Why the Space Leadership Preservation Act Solves Nothing
Michael Griffin, Eileen Collins and Cristina Chaplain testify (Credit: House Science Committee)
By House Science Committee Democrats
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing to receive testimony on H.R. 2093, the Space Leadership Preservation Act, and to consider the issue of maintaining a “constancy of purpose” for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Committee also held a hearing on the Space Leadership Preservation Act last Congress.
H.R. 2093 would amend existing statutes on NASA by providing specific direction to the President with regards to how the leadership of NASA must be selected and appointed; and how annual agency budgets and associated priorities must be reconciled with budgets formulated external to NASA. Specifically, the Act would mandate a ten-year term for the Administrator of NASA and would require the President to appoint the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, and Chief Financial Officer from among a list of nominees provided by a Board of Directors established under this Act. In addition, the Act would require that the Board submit to the President and specified Congressional entities, not later than November 15 of each year, a proposed budget for the agency for the next fiscal year. Each budget proposed by the President for NASA would be required to include a detailed justification of any differences between the President’s proposed budget and the budget provided by the Board of Directors.
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said in her opening statement, “I believe that all Members of this Committee—and our witnesses—share my belief that NASA is a cornerstone of our nation’s R&D enterprise, a source of inspiration for our young people, and a worldwide symbol of America’s technological prowess and dedication to the peaceful exploration of space. We want it to succeed.
“Today’s hearing is entitled “The Space Leadership Preservation Act and Need for Stability at NASA.” While I have concerns about the legislation itself, I wholeheartedly agree with the premise that we want to preserve America’s leadership in space, and that NASA will need stability if it is to maintain that leadership role. I am heartened that Chairman Culberson has long felt the same way. That said, I regret that the legislation being discussed today, while obviously well intentioned, unfortunately is not likely to fix the fundamental causes of instability at NASA.”
Democrats on the Committee expressed numerous concerns with the bill: that allowing Congress to use a party-based formula to appoint Board Members would inject partisan politics into that Board; having the Board prepare a NASA budget at the same time as NASA would create wasteful duplication, confusion, and instability; and that establishing a fixed, 10-year term for the Administrator would increase instability, not mitigate it, especially if a new President plans to pursue a different policy agenda from his or her predecessor and doesn’t see that Administrator as being part of his or her “team”.
Ranking Member Johnson said, “The reality is that we don’t need to set up a new bureaucracy outside of NASA or alter the appointment process for its leaders. If we are interested in ensuring stability at NASA, it is already in our power as Congress to do so. We are the ones who ultimately determine NASA’s budget. We can provide the necessary budgetary stability to NASA—or we can destabilize it with appropriations delays, continuing resolutions, and shutdowns. The choice is ours.”
Ranking Member of the Space Subcommittee, Donna F. Edwards, said in her statement for the record, “We need a challenging and compelling goal for our human space program. We need a goal that will allow our young people to know where we are aiming and when we want to get there. We need a goal that will bring out the best in us as a Nation, as great national challenges have done in the past. And the House of Representatives has done just that. Indeed, in passing the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2015, the House singled out Mars as NASA’s goal for Human Exploration and directed NASA to develop a Roadmap to achieve that goal.”
Invited witnesses addressed a number of issues during the hearing about H.R. 2093 including concerns regarding the proposed 10 year term for a NASA Administrator, the requirement for a budget developed by a Board, questions about the accountability of a Board of Directors, and potential issues if multi-year contracting were expanded at NASA. There was no groundswell of support for the bill in their responses.
Witnesses
Panel 1
- The Honorable John Culberson (R-TX)
Panel 2
- Dr. Michael Griffin, Former Administrator, NASA
- Colonel Eileen Collins, USAF (Ret.); Commander, STS-93 and 114; and Pilot, STS-63 and 94; and former Chair, Subcommittee on Space Operations, NASA Advisory Council
- Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisitions and Sourcing Management, Government Accountability Office (GAO)
49 responses to “Why the Space Leadership Preservation Act Solves Nothing”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Yes, as with the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and the Base Realignment and Closure Commission this is a classic example of Congress saving Congress from fulfilling its responsibility.
If passed, and the chance is about zero, you will see the Board of Directors packed with scientists just as the current advisory committee is. And as a result NASA will drift further away from its responsibilities to the tax payers and economic. In short, it will become even less relevant to the economic development of space.
But of course you could also see the fear at NASA that triggered Rep. Culberson to push this law. The fear is that since most American’s see NASA as human spaceflight once astronauts start flying on private spacecraft folks will start wondering why NASA is needed anymore. Why are tax payers still paying on it when private industry is flying astronauts. Add to it several presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and John Kasich seem indifferent to NASA, and probably willing to downsize it drastically, you could see why folks are worried about what will happen when the next administration hits the NASA “reset” button.
The only fear is that Musk-as-invisible-NASA-director will carry over to the next administration. Culberson and a number of others understand a government sponsored Super Heavy is the only hope of going anywhere except in circles (in LEO).
A government sponsored Super Heavy is solely an excuse for Congress to spend 5 to 20 times what SpaceX will on it’s MCT and it’s launch vehicle.
Mr. Church
We agree
Musk is the invisible NASA director
Which is precisely why we will NOT be going in circles forever.
This September we will learn more details about a real exploration plan.
Which will be implemented with or without government old space porkers
You won’t have to wait decades for NASA and the boys anymore Gary!
I wonder how long it will take for the government to get on board?
Musk has never implemented anything without government support. SpaceX. Tesla. Solar City.
paypal?
Zip2?
HyperLoop?
First 2 never got a penny from the feds and so far, nothing for the last.
Hyperloop is a research project. We’ll see where it goes.
He did build zip2. And if he hadn’t sold it when he did, it probably would have been bankrupt within six months under his leadership. That’s in the Vance book. He then drove Tesla and SpaceX to the brink of ruin simultaneously. SpaceX was saved by a big fat NASA contract.
The guy’s a big risk taker, and Mars will be ultimate throw of the dice. I’m eager to see what his plans are.
Yes, he built ZIP2. And then he sold ZIP2.
One may say that ZIP2 under his leadership would be bankrupt – but in reality, someone wanted to buy it …
That is the reality. The rest – the speculation.
so, because an author says that it would be bankrupt within 6 months, that makes it so?
And he did not drive tesla/spaceX to the brink of ruin.
He built them up, but then needed more funding. He was prepared to sell his stock in Tesla to Google had the contracts not come through.
Hyperloop if it’s viable will be an essential part of the transport infrastructure. Governments are responsible for such infrastructure.
You will not believe, but one of the main statutory goals of NASA – the development of the American economy. 😉 Elon Musk very risks, even more he risked at the very beginning.
In Russian there is a saying – “Who does not risk – that does not drink champagne!”
I offer just in case cook a glasses.
Funny how NASA supporters always seem to remember that when folks start question the flow of Pork that has been the main feature of NASA since the 1970’s.
The ISS is the classic example. $100 billion to build it, probably about $100 billion to keep in in orbit until its junked in the Pacific. NASA did learn how to build a space station, but since, with their “been there, done that” mindset they will probably never build another one, just as they will never build another Shuttle for return to the Moon, the lessons will be wasted and forgotten as the engineers that did it pass on.
So does NASA develop the economy? Well they do pour the pork into the Old South to keep everyone’s piggy bank there jangling, but there were probably much better ways the $200 billion would have benefited the nation rather than funding the great commune in the sky.
But bringing this around to the topic of the thread, all it will do in further isolate NASA from the real economic world thereby ensuring the pork flows will continue without fail while NASA engages in activity with limited value to the economy as a whole in its endless search for meaning and ET.
I always laugh arguments of opponents of the manned space program.
NASA certainly will not now build stations in LEO. Now it will be done by private firms on the basis of obtained with NASA’s experience. Actually, this is the part of NASA’s role. NASA is not a temple in which cherish the sacred.
This does not mean that everything is made by NASA, is ideal. This means that NASA is doing the right thing. But it is not NASA wants to build the SLS. This Congress makes NASA to build the Senate Launch System
I strongly support humans in space and see them as a key element of space development. But NASA isn’t contributing much to that goal which is why I see NASA’s human spaceflight program as a waste of taxpayer dollars. Really the NASA human spaceflight program has been searching for a mission since Project Apollo. It has been lost in space since the last Skylab flight.
The Shuttle progrm was just a place holder. Any chance for it to contribute to lowering cost disappeared when it lost its funding for a reusable first stage. Same with ISS, it lost its way when it was transformed by the Clinton Administration into the great commune in the sky and and jobs program for the Russian space industry.
gov may fund it once musk has proven it, but, it is obvious that gov is not developing it.
Interesting how he found a way to get my tax money to help him develop/test his reusable booster, Phase one of his Mars Plan 🙂
If only Von Braun had been that creative.
NASA LEADER
Von Braun using a space race with the Russians to build his giant Mars/moon Rocket was pretty slick though.
He also did a great job on selling rockets to the German Army as a way to avoid the restrictions on artillery in the Treaty of Versailles.
He actually did develop a reusable rocket, the A5, and the Saturn 1B first stage did have anchor points for parachutes. But the state of computer guidance wasn’t advanced enough for vertical landing in that era.
Who at NASA implemented this plan, 5 years ago?
https://youtu.be/sSF81yjVbJE
Director Musk
A lot of the money for developing and sustaining Falcon 9 came from the government. Tesla got a big loan from the government. Solar City benefits a lot from tax tax breaks.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with this myself.
I don’t know how he plans to pay for Mars settlement. Maybe selling land on the Mars, I don’t know. Maybe he’ll risk a lot of his net worth on it and pray it doesn’t fail. He nearly bankrupted Tesla and SpaceX at one point.
But let’s compare how much money from the government for ten years SpaseX received, and how many got ULA in this time, and only from the program Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) “to ensure guaranteed access to space.”
And then compare that over the years have made in SpaceX and that ULA.
True, Elon Musk has mastered the Washington game well since his Paypal days. The key is will he be able to break the addiction when it comes to Mars.
Your statement is in contrast with reality. I do not think you can quote Musk as having ever lobbied the government for anything but equal treatment–the right to provide services the government wants at competitive rates.
Honestly answer the question, should the government be able to expend funds to orbit material?
Should that cost as little as possible?
The honest, nonfoolish, answer to both is yes–and that says why there is no “addiction” for SpaceX to break.
The honest answer in regards to human spaceflight is No. The ISS is the classic example of a white elephant that should have never been built.
But instead you have a classic pork circle, NASA builds a space station so the Shuttle has something to do, and keep the pork money flowing,and now that the Shuttle is gone they have to spend money to keep the space station going so the pork for ISS, about $3 billion, continues to flow.
And meanwhile markets making innovations like DragonLab and the BA330 are grounded due to NASA monopolizing spacelift by using tax payer money to outbid the taxpayers like Robet Bigalow.
The Post Office tried a similar stunt in the 1790’s running its own stage coaches, but Congress saw the economic risk and banned them from doing so, creating a stage coach market free of government competition. Pity this Congress isn’t as wise.
Ok, you continue to blame NASA for BA not launching.
So, what resources has NASA bid for that BA would use otherwise?
Please do not be a fool and claim that it is the Soyuz. Bigelow himself said that he will NOT be using Russia for accessing his space station. So, do tell what resource that NASA is keeping from Bigelow?
Elon Musk had planned to have Dragon crew ready by 2012. But instead he is now dragging it out to the pace of NASA CCP funding. Robert Bigelow’s $50 million dollar American prize and $800 million service contract just couldn’t compete with NASA using taxpayer dollars, from taxpayers like Mr. Bigelow, to pay Elon Musk many times as much for less effort and a slow NASA schedule.
So, you blame NASA for spacex not having the money to go around for all the projects that he is developing. Really?
Yes I do.. NASA has a history of trying to assimilate or eliminate any competition, private or public. Look at what they did to the USAF X-20 and MOL in the 1960’s, not to mention DC-X in the 1990’s. And NASA hadn’t sent a spacecraft to the Moon in over twenty years when, after the DOD sent Clementine to explore it NASA suddenly discovered the Moon and, by shear coincidence of course, funding for DOD’s Clementine II disappeared from the budget.
So yes, NASA saw competition developing and lured SpaceX away with more money, lots more money.
After all, it would be embarrassing for them to be asking billions from Congress to support a space station forever while Bigelow Aerospace had one in orbit that was being operated at a fraction of the cost and cost far less than the ISS to build.
And I am sure SpaceX recognizes if they do anything to support Robert Bigelow’s BA330 they will find themselves losing the next round for CCP on technicalities. The DC-X group learned that lesson when Lockheed’s design for the X-33 was picked instead of theirs. Of all the design’s Lockheed’s was the one mostly likely to fail, which is why the USAF had rejected it years before…
BEAM is nothing more than a way to start to assimilate Bigelow Aerospace so they forget ideas of launching their own private space stations.
As with all government agencies NASA first mission is self-preservation, no matter the cost to the nation. And again, it brings us back to this thread, NASA isolating itself even further from competition and the real world.
Probably have to recover from his Mars habit on the moon, lol, So what 🙂
Are you ignorant or a liar, Messier?
Because Tesla, Paypal, and SpaceX were all implemented without government support. Only Solar City was from the outset conceived to harvest a subsidy.
I should be able to expect better of you, you who pretend to be a non-hack actual journalist.
With Zip2 and PayPal you have a point.
Tesla got a big government loan focused on alternative fuel vehicles. It helped them through a crucial time. Without that support I’m not sure they would have made it.
Are you ignorant of that, Tom? Or are you….?
Electric vehicles are benefiting from all sorts of government subsidies. Like tax credits from the IRS for buying them.
And government infrastructure support. The Mojave spaceport has applied for a state grant that would pay 100 percent of the cost of installing a charging station near the admin building?
You know about things like that, right?
SpaceX wouldn’t exist without government contracts.
You are surely aware of that fact, Tom. Right?
SpaceX has even gotten some govt. funding to help develop the engine for Mars transporter.,
Did you miss that story, Tom? I wrote about it here.
Solar City wouldn’t exist without government support for that industry. On that we appear to agree.
I don’t see anything wrong with any of this, Tom.
I also don’t assume that future ventures like Mars settlements or Hyperloop will be done without government support. Hyperloop would be basic transportation infrastructure if it’s feasible. That’s what government does.
Try to show a little decorum in these discussions, huh? Don’t imply that a mistake is a lie and then compound that with more insults. I’m probably expecting too much here, Tom, but at least try.
Was there these kinds of complaints when Bush was giving 37,000 dollar subsidies to buy gas hogs like the hummer?
Oil gets billions year in year out, big oil is not a new start up but they have been getting true subsidies for over a century
All that you have said – the truth. But not the whole truth.
None of this is done on purpose just to Elon Musk, Tesla or SpaceX. Any investor or any company can get these bonuses. A ULA receives program Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) bonus that can not get no one.
one issue I have is that you and others make it sound like spacex is simply a gov. contractor like Boeing and L-Mart and lives on the money. The fact is, that gov contracts are a small fraction of their income. Basically, they are not ULA and living only on it. Instead, they could drop gov. contracts now, and would exists just fine.
OTOH, American taxpayers would take soaking from companies like O-ATK, ULA, etc.
FWIW, Tesla has both borrowed extensively from the
DoE New Manufacturing initiative and benefited from the IRS
EV Tax credit ($7500/car) as well as being able to resell California ZEV credits and getting CalTrans credits to build superchargers in California.
SpaceX has received some very generous launch and supply contracts to ISS.
Have both companies benefited yes? Was the public well served? Seems to be.
You do not want to compare these amounts with those spent on Orion and the Senate Launch System?
Actually, those ‘generous launch and supply contracts’, were very low costs compared to all of the competitors.
The ones that benefited from those, are us taxpayers. Had it gone to the others, esp. ULA, those costs would have been DOUBLE TO TRIPLE the costs. Basically, the savings on the first supply contracts was more than what we paid on COTS.
Tesla DID borrow .5B from the feds, but also is the ONLY company to have fully paid it back. companies like Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, etc all borrowed more than 5B EACH and are still paying back on those loans.
More money on the $7500 credit has been paid to GM, Nissan, Honda, and Toyota etc than to Tesla and yet, Tesla has done more for America, and Europe, then all of the rest COMBINED.
As to the California credits, hey, those other companies KNEW that it was coming and choose to do nothing. They were hoping to force CA to drop their requirements for zero emissions, but all of them saying that it was too difficult and not do anything. Tesla FORCED all of them to provide hybrids and now EVs.
And to the best of my knowledge, California did those credits for EV chargers to ALL of the companies and the others have chosen to not push them. They do not want EVs.
Well, to be fair PayPal was pretty much it’s own thing, and
his prior software gig was his own thing. Being able to leverage large government programs was a win though for him. One could reasonably criticize Lockheed as being more a creature of government now.
It is not so much the astronauts in space, that is just killing NASA it is the cost plus, fixed fee, sole sourced, FAR contracting and the endless development contracts with enough escalator clauses in them to reach Luna without a rocket. Going anywhere in space has never really been the issue. if it was NASA would have turned to the commercial sector 2-3 decades ago.
It never seems to matter if they actually launch anything… look at how many starts and stops for a shuttle replacement. Cancelling a project is never a problem as long as NEW program with a new name replaces it.
Yes, as long as the pork flows it isn’t a problem, even if they are just doing the aerospace engineering equivalent of digging holes just so they are able to fill them up again.
But how many of them were good programs?
NASP? X-33/VentureStar? CEV/Orion/Ares? Orion/SLS?
Only DC-X gets a half point for at least being low cost and fairly well run. But the concept (DC-1 SSTO) was still deeply flawed.
So what Shuttle replacement concept deserved not to be cancelled?
I really hate the destructive myth that the cause of NASA’s failure to progress is due to the “constant cancellation of programs” due to the “lack of leadership” or “vision”. The myth that NASA has used to defend its incompetence, the very myth that inspired this idiotic legislation.
HSF is littered with badly conceived programs which are then completely mismanaged anyway. Going all the way back to the development of the Shuttle itself.
The good programs that have been cancelled, have been killed to free up funding for the big mismanaged fund-hogs.
For example, Griffin cancelled the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, the Terrestrial Planet Finder space telescope, the related Space Interferometry Mission, and the Prometheus nuclear program, (and generally reduced the NASA science budget by 25%,) in order to push the funding to Constellation.
That’s the point, it doesn’t matter if it is a good program or a bad program. and if it IS a bad program all the better because it means a whole new development program keeping all those workers tasked with digging holes and then task them to fill the holes. It is not about the final product it is about the developing the product.
DC-X was not started by NASA. It was a DOD/DARPA program which is why it was so well run. But once they had success with it NASA took it over for its last year and transformed it into the X-33 program. This was solidified by NASA insisting in the space policy statement that came out under the Clinton Administration NASA would be the only agency allowed to explore RLV technology.
Really, how dare the DOD/DARPA develop a better launch vehicle that the Shuttle…
As a side note, when it ended because of the DC-X crash NASA moved quickly to erase all trace of the hardware. I know because I was helping with the Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo to get any remains to put on display there. According to team members at PSL the engines, original tanks, and control rings for the thrusters all survived, it was just the composite elements that burned. But I found the remains were all shipped to Marshall Space Center for disposal and when I called there I found nothing was left for any museums. It was all ‘junked”.
X-33 was the precursor project for VentureStar, it had nothing to do with the previous DC-X program.
Sorry, that is incorrect. It was created directly as a result of the success of the DC-X. Rather than NASA just funding an upgraded version, the DC-Y, which would have been the logical thing to do, it did it the “NASA Way” and held a competition for the reusable launch vehicle program the winner of which would be named the X-33, the next in its series of “X Planes”.
http://www.astronautix.com/…
There were three entrants. MDD with the DC-Y, Rockwell with a delta winger VTHL vehicle based on its 25 years of experience with the Shuttle Orbiter, and the most risky entry, the Lockheed lifting body. The latter was selected. It was only after the selection that Lockheed started promoting it as the prototype for the VentureStar.
NASA would have never started their reusable launch vehicle program if it was for the success, and headlines, the DC-X was getting.
All this would do is transform NASA into a “temple” of space science with your elders (Board of Directors), High Priest (Administrator for the decade), and mandatory offerings from society (writing its own budget). It will remove NASA even further from the real world than it is at present.
Commercial crew and cargo will probably be the first things cut, no need for such commercial solutions if NASA will have an guaranteed budget and freedom to spent it as it wish as long as the pork flows to the Congressional Districts whose members will take the lead in appointed the board. They will probably promote an in house solution, like the old OSP, for ISS access instead.
Actually more of a temple to the SLS/Orion and their equally wasteful and bloated successors – with the space science community bought off, and encouraging any commercial markets cut off.
Honestly answer the questions, should the government be able to expend funds to orbit material?
Should that cost as little as possible?
The honest, nonfoolish, answer to both is yes–and that says why there is no “addiction” for SpaceX to break.