Augustine Summary Report is Out

[kelvinzero]

Sorry, I guess that came out a bit grumpy

 

[jakethesnake]

It looks like the Obama administration is leaning towards the commercial space rout, and is willing to throw some money that way.

Also the Augustine commission is going to testify in front of the House and Senate tomorrow and Wednesday.

Michael Griffin is also going to testify in front of the House and the Senate as well… should be very interesting to hear what Michael has to say in light of his already critical view of the Augustine report.

In addition to Augustine, it has scheduled former Administrator Michael Griffin and Joe Dyer, the chairman of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, to testify. Griffin can be expected to strongly defend the program developed on his watch, and argue that it is safer than the alternatives.

aviation week and space technology
Sep 13, 2009 by Frank Morring, Jr.



Augustine Taking Findings to Capitol Hill

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... tol%20Hill

 

[radarredux]

House of Representatives will hold a meeting tomorrow (Sep 15th) to discuss the report "Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans". Both Augustine and Michael Griffin will apparently be testifying. Might be interesting.

It is 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM (East Coast time I presume) and on the right side of the page is a link for the webcast.

http://sciencedems.house.gov/publicatio ... ewsID=2590

 

[neutrino78x]

I wanted to add, it is still true that robotic exploration of Mars can be done from Earth. A 40 minute speed of light delay is a small price to pay when there are no human lives at risk. In the future we'll probably have rovers that go a lot faster than the ones which are there now.

A place like Europa is a little more problematic to explore from Earth. You can put a submarine probe in there and do some programmed movements, and command it to some degree from Earth, but if a fish or something moves past the camera, by the time you see that on Earth, a few hours will have passed. So out there, there is more benefit to having humans on the mission.

I advocate humans on mars, but for the purpose of, ultimately, colonization. If the strict purpose of the mission is science, then I would send robots.

--Brian

 

[brettc4]

The report talks about no clear goals from NASA.

Do any other space agencies or privateers have clearly documented goals and objectives regarding their Space Exploration.

Then from that, do any of these have defined roadmaps to achieve these goals?

I would love to see some private company/group clearly state a set of goals, provide a road map, and also generate an Open Technical Architecture which provides open and transparent architecture around the technical deliverables, i.e. a blueprint for airlocks that could then be used by all and sundry to ensure compatibility and provides guidance for those wishing to enter the space market, similar to ISO standards or RFC's.

Any links to roadmaps would be appreciated.

 

[neutrino78x]

The report talks about no clear goals from NASA.

That's my objection! You can't put going to the moon as a "future objective beyond LEO", rather, it should be, "under current budget, this is how we could land men on the moon by X date", "this is how we could land men on the moon on the faster if we had a budget increase", etc.

--Brian

 

[jakethesnake]

I believe that Michael Griffin just handed the Augustine Commission their proverbial Intellectual butts!

Here are two things said by Michael in his testimony to the House yesterday that I found pefect!

1st

Michael Griffin

Technical problems with Ares‐1 are cited several times in the Summary Report, without
further discussion. Knowledgeable observers in and out of NASA would disagree strongly as to
the severity of such problems. Constellation’s “technical problems” are on display because
actual work is being accomplished. Other options have no problems because no work is being
done. There are never any technical problems on viewgraphs.

To this point, in The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference, Theodore Rockwell
recalls a priceless observation by Adm. Hyman Rickover. When confronted with a situation in
which a variety of alternative concepts were being advocated to – and around – Rickover in
place of the pressurized‐water reactor design he favored for the nuclear navy, Rickover noted
that there were two kinds of reactors, paper reactors; i.e., new reactor concepts, and “real
reactors”. A paper reactor has the following characteristics:

It is simple.
It is small.
It is cheap.
It is lightweight.
It can be built very quickly.

Very little development is required; it can use off‐the‐shelf components.
It is in the study phase; it is not being built now.

In contrast, a real reactor has the following characteristics:
It is complicated.
It is large.
It is heavy.
It is being built now.
It is behind schedule.
It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items.
It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems.

Does any of this sound familiar?


2nd

Michael Griffins parting comments

I would like to close with a quote from the Commission’s Summary Report: Finally, significant
space achievements require continuity of support over many years. One way to ensure that no
successes are achieved is to continually pull up the flowers to see if the roots are healthy.

This Committee might be accused of being part of this pattern!

I couldn’t agree more. As I see it, the Commission didn't find anything wrong with the current
program, didn't find anything safer, more reliable, cheaper or faster. The roots are healthy. So,
why throw away four years and $8 billion pulling up the flowers? Let’s apply some plant
nutrient and watch them grow.

This, to me, is our best option for re‐affirming a stable civil space policy.

Thank you.

Testimony

Hearing on Options and Issues for NASA’s Human Space Flight Program:
Report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Science and Technology
Rayburn House Office Building
Room 2318
Michael D. Griffin
Eminent Scholar and Professor
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Alabama in Huntsville
15 September 2009

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=32378

 

[MeteorWayne]

Spaceflightnow's take on yesterday's testimony:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0909/15augustine/

from Augustine:

"The reluctant bottom line conclusion of our committee is that the current program as it's being pursued is not executable, that we're on a path that will not lead to a useful, safe human exploration program and the reason for that is the mismatch between the tasks to be performed and the funds available to support those tasks," Augustine said Tuesday.

"It also came as a considerable disappointment to this committee that we were unable to find any alternative space programs that would be worthy of this country that could be conducted for the funding profile now in place."

 

[jakethesnake]

Can’t pass this one up either…

Michael Griffin:

“In my view, then, the most important question that Congress could ask of the new Administration and its Commission is this: exactly why does the policy which we have established in law – twice! – need to be changed?”

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=32378

I know a lot of people don't like him, but it must be tough for the Augustine Commission to read this especially coming from someone as educated a Michael.

Who on the Augustine commission even comes close to Michael?

Education (Michael Griffin)

Dr. Griffin holds seven degrees, and is pursuing his eighth. In chronological order of attainment, Dr. Griffin's degrees include:

BS Physics Johns Hopkins University 1971
MS Aerospace Science The Catholic University of America 1974
PhD Aerospace Engineering University of Maryland, College Park 1977
MEng Electrical Engineering University of Southern California 1979
MS Applied Physics Johns Hopkins University 1983
MBA Master of Business Administration Loyola College in Maryland
MEng Civil Engineering The George Washington University 1998

Dr. Griffin was also working toward an MS in computer science at Johns Hopkins University before being appointed as NASA chief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin

 

[radarredux]

To add to the quotes from the testimony:

Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin told legislators they had the power to change the direction of the agency.

"The last president did not request the funds necessary. The one before that did not request the funds necessary. The current president is not requesting the funds necessary," he said. "I believe the question for Congress will be, 'Do you wish to go along with that, or not?'"

From many of the articles I've read, the Augustine Report just ran into the wall known as Congress. I don't think there will be any substantial change in direction, but just maybe this report will be used to justify more money be spent on human spaceflight than currently projected.

 

[vulture4]

Griffin repeatedly blamed Clinton for underfunding NASA and thus delaying Constellation. But of course when Griffin was administrator Bush was president. Can anyone point to just one time Griffin asked Bush for more money? In reality Griffin claimed we could go to "the moon, Mars, and beyond" without another dime. This was fantasy, yet no one called him out on it.

BTW Nelson asked Augustine today whether we could extend the Shuttle until commercial human flight to ISS was available. This is the first rational suggestion I've heard at these hearings. We've just had four Shuttle missions in five months; the system is working, and it doesn't make sense to kill it now.

 

[MeteorWayne]

http://www.space.com/news/090916-ft-hou ... light.html

 

[thermionic]

So what's the next step? Does the congressional committee have a scheduled decision to make?

 

[radarredux]

So what's the next step? Does the congressional committee have a scheduled decision to make?

I think this is what will follow:

(1) The Augustine Commission will finish the final report and give it to the White House (and presumably release it to the rest of us).

(2) The White House will mull over the report for a number of weeks/months and then come up with a proposed budget and plan for NASA

(3) Congress will complain that there still isn't enough money, but they won't have the cojones to add any money themselves. There may be some squabbles by the likes of Senator Shelby to block any money designated for commercial providers.

My guess of what the outcome will be: An extra $3 billion will be allocated to NASA's budget over what Obama was originally looking for to keep the development of Ares I, Ares V, J-2X, and Orion going with a planned beyond LEO capability in the mid 2020s (but not enough money to actually descend into a gravity well like the Moon or Mars), but some token amount will me set aside for COTS.