Photo Credit: NASA
Earlier this week, the U. S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee offered a look at proposed legislation that would guide NASA’s future for the next three years.
The Senate panel, which responsible for NASA oversight but not its funding, intends to discuss the measure on Thursday. At 99 pages, this measure offers significant changes to the space policy presented by President Obama to Congress as part of his 2011 NASA budget in February and updated by him in an April 15 speech at the Kennedy Space Center.
However, in departs from the previous Bush Administration policy as well, while addressing topics that range from the future of human exploration to Earth observations, the collision threat posed by asteroids, the hazards to spacecraft from growing orbital debris as well as the need to improve education in the STEM fields, science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Senate measure also speaks to larger economic and national security concerns by keeping the United States at the pinnacle of science and technology with a strong space exploration program.
A summary of many of the key features, some not widely reported, follows.
The Senate measure lays out a budget of $19 billion for NASA in 2011, $19.45 billion in 2012 and $20 billion in 2013. At the top of the list for those who support human space exploration, the measure calls for the accelerated development of a NASA heavy lift rocket, also known as the Space Launch System, which would be operational by 2016.
The Obama plan called for an extensive research and development effort and a decision on a new heavy lift strategy in 2015. The Bush strategy under the Constellation Program once looked at a heavy lift rocket capable of delivering astronauts to the moon by 2020. Last year, a White House panel determined the effort lacked the funding to reach that goal.
The Senate measure calls for the development of a NASA crew spacecraft called the multi-purpose crew vehicle. While avoiding the Orion title bestowed on the capsule by the Bush strategy, the Senate plan would have a similar spacecraft ready for deep space missions in parallel with the new heavy lift, or by the end of 2016.
In February, Orion was among the proposed casualties of the Constellation Program that Obama wished to cancel. In mid April, the president revived Orion as a crew life boat for the International Space Station, but he did not say how the development would be funded.
The Senate measure would foster Obama’s commercial space transportation initiative, but slow it considerably by imposing a series of development milestones. Under the initiative, NASA would set aside $6 billion over the next five years to foster commercial launch serves that could deliver cargo and astronauts to the space station.
The Senate measure would prohibit NASA from awarding new commercial transportation services contracts in 2011. It would allow the agency to make investments in commercial companies beyond those already provided to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp during the Bush era. NASA would be expected to quickly develop human ratings requirements that would allow commercial services to address the risks faced by their passengers.
Operations aboard the International Space Station would be extended to at least 2020. Obama proposed as much. Bush wanted to end station operations in 2016. The Senate measure calls for the creation of a non-profit management agency for the station to make the maximum use of the orbiting outpost. Under its National Laboratory designation, the station is open to research from academia, other government agencies and commercial users.
The Senate measure would fund an additional shuttle mission, launched sometime after June 1, 2011, using existing hardware. It would also preserve a capability to re-start shuttle operations beyond 2011. The Obama and Bush plans called for an end to shuttle operations in 2010-early 2011.
The Senate, Obama and Bush plans all move human space exploration out of Earth orbit. The Senate goals, without mentioning specific dates, calls Mars the long term objective, but does not rule out the moon and the exploration of asteroids. Obama called on NASA to bypass the moon and reach for an asteroid with human explorers by 2025. Astronauts would orbit Mars a decade later, under the Obama strategy. Bush set the moon as a destination by 2020. Mars was to be in reach in the mid-2030s.
All three plans aim for a sustained human presence in space, bolstered by research efforts to find and exploit resources on the moon and other planetary bodies to produce rocket fuels, water and oxygen.
In the area of Earth Sciences, the Senate strategy calls on NASA to work with other federal agencies and international partners to monitor the planet and its climate to preserve a strong economy and national security.
The committee plan also calls for the future production of plutonium as a fuel source for a new generation of Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators. RTG’s provide electricity for robotic space science missions headed to the frontiers of the solar system, destinations too far to rely on solar power.
The Senate plan also calls on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a policy for notifying federal agencies of a collision threat posed by an asteroid headed for the Earth.
A recent study found that 80 percent of NASA’s many building and test facilities exceed 40 years in age. The Senate plans calls on NASA to conduct a one year study to determine which of those facilities should be upgraded, or closed and disposed of to cut costs.
Increasing amounts of orbital debris from old satellites and rockets pose a growing hazard to newer spacecraft vital to global communications, commerce and national security. The Senate plan urges a more concerted effort to establish satellite design, operation and end of mission disposal standards that would reduce the debris hazard.
It proposes closer international collaboration in the issuing of warnings of imminent satellite collisions and assistance with developing avoidance maneuvers.
Mark Carreau