ISSUES BY Simon Avery Bewildering governance Better oversight of NASA would have delivered a smoother ride back to the moon NASA’S SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM is a marvel of human achieve- ment. It comprises the Orion capsule – which could transport as- tronauts to and from the lunar surface as soon as 2025 – as well as the most powerful rocket the United States has yet built. The great accomplishment, however, is not so much technical. Indeed, the US$23-billion SLS is a mash-up of old technology and parts. Its four main engines, for example, are repurposed from the Space Shuttle, which was designed in the 1970s and retired in 2011. Its two solid rocket boosters also derive from the shuttle. But, un- like in the past, none of the equipment on the SLS will be reusable – it will crash into the ocean as garbage. The wonder of NASA’s SLS is that it made it to the launch pad at all, given the politicized development process, the competing inter- ests at stake, the number of compromises that had to be made, and the convoluted system of oversight in place. SLS roots can be traced to NASA’s Constellation program, an- nounced in 2004 as the successor to the Space Shuttle program, that was intended to take crews to the moon and eventually Mars. But years of cost overruns led U.S. President Barack Obama to can- cel Constellation in 2010. With thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of contracts at stake, spread out across all 50 states, the Constellation program enjoyed strong support in Congress. Lawmakers responded to leadership councils to provide high-level NASA spent US$23- Obama’s decision by passing the NASA Authorization Act, direct- oversight, strategy and guidance. External billion to develop ing the agency to use old contracts from the Space Shuttle and Con- councils and advisory groups also have a its Space Launch stellation programs to create the next human spaceflight system. hand in governance, chief among them System, which will When announced in 2012, the first SLS launch was to have taken the National Space Council, led by the U.S. take astronauts to place in 2016 and costs were pegged at about US$500,000 for each vice-president. the moon using launch. Today’s estimate for the first four SLS missions – named In addition, the organization must meet engines refurbished Artemis I through Artemis IV – is US$4.1-billion each, according to various requirements set out in laws such from the retired S Space Shuttle L NASA’s Office of Inspector-General. The entire program will have as the Space Act and Federal Acquisition program. /S cost more than US$93-billion by 2025, it estimates. Streamlining Act, and Nelson himself is ITE As costs rise at NASA, private space companies such as SpaceX, directly accountable to the U.S. president Y WH Blue Origin and RocketLab are building smarter and cheaper sys- for everything from the agency’s vision and R R tems. California-based SpaceX, for example, is currently engine strategy to the implementation of policies Y TE testing a fully reusable heavy-lift vehicle called StarShip that could and performance. That’s a lot even for an H B carry massive payloads at a fraction of NASA’s costs. astronaut to navigate. DJ RAP None of these companies faces anything like the bureaucratic G O T labyrinth that defines NASA. Led by Administrator Bill Nelson, a SIMON AVERY is a freelance business O H P former astronaut and U.S. senator, the agency relies on four senior writer and editor of Director Journal.