Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:56:03 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: DwayneDay
<
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:
[FPSPACE] Following the [NASA] Money/JIMO in trouble
To: fpspace <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID:
<
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I know that following budgets is about as
exciting as watching cows sleep, but there's a Space News article now online
that raises some interesting questions about the NASA 2005 budget (the one
currently in place):
http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_050110.htmlKeep
in mind that NASA will soon--by early February--submit its 2006 budget, that
could conceivably make all of this stuff moot.
(Space News is a great
source for current space information, but it is subscription-only. This
article was put on the Space.com website and so I will reprint the article
below.)
There are a few odd things in the article that I don't
understand. But first, I'll point up one of the more interesting things
in it. The article indicates that the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO)
mission has been renamed Prometheus 1. More interestingly, the article
implies that the mission may be canceled and is currently undergoing review to
see if it can be scaled back. As far as I know, this is the first media
mention that JIMO might be canceled due to cost.
Now this is not that
surprising once you start to think about JIMO and its implications.
First of all, it is a VERY expensive mission. I did some back of the
envelope calculations once (and lost the envelope) and I think that when you
factor in everything, including tech development and the cost of a heavy lift
vehicle, JIM starts to push close to double-digit gigabucks, i.e. up to ten
BILLION dollars or even more. Second, although I have forgotten all the
details, I believe that the actual cost of the mission (as opposed to the
Prometheus technology development program) was never in NASA's out-year budget
plan. Put a different way, NASA was planning the mission, but had not
added its costs to its existing budget.
The thing that puzzles me in
the article is NASA's decision to add $52 million to the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter (LRO) project. Now what is happening here is not that complex,
but requires some explanation. First, NASA can only spend money that
Congress appropriates and it has to spend that money on what Congress
appropriates it for. There are limits to how much a federal agency can
shift around money between accounts before it has to go and get permission
from Congress (the reasons are to prevent the President from doing things in
the budget that Congress said he cannot do. Congress passed the
Anti-Deficiency Act to keep control of this stuff).
In this case,
Congress specifically CUT the LRO budget to only $10 million. In normal
circumstances, that means that NASA can only spend $10 million on LRO in the
Fiscal 2005 budget (they can come back in future years and ask for more
money). However, this time Congress also gave NASA a waiver to allow the
agency to shift money around to different accounts. It was my
understanding that they did this because they understood that NASA would have
to move money to the space shuttle return to flight effort. I seriously
doubt that they intended for NASA to put money into programs that they
cut. Why even have a budget in the first place if the limits do not mean
anything?
But NASA wants to keep the LRO program on track for a 2008
launch and so it is putting money back into a project that Congress cut.
The Space News article seems to indicate that NASA will have to obtain
congressional approval for this, meaning that Congress ultimately gets the
final say. But it makes me wonder what is going on. NASA officials
must suspect that they can get the money for LRO reinstated. Otherwise,
if they are simply thumbing their nose at Congress, then Congress will impose
tighter controls on the new Fiscal 2006 budget that is going up in
February.
Now that I've put you all to sleep, I'll add a little more
space context... Apparently there were a number of people in Congress who were
unhappy with NASA's approach to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, viewing it as
too expensive and too conventional at a time when the agency needed new
approaches. I don't know if this is the reason why LRO got its budget
chopped, but it seems reasonable. So maybe NASA has been doing a lot of
salesmanship on LRO lately.
***********************
NASA Uses
Budgetary Authority To Shift Funds Toward Exploration Vision
By Brian
Berger
Space News Staff Writer
NASA intends to forge ahead with its
space exploration agenda despite direction from Congress to throttle back on a
key part of it to make refurbishing the Hubble Space Telescope a top
priority.
While Congress gave NASA nearly its entire $16.2 billion
budget request for 2005, it cut most of the money the U.S. space agency had
sought for the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission - a major early
milestone in NASA's future exploration plans - and directed NASA to spend $291
million preparing for a Hubble servicing mission.
But Congress also
gave NASA permission to shuffle money between programs to meet critical
requirements, an authority the space agency asked for during budget
negotiations last autumn.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has said he
intended to use that authority to put the needed resources behind the
priorities President George W. Bush laid out for the agency in his Jan. 14,
2004 space exploration vision speech.
The initial NASA operating plan
for 2005 that O'Keefe sent to key congressional committee's just before
Christmas for their review appears to fund most of the president's priorities
without inflicting deep cuts on existing programs. NASA was able to do this in
part by allocating substantially less than Congress directed to a proposed
Hubble refurbishing mission and raiding $150 million from an account set aside
to settle contract cancellations stemming from the agency's largely abandoned
efforts to develop reusable launcher technology.
Congressional aides
who have seen the operating plan said it is not clear that NASA has addressed
all the challenges it faces in 2005 and that many of the toughest questions -
including how it will accommodate $450 million in lawmakers' pet projects -
remain unanswered.
NASA declined to answer questions about the 2005
operating plan, a copy of which was obtained by Space News, until lawmakers
have had a chance to review it. [Click here to review Operating Plan
Expenditures.]
"When we are sure that Congress has had a chance to
review the plan and get any briefings they need or questions they have
answered, then we can make someone available for an interview," NASA
spokeswoman Sarah Keegan said Jan. 6.
In his Dec. 23 letter to
lawmakers presenting the NASA operating plan, O'Keefe wrote that he used the
transfer authority they gave him to fund NASA's efforts to return the space
shuttle fleet to flight status by this summer and to keep the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, the Crew Exploration Vehicle program, and the
Project Prometheus nuclear power demonstration all on track.
Although
NASA fared better than most civilian agencies, it is beginning 2005
essentially with $173.6 million less that its request. That's because before
the ink was dry on the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Act, NASA and all other
government agencies were told they would have to give back just under one
percent of their budgets to keep the massive appropriations bill from busting
hard fought spending limits.
While NASA's top line is slightly improved
by $126 million in emergency aid Congress provided last year in the wake of
the hurricanes that battered Florida's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), every
dollar of that aid remains - at least for now - allocated toward repairs at
KSC.
NASA is also saddled with $450 million worth of projects lawmakers
want the space agency to fund this year. In his letter to lawmakers, O'Keefe
complained about the number of earmarks (a total of 167, up from six in 1997).
But aside from $50 million in education-oriented earmarks, O'Keefe did not
explain what NASA would cut to pay for the remaining $400 million it needs.
Those budget impacts, he said, would be addressed in future updates to the
operating plan.
The operating plan repairs the deep cut Congress
imposed on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter program, putting $52 million
behind an effort that lawmakers had pared back to $10 million in the budget
bill Bush signed into law in December. Combined with $17 million NASA shifted
toward the project in late 2004, the agency says the mission has enough
funding behind it to make a 2008 launch.
NASA's initial operating plan
departs from the direction Congress gave it to spend $291 million this year
preparing a Hubble servicing mission. According to the operating plan, NASA
intends to put only $175 million toward the effort this year, with the
agency's Science and Exploration Systems directorates splitting the
bill.
NASA also added nearly $305 million to the space shuttle program,
bringing it up to $4.6 billion for the year. But NASA had told lawmakers as
recently as November that it would need $5 billion for the program in 2005, an
estimate driven by higher than expected bills for getting the space shuttle
fleet ready to fly again. In his letter to lawmakers, O'Keefe explained that a
little over a third of the $762 million in return-to-flight costs the agency
faces this year are still under review. A plan for paying for those, he said,
would be presented later this year.
To help cover the cost of preparing
to return the shuttle fleet to flight status, NASA cut more than $100 million
from within shuttle program itself including canceling several long-planned
shuttle upgrades not expected to yield any safety benefits before the end of
the decade and postponed construction projects.
The rest of the extra
money for shuttle came from the International Space Station program, which
gave back $160 million for the cause, and a long list of other NASA programs
which collectively chipped in about $50 million. Some of those programs,
however, could be asked to dig deeper either as NASA looks for a way to pay
$287 million in return-to-flight expenses still under review or as new shuttle
expenses pop up.
There are no obvious losers in NASA's initial
operating plan, but one the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate - which is
responsible for developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle and the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter - is emerging as one of the biggest bill payers so far.
Between paying its share of Hubble repair preparations and surrendering $150
million in Space Launch Initiative era efforts, Exploration Systems starts the
year more than $200 million off the mark. The Centennial Challenges prize
making effort and various technology development efforts suffer for it. But
Project Prometheus, the nuclear power and propulsion program long a favorite
of O'Keefe's would remain fully funded at around $430 million even though its
flagship mission, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, is being eyed for
cancellation. NASA recently renamed the mission Prometheus 1 and announced
that a search for less daunting initial demonstrations of the nuclear power
and propulsion systems NASA needs is
underway. NASA spokesman
Michael Braukus said the analysis of alternatives won't be completed until
April 15.
If NASA plans to cancel any programs this year, it is not
clear from the operating plan. In fact, most major programs in development
were insulated from all but fairly minor cuts. But there were exceptions. NASA
cut $24 million of the $163 million it had planned to spend on in-space power
and propulsion projects.
Similarly, the X-43 hypersonic demonstrator
program that Congress hopes to keep flying with a $25 million cash infusion,
is not funded in the operating plan.
Some of NASA's small spacecraft
programs also fare worse in the operating plan. The New Millennium program,
which has struggled in recent years to find launch opportunities for the
experimental payloads it develops, would have its $82 million request cut back
to $66 million. Additionally, the $96 million requested for NASA's Explorer
program for low-cost, competitively selected science missions, would be cut
back to $71 million.
Still, some NASA projects got additional money
above what they asked for last February. In most cases the increases were to
cover technical setbacks and schedule delays. For example, NASA plans to add
$15.2 million to Deep Impact's budget to pay for technical problems that
threatened the comet hunter's unforgiving one-month launch window. The
spacecraft is slated to launch Jan. 12. NASA is also adding $3.1 million to
the Swift gamma ray burst mission to pay bills still coming in from last
year's launch delay.
While Congress reviews NASA's 2005 operating plan,
NASA is preparing to roll out in early February its budget request for
2006.
