The new Cape Canaveral Space Force Station sign at Gate 1. Image source: SpaceKSC.com.
Vice President Mike Pence visited Cape Canaveral on December 9, 2020 to announce that Cape Canaveral Air Force Station had been renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and that Patrick Air Force Base (of which the Cape is a part) had been renamed Patrick Space Force Base.
In the decades since NASA was designated the lead agency for civil-space activities and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) for military space activities, little serious discussion has been devoted to the question of whether those entities in their present forms are well suited for discharging the government’s space interests. The closest we have come to such discussion has been the occasionally recurring proposal to spin off a military Space Force from the Air Force (much as the Air Force was itself spun off from the Army). On the civil side, the model of NASA as a unified agency has been largely immune from scrutiny.
He cited a July 2016 Government Accountability Office report which recommended the creation of a “space force” to “absorb all DOD and NRO space acquisitions and operations functions.” The report found that, “Fragmented space acquisition leadership means that 'no one is in charge.'”
Rogers found a willing President in Donald Trump, who issued Space Policy Directive 4 in February 2019 directing the Secretary of Defense to create a “legislative proposal” for the Space Force.
The Space Force was finally approved in December 2019 in the 2020 NDAA. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), who took over as chair of the strategic forces committee after the Democrats regained their House majority, told Space News that Trump deserved little credit:
“This is not a Trump idea. He tried to hijack it long after the House Armed Services Committee voted 60-1 to establish a Space Corps,” he added. “Trump’s blatant support of a Space Force does not make it a Republican idea.”
The recently passed Fiscal Year 2021 defense budget included $15.2 billion for the Space Force, which still answers to the Secretary of the Air Force, just as the Marine Corps answers to the Secretary of the Navy.
When I first heard the idea, my concern was that creation of a Space Force would give our adversaries an excuse to start their own military space branches, but they're already militarizing space anyway.
The reality is that this is coming, whether we like it nor not.
The United States had an aviation capability in World War I, but it wasn't until 1947 that the U.S. Air Force was created as its own separate military branch. The Army Air Service began in 1926, and for decades advocates supported giving military air power its own separate and equal branch.
Creating a new military branch has its own speed bumps. In December, Vice President Pence announced that Space Force soldiers would be called Guardians, which I guess is better than Spacemen but it still sounds a bit ridiculous, immediately drawing comparisons to the Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchise.
Our best hope is that the United States, with a new President, can somehow find a way to convince the nations of the world to end their militarization of space. History teaches us that's unlikely, but we did finally manage to contain nuclear weapon proliferation. No nuke has been used in combat since 1945.
I do wonder if, in a hundred years or so, we'll learn of a new military branch called the Time Force to fight the Temporal War.
Vice President Mike Pence at Cape Canaveral on December 9. Video source: Fox 35 Orlando YouTube channel.
The top image shows the Arecibo observatory site this morning after the collapse. The lower image is prior. Image source: @DeborahTiempo on Twitter.
Astronomy lost one of its most historic telescopes this morning when the Arecibo Observatory steerable receiver and catwalk collapsed into its already damaged reflector dish.
The National Science Foundation, which owns the observatory, posted on Twitter:
The instrument platform of the 305m telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight. No injuries were reported. NSF is working with stakeholders to assess the situation. Our top priority is maintaining safety. NSF will release more details when they are confirmed.
NSF is saddened by this development. As we move forward, we will be looking for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain our strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico.
The Arecibo Observatory had its origins in an idea of Professor William E. Gordon, from Cornell University, who was interested in the study of the Ionosphere. Gordon's research during the fifties led him to the idea of radar back scatter studies of the Ionosphere. Gordon's persistence culminated in the construction of the Arecibo Observatory which began in the summer of 1960. With its 305m (1000ft) diameter dish constructed in 1963, the Arecibo Observatory continuously provides valuable data for the scientific community and the world.
The NAIC web site offers a detailed description of the telescope's design. It consisted of a 1,000-foot diameter reflector dish suspended by a network of steel cables above a natural mountain valley bowl. Suspended 450 feet above the reflector was a 900-ton platform hung in midair on eighteen cables strung from three reinforced concrete towers
These cables would one day lead to its doom.
Arecibo was built in the infant years of radio astronomy. Until the mid-20th Century, most astronomy focused on optical astronomy — what we can see with our own eyes, aided by a telescope. Astronomers began to realize that the universe might be visible in other wavelengths of light.
A few astronomers and others interested in the search for extraterrestrial life reasoned that, just as radio waves are used here on Earth for communication, so might alien civilizations use radio waves to communicate with each other — and perhaps even us.
In 1961, Drake hosted the first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) conference at Green Bank. Among the attendees was a young astronomer named Carl Sagan. From that conference emerged the Drake Equation, a formula attempting to estimate the number of transmitting extraterrestrial societies in our galaxy.
Carl Sagan's 1980 “Cosmos” visits the Arecibo Observatory to discuss the Drake Equation and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Video source: Bogdan Iancu YouTube channel.
I could see its potential to become the most sensitive instrument ever applied to radio astronomy research. All you had to do was figure out a way to stabilize the platform so it didn't sway in the wind or rise and fall with the temperature changes, and then you could have access to all wavelengths. Granted, that was a tall order — an engineering brainteaser that would cost millions — but I suspected it could be done. And if and when that happened, the instrument would be uniquely suited to search for life in space.
Arecibo's unique capabilities led to the discovery of the first binary pulsar in 1974 by Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor, Jr, of Princeton University, for which they received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics. According to a Nobel press release:
Here a new, revolutionary “space laboratory” has been obtained for testing Einstein’s general theory of relativity and alternative theories of gravity. So far, Einstein’s theory has passed the tests with flying colours.
Arecibo was subjected to Nature's forces over the decades. A January 2014 earthquake damaged one of the main suspension cables. In September 2017, Hurricane Maria damaged the observatory, causing an antenna to snap from the overhead platform and puncture the dish, along with the loss of various equipment. Puerto Rico experienced an earthquake swarm in late 2019 and early 2020.
The telescope as it appeared in November 2020. Image source: University of Central Florida.
Following a review of engineering assessments that found damage to the Arecibo Observatory cannot be stabilized without risk to construction workers and staff at the facility, the U.S. National Science Foundation will begin plans to decommission the 305-meter telescope, which for 57 years has served as a world-class resource for radio astronomy, planetary, solar system and geospace research.
The decision comes after NSF evaluated multiple assessments by independent engineering companies that found the telescope structure is in danger of a catastrophic failure and its cables may no longer be capable of carrying the loads they were designed to support. Furthermore, several assessments stated that any attempts at repairs could put workers in potentially life-threatening danger. Even in the event of repairs going forward, engineers found that the structure would likely present long-term stability issues.
The “catastrophic failure” occurred today.
The University of Central Florida, which manages the telescope for the National Science Foundation, issued a press release this afternoon with first images of the damage.
The collapsed telescope as it appeared in today's UCF press release. Image source: University of Central Florida.
The investigation into the exact details of the platform’s fall is still ongoing. Initial findings indicate that the top section of all three of the 305-meter telescope’s support towers broke off and landed outside the area of the dish. As the 900-ton instrument platform fell, the telescope’s support cables also dropped. The Gregorian Dome is in the dish and the platform is lying on the edge of another side of the dish.
The observatory’s learning center, located near Tower 12, appeared to sustain heavy damage from falling cables. Although the 305-meter telescope dish sustained heavy damage, parts remain intact.
By one count, today over one hundred radio telescopes operate around the world. Space News reported today that Arecibo was becoming techonologically obsolete, and early discussions were already under way between NSF and the U.S. Space Force for collaboration on new planetary radar systems.
In 1974, Arecibo transmitted a radio message in 1974 towards the globular star cluster M13. It was a simple pictorial message depicting the telescope, our solar system, DNA, a stick figure of a human, and some of the biochemicals of earthly life.
The message will take 21,000 years to reach M13, unless it's intercepted on the way. If anyone ever does receive it, the response is unlikely to be received for many thousands of years.
But if first contact ever does happen, it may be due to the telescope that fell today to the ravages of nature and time.
An April 2019 tour of the Arecibo Observatory. Video source: SETI Institute YouTube channel.
UPDATE December 2, 2020 — D.A.S. Drones Perez posted this drone video on YouTube of the collapsed telescope.
Drone video of the collapsed Arecibo Observatory. Video source: D.A.S. Drones Perez YouTube channel.
UPDATE December 3, 2020 — The National Science Foundation today released video of the telescope's collapse.
Two angles of the telescope collapse. Video source: National Science Foundation YouTube channel.
The core stage for the first Space Launch System launch is lifted in January 2020 at the Stennis Space Center. Image source: NASA.
(tap)(tap)
Is this thing on?
Okay, where were we ...
When I posted my last blog article on May 30, 2017, I felt like I had nothing new to say.
NewSpace good, OldSpace bad.
Blah, blah.
Three years and six months have passed since that last moment of indulgent self-pity and, yeah, not much has changed.
In that farewell article, I wrote:
Sure, I could write yet another screed about Space Launch System being years behind schedule while wasting taxpayer dollars, but by now I think pretty much everyone knows that.
See, I told you nothing much has changed.
Where We Are
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on election night. Image source: USA Today.
A lame-duck President is about to leave office, whether or not he likes it, and replaced by a new one.
Space as a topic did not warrant a position paper from the Joe Biden campaign. The campaign web site's position papers reference NASA data in the climate change plan. The plan for American manufacturing and innovation proposes a $300 billion investment over four years in research and development. Although it doesn't mention NASA, it does propose “major increases in direct federal R&D spending” in various science-related agencies, as well as “breakthrough technology R&D programs to direct investments to key technologies in support of U.S. competitiveness.”
The reality, of course, is that no President unilaterally determines the course or funding of the American government's space activities. That power lies with Congress.
How much influence the Biden administration will have with Congress is yet to be seen.
Although the next session of the House of Representatives remains in Democratic control, the Senate's majority has not yet been determined. Two special elections in Georgia on January 5 will fill that state's two Senate seats. Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock will try to unseat Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Although Donald Trump narrowly lost Georgia, it's hard to say how much of that reflects personal distaste for Trump as opposed to a preference for a Democrat. Perdue finished about 87,000 votes ahead of Ossoff, but failed to achieve a 50%+ victory because of a Libertarian candidate who received about 115,000 votes. Warnock won about one-third of the vote in a special election that had 20 candidates on the ballot, with Loeffler receiving about a quarter of the vote.
If the Democrats win both seats, then the Senate is tied 50-50, and the Vice President breaks any ties. That person remains Mike Pence until Kamala Harris takes office on January 20, 2021.
If the Republicans retain control of the Senate, it's likely that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will continue his obstructionist practices, and little of the Biden agenda will move forward. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) would continue to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he protects the SLS and OldSpace pork flowing into Alabama. If the Democrats take control, the gavel could pass to the current vice chair, Patrick Leahy (D-VT). On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, Leahy published “Reflections on the Moon Landing.” He's long served on the panel's science subcommittee, and is also known as a huge fan of the Batman universe, having appeared in five Caped Crusader films. A nerd in charge of the Senate committee appropriating NASA spending can't be bad, can it?
Check back after January 5.
Where We've Been
Among the many fibs that Trump has told in the last five years is his false claim that he somehow resurrected NASA from the dead. On August 5, 2020 he tweeted:
NASA was Closed & Dead until I got it going again. Now it is the most vibrant place of its kind on the Planet...And we have Space Force to go along with it. We have accomplished more than any Administration in first 3 1/2 years. Sorry, but it all doesn’t happen with Sleepy Joe!
On November 15, 2020, after SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station aboard Crew-1, Trump falsely claimed:
A great launch! @NASA was a closed up disaster when we took over. Now it is again the “hottest”, most advanced, space center in the world, by far!
NASA never closed, of course, nor was it “dead.”
The Bush Years
January 14, 2004 ... President George W. Bush announces the Space Shuttle will retire once the International Space Station is completed. Video source: C-SPAN.
As for the commercial crew program, that can be traced back to President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration.
Bush appointed a commission to recommend how to implement his VSE. Their June 2004 report included a section titled, “Building a Robust Space Industry.” The chapter began:
The vision for space exploration offers the nation and the world a chance to redefine the paradigm of space flight. Our goal is to transform space exploration from a small, experimental research program, largely performed under the auspices of government into a fully integrated sector of American life, involving government, commercial, educational, and industrial players.
NASA opened the Commercial Crew/Cargo Project Office on November 7, 2005. Although crew was in its name from the inception, then-NASA Administrator Michael Griffin funded only the cargo program, a robotic counterpart to his Project Constellation. Intended to keep Shuttle-era contractors and their employees at work, Constellation's Ares I would have used a solid-fueled first stage based on the Shuttle's solid rocket boosters to launch a crewed Orion capsule to service ISS.
The Obama Years
President Barack Obama at Kennedy Space Center, April 15, 2010. Video source: NASA.
Based on those findings, the Obama administration rocked the OldSpace world when its proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget cancelled Constellation. The budget proposed funding commercial crew, and extended the ISS from 2015 to 2020.
Obama delivered a speech at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, in which he proposed increasing NASA's budget by $6 billion over five years. $3 billion would be invested in researching a “heavy lift rocket,” but the ISS and commercial crew were the immediate priority. The long-range goal was to have humans at Mars by the end of the 2030s.
Cancelling Constellation in the middle of the Great Recession horrified key members of the Senate and House who represented states with a vested interest in the status quo. When the rhetorical dust settled, Congress agreed to cancel Constellation but replaced it with the Space Launch System, dubbed “Senate Launch System” by one critic. Commercial crew was underfunded by 62% over its first three fiscal years, extending U.S. reliance on the Russian Soyuz by about three years. According to a November 2013 NASA Office of the Inspector General report:
The combination of a future flat-funding profile and lower-than-expected levels of funding over the past 3 years may delay the first crewed launch beyond 2017 and closer to 2020, the current expected end of the operational life of the ISS.
Generally overlooked at the time was a NASA program to kickstart commercial technologies and operations for beyond low Earth orbit. Dubbed NextSTEP, the program solicited “proposals for concept studies or technology development projects that will be necessary to enable human pioneers to go to deep space destinations such as an asteroid and Mars.” According to an October 28, 2014 press release:
... [T]he agency seeks to use public-private partnerships to share funding to develop advanced propulsion, habitation and small satellite capabilities that will enable the pioneering of space. Public-private partnerships of this type help NASA stimulate the U.S. space industry while working to expand the frontiers of knowledge, capabilities and opportunities in space.
NASA intends to engage partners to help develop and build a set of sustainable, evolvable, multi-use space capabilities that will enable human pioneers to go to deep space destinations. Developing capabilities in three key areas – advanced propulsion, habitation, and small satellites deployed from the Space Launch System – is critical to enabling the next step for human spaceflight. This work will use the proving ground of space around the moon to develop technologies and advance knowledge to expand human exploration into the solar system.
The Trump Years
President Donald Trump signs Space Policy Directive 1 on December 11, 2017. Video source: NASA.
Donald Trump took office on January 20, 2017. As with many presidents, government space wasn't an immediate priority.
Trump's first significant space-related act was to reactivate the National Space Council. On June 30, 2017, Trump issued an executive order to revive the Council, which had been unstaffed since President Bill Clinton took office in 1993.
Perhaps the Council's most historic achievement was in the spring of 1961. Uninterested in running the Council, President John F. Kennedy appointed Vice President Lyndon Johnson to chair the panel in his place. After the Soviet Union orbited the first person in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961, Kennedy on April 20 charged Johnson and the Council to make “an overall survey of where we stand in space” and find “any other space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win”. Johnson's reply, eight days later, stated:
Manned exploration of the moon, for example, is not only an achievement with great propaganda value, but it is essential as an objective whether or not we are first in its accomplishment — and we may be able to be first.
As detailed in Dr. John M. Logsdon's 2010 work John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon, after the Moon recommendation the Council had little influence on Kennedy or NASA. “[T]he Space Council as a body was not central to any of the civilian space decisions of the Kennedy administration”, but Kennedy was happy to have Johnson to appear at public events and give speeches.
Richard M. Nixon succeeded Johnson as President in January 1969, as it became apparent the United States would first attempt to land astronauts on the Moon later that year. Project Apollo already was winding down, and program contracts were being terminated. The Council rarely met during Johnson's presidency, and had little influence with Nixon. After taking office, Nixon directed a review of a post-Apollo space program, but instead of using the Council appointed a Space Task Group. Vice President Spiro Agnew chaired the Group and represented the Council. Dr. Logsdon's After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program details the Group's deliberations and the largely symbolic role the Council had during the Nixon administration. The Group produced a report in September 1969 from which eventually emerged the Space Shuttle, but most of its recommendations were ignored as too expensive. The Council was disbanded in 1973 as part of a reorganization.
In 1989, newly elected President George H.W. Bush used an executive order to recreate the Council. On July 20, 1989 Bush directed Vice President Dan Quayle and the National Space Council to “report back to me as soon as possible with concrete recommendations to chart a new and continuing course to the Moon and Mars and beyond.” The Space Exploration Initiative, published in May 1991, provided a vision for the future of the U.S. in space, including a return to the Moon and then on to Mars. But it lacked congressional support, and went nowhere. The Council once again was disbanded after President Bill Clinton took office in January 1993.
The absence of an active Council in certain administrations shouldn't be interpreted as indifference to space. Those Presidents simply had a different bureaucracy for managing space policies and activities. President Obama, for example, appointed the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, which issued a report in October 2009 that became the foundation for the administration's space path forward. Obama also established a Space Interagency Policy Committee that in June 2010 released the National Space Policy, which is still in effect today.
We'll have to wait for when Trump administration papers are finally available to the public so scholarly research can begin, but based on public performance it seems reasonable to conclude that President Trump gave the Council more power and influence than it ever had under previous Presidents.
Trump's June 2017 executive order made Vice President Mike Pence chair of the Council, and appointed several Cabinet secretaries as members. Among the other members were the Director of Office Management and Budget (OMB), which manages how the White House runs the budget, and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
On the campaign trail in October 2016, Pence said that Trump if elected would re-establish the National Space Council. Pence emerged as a true space enthusiast, appearing several times on the Space Coast during the four years of the Trump administration.
For the first time in its history, the Council met publicly. VERY publicly.
Vice President Mike Pence chairs a National Space Council meeting at Kennedy Space Center, February 21, 2018. Video source: NASA.
Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he understands the value of a spectacle — “the optics,” in more modern parlance.
Trump himself appeared with the Council before its June 18, 2018 meeting in Washington, DC. The Council met in public places, many of them significant to the American space program, such as Kennedy Space Center; the U.S. Space and Rocket Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The meetings were broadcast live on NASA TV and on the Internet.
These meetings were mostly for show, to ratify policies or directives already deliberated and completed behind the scenes, but they created the “optics” Trump wanted to demonstrate his administration's treating space as a priority.
Trump issued a number of Space Policy Directives (SPDs), which are a type of executive order that is a statement of presidential policy. Some were for show, while others may have more lasting historical significance.
Space Policy Directive 1, issued on December 11, 2017, was ballyhooed as Trump “reinvigorating America’s human space exploration program,” but in reality it was only a minor tweak to President Obama's 2010 National Space Policy. SPD-1 changed the wording in one paragraph to remove a reference to the politically unpopular Asteroid Redirect Mission, replacing it with “the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization.” Mars remained the long-range goal, but Trump removed the Obama-era timeline targeting the mid-2030s for the first human mission to Mars.
Three years later, as he reaches what most likely is the end of his tenure, Bridenstine has received widespread bipartisan praise for his performance, even if not everyone agrees with his agenda, which of course is driven by the White House, OMB, and the National Space Council. Forbes columnist Jonathan O'Callaghan called Bridenstine “The One Thing Trump Got Right.”
Much of this administration's NASA space policy is a continuation of the Obama era, but Bridenstine repackaged various programs into one more easily sold concept, called Project Artemis.
A December 2019 video summary of Project Artemis. Video source: NASA.
Artemis consists of the Bush-era Orion capsule (born as Crew Exploration Vehicle), Space Launch System (foisted upon NASA by Congress in 2010), the Obama-era NextSTEP, and the Obama-era Public-Private Partnerships, among other influences. The Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, begun under Bridenstine in November 2018, uses competition and firm-fixed pricing in the spirit of the commercial cargo and crew programs begun under Bush and Obama.
Bridenstine says President Biden should find his own administrator, “somebody who has a close relationship with the President,” and thinks he's not “right person” for that job, but that statement doesn't completely close the door on the possibility of his remaining in office.
If the Republicans retain the Senate in the new session, retaining Bridenstine would be one less person Biden would have to get through Senate confirmation. Just sayin'.
The other signature space policy directive of the Trump era is the creation of the Space Force. Space Policy Directive 4 (SPD-4), issued on February 19, 2019, essentially separated space-related activities from the Air Force into its own branch that is considered “a new armed service within the Department of the Air Force.” The Space Force is analogous to the creation of the U.S. Army Air Forces, a somewhat independent service that nominally answered to the Secretary of the Army but evolved into its own separate branch. Here's how the USSF web site defines its mission:
The USSF is a military service that organizes, trains, and equips space forces in order to protect U.S. and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force. USSF responsibilities include developing military space professionals, acquiring military space systems, maturing the military doctrine for space power, and organizing space forces to present to our Combatant Commands.
An October 2020 U.S. Space Force recruitment film. Video source: U.S. Air Force and Space Force Recruiting YouTube channel.
If history repeats itself, the USSF should evolve into its own robust bureaucracy, perhaps anticipating China as a future combatant.
The Biden administration takes office on January 20, 2021. They will inherit a Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal in its final details, so the new White House staff will have little time to make substantive changes. Biden most likely will select a current NASA staffer as acting Administrator until his choice is announced. That person will have to go through a Senate review and confirmation — unless Biden keeps Bridenstine.
The white elephant in the NASA hangar is Space Launch System.
A test fire of its core stage is now targeting December 21. A failure, especially a castastrophic explosion, would sorely test Congressional support for the program.
Assuming that goes well, then NASA remains on course for an uncrewed test flight projected for November 2021. That mission, dubbed Artemis-1, would send Orion thousands of miles beyond the Moon for a three-week demonstration.
It's reasonable to assume that Artemis-1 will launch, absent another unanticipated delay or failure.
By November 2021, however, the new NASA Administrator should be in place, and the administration will have established its own space priorities.
SLS Block 1 will have 8.8 million pounds of thrust. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy delivers 5.1 million pounds, and Blue Origin's New Glenn will have 3.8 million.
But the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy looms later in the decade, offering 16 million pounds of thrust.
By the middle of the decade, the ever-increasing annual federal deficit may force Congress to give up its love affair with SLS, especially if Super Heavy becomes viable.
Just as Trump turned off the clock on Obama's 2030s Mars timeline, so Biden may abandon the unrealistic 2024 deadline established by Pence and Bridenstine for the first crewed Artemis lunar landing. Congress has shown little interest in providing the funding NASA has said it needs for 2024.
Project Artemis in concept is the right direction. Such a “giant leap” ten years ago would have been doomed to failure, because the NewSpace economy was far from mature. When President Obama toured the SpaceX launch site in April 2010, the first Falcon 9 launch was still two months away. Commercial cargo would not deliver a payload to the ISS for another two years. The first commercial crew launch was ten years in the future.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk leads President Barack Obama on a tour of Launch Complex 40, April 15, 2010. Image source: NASA.
When George W. Bush's commission proposed in June 2004 to “build a robust space industry,” I doubt anyone realized the consequence would be the demise of how NASA has done business since the Apollo era — issuing cost-plus contracts to aerospace companies that were guaranteed a profit without accountability. When Obama proposed Commercial Crew in 2010 to replace Constellation, members of Congress finally realized the threat that open competition, milestone payments and fixed-price contracts posed not only to the legacy jobs in their districts and states, but also to the constant flow of campaign contributions from those companies.
The Obama administration aggressively used Space Act Agreements to circumvent the old way of doing business. SAAs are authorized under the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act. Some members of Congress were so outraged by the use of SAAs that they demanded an investigation. The NASA Office of the Inspector General report found that NASA's use of SAAs increased 28% between 2008 and 2012. Although the report found several procedural concerns, OIG found nothing improper and acknowledged that “the milestone approach to managing cost, schedule, and performance for funded SAAs appears to have worked well for NASA in the commercial cargo and crew programs ...”
Throughout its history, SAAs have provided NASA a valuable means to advance science and technology and to stimulate research in aeronautics and spaceflight. In recent years, NASA has turned to SAAs to stimulate the private sector to develop spaceflight systems for commercial cargo and crew transportation and to help offset the cost of maintaining underutilized facilities following the end of the Space Shuttle Program.
NASA under Jim Bridenstine has benefitted from the political arrows absorbed by his predecessors, now using SAAs for hundreds of projects, many of them related to Artemis. As of September 30, 2020, the NASA web site lists 710 active domestic SAAs and four active international SAAs since July 30, 2017.
In many ways, NASA is returning to its roots.
The agency was born out of its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The NACA was created in 1915 in response to European governments investing in applied sciences that gave them the lead in the young aeronautics industry. German dirigibles for long-range bombing of British cities and the rapid evolution of airplanes for reconnaissance and for pursuit underscored the shortcomings of American aviation.
In 1958, NASA was formed after the early Soviet achievements with Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2, as well as their lead in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Several non-military programs from the Department of Defense were merged with the NACA to create NASA.
Nothing in the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act requires NASA to own its rockets, to fly people, or to explore other worlds. It does list a number of activities to which NASA can “contribute materially” for “the benefit of all mankind.”
Lyndon Johnson's April 28, 1961 memo acknowledged that the human lunar program's objective was “an achievement with great propaganda value.” Many Kennedy administration documents referred to “prestige.”
But the unintended consequence was the creation of a vast aerospace bureaucracy depending upon government contracts to keep employed tens of thousands of people across the nation, and the extended economic reliance of local communities dependent upon those jobs, regardless of need or national priority.
President Obama, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver were vilified by the OldSpace community — including some astronauts — for saying this had to change.
History has vindicated them.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on “Face the Nation,” July 14, 2019. Video source: CBS News.
The profession of risk management didn't exist during NACA's time, but that was what the agency did. The NACA developed aeronautics technology and data that were researched and transferred to the private sector.
NASA's role for space exploration in the next four years should continue in this direction.
The last ten years have shown us that the basic capitalist principle of competition leading to innovation and affordability can also apply in the aeronautics sector.
On November 24, SpaceX launched its 100th Falcon 9 mission, landing the booster for the seventh time, on a ship at sea no less, deploying sixty more Starlink satellites as the company builds a space Internet.
During Bridenstine's tenure, NASA has conducted competitions, awarded milestone payments, and signed fixed-price contract with many companies for elements of Project Artemis.
The next four years under President Biden, and whomever follows later in the decade, should continue to take NASA back to its NACA roots. As Bridenstine says, NASA's role should be to assume the risk and provide supplemental capital so that entrepreneurs feel comfortable with investing in new aerospace technologies that will reduce the cost and increase the reliability of space access.
While NASA's 1958 charter didn't require it to fly people or own its rockets, the very first objective was, “The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.”
Biden has made climate change a top priority. NASA operates many earth observation satellites, some specifically addressing climate change, collecting data to share with the world.
Former Deputy Administrator Lori Garver is now CEO of Earthrise Alliance, “a philanthropic organization that converts Earth systems data into relevant and actionable knowledge to combat climate change.”
Look for NASA to play a significant role as the United States rejoins the Paris Agreement and once again leads the world in dealing with climate change.
That doesn't mean that Project Artemis goes away. But it does mean that, as intended during the Obama era, the private sector should assume increasing responsibility for deep space exploration and commerce, first to the Moon, and one day on to Mars.
That's a goal worthy of a great space agency. But then so is healing the Earth's climate.
If you're a regular reader of this virtual fishwrap, you've noticed my lack of productivity over the last few months.
I just don't have anything new to say.
Sure, I could write yet another screed about Space Launch System being years behind schedule while wasting taxpayer dollars, but by now I think pretty much everyone knows that.
Sure, I could write yet another paean to NewSpace, but by now I think pretty much everyone knows that's the path to the future.
Sure, I could write yet another dirge about long forgotten space history, but by now I think most folks want to talk about what's next.
So the writing muse has taken a holiday.
I'm working on various projects, one of which is another web site, which I'll make public at the appropriate time.
You can still find me on Twitter at @SpaceKSCBlog, where I opine and snark in 140 characters or less.
UPDATE April 29, 2017 — The Washington Post reports that the Environmental Protection Agency has deleted several web sites with detailed climate change data.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday evening its website would be “undergoing changes” to better represent the new direction the agency is taking, triggering the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information.
One of the websites that appeared to be gone had been cited to challenge statements made by the EPA’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt. Another provided detailed information on the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, including fact sheets about greenhouse gas emissions on the state and local levels and how different demographic groups were affected by such emissions ...
The change was ordered by a senior political appointee, according to an individual familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, to avoid a conflict between the site’s content and the policies the administration is now pursuing.
In his 2016 book The War on Science, author Shawn Otto writes, “... an observable fact is a political act that either supports or challenges the current power structure. Every time a scientist makes a factual assertion — Earth goes around the sun, there is such as thing as evolution, humans are causing climate change — it either supports or challenges somebody's vested interests.”
Wishing to sidestep the painful moral and ethical parsing that their discoveries sometimes compel, scientists for the last two generations saw their role as the creators of knowledge and believed they should leave the moral, ethical, and political implications to others to sort out. But the practice of science itself cannot possibly be apolitical, because it takes nothing on faith. The very essence of the scientific process is to question long-held assumptions about the nature of the universe, to dream up experiments that test those questions, and, based on the resulting observations, to incrementally build knowledge that is independent of our beliefs, assumptions, and identities, and independently verificable no matter who does the measuring — in other words, that is objective. A scientifically testable claim is transparent and can be shown to be either most probably true, or to be false, whether the claim is made by a king, a president, a prime minister, a pope, or a common citizen. Because it takes nothing on faith, science is inherently antiauthoritarian, and a great equalizer of political power. That is why it is under attack.
Author Shawn Otto speaks April 22, 2017 at the Washington, D.C. March for Science. Video source: Earth Day Network YouTube channel.
Scientific activism is in our nation's political genetic code.
Some of the most prominent leaders of the American Revolution were scientists. Benjamin Franklin, who researched the physics of electricity, wrote in 1734, “A new truth is a truth, an old error is an error.” Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in 1787, “A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge.” Article I. Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
In the last century, Manhattan Project scientists, concerned about the consequences of their atomic bomb research, founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The Doomsday Clock traces back to their first issue in 1947, when it was seven minutes to Midnight. Today it's 2½ minutes.
The Union of Concerned Scientists formed in 1969 during an era of war and violent civil dissent. “Appalled at how the U.S. government was misusing science, the UCS founders drafted a statement calling for scientific research to be directed away from military technologies and toward solving pressing environmental and social problems,” according to their web site.
At times in our history, scientists have been targeted by those in political power.
During World War II and the subsequent Cold War, founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were targeted by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Frank Malina was harassed by the FBI, suspected of Communist sympathies. Qian Xuesen, born in China but educated in the United States, worked with Malina at the California Institute of Technology. Xuesen also worked on the Manhattan Project. His ties with Malina led to losing his security clearance. In 1955, he returned to China, where he helped start the Communist nation's rocketry program.
The George W. Bush administration actively tried to rewrite or block government reports documenting climate change. The Union of Concerned Scientists in 2005 documented how the Bush administration assigned non-scientists to rewrite science documents to cast doubt on climate change. In January 2007, scientists and advocacy groups testified to Congress that scientists at government agencies were advised not to use the phrases “global warming” or “climate change.”
Let's pause here to note the difference between “global warming” and “climate change.” According to NASA, global warming “refers to the long-term increase in Earth's average temperature.” Climate change “refers to any long-term change in Earth's climate, or in the climate of a region or city. This includes warming, cooling and changes besides temperature.” Climate change is the consequence of global warming.
In 2010, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) called for a criminal investigation of American and British climate change researchers. On February 26, 2015, Senator Inhofe tossed a snowball on the Senate floor, claiming it disproved global warming. According to OpenSecrets.org, Inhofe has received more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry during his political career.
February 26, 2015 ... Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) tosses a snowball on the Senate floor. Video source: C-SPAN YouTube channel.
The science community enjoyed eight years of support from President Barack Obama, but that ended when Donald Trump became President on January 20, 2017.
But it was the Trump administration's declared assault on climate change science that motivated the March for Science.
The idea was inspired by the Women's March on Washington, held the day after Trump's inauguration. A Reddit thread began with users urging that science believers needed to rally as well. The March for Science movement eventually aligned with the long-established Earth Day Network, which began on April 22, 1970.
Attendance estimates for these events are always questionable at best. A progressive anti-Trump web site claims 40,000 attended the Washington, D.C. rally, with another 40,000 in Chicago and 20,000 in New York City. According to CNN, more than 600 rallies were held worldwide. Florida Today estimated that “hundreds of attendees” were at the Titusville rally.
The numbers are not as important as the movement demonstrating a sustained ability to pressure politicians to support their cause.
Any President, or member of Congress, won't care about protestors unless it's clear that the politician's re-election is threatened. Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who represents Brevard County, refuses to attend in-person town halls, relying instead on a “Tele-Town Hall” format. Posey is in a safe Republican district, gerrymandered through at least 2020, so he has no reason to respond to the minority of constituents who object to his vaccine denial and climate change denial.
March 26, 2014 ... Rep. Bill Posey denies climate change. Video source: climatebrad YouTube channel.
Posey has no science background. According to his official biography, his education is limited to a 1969 Associate of Arts degree from Brevard Community College.
A March 2015 Gallup poll found that highly educated Republicans tend to deny human-caused climate change, while highly educated Democrats believe humans are causing the phenomenon.
Extreme weather events, like storms, floods and the California drought, are increasing globally. Understanding the connection between climate change and this extreme weather has become a hot topic for climate researchers and policymakers alike. But now, Columbia University climate expert Park Williams warned in a January talk at Stanford, the way that public figures are talking about the climate change-extreme weather connection may actually be undermining the scientific quest to accurately understand what climate change means for the future of our planet.
The problem, Williams explained, comes in oversimplifying the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events. He pointed to an example in which California Gov. Jerry Brown said that drought conditions were “the new normal” for California: a vision of permanent drought caused by climate change. This sparked pushback from many scientists. The new normal isn’t permanent drought, they said, but rather a whole new weather reality that includes more drought, more rainstorms and flooding, and a great deal of variability or “noise”: “When I see things like [Brown’s statement], I think: that’s inconsistent with my understanding of the climate in California, which is very noisy,” Williams said in his talk.
Brown is certainly not the only public figure to make a broad statement about climate change and extreme weather, but his “new normal” phrase has become a clear example of a common problem. Politicians tend to oversimplify the science, Williams said, because the public is more likely to understand an all-or-nothing story: either climate change caused an event like the drought, or it didn’t.
My personal opinion is that some of the climate change denial is motivated by an individual's willingness to accept data at face value from authoritative sources.
The Trump campaign at its core appealed to those who resent “elites.” Scientists are “elites” because they have a high degree of expertise and education most people are lacking.
A September 2016 Gallup poll found that 51% of Democrats trust in mass media, but only 14% of Republicans do. (Independents scored at 30%.) An October 2014 Pew Research Center report found that “consistent conservatives” are “tightly clustered around a single news source,” with 47% citing Fox News as their main news source. Those with “consistently liberal views” are “less unified in their media loyalty; they rely on a greater range of news outlets, including some — like NPR and the New York Times — that others use far less.”
Right-wing conspiracy web sites falsely claim a global conspiracy among scientists to falsify climate change data, without offering any actual proof themselves. A common point of contention is the claim that 97% of the scientific community believe in climate change. Conspiracy sites claim the number is phony. Politifact in April 2016 examined a number of studies and concluded, “The studies found that overwhelming majorities of these experts — sometimes, but not always as high as 97 percent — say humans are contributing to global warming.”
A NASA chart showing the increase in carbon dioxide emissions during the Industrial Revolution. Click the image to view at a larger size.
Of particular disappointment to Rep. Posey would be this statement:
The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.
The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.
Up to now, the science community has taken the high road, with few exceptions, trusting that the public will objectively look at the data.
Most of the public won't. They get their news from sources that tend to reinforce their beliefs, or gossip from friends, Twitter and other social media.
With few exceptions, most scientists lack the ability to interpret their findings into simple language that the lay person can understand. They write highly technical papers that must pass peer review. They don't write simple opinion columns for the town paper.
If the March for Science is to sustain itself, it must find ways to plainly communicate to the electorate how science works.
A science advocacy sign at the January 21, 2017 Women's March.
Peer review is a process largely unknown to the public. Partisan political web sites and bloviating politicians aren't subject to peer review. Scientists are.
1. A group of scientists completes a study and writes it up in the form of an article. They submit it to a journal for publication.
2. The journal's editors send the article to several other scientists who work in the same field (i.e., the "peers" of peer review).
3. Those reviewers provide feedback on the article and tell the editor whether or not they think the study is of high enough quality to be published.
4. The authors may then revise their article and resubmit it for consideration.
5. Only articles that meet good scientific standards (e.g., acknowledge and build upon other work in the field, rely on logical reasoning and well-designed studies, back up claims with evidence, etc.) are accepted for publication.
Science deniers will claim that scientists are unethical and approve each others' work without question, as part of a vast conspiracy to assure they all receive taxpayer funding. They provide no evidence, of course, to support these smears.
Scientists use the scientific method to reach their conclusions. The University of Rochester web site outlines their definition of the scientific method:
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
The article notes, “It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.”
Yes, human beings are fallible. They make mistakes. They introduce biases. The scientific method, coupled with peer review, is designed to be self-correcting.
March for Science must go beyond marches in the streets. Its supporters must attend town halls, speak at rallies, challenge their friends and neighbors who question scientific data. I have done so many times over the years, to the point where certain people know they better not blather about conspiracies in my presence because I'll call them on it.
Many people, I've found, are sincerely interested in knowing why we can believe the data. I explain the scientific method, the peer review process, and the centuries of data gathered by sources such as drilling into polar ice to measure the concentrations of carbon dioxide. (The farther down you go, the less the CO2.)
I'm quite proud of when a skeptic opens his or her mind because I explain not only the science behind the data, but the integrity behind the science.
Skepticism is healthy and should be encouraged. Skepticism is part of peer review. When a skeptic asks me about the science behind climate change, I compliment the person for being a scientist. I explain that's what scientists do. They are skeptics who are always testing and validating.
That's why we know science works.
Letters to your local newspaper are fine, but it's better to directly contact the editor and publisher when a news story misstates scientific evidence. Many reporters are generalists who have little science background. Be polite, not accusatory, and simply explain the science in language the lay person can understand. Most reporters, and most newspaper owners, want to get it right. You can help them.
What is the self-correcting mechanism for politicians who deny science?
The ballot box.
If voters are unwilling to vote out Rep. Bill Posey or Senator James Inhofe for denying climate change and disrespecting science, then we doom ourselves to the consequences of our inaction.
Challenge people to withhold campaign contributions and their vote from any politician who denies the validity of science. Be sure that politician knows it. Contact your local media to urge them to report on a politician's falsehoods. Provide the evidence to support your position. The politician won't have any.
It's not quite as hopeless as you might think.
In February 2017, a bipartisan group of six members of Congress — three Republicans and three Democrats — declared their belief that U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved vaccines are safe.
A bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus has formed in the House of Representatives — 19 Republicans and 19 Democrats — to “explore policy options that address the impacts, causes, and challenges of our changing climate.” According to their web site,“The Caucus will serve as an organization to educate members on economically-viable options to reduce climate risk and protect our nation’s economy, security, infrastructure, agriculture, water supply and public safety.” The site states that they will keep their membership even between Republicans and Democrats.
Three Republicans and two Democrats from Florida are in the caucus. None, of course, are Rep. Posey.
The caucus site has links to ask your member of Congress to join the caucus, and to “tweet your support.”
You may wish to consider supporting these caucus members with a campaign contribution, or at least a letter of support and encouragement.
Protesters backing action on climate change are braving the sweltering heat Saturday in the nation's capital as part of the People's Climate March ...
Hundreds of sister marches were also planned across the United States and around the world.
Protesters marched through the snow in Denver. Demonstrations were held in Boston, New York, Seattle, Chicago, Amsterdam and London.
Coinciding with Donald Trump's 100th day in office, the protests are taking on the President's environmental policies, which have generally prioritized economic growth over environmental concerns.
During those first 100 days, the Environmental Protection Agency has moved swiftly to roll back Obama-era regulations on fossil fuels while also facing significant planned budget cuts.
The Peoples Climate Movement claims over 200,000 marched yesterday in Washington, D.C. The number to my knowledge hasn't been independently verified.
Click the arrow to watch the Expedition 50 crew landing. Video source: NASA YouTube channel.
Three International Space Station crew members, two Russians and one American, landed April 10 on the frigid steppes of Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz capsule was a design evolved from the original that first launched with cosmonauts in 1971.
No Americans were supposed to have been on Russian craft by now.
President Barack Obama's proposed Fiscal Year 2011 NASA budget planned to spend $5.8 billion during Fiscal Years 2011 through 2015 to develop American commercial crew spacecraft that would be operational by 2015.
Congress agreed to fund the commercial crew program, but over Fiscal Years 2011-2013 slashed the program's budget by 62%. Congress did so despite repeated warnings from NASA executives that the cuts would extend reliance on Russia until 2017 or longer.
The cuts were bipartisan. Many members of the House and Senate space authorization and appropriations subcommittees represent districts and states that have NASA space centers or legacy contractors. They objected to the Obama administration's proposal to cancel the Constellation program, which was to succeed the Space Shuttle. Constellation had run years behind schedule and was billions of dollars over budget. An August 2009 Government Accountability Office report concluded that Constellation lacked a “sound business case” and still faced many technical obstacles. An October 2009 independent committee review concluded that Constellation was unsustainable without a massive cash infusion. Its first crewed launch would be no earlier than 2017, probably later.
But Constellation employed both NASA civil servants and legacy contractors from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Alliant Techsystems (ATK), all three long-established aerospace companies with capable lobbyists and deep pockets to finance re-election campaigns.
When Congress finally approved a NASA budget for Fiscal Year 2011, the legislators reluctantly agreed to cancel the Constellation boondoggle, but imposed on NASA a new program called Space Launch System. Dubbed the Senate Launch System by its critics, SLS had no missions or destinations, but it did require NASA to use Shuttle and Constellation contractors without competitive bid. Commercial crew was slighted to fund the SLS porkfest.
As predicted, commercial crew's schedule slipped. NASA has been forced to sign contracts with the Russian space agency Roscosmos extending reliance on Soyuz until commercial crew is ready. In 2018, Roscosmos will charge NASA $81 million per seat to ferry U.S. and allied astronauts to the space station. A September 2016 Office of the Inspector General report concluded that NASA hopes to have its first operational commercial crew flight by late 2018, but challenges remain.
Rarely mentioned or contemplated by critics is the other side of the equation.
For years, the Russians have known that it's only a matter of time before their primary customers leave to launch once again from American soil.
Despite the country's autocratic leadership, occasionally Roscosmos executives and cosmonauts have publicly criticized their space program, noting that the NewSpace commercial movement in the United States will produce innovative new systems that will be far more modern and less costly than the Russian competition.
Expedition 31 crew members in the first SpaceX Dragon to deliver cargo to ISS. Commander Gennady Padalka is at the lower left. Image source: SpaceX.
Senior cosmonaut Gennady Padalka commanded the ISS in May 2012 when the SpaceX Dragon made its first automated cargo delivery. After he returned to Russia, Padalka criticized his nation's program.
At the traditional Russian post-landing press conference on Sept. 21, cosmonaut Gennady Padalka complained about the “spartan” conditions aboard the Russian side of the station, especially as compared with the American side. The conditions were cold, noisy, overstuffed with equipment, and cramped — each Russian had about one-seventh the living space that the American astronauts had. “All of this gives serious inconvenience in the operation of the Russian segment,” he said ... The equipment, he continued, was reliable and safe but was decades out of date. “Nothing has been done in the 20 years since the foundation of the new Russia,” he complained. The Russian space technology is technologically bankrupt and “morally exhausted.” It was, he told reporters, “frozen in the last century.” He contrasted those conditions with the spaciousness and modernity of the American modules, and praised the advanced technology he saw there: the robotics experiment (“As always, still under study in Russia”) and SpaceX's commercial spacecraft docking, for example.
A week later, Roscosmos General Director Vladimir Popovkin said in a public lecture, “Unless we undertake extreme measures, the sector will be uncompetitive within three-four years.” Popovkin predicted that by 2015, “Western equipment will be priced 33 to 50 percent lower.”
Ostapenko was sacked in January 2015, as Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin directed that Russian space activities be brought under tighter state control, the opposite of what the U.S. is doing. Ostapenko was replaced by Igor Komarov, who's managed to remain in the Director General position to this day. Although he began his education as an engineer, Komarov's career largely has been in banking and finance.
Rogozin was one of seven Russian government officials designated by the Obama administration in a March 2014 executive order which imposed economic sanctions on “individuals who wield influence in the Russian government and those responsible for the deteriorating situation in Ukraine.”
A January 2017 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin. Image source: Vladimir Putin Blog.
The sanctions generally have been effective in depressing the Russian economy. At the time in March 2014 when the sanctions were imposed, the ratio of Russian rubles to U.S. dollars was about 0.027. Today it's about 0.018.
As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, United States government officials worried that Soviet aerospace engineers might flee to nations hostile to American interests. Under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, NASA slowly intertwined itself with the Russian space program. By one vote in 1993, the House of Representatives nearly cancelled the Space Station Freedom project. The U.S. invited Russia to join Europe, Japan and Canada in building a new International Space Station, based on Freedom's earlier designs but now with Russian segments. NASA flew Space Shuttle missions to the Soviet-era Mir space station, to develop experience in assembling and servicing an orbital platform. Russian cosmonauts flew to Mir on the Shuttle, and U.S. astronauts flew to Mir on Soyuz spacecraft.
By the time of the Columbia accident on February 1, 2003, NASA, Roscosmos and the other ISS partners had learned to collaborate as one global space agency. No one questioned American reliance on Soyuz for crew rotations after Columbia. On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush announced that the Shuttle would fly again, but only to complete ISS assembly to honor the nation's commitment to its spacefaring partners, and then the Shuttle would retire. Crew rotations would continue to rely on Roscosmos, even during the gap between Shuttle and whatever transport system came next.
In early 2014, Russian President Putin ordered troops to invade Crimea, today a part of the independent nation Ukraine but in times past a part of Russia. The U.S. and other nations imposed sanctions upon the Russian economy and Putin cronies, including Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin.
Rogozin and Putin-controlled Russian media continue to spin one story for internal consumption, while another is told to the outside world. Russia Today reported on April 5 that Russia should plan for withdrawing from the ISS partnership in 2024, seeking a new partnership with China or India. A similar report appeared in Pravda. But at the same time, Director General Komarov was in Colorado Springs at the Space Symposium telling reporters that Roscosmos is willing to extend ISS to 2028.
Roscosmos Director General Igor Komarov April 4 at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Image source: Space Foundation via Spaceflight Now.
The Russian space program continues to deteriorate. In June 2016, Roscosmos delayed a Soyuz launch, fearing that the spacecraft might roll uncontrollably as it approached ISS. In December 2016, a Progress cargo flight to ISS was lost after launch as it broke up over Siberia. By one estimate, it was the fifteenth failure of a Russian rocket in six years.
The Moscow Times reported on March 30 that “An investigation into quality control issues in the Russian space industry has discovered that nearly every engine currently stockpiled for use in Proton rockets is defective.” The Moscow Times is an independent English-language publication based in Moscow.
In March 2016, the Russian government approved a ten-year budget for its space program. The total dollar amount was $20 billion, a bit more than what NASA spends in one fiscal year. It was nearly two-thirds less than the $56 billion ten-year budget proposal draft circulated in the spring of 2014, before the sanctions took effect.
On March 30, SpaceX launched and landed its first previously flown Falcon 9 rocket. State-controlled Sputnik News reported the next day that a Kremlin spokesman claimed Roscosmos is working on “no less advanced and breakthrough developments” to compete with SpaceX. Another Sputnik News article claimed that the Space Shuttle program ended because it failed to achieve its goal of reusable affordability. The article quoted a Russian military expert as saying, “Ultimately, the United States was left without its own spacecraft and delivery of their astronauts to the International Space Station is being provided by Russia.” The article claimed that the SpaceX design is flawed, and that a Russia-China partnership might develop a more competitive reusable system.
No mention has been made of Blue Origin, which is also developing reusable rocket technology. Blue intends to fly its New Glenn orbital rockets from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36 by the end of this decade.
Some emerging NewSpace launch companies are thinking small. Vector Space Systems, Rocket Lab and others are developing small rockets to launch small payloads into orbit. The Vector-R is designed to deliver 60 kilograms (130 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The company claims Vector-R is designed for up to 100 launches. It can be launched from a mobile platform, and will be retrieved by parachute.
A Vector-R test article on the mobile platform. Image source: Vector Space Systems.
Historians may look back at the American NewSpace movement as the defining technological advance of our era. It may compare to the 1920s, when the U.S. Post Office contracted with airplane owners to deliver mail, and eventually offered a subsidy to carry passengers. That program led to the commercial aviation industry and the airport hub system we have today.
The United States has a robust economy. Russia does not. Venture capitalists are discovering NewSpace. A February 2016 Tauri Group report found that “Venture capital firms invested $1.8 billion in commercial space startups in 2015, nearly doubling the amount of venture cash invested in the industry in all of the previous 15 years combined,” according to Fortune magazine.
A new space age is emerging, and the so-called space economy will become a multitrillion-dollar industry within the next two decades, Goldman Sachs is telling its clients.
More than 50 venture capital firms invested in space in 2015, driving more VC dollars into the sector in that year alone than in the prior 15 years combined, analyst Noah Poponak wrote in a Tuesday note to investors. Those firms included SoftBank, Fidelity, Bessemer and the VC arm of Alphabet's Google, among others.
“While relatively small markets today, rapidly falling costs are lowering the barrier to participate in the space economy, making new industries like space tourism, asteroid mining and on-orbit manufacturing viable,” Poponak said.
With the exception of the Space Launch System, the United States is embracing private sector investment, innovation and competition. Russia is retreating into a Soviet-era model of state control, corruption and cronyism.
It didn't work the last time. It won't work this time either.
In the early 1990s, American policy analysts were concerned that Soviet aerospace technologists might flee into the embracing arms of hostile nations.
The collapse of the modern Russian aerospace industry might result in the same “brain drain,” but this time no one particularly seems concerned.
Vladimir Putin and his cronies may be set for life with their accumulated wealth. But the Russian space program is on life support.
