The LA Times wants NASA TV to “Liven Up.”

“Coverage of topics like space exploration and the Earth should be mesmerizing. Instead, there’s too much technical detail and silence,” complains David Ferrell in an article today. Among the live coverage of events that he criticizes is the LCROSS splatdown earlier this year that apparently disappointed many from a visual standpoint, despite the terrific science it accomplished.

“The discovery this fall of water on the moon — one of the most significant moments in the history of science — offered an especially revealing glimpse of NASA Television on the job. The achievement involved smashing a 5,000-pound probe into the moon at 5,600 mph and analyzing readings from the resulting plume of dust and vapor.

“Befitting its growing awareness of the world looking on, NASA TV later put its coverage on YouTube. However, the soundtrack is filled with technical gibberish as scientists ready their instruments, and the impact itself is virtually invisible.”

Editor’s Note: Granted, NASA TV is not Nova or the National Geographic channel. If it were, commentators probably would simply criticize NASA for spending taxpayer dollars on public relations. This definitely is a no-win situation for NASA.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending that NASA increase user outreach and centralize decision-making to enhance the use of the International Space Station (ISS) — and NASA concurs. In a report requested by Congress and issued today, GAO provided seven recommendations on how to enhance utilization of the ISS for research under two scenarios: the current plan to terminate U.S. funding in 2015, and the option to continue utilization through 2020. GAO reports that NASA concurred in all seven recommendations.

GAO cited several challenges for ISS utilization. “(1) the impending retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010, reduced launch capabilities once the shuttle retires, and the potential for a gap between retirement and follow-on U.S. vehicles; (2) high costs for launches and developing research hardware and a lack of dedicated funding streams for ISS research; (3) limited crew time available for research due to a fixed crew size and other requirements for crew time; and (4) an uncertain future for the ISS beyond 2015. “

GAO’s analysis concluded that NASA will underutilize the ISS research capabilities to which NASA has access in the years ahead. Of the available NASA internal payload sites, “less than 50 percent …will be occupied by planned NASA research after the ISS is completed” and only 33% of the external research sites will be filled with research when assembly is completed, rising to 62% by 2015. By contrast, GAO says, the international partners “are fully utiilizing their ISS allocations…” NASA reportedly told GAO that it could fill its surplus capacity with “National Laboratory users.” Congress declared the ISS a National Laboratory in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act.

GAO looked once again at management structures for ISS utilization. This much-studied topic was the subject of a National Research Council report in 1999, for example. GAO had little to add to that or other studies of the issue, but identified three “common practices” that other national laboratories employ:

• “Centralized management body: At each of the institutions GAO studied, there is a central body responsible for prioritizing and selecting research, even if there are different funding agencies. NASA’s ISS managers are currently not responsible for evaluating and selecting all research that will be conducted on the ISS, leaving this to the research sponsor.
• In-house scientific and technical expertise: The institutions GAO studied have large staffs of in-house experts that can provide technical and engineering support to users. NASA’s staff members in ISS fundamental science research areas have been decentralized or reassigned, limiting its capability to provide user support.
• Robust user outreach: The laboratories and institutes GAO studied place a high priority on user outreach and are actively involved in educating and recruiting users. NASA has conducted outreach to potential users in the public.”

Increased attention is being focused on how long to keep ISS operating as it finally nears completion of assembly. Many argue that with all that has been spent on the ISS over the past 25 years, it would be penny wise and pound foolish to walk away now from its potential as a scientific laboratory, or that terminating it as currently planned in 2015 would antagonize the other partners in the program. Others discount the scientific value of the ISS, or insist that in a budget constrained environment “legacy” programs like ISS need to make way for new initiatives

To the extent that it is a cost-benefit decision, the first question is how much has been spent on ISS. That remains a nebulous number. Press reports often refer to the ISS as a $100 billion facility, a figure that dates back more than a decade as an estimate of its total cost at the end of construction. In today’s report, GAO cites NASA as saying that the direct costs to the United States from 1994-2010 are $48.5 billion, with another $10 billion from the international partners. That omits another approximately $11 billion that NASA spent from 1985-1993 on the previous design, Freedom. In the past, GAO estimated higher costs than NASA for the ISS because GAO calculated the costs of ISS-related shuttle flights using the shuttle’s average launch costs while NASA used marginal costs, a significant difference. In today’s report, GAO apparently simply used NASA’s numbers.

President Obama is currently considering the future direction of the U.S. human space flight program against the backdrop of options presented by the Augustine committee. That committee made the case for extending ISS utilization through 2020, but also said that such an extension would cost $13.7 billion between now and then.

Representative Parker Griffith, the freshman congressman who represents Huntsville, Alabama — home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center — announced that he is switching parties from Democrat to Republican. The 67-year old radiation oncologist is a strong NASA supporter and a member of the House Science and Technology Committee and its Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee.

According to Politico, the main reason for the switch is his opposition to the health care bill championed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but he had this to say about NASA:

“I have also been very concerned about support in Congress for our Defense and NASA programs. These programs are not only important to our community they are critical for the future of our nation. Since election to Congress I have fought hard to educate other members on the importance of a strong National Missile Defense program and that we must give our NASA programs more support if we are to maintain our lead in space. And while there are some great Democratic supporters of these programs I increasingly find that my allies in fighting for these initiatives come from within the Republican Party.”

Russia’s Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft lifted off from Kazakhstan on time this afternoon, taking three new crew members to the International Space Station (ISS). The three members of the “Expedition 22” crew –Russia’s Oleg Kotov, America’s T. J. Creamer, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi — are scheduled to dock with the ISS on December 22. They will join the two crew members already there: Expedition 22 commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev.

Todd Halvorson of Florida Today posted an item on his Flame Trench space blog quoting White House and NASA spokesmen as saying the meeting on Wednesday between President Obama and NASA Administrator Bolden was “informational” and not “decisional.” Halvorson quotes White House spokesman Morrie Goodman as calling the article that was posted Thursday by Andrew Lawler on ScienceInsider “speculation.”

The Senate just passed the FY2010 Department of Defense appropriations bill (H.R. 3326) by a vote of 88-10. It was the last of the 12 annual appropriations bills awaiting passage. Congratulations to the 98 Senators and the Senate staff who managed to get to the Capitol in the snow. (It’s really not that bad yet here in Arlington, across the river from D.C., only about 6 inches, but there have been hours-long delays due to accidents on the major highways in the D.C. area since late last night. Jackknifed tractor trailers everywhere it seems.)

President Obama decided yesterday to “jettison” the Ares 1 launch vehicle, build a new heavy lift launch vehicle, but not Ares V, and focus human space exploration on the Moon, asteroids and the moons of Mars, according to Andrew Lawler of ScienceInsider. Lawler, a veteran and highly respected reporter on the space program for Science magazine, published a story on ScienceInsider this evening quoting unnamed officials on the outcome of the Obama-Bolden meeting yesterday. In short, according to Lawler:

• “the new program would jettison Ares 1”;
• a new heavy lift launch vehicle would be built “to take astronauts to the moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars” but it would not be Ares V: “the White House is convinced that scarce NASA funds would be better spent on a simpler heavy-lift vehicle that could be ready to fly as early as 2018”;
• the “commercial sector would take over the job of getting supplies to the International space station,” although Lawler does not mention commercial crew transport, the topic of considerable debate this year; and
• the President agreed to request “an additional $1 billion for 2011” for NASA to proceed with this program.

That may sound like a lot, but the Augustine committee stressed that the space shuttle is likely to need FY2011 funding — as much as $1.1 billion (page 111). Under the current budget plan, shuttle funding ends in FY2010. The committee concluded that NASA needs the flexibility to let launches slip into FY2011 if necessary to ensure safety. It also highlighted the desirability of continuing the International Space Station (ISS) through 2020, at a cost of an additional $13.7 billion (the fiscal years involved were not specified). Thus, a $1 billion increase in FY2011 could easily be consumed by legacy programs rather than spent on new activities.

Lawler says that it is not clear when a formal announcement will be made. Congress included language in the bill that provides FY2010 funding to NASA that the current Constellation program could not be changed, or a new program initiated, without congressional approval.

The Senate is scheduled to be in session this weekend, too, as it tries to complete work on the health care reform bill and other measures before Christmas. It will be a White Christmas in Washington, too! Senators will have to battle a major winter snowstorm to get to Capitol Hill tomorrow morning for a scheduled vote on the final version of the FY2010 Department of Defense appropriations bill (H.R. 3326). If they make it, they may be stuck there for a while. The current forecast is for 10-15 inches in the immediate Washington area, and up to 20 inches in some locations. For Washington, that is a HUGE snowstorm, especially for December. For most of us, it’s great that it’s a weekend and we don’t have to worry about commuting to work. Not so for the Senators and their staffs, unfortunately. Whether the weather will make them more or less amenable to agreement remains to be seen.