On April 25-26, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Air and Space Museum held an event commemorating 50 years of human spaceflight (HSF). Presenters led discussions on a variety of topics that considered new ways to look at past events, questioned some long-held assumptions, and offered glimpses of what to expect of the future of HSF.

Michael F. Robinson of the University of Hartford set the tone of the conference by offering an interesting suggestion: dispensing with the frontier analogy of the westward expansion in America to understand U.S. HSF efforts. Instead, he offered the exploration of the Arctic as a more useful parallel. In contrast to space, the expansion to the West was primarily motivated by economic and social development and was always conceived as “not just a place to explore, but a place to settle.” Consequently, “we need to abandon this idea that extreme space will be a place where we can develop self-sustaining colonies” and embrace the idea of space as an “extreme, essentially uninhabitable” environment. The Arctic “gives us a sense of where space exploration could go,” because its exploration, while relevant in terms of cultural impact, did not lead to the same kind of radical economic and political consequences enabled by the expansion to the West. Moreover, it suggests a way forward in terms of funding. Robinson believes that space exploration is driven by similar primarily spiritual and psychological payoffs with little public value and thus is unlikely to win substantial government support; therefore, if it is to be done, the money will have to come from private rather than public sources. He cited Robert Peary’s 1909 North Pole expedition as an example. The federal government was stepping back from funding such exploration missions because of waning interest, he explained, and Peary was funded primarily by private sources.

During a later session, James Spiller of the State University of New York’s College at Brockport, offered another explanation of why the frontier motif, so resonant in the 1960s, may no longer be relevant. Viewing space as the next frontier is not a “natural way” to frame the rationale for a HSF program, he said, and is salient only in the historical context of the shock of the 1957 Sputnik launch. Spiller suggested that elements implied in this theme such as an expected economic bonanza made it fitting for the anxieties of that time and turned HSF into a powerful tool to make meaningful a costly Cold War program. Yet these underlying elements faded away quickly, he said. Spiller described his beliefs about what he considers other implied elements of the motif, such as manifest destiny, racial supremacy and progress against nature and savage peoples that in his view were subsequently weakened by the civil rights movement of the 1960s, modern environmentalism, and the Vietnam War. The rise and fall of the frontier motif as a compelling argument for HSF can thus be traced back to its alignment with the mood of the nation at the time and is best described, not as an inevitable analogy, but as a “cyclical historical construct,” he said.

Underlying this discussion was the larger issue of public engagement, which was repeatedly brought up during the conference. NASA’s Amy Kaminski, for example, spoke about the agency’s short-lived spaceflight participant program for the Space Shuttle. Kaminski recounted how, after Apollo, NASA saw the need to make the HSF program “relevant to people.” By 1980, the agency had succeeded in fostering public expectation that one day anybody would be able to access space aboard the Shuttle and that it would be akin to flying in an airplane. NASA eventually created a program to choose non-astronauts who would fly aboard the Shuttle. In 1985, NASA Administrator James Beggs announced the selection of a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, and later confirmed that the second participant would be a journalist. All of this though, became “moot,” said Kaminski, after the Challenger disaster in 1986. The accident “shattered” the image of technological optimism of the Shuttle, conveying instead the high risk involved. From a safety standpoint, subsequent administrations “questioned [the] appropriateness of flying citizens.” Yet although the agency eliminated the program, Kaminski argued that the spaceflight participant program did succeed in bringing NASA and the public together, noting the level of excitement surrounding the Challenger flight prior to the tragedy. Kaminski said that the legacy of the Space Shuttle spaceflight participant program is a passion among educators for HSF, and noted that at least three astronauts with education backgrounds have been recruited by NASA as fully trained “educator astronauts” since then. (One of those is Barbara Morgan, who was the backup to McAuliffe.) Kaminski further noted that the selection of a teacher was a smart move because “it was her presence that fulfilled [the] aim of connecting the agency with the public.” Since education involves everyone, NASA succeeded in making the Challenger flight relevant to all. The success was, of course, severely limited and the question remains: how many more citizens would have flown had Challenger succeeded?

Former NASA Chief Historian, Steve Dick, in turn, talked about exploration, discovery and science, and how they affect public perception of HSF initiatives. He began by explaining how those words, often used interchangeably, refer to different activities. Exploration, he said, is searching for something new, discovery is finding something new, and science is explaining something new. The point of understanding the difference is to realize that “when they occur together, the result is more than the sum of their parts.” Looking at the Shuttle through this lens, he concluded that it was not “a robust exploration vehicle,” and while science was performed onboard, neither scientists nor the public see it as important as Apollo. Dick explained that the Shuttle was “not conceived as a science project,” and the Shuttle not being involved in discovery or exploration, also played a part. Thinking of the Shuttle as a “social experiment,” Dick concluded that “science without exploration or discovery is not enough to sustain public support.” Taking a lesson from the Shuttle, the United States “should take the path that best combines science, exploration and discovery,” which he believes means going beyond low-Earth orbit once more.

A session on international initiatives offered a glimpse of the rationale and activities of other countries involved in HSF efforts. The Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng offered a review of the history of China’s HSF program which, like that of the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1960s, is mostly driven by prestige. Cheng noted that the Chinese HSF program experienced a “rocky start” due to constrained human, technological, and financial resources, but that it has contributed to China becoming a “space power of first rank.” In terms of rationale, China views HSF as a “natural result” of the increasing complexity of space activities, Cheng said, adding pointedly that there is “no space race today for human spaceflight.”

India’s recent announcement of plans to pursue its own HSF program were also discussed. Ashok Maharaj of Georgia Tech suggested that India would benefit by dispensing with the idea of a race altogether. Maharaj described India’s progress in space and its efforts in creating a “custom-made” program to suit the primary goal of socio-economic development. It was only at the end of 2003 that India began to enlarge this vision to allow for the possibility of its own HSF program to become part of the mix. Similar to China, India sees HSF as the next logical step in maturing the program, he said. India is also pursuing HSF to avoid being “left out,” and to “represent the Third World” in this pursuit. With respect to the space race paradigm, “starting late has its advantages,” argued Maharaj and went on to enumerate some of the lessons India has gleaned from the experience of other countries. More to the point, he said that China has already achieved key HSF milestones and would be too far ahead by the time India is able to launch an astronaut into orbit. Instead of rushing to catch up, he said, India should move ahead in HSF for its own benefit, striving to achieve HSF milestones without compromising its other space-related activities.

Witnesses at today’s hearing by the House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics argued that the biggest obstacle to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) human space exploration program is policy instability. The relative priority given to either commercial- or government-developed and operated options to transition from the Space Shuttle to the next generation human space transportation system was the biggest issue of contention.

Committee members reiterated that through the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, Congress had explicitly laid out its preference for NASA to develop a heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV) and a Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) to explore beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) and to serve as backup for commercial crew transportation services to the International Space Station if those commercial services fail to materialize. “The debate is over,” said Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), chairman of the full committee.

Nevertheless, the Administration’s FY2012 budget request released in February, as well as subsequent statements from NASA officials, suggest a continuing lack of consensus on this issue. Providing an industry perspective, Mr. James Maser said that “this perilous unknown” renders the transition even riskier than the 1970’s transition from Apollo to the space shuttle. “We need that vision, that commitment, that certainty right now,” he urged, saying that industry is “ready to help any way we can but the clock is ticking.” Mr. Maser is President of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, builder of the J-2X engine that was to be used for the Constellation program, but testified today in his capacity as chairman of the Corporate Membership committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Mr. Doug Cooke, Associate Administrator of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD), said that NASA is “aggressively addressing the specifics required in the Authorization Act,” having already selected reference designs for both the HLLV and MPCV. He said that NASA hopes to provide Congress with specific timelines and decisions on the development of these vehicles in the next couple of months, potentially by late June.

Even with such assurances, some remained unconvinced that NASA was moving in a clear direction forward, particularly with respect to the requirements of the HLLV. While the Act requires the HLLV to provide a 130 ton lift capability, Mr. Maser pointed to recent statements by NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden about how that capability may be unnecessary in the near term. As a result, said Mr. Maser, there is widespread “industry confusion” because what industry hears from NASA is only what it “does not want or cannot do.”

Dr. Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former NASA official, argued that this transition is “the most immediate and critical task” of the human spaceflight program, and also elaborated on the widespread effects of the confusion and uncertainty. To a question about how Congress can make the agency adhere to the law, Dr. Pace and others suggested that this direction ought to be reflected in the appropriations legislation. Acting-ranking member of the subcommittee Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL) said he agreed that the way to ensure the agency follows through with congressional direction “is through the appropriations process,” and he urged the other members of the subcommittee to make certain that appropriators “understand that.”

During a discussion today at the Library of Congress organized by Women in Aerospace (WIA), panelists compared the Obama Administration’s FY2012 budget request with the priorities laid out in the 2010 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Authorization Act. Most argued that the request represents a mismatch in funding priorities and raises a lot of concern.

One panelist, referring to the “unrest” caused by the FY2011 budget request last year, said that “once again the administration misread the mood of Congress” and that the FY2012 request has “absolutely zero chance of being approved by Congress.”

The event, titled “The NASA Authorization Act of 2010: How Did We Get Here? What’s Next?” took place under the Chatham House rule that prohibits identifying who said what. Instead, “participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.” The names of the panelists were circulated by WIA, however. All are congressional staff except for one person from NASA.

The Authorization Act was described as a compromise between the Administration and Congress, the culmination of a difficult process that eventually gave NASA “a clear direction.” Nevertheless, some panelists believe that the FY2012 request released last month diverges from the Act by proposing a reduction to the authorized funding for development of a new launch vehicle and crew capsule (called Human Space Capabilities in the budget request) for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, but an increase over the authorized amount for the commercial crew transportation initiative. Participants said that Congress would continue imposing strong oversight to ensure that the priorities laid out in the Act are met. One panelist stated that the Administration should not believe that there is a pathway forward different from what was directed in the Act, adding that there is “no interest in renegotiating that framework.”

While Congress will have its say on the FY2012 budget request in the coming months, uncertainty remains about FY2011, which is being funded by a series of short-term Continuing Resolutions (CRs). One participant, while offering no good news with respect to the likelihood of a budget being approved for the balance of the year, said that cuts included in H.R. 1 were prompted by an emphasis on deficit reduction and not by targeting NASA or other agencies specifically. On a cautionary note, though, the panelist added that stakeholders should be well aware of the impacts of these “across-the-board-cuts” on specific programs, as these will probably continue. H.R. 1 was a full-year CR that passed the House last month, but was defeated in the Senate.

With budget constraints the order of the day for the foreseeable future, another panelist agreed that there would be no “major plus-ups” for NASA or any other agency in the coming years, except perhaps the Department of Defense. The way forward, this person suggested, is to implement the direction already agreed upon in the Authorization Act.

During today’s hearing of the House Science, Space & Technology Committee (HSS&T), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator Charles Bolden was sharply questioned on the priorities reflected in the President’s FY2012 budget request. Members repeatedly said the request does not follow Congress’s directives for the agency as laid out in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, particularly with respect to human spaceflight.

Chairman Ralph Hall (R-TX) began the hearing saying that “the Administration’s FY2012 budget proposal completely flips the priorities of the Act, significantly increasing Commercial Crew funding while making deep cuts to the Human Exploration Capabilities accounts.” Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), ranking member of the Committee, echoed this sentiment saying, “I had thought the Administration agreed with the compromise [agreed to in the Authorization], but I’m afraid I do not see it reflected in the NASA budget request.”

Although some Members attempted to get Bolden to speculate on the impact of cuts that were contained in the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed by the House on February 19, he declined to do so because they are not final yet. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) quizzed Bolden about whether the White House or NASA informed Congress of the potential impact of a $300 million reduction adopted during floor debate, asserting that Republicans had tried to protect NASA while Democrats had not. The amendment was offered by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Gen. Bolden said he would provide an answer for the record about what NASA did or did not tell Congress in that regard.

Brooks neglected to mention that the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee also cut about $300 million from NASA’s budget in the bill they sent to floor. Thus, that CR (H.R. 1) contains a total cut of $601 million from NASA’s FY2010 spending level. Congress continues to consider that CR, which would last through the end of FY2011. It passed a different CR (H. J. Res. 44) this week to fund the government through March 18; that one does not contain NASA-specific cuts.

The main issue of contention during the hearing, however, was the agency’s decision to request more money for development of commercial crew services for transport to low Earth orbit (LEO) than authorized in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act and less for a new NASA-developed Space Launch System (also called a heavy lift launch vehicle–HLLV) and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Members asked whether NASA would comply with the directive in the law to fly a new HLLV and crew capsule by 2016.

Gen. Bolden explained that with budget constraints in mind and with safety still his number one priority, commercial transport to LEO remains the Administration’s preferred option. Development of the HLLV and crew capsule are for exploration missions beyond LEO, he said, and while they would serve as backup for LEO access if commercial ventures fail, it would be expensive to use them for that purpose. Developing them by 2016 is “difficult” under current budget constraints, he said, and NASA would be “challenged no matter how much money you give us.” An interim report sent to Congress by NASA in January on the preliminary designs for the two systems said the agency could not build them on the timescale and within the funding level authorized in the law.

A summary of the hearing will be available on SpacePolicyOnline.com soon.

Officials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) outlined the key features of a solicitation for proposals for an independent, nonprofit research management organization to foster and manage the use of the International Space Station (ISS) as a National Laboratory yesterday.

Mark Uhran, ISS assistant associate administrator, explained that since 2005 when the ISS was designated by law as a national laboratory, 50 percent of the U.S. portion of the ISS has been made available for research by non-NASA entities, such as universities, private firms, and other government agencies. Based on another law, the 2010 NASA authorization act, the agency is now seeking to create an organization to manage this non-NASA research. He clarified that NASA will maintain control of the other 50 percent necessary for pursuing its own goals, which are focused on basic scientific research, biomedical human research, and technology development.

Marybeth Edeen, manager of NASA’s ISS National Laboratory Office, explained that as part of its role, the new non-profit organization will carry out the “announcement-proposal, review-selection process” for use of the national laboratory, making recommendations to NASA about which researchers to select. Uhran said the organization should be in place by the end of this fiscal year, with activities ramping up as commercial transportation systems to the ISS come on line in the next 12-18 months. With a $15 million budget for the national laboratory, the relatively small organization – 15-25 people – will be tasked with communicating with potential user communities, managing agreements, as well as overseeing the execution of approved projects.

Uhran explained that progress on using the ISS as a national lab is very important because it will fulfill the vision of a station “built not solely for NASA usage.” He said the goal is to “maximize [ISS’s] value to the American public” for their investment and that its long-term productivity will be measured both by NASA and non-NASA usage. Creation of the non-profit organization will “be an important step in ensuring that that productivity is realized,” he added.

The deadline for proposals is April 1, 2011 and selection will be made by the end of May.

During today’s plenary lecture at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference in Washington, D.C., Dr. John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Adviser to the President, said that “NASA has been a big challenge.”

Holdren’s speech was a status report on the Obama Administration’s progress on science, technology, and innovation policy. Though the talk focused on federal initiatives in other fields, such as energy and education policy, Holdren spoke for a few minutes about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Referencing the Bush Administration’s Moon-and-Mars focused Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), Holdren said the Obama Administration had inherited a program in disarray in an agency that was largely dispirited after “years of mismatch of resources and vision.” Because the VSE was not properly funded, NASA’s scientific activities were “gutted [to] feed [the] Constellation [Program],” referring to the program developed to implement the VSE. He described the Obama Administration’s alternative plan for NASA, unveiled and hotly debated since February of last year, which cancelled the Constellation program, extended the International Space Station, and opted to rely on the commercial sector for human space transportation to low Earth orbit. This, he said, was a “comprehensive plan to balance NASA’s programs.”

Holdren later mentioned the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, signed last year, which he described as “a compromise.” While it “reflected Congressional preference for using existing technologies [and] contracts” for building a heavy lift launch vehicle, he said he was pleased because it had “a lot of what we wanted in it.”

Carrying out the mandates of the Authorization Act, of course, requires funding. Holdren said he hoped Congress would approve a FY2012 budget, speaking to the fact that because Congress so far has failed to approve a budget for FY2011, most agencies have been operating under a continuing resolution since October when FY2011 began. He said the President’s FY2012 budget request, released last Monday, “funds every element of the Authorization,” but he admitted that its outcome is still very much uncertain.

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble space telescope announced yesterday the discovery of what may be the oldest observed object in the universe: a galaxy that existed around 500 million years after the Big Bang. They also argued that while observations with Hubble would continue, only its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), would allow them to observe even further back in time.

In 2009, during Hubble’s last servicing mission, astronauts fitted the telescope with the Wide Field Camera 3, which provided scientists with new opportunities for studying the universe. Garth Illingworth, from the University of California-Santa Cruz, explained that WFC-3 allowed researchers to look back 96% of the 13.7 billion years of the age of the universe. With observations taken over one and a half years, an international team of researchers took the farthest infrared image ever of the universe and found a faint object believed to be a galaxy. Rychard Bouwens, University of Leiden (Netherlands), explained that using the new capabilities researchers found the compact galaxy of blue stars because they were looking for it: “this [was] not a blind search,” he said.

Their search revealed something else: missing galaxies. It was “the dog that didn’t bark,” said Rachel Somerville, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble. She explained that observations taken at later time periods led researchers to expect to find many young, blue stars when glimpsing this earlier period. Instead they found at least ten times fewer the number of galaxies expected, which would only account for 12% of the level of radiation at that stage of galaxy evolution. It is a “mystery” that she said the JWST would hopefully help solve once it is launched. Because the number of galaxies found at later periods – at 650 million and 800 million years after the Big Bang, for example- is considerably higher, the Hubble finding suggests that galaxy population was “evolving very rapidly” and that the rate of star birth must have increased dramatically between 500 and 650 million years after the Big Bang, a relatively “short” period.

“[We’re] pushing Hubble to its limits here,” explained Illingworth, who added that Hubble would be unable to observe the universe at any earlier time. JWST, however, is designed to do just that. He added that the findings announced today were “striking and wonderful,” and would be a powerful source for JWST to look at.

An independent review of the JWST program in 2010 revealed that “budgeting and program management” issues had led to significant cost and schedule growth, delaying JWST’s launch until at least 2015. NASA is currently performing a more detailed internal analysis of the program to determine what resources are needed to fix the program. Whether JWST will receive those resources and maintain a 2015 launch date remains to be seen. Some astronomers are concerned that money may be diverted from other NASA astrophysics projects in order to pay for the JWST cost growth.

It seemed only fitting that at last Friday’s presentation of a book dedicated to all of his students – past and present – it would be a former student, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, who would set the stage for Dr. John Logsdon’s latest publication: John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon. Garver, who was Logsdon’s student at the George Washington University before he founded the Space Policy Institute in 1987, said it was that experience that really started her career in space and without it “I would not be in the position I am now.”

She recalled the discussion back in 1998 that led the NASA History Office, with her backing as the Associate Administrator for Policy and Plans and that of NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, to provide the initial support for what became the book presented Friday night. “NASA rewrites textbooks,” she said, and the continuation of Logsdon’s research – which began in 1970 with publication of his seminal book on the birth of the Apollo Program, The Decision to go to the Moon – was an opportunity to do just that.

Dr. Logsdon’s new book addresses three questions: why did the United States decide to go to the Moon, what did President John F. Kennedy do to make it happen, and what was the relevance of the event to today’s situation. The first of these was the focus of the 1970 book, but as the preface to the new book recounts, Logsdon later realized that there was something missing. His desire to complete a more comprehensive study of President Kennedy and the space program was born out of the realization that he had not included the importance of Kennedy’s leadership through his assassination in 1963 “that generated the political will needed to mobilize the financial and human resources which made the lunar landing program possible.” Logsdon wanted the opportunity to showcase how the decision to go to the Moon was much more than just a decision.

“Presidents have to make decisions and stick with them,” Logsdon said, and exposed the audience to several occasions when Kennedy worded the importance of keeping that commitment to a program that was much more difficult and expensive than is often remembered. When compared to the 1961 NASA budget, the 1962 budget saw an 89% increase, and the 1963 budget increased 101% over that. To put that in context, the Apollo program would cost $151 billion in 2010 dollars, compared to the $8.1 billion that took to build the Panama Canal or the $128 billion involved in building the Interstate Highway System. It was “the largest peacetime mobilization of resources” in the history of the country, Logsdon said, and it is a mistaken assumption to think that back then maintaining that level of support was any easier than today. Even during the 1961 speech, in the sections that are often overlooked, Kennedy spoke with conviction about the magnitude of the effort required. “Presidents don’t talk that way very much anymore,” commented Logsdon.

As Garver said, Logsdon’s account will, in a sense, rewrite textbooks. In it he illuminates another interesting fact that is often overlooked (or forgotten) by those involved in space activities when remembering the events — that for President Kennedy competition with the Soviet Union was the second option. During his January 1961 inaugural address, as Kennedy spoke about nations “who would make themselves our adversary,” he said “together, let us explore the stars,” one of the tell-tale signs of Kennedy’s interest in space cooperation. Logsdon recounted how Kennedy raised the possibility of space cooperation with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in their one and only meeting in June 1961. Khrushchev declined, but Kennedy made the offer again during a speech at the United Nations just two months before his assassination.

What would have happened if Kennedy had lived and Khrushchev agreed to cooperate, Logsdon wonders. “But [you] can’t rerun history or run it differently,” he said. At the very least Logsdon’s new book will enable readers to put the Apollo program and Kennedy’s role in its beginnings in context, and perhaps understand that history better.

John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon is published by Palgrave Macmillan and is part of the Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology.