NASA has provided the following response to the story published by the Orlando Sentinel on the possibility of NASA building a small space station — a “gateway spacecraft” — at the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrange point as the next step in human spaceflight.

“NASA is executing President Obama’s ambitious space exploration plan that includes missions around the moon, to asteroids, and ultimately putting humans on Mars. There are many options – and many routes – being discussed on our way to the Red Planet. In addition to the moon and an asteroid, other options may be considered as we look for ways to buy down risk – and make it easier – to get to Mars.  We have regular meetings with OMB, OSTP, Congress, and other stakeholders to keep them apprised of our progress on our deep space exploration destinations. This concept is a part of the Voyages document that we mentioned in an earlier Update posted on NASA.gov in June: http://go.nasa.gov/NASAvoyages.”  Refer to page 26 of the chapter titled, “Habitation and Destination Capabilities.”

President Obama’s current policy is to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 as the next human spaceflight destination, leading to human expeditions to orbit Mars in the 2030s, but not to land there.   On April 15, 2010, the President said a human landing on Mars would happen someday “And I expect to be around to see it,” but was not more specific.

The results of NASA’s Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG) will be made public tomorrow.  The effort, led by Orlando Figueroa, was initiated earlier this year after NASA had to withdraw from planned cooperation with Europe on robotic Mars missions because of funding constraints.  The MPPG was tasked to develop options for a new Mars exploration strategy blending robotic and human space missions.

Figueroa is scheduled to brief the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science (CAPS) at 10:15 am PDT (1:15 pm EDT).  He then will participate in a media teleconference at 3:00 pm EDT along with John Grunsfeld, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

The NRC CAPS meeting will be webcast.  Instructions on how to see and hear the webcast (two separate steps) are shown in our calendar of events.    NASA’s media teleconference will be streamed live at NASA’s NewsAudio website.

The CAPS meeting started today and Jim Green, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said that it had been difficult to schedule Figueroa’s presentation to CAPS because he was briefing staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee today.   Green said other relevant congressional overseers were briefed last week. 

CAPS is comprised of leading members of the planetary science community and is the “keeper” of the NRC’s 2011 Decadal Survey on planetary science that identifies the priorities in that field of space science.  One of its tasks is to ensure that NASA’s planetary exploration program conforms with the Decadal Survey, which itself represents a consensus of the planetary science community on the most important scientific objectives NASA should pursue in planetary exploration.

The need to brief congressional staff before releasing MPPG’s findings to the public is one indication of the importance of the report’s significance.  Mars is a popular destination for robotic exploration both with the public as a whole and with its elected representatives in Congress.  The intense public interest in the successful landing of the Curiosity rover last month is testament to the enduring fascination of the Red Planet.

Nonetheless, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) decided to cut funding for robotic Mars exploration in the President’s FY2013 budget request. 

NASA had signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2009 to work together on Mars exploration and the two agencies crafted a program that began with two probes in 2016 and 2018 that would lead to returning a sample of Mars to Earth, the Holy Grail for scientists seeking to discover the secrets of Mars and whether it might have supported life.  These plans were scuttled by the OMB decision, and although Congress indicated it would add money for Mars exploration, it has decided to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) that covers the first six months of FY2013, leaving the Mars program in limbo.   As Green told CAPS today, absent congressional action on the FY2013 budget, it must spend its money in conformance with the President’s budget request, not “promises.”

MPPG was tasked not just with recommending how to reformulate the robotic Mars exploration program, but to come up with a foundation for merging scientists’ goals for Mars exploration with the President’s goal of someday sending humans there.  Its task statement is to “develop foundations for a program-level architecture for robotic exploration of Mars that is consistent with the President’s challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in the decade of the 2030s, yet remain responsive to the primary scientific goals” of the NRC’s Decadal Survey. 

Figueroa retired from NASA in 2010 after a long career with the agency, including heading NASA’s Mars robotic exploration program.

When Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) and several other House members introduced the Space Leadership Act on Thursday, a graphic was used to illustrate a 20-year history of $20 billion worth of NASA human space flight development programs that were cancelled.   That graphic must be used with caution, however.

The graphic has been in circulation in the space community for a couple of years, but it does not indicate its author.   Another version assigns dollar numbers to each of the programs included in the graphic, but the one used by Culberson and posted on his website does not.  Instead there is simply a declarative statement in a box at the bottom saying “in the last 20 years NASA has spent more than $20B on cancelled development programs.”  The title of the graphic is “Human Space Flight Development Programs” so one can infer that the box is totalling up only human space flight development programs that have been cancelled.

Source:  Rep. John Culberson’s website, visited Sept. 22, 2012.

Unquestionably, NASA has cancelled a large number of human space flight development programs over the years, but at least one shown on this graphic was not cancelled — Orion, and at least one is not a human space flight program — Prometheus/JIMO, the nuclear-powered Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter project initiated by former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe and cancelled shortly after his departure.  The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) also was not specifically related to the human space flight program and was not a development program.  It was a grant-based program to fund studies of advanced concepts for NASA as a whole, and although it was terminated in 2007, it was reinstated in a modified manner in FY2011 as part of the Office of Chief Technologist.  Even more importantly, the money allocated to it was spent on grants for studies that were completed.  The National Research Council reviewed the work done through NIAC and advocated NIAC’s reinstatement.

“COTS-RpK” refers to Rocketplane Kistler’s participation in the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, but it was not “cancelled” in the same sense as other programs on this graphic. RpK did not meet the agreed-upon milestones for the COTS program so NASA stopped funding them.  Orbital Sciences Corp was then selected to replace RpK.  Orbital’s COTS program is shown in this chart in yellow as “incomplete,” which is accurate, although SpaceX’s COTS program, also shown as incomplete, now has been successfully completed. 

Culberson, who is a member of the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee that funds NASA, said the bill (H.R. 6491) was being introduced to “make NASA less political and more professional by modeling their leadership after the FBI and the National Science Foundation” and to “make NASA funding more stable and predictable by enabling them to design and build rockets and new spacecraft in the same way the Navy designs and builds new submarines and ships.”   It is the latter point to which the graphic pertains, attempting to show that the fits and starts that have characterized NASA’s human space flight program in recent decades resulted in wasted tax dollars.  That point is accurate, but the graphic does not do a credible job of showing it or proving that it is $20 billion.

The full text of the bill (before it was assigned a bill number) is available on Rep. Frank Wolf’s website.  Culberson’s site summarizes the key points as follows, saying the bill would:

• Create a Board of Directors chosen by the administration, House, and Senate, made up of former astronauts and eminent scientists responsible for:
  • Preparing a budget submission approved by the Administrator and submitted CONCURRENTLY to House and Senate Appropriations and the president.
  • Recommending three candidates for NASA Administrator, Deputy Administrator and CFO; the president is encouraged to select one of the above, who would then be approved by the Senate.
  • Preparing a quadrennial review of space programs and other reports.
• Board terms would change to three, three-year terms. (Currently, two, six-year terms)
  • It will also include a clause that states that no board member can work for a company which has business with NASA.
• The Administrator would be selected for a 10-year term.
  • This mirrors the FBI directors 10-year term.
  • The board will be allowed to remove the NASA Administrator for cause.
• The legislation extends the provision for long term contracting from EELV (Evolvable Expendable Launch Vehicle) to rocket propulsion systems and manned and unmanned space transportation vehicles and payloads, including expendable launch vehicles, and related services.

In addition to the members who were at the press conference on Thursday to announce introduction of the bill — Culberson, Frank Wolf (R-VA), Bill Posey (R-FL), and Pete Olson (R-TX)  — Culberson’s website lists the following original co-sponsors:  Gene Green (D-TX), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Lamar Smith (R-TX), James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Allen West (R-FL), Connie Mack (R-FL), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), John Carter (R-TX), Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Rob Wittman (R-VA). 

Rep. Mack is currently running against Sen. Bill Nelson for that Florida Senatorial seat.  Rep. Sensenbrenner is a former chair, and current vice-chair, of the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee.   Several other co-sponsors also are members of that committee. 

The sponsor/co-sponsor list is heavily weighted with members from Texas, home not only to the bill’s primary sponsor, Culberson, but to NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC).  The Houston Chronicle reported last month that JSC Director Michael Coats is a strong proponent of the bill and “keeps a list of about two dozen programs NASA has started — and then canceled.”  That suggests JSC may be the source of the graphic, which is widely assumed, but cannot be stated definitively since the graphic does not display its origin.

The large proportion of Texas representatives supporting the bill highlights the absence of another — Ralph Hall, chair of the House SS&T Committee.   That committee authorizes NASA activities and sets civil space policy.  Hall is an ardent NASA supporter.  The Houston Chronicle did state, however, the Hall promised to hold a hearing on the bill.

In any case, the bill is not expected to clear the 112th Congress, if for no other reason than how little time is left in this session.

Editor’s note:  This article was updated to provide the link to the text of the bill on Rep. Wolf’s website.

An independent review of NOAA’s environmental satellite programs led by Tom Young concludes that NOAA’s oversight of its satellite programs is “dysfunctional” and adds no value.  That is just one of a number of starkly worded findings.  The root cause of these problems is a lack of internal and external trust, the report says.

NOAA is a part of the Department of Commerce (DoC) and its administrator, Jane Lubchenco, is also an Under Secretary of Commerce.   NOAA’s satellite programs are managed by its National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), headed by Mary Kicza.

Kicza chartered the NOAA/NESDIS Independent Review Team (IRT) to assess the total NOAA satellite enterprise from requirements to product delivery, but not to perform in-depth program reviews of its satellite projects.  The two major NESDIS programs — the polar orbiting Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system — have Standing Review Boards to perform the latter task.  The chairs of those boards were part of the IRT. 

In its report, the IRT said its guiding principle was maximizing the probability of the success of the NOAA satellite enterprise. Chaired by Tom Young, a retired industry executive to whom NASA, NOAA and DOD often turn to straighten out troubled programs or conduct failure analyses when things go badly wrong, the IRT found that  —

• “DOC/NOAA oversight of satellite programs is dysfunctional and not value added,”
• “DoC/NOAA functional organizations (CFO, CIO) are too involved in program execution with adverse effect,” and
• “Confusion exists as to the responsibility, accountability and authority of senior managers.” 

Acknowledging that “dysfunctional” is a strong word, the IRT said they debated using it, but concluded it was appropriate. “The current oversight process will make the successful execution of GOES-R and JPSS extremely challenging.  The sheer volume and detail of information required by all levels about the satellite programs is alarming,” the report says.  It particularly criticized the roles that the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) have been playing — and those are CIOs from three organizations:  NESDIS, NOAA and the DoC. 

The IRT also found that decision-making is “neither timely nor effective” at all levels.

The root cause of these failings is “a lack of internal and external trust,” the Young report concluded.   NOAA has, indeed, had a troubled history of managing its satellite programs.   Young chaired IRTs that helped get the latest generation of GOES satellites, the GOES-R series, back on track, as well as an IRT that led to the dissolution of the NOAA-DOD-NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).   That program suffered repeated cost overruns and schedule delays.  A 2009 study led by Young recommended that it be terminated and the Obama Administration did just that in 2010, telling NOAA and DOD to return to separate polar-orbiting weather satellite systems as they have been historically. 

JPSS is NOAA’s successor to NPOESS, but skepticism remains as to its ability to manage the program.  Earlier this year, the Senate Appropriations Committee recommended that acquisition of NOAA’s satellites be transferred to NASA because of concerns that NOAA was headed down the wrong road with JPSS.   NOAA would still operate the satellites once they were launched, but NASA would be in charge of everything else under the committee’s proposal.   That bill has not passed the Senate yet, however, and the Continuing Resolution (CR) that will fund the government through March 2013 simply asks the White House Office of Management and Budget to submit a report on JPSS and GOES-R on how to keep them on cost and schedule.

The IRT made a number of recommendations on how the DoC and NOAA should change oversight and management of the programs.  Assessing the GOES-R model, the existing JPSS model, and a model that approximates the recommendation of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the IRT concluded that the GOES-R model is working well for GOES-R and should be adopted by the JPSS program.

Two documents also released today indicate that DoC and NOAA are taking the results seriously.   One is a decision memorandum from Acting Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank in which she agrees with the IRT criticism that in the wake of the NPOESS problems, the Office of the Secretary “conflated the proper role of oversight appropriate at the NOAA and DOC headquarters level with decision-making responsibilities at the NOAA/NESDIS level.”  She then sets out steps to restore proper oversight responsibilities.  An associated decision memorandum from NOAA Administrator Lubchenco further specifies how NOAA will respond to the IRT’s recommendations.