Whither America’s Human Space Program?

The 2012 Presidential campaign dominates the news but space policy rarely gets mentioned; and when it does the mention is often ill-informed or very abstract.  Perhaps that will change.

The old paradigms supporting America’s space program have faded; China has not replaced the Soviet Union as an opponent which requires a national demonstration of technical capabilities.  Spinoffs and jobs provided from space are overlooked in the larger economic mess.  Science is nice but hardly urgent when the debate centers on the national debt or the social safety net. 

Somehow, the ½ of 1 percent of the federal budget that gets spent purely on the future has gotten overlooked.

Almost three years ago, the Review of Human Plans Committee (aka “the Augustine Commission”) was announced.  I know we all had great hopes of that commission and its report.  Whatever you may think of their work – and I believe a lot of it was good – the political leadership in Washington has made hash of the nation’s space policy.  Not only did the current administration fail to adopt any of the major options which Augustine reported as “worthy of a great nation”, but the Congress has decided to fight the administration’s initiatives at every step.  Paul Spudis just named 2011 as America’s space “Annus Horribilis”.  It has really been a lousy three years.

Not that there haven’t been great accomplishments; Hubble still making discoveries every day, as is Kepler; the ISS is fully crewed with research going on every day; Curiosity is on its way to Mars; even the Shuttle made a graceful and successful dénouement.   But the future, the plans and policies for the future; there lies a sad state of affairs.

In the spring of 2009, Bill Gerstenmaier asked me to be one of the NASA support staff to help the Augustine Commission effort.  He also assigned one of the senior NASA HQ staff, Tom Cremins, to work with me.  So all summer, Tom and I played a tag team along with several other NASA folks helping to provide support to the Augustine Commission.  I got to know Tom really well during this period and have a great deal of respect for his judgment and knowledge.  That friendship was my best personal reward for supporting Augustine. 

Now, Bill and Tom are in the final stages of preparing a paper reviewing the value of human spaceflight to the nation.  In the midst of bickering and roadblocks, they remain positive and are looking for the way ahead.

Many of us, including my friend Tom, are gathering in Boulder, Colorado, in less than two weeks to review this situation and hopefully find meaningful ways to explain the importance of space exploration in these days.  You can join us for this discussion; see   http://sas.data-engineering.com/

I’ll give you a report on the outcome in about two weeks.

Requirements

I told this story at the ISPCS meeting last month, so pardon me if you have heard it already.  It is a mostly true story.

Recently I traveled to a somewhat remote government facility.  At the mid-day break in our meetings, the facility director took us to the cafeteria where the food was excellent and very reasonably priced.  Then he surprised us with the story of how hard it had been to keep the cafeteria open.

It seems that the government regulations on cafeteria operators are quite lengthy.  There are requirements to buy the food ingredients from certified vendors to ensure high quality of the food.  There are requirements to post the nutritional content of the foods so that the customers can make informed choices about their meals.  There are requirements to provide “healthy choice” meals which must meet certain defined nutritional content.  A whole lot of common sense, very good requirements that almost anybody would agree are reasonable.

The outcome was that no operator could run the cafeteria there at a profit.  After going through several operators, the director had to provide almost $200 k a year to keep the cafeteria open.  Then the budget cuts came, and without the subsidy, the cafeteria closed.

Then, the facility director noticed that every day just before noon, a food truck appeared just outside the security gate of the facility and many of the employees would go outside the gate to purchase food from them.  This family owned operation did not provide “healthy choices”; they sold what the people wanted to buy.  The family owned operation did not buy their supplies from certified vendors; they went to the local grocery stores where the employees also bought their food.  Nobody got sick – after all the state still inspected the operation, just not the feds.  Nobody asked to see the nutritional information on the food. In fact the only problem was that there was a traffic jam at the security gate every noon-time, and a fair amount of lost productivity resulted from employees traveling down to the off-site food truck.

So the innovative, flexible facility director made a command decision; he invited the food truck operators to come into the empty cafeteria and sell food there; all of this under a non-standard contract mechanism.  Interesting, yes?

So the result; cafeteria food that was popular, even sought after; low prices; and a profitable business with the food truck proprietors making a reasonable return on their investment and labor.  No government subsidy required.  No traffic jams, no lost productivity, and everybody was happy.  Free enterprise at its finest! 

This is a mostly true story, after all.

So what do we learn from this?  Government requirements, even apparently good ones, come with a price.  Flexible, nimble commercial operations working in the competitive market can provide services and products tailored to their market better than government planners can mandate. 

Does this have anything to do with human spaceflight? 

You bet it does.

Standards

Recently I visited old colleagues at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility.  The Orbital Maneuvering System tanks, removed from Discovery, were sitting in the dirt, ready to be cut up and disposed of.  The toxic rocket fuel they held for most of their lives makes cleaning those tanks impossible, and it would be a hazard to museum goers to be exposed to fumes from residual rocket fuel hiding in those tanks.  So disposing of those high tech, precision built tanks is sad but necessary.

At an early point in my career at NASA I cared a great deal about the function of those tanks.  Because I was responsible to know how much gas was in the tank.

The gas gage on the shuttle never worked.  Think about it; the gas gage on your car depends on gravity to keep the fluid in an orderly manner in the bottom of the tank. In space, in microgravity, blobs of fluid just float around inside the tank.  How do you measure that?  Even more important; how do you get the fuel to the rocket engine?  In the Orbital Maneuvering System that question was answered by building in a fine mesh screen: double dutch twill weave.  The surface tension of the liquid would keep the gas out and fuel in where the pipe exited from the propellant tank.  But reusable tanks brought the concern that those screens could be damaged by vibration or shock during flight. Periodically between flights the screens were tested using a “bubble point” device.  A good pressure check with no bubbles meant the screens had no holes and were working properly. Those bubble point tests were done at White Sands.  Thereby hangs a tale.

Removing the OMS pods and shipping them to WSTF was a real logistical nightmare.  Somebody had the bright idea to move the bubble point testing equipment to KSC so the test could be performed without moving the pods.  Brilliant!  Until we ran into the standards issue.

For space flight hardware, the Shuttle program specified the standards used in the design, development, testing, and production.  But for ground test equipment, the space center where the equipment was used was responsible for the standards.  You might think that NASA would have a set of standards for things like welding a pressurized metal tank used in ground checkout of space flight hardware.  But if you thought that you would be wrong.  Much of the time NASA appears to be a loose confederation of 10 quasi independent fiefdoms, each pretty much in charge of their own business.  People often ask me what would I do if I were king of NASA for a day.  They expect me to say something like:  build this rocket, launch that satellite.  Rather I think how I would standardize the procurement processes, or the human resources procedures, or the engineering standards used across the agency.  But then I always was a dreamer, tilting at impossible windmills.  Launching rockets is easy; getting engineers to agree on standards is hard.

Back to our story . .  .

The WSTF had build the OMS tank screen bubble point testing equipment to the center recognized standard for welding pressure vessels.  I don’t remember whose standard that was, but it was a nationally recognized standard; let’s say it was a standard of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.  A good standard.  A recognized standard.  But not the only standard.

At the Kennedy Space Center, they use a different standard; I don’t remember which one, but let’s just say it was the standard of the American National Standards Institute.  Now I’ve probably gotten it wrong, but that is just the illustration.  Another standard; equally recognized, equally good. 

Unless you are a welding standards expert.  At KSC, as at every center, a Technical Expert is responsible to see that all hazardous equipment is built to their standards

Moving an ASME certified piece of hardware to the ANSI requiring Kennedy Space Center turned into a herculean job.  The KSC Technical Expert would NOT approve its use.  Some obscure, arcane difference existed between the standards that he never completely explained to me.  A poor program manager could not overrule the Independent Technical Expert, only the Center Director could do that.  So no matter how much we cajoled, persuaded, pleaded, accepting the equipment was a non-starter.  The Center Director said it was important to show support to his Technical Expert.

So what were we to do?  Continue the costly and somewhat dangerous practice of sending OMS tanks half way across the country?  Stop doing a necessary safety check of the screens and risk stranding astronauts in orbit some day? Build a new set of test equipment with the KSC required standard which would be a complete waste of the taxpayer’s money?  Or. . . accept a waiver. 

Yuck. 

The program manager had to sign a waiver to the requirement saying that we, the program management, accepted the risk of using non-standard equipment.  Yes, we were evil, blind to the risks involved, interested in only schedule and cost.  Or so you would think if you read the waiver description.

Small price to pay to get on with business, save money, eliminate other hazards.  Honestly, I never understood what the argument was about.  I think it was really about control.

So these days I read the NASA procurement request for the new Commercial Crew vehicles, and see that there is a long list of specifications that the companies must use.  Almost all of them have the notation that the bidder could propose using a different standard if they are willing to prove to the NASA Technical Expert that the proposed standard “meets or exceeds” the NASA requirement. 

And I think about that OMS bubble point equipment and wonder why we are making companies tilt at impossible windmills.  Building the rocket is easy.  Getting agreement on standards between engineers is hard.

Murphy Strikes

 

On April 29, 2002, the newly confirmed NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe planted a time bomb in the International Space Station program.  Coming to NASA from the US Office of Management and Budget, where he was Deputy Director, Mr. O’Keefe had a reputation as a bean counter and penny pincher.  Mr. O’Keefe publicly joked that he was not smart enough to be NASA Administrator.  But he knew the ISS program needed political capital in the US political arena.  Providing a big, flashy cut in the ISS program would cement O’Keefe’s position as NASA Administrator and aid in the annual budget fights in the US Congress.  One part of the ISS program caught his attention: the plan to develop a US “lifeboat” for the ISS.  Since the Russian Soyuz could fulfill that job – and the Russians were providing that service as part of their initial contribution to the international partnership – the Crew Rescue Vehicle (CRV or X-38) became an easy cut.  So on April 29, the total dependence on the Soyuz for the life of the ISS program was established by NASA fiat, with virtually no consultation with the other ISS partners.

Flash forward nearly a decade: with the ISS construction completed, the incredibly capable but ever risky NASA Space Shuttle is retired.  Not that the Shuttle could have replaced the Soyuz; Shuttle stays at the ISS were limited to about two weeks duration, not the six or more months an expedition crew stays aboard.  The logistics is not the problem: cargo and logistical resupply can be accommodated by the European Space Agency Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), two new cargo vehicles under development by the US commercial space industry – the Orbital Science Corporation Cygnus cargo vehicle launched on their Taurus–II launch vehicle, and the Space Exploration Technology’s Dragon capsule launched on their Falcon 9 rocket.  And, of course, the old reliable Russian Progress cargo vehicle. 

The Progress rides the same basic rocket as the Soyuz spacecraft.  Soyuz is now the only way to transport human beings to and from the ISS.  New spacecraft are being developed to provide future human transportation to the ISS.  Boeing, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada are competing for US government development funds to build human transportation vehicles within the next 5 years.

But Mr. Murphy, the author if the law that states “if anything can go wrong, it will,” struck on August 24, just one month after the Shuttle was retired.  The third stage of the Russian launch vehicle suffered a critical failure and the 44^th Progress resupply vehicle to the ISS broke up and crashed in eastern Russia.  A state commission has concluded that the failure was a random one and that reinspections of the existing launch vehicles could clear them for early flight.  Time will tell, the Russians know their business well and I expect them to be successful. 

The implication is clear.  The O’Keefe time bomb is on short fuse.  If the Soyuz cannot fly safely, then the ISS will lose its human crew – and its reason for existence.  Until there is another craft that can not only carry human beings back and forth from the ISS but also stay there with them for six months as a life boat, the ISS is on shaky footing.  Not that the Russians are unreliable or their launchers are not dependable – quite the opposite.   But in the world of space flight, random failures do occur.  Even if the shuttle were still in service to carry human beings to the ISS, that would not be sufficient to keep the ISS staffed; the shuttle could only stay in flight for two to three weeks – not the six months required for the lifeboat function.  When will the Dragon, the Dreamchaser, or the CST-100 be ready to carry people and serve as a lifeboat?  Not soon enough. 

We could have really used that CRV.  It might even have become the basis of a mini-shuttle crew transport vehicle.  But no; it was eliminated for the most transient and banal of reasons.  The old adage against being “penny wise and pound foolish” has struck the human space effort once again. 

Or more to the point; every good space designer knows that a system with a critical single point failure is not a good system.  Reliability is key, but even then, having redundancy is the standard practice for a truly resilient system.

The School of Hard Knocks

Robert Goddard Launches a Rocket

It has been a tough sledding for rocket boys recently.  Just look at what has not worked right:  a Chinese Long March 2C rocket failed on August 18.  Russia lost two last month. a workhorse Proton upper stage failed to put a communications satellite into the proper orbit, and the most launched rocket in history, the Soyuz launch vehicle, suffered a third stage engine failure which resulted in the cargo intended for the ISS scattered all across northeastern Russia. Here at home, the Blue Origin commercial spacecraft development organization had a test go awry when their vehicle lost control during supersonic flight.   And last but not least, SpaceX reported an incident at engine shutdown during a launch several months ago.  Not that the list wouldn’t be longer if we look a little further back in time; but this is lengthy enough to make the point.

Does this mean that these organizations are incompetent or about to fail?  Or does it mean that we should give up trying to travel into space?  Not at all.  In fact, just the opposite.  Rocketry is a difficult subject; and failures – although we try our best to prevent them – have the salubrious effect of teaching more lessons in a short time than can be learned in a long time from a string of many successes.  In fact, success has a funny way of playing on human nature and breed unwarranted confidence, maybe even arrogance. ‘Pride goeth before destruction’ to quote a proverb, and a long string of successes generally over-stimulates pride. 

One of the hallmarks of a successful organization is being a learning organization.  Everyone has new lessons to learn.  In the high risk, high energy, low margin endeavor that is spaceflight, no matter how hard you try, little things are going to go wrong.  What you hope is to learn the lesson before the little things grow into big things. 

So in all the incidents last month, the affected organization will learn the technical and organizational lessons which come from the failure, and will thus insure future success.  Or if they don’t learn, natural selection will take them out of the gene pool in short order.

When I was a young flight controller at NASA, my bosses taught me to immediately and publicly confess my shortcomings and errors.  This was seen as the only way to improve.  If anyone hid a mistake, they were quickly shown the door.  Mistakes can happen, especially with young and inexperienced personnel.  Recognizing and admitting a mistake, then learning from that mistake – which includes taking advice from those who have been down the path before you – is the key.  I have a strong memory from one of my early bosses who advised that after making a mistake, you should find the most senior manager in the area and immediately and in great detail admit your mistake in all its gory detail and quickly explain how you are never ever again going to let that mistake happen.  I had more than one occasion to practice this advice. 

There is truly something to be said for transparency.  Putting an accident investigation report on public display allows others to learn from your mistakes and makes the entire industry better and safer.  Involving others in the dissection of a failure leads to a richer, deeper, and more fruitful set of corrective actions.  All of this goes to preventing accidents in the future.

When someone keeps a mistake hidden, nobody learns from it; nobody recognizes that the activity is hazardous; and more accidents will occur.  Secrecy, whether it is in the name of national security or corporate stability, has a price.  Nervous investors may not bear up well listening to a rocket failure report, but this enterprise is not for the faint of heart.

Besides, these things always get out.  You cannot hide them forever, and eventually the story gets publicized.  Then you have lost credibility and your reputation for integrity is in tatters, all that in addition to the real technical problem that has most likely gone unsolved because it was hidden under a bushel basket.

Nope, honest is the best policy in the rocket business; transparency will bring help and advice that you would not have gotten by holding a secret close. 

Good luck to all those who put their hearts and sweat into building machines to leave the planet.  I know it is a hard business.  But the rewards for ultimate success make it all worthwhile.

 

The Future Of NASA

This is a little different post from usual.  The American Association for the Advancement of Science asked me to join with Dr. John Grunsfeldt and Pat Duggins to discuss the future of NASA and the achievements of the space shuttle.  The web based program aired live last Tuesday, but the AAAS has released a link and you can watch the hour long show at your leisure.  Here is the link – enjoy!

http://event.on24.com/clients/default/presentation/default.html?titlecolor=000000&eventid=345818&sessionid=1&username=&partnerref=&format=wmmulti&mobile=false&flashsupportedmobiledevice=false&helpcenter=false&key=DA9F2DAD3E431E12413E95437BD01C2E&text_language_id=en&playerwidth=920&playerheight=650&silverlight=true&eventuserid=53663832&contenttype=A&mediametricsessionid=44629921&mediametricid=751552&usercd=53663832&mode=launch

Applying Aerospace to Energy

A few days ago I took my car in for new tires.  The tire place was extremely busy, and their multiple bays were hectic with cars rolling in and out, tires coming off and being installed.  It was a blur of motion and energy, even on a hot humid summer day.  When my car was ready, I saw something I had never seen before at a tire place:  one of the workers walked out of the bay, behind and to the side of my car, and provided a lookout with hand signals to the guy backing my car out of its bay.  That is a safety action.  I wonder what caused the tire company management to impose that procedure.  Did somebody get hurt in the busy driveway outside the car bays?  Or did somebody’s car get thoroughly dinged up because cross traffic was not spotted in time?  Whatever the cause, it makes perfect sense to have a safety spotter with 360 degree visual observation help the guy in the driver’s seat in a bay with restricted visibility. 

These days, companies are trying to squeeze the last bit of productivity out of their workers. I wondered how much this simple procedure cost.  It was only a couple of minutes of the spotter’s time; yet in those minute he could have been in the process of installing newly sold tires.  At the end of the day, after dozens of short back-out safety work stoppages, would the company have been able to sell and mount another set of tires or two by skipping that safety break in the action?  Or could they have gotten by with one less worker in that busy shop?  Either possibility is likely; stopping to implement a safety procedure clearly has a cost.  And clearly this particular company felt it was a worthwhile cost.

When NASA decided to finally send me to project management school – well after I was a project manager – one of the tidbits that lodged in my brain was this:  good practice for high risk/high reliability organizations devotes 10% of their budget to safety.  10% of the total or annual budget should go to staffing the safety organization, to the engineering analysis that supports safety, to the quality assurance process, to the probabilistic risk assessment, for personal protective equipment for the workers, to the problem reporting and corrective action systems, and all the other things that good companies do in the name of safety.  10% for safety; sounds easy but it’s not. The budget cutters have their orders and when push comes to shove safety gets cut.  Sometime later the real price gets paid; usually a lot more than the budget cutters saved; and sometimes the price is in blood, not money. 

I have lived through the consequences of budget cutters gutting a safety program.  I have no desire to live through it again.  Funerals are not my favorite pastime.

My old colleague Terry Wilcutt has been recently named the head of NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance in Washington, DC.  A good choice I think.  A few weeks earlier Terry co-authored an op/ed calling for safety workers laid off from the dwindling space program to find jobs in the burgeoning energy industry.  In Houston, at least, that is occurring with great frequency.

So I find myself – and my company – in that transition.  We have started to work for a couple of major energy firms, helping develop more comprehensive safety products and processes; helping to define operating procedures which have fewer opportunities for mistakes to occur.  Drilling for oil and gas is as complex a technical process as launching a satellite, and requires almost as much money.  And can be as costly in money and blood when things go wrong.

Will the aerospace safety culture improve the energy sector?  I think it’s worth a try.

We learned some hard lessons at great cost in space; if those lessons pay off on the ground that would be worthwhile.