Keith's note: Some new images were posted at nasa.gov tonight. Have a look this image. Specifically, look at the direction labels inside of Node 3 ("Tranquility") that have been covered up (partially). On the right hand side of the image you can see an arrow that says "-> to HAB". On the left hand side you can see directions "<- to CRV". "CRV" usually means "Crew Rescue (or Return) Vehicle". "HAB" refers to the habitation module. Both of these things were deleted from the ISS program many years ago.

There is a lot of FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt – being thrown up in the nascent debate over NASA’s new direction.  Some people are saying that commercial providers aren’t ready to be trusted with America’s astronauts and won’t be for some time.  Others suggest that it calls for the wholesale commercialization of NASA.  Still other sources insinuate that we are facing the elimination of the astronaut corps.  From where I sit, none of it is accurate.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden has repeatedly reiterated that he believes there will continue to be a role for a professional NASA astronaut corps.  Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said at last week’s Commercial Space Transportation Conference that the “wonderful people working Constellation did not fail,” but that they were not given the resources they needed and that it did not make sense to continue developing a system that would not even be ready to arrive at the ISS until after its planned de-orbit.  There will still be a need for specially-trained scientists and engineers for on-orbit operations, probably even more so as the number of “spaceflight participants” increases.

With regards to the commercial launchers themselves, SpaceX has launched a paying customer on their Falcon 1 (after sorting out their initial test issues) and will begin testing Falcon 9 in the spring.  Their Dragon vehicle is on schedule to begin deliveries to the station next year. Orbital has launched a multitude of vehicles from Wallops and for the Air Force and has partnered with the Italians to base their cargo module off the MPLM, a proven flight technology.  I’ll also note that both companies have former astronauts, Ken Bowersox and Frank Culberston, respectively, as senior company officials responsible for safety and mission assurance.

Boeing is leading one of the CCDev proposals – in a partnership with Bigelow Aerospace – for a new crew vehicle capable of being launched on either a Delta IV, Atlas V, or Falcon 9 rocket.  One can hardly say that the prime contractor for the ISS and half-owner of both United Space Alliance and United Launch Alliance isn’t capable of sending crew to the Station.

Mark Geyer himself said at the Orion all-hands last week that there is nothing in the new proposal that precludes Lockheed or Boeing from being commercial crew providers. I also heard the commanding general of the US Air Force Space Command say last week that they already depend on commercial providers for small and medium launch vehicles and that he sees commercial space development as essential to national security.  To achieve their goal of Operationally Responsive Space access, they need higher flight rates and lower costs than can be accomplished with monolithic, centrally-planned programs.

Also, no one is proposing a wholesale privatization of NASA.  The commercial space industry fully expects NASA to take the lead on manned and unmanned solar system exploration beyond LEO.  They are committed to enabling that by providing as many services as they can to LEO – and safety is as much a priority for them as it is for the rest of us.  DARPA, Space Command, the National Space Security Office, and the FAA all expressed their support for these ventures last week.

We must also consider that the passback on the budget was only given to NASA two days before its release.  For whatever reason that happened, the agency simply hasn’t had time yet to turn the broad policy outlines in the budget proposal into actionable program plans.  If we trusted our NASA leadership to make Constellation work, despite the tens of billions of unallocated dollars it would need, then we should at least give them the time they need to get this initial planning done.

That way, we can make informed decisions  and conduct a fair debate.  I think those us that are professionals in this field have an obligation to be honest about whatever personal biases we may have, but to also render objective analysis to our stakeholders and provide benefit to our profession, as a whole.

Call me a utilitarian, if you will, but this is what it comes down to for me.  Our focus should be on doing the right things to move the space program forward, honestly and with integrity.  Even when it hurts in the interim.  If we don’t work together to make our profession more inclusive and innovative and to support American industry, we will fall behind.  Everyone I talked to at the AIAA/FAA conference last week said that their foreign counterparts aren’t afraid of NASA continuing to do business as usual.  It’s how far we’ll leap ahead, if we unleash American industry, that concerns them.

I have no doubt that our future is in space and I am more certain of that now than ever before.  I agree with Alan Stern; who said over telecon that this is the best chance we’ve seen yet to build something more like what we all dreamed of when we watched 2001: A Space Odyssey.  There is opportunity in uncertainty, if we are willing to embrace it.

Huntsville space community form task force to fight NASA change

"A group of North Alabama leaders concerned over proposed White House changes to Marshall Space Flight Center-managed rocket programs have come together to form a task force in an effort to restore funding cuts. The "Second to None Initiative" brings together 25 community leaders, led by former Huntsville U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, to fight the Obama White House proposal that would shift NASA's focus from returning to the moon to technology development and seeding small, private space companies."

Huntsville Mayor Unveils Task Force To Fight For NASA's Constellation Program, WHNT

"The "Second to None Initiative" will include the following community leaders: Bud Cramer - Task Force Chairman, Joe Alexander - Camber Corporation, Rose Allen - Booz, Allen, Hamilton, Bruce Anderson - Alabama Development Office, Ed Buckbee, former director of U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Angie Calvert, Davidson Technologies, Jim Chilton, Boeing, Steve Cook, Dynetics, Tommy Dillard, ATK, Kim Doering, United Space Alliance, Mike Griffin, UAHuntsville, John Gully, SAIC, Shar Hendrick, The Hendrick Group, John Horack, UAHuntsville, Andrew Hugenie, Alabama A & M University, Dave King, Dynetics, Don Nalley, Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, Elizabeth Newton, UAHuntsville, Ed Pruitt, Lockheed Martin, Joe Ritch, Tennessee Valley BRAC Task Force, Dennis Smith, MEI, Irma Tuder, Analytical Services, Joe Vallely, City of Huntsville, Mike Ward, Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, Tom Young, Kord Technologies"

Prepare for Liftoff, Esther Dyson, Foreign Policy

"The U.S. Defense Department may have created the Internet, but had it kept control of the technology, it's unlikely the Web would have become the vibrant public resource it is today. That credit goes to the investment and activity of private citizens and private companies, starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s. With Barack Obama's new spending proposals, the same sort of thing could happen to space travel and exploration."

Space: The Final Frontier of Profit?, Peter Diamandis, Wall Street Journal

"Government agencies have dominated space exploration for three decades. But in a new plan unveiled in President Barack Obama's 2011 budget earlier this month, a new player has taken center stage: American capitalism and entrepreneurship. The plan lays the foundation for the future Google, Cisco and Apple of space to be born, drive job creation and open the cosmos for the rest of us."

Remarks by NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver 13th Annual FAA AST Space Transportation Conference

"NASA will soon be spending more than a billion dollars per year to back-up our part in these commercial partnerships. We will be providing industry with NASA technical expertise, to help with the practical technical problems, as well as to make these vehicles safe enough for NASA astronauts to fly on. We will provide serious seed money on the investment side and a firm commitment to buy crew transportation services on the market side. We will diversify our risk by funding a portfolio of highly-qualified competitors. Instead of a highly-risky approach, in which we fund only one system, we are going to fund many systems to create redundancy. No single commercial system will represent the critical path. We are going to see the most exciting race that America has seen in a long time, and there is likely to be more than one winner."

reader note: "An unbadged man said to me as I left my JSC building last Friday, "Is this a place of business or a campus? I mean, is this 'where it all happens'?" I was going to challenge him but he explained he was a bus driver from that bus over there that had brought in some people. I said, just, Yes Sir! and went on home. (It was a tough week.)

In this day and age, should I have pointed over his shoulder and said... That flag up there on that roof flies every day there are Americans on orbit. It has been there continuously, longer than I've been working here. If you go through those doors across the parking lot and turn left and could get past the locked doors and guards, you would be in Mission Control. THE Mission Control Houston. You could pick up a mic and talk to the astronauts and cosmonauts working in space right now. If you turn right instead, you'd find a building full of mission operations people who a week ago had no question that their contributions were valued by the country.

Today, I don't know how that question would be answered in that building. I'm angry the question has even come up. I wasn't born here at JSC, but I got here as soon as I could. I just don't know whether here is supposed to be 'where it all happens' anymore."

Gingrich & Walker: Obama's brave reboot for NASA, Washington Times

"Despite the shrieks you might have heard from a few special interests, the Obama administration's budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration deserves strong approval from Republicans. The 2011 spending plan for the space agency does what is obvious to anyone who cares about man's future in space and what presidential commissions have been recommending for nearly a decade."

The Case Against Private Space, oped by Taylor Dinnerman, Wall Street Journal

"The private sector simply is not up for the job. For one, NASA will have to establish a system to certify commercial orbital vehicles as safe for human transport, and with government bureaucracy, that will take years. Never mind the challenges of obtaining insurance. Entrepreneurial companies have consistently overpromised and under-delivered. Over the past 30 years, over a dozen start-ups have tried to break into the launch business. The only one to make the transition into a respectably sized space company is Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va. Building vehicles capable of going into orbit is not for the fainthearted or the undercapitalized."

Keith's note: When chronic Obama critics Newt Gingrich and Bob Walker make a point of saying that there is value in President Obama's space plan, I sit up and take notice. Then again, these are both interesting guys who often think outside the box, so this is not all that surprising. I continue to be fascinated by how this new policy has parsed the space community with equal numbers of liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, politicians, and business representatives on either side of the argument.

On the other hand I am startled at how so many self-described experts in space commerce such as Taylor Dinnerman (whose supposed website SpaceEquity.com is now used for credit repair links) have such a woefully thin level of confidence in the ability of the private sector to innovate and succeed. I guess he missed these Falcon 9 launch preparation pictures the SpaceX posted yesterday. Certainly looks "respectable" to me.

I guess this is a classic case of "where you stand depends on where you sit". I think it also shows that faith (or lack thereof) in the private sector is not the exclusive property of any one party or faction. Fascinating. I sense precursors to a paradigm shift in the making.

Newt Gingrich and Bob Walker Endorse Obama's New NASA Plan, Urge Bipartisan Support, Commercial Spaceflight Federation

"In the op-ed, Gingrich and Walker state, "Bipartisan cooperation has been difficult to achieve in Congress, but here is a chance. By looking forward, NASA has given us a way to move forward. It deserves broad support for daring to challenge the status quo."

Keith's note: In this image: The Candarm2, provided by Canada, moves the Node "Tranquility" built by Europe out of the cargo bay of an American space shuttle past Japan's JEM module while a Russian Soyuz is docked to the ISS. high res (1.0 M) low res (76 K)

Obama's Move To End Constellation Prompts Industrial Base Questions, Space News

"This is not money-saving. This is having some kind of half-baked scheme that we can commercialize this," said Bishop, whose district is home to ATK Space Systems, the Magna, Utah-based solid-rocket motor manufacturer that is building the first stage of Constellation's Ares 1 rocket and major subsystems for its launch abort system. ATK executives told investors Feb. 4 that canceling Ares 1 would cost the company $650 million in contract backlog."

Closing the new frontier, snarky oped by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

"But the Obama 2011 budget kills Constellation. Instead, we shall have nothing. For the first time since John Glenn flew in 1962, the United States will have no access of its own for humans into space -- and no prospect of getting there in the foreseeable future."

Keith's note: Um, check your facts next time. First: America did indeed have the ability to launch people on Mercury-Atlas missions after John Glenn flew - and those missions were launched. Second: there was a 6 year gap between Apollo-Soyuz in 1975 and STS-1 in 1981. We had no way to send humans into space during that time. And, FWIW, between the end of Mercury and the beginning of Gemini, we had no access, and between Gemini 12 and Apollo 7 we had no access to space. Between STS-107 and STS-114 ... and so on. Gaps are not a new thing.

Keith's note: According to Lori Garver's comments at today's FAA commerical space meeting, NASA DFRC will now take the lead on flightworthiness evaluations for suborbital vehicles that will fly NASA crew or payloads. This is somewhat of a shift from what people might have otherwise expected given that COTS and CCDev were being handled out of JSC - and that crew issues have always been the province of JSC. DFRC is where X vehicle work has been done for decades. Is NASA now going to treat commercial vehicles like X-vehicles? Stay tuned.

NASA and Space - The Future vs. the Past, John K. Strickland

"Under Admiral Craig Steidle starting early in 2004, the VSE was a forward looking program that was open to new ideas and the development of fundamentally new, innovative technology. Griffin shut the door firmly on most of those new ideas in 2005. Instead, he looked backward at what had been stolen away from him and the space community by politics 40 years ago - a continuation of the Apollo Program, and tried to re-create it as "Apollo on Steroids".

NASA Advisory Council Education and Public Outreach Subcommittee Meeting (17 Feb 2010)

Agenda:

"- Associate Administrator for Public Affairs Briefing.
- Discussion of Social Media Opportunities and Challenges.
- Associate Administrator for Education Briefing.
- Discussion of Opportunities and Challenges to Reach K-12 Students.
- Discussion of how to Organize the Committee Work Plan."

Keith's note: All of these NAC committee and subcommittee meetings are almost always held in a windowless conference room inside NASA HQ. If you can get to them then you can sit and listen - if you happen to read the Federal Register or NASA Watch and even know that they are happening. Otherwise, you are out of luck since NASA never records them for later viewing by taxpayers. Given the tremendous changes that have been proposed for the agency, employees and the public have a vested interest in these discussions - now more than at any time in recent years.

The NASA people who supported the Augustine Committee's activities set a new standard for how social media can be used to relay policy information to the public. Indeed, they often had things online before the media covering these events did. There is no reason why that standard of quality should not be applied to all public meetings concerning NASA policy.

Given that the Obama Administration is all about openness, transparency and all that good public participation stuff - and that this meeting is about "Education and Public Outreach" perhaps PAO AA Morrie Goodman (a scheduled speaker) can start with this subcommittee and provide a live webcast of this event on NASA's USTREAM.TV account. The webcast can be archived for later viewing.

It is very easy to do. All it takes is a laptop, a webcam, and an Internet connection. I have done these things on an EVDO modem live at Desert RATS from the middle of an Arizona desert, from the basement of Rayburn House Office Building, and from Everest Base Camp in Nepal at 17,500 feet over a satellite phone.

Photo: Keith addressing a session at a broadcasters convention in Atlanta in April 2009 via laptop webcam live over a BGAN satellite phone from a field outside the monastery in Tengboche, Nepal. Note the very, very dense fog - yaks lurked in the mist a few feet away. Larger image

SpaceX Announces Final Arrival of Falcon 9 Flight Hardware at Cape Canaveral in Preparation for Inaugural Launch

"We expect to launch in one to three months after completing full vehicle integration," said Brian Mosdell, Director of Florida Launch Operations for SpaceX. "Our primary objective is a successful first launch and we are taking whatever time necessary to work through the data to our satisfaction before moving forward." ... Though designed from the beginning to transport crew, SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft will initially be used to transport cargo. Falcon 9 and Dragon were selected by NASA to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) once Shuttle retires. The $1.6B contract represents 12 flights for a minimum of 20 tons to and from the ISS with the first demonstration flights beginning in 2010."

Obama overhauls NASA's agenda in budget request, Washington Post

"Nearly half a century ago, President John F. Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon. Earlier this month, by killing NASA's Constellation program, President Obama essentially challenged the space agency to do something other than put a man back on the moon."

America's Long Journey Away From the Moon and Mars, Wall Street Journal

"As a longtime NASA booster, I couldn't help but feel a gut kick when the President's new budget meant the end of Constellation, a program commonly nicknamed "Return to Flight" and "Apollo on Steroids." To many of us, Constellation offered an end to the directionless Space Shuttle era and a return to the glory years of Apollo. As a historian, though, I knew at the program's announcement six years' ago that such an epic undertaking, back to the Moon and then onto Mars, would never happen."

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says Huntsville's role "vital," but still not clear in new NASA budget, Huntsville Times

"Critics of the Obama space plan point out that setting up private companies, like Falcon rocket-maker SpaceX, duplicates what NASA can already do and sets space exploration plans back. "I think the problem here is that the private sector doesn't really know what 'private space' means," said Steve Cook, vice president for space systems at Huntsville-based Dynetics and former Marshall Ares program manager. "Is it telecommunications? Is it launch vehicles? Is it research and science? All of those are functions and business models from established companies."

Keith's note: Hey Steve - in case you haven't noticed, you are in the 'private' sector now -- so, by definition, you don't know what is going on either!

Russia wants to charge more for rides to space: report, AFP

"NASA has signed a deal worth 306 million dollars (224 million euros) with Roskomos for six rides to the ISS in 2012 and 2013, or a charge of 51 million dollars per US astronaut. But with space now limited aboard the Soyuz rocket, Russia looks set to curb its lucrative space tourism service, for which it had charged cosmos-crazed tycoons 35 million dollars (28 million euros) for the ultimate adventure."

NASA JSC Solicitation: Procurement of Crew Transportation and Rescue Services From Roscosmos

"NASA/JSC intends to contract with Roscosmos for these services on a sole source basis for 6 Soyuz seats with associated services in CY 2013 with rescue/return services extending through spring 2014. These services are being procured through Roscosmos because the Soyuz is the only other proven crew transportation and rescue vehicle, other than the Space Shuttle which is scheduled to retire in 2010. These services are serving as a bridge between the Space Shuttle and the availability of a commercial vehicle. Until a commercial vehicle is available, continued access to Russian Crew launch, return, and rescue services is essential for planned ISS operations and utilization by all ISS partners."

Keith'snote: The NASA 2010 PM Challenge is underway today and tomorrow. According to NASA: "The PM Challenge is one of NASA's premier training events. It brings together the best speakers, discussion panels, case studies, and networking opportunities in program/project management, systems engineering, safety & mission assurance, team building, business management, and many others." Participants are Twittering from inside the event. You can follow their Tweets here.

NASA STS-130 Report #01 4 a.m. CST Monday, Feb. 8, 2010

"After a one day delay due to clouds, space shuttle Endeavour launched at 3:14 a.m. CST Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a new module and an attached cupola for the International Space Station that should increase human understanding of our home planet. It was the last scheduled night launch in shuttle program history."