The AP Seminar end-of-course exam in 2027: format, date and scoring

The following is excerpted from the summary of a 2021 audit report by NASA's Office of Inspector General, an independent office within the space agency that reviews how well NASA runs its programs.

Orbital debris is defined as human-made objects in space that no longer serve a useful purpose, such as decommissioned satellites and parts of spacecraft. This debris – also known as “space junk” – lingers above the Earth’s atmosphere for years until it decays, deorbits, explodes, or collides with another object thus creating more debris. . . .

Millions of pieces of orbital debris exist in low Earth orbit (LEO) – at least 26,000 the size of a softball or larger that could destroy a satellite on impact; over 500,000 the size of a marble big enough to cause damage to spacecraft or satellites; and over 100 million the size of a grain of salt that could puncture a spacesuit. Moreover, the growing volume of orbital debris threatens the loss of important space-based applications used in daily life, such as weather forecasting, telecommunications, and global positioning systems that are dependent on a stable space environment. . . .

In this audit, we evaluated NASA’s efforts to mitigate the risks posed by orbital debris as well as the Agency’s coordination and communication efforts with international and commercial organizations to address the issue. . . .

Given the rapid increase of space activity worldwide and the current state of orbital debris in LEO, international space agencies and the scientific community agree that mitigation-only activities focused solely on prevention are not sufficient to stabilize the orbital debris environment. Rather, to effectively address the orbital debris issue, global mitigation and strategic remediation efforts are necessary. . . .

NASA’s consistent position is that preventing future debris will have greater impact on mitigating orbital debris risks than pursuing development of costly remediation technologies. Although NASA’s compliance rate for end-of-mission disposal within 25 years stands at approximately 96 percent over the last decade, the global compliance rate has only averaged between 20 to 30 percent – much lower than the 90 percent required to slow the rate at which debris is generated in LEO. Despite presidential and congressional directives to NASA over the past decade to develop active debris removal technologies, the Agency has made little to no progress on such efforts. . . .

However, for the remaining recommendations we found the Agency to be unresponsive and therefore those recommendations will remain unresolved pending further discussions with the Agency. Overall, we found management’s responses to these five recommendations lacking in initiative and urgency to lead and collaborate with partners to encourage active debris removal . . .

Passage 1. The following is excerpted from an address President John F. Kennedy delivered at Rice University in Houston, Texas, in September 1962.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. . . .

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous 8 years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year – a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman, and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority – even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. . . .

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job.

Passage 2. The following is excerpted from a 2021 report by NASA's Office of Inspector General, an independent office that audits the agency's programs, on the Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon.

In addition, NASA lacks a comprehensive and accurate cost estimate that accounts for all Artemis program costs. For FYs 2021 through 2025, the Agency uses a rough estimate for the first three missions that excludes $25 billion for key activities related to planned missions beyond Artemis III. When aggregating all relevant costs across mission directorates, NASA is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis effort up to FY 2025. We also project the current production and operations cost of a single SLS/Orion system at $4.1 billion per launch for Artemis I through IV, although the Agency's ongoing initiatives aimed at increasing affordability seek to reduce that cost. Multiple factors contribute to the high cost of ESD programs, including the use of sole-source, cost-plus contracts; the inability to definitize key contract terms in a timely manner; and the fact that except for the Orion capsule, its subsystems, and the supporting launch facilities, all components are expendable and "single use" unlike emerging commercial space flight systems. Without capturing, accurately reporting, and reducing the cost of future SLS/Orion missions, the Agency will face significant challenges to sustaining its Artemis program in its current configuration. . . .

1. Develop a realistic, risk-informed schedule that includes sufficient margin to better align Agency expectations with the development schedule. . . .

3. Develop an Artemis-wide cost estimate, in accordance with best practices, that is updated on an annual basis.

4. Maintain an accounting of per-mission costs to increase transparency and establish a benchmark against which NASA can assess the outcome of initiatives to increase the affordability of ESD systems. . . .

7. Identify measurable cost reduction targets for its ESD contractors. . . .

We provided a draft of this report to NASA management who concurred with Recommendations 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8; partially concurred with Recommendations 2 and 9; and non-concurred with Recommendations 3 and 4.