One of the unique characteristics of the Space Exploration Alliance (SEA), the loose coalition of space organizations formed in the spring of 2004 to support the Vision for Space Exploration, has been its diversity. Its members have included industry organizations (AIAA, AIA), supporters of lunar exploration (Moon Society), supporters of Mars exploration (Mars Society), supporters of space settlement in general (NSS), supporters of exploration and scientific research (Planetary Society), and backers of commercialization and entrepreneurial ventures (Space Frontier Foundation). Well, scratch that last one: the Foundation has withdrawn from the SEA, citing in part its concerns over NASA’s exploration plans and SEA’s support of said plans. A quote from a letter distributed by the Foundation this morning: “We cannot be part of a fan club for a status quo that has failed so miserably time after time in our nation’s quest for space, resulting in hundreds-of-billions of wasted taxpayer dollars.”
The Foundation’s departure from the SEA probably won’t significantly hurt the alliance, since it still has more than a dozen other members. However, the SEA in general, as an organization, has not done much visible work in support of the Vision, particularly prior to its August recess lobbying effort.
Since the Foundation has not posted its announcement online, I’ve posted the contents of the email announcement after the jump:
Dear Colleagues,
When we helped form the Space Exploration Alliance it was with great excitement that at last the various citizen and constituency groups for space were coming together to support the opening of space to humanity.
Our enthusiasm was centered on our shared belief that the president’s policy announced for NASA in early 2004 was an exciting and bold vision that could be used to transform and energize our national space efforts – producing after some 30 years of stagnation and dead ends, a new goal-oriented direction for our space agency – which would “extend a human presence across our solar system.” (President Bush, January 14, 2004)
In other words, we signed on to support a decisive change in our national space program that would create a new way of doing things in space for America and result in the establishment of humanity beyond the Earth.
NASA Administrator Griffin himself has said that the goal of our human space efforts is to expand western civilization into the frontier of space. Griffin has even been willing to tell the Washington Post that the real goal is the permanent human settlement of space – that humans must become a multi-planet species Therefore, the SEA’s unwillingness to say what even Mike Griffin is willing to say in one of our nation’s leading newspapers shows a lack of conviction, maybe even a lack of guts, to say what we all know to be true.
Furthermore, the Foundation does not believe that the current plans being put forth by the agency will meet this challenge – we believe they are both unsustainable and unaffordable. The story will come out over time that NASA cannot fit this program in their budget, and later the program will be hit by the inevitable large delays and huge cost overruns- but that is not the issue today. The issue is that the SEA is not willing to advocate solutions to these obvious problems to create a sustainable and affordable approach.
The Foundation should not need not to state the obvious – but we will. Being citizens of the richest and most powerful democracy on this planet, we are all aware of the system that has made this nation great -free enterprise. Yet this group repeatedly missed opportunities to support and promote ideas for inserting innovative private sector approaches into NASA’s plans, even though Mike Griffin has not only suggested he is open to such ideas, but is promoting them himself and asking for help. Instead, the SEA has reverted to blind cheerleading for whatever design bureau government-centric approaches the agency has put forward, as tied to the old ways as they may be, as short- sighted as they may be, and as doomed to fail in the quest to open the frontier as they are. In the end, this blindness, if it does not kill the program in its infancy, will result in an inevitable repeat of the dead end of Apollo – except this time on two worlds instead of one – which would be a betrayal to future generations.
Therefore, we must sadly depart this organization. We cannot be part of a fan club for a status quo that has failed so miserably time after time in our nation’s quest for space, resulting in hundreds-of-billions of wasted taxpayer dollars. Rather, we join with other organizations and groups that are willing to support and promote a national space agenda that actually delivers on the president’s vision, by enrolling not only the government, but also the private sector and the people themselves in a magnificent quest to open the frontier. A few government employees walking on the Moon in 2018 is not enough, and does not justify the investment of over $100 Billion. Our goal is for tens, then hundreds, then thousands of free citizens to lead the world outwards beyond the Earth, not just as visitors, but also as citizens of the solar system, our new and extended home. Mike Griffin has said his goal is the permanent settlement of space- and we intend to call him on it, support him in achieving it, and to give him our ideas on how to succeed.
We urge the SEA to reconsider its positions and to make it a top SEA priority to insert more free enterprise and non-traditional approaches into NASA’s plans as the key to “sustainability” and “affordability,” which will be the key to the success of the Vision for Space Exploration. And we look forward to working with the individual organizations of the SEA on issues where we can find common ground in the future.
Thank you,
Ad Astra per Ardua!
Bob Werb
Chairman of the Board
Good for the Space Frontier Foundation! I believe I could join a group like that. It’s a shame to watch what were once thought to be “professional organizations” like AIAA continue to dwindle in membership and significance. Of course, if you ever need another opportunity to kiss up, they are there for you.
> The Foundation’s departure from the SEA probably won’t significantly hurt the alliance, since
> it still has more than a dozen other members.
Make that “more than ten.” The Space Access Society and Space Studies Institute have also dropped out, for similar reasons.
So, another example of the fractuous nature of the space advocacy community. I wonder what the alternative plan is? Or does SFF even have one?
Make that “more than ten.” The Space Access Society and Space Studies Institute have also dropped out, for similar reasons.
It makes SEA sound like another “coalition of the willing”.
Rock on, SEA change of victory! The good news is that the establishment bureaucracy is outnumbered, and, to put it simply, outgunned by the brainpower of at least 3 generations of unencumbered “visionaries”. I am sure that there are many within NASA that feel they have been “baited and trapped” within the invalidation complex (created by greed amongst bureaucrats) for which they have no control. May I join with your organization in wishing all groups within the Space Exploration Alliance the freedom to work together in the spirit of progress and adventure that this nation has so fundamentally cherished.
Respectfully,
Zamish
So do you want to talk about the baseball playoffs too, Greg?
Is it the SFF’s responsibility to come up with an exploration plan now, Mark? Do they soak up billions of our tax dollars every year to “derive” 40 year old vehicles from 30 year old technology? If they did, I’d fire them too. There’s a difference between advocating space exploration and advocating stupidity.
Dfens: There are certain common themes of this administration’s policies. One of them is what some people call “Astroturf support”. I.e., when you cannot find real grassroots support, you can buy Astroturf. I admit that it is a bit naughty to borrow Bush’s own euphemism for it from another area which is not space policy.
But it is still relevant. It is not as if the George Bush of space policy, the George Bush of fiscal policy, and the George Bush of foreign policy are completely different people. “Unsustainable” and “unaffordable” are words that we’ve heard before. I think that that they could be his middle names. George double-U Bush.
(I also see that the Astros are in the playoffs. If they are still using Astroturf, that’s just coincidence.)
Just a semantic nit: VSE does not necessarily equal NASA’s proposed transportation architecture. IMNSHO, its very logical to still be in favor of the VSE but very much against the ESAS that NASA has suggested. I just hope none of this ends up costing the Innovative Programs office its funding.
The more I think about this, the more I think it an act of unmitigated political folly. Forget about the somewhat questionable assertions in the letter (for instance, if eight billion a year to get people back to the Moon is “unsustainable” then no effort to go back to the Moon is “sustainable.”) Or the cant about wanting hundreds of people on the Moon, not just a few gummit employees; no explenation about how the latter forecloses the former. Indeed, it’s sort of like opposing the Lewis and Clark Expedition because there was no provision for building Seattle.
No, the only thing that really is breath taking about this letter is that SFF offers no alternative. Oppose the NASA plan if one wishes, but for goodness sake offer an alternative that goes beyond generalities about “commercialism.”
I’m afraid that all SFF has done is to cut itself out of any position to influence the direction of VSE and improve on it. But, I suppose some people feel for comfortable throwing rocks from the outside than doing something constructive from within.
Oppose the NASA plan if one wishes, but for goodness sake offer an alternative that goes beyond generalities about “commercialism.”
This sounds like the arguments that were used to oppose welfare reform. In the spirit of throwing people off public assistance after five years, I’ll offer a plan for NASA.
Abolish the agency. Move aeronautics to the FAA, move science to NSF (where it can compete on a level playing field with other kinds of science). This can’t be any worse than NASA’s pointless stupidity, and it would be much cheaper.
Dfens: “Do they soak up billions of our tax dollars every year…”
You guys who complain about NASA’s “billions of tax dollars” are beating the wrong horse. If your primary concern is government waste you need to tackle a different agency, NASA is a bit player in money sepnding.
Take a look at the HHS, it will spend more in one year than NASA will in 35 years.
If you NASA crtics can get a grip on tens of billions wasted by HHS alone, not to mention the rest of the federal govt (the 99.3 percent that is NOT NASA) then you’ll have time to wory about the paltry, comparitively, “waste” at NASA.
Griffin has even been willing to tell the Washington Post that the real goal is the permanent human settlement of space – that humans must become a multi-planet species
Try selling that vision to the American general public. It is just too cosmic. In addition, to a right-winger, “multi-planet species” sounds suspiciously like “multi-cultural, post national species.” One wonders how far Left Dr. “Call me Spock” Griffin’s personal politics lie. ( “Multi-planet species” — sounds kind of gay, too. )
Here’s the situation: Many of these alt.space people, such as, I suppose, the SFA, are pissed because they don’t have the capital to build manned spacecraft and man-sized launch systems on their own. They want government contracts.
Furthermore, they are caught up in a contradiction: many of alt.spacers espouse anti-government Libertarianism, but they’d really like to get gu’mint contracts, too. They’re pissed because they’re in a philosophical bind. (“Our goal is for tens, then hundreds, then thousands of free citizens to lead the world … ” — That “free citizens” phrase translates as “Libertarian ideologues.”)
Since I’m not a Libertarian, I have the clearness of vision to see what we really need: a patriotic NASA which is also scientifically and technologically avant-garde, a NASA which is not in the pocket of ATK Thiokal, a NASA which is not the current NASA.
We need a better NASA. Free enterprise by itself will not get Americans back to the Moon anytime soon. The history of aviation shows that without government subsidies and organization, aviation would have advanced at a much slower pace.
Paul, interesting plan, albeit one with a zero chance of ever being implemented. Therefore, not a serious proposal.
Some Space Politicers are stoned on their Multi-Species Cosmic Love Child Vision. Meanwhile, NASA has a much more pressing, near-Earth baby they can’t abort: the International Space station.
White House Eyes Space Shuttle Spending
10/09/2005 11:29:18 PM
By Frank Morring, Jr.
STATION STATUS
A new U.S./Russian crew on the International Space Station faces a lonely spell as NASA and its partners wrangle over the future direction of the orbiting laboratory.
…
THE ISSUE HAS NOT been decided within the Bush administration, which will continue debating it internally until the U.S. space agency’s Fiscal 2007 budget request is set for release early next year. But the OMB query shows the uncertainty clouding international cooperation as NASA tries to push human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond.
…
NASA has told the partners it plans to fly 18 more shuttle missions to the station before the end of Fiscal 2010. It has asked for a meeting late this month of the ISS Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) to begin working out the details. The new NASA plan calls for building enough of the station to sustain six crewmembers, in keeping with existing partnership agreements. But it has also told the partners it won’t launch the Russian Solar Power Module or the Centrifuge Accommodation Module the Japanese Space Agency JAXA is developing under a barter deal.
…
Europe and Japan already are looking for roles in the Russian effort to replace the Soyuz capsule with a lifting-body vehicle dubbed Clipper. ( Manned space capsules are golden oldies. –DD ) But with millions of dollars invested in ISS hardware awaiting launch on the space shuttle, they are unwilling to release NASA from its commitments (see p. 32).
“JAXA has been assured that the Japanese module will be launched before the space shuttle is retired,” says Kiwao Shibukawa, director of JAXA’s Washington office. “We consider that the number of shuttle flights–18–is achievable, considering the previous flight rate before the Columbia accident. We are sure the module will be launched.”
Even so, the U.S. agency will be hard-pressed to get so many shuttle flights off the ground starting next summer. In its new plan, NASA has already lopped three months off the remaining service life of the shuttle by switching the retirement date to “the end of Fiscal Year 2010″–Sept. 30, 2010–instead of the end of the calendar year. Given a full return to flight beginning in May/June 2006, that would mean one mission on average a little less than every three months. NASA has launched as many as nine missions in one year, 1985, and kept a schedule comparable to what would be required through much of the 1990s. But the Columbia Accident Investigation Board flagged schedule pressure as a contributing factor to the disaster, and NASA achieved the high mission rates when it had four orbiters and an open-ended overhaul schedule. Now there are three orbiters, and plans call for the shuttle Atlantis to be retired in 2008 as the program winds down.
http://aviationnow.ecnext.com/free-scripts/comsite2.pl?page=aw_document&article=10105p07
Move aeronautics to the FAA
More likely to all go to DARPA and the USAF and USN, if Dr. Griffin’s folly continues.
Paul, interesting plan, albeit one with a zero chance of ever being implemented. Therefore, not a serious proposal.
Ah, the circular argument. You’re not NASA, Paul, so your alternative has no chance of being implemented. Therefore you have no right to disagree. Now, I suppose, would be a good time for you to go back to being a good little minion and stop all that foolish independent thought. After all, the billions they waste are only a fraction of the budget, and that somehow makes it all ok. Oh, to have had the lobotomy.
I agree with David. The best thing is to fix NASA. Even if we give NASA’s functions to other government agencies, they are, for the most part as screwed up. When I worked on IUS, I could do a side by side comparison of NASA and the Air Force. The USAF is better, but still screwed up. The alt.space companies will do good stuff as long as they stay independent, but once they start sucking up the government money, they will go the same way as the current contractors.
NASA’s problems are institutional. That’s why Griffin’s firings are such a waste. He fires people and promotes others to work within the same constraints. A few will do better and a few will do worse than their predecessors, but from our perspective we will still be in the same place. With all of those degrees he has, you’d think he would try something that hasn’t already been done.
Paul, interesting plan, albeit one with a zero chance of ever being implemented. Therefore, not a serious proposal.
I disagree, Mark, at least about the ‘ever’ part. At one point abandoning the shuttle could have been dismissed in the same way. Situations change, the zeitgeist shifts, and what was once inconceivable becomes a real option.
What I am doing here is injecting this possibility into the discussion. If this is done enough, and if no good defense is raised against it, it gains mindshare.
I’m afraid that all SFF has done is to cut itself out of any position to influence the direction of VSE and improve on it.
That statement rests on two assumptions:
1) The only way for the SFF to “influence the direction of VSE” is to be a member of the Alliance;
2) The Alliance has, in fact, been effective in its efforts to “influence the direction of VSE”.
Both statements are of dubious validity.
That statement rests on two assumptions…
It also rests on the assumption that influence over the VSE is the only thing SFF should care about.
It could be they’ve decided they can’t influence VSE and are not willing to sacrifice their integrity for no good reason. In the future, if VSE degenerates like the Shuttle and Station did, they will come out looking better.
Ed: The SEA’s web site still lists 15 member organizations, including the Space Access Society but excluding the Foundation and SSI. (Also missing is ProSpace, which I believe dropped out some time ago. Another MIA organization is “Global Space Travelers”, an organization chaired by former Senator Jake Garn that joined the SEA last summer; I don’t know if that organization is even extant.) I’m not surprised that SAS would leave, particularly given Henry Vanderbilt’s op-ed in AvWeek after the release of the ESAS report.
>> Abolish the agency. Move aeronautics to the FAA, move science to NSF
>> (where it can compete on a level playing field with other kinds of science).
>> This can’t be any worse than NASA’s pointless stupidity, and it would be much cheaper.
>>Posted by: Paul Dietz at October 16, 2005 08:39 AM
Well science has never been a significant part of NASA. More window dressing done as a side, as time permits. Aeronautics, very very sadly, has long been the forgotten A in NASA. Politics of space and space centers is god and customer to NASA.
Of more interst is that really the FAA is in the leed, since NASAs efforts are so overshadowed compared to the start ups. Its hard to see how NASA will get its asked for $104 billion for a Apollo replica. Impossible if any of the start ups plans for near term orbital tourism pan out. I also wonder if Bush (who in his speach did ask for sustainable – which Apollo 2.0 obviously isnt) pushing for these funding levels. Political kickbacks via job rolls to the big centers in correct districts, can only get votes for so long in the face of public disinterest.
Too many pro space groups are really nothing more then pro NASA groups. NASA has turned its back on the future, our future, in space. So more pro space groups should focus on more productive opportunities. If you really still think NASA is the only game in town, your part of the problem – not part of the solution.
Paul,the problem with any plan that begins with “first, lets abolish NASA” is that it will be proposed to a government that can’t even abolish far more useless agencies and departments (such as the Department of Education.) Second, inherent in your plan seems to be that we’ll not do publically funded space exploration. (No return to the Moon, no voyages to Mars, etc.) That is certainly an untenible position, from both a political and policy aspect.
Now, if you were to add to your plan, The Air Force becomes the Aerospace Force and conducts space exploration, then you might have a kernal of an idea. However, I still have to be in the camp of, “Mend it, don’t end it”, much as I hate to quote Slick Willy.
Mark,
Here’s a hypothetical for your evaluation: stipulate for the moment that Clark Lindsey’s timeline is accurate and that by 2015 there is an orbital hotel and serious plans for a tourist lunar fly around trip. At that point don’t you think there will be a serious question in Congress as to whether NASA should exist at all in anything like its current form? If so, then the “abolish NASA” suggestion isn’t that far fetched.
Of more interst is that really the FAA is in the leed …
Huh?
Mark: abolition of NASA is probably not politically tenable now, but to suggest that it will always be untenable shows a failure of imagination. Current trends are not favorable. The cumulative federal deficit is growing faster than the economy, and has been for years. The annual deficit is very large, and pressure on it will only grow as the baby boom retires. The trade deficit is large. I think it’s likely these factors will combine to cause, at some point, a catastrophic decline in the dollar. If foreigners begin to refuse to buy debt denominated in dollars, the result will be extreme pressure to cut spending. NASA will be among the first agencies on the chopping block.
Even without a run on the dollar, pressure will build to rein in spending as retirement spending balloons, for example in Medicare. NASA will be vulnerable.
Michael,
Thank you – you’ve put your finger on exactly what bothers me about the ESAS, and what Mike Griffin might be trying to accomplish by it: you just can’t shoot that far into the future and expect to hit your target – even when your target is the size of the moon
– because there’s every likelihood that the assumptions you based your plans on will have changed enough to no longer be true.
I can understand why Griffin’s team chose the architecture that they have: the alt.space alternatives that most of us would like to see given a chance just aren’t there yet. They’re getting close, especially SpaceX, but it’s still far more of a gamble than you could expect of a government agency to put them squarely in the middle of the critical path. In that respect, the non-traditional procurement plans for the ISS are a good compromise.
But – and it’s a big one – the ESAS plan is being offered just before a period of potentially great change in relation to space access and utilisation – and it makes no meaningful provision for incorporating that change. By that I mean that even if alt.space is successful at ISS resupply, crew rotation, and low(er) cost launch, the ESAS HLLV-based architecture as currently envisioned has no inbuilt interfaces where that capability could be included. It is monolithic and self-contained, and for reasons that arguably make sense right now, but may be revealed as the wrong path in even as little as three or four years from now.
This plan, like NASA itself, appears too inflexible. It might have been a good one post-Challenger, but I think NASA is guilty here of fighting the last battle instead of the coming one.
Having said all that, I think there is a glimmer of hope: This plan may be the wrong one in the long term, but it might just be the perfect one for the political/NASA climate of today. It’s an ideal vehicle to sell a lunar goal to a bunch of politicians who want to see continued employment for the Shuttle workforce. And it lets Griffin hedge his bets to an extent: Getting NASA’s lunar goal established is a more important task for today that any technology choices – and so this ESAS architecture may be more aimed at reaching political rather than astronomical objectives.
Five years from now when development of the HLLV and lander are due to ramp up, if alt.space isn’t making good on some of its promises, the current plan is a workable one – but if alt.space is doing the things that we all hope then changing the plan to take advantage of them, and reap the attendant increase in capability, will be much more sell-able politically than it is now.
So who knows where this may lead: Maybe Mike Griffin is currently engaged in the exercise of political rather than engineering skills, and we’ve been partially missing the point.
> Forget about the somewhat questionable assertions in the letter (for instance, if eight billion
> a year to get people back to the Moon is “unsustainable” then no effort to go back to the Moon is
> “sustainable.”)
So you say. No one can do it cheaper than NASA, because you say so.
You also said that without NASA, human spaceflight in America would come to an end. Then an American named Burt Rutan proved it was possible to do human spaceflight without NASA.
Have you examined every possible means of sending astronauts to the Moon for less than $8 billion a year and proved that none of them can work?
Space Adventures and its Russian partners are offering a cislunar flight right now for an estimated $100 million. They also say they intend to offer lunar landing missions, too. General Pete Worden believes the private sector could put humans on the Moon for under $1 billion, if Congress were to create a prize of that size.
> Or the cant about wanting hundreds of people on the Moon, not just a few gummit employees;
> no explenation about how the latter forecloses the former.
You need it explained to you?
If it costs $2 billion to send four astronauts to the Moon in a Constellation capsule, sending hundreds of astronauts would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
NASA doesn’t have hundreds of billions of dollars. The NASA budget is only $17 billion a year.
The US government is not going to cancel the Defense Department or Health and Human Services and give all the money to NASA. That’s a space cadet fantasy.
The only way NASA can send hundreds of people to the Moon is by using lower cost transportation from the private sector.
> Indeed, it’s sort of like opposing the Lewis and Clark Expedition because there was no provision for building Seattle.
No, it’s like realizing opposing the bizarre notion that we need an infinite series of Lewis and Clark missions.
The Lewis and Clark expedition was created by Thomas Jefferson — on of those evil libertarians you rail about, Mark. The government didn’t keep sending Lewis and Clark back to the Northwest Territories forever. They sent *one* expedition, which lasted just over two years. After that, the government declared the territories open and created incentives for commercial development and settlement.
Forty years after the Apollo expeditions, we want the US government to declare the frontier open and create incentives the way Jefferson did. We don’t need to keep sending Lewis and Clark back to the Moon every 40 years, and there’s no point in spending tens of billions to develop an even more expensive version of the Shuttle.
> No, the only thing that really is breath taking about this letter is that SFF offers no alternative.
> Oppose the NASA plan if one wishes, but for goodness sake offer an alternative that goes
> beyond generalities about “commercialism.”
Commercialism! Horrors, no, Comrade! Decadent Western capitalism can never compete with glorious efficiency of socialist Five Year Plan.
General Pete Worden believes the private sector could put humans on the Moon for under $1 billion, if Congress were to create a prize of that size.
I believe the value of television rights for someone beating NASA back to the Moon would exceed $1 billion and therefore if General Worden is correct, no Congressional action is needed. Heh! If it really is as cheap as $1 billion, lets call President Chirac and French television and encourage some private EU-weenie company to just do it.
Now that would energize / enrage the American public!
After all, Sputnik and Gargarin are maybe the two best things that ever happened to the US space program.
> Here’s the situation: Many of these alt.space people, such as, I suppose, the SFA, are pissed because
> they don’t have the capital to build manned spacecraft and man-sized launch systems on their own.
> They want government contracts.
David, if you watched the news any time in the last year, you must have heard about SpaceShip One.
Here’s the real situation, David. Companies are raising capital and building manned spacecraft. You’re pissed about that and are resorting to lies.
>Furthermore, they are caught up in a contradiction: many of alt.spacers espouse anti-government
> Libertarianism, but they’d really like to get gu’mint contracts, too. They’re pissed because they’re in
> a philosophical bind.
No bind, David. If the government wants to stop spending money on civil space, that’s fine with me — but if the government is going to continue spending my tax money on space, then it has an obligation to do it in a way that promotes the common good.
The only people in a philosophical bind are those who think patriotism requires blind obediance to whatever NASA proposes. The Constution guarantees all citizens the right to petition the government for regress of grievances.
> (“Our goal is for tens, then hundreds, then thousands of free citizens to lead
> the world … ” — That “free citizens” phrase translates as “Libertarian ideologues.”)
Only an ideologue would translate it that way.
> Since I’m not a Libertarian, I have the clearness of vision to see what we really need: a patriotic NASA
I’m getting tired of VSEers making insinuations about patriotism.
I support the development of military space planes and creation of a US Space Force — neither of which are in the current “vision.” The Marine Corps can’t even get funding to do a study of its concept for using small unit insertion from space to fight terrorism.
If you think it’s unpatriotic to put the national defense ahead of collecting rocks, well…
> We need a better NASA. Free enterprise by itself will not get Americans back to the Moon anytime
> soon. The history of aviation shows that without government subsidies and organization, aviation
> would have advanced at a much slower pace.
Do you think no aviation development took place between 1903 and World War I because there were no subsidies?
More than 14,000 people flew in airplanes during that period, without any subsidies and no significant government involvement. With all of the subsidies NASA has gotten, how many people have flown in space during the last 40 years — a much longer period?
No one said space would be developed without government organizations — that’s a strawman argument. The fact that government is involved does not mean government has to do *everything*, however, or that government must deliberately do things in the most expensive manner possible.
> Paul, inherent in your plan seems to be that we’ll not do publically funded space exploration.
> (No return to the Moon, no voyages to Mars, etc.) That is certainly an untenible position, from
> both a political and policy aspect.
I can’t speak for Paul, but if NASA purchased space transportation from the private sector, it would allow *more* publicly funded space exploration
Since you’re fond of examples from movies and fiction, you might consider 2001, where the NASA Administrator went to the Moon via Pan Am.
> Now, if you were to add to your plan, The Air Force becomes the Aerospace Force and conducts
> space exploration, then you might have a kernal of an idea. However, I still have to be in the
> camp of, “Mend it, don’t end it”, much as I hate to quote Slick Willy.
Why does it have to be one or ther other? Why do you think that only one agency can conduct space exploration? Why can’t lots of people do it? If we reduce the cost of access to space, a lot more people can explore and use space — NASA, the military, the private sector. It’s a win/win solution. What’s wrong with that?
Edward, I keep hearing that if NASA were to “purchase commercial services” to return to the Moon, then all would be well. So which commercial entity is offering lunar transportation services? Now or in the near future?
So who knows where this may lead: Maybe Mike Griffin is currently engaged in the exercise of political rather than engineering skills, and we’ve been partially missing the point.
You mean like those great political skills he showed in the recent statements to the press regarding the shuttle and station being mistakes? Then his retraction made those statements look even more foolish than his ESAS designs, the Corn Dog and Sphallix.
If he had any political sense, he would have under cut the power base of shuttle instead of declaring war on it. He could have easily done this by re-enabling the functional organizations, making them responsible for hiring, firing, and pay raises. This would make all NASA employees answerable to his office instead of the program office. Instead he chose to fire the program managers and put his cronies in their place, because apparently he’s so smart he can’t remember what was tried and failed already yesterday.
Instead of making subtle, but significant changes, he declares war on programs that have more political clout than he has. That’s not exactly what I’d call political brilliance. He’s failed both technically and politically. The only thing I can see he has left to do is resign.
I don’t know if private enterprises could put people on the moon. And you know what — I don’t care, either. If they can, fine. If they can’t, fine. The free market is a great mechanism for determining what people really value, as opposed to what they want other people to pay for.
Dfens: But Griffin is cutting the power base from the space shuttle and the space station, as much as he can. He’s hewing to the 2010 deadline for retiring the shuttle. He’s made it clear that NASA will cut as many flights as it has to to make that deadline. That’s completely different from Sean O’Keefe, who let Gerstenmaier jaw-jaw about 28 more flights and about how the space station hardly needs any changes to fit the VSE. Griffin’s response was to fire Gerstenmaier.
I will admit that a 2008 deadline would be better and a 2005 deadline would be better still. I don’t think that Griffin disagrees with this. Indeed (as Jeff Foust and others have reported), he has tried to obtain a phased retirement of the three orbiters so that only one would be flying in 2009. But the ground rules are that Bush will give Griffin cover for 2010, but no earlier. Griffin is up against fools and liars in Congress who want to make the space station a “national laboratory” and who claim that an astronaut gap would be a threat to national security.
It is a mistake to get caught up in that kind of quasi-insider kind of thinking. If this Gerstenmaier person really was the heart of darkness, why are all NASA (and for that matter DoD) programs screwed up and not just the one he was involved with? You are getting involved in political blame games. The thing is, NASA has developed a culture of failure that has been growing in magnitude for 30 years. It is well past time we quit singling out by name these horribly evil people who are to blame. It is counter-productive. Obviously there is something wrong, wrong with the institution, not with a few individuals.
These programs take on a life of their own. Why is that? The answer is, they are accountable only to themselves. There is no NASA any more. There is the shuttle program. There is the space station program. There is now the ESAS program. These programs hire their own, fire their own, promote their own. They do not care about the larger goals of the entity which once was NASA. They have their own lobby with Congress. They have their own line items in the Federal budget.
This is the start of the stupidity of the situation we are now in. The programs do not care about the people who work for them. They do not see their employees as resources to invest in. They see people as a disposable resource. They bring a certain talent or skill with them, and are cast aside when the skill is no longer useful. The program has no further goals than existence. The shuttle program does not care about exploration of the Moon or Mars. They care only about continuing to go to low Earth orbit. That’s what they do. The shuttle program is not evil because it does this. It does not need to be killed because it does this. It needs to be folded into a real NASA. It needs to serve the goals of a real NASA. Anything else is spitting into the wind.
There is no VSE while there is no NASA. There is no one to carry out VSE. There is an empty administrative shell that would like to do VSE, but they are powerless to do the job. They lack both the political might and the technical skill. The sad thing is, this administrative shell could do what it takes to become effective again, but they don’t know how. One president after another hires their own savant idiot to bring NASA under control, and not a one of them has had a clue how to do it. The answer is pretty damn obvious, if you ask me. Go back to what worked. Not in some brainless, pseudo-religious way like the corn dog and sphallix, it’s like they think building the Saturn V again will somehow (they hope) put things back to right, but in a way that recognizes the real problems NASA is having and fixes them.
Dfens: I don’t mean to single out Gerstenmaier, and neither did Griffin — he fired a lot of other people too. If there is a culture of failure at NASA, then the people that instill that culture should be fired. Gerstenmaier is surely an example. He was a powerful man at NASA whose consistent message was that NASA isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing.
It is certainly not true that all NASA programs are screwed up. Most of the space telescopes are doing just fine. NASA’s earth observing satellites are doing just fine. And to hear industry tell it, NASA’s aeronautics research is still valuable, even though it is starved for funds. The rot is in only in two departments at NASA: human spaceflight and new launch systems. I don’t see how NASA can fix anything without having the heads of these departments roll.
Mark:
The fact that commercial entities don’t currently have the capabilities that the alt.spacers would like to see, whether to LEO or the Moon, is due in no small part to NASA’s historical position that it is only real game in town. NASA was infamously hostile to commercial launch vehicle developers in the 80s when the Shuttle was supposed to be THE National Space Transportation System. That attitude continues to be pervasive, even while it has moderated somewhat.
However, today we see a number of commercial entities making significant progress towards operational systems, and there are no technical reasons that new commercial providers couldn’t go all the way to the Moon. The biggest obstacle is money, because the market is very difficult to quantify. If NASA were to take a more traditional approach to supporting new industries, then they would not be building vehicles with no commmercial utility, suitable only for brief and infrequent forays to the Moon. Rather, they would support the commercialization of technologies that have already been proven, ideally in the form of encouraging private industry to develop vehicles that would be useful both to commercial interests and NASA programs. That means small, flexible, and affordable ( and ultimately) reusable launch vehicles. That in turn would likely make it easier to raise private capital.
The country, the space industry, and NASA would be better served by the earliest possible emergence of a viable commercial space transportation industry, rather than spend a lot of time and money to send off another series of lunar expeditions without the existence of any significant (i.e., commercially viable) infrastructure that could realistically be used to follow up on those expeditions as well as to pursue a host of other space development efforts.
NASA should, as NACA did for aviation, enable not dictate.
Gerstenmaier was fired? When did that happen? According to what I read he’s still Associate Administrator for Space Operations.
Yes, Greg, I’ve noticed how well the Webb telescope is progressing. Who is the evil person(s) there who must be fired? And how many of these evil, lying, worthless people are we going to have to fire before someone realizes it is not solving the problem? If NASA is so full of these evil, lying people, as you say, why have I not met them? Why are the vast majority of the employees I meet at both NASA and their contractors good and decent? Scapegoats don’t fix problems. They make people feel better, but they don’t fix anything. It’s time to quit making scapegoats and start fixing problems.
The more I think about this, the more I think [not supporting the VSE] is an act of unmitigated political folly.
I fully agree. While I have many problems with Dr. Griffin’s proposed implementation of the VSE, how is dropping any near-term chance at a real market for supplies on the moon going to help alt.space? I’ve never heard a clear explanation for this myth that NASA’s activities somehow actively harm alt.space, short of not handing out free money. If alt.space could do half of what some of them promise, they should be storming the Solar System independently, while NASA muddles about in LEO.
Greg, the Shuttle and the Station are not the same thing, although NASA had made every effort to tie them together politically. The former is now useless, but you are dead wrong about the latter. If you ever want to have cheaper access to orbit — which would benefit science along with everyone else — we’ve got to have that market.
Whoever it was who said that NASA does almost no science should look again. Something on the order of half the budget gets spent on science, and even Mr. Bush does not propose major reductions in that.
— Donald
Paul: You are right; I made a mistake. Gerstenmaier used to be the ISS program manager, and he has been promoted. I thought I read somewhere that Griffin wanted to disempower him. I do not know if the promotion that he got was a real promotion or getting “kicked upstairs”. But he certainly isn’t fired outright.
It’s a tangential point. The real point is that no one is still saying that the space station is well-adapted to the VSE.
Dfens: I agree that JWST is going badly, and it is very possible that someone should be fired for it. I was careful to say that most of the space telescopes are doing fine. I meant in particular smaller instruments like WMAP.
But I did not say that NASA was full of evil, lying people. The people who I said are liars (or fools) are the people in Congress who want to sustain the space shuttle and the space station for completely bogus reasons. In fact, I do see a history of dishonest hype in the top ranks of NASA. I do not mean that as any kind of indictment of the rank and file who you would see yourself at NASA.
Sometimes people at NASA have risen from the honorable ranks to become dishonorable spokesmen and managers. One example of that is Jud Lovingood, who came across as a clueless bureaucrat in Feynman’s book. But Lovingood is a trained technician, and he also remembered his good sense later after he retired.
I know people at all levels. I’ve been around for a while. I knew them back when. What about these people? Are they all incompetent? I have yet to meet anyone at Ames or JPL that’s incompetent, at least in my opinion. Who cares about them? They are just fodder for the big program, right? If ESAS doesn’t need them, dump ‘em, I say. Get rid of them so ESAS can suck up the half of the budget that wasn’t going to the other big programs. If you NASA people don’t like it, remember, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
It’s insanity. It’s the same thing Goldin tried, but colder. And for what? 30 years from now we will be launching our third sphallix, 10 years after the Chinese have set up a mining base on the Moon, and we’ll scratch our collective heads wondering how they do it so cheap and fast. We once had an aerospace industry that was the envy of the world, now we eat our young and wonder why everything doesn’t go our way.
Dfens: I agree with you that JPL is doing good things. But then, I don’t see that there is any “culture of failure” at JPL. JPL is still doing well with a lot of things.
I think that most people with serious technical training are good people or can at least listen to reason. Maybe Gerstenmaier is an example of that — maybe Griffin kept him as someone who can listen to reason despite the dubious things that he said about the space station when O’Keefe was in charge.
Maybe we can at least agree that astronauts like Readdy and Gregory and bureaucrats like O’Keefe and Steidle shouldn’t dominate NASA. Yes, everyone brings up the example of James Webb, but actually he ran NASA with Dryden as a “CEO/CTO” team.
David Hoerr writes:
The country, the space industry, and NASA would be better served by the earliest possible emergence of a viable commercial space transportation industry, rather than spend a lot of time and money to send off another series of lunar expeditions without the existence of any significant (i.e., commercially viable) infrastructure that could realistically be used to follow up on those expeditions as well as to pursue a host of other space development efforts.
Two responses:
(a) I agree; BUT!
(b) Mike Griffin lacks the political firepower to push this vision past Senator Bill Nelson and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (1 Dem & 1 GOP) and President Bush cannot be counted upon to back Griffin up on this point. Besides come January 2009, President Bush is off to Crawford.
This is why the Space Frontier Foundation left the SEA.
Therefore, t/Space CVX crew flights to ISS are the best icebreaker. t/Space MUST perform on its own dime.
I think its unfortunate Space Frontier has left SEA. The question is deliverability and accountability. Can a company like Scaled Composites create a six man transport and a supply vehicle within the time frame set forth by Congress? All these organizations agreed to unite in support of VSE. Congress just agreed to colonize the planets and support VSE. Has Congress or a President ever set such a goal in the History of space exploration? The complaints about NASA are predominantly obsolete but some are justified. Has VSE change since Bush announced it?
Some good things have been happening. How about the merging of some X prizes and Centennial Challenges? As for space access, Mr. Griffin did what we expected by using Shuttle derived hardware. This is the cheapest, safest and fastest way to get us started down the road to building a space infrastructure. Something that is repeatable at an acceptable cost. Modeling the lunar base after the Antarctica base is a great idea. It will grow beyond Antarctica with space tourism. Unlike Antarctica, the moon offers a unique environment and a prestigious local which will draw people from around the globe. Virgin Galactic and the space station tourist have proven that it’s a resource awaiting commercialization.
Imagine if we had shuttle derived vehicles built after the Challenger accident. We would be half way to the moon, the space station completed and seven heroes still with us.
Therefore, t/Space CVX crew flights to ISS are the best icebreaker.
But what if the US gu’mint abandons the International Space Station because the Shuttle can’t cut the mustard — the mustard here being delivery of eighteen or so large ISS modules?
Some of you alt.space peeple keep making the same ass-ump-tion and pre-sump-tion as the ISS Establishment: that the status quo will never change, and NASA won’t despair of completing the space station. Things may change in future.
As for space access, Mr. Griffin did what we expected by using Shuttle derived hardware. This is the cheapest,
No it’s not. The cheapest way is to use a Shuttle and an EELV to launch a modernized Apollo set.
safest
No it’s not … among other things, there is no escape system during re-entry, not even ejection seats or a reserve parachute for the crew capsule….
And please explain where they got that 1/2000 probability of fatal error for the proposed system, aside from hand waving?
and fastest way to get us started down the road to building a space infrastructure
No it’s definitely not the fastest way. The fastest way is Earth orbit rendezvous of one Shuttle launch to carry an Apollo capsule and Lunar Excursion Module aloft, plus one EELV to launch a departure stage/third stage and Service Module. This can be the architecture for the first few Return to the Moon voyages.
Let’s make this departure stage/third stage a reuseable space tug, and there you have the foundations of more space infrastructure than the ESAS slide show is currently describing.
Once the reusable space tug is available, we can use it to transport a new design, reusable and re-fuelable lunar lander to lunar orbit, a lander that other spacecraft can use. Of course the space tug and the new lunar lander should have as much parts commonality as possible.
After building the space tug and new lunar lander, the next platform to fly to the Moon will be a lifting body to replace the venerable Apollo capsule — a lifting body that incorporates an ejection pod for the entire crew of four. In an emergency, this ejection pod will be useable on the launch pad, during ascent, descent and just before touchdown of our 21st century non-capsule spacecraft.
Did I forget to mention a reusable launch system?
I am so sorry if your job is dependent on kissing up to Dr. Griffin.
> Edward, I keep hearing that if NASA were to “purchase commercial services”
> to return to the Moon, then all would be well.
I never said that, Mark. I still believe that an incremental approach to the development of space transportation would be better than an immediate Moon rush — but since you think we’ve got to have an immediate Moon rush, for ideological reasons, I’ve proposed ways the government could at least do it at lower cost.
That’s called a “compromise.” It would allow you to get what you say you want — NASA astronauts on the Moon — while helping the private sector and the taxpayer at the same time. What’s wrong with that?
> So which commercial entity is offering lunar transportation services? Now
> or in the near future?
Boeing and Lockheed — how do you think Clementine and Lunar Prospector got to the Moon?Space Adventures — which I already mentioned. Walt Kistler’s new startup — I forget the name.
All of NASA’s recent space probes have been launched on commercial rockets. How do you draw the remarkable conclusion that space transportation beyond LEO is something only NASA can do when NASA currently has no space transportation capability beyond LEO and the private sector does?
> Can a company like Scaled Composites create a six man transport and a
> supply vehicle within the time frame set forth by Congress?
That would depend on what the time frame was — Congress hasn’t set any time frame, so it’s impossible to say.
At ISDC, Burt Rutan said he’s concentrating on suborbital vehicles now because he hasn’t figured out how to build an orbital vehicle that’s safe and economical yet.
Tying development to an arbitrary political timetable may produce the same sort of compromises seen in the Shuttle program.
Of course, this is all hypothetical because NASA still hasn’t produced an RFP to buy crew and cargo resupply, during any time frame.
> Congress just agreed to colonize the planets and support VSE.
When did Congress agree to that? Sending four astronauts to the Moon for a week is not “colonizing the planets.”
> Has Congress or a President ever set such a goal in the History of space exploration?
Yes. Forty years ago. Is this a trick question?
> Some good things have been happening. How about the merging of
> some X prizes and Centennial Challenges?
What about it? NASA only announced its “announced its intent to collaborate.” They don’t put up any money for the prizes that were discussed.
> As for space access, Mr. Griffin did what we expected by using Shuttle
> derived hardware. This is the cheapest, safest and fastest way to get us started
Well, the cheapest, safest, and fastest way except for all the others
> Imagine if we had shuttle derived vehicles built after the Challenger
> accident. We would be half way to the moon, the space station completed
> and seven heroes still with us.
Why would they be alive? Do you think Shuttle-derived vehicles would never fail? Or do you mean they would never have left the ground?
Maybe we can at least agree that astronauts like Readdy and Gregory and bureaucrats like O’Keefe and Steidle shouldn’t dominate NASA.
What I am suggesting, Greg, would not be to fire people like these astronauts, but rather to go back to a system that uses their expertise correctly. The reason astronauts rise to the top now is because of the power vacuum within engineering. When the functional organization went away and the job of managing personnel went to the previously technical program managers, it consumed them. The politics of the autonomous program has both lured driven them away from the technical realm. The astronauts have stepped up to fill the vacuum. Sure, they suck as engineers, but their operational background gives them a top level perspective on how the vehicle should work. Also, they have a lot of prestige and clout due to their fame.
So now we have a split of frustrated technical people doing personnel management, and management types trying to make technical decisions, and both doing such a poor job that astronauts are feeling forced to step in as pitifully inept integrators. It’s a goat rope. Every day you go to work thinking, hoping you’ve seen the stupidest thing ever, and then it gets worse. It is demoralizing beyond belief.
If you work on the contractor side, you work against the pressure to fail as a way to maximize profit thanks to the stupidity of a customer who actually pays profit on development. If you’re on NASA’s side, you face a contractor that only ever seems to think of ever more creative ways to be stupid. It’s a nightmare! I remember a stretch while working on space station where they would carry one person a week out on a gurney dead. It was that bad.
Most of the pressure comes about because the people working on the program care deeply about this nations space program and want it to succeed. Sisyphus has nothing on an aerospace engineer. It’s insane. We shouldn’t have to work so hard just to do our jobs. Your pay rate, the existance of your job has no relationship to how hard you work or how well you do your job. It hasn’t always been this way.
He’s hewing to the 2010 deadline for retiring the shuttle.
Dr. Griffin is unlikely to be in charge at NASA in 2010. He doesn’t really have much say-so about year 2010 events.
That’s another reason to snicker at a schedule that specifies return to the Moon in 2018. It’s like planning activities for one’s children for the year 2018.
He’s made it clear that NASA will cut as many flights as it has to make that deadline.
No, NASA recently put out a press release setting a goal of nineteen (19) more Shuttle flights. That many more Shuttle flights is sort of orthogonal to cutting as many flights as possible in order to make the 2010 deadline. Once again, Dr. Griffin probably will be gone by 2010, so maybe his successor will truncate that schedule.
Who really knows? I don’t. Maybe next year Bubba LePew and Rasheed Lincoln, the foam sprayers at LM Michoud, will start making better External Tanks, so NASA will go for thirty more large module deliveries to the ISS, ending in 2015.
…
In regard to the safety of the proposed new Apollo on Steroids system, let’s also remember that it will use those safe safe safe Solid Rocket Boosters which cannot be throttled off once lit.
The astronauts in the Steroid Capsule could have a Wile E. Coyote experience. They could hop off the launch missile using the tractor rocket and pop their capsule’s parachute, only to find that the ACME, I mean Thiokol SRB’s had done a 180 degree turn and were about to snag the parachute lines.
The SRB is very safe. Each SRB has two hydraulic gimbals seroactuators and can vector thrust in both rock and tilt. The SRB is also design to throttle back during accent. As a matter of fact it reduces thrust by 1/3 during after its first 50 sec, this prevents overstressing the vehicle during maximum dynamic pressure. The Apollo escape system would pull the CM 4,000 feet from the Saturn V, I’m sure the new escape tower would be on steroids (Aren’t they illegal?). As soon as the CM separates the booster it’s sent a command to self destruct. The SRB will never catch up to the CM which weighs much less than the SRB. The SRB for VSE would be upgraded with some new features in the pipeline.
Congress can’t cut funds and not reset expectation and goals of NASA as they have done in the past or Congress will be responsible for more loss of life. Also NASA has to be held responsible to maintain their projects within budget and mile stones met within a reasonable time. That means voters and activist must stay on top of congress to make sure they know the options as well as the pros and cons of each. It would benefit us all to find common ground on VSE. Doing half of VSE would be better than the last 30 years.
I believe it is rock and roll, or pitch and yaw. When an SRB is mounted on the shuttle it’s actuators can create yaw, pitch, or roll, depending on what the other SRB nozzle is doing. Solids are more interesting than I once considered them. If you’re interested in doing some armature experiments this is an interesting site. I wouldn’t call them “very safe.” A 747 is very safe.
> > Some good things have been happening.
> > How about the merging of
> > some X prizes and Centennial Challenges?
>
> What about it? NASA only announced its “announced
> its intent to collaborate.” They don’t put up any
> money for the prizes that were discussed.
Oh please be careful here. I’ll say it again ESAS IS NOT VSE. Just because the Innovative Programs office is in ESMD does not mean you should paint them with the same brush.
The reason Centennial Challenges hasn’t announced rules or a purse for the prize is that the legal authorization allowing them to do so hasn’t been passed into law yet. Its not their fault so don’t use innuendo to insinuate that somehow its a failure on their part. Brant’s office is doing some excellent work at supporting other methods of accomplishing the VSE other than the ESAS.
Lazy rhetoric like this could easily end up causing unintended cuts to the one program I’m pretty sure everyone here agrees is a good thing.
The SRBs do not throttle back. Their thrust profile is tailored through loading of the 4 motor segments. The SSMEs are throttled back to minimize maximum loading.
It’s up to Bush to say whether ESAS is or is not part of the VSE. I doubt that he would say that it isn’t.
His statement was that “ESAS is not VSE”. I assume he meant that it was a subset of VSE rather than all of it, which seems reasonable.
This site provides some core geometries and their effect on the thrust produced by a solid rocket motor. It can be tailored by the geometry, but not throttled. Hybrids can be throttled. I’m sure amatuers will have flown those for many decades before NASA launches one. As the Orlando Sentinel says:
“The Crew Exploration Vehicle is supposed to take astronauts to the international space station by 2012, to the moon by 2018 and eventually to Mars. It likely will be the only manned vehicle for getting to and from space that NASA builds for a generation.”
Sigh.