NASA and the Private Sector - Page 141

CHANTILLY, Va. — Standing before the space shuttle Discovery in a voluminous hangar outside of Washington, Vice President Mike Pence announced on Thursday a renewed focus on putting Americans in space and making a return to the moon.

“We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond,” Mr. Pence said during a meeting of the National Space Council.

The council, a group of senior federal officials that coordinates policy between NASA, the Defense Department and other agencies involved with space, was disbanded in 1993, but President Trump signed an executive order in June to reestablish it. (The meeting, which was held at the National Air & Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, was streamed live on the internet).

Council members include Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao; Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross; General H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser; and Mike Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. Pence did not lay out a timetable for when American astronauts would step on the moon again or propose a strategy for getting there, much less broach the topic of a price tag.

In his introductory comments to the council, Mr. Pence described the United States space program as in decline, and leveled sharp criticism of the Obama administration. “Rather than competing with other nations to create the best space technology, the previous administration chose capitulation,” he said.

“Have we fallen behind as we believe?” Mr. Pence asked private sector aerospace executives speaking at the session. “Is that your judgment from the outside?”

The executives largely sidestepped the question.

“I would say, first of all, that is very important today, that it is an imperative,” said Marillyn A. Hewson, chief executive of Lockheed Martin. She said that there was a need to be “vigilant” about protecting communications and intelligence satellites from attack, but then pivoted to talking about the economic, educational and inspirational benefits of the space program.

She and Dennis A. Muilenburg, chief executive of Boeing, both said there was a need for consistent financing and steady commitment to achieve long-term objectives in space.

Officials from newer space companies, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeffrey P. Bezos’s Blue Origin, called for public-private partnerships rather than traditional government-run programs and called for streamlining the bureaucratic process of licensing launches.

Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, far from describing a neglected space program in the United States, highlighted her company’s meteoric rise in recent years, with 13 launches in 2017. “In short, there is a renaissance underway right now in space,” she said.

The focus on the moon marks an expected turn from the priorities of the Obama administration, which had downplayed the moon and instructed NASA to instead aim for an asteroid and then Mars. The approach is more of a return to the path described by President George W. Bush in 2004 and his father, President George H.W. Bush, 15 years earlier.

Both times, the initiatives petered out. Since the last Apollo moon landing in 1972, no astronauts have traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.

Mr. Pence suggested that private industry might play a larger role in a moon mission this time. “To fully unlock the mysteries of space, President Trump recognizes that we must look beyond the halls of government for input and guidance,” he said.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion article published on Wednesday where Mr. Pence addressed similar themes, he made zero mention of NASA.

What will change in practice under the Trump administration is unclear. Although the Obama administration downplayed sending NASA astronauts to the moon, it did support commercial start-ups seeking to send robotic landers there, and Mr. Pence said that the longer-term goal of getting astronauts to Mars remains.

Philip Larsen, a former White House space adviser in the Obama administration and now an assistant dean at the University of Colorado engineering school disagreed with Mr. Pence’s criticism. He pointed to SpaceX’s success and billions of dollars of private investment in space ventures in recent years.

“That type of activity is what the Obama administration worked to promote and create and foment a whole new industry,” said Mr. Larsen, who did not attend the meeting.

He said it was also too early to tell whether the Trump administration’s space efforts would succeed. “It was just very interesting to do this type of process without a NASA administrator or a science adviser in the White House,” he said. “Until they produce a plan, which it looks like they’re moving toward, this is mostly theater and produces a little bit of confusion, I think. I still remain optimistic.”

The Senate has not yet held confirmation hearings for Jim Bridenstine, an Oklahoma congressman nominated last month to be the next NASA administrator. President Trump has yet to name a science adviser.

John Logsdon, a former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, was more positive, noting that administration had chosen to hold its first meeting publicly at a high-profile venue to draw more attention.

“Words are the first step to action,” he said.

Are the words different this time?

Dr. Logsdon paused. “No,” he replied wistfully.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was only supposed to stay attached to the ISS for two years. It's been performing well enough in its technological demonstration, however, that NASA now wants to extend its stint for three more years. Astronauts aboard the ISS installed BEAM in early 2016 as an experiment, with the intention of regularly checking its integrity, conducting radiation shielding experiments and collecting microbial air and surface samples from within its confines. The results of those tests prove that the module is tough enough to survive the harsh conditions of outer space for far longer than its original lifespan.

While Bigelow Aerospace ultimately wants its expandable habitat to serve as living quarters, it's way too early to expect astronauts to live inside the module. BEAM will instead serve as storage space to hold up to 130 cargo transfer bags used to transport supplies from a spacecraft to the station.

Its new role will free up space inside the ISS for more experiments. It will also allow NASA to learn more about modular habitats' structural integrity, thermal stability and resistance to space debris, radiation and microbial growth. The extended experimental period could bring us closer to the independent inflatable stations Bigelow Aerospace wants to send to low-Earth orbit.

Based on the procurement filing NASA submitted, the new contract will overlap with the older one and will begin later this year. By the end of the new three-year contract, the agency could choose to extend it for one more year or to finally jettison and allow it to burn as it enters our planet's atmosphere.

On October 06 2017 13:11 LegalLord wrote:

The fuck does that have to do with anything? Yes, NASA doesn't pull random shit out of its ass to pretend to have a lunar/Mars lander. But they don't need one to have a mission.


Well, the engineering on those was pretty dang groundbreaking. Both were over-engineered as hell but as far as technologies go they were state of the art.

On October 06 2017 13:11 LegalLord wrote:

Improve it how? By making it cheaper? Making new missions that had previously been unheard of? Saving money is definitely a respectable goal in its own right; NASA was founded on a "waste anything but time" principle and it sure has wasted everything else throughout its existence. But without a government-led initiative none of it is at all worth it. The two CRS darlings would fall apart in 3-4 years without NASA subsidies, just like all the other COTS also-ran startups. Having private companies try to do these missions without NASA guiding them through it all is also a definite no-no. Even Commercial Crew shows that no one is willing to spend their own money on that crap, they are only going along with it when NASA is paying.

On October 06 2017 13:11 LegalLord wrote:

I mean if that's true, then what's changed? It's the same mission as before: get people into space and get them back alive. It's little more than an evolutionary improvement.

On October 06 2017 13:11 LegalLord wrote:

Yes it is - thank Obama for being short-sighted enough to gut NASA's capabilities with little in the way of a contingency and mostly blind faith in market magic. Leading to a kind of successful cargo program and a commercial crew program that will be obsolete just a couple of years after it actually finishes.


No, it's definitely a funding thing.

On October 06 2017 13:11 LegalLord wrote:
Unless you have a prestige fetish I'm assuming by "state school engineering students" you mean that they have a hard time getting the high-quality people they need to make better stuff. Which should be no surprise when the organization has no vision for the future to speak of. No Constellation, they have an SLS but no clear mission (possibly the DSG if that sees some love), and they have to deal with a government that is rightfully concerned with saving money, but is less so properly frugal and more so just cheap in ways that end up costing more in the long run. NASA bled a lot of talent after the Shuttle started going downhill and Constellation didn't really survive, so of course they have a lack of the right people. And that is definitely a funding thing.

Sure, NASA could certainly learn to be more efficient (it's not flattering that NASA has like 10x the budget of Roscosmos and runs into all these issues) but it's not like they're free to choose where and how to spend their money.

Bob Smith, the CEO of the space outfit founded by Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) mastermind Jeff Bezos, mentioned the new timeline during the first meeting of the newly revamped National Space Council on Thursday.

That's a later date than Blue Origin had touted in the past. Just a year ago, the company's president, Rob Meyerson, said the first launch with passengers would be sometime in 2018.

In an emailed statement to CNNMoney on Thursday, Blue Origin insisted its "internal dates have not shifted," but added, "we will fly humans when we're ready, and not a moment sooner."

The National Space Council, which has been revived under the Trump administration after a two-decade hiatus, includes Vice President Mike Pence and various other government officials. Its goal is to help coordinate space exploration and national security efforts by the public and private sectors.

Smith briefly spoke to the panel about Blue Origin's plans to take paying customers to space.

"Within the next 18 months we're going to be launching humans into space," he said. "These won't be astronauts...these will be everyday citizens."

A 2019 launch would put Blue Origin's first space tourism trip slightly behind its competitor SpaceX, which is headed by Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.

SpaceX plans to take two tourists on a trip around the moon sometime in the last quarter of 2018. SpaceX confirmed Thursday that date hasn't been adjusted since the company first announced those plans back in February.

(Note, however, that Musk is notorious for setting ambitious deadlines -- and blowing through them.)

In the grand scheme of things, SpaceX and Blue Origin have very different strategies for space tourism.

For Blue Origin, sending paying customers to space is part of the bedrock of it early business strategy.

The company wants to conduct frequent launches to the edge of space -- where passengers can briefly experience weightlessness and marvel at the view. (So far, the company has only conducted unmanned test launches of its New Shepherd rocket.)

The goal is to make it relatively cheap for an Average Joe to enjoy spaceflight, though Blue Origin hasn't yet indicated exactly how much tickets will cost. The revenue it makes from ticket sales is supposed to help fund the company's future endeavors, such as launching satellites into space.

Bezos also told reporters in April that he sells about $1 billion worth of his Amazon shares every year in order to keep Blue Origin stocked with cash, according to Reuters.