Hearing Charter: House Science Committee Hearing: “U.S. Vision for Space Exploration”

Figuring out how much the President’s initiative would cost is not easy because of the many assumptions that need to be made. Adding to the complexity, NASA has described the costs differently in different documents, using different baselines.

The most specific figures concern the next five years (FY 05-09), over which the President proposes to spend a cumulative total of $87.1 billion on the entire NASA budget. NASA has compared the proposal to two different baselines. In the first comparison, NASA says that over the next five years, the President proposes to spend $1 billion more on the entire NASA budget than NASA had predicted it would spend in February, 2003. (That estimate was made as part of the Presidents’s FY 04 budget.) In the second comparison, NASA describes the President’s proposal as providing $12.6 billion more, cumulatively, over five years for the entire NASA budget compared to what NASA would have received if its spending had been frozen for five years at the FY 04 level of about $15 billion. (NASA uses this figure frequently, but there is no evidence that NASA was ever going to face such a freeze.)

Figuring out how much of the NASA budget will be dedicated to the President’s initiative depends on what is included in that spending category. Should it include the Space Shuttle and Space Station? Should it include robotic missions that were planned before the President’s announcement, but may contribute to it, or just new ones? NASA, generally, includes all robotic missions that will contribute to the initiative and excludes the Space Shuttle and Space Station. Using those definitions, the initiative would receive $31.4 billion over the next five years. Costs would increase considerably in the subsequent 10 years, and costs cannot even be estimated for the period beyond that because the activities remain undefined. (See attachment B, although, according to NASA, the chart was designed more for internal purposes than to give a precise picture of out-year spending.)

Perhaps the greatest uncertainty remains the cost of continuing to operate the Space Shuttle. Any delay in retiring the Space Shuttle will add significantly to NASA’s costs (as well as raising the question of whether the Shuttle should fly without recertification). NASA continues to assume a return to flight this fall, although experts inside and outside the agency are raising doubts about whether that deadline can be met. Once flights resume, NASA plans about five flights a year a pace that Admiral Gehman, the chair of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, has said could revive concerns about “schedule pressure” adversely affecting safety. Retiring the Shuttle on schedule may also require using means other than the Shuttle to take up crew and supplies to the Space Station because the Shuttle will be needed to complete Station construction. Shuttle retirement could also be delayed if key portions of the Station, such as the centrifuge being built by the Japanese, are not completed on schedule. (The centrifuge is generally viewed as the most valuable piece of scientific equipment that will be brought to the Station.) NASA is still figuring out the “manifests” for the remaining Shuttle flights that is, the description of when flights would leave and return and what they would carry.

The costs of developing the CEV, the new vehicle that would take astronauts to the moon and beyond also are uncertain because development has not yet begun. In some ways, CEV development will build on the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) project that NASA discontinued as part of the President’s initiative. The OSP, which was to be designed primarily to take astronauts to the Space Station, was already facing cost overruns in its early design stages, and Congress was raising doubts about its usefulness. NASA now estimates that it will spend $6.5 billion over the next five years on CEV development.

The CEV may also require the development of a new launch system, and NASA has not decided yet how to approach the design of a new launch vehicle. The Office of Management and Budget is now estimating that the development of such a vehicle will cost about $5 billion. If an existing launch vehicle were used, it presumably would require modifications to support a human launch (“man rating” the vehicle).

Administration officials have said that because the CEV and its launch system will be developed over a longer time period than was allotted for the OSP there will be time to reevaluate costs before becoming overly committed to a particular design. Total CEV development is expected to cost about $15 billion (excluding any costs for a launch vehicle).

The cost of the CEV may be affected by how NASA decides to select a contractor for the program. NASA limited OSP development to two competitors. NASA has not yet made clear whether it will have a more open competition for the CEV.

Earth Science would fare far worse, sustaining cuts in FY 05 through FY 08. Earth Science spending would decline from $1.52 billion in FY 04 to $1.47 billion in FY 09, a year in which it is slated to receive an increase. NASA Earth Science missions are a major component of the Administration’s climate change science program.

Aeronautics would be essentially flat through the period, increasing in some years and decreasing in others, but ending up in FY 09 at $942 million a drop from the FY 04 level of $946 million.

(See Attachment C for more details.)

A Shuttle mission to the Hubble is a special case because a Shuttle on a Hubble mission cannot reach the Space Station, which could be used as a “safe haven” in case of an emergency or the need to inspect or repair the Shuttle. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board said that the Shuttle should fly to destinations other than the Space Station only when NASA had developed an “autonomous” inspection and repair capability that is, a way to inspect without using the Space Station. NASA believes such a capability is probably many years away. As a substitute, NASA examined having a second Shuttle ready to fly a rescue mission, but viewed that as dangerous and prohibitively expensive. However, debate continues among Hubble enthusiasts as to the relative dangers of a mission to the Station and a mission to Hubble.

NASA acknowledges that there were “secondary” considerations that also led to the cancellation of the Hubble mission, including the need to complete all the Shuttle missions needed for Station construction by 2010.

The U.S. is already using the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crew transfer while the Shuttle is grounded. However, it is doing so under an agreement that the Russians will have fulfilled by 2006. Renegotiating the agreement may require a change in the Iran Nonproliferation Act (INA), which Congress passed in 2000. That Act attempts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction to Iran by prohibiting the purchase of Russian rockets by the U.S. unless the President certifies that no Russian entity is engaged in any sales of missiles or missile systems to Iran. (The INA does not apply to the current agreement.)

Amending the Act would be controversial, and so far the Administration has hedged its bets, simply saying that the matter is under review.