Having gotten Ares I/Orion built and servicing telescopes (and perhaps environment satellites – I can’t tell by the Av Week article), there’s nothing to preclude continuing down the current ESAS path or the asteroid path. We’d be in about the same position either way. It may seem like we’d be using too much money servicing telescopes to pull off the lunar ESAS part, but if Ares needs ISS support to keep the job program going, COTS will fail (IMHO) and Ares ISS support will be using up lots of money there instead. It could be a wash.

Of course we could also decide to go the asteroid route. That decision should be left to a later time when we’re at the point of actually working on the lunar or asteroid program.

We could also find out along the way that Ares I fails and we need to scrap ESAS altogether. At that point, we’ll be glad if we have a well-developed alternate plan in place.

All of this is just my opinion based on limited information from the Av Week article, the Space Review article Jeff pointed to above, and a quick skim of Farquhar’s big paper referenced in the Space Review article. I also listened to the Space Show interview of Dr. Farquhar on Dec. 26. In that interview, he discussed the Lagrangian point plan, and how it could lead to asteroids and Mars. He didn’t talk much about commercial involvement in the mission, which was surprising, since I’d have expected him to emphasize that aspect in a business-oriented forum like the Space Show. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how much commercial participation there really is in the plan, and whether or not the commercial participation is built firmly enough in the plan to overcome contractor politics. I’d personally rate commercial participation in a way that allows more useful commercial services unrelated to the NASA human missions to develop in the relatively near future as more important than the particular destination(s), so that will be a big factor in how I judge the plan.

Before Griffin and ESAS, the VSE’s goals involved more targets than the Moon, were substantially broader in nature, and made a more serious attempt to better tie exploration efforts to science needs. One could argue that this group is reasserting the original intent of the VSE.

“but not the unwise technological choices.”

Actually, what they’re doing is articulating an argument that says there are still scientifically desireably human exploration missions that NASA can execute (servicing of observatories at libration points, near-Earth asteroid rendezvous) on behalf of the next Administration even in the absence of lunar hardware (e.g., Altair/LSAM lander, Ares V heavy lift). Since it’s increasingly likely that all we’ll get out of the Griffin years and ESAS is an oversized Orion capsule, a broken and unflyable Ares I launcher, and no money for lunar elements in the next Administration, this is arguably a good exercise to go through. Fly Orion on EELVs, augment its capabilities at low-cost commercially (e.g., Bigelow habs and in-space fueling), and do what exploration missions we can.

I’d also note that the libration point architectures this group is advocating enable all-lunar access and often at better mass fractions than competing architectures. If, for example, a follow-on automated lander/rover mission to LRO confirms the existence of lunar polar ice in usable form, these kinds of architectures can accommodate a human lunar lander with little pain, if there’s a later decision to fund its development.

And who knows, maybe the Dawn mission will tell us that the best source of low-g ice is under the surface of the asteroid Ceres, not locked in the Moon’s poles…

FWIW…

If this refers to the story in AvWeek, unfortunately, it looks like they are “tossing” the VSE goal, but not the unwise technological choices. That said, I rather like the idea of going to an asteroid, since it may have many of the resources the moon has (oxygen) plus water and carbon, but also provides more of the experience and skills necessary for deep space exploration.

— Donald

Although there are claims that behind the curtains, STS life is already being stretched beyond 2010 september deadline .. Nevertheless, if everything continues on course throughout 2008, theres practically nothing that a next president can do to completely eliminate the “gap”.

Of course, these people need to be reminded that the “gap” only exists for orbital, government-run manned spaceflight in US. Other forms of spaceflight will still continue and likely expand throughout these years.

If you look at the primary calendar, you’ll see that the schedule is not lightening up. Tsunami Tuesday is just a week after Florida, and Republican candidates will have to decide just how many resources they want to devote to Florida versus all the other states the following week. Even if they do spend time in Florida, space is a minor issue outside the Space Coast.

Also, don’t forget that the Democrats are effectively bypassing Florida to censure the state for moving up its primary. In any case, they have to focus on South Carolina first: it’s a must-win now for Obama and especially Edwards after Nevada.

By FY10 (the next president’s first budget) it may be too late to bring IOC up to 2013 regardless of the extra money added.

“Increasing funding for COTS to make sure that a commercial alternative is available in 2011.”

Adding money in FY10 is probably too late to get anything online in 2011.

Face it: the gap makes for a nice issue that allows for some righteous indignation by the candidates, if they so choose, but there’s little they can do to actually shorten it. Those decision must be made, or should have been made, by the current president and Congress.