The Aldridge Commission's report on NASA is very good for space - but where is the vision for aeronautics research and development?
A sweeping transformation of NASA is the core recommendation of the presidential commission chaired by former US Air Force secretary Pete Aldridge and tasked with examining implementation of the USA's new space exploration vision. Only by restructuring and refocusing NASA can the USA ensure its new space policy is sustainable and affordable over several decades, says the commission's final report, presented to the White House last week.
This is not the first time that a restructuring of NASA has been recommended. The agency's management capabilities and culture were criticised following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and again after last year's Columbia accident. The echoes of failings that led to the Challenger explosion, seen by many in the events leading to the break-up of Columbia, suggest the past restructurings have been less than successful.
But the Aldridge commission may succeed where others have failed. Its report makes the most persuasive case yet for embarking on a decades-long programme of human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond - more eloquent than President George Bush's announcement of the new space vision in January, and more coherent than NASA's efforts to turn that vision into a programme.
But taking the Aldridge Commission's recommended route to implementing the exploration vision will come at a cost. All of NASA's efforts - and budget - will have to support the vision. The "go as you pay" plan is affordable within the modestly augmented budget requested for NASA, the commission concludes - but only if all of NASA's resources are dedicated to the task. Programmes that do not fit the vision should be moved to other agencies, Aldridge says.
NASA is often referred to as "the US space agency", but it is more. It is the principal government organisation responsible for US commercial aeronautics research and technology development - the first "A" in NASA. For years, the agency's aeronautics budget has been squeezed as spending on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station has escalated, and is now barely $1 billion a year out of a total of $15 billion. This contrasts with the European Union's increasing support for aeronautics research and development.
Aldridge says aeronautics research should stay within NASA, for now, because it is synergistic with some aspects of the space exploration plan, such as atmospheric re-entry. But he also says NASA should re-evaluate its research activities every two years to ensure they support the new vision. Reading the commission's report suggests three possible futures for US aeronautics research: first that it will be reshaped to support space exploration; second that it will be transferred to another agency, like the Federal Aviation Administration; and third that it will slowly atrophy.
None of these futures are acceptable. Distorting aeronautics research so that it can cling to the coat-tails of space exploration would see funding for technologies for environmentally friendly air vehicles diverted to air-breathing launch vehicles. Handing aeronautics to the already management-challenged FAA would see research shifted towards solving near-term problems like airspace gridlock and away from long-term "blue skies" technologies that could transform our lives. And allowing aeronautics research to wither would accelerate the decline in US leadership of civil aviation.
Aldridge presents a powerful case for restructuring and refocusing NASA around space exploration. It will take private industry into space, and incentivise entrepreneurial investment. It will build industrial capabilities that will enhance the USA's security. It will, the report says, "inspire, innovate and discover".
It is a very good plan - for the "S" in NASA. But where is the vision for that first '"A"? This is not the first time a presidential commission has been unclear on the future of US aeronautics research. The commission on the future of the US aerospace industry was a monumental effort, but aeronautics was only one of its many concerns. That commission's final report was published in late 2002, and is finally gaining some political attention, but the decline in US aeronautics funding continues.
Perhaps it is time to give aeronautics research the visibility and vision it needs; time to turn NASA into the National Space Exploration Agency - or better yet, the International Space Exploration Agency - and to create the National Aeronautics Research Agency. Take us to the Moon, Mars and beyond - but remember most of us will forever remain planet-bound and wing-borne.
Source: Flight International
