The NASA Budget, Continued

This is a follow-up to my blog from yesterday on President Obama's budget. I've finally gotten caught up on my news reading, and assuming the reports are correct, here is my take on things. Please refer to the disclaimer above as far as the relationship of my opinions to NASA, my employer, or any other space-related organization...this is Bart, Private Citizen, writing.

• Killing Constellation: The President has proposed a budget that would drastically scale back or delay the schedule of the Constellation Program, which was tasked with going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Constellation has several major components, including launch vehicles (Ares), a crew exploration vehicle (Orion), a lunar lander (Altair), surface systems (hardware like power and habitat systems needed for living and working on the Moon), extra-vehicular activity (EVA--spacesuits), and ground systems. It takes a lot of money, in normal-person terms--not Department of Defense terms--to design, build, test, and field all this stuff. It also takes time. The less money you give these activities, the longer they take or the less likely it is that they will be done at all. Having not seen the budget, I can only guess that Constellation has either received a total cut or enough of a cut that any NASA-run return to the Moon would not happen until my five-year-old niece is old enough to start complaining about her kids' taste in music.
• Increasing Funding for Commercial Launches to the International Space Station (ISS): This is actually a smart idea and could/should have been done by the Bush Administration. Right now the only way to get human beings and the stuff they need to live and work on ISS is by the Space Shuttle, which will be retired after ISS is completed; crew/cargo launches by the Russians; or cargo launches by the Europeans' Automated Transfer Vehicle or, soon, Japan's cargo vehicle. But really, once Shuttle is retired, the only nation capable of flying people to and from the space station after 2011 will be Russia. This reality is just now occurring to normal (i.e. non-space) people. So what are the options?
  --Build a new rocket to replace the Space Shuttle. NASA has been doing this since 2005, in the form of the Ares I crew launch vehicle. Ares I, on its current development schedule, will not be ready to send astronauts to ISS until 2015 according to NASA plans. A presidential review panel thought that it would be more like 2016-2017. That would mean depending on Russia, et al., for at least five years, but at the end of that time NASA would again be able to send people up there.
  --Rely only on international partners until the ISS retires.
  --Encourage/pay for American private-sector aerospace companies to build launch vehicles (rockets) and spacecraft (crew capsules) to get astronauts and cargo to ISS. Some of this is already being done under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which was designed to help new companies--outside of the usual big players like Boeing and Lockheed Martin--develop these capabilities. Two companies are getting money under COTS, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. SpaceX is the only company of the two developing both a launch vehicle, Falcon 9, and a spacecraft, Dragon.
  
  If the Obama administration is proposing more money for COTS, which seems like an easy funding vehicle since it already exists, that money could go a couple different directions:
  --Accelerating SpaceX and Orbital's work.
  --Paying to modify Boeing/Lockheed rockets (now built under a joint operation called United Launch Alliance) to launch a Dragon or Orion capsule to ISS. This money, reportedly $6 billion, could go toward "human rating" the Atlas or Delta launch vehicles, essentially adding some more bells and whistles to them to make them safe and reliable enough to put humans on top of them.
• Extending ISS Operations: This, too, makes sense. Under current plans, ISS would be completed in 2010 and then only enjoy four or five years of full-scale science and engineering operations before being closed down and deorbited (dropped into the Pacific). This presents several problems, including the difficulty of safely deorbiting a 400,000-pound space station and violating the international agreements the U.S. signed, which said that we would keep ISS operational for ten years after full assembly, which would be 2020.

Now a more ambitious person might ask, "Why don't we fund Constellation, COTS, and ISS?" A more pragmatic person--say, a politician--will stick his or her finger in the air, try guess which way the political winds are blowing, and guess (correctly) that the public isn't interested in government spending on a Moon mission "when there are so many more important things to be done here on Earth," like creating jobs. Let's pause for a moment, and savor the tragic irony of that position. Contrary to the public perception that money spent on NASA is wasted on "space," money spent on space hardware is spent mostly on salaries for people, products, and services on EARTH: high-education, high-paying jobs that would result in industrial and consumer spending now and technology advancement and spinoffs in the future.

So where does this leave us? If the President gets his way--and don't count on that--the extensive launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center would be converted to support Falcon 9, Atlas V, or Delta IV launches to ISS. The rocket-designing workforce in Huntsville, which is eager to build Ares I and the much larger Ares V for exploration missions, would be looking for jobs at ULA in Decatur. A bunch of people in Houston currently supporting Space Shuttle missions would lose their jobs, but those helping build Orion would keep theirs, and eventually NASA would again need mission control operations to support Orion missions to ISS. But for now, a lot of jobs in Florida and Alabama and Texas would be shifted to other duties or cut outright. In an economy with 10 percent unemployment, such a decision, on top of killing America's long-range ambitions for space exploration, would not be particularly popular with some segments of the electorate.

Others, like my friends at the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), are thrilled that the government is finally getting out of the "space operations" business. I've had my moments of doubt on that issue myself. In an economy that is healthy and with a workforce that's aging, retiring the Shuttle made sense--the older folks could retire and make room for the young punks eager to prove their stuff in the marketplace. And yes, there are things the private sector can do better, like keep their eyes on the ball programmatically. They don't argue every year as to whether their goal is to make money or not. Even if management and employees change regularly, everyone knows the business is there to make money.

The government, meanwhile, has an argument about the budget every year. Some years, they want to focus on increasing employment in Florida; other years they want to spend more on environmental monitoring; in more forward-thinking years, they want to spend money on fundamental research into aerospace, space science, planetary science, and other forms of astronomy; and sometimes they think it's a good idea to send people into space. It's a chaotic way to run a business, which is why governments are not the natural mechanism for exploiting space as a long-term concern. However, exploration is an iffy proposition for businesses. Payoffs are hard to determine. Obtaining funding for purely speculative ventures is difficult or impossible without a guaranteed return on investment. Governments are also now the only organizations willing or able to fund blue-sky engineering projects like single-stage-to-orbit rockets, in-space nuclear propulsion, or large-scale outposts in orbit or on the Moon.

The previous two paragraphs explain why I have no problem with a "mixed fleet" or "mixed economy" in space. There are things government does very well, like fund basic research and development, which offer no payoff or incentives to the private sector to accomplish. This would include things like building new exploration launch vehicles or launch vehicle technologies. Government also can fund basic infrastructure, like the first outpost in low-Earth orbit, on the Moon, or at the bottom of the sea. It is also responsible for maintaining the peace, collecting taxes, and regulating things like civil law and consumer protection. The building of ISS, Constellation, space telescopes, and NASA research centers, along with setting up the Office of Commercial Space Transportation fit these functions quite well. However, there are things that private enterprise can do much better, like improving efficiency in routine, known services, such as launching cargo and (eventually) crews to ISS. The private sector can better design, build, test, and field smaller products and services for known applications, like spare parts, accounting services, or employee cafeterias. Private businesses are also best at improving upon and mass-producing new technologies once the basic principles are known.

The sticking point for the SFF is Ares I, which they see as competing with Atlas, Delta, etc. And on a purely apples-to-apples comparison of capabilities, they might have a point: Ares I and human-rated commercial rockets would both be able to launch human beings to ISS. However, while the private sector sees that capability as redundant (true), government sees that as a strategic (national security) capability, which exists outside of questions of profit or loss. Let's say, for example, that Russia and the U.S. start a diplomatic tussle, and the U.S. government no longer considers American crew members on ISS "safe." Uncle Sam would want the on-call ability to launch a rocket to ISS to retrieve those crew members. Would a private-sector comapany, its investors, or its insurers allow a private rocket and spacecraft to head into a situation that likely spelled a danger to, and loss of, company property? Possibly--but only if government was the insurer--at which point we've got a nationalized space prgoram, which was exactly what the private sector guys are trying to avoid. So: there are reasons to have a government-built and -operated rocket that can go to ISS.

But SFF overlooks the primary purpose of Ares I, which is to support missions, in tandem with Ares V, to the Moon, asteroids, Mars, or wherever. If Congress can get access to ISS more cheaply via Delta IV, they will take it...but others will still want Uncle Sam to be able to do it, just in case.

And lastly, the big point I hear the rocket guys in Huntsville argue all the time is that no private company has launched a crew or cargo ship to ISS, leaving out the important word: yet. Until that "yet" happens, the private sector needs to cool its jets, so to speak, on making claims of superiority over NASA; meanwhile, NASA needs to accept that eventually they will lose their monopoly on human access to Earth orbit. Assuming the 2011 Obama budget passes as written, the private sector will have to, as my friend Tom Olson put it today, "put up or shut up." And in the meantime, a bunch of aerospace workers in Florida, Alabama, and Texas could be facing a very tough 2011.

This ain't over.

Potpourri CXVIII

Another interesting day! Yes, it's crazy and sometimes depressing in this world, but there are wonders to behold that our grandparents' could scarcely have imagined.

Let's start with space stuff. Space tourists are featured in a Sundance Film Festival movie. Always nice to see that.

From Kelley: a "Big Dream Gathering." Looked interesting.

Given any thought to electromagnetic pulse (EMP) lately? This group has.

Worried about asteroid impacts? Here's a Jeff Foust editorial explaining why the government isn't, so much. Others, however, want to set up an asteroid defense agency. Along those same lines, a doctor in Virginia got a nasty surprise in the form of a meteorite through his office roof.

The number of people on the "no-fly list" attempting to fly is increasing lately. Worried yet? This could be a sign of another al Qaeda attack. Maybe.

A blogger writes a letter to "Astrology." Funny.

Private space stations edging closer to reality...

"Chemical Ali," one of the folks in Saddam Hussein's menagerie infamous for using chemical warfare against Iraq's native Kurd population, has been executed.

I've been taking a much-needed break from conservative talk radio, but I saw that the most famous liberal talk radio network Air America, has filed for bankruptcy.

And now for something completely different: an alternative point of view on the "Twilight" book, which I confess not to have read. I'm good. Not a big vampire fan anyway. (Warning: strong language in this review.)

The rumors continue to swirl about what President Obama will or will not do with the space program. I like one of my customer's takes on the matter: "Those who know are not talking, and those who are talking don't know."

And that'll do for now. Be careful out there, and be good to those around you.

Public vs. Private Sector

I've got several friends (no, really) who question my seemingly unvarnished trust in the private sector to handle things. To which I'd respond, "Why do you have such faith in the government?" In any case, my preference for activities being done by the private sector can be boiled down to the absence one word: coercion. If you want a service from the private sector and you don't like its quality, you can usually go to a competitor. If the service you want is provided by the government, odds are that it is ONLY provided by the government, and if you don't like it, you can still be coerced to pay for it (e.g. the public schools). If you try to avoid payment, a private-sector company can sue you or send a collection agency. The government can have you arrested, put in jail, and drag you into court with an endless supply of prosecutorial money. Corporations can sue you, but they can't put you in jail. That is why I prefer the private sector.

"Promise You'll Visit Me in the Re-Education Camp?"

Hearings are likely to begin on reinstating the "Fairness Doctrine," a law that keeps controversial (i.e. conservative) topics off the radio by requiring radio stations to give equal time for opposing views. This is flatly absurd. Left-leaning attitudes overwhelm the magazine racks, the major television networks, the movies, books, newspapers, and a good chunk of the Internet. Conservatism dominates in one segment of the communications world--radio--and THAT'S the place where liberal politicians want to ensure "fairness." The quotation above was said to me by a fellow conservative. Heck, I might be next to him inside the fence.

What's really amazing is how I have been told that I'm closed-minded for not wanting to watch or read all this liberal stuff, but it's okay to impose a fairness doctrine on Limbaugh. Apparently 95% control of the media is not enough.

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Another thing's got me in a twist lately: specifically, the notion that business is inherently less moral than government, and that therefore it is government's job to "rein in" the private sector. Those who dislike what the private sector does often cite the "excessive" salaries of this or that individual, or the amount of power businesses have to control lives.

The fundamental difference between "power" in the business sense and power in the governmental sense is that government writes and enforces the laws, with weapons if necessary. Yes, financial concerns can prevent particular ideas from spreading, but only through pressure ("If you run this ad, we'll pull our advertising"), not life-endangering threats ("Run this ad, and we'll close down your business, arrest you, seize your assets, and put you in jail"). I'm not saying either side is more moral. What I am saying is that human beings operate both types of agencies--public and private--and thus are equally susceptible to corruption or power-seeking. The difference is in methodology: businesses cannot force you to buy their products, and if they did, government would often come in and break up their monopoly.

And if I were to seek assistance in fixing the current economic crisis, I'd ask business leaders, not government leaders because business leaders understand the give and take of the marketplace. Government is used to being obeyed. In the Western system of law, only governments have a legal monopoly on the use of force. If you would rather work with people on a voluntary basis, you work with business. If you want people ordered about, you go through the government.

One reason conservatives favor limited government is that they prefer voluntary exchanges. You cannot engage in a purely voluntary partnership with the government when they control the laws. The advantages are all on the government's side. Businesses can offer incentives to elected officials (voting, lobbying, campaign contributions), but they cannot FORCE the government to do anything. Power relationships matter, and the less power government has, the better. My $.02 this fine Sunday morning.

Identifying What's Wrong With America

For those folks who have been trying to tell me that the private sector is not to be trusted, that private industry executives have utterly failed the public trust, and that only government can "fix" things and bring law, regulation, and order back to the economy, society, et cetera...I give you two words: Rod Blagojevich.

Leadership in the Public and Private Sectors

One of the advantages of living and working in Huntsville, AL, is getting to meet or hear some of the bright bulbs in the space business. I've had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Rex Geveden, President of Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE), and former Deputy Director of Marshall Space Flight Center and Associate Administrator of NASA. Today he was speaking at the Marshall Association's monthly luncheon, this time located at the Redstone Arsenal Officer's Club. Geveden's talk for today was about the functional, strategic, and performance differences and similiarities between leadership in the public and private sector. I found the comments most insightful, and a good reflection of life in the space business specifically.

Functional Differences
Geveden started by explaining the emphases of each type of leader. Government leaders, in his view, are concerned with maximizing/optimizing "mission value," that is, getting the most bang for your programmatic buck. A private-sector leader is more concerned (not surprisingly) with maximizing profit for the company or its shareholders. As he put it, "the business is about the business," sort of like Calvin Coolidge's comment that "the business of America is business."

Geveden recommended that government avoid "Total System Performance" or "Lead System Integrator (LSI)" contracts, where an outside entity/company is responsible for the overall performance of a program/project. His reasoning is simply that business leaders don't have the same interests or goals as the government (see above), and that those interests are incompatible. Also, if government turns over an entire program over to an external contractor (examples: Space Shuttle, Space Station), then the government agency overseeing things is adding little to no value and might as well just get out of the way. Geveden was even more specific: "That model does and will always fail."

By contrast, Geveden offered up the Ares Project as a good model for program management, as it allows the government to take responsibility for the final result, which offers a good compromise between government oversight and its needs (maximizing mission output) and private sector needs (performance and profit).

One of the advantages the private sector has is that the decision cycle time is shorter simply because the motivations are simpler (profits). One of the big challenges for government, Geveden acknowledged, is that it has to answer to multiple constituencies, so that every action and decision feels like an unsatisfactory compromise.

Strategic Planning
Government agencies have a specific burden that private-sector operations do not: they do not control the allocation of their resources. Any strategic plan becomes more like a "wish list," more often controlled by the President or Congress. "This is a brilliant model for government," Geveden said, "not strategic planning."

In the private sector, resources must be allocated in accordance with the strategic plan in order to ensure accurate/relevant measurement of performance. There are three ways companies can choose to focus their resources: economies of scale (e.g. Wal-Mart), product/service focus (e.g. FedEx), or product differentiation, as TBE is doing.

Performance
In the public sector, civil servants' performance is "nebulous," as Geveden put it, and "hard to measure." The private sector's performance can be measured easily, he joked: "Here's your check." In other words, all performance is tied to the bottom line.

Geveden closed by comparing the culture of NASA with the Russian space program. He believed that there was a common idealism and belief in the value of space exploration. That sense of community is not shared everywhere. For instance, Geveden did not believe that the idealism of space exploration held inside the Beltway, "where people scarcely know that Goddard Space Flight Center is nearby and that the International Space Station is still in orbit." Huntsville, he noted, "loves space," as it's part of what has made the town what it is.

Moving to the Q&A, the most important question Geveden answered, in my opinion, was, "What does NASA need to do to get the resources it needs to do its job?" I liked his answer, mostly because it's similar to my own view: "NASA needs to chose to do the very hard things. They need to look a little more toward relevance." The specific example he cited was energy independence and space solar power, suggesting that NASA should do a full-scale test mission of some kind.

I think Geveden's remarks deserve consideration, given his experience on both sides of the fence (public and private sector). If we are going to have a fully functional "space economy" in the future, we need to make sure that government is doing the sorts of things that best reflect its expertise and motivations, while the private sector should do things that will produce the best results through their profit motives. In my view, that means leaving "exploration" to government and "operations" to the private sector. We shall see what the future brings.