How might NASA change under Trump? Here’s what is being discussed

"Elon get those rocket ships going because we want to reach Mars before the end of my term."

See full article...

 

[Anacher]

Take all this with a grain of salt, and note that I'm not delving too deep, but I see some of the reasoning (even if it is deeply flawed).

Cancel SLS (I have personal feelings, but not going to get into it though).
Marshall SFC loses a lot of work with this (now SLS, and Constellation were provided to MSFC after the shuttle ended, and congress didn't want NASA to lose that expertise).
MSFC would probably be the one to close in this case, if all that funding was removed. But if other centers had their funding moved, Marshall would stay open. Tuberville loves Trump, and vice versa, so that might be some of the reasoning (and Stennis and GSFC are in blue states).
But each center has a field that they do. Sometimes it is replicated, but not often. Previous posters have shown a number of the unique facilities.

Moving HQ to a center is also not a good policy. Each center already has their own leadership, and having HQ be separate is a balance. If HQ was at a center, said center is going to get a lot of work that other centers would be happy do to. Also, having HQ in DC allows them to be near the center of governance. The same reason why a lot of companies have they headquarters near DC.

 

[brionl]

• Rapidly redesigning the Artemis lunar program to make it more efficient

Haven't any of these people read The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks? Adding more manpower and resources to a late project slows it down even more.

We'll be doing good to get Artemis II off the ground by the end of the next term, let alone Artemis III. Even if they don't decide to "streamline" the program.

 

[Wickwick]

You are confusing operation with development.

NASA did produce a report with an estimated cost of the development of the Falcon 9 - using only SpaceX supplied data - which claims that if NASA had attempted to develop the same capability it would have cost approximately 4x more. However, as indicated, that report only used SpaceX provided data; there was no third party audit of SpaceX's claimed costs, only an independent appraisal of NASA's report.

So, in fact, no, the public does not have any hard data of whether the Falcon 9 was developed on the cheap, only data that has been provided by the company; a company headed by a person with a track record of lying when it suits him.

You're conflating a NASA report with audits required by FAR (Federal Acquisition Rules) Part 42 and overseen by the Contract Administration and Audit Services group within the federal government.

Every company that receives federal funding gets an audit at varying levels of intrusiveness. This is not a NASA-specific thing. SpaceX's contracts are a sufficient fraction of their revenue that they'd qualify for the most thorough one.

 

[Wickwick]

Take all this with a grain of salt, and note that I'm not delving too deep, but I see some of the reasoning (even if it is deeply flawed).

Cancel SLS (I have personal feelings, but not going to get into it though).
Marshall SFC loses a lot of work with this (now SLS, and Constellation were provided to MSFC after the shuttle ended, and congress didn't want NASA to lose that expertise).
MSFC would probably be the one to close in this case, if all that funding was removed. But if other centers had their funding moved, Marshall would stay open. Tuberville loves Trump, and vice versa, so that might be some of the reasoning (and Stennis and GSFC are in blue states).
But each center has a field that they do. Sometimes it is replicated, but not often. Previous posters have shown a number of the unique facilities.

Moving HQ to a center is also not a good policy. Each center already has their own leadership, and having HQ be separate is a balance. If HQ was at a center, said center is going to get a lot of work that other centers would be happy do to. Also, having HQ in DC allows them to be near the center of governance. The same reason why a lot of companies have they headquarters near DC.

If all of the program management moved to a single center then it stands to reason that HQ should be collocated. The issue is that both operational and research centers tend to have facilities that won't be replaced - one isn't going to move the launch pads from Canaveral, e.g. So there have to remain personnel at those facilities.

 

[RZetopan]

There is no way that we’re going to Mars in 4 years. We’re barely going to make it (back) to the Moon in that timeframe.

When has Felon45 ever paid attention to reality, or told the truth for that matter (I am discounting "I don't care about you, I just want your vote").

 

[HUMANBOT]

I resigned myself to the "fact" that id never see a person take a step on Mars in my lifetime.....But now? Wow! Maybe it is possible.

 

[Wickwick]

Facilities you might move:
* supercomputing facilities - Goddard has some also. Can you really consolidate these? Actually, there has been a world-wide physics computing arms race. Global supremacy in science and tech depends on supremacy in computing. This is why China and Japan are heavily invested in this area. Reducing the amount of facilities available for computational modeling seems self-defeating. AI might help for phenomena that have been studied at length. But for new detailed modeling, you need to grind the numbers. Alternatively, outsource this to Amazon and Google. They have the large compute facility expertise, but you need the people who can fit the software and the problem to the hardware.

Google and Amazon have a lot of total computing power, but that does not necessarily allow for the type of work supercomputers are built for.

The supercomputing facility at Ames benefits from being in Silicon Valley (the nVidia campus is about 4 miles away, e.g.) as well as the talent pools from Stanford And Berkeley.

 

[OrvGull]

Moving HQ to a center is also not a good policy. Each center already has their own leadership, and having HQ be separate is a balance. If HQ was at a center, said center is going to get a lot of work that other centers would be happy do to. Also, having HQ in DC allows them to be near the center of governance. The same reason why a lot of companies have they headquarters near DC.

Trump wants to move a lot of the federal workforce out of D.C. This is partly to punish D.C. and Virginia, and also because he thinks it'll cause the "deep state" work force to be less skewed toward Democratic voters.

 

[msunderl]

Hmm, wasn't exactly this (spending absurd amounts of money on SLS, Artemis, Orion) what led to what NASA is now?

Isaacman has lamented this before (spending too much money on projects like SLS with nothing left for science). That SpaceX may profit from any change is hardly avoidable at the moment, all others are either not capable to get things done or too expensive.

Well said!

 

[OrvGull]

If all of the program management moved to a single center then it stands to reason that HQ should be collocated. The issue is that both operational and research centers tend to have facilities that won't be replaced - one isn't going to move the launch pads from Canaveral, e.g. So there have to remain personnel at those facilities.

I assume they'll just sell those off to SpaceX. Republicans are big on privatization.

 

[Mad Klingon]

You seem to be using the pork that is SLS to shutdown a lot of basic aerospace engineering/science done at NASA. Can you make an argument that a lot of the other work done at NASA is not worth the expense without invoking SLS? Aside from SLS, NASA extensively supports commercial industry versus competing with it (quiet boom, truss wing, distributed propulsion, advanced materials, etc.). I’d like to hear better arguments here before going the BRAC route because you’ll never be able to reverse that decision.

It’s also not clear to me why we could support these labs in the 80’s but not now. Is there an analog of the Cold War that is over for aerospace?

Remember that the R in BRAC was Realignment. If it was up to me, we would cancel SLS, take that savings and add some additional funding and do many more interesting and useful things. If those interesting things can replace SLS at the centers, then keep them.

 

[Anacher]

Trump wants to move a lot of the federal workforce out of D.C. This is partly to punish D.C. and Virginia, and also because he thinks it'll cause the "deep state" work force to be less skewed toward Democratic voters.

Oh, I know. His plans for things that should be "try and keep politics out of this" are, "how can I make this political".

 

[brionl]

If it's like when a military case closes, it'll be tied up in red tape for a decade while different constituencies fight over it and everyone argues about who'll clean up the contamination.

(I'll assume you mean base here, and not case)
A decade? I love your optimism. There are bases in the SF Bay Area that closed in the 90's and still haven't been developed. Hell, The Presidio, right in the heart of San Francisco. There are big pieces they still can't agree on what to do with.

 

[CleJohn]

The team that came up with these recommendations must be smoking something funny! Goddard is a high functioning center with good proven space exploration professionals. They managed the Delta ELV programs for years then did really good mission management for the New Horizons (Pluto flyby) mission and the Webb Space telescope to mention but a few of their successes. Ames is a hybrid center which works on in space and aerospace. They have a good staff of California education aerospace professional.
Marshall is the center whose employees brought the Space Shuttle and some post Apollo missions into existence. Since about 2000, they have overseen Shuttle replacements vehicles including the Artemis launch vehicle. The restrictions Congress placed on these efforts has led to the disastrous state of affairs today. If a center deserves punishment, it should be MSFC in my mind.
I read comments about Voyager and other missions that were run primarily by JPL and no other center. JPL is the crown jewel of space exploration and deserves better treatment because they general succeed with a brilliant staff!
The team looking to improve NASA might be advised to close down portions of Marshall. Assuming Artemis is cancelled, there is nothing for them to do. It would be crazy expensive to transfer employees to a new center and expect them to perform as if nothing has happened. The disruptions would catastrophic for the employees and their families.
So much for the new White House leadership saving the country money. I see little value in anything they have proposed. There are things that Congress can do to fix NASA's problems, but doing the stuff the advisory team has proposed won't help. (Writer is a former NASA aerospace professional with about 40 years of experience)

 

[Ploroxide]

..lto a place that has none of those facilities and where their quality of life will almost certainly be much lower? Just because Huntsville has some engineers doesn't mean it's an attractive place for engineers to live.

I understand what you’re saying, but the people who live in and around Huntsville and in places like it probably consider what you say as insults and condescension.

 

[Malmesbury]

You're conflating a NASA report with audits required by FAR (Federal Acquisition Rules) Part 42 and overseen by the Contract Administration and Audit Services group within the federal government.

Every company that receives federal funding gets an audit at varying levels of intrusiveness. This is not a NASA-specific thing. SpaceX's contracts are a sufficient fraction of their revenue that they'd qualify for the most thorough one.

In addition, multiple third party organisations have estimated the launch and other costs of SpaceX.

The one done by Eurospace is especially interesting, since they are hostile to SpaceX

https://spacenews.com/spacex-and-the-categorical-imperative-to-achieve-low-launch-cost/
Their argument is that SpaceX is using their low costs to make massive profits. Which they are then spending on building out Starlink and developing Starship. Bit Amazon like - spend all the profits on expansion.

 

[BCGeiger]

Cancelling the SLS, good, it’s the wrong rocket that’s 30 years behind modern technology.
On the Moon and Mars by 2028? Fat chance. they would be exceedingly lucky to orbit the moon by then. 2030 IF everything goes right. Oh yeah they might scrap the SLS, presumably to use Starship. Even if everything with Starship goes perfectly 2028 ain’t going to happen. They don’t have Starship orbital yet, let alone rated to carry people. They don’t have the lander version, which WILL be a major redesign which will have to be tested before they dare put people in it. That will take a few years.

So where did 2028 come from? That’s when the next election is. It’s a purely political decision that likely would kill people. Not that Trump and Musk give a flying F*** about that.

 

[Zephro]

and the Webb Space telescope to mention but a few of their successes.

The JWST is a great instrument. But it was 14 years late and 1000% over budget (2007 vs 2021 and $1bn vs $10bn). Those huge cost overruns crowded out a load of other science projects that could have been funded, but weren't. Nature once called it "The telescope that ate astronomy". They also have made it harder to get future space telescopes like Luvoir or Habex funded.

Yes, it's definitely hard to build something that impressive. But if you are that late and that over-budget something has gone really badly wrong at Goddard, who seem to have been completely fleeced by their contractors (a familiar story.) The consequences for all the rest of NASA's science budget will be felt into the next decadal.

There has got to be a better way. NASA really can't afford many more JWSTs, either financially or politically.

 

[jamieahogan]

So... sidelining science (more than it already is) to expedite largely pointless, expensive human landing missions that conveniently support Musk's company. What a surprise...

NASA probably does need a major shakeup, but this is just making the current problems worse, the polar opposite of what's needed. And the crux of the issue is congress anyway, and NASA's need and obsession with spreading out pork to encourage anti-science and recalcitrant lawmakers to vote for anything at all. That's where the structural inefficiency comes from.

your irrational hatred of all things Musk makes no sense. The SLS/Orion have cost over $50 billion. That is money that could have been spent on many things, including vastly expanding science missions. You can do both saving money and doing more, the issue is more effectively spending the dollars we have. NO ONE can argue $50 billion for SLS/Orion is money well spend along with another $4 billion for each launch in that program.

 

[OrvGull]

I understand what you’re saying, but the people who live in and around Huntsville and in places like it probably consider what you say as insults and condescension.

I mean, speaking personally, they already hate me for my sexual orientation and (lack of) religion. Once a group of people admits they want you stoned to death you stop caring what they think of your other choices.

 

[JoHBE]

Looks like the rockets might fly on time, so there will be many happy faces here.

But:

to review major programs at the space agency "at the speed of light."

That shows a strange lack of ambition for the Trump Administration... Is "SuperLuminal" too hard, somehow?

 

[Wickwick]

You are correct, but again are missing the mark.

An audit is a snapshot of the finances of an entity at a specific period of time, and specifically with FAR it is an audit to determine long-term viability (in other words, is this company on the brink of bankruptcy and will not exist soon). It is not a full accounting of a companies entire financial history.

The US government had no contracts with SpaceX between its founding in 2002 and 2014, when SpaceX applied for funds to aid in the process of developing the Falcon 9. Therefore there would not have been any FAR audits undertaken until 2014.

Therefore, FAR would only have been able to audit SpaceX after considerable development of the Falcon platform had already occurred and Musk could have off-booked many of the costs that they incurred prior to that.

Recall that Musk has a track record of claiming things will cost less than they do, will be ready faster than they are, and are of a higher quality than they are. Look at the Boring Company and Musks claim that he can build a cheaper, faster, and better TBM. Look at all of Tesla, each model of which has ended up costing significantly more to develop than he initially claimed, cost more, and (IIRC) still leads the auto market in terms of defects per new vehicle sold.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me three times, well three data points begins to indicate a trend.

What are you on about? The original comment was this:

All other things being equal that phrase generally holds true. But in the aerospace industry where government pork and ineptitude abounds: SpaceX (particularly Falcon 9) is cheaper than the competition, faster than the competition, and is not even in the same league when talking about successful launch counts.

To which you replied this:

Are they really cheaper? Or is Musk subsidizing the price in order to deter competition? We don't know because SpaceX is privately held.

To which I addressed all the various audits that SpaceX has had to survive to keep receiving federal funding. You are incorrect that SpaceX's first contract was in 2014. NASA awarded SpaceX funds to develop the Falcon 9 starting in 2006.

As such, the feds have been watching SpaceX's books since before the Falcon 9 was a thing.

In short, the Falcon 9 can never have been offered at a loss on average or else they would have never been able to qualify for NASA funding post-Falcon 1.

 

[JoHBE]

I fell for that when there was a private effort to do it in 2018. No idea whether it’s possible, but it’s not insane to imagine a fast crewed flyby… though not in 4 years.

Reminds me of this

 

[Hap]

I'm not sure how one moves all of Ames without curtailing the aerospace research done there. Ames is the home to several unique research facilities that would be stupidly expensive to rebuild in Alabama. It would take longer than Trump's presidency to finish duplicating some of these.

Of course, it would be very NASA-like to remove their only location in Silicon Valley and make working for them even less attractive than it already is. Nothing says "let's hire the best and most innovative engineers!" like leaving the Bay Area and consolidating in one of the least-educated states in the union. Hell, why not move to Mississippi?

Huntsville, AL has the 3rd largest concentration of engineers (total) in the US as well as the 2nd highest concentration of PhDs (per capita). While I agree it's not ideal, I would not say that it is in one of the least-educated states as far as workforce goes.

Also many of the larger, traditional aerospace companies (defense anyway) are moving out of CA. The property, taxes, and salary costs make their rates too high to win contracts. It does no good to have the best talent there if you have no business.


EDIT
Should have read more comments before I posted (and my info may be a little out of date). However a couple of other points (and yes, I MAY be biased)

• I consistently get engineers moving from CA, CO, and VA to Huntsville (I hire for an aerospace firm).
• Huntsville has been in the top 5 best places to live in US News ranking for several years (I think #1 this year), and one of the least expensive. NOAL (North Alabama) is really unlike the rest of the state. It's not red, more of a purple. Solid infrastructure.
• Largest city (not metro) in the state.
• Lots of bio medical here, not just defense

I lived in CA (well, TDY/EDY) for over a year and traveled to LAX/SFO areas for over two decades. I wouldn't live there if I could help it. Too many people, too much polution, way too bloody expensive. To be fair - YMMV and that's JSUT my persepective.

 

[jimlux]

I had the same question about moving the Goddard center (currently in Maryland). I guess that would punish Maryland for being a blue state, but how are you going to get the people to move who work there, and who have literally decades of experience managing the Voyagers, New Horizons and other interplanetary spacecraft?

One would think JPL is an even bigger target, although I guess there’s relatively few federal employees there. The workforce is employed by Caltech, and is a NASA contractor.

 

[jimlux]

Huntsville, AL has the 3rd largest concentration of engineers (total) in the US as well as the 2nd highest concentration of PhDs (per capita). While I agree it's not ideal, I would not say that it is in one of the least-educated states as far as workforce goes.

Also many of the larger, traditional aerospace companies (defense anyway) are moving out of CA. The property, taxes, and salary costs make their rates too high to win contracts. It does no good to have the best talent there if you have no business.

Parts of defense companies are moving (manufacturing) - but that’s not new. Boeing, Lockheed, etc. and GD had mfr plants in St Louis, KC, Fort Worth, etc. Lots of aerospace engineers still in SoCal at Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, etc., and tons of smaller old and new space companies.

 

[jimlux]

A lot of that infrastructure is extremely old and in desperate need of replacement. Maintenance costs are already unaffordably high, and continue to spiral out of control.

This has been reported on for years (including by Ars and even nasa's OIG), but here's a recent article on it:

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4885/1
If there's an existing need to rebuild a bunch of stuff, that makes right now the cheapest time to consolidate.

Besides, I expect the rise of hardware-rich development, and much cheaper launch, will remove the usefulness of some of these unique testing facilities. We're probably already close to the point where it's cheaper to just test stuff by launching it.

Once we get down to single digit $100's per kilogram (which could happen in only a year or two), the extremely expensive testing facilities aren't going to be worth the cost anyway.

(Not saying we won't have testing facilities at all, just that ground testing facilities that cost billions of dollars and can't be easily rebuilt don't make sense when you can launch a whole satellite for a tiny fraction of that cost)

Big wind tunnels are a pretty unique capability, as are big vacuum chambers that you can fire a rocket engine inside, or put a whole spacecraft into and simulate the sun light falling on it. Sure, you can build it (Orbital/ATK/etc did this in Gilbert AZ). And yes, there are commercial facilities for vibe, TVAC, etc. at Raytheon/Ball, NG, etc.

 

[Zephro]

edit: actually, never mind

 

[Wickwick]

Huntsville, AL has the 3rd largest concentration of engineers (total) in the US as well as the 2nd highest concentration of PhDs (per capita). While I agree it's not ideal, I would not say that it is in one of the least-educated states as far as workforce goes.

Also many of the larger, traditional aerospace companies (defense anyway) are moving out of CA. The property, taxes, and salary costs make their rates too high to win contracts. It does no good to have the best talent there if you have no business.

Addressed above, but Alabama has the 45th-highest rate of post-secondary education across the state.

 

[jimlux]

And yet, Ames and JPL are staffed.

Long commutes. Senior engineers are well compensated enough to afford to live in the area or within a <1 hr commute. The challenge is new hires. That said, this has been the case for JPL for a very, very long time. There were complaints in the 60s and 70s about it.

 

[OrvGull]

Long commutes. Senior engineers are well compensated enough to afford to live in the area or within a <1 hr commute. The challenge is new hires. That said, this has been the case for JPL for a very, very long time. There were complaints in the 60s and 70s about it.

That's pretty much any California city or college town at this point.

The thing is, housing in places like Huntsville is cheaper, but that only helps you if you're bringing California money along with you. If you have to live on the pay rates there, it's not that much more affordable.

 

[Bad Monkey!]

I understand what you’re saying, but the people who live in and around Huntsville and in places like it probably consider what you say as insults and condescension.

I live in Florida. I don't take it personally when people say off-handed mean shit about my state, because by and large those things are true, and I'm not the reason they're true. If any Huntsville people are mad because I'm saying true things about their state, then it's very likely they're the reason I have such things to say.

 

[OrvGull]

I live in Florida. I don't take it personally when people say off-handed mean shit about my state, because by and large those things are true, and I'm not the reason they're true. If any Huntsville people are mad because I'm saying true things about their state, then it's very likely they're the reason I have such things to say.

Shh, we have to protect the feelings of the people wearing the "fuck your feelings" shirts.

 

[Wickwick]

Ok, so people only work where they go to school - got it. I never knew that. Guess I need to move out of Huntsville back to TN.

Wow, you made it all the way to Alabama from Tennessee. You certainly strayed far from your roots. /s

There's only 230k people that live in Huntsville. That's a suburb. That's not a full city. If Huntsville were actually attractive to people from outside the South, it would be at least as big as Durham, NC. The Triangle Park area of North Carolina has triple the population of Huntsville.

The comment about Alabama being one of the least educated states in the US was with regards to what else it has to offer families considering moving there - not about talent that could be recruited from elsewhere. But hey, if you live in Alabama, at least you get to throw shade at Mississippi, amiright?

 

[Wickwick]

That's pretty much any California city or college town at this point.

The thing is, housing in places like Huntsville is cheaper, but that only helps you if you're bringing California money along with you. If you have to live on the pay rates there, it's not that much more affordable.

Long commutes is a tax. It's undeniably a downside to living somewhere like the SF Bay area. So one has to wonder why it is that people put up with that ridiculousness when there are places like Huntsville where one can live 20 minutes from work. Granted, your average service worker might not be able to afford to pick up and leave for a new locale, but NASA engineers and technicians have the means and a fungible skillset that would yield options. Obviously, there must be something to living in the Bay Area that people find attractive.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the population density, but I'm aware enough to realize market forces at work.

 

[rockscirick]

Arguably NASA shouldn't be building or designing any rockets anymore, in Marshall or anywhere else. For the same reason NASA doesn't design or build jets either these days.

Getting TO space is pretty much a solved problem at this point. The only remaining questions are how to do it faster and cheaper. That is an optimization problem NASA has never been good at. NASA should be figuring out what to do IN space instead.

That assumes that rocket development is at a standstill. Serious propulsion people (i.e., smarter than me) will probably cite:

• early Merlin engine design at SpaceX was based on work done at Marshall. (I can't cite the paper(s), but a serious propulsion guy probably could.)
• nuclear thermal propulsion (i.e., descendant of NERVA) is being pursued at Marshall. I'd rather they get this right before it is farmed out to private industry. I suspect they will have a role in DARPA's DRACO.
• among the earliest adopters of 3D-printed rocket engines, before most of the industry, was Marshall. Prior to this, there was a lot of controversy about how well they could perform or what natural limits 3D-printed material might have for rocket propulsion. (At one time, 3D printed was believed to be naturally weaker.)
• rotating detonation rocket engines (RDRE), which can achieve higher performance (specific impulse) than current practice, are being tested at Marshall, co-developed with industry and academia.
• combined cycle engines that blend rocket and air-breathing jet propulsion are in their infancy. I don't know if Marshall is doing any of this, but it seems to be important for future hypersonic flight.

As for jets, there are concepts for which industry investment is not ready because the R&D costs are too high when you can make a living off other product lines. So some of these see some life as research and academia. The only concept I can put a name on is "blended wing-body", but there are at least a couple of others. Then there is aviation fuel, biofuel; NASA has had a hand in validating it.

 

[OrvGull]

As for jets, there are concepts for which industry investment is not ready because the R&D costs are too high when you can make a living off other product lines. So some of these see some life as research and academia. The only concept I can put a name on is "blended wing-body", but there are at least a couple of others. Then there is aviation fuel, biofuel; NASA has had a hand in validating it.

NASA's also doing a lot of work on designs that allow supersonic flight with a less pronounced sonic boom on the ground. These are quite a ways from being commercially viable, so there hasn't been a lot of work done on them by companies that have to max out their quarterly profits.

 

[rockscirick]

Agreed, but the facts are that during his first term, Trump delayed or denied disaster relief to states that did not vote for him.
I expect more of the same this time around.

That was his first term. Even Musk was hesitant to get involved with Trump during his first term. The amount of support he got out of Silicon Valley and San Francisco this time was astounding. That's why I called out specific firms or communities and noted that his AI/crypto czar is from the area. ... You could still be right. But this will fly in the face of the very visible support he got this time.