I had the opportunity yesterday, though, to sit down with some friends who have a little more insight into what’s really been going on up in DC.  Plain and simple, Senators Hutchison and Nelson quietly formed an alliance in the Senate and even more quietly pre-coordinated with the White House to come up with something that everyone can live with.

For all the suggestions of his inability to lead, it was NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden who made the case for a heavy-lift vehicle and that was the carrot Hutchison and Nelson used to get the support from expected intransigents like Sen. Shelby, who just earned a rather ignominious distinction from Citizens Against Government Waste.

There is an important clause in the language on heavy lift that leaves NASA an escape if it finds shuttle-derived components are impracticable.  Thus, the staffers that helped put this bill together say that NASA is not technically constrained by the Senate language.  The authorization committee also accepted amendments to provide more funding for tech R&D and robotic precursor missions.

At this point, it’s a matter of making the trades in the budget lines to come to an amicable conclusion that funds one more Shuttle flight, ISS continuation, exploration and space technology research, and a human exploration program beyond Earth orbit.  While commercial crew development is constrained in FY2011, I hear that was intended to actually provide commercial developers cover for moving out strong in FY2012 and beyond.

In any event, the Senate appropriations committee just approved the full $19 billion the President and the Senate authorization committee asked for.  This is a bonafide example of how the system really is supposed to work.  Senators, staffers, and the White House set aside partisan politics to develop a plan that we can move forward on, even while acknowledging that it isn’t perfect.

By contrast, the House legislation is a scattershot proposal, with its only clear goal being the restoration of the status quo.  Forty-three – yes, 43 – amendments were submitted against it, even as the House committee meeting was ongoing.

Our own Rep. Pete Olson filed an “emergency” amendment intended to short-circuit their own priority queue to immediately fund the Constellation spacesuit project.  Other Representatives squabbled over the $15 million CRuSR program to sponsor suborbital science research and whether NASA should foster the growth of commercial space industry at all.  (Note: The Space Act explicitly directs NASA to help grow American industry in space.  It doesn’t actually say anything about flying people in space.)  Towards the end of the day, it was silly season on display.

Senator Hutchison is showing some real leadership here and has done good work for our state and our space program.  I hope Rep. Olson and his colleagues in the House will learn from her example and stop tilting at windmills.  Rep. Kosmas from Florida submitted an amendment calling on the House to follow the Senate’s approach, so at least one person in that chamber gets it.

If the Senate’s strategy is adopted by the House and emerges from conference committee intact, we could have a bill that he will sign on the President’s desk before October and avoid a continuing resolution – which would keep NASA in limbo perhaps as long as another year.

This would be a more evolutionary change for NASA, as opposed to the revolutionary approach outlined in the President’s FY2011 budget.  Even so, NASA still gets an overall increase in its budget and breathing room for needed investments in commercial space services and technology R&D.  JSC, in particular, will have plenty of work to do.

As long as NASA retains the freedom to make appropriate technical decisions within the budget and schedule provided, I think we can make this work.

Cross-posted at A World With No Boundaries

Note: I am posting this because I want people to see a realistic view of things at NASA, not a sugar-coated version. This is as real as it gets.

This week I volunteered for an upcoming layoff from my job as a space shuttle technician. I will be leaving after 8.5 years of service on October 1st, 2010. Since many people would give their right arm to work on the shuttle program, you might think I’m crazy to volunteer for this. Leaving the shuttle program is a tough decision for sure, but it really isn’t a matter of if, only when. I am not choosing to leave, I am just choosing the time it will happen. Ultimately, the vast majority of shuttle workers will be let go. So why go before I am forced? Here’s an explanation so you can see it from my perspective.

One of the biggest reasons I am taking this layoff is that it will allow me to plan for my future. It is nearly impossible to make plans or look for a new job when you have no idea when your end date at work will be or what the future holds. We hear a different story every week about what is happening with the program, or with our benefits/severance. The uncertainty is exhausting. I’m not blaming my management for this- I think they are in the same boat. By volunteering for this layoff, I now know what is going to happen to me and when. Crazy as it seems, that feels good. Now I can start figuring out a good strategy to move forward.

Along the same lines, morale was a big push for me to self-nominate for this layoff. You can’t imagine what it is like to be at work surrounded by constant doom and gloom, now with a dash of panic. It is not pretty. Once the people who are to be laid off involuntarily are notified- which will be at the end of July- I expect that it will be even worse. As far as the work goes, we are finishing up with Discovery’s right OMS Pod now, and will deliver it for reinstallation this week. After that I have a few thrusters to bench test for Atlantis, which is being processed for launch on need (in case of emergency). Once that is complete, the bulk of the work we will have left in my area is decontamination of our facility for shutdown, or Transition & Retirement as NASA likes to call it. I started working on the shuttle program because I wanted to contribute to something incredible, human space exploration. I don’t find decontamination and shutdown very inspirational. In fact, it is downright depressing. For many workers, it is just a job and they don’t care what goal they’re working towards as long as they are paid. To me, it makes a difference, and I would much rather try to find work I can feel good about again.

Other reasons for taking this layoff are more practical than emotional. Leaving early gives me a better chance of finding a new job or pursuing other options because the market won’t be flooded with thousands of others doing the same. Also, it makes sense for my particular situation, because my husband works on the shuttle program as well. He will have work to do up until the last launch because he works at the launch pad. We figure that it will be best for us to take a phased approach rather than both being laid off at the same time. This way, hopefully I can get something figured out and can carry him once his job is complete, sometime next year.

So, that’s basically it. This is the reality of the situation. It is sad to see it coming to an end, but it is also a new beginning in so many ways. I am hopeful for the future of NASA, it just isn’t quite ready for me yet, so I’ll make my exit now, gracefully. I’m not looking for sympathy; I’m not feeling sorry for myself and you shouldn’t feel sorry for me either! I am looking for my next great adventure, whatever it may be…

The National Space Policy is an outline for the goals, objectives, and guiding principles of all US government activity in space.  It is a high-level executive document that is intended to bring together the various disparate elements under a single framework that generally explains the Administration’s thought process.  Nothing more, nothing less.

As the newspapers and many other bloggers have already reported, the Obama Administration’s document largely returns to the language of Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton with its focus on collaboration and eschews the “no one else can tell us what to do” language of Bush II.  Instead of rehashing the boilerplate verbiage, I’d instead like to examine the various elements of the National Space Policy that stand out to me.

First, the very Introduction gives attention to the increasingly inter-related nature of space activities.  In particular, the problem of space debris is mentioned.  I find this interesting in light of recent articles that suggest the Kessler Syndrome may be closer than we realize and, especially after the Iridium-Cosmos collision, the powers-that-be are taking the issue much more seriously.  By putting this topic front-and-center, the Administration seems to be telling the space community that we have to recognize the impact of our activities and shape the way we work to be more conscientious and sustainable.

The section on Intersector Guidelines reads pretty blandly, at first.  At least, it did until I got to the part on “International Cooperation.” It lists “space nuclear power to support space science and exploration” as a potential area for international cooperation.  That caught my attention given our country’s tenuous relationship with nuclear power.  We haven’t really embraced it like some other industrialized countries, but I think it’s increasingly being seen as an alternative in an era where we’re trying to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

“Preserving the Space Environment” directs NASA, the Department of Defense, and other related agencies to work together to prevent conjunction events, minimize the creation of debris, and devise measures to “mitigate and remove” the orbital debris that’s already there.  I think this is likely to be a significant growth opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators.  It’s going to take some very creative thinking to tackle the problem of orbital debris in a cost-effective manner.  Sadly, there’s plenty of work to be done on the problem, too.

“Space Nuclear Power” does, in fact, get its own section.  The direction is reasonably unambiguous, too.  “The United States shall develop and use space nuclear power systems where such systems safely enable or significantly enhance space exploration or operational capabilities.”  This is a serious commitment at the policy level, as lightweight nuclear reactors developed for space exploration could be just as useful for helping address America’s concerns about meeting base power load needs while reducing fossil fuel emissions.

I think it’s encouraging that the Department of Energy is specifically directed to “Maintain the capability and infrastructure to develop and furnish nuclear power systems for use in United States Government space systems.”  For the time being, I’m sure most of that effort will be focused on maintaining our radioisotope thermoelectric generator capabilities, but this also means DoE has an explicit directive to work with NASA if the agency determines space nuclear power systems are a key element for Beyond Earth Orbit exploration.

As we move into the Sector Guidelines, the first section is on “Commercial Space Guidelines”.  More or less, it says that the US Government should develop its own space systems only when there is overriding national interest and there is no existing or adaptable commercial service that is suitable.  This is very much consistent with the Space Act that governs NASA, but now a standing policy directive across the Executive Branch.  Unlike what was suggested in the rumor mill, the policy encourages prizes, competitions, and innovative, nontraditional methods of acquiring services.

The “Civil Space Guidelines” largely cover NASA’s area of responsibility. NASA is chartered to set the exploration milestones, with direction to begin crewed exploration of asteroids by 2025 and to Mars and back by the mid-2030s.  The blogosphere is largely reading what they want to in this statement, but I find it interesting more in what it doesn’t say.  It doesn’t say NASA can’t do these things sooner.  To me, they read more like “No Later Than” dates than “No Earlier Than” dates.

The subsection on Near-Earth Objects also catches my attention because it doesn’t just address the issue of hazard mitigation.  I think that’s important in and of itself, but the National Space Policy takes this a step further and recognizes the potential for asteroid mining.  Some studies have shown that a single metallic asteroid could have more recoverable rare earth metals, nickel, and iron than have been mined in the history of all civilization.  Given growing concerns over China’s dominant market position with the rare earth metals that are essential to modern technology, this could become an increasingly attractive prospect.

The National Security Space Guidelines are fairly boilerplate. I suspect the really interesting bits are in the classified annex that most of us will never see.

While the National Space Policy is neither the blueprint that some were hoping for or the travesty that some expected, I do think there are nuggets in there that suggest we have an opportunity to make American activity in space more sustainable, more widespread, and more relevant to national interests.  The question before us is whether we are willing to take advantage of this opportunity or not.  We now have the policy directives to do it.

I frequently get asked what I think about the direction NASA is taking. I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago but didn’t post it at the time. I’m not really sure why. This post does not outline my personal take on what we should be doing with our space program; it just provides a little bit of perspective on things from where I sit.

Written on April 20th:

After the president’s visit to Kennedy Space Center last week where he laid out the emerging plan for NASA to go forward, I’ve noticed a fair amount of negativity in the space community. Personally, I have high hopes for our nation’s future in space. It isn’t because anything particularly revolutionary was disclosed at Obama’s Space Summit. My perspective has just changed gradually over the past year or so, and a lot of that I owe to my interactions on Twitter. I used to look at space exploration very narrowly. Like this is the way we go to space, and this is the right way and the only way. And this is how it has to be (I’m exaggerating, but just go with it). I looked at the changes to the program more in terms of how they affected me and my community.

Now, after quite some time on Twitter, I have much greater knowledge of commercial space operations, robotic missions, and international perspectives. Because of this I am able to take myself out of the equation and look at the plan more optimistically. It has made me start to challenge the traditional thinking that is ingrained in us about NASA’s role and see more of a big picture view.

Seeing Discovery land today reminded me how impressive the shuttle is as a launch vehicle, and how sad I’ll be to see the program end. That being said, if we waited another five years, ten years, or even more to retire it, would it be any easier? For me, the answer is no. The shuttle is an icon, a symbol of pride, and a treasure. It is going to be hard to see it go no matter when it happens. And there is no denying that as time goes on it would become more difficult to maintain due to issues like aging hardware and availability of spares. So, while I might not be ready for shuttle to end, I probably won’t ever be, in the same way I would never be ready for a loved one to die. It will be a time to grieve and then move on.

I have heard the argument that it would be easier to lay shuttle to rest if we had something better coming along. Ares-1 might have filled that role, but there were funding issues. So now we’re trying something different, with a greater emphasis on commercial spaceflight roles. Our destinations are different, and we aren’t quite sure what kind of vehicle we will be using to get to them. But we’re going SOMEWHERE. We have a commitment to develop a heavy-lift vehicle. These are steps in the right direction, yet they don’t seem to have been met with much optimism. Of course, people have every right to feel the way they do and to question the decisions. Personally, I’m choosing not to. I just don’t see the point.

Regardless of what I think is the the right path to take, I’m not the one who gets to make that decision. Rather than expend energy fighting it or fretting over it, I’m going to accept the new plan for what it is and be hopeful. I’m going to look around for new opportunities arising from it where I can make a difference and seize them, or create my own. I’m going to savor everything about the last few shuttle missions, and remember the program fondly.

Overall I see that there is potentially a bright future out there for NASA and space exploration, it just looks different than what most of us expected. A lot different. If we can approach the new plan with open minds, accept that there are other valid ways of doing things and embrace them, we can make the most of the situation. If, instead, we consider it a tremendous loss and spend our time wallowing in it, then it will most likely manifest as one. For me, it was a simple choice.

Given the shock that has accompanied the pending Shuttle retirement, the continuation of a Space Station that I doubt most Americans know exists, and the proposed cancellation of the Constellation Program (that I think even fewer Americans really knew about), I think it’s clear that we haven’t done that.  Instead, we have people arguing back and forth over what largely amount to platitudes.  I hear friends and colleagues, who are understandably disenchanted with the political process, wishing aloud that the government would just give us the money to go do what we want and leave us alone.

That’s never going to happen, of course.  Whether civil servant or contractor, all of us involved in NASA’s human space flight endeavors are stewards of the taxpayers’ money.  Members of Congress and the President are the duly elected representatives of those same taxpayers.  Between the Executive and Legislative branches of our political triad, policy is crafted, funded, and executed.  Human space flight is inherently tied to the political process and we fail to bridge the technical and policy worlds at our own peril.

There have been many strategies put forth to try to help NASA better navigate the winds of political change.  Most that I’ve seen propose some mechanism to make it more difficult for politicians to change course mid-stream.  The politicians control the purse strings, so that’s never going to happen, either.

I think the most effective strategy for NASA exists at a much more basic level.  It’s something I always kinda knew in the back of my head, but I didn’t really learn how to start explaining it better until I had the opportunity to serve on the Barrier Analysis Team for JSC’s Inclusion and Innovation Council.  Mark Craig, a NASA veteran and senior executive at SAIC, was one of the mentors for our team and I think I learned more from him than anyone else over that period.

If you keep up with OpenNASA, you’ll know that this isn’t the first time I’ve broached the subject.  I think NASA’s best defense is to design and pursue programs and strategies that are relevant because they contribute to solving America’s strategic problems.

On May 5th, I had the opportunity to listen to Mark discuss this topic in more detail.  He was gracious enough to let me share here on OpenNASA what I took away from his talk.

Since it was presented under the auspices of the JSC Storytelling program, Mark opened up by defining what a “story” is, according to his friend and colleague, Bob Rogers.  A story is ” a deeper level of truth by which we explain the world and our place in it to ourselves.”  (Note: Ask yourself how you explain, honestly, the world and your place in it.  How do you relate that story to other people? We’ll come back to that.)

Mark also explained that he sees relevance as having two parts.  There is the “why” and the “value.”  “Why Relevance” explains our reason for being.  It tells us where we go and what we do.  Mark offered the statements of the Augustine Committee and John Marburger, OSTP Director under President Bush, as examples.  The Augustine Committee said we go into space to expand the human presence in the Solar System, while Marburger stated that our goal was “to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program.”

These statements aren’t necessarily contradictory, but they illustrate different perspectives on the “why” that must be taken into account.

“Value relevance” is defined by Mark as a “critical mass” of benefit delivered to a “critical mass” of stakeholders.  This recognizes that you probably can’t please everyone, but you can and should satisfy enough of your stakeholders to press on.  This form of relevance must actually be experienced by the stakeholders, though.  We can’t just go do something that we think is great and, then, try to sell it to everyone else. Value relevance is fostered through a continual process of research (identify what is important to your stakeholders), creation (make something that meets their needs), delivery (make sure they get it), and self-improvement (evaluate how well you did the last iteration).

This is not just a communications problem.  We’ve labored under the assumption for far too long that we don’t do a good enough job “selling” the space program to the public.  Mark rightly points out that this process of creating value relevance must be built into architectures and designs early on.  The research part is key because we have to meet other people where they are to effectively engage them, both on a technical and emotional level.  One commenter in the audience noted that, in the business world she came from, you have to know your audience or you will fail.

Mark also had a few recommendations and “Red Flags” for us to consider.  First, he advocates the creation of an external guidance and accountability function, similar to the Decadal Survey process, for human space flight.  Having an external group of “thought leaders” in science, industry, art, and culture would provide the outside perspective that we in the human space flight community lack.  This would help keep us from drinking our own bathwater.

NASA would also need its own value management system to engage external marketing experts, employ industry best practices in value management, and document the structure in NASA processes.  This gets back to the point about needing to build value relevance into our system early on.

From his experience as a NASA veteran and consultant to museums, Mark also suggested some areas where we could make a real impact.  For example, the movie Apollo 13 was compelling because it showed, in detail, what the people went through.  NASA TV’s view of Mission Control, by comparison, looks like a security camera.  We have experiences and emotions to share with the public.  Why don’t we?

Mark also believes that we could be doing more in the area of medical research for the benefit of people here on Earth.  My personal opinion is that we have a similar opportunity in the area of energy.  American-owned and operated powersats and miniaturized, passively-safe nuclear power could revolutionize both industry and space exploration while giving us avenues to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Changing our approach to how we build and conduct the space program doesn’t just involve top-down management, though.  Mark also identified what he called “red flags” for us to push back against when we see them.

1. Don’t just assume change is happening.  Ask how programs are being shaped to bring it about.  Who is in charge? What is the funding and where does it come from?
2. Ask how something improves sustainability. Changing a vehicle, destination, or program isn’t enough.
3. In regards to outreach, are we just showing up? Or are we deliberate and thoughtful in our approach so that we listen to what the people we are reaching out to are saying?
4. “We just need to explain it better.”  Be careful.  It’s a trap to convince ourselves our original idea is right.
5. “Congress is our customer.”  Be careful.  It’s a trap to blame our missteps on politics.
6. “The public is our customer.” Be careful.  It’s a trap to abrogate accountability because it’s too nebulous.
7. “Marketing is illegal.” No, it isn’t. Lobbying and advertising are, but those aren’t all there is to marketing.

I agree with Mark’s argument that we can build human space flight into the fabric of society, if we can build relevance and accountability into the human space flight program.  We just have to remember that this is relevance that is researched, understood, and delivered; not just assumed.

So, with that in mind, I ask you to consider the following questions.

What is the compelling story for the human space program?

How can we make it relevant to America’s needs and values?

How you can be a part of changing the narrative?

Every ending is a new beginning.

Sometimes, though, this concept can be hard to accept. Personally and professionally. Take the end of our beloved Space Shuttle program, for example. Only three flights left. EVER!

My sister Aimee recently reminded me how she and Daddy watched Columbia lift off on April 12, 1981. She remembers him marveling that we could actually launch a rocket from Earth and fly it back to the planet like an airplane. The concept was so unbelievable at the time.

We take it for granted today.

I don’t recall the launch at all. But, I remember the STS-1 landing two days later. I worked at the University of Texas Ex-Students’ Association in Austin. We gathered around the conference table to watch Columbia land. I remember how cool it was to meet STS-1 John Young and Bob Crippin for the first time a few years later. They were the first humans to put their lives on the line and strap themselves onto the Shuttle stack for launch.

But then again, every astronaut who has ever flown on a rocket ship takes a leap of faith — each time we ignite the engines.

Yes, the fleet of amazing reusable winged vehicles served us well over the last two decades (with the exception of our tragic loss of the Challenger and Columbia crew and vehicles on two missions: STS-51-L and STS-107). We don’t relish mothballing the remaining three vehicles: Atlantis, Discovery andEndeavour. But think about the exorbitant cost of upgrades. Cost alone makes the close-out decision for NASA managers so much easier than for those on the outside looking in.

Let’s face it, many of us are mourning the end of the program. And that’s ok. Grief is a reasonable human response. We love to watch our winged vehicles soar into the air, breaking gravity’s grasp on humanity. Those of us fortunate enough to witness a Shuttle launch live, love to feel the ground-shaking rumble and the roar of the engines. Some have even seen the night-sky turn to day as the vehicle propels to the heavens above.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a Space Shuttle!!!

(Sorry Superman. We’ve got the real thing. You’re only fiction.)

So what happens next? What follows the Space Shuttle program? Many ask. Many are angry and confused. I don’t have the answers. Just know that NASA folks are furiously working to fill in the blanks. (We’ll fly on Soyuz spacecraft to Station in the meantime.) Beyond that, stay tuned. No comfort for thousands of workers who made house payments, put food on the table, and paid school expenses off Shuttle-related paychecks. I get it. This post-Shuttle “new beginning” must feel like a black hole, where everything they know is disappearing into a powerful vortex outside their control. NASA has been planning this for years, but it doesn’t make the end of the program any easier.

We humans don’t like change, do we?

It’s uncomfortable. Messy, at times. We often prefer the certainty of misery over the misery of uncertainty. That’s why we stay in dead-end jobs or in joyless relationships. We’re funny like that. When change comes, we fight it, dig in our heels, complain to anyone who will listen. Does that sound at all familiar?

But with every new beginning, comes new hope for a better tomorrow.

If we can only let go of those things we cling tightly to, we might have two arms free to embrace this scary, unknown new thing — sometimes called a fresh start.

Here are a few ways to face change head on. Our Goal: Influence Change!

1. Think creatively.
2. Use the same tools in new ways.
3. Find new tools to make old ways new.
4. Look at a problem upside down and right side up.
5. Deconstruct to reconstruct.
6. Make change your own.
7. Sculpt your world into something better than ever existed before.

Who knows, you might like tomorrow better than today! Really, it could happen.

BTW: The next launch, STS-132, is scheduled for May 14. We’ll be having our second Shuttle Launch tweetup at the Kennedy Space Center and a mission tweetup at the Johnson Space Center. Stay-tuned for stories about the launch, mission, and space tweeps.

If you have stories to share about where you were and how you felt with the first Space Shuttle left Earth (IF you were born), feel free to post them as comments.

Crosspost on Bethbeck’s blog.

He reiterated that NASA will build a Crew Return Vehicle for the ISS based on the Orion capsule, begin development of heavy-lift rockets, expand scientific and robotic research, and begin a series of programs intended to expand the state-of-the-art in space technology and on-orbit operations.

There was no mention of the much-rumored Shuttle extension.  Instead, President Obama announced that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden had been tasked to put together a workforce realignment program by August.

While the President’s speech did not have the Cold War urgency of Kennedy’s challenge to beat the Soviets to the Moon, it was a clear recognition that we cannot sustainably explore and develop the solar system for the benefit of humanity by doing the same things over and over again.

Interestingly, President Obama indicated that his ultimate goal is to build a virtually indefinite human presence in space with the United States at the lead.  He set milestones of heavy-lift rocket construction beginning in 2015, manned long-duration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (perhaps to an asteroid) by 2025, and manned missions to Mars orbit in the 2030s.

I disagree with his “been there, done that” attitude about the Moon, as it was recognized as a viable exploration destination by the Augustine Commission and recent discoveries by orbiting probes indicate there is much more to it than we first imagined.  However, I don’t think we should let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of the ‘good’.  The focus on building capabilities and deciding destinations based on their merit means the door is not fully closed.

As was indicated in the center assignments released by NASA Headquarters, Johnson Space Center will be home to the ISS extension, a deputy program office for the Commercial Crew Development program, and the Flagship Technology Demonstrators Program.  Mission Control, the Astronaut Office, and training functions will also stay at JSC.

The International Space Station is an asset now and a valuable platform for testing exploration technologies on-orbit and sustained microgravity science research.  JSC’s participation in the Commercial Crew Development program will ensure that the highest safety and mission assurance standards are kept.

I am particularly interested in the Flagship Demonstrators, though.  This program will put JSC on the forefront of developing and testing, both on the ground and on-orbit, new operational technologies for space transportation.  There will be four projects in this new program.

The first three are already identified – automated docking & rendezvous, inflatable and/or lightweight structures, and in-orbit propellant storage & transfer.  The fourth project is likely to be closed-loop life support demonstration or advanced Entry/Descent/Landing systems.

All of these are enablers for building an in-space transportation system that cycles between destinations and will allow us to only launch what we need for a given mission.  The fact that JSC has been given the lead for this program is a testament to the institutional knowledge and engineering capabilities of the center.

Space policy consultant Angela Peura describes this as “Gemini on steroids,” in direct contrast to former NASA administrator Michael Griffin’s description of the Constellation Program as “Apollo on steroids.”

The simple reality here is that decisions were made six years ago that put us on this path.  Congress stood by and did nothing while the march to Shuttle retirement began.  Congress did not object when President Bush did not put in his own budget proposal the funding he had promised for the Constellation Program.

Once again, we found ourselves in a situation – just as in Shuttle – where attempts to short-change development costs in the near-term were leading to increased operational costs further down stream.  Ares I was going to cost 50% more than the Shuttle to operate to put half the crew and a fraction of the cargo in orbit.  Not only that, it wasn’t even likely to enter service before ISS decommissioning.

The Augustine Committee found that the Constellation Program would have, first, had a crew launcher with no destination, and, then, a heavy-lift launcher with no lunar lander to deploy.  Rather than punt this problem to another President to deal with, President Obama decided to expend the political capital and risk the popular backlash to face this problem now.

I don’t agree with all the decisions in the proposal – particularly, retaining Orion as a crew lifeboat for the ISS – and I think the rollout was awful, but I do think this strategy puts us on the right path forward.  NASA staff are working even now on developing this strategy into actionable plans and programs.  With the exception of the Orion lifeboat, the President was right to leave the technical decisions to those with the best knowledge to make them.

Most Houston-area politicians are, predictably, steadfast in their opposition to the President’s plan and continue to fight for the status quo.  While Rep. Olson and his allies may be hardening their stance, some Congresspersons representing other NASA centers have expressed their provisional support for the new plan and several leading aerospace contractors have dropped lobbying efforts for the Constellation Program.

Despite the accusations from some pundits that Texas is being retaliated against for being predominantly Republican, I think JSC has still gotten a fair deal in the new plan.

The President has set his policy, now it’s time for those of us in the trenches to figure out how to implement it.  There is opportunity in the midst of uncertainty and we shouldn’t squander this chance to transform the way we explore space.

Cross-posted at A World With No Boundaries

I’m the lone person on the causeway, standing on the narrow stretch of rock and road crossing the Banana River between the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It’s really just me here. Not another soul in sight. Not even headlights. White folding chairs are lined up in neat little rows in the grass and tents have been erected over empty tables awaiting crowds who will amass here in two days to view a display of fire and thunder and grandeur.

The Falcon 9 rocket, awaiting its maiden voyage and white like an alabaster statue, stares me down from afar.

I was on my way to work but I had to stop. They’ve got this rocket lit up with these massive spotlights for all the world to see. It’s impressive. Farther up the coast, the Space Shuttle Discovery sits on Launch Pad 39A, lit up by no spotlights. I don’t think the RSS has rolled back yet. That must be why there are no lights turned toward Discovery.

Right?

I try to take a picture of the white rocket with my phone, but it doesn’t come out. I get back in my car. Time for work.

I work in the Shuttle Crew Escape team. We’re responsible for Shuttle astronaut survival equipment and various other hardware, headlined mainly by the orange pressure (“pumpkin”) suits you’ve probably seen once or twice before adorned on spacefarers as they make their way over to and strap into the Space Shuttle orbiter. They’re called Advanced Crew Escape Suits, or ACES, for short.

My team and I flew over from Houston on Wednesday. We have 5 days of prep work to get ready for this Shuttle launch on Monday morning. We test personal cooling systems to make sure they work. We suit up the crew to make sure their suits fit right and provide survivable pressure in the event of a cabin depressurization. We count all the pencils, make sure batteries are charged, clean the boots, attach mission patches, make little bags for light sticks that go in pouches on the astronauts’ arm sleeves to help emergency rescue crews find them in the dark in case all hell breaks lose. We are some of the last people astronauts see before breaking the bounds of Earth’s gravity well to spin around the planet.

And if all hell does break lose, if that day ever comes, we’ll be some of the people responsible for the last line of defense in keeping those astronauts alive.

In this world, emergencies aren’t just unfortunate inevitabilities—they are meticulously planned for and diligently expected. Because we work in a business where strapping seven people astride six million pounds of explosives is not only sane but, dare I say, routine. And I mean that in the very rudimentary aspect of the word. They say there’s nothing routine about spaceflight. Perhaps a better word is accepted. We accept a certain amount of risk during each and every launch and we accept that nothing expected ever happens as expected. In that vein, Crew Survival is our life.

The first four Shuttle crews launched with ejection seats on the flight deck. But ejection seats proved infeasible beyond these flights as crews increased in size and the actual window of survivable situations wasn’t all that large with ejection seats in the first place. Following the Challenger accident, the roots of my job were planted, as NASA began flying astronauts with Launch and Entry Suits (LES) in 1989, replaced by the ACES in 1995, which provides a full pressure, self-contained environment around the crewmember that allows for him or her to bailout of the orbiter during controlled, glided descent in the event the vehicle doesn’t have enough energy to make it to a runway.

Our subsystem doesn’t protect the crew in all scenarios, but it’s the best that could be done at the time given what was available, constraints to the already-built Shuttle design, and the just plain old dangerous environment encountered in breaking through our Earth’s atmosphere.

The team stretches far beyond technical hardware oversight. We’re concerned with all aspects of crew survival, from emergency egress from the launch pad to in-the-air emergency breathing and bailout. Our efforts are a composite response to each of NASA’s three fatal accidents: Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia. In a perfect world, our team’s work is never needed. In a perfect world, Space Shuttles launch and land safely every time. But we can’t plan for that. We plan for the bad days. We plan for the unexpected.

I’m on my way to work after midnight because Monday’s launch happens to be at 6:21am, meaning our work starts just before midnight Easter Sunday. Now, we’re sleep shifting to prepare for it. Plus if the crew needs to change something—say they want to swap out a watch or grab an extra pen or they’ve got a problem with their glove—we’re the ones to make it happen. We’re up when the crew’s up. We sleep when they sleep.

I’m heading to the suit room at KSC, which is just down the hall from the astronauts’ personal living quarters. It’s the same room that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins got suited up in before entering the history books over 40 years ago. It’s the same room John Young and Bob Crippen left to fly a beautiful yet awkward, clunky-looking brick with wings strapped to the side of a rocket for the first time. It’s the same room the STS-133 crewmembers will leave from when they become the final crew to fly that same clunky-looking brick nearly 30 years later.

As I drove on down the causeway towards the suit room, still the lone car for miles, it occurred to me that the causeway was a metaphor (this occurrence may or may not have been brought about by a semi-loopy-sleep-shifted-mind-state): NASA’s on a causeway too. We’re in the in-between space where we’re still connected to the mainland, but also well on our way out to an island on the other side.

I imagine many others in the business have felt a similar sensation, staring out at the waters of change like they’re alone at midnight on a causeway, too. Stuck between two worlds, maybe. Stuck between changing paradigms. Wondering why spotlights are shining in one place and not the other. Feeling the insight and stillness of a star-filled sky while the lights keep flickering and the ground keeps spinning at full speed below.

On that causeway, I thought of the history of the suit room I was heading to, the collective legacy of a space agency still very much in its infancy, carrying a rich, proud heritage earned through fifty years of diligent attention to detail and passion to lift humanity beyond our known world, beyond our known selves, to that other side of the river.

Maybe the nature of our business means we’ll always be on a causeway. Maybe being on the causeway is a necessary step—one that we accept as the nature of our dangerous business where the expected never happens as expected, and planning for the unexpected serves as the creed by which we strive.

Maybe traveling down the causeway—the journey between two places amidst a sea of uncertainty—maybe that’s what its all about in the first place.

We have a Congress that, amongst the members who seem to care, largely doesn’t like this proposal, but is split amongst the various local concerns about what the best response to the budget is.  I have to admit that I share Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s sense of irony at a Democratic White House arguing for increased privatization against Congressional Republicans advocating the continuation of a monolithic government program.

The space community itself is just as divided.  You can see it on the space blogs and in the press, where we argue amongst ourselves about extending Shuttle, building a more direct derivative of it, saving Constellation (or not), supporting commercial endeavors, and just about every iteration in between.

This goes beyond just a technical debate, though.  People are taking this personally.  I experienced it first-hand when I found myself leaving a young professionals group that I had eagerly helped launch last fall, largely because I felt that dissenting views were no longer welcomed or respected and messaging decisions were being made on the basis of their marketability, not their content.

Speaking as someone who grew up watching the Shuttle, once worked on Constellation, and who now works on the Space Station Program, I can see where most people are coming from.  Putting aside the typical politics that seem to be dominating the debate on Capitol Hill for a moment, I understand why people would feel trepidation at the vanguard of human space flight for the past 30 years coming to an end and discomfort at the uncertainty of what the future holds.  As an engineer myself, I know my first instinct is to prefer the comfort of being pointed in a certain direction and told to go forth.

Personally, though, I do think NASA needs to focus on core strengths – exploration beyond LEO, scientific discovery, and technological innovation.  The Space Act is clear that NASA is not to compete with private industry where such capability exists.  The Vision for Space Exploration and the 2004 Aldridge Commission both said that NASA should not replicate existing LEO launch capabilities.  It’s long past time we stop thinking everything will be alright if we can just pick up where Apollo left off.  The world has changed since then and so must we.

When I search inside myself, I find that my strongest loyalty is to the enterprise of space exploration itself, not necessarily any particular program.  As long as we are moving forward and I am making a meaningful contribution, I’ll be happy.  If that means I have to change my own personal notion of what the future holds, so be it.

So long as we support an endeavor that is subject to the vagaries of the political winds, we will not have any hard-and-fast guarantees. The reality of the matter is that this could all change again when the next President comes along. Our best insurance against having change imposed on us against our will is to pursue missions with clear, unambiguous benefit to the nation.  I think we can take a lesson in this from another part of the government.

Few question the value the military, as an institution, provides our country. No one lamented the “end of the Army,” though, when the immense, $340-billion Future Combat Systems program was canceled.  FCS, despite completing its Systems of Systems Functional Review, was over budget and failing to meet its original requirements.

Before its cancellation, critical funding elements were already strapped and advanced technology development had been deferred.  The Pentagon was recommending further deferral as early as 2005 because of budget strains elsewhere and expected funding declines.  Sound familiar?

The Army is now working to figure out how to manage their programs better, what from FCS is really of value, and how to roll that forward into building its next generation of ground combat vehicles.  Studies of program management have repeatedly shown that there is a declining trend in successful completion with increasing size, budget, and complexity.  Instead of one monolithic program, the Army is now separating their modernization effort into role-specific programs.

We must not make the mistake of conflating the vision with the implementation, nor can we let ourselves fall victim to the sunk costs fallacy.  We need to be honest with ourselves and our stakeholders – the American public – about where the space program is now, where it is going if we stay on the present path, and where we really want to take it.

I think the Vision for Space Exploration is still a good one and that the findings of both the Aldridge and Augustine reports validate it.  Instead of fighting amongst ourselves, we should have a conversation about how to best realize that Vision within the political and fiscal realities we must face.

The traditional disdain of engineers and scientists for dealing with politics has only hurt us over the past few decades.  We must bridge that gap if we expect policymakers to hear us, but we must also be careful to not lose our objectivity in the process of advocacy.  Otherwise, we will fall into the same trap that has recently discredited climate science in the public eye.

I believe with all of my heart that our civilization’s future is in space.  Our continued evolution and survival depends on our ability to explore the solar system, peel back its mysteries through scientific inquiry, and utilize its resources for the benefit of both our country and the rest of the world.  As far as I am concerned, that is our mission. Let’s not lose sight of it.

We started the day with Lori Garver, NASA’s Deputy Administrator and LAUNCH Water Host.

Majora Carter: Welcome

Peter Gleick, President and Co-Founder Pacific Institute, “21st Century Water: The Role of Technology and Innovation”

Innovator Mark Tonkin, DTI-r: “Subsurface Vapor Transfer Irrigation”

Innovator Andrew Tinka, UC Berkeley: “Floating Sensor Network”

Innovator Ashok Gadgil, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: “ElectroChemical Arsenic Remediation”

Innovator Mark Sobsey, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill: “Low Cost Bacterial Water Test”

Lili Anna Peresa, “The Comprehensive Approach of ONE DROP: Water for All, All for Water”

Each of the innovators rotated through focused discussion sessions to help shape their success strategy. I like to call it: Innovator Speed Dating.

So many incredible stories to share. Stay tuned.

Crosspost on BethBeck’s Blog.