Armstrong’s Theory About NASA’s Space Policy Not Supported By Evidence
In his testimony before the Senate on Wednesday, retired Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong made some stark claims about the way NASA’s new human spaceflight program was formulated. In his written remarks, Armstrong said:
With regard to President Obama’s 2010 plan, I have yet to find a person in NASA, the Defense Department, the Air Force, the National Academies, industry, or academia that had any knowledge of the plan prior to its announcement. Rumors abound that neither the NASA Administrator nor the President‟s Science and Technology Advisor were knowledgeable about the plan. Lack of review normally guarantees that there will be overlooked requirements and unwelcome consequences. How could such a chain of events happen? A plan that was invisible to so many was likely contrived by a very small group in secret who persuaded the President that this was a unique opportunity to put his stamp on a new and innovative program. I believe the President was poorly advised.
Sitting beside Armstrong at the hearing was Norm Augustine, who chaired the Committee on Human Spaceflight Plans last year. The White House charted this group of experts to look at the state of NASA’s human spaceflight program and to develop a set of options for moving forward. The group – dubbed the Augustine Committee – held multiple public hearings and sought input from experts and citizens at large.
The committee’s final report, published on Oct. 22, featured five main options. On Wednesday, Augustine told Senators on Wednesday that NASA’s proposal tracks fairly well with one of them:
While the committee did not offer a program that cancelled the Constellation program in its entirety, it did offer an option, referred to in the report as “5B,†that generally approximates the President’s plan as it was described during his recent remarks at Cape Kennedy. This program appears to be a viable undertaking, one that ranked highly in our overall assessment…provided, and this is to be emphasized, that it is funded as stipulated and that decisions are made as scheduled (especially those regarding a heavy-lift vehicle). The funding profile identified in our report to support Option 5B adds to the baseline budget profile three billion dollars per year, phased in over the next four years and realistically corrected for inflation using the appropriate aerospace indices.
So, this is an odd argument for Armstrong to be making that a small group of people created the policy in secret without NASA Administrator Charles Boldren or OSTP Director John Holdren knowing what they were doing. The option they adopted was right there in a report for the whole world to see.
There are legitimate reasons for criticizing NASA for the way it handled this proposal. The plan was bolder than many people expected. It was not rolled out very well, and there could have been more consultation with stakeholders before hand.
But, there seems to have been an effort from the start to identify some secret cabal within NASA (allegedly led by Deputy Administrator Lori Garver) that cooked up a scheme without anyone above them knowing what it was or having any input.
The evidence indicates otherwise; they took the results of a Presidential blue-ribbon panel seriously and adapted an option they thought would work best. It’s difficult to understand how a policy process that was so public has somehow became so conspiratorial.
9 responses to “Armstrong’s Theory About NASA’s Space Policy Not Supported By Evidence”
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Armstrong’s claim is not inconsistent with Augustine’s comments. Augustine was careful to say Option 5B, “generally approximates the President’s plan as it was described during his recent remarks at Cape Kennedy.” Augustine does not say the plan presented as part of the FY11 budget proposal roll-out approximates any of the options in his committee’s report. The abrupt changes between the FY11 proposal and the KSC speech proposal demonstrate precisely what Armstrong was claiming: the FY11 proposal was a non-starter, and they would have known that had they bothered to share it with Augustine before presenting the budget proposal to Congress.
Augustine may simply have referred to the Cape speech because it is the most updated version of the proposal which has been evolving over the last three months.
I think most of the core elements have stayed the same between the February roll out and the Cape speech. There were adjustments, such as the partial resurrection of Orion. But, key elements including shifting to private services in getting to LEO, canceling Ares, and a “flexible path” to deep space exploration have remained largely intact. Augustine mentions those in his remarks.
You don’t propose something like this without having some sense of what the core elements of the strategy are and what you would be willing to compromise on. I see this as the normal part of the give and take of policy making.
I’m not crazy about the Orion as lifeboat idea, but it did win over the Colorado Congressional delegation. It keeps people employed while putting the the onus on Lockheed Martin on whether to compete for the crew capsule contract. The changes also have given cover to Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida, who can accurately say that he has gotten concessions out of the White House.
While it is possible that Neil Armstrong was exaggerating a little when he stated “A plan that was invisible to so many was likely contrived by a very small group in secret”, it is not true that the Augustine Commission’s Option 5B is the same thing as Obama’s FY2011 plan. To say that the two plans are equivalent and to use that assumption to indicate that Armstrong’s “theory” is not supported by evidence is, itself, not supported by evidence.
Augustine believes the president’s plan “generally approximates” Option 5B. He elaborated further on this in his remarks:
“Option 5B clearly establishes a human landing on Mars as the primary objective for the human spaceflight program. Unlike Constellation, which sought to reach its initial exploration goal, the Moon, some 20 years in the future, Option 5B follows a path with interim accomplishments including docking with an asteroid; visiting an Earth-Sun Lagrangian point and conducting training operations there; circumnavigating Mars; orbiting Mars; landing on one of Mars’ moons, Phobos or Deimos; and eventually landing humans on Mars. A return visit to the Moon is also quite possible, for technical and science reasons; however, it should be noted that our committee received many informal inputs, particularly from young people, questioning why we would have a space program whose centerpiece is something that was accomplished over a half-century earlier. Both China and India have announced plans to land humans on the Moon and it seems unrewarding for the U.S. to participate in a second race to the Moon.
“Option 5B, like the President’s proposed program, provides for the commercialization of transportation between the Earth and low-Earth-orbit. The reason for this is that sooner or later NASA must free itself from operating a logistics line to low-Earth-orbit or it will not have the funds needed to meet the grand challenges that await beyond low-Earth-orbit and which NASA and only NASA is equipped to address: namely, the exploration of the solar system.
“Our committee’s report explicitly states that commercializing transportation to LEO is not without risk. Nothing in space is without risk. But it is the committee’s belief that with proactive oversight by NASA, such an approach is feasible and responsible. From a purely business standpoint, we draw the analogy to the federal government’s guaranteeing a market to carry the mail to the fledgling airlines—an action that made airline travel commercially practicable.”
NASA and the White House were not obligated to adopt one of the Augustine Committee’s recommendations whole, without changes or alterations. I doubt anyone involved with the committee had that expectation. But, Augustine clearly believes that his committee’s work has been incorporated into the space agency’s plan.
I think this entire question is a red herring. People are looking for someone to blame for the policy change and the resulting upheaval. It’s a normal reaction, one that I understand well. But, it ultimately doesn’t move us forward.
Though I concur that the Administration was under no obligation to select one of the Augustine Commission options, I was only making the point that the plan devised/leveraged by the Administration was different than Option 5B and the differences might have been sufficient for Armstrong to make his comments about little industry, government or Agency input to that plan.
This specific topic might be something of a red herring but I think there are legitimate concerns regarding the Administration’s plan. For example, relying entirely on SpaceX as America’s sole, indigenous means of getting crews to LEO seems overly risky. And I say this being a huge fan of SpaceX. I don’t think even Elon Musk was thinking along those lines when he envisioned Dragon. It is hard to say how long it will take for SpaceX to shake out the Falcon 9, build, test and certify a launch escape system and certify Dragon for human payloads. Falcon 1 development, still underway, has been a long road and fraught with problems. And it is pretty clear that Falcon 9 is a more complex system than Falcon 1. At least the Ares program was meeting its milestones (albeit late) and was seen as a well-run and achievable program provided the correct funding. Another clearly questionable part of the Administration’s plan is the whole Orion as a lifeboat. While I’m glad Orion development won’t grind to a halt, the lifeboat idea doesn’t make sense given there will be sufficient numbers of Soyuz spacecraft at Station for that purpose.
I frankly don’t see how this whole mess moves forward. It appears that there will be a fight in Congress to save the plan of record. Obama and company won’t stand idly by. Meanwhile, an entire, elite workforce is in peril. I feel sorry for Charlie Bolden. I wonder if he had any idea what he was getting into.
“NASA and the White House were not obligated to adopt one of the Augustine Committee’s recommendations whole, without changes or alterations”
I agree with your assessment but you made one error. As Augustine stated at the hearing, he didn’t make any recommendations. He didn’t want to be picking or chosing. He said he only provided different options and didn’t recommend any.
A. Scott:
I don’t believe that NASA’s plan is to rely exclusively on Falcon 9. Bolden has said specifically that he wants multiple, redundant access to orbit. NASA doesn’t want to be reliant upon one rocket to get people there.
There are two proven rockets – Atlas V and Delta IV – that could do the job with proper modifications. ULA and the Aerospace Corporation have done studies on this for years. They well understand what it would take to human rate them. And the Air Force says it could benefit if the effort is handled properly.
In addition to SpaceX, you have Taurus II from Orbital Sciences. That company has said it is interesting in competing for human spaceflight program. Taurus II might require some upgrades to fill the role. But, you make your proposal and see what happens.
I wasn’t aware that the FY2011 plan included funding or direction to man rate Altas V or Delta IV. I’ll have to read it more carefully. If it does, I’d be curious to see which spacecraft containing a crew would be launched on these boosters. According to the President, it won’t be Orion. So that would leave Dragon (and excluding Excalibur Almaz since they have their own plan). I haven’t heard any discussions about launching Dragon on anything other than Falcon 9. Regarding Taurus II, it would seem like it would take them a long time to man rate it and I have not heard that they had a plan to do that. At any rate, this is definitely a turbulent time for NASA and US manned space flight.
A Scott:
NASA hasn’t selected any boosters yet. That is to be determined. ULA has two that could do the job and the company is interested in the work. And there are two more rockets in development (Falcon 9 and Taurus II) built by companies that are also interested in doing the job.
That’s a good position for NASA to be in. Multiple options and the ability to negotiate. My guess is they will choose two rockets to human rate.
The capsule(s) also not determined yet. It’s possible some version of Orion could be used. Lockheed Martin could propose upgrading the return capsule to a full transport.