases that will avoid a reckoning about changes in ways of doing business, especially achieving efficiencies if we wish to have ambitious goals.

        • Anonymous says:
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          Then you should talk about the rest of the budget choices, too, instead of picking out just one. Your politics are showing.

          • Anonymous says:
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            To be clear, I’m not expressing an opinion about budget choices. The more relevant opinion I am expressing is about where, looking at trends and such, would a reasonable person see the NASA budget going. I would opine the trend is to not go up in any way consistent with the current portfolio items of SLS and Orion, and advertised goals of Mars. Assuming as the 4 options were stated but that “what” remains constant, and no significant enough budget increases in the forseeable future, then efficiency improvements – how – on a large scale are the only and inevitable path.

  8. Robert Clark says:
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    So not even NASA’s own advisory council (NAC) likes the asteroid retrieval mission.

    But in point of fact NASA CAN afford to go to the Moon, and to Mars, and even to near Earth asteroids. How? By following an approach NASA itself has proven to be successful – commercial space. Both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences were able to cut 90%(!) off the costs for both launchers and space capsules in NASA’s commercial cargo program. That’s four separate systems able to show a factor of ten drop in development costs. That is NOT a coincidence.

    Remarkably we can still do the beyond low Earth orbit (BEO) missions even using the SLS and Orion. The reason is the extra systems such as a planetary or lunar lander developed commercially will be so low cost compared to the SLS and Orion, that they will add only minimally to the amounts already being spent on the SLS and Orion anyway. That’s in contrast to the state of affairs with the old approach that would be so costly that it would not allow any missions to be attempted after the SLS is completed.

    NASA head Charles Bolden lamented that he didn’t have “leaders” at
    NASA:

    “Marcia Smith @SpcPlcyOnline · Jul 30
    Bolden, asked what worries him: I need to help my leadership team become better leaders. There are managers, and leaders. I need leaders.”
    https://twitter.com/SpcPlcy

    NASA’s management needs to step up and make the recommendations to the White House and its science and technology advisory office not the other way around. They should stop just parroting back to those in the White House that advise the President on science and technology policy about how great the ARM is and acknowledge that nobody likes the asteroid retrieval mission.

    The White House and Congress were successfully able to compromise to get the SLS and commercial cargo and crew programs. NASA’s leadership should take the lead and promote a compromise that further mission elements will be undertaken with the commercial space approach.

    Note then that both supporters of the SLS and of commercial space would be happy since both would be used to accomplish missions that *everybody* wants. That’s what you call successful compromise.

    Bob Clark

    • Anonymous says:
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      A dillemma though, in taking the farthest out elements, landers and such, and using a commercial approach, while not doing so with the transport to LEO which already has a commercial use, the placement of sat’s and capability for non-government entities. Would this be applying a commercial paradigm to the part we can, rather than the parts we should?