Rocket design for giant leap gets go-ahead - Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON - With its long-awaited selection of a design for a powerful rocket to carry American astronauts deep into space over the next 30 years, NASA provided a symbolic boost on Wednesday for manned space exploration and ended a stalemate with lawmakers over the next-generation spacecraft.
But with a price tag estimated at $35 billion, it may not fly with Congress in this era of fiscal austerity. And the announcement offered little immediate relief to the beleaguered workforce at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where 3,800 employees and contractors have lost their jobs since February 2010 with the retirement of the shuttle fleet and cancellation of the back-to-the-moon Constellation program.
Initial work on the new heavy-lift rocket will be centered at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
NASA's announcement will "assist in stabilizing" JSC's current workforce of 14,000 "but it will not create more than 200 additional jobs," said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.
JSC director Michael Coats told his workforce that the Houston facility, home of mission control for manned operations as well as the astronaut corps, remains "squarely positioned to make major contributions to the agency's success." He pointed to JSC's production of the Orion crew capsule, which will be used atop the rocket to ferry astronauts.
Coats added: "It is critical that we continue to collaborate effectively with our sister centers and HQ to ensure our ultimate success."
The announcement came just weeks after failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a cargo resupply capsule to the International Space Station, which highlighted the perils of U.S. reliance on Russia to ferry astronauts and cargo to the $100 billion U.S.-built laboratory. NASA is banking that the Russians and emerging U.S. commercial spacecraft can service the space station as NASA focuses on deep space exploration.
Test flight in 2017
The new rocket - more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that carried 12 astronauts to the moon on six missions between 1969 and 1972 - will be propelled into space by existing engines fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They will be derived from the space shuttle program that ended in July after 30 years of operations and 135 flights.
It should be ready for an unmanned test flight in 2017 and manned test flight in 2021. Officials said the spacecraft's destinations have yet to be determined, but they hope to land astronauts on an asteroid by 2025 and in Mars orbit by 2035.
Officials estimated it will cost up to $35 billion to take the planned rocket from blueprints to the first manned mission a decade from now. The design, costs and timetable represented a compromise between congressional demands for quick delivery of a next-generation spacecraft and the Obama administration's initial quest for breakthrough technologies that might take longer to develop and deploy.
In a gesture of reconciliation, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden unveiled the new rocket design on Capitol Hill flanked by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Bill Nelson, D-Florida, the two most powerful senators with jurisdiction over the space agency.
"The next chapter of America's space exploration story is being written today," said Bolden, a former four-time shuttle astronaut and retired Marine Corps aviator. The design "will take American astronauts deeper into space than any nation has gone before and create jobs right here at home."
Last year, Congress passed a blueprint for the space agency calling for a rocket like the one announced, and President Barack Obama signed it into law. But NASA missed deadlines for announcing how it would implement the plan. In frustration, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where Hutchison serves as ranking member, even issued a subpoena to NASA demanding information.
The commitment by the White House and NASA to finally go ahead with a rocket design favored by Congress signaled the federal government was "going forward now all as one," Hutchison said. "This today, I believe, is the commitment that America is making to assure that we're not going to be the also-rans."
First step: $17.9 billion
As if to underscore her point, the Senate Appropriations Committee panel with jurisdiction over NASA agreed later Wednesday to provide the space agency the full $17.9 billion requested by the Obama administration for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The proposed appropriation included funds for development of the heavy lift rocket and the Orion crew capsule as well as contracts with commercial spacecraft companies competing to service the space station.
Still, there were concerns about the government's long-term commitment to funding a rocket program over a number of years.
The chairman of a committee that reviewed NASA's human spaceflight program in 2009, Norm Augustine, said the design and timeline seem reasonable, but there's a caveat.
"The real issue is going to be whether there is adequate money in the budget to do all of this, and whether we will have the staying power to continue to put adequate money in the budget," he said.
Staff writer Eric Berger and Chronicle wire services contributed to this report.
15 Sep, 2011--
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