Subject: FW: NASA News
-- from Charlie Precourt, former
Deputy Director of the International Space Station and Chief of the Astronaut
Office
-----Original
Message-----
From:
"Charlie Precourt" <precourt@comcast.net>
Date:
Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:45:31
Subject:
NASA News
Dear
friends and family,
For
many of you it has been a long time since last contact, so I hope this note
finds everyone well!
I
am not one to provide mass e-mail ordinarily; however, a very unusual
circumstance regarding NASA's future has been unfolding that I felt compelled
to share. The President's budget request for fiscal year 2011 (beginning
in October) calls for the cancellation of NASA's Constellation program.
Specifically, the budget calls for the outsourcing of all human spaceflight
services to an unproven private sector. What this means to our space
program is deeply disturbing. The Space Shuttle will be retired this
year, after its final flight (4 to go) and with the proposed cancellation of
Constellation, which was intended to replace Shuttle with ever more capable
spacecraft, there will be no US capability to transport American astronauts to
the space station or other future destinations.
Constellation
was envisioned to provide far safer and more capable access to space, including
plans to return to the moon, asteroids or one day Mars. However, the
President's budget would outsource human spaceflight access for our nation to
private companies who seek to develop other markets such as space tourism. This
market is a fantasy that remains in our distant future. Our astronaut
program as we know it would evolve to private corporate space fliers, and our
access to the International Space Station will be via Russian launchers.
We are ceding our leadership in space. Worse, when the Shuttle program
ends and Constellation is terminated there will be 25,000 high tech jobs in our
workforce that will be in limbo as there will be no existing government
contracts in place to actively and productively engage this workforce.
Many
of you know that I have had the personal privilege of being the general manager
at ATK for the development of the Ares rocket under Constellation... and we
achieved our first flight in October, earning with it Time magazine's invention
of the year award for 2009. Ares was designed to be 10 times safer that
Shuttle, achieving the objective of drastically reducing the risk of another
Challenger or Columbia accident... Ares would be terminated under Constellation,
in spite of this success.
Obama's
budget for NASA takes the agency back years and cedes our leadership in space
to China, Russia and other nations who see the value in a robust program.
What is most disturbing however is the PROCESS. Administration political
appointees to the NASA agency have disenfranchised the ENTIRE leadership team
in the agency who are our nation's brain trust on how to execute our space
program....Hubble, Mars Rovers, International Space Station, Shuttle to name a
few would not exist without these incredible folks.... and the Administration
has put forth a budget proposal that no one in the agency's technical ranks has
the foggiest idea how they can support or execute. The proposal to cancel
Constellation puts 25,000 high tech jobs on the street with the enactment of
the bill at the end of this year.
So
given this very strange and disturbing set of circumstances, I thought I would
share links to three web sites, where you can register for a petition to the President,
and find further information on how to contact your Congressional
representatives and the President by fax or mail. The links to these web
sites are below. Please feel free to forward this note and information
widely... The Congressional process to review, alter and approve the
budget is just beginning, so now is the time to write if you are so inclined.
http://www.tychotics.com/Default.aspx
http://www.saveconstellation.com/
http://web.me.com/michaelokuda/CONSTELLATION/GO_BOLDLY.html
This
last web site in particular has additional background information on the program.
The
important messages to communicate are:
NASA's
Constellation program must not be cancelled. Constellation systems must
continue to be developed so that we maintain our world leadership in space,
motivate our youth to pursue careers in science and math, provide for safer
access to our International Space Station and ever greater destinations in
space, and continue to reap the benefits created by NASA's high tech workforce.
The
change that is needed to the President's budget is simply one of balance. We
cannot put all our eggs in one basket and hope that the private sector can
provide for NASA's space mission needs. Funding needs to be
restored to the Constellation program (interestingly NASA's budget did not
go down with this cancellation, the funds were just vectored to purchasing
services from this undefined private sector). Constellation development and
a rational amount of stimulus to spin off NASA space flight technologies to the
private sector are both achievable within the President's budget request.
Prior to this budget NASA was investing $4B to stimulate private sector space
activities. With this budget proposal, NASA's own Constellation Program
and its promising future will be canceled to underwrite an additional $6B to
this undefined private sector activity.
Thanks
for reading... don't hesitate to pass this along.
Best
regards
Charlie
Precourt