Today marks the second anniversary of President Bush’s speech at NASA Headquarters, where he formally unveiled the Vision for Space Exploration. This anniversary is a pretty quiet one: NASA administrator Mike Griffin issued a one-paragraph statement Thursday that praised the vision, but only in the most glittering of generalities. The Coalition for Space Exploration also issued a press release offering general praise and support for the vision. Beyond that, though, the anniversary has largely escaped media attention: the closest thing I could find today is an Orlando Sentinel editorial calling on the state of Florida to step up its efforts to attract the manufacturing and servicing work for the CEV. (Saturday is, however, typically the slowest news day of the week, particularly for newspapers; there might be more attention focused on the VSE tomorrow.)
On one hand, the lack of media attention might be construed as evidence that the Vision is not controversial enough to warrant attention. After all, it survived early struggles in Congress before eventually winning an endorsement in the form of full funding for the agency in FY05 and 06, as well as explicit backing in the recent NASA authorization bill. The Vision also survived a change in NASA leadership last year; albeit in a slightly different, more refined form.
On the other hand, one might argue that the lack of attention is a sign there’s not much to talk about regarding the VSE. The near-term centerpiece of the Vision, the CEV, is still in a nebulous state, with NASA months away from picking a final design and contractor. Many other elements of the Vision are still years down the road. Ironically, most of the media attention NASA will receive over the next few days will likely be from missions that are unrelated to, and predate, the VSE: the return of Stardust on Sunday and the launch of New Horizons on Tuesday. Remember that Stardust was developed and launched when Dan Goldin was NASA administrator!
Conventional wisdom among many observers had been that if the Vision survived the first year or two, it would be in good shape—it would have built up momentum and support that would carry it through. However, 2006 will still be an important year for the VSE: it appears that NASA may not get the healthy budget increases it received the last two years, based on reports about the administration’s FY07 proposal and the (at least partial) loss of influence once wielded by Rep. Tom DeLay, one of NASA’s most powerful benefactors on Capitol Hill. If there are more delays or other problems with the shuttle, it will doubtless feed the debate on how many more flights it should be performed, and if the shuttle should continue flying after 2010. It may be a stretch to conclude that 2006 will be the critical year that makes the difference in the long-term success (or failure) for the VSE, but it’s still far too soon to declare victory for the Vision just yet.
Of course it’s too early to declare victory for the VSE. And 2006 will not be any kind of critical year. At least, it wasn’t planned to be. The VSE was planned so that the 44th President would be left holding the bag. It is still sort-of on track for that to happen.
The Shuttle is still here, therefore VSE is in trouble.
If anything, support for VSE has gradually wained over the past two years as it’s agenda has been twisted together with maintaining the ISS and Shuttle.
I think people have come to realize that we can go anywhere we like in the solar system, so long as it starts with a number of Shuttle Missions and visits to ISS, and the rest does not progress past paper/Powerpoint and in extreme cases ProE.
1 paragraph? The expression that comes to mind is “damning with faint praise”. I’m sure it was not intentional though.
Kevin: You have it almost right. It’s absolutely true that you can go anywhere you want in the solar system, as long as it starts with shuttle flights and ISS servicing missions, and the rest is just on paper. It’s absolutely true that NASA is now run that way.
But it is not true that people have just now come to realize it. People in the White House realized it in 2003, when they first wrote the VSE. The fundamental misdirection is in the VSE speech itself. It’s now time to retire the space shuttle, Bush said, where “now” means the year 2010. It was advice to the 44th or 45th President all along.
Well, I’m not such a conspiracy theorist
I just think that NASA and the Exec Office have gradually been bent to the will of regional pork politics.
If the plan had really been to retire the Shuttle in 2010 NASA would have included it in their budget calculations. But the Shuttle’s still here and that wasn’t planned for in the budget, so VSE takes the bullet.
I don’t think they ever intended to end up this way but have drifted to this point because it’s so hard to oppose a congress who only give a damn about the space program because of the jobs it brings to their districts. Why let VSE destabilize the gravy train?
Kevin: I’m not claiming any kind of conspiracy other than, maybe, an open conspiracy. All you have to do is read the original VSE speech:
In 2010, the Space Shuttle — after nearly 30 years of duty — will be retired from service.
You argue that this 2010 date can’t be what Bush had in mind because it contradicts NASA’s budget projections. Well, politics doesn’t have to be logical.
I am certainly no fan of the current Administration, but I think we have to give them credit for at least beginning this process and chosing someone of the caliber of Michael Griffin to get the ball rolling. My biggest regret is that Griffin wasn’t there at the beginning — so much time/money was wasted in pointless effort. The Bush administration has certainly been discreet in their public support of the VSE, it almost never is mentioned by the President, but they have been there with internal support including limited funding increases — a very rare commodity for any non-defense program in this Administration. It is not the level of funding any of us would like to see, but it was enough to start things moving and keep it moving (although not very fast.) We shouldn’t waste any more time worrying about motives. Whatever the Administration’s motives behind launching this initiative, they took an important step for the future of this country — and probably of mankind as a whole — whether they knew it or not. Remember, Kennedy didn’t give a damn about space exploration when he kicked off the Moon program. His concern was the cold war. Space was just another front in that struggle as far as he was concerned.
It is pointless to just damn the realities of politics when it comes to NASA funding. Of course elected officials — member of Congress in particular — are concerned about existing jobs. It is the “bird in the hand….” phenomenon and it has very real consequences. However, they haven’t been nearly as restrictive on NASA “streamlining” its workforce as they might have been and they have given Griffin more flexibility than most senior administration officials are ever given in redesigning NASA. We can all wish we could start this program with a “clean sheet”, but that is not reality. Any NASA Administrator — and any Congress — is always going to have to face the hard issues of how to we get “there” from where we are now. And where we are at the moment is in the midst of an ISS and Shuttle program. It is not realistic to think we can just padlock those programs. The Administration, Griffin and the Congress seem to have set a reasonable course to transition from those programs to the VSE. Clearly, this goes on in the midst of wars, disasters, budget crises, etc. It always does. It is also clear that carrying on this initiative was always going to require the support of succeeding Presidents and Congresses. Even if the ISS and the Shuttle were to disappear today, we couldn’t be on the Moon before the next President — whoever he or she is — takes office. And that Preident will have to decide whether to stick with VSE or an agressive program of manned space exploration regardless of what it is called. If the President is a Democrat — I and others will push hard to see that we do keep going. However, regardless of what party the next President comes from, this is no sure thing.
If we really want this thing to succeed, the biggest contribution most of us could make is to stop this incessant complaining about every detail of NASA’s efforts to get this thing off the ground. The rockets aren’t big enough, or they are too big. The capsules aren’t big enough, or they are too big. The CEV is using methane, or its not using methane. We are going to the Moon, or we are going to Mars, or we aren’t going directly to Mars, or we aren’t going fast enough. My personal pet peve is that the VSE is the wrong color — white is so passe, a nice shade of mauve would be ideal… I am sure these are all important topics of conversation, but they completely miss the point. The overwhelming necessity is to plot a course (maybe not the “best” course, but a reasonable one), get moving and keep moving. Nothing succeeds like success is the overriding reality in any program and this applies times 10 to the space program. Getting the CEV (perfect or not) up and flying, getting humans out of the rut of endless and pointless LEO missions regardless of what kind of booster or fuel we use, setting a goal that will start to recapture the imagination of our people — this is and must be the overriding goal. Once we get out of the ditch, there will be plenty of time to fight over the size, shape, fuel and, of course, color of the next generation of manned space vehicles and where they should go.
“Clearly, this goes on in the midst of wars, disasters, budget crises, etc.”
Yes, and none of those curbed Shuttle or ISS one bit, so why will this minor detail called VSE succeed where all the above (simultaneously) have failed?
“If we really want this thing to succeed, the biggest contribution most of us could make is to stop this incessant complaining about every detail of NASA’s efforts to get this thing off the ground.”
To an extent I agree. I’ve bit my tongue for months until this thread. Saying nothing seems to achieve, well… nothing. Or as Mary Poppins said “you can have anything you want if you hold your breath”.
As you say, details are details. Deciding what we do on the Moon and how that gets us to Mars however is not a detail – it’s the critical driver of the transportation choices and research investments we make now.
Kevin: A little history — ISS and Shuttle were severly impacted by budget issues. The constant reworking of ISS, clearly budget driven. Shuttle was effected by budget limits from the beginning and the lack of a successor vehicle is principally due to budget pressures compounded by a lack of political leadership. VSE has a good chance if we don’t strangle it in its cradle. If we demand perfection you will wind up with a perfect zero.
My criticisms were not directed at you or the other people posting comments to this article or even the author of the article. Rather, I was addressing the Greek Chorus of complainers that has emerged in the last few months — each of whom has “The” way to do things but none of whom seem to be able to do anything on their own. If we don’t join together and support this effort — and shake out the details later once we have at least gotten back into space and preferably to the Moon — the lack of clear and decisive support for the only realistic option for manned exploration means that any chance of mounting an exploration effort will be sacrificed for decades. It really could fall to the Chineese, the Europeans or even the Indians before we get our get our sh– together to try again. I for one do not want that to happen.
The NASA architecture is modular from the get-go. There is plenty of room to fix and improve things as we go along. Indeed, I am sure that is what Griffin et al had in mind from the beginning. You have to start somewhere. We might as well start here.
While the Shuttle and station have stalled the VSE. NASA has really dropped the ball. Where is the visionary talk of what we can do on the Moon and the bennifits we will get from it. No where. Visionary talk doesn’t require lots of money and can be put far enough in the future that funding isn’t an issue.
But the real problem is much deeper there is no visionary thinking at NASA about what we can do on the Moon, they are treating it like a space station.
The new architecture calls for four people at a time camping on the Moon. That is too few to do anything interesting and garuntees that NASA will favor importation over lunar production of everything, so the facility will lead no where.
Also it is obvious from the architecture that they have failed to read some of the important lunar base literature and put in place the usual standards without thinking of the implications for long term lunar development.
I think they need to throw out everything they have done so far and really start from scratch because the current work is very flawed mainly because they haven’t started with a blank paper and an open mind.
Whatever it was that caused STS and ISS to take the path they took, the effects were lethal. Both programs are failures. If VSE is affected the same way — and I fully expect it will be, since the same pathological policy making process appears to be at work — it will also be a failure. Oh, there may be some new footprints on the moon in a couple of decades, but the only significant longterm consequence will be a slightly larger federal debt.
VSE’s problems are not due to criticism (hah!) or getting details wrong. The program, like STS, like ISS, is fundamentally misconceived, with root goals that do not lead to a useful outcome. Budget pressure does not by itself cause the rot; what it does is cause the planners to further optimize the plan to achieve the bad goals at the expense of what might have been useful side effects.
The lack of a successor vehicle to STS is because the original was justified with lies, and those lies will not work a second time.
Paul Dietz: They know that those lies won’t work again. That’s why they are trying different lies this time.
Bob is right! The VSE is flawed but it is the only vechical we have to stop going around in circles and start heading tword destinations.
Karen: What’s your plan — send people up a town at a time? Should we wait for the Starshp Enterprise or should we just beam them over? I don’t mean to be harsh, but lets get a grip on ourselves. Four people at a shot is plenty for the kind of initial science survey work they will need to do for several years on the Moon. As we learn more and spot suitable sites, they will be tons of time and opportunity to upgrade the whole range of vehicles — landers, CEVs, rovers, the works. The full cargo Lander can put a lot of stuff on the Moon — more than enough to begin to build a small permanent base, sustain it and keep it manned. As they learn more, we will become much smarter about the kind of vehicles, equipment and settlements we need to explore and settle the Moon and beyond.
Bob, I agree when you express the sentiment that VSE is all NASA has, and it’s better than nothing.
I do hope NASA are able to adapt and improve VSE architecture & hardware as they go along, but if ISS is any guide it will only be descoped, and if Shuttle is any guide there will be only painfully slow baby steps in evolving the hardware.
VSE may be all NASA’s got, but we’ve got much more than NASA.
I am looking past NASA to other more promising avenues of advancement in the alt.space, military and foreign sectors. Given all the other developments possible outside NASA, I expect ISS, Shuttle and VSE (what we know of it so far) to be on technology branches that die off.
Four People would be fine for the first few years if the plan was for more latter but it isn’t. After 8 years with four people at a time the plan ends.
I think small and permanent are mutually exclusive with moon bases. Permanent requires use of local resources and local food production which won’t be done for a handfull of people and probably can’t be done by a hand full of people.
I don’t agree that VSE the way it is being executed is better than nothing. The way it is going in 30 years we will have spent 100 billion dollars and be right where we are with ISS with the moon base. And all we will have to show for the effort is a few more more rocks.
What a waste. We could do it right for about the same amount of money. If we spent some time using what we already know to come up with a well planned first generation moon base. Instead of ignoring the existing lunar knowledge base, very little of which is at NASA, and using only NASA’s ideas about how to do space to build the first moon base.
Kevin: Thanks for your support. I think the VSE is the best we can expect for the near future. Certainly it will evolve, but I don’t think the ISS will be the path followed.
By making the system modular, and throw away, it is much easier to make incremental changes/improvements in future production elements rather than having to redesign the entire reusable vehicle as in the shuttle. Also, assuming we get to the Moon, what we discover there — water, sources of oxygen, other critical resources — are going to dramatically change the entire equation. For example, if there is water in significant amounts we can presumably produce not just drinking water (rather than sending it from Earth – a huge weight savings) but also make fuel. If we can make fuel there, we can refuel landers rather than throw them away — huge weight savings in fuel and materials that we can use for other things. If we can reuse and refuel landers and possibly orbiters on the Moon end, it is a short step to building a form of reusable orbital Moon “bus” that would ferry people and cargo from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit and would not need to be launched from earth and thrown away on every mission. Another huge opportunity to change what we send up on the HLV to materials that will extend our reach, not simply be thrown away. What we learn has the potential — in my view the likely hood — of changing our entire approach to exploring the Moon and the planets beyond.
Certainly NASA isn’t the only player and, like you, I have high hopes that others will make a serious commitment to move the ball forward. However, each of these has a long way to go before they come close to matching or exceeding NASA’s accomplishments. I like alt.space, but it is much more talk or press release exploration than real accomplishments. Even the sub-orbital component is, I think at least, very dubious as a long range money maker. Actually, I think their best chance — short term at least — is to start to move on the opportunities that Griffin has mentioned in terms of cargo, fuel, passengers to LEO for the station. If the shuttle gets its wings clipped, this could be a huge opportunity for them, but again there is nothing certain there yet.
Regarding the military, I have always hoped they would take an important initiative in the manned space area, but they seem to focus all of their money and effort on increasingly elaborate and disfunctional satellite programs and have ignored the manned component almost completely. Perhaps that will change, but with declining defense budgets I think they will be preoccupied protecting their pet weapons systems — not spending money on manned space.
The prospect that other countries will launch a serious manned space exploration effort is always an intriguing prospect. However, I think they may make their biggest contribution to space exploration by scaring the stuffing out of Congress and the White House about the prospect of “fill in the blank” powers dominating space while we sit on the ground twiddling our collective thumbs. Hey, that kind of clear thinking got us to the Moon, why not?
Frank Sietzen has a good article on the CEV in the new issue of Aerospace America. It explains the evolution from Admiral Steidle’s approach to the current ESAS approach. It is worth reading.
Thanks for the tip Dwayne. Its a good article.
The Sietzen Aerospace America article can be found here:
http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/AA_Jan06_SIE.pdf
Good article – I always enjoy reading Sietzen.
If they’d included crew size in their trade study a new launcher or two would have fallen off the “needed” list and Griffin could have gotten a much faster and cheaper CEV. Heck, they may even have been able to kick off ESAS while maintaining the other obligatory jobs programs.
When I evolve something in the lab I start with a cheap and quick version (an 80% solution). If it takes years of detailed design to get it right then I have doubts about its evolution potential. Unlike the other CEV competitors, T/space built a mock-up and started drop-testing it. But NASA chose another path, and it wasn’t evolutionary…
The VSE was planned so that the 44th President would be left holding the bag. It is still sort-of on track for that to happen.
Obviously, you’re right.
And just as obviously, Bubba ‘n’ Hillary Clinton sabotaged the X-33 program in order to make their successor in the White House look bad. Ummm-hmmm.
…
Karen, can you state any, y’know, reasons why four people on the Moon aren’t enough?
How many simultaneous lunar explorers are needed, in your analysis?
can you state any, y’know, reasons why four people on the Moon aren’t enough?
What exactly are these four people going to be doing on the moon?
If the purpose is to get experience and to develop infrastructure on the moon, with the goal of reducing the cost of operating there and providing logistical support for other space activities, then I think four is too few. They won’t be able to do significant mining or processing of ET material (and certainly not with anything except bench scale equipment); they won’t be able to maintain much more than their own living quarters. It’s going to be ISS all over again, except even more expensive.
If the purpose is to ‘explore’, then four is obviously inadequate. Could four people explore the Earth?
I’m in the middle. I’m amazed the VSE has survived as long as it has. But, two years in, no metal has been cut and it is already bogged down in the pointless redesigns that doomed the Space Station to financial irrelivance and that Karen would have us continue. If the current plan (however flawed) survives the coming change in Administrations, we might get somewhere. Otherwise, the whole project is already among the walking dead.