Mission unthinkable: Disbanding NASA

[Gav]

Mission unthinkable: Disbanding NASA

* 03 November 2005
* NewScientist.com news service
* Greg Klerkx


LESS than two years after it was announced with great fanfare, President Bush's plan to return people to the moon is in trouble. The signs are everywhere.

Take Operation Offset, a proposal devised by a group of Republican legislators to cut government programmes and free up funds to pay for damage done by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Conspicuous on the chopping block is NASA's moon and Mars initiative. Another austerity proposal, suggested by economist Maya MacGuineas, recommended much the same thing: cancel NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle, the spacecraft that would carry humans back to the moon.

It must be worrying to NASA administrator Michael Griffin that the political right and left can be so unanimous in casually proposing such a fatal blow to the agency's human space-flight programme. But the calls for cuts highlight something more fundamental: a growing perception that NASA is no longer up to the task of leading big, visionary enterprises.

NASA has done itself no favours here. Charges of fiscal bungling continue to make headlines: for instance, the recent revelations that it wasted $20 million by flying its personnel on private jets rather than on regular flights. Last year, an independent auditor hired by NASA quit in exasperation, claiming the agency's books were in such disarray that it might never have a clean audit. During the post-Apollo era, dozens of reports have emerged of bad management and overpayment for underperformance. Billions are spent on the shuttle, yet it is still grounded; billions have been spent on the Space Station and it is still incomplete.

With the agency in such disarray, cutting the budget is simply not enough. America's space-faring ambitions are suffering a serious loss of credibility, and to get it back there may only be one solution: disband NASA altogether.

Even voicing this idea will smack of heresy to many. After all, NASA landed men on the moon, and it has led the exploration of the solar system and beyond. But that is in the past, and for some time now much of its work has been done by outside entities: corporate contractors, universities and non-profit organisations. More than two-thirds of its budget has been spent on outside contractors over the past few decades. NASA has more or less become one huge administrator, and not a very good one.

So why not push this trend to its logical conclusion and hand over all its responsibilities to the organisations that already do the work? For example, Earth observation could go to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and unmanned exploration to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which already handles most of it. Aeronautics - what NASA insiders derisively call the little "A" in the agency's name - could move to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Aeronautics research at NASA has suffered badly in recent decades, and its Dryden, Glenn and Langley research centres might fare better under an aviation-focused organisation.

“There is a growing perception that NASA is no longer up to the task of leading big enterprises”

Responsibility for human space flight could be divided up. The task of putting people into Earth orbit could logically go to the FAA, which already regulates all the US's commercial unmanned space launches through its Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Launching to orbit is becoming a free-market enterprise, with several companies offering launchers and spacecraft. There is no reason it shouldn't carry on evolving that way. Likewise, there is no reason why astronaut training shouldn't be a commercial, publicly regulated activity, much like the training of aircraft pilots.

As for human space flight beyond Earth orbit, this could be handled by the Johnson Space Center, which already does most of the big thinking in this area and could be spun off as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). It could then be run by a university, just as Los Alamos National Laboratory and many other existing FFRDCs are now, or as a non-profit entity or private organisation. Turning NASA centres into FFRDCs was a main recommendation of the Aldridge Commission, charged by President Bush with exploring how his lunar plan could best be achieved. Its report, released last year, said that NASA centres would be more efficient and entrepreneurial as FFRDCs.

Dismantling NASA would not be easy. But in the long run, it may be the only way to progress. Over the past decade or so, the agency has striven to improve from the inside: the administrator before last, Dan Goldin, tried with his "faster better cheaper" blueprint, his successor Sean O'Keefe introduced back-to-basics fiscal management, and Griffin is going for hard-nosed personnel juggling and programme slashing. Yet through it all, the American public have slowly lost confidence, not to say interest, in much of what NASA is purporting to sell.

The Bush lunar programme has often been lambasted as an expensive attempt to recreate past glory. This may be unduly cynical. But if we want to move forward in space exploration, it may be time to put away the past. And that may mean putting away NASA.

[Gav]

I know that there a couple of guys on this board who have worked for NASA and sundry industries. What are your opnions (as insiders)? What are the opinions of others? Are Rutan and the like the way forward? Is Space the new "Indies"? Do we think that manned space flight is a good thing or should we just send probes?

[pigeonmeister]

I can't see it happening, not with the Chinese making strides into space. NASA exists as the ultimate Cold War cover story, and the US will be damned if China is the only superpower in space.

[esskreemr]

NASA cut its own throat. Congress gave it the knife.

The flying brick otherwise known as the Space Shuttle program needs to die. I used to think of it as a transitional phase, but budget cuts on a yearly basis and monolithic waste have hindered any real development for 20 years. Reuseable spacecraft? Give me a break. It has to be torn down and rebuilt after every flight

NASA won't go away though. It's a huge cash cow for the military-industrialists and have some very powerful backers in Congres. One is up on several indictments, though.

I say scrap the shuttle, start new, and we'll still beat the Chinese back to the moon.

[Bayou Bum]

Why will it take NASA 10 years to send a man back to the moon when it took less time with the Kenedy program, and we have already been there. I don't understand the problem? I also think we should have built a permanent space station on the moon rather than a temporary one in space.

[Fencing Jesus]

I can't see it happening, not with the Chinese making strides into space. NASA exists as the ultimate Cold War cover story, and the US will be damned if China is the only superpower in space.

Whats wrong with chinese people? The ones I've met have all been rather amiable, and their women seem nice too. I think that Americans need to learn that its ok for people who dont look like them to travel around the galaxy.

[esskreemr]

Whats wrong with chinese people? The ones I've met have all been rather amiable, and their women seem nice too. I think that Americans need to learn that its ok for people who dont look like them to travel around the galaxy.

I have no problem with Chinese in space. It will be interesting to see what happens when they declare the entire moon a province and paint a huge hammer and sickle facing earth.

[ReverseLunge]

The problem with going to the moon again is that we never went there in the first place.

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

[ReverseLunge]

I have no problem with Chinese in space. It will be interesting to see what happens when they declare the entire moon a province and paint a huge hammer and sickle facing earth.

That's better than you going to the moon and declaring your love for ZZ but then the chances of you going to the moon is probably better than all your promises to her about flying to Sweden one day.

[Larrison]

Why will it take NASA 10 years to send a man back to the moon when it took less time with the Kenedy program, and we have already been there. I don't understand the problem? I also think we should have built a permanent space station on the moon rather than a temporary one in space.

I'm writing up a longer answer for Gav, but this one I can answer quickly. The difference is MONEY. In the Kennedy days, money was no object -- peak funding for the Apollo program was around $30 B per year in today's dollars. Heck, the Saturn V cost around $4B every time they launched a moon shot.

The lunary return program today is designed to cost well less than $10 B a year (the total NASA budget is only $15 B a year, and that includes aeronautic research, space science, the unmanned interplanetary stuff, and today the Shuttle and Space Station and everything else NASA does). NASA is hoping to move money now being spent on Shuttle and Space Station and spend it on going back to the moon and eventually to Mars, but they've been told they're not getting any more money than they get now in the future.

[Inquartata]

Rather than just dispersing the various functions of NASA to other government entities state and federal, I'd prefer to see it privatized. We can fund it with tax revenues if we as a nation deem its objectives worthwhile, but getting government out of administering it would be a good first step toward streamlining the space program...

[SJB]

Rather than just dispersing the various functions of NASA to other government entities state and federal, I'd prefer to see it privatized. We can fund it with tax revenues if we as a nation deem its objectives worthwhile, but getting government out of administering it would be a good first step toward streamlining the space program...

Ah yes.

Mc-Astronauts.

The General Motors Shuttle.

The Microsoft Moon.

[Inquartata]

And that is why the Soviet Union is no more: private solutions tend to outcompete government ones. You may deride the idea all you like, but you can't really refute it, can you?

[SJB]

And that is why the Soviet Union is no more: private solutions tend to outcompete government ones. You may deride the idea all you like, but you can't really refute it, can you?

As a pro-ponent of free enterpirse please provide me with examples where the privitization of an industry, water, power, transportation etc, where it has benefitted the public good versus those of stockholders.

Not to say I don't believe it doesn't happen but I know of no cases off hand.

[Slim]

As a pro-ponent of free enterpirse please provide me with examples where the privitization of an industry, water, power, transportation etc, where it has benefitted the public good versus those of stockholders.

Not to say I don't believe it doesn't happen but I know of no cases off hand.

You must be joking, yes?

So you're of the opinion it's one or the other? If stockholders benefit, surely the public must be getting screwed.

[Slim]

Ah yes.

Mc-Astronauts.

The General Motors Shuttle.

The Microsoft Moon.

You have a problem with this?

[Larrison]

As a pro-ponent of free enterpirse please provide me with examples where the privitization of an industry, water, power, transportation etc, where it has benefitted the public good versus those of stockholders.

Not to say I don't believe it doesn't happen but I know of no cases off hand.

The break up of AT&T? (admittedly this was not a government agency, but a regulated monopoly). Prices for phone service have come down substantially, the availability of phone service has not lessened, the variety of services available over the phone has multipled dramatically to include internet, TV signals (in competition with cable), wireless phone service (by the same provider as the wired phone folks), etc.

Not a clean case, but one worth discussing here I think.

Edit: Let me add another one. Wireless phone service in Mexico in competition with the government owned and operated wired phone service. The privatized wireless phone providers provided better services (including higher quality of connection), much faster connection time to start service (hours from signing the contract instead of months), more services (linked with the internet in many cases if you wanted it), and high quality of customer service. The difference was like night and day, according to the business cases I've read on it.

Edit2: France tried to include internet under their national telephone monopoly. There was only one type of terminal you could use, one set of applications you could run, etc. I'm trying to remember the name of it of the service, which I had the opportunity to experiment with on a business trip to Paris. The wildest part of it was that the French had to come up with new names for all the parts, which were not standard terminology anywhere else in the world, so you ended up guessing what some of the commands meant. Since that time I believe the French have relaxed their market controls so that other companies could come in an operate internet services over the french phone system and through other telecommunications media, and the quality, and variety of the offerings have gone up dramatically, while the cost of the service has gone down.

[Gav]

So Larrison; what is your opinion on the topic at hand?

[Larrison]

I hesistated to post this, since it turned out a bit longer than I thought it would... So be warned, its about 3 pages long...

Gav writes:
>I know that there a couple of guys on this board who have
>worked for NASA and sundry industries. What are your
>opnions (as insiders)? What are the opinions of others?
>Are Rutan and the like the way forward? Is Space the new
>"Indies"? Do we think that manned space flight is a good
>thing or should we just send probes?

Background: Since you wanted opinion on NASA and the
sundry industries in the space biz, let’s start with a bit
of background if you’ll indulge me?

The world space program is dominated by the US. There are
viable national space programs at around eight countries
(US, Europe, Japan, Russia, India, Japan, China, Israel),
and activities in over 100 different counties at some
level. But from a $$ perspective, around 50-60% of the
funds are spent by the US. Total world-wide space program
expenditures are around $100-130 billion per year. (Ref:
http://www.futron.com/pdf/AIA%20Spac...cil%202005.pdf,
and note the Futron data cited here does not include NASA
expenditures, nor things like GPS receivers or similar
services)

Right now there are 5 different types of space programs
around the world – Military, Scientific, Commercial,
Prestige programs and Enthusiasts. At some level there are
interactions between all types of programs, but let me
define what I mean by what’s in each one.

Military space programs – these are typically operational
infrastructure programs, providing communications,
reconnaissance, and navigation to military forces world
wide. You don’t hear much about these, and since these are
in general operational programs, they are in a phase of
very slow evolution – newer, better satellites are being
launched, but there’s not going to explosive growth or
radical changes in what people are doing in these programs.
I lump the weather satellites in this area, as it’s also a
government-funded infrastructure program. There’s maybe
$30 B a year expenditures in this, with the majority spent
by the US, and lower expenditures from Russia, Europe and
China, Japan and Israel. Some of this is lumped into the
Futron data, but I’d estimate about half isn’t.

Scientific Programs – These are typically government
financed “large science” programs, which launch satellites
to perform scientific studies, although you’ll see smaller
programs sponsored through many countries and universities
to do small specialty scientific satellites. Examples of
this include unmanned space probes, space telescopes, and
specific scientific satellites. Since these programs are
government funded (and noting almost all of the university
programs are funded by government grants), the only way
you’ll see a lot of growth in these space activities is
from a government pushing to increase funding levels in
this area. NASA is the big financier of these programs,
but ESA is almost as strong for scientific satellites, but
has not had the reputation for paying for cutting edge
science. I’d estimate maybe $5 B world wide for these.

Commercial Programs – Commercial programs are primarily
related to space communications, although there are a few
privately financed earth-observation systems (but most of
their sales go to government agencies). Total revenues
from commercial activities are now greater than NASA’s
budget, but most of the revenues do not come from building
or launching satellites, but from selling time on them or
selling the receivers and ground systems to use the
satellite communications services. Besides the well known
satellite TV and telecom, GPS-type navigation is now a
multi-billion dollar commercial market, but it uses a
military-funded system to provide its signal. Commercial
space revenues continue to grow at a very healthy rate, in
the 7% per year range. Depending upon how you count the
impact of the commercial space programs (for example, if
you include subsidiary revenues such as those of
broadcasters who rely up on satellite broadcasting,
additional enabled navigation solutions and the like, you
can get estimates of the commercial space revenues in the
$130-150 Billion dollar range by themselves. The Futron
study referenced above puts the business activities at
around $100 B using their methodology-- In comparison NASA
spends around $10-12 B per year on space activities, and
the US DoD in the $15 B range.

However, only about $3 B is spent in the launch business to
launch the satellites, and around $10 B to build
satellites. The rest is revenues from satellite services
and the sale of ground equipment like DBS TV receivers,
satellite radios and the like. I should note that
commercial space businesses while having some well
publicized failures (Iridium, Globalstar, etc.) has
attracted billions of dollars in strictly private
investment money, and there are good ways to generate LOTS
of investment capital, if you can structure a good business
case.

Prestige Programs are those done to enhance national
reputation and glory. Some folks lump these into
scientific programs, but I wanted to pull this out
separately. The largest example of this program is NASA’s
Space Shuttle and the International Space Station program.
These programs (which include substantial contributions by
NASA, ESA, Japan, and Russia among other countries) run
probably $12-15 B per year and aren’t included in the
Futron numbers, referenced above. The Shenzhou program in
China for example, is specifically a prestige program and
does not generate substantial military, scientific, or
commercial benefits. There is always an element of
scientific research in these programs, but in reality, it’s
done for prestige. We might see some growth in this area –
China’s Shenzhou program is stirring a bit of a reaction in
Japan, and slightly in the US. But the funding for this is
ultimately out of discretionary funding by national
governments, so I don’t see explosive growth in this area.
You’ll see neat stuff happening – but it’s going to be
reprogramming of existing budget levels most likely.

Lastly are the enthusiasts. I’d guess total expenditures
by the space enthusiasts to be around $50 M per year, of
which the largest single part is a single $15-20 M launch
of a private astronaut on a Russian Soyuz rocket. The
other expenditures by Rutan and elsewhere only run maybe
$10-20 M in aggregate (SpaceShipOne for example, cost
around $25-30 M in total, over a couple of years). And I
must note that while SS1 made it to Mach 3.5, you need to
get to Mach 25 to get to orbit. There’s a long way to go
for most of these folks to get to a product that going to
serve other than the enthusiast market, with very few
exceptions (one being SpaceX, being financed by Musk).
Most of the ventures in this area have been failures in the
long run – Beale Aerospace, Roton, etc. But I think you’re
going to see some growth in this area, and if things like
the Rocket Racing circuit and Space X actually make money
and some of the other activities pan out, you could see
these revenues doubling in a couple of years. That’s
pretty high growth – but, that would put them at maybe $100
M per year, compared to these other programs which are 10X
their size.

The challenge with these folks is they are high risk,
larger investments. They need to prove out some of the
markets, and some of the technologies/ systems to address
those markets, and then the investment money should start
flowing. Right now it’s a “trust me, the market will
appear” set of businesses being done by “True Believers”.
That’s a big risk …. But they are high visibility though…

So.. let’s go back and look at couple of Gav’s questions:

>[ .. ] Are Rutan and the like the way forward?

In the short term (like 10-20 years) I’d say no. In the
long term, yes. To get really a lot of additional activity
in space means that you have to get the ability to things
in space down to a well known routine, and get some really
useful applications or products going on in space, and
really reduce the barriers to people doing more in space.
In the long term, that’s what Rutan and the like are doing,
so I applaud that. But… we have to realistic about them as
well. It’s a fairly hard technical and engineering problem
to do things in space where you don’t know exactly how to
build things that might work, let alone do it cheaply. In
the last 10 years we’ve finally gotten to the point that in
a few areas, we know how to make things work in space and
how to repeatedly build things that work. They’re still
outrageously expensive, but we know how to do it. (It’s
what I call “handbook engineering” versus “R&D
engineering”)

As an example, for around $200 M or so I could go out and
put a team together to build a small unmanned expendable
payload launcher from scratch, capable of launching small
payloads (a few hundred pounds), with a reasonable
reliability (say 0.8). All the physics and engineering are
known, and a lot of parts and subsystems are available out
of manufacturer’s catalogs. Not cheap, but very
achievable. But from an investment standpoint—why do it?
The market is now oversupplied with launchers, and there’s
not a huge demand for payloads of that size… But it can
be done, given the money.

That’s part of why we’re seeing people like Bezos and Allen
and Beale and etc. launch boutique type space ventures. A
lot of them are going to fail – but each time they do we’ll
learn something more.

In the past I’ve worked with a bunch of the smaller space
entrepreneurs, and some of the bigger names in the
commercial space industry. And while I have a lot of
respect for these guys, I don’t think there’s a chance they
can replace NASA for its core programs in the next 10
years.

For the next 20 years or so, space is still going to be
dominated by government programs and the known commercial
market in telecomm. The challenge is to break down the
barriers to encourage more commercial and private
participation in existing programs, to build up a larger
cadre of folks who understand both business and the
technology of doing things in space, and to start
establishing new markets outside satellite communications.

> Is Space the new "Indies"?

In the long term, I think so. However, you’re talking 20+
years I think… We haven’t found the “spices” (very high
value products) that made the Indies trade so profitable
for the Dutch and English. [Aside: I just finished reading
“Nathanial’s Nutmeg” on the spice trade] We’re still
looking for it – folks have proposed space-manufactured
pharmaceuticals, space-manufactured electronic devices,
space tourism, solar power satellites, Helium 3 mining,
asteroid materials and a list of other things, but so far
we haven’t made the connection between product and market
in a big way.

Revenues from space products (direct revenues) have been
growing at around an average of 15% per year, for the last
two decades. That’s huge, and an amazing growth record.
If we can find that major new product or application, and
if we can tap into the large resources outside the
atmosphere, and if we figure out how to do this in a
relatively repeatable way, then we can see an explosion in
commerce and industry in space. But is it a way to get
rich quick now? Not really…. And still a long-shot bet.

>Do we think that manned space flight is a good thing or
>should we just send probes?

In the short term, it’s somewhat cheaper to do the initial
reconnaissance and limited exploration with robots. But in
the long term, there is nothing more useful than people and
their ability to reprogram and adapt to changes around
them, and modify what they are doing to maximize the
outcome. That includes exploration and any commercial
development as well – in the end we want to develop to the
point that people can live there, if they so desire.

>[Paraphrase] What about NASA?

NASA is the executor for 2 parts of the US’s space programs
– the Scientific program, and the Prestige program. For
the scientific program I don’t think you can really fault
them – what they’ve done is pretty impressive. (Conflict
of interest note: I’ve worked on a number of planetary
missions at one point or another, not as a NASA employee).
For the prestige program, you can argue something else
however.

All the arguments with NASA are with their prestige program
(eg, the man in space stuff), and the “inability” to
commercialize that. Without a market, you really can’t
commercialize man in space programs, since they are done
for non-market reasons (national prestige), so I have a
problem accepting “all you have to do is get NASA out of
the way and private business will take over”.

However, there are two things you can ding NASA for –
efficiency in expenditures, and technology transfer/
commercialization. Rather than eliminating NASA as was
suggested in the New Scientist article, I think it needs to
be radically restructured. NASA has always had the culture
that they want to do the projects themselves, internally –
and only use industry contractors where they can’t. In
contrast, I think the philosophy ought to be that NASA does
what it only necessarily has to, while maintaining the
required government contracts oversight. (This is more the
US Air Force way of doing space programs.) This moves NASA
out of the direct operational and design role, into more of
a contracts oversight role. With this, NASA needs to take
a much more commercial approach to how they do things – not
so much as in we’ll design it to the final drawing and just
let industry bid to make what we’ve designed, but to
specify broad requirements and then let industry bid on
competing approaches to satisfy the requirements. Having
worked with NASA as a contractor with several programs in
my past (including unmanned and manned programs) this would
be a big change. I’d also like some changes in how NASA
does business to allow them to use some more commercial-
like procurements, which would probably require some
changes in the NASA Federal contracting regulations (FAR),
but that’s awfully specific for this discussion.

The reason for all of this is technology transfer/
commercialization of NASA’s systems. If you compare the
NASA aeronautical research to the NASA space research its
obvious that NASA never sees itself as the operator and
manufacturer of aircraft, other than maybe a small, very
specific experimental research jet. But on the space
side, NASA still has the culture they will “own and
operate” space launch systems, and any in-space
infrastructure. That’s the wrong philosophy. So NASA
needs to get out of the day-to-day operational role with
these things – which I think would be cheaper for the
government in the long run.

For the Lunar/ Mars stuff, I think NASA needs to define its
requirements a little better (but not like a 1000 page
specification), and open itself up to a little more
commercial-type approaches. That’s also going to take some
working with Congress to change some of the FAR regulations
and perhaps also make some changes in the budgetary
allocations and scorings. But the big change is going to
be to hammer in some cultural changes at the 2 or 3 biggest
NASA space centers that do the work, and are the bastions
of the current NASA culture – Johnson Space Center near
Houston, Texas, and Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama (and to a lesser extent at Kennedy
Space Center, Florida). To do these cultural changes
you’ll have to work closely with Congress, since the
congressional delegations have tended to protect the work
at these NASA centers – but what I’m suggesting is not
reducing the money spent through those centers, just
changing it over from being spent on civil service
employees to contractors.

So.. NASA should not be eliminated. You need some
organization to run the Scientific and Prestige space
programs, but NASA needs to radically change how it sees
itself and its role in space development. NASA needs to
become more like a later stage VC investor, focusing on
developing the higher risk, long-term technology, and then
transitioning into becoming a good customer for commercial
entities to provide them the service and systems to
accomplish the prestige and scientific programs they are
chartered to do. This would provide a better basis for
eventual commercial growth, probably provide high quality
with lower cost through privatized operations, and also
allow a means for a commercial company to make some better
investments, since they can make a better business case for
doing so.

[Amadeus]

come now, the whole "man to mars" thing was talk and nothing else.

nasa said it would be nearly impossible. other scientists said it would be nearly impossible. it does not benefit us in any way, and it would cost a lot of money. and we don't have any money because we're busy fighting wars.

so don't expect a man on mars anytime soon.


(oh, and by "nearly impossible," i mean "possible with today's technology, but requiring ridiculous amounts of money")