Wolf’s “Reconfigured” Commercial Crew: Less Money, Less Competition, More Regulation
Rep. Frank Wolf
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
We now know what the House has in mind for NASA’s “reconfigured” commercial crew program. I’ll let Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the House’s Science subcommittee, explain in his own inimitable way:
Commercial Crew development is funded at $500 million, consistent with the current authorization and the report accompanying the House Budget Resolution. In light of limited budgets and the need to find the fastest, safest and most cost effective means of achieving a U.S. capability for access to the International Space Station, the bill directs NASA to winnow the commercial partners and advance the schedule for moving to traditional government procurement methods.
So, the House’s “fastest, safest and most cost effective” approach can be summed up as follows:
- Slash $350 million from the President’s request so NASA doesn’t have enough money to do the program the way it wants
- Use the lack of funds to force NASA to down select earlier than it wants, thus limiting competition that will keep prices down
- Require NASA to use traditional government procurement methods as soon as possible, which will likely raise costs even further.
I think I get where Wolf is coming from here. Slashing the funds is a sign that you’re being “cost effective” with the people’s money and not wasting it on unnecessary competition. (And it frees up money for really cost effective projects the Space Launch System.) If the space agency continues to run the program as planned, the schedule will slip ever further to the right, which would be NASA’s fault for not using the “fastest” approach. And “safest” is using the government’s traditional procurement methods because…we’re the Congress and that’s how we roll.
Of course, eliminating competition too early and moving too quickly to traditional acquisition methods could well harm the “cost effective” part of the plan. Whatever Congress saves through its annual butchering of the commercial crew budget and its interference in the program might well get added to the costs later on.
Not that this ever seems to bother anyone in Congress. Sen. Barbara Mikulski recently questioned whether we should be spending money on commercial crew given how badly the schedule had slipped even though Congress’s budget cuts had caused the delay and left us paying ever more to the Russians for crew transport. Alas, it is useless to point out these contradictions to our elected officials for Capitol Hill is truly an irony-free zone.
6 responses to “Wolf’s “Reconfigured” Commercial Crew: Less Money, Less Competition, More Regulation”
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<Bangs head against desk>
But I don’t get it. This is exactly how the NASA budget has been treated since the early 70s. This is why the shuttle design sucked. It is like a perpetual motion machine that guarantees progress will always be scuttled. Funny thing is, extrapolate this to the military side and imagine the waste. Extrapolate this to education and imagine the waste.
Doug,
This is what Congress always does. They always represent multiple narrow and local constituencies.
It is the President’s job to navigate through all of this crap and to stick with a credible policy.
The real problem is that the President has not done a good job of fighting for and bargaining for his space policy.
It is possible that the President has no space policy, and that he is going in circles trying to satisfy narrow constituencies like Congress people do. This is why it is extremely rare for America to elect Congress people into the Presidency.
Obama could fight for more funding for commercial crew and he could re-structure the SLS and Orion plans if he wanted, but he has been consistent in not having clear policies and not sticking with whatever supposed direction he does have.
Congress will always be short sighted, looking to support the people who support them and occasionally, their local constituents. Once upon a time I though a letter writing campaign was the way to go. Do congress-critters even read their mail anymore?
General George Washington had the same problems with the Continental Congress. Couldn’t get enough funds to properly equip his army. Now 236 years later the descendants of the Continental Congress is still doing business the same way.
When Mikulsi was asking the question to Bolden on whether commercial crew was still worth it even if it is only ready in 2017, it was actually a friendly question. She knew what the answer was but she wanted Bolden to clearly state that it was still worth it for various reasons including the fact that the ISS is likely to be extended to 2028. Mikulsi is generally pro-commercial crew and cargo.