It appears that SpaceX's success with the Dragon spacecraft has won some much-needed space in the US House of Representatives. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) announced Tuesday that his office reached a truce with NASA regarding the Commercial Crew program. Under the agreement, Wolf will lower his opposition to Commercial Crew and hopefully help NASA gain better funding. <\/p>\n
Wolf chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, which controls NASA's budget. His subcommittee has consistently hit the Commercial Crew Development program (CCDev) with heavy cuts. NASA Administrator Bolden has stated that the cuts have delayed access to the Space Station by American vehicles by at least a year, with this year's cuts expected to delay American access again. In hearings, some of Wolf's subcommittee members have seemed intent on using the coming Space Launch System (SLS) to ferry astronauts to the Space Station, even though this service would come at a price that's about ten times higher. <\/p>\n
In April, Wolf included language in the 2013 spending bill's accompanying report that stopped just short of requiring NASA to drop its Commercial Crew competition. Wolf wanted NASA to immediately downsize the program from the current four competitors to either a single \"competitor\" or a well-funded leader and a weakly funded follower. Commercial space backers have worried that the language would succeed in essentially discontinuing CCDev, given that similar tactics have been used in the Senate. <\/p>\n
One fear was that new commercial space companies would be swept away and the job of ferrying astronauts would be given to Boeing, one of the two traditional contractors. The other usual contractor, Lockheed-Martin, is already signed on for NASA's Orion spacecraft. Because the US government is still the only major customer for ferrying humans to orbit, development of a more competitive space industry could be severely curtailed. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, support for the newcomers in the commercial space industry has been growing. The topsy-turvy situation, in which Democrats support a new private space industry and Republicans fiercely oppose it, has been questioned on the Republican side, and the recent berthing of the first commercial space capsule with the International Space Station appears to have finally turned the tide. Several members of Wolf's subcommittee who were recalcitrant before the Dragon mission have since made positive announcements. With more tests and launches coming later in the year, Wolf appears to have cut a deal before sentiments shifted again. <\/p>\n
Wolf's announcement suggests a compromise agreement wherein Wolf will basically back off of his report's language in return for NASA agreeing to chop CCDev down to two-and-a-half funded competitors (two full awards and one partial award) rather than four. Wolf would back a NASA budget that more closely matched the current Senate funding level, which is slightly more than what his committee recommended on the House side. More importantly, he would not push for language in the new law to require the downselect to a single launch provider. <\/p>\n
Other requirements of the agreement, laid out in a letter from Wolf to Bolden, include the following: <\/p>\n
All of this language is somewhat strange because NASA is already doing most of this. Because Congress chopped its 2013 budget request for CCDev again this year, it seemed likely that NASA would not be able to sustain four competitors anyway. The agency had also announced that it would be transitioning to FARS for general acquisitions, and it already collects financial information on the four competitors. And export controls already prevent shipping of any kind of rocket technology overseas. Accordingly, it doesn't seem like Wolf is really getting anything new. <\/p>\n
Wolf's office also provided a link to a letter Administrator Bolden wrote in reply, thanking him for his trust. In the letter, Bolden stipulates that if Wolf wants American vehicles taking astronauts to the International Space Station sooner, the funding Wolf's committee cut from NASA's budget request needs to be restored. <\/p>\n
That could actually happen. It's entirely possible that NASA's budget bill will be punted to next year because of the elections, and Congress will pass a continuing resolution instead. In a longshot scenario, additional money would be added to that bill if enough support is present in Congress to get it done. Whether or not the funding is restored, it does seem that SpaceX's victory is yielding some tangible political payoffs for NASA as well. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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