UPDATE: This article is updated to include the names of the other Members of Congress who signed the letter.

Representative Robert Aderholt (R-AL) sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Friday asking for an investigation into whether NASA is violating the law regarding the Constellation program according to a press release from his office. Rep. Aderholt is a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA.

According to his press release, Rep. Aderholt is asking GAO to determine if “NASA’s actions regarding the Constellation program, as well as the extent to which it is working on a new, unauthorized plan, violates law.” The FY2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act prohibits NASA from spending any funds to cancel Constellation or initiate a new program without specific congressional approval in a subsequent appropriations act.

The other 15 Members of Congress who signed the letter are:

Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL)
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL)
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL)
Rep. John Culberson (R-TX)
Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL)
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX)
Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL)
Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX)
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX)
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Rep. Gene Green (D-TX)
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH)
Rep. John Fleming (R-LA)

As was true with a previous letter sent to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden on the same subject, perhaps what is most telling about this request to GAO is who did NOT sign it — the chair and ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA (Rep. Alan Mollohan and Rep. Frank Wolf), and the chair of the House Science and Technology Committee (Rep. Bart Gordon) and its Space and Aeronautics subcommittee (Rep, Gabrielle Giffords).

James Dean at Florida Today wrote an interesting article yesterday weighing the pros and cons of the commercial crew approach to sending people to low Earth orbit.

The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For further details, see our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. All locations are in Washington, DC and all times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) unless otherwise noted. Times, dates and witnesses for congressional hearings are subject to change; check with the relevant committee for up to date information.

Tuesday, March 16

• House Armed Services Committee hearing on Strategic Forces, 10:00 am, 2118 Rayburn House Office Building

Tuesday-Thursday, March 16-18

• Satellite 2010. Gaylord National Convention Center (just outside Washington, DC)

Wednesday, March 17

• House Appropriations CJS Subcommittee Hearing on NOAA FY2011 Budget Request, 10:00 am, H-309 Capitol

Thursday, March 18

• Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on Assessment of Commercial Space Capabilities, 2:30 pm, 253 Russell Senate Office Building

Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator, debuted a set of graphics illustrating the choices between the new plan for NASA proposed by President Obama and the current plan of pursuing the Constellation program during a speech last week at the American Astronautical Society’s Goddard Memorial Symposium.

The two Powerpoint slides show NASA’s view of its exploration program for the next 20 years (2010-2030) under the Obama proposal versus Constellation. The first slide – with the work NOTIONAL superimposed across the page – is very busy. It shows three sets of activities: commercial cargo and commercial crew flights to the International Space Station (ISS) through 2028, a robust “transformational R&D” effort with technology demonstration flights on the ISS and other “flagship” and “small” technology demonstration flights, and “sustainable exploration” including robotic precursor flights, heavy lift launch capability, in-space propulsion etc. The second slide is almost empty by comparison, showing the ISS and commercial cargo launches ending in 2016, Ares I/Orion beginning in 2015 with a notation that the Augustine committee said 2017, and Ares V beginning in 2024 with a notation that Augustine said 2028.

Deciphering the slides is challenging in some cases, especially in terms of answering the question of when human exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit would begin. It appears “sustainable, more capable” human exploration missions would begin in 2024 under the Obama plan, with Beyond-LEO Launch Capability and In-Space Transport Capability beginning the same year. Under the Constellation program as illustrated in the second slide, Ares V would be available in 2024 (or 2028 per Augustine), but there is no Altair lunar lander. A heavy lift launch vehicle is shown in the line labeled “human exploration missions” in 2028, but it is not clear exactly what it is designating.

The slides are likely to provoke debate about their accuracy and meaning, but if nothing else they provide insight into NASA’s strategy for building support for the new plan.

Congress has yet to approve President Obama’s proposal to extend U.S. support for the International Space Station (ISS) to 2020, but the partners in the ISS program are working on certifying the ISS for operating eight years even beyond that — to 2028. That year will mark the 30^th anniversary of the launch of the first ISS modules, Zarya and Unity.

There seems to be strong support in Congress for extending ISS to “at least 2020” as proposed by the President, but the cost for operating it beyond 2015 is one of factors cited by Administration officials for also proposing the cancellation of the Constellation program. In their view it is a zero-sum game. If extending ISS operations and investing in more science and technology development activities is desired, then the Constellation program has to go; there is not enough money for it all. The idea of cancelling Constellation has not been warmly received in Congress, however.

The other partners also will have to convince their political leaders to continue supporting the ISS. In the joint statement from the Heads of Agency meeting in Japan last week, the partners “emphasized their common intent to undertake the necessary procedures within their respective governments to reach consensus later this year on the continuation of the ISS to the next decade.”

The Heads of Agency meeting brings together the leaders of the space agencies cooperating in the ISS program: the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada. In their joint statement, they also said that “there were no identified technical constraints” to continuing operations to at least 2020, and that they are “currently working to certify on-orbit elements through 2028.”

The U.S. ISS modules have a 15-year design life, but spacecraft often operate well past their design lives. The longest operating space station, Russia’s Mir, had a 15-year life. Its first module was launched in 1986 and the facility was deorbited in 2001. How engineers will certify that modules, solar arrays, robot arms and other hardware can withstand the harsh space environment for twice that time will be an interesting exercise.

In presentations to the National Research Council (NRC) and the American Astronautical Society’s (AAS) Goddard Memorial Symposium this week, Dr. Robert (“Bobby”) Braun, NASA’s new Chief Technologist, outlined plans for his new office. Braun is a highly respected space technologist from Georgia Tech who started his career at NASA’s Langley Research Center.

In his presentation to the NRC’s Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) on Tuesday and later in the week to AAS, Braun talked about the need to conduct research on low TRL (Technology Readiness Level) technologies. NASA’s low TRL efforts have suffered in recent years because of budget constraints. Reestablishing the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is one step in that direction, he said. Braun co-chaired a 2009 NRC study on why the original NIAC was dissolved in 2007 and whether the research conducted under its auspices had been worthwhile.

The report, Fostering Visions for the Future: A Review of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, found that NIAC was “effective in achieving its mission and accomplishing its stated goals” and recommended creating a NIAC2 to “seek out visionary, far-reaching, advanced concepts with the potential of significant benefit to accomplishing NASA’s charter and to begin the process of maturing these advanced concepts for infusion into NASA’s missions.” The new NIAC would have some differences, according to the report, such as allowing NASA employees to compete for its grants in addition to those outside the agency, and funding grants not only for revolutionary technologies, but for concepts that are “innovative.”

Braun emphasized that he would coordinate technology development efforts across the agency, but would not manage programs funded by the four Mission Directorates. The President’s budget request includes a sizable budget for the Chief Technologist’s office to manage itself on top of those other agency activities. The FY2011 budget request is for $572 million for the Chief Technologist (in a budget line designated Space Technology under “Aeronautics and Space Research and Technology”), rising to over a billion each year for FY2012-2014. All of this is, of course, subject to congressional approval.

House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee ranking member Frank Wolf (R-VA) and other Members of the House pressed their case for an alternative to President Obama’s plan for NASA this past week. At a Thursday press conference, available on YouTube, Congressman Wolf and several other Republican Members and at least one Democrat — Rep.Gene Green (TX) – asked for an alternative to cancelling the Constellation program and turning U.S. human access to low Earth orbit over to commercial companies.

They and a total of 15 bipartisan House Members sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden calling for a 30-day NASA study “to review how exploration spacecraft and launch vehicle development and testing may be maintained within the proposed budget request to ensure uninterrupted, independent U.S. human space flight access to the International Space Station and beyond.” The letter specifies that the members of the team be selected by the Directors of the Johnson, Marshall and Kennedy Space Centers. The 15 Members who signed the letter are predominantly, but not completely, from districts that would be negatively impacted by the cancellation of the Constellation program.

Meanwhile, Representatives Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL) and about a dozen other Members introduced H.R. 4804, the “Human Space Flight Capability Assurance and Enhancement Act,” a companion bill to the one introduced by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (S. 3068) on March 3.

President Obama has scheduled a meeting in Florida for April 15 to discuss his vision for NASA. Referred to by the Administration as a “conference,” not a summit as it is often described in the media, details are pending. Latest rumors are that it will be by invitation only.

SpaceflightNow.com reports that a problem with the space shuttle Discovery could threaten its scheduled launch on April 5. According to NASA, a problem was identified in a helium isolation valve in the Right Reaction Control System. Engineers will meet on Monday to discuss options and April 5 remains the targeted launch date according to NASA, but SpaceflightNow.com says that the “engineering options are limited” for resolving the problem without taking the shuttle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Saying he was neither attacking nor defending the Obama Administration’s new plan for NASA, Jeff Greason said that there are no good options: “They all suck. Tough. Deal with it.” Mr. Greason is President of XCOR and was a member of the Augustine committee on the future of the human space flight program. He spoke at the American Astronautical Society’s Goddard Memorial Symposium today.

Mr. Greason’s message was that everyone needs to be realistic in looking at where the human space flight program was headed under the previous plan and debate on their merits the issues about its future. Whatever the answer is, it is likely to be painful for someone. Stressing that he was expressing his own views and had no special knowledge of the Obama plan other than what he reads in the media, he recounted some of the discussions that transpired in the Augustine committee deliberations that led to the conclusion that the Constellation program was not executable. “Constellation was designed for a budget twice what it got. That’s what unexecutable means,” he said, adding that it would require “four, five, six billion dollar increases every year for the rest of time” to be successful, including operations.

Arguing that “we can’t take our eyes off of Mars” as a long term goal, he emphasized that such a journey is not yet feasible and if that were to become the single focus it would be as unsustainable as the Apollo program, with perhaps one crew journeying there before that program would end: “Flags and footprints are supposed to lead to settlement, not be an end in itself.” Intermediate missions to the Moon and “deep space” destinations like asteroids are prerequisites to Mars in his view. Together they are an “ensemble” of destinations and the order in which they should be visited cannot be determined today, he argued. Instead, those decisions should made over time based on available technology and funding.

He asserted that a “lot of lies are being spun” about the concept of commercial crew and it is “silly” to say that commercial companies cannot provide such services, but it is likely to happen first with established launch vehicles, not entrepreneurial ventures. He expects Falcon 9 and Taurus 2 to be successful someday, but Delta 4 and Atlas 5 already are proven. As for what capsule should go on top, he urged the aerospace community to be honest with itself that the Constellation program would have produced a crew capsule that cost $500 million each, far too expensive. “Constellation would have been cancelled,” and while it is regrettable that so much money has been spent on it already, it was time to “stop digging,” he said.

Ultimately, however, he concluded that “I don’t know the right answer,” but that if people think the Obama plan is the death of human space flight they are kidding themselves because “it already had died.” That is why the community needs to honestly debate the issues and not pretend that Constellation could have succeeded within the budget resources it was likely to obtain, he said.

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), ranking member of the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee and five other Republican Congressmen tomorrow will hold a press conference calling for NASA Administrator Bolden to appoint a team to report back before President Obama’s April 15 “space conference” on how to maintain uninterrupted human access to space.

According to a press statement from Congressman Wolf’s office, Bolden will be asked to appoint a team of “NASA experts to review how exploration spacecraft and launch vehicle development and testing may be maintained within the proposed budget request to ensure uninterrupted, independent U.S. human space flight access to the International Space Station and beyond. The team should report back within 30 days in order to provide the administration and Congress with this necessary information – before the President’s space summit in Florida on April 15.”

The press conference is scheduled for noon tomorrow (Thursday) in room HVC-201A Capitol. The other Members are: John Culberson (R-TX), Pete Olson (R-TX), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Bill Posey (R-FL). Culberson also is a member of the CJS subcommittee.