Augustine Panel Public Meeting 1: Information Rich, No Bombshells

The Augustine panel held a public meeting today in Washington, D.C. The day-long meeting was jam-packed with briefings from NASA, the Aerospace Corp., the COTS companies (SpaceX and Orbital), and representatives of companies and groups promoting alternatives to the Ares launch vehicles. A teleconference was held with the heads of the European Space Agency (Jean-Jacques Dordain) and Roscosmos (Gen. Anatoliy Perminov) who both were in Paris. The President’s Science Adviser, John Holdren, opened the meeting, and later Representative Pete Olson (R-TX) and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) spoke to the panel in person, with letters from Representative Ralph Hall (R-TX) and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) read aloud to the assemblage. The political folks stressed the importance of the panel’s deliberations to both the White House and Congress. Several members of the audience commented during two “public comment” opportunities. The day’s most interesting tidbits were —

• the cost of the Constellation program through Initial Operational Capability in 2015 is estimated at $35 billion with a 65% confidence level. NASA had planned to spend an additional $9 billion on lunar systems development, but the panel will need to decide whether that will occur.
• the Aerospace Corp.’s study on using EELVs instead of Ares 1 is pretty much as described in Monday’s issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology.
• ESA’s Jean-Jacques Dordain stressed that the 18 nations that are members of ESA will never approve increased funding for human spaceflight “to the detriment of space science and applications” funding, so if Europe is to participate in future human spaceflight endeavors, the decision must be taken at higher levels in European government who can provide additional funding.
• Dordain and Perminov both stressed that the International Space Station should continue beyond 2015. Perminov said 2020 at a minimum, while Dordain recommended that the ISS partners assess every three years whether the benefits of the ISS outweigh the costs and only when they do not should the ISS be terminated.
• Dordain stressed that international space partnerships must remain open to new partners, mentioning China, India and South Korea in particular.
• Steve Metschan, speaking for DIRECT, declined to name those who are involved in the design, even after a panel member noted that it is difficult for the panel to evaluate the DIRECT concept without knowing who is responsible for the technical analysis. Mr. Metschan said that even he does not know everyone since they are taking advantage of electronic media and anonymity is essential to avoid retribution.

NASA promised to post all the Powerpoints and minutes on the panel’s website (http://hsf.nasa.gov) very soon.