A few policy-related articles of note in this week’s issue of The Space Review:
- I take a look at some of the opposition to the ESAS report from the space advocacy community, including comments made by Rick Tumlinson and Robert Zubrin at the Space Frontier Conference on Friday in LA. Zubrin wants the shuttle program ended as soon as possible to accelerate development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle, while Tumlinson and others would be happy to end the shuttle program now as well, but build up an “economically sustainable set of transportation options” that can support the Vision and other activities, instead of a government-specific heavy-lift vehicle. Neither Tumlinson nor Zubrin were terribly optimistic about the fate of the Vision should the program continue on its present course, but there’s no consensus on what an alternative to ESAS should be.
- Dwayne Day offers a reason for why China has been so deliberate in its manned spaceflight program: the government gains considerable prestige at the moment for the program, and thus wants to avoid any disasters. However, as he points out, that prestige will diminish over time, but the risk of disaster remains. At some point there will be an accident and “it is perhaps inevitable that eventually the Chinese public will come to view human spaceflight as a waste of money when the peasants need health care.”
- Taylor Dinerman sheds some light on the problems with the US Navy’s space efforts, which have in large part been ignored because of the attention paid on troubled Air Force programs. The Navy rated poorly in a recent report on its space expertise, and space has not received a lot of attention in a service branch focused on problems with some shipbuilding programs. (Dinerman calls the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) ” reasonably healthy”, but even that program has suffered delays.)
Dwayne’s analysis is, frankly, divorced from reality for a number of reasons.
(1) China is not a democracy, nor is it America. Dissent of government policy tends to get the dissenter imprisoned, if not executed.
(2) There is no evidence that space tragedies tend to erode support for government funded space efforts. The experience of Challenger and Columbia tend to suggest the opposite.
(3) The rationale for the Chinese space program is not solely to foster prestige. The Chinese see great economic and military benefits as well.
Much as I respect Dwayne’s histories published in Spaceflight and elsewhere, here I agree with Mark. While Dwayne is not necessarily wrong in some of his assumptions, history has rarely worked the way he suggests it will with China. His analysis ignores the fact that the Russian’s did not voluntarily slow down their space program; on the contrary, they fought tooth and nail to keep it going until economic reality made it impossible. Even now, with their greatly truncated program, in many ways they remain humanity’s most accomplished spacefaring nation. Right or wrong, more and more of the world is becoming dependent on their technology and experience; I see little reason for China to behave differently in the long term.
Second, the apparent “slowdown” in China’s human space program may not be real. There is no way to know, but they may not need a high flight rate. The background human experience in spaceflight has allowed them to achieve an early Gemini level of operations in only two flights. Thus, a low flight rate alone means a deliberate careful program, but it may not mean anything else.
Third, it is clear that China intends a long-term, comprehensive challenge to the United States’ military, economic, and political leadership in the world. I have severe doubts they can pull it off — especially in the long-term — not least because they are not a democracy. But, as long as the United States and other nations continue a human space program, China is unlikely to completely abandon theirs.
Fourth. Historically, dictatorships rarely willingly retreat from a frontier or reverse an expansion into new territory. If China were to do so, it would be a very novel development.
— Donald
On the VSE/ESAS situation: it seems the main arguments are on the subject of “heavy lift”. Zubrin insists we need it ASAP, Tumlinson and friends want government development of a new HLV left off the table altogether. Have either of them noticed that the ESAS plan is essentially a compromise – by delaying HLV work until 2011, it gives plenty of time for the pros and cons to be clarified, and meanwhile NASA can continue to do the work it’s paid for while we argue?
If space advocates are going to do things together, they have to explicitly recognize that there are subjects on which individuals and organizations for now have to agree to disagree – government development of a heavy-lift vehicle obviously being one of them. Yes we can argue internally about these things, but if we don’t agree on something, let’s air those disagreements among ourselves in private at least! Does that mean we can’t work together on the things we agree on? I’m very disappointed in the Space Frontier Foundation’s withdrawal from the SEA, and only hope that there was at least some hefty behind-the-scenes efforts to hash out these problems that went beyond the routine stuff in their press release – I can’t claim to know any of the background details, but what I saw of us working together has been very positive, and this is a depressing development.
I don’t buy Dwayne Day’s arguments on China either – they’re launching at a pretty respectable pace given evolving designs. And how anybody can extrapolate from two flights to deduce a trend is beyond me!
Arthur, I agree with you one-hundred percent. I think there are flaws in the current implementation of the VSE — some of which are likely to prove politically fatal — but as the only relatively realistic game in town, it’s the game I’m playing in.
— Donald
I don’t think that Dwayne Day was all that bad at reading Chinese tea leaves. He says, “the international and domestic prestige that can be derived from space achievements can best be understood as a series of ratchets on a downward slope.” That is a fundamental point about human spaceflight. It is less true of robotic spaceflight, because it is actually practical in various ways and not just a series of stunts.
On the other hand, I think that Jeff Foust is missing something when he says that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita “have left the federal government with a repair tab that could exceed $200 billion, raising questions regarding whether other government programs, including NASA’s, could be raided to pay the bill.” Katrina is easily the most expensive natural disaster in American history, but it will never be expensive as the war in Iraq. More than $200 billion has already been appropriated for the war in Iraq, and it will continue to cost $5 billion per month for the forseeable future.
Well, Greg, I guess that addresses our fundamental disagreement about the usefulness of human spaceflight. I believe — and the Russians clearly do and the Chinese may — that human spaceflight will actually be far more useful than automated spaceflight. It is a lot more expensive at the moment, and a lot less mature, but the long-term potential is far higher. You and other scientists may be right that all prior human experience is wrong when it comes to exploring the Solar System. but I doubt it.
If the Chinese find practical applications for human spaceflight beyond prestege and “stunts” — for example, if they decide to do detailed scientific exploration of Earth’s moon, or compete with the Russians on tourist flights — then you and Dwayne will be proven wrong.
— Donald
Donald: Again, the dividing line here is between the forseeable and the unforseeable future. Human spaceflight could be practical, but not in the forseeable future. (Thrill rides are a partial exception.) And you’re just not right about all prior human experience. The Himalayas aren’t useful above 20,000 feet. After all these years, no one can think of a use for them, other than thrill trips.
Isn’t it just common sense, that you should live in the present?
Greg: Human spaceflight could be practical, but not in the foreseeable future.
Maybe I should live in the present (but see below), but maybe you should live in the real world. Human spaceflight is eminently practical — as no less than three (and-a-half, if you include Europe) nations are busily demonstrating. Now, it may be too expensive, it may not be sufficiently useful at the moment, but it _is_ quite practical, right now, today.
(Thrill rides are a partial exception.)
Why are these any kind of exception? The Russians are prepared, and certainly able, to offer rides around the moon. People have paid to go into orbit. People have put significant down payments for suborbital rides. This is an early and tentative, but quite real, business. If people are making money at it, or even have a realistic prospect of doing so in the foreseeable future, by any reasonable definition it is “practical.” (I just looked up the word in my trusty OED. I would suggest that you do the same.)
And you’re just not right about all prior human experience. The Himalayas aren’t useful above 20,000 feet. After all these years, no one can think of a use for them, other than thrill trips.
Hmmm, what about all those telescopes on top of stato-volcanos tended (wait for it) not by robots but by real breathing human beings? The particular altitude and range you have chosen may not yet have been used for anything, but plenty of stratospheric mountains are. But, all right, I stand corrected: most prior human experience.
Isn’t it just common sense, that you should live in the present?
If everyone lived in the present, than there would be no future. I do not anticipate living on Titan, or even Mars, but it is “just common sense” to lay the groundwork for it today. Realistically, the journey to the stars will take thousands of years, and possibly tens of thousands of years, but it will never happen at all if we “live in the present.”
Traveling to the stars is, indeed, not practical today. Nor, is traveling to Saturn. Traveling to the moon — and soon to Mars, and the asteroids not too far after — is. Therefore we should do latter as part of our learning and practice to achieve the former.
If you stay at home until the ultimate destination is “practical,” you go nowhere, ever, and we would still be a hand-full of endangered tribes living in dry river valleys in Africa.
— Donald
Spending 0.35 percent of the federal budget on human spaceflight (I’m guessing that about half of NASA’s budget is human spaceflight related, close enough for this discussion anyway) is very practical given the future benefits that will be derived. If only minimal insights into human physiology are derived from human spaceflight the effort is worth 0.35 percent. But the payoff promises to be much more than just in the arena of human physiology, for those who are far sighted enough to see.
If only minimal insights into human physiology are derived from human spaceflight the effort is worth 0.35 percent.
The entire NIH budget in 2005 was $28.6 B; considering the small fraction of grant proposals that are funded there, adding 0.35% of the federal budget to that would provide more than ‘minimal insights’.
Spending 0.35 percent of the federal budget on human spaceflight (I’m guessing that about half of NASA’s budget is human spaceflight related, close enough for this discussion anyway) is very practical given the future benefits that will be derived.
That might be true in some theoretical sense (i.e., there could be some ways of spending that money toward that goal that would have value commensurate with the expenditure), but given the real-world way that NASA actually spends it, it’s an almost utter waste.
On the VSE/ESAS situation: it seems the main arguments are on the subject of “heavy lift”. Zubrin insists we need it ASAP, Tumlinson and friends want government development of a new HLV left off the table altogether. Have either of them noticed that the ESAS plan is essentially a compromise – by delaying HLV work until 2011 …
Once again, the HLV question breaks down into two questions:
(1) Is a Heavy Lift Vehicle, defined as a launch system that can lift 100 tons or more to low Earth orbit, needed for a return to the Moon? If not, why can’t HLV work and HLV spending wait a while so as to speed up manned return to the Moon?
My opinion is, HLV can wait.
By the way, spending on NASA’s proposed HLV would start, I think, in FY 2007, if NASA gets Congress to approve their budget.
(2) Is the proposed HLV built with Solid Rocket Boosters, Space Shuttle Main Engines, and those lovely Michoud propellant tanks the right plan?
Or should we retire the Shuttle components, and try to save money by having both NASA and the DOD use the same family of EELV’s, provided that said EELV’s have an HLV version as a future growth option? Or go with some new launch system design for NASA, DOD, and NRO?
My opinion is, build a new missile with SSME’s if and only if the missile will be recovered and the engines re-used. Otherwise, if the rocket is to be single shot disposable, go with Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles.
NASA also needs to find a little money to work on newer propulsion systems, including scramjets, scramjets integrated with turbojet engines, aerospike engines, and fission/thermal engines. We’ll probably need fission/thermal for round trips to Mars or the asteroids.
The lunatic but lunaphobe Dr. Zubrin and the rest do American space efforts more harm than good. What he really wants is to skip returning to the Moon and go directly to Mars … as if that were either a good idea or practical. It’s not.
.
Dietz: “The entire NIH budget in 2005 was $28.6 B; considering the small fraction of grant proposals that are funded there, adding 0.35% of the federal budget to that would provide more than ‘minimal insights’.”
Oh so throwing more money at NIH will solve the worlds ills? The same tired old “we should spend NASA money on the poor, homeless, illiterate etc.” argument. Same argument was made in 1973 when we abandoned the Moon, and guess what we still have “poor, homeless and illiterates”.
Oh so throwing more money at NIH will solve the worlds ills?
I didn’t say that. Thank you oh so much for the misrepresentation, Mr. Trotter.
What I said was that it would produce more than ‘minimal insight’. It would certainly produce much more biological and medical knowledge than manned spaceflight would — and that is all that is needed to scuttle your argument.
And what I said in my original statement was that IF only minimal insights into human physiology were derived from human spaceflight it would be worth the 0.35 of federal budget cost, and then I added that is not the case since there promise to be other payoffs for those who are far sighted enough to see them, obviously you are not among that number.
IF only minimal insights into human physiology were derived from human spaceflight it would be worth the 0.35 of federal budget cost
And I was explaining why this is obviously wrong — unless you prefer the government achieve goals in grossly non-optimal and expensive ways.
The biomedical research argument is a transparent rationalization for something you want to do for some other reason. It fails, by itself, to be a justification for the policy you advocate.
Quoting from famous space journalist Jeff Foust in spacereview.com:
… “Economically-sustainable transportation” doesn’t mean a heavy-lift launch vehicle like that proposed under ESAS and endorsed by Zubrin, however. Henry Vanderbilt, executive director of the Space Access Society, prefers using smaller vehicles and assembling components in orbit. “Sooner or later, your missions are going to outgrow any one particular vehicle,” he said. “You going to have to start putting things together at some point; you might as well do it from the start and get good at it.” He added that a shuttle-derived heavy-lift launcher “brings some baggage with it” in the form of the “standing army” of technicians that will likely be required to support it.
Henry Vanderbilt is right.
…. Zubrin, though, rejected that argument, saying that multiple-launch scenarios won’t work because of the need to tightly schedule several launches without delays to avoid, in one example, cryogenic propellant placed in orbit by one launch boiling off before it can be used. (This point led to some contentious exchanges between Zubrin and several audience members, unconvinced of Zubrin’s claims, during a question-and-answer session after Zubrin and Tumlinson spoke.) Zubrin also places a lower priority on economic viability over the settlement of Mars. “To succeed in the long term it must be economically sustainable, but that does not mean these things are done for economic reasons. …”
Zubrin is wrong. Why he gets treated as a bigwig space authority puzzles me.
Saying Vanderbilt is right and Zubrin is wrong is a bit simplistic. Vanderbilt is right that we will need to “put things together” in space, he is wrong to suggest we don’t know how to do so already (to some degree at least). ISS has been and will continue to be (maybe) assembled using the “put things together” in space method.
Zubrin is right to point out there are concerns with this method. He is wrong to suggest that many of these concerns can’t be dealt with, as they can be to some degree depending on the mission at hand.
The real issue is what size building blocks do we want to be able to utilize when putting things together in space? If you’re just going to the moon for “flags and footprints”, or if you’re building a space station and you don’t mind taking years to complete it 20-25 ton building blocks will suffice. If you want to do more on the moon than just flags and footprints and if your want to go to Mars with a 500 ton complex, you need larger building blocks. A quarter ton pickup is ok for hauling material for residential home construction, but if you’re building a 100,000 square foot office building you need something bigger.
Paul: It would certainly produce much more biological and medical knowledge than manned spaceflight would.
I’m not prepared to argue that you are definitively wrong here, but I do think you’re awfully confident about that. Did the Beagle other the other 17th and 18th Century voyages of exploration provide no biological knowledge? I think it was the interaction of ideas produced by physical exploration — not just local discoveries but the solutions that were developed to keep people alive for long periods at sea — working in combination with experiments back home in Europe that created the revolutions in biological and medical knowledge of the time. To do the most effective research in any field, you need new ideas — which come from the frontier — combined with science back home. You can make limited progress doing either one alone, but you make the best progress, with the most efficiency, when doing both at once. Look at how weather prediction has benefited from the reconnaissance of other planet’s atmospheres.
If we find life on Mars, or under Europea or the asteroid Ceris (don’t laugh, recent discoveries make that quite possible), that will do far, far more to revolutionize our understanding of biology than would even an infinite NIH budget.
— Donald
Did the Beagle other the other 17th and 18th Century voyages of exploration provide no biological knowledge?
Those voyages occured in an active biosphere. Moreover, laboratory biology was primitive; the science was still in the ‘stamp collecting’ phase.
Today, with the rapidly exponentiating explosion of genomic and other molecular data (and rapidly declining cost of obtaining that data), biology is in the wonderful position of having more avenues to explore in the lab than can be funded. Throw money at the field and you’ll get interesting discoveries.
Cecil, Have you ever thought about the practical problems of delivering 100-plus ton “building blocks” to the Moon’s surface?
If one wants to send a payload of 125 metric tons or so from Earth orbit to lunar orbit, one will need a third stage/departure stage with a propellant tank, probably cryogenic, about the size of a Shuttle External Tank. Don’t believe me? Here, specify the payload mass and the propellants you wish to use, and I’ll calculate the quantity of propellant needed.
Inserting such a big third stage/departure stage into LEO would probably require an HLV launch of its own.
Next, we inquire as to whether these 100-plus ton building blocks are to be lowered to the Moon’s surface intact. If “yes” is the answer, then we must build quite a large lunar lander.
If “No” is the answer, then we must have the functional equivalent of a space tug available in lunar orbit.
And let’s not forget to ask what we’re going to do on the Moon that requires discrete “building blocks” of one hundred metric tons or more. Please tell us what necessary lunar exploration item will have that much mass?
No, using existing EELV’s for the lunar work would not limit us to teensy weensy building blocks. The heaviest version of the Delta IV which has been launched so far is advertised as having the capability to put approximately 50,000 pounds mass into LEO. I submit that lunar building blocks that big might suffice.
In either the HLV launcher case or the EELV case, the limiting factor is how big is it practical or desirable to build a lunar lander. Your HLV is not all that useful for lunar expeditions if its 100-plus ton building blocks must be subdivided in lunar orbit before being taken down to the Moon’s surface.
… but if you’re building a 100,000 square foot office building you need something bigger.
Is that to house NASA’s lunar branch of its EEO compliance office?
Paul: Throw money at the field and you’ll get interesting discoveries.
That, of course, is true of almost any field. However, I still believe that it would be a mistake of historical proportions to abandon the relatively little we spend on physical exploration in order to exclusively pursue the scientific equivalent of navel gazing.
Donald
David, I think you make a good point about the benefits of smaller modules. They are more flexible, you lose less when you lose one, they are cheaper to transport. I would add that there are long-term benefits to learning how to make do with less. I suspect that building spacecraft is much like anything else: you’ll fill whatever space is available. If you keep the space small, and pack accordingly, exploration becomes logistically easier, not harder.
I recognize that there are arguments to be made in both directions, but even if it were politically wise, it is not automatically clear to me that building an HLV for lunar exploration is the logistical way to go.
— Donald
Donald: that may very well be, but it would be very hard to make the case that you’d get more biomedical knowledge from space spending at this point.
And what’s wrong with ‘navel gazing’, if that’s where the richest lode of scientific ore currently lies? The impact of complete understanding of human biology (including human neurobiology) on the human condition would be difficult to overstate.
This ties back to my contention of some months back that advances on Earth are making advances in space more and more irrelevant. The action is down here.
BTW, we don’t spend ‘relatively little on physical exploration’, if you compare it to the amount spent by the government on biological and medical research. NASA’s budget is more than half that of the NIH’s.
Paul: And what’s wrong with ‘navel gazing’, if that’s where the richest lode of scientific ore currently lies?
I totally and completely disagree and reject the entire world view implicit in your argument. It is similar to Greg’s and my earlier debate about physics.
You cannot and must not assume that you can “figure everything out” yourself without hard, physical evidence. The history of science is repleat with examples of going down the wrong road.
What you are ignoring is that we have some understanding of _one_ planet and the life on it — and that’s a very limited understanding. In this case, we are trying to explain life while observing one example of it from one point source. The whole idea that you can do that is rediculous on its face.
You _must_ explore and try and find other examples and see what things are actually like elsewhere, outside of the “special conditions” found on Earth. If we don’t do that, we are only playing in our local sand box and pretending we understand the continent; we are not really learning anything.
— Donald
Davenport: “Cecil, Have you ever thought about the practical problems of delivering 100-plus ton “building blocks” to the Moon’s surface?”
I never said anything about delivering 100 tons to the lunar surface. But the fact remains that a vehicle that can lift 100 tons to LEO will also deliver more to the Moon than will a vehicle that can lift only 20 tons to LEO. If 4 flights of a 100 ton to LEO HLV vehicle are required to get your 100 tons to the lunar surface, 20 flights of a 20 ton to LEO vehicle would be required to do the same.
Donald: “I think you make a good point about the benefits of smaller modules. They are more flexible, you lose less when you lose one, they are cheaper to transport.”
By that reasoning we should do away with 18-wheeler tractor-trailers and haul everything with pickup trucks. But seriously, there is an optimal size for launch capacity. I just think it is closer to 100 tons whereas you think it is closer to 20.
You cannot and must not assume that you can “figure everything out” yourself without hard, physical evidence.
Evidence from terrestrial bio labs is hard, physical evidence. It’s not evidence about (say) life on Europa, granted, but I’ll argue it’s both much easier to get and much more relevant to the human condition. Remember, this subthread started with a claim about medical payoffs.
The idea that we must explore off the Earth to find that exotic life is also not well grounded. Almost all species of life on Earth are still undiscovered. Bizarre new species are discovered constantly, often in environments where life wasn’t known to exist. If finding new species is so important, do it here — that mine is also nowhere near played out, and it’s a lot cheaper than going to Jupiter.
If 4 flights of a 100 ton to LEO HLV vehicle are required to get your 100 tons to the lunar surface, 20 flights of a 20 ton to LEO vehicle would be required to do the same.
So, you want to unload another ISS on the Moon?
Cecil, why do you think that a smaller number, n, of very heavy large launches would be cheaper than four or five n smaller launches?
Smaller launches might be cheaper than 1/5 as many large launches. Why? (a) the smaller launch missiles already exist, (b) human workers on the ground building the smaller missiles might use their time more rationally and productively, and (c) the third stage/departure stage and space tug would be cheaper. In fact, a space tug might not be necessary to deliver somewhat smaller modules to the Moon.
You need to think about what would happen next after your 100+ ton payloads reach lunar orbit.
I’m not against building an HLV at some point in the future. However, I don’t think it’s the next spacecraft NASA needs. The next thing NASA needs is an umanned space tug to help finish the ISS. …. said space tug to alswo have other applications.
(Note, this space tug might also be operated by humans in a pilot-onboard-optional mode. )
Paul: Bizarre new species are discovered constantly, often in environments where life wasn’t known to exist.
Actually, you’ve made my own case for me. How much less rich, and complete and accurate, would our knowledge of life and biology be had these species not been discovered? How much less rich and complete and accurate will our knowledge of, say, biochemistry, be if we pretend that the only interesting stuff happens on our own personal back yard?
You are wrong, Paul. I cannot believe that a modern scientist is actually saying what you’ve written. It’s something I might expect from the Middle Ages, not from an educated individual in a supposedly enlightened culture.
— Donald
One other thought, Paul. You cannot understand life at home until you understand the true diversity that life is capable of — what you might call the “limits” of life — and that is information you cannot obtain without a cross section of all life, everywhere. The latter is unattainable, of course, but the closer you get the more complete your knowledge and the more likely your theories are to be correct.
Conversely, the more limited your knowledge and data (e.g., obtained from one planet), the less likely you are to have a good understanding and the more likely you are to be wrong in your assumptions and theories. Thus, the more limited the sources and data behind our knowledge, the more likely we are to be wrong.
Given this, it is far better to know a little bit about as broad as possible a sample of life than it is to have infinitely detailed knowledge of a limited sample.
These concepts are very basic to science. I fear that so many modern scientists, in so many disciplines, having forgotten them is very dangerous to the future success of science as a philosophy of knowledge and as an institution.
— Donald
Davenport: “So, you want to unload another ISS on the Moon?”
100 tons on the lunar surface was your number, I was simply demonstrating to you what it would require to get it there via two different methods.
Davenport: “Cecil, why do you think that a smaller number, n, of very heavy large launches would be cheaper than four or five n smaller launches?”
I didn’t say HLV would cheaper, nor would it necessarily be more expensive in the long run.
But what sort of launch rate would you require to launch, within a reasonable timeframe, a given payload via multiple launches rather than one-two HLV? Do you have enough launch pads to attain that rate? If not what will it cost to build more pads in order to sustain a desirable launch rate? How long a time period would be required to get your multi module payload launched and assembled? What would the political consequences be of waiting say a year in order to assemble one moon bound mission? How much of your payload capacity is used on each launch to lift docking clamps, rendezvous radars, communications equipment that are there solely to allow individual modules to find and attach to one another and thereafter have no useful purpose to the mission?
You cannot understand life at home until you understand the true diversity that life is capable of — what you might call the “limits” of life
Nonsense. We can completely understand the features of life on Earth by examining life on Earth. All the features of that life are exhibited right here.
Are you claiming there’s some feature of life on Earth that cannot be understood without examining life on Europa? If so, then if Europa is lifeless, you’re asserting there’s some feature of life on Earth we can’t understand at all.
Extending your logic, I propose we start a major research program into supernatural life. After all, we can’t understand horses unless we also understand unicorns.
I was disappointed that Keith Cowing refused to apologize for or correct his misrepresentation of Bob Zubrin and the Mars Society membership in relation to his take (http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2005/10/mars_society_le.html#more) on Jeff’s SpaceReview article. I am posting my initial e-mail to Keith as an open letter here.
— Original Message —
Subject: Your false and defamatory headline
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:06:40 -0700
From: Derek M Shannon
Organization: Mars Society of Greater Los Angeles
To: nasawatch@reston.com
Keith-
It’s really terrible that you would so grossly over-simplify a situation just to score points on some personal vendetta. Having attended the Space Frontier Foundation session in question and read the letter to Tad Stevens, it is clear that Bob’s position is entirely consistent, and it is you who abandons any hope of credibility. The second paragraph of the letter to Tad Stevens explains Bob’s comments at SFF about the shortcomings of the policy (delaying HLV until after 2011 and building the Stick instead) relative to the otherwise “sound” ESAS:
“While some aspects of the plan should be accelerated (such as development of a Shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle, which should be started immediately) or improved, the overall plan is sound and should be supported by Congress. With a modest increase in funding or early retirement of the Shuttle (before 2010), an accelerated version of this plan could allow humans to return to the Moon by 2012 and reach Mars by 2016.”
This is the exact same explanation Bob offered as the reason why the policy of delaying HLV until 2011 “sucks” at SFF–The ESAS (not the policy of delaying HLV) requires exactly Bob’s kind of support so that this suckage, which threatens the ability of ESAS to become reality, can be fixed. You suggest that supporters of the Vision must agree 100% with all details of the proposed engineering, a ludicrous proposition. You would have been better off working from a transcript of the session or the video (available from AcceleratingMedia) rather than the pull-quotes from SpaceReview. For that error alone, you owe Bob and his “organization’s membership” an apology.
:-Derek
Paul: I propose we start a major research program into supernatural life. After all, we can’t understand horses unless we also understand unicorns.
If that is the level of discourse, than I’ve no respect for you as a scientist and I will quit here.
— Donald
Cecil: there is an optimal size for launch capacity. I just think it is closer to 100 tons whereas you think it is closer to 20.
That’s not quite what I’m saying Cecil. I neither know nor care what the optimum size is (though, at this point in time, nor does anyone else). What I’m saying is that we can launch twenty tons now, and it is an essential minimum. One-hundred tons is “nice to have” but not critical to going back to the moon. Therefore, it should be pushed out until we actually are on the moon.
Then, if we still feel we need it (i.e., if we can’t build modules locally out of lunar-derived cement, glass, and regolith), we will have an immediate and visible justification for the project.
I still believe that if the VSE is to succeed politically, _anything_ not in the critical path; _any_ “nice to haves” must go, or we’ll never get there.
— Donald
With friends such as Zubrin and the other crackpots of the Planetary Society, NASA needs no more enemies.
…. Oh wait, isn’t at least one high-ranking NASA suit a Planetary Society cult members? Cue the ominous-sounding sound track …
Griffin appears to enjoy the support of many in the space business, and in politics (both Democrat and Republican). Many observers note his willingness to question old ways of doing things, and praise his emphasis on “small, smart spacecraft instead of big, expensive ones”, while deputy director of the SDI. Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, has said that “Mike is the right man, in the right place, at the right time.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Griffin
Planetary Society President, Wes Huntress said, “Mike is an excellent choice because of his passion for space exploration, his technical expertise and his long experience in space flight engineering. He resonates with the President’s new vision for space and will add a down-to-earth insistence on logic and realism.” Huntress served as NASA Associate Administrator from 1992 to 1998.
Dr. Griffin is a longtime friend of The Planetary Society, and the co-author of a Society-sponsored report on Extending Human Presence into the Solar System. Lori Garver, the Society’s Washington representative, attended the confirmation hearings and submitted the following report….
http://planetary.org/news/2005/nasa_griffin_031
105.html
Fratricide, please more fratricide.
Donald: “I neither know nor care what the optimum size is (though, at this point in time, nor does anyone else).”
Well someone very well should know, and you should care, as it is an essential part of going back to the moon in such a manner as to not make the mistakes we did with ISS.
I do not “know” the exact optimal LEO payload capacity that is needed to return to the moon in such a fashion (I don’t claim to have all the facts as some here do [not talking about you Donald]), but judging by history I think 100 ton to LEO is much closer to that optimal than 20 ton is.
Why do I think this? Well we’re are attempting to build a LEO space station using the 20 ton at a time method, it hasn’t worked out so well thus far.
On the other hand Apollo lofted over 100 ton to LEO, and it got the job done. And the Apollo Applications studies indicate that the Apollo infrastructure was capable of doing much more than just “flags and footprints”. A heavier cargo only “LM taxi” launched without a CSM and landed on the moon autonomously could have provided much longer lunar surface stays and even the establishment of a permanent manned presence on the moon.
My fear is that a 20 ton at a time method applied to a moon base will end up just like the ISS; years of delays with all energies being expended just to build and supply the base (ISS) rather than the base (ISS) actually accomplishing something.
Donald: “I still believe that if the VSE is to succeed politically….”
And as I have stated to you many times before, the most politically viable method of enacting the VSE is to use the current political clout behind STS; IE keep the SRB lines open, keep the ET factory busy as well as the SSME factory. And before anyone jumps me about my “wanting to maintain the STS army” that is not true. Doing away with the orbiter will cut the “STS army” numbers, and again politically those numbers can’t be cut overnight anyway. It must be done through retirement and other natural attrition to be politically palatable. The CEV, CEV launch vehicle and SDHLV can be operated with lower manpower than the current STS, but you can’t just flip a switch and make it happen.
“After all, we can’t understand horses unless we also understand unicorns.”
Paul, you’re caricaturing Donald’s point. It seems very likely that extraterrestrial life *would* improve understanding of which aspects of terrestrial life are inevitable and which are contingent on this planet’s features and history. So while it wouldn’t help us understand life on earth _per se_, it would change the *context* of the questions we ask about it.
Analogy: the surge of data on extra-solar planets has overturned a lot of what once seemed solid theory about how solar systems form and what kinds of planets are to be expected at what distance from a star. Turns out we had grossly over-generalized from a sample of one.
Cecil: You have a good point regarding the Shuttle army, but I still don’t think it’s politically or financially possible for both the Air Force and NASA to continue operating two sets of heavy launch vehicles. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and unless something gives the VSE will fail. Keep the Shuttle employees working on the Station and CEV; it’s better work anyway.
Well we’re are attempting to build a LEO space station using the 20 ton at a time method, it hasn’t worked out so well thus far.
How so? All of the problems we’ve had with the Space Station have been large launch vehicle related, and if it were being launched on smaller vehicles we probably wouldn’t be having these problems. The Station itself has proven remarkably resiliant and flexible, able to survive repeated logistical disasters created by the Shuttle and politics. It has proven very easy to repair when things fail. The small module size undoubtedly contributes to this success. If the Space Station were another Skylab, it would be far more difficult to maintain.
Monte: You make an outstanding point regarding planets and star systems. I would extend it a bit further. Before these observations, our star system was seen as typical and therefore Earth could be typical. Now, our star system may be common but it is certainly not typical, which means that we have learned something very important about our own planetary system and, by extension, our own planet.
The salient point, here, is that to my knowledge _nobody_ predicted this in advance. We could never have known it without looking. In science, you _must_ look first, at as many examples as possible, and only then can you draw your conclusions. Today, I fear there are far too many scientists drawing conclusions with precious little looking.
Paul’s hubris is wrong, stupid, and dangerous in just about every sense. He’s assuming that he is smart enough to separate the local special case from the wider situation and understand the local without its context, i.e., that he is smarter than the universe. If there is one lesson the history of science should teach us, it’s that anybody who does that will ultimately be proven unambiguously and comprehensively wrong.
— Donald
Donald: “I still don’t think it’s politically or financially possible for both the Air Force and NASA to continue operating two sets of heavy launch vehicles.”
And I think it is a military necessity for them to do so. We can’t “afford” to depend on one launch vehicle for national security reasons. Now if Falcon IX comes to pass, and I think it will, one of the EELV’s can die as far as I am concerned. But we need to have a backup plan for launching national security payloads.
Donald: “All of the problems we’ve had with the Space Station have been large launch vehicle related,”
You have a point, but the Shuttle is actually a large launch vehicle with only a medium launch vehicle payload capacity. But you also make my point; who is to say that there will be no launch vehicle related problems with your scenario of launching moon missions one piece at a time? In fact it is almost guaranteed that there will be. I just don’t believe such a mission plan could survive long with the possibility/probability that it could take six months to mount just one mission to the moon that is only the operational equivalent of Apollo 14 or Apollo 17 at best. I can just hear Senator Mondale re-incarnate saying “We did better than this in 1969! If this is the best we can do 40 years later we should stop wasting this money.”
Cecil: We can’t “afford” to depend on one launch vehicle for national security reasons.
But, do we need four, all funded by the government? This is precisely why I believe we should use the already-developed EELVs.
Also, it needn’t be an either-or decision. If we make a module sized for the EELVs, then we can get started with that. If we need the HLV later, we can “gang” the modules and launch multiple elements on the HLV to increase efficiency. It is obviously safer and more flexible and easier to maintain to have multiple modules on the moon, rather than trying to stuff everything into one or a few HLV-launched modules.
That way, the HLV does not need to be developed before you go to the moon, and you can develop a clean-sheet HLV once the cost of developing the lunar equipment has trailed off.
But, maintaining four government-supported launch vehicles — two EELVs and two Shuttle-derived — is insane, especially since you have to develop two of them.
Proposed compromise:
Keep one of the EELVs and launch the CEV on that. Develop only the Shuttle-derived HLV and launch lunar infrustructure on that. That halves both development and maintenance costs, freeing money for the actual VSE.
— Donald
Donald: “Keep one of the EELVs and launch the CEV on that. Develop only the Shuttle-derived HLV and launch lunar infrastructure on that. That halves both development and maintenance costs, freeing money for the actual VSE.”
I could actually support that, very easily. But it is not likely to happen. So I support the current ESAS since it is as you stated recently “the only game in town”. If they do for whatever reason decide to go with SDHLV / EELV I’ll support it.
And on that, Cecil, we’re in complete agreement.
— Donald