Horowitz: Constellation Cancellation “Politically Motivated” Move to Punish Texas, Alabama

Ares I-X rolls out to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Scotty “Doc” Horowitz, the astronaut-turned-NASA-AA-turned-consultant who was chiefly responsible for overseeing the Ares rockets that the Obama Administration wants to cancel, has published a defense of the program on the Mars Society’s website. In it, he dispels a number of supposed “myths” concerning why the program has been singled out for cancellation.

Myth 1: The current debate is about technical and programmatic issues with NASA’s Constellation Program.

The current debate has nothing to do with technical/programmatic issues, it is completely politically motivated and being driven by a few people in the current administration, e.g., Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator, Jim Kohlenberger, Office of Science and Technology Policy Chief of Staff, and Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the Office of Management and Budget. Their objective is to cancel the “Bush” program and punish the states (Alabama, Texas) that “didn’t vote for us anyway”.

I can’t say what the motivations of these people are precisely. They can, and should, defend themselves. There are always political considerations behind any decision. This is a fact of life. I would note, however, that this approach could hurt Obama in Florida, a key state that he narrowly won.

I also know the following:

From the very start, there was a great dislike for NASA’s chosen architecture. Some experts who looked at it thought it was a bad idea to try to adapt shuttle hardware in order to get people into orbit. They believe that the problems with Ares have born out their original objections. There is also a sense that the decision was made, in part, to keep shuttle-related jobs after much pressure from Congress.

The proposed alternative was to use one of the existing Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), the Atlas V or Delta IV, to send crews into orbit. The development had been paid for already by the Air Force, and engineers had a good handle on what it would take to human-rate these boosters. (It has been studied extensively by ULA.) Freed from having to build a new orbital launch vehicle, NASA could concentration on a heavy-lift system. That is the pacing item for anything one does beyond LEO.

This view existed long before most people had ever heard of Barack Obama. It was not a partisan view. The approach was not aimed at punishing certain states or supporting an administration that did not even exist. Nor was it designed to turn everything over to SpaceX, whose booster had not (and still has not) flown.

NASA is now back to the policy that some experts had been consistently advocating for the last five years. These folks have become ascendant in the policy-making process since George W. Bush left office early last year. The only real change is that there are now at least two additional rockets that, if they are successful, can be put into the mix moving forward – SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Taurus II.

It’s difficult for me to believe that high-level NASA officials such as Horowitz would have been ignorant of the debate that simmered below the surface throughout Bush’s second term. There are clear risks and drawback to the alternatives to Ares that experts will certainly debate. But, to call this solely a political measure is not accurate.