WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas),
Ranking Member on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and
Representative Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.), a member of the House and Science and
Technology Committee, together authored an opinion piece in the Hill Newspaper
on the future of NASA.
May 5, 2010
The Hill — Bipartisanship
key for the future of space program
By Sen. Kay Bailey
Hutchison (R-Texas) and Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla)
While we are
encouraged the president showed a willingness to make some changes to his
proposal for NASA during his visit to Florida, members of Congress from both
parties still have concerns.
These concerns
include the readiness of the commercial space industry to fill the role the
president envisions, and how to minimize the risk to the International Space
Station, which after more than a decade of construction and $100 billion in
investment is about to realize its full research potential.
Flying the remaining
shuttle missions this year before determining the equipment necessary to
preserve the space station and extend its service from 2015 to 2020 as planned
creates substantial, unnecessary risks. That is a critical point because
losing the space station would be devastating. We would lose a crucial
source of new research capability, including experiments currently planned by
the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Agriculture as well as
a study of cosmic rays with implications for deep space exploration set to
deploy this fall. Loss of the space station would also seriously
undermine the case for maintaining a human space flight capability because the
space station provides the destination for manned space exploration in the
short and mid-term while we work on new technologies to reach deeper into
space.
As leaders, we
must craft our space policy with that risk in mind. We must begin with an
understanding of the equipment needs of the space station measured against the
non-shuttle crew and cargo capabilities available today and expected in the
next few years in order to reduce the risk of losing the station after the
shuttle is retired. We believe it is possible to pursue a path that
minimizes the short term risks to the space station, leverages the billions of
dollars in taxpayer investments in the Constellation program and still allow
for increases in scientific research, technology development, and a bold
exploration goal. We can even pursue these alternatives without any
increase to the proposed budget. The nation does not face a binary choice
between the status quo and the president’s budget proposal.
One
alternative we have proposed would be to slow the flight rate of the remaining
space shuttle missions and move those flights into next year and possibly 2012
while manifesting the planned backup flight with an available cargo
capability. We can use this time to complete a detailed assessment of the
spare and replacement equipment needs and provide for carriage to the space
station if our analysis shows limits in other cargo vehicles. This modest
measure would not call for increases to the number of shuttle flights, but
instead would simply space them so the gap for America to deliver people and
critical cargo to the space station under our own power would be narrowed
considerably.
In addition to
stretching out the current shuttle schedule, we need to reconsider the proposal
to cancel the Constellation Program as an option for successor technologies to
replace the space shuttle. The program has struggled due largely to
funding issues; however we should not turn away from billions of dollars of
research and years of engineering. It is possible to build on our current
capabilities, ensure earlier availability, and control costs.
The options include
utilization of the shuttle infrastructure and the work that has already been
done in the Constellation program to develop a new heavy lift vehicle that can
be brought online sooner and upgraded as technology evolves. The options
also include a reformed Constellation approach with proper funding and strong
oversight from Congress to bring the capabilities online sooner than the
current program provides. Simply put, combining a limited future shuttle
capability with an evolutionary heavy lift vehicle or a rigorously reformed
Constellation program would shrink the gap in our human space flight
capabilities from both ends while reducing the risk to the space station.
We agree with
the president that science and research should be enhanced for the future of
space exploration and have outlined at least a few ways increased funding for
these activities can be accomplished within the budget proposal while
preserving our current capabilities with the least risk possible to the space
station as both a research center and a destination underpinning our current
human space flight activities. There is room for increased investment in
commercial space activities as the president proposes, although as a redundant
capability to a NASA owned and managed human space flight capability and at a
level with less risk to the American taxpayer should the commercial market
struggle to develop. We are confident we can find a bipartisan common
ground on alternatives that represent a comprehensive space policy if the
president and our colleagues will work with us.
Hutchison is the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee.
Kosmas is a member of the House Science and
Technology Committee. Kennedy Space Center is located in her district.
# # #