You are equating “human space exploration” with “NASA space exploration.”

> Although we could do a lot of other nice things if astronauts were on the surface, the key question driving lunar
> research right now is whether or not the Moon and Earth were once part of the same body.

If that’s true right now, it’s only because there are no humans on the Moon. Geological research is not driven solely by questions like whether the Moon and Earth were part of the same body. Some researchers look at questions like that, but a lot more are occupied with practical questions like where’s the best place to look for minerals, oil, or water, is this particular piece of ground safe to build a house, and when is the next earthquake going to occur. Selenology will evolve in the same direction.

> That we can answer with some (maybe even one) half-billion dollar robotic deep basin sample returns. Even if we
> did ten of those missions ($5 billion), they would represent only ten percent of a $50 billion human lunar return
> effort and only five percent of a $100 billion human lunar return program.

Yes, but how does it compare to Simon Worden’s proposal for a $1-billion human lunar landing prize, which would have additional benefits beyond scientific research?

> When we’re ready to ask more complex questions about Earth-Moon and solar system development that really
> benefit or require real-time interaction with a human brain, the costs of those human programs may become justifiable
> or even unavoidable. But before we can intelligently ask those more complex questions, we’ve got pin down a few
> of the basics — again, like whether the Earth and Moon evolved from the same body or separate bodies.

Why? If that argument is valid, then it should apply to the Earth as well as the Moon. Yet, geologists are able to ask (and sometimes answer) all kinds of questions about the Earth. The lack of definitive proof about whether the Earth and Moon evolved from the same body clearly isn’t holding them back. It shouldn’t hold back practical applied selenological exploration, either. It’s a question that will be answered in due course, but it’s hardly the key to everything that will be done on the Moon.

> And to do that, we’ve got to spend our limited resources wisely, and not cancel or defer critical path science
> missions for the sake of human space flight.

Should we shut down the airline industry, too? Your statement makes just as much sense if we substitute “air flight” for “space flight.” If you consider scientific research to be the only important human endeavour, then we ought to shut down all transportation systems, except for those needed to carry researchers on field trips. However, I don’t know a single scientist who would actually suggest we do that — on Earth. It’s bizarre, therefore, that many suggest we should do that in space.

> Same goes for Mars program. Again, we could do a lot of great things if astronauts could safely conduct
> Martian surface expeditions. But those expeditions are going to require a multi-hundred billion dollar
> effort, at a minimum.

*Some* manned Mars architectures would cost hundreds of billions, but that is not a minimum. It’s more like a maximum. (Or super-maximum, i.e., more than anyone’s willing to pay.)

There are architectures that could send humans to Mars for a few billion dollars right now, with existing expendable rockets like Proton, Atlas, and Delta. That’s still too high for anyone except NASA (which isn’t interested in low-cost approaches), but the development of reusable launch vehicles will bring that figure down.

> From a pure science point-of-view, it’s not clear that we should put those kinds of resources into this target,
> regardless whether those resources are spent on robotic or human missions.

From a pure science point-of-view, it’s clear that no one should. That’s irrelevant, however. When humans go to Mars, it will not be nearly as expensive as you suggest, nor will it be purely for scientific reasons.

> Is human space exploration a worthy pursuit, for both scientific and other goals? Sure. But can we justify it based
> on our current research frontiers? No. For now, additional or other goals are necessary to justify the expense of human
> space exploration.

Not all human exploration is scientific exploration. It isn’t. If you pick up a book like “Exploring San Francisco,” you will find that it includes things like science museums. However, a trip to a San Francisco is unlikely to result in many published scientific papers, and you will likely conclude that the scientific benefits of visiting San Francisco do not justify the cost of an airline ticket. Yet, you might still decide to visit San Francisco. If you do want to visit San Francisco, it is unlikely that you will settle for staying home and watching a television program about it (calling that “umanned exploration” of San Francisco).

> This is why robotic research is still so important to the future of human space exploration and why it’s so
> bad for the future of human space flight when key robotic research goals get deferred due to short-
> sighted budget cuts to fund ill-conceived human space flight programs.

Obviously, it’s a bad idea to cut anything in order to fund ill-conceived programs (of any sort). NASA’s unmanned space budget has not been cut, however. It has been increased, although at a slower rate than you would like. I only wish that Centennial Challenges were getting the kind of “cuts” you complain about.

Furthermore, the ill-conceived human space flight program now under weigh at NASA (ESAS) was architected by Mike Griffin (an unmanned space guy) and his colleagues at the Planetary Society (the unmanned space lobby). The Planetary Society, which foisted ESAS onto the nation, now complains that the unmanned science budget isn’t increasing as rapidly as they would like, but they have only themselves to blame.

> I doubt it. I don’t see how a single human mission, even a year-long one with long-range rovers, could return
> samples with the global coverage we could get from 20 or 30 robotic sample returns.

The last Apollo mission returned over 100 kilograms of samples. The last robotic Luna mission returned only 170 grams. To get the same return as Apollo 17, you would need over 500 Luna missions.

> In fact, given how risk-averse we are with astronaut lives and with the foreseeable mobility limits of suited astronauts,
> we’ll get more interesting samples on Mars or the Moon (exposed but deep or hard-to-reach geological layers, drilling
> at or near volatile deposits, subterranean areas with danger of overhead collapse, etc.) using expendable robots.

Until your robot gets stuck and there’s no one there to get it out. There’s a reason why NASA lands its Mars robots on the flat plans rather than more interesting areas like Valles Marineris.

As for the “risk-averse” charge, nonsense. You can find plenty of geologists who do things like cave diving, mountain climbing, etc. They won’t suddenly become cowards just because they’re on the Moon.

> I’d also note that after decades and trillions spent on Apollo, Soyuz, the various Soviet space stations, Shuttle, and
> now ISS, there don’t seem to be many such cost-saving inventions, practices, or other examples to point to in
> the history of human space flight and exploration so far.

Did you miss SpaceShip One??? It was in all the papers. Bigelow Aerospace? Falcon I?

> I’d be mildly surprised if she beats two Soyuzes cost-wise.

Ares doesn’t even beat the Shuttle. Yes, some people say they “disagree,” but the simple act of disagreement does nothing to undermine the facts and figures. It’s simply impossible employ the same number of workers, launch a smaller number of astronauts, and not have a higher cost-per-astronaut.

> The Ruskie labor advantage is just too great.

Yes, and not just in the sense people usually mean. Building a Proton takes less than half as many man-hours as an equivalent Atlas or Delta. The labor advantage is not just cheap labor rates.

There’s also the likelihood that private enterprise will have cheaper means of launching humans to orbit in the near future.

But, you are comparing the incremental costs of an automated mission to the total cost of a human mission. While it is true that is what we have to pay now, it is not what we had to pay to achieve the goal. A fair comparison of the scientific value of both compares the incremental cost of each, or the total cost of each. Alternatively, compare the cost of continuing Apollo with the costs of automated missions. In any of these cases, automated missions look a lot less attractive when measured by science per unit dollar than they do under the assumptions commonly made. While this argument may seem academic at this point in time, since most of the total cost of automated lunar missions is under the bridge, while (because of Nixon) we have to re-pay most of it for human missions, it is very important for where you invest your money for the long term scientific gain. Sure, we can get limited results quick-and-dirty today, but if we forgo the investment that can answer our real questions to get those, than we never get to where we can do real survey geology.

Your thirty small samples from point sources spread over Mars may be more valuable that a comprehensive survey of a single region, but only if you are lucky enough to get the correct samples. For example, if there are fossil organisms on Mars, the latter strategy has a chance of finding them; the former won’t.

Kert is quite correct that I have little direct knowledge of the details of technological development as it is done today. My background is archaeology, and I do know what finding a small unknown something buried in cubic kilometers of dirt requires, and automated landers aren’t going to do it — probably ever, and certainly not soon. Yet, if you want to prove that life ever existed on Mars — let alone study it — that is what you have to do.

I guess if you’re talking more generally about the invention of radio, rocketry, aerospace-grade metals, or logic circuits, sure, the timeline stretches back decades, even centuries

I was referring to rocketry with the intent to do spaceflight, though I would also accept the beginning of long-distance ballistic missile development in WW-II.

But I’d also note that after decades and trillions spent on Apollo, Soyuz, the various Soviet space stations, Shuttle, and now ISS, there don’t seem to be many such cost-saving inventions, practices, or other examples to point to in the history of human space flight and exploration so far.

Certainly, as measured by engineering lessons learned and scientific results, the costs of the Salyut / Mir project rapidly declined. It is my understanding the Soviets dedicated more-or-less constant funding to the space station program, yet compare the results of Mir to those of the first Salyuts, and you have a dramatic reduction of cost for measurable result.

Regarding Europa, It’s a bit of an aside to the discussion, but this is an interesting choice, for several reasons.

I don’t think its an aside at all. We won’t be sending human scientists into the radiation belts of Jupiter, possibly not ever and certainly not soon, yet they contain one of the most scientifically interesting bodies so far identified. We can send human scientists to Earth’s moon today. Therefore, spend your automated budget where you can’t send people in the foreseeable future; spend you human budget where you can.

in many of the most important cases, we have yet to find the facts that would necessitate and justify going to the next level programmatically (whether human or robotic) and budgetarily (often orders of magnitude increases in costs) to understand the context.

Regarding Mars, you are probably correct here and now. Regarding Earth’s moon, the Martian moons, and the nearest-Earth asteroids, I disagree with you (and, I admit, most of the rest of the space community). We have all the facts we need to send geologists back to the moon. If you haven’t done so, read Exploring the Moon: the Apollo expeditions by David M. Hartland, especially the section on Apollo-16. The largely forgotten experience of what astronauts actually achieved on the moon shows why they will answer a lot more questions per unit funding than continuing to send robots to answer a single question — especially the big ones like what and where the moon came from. Remember that, in the microenvironment on the surface, the regolith has been to a great extent homogenized by rain of impacts; you can’t just rush to a mare and grab a sample, you have to get the right sample. The experience in Apollo showed that was difficult even for an astronaut, let alone a robot.

— Donald

Other then a minor nit (it was Surveyor 1 not 3 that made the first US soft landing…typo?) I would concur in everything you say. I would add this.

“Exploration” in terms of the people who pay the bills works on a sliding scale…ie the more the cost of the exploration the more tangible the benefits should be to the people who are paying the bills.

When the total space budget for The Republic (for exploration crewed and uncrewed) is say (to pick a number) XX billion, it is probably not all that important that Y million be directly justifiable as having any realistic payback to the American people. But if it is AA or A billion where that number is some substantial part of the entire expenditure then there darn sure needs to be some geniune and logical thought out reason to do it….other then “rocks for scientist”.

It is not only that this makes a mockery of taxes and the concept of taxes, but it is that this consumes the amount of money spent on the endeavor by the “people” and that money should be programed to do “something else” where they get some payback for it.

This is the only way short of pork (which is what we have now) that the effort is sustainable.

Apollo was sustainable for only one reason, beating the Soviets in a political effort where the “payback” was really the PR effect of it. There were some “spins” that ahd some value (like comm satellites) but the evidence is clear that they probably would have branched out on their own.

Shuttle/Station/and now this nutty program have no real value. None other then some bad PR and rocks for scientist. Griffin as much has said so with his latest “gong”….”The Chinese are going”.

What would be “sustainable” and “worthwhile” if a single solitary human spaceflight program or side program of NASA met the airmail test…IE it created private infrastructure that could in theory evolve both in technology and application to perhaps one day stand on its own.

I dont know if Zero Gee can ever break even and then make some money and expand…but they never will as long as a substantial chunk of federal cash is going not to them, who could provide a service, but to sustain federal infrastructure.

Traditionally in the US companies and their technology/service development efforts have been “subsidized’ by federal expenditures buying a “private product/service” for federal use. Aa product or service that had some market potential outside of the government.

Not today. Today we just send the money directly to NASA and then it disburses it in companies doing things which have ZERO ability to deliver a product or service outside of NASA…

I dont care what we find on Mars. That money is badly spent.

Robert.

I would argue that we are not at the point yet where we can justify human space exploration on the basis of scientific return alone.

Although we could do a lot of other nice things if astronauts were on the surface, the key question driving lunar research right now is whether or not the Moon and Earth were once part of the same body. That we can answer with some (maybe even one) half-billion dollar robotic deep basin sample returns. Even if we did ten of those missions ($5 billion), they would represent only ten percent of a $50 billion human lunar return effort and only five percent of a $100 billion human lunar return program. When we’re ready to ask more complex questions about Earth-Moon and solar system development that really benefit or require real-time interaction with a human brain, the costs of those human programs may become justifiable or even unavoidable. But before we can intelligently ask those more complex questions, we’ve got pin down a few of the basics — again, like whether the Earth and Moon evolved from the same body or separate bodies. And to do that, we’ve got to spend our limited resources wisely, and not cancel or defer critical path science missions for the sake of human space flight.

Same goes for Mars program. Again, we could do a lot of great things if astronauts could safely conduct Martian surface expeditions. But those expeditions are going to require a multi-hundred billion dollar effort, at a minimum. From a pure science point-of-view, it’s not clear that we should put those kinds of resources into this target, regardless whether those resources are spent on robotic or human missions. Until we know for certain that Mars is as special as we hope it is (habitable environments, evidence of past life, etc.), we’re better off with a more measured robotic program. Once such a program strikes it rich at Mars (or Europa, Enceladus, etc.), the justification for an on-site human research presence will become self-evident and unavoidable. (Although, as an aside, if we do find evidence of life on one of these planets or moons, I don’t think we’ll want to send astronauts to their surfaces for a very long time, at least not without a one-way ticket. We’re probably looking at an orbital presence.)

Is human space exploration a worthy pursuit, for both scientific and other goals? Sure. But can we justify it based on our current research frontiers? No. For now, additional or other goals are necessary to justify the expense of human space exploration.

This is why robotic research is still so important to the future of human space exploration and why it’s so bad for the future of human space flight when key robotic research goals get deferred due to short-sighted budget cuts to fund ill-conceived human space flight programs. Until we’ve ticked off a few more of the key questions we have about these targets, the science community is not going to be in a position to advance to the kinds of Darwin/Beagle questions that necessitate an on-site human research presence.

“It is worth noting that huge investments were made in the technologies behind automated spacecraft, for many decades, before the first lunar probes left their pads.

Not sure I follow here. Pioneer 4 made the first U.S. lunar flyby in 1959, Ranger 4 made the first U.S. lunar impact in 1962, Lunar Orbiter 1 conducted the first U.S. lunar orbit in 1966, and Surveyor 3 made the first U.S. lunar landing in 1967 — all less than a decade after Vanguard 1, the first U.S. spacecraft, in 1958. The Soviet timeline from Sputnik to the various Luna and Zond successes is very similar.

I guess if you’re talking more generally about the invention of radio, rocketry, aerospace-grade metals, or logic circuits, sure, the timeline stretches back decades, even centuries — but only because those technologies had other, driving terrestrial applications (communications, ICBMs and other military rockets, aircraft, code-breaking, etc.). The same could be said of those technologies as they relate to human space flight and most human space flight-specific technologies, as well.

“If the Mars Exploration Orbiters are any guide, it’s more like twenty-five or thirty. Also, your one human Mars mission will also return samples, probably better selected from much deeper and wider a range,”

I doubt it. I don’t see how a single human mission, even a year-long one with long-range rovers, could return samples with the global coverage we could get from 20 or 30 robotic sample returns. In fact, given how risk-averse we are with astronaut lives and with the foreseeable mobility limits of suited astronauts, we’ll get more interesting samples on Mars or the Moon (exposed but deep or hard-to-reach geological layers, drilling at or near volatile deposits, subterranean areas with danger of overhead collapse, etc.) using expendable robots. Ideally, we’d mimic ocean exploration, where the human explorers stay safe but local on a surface ship while teleoperating low-cost and expendable submersibles at crushing depths inaccessible to divers.

“while also developing skills and technology that should lower the cost of subsequent missions.”

Theoretically and based on historical examples, I don’t disagree. But I’d also note that after decades and trillions spent on Apollo, Soyuz, the various Soviet space stations, Shuttle, and now ISS, there don’t seem to be many such cost-saving inventions, practices, or other examples to point to in the history of human space flight and exploration so far. I think we have a lot of engineering and testing and just general technology development yet to do on Earth before we’re far enough up the learning curve that a human base on the Moon or elsewhere can contribute significantly to lowering the cost of future human space activities.

“We should be spending our automated space budget on Europa, for example, not so much on Mars,”

It’s a bit of an aside to the discussion, but this is an interesting choice, for several reasons. I, for one, would like to hear your reasoning and other inputs.

“Last I heard it was “down” to maybe $500 million = 1/2 billion. Has this changed?”

Horowitz started pushing for a rethink of LREP about a year ago or so. That’s one of the reasons why there was a new guy brought to HQ and put in charge of LREP for ESMD. I don’t know what specific dollars numbers they got down to, but the marching orders from Horowitz were smaller, more frequent mission, ideally using a standardized lander.

“That’s the difference: finding a single fact versus understanding that fact. its context.”

Again, though, in many of the most important cases, we have yet to find the facts that would necessitate and justify going to the next level programmatically (whether human or robotic) and budgetarily (often orders of magnitude increases in costs) to understand the context. It’s not a question of losing the forest for the trees. It’s a question of putting the cart before the horse.

You could launch a prototype oxygen plant to the moon without a crew and watch it break down and have very little detailed knowledge of what went wrong.
I am suspecting you have no concept of instrumentation. Remote-controlled prototypes get laden with loads of sensors and backup systems to monitor its health and operational parameters. Sensors and data processing power cost next to nothing.

You could do this both ways, of course, but the first one is not automatically the best or most cost effective.
Wanna bet that one could go through dozens of iterations of lunar oxygen pilot plant for the cost of single NASA-operated manned moon landing ? It wouldnt be necessary of course, as a few iterations would probably be enough to have a decent plant operating.

Man in the loop is great for redesigning hardware if you can run a lathe, drill and have soldering iron with you. Not going to happen in any foreseeable future in any NASA-operated lunar base ( which i doubt that will happen anyway )

By the way. Having proven oxygen production capabilities, even with known problems _before_ you are going to put together your plans for a manned outpost completely changes the design equations for it. A reasonable planner would do this relatively low-cost but high-payoff test as early as possible in the process. And even if you dont follow through with your lunar plans, you have done something useful, something that NASA seems to keenly to avoid.

This is similar to the entreprenurial launch community’s “fly a little, learn a little.” You learn a lot more by flying than you do by studying, and the same applies on the Space Station and will apply on the moon. (Read also David Hartman’s timeline of Apollo astronaut activities, especially comparing Apollos 11-12 to Apollos 15-17. The lessons learned by actually flying resulted in extremely rapid innovation, both in the technologies deployed in the moon, and more importantly, in the development of skills and techniques based on real world lessons learned.)

You could launch a prototype oxygen plant to the moon without a crew and watch it break down and have very little detailed knowledge of what went wrong. Then, you can try again, starting over more-or-less from scratch. And again and again, at $500 million and up a pop. Or, you can wait until you’ve established your lunar base anyway, and learn on the job when there is somebody there to fix problems as they arise and provide input into the second generation system. You could do this both ways, of course, but the first one is not automatically the best or most cost effective.

At this point in time, we’ve demonstrated most of the techniques we need to start a rudimentary lunar base on Apollo, and we have most of the knowledge we need to survive and function on the lunar surface. We can learn the rest as we go.

— Donald

Although I would phrase it differently, I would agree with this. My point is, to do the latter, you have to start long before you can expect any results. The human space program is (partially) an investment in achieving that kind of science in the (admittedly probably distant) future. If you don’t make the investment, you’ll never be able to do it. It is worth noting that huge investments were made in the technologies behind automated spacecraft, for many decades, before the first lunar probes left their pads.

I would say that a theoretical $100 billion budget is better spent on 100 Mars sample return and associated robotic missions, distributing samples to hundreds or thousands of scientists around the globe, rather than on one human Mars mission with less than a handful of part-time scientists.

If the Mars Exploration Orbiters are any guide, it’s more like twenty-five or thirty. Also, your one human Mars mission will also return samples, probably better selected from much deeper and wider a range, while also developing skills and technology that should lower the cost of subsequent missions.

The only automated mission to the Moon? Or all of NASA?

The moon, of course. I full advocate continuing to send probes to places where we will not be sending astronauts anytime soon. We should be spending our automated space budget on Europa, for example, not so much on Mars, and certainly not on the moon.

Horowitz had pulled the LREP mission sizes back into sane budget territory.

Last I heard it was “down” to maybe $500 million = 1/2 billion. Has this changed?

Regarding being devisive, I do agree that Dr. Griffin should not have picked unnecessary fights with the scientific community, but when choices do have to be made, I think they should tend to favor human spaceflight as an investment in getting real answers to scientific questions — the kind of exploration the Beagle was able to do. Granted, we won’t be doing that anywhere but on the moon in our lifetimes, but if we don’t start the effort, we will never do it, and we will never know what any other planet is really like. I think the attitude apparent here and elsewhere that automated spaceflight can do anything but the most limited forms of science is dead wrong and does need to be contested, even though I fully recognize that my view is very much in the minority. You actually re-state my division yourself: There’s a huge difference between finding past or present life (Mars samples) and making a breakthrough in understanding the basic laws of evolutionary biology . That’s the difference: finding a single fact versus understanding that fact. its context. In this example, it is highly unlikely but just possible that your series of twenty-five or thirty automated landers could find that fact; understanding that fact will require permanent crews and infrastructure on site.

Kert: What if the first pilot does not work very well and needs improvements ?

That is precisely why it is better done with multiple crews on site, and enough equipment to tinker.

— Donald

It is worth reading through the laundry list of impacts to science, aeronautics, and non-Ares 1/Orion exploration programs in the House Science & Technology Committee’s NASA hearing charter:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23659

FWIW…