Executive summary of the Augustine Comnittee Report - An Analysis

Astronauts Exploring the Moon Courtesy NASA

The Augustine Committee has released an executive summary of its long awaited report, Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans. It is a very serious, sober, well written document that not only accurately states where we are concerning the exploration of space, but lays out some options along with realistic pros and cons of how we might go forward,

The main message that the Augustine Committee imparts to the policy makers and politicians who will ultimately determine the course of human space exploration is this: “Whatever space program is ultimately selected, it must be matched with the resources needed for its execution.”

The history of the US civil space program since Apollo is pregnant with the phenomenon of great projects not being allocated the resources needed to adequately develop them. The Nixon administration cut the planned budget for the space shuttle in half in the 1970s. NASA low balled the budget for the space station in the 1980s. President George W. Bush started the current space exploration program and then refused to fund it as promised. So far President Barack Obama has continued this pernicious practice.

The Augustine Committee report is very damning in its evaluation of the last instance. “Given the funding originally expected, the Constellation Program was a reasonable architecture for human exploration. However, even when it was announced, its budget depended on funds becoming available from the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 and the decommissioning of ISS in early 2016. Since then, as a result of technical and budgetary issues, the development schedules of Ares I and Orion have slipped, and work on Ares V and Altair has been delayed.”

Interestingly enough, contrary to the hyper ventilation about technical problems involving the Constellation program by some in the media and on the Internet, the Augustine Committee found that that the technical challenges were not show stoppers. “Most major vehicle-development programs face technical challenges as a normal part of the process, and Constellation is no exception. While significant, these are engineering problems, and the Committee expects that they can be solved. But these solutions may add to the program's cost and/or delay its schedule.”

The message could not be clearer. The current program is doable if one is willing to pay for it.

The question of costs, what causes them, and how NASA can be helped to control them is a large part of the Augustine Committee report.

Commercial and international partnerships are mentioned as ways to share the cost of whatever space exploration program is chosen. Commercializing Earth to LEO transportation is highly recommended for almost every one of the options presented.

Also there is this:

“How might NASA organize to explore? The NASA Administrator needs to be given the authority to manage NASA's resources, including its workforce and facilities. Even the best managed human spaceflight programs will encounter developmental problems. Such activities must be adequately funded, including reserves to account for the unforeseen and unforeseeable. Good management is especially difficult when funds cannot be moved from one human spaceflight budget line to another--and where new funds can ordinarily be obtained only after a two-year delay (if at all). NASA should be given the maximum flexibility possible under the law to establish and manage its systems.

“Finally, significant space achievements require continuity of support over many years. One way to ensure that no successes are achieved is to continually pull up the flowers to see if the roots are healthy. (This Committee might be accused of being part of this pattern!) NASA and its human spaceflight program are in need of stability in both resources and direction.”

The irony of calling for stability in NASA programs while the existence of the Augustine Committee has been a source of instability is obviously not lost on the Augustine Committee.

The report covers various options for launch vehicles, including EELV derived, shuttle derived, Ares V Lite, and the current Ares 1/Ares V plan. The report lists the options suggested as alternatives to the current plan. They can be divided into Moon and Flexible Path, also called Deep Space and, by detractors, Look But Don’t Touch. The pros and cons of all approaches are enumerated in detail.

Flexible Path has been criticized in some quarters as a kind of space exploration to nowhere program. In this version of the report, the Augustine Committee seems to be responsive to those criticisms.

“The Flexible Path represents a different type of exploration strategy. We would learn how to live and work in space, to visit small bodies, and to work with robotic probes on the planetary surface. It would provide the public and other stakeholders with a series of interesting "firsts" to keep them engaged and supportive. Most important, because the path is flexible, it would allow many different options as exploration progresses, including a return to the Moon's surface, or a continuation to the surface of Mars.”

Then there is this intriguing paragraph: “The Committee finds that both Moon First and Flexible Path are viable exploration strategies. It also finds that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive; before traveling to Mars, we might be well served to both extend our presence in free space and gain experience working on the lunar surface.”

In other words, why not compromise by doing both. There are advantages and, no doubt, added costs to doing that.

The Augustine Committee has also been criticized for reports that it’s propose options push back milestones for space exploration well into the 2030s. In this report, the Augustine Committee is responsive to this criticism as well. Most of the milestones in both Moon and Flexible Path suggests milestones such as a first lunar landing or a visit to an asteroid in the mid 2020s, about five years beyond what is planned.

The Augustine Committee is very specific as to costs. Three billion dollars per year extra are needed for any of its proposed options that it admits do not have a particularly aggressive schedule. This puts the Obama administration in a quandary. If it attempts to do a space exploration program on the cheap, which has been the standard operating procedure of governments run by both parties, it lays itself open to charges of ignoring a key recommendation of the Augustine Committee.

Will the Obama administration rise to the challenge? Or will it punt? Time alone will tell.