Roger Tetrault, a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) that determined the causes of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003, warns against forgetting the lessons of Columbia in a letter to Representative Pete Olson (R-TX). Rep. Olson distributed the letter in a “Dear Colleague” missive to all members of the U.S. House of Representatives (the yellow highlighting in the Tetrault letter is in the Dear Colleague version).

Two other members of CAIB have publicly weighed in on the Obama plan and both support it. Former astronaut Sally Ride, who also was a member of the 2009 Augustine committee, participated in the NASA telecon when the FY2011 budget was released on February 1. George Washington University Professor Emeritus John Logsdon expressed his support in an op-ed for Space News in March.

Tetrault’s concern is that while the Constellation program was designed in response to the CAIB report, with safety as its primary design parameter, in his view the Obama plan is repeating history and its tragic results.

“America’s path in space is now threatened by the decisions being proposed in the NASA budget. We are cancelling a program built around the findings and lessons learned from Columbia. There is no clear mission or direction given to NASA, and the use of proven-technologies is being shunned. Further, the choice to commercialize our launch capability provides insufficient safety for the brave men and women that will be asked to ride these rockets. Surely, they deserve the best that we can provide.”

Space News and the Orlando Sentinel are reporting that NASA notified Congress today that it had sent letters to contractors on the Constellation program telling them to immediately reduce spending on the program to avoid violating the Anti-Deficiency Act. The reports say that the cutbacks could mean a loss of 2,500-5,000 jobs. The Orlando Sentinel says that ATK will be hardest hit, but Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, and Boeing also will be affected.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, issued a press release today taking NASA to task for the actions outlined in Administrator Bolden’s June 9 letter to Members of Congress. That letter describes NASA’s plans to scale back Constellation program activities because of funding shortfalls in FY2010. It also informs Congress that the agency reminded Constellation contractors of their obligations to absorb termination costs if the program is cancelled as President Obama proposes, with potential layoffs of 2,500-5,000 workers before the end of the fiscal year.

“The leadership of the world’s preeminent space agency has strained its credibility to the breaking point and something has to change,” she said. Among her complaints is the timing of NASA’s action. She points out that a bill (the FY2010 Supplemental Appropriations bill, H.R. 4899) recently passed the Senate that “clearly affirms Congressional direction that work [on Constellation] should continue.” The language in the Senate version of H.R. 4899 states that funds made available for Constellation in FY2010 and prior years “shall be available to fund continued performance of Constellation contracts” and NASA may not terminate those contracts “for convenience.” The FY2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 111-117) already prohibits NASA from spending funds to cancel Constellation or initiate a new program until directed to do so by Congress in a subsequent appropriations act.

It should be noted that under the WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, P.L. 100-379), in certain circumstances contractors must give 60 days notice to workers before layoffs can occur. With only three and a half months remaining in the fiscal year, if the WARN Act applies contractors would have to send out notifications soon, which might also have a bearing on the timing of NASA’s actions. Constellation supporters argue that NASA should not be cutting back on Constellation funding at all while Congress continues to debate the President’s proposal.

The text of the letter NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden sent to Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, and other Members of Congress yesterday is available here. The letter informs Congress that NASA is facing a shortfall in Constellation funding for FY2010 and is reprioritizing FY2010 activities. NASA also is reminding contractors again that they are responsible for managing all costs associated with the contracts, including potential termination costs.

The letter states that after taking into account potential termination costs and other constraints on Constellation’s FY2010 budget, the program is facing a $991 million shortfall for FY2010 and therefore NASA cannot continue all of its planned FY2010 activities. Otherwise the agency would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act (which essentially says that government agencies cannot spend money that they do not have). The letter states that the contractor workforce will be reduced by “30-60 percent, or 2,500-5,000, for the balance of the year.”

The letter lists the Constellation activities that will not be supported, or for which funding will be reduced, for the rest of FY2010 as follows:

• “Ares: The program will generally provide no additional funding for the first stage
  contract, descope remaining contracts, and reduce support contractor levels.
• “Orion: The program will adjust prime contract work, suspend planned
  procurements, and defer and reduce non-prime contract efIort.
• “Ground Ops: The project scope will be reduced by $89 million. Reductions will
  be made in support contractor levels, task order scope and, operating cost. Effort
  will be made to preserve work to enable flight test strategy but with schedule
  impact.
• “Mission Ops: The project scope will be reduced by $12 million. Reductions will
  be made in planned program content.
• “Extra-Vehicular Activity: The program will delay the Preliminary Design
  Review for the prime suit, as well as reduce in prime and non-prime content.
• “Program Integration: The project scope will be reduced by S31 million.
  Reductions will be made in support contractor levels.”

Quoting Woody Allen’s famous line — “One path leads to despair, the other to destruction. Let’s hope we choose wisely.” — Dan Baker wrapped up a one-day symposium on how the scientific community and the federal government are dealing with the potentially catastrophic effects of a major space weather event. Dr. Baker heads the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder and will head the new National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey on Solar and Space Physics.

The comment pretty much captured the mood at the meeting, which was sponsored by the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research. Speaker after speaker emphasized the challenge of getting the attention of the public and policymakers to the potentially catastrophic impacts of such a low probability event.

NASA, NOAA and their international counterparts have many spacecraft designed to study the sun and improve the ability to forecast coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that could disable or destroy satellite systems like the Global Positioning System (GPS) and government and commercial communications satellites, not to mention terrestrial systems like the electric power grid. Dealing with the consequences is another matter. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator W. Craig Fugate emphasized the need to build resiliency into systems that could be disrupted. He also rued the fact that no one is unambiguously in charge of dealing with the impacts of such disruptions.

Dr. Chris Beck, a staff member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that a bill (H.R. 5026) that includes provisions related to protecting the electric power grid from space weather events (“geomagnetic storms” in the language of the bill) is expected to be debated in the House tomorrow.

Overall, the message was that no one in the government is in charge of dealing with the effects of disruptions caused by solar storms. Not only does that need to be fixed, but it is critical for the scientific community to develop better ways to forecast the storms and communicate to policymakers the siginificant harm that could result from them.

The NRC’s Space Studies Board (SSB) published a report last year on the societal and economic impacts of space weather. Dr. Baker chaired that study and is also chair of the SSB’s standing Committee on Solar and Space Physics. SSB Senior Program Officer Art Charo announced at the meeting today that Dr. Baker will chair the new NRC Decadal Survey on Solar and Space Physics, with Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen of the University of Michigan as co-chair. That report is due on March 31, 2012. Dr. Charo is the study director.