That said, we used to launch planetary probes on the Titan-IV, with which development the Air Force managed the true miracle of coming up with an expendable rocket that cost more to launch than the Space Shuttle. While no one is likely to develop it for this purpose, if the vehicle is available, it may well get used, particularly for space telescopes.

— Donald

As much as I like Dr. Porco and laud her team’s findings at Enceladus (now there’s an exciting space exploration target!), I found her editorial to be rather unrealistic when it comes to the cost, budget, and schedule issues that would be involved with the “superheavy” class of science missions she proposes to undertake using Ares V. The largest class of routine planetary missions currently fielded by NASA are the New Frontiers missions (currently New Horizons to Pluto and Juno to Jupiter) and they’re capped at $700 million (inclusive of launch costs). The cost of building and launching one Ares V is likely to be on that order (around $500 million), leaving little, if any, budget for the actual spacecraft, operations, and data analysis.

So to effectively take advantage of Ares V, we’re talking about something at least as big as the multi-billion dollar class of missions represented by Cassini and Galileo. Cassini came in at $3.3 billion total, and I just don’t see where the dollars for that kind of planetary mission are going to come from in the foreseeable science budget at NASA. Griffin has almost flat-lined the science budget, put space telescopes (e.g., SIM) that are a fraction of that cost on permanent hold, and is getting excoriated for spending too little on Earth science. Heck, he even killed JIMO early in his tenure, which was the perfect planetary mission to take advantage of a heavy lifter like Ares V.

Even if the post-Griffin budget pressures on planetary science lighten up next decade, the annual science budget will still be only a handful of billions of dollars and will still have to address a multiplicity of targets and disciplines. Just like during the 80s and early 90s, they will only be able to afford about one of these flagship-class missions each decade. And even then, the science community will wait to see Ares V actually flies towards the end of next decade before committing to develop such a mission. So what we’re really arguing about is one, maybe two at most, superheavy missions that might launch in the mid- to late-2020s and 2030s.

No thank you, Dr. Porco. I’d rather not wait for retirement before the first Europa or Enceladus orbiter or Titan airship to get back to those interesting astrobiology targets in the outer solar system. I think we’re much better off with a series of less capable but smaller (although probably slightly larger than New Frontiers, maybe $1B+) and more frequent (e.g., every 5-years) flagship missions. The Mars program has proven the sustainability of such an approach in the face of the loss of the 2001 Mars missions and more recent Griffin cuts. We need develop a similar approach for the outer moons.

My 2 cents… FWIW…

“In general, well said! It is generally rare to find a new poster who shares useful & valuable space policy/political analysis online. Most of space policy postings espouse opinions on subjects for which they have little knowledge or expertise, but I find myself nodding my head and thinkings “good point” when reading your postings. I am glad you are taking the time to share your “two cents”.”

Thanks for the kind words from Cantayella and Mr. Fansome. I would just point out that many of the same general points are made by other folks in these threads and elsewhere. I may have a minor gift for articulation, but I have a very limited number of original thoughts

For Cantellya, unfortunately, I have to remain anonymous due to my day job, so I probably won’t be starting a blog anytime soon. Even if I did, I probably don’t have the spare time to do a blog justice, and I find the give-and-take of these discussions more interesting in any event.

For Mr. Fansome, I tried to respond to a substantive question from him in the post directly above.

Again, thanks for the kind words.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/opinion/20porco.html?th&emc=th

If Dr. Griffin has any brains at all, he will take this as a peace offering from the scientific community (though in reality, of course, it is nothing of the kind), and respond vocally and positively to it, giving the political appearance of a re-united space community behind the VSE.

— Donald

My question is “HOW MUCH” of this failure — in your opinion — should be pinned on Ms. Dale as being a failure of leadership or salesmanship … and how much of it was that she was given something to sell that was fundamentally poorly designed from the start?”

Your point that ESAS is already a hard sell for Dale to make foreign partners is well-taken. ESAS has several things going against it:

1) NASA still has to launch the European and Japanese ISS modules. Until those modules are up, ESA and JAXA (and their political masters) will be reluctant to commit to the next cycle of human space flight development, whether it’s ESAS or something else.

2) Even if the ISS modules had recently gone up, ESA (and most member European space agencies), JAXA, and CSA have learned some hard lessons from their ISS and STS experiences. They are naturally going to be reluctant about a proposal that would once again make them reliant on another NASA human space transportation system. But by requiring that Constellation be an all-U.S. effort, Griffin has essentially dictated such to our potential foreign partners. This is why we see ESA talking to RSA about Soyuzes at Kourou and Kliper, and not with NASA about contributions to Orion, scarring Orion for Ariane, etc.

3) And even if potential foreign partners did not have a bad taste in their mouths from their ISS and STS experiences and were chomping at the bit to contribute to the lunar efforts, there’s not much for them to do for the next half-decade. NASA won’t start designing and building actual lunar elements in earnest until 2011 at the earliest (maybe 2012 with the latest budget crunch). Potential foreign partners are naturally going to wait and see if NASA actually embarks on the lunar return effort as currently planned (and if the next White House and Congress embark on the lunar return effort at all) before designing and building their own hardware to Ares V and LSAM specs. That only leaves Ares I/Orion to contribute to, and as mentioned above, Griffin has forbade foreign participation in those elements. So even interested foreign partners are left to twiddle their thumbs instead of helping lock in international agreements and foreign policy rationales that would help see the lunar return effort through the next U.S. political cycle.

So yes, you’re right that it’s hard to pin too much of this on Dale, who inherited a tough sell job thanks to ISS/STS history (#1 above) and Griffin’s poorly conceived international (really anti-international) strategy with regards to Constellation (#2 and #3 above).

That said, Griffin compounded the situation by putting a relatively young Deputy NASA Administrator with no foreign relations experience, only moderate political experience, and who has publicly admitted that she suffers from “shyness” in charge . Were I in Griffin’s position, I would have assigned the effort a much higher priority and sought out an experienced, confident diplomat (maybe even outside the agency) to lead the foreign politicking. NASA HQ’s international division may report up through Dale, but (no disrespect to Dale) she just doesn’t have the credentials, experience, or personality to lead foreign relations efforts.

As an aside, the way that Dale has gone about trying to secure foreign involvement has been rather amateurish at best and somewhat goofy at worst. Normally, informal talks take place out of the eye of the press, and depending on who evinces interest in what, discussions proceed to formal bilateral or multilateral talks. Unless the temperature of a particular proposal needs to be taken (with Congress or the public) before it goes final, nothing is usually rolled out publicly until the signing ceremony. Contrast that with the highly public conferences that Dale conducted over the past year — where potential foreign partners could not talk about contributions without tipping their hands to other partners, the press, or their political masters — and it’s little wonder that all that’s come out of Dale’s efforts are six mixed and uncompelling rationales for lunar development and a few “no duh” pronouncements about a lunar polar base.

Finally, I’d just add that there is an interesting “what could have been” in all this. Horowitz’s predecessor, Steidle, was looking at modelling CEV on either his own Joint-Strike Fighter experience, where Britain contributed dollars to a U.S. military development effort in exchange for a seat at the requirements table and some work, and/or using industry-to-industry agreements on CEV, where the best combination of U.S. and foreign components could be brought together. Had Griffin not axed Steidle and dictated an all-U.S. solution for the Constellation architecture, we might be well along to building the first international human space transportation vehicle and architecture. The devils are in the details and such an effort could easily have gotten bogged down in competing requirements and red tape. But such an effort would have provided a powerful foreign policy rationale to sustain the lunar return effort through the next U.S. political cycle and maybe even reduced U.S. costs on the LEO elements through foreign cost-sharing so more U.S. bucks could be spent earlier on actual exploration hardware.

Such are the vagaries of alternate histories…

Don.

I have no doubt that “something” is going to be done, federally, if for no other reason then to feed the hog…but the question is will there be any “large scale” ones…I think not for a bit.

I believe that this is a good thing.

The NASA culture needs completly “redoing” (and no I dont mean Lisa Nowak!although there is a problem there)…it needs to become more “lewis and clark”…ie doing projects which either make use of private infrastructure or push private enterprise to develop infrastructure that has value beyond the NASA/government program.

I would have more “empathy” for the REturn to the Moon, or the space station program or “anything” IF it used commercial infrastructure and did so in a way that was designed to “enhance it”.

Over the years I have become increasingly oppossed to doing projects whose sole “equipment’ procurement is for things which never see the light of private use.

For instance I dont know if it would have mattered but the shuttle program got badly off track in the 80’s when it was determined that NASA was going to remain the sole operator of the vehicles. I dont know if a private truly private company could have operated them “cheaper” or more versatilly (probably not) but just letting NASA do it, particularly after Challenger was the “end of the road”.

NASA is almost a “legacy” airline that refuses to come into this century in terms of its operation. The only difference is that tax dollars just keep flowing to keep it in business.

Robert

Either one or all of the various “big time” private efforts (Musk/Bigelow) to accomplish something very significant in the space business will have succeeded or failed.

FAilure is one thing. But if one or (gasp) both succeed then whoever takes the oath of office on Jan 20,2009 will have (eventually) space people who will at some point ask the “smart people” at NASA HQ and Nasa Parkway “why can they do these things and you cant?” before essentially pulling the plug on all the stuff that is going nowhere.

Hard to believe that if this happens in 2009, it will have taken 40 years for the agency to more or less “blow down” after its one high note.

Sort of a “Nowak moment”
Robert

DONALD: Al and Jon, regarding on-orbit assembly. The Russian’s have been doing this cheaply and relatively efficiently for years — read any good history of Mir. They’ve long understood the value of “quick and dirty and good enough.” We should hire some of their engineers. . . .

– Al

I think this very unlikely, simply because no one in either Congress or any likely administration will want to be responsible for a complete withdrawal from human spaceflight. That said, projects might get pretty small and incremental for a while. However, a slow build-up and infrastructure and capability (which can act as markets for commercial launch companies) probably is no bad thing. . . .

the first is that a space infrastructure develops which more or less makes development of such vehicles (or adaption of others to the use) cost effective…and there is some resource or activity on teh Moon which has a reasonable chance of paying its way.

That is exactly why we should have used the EELVs — somebody else had already paid for their development, using them would have amortized their support across more projects, and they could have been adapted for most of our initial requirements.

LetsGetReal: The good news is that the need for HL is not immediate. Development could be done at a more deliberate pace if started now, while the crew launch requirement could be met with Atlas V/Delta IV.

Strategically, this amounts to the same thing. Let’s get by with what we’ve got for now, and see what we need later on. I’m not so certain in the end we’ll need HL, no matter what the paper studies say. We are learning how to do construction and assembly with the Space Station — skills we will ultimately need whether we have HL or not — and it should be easier and cheaper the next time around, with second generation equipment. And there are safety advantages: even if we had lost a Space Station component on one of the Shuttle losses, it need not have meant the end of the project.

Al: Your have proposed that we go with a smaller Orion that fits on an EELV, particularly a single stick EELV (say the Atlas V 551, or the 552 if they paid for the upgrade to a 2-engine Centaur). I think this is politically sustainable. I can think of better, but this would be good enough.

But, as Anonymous has pointed out (and I agree), that is not in the political cards for at least the next two years, and by then Orion will be too far along in development to cheaply redesign. If I were at Boeing or LM, I would be figuring out how to adapt my respective EELV as cheaply as possible to launch the current Orion design. Then, when the next administration takes power and someone at NASA is trying to figure out how to go forward at less cost, I’d tout my new plan to Congress and the media. All that said, I still have to remind everyone that Dr. Griffin has met us part way with his decision to use the Delta-IV engines.

In hindsight, it is pretty easy to see that Griffin’s program is really designed to get him a big Mars spacecraft, and a Mars super-heavy lifter.

Dr. Griffin has stated this himself. I see no reason to doubt it!

What Griffin seemed to forget (or did not understand) was that those cathedrals were financed on the backs of the serfs (which is a softer version of slavery) and the millions who were “persuaded” to pay the church to build the cathedrals as a means to get either themselves or their loved ones out of purgatory.

The cathedrals, like the pyramids, were built by willing, albeit possibly “brainwashed,” labor — it is hard to call them “slaves.” But, maybe we should try the “Christian” approach to this: Do what we say and give us your money now, and you’ll live happily ever after once you’re dead. . . .

Ms. Dale took on a task that was pre-destined to fail.

Let us not forget that, while the outcome does look likely at this point, the VSE (and even ESAS) has not failed yet. Let’s not push it over the edge before it actually goes.

After they were dependent on the Shuttle, NASA then gave European payloads a secondary status.

And, remember the way they were screwed on Spacelab — where we dropped their product for Spacehab. They do. I don’t disagree with most of your analysis about Europe’s view of all this, but, as someone who reads and has written for many European publications, I would note that the VSE is having an impact in Europe. In many ways, they see it as a competitive threat. They are far more concerned about staying competitive in human spaceflight than they were — in fact, a group in the French Parliament just called for human rating the Ariane-V.

Al and Jon, regarding on-orbit assembly. The Russian’s have been doing this cheaply and relatively efficiently for years — read any good history of Mir. They’ve long understood the value of “quick and dirty and good enough.” We should hire some of their engineers. . . .

— Donald

~Jon