The implications of your comments is that space science is a sacrosanct entitlement that may never be sacrificed to larger national goals or needs.

I never said that at all Mr Robertson. I am simply clearly defining the weasel words used in this discussion. Deobfuscated, ‘A Brief Pause’ in effect means ‘Killing The Program’.

There may be legitimate reasons for discontinuing a poorly conceived or stalled science mission, or for reallocating funding to other areas. However, it must be understood by everyone when making these funding decisions that this means destroying decades of progress, and losing the expertise of highly specialized researchers forever. This is expertise that takes decades to be rebuilt, and should not be destroyed on a political whim.

And that’s fine. I would just caution that you’re espousing a viewpoint that’s representative of your particular science discipline’s current research frontier and methods. It may or may not align with the current research frontier and methods of other disciplines. As I’ve mentioned in other threads, many space science disciplines have a long way to go before they’re ready to ask the kinds of questions that a field archeologist with a pickax can help answer. And as I’ve mentioned in this thread, the cost differentials are so different in space science that it may not make sense for a very long time to come to send that archeologist over a robot or sample return mission, at least from the singular point-of-view of scientific return.

“Moreover, I disagree with the idea that one-hundred automated missions could possibly be worth more to science than even one extended stay by geologists.”

But mere “automated missions” was not the comparison I laid out. The comparison was a hundred (or dozens or whatever massive number of) automated _sample return_ missions. And those missions would put hundreds of samples into the hands and labs of thousands of geologists on Earth. I just see no way that a human space missions can compete with that kind of huge sample size and diversity, high-powered Earth-based lab instrumentation, and enormous number of human brains and eyeballs as long as human mission costs are an order or two higher than robotic mission costs.

“Can you prove the opposite? No.”

I dunno. I think anyone with a decent feel for the relative costs of robotic versus human missions ultimately comes to the same conclusion — that human space exploration cannot be justified on the basis of scientific return alone.

That doesn’t mean that NASA shouldn’t pursue human space exploration. But it does mean that other rationales are necessary to justify the cost of doing so.

“I did not mean a personal attack and I’m sorry that you appear to have taken it that way.”

No worries. But when someone assumes my thoughts and actions and claims that I’m “throwing up my hands” and that I think “everything is lost and ruined”, I have to push back a little and correct their assumptions.

“That said, I fully intend to stick with my position, because I think it is the correct one.”

Nothing wrong with that.

It’s frustrating, because such development is much harder for a for-profit entity than a publicly funded one. Space businesses developing technologies have to do it within the constraints of maintaining profitability all along the way, and bringing on sufficient funding at the same time. This part of the marketting-finance-engineering design space is really, really, tough. But I have some ideas for some of the technologies, and more important a way to make some money while developing them. But its going to be a long uphill slog unfortunately.

Which brings me back to the space politics side of things. One of the few legitimate justifications for having a large publicly funded aerospace program is to do that basic research that’s so tough for for-profit companies to do, so that the technologies are available for all, and everyone benefits. I wouldn’t call the difficulties of space technology development a market failure per se, but it is pretty close to one, and therefore is one of the more legitimate reasons for having a publicly funded space entity. “Exploration” and “Science” are also legitimate reasons, but doing them at the expense of not trying to improve the fundamental level of space technology/infrastructure seems extremely short sighted.

One of the common mistakes I hear for companies that fall on tough times is they fire off a lot of their sales and marketing staff. NASA’s recent abandonment of the space technology development field feels like stupidity on about that same level.

~Jon

For just one minute, forget NASA, forget New Space, forget politics, forget EELV vs Ares vs PowerPointTech, forget the sunk costs of past mistakes,

Something like the list of capabilties Jon Goff lays out is– and always was — prerequisite for any large, sustainable expansion of space activity. That, not “what does NASA do?” (or its subtext, “how can we reach our desired space thrill level?”), should be the starting point. There’s lots of room for speculation and debate about how. But one way or another, we simply have to break out of the Apollo-born cycle:

First define a cool fundable mission/project…

Then develop highly optimized mission-specific hardware to be manufactured and flown at levels so low it can’t possibly make economic sense…

Then wonder when the Great Space Boom is gonna happen.

Several people have said or implied in various ways “Let’s go for my goal, and infrastructure will take care of itself.” I’ve been waiting for Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Great Pumpkin to deliver on that for decades now, and it’s getting old.

Lets not forget Nasa is the only agency on Earth that has real useful experience with manned lunar outposts and bringing all the crews home safely. So maybe they know something about mass & mission requirements. Maybe they know something about how to enhance the new missions beyond the Apollo model. Maybe they can do what they say and give birth to new privately funded technology innovations that perform real work.

I agree with this part of the current strategy. You can always “do better” by investing in technology, but then you never actually do anything. I think we need to use existing or near-existing technology to establish reasons for developing new technology: the Space Station as a pull for COTS, a lunar base to encourage focused technology to reduce the cost of getting to the moon, and to reduce the costs of staying there by living off the land to the degree possible. Establish “facts on the ground” to pull technology development, rather than do what we’ve been doing, which is to push technology that has no defined existing purpose and never gets used.

The strategy of using existing launch vehicles and spacecraft technology to return to the moon is exactly the right one. Where we went wrong is to waste all our money developing an unneeded launch vehicle, instead of using the existing EELVs. Establish a lunar base, and create the political need to support it, and the technology to reduce the cost of doing that will take care of itself.

— Donald

~Jon

From the perspective of someone who understands the requirements of field work, I simply disagree with this. (I admit I had forgotton about the Antarctic robot; but note it “found” meteorites after somebody else had experienced finding them and told it in detail what to look for; likewise, that won’t happen on Mars in the absence of someone to find the truly unexpected.) Moreover, I disagree with the idea that one-hundred automated missions could possibly be worth more to science than even one extended stay by geologists.

Can I prove this? No (though, again, I point people to Mr. Harland’s book or another detailed survey of what Apollo actually accomplished for science). Can you prove the opposite? No. And, this argument is getting to angry and personal to go further; I did not mean a personal attack and I’m sorry that you appear to have taken it that way.

That said, I fully intend to stick with my position, because I think it is the correct one.

— Donald

I agree that this describes an attractive future infrastructure to traveling within the inner planets. If Bush had proposed something along these lines in 2004 he would have been mocked and hounded by Democrats (loyal opposition), anti-Nasa lobbyists and rebotics true believers. I think the odds of VSE(in those new cloths) being DOA in Congress would have exceeded 50%. Basically wouldn’t pass the laugh test. Wouldn’t pass the BattleStar Galatica epithet still ringing in his ears from his dad’s Mars proposal.

I think Griffin has this viewpoint. If the nation can’t spend around 20 billion on Nasa out of a 3 trillion dollar budget, then don’t bother with a lunar or Martian manned program and stick to the station and robotic exploration. Oh, buy towels to wave as Chinese, Indians, Russians(even), Japanese and Europeans blast off to the inner solar system. Don’t forget the airline tickets to their launch sites too(if Nasa can afford them).

To me, the fact that industry is beginning to stake a claim to LEO proves that Nasa, Bush and others were right to shift focus to more distant locales. Leave LEO to Bigelow, LMT, Virgin, SpaceX, and a growing tourist business.
If Nasa can’t execute due to poor engineering than we’ve squandered a once in 40 years chance. We’ll know soon enough.

“The infrastructure to enable extended human exploration at a later date is more valuable.”

The point I would like to make is that real infrastructure that actually enables real extended human exploration will benefit robotic missions as well as manned missions. But CEV, Ares I/V, EDS, and LSAM are not what I would call “real” infrastructure. They really don’t contribute that much to real exploration and development, and really don’t deserve much if any of our support. Quite frankly, I find it hard enough not to waste all my time actively opposing such a pathetic, wasteful, and underachieving approach. As one of my more eloquent friends recently put it: Apollo on Steroids: No Brains, No Balls.

Real infrastructure, that could benefit both manned and unmanned exploration would be things like propellant depots, orbital tugs, reusable cislunar/cismartian transportation (don’t laugh, it’s doable), aerobraking, ISRU, onorbit assembly/servicing of missions, low-cost manned habitats (ala Bigelow), lower cost space access, etc. As you lower the cost of sending off Martian missions, you can get more done for the same or less money. Some proper martian infrastructure might allow for much more robust ISRU (and mixed robotic/human expeditions).

But almost none of that has anything to do with NASA. NASA has more or less abandoned the field when it comes to research into space operations capabilities that might actually matter. It’s now pretty much left up to the commercial space world to find ways to connect those dots, and alas that is a *much* harder nut to crack.

But barriers to entry just makes your business plan more secure against me-toos…

~Jon