Expensive NASA rocket draws skepticism
By Eric Berger
Depending on one's perspective, it's either the best of times or worst of times for NASA's human spaceflight program.
Citing gains made in 2011, agency Administrator Charles Bolden said the new year "truly marks the beginning of a new era in the human exploration of our solar system."
Contrast that with Paul Spudis, a scientist at Houston's Lunar and Planetary Institute, who described NASA's just-completed 2011 as an "annus horribilis."
At issue is whether, by choosing to build an expensive new rocket over the next decade, NASA is laying the groundwork for human exploration beyond the moon, or laying a gravestone for American human spaceflight.
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As engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama begin designing a rocket that would eventually be capable of blasting 130 metric tons into orbit, many spaceflight experts are questioning why NASA chose what could be the most expensive and riskiest approach to expanding the human spaceflight program beyond low-Earth orbit.
"I'm very skeptical about the heavy-lift rocket," said Chris Kraft, NASA's first manned spaceflight director and the director of flight operations during the Apollo 11 mission.
"I believe everybody at NASA, except those at the top level, thinks that's the case. The people at the division and branch level all believe there are better ways to get going."
And it isn't just the old guard who are very concerned about NASA's Space Launch System, or SLS for short.
Shuttle-era astronauts such as Scott Parazynski, who flew five missions, said he doubts the large rocket will ever get built.
"We've done these incredible studies - built the business cases for these rockets - and then they ultimately become PowerPoint programs instead of real hardware," said Parazynski, now the chief medical and technical officer for The Methodist Hospital Research Institute.
"I worry about this one, in particular, because there's really not a destination with milestones," he said. "When you have a rocket, but you don't really know where it's going to take you yet, that becomes discretionary funding that's easily canceled. And that's what I think is going to happen."
Plan would take decade
The stakes for Johnson Space Center are high. The cancellation of another rocket program would unquestionably be bad for a facility that's responsible for training astronauts who fly on rockets.
NASA's present plan is to build a heavy-lift rocket, initially with the capability of 70 metric tons but expandable to 130 metric tons, and the Orion spacecraft, suitable to bringing astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.
If all goes well, Orion could launch atop the heavy-lift rocket in about a decade.
The plan resulted from negotiations between the Obama administration, several key members of Congress such as Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, and NASA's Human Exploration Framework Team, which released an initial report favoring the SLS a year ago.
Political factors
Criticism of NASA's approach has ramped up last week as the Republican primary focus has moved to Florida.
Newt Gingrich said NASA should share more of its funding with the private sector to speed up exploration, and that the space agency should have a clear goal: building a lunar colony.
And veteran shuttle mission commander Bob Crippen, Apollo 17 mission commander Gene Cernan and former NASA chief Mike Griffin endorsed Mitt Romney, saying President Barack Obama was thrusting "the space program into disarray."
A key criticism of NASA's rocket plan is that, even if its cost estimates are realistic, it would require NASA to spend all of its available spaceflight funds developing this hardware, leaving very little money for payloads needed if astronauts are actually to fly a meaningful mission beyond low-Earth orbit.
"The flat-line budget, in all honestly, does constrain us," said Dan Dumbacher, NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration systems.
"When these capabilities are ready to be used for a mission," Dumbacher said, "that loss of buying power is holding us up from the ability to be able to go execute a mission based on today's budget."
Necessary first step?
Nevertheless, Dumbacher insisted that building a new heavy-lift rocket was the cheapest, quickest way to get American astronauts where they haven't been for nearly four decades - back out beyond Earth's orbit. For any exploration strategy, he said, having a heavy-lift capability is a necessary first step.
Others within and outside NASA disagree.
One alternative is building a system in which a spacecraft need not launch with all of the fuel required for a mission.
A six-month NASA study, completed in July, concluded that using existing launch vehicles to place fuel depots in space would cost billions less than building a massive rocket to launch everything at once.
NASA has not publicized the study, however. When U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., asked Bolden about the depot study at a congressional hearing last summer, the administrator replied, "It turned out that was not as economical, nor as reliable."
Promise unfulfilled
He promised to share the study with Rohrabacher, but six months later NASA has yet to make good on the promise.
"We have been trying to arrange a briefing with NASA on the specific study about cost that I asked about in July, but they seem insistent on trying to provide a briefing about why depots aren't needed instead," Rohrabacher said.
"At this point, I'm not even sure that (Bolden) was given the relevant depot study with the cost comparison to a heavy-lift architecture before he made his decision."
Use what's on the shelf
There are other options, as well.
Some analyses have shown that it would have been cheaper and quicker to develop a heavy-lift rocket using space shuttle technology, and there are those who advocate using one of several existing launch rockets, such as the Atlas V or Delta IV, to launch spaceship components into orbit, and build a vehicle there.
Using existing launch vehicles, proponents say, would save tens of billions of dollars in development costs, not to mention the high operations costs of an ongoing heavy-lift rocket. They note that the Saturn V rocket, which blasted astronauts to the moon, was canceled because it was too expensive to maintain.
These approaches would also leave more room for participation by the international partners who helped build the International Space Station.
"Everyone knows there is a train wreck on the horizon, and sooner or later it will become apparent we can't afford SLS," said Virginia-based space consultant James Muncy. "It's eating all the money we should be spending actually exploring."