Obama’s Space Plan: What the Frak is Going On? Pre-Summit Edition

NASA's Orion capsule - it floats, but will it ever fly?

As President Barack Obama prepares for his space summit at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, much activity is taking place in various quarters. Opponents are rallying, elected officials are pleading, and the Apollo 13 guys are opining. It makes for quite a cacophony of democracy in action.

Down in Florida, up to 4,000 people attended a rally in Cocoa to show their support for the Constellation program, which the Obama Administration wants to cancel. Florida Today reports the event featured speeches, banners and prayers:

Thousands packed Cocoa Expo on Sunday in a unified plea to President Obama to extend the shuttle program, send astronauts to the moon and Mars, and maintain America’s lead in space and the inspiration the program inspires.

They waved signs that read, “Save Space.” They warned of the national security implications of ceding dominance in space to Russia and China. And they worried about the estimated 8,000 Kennedy Space Center jobs that will go away when the shuttle lands for the last time.

“I’m going to have to look for another job,” said Sylvester Houston of Titusville, who works in test operations for United Space Alliance and has been involved with the shuttle program since 1981….

“We’ve got something worth fighting for, don’t we?” said Brevard County Commissioner Robin Fisher to cheers from the crowd, as he led off the political speakers. “We’ve got to be first. Russia’s got to play second.”

Up in DC, Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet sent a letter to the President saying that although they are all in favor of commercial space, they don’t think the industry is anywhere close to being up to the challenge:

We strongly support development of commercial launch capabilities and space services. Colorado is home to many companies on the cutting edge of aerospace, two of which recently won NASA contracts to further the commercial sector’s capability to support transport of crew to and from LEO. We look forward to the day when the commercial sector can provide these services, freeing NASA to focus on development of new exploration technologies and human missions beyond LEO. However, the proposed NASA budget presumes that day is close at hand even though the commercial sector has yet to prove it can safely put a human into orbit. Should they fail to deliver, America will be reliant on Russian-procured launch services to ISS and LEO for the foreseeable future. This is an unacceptable position for the security of the nation.

They expanded on the national security implications that cancellation Constellation could have on the industrial base that the military depends upon:

The decision to terminate NASA’s development of a follow-on to the Space Shuttle has other important implications for our national security. The Department of Defense (DOD) is currently examining the impact of this decision on the U.S. space launch industrial base. We rely on this industry to sustain our strategic deterrence mission and to assure access to space through launch programs. DOD officials have stated that Constellation’s cancellation could increase the current price of propulsion systems for our launch vehicles. We understand that a DOD assessment of launch program cost impacts will not be completed until summer 2010, but it seems clear that the cancellation of Constellation will result in at least some of the costs of overhead and underutilized industry resources being passed on to DOD. As DOD does not yet fully understand the impacts on its space launch programs of cancelling Constellation, we are concerned the decision to end the Constellation program is premature.

The Orion capsule is being built in Colorado by Lockheed Martin. Thousands of jobs are at stake there.

The same is true in in the Lone Star State. Texas Rep. Frank Culberson agreed with his Colorado colleagues, blasting both President Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, for their handling of the country’s space program:

In an interview with Hotline OnCall, Culberson said the admin’s decision to cancel the Constellation program amounts to a surrender of the U.S.’s historic position as the global leader in space.

The Constellation program is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Obama’s proposed budget, released in Feb., would cancel funding for the program. Without it, Culberson said, the U.S. will have no manned space flight capabilities in the future.

“He’s shut down the whole thing. He’s proposing to cancel America’s manned space program, which is typical of this administration’s pattern of apologizing for America’s success, kowtowing to our enemies, bowing to foreign dictators and their obsession with trying to make terrorists like us,” Culberson said.

“In my mind, it’s just part of a pattern of behavior. Once again, here’s Obama surrendering the high ground, walking away, surrendering America’s leadership in an area where we have led the world. It’s just another illustration of how urgent it is that we get these people out of the White House as quickly as possible,” he added. “It is maddening.”…

“This [Constellation] is one of many unfortunate legacies left to us by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, President Bush’s quote, vision for space exploration was nothing more than a press release and a publicity stunt for the 2004 election. Because it was never followed up with sufficient funding to fulfill what he laid out,” Culberson said.

There was also this from the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group based in the nation’s capital:

In a speech today, AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey asked President Obama to lay out a clear strategy for human spaceflight with concrete timelines and goals when he comes to Florida for a space summit this week.

“In 1962, President Kennedy didn’t say we’d go to the moon today; he said, this decade,” Blakey said at a meeting of the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Fla. “Despite the financial troubles that lapped at his feet, President Kennedy stepped up to the challenge and urged us forward, with a goal and a vision and a plan. Today, a lack of urgency and specificity will not sustain the vision and, as we know, where there’s no vision, the programs – and the skills and workforce that go with them − perish.”

Blakey insisted that America needs specific metrics for a concrete commitment to human spaceflight beyond low earth orbit, including clear goals and milestones. Shifting the focus of human spaceflight programs is not necessarily a bad thing as long as the main goal is keeping America strong and in the lead.

“We require a roadmap for the future, with milestones along the way and a sense of urgency that space exploration is important to our country and proclaims in clear terms that this is who we are as Americans,” Blakey concluded.

Meanwhile, Apollo veterans got into the act:

Heroes of the Apollo 13 Moon mission have called on the public to help to save America’s manned spaceflight programme as President Obama prepares to defend his plans to scrap it.

At an appearance marking the 40th anniversary of the lunar expedition that turned into one of history’s greatest rescue stories, the retired astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise urged people to lobby Congress to block the President’s proposal and throw Constellation a lifeline.

Their call came as Sy Liebergot, one of the mission control experts who masterminded their recovery in 1970, told The Times: “Back then we were excited. All we had on our minds was going to the Moon. Now, in terms of human spaceflight, Nasa’s done, that’s it. The US is going to be relegated to second class. There’s no forward thinking any more.”

If you see any themes in all this, it’s that America is giving up its leadership position in space and endangering its national security for some vague promise to do something at some point if the commercial sector is up to it. That’s a pretty powerful argument that resonates well in many quarters. Unfortunately, it largely sidesteps the reason that Obama wants to cancel the Constellation:  the program can’t be built on any realistic budget, which by itself makes returning to the moon within 10 years completely unrealistic and setting any deadlines highly problematic.

Obama’s proposal, although not perfect, is a sober acknowledgment of the facts on the ground, an effort to deal with inherited circumstances not of his making. This unpleasant reality is one that the Bush Administration refused to face, and whose solution will cause much disruption and dislocation. Constellation is, at some level, the nation writ large, where millions are suffering as a result of unrealistic policies. Those who will be laid off are far from alone. That, I fully realize, is of little comfort at present. But, is it best for the country to deal with the problem now, or to continue with an unrealistic program that will only break down in the future?