Says Program Suffers Lack Of Direction, Morale

NASA's Constellation program is besieged by a lack of morale, money and direction, according to the space agency's safety panel.

The Associated Press reports those were the findings of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel's 143-page annual report, released Monday. Overall, the report is generally impressed with NASA's safety programs... but the safety panel also cites "surprising anxiety among NASA employees" about many aspects of Constellation, particularly -- and, perhaps, most troubling -- in areas related to astronaut safety.

Constellation is the catch-all name for NASA's next-generation manned spacecraft program, intended to transport crews to the International Space Station, and later to the Moon and Mars. It has been fraught with issues since its inception... from reported vibration issues with the Ares I launch vehicle, to difficulties securing necessary funding, to delays in development timetables.

As ANN reported, the first manned flight of the Orion space program is tentatively scheduled to occur no later than March 2015... just a shade under five years after the last space shuttle mission is flown. NASA had hoped to accomplish Orion's first manned launch two years sooner, but last month the agency announced that's highly unlikely.

NASA still holds out hope a manned Orion launch may happen in September 2014, but the agency will only publicly commit to the 2015 date. NASA announced Monday it has "re-aligned" a number of program development tasks, in an attempt to meet the revised schedule.

But timing may be the least of Orion's woes. Noting past NASA spacecraft were built with sufficient backup systems "to ensure safety and reliability," the ASAP report claims NASA has taken a different approach in designing the next-generation Orion manned spacecraft -- one "without all safeguards included" from the beginning. Due to weight issues plaguing Orion, any additional safety feature must "earn its way in" to the design, the report adds.

That mindset doesn't sit well with several NASA workers... or with the safety panel, which includes two former shuttle astronauts. In its report, the panel said it is "concerned that this process may not be capable of providing adequate protection against hazards that will only come to light once the spacecraft is in operation."

Jeff Hanley, NASA's Constellation program manager, said such fears are unfounded. "That has made some folks uncomfortable, but guess what? We're not done yet," Hanley said of the agency's view on safety.

Hanley added his team "are not just blindly cutting out" backup safety systems... and admitted "we're not going to please everybody.

"If we tried to please everybody the spacecraft would not get off the ground."

FMI: www.nasa.gov, Read The Panel's Full Report (.pdf)