NASA Does Well In The FY2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill
DIVISION B-COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2018
NATIONAL SPACE COUNCIL This Act includes $1,965,000 for the activities of the National Space Council.
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION This Act includes $20,736,140,000 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Page 31-34
“Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).-In lieu of House and Senate language regarding WFIRST, the agreement includes $150,000,000 for WFIRST, which is the highest priority of the 2010 Astrophysics Decadal Survey. In October 2017, NASA received the findings from the WFIRST Independent External Technical/Management/Cost Review (WIETR), which found in part that the current science management strategy is appropriate and that the Class B risk classification for the WFIRST mission is not consistent with NASA policy for strategically important missions with comparable levels of investment and risk, most if not all of which are class A missions. Accordingly, NASA shall provide to the Committees within 60 days of enactment of this Act a preliminary life cycle cost estimate, including any additions needed to achieve Class A classification, along with a year by year breakout of development costs.”
“SPACE TECHNOLOGY This Act includes $760,000,000 for Space Technology. Within this amount, $130,000,000 is for RESTORE; $75,000,000 is for nuclear thermal propulsion activities; up to $20,000,000 is for the Flight Opportunities Program; and no less than $25,000,000 is for additive manufacturing research.”
EXPLORATION The bill provides an additional $350,000,000 for launch capabilities and infrastructure associated with constructing a second mobile launch platform, as recommended by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, which will enable an acceleration in the launch schedule for Exploration Mission-2. The funds also will allow flexibility for future NASA and other Federal agency missions that will require heavy-lift capabilities beyond those of current launch vehicles as well as enable a sustainable Space Launch System (SLS) launch cadence.
“EDUCATION This Act includes $100,000,000 for Education, including $18,000,000 for the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research; $40,000,000 for Space Grant; $32,000,000 for the Minority University Research and Education Project; and $10,000,000 for STEM Education and Accountability Projects. The agreement adopts Senate language regarding future placement of this program and direction regarding administrative costs.”
It pisses away almost 1/6th of the total, $3.5 billion, on SLS. When the next budget is being discussed call your Senators and Representative and tell them to kill this worthless pork.
You actually want the United States space agency NASA to not have it’s own system to launch astronauts into space and would depend completely on commercial companies?
Given KSC GO’s performance in cost overuns($54M ballons to almost $1B) and 9 years to build the first MLP is $350M for a second really enough and actually going to close the gap between EM-1 and EM-2? More likely it is a Nelson pork hand out and flushing money down the drain but no one cares.
I’m glad this includes funding for education and WFIRST. I’m not so happy it includes funding for a second MLP for SLS. Congress keeps throwing good money after bad at SLS.
It means higher overhead to spread out among all the launches they won’t be able to afford to fly. I was wondering how they were going to slip Europa Clipper into the schedule now that SLS has missions planned (but still unfunded?) through EM-8 to build the Lunar Orbiting Outpost (DSG) and Deep Space Transport.
Sounds like their trying to pack more missions in sooner before larger global and commercial alternatives start coming online that can steal missions from SLS. The Government solution to a failing program is to throw more money at it. We’ll see how that works out for them.
I hope these MLPs will be usable by other rocket designs.
The first MLP is not even usable by later versions of the SLS. It’s only good for the first flight. Then it becomes government sulpus and goes to the scrap yard, unless they spend hundreds of millions more to rebuild it for the larger SLS.
So what they are doing is just starting construction on MLP v.2 sooner?
$75M for nuclear thermal propulsion activities! That’s interesting, as I thought NTP was dead or just about. Too bad they are still beating this sick horse, SLS! Now, if they would just get rid of the Gateway lunar orbiting lab nonsense, and fund a return to the Moon by astronauts to see if 1/6g is sufficient to ameliorate some of the physical problems caused by long-term exposure to zero-g!
Ad Astra!
Yeah, the NTP stood out to me as well. I found this article about an NTP contract NASA signed last year: https://www.nextbigfuture.c….
This sounds promising for long-range human missions, as I’m guessing it’s basically the same kind of technology used in nuclear submarines, so a lot of the “safety” problems have already been solved, if you can get the appropriate clearance to look at those solutions, and work around any areas where those solutions assume that gravity exists (e.g. steam goes up).
The technology used in submarine and surface nuclear powerplants is basically similar to fossil-fired steam generating plants and is closed-cycle, i.e., the reactor creates heat to boil water which is used in a heat exchanger to create steam to turn turbines that turn the propellers or ducted propulsion.
Although somewhat similar, a NTR, uses the heat generated to turn liquid hydrogen into gas (or possibly even to plasma) which is then used as a reactant, shot out of the nozzle. IIRC, the Isp is around 800 seconds, nearly twice that of LH2/LOX. (There have been proposals to add LOX as a sort of afterburner for high-thrust situations, such as leaving LEO or braking into planetary (Martian???) orbit. Hopefully, we can actually get some flight-weight hardware for testing with this relatively low amount of funding!
Open versus closed loop coolant isn’t the big difference, in my opinion. Navy reactors use pressurized water. That gives you a coolant that also acts as the moderator. I’d have to look up the numbers for hydrogen, but its effects on the nuclear reactions would definitely be very different from water.
On the good side, the rockets NASA’s currently looking at are in the 500-1000 MW (thermal) range. That’s somewhere between the size of a submarine and an aircraft carrier reactor. That’s small enough that heating after a shutdown (from short-lived daughter products) isn’t too bad of a problem.
The problem isn’t technological. Rover and Kiwi, et al, have been around since the 1950’s – 60’s.
The problem is whether the tree-huggers and whatever treaties are hanging around to scotch these nukes in the bud the way they did back then. Otherwise, it’ll just be more hardware stored with Rover, etc.
At least there is some money in the pot. Now if NASA would just shift the money from SLS/Orion to the NTR, and maybe set a definite pathway to the Moon, we might actually get somewhere onto solid regolith beyond LEO!
Sad to say, a 5.5% increase in NASA’s budget (the third or fourth significant boost in a row) – which should be seen as great news for the space community – is mostly met here by more complaining about SLS and whistling past the grave in hopes for its demise. Get over it! SLS IS going to happen and arguments that it is unaffordable given NASA’s “flat budget” look increasingly disconnected from reality – especially given that the preferred alternative of opponents seems to be Falcon Heavy which Musk himself has said is not likely human rateable!
The SLS/Orion is just a throw back to the 1960’s. Really it’s a steam punk version of Project Apollo even to the point of requiring a naval task force to recover the Orion.
It’s the 21st Century and NASA doesn’t need a steam punk rocket given FH, New Glenn and BFR, all of which will be flying before NASA even builds the MLP for the second flight.
NASA will look awful silly when they spend $2.5 billion on a mission to return 2 astronauts to the lunar surface when Elon Musk sends a 100 reporters in a BFR to report on the landing for about $25-30 million. That is how large the gap is between the two systems.
And yes there are precedents. In 1929 a Ford Trimotor barely made it to the South Pole with a crew of 4. By 1958 a C-130 would be able to do so with 100+ on board with ease. NASA with the SLS/Orion/Lander makes about as much sense as the U.S. trying to build a Ford Trimotor for the flight in 1958.
Paper rockets are always much better than real ones; except for the FH, none of these are even close to real. As for 100 reporters coming back for $25-30M; rockets are the easy part; how’s that schedule for the crewed Dragon 2 coming along? Space Ship One flew in 2004; when is Space Ship 2 launching? Space is difficult and expensive – even more so with crew. Fooling yourself that because NASA isn’t involved everything will be cheap and quick is either misguided or delusional.
Orion was awarded in 2006, how is that first crewed test flight coming along?
The problem with Dragon2 is that NASA is involved, and hasn’t determined how to certify it yet. That is why Elon Musk is doing BFR without NASA.
I pointed out in 2004 that SpaceShipOne was just a one trick pony and it would be years before SpaceShipTwo was ready. It’s what happens when an aircraft tries to design a rocket plane. But then the entire Ansari X-Prize was a joke that steered the suborbital industry into a dead end street.
SLS hardly counts as “real” in any comparison.
Lots of structures, (re-purposed SLS) engines, etc are now in existence; it hasn’t flown but it’s hardly a paper rocket.
Frank
And BFS has engines, tanks, etc, and is a year or so from landing tests. New Glenn has engines, a factory, and is a year or two from first flight.
If they are “paper rockets”, then SLS is.
(And if BFR and New Glenn are paper rockets, SLS block II is a napkin sketch.)
That antarctic aviation analogy is better that you imply. In 1929, the Ford Trimotor didn’t land. It just flew over the south pole. Starting in 1956, the aircraft were landing. (Although they were ski-equipped R4Ds. I think they didn’t start using LC-130s until 1961.)
Yes, it was the first aircraft to land at the South Pole. A second R4D flew overhead with reporters aboard to photograph it. True, although work on the LC-130F’s started in 1956 they didn’t enter service until 1961. But they did have C-123 Globe Masters hauling cargo in Operation Deep Freeze 1.
NASA budget in 2000 is $13,428B, inflation adjusted to today using BLS inflation calculator that’s equivalent to $19,807B.
NASA budget in 2010 is $18,724B, inflation adjusted to today using BLS inflation calculator that’s equivalent to $21,515B.
Still think NASA budget is increasing?
What you’re seeing is NASA budget merely trying to keep up with Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation index, while project costs will increase at the much higher rate. NASA New Start Inflation Indices is currently 2.6%, try use that to calculate the actual purchase power of the budget comparing to the past.
Is this fact widely known and accepted? I’m asking because I don’t think I’ve heard this before, and it’s a pretty big miss.
He said it at a press conference; even if it’s technically possible, he may also not see it as worth the money since he is moving on to the BFR
Musk didn’t say FH couldn’t be man rated, he said it was unlikely that they would invest the resources to man rate. His view is that it would be a better use of resources to focus them on BFR
As others have noted, this is a won’t not a couldn’t. But it’s also a moot point. Using Falcon Heavy for a manned mission would probably require on-orbit docking and fuel transfer. It’s big, but probably not quite big enough for a single launch mission. In that case, you could just add another docking and fly the crew up on a Falcon 9/Dragon 2.
Interesting. The linked document seems to be a marked-up draft of the joint committee’s deltas to reconcile House and Senate versions. It does appear to have been written in a hurry. (I particularly like the use of “principle investigator”, since that’s a mistake I always worry about making myself.)
Since it doesn’t include things which were the same in both versions, it’s hard to tell what everything is about. From the planetary science side, it looks like the Europa Lander is a big winner. At least the combined budget for Clipper and a lander is $595 million. Last year and and the request for next year had about $270 million for Clipper alone. New Frontiers, which was in for $130-$135 million in FY17 and the FY19 request, only gets $90 million. That doesn’t sound good, but there isn’t any explanatory text. I assume there is in the full 2232 page document…
In the case of WFIRST, I believe it was in the requested FY18 budget. It wasn’t zeroed out until the FY19 request. But the people who put it in this bill did so knowing the FY19 request was for zero. To me, that implies they will (try to) put it back in FY19. If they were planning to go ahead with with cancelation, funding in FY18 wouldn’t make much sense.
Given this so-far-so-good budget was achieved without the aid of a permanent Administrator, can I suggest the best thing for NASA may be to leave the position vacant for the next three budget cycles or so ?
That’s good. Funny
I was one of the people who went to Washington on their own dime to lobby for NASA (legislative blitz). We tried for the 5% boost and we got it. As much as I would like the SLS to be a better project, it does what the Falcon Heavy can’t and until the BFR launches in 2022 to 2035 if we want to do anything in deep space with Astronauts we need the SLS.