NASA Budget Woes Could Delay Orion-Ares Up To Six Months

A shortage of funds will mean that NASA will see a delay of up to six months for the scheduled first launch of the next-generation Orion-Ares crew exploration vehicle, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Feb. 28.

That will only lengthen further an already "unseemly" four-year gap from when the existing space shuttle fleet is scheduled to stop flying in 2010 until Orion-Ares flies, a period in which the United States — long the leading nation in space — will have to rely on other nations for the capacity to place humans into orbit and resupply the International Space Station, Griffin told the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee space subcommittee. The hearing was attended by Satellite News sister publication Defense Daily.

"The United States will be in a position of purchasing [launch] services from other governments," which they are not obligated to provide, and it is "unseemly … the United States would be in a position" such as that, Griffin said. "I don’t like it."

There is no money available to accelerate the Orion-Ares program, he said.

The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), asked Griffin what amount of money it would take to have a first launch of Orion-Ares in 2012, 2013 or 2014, rather than fiscal 2015.

As well, the gap between the end of the shuttle program and the initial operating capability of Orion-Ares will mean NASA will lose personnel, those remaining on staff will grow stale and facilities will decay with disuse, Griffin said. A similar scenario occurred in the gap between the Apollo program and the inception of the space shuttle flights, and "I expect it [another gap] will be damaging again," he said.

In 2006, NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a multi-billion dollar contract to develop the Orion crew capsule, and NASA this year is scheduled to award another major contract to procure the rocket that will loft the capsules into space, part of the Constellation vision of voyages to the moon, Mars and beyond.

In a subcommittee hearing on the new NASA budget request, Griffin said the space agency is afflicted with funding shortages in the current fiscal 2007 ending Sept. 30. Because Congress did not pass a NASA appropriations measure and instead essentially froze NASA funding in a continuing budget resolution, that means that NASA will be short $545 million from the funds that President Bush had sought for fiscal 2007.

That lack of money, while not halting work on the Orion-Ares program, "does stretch it out," Griffin said.

Instead of launching the first Orion-Ares mission in fiscal 2014, the launch will occur in 2015, he said. "Regrettably, there will be a four-to-six month slip in the launch date," meaning that the first liftoff "will slip into early [fiscal 2015]."

Pressed by senators, Griffin said that might mean a liftoff no sooner than December 2014 — if all goes well in the development program.

Senators asked Griffin if he could make do by juggling funds among accounts and somehow slip around the problem that way. But he explained that he has no power to move funds from other programs into the human space flight area. "I do not have the flexibility to move money from one area to another area," he said. He only can move funds within the human space flight sector of his budget, and that is short by hundreds of millions of dollars.

"The bottom line is that we’re down over half a billion dollars," he said. On other points:

– Griffin said the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis has been delayed from March 15 until some time in April after a hail storm damaged the external fuel tank foam insulation. The mission could be delayed even further once NASA completes a full assessment of the damage.

– The danger has abated that the International Space Station might be seriously damaged or destroyed by debris created by China demolishing one of its own satellites, Griffin said. The anti-satellite shot created a huge field of thousands of chunks of debris. "Each day there is a 1-in-100,000 chance the space station will be fatally damaged by space debris." The Chinese test temporarily doubled that probability, but since then, the "risk receded into the background."

– Asked by journalists whether he will resign soon, Griffin said that he serves at the pleasure of President Bush and will continue to serve until the President asks him to leave.

– Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) asked whether the persistent funding woes NASA faces could be alleviated by the government issuing "space bonds," funding the space agency with debt instead of tax revenues. The bonds might carry "a very low rate of interest," Stevens said.