Goldin was asking for too much. Another $60 million for Russia, this time reprogrammed from other budget items. To buy what? Cosmonaut "time" and 3 cubic feet of space. Assuming the two items split the budget equally, that means $30 million for 3 cubic feet of space for storage. That's $10 million per cubic foot.
Imagine going to Public Storage with your truck full of garage items. You want to rent their smallest storage locker. They ask you for $10 billion. For that kind of money, you could buy a space station! Well, not from NASA.
The last time we priced cosmonaut time, it was going for around $100,000 an hour. NASA plans to spend about $30 million on around 300 hours of time, or one cosmonaut for a bit over 37 days in orbit. Such a deal!
It only takes a minute to buy a winning lottery ticket. Other than that, there are very few opportunities to clear $30 million in just over a month's time.
NASA is completely out of touch with reality. It is no longer even pretending to be opening the space frontier. Now it just wants to extort money out of Congress.
Sensenbrenner is right to say no, right to call NASA on its nonsense, and right to draw a line in the sand. NASA promised that Russia would not be kept in the critical path. Here we are, supposed to believe that the space station's first module, Zarya, will launch next month, and Russia is squarely in the critical path.
The Service Module upon which the entire station depends is being built in the same country which cannot get food to its own cosmonauts on Mir. Everything is behind schedule in Russia, and little wonder. The place is reeling from government attempts to regulate the economy. Tax farming is rampant, with the gangsters and the tax collectors often competing to see who can hold up a business first.
The Clinton Administration made it clear that it is not behind NASA on this effort. Strobe Talbott was supposed to represent the State Department's views before the committee, but he was too busy trying to figure out which parts of Kosovo should be bombed first. Jacob Lew was supposed to explain the Office of Management and Budget's take on this matter, and he too was unavailable. It seems that Dan Goldin has been left twisting in the wind.
At least Goldin was sensible enough to insist that the space station should be cancelled. It is high time someone in the Congress took Sensenbrenner's stand, and it is high time someone in NASA management admitted that they can't do some things without money.
Meanwhile, Russia continues its preparations for next month's launch of Zarya. Jim Oberg has noted elsewhere that this launch represents the first move in a play which is the space equivalent of a "Hail Mary" pass. That's a term from football which describes the sort of end-of-game, length-of-the-field toss. You throw the ball, shout "Ave Maria" and hope the Good Lord is listening. With Providence, your teammate down the field might be in place to catch the ball, in which case you win. Otherwise, you lose.
In this context, the Zarya goes up. It is met in orbit by some American "nodes" which are now substantially more than just the corner pieces in a space castle, but are carrying a great deal of important equipment. The crew compartment is also added to this set of items. Finally, hopefully, the Service Module, presently delayed and under construction in Russia, is launched with the ability to sustain all these components in orbit.
In football, you throw the Hail Mary pass if you are going to lose, anyway. It is a last minute desperation play. But all you stand to lose is a game.
In the case of the space station, NASA is throwing considerable equipment into orbit with the desperation of a quarterback facing a short clock and a deficit in his score. Unfortunately, if the play fails, NASA stands to lose quite a bit of its space station. The setback in the worst case scenario is a lot worse than just one game of the season. Billions of dollars of space hardware reenters Earth's atmosphere, just like Skylab, only much more expensive.
Sensenbrenner rightly points out that the International Space Station partnership has involved payments by the US, by Europe, by Japan, and by Canada. Russia, too, committed to provide certain components, but its commitment has not been fulfilled. Are we to pay for Russia's part, too?
Would we be better off dropping the charade and simply buying all the nuclear weapons the Russians want to sell? Or perhaps spending some serious money buying half the land surface area of their country? At least then we'd get something for our money.
Meanwhile, Russia is still out of money. Delays to a Progress flight may prevent scientific equipment from reaching Mir before the Leonid meteor storm next month. What happens when the Service Module is also delayed due to lack of funds? Do we watch while the components of the International Space Station re-enter in a scene reminiscent of Skylab? What choice does the current policy offer?
Unfortunately, as is the wont within the Beltway, Sensenbrenner has left himself and Goldin an out: "Should the Administration propose payments to Russia as part of a comprehensive plan ending our dependence on Russia, including a responsible budget and timeline with consequences for failures, I would view near-term payments to Russia more favorably. In the absence of a credible, long-term solution to the systemic problems that Russia has caused for the International Space Station program and substantive steps to bring the benefits of partnership into line with contributions, I simply cannot support this reprogramming request and the transfer of $60 million to the Russian Space Agency."
So if NASA will only come up with a comprehensive plan, they will get the money they want, or so it seems. The problem is, NASA has repeatedly promised more station for less money. They have never delivered. Instead, we keep getting less station for more money.
Why? Well, mostly because NASA isn't about opening the space frontier. It is about jobs in the aerospace industry, it is about jobs in every Congressional district, it is about lining the pockets of corrupt contractors and corrupt bureau-rats, and it is about sustaining programs which no longer produce any useful value for the American people.
We should give up the idea that NASA is needed for space activities or that the international space station is a worthwhile investment.
NASA delenda est.
For more information on this story, see IST Exclusive, Russia Gets..., Rep. Questions..., Goldin tells..., and NASA Defends....
