Space Policy

Space Policy: NASA job cuts, Lamar Smith’s space vision, GAO assessment, and SLS’s un-trackable cost

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The next NASA budget will require job cuts: NASA Fiscal 2014 Budget Cuts Include Workforce – Aviation Week.

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Marcia S. Smith reports on a House science committee hearing yesterday with Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren testifying : House SS&T Chairman Smith Wants Vision for Space Program – spacepolicyonline.com

Committee chairman Chairman Lamar Smith has his own space program vision: Smith: U.S. needs vision, plan to reignite space program – Houston Chronicle

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The GAO says NASA is getting better at keeping its projects close to the planned budgets and schedules. However, to reach this conclusion they have to exclude the James Webb Telescope and its several billion dollar overrrun:

An NASA is able to obfuscate the SLS/Orion program so opaquely, the GAO cannot even begin a rational evaluation of its performance. From pp.26-27 in the report (pdf) :

Estimating costs associated with SLS and MPCV to ensure oversight and transparency: Estimating the full life-cycle costs of SLS and MPCV projects will be critical to ensuring transparency into their cost and schedule and will enable effective oversight. At this point, however, NASA currently plans to estimate only the costs of portions of the SLS and MPCV projects, which is not a true life-cycle cost estimate. For example, the preliminary cost estimates of SLS only extend through the first non-crewed flight in 2017, plus 3 months of data analysis. This estimate does not include costs for the first crewed flight of the same vehicle type of the SLS in 2021, nor does it include costs associated with substantial development for future flights of other variants of the launch vehicle.18 According to project officials, the cost of the first crewed flight will be tracked by the project. Similarly, the MPCV cost estimate extends only through the first crewed flight in 2021. MPCV officials told us that separate cost estimates will be completed for future flights of MPCV. Developing cost estimates in this manner will not allow NASA to provide a total life cycle cost for the SLS and MPCV projects. As a result, a true life cycle cost may never be established and oversight of the projects would be hampered because no one would be able to track the baseline cost and associated cost growth.

According to NASA officials, the agency is developing a tailored definition for SLS and MPCV life-cycle cost estimating since it is one of evolving capabilities on a continuum, not a traditional life cycle. Additionally, NASA officials stated that the full life-cycle costs of SLS and MPCV cannot be calculated because SLS and MPCV are really programs and not projects that have discrete start and endpoints. Thus, NASA is reporting the cost for attaining a certain level of capability and what it costs to fly each version of SLS and MPCV. In an era of declining budgets, a true life cycle cost estimate will inform decision makers about the long term affordability of these programs before making any long term investment decisions. Credible cost estimates also help assess the reasonableness of a contractor’s proposals and program budgets, and can be used to determine how budget cuts may hinder a program’s effectiveness.

While NASA indicated that they will provide transparency into the cost and schedule for various research and development segments, given the significant costs that will likely be associated with these projects and the impact that any overruns could have on the rest of the agency, we plan to review this issue further to ensure better cost oversight of the projects.

(My emphasis.) Clearly NASA and its Congressional supporters do not want to ever specify a cost number for the SLS/Orion program. Better to keep it permanently vague and undefined so that the public never knows its true cost. This is also a great way to prevent accusations of overruns. You can’t overrun an unspecified cost .

Astronomy, Exoplanets

Kepler finds smallest exoplanets yet within the habitable zone of a star

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The latest results from the Kepler observatory:

NASA’s Kepler Discovers its Smallest ‘Habitable Zone’ Planets to Date

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.

The Kepler-62 system has five planets; 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has two planets; 69b and 69c. Kepler-62e, 62f and 69c are the super-Earth-sized planets.

A diagram showing the planets found by Kepler in the
Relative sizes of Kepler habitable zone planets discovered as of 2013 April 18.
Left to right: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Earth (except for Earth,
these are artists’ renditions). Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech.

Two of the newly discovered planets orbit a star smaller and cooler than the sun. Kepler-62f is only 40 percent larger than Earth, making it the exoplanet closest to the size of our planet known in the habitable zone of another star. Kepler-62f is likely to have a rocky composition. Kepler-62e, orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone and is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth.

The third planet, Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth, and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus.

Scientists do not know whether life could exist on the newfound planets, but their discovery signals we are another step closer to finding a world similar to Earth around a star like our sun.

“The Kepler spacecraft has certainly turned out to be a rock star of science,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The discovery of these rocky planets in the habitable zone brings us a bit closer to finding a place like home. It is only a matter of time before we know if the galaxy is home to a multitude of planets like Earth, or if we are a rarity.”

The diagram compares the planets of our inner solar system to Kepler-69, a two-planet system.
Click for multiple resolutions and caption.
The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-69,
a two-planet system about 2,700 light-years from Earth.
Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech

The Kepler space telescope, which simultaneously and continuously measures the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, is NASA’s first mission capable of detecting Earth-size planets around stars like our sun. Orbiting its star every 122 days, Kepler-62e was the first of these habitable zone planets identified. Kepler-62f, with an orbital period of 267 days, was later found by Eric Agol, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Washington and co-author of a paper on the discoveries published in the journal Science.

The size of Kepler-62f is now measured, but its mass and composition are not. However, based on previous studies of rocky exoplanets similar in size, scientists are able to estimate its mass by association.

“The detection and confirmation of planets is an enormously collaborative effort of talent and resources, and requires expertise from across the scientific community to produce these tremendous results,” said William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the Kepler-62 system paper in Science. “Kepler has brought a resurgence of astronomical discoveries and we are making excellent progress toward determining if planets like ours are the exception or the rule.”

The two habitable zone worlds orbiting Kepler-62 have three companions in orbits closer to their star, two larger than the size of Earth and one about the size of Mars. Kepler-62b, Kepler-62c and Kepler-62d, orbit every five, 12, and 18 days, respectively, making them very hot and inhospitable for life as we know it.

The diagram compares the planets of our inner solar system to Kepler-62.
Click for multiple resolutions and caption.
The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62,
a five-planet system about 1,200 light-years from Earth.
Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech

The five planets of the Kepler-62 system orbit a star classified as a K2 dwarf, measuring just two-thirds the size of the sun and only one-fifth as bright. At seven billion years old, the star is somewhat older than the sun. It is about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

A companion to Kepler-69c, known as Kepler-69b, is more than twice the size of Earth and whizzes around its star every 13 days. The Kepler-69 planets’ host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type. It is 93 percent the size of the sun and 80 percent as luminous and is located approximately 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

“We only know of one star that hosts a planet with life, the sun. Finding a planet in the habitable zone around a star like our sun is a significant milestone toward finding truly Earth-like planets,” said Thomas Barclay, Kepler scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute in Sonoma, Calif., and lead author of the Kepler-69 system discovery published in the Astrophysical Journal.

When a planet candidate transits, or passes in front of the star from the spacecraft’s vantage point, a percentage of light from the star is blocked. The resulting dip in the brightness of the starlight reveals the transiting planet’s size relative to its star. Using the transit method, Kepler has detected 2,740 candidates. Using various analysis techniques, ground telescopes and other space assets, 122 planets have been confirmed.

Early in the mission, the Kepler telescope primarily found large, gaseous giants in very close orbits of their stars. Known as “hot Jupiters,” these are easier to detect due to their size and very short orbital periods. Earth would take three years to accomplish the three transits required to be accepted as a planet candidate. As Kepler continues to observe, transit signals of habitable zone planets the size of Earth orbiting stars like the sun will begin to emerge.

Ames is responsible for Kepler’s ground system development, mission operations, and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA’s 10th Discovery Mission and was funded by the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Contests and Games, The Moon

Google Lunar X PRIZE team summit roundup

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Here’s a report on the recent gathering of Google Lunar X PRIZE teams in Chile: Lunar Roundup: 2013 Team Summit in Chile –  Google Lunar X PRIZE.

20 of the teams were available to make presentations at the Summit, and a few key pieces of information came along:

Education, Science and Technology

ISS Video: Washcloth microgravity physics

In this video Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on the ISS performs

a simple science experiment designed by grade 10 Lockview High School students Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner. The students from Fall River, Nova Scotia won a national science contest held by the Canadian Space Agency with their experiment on surface tension in space using a wet washcloth.

Education, Space Policy, Space Science

Planetary Science and education in proposed NASA budget

Here are some reports on the planetary science and education parts of the administration’s proposed NASA budget for 2014:

Everyone can participate in space