NASA’s Path Depends On Congress

The National Aeronautics & Space Administration is at a crossroads. President Barack Obama has given NASA a new human space exploration plan that replaces the agency’s current path, which has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress.

Since the President introduced his plan, which relies on commercial partners, in February as part of his fiscal 2011 budget proposal, Congress has been studying details of it to help provide oversight of and direction to NASA. The details of the reauthorization plan are expected to be hammered out next month when lawmakers return from their August recess, and indications suggest that they may give only limited support to Obama’s vision.

As proposed, the Obama plan would cancel NASA’S Constellation program, the George W. Bush-era program that directed the agency to build rockets and spacecraft for lunar missions before setting its sights on Mars. In its place, the President calls for using federal money to fund commercial development of rockets and spacecraft that would ferry NASA crews into space, including to the International Space Station (ISS)—which would operate until 2020 under the new plan—once the space shuttle is retired next year.

The use of commercial companies for vehicle development intends to allow NASA to focus its work on the technology needed to reach farther into space, with goals of landing on an asteroid by 2025 and orbiting Mars by the mid-2030s. The President proposed spending $3.3 billion over a three-year period to support this plan, with the total growing to $6 billion over five years. The plan also includes more than $5 billion in funding for science projects, an amount uncontested by lawmakers. Overall, Obama requests $19 billion in funding for the agency in 2011, a 1.5% increase over 2010.

Congressional leaders have criticized Obama’s plan, saying it relies too much on a fledgling commercial space industry to reach ISS, a nearly $100 billion project that has only recently been completed. Although details of the reauthorization legislation being considered by the House of Representatives differ from those being considered by the Senate, lawmakers are generally not ready to put the future of the U.S.’s space exploration program in the hands of the commercial sector. Legislation, therefore, takes a middle road on commercial plans and keeps some development in NASA’S care.

On Aug. 5, the full Senate quietly approved a bill that reauthorizes NASA for the next three years. The measure recommends a 2011 funding level of $19 billion, including $300 million for commercial cargo development and another $312 million for commercial crew vehicle development. The Senate version would give $1.3 billion over the next three years for commercial development projects, or $2 billion less than the amount Obama requested. Appropriators would still have to approve these funding levels because authorization bills don’t grant money but rather provide guidelines for how to fund the agency.

Taking a harder stance than the Senate’s on the President’s proposal is the House Science & Technology Committee. In July, the committee cleared authorization legislation that recommends only $50 million for commercial crew vehicle development and only $14 million for a commercial cargo development program in 2011. Its authorization, which also sets NASA’S 2011 budget at $19 billion, includes a $100 million loan program in 2011 for commercial rocket developers. The House plan would continue much of the work done on the Constellation program including development of a heavy-lift vehicle and Orion, a crew exploration vehicle.

“While I believe it is important that NASA remain a multimission agency with challenging initiatives in science, aeronautics, and human space flight and exploration, I also want to ensure that NASA’S missions are matched to available resources,” House Science & Technology Committee Chairman Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said in a statement after the committee cleared the bill.

The House authorization bill also calls for the National Academies to develop a prioritized list of Earth science and climate measurements that should be collected and archived through space-based means.

Except for the commercial development projects, Congress’ bills largely mirror aspects of Obama’s NASA budget, including nearly $5 billion in funding for science programs, says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. Both the House and Senate versions call for an additional space shuttle flight and extend ISS to 2020.

“The House bill, which puts more emphasis on government-led efforts, is less supportive of commercial crew until commercial cargo services are demonstrated,” says Pace, who worked at NASA for seven years during the George W. Bush Administration. The House “still preserves funding for technology work but doesn’t depend on it for the success of the government-led program,” he says.

The proposed level of funding, however, is of concern to some space industry insiders. They contend that the amount of money Congress is debating for development of commercial spacecraft and crew is woefully short of what’s needed to reach the lofty and expensive goals.

“The original Obama budget wasn’t even close to being enough,” says Douglas O. Stanley, a principal research engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology and a former NASA manager. Because the Obama Administration and some key House members support the Senate bill, “things are going to coalesce around the Senate bill, which is not that much different from the House bill,” he says.

Within the House, some Democrats from the space-industry-heavy states of California, Florida, and Texas agree that the committee-approved measure falls short in setting funding levels. As a result, they blocked the authorization bill from coming to a vote in the full House before it began its August recess. Now lawmakers will have just three weeks after they reconvene on Sept. 13 to pass an authorization and appropriation bill before the end of the fiscal year. Complicating this picture will be the fact that congressional members will be eyeing the November elections.

Before leaving for its recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $19 billion budget for NASA in 2011. Pace, who believes the appropriators will likely follow the authorization guidelines, says an authorization bill will be passed before a final budget for NASA is adopted.

If Congress takes issue with simply giving money to private companies, the government can take other steps to stimulate commercial ventures for access to low-Earth orbits, points out Leroy Chiao, a former astronaut and current industry consultant. For instance, lawmakers could reimburse efforts that meet certain criteria, he says.

“This would make the environment truly commercial, where companies live and die with a strong vote from the financial community, which is in a better position to judge—in a free-market way—which are the better ventures,” Chiao says.