NASA budget for 2015: Same old, same old......cuts, cuts, cuts

[LongTomH]

This is a few days old; but, still very relevant. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy fame, comments on the way Congress is taking an axe to NASA's funding: Another Year Another Set of Bizarre Cuts to NASA's budget:

Every year, when NASA releases its White House budget request, I open the report with dread. Will it show that things are roughly the same as last year, or will there be more bad news, with slashes and cuts to vital programs?

And this year, like every other, I read it to find … both.

The Fiscal Year 2015 NASA budgetary request is hammered out by the White House with input from the space agency. It is a request; it's not final. Congress must put together its own budget, and then the two are thrown into a pit to see what can be agreed upon, what can be reconciled, and what compromises can be found. Think of it as a baseline for the actual budget which will hopefully be finalized later this year.

.............//snip

In these maddening economic times, small cuts can be considered victories. In 2014 NASA got a total of $17.646 billion. The 2015 request is for $17.460 billion, a reduction of $186 million dollars, or about a 1 percent cut. That could’ve been worse. As we’ll see, though, it’s where those cuts are going that are bad.

Some areas like Space Technology and Commercial Spaceflight will get increases:

Commercial Spaceflight will see an increase of more than $150 million to a total of $848 million. That includes buying launches from commercial companies like SpaceX, and I’m all for that. That comes with a $300 million reduction to the Exploration Systems Development, the category that includes developing the Orion crew capsule and the Space Launch System, the next-generation rocket. I am not a big fan of the SLS, since I don’t think it pushes boundaries like NASA should be doing; these types of capabilities may be better handled by private companies that can do so more cheaply, motivated by NASA funding (interestingly, former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver has reportedly had similar doubts about SLS). This is a complex political football, though. Still, I have no doubt this will continue to get a large chunk of funding for the next few years.

This is an area I strongly agree with Phil (and fellow L-5/NSS alumnus Lori Garver) on: I really despise the proposed Space Launch System; it recycles older tech, like the solid rocket boosters that are required for any big NASA launcher since the Space Shuttle program. For a while, NASA engineers were allowed to propose new ideas, like liquid-fuel boosters based on the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). But, since the early 80s, every time new missions were proposed, they were always some variant of what was called 'Shuttle-C' (for Cargo) or 'Shuttle-Z' or whatever. Always two SRBs on the side of a Shuttle External Tank, usually with an engine module derived from SSME's. The Space Launch System makes a few changes to the core concept; but, it's still based on SRB's.

Why am I so up in arms about the use of SRB's? It's not just that they're obsolescent, 1972 technology. I could defend use of the old, reliable F1 and J2 liquid rocket engines used on the Saturn 5. The SRB's are:

1) Inherently unreliable and dangerous. Read Dr. Richard Feynman's commentary on the Rogers Commission report, starting about the fourth paragraph.

2) They were a major driver of Space Shuttle cost. Simply stacking the SRB's at the Cape required about 6,000 man-hours.

The only reason for using solids on a crew-carrying vehicle was the influence of what G. Harry Stine called: "The Utah Connection." Utah is where Morton-Thiokol (now ATK), maker of the SRB's, is located. The Utah Connection is still powerful, witness NASA's addiction to SRB technology.

Let SpaceX and its competitors handle transport to the ISS and for future deep-space missions; let NASA fund cutting edge space technology. Let's go to the planets with 21st Century technology, not 1972 technology.

[longship]

1. Planetary Radio also did a special episode on the new NASA budget.

It is about 36 minutes long and breaks it down.

NASA FY2015 Budget

Planetary Radio is the radio program/podcast put out by the Planetary Society co founded by Carl Sagan. It's a good one.

R&K

[Warren DeMontague]

2. I agree with you. The Falcon X heavy promises to be far more revolutionary.

I always wondered what was behind the obsession with the damn SRBs. i assumed- wrongly, I guess- that they had to be cheaper.

I'm glad NASA is focusing on heavy lift- it should- but I am disappointed if The SLS is not to be all it could be.

i suppose arguments can and will be made that the real safety gains will come from putting the crew back on top of the stack, rather than on the side.

[Johonny]

3. They are cheap technology and they more or less work

which is why Europe is proposing to use them MORE, China is proposing to use them MORE, etc... I know people like to assume there is magic space technology in propulsion in the future but honestly there aren't many systems out there to compete for cheapness in launch assist than these solid rocket motors which is why everyone uses them, is developing them or is thinking about expanding their use. See Ariane VI development and VEGA or Chinese new all Solid Long March under development. It just isn't the US it is the whole world using these things for a reason ($$). For the record their performance is iffy compared to bipropellant motors but moving parts cost weight and $$.

The real hidden memo not in that post is the OZONE destruction. But in a world where $$$ cuts are real, solid rocket motors will have a lot of people's ears because they are relatively cheap (I.E. we built a shit load of them in the cold war).

Personally I was glad EELV downsized solids and don't long to see more large solid motor that burn substantially above the troposphere, but that is from the environmental side of things.

[LongTomH]

4. Actually, you don't really need heavy lift for most proposed missions.

An organization called Mars Drive is proposing low-cost Mars missions using smaller modules launched by rockets like SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy.

As for putting the crew on top rather than on the side of the stack: The real safety issues with solid rocket boosters are:

1. Once you light the candle, your crew is obliged to ride out the burn. Any ejection system is of little use during that burn.
   
2. Solid rockets have an inherent failure rate of at least 1% (Richard Feynman quoted a much higher number) and that failure is usually catastrophic.

Liquid rockets fail too; but, they can be shut off by the crew. If the launcher is a multi-engine type, the malfunctioning engine can be shut off and, frequently, the mission can still be completed. That was a feature of Saturn 5, the Space Shuttle's Main Engine array and SpaceX's Falcon 9 family of vehicles.

I would add: Quite a few Apollo-era engineers left NASA when they learned that the Space Shuttle would rely on solid rocket boosters.

I'll continue this tomorrow - right now, I'm tired.

[Moostache]

5. The NASA budget should be mandated to START at $100B and rise $-for-$ with defense.

To justify this added budget, I would give NASA a series of new directives and missions - landing on Mars, creating battery technology that would usher in major advances in solar and wind energy distribution and storage, eliminating the SRB systems 100% by 2020...

I am so sick and tired of the foolishness of our collective choices over the last 30+ years. We should have been doing science and energy and space research under the NASA banner ever since the Shuttle was first flown...we should be developing three generations down stream from where we are and its to our lasting and historical shame that TRILLIONS of dollars were easily found and handed out to war profiteers and bankers in the last 15 years, yet the scientists, teachers and innovators were essentially told to go pound sand...

Humanity is ill-served by our current overlords of greed. May debilitating illnesses strike them all. Preferably with diseases that COULD have been saved if the funding had gone towards basic R&D and discovery that would have prevented it.