Bolden Asks for Patience on SLS

Selecting the design of the Space Launch System (SLS) will be the most important decision of his tenure, one that cannot be rushed, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden told Congress today.

Testifying to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Mr. Bolden asked for continuing patience on the part of the committee and Congress as independent costs analyses are performed on the design he selected last month.

Committee chairman Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), an ardent supporter of NASA and human spaceflight, already had told Mr. Bolden that “we have run out of patience.” He and ranking member Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) shifted the blame from Bolden to others in the Obama Administration who they feel are responsible for the delay.

“It’s my understanding that you have had a plan ready to announce for some time, but you haven’t been able to get the final okay to make it public,” Johnson said.

Bolden replied that they were wrong, that he is, in fact, the “right person to blame.” Saying he is the “leader of America’s space program,” he defended the Obama Administration’s decision to take NASA out of the business of launching people to low Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS). That should be the role of the private sector, he insisted. “I hope I am not the only optimist in the room. I have faith in American industry. I know we can do this.”

Committee members complained that the 2010 NASA Authorization Act specifically directed NASA to tell Congress by January 2011 what the design would be for the new Space Launch System (SLS). Only a preliminary report was provided in January, and six months later, there is no new information. The SLS is a heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV) that is intended to be capable of taking astronauts beyond LEO to destinations such as an asteroid.

Bolden acknowledged that NASA is late in providing the information. Recently he had said the design would be released in the summer, but today he told the committee that it might be even later than that. He has asked Booz Allen to do an independent cost estimate to make certain that the design he chose is affordable and sustainable. He noted that the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee, which provides NASA’s funding, last week recommended a deep cut to NASA’s FY2012 budget. If that is what Congress approves, he will have to go back and look at affordability again, he said.

President Obama announced last year that his goal is sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and specifically not back to the Moon as planned by his predecessor, President George W. Bush. Congress did not agree, however. In the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, Congress specifically included the Moon as one of the potential destinations for future human spaceflight. Today, Bolden agreed. In response to a question he said that “there will probably be reasons to go back to the lunar surface for a … short period of time” to test systems before committing human to long trip to the Mars. The first destination, however, remains an asteroid as directed by the President.