Problems Closing Spaceflight Gap Foreseen
By Frank Morring, Jr. 
NASA is not getting enough money to hold the so-called "gap" in U.S. human access to space to five years, and even if it does get more funding it may not be able to improve the situation much, two reports issued April 16 suggest.
The Congressional Budget Office found that NASA's current budget profile will extend the time between the final flight of the space shuttle fleet and initial operational capability of the follow-on Orion/Ares I human-spaceflight stack by at least a year. It would take almost $5 billion a year more to close the gap, but only by accelerating Orion/Ares I development and flying the shuttle until 2015.
That approach does not suit the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), an independent group of experts counseling the U.S. space agency on flight-safety issues. In its latest annual report, covering 2008, the ASAP found that "continuing to fly the shuttle not only would increase the risk to crews, but also could jeopardize the future U.S. exploration program by squeezing available resources (and, in the worst case, support) for the Constellation program."
The CBO based its findings on analysis of 72 of NASA's previous development programs, which grew in cost by an average of 50 percent. CBO analysts applied that benchmark to the agency's current plans, which call for retiring the shuttle in 2010, resuming human spaceflight with Orion/Ares I in March 2015, flying 79 new robotic science missions through 2025, and continuing to spend an average of $460 million a year on aeronautics research.
NASA told the CBO it estimates those plans will cost $19.1 billion a year in 2010-2025. But the congressional office found that would only support an Orion/Ares I IOC in "late 2016," push the planned 2020 return to the moon to 2023 instead, and delay 15 of the planned new robotic science missions beyond 2025.
The shuttle would be retired next year, as planned, but there would be no U.S. money to continue operating the International Space Station beyond 2015, which NASA already has agreed in principle with its ISS partners to do. If NASA paid for holding its development schedule on Orion/Ares I and follow-on human exploration efforts by cutting robotic space science and aeronautics research, the $19.1 billion annual figure would require pushing 35 robotic missions beyond 2025, and cut planned aeronautics research by more than a third, the CBO estimated.
An annual increase in NASA spending of $2 billion would allow the agency to meet its March 2015 IOC for Orion/Ares I, even with the cost growth that can be expected based on past performance, the CBO found. That $2 billion more a year would require the shuttle to be retired at the end of next year, as planned, and would not support the ISS beyond 2015. There would be no improvement in the number of robotic missions possible by 2025.
For about $23.8 billion a year through 2025, the CBO found, "the agency would be able to meet its planned schedules notwithstanding cost growth consistent with the average for its past programs," as well as fund ISS operations until 2020. The gap could be closed by flying the shuttle until Orion/Ares I is available, according to the CBO.
In addition to rejecting that approach, the ASAP experts are "not convinced that the Ares I and Orion initial operating capability (IOC) date can be improved appreciably by additional resources," their report said.
Among issues they raise are the fact that NASA has not developed a comparable system since the space shuttle in the late 1970s; the need to transition workers from the shuttle program or hire and train new ones; and the absence of verifiable flight data on the Orion/Ares I stack, or at least until the Ares I-X prototype flight-test later this year.
Nor is it likely that private companies will be able to bridge the gap, ASAP found, since the vehicles being developed with seed money from NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation System effort "currently are not subject to the Human-Rating Requirements standards and are not appropriate to transport NASA personnel."
Artist's concept of Ares I: NASA
