Last Thursday I shared my thoughts in two short (<5 min) RussiaToday interviews on on President Obama's big speech about NASA and his long-overdue cancellation of NASA’s white elephant known as “Ares I” rocket. (See Jeff Foust’s analysis here and here.) I was sorry to see the Administration decide to preserve the Orion capsule as a lifeboat for the International Space Station, but as I indicate below, I can’t really blame them for feeling they had to “throw a bone” to the Congressional lions defending that program and the jobs it created (using tax dollars that killed far more jobs, of course—a classic “seen v. unseen” problem).

But as I note below, the far more important good news is that, if Obama gets his way, NASA would finally buy crew launch services to ISS and for future deep space missions from the private sector (expanding its limited COTS program) instead of building its own rockets and capsule for this purpose. This decision is easily single best thing the Administration has done thus far. They have a tough fight ahead with the few members of Congress who actually care about this—who just so happen to be the ones whose districts will face job cuts when dead-end, wasteful make-work programs are canceled. The irony here is just too thick: Many of the same kinds of folks who’ve been decrying Obama as a socialist (not unjustly, in my opinion) now attack him on nationalist grounds for trying to turn part of our ultra-socialist space program over to the private sector.

http://www.youtube.com/v/-0Da2fyzBus&hl=en_US&fs=1& Here’s another clip:

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin used to refer to commercial alternatives to NASA’s Ares rockets as “Paper Rockets,” but commercial vehicles like Atlas V, Delta IV and Falcon 1 are quite real and available today, while Ares 1 and 5 are grossly over-budget and way behind-schedule:

http://www.youtube.com/v/VqR7IDzA5Xo NASA should buy commercial space services whenever possible from NewSpace companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace. The Commercial Spaceflight Revolution is happening now!

The Space Frontier Foundation issued this press release today, following our earlier call for NASA to fund its COTS-D program for demonstrating commercial human spaceflight capabilty.  

The Space Frontier Foundation today called on President-elect Barack Obama to use the innovation and drive of American entrepreneurs to “close the Gap” in U.S. human spaceflight after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010.

President-elect Obama has promised $2 billion in additional funding for NASA to address the Gap, when the U.S. will be dependent upon Russia’s Soyuz for crew access to the International Space Station.  But two of the options proposed – extending Space Shuttle operations or accelerating the Constellation program – wouldn’t reduce the current estimate of a five year gap by much.

“Space leaders are considering three or four options for reducing the Space Gap, but only one reflects the spirit of positive change that Senator Obama campaigned on,” said Foundation Chairman Berin Szoka.  “According to NASA’s own estimates, flying the Shuttle beyond 2010 will cost at least $2 billion  per year, so that only cuts the Gap by one year.  And $2 billion is a drop in the bucket for Constellation, at best helping to address shortfalls that the Congressional Budget Office just predicted will add another 18 months to the Gap.”

A third option is being considered by some at NASA, according to published reports:  Strip the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle of the capability to support Lunar exploration, making it simpler and lighter, and supposedly easier to complete sooner.

“This idea is crazy, because it will strand NASA in low Earth orbit, instead of exploring the solar system,” said Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson.  “The whole point of the Vision for Space Exploration was to send NASA’s Lewis & Clarks further out into the frontier, to the Moon, Mars, and near-Earth asteroids, while the private sector takes over Earth orbit.  Cutting Orion back gives us ‘Gemini on steroids’, which would be a change for the worse.”

“The only option that makes sense is to use President-elect Obama’s promised $2 billion to catalyze as many as five new commercial human spaceflight companies that will compete to close the Gap using the safest, most capable and affordable system they can develop,” said Will Watson, Foundation Executive Director.

“Let’s not put all our eggs in one basket by pouring even more money into the Shuttle, an old system that’s on its last legs, or a controversial new program that’s already behind schedule,” Watson said.  “If we’re serious about closing the Gap and about making humanity’s presence in space economically sustainable, we need real change in how we put humans in space.  Let’s use this $2 billion to stimulate multiple entrepreneurial systems that will not only slash costs, improve safety, and close the Gap, but also help create a whole new space industry with new jobs here in America.”

As TLF readers may know, I took over in July as Chairman of the Board of the Space Frontier Foundation.  As I explained in my recent interview on The Space Show, SFF has been the leading citizens’ advocacy group for space commercialization since 1988.  Dedicated to promoting Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill‘s vision of space settlement, as described in his 1976 masterpiece The High Frontier, the Foundation has always argued that “space is a place, not a program.”

We sent out the following press release on October 28, calling for a major transformation of the U.S. government’s space program by which the U.S. government would buy commercial transportation to the International Space Station.  We’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks.

Space Frontier Foundation Finds Funding Source for COTS-D

The Space Frontier Foundation today called upon Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain to invest the $2 billion in new funds they have promised to NASA for reducing the “Gap” in U.S. human spaceflight (after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010) to spur innovation and competition in America.

Foundation Chairman Berin Szoka said “It’s time that our national leaders give American entrepreneurs a shot at closing this gap. Let’s take the two billion dollars in the candidates’ plans and fund up to five winners of COTS-D.”

The NASA Authorization Act of 2008, recently signed into law by the President, directs NASA to “issue a notice of intent [by mid-April 2009] … to enter into a funded, competitively awarded Space Act Agreement with two or more commercial entities’ for transporting humans to the ISS”-the “Capability D” of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program (or COTS-D for short). But that directive is not yet funded.

Szoka continued, “Let’s have an American competition in space – to create good jobs, fuel innovation, and close the gap more quickly. With private funds matching government’s investment, we can dramatically leverage the $2 billion to produce breakthroughs in a new American industry – commercial orbital human spaceflight.”

By investing in several different approaches, the government will win no matter who wins this new race, and also benefit from the resulting price competition.

Many American companies, including Boeing, PlanetSpace, SpaceDev, SpaceX, and t/Space have each previously submitted credible COTS-D proposals to NASA. Each of these firms has reached the semi-finals of one of the previous NASA COTS competitions. Increasing funding for COTS by $2 billion would allow NASA to fund all five of these promising companies’ proposals with COTS agreements, and in so doing, build redundancy into the human spaceflight capability available to NASA and other customers.

“It’s popular in Washington to use ‘The Gap’ to cynically justify continued funding of an expensive jobs program,” concluded the Foundation’s co-founder, Bob Werb. “We’re using ‘The Gap’ to advocate a policy that will bridge a gap that matters much more: the chasm between a dying government Human spaceflight monopoly and an emerging, free and competitive marketplace that can open the space frontier to everyone.”