Falling behind

[Vice President Mike Pence announced] on Thursday at the same time that NASA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a damning report depicting a space agency willing to accept serious delays and to pay Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars for cost overruns [...] "After years of being out of the launch business, we're going to be back. And before spring arrives next year, we're going to send American astronauts on American rockets, from American soil, back into space.

"We're going to have our own platforms to take us back, and we don't need to hitch a ride with the Russians any more," he said.

[...]

In light of the OIG report, Pence's deadline puts SpaceX - and more specifically Boeing - on notice that missed deadlines and cost overruns associated with NASA's Commercial Crew Program are no longer acceptable. The OIG report states that delivery of a reliable launch system - rocket and spacecraft - is already two years behind schedule.

[...]

The OIG asserted that the "schedule slippage" was because Boeing missed a milestone deadline by 13 months, "and due to Boeing seeking higher prices than those specified in its fixed price contract".

  alJazeera

I know why he made this announcement on Thursday - news came out that China had hit a milestone in its schedule to send an unmanned craft to Mars next year - but I don't know how he plans to make the Commercial Crew Program (who says private industry is better at this than a government agency?) make up two years plus by spring. I'd like to think the equipment will be sound and ready before they put people in it.

The NASA OIG report could not have come a more damaging time. NASA is already facing stiff resistance in the US House of Representatives, where members are baulking at its $22.6bn budget request for 2020.

Currently, the US government is being funded by a continuing resolution set to expire in seven days on November 21. While Congress is expected to pass another continuing resolution to keep the government open, NASA's need for the extra money, and its ability to spend it wisely, is unresolved.

The OIG found that for the Commercial Crew Program, NASA agreed to pay Boeing an extra $287.2m on top of a multibillion-dollar fixed price contract. The payments, according to the report, were intended to help the Seattle-based company take the necessary steps to make up for lost time.

[...]

Boeing [...] said that [a] renegotiated contract offered NASA better terms that, in effect, increased Boeing's financial risk.

I find it hard to accept that Boeing made a deal that increased its financial risk.

"The structure of the original contract would have increased cost and schedule uncertainty and would have limited NASA's flexibility in mission planning," the company said.

"Boeing is also now holding all of the up-front mission costs, which NASA will not have to pay until after each mission is officially ordered and given the Authority to Proceed," it said.

So, the risk is that NASA never gets that authority. That's not a zero risk.

Boeing's launch system, called the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner spacecraft, has been designed to be a reusable capsule capable of taking up to seven passengers, or a mix of crew and cargo, up into low earth orbit.

Not exactly on a par with landing on Mars - something that Trump trumpeted would be happening. I don't know why he quit talking about that. Maybe he got distracted with more personal concerns. But it could be a profitable commerical enterprise if it actually ever got underway and was safe. And if enough people could come up with the price of a ticket to just circle the earth in low orbit.

By 2014, NASA chose to award the second and final phase agreements to Boeing and SpaceX, which took the form of firm-fixed-price contracts, to pay for further development, test flights and, perhaps most notably, crewed missions to the ISS.

According to the OIG report, these second-phase contracts in May of this year were worth $6.8bn, with Boeing accounting for $4.3bn, and its competitor SpaceX garnering roughly $2.5bn.

In addition, NASA has paid up through 2020 an averageof $85.4m a seat to Roscosmos, formerly known as Russia's Federal Space Agency, to send its astronauts on 70 completed and planned missions to the ISS on board Soyuz rockets.

Since 2017, the year when Commercial Crew Program launches were originally scheduled, NASA has paid approximately $1bn for 12 seats to send US astronauts to the ISS on Soyuz rockets, according to the OIG report.

By the way...how's that Space Force coming along?

Congress has yet to authorize the establishment of a U.S. Space Force.

  Military.com

They've been downgraded to a branch of the Air Force.

Oh, well. They have a logo..  (A cheap-looking reference to Star Trek.)

And a website.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

President Deals makes an offer

Prior to a phone call with NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson from the Oval Office in April 2017, Trump pressed Robert Lightfoot Jr., then the acting NASA administrator, for NASA's plans for Mars, New York Magazine reported Tuesday, citing an advance copy of Cliff Sims's upcoming book "Team of Vipers."

“Is there any way we could do it by the end of my first term?” Trump reportedly asked Lightfoot, who explained to the president that NASA planned to try a manned spaceflight by the 2030s and that there were logistical challenges of doing so before then.

[...]

“But what if I gave you all the money you could ever need to do it?” Trump asked. “What if we sent NASA’s budget through the roof, but focused entirely on that instead of whatever else you’re doing now. Could it work then?”

  The Hill

Let me guess. Lightfoot, unlike the ignorant ass in the oval office, knew that Congress holds the purse strings, not the president. Not to mention, NASA couldn't just drop everything they were doing.

Lightfoot reportedly responded to the president by telling him he didn't think that was possible. That left Trump "visibly disappointed," wrote Sims, a former White House communications staffer.

Trump also pressed the issue during the phone call with Whitson, saying that he wanted to get humans on Mars "at worst, during my second term."

A second term would indeed be at worst.

This is a book we're going to be getting more quotes from. There've already been some doozies, including from Stuff (notably with a nasty Paul Ryan take-down by Trump) and Axios (recounting the making of Trump's enemies - leakers - list).

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Please take him with you.

At a time when China is working on an ambitious lunar program, President Donald Trump vowed on Monday that the United States will remain the leader in space exploration as he began a process to return Americans to the moon.

“We are the leader and we’re going to stay the leader, and we’re going to increase it many fold,” Trump said in signing “Space Policy Directive 1” that establishes a foundation for a mission to the moon with an eye on going to Mars.

“This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars,” Trump said. “And perhaps, someday, to many worlds beyond.”

  Reuters

What about that infrastructure here on this planet in this country you promised?  And, California is burning down.  They could use a little help.  Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida - they're still in need after the hurricane season. 

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Couldn't We Just Vote?

Mars One, a Dutch company, has begun its search for volunteers to fly and live on the red planet - but it's a one-way trip.

At a press conference in New York City on Monday, the company's CEO Bas Lansdorp announced an open call for anyone to apply for the flight, knowing that they will never be able to return home. The mission will be one-way only because there currently is no technology that would enable a return trip from Mars to Earth.

  al Jazeera

Ahem....My Theory

In keeping with the news about our Mars trip....

Notice the location of the planet Mars in relation to the planet Earth and the Sun. (I was heretofore unaware of the planet Other, and I think Pluto has been demoted.)

Now have a look at the surface of Mars...

While it makes for a lovely photograph, it is not hospitable to human life. Neither is Death Valley, I hear you say, but Mars has no irrigation system, and as far as we know, no water for one.

But consider that scientists believe they have previously found evidence for the prior existence of water on Mars, and that is no doubt something they want to pursue. Then comes speculation about the possibility of Mars supporting human life.

Well, if, as anyone other than your fundamentalist neighbors believes, the universe is expanding and planets are moving further apart as a result, doesn't it stand to reason that 1) Mars may have once been in a location a distance from the Sun that the Earth is now and that it did indeed have water and plant life and perhaps human life, and 2) global warming aside, the Earth is looking at a future where it will be as desolate as Mars because it will be too far from the Sun to support life, and therefore, 3) the planet we should be trying to get to is Venus? Still too hot to go there?

Taking global warming into consideration, we may be screwing the pooch with our carbon emissions and such and breaking down the barrier between us and the Sun so that Earth burns to a crisp before it gets out of range of the "life belt" (but that's only if you believe that hogwash and/or hoax about global warming) in which case we should be thinking about creating some serious solar barrier to take with us to Venus, because we'll have to leave here early. Or maybe our carbon emitting, air polluting technology would actually be a positive thing on Venus.   

Or maybe the Sun will have burnt itself down to a size that will render a milder temperature on Venus by that future time/space.  No matter, I can work all that into “My Theory”:  we should be funding exploration on Venus. 

At least until some godless scientist comes along to tell me why "My Theory" is crap.