Space Agencies, Infrastructure and All That Other Stuff

Europe's Vega launcher, set to lift-off from Kourou in 2011.

By next year, Europe will be able to launch not one but three rockets — Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega — from its spaceport in French Guiana. It will also bear the increased costs of building, maintaining and operating such a capability, Space News reports:

Confronting a budget crisis that likely will take years to resolve, European governments have begun debating how to manage the increased operating costs associated with three separate launch vehicles and launch installations at Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana.

A parallel debate is taking place over whether Europe’s governments can afford to invest in a major improvement to the current Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket even as they start designing a vehicle to succeed it…

European Space Agency (ESA) governments in late 2008 agreed to fund initial work on the Midlife Extension vehicle, with the funds needed to complete development and testing — 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion) or more — to be decided in 2012 at a meeting of ESA government ministers….

But these governments will also be asked in 2012 to approve the start of work on an Ariane 5 successor, to debut around 2025, and possible upgrades to the small Vega rocket, whose inaugural flight has been delayed to early 2011….

The Arianespace commercial launch consortium of Evry, France, which will be operating Soyuz and Vega in addition to Ariane 5, has begun assessing maintenance and operating costs and is advising ESA and CNES rocket-design teams to take account of life-cycle operating costs as well as the costs of a rocket’s construction.

Ah, how easily the well laid plans of mice and Eurocrats can go astray. All these plans were drawn up when the economy was booming; by the time anything flies, the world is mired in a severe recession.

The problems ESA is wrestling with also illustrate another basic point: infrastructure is a B-I-T-C-H. It’s expensive to build, to expand, to maintain and to repair. This is a matter that is often overlooked and on both the ground and in space. My guess is that all plans for lunar bases underestimate what would be required to build and maintain the infrastructure are off by several orders of magnitude.

The intriguing thing is that NASA, for the first time in God knows how long, seems to understand this point. Infrastructure is the foundation of much of the Obama Administration’s new space policy.

On the ground, the administration has promised millions of dollars to rebuild the aging infrastructure at Cape Canaveral. The face-lift is aimed at making the Cape into a 21st century spaceport that can support military, civilian and commercial launches. It also will mitigate some of the job losses associated with the end of the space shuttle program.

A recent study by the National Research Council — which NASA paid for — shows decay in NASA’s ability to conduct basic research due to aging facilities:

NASA’s abilities to meet major mission goals such as advancing aeronautics, exploring the outer planets, and understanding the beginnings of the universe are being seriously jeopardized by a steady and significant decrease in the agency’s basic research capabilities, says a new report from the National Research Council. Congress and NASA should provide the support necessary for needed equipment and services to conduct fundamental high-quality research.

The report examines laboratories at Goddard Space Flight Center, Glenn Research Center, Langley Research Center, Ames Research Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. With the exception of a new science building at Goddard, over 80 percent of the research laboratories at these facilities are more than 40 years old and need significant annual maintenance and upgrades. Laboratory equipment and services are inadequate to address immediate and long-term research needs, and the agency is increasingly relying on contractors to support the labs and facilities.

NASA’s deferred maintenance budget has grown from $1.77 billion in 2004 to $2.46 billion in 2009, presenting a “staggering” repair and maintenance bill for the future, the report says. Facilities typically require more maintenance than current funding permits, and NASA is spending well below accepted industry guidelines on annual maintenance, repairs, and upgrades. The lack of timely maintenance presents safety issues, particularly with large, high-powered equipment. NASA should find a solution to these issues before any catastrophic failures occur that could seriously impact missions and research operations, the report says.

The study will make it much easier for the space agency to argue for funding to upgrade its aging research facilities. NASA’s leadership wants to refashion the agency as a cutting-edge research organization that can develop “break through” technologies required to send humans beyond low Earth orbit. NASA can’t do that without world-class research labs. Nor can it attract the nation’s best and brightest that such research requires.

And what will NASA be doing research on? A number of infrastructure projects, among these heavy lift vehicles, orbital fuel depots, and inflatable structures. All of these elements will be required to send astronauts beyond LEO, whether it be to the moon, Mars or asteroids.

They will also look for ways of building and operating these elements in a cheaper way. One of the reasons that Obama Administration decided to defer a human lunar base is the sheer potential cost of it. The prospects of trying to build, maintain and supply  a large base in the moon’s gravity well are daunting.  There is genuine fear that it will turn into a repeat of the International Space Station – i.e., it would cost a fortune to develop, take forever to finish, and become a financial sinkhole to operate.

Thus, the Administration’s proposal is less of a retreat from a bold goal than it is an acknowledgment of unpleasant realities concerning schedule, funding and technological capabilities. The “Flexible Path” allows NASA to send explorers around the moon and to asteroids without sinking into another gravity well – both literally and financially.

In the meantime, what is known in business and tech circles as a “virtuous cycle” could develop that will propel humanity out into the cosmos. The privatization of low Earth orbit creates new industries and millions of new jobs. Private companies flush with cash have the technology, skills and desire to go much further. A reinvigorated NASA develops the technologies to do just that.

So, one can imagine a future, perhaps early in the 2020s, in which NASA is a leading an international effort to explore the Solar System beyond Earth orbit. This venture involves all the international partners it has been working with for more than a decade on ISS as well as newly-emerged space powers such as India, South Korea, China and Brazil.  Integrated into the plan is a mature  commercial space industry with the talent, technology and money  to begin the process of making the missions profitable.

This would require a lot of effort to work out the specific roles of the different parties. But, it’s not impossible.  If it works,  then you could have a collaborative working relationship that draws upon the strengths of each group, making the end result greater than the sum of the parts.

This a pretty cool vision of the future.  As with all prognostications, they can only be educated guesses. Time will tell.