A day after members of the House Science and Technology Committee dug in their heels on any potential changes to NASA’s exploration program as proposed by the Augustine committee, NASA’s deputy administrator dropped a strong hint that changes of some kind would be coming to the agency soon. Speaking at the AIAA Space 2009 conference in Pasadena Wednesday, Lori Garver avoided any direct discussion of hot-button issues like the future of Constellation and NASA’s overall exploration plans. Instead, she spent much of the half-hour speech talking up interesting technologies and programs she had found at NASA since becoming deputy administrator nearly two months ago, from technologies to bring together and display various streams of Earth sciences data to a NASA Ames effort to convert algae into aviation biofuels. All this was tied into a message that NASA needs to help meet key national needs–and to better communicate what it does do to the public.
“Part of our challenge, of course, is to utilize our unique workforce, our missions, and our capabilities, to address critical national needs,” she said in the introductory portion of her speech, “and to communicate the importance of our mission to the public, making sure people know how space technology has become part of all of our lives.” A little later in the speech she added, “So our opportunity is to focus our missions to provide better value and to communicate that value in a way that shows off the relevance to everyday Americans.”
“To earn our trust from the taxpayers, we have to help create a better future, in my view, with programs that are aligned with both the short-term and the long-term national interests,” she said, “and then we have to better explain how we help those national interests with what we do and the value that we add with out missions.”
Later in the speech, after ticking off those examples of interesting programs that she felt did add value and served national interests, she noted the agency had to be willing to be evolve and be open to new ideas. “I know there are those who are skeptical that NASA can change in such a substantial way that we may be called upon to do,” she said. She noted, as a counterexample, how NASA evolved from competing against the Russians to cooperating with them on the ISS. “That was not something that was obvious,” she said, citing the “consternation” in the early 1990s within NASA about the idea of bringing Russia into the space station program. Today, “the Russian Federation is a key partner in providing transportation to and from the International Space Station.” She cited similar shifts in NASA thinking on flying astronauts on Soyuz spacecraft and even working with space tourists who visit there–something she had first-hand experience with her “AstroMom” effort to try and fly to the ISS earlier this decade.
“NASA rose to the challenge of the Cold War 40 years ago and many, many challenges since,” she concluded. “So now we will rise to meet in my view new challenges, such as those that impact our environment, energy, health, and the economy, and the future of space exploration.”
Sounds like Lori is laying the groundwork for civil servants to stop doing space stuff and start working on algae fuels, providing generic computer services, writing school lesson plans, etc.
What about those folks that would like to explore space? Where should they work?
Could she help people apply for jobs with Russian space companies? They will still be flying people into space, and will still be exploring.
I can’t help but feel Ms. Garver and others came into NASA as part of the new administration with a singular agenda — kill the exploration initiatives started by the previous administration.
Is she even working for the right agency? I think the EPA, DOE, HHS, and the White House can handle some of those issues she mentioned. NASA is about our future and our security in aeronautics and space exploration. I don’t see anything about those issues in the agency’s 1958 Space Act.
I fear we’re looking at the beginning of the end of NASA human spaceflight. KSC and JSC will become tourist stops, and we’ll watch the exploits of China, India and Russia on TV as those nations pioneer a new era of human space exploration.
Today, I’m sad to be a NASA employee.
“What about those folks that would like to explore space? Where should they work?”
If they want to work on civil human space exploration, they’ll have to wait until the Augustine Committee delivers its final report in a couple/few weeks, and the White House makes decisions on what it wants to do with NASA’s program. Garver can’t get in front of the President that she works for.
If they want to work on commercial human space flight or robotic exploration, there’s nothing holding back the relevant companies and organizations.
“Could she help people apply for jobs with Russian space companies? They will still be flying people into space…”
Not many without NASA or commercial dollars.
“… and will still be exploring.”
Beyond LEO? Highly unlikely given their budget constraints.
FWIW…
There’s $787B of stimulus money out there. We can’t fin $3B to continue on the exploration path? In November 2007, Obama released an education spending plan that delayed exploration by five years and cut $5B from NASA’s budget. That idea was quickly dropped when the backlash hit.
Since then, the president has cited the moon landings and used watching the Apollo achievements as reasons for America to strive for a better tomorrow.
But his people aren’t walking the talk. I fear we’re seeing the president’s true colors. As he indicated in November 2007, he simply doesn’t care about our nation’s future in space.
“NASA is about our future and our security in aeronautics and space exploration.”
Unless you count Earth-crossing asteroids or international cooperation, civil space exploration has very little to do with national security.
“I don’t see anything about those issues in the agency’s 1958 Space Act.”
Then you need to actually read the Space Act instead of pretending that you have. For example, the following paragraphs appear in Section 102:
“e) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the unique competence in scientific and engineering systems of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also be directed toward ground propulsion systems research and development. Such development shall be conducted so as to contribute to the objectives of developing energy- and petroleum-conserving ground propulsion systems, and of minimizing the environmental degradation caused by such systems.”
“(f) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the unique competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in science and engineering systems be directed to assisting in bioengineering research, development, and demonstration programs designed to alleviate and minimize the effects of disability.”
“I fear we’re looking at the beginning of the end of NASA human spaceflight.”
No one is talking about ending the civil human space flight program. It’s just a question of when that program expands beyond LEO, in what directions, and how rapidly.
“we’ll watch the exploits of China, India and Russia on TV as those nations pioneer a new era of human space exploration.”
China can’t dock two human spacecraft together, launches one human mission a year if they’re lucky, finally broke ground on a new EELV-class launch site after years of bickering, and is talking about maybe having a permanent station in LEO circa 2020. They’re not going anywhere fast.
Russia can’t afford to do anything more than send Soyuzes up and down to ISS for the foreseeable future.
India has no human space flight program at all, and can’t even pull off a simple robotic lunar satellite mission yet.
Get real.
“Today, I’m sad to be a NASA employee.”
Grow up. Your job is not an entitlement. You get paid to do what others can only dream of. Stop whining, appreciate what you have, and contribute where you can to make it better.
Ugh…
“There’s $787B of stimulus money out there.”
There’s not. Over $230 billion in on contract and over $90 billion has been spent to date. See:
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/report-progress
“We can’t fin $3B to continue on the exploration path?”
Congress would have to pass new legislation to redirect the remaining funding. Given the commitments that various congressmen have on that remaining funding, it’s highly unlikely that such legislation would pass.
“But his people aren’t walking the talk. I fear we’re seeing the president’s true colors.”
The White House has made no decisions on the civil human space flight program. They’re waiting on the final Augustine Committee report at the end of the month. So we won’t know anything for a few weeks at least, and if there’s no FY 2010 amendment to NASA’s budget this fall, we may not know anything until the President’s FY 2011 budget is rolled out early next February.
FWIW…
JSC_LIS
Today, I’m sad to be a NASA employee.”
OK I see Major Tom has already done the required deed…
but that aside. I am curious
why do you say this:
“KSC and JSC will become tourist stops, and we’ll watch the exploits of China, India and Russia on TV as those nations pioneer a new era of human space exploration.”
what data leads you to this conclusion? Or are these just the talking points handed out?
Robert G. Oler
“
I’ve said it before and will now. I imagine that before General Bolden took the job, he either cut some deal or saw where the drill was headed, agreed with it and said “keep me out of it”.
That way he can take over after the folks who came before him are cleared out.
Robert G. Oler
RichardW.As he indicated in November 2007, he simply doesn’t care about our nation’s future in space…
so you think a couple of NASA astronauts walking on (insert solar system body here) is our nations future in space?
thats a low bar
Robert G. Oler
One does wonder what Lori is getting at about “change.” I think some skepticism about hers and her boss’ agenda is in order, however. I certainly do not trust her to know what the nation’s real needs really are or what “better value” actually is.
Obama’s bone headed scrapping of missile defense in Eastern Europe is a clear indication that he is also quite capable of scrapping the exploration program. Whether he will or not and if so how he will (out right or by inches) remains to be seen. I do fear that Obama may well throw away yet another chance to expand to the stars.
Mark
“I certainly do not trust her to know what the nation’s real needs really are or what “better value†actually is. ”
nor would I but the good news is that we dont have to. Those decisions will be made at paygrades far above her’s.
Nor would I trust those who see challenges where there were none. who supported programs like VSE in 2004 when a blind man could have known that it was going nowhere, nor those who bought (and still do) into fears that are non existent and are the product of ignorance.
If The President scraps a stupid exploration program that is nothing but another example of cold war thinking of the last administration, he will have done a good lick.
BTW you have never answered…why do you think that the Chinese are going to the Moon?
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler
“If The President scraps a stupid exploration program that is nothing but another example of cold war thinking of the last administration, he will have done a good lick.”
Oler, John McCain would not have done that
I’m so pleased to see that Lori Garver is switched-on and on the ball with regard to what’s going to be required of NASA to stay in the game and potentially stay a leader of it as well!
So many people are blinkered in believing that ones involvement with Space directly translates into simply ‘Exploration’.
The next quarter of a century commencing 2018 +/- 2-3yrs are going to be the most progressive and development intensive period of Near Earth Environment Space Technology we’ll have ever seen.
Why people appear to not see that as one of the great explorative journeys of our time, I think, I’ll ‘never’ understand.
As long as the people in command Do, then I suppose that’s all that matters…
Mark…neither you nor I know what McCain would have done about the “vision”…
it is an example of an underperforming government program with no real goal or benefit to the American taxpayers…When you were chortling how great the “vision” would be on this board in 2004, I disagreed nothing exactly how it would turn out…and I was correct. The last administration was the first to start underfunding it, and yet the substantial funds spent during that administration (9-12 billion dollars) has produced little.
“Going back to the Moon” as a government program is an excellent example of the cold war thinking of the last administration. No matter if it was 9/11 or the Columbia accident or well whatever all they could do is summon what was tried in the past and badly apply it to the future.
YOu among others have chortled endlessly how the Chinese are (to use your words) going to “make us show our passports” when they go to the Moon (OK those words might not be exact but are close) and yet like the WMD in Iraq that was going to turn into a smoking mushroom… you have no real proof to back that on, just I guess relying on your fears.
Robert G. Oler
Marcus D. I agree with everything you wrote except about Garver. She is a capable flunky…ie she does what she is told.
Robert G. Oler
If we had established a base on the Moon back in the 1970s or 1980’s we’d probably already have permanent habitats on Mars and be exploiting the natural resources of the asteroids and the moons of Mars. The– politically correct– and very costly mission to LEO programs (the shuttle and the ISS) probably set us back by about 30 years.
Marcel
“If we had established a base on the Moon back in the 1970s or 1980’s we’d probably already have permanent habitats on Mars”
probably not. the cash that it was going to take to make a moon base work much less expand on it was far more then anyone was going to pay.
What I find amazing in statements like the one that you made is the assumptions …
Robert G. Oler
Major Tom said: “The White House has made no decisions on the civil human space flight program. They’re waiting on the final Augustine Committee report at the end of the month. So we won’t know anything for a few weeks at least, and if there’s no FY 2010 amendment to NASA’s budget this fall, we may not know anything until the President’s FY 2011 budget is rolled out early next February.”
But the Administration looked at priorities to develop their Stimulus bill – and space was only a minor afterthought. The Administration has had lots and lots of chances to act on this stated belief in exploration – and has passed on each one. They did find lots of borrowed money to extend high speed internet to rural areas, so that people there could shop from their home computers so much more quickly.
But spend money on space? Sorry – not a priority.
In particular, by delaying, they have allowed lots of Shuttle capability to be lost. The Augustine Commission has (tentatively) recommended (as everyone expected them to) that we preserve the option of the Shuttle – and every month of delay makes that more difficult.
CharlesTheSpaceGuy
“They did find lots of borrowed money to extend high speed internet to rural areas, so that people there could shop from their home computers so much more quickly.”
what a bizzare statement. and one that is completly out of touch with reality.
Money sent to NASA as part of “exploration” will do little or nothing to improve the productivity of The American people. Already 9-12 billion have gone down the tube for this particular effort…with little or nothing to show for it.
High speed internet in rural areas is however quite productive. I see you have never worked or managed a dairy farm. Neither have I but my parents in law do…and they are quite rural and high speed internet was something that dramatically improved how that farm is operated.
I’ll give you the same deal I keep trying to get other supporters of “the vision” to do…
why? How after sending people to (any destination) will The Republic be safer, have a better economy, or sale more products?
Robert G. Oler
“Obama’s bone headed scrapping of missile defense in Eastern Europe”
The White House is not “scrapping” missile defense in Eastern Europe. The White House is proposing to replace one system (unfielded to protect against non-existant long-range missiles) with another (fielded Aegis and Patriot system to protect against known, shorter-range missiles). Even Defense Secretary Gates, who endorsed the last plan, references the new plan as better.
Get your facts straight before you post.
“is a clear indication that he is also quite capable of scrapping the exploration program.”
This is a total non-sequitur. Decisions about how to best contain Iran’s missile development have zero in common with decisions about what to do with the civil human space flight program.
Apply a minimum of logic before you post. Only an idiot would think that because both involve rockets that these decisions have anything to do with each other.
“I do fear that Obama may well throw away yet another chance to expand to the stars.”
No, that would be Griffin & Co. that wasted a half-decade, a friendly Presidency, and billions of taxpayer dollars pursuing a duplicative, intermediate-lift rocket that won’t be operational until after ISS is in the drink and a super-heavy rocket and oversized capsule that suck up all the budget for in-space exploration systems and landers. There would be no need for the Augustine Committee had NASA’s prior managers devised a program that was technically and budgetarily implementable.
Bleah…
“The Administration has had lots and lots of chances to act on this stated belief in exploration – and has passed on each one… But spend money on space? Sorry – not a priority.”
False. NASA received an extra $1 billion in taxpayer funds through the Recovery Act, $400 million of which went to exploration systems.
Get your facts straight before you post.
“The Augustine Commission”
It’s a “committee”, not a “commission”.
“has (tentatively) recommended (as everyone expected them to) that we preserve the option of the Shuttle”
Again, false. Only one out of eight options in the summary report adds flights to the existing Shuttle manifest. And there is no single recommendation, only options.
Again, get your facts straight before you post.
Did everyone take stupid pills for this thread?
Sheesh…
“If we had established a base on the Moon back in the 1970s or 1980’s we’d probably already have permanent habitats on Mars and be exploiting the natural resources of the asteroids and the moons of Mars.”
This hasn’t proven true in the case of Antarctica or other remote research bases that have had longer lifetimes on Earth. Why would it prove true in the much harsher and expensive environments of space?
FWIW…
@ Robert Oler
The Nixon decision to focus on LEO was a big mistake. We already had a fully developed heavy lift vehicle in the Saturn V that could launch lunar base habitat components and instant space stations (Skylab) into LEO. Skylab was much cheaper than the ISS.
And even in the 1980s, if we had invested in developing the Shuttle C, we could have had the heavy lift capability to place habitat components on the lunar surface and launch instant space stations into LEO or L1 or L2.
A lunar base would have allowed us to test the first mass drivers on the lunar surface and to manufacture oxygen through the pyrolysis of the lunar regolith and maybe even aluminum for rocket fuel and light sail material.
Establishing a Moon base back in the 1970’s or the 1980’s would have also finally ended the Moon vs. Mars debate since a lunar base would have already been established. Then we could have clearly focused our efforts on manned missions to Mars and the moons of Mars in the 1990s or in the first decade of the 21st century.
I’ll say it again.
The policy-digestible reason for human space flight has to be a national need that it serves. The US taxpayer largely isn’t head over heels in love with human space flight because it doesn’t appear to serve any real national need.
For Apollo, the national need was clear. We had to show our stuff, and beat the Russians. But these days it’s all about technology development, the “spirit of exploration†and “inspirationâ€. With all due respect, those needs are served well in many other ways. Bringing the solar system into our economic sphere is not a recognized national need, and colonizing other planets really isn’t either.
Ideally, what Garver wants to do is link NASA, in a manner completely consistent with the Space Act, to a accepted national needs. I think that’s a marvelous thing to do, but I really don’t have a clue how she’s going to do it for human space flight.
Please understand. I think human space flight is great. I think having humans go to far places, look around, and leave footprints is great. I think that challenges to do hard things are great. Sending people to Mars would be great. So are bringing the solar system into our economic sphere and colonizing other planets. But those are not accepted national needs. Maybe they should be.
The “change” Garver may be talking about may well be a change of the way we view NASA, and not just a change of space flight architecture. What would you guess that NASA will, in fact, get a big budget boost, but not to do any of the stuff we’ve been talking about? Pride? Technical superiority? Doing hard things? Heroism and bravery? National value? Doesn’t take the Moon or Mars. Is the White House thinking outside the box here? This should be interesting.
Our national need is to avoid extinction and to expand economic growth by exploiting the stupendous natural resources found in the rest of our solar system.
Continuing to confine our civilization solely to our planet of evolutionary origin would be a long term recipe for disaster– especially in a century where several nations besides the US and Russia (like China, India, Japan, Pakistan, and Iran) could eventually end up with the nuclear weapons capacity of life and death over the entire planet before the end of the century.
Mark.
I’ll add one more thing about a “McCain” presidency coupled with “space”.
McCain lost the presidency for two reasons and two reasons only.
The first is that he could not separate himself from an administration (bush the last the one you liked) which had floundered in almost everything it tried. And was disliked by Americans of record percentage numbers.
The second was that McCain could not explain how “his” America looked different then Bush’s America. This became even more difficult as his VP nominee (who I recommended be picked…check the McCain blog records long before most knew of her) went nuts and started reminding everyone (including me) of why we didnt like Bush (ie “domestic terrorist”)
In both these things it was the total picture but it was also little pieces of the picture,. The Iraq war (who only those for whom insanity is a pre existing condition still argue was good), an imploding economy…and ….a nearly trivial part of that was “space”. McCain really never got around to space, because there were so many other major problems (like an economy that was collapsing)…
but in reality Bush’s space “vision” is about like the rest of his policies, almost unexplainable as to the “why” in factual statements.
You with all due respect illustrate that. “The Chinese are going” just doesnt pass the fact test. And yet that seems to be a rally cry for you an article of faith almost.
Those who shout “The Chinese are going” remind me more and more of Capt Ron Tracey in The Omega Glory who believed in something for which there was only his opinion, no real proof. (“Leave medicine) to medical men….”)
The odd thing is that NASA might have gotten the “legacy” of the vision had it put together a method of accomplishment which was remotely affordable and which linked together some accomplishments that had some realistic political lifespan…ie accomplish able in some Presidents term.
Instead they put together a wasteful program which stretches over several decades with no real accomplishments…but cost lots of money and oddly enough…you support it. And worse you accept on faith that if it is just given a lot more money, somehow they will be able to do it on that money…when the reality is that in another two years…it would still be over budget.
I dont get it…
Robert G. Oler
Marcel…not ignoring you, just taking a break from putting the new roof on the barn…later tonight.
I dont agree with your comments(grin)
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler:
“so you think a couple of NASA astronauts walking on (insert solar system body here) is our nations future in space?
thats a low bar”
Really Robert? Really? How about Mars? I’m not sure what our future in space is going to be, but a “low bar”? Is that really in the context I think it is?
Robert G. Oler:
“How after sending people to (any destination) will The Republic be safer, have a better economy, or sale more products?”
Or probes for that matter. Why do anything in space at all…or any exploration? Spirit and Opportunity certainly didn’t defend us against terrorists or get consumers to buy more ipods. To heck with exploring the solar system or doing any pure research or exploration. Why should the NSF fund astronomy research into globular clusters or black holes or anything else out there that isn’t a comet or meteor that might hit the Earth? The heck does finding out the universe is expanding help our safety in any way?
Lets not forget NASA was founded to meet national needs and it largely has; this exploration stuff is really just a secondary benefit from the human space program.
NASA’s first big job was assuring US leadership in space during the Cold War when we feared the Soviets would use space to dominate the world. NASA met that challenge and moved on – when we tired of the moon & the nation was feeling broke and mired in the stagflation of the early 70’s, it focused (erroneously as it turned out) on reducing the cost of access to space by developing the space shuttle. When the Reagan Administration was once again focused on winning the Cold War and saw a Soviet MIR as a challenge, NASA was approved to go ahead with Space Station Freedom bringing together our closest allies Once the Soviet Union dissolved, it changed that to the International Space Station and focused on bringing Russia peacefully into the world community by giving its scientists & engineers something useful to do – and here again, it worked and while nuclear and missile technology have been spreading, its largely due to the North Koreans and Pakistanis – not the Russians.
Its hard for us space geeks to appreciate but NASA really has to serve bigger interests than just going “where no man has gone before” if its going to win the competition for budgets in Washington – and in the hearts and mind of a younger generation for whom outer space is not nearly as relevent to daily life as cyberspace. The good news is that, once again, NASA can do this – just as the Obama Administration is starting to look for ways to work more cooperatively with other major nations and constructively engage with China and India, they both are showing interest in human spaceflight amd lunar exploration. In the same way, as the nation and the world try to understand and mitigate climate change, NASA is and can be a big part of the national solution.
Changing a sales pitch – and NASA’s programs – to meet changing national priorities (as refelected by elections and public opinion) isn’t selling out on some holy grail of an exploration vision, its politically smart and will make it far more likely that NASA can command future budgets to meet its program plans. We all loved Apollo and it IS too bad we didn’t build on it more incrementally, but does anyone really think we’d get any traction in DC if we were still selling “Beat the Soviets” as our reason?
Hmm. Leave for a little while just to come back and read the usual simplistic bickering political nonsense from some in several threads here and elsewhere… Not to mention the technical blahblahblah. Ares, SDHLV, blahblahblah… Moon base…
Now, I’ll admit that I did not read each and every post but any one noticed this below? Any one? Any one understands this? Any one understands here why this is important? It looks to me that only Doug Lassiter did but any one else? How about a real conversation about this!!!
Oh well…
Excerpt:
“Part of our challenge, of course, is to utilize our unique workforce, our missions, and our capabilities, to address critical national needs,†she said in the introductory portion of her speech, “and to communicate the importance of our mission to the public, making sure people know how space technology has become part of all of our lives.†A little later in the speech she added, “So our opportunity is to focus our missions to provide better value and to communicate that value in a way that shows off the relevance to everyday Americans.â€
“To earn our trust from the taxpayers, we have to help create a better future, in my view, with programs that are aligned with both the short-term and the long-term national interests,†she said, “and then we have to better explain how we help those national interests with what we do and the value that we add with out missions.â€
Derrick
yeap a government program that takes billions and sends some government emplyees to Mars to pick up some rocks, plant a few flags, and do whatever is a pretty low bar.
It is all fat and little protein.
“Or probes for that matter. Why do anything in space at all…or any exploration? Spirit and Opportunity certainly didn’t defend us against terrorists or get consumers to buy more ipod”
actually I think the threat from “terrorism” is vastly overblown, sort of the right wings need to have an enemy.
argument is overblown as well. It is like saying “you are against containing the Soviet Union unless you are for full blown nuclear war”.
There is a thing called “value for cost”…sure Apollo brought back a lot of rocks, but in the end its cost was far to high for the value…The rovers on Mars…not so…the cost and value are if anything reversed from Apollo…ie there is far more value then cost.
As I told Whittington, most of the “we have to explore” stuff is mindless nonesense.
I think a pretty high bar is making a buck or two in space… Creating new jobs that pay taxes instead of consuming them, …silly things like that beats flags and footprints anyday.
Robert G. Oler
Marcel. there is no evidence that the political will existed to keep spending large sums of money to go to the Moon without any clear economic feedback to The Republic.
Plus Jim Oberg is in my view correct…the technology just wasnt up to it.
Robert G. Oler
@ Robert Oler
I guess you didn’t watch the Senate and the Congress over the last few days. There was strong and enthusiastic support from both Democrats and Republicans to increase the budget by $3 billion annually (about 10 days of occupation in Iraq) after meeting with both Norm Augustine and Mike Griffin. The only real criticisms was about the the poor quality of the Augustine report.
The NASA budget is tiny compared to the military budget and is actually smaller than the military’s own space budget. And the current manned component of NASA’s budget only amounts to 10 billion a year, about a month occupying Iraq.
The only real criticisms was about the the poor quality of the Augustine report.
I didn’t see the House hearing, but from what I’ve heard they may have felt that. However, it sounds like the members were so ill-informed that it was almost laughable.
I don’t think you even saw the hearing on the Senate side. Nelson praised Augustine, and in fact, nailed the coffin in the ESAS/Ares architecture by suggesting extension of Shuttle followed by commercial crewed access to Station. There wasn’t anything to suggest that the Senate thought the Committee’s work was of poor quality.
Face it, Ares and ESAS are dead. Ares V Lite may survive in principal, but by the time a NASA implementation study is done, it will look very different than the concept coming out of the Augustine Committee.
Garver: “So now we will rise to meet in my view new challenges, such as those that impact our environment, energy, health, and the economy, and the future of space exploration.â€
This reminds me of what I consider one of the classic Space Politics posts:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2008/04/18/another-reminder-of-the-importance-or-lack-thereof-of-space/
From one of the polls:
“Given a list of twelve federal government programs and asked to pick two which should be cut (“if spending had to be cut”) space programs top the list by a wide margin (51%). Significant minorities, all under 30 percent, pick welfare programs (28%), defense spending (28%), farm subsidies (24%), environmental programs (16%), homeland security (12%) and transportation (11%). Hardly anyone would cut Medicaid (4%), education (3%), Social Security (2%) or Medicare (1%).”
The others have similar results. The conclusion I make is that NASA needs to work on nationally relevant things as defined by what the public apparently wants to spend money on (health/medicine, defense/security, environment, education, economy, energy, etc) while at the same time working on space/aeronautics.
The Vision for Space Exploration, before it was twisted beyond recognition by ESAS into a decades-long government rocket-building exercise, was originally built around the goals of security, economic, and science benefits. The first 2 are clearly domains the public and their representatives are willing to spend money on, and the 3rd is somewhat related to many such domains. When the VSE lost its connection to these goals (unless you believe after building a Moon base a few decades in the future NASA would suddenly return to the VSE goals), it lost its reason for existing, and it also lost support from security, economic, and science interests.
It makes a lot of sense for Garver to be talking about addressing important national priorities with NASA. The specific national priorities are a bit different from those of the VSE, presumably because of Obama’s different specialties compared to Bush’s, but in either case the point is to pick legitimate national problems, focus on solving them in ways that also grow our space capabilities, and make the public aware that they’re getting a “2-for-1″.
Marcel
“I guess you didn’t watch the Senate and the Congress over the last few days. There was strong and enthusiastic support from both Democrats and Republicans to increase the budget by $3 billion annually (about 10 days of occupation in Iraq) after meeting with both Norm Augustine and Mike Griffin. The only real criticisms was about the the poor quality of the Augustine report.”
Actually I watched the Senate, read the House committees and caught snips of the House on the TIVO.
Its over.
First off cost relative to something are only valuable when there is no other comparision that works. IE no one goes around saying “the interstate highway system is only four days of staying in IRAQ”… and cost relative were the only thing that the folks who were supporting “the vision” had to babble about.
All that was, was the last stand for the “home team”.. everyone from a NASA district is all for spending more money but thats them.
Whats going to happen is that at some point The President will give a speech talking about “a new direction” and that will be it. Ares V might survive in some different form (a lot lighter) so oATK can have some work…
but the station survives, Ares 1 is toast, and commercial access is on…at least that is what I predict.
the death panels (to quote Sarah Palin) are getting ready to pull the plug
Robert G. Oler
@ sc220
I watched the Senate hearings. Nelson was pretty nice to Norm Augustine, I guess because the house beat up on him the day before. Senator Nelson pretty much ran a monologue. The house hearings were much more diverse and engaging, IMO. And Norm Augustine could feel the heat. The only interesting part of the Senate hearing was that Mr. Augustine did conclude that even with the $3 billion increase, the Ares V wouldn’t be ready until after 2020.
Doug Lassiter: “Ideally, what Garver wants to do is link NASA, in a manner completely consistent with the Space Act, to a accepted national needs. I think that’s a marvelous thing to do, but I really don’t have a clue how she’s going to do it for human space flight.”
I agree that it’s probably easier for robotic space flight and aeronautics, and certainly those routes to relevance should be explored to their fullest. However, I also think it can be done for human space flight. Here are some examples using the domains that Lori Garver mentioned: “environment, energy, health, and the economy” and “education” – this last from the Wall Street Journal article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125313939613917551.html#mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
“Her remarks to an aerospace conference here marked a new approach focused on selling NASA as a catalyst for educational and environmental change.”
Environment
use of commercial crewed suborbital RLVs for environment monitoring (eg: atmospheric sampling, remote sensing)
Earth environment observations from space stations
promoting economical commercial satellite servicing of environment monitoring satellites
HSF environment science on other worlds with implications for Earth – eg: various Earth/Sun observations from the Moon proposed during VSE, studying atmospheres of Venus or Mars (perhaps from orbit using Flexible Path)
HSF work on closed-loop life support (i.e. recycling)
First hesitant steps towards moving polluting industry away from Earth’s biosphere
Energy
solar power satellite or power relay technology demos – the goal would be for high-value niche markets (power for disaster relief, military power, or power for applications in space), but there could be benefits for Earth solar power (and who knows, maybe even SPS for consumer power, however uneconomical it now looks)
HSF space weather monitoring platforms (eg: space stations) or HSF satellite servicing of robotic space weather platforms – space weather affects power grids
Similar HSF platforms or servicing for Earth observations with energy implications – finding energy resources, mapping dams, winds, geothermal potential, energy-efficient transportation networks, etc
crewed Cheap Access to Space – enabling cheaper launch of telecommunications and GPS satellites, which in turn help with energy efficiency (telecommuting, teleconferencing, home movie broadcast, remote metering, efficient travel, etc)
improve efficiency of HSF power subsystems and power-using subsystems
Health
health/medicine research on ISS, Dragonlabs, Bigelow stations, etc
telerobotic space medicine work, general space medicine
commercial (COTS, Centennial Challenge, etc) ISS micro-reentry vehicles to allow frequent return of pharmaceutical samples
crewed suborbital RLV medical/biology experiments
astrobiology
Economy
Work more with the commercial HSF space industry which can apply its NASA innovations and systems to other markets, growing the economy compared to NASA-specific projects
Earth observations from HSF labs, or satellite servicing of robotic observers, where the observations have economic value (eg: agriculture, fisheries, disaster warning/relief, weather, etc)
Education
Teachers/Students in Space – Give them access to suborbital RLVs (often crewed), space stations, space labs, etc – at first with experiments and the like, and eventually personally
More university space projects, graduate assistantships, and other NASA HSF interaction
student innovation competitions and Centennial Challenges
More NASA/Museum collaboration in HSF
Major Tom: “Unless you count Earth-crossing asteroids or international cooperation, civil space exploration has very little to do with national security.”
I’m going to do something foolish, and disagree a bit with Major Tom on this 1 point (but none of his others above).
Civil space can give a lot of indirect help to national security. The indirect interation is most obvious in areas like Aeronautics and Earth observations, which are in fields that are similar to military, intelligence, and disaster warning/relief ones. It’s even less direct for “civil space exploration” as discussed above, but there are connections.
A security-savvy civil space exploration program will use systems and industries that are common with security ones, or will promote innovation in these systems and industries that produces benefits that the security agencies can share.
A security tone-deaf civil space exploration program will make its own systems in-house, and thus avoid any prospect of security benefits to the nation.
I’m sure we can all think of examples in space access, satellites/space probes, etc. Use of EELVs, Falcons, or similar rockets available to these other agencies for civil space exploration is of course a lot more useful to national security (assuming that use doesn’t interfere with national security such as launch priority) than using NASA-built rockets.
The LRO Mini-RF radar is another example.
Actually most of the civil space exploration robotics missions have indirect benefits to national security in 1 way or another, since these systems are so similar to the security space platforms and to some small extent surface robotics.
A civil space exploration program that promotes useful space infrastructure (refueling, tugs, reusable spacecraft, economical satellite servicing, etc) and CATS is likely to be useful to national security as well.
red
one can design a human spaceflight program which improves the national economy by creating “spin offs” that affect other parts of the economy (as you mention)…the ultimate NASA spinoff so far was geosynch communications satellites…but the Syncom project did not take decades to procure and fly.
Robert G. Oler
“Our national need is to avoid extinction and to expand economic growth by exploiting the stupendous natural resources found in the rest of our solar system.”
Nope. That’s your need, and it might be my need, but that is NOT a need ever expressed by the American taxpayer. Go to Congress and ask the people we elected to achieve our national needs. Ask them if it is theirs. You’ll see. Better yet, run for Congress with that as a national needs platform. Let’s democratically decide if that is a high priority national need. I suspect you’ll get trounced. Why? Because that’s just blather, not policy that’s responsible to the American public.
I want to underscore the point made earlier abut the Chinese. Beating them to the Moon for the second time can’t be an important national priority, though certain legislators are using that as an excuse for spending lots of money in their districts. The Chinese can win that race only if we accept that there is a race. Do we accept that there is? Look, the Chinese have soundly beaten us in the race to use the most chopsticks. Oh horrors! Had we made smart investments in wood cultivation and finishing, we’d have taken the lead from them and won that race. Well, yes, chopstick usage isn’t a national priority, but is sure seems important to me!
As to expenditures on space science, we’re talking about very different amounts of money than for human space flight. NSF and globular clusters? Geez. The amount NSF spends on globular cluster research with ground based telescopes is worth a sneeze at KSC. Spirit and Opportunity put our eyes on Mars for hugely less money than it would have cost to put flesh there. Is it worth it to put that flesh there? Does the science really demand it? Does our quality of life really demand it? We haven’t learned how to make that argument in a compelling way.
As was noted, Garver is talking “better value” and “national needs” to taxpayers. Space advocates had better think real hard about what those phrases really mean. Garver and Obama just might be trying to change the whole game with regard to NASA. From the von Braun paradigm in which accomplishment is footsteps on other worlds, to something else. Maybe a fresh perspective on exploration that is more meaningful to this generation.
There is one area of huge overlap, for civil space exploration, that relates to national security, BUT I don’t believe we should celebrate it. And that is the solid rocket boosters/Ares I, and ICBMs – the SRBs are the only vehicle that uses that much Solid rocket vehicles very often. The boosters used on the Atlas V and Delta IV are much smaller, and require a lot less propellent, and obviously a lot less work. What is the only other type of launch vehicle that utilizes large scale SRBs?
ICBMs.
Now, it makes sense to use large scale Solids for things like ICBMs, for obviously reason – you need long storage, and don’t want a lot of upkeep, but want them to work when you need it. But its not like we use ICBMs all that much. However, they do need replacing after a while. And with the shuttle in place, they get to save money, and utilize the SRB manufacturing infrastructure for ICBM production. If shuttle wasn’t around, they’d have to pay more for that infrastructure.
In other words, SRB production subsidizes ICBM production.
Now, I am not arguing that we don’t need ICBMs – thats a separate debate, that has been going on for a long time. However, if we assume that we have to have ICBMs, then why should the civil space program pay for part of them? If they were used a lot more by civil industry, I’d have no problem with NASA utilizing them a lot more. But thats not the case.
If NASA’s going to subsidizing something, shouldn’t it be something that moves us closer to being spacefaring?
I am pleased to see Garver steering the discussion of NASA’s purpose in the direction of serving national interests, and insisting on a sound justification. I feel that the Flexible HSF Strategy can do this. But it needs to be critically assessed and not just accepted as gospel.
One of the things that make NASA’s Space Science program strong is the rigor applied to evaluation and eventual selection of missions. This is completely lacking on the HSF side of the house. The Flexible Strategy opens this up as a possibility for HSF missions.
It seems that private enterprise may show the way for NASA!
Mehran Keshe is soon to show the world Anti-Gravity propulsion
http://www.keshefoundation.com/spaceexploration/moon_trip.html
Visit Lunar Landing sites and fly to the Moon!
Regards
Andy
Space race is a history.
NASA is heading a wrong direction. Without basic understanding of the nature of the planets (or the Earth), you are going nowhere, but wasting our time and efforts in exploration of which life cycles of the planets nearby have already come to an end.
The Earth is a conscious living object from biological prospective. Obviously, other planets nearby are dead. You reached another planet of which resources have already run out for centuries. You expect if other living things (in the same level of lives as we do) exist in our universe, they are travelling everywhere. These imaginations become prevalent forces because of the lack of understandings of the natures of planets.
The Earth is a biological living entity full of living organisms which equivalent to our body cells. Reproduction carried out inside the planet are the animals (offspring). In the meantime, the animals are also life cycles of the planet. Definitions of lives have to be renewed. The natural vegetations are actually the living tissues of the Earth. Evolution of both her offspring and her living tissues which come from simplicity to complexity is the life cycle. It is completely different from Darwinism. My theory is the only direction for our science.
It is my pleasure if you guys can visit my website if you have time.
Science is not alone.
Scientists should never be lonely.
We are a untiy, a family of the planet.
All races in the Earth are equal.
I am stopping all of you because the life cycles of a planet may not be able to recover. It is not an attack, but an enlightenment.
I hope it is not too late.
Teru Wong
@red:
You’re on the right track.
I think it’d be worth exploring what the national interests are in the eyes of the public: i.e. Democrats, Republicans, and so called Independents. I believe that the WH has already shown what they are at a high level. Also unlike say healthcare it’d be far easier to get a consensus when it comes to HSF. So if I were NASA top executives I would try and assemble a team to identify what technologies exist today or are possibly being developed to address the national interests. If there was to be a new NASC then all the major players in the government might offer their opinions in terms of policy. A new NIAC would have the charter to identify the technologies present and future. So when all this is eventually done (policy and technologies) it would be far easier to identify the means to achieving the policy, i.e. the goal, what it is we will do. It may be VSE but it may be completely different.
It looks like we’re finally getting in the right debate. Thanks all.
FWIW.
“I am pleased to see Garver steering the discussion of NASA’s purpose in the direction of serving national interests, and insisting on a sound justification. I feel that the Flexible HSF Strategy can do this. But it needs to be critically assessed and not just accepted as gospel.”
Precisely right. A fresh new perspective doesn’t mean it’s the right perspective. If the White House chooses to go this route, the very first thing they will need to do is to translate this into national needs that the country can buy into. Only the White House has the leadership potential to do that convincingly. Once that is done, then a real roadmap needs to be crafted and technologically vetted.
Is this strategy consistent with the Vision? Maybe. In a sense, such a strategy can be seen as the implementation plan for the Vision that the Aldridge Commission could have offered. The Vision for Space Exploration was, however, less convincing about serving contemporary national needs than it should have been. The connection to national security is one that should be thought hard about.
The question is how the White House can do all this without knocking human space flight completely off the rails. What does such a strategy mean for the FY11 budget, for example?
“I’m going to do something foolish, and disagree a bit with Major Tom on this 1 point…” [Red]
Not foolish, and I don’t disagree with Red’s thrust that the civil human space flight program can be made much more relevant to various national needs, including security, simply by making better programmatic choices. The terminology that the VSE used for this was “further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.” Red has repeatedly done an excellent job documenting NASA human space flight program alternatives that would actually enhance security and other U.S. interests in this forum and elsewhere. I can only hope that a couple decisionmakers at NASA have run across his website or posts as they formulate programmatic responses to the Augustine Committee for the White House.
That said, relevance and service are two different things. Although it could enhance or further U.S. security, I would still maintain that civil human space flight does not directly serve any current national security need, probably won’t for the forseeable future, and can’t be justified on those grounds. Although NASA’s programs can be crafted to enhance national security as a side benefit (e.g., greater use of EELVs to make the military launch fleet more robust and affordable) they’re not national security programs. If the main objective (or one of the main objectives) of the $10 billion or so that U.S. taxpayers spend annually on NASA’s human space flight program was to enhance national security, especially national security space systems, then we wouldn’t spend the money at NASA or on human space flight. Astronauts and the systems that support them simply don’t provide any imagery, early warning, sigint, nav, comm, meteorology, mapping, tracking, anti-satellite, or anti-missile capabilities for military or intelligence users, and they probably never will given the advantages of unmanned systems.
If you include diplomacy under the umbrella of national security, then NASA’s human space flight program has in the past played a significant role via international competition (Apollo and the Cold War Space Race against the Soviets) and a less significant role via international cooperation (Russian role in the ISS potentially reducing the spread of Russian aerospace knowledge to rogue nations). But these are past events, and there is no substantive diplomatic thrust projected for the U.S. civil human space flight program in the future. In fact, no foreign nation has stepped up in any significant way to be a partner on or competitor to the current Constellation Program.
Theoretically, in the future, scifi-like national security applications may emerge from human space flight — maybe NEO diversion or rapid, global force projection. But its unclear that these threats or needs will even exist in the coming decades, neverthless whether human space flight systems will be the right or most effective means of addressing them.
In summary, the earlier JSC poster wrote that “NASA is about our future and our security in aeronautics and space exploration.” Again, my response is that unless we’re counting roles that no longer exist or that exist only in scifi, civil human space exploration (or civil human space flight) serves no national security role. It’s a common refrain among poorly informed or self-serving NASA civil servants, congressional staff, and congressmen themselves that NASA’s human space flight program is important to national security or serves a strategic purpose. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The U.S. does have military and intelligence space programs (in spades) that are crucial to national security and stand at the apex of the nation’s strategic capabilities, and while some of them could benefit from smarter NASA program choices, these national security space programs do not reside in NASA and they certainly have no need for human space flight.
FWIW…
That said, relevance and service are two different things. Although it could enhance or further U.S. security, I would still maintain that civil human space flight does not directly serve any current national security need, probably won’t for the forseeable future,
Well, the fact that the American system is producing religious retards instead of scientists and engineers has reached the level of national security problem so I have to disagree with you on that one.
@Major Tom:
Re: National Security. I believe you are somewhat making a mistake in relating national security to technological/military applications only. It seems (?) you dismiss the diplomacy aspect of it a little too much. One can see an effective soft power tool for diplomacy by using space program efforts. Improving diplomacy is one of the charter this WH has put forth and diplomacy does play a strong role in national security. Please note further that diplomacy is aimed at both our foes (former and otherwise) and our friends. It is clear that the previous WH significantly alienated a lot of our friends with their diplomatic skills.
Now, can you see the impact of sending into space a citizen of say a currently perceived foe? Naive? Far fetched? I don’t think so but I don’t know for sure…
FWIW.
PS: What is red’s website?
With regard to security as a national need that bears on civil space, I think it deserves some consideration. While human spaceflight is not of obvious direct value for national security (if it were, the DOD would have been doing it long ago), there is more to it than that. In fact, the term being used by space policy advocates these days is “soft power”. In this policy view, civil space is a non-confidential technological showplace to flex your muscles and your sixpack abs as you adhere to international law. That brings Respect, and Respect is a national need from a security standpoint.
Joan Johnson Freese is chair of the Department of National Security Decision-Making at the Naval War College, and she’s been making this point about human space flight for some time now, including in congressional testimony. Jeff had a nice book review piece on this two years ago in the Space Review
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/913/1
Now, for NASA to serve this particular national need is squarely in the White House arena, and even bears on the State Department. It’s sure not a Lori Garver issue. It can probably be reconciled with the Space Act. Just another way of thinking differently about space exploration.
“One can see an effective soft power tool for diplomacy by using space program efforts.” [common sense]
“In fact, the term being used by space policy advocates these days is “soft powerâ€. [Mr. Lassiter]
“Joan Johnson Freese is chair of the Department of National Security Decision-Making at the Naval War College, and she’s been making this point about human space flight for some time now, including in congressional testimony.” [Mr. Lassiter]
Nothing against Dr. Freese, who is probably only one of four (off the top of my head) space policy experts in the world who consistently offers original thinking. But the “soft power” argument is mostly theory, with very limited historical practice in Apollo and ISS, and no current or projected concrete application.
It’s been argued that the U.S. winning the space race may have influenced certain third world countries to not go down the communist path. Although hard to prove, I’ll accept the argument.
It’s also been argued that Russian participation in the ISS prevented Russian aerospace know-how from falling into the hands of rogue nations. Again, although hard to prove (and I think the evidence actually shows this happened anyway, regardless of ISS), I’ll accept the argument.
But what are the specific, concrete applications that we are using or have envisaged for our civil human space flight “soft power” today? Soft power is about influence. So where is the U.S. civil human space flight program influencing foreign actors in positive ways (or at least in alignment with U.S. interests) today? Where will it have such an influence in the future? If civil human space flight is such a wonderful strategic asset, why isn’t it getting used? Why can’t we think of a concrete use for it in the future?
My 2 cents… I think the use of civil human space flight to project soft power internationally is a thing of the past. The Space Age no longer impresses. The basic technologies and capabilities are decades old now, and other technologies (IT, biotech, nanotech, etc.) are the cutting edge of human capabilities, have much greater promise, and will have a much greater influence on national power (economic, military, and otherwise) in the coming decades. The U.S. passed Apollo years ago with the genome and the internet — that’s where the foreign intelligentsia most wants to cooperate or compete with the U.S. And among the foreign masses, the iPod and its cousins the Mars rovers are what the U.S. is known for today, not the astronaut corps.
No doubt, looking at China, human space flight programs can project soft power internally — convincing a populace that their leadership is on the path to the modern world (whether it actually is or not). But that’s internal and domestic — it’s not a projection of foreign power.
I may be proven wrong in the years ahead. But based on the current evidence, I think it’s hard to escape the thesis that civil human space flight is no longer a practical tool of soft power, at least for the U.S. in its foreign relations. At a minimum, given that the almost complete lack of current application, I’d argue that we can’t begin to justify the $10 billion that is currently spent annually on NASA’s civil human space flight program on the basis of soft power.
FWIW…
I think a change might be that people are going to be held accountable for their actions for a change. No more purple faced, chair and coke can throwing, 4 letter word raging managers just because you are trying to do you job and actual fix the broken design you are assigned to work on.
I also suspect tolerance for unjustified sole source contracts followed within weeks by 3 of the decision makers becoming VP for the receiving company is going to stop. Read my blog and contact your congressman if you want to help.
General Bolden got up in front of the agency after his first flight as commander and announced to all he made a near fatal mistake. He told us he did this to set the example it is essential to admit a mistake, so the next guy would not. I think he is going to get up and to the same.
It is healthy for an organization to admit your mistakes.
Major Tom
very well thought out statement.
Human spaceflights reason for being could have been placed in the areana of “power” as long as the unique elements of the coldwar were in place…ie war without fighting.
Problem is that this was a short term affair and by the time that Armstrong had made his one small step, mankind was moving in a completly different direction. NASA, its political friends, and the political leadership in The Republic have never gotten back in step with the culture that supports it.
As a result one hears reasons for going to the Moon or whatever that really have nothing to do whatsoever with space, but with justifications that are completly earth bound…human spaceflight is really relevant to nothing in terms of engineering or actually national life.
That has to change.
Robert G. Oler
Re Major Tom’s view about soft power, I wasn’t quite endorsing soft power as an effective tool, but thought it was worth considering. His analysis is a good one. To some extent Apollo was all about soft power. Out-technologizing the Russians back then was peacetime muscle flexing of the highest order. But it actually makes a lot of sense that soft power from the space program is now an archaic tool for cultivating respect and influence. Indeed, other technologies that are more economically viable are probably more effective tools. Apollo was muscle flexing with missles, and missles were a big deal back in the 1960s. They are much less a metric of cultural superiority now.
The fears about China getting back to the Moon play somewhat blindly to this soft power card. To be honest, their success in getting to the Moon would simply prove that they are as good as we were forty years ago. Let’s offer them congratulations if they can show they are. I think it’s pretty obvious that if we spent what we spent back then, we could do it again, and if going back to the Moon met an identified national need, that money would quickly appear.
I’d like to believe that human spaceflight is relevant to some national priority, but the old rationale just doesn’t hold water any more. Yes, that has to change. More power to this administration if they can pull that off.
Sigh regression is not good for any country, just look at the oppertunities China missed out on when they shut down there exploration back in there old sea expeditions. This is allmost seems exactly like what USA is doing now with NASA.
Why cant NASA focus beyond LEO while commercial entities take over LEO and heck would like to see more money on the Space Elevator concept that seems more likely to work now more than ever. Another idea is investments in NEO Asteroid Mining, Orbital Solar Panels etc. There should also be a greater push for Asteroid Defense and my big whish list orbital colonies (but looking unlikely now)
So many ideas yet no will or focus on (short term) profits only, depressing :(.
To me Garvin’s statement smacks of toeing the (OBAMA) party line. If Obama intends to scrap human spaceflight operations; and especially exo-LEO flights, then what I’ve read in in the prelim’ Augustine Report, provides him with the needed ammunition. During a time of financial crisis, the experts forward a series of options that are only viable IF the removed budgetary items are put back. Stupidity.
There is no attempt to scale back the Launch vehicle architecture costing to, shall we say, STS scale. Something perfectly possible if DIRECT replaced ARES completely.The Aerospace company’s dubious budgeting – ignoring NASA’s current budgeting completely – adds fuel to the fire.
I’ve a feeling that NASA will morph in the National Science and Technology Agency and the few space people left will head elsewhere.
Now, what are the Russians planning in space…ah…quite a lot I see!
NASA will be shifted to a NACA model. Its mission will support not only aeronautics but space as well. This makes a lot of sense since the country definitely needs to open up new markets, as it sends the rest of its production base overseas. This isn’t going to happen if it needs to preserve the Design Bureau status quo that Griffin promulgated.
The course that makes most sense is to resurrect this new NACA structure around the four current NASA Research Centers (i.e., Langley, Glenn, Dryden and Ames). The second step is to create a new space flight and mission entity with JPL, Goddard and Johnson. Its mission scope would cover both robotic and human spaceflight (with the new Flexible Path/Deep Space as a centerpiece). In a sense, Kennedy represents the initial operating end of this entire triad, and should be included here too.
You can see that the odd men out here are Marshall and Stennis, which at one time were just Marshall. There are probably two things you could do here. One is to put Marshall on a trajectory toward termination/shutdown. This would be the best thing from an Agency standpoint. It would dramatically reduce expenses and would eliminate a lot of the intercenter rivalries and issues with Johnson, Glenn, Goddard, etc. Believe it or not, it would also be a big plus for Huntsville.
The current BRAC Army consolidation at Redstone Arsenal may be threatened by the inability to attract skilled engineers to the area. If BRAC were put on hold or canceled, this could mean the loss of several tens of thousands of anticipated new jobs to this area, a horrific scenario for the politicians and businesses in that area. Shutting down Marshall would free up about 3,200 civil servant jobs and a considerable contractor base that could get the Redstone BRAC consolidation back on track.
Another option is to morph Marshall into a technology center. This was tried 10-15 years ago with Dan Goldin’s space transportation program, and it ended with dismal results. After several billion $ of wasted effort all we had to show for it was a Pentabyte’s worth of viewcharts and pretty graphics.
The other option is to make Marshall into a Johnson sidekick, or make it a deep space analog to JSC. It would make sense for Marshall to pursue a relationship with Johnson that mirrors the JPL role in the GSFC-JPL relationship. Marshall would do the human spaceflight to deep space, while JSC concentrates on the systems in LEO. However, it I were at JSC, I’d want to nip this idea in the bud quickly since it would basically put JSC on a shutdown trajectory with the commercialization of LEO.
… civil human space flight is no longer a practical tool of soft power, at least for the U.S. in its foreign relations.
Thank you. The obvious needs to be reiterated (though rarely with such clarity) because for so long, space enthusiasts hungry for motivation and/or justification and/or rationalization have been clinging to various combinations of (1) “Apollo wowed the world,” (2) “the USSR/Japan/China/India/whoever will own the cosmos if we don’t” (cf. omi’s post overnight), and (3) “space really really matters for national security.”
(1) Apollo did wow the world — but as you say, evidence that that changed any international actors’ decisions in the late 1960s or 1970s is very hard to find. I doubt there’s a historian of stature who would say it mattered nearly as much to their strategic perceptions of the US as US/China/USSR realignments, the US withdrawal from RVN, or the ramifying impacts of the OPEC oil embargo and later the Iranian revolution. Mostly what Apollo did was help us get over the anxieties of Sputnik and the alleged missile gap.
(2) Space is different from previous domains of exploration and/or exploitation in so many ways that historical comparisons — New World, Lewis & Clark, Wright brothers, Vikings in Iceland or Greenland or Newfoundland, Chinese fleets in the Indian Ocean — are always tendentious and almost always deeply misleading. It’s going to be so long before space activity swings significant weight in the global economy that all the “contenders” in this alleged race for the Next Great Frontier will probably have changed out of all recognition. I wouldn’t want to bet that the Chinese or Brazilians of 2100 won’t be closer than the USAns of 2100 to my values today.
(3) Turning to hard rather than soft power, space matters to national security today almost exactly as it did forty years ago: as a domain for surveillance, communications, and other activities which (a) benefit crucially from position in orbit, and (b) involve information — which is massless, can be gathered and relayed by relatively small satellites needing no resupply or safe re-entry, and can serve many many users.
Except as a low-drag route for ICBMS, space does not matter much yet for all the rest of national security: not for moving troops or materiel, not as a location for weapons platforms, not as a lever for control of trade routes or whatever. It may in the future, but that’s a loooong future (see 2 above). Anyone who claims otherwise is perpetuating the same old Sputnik-and-missile-gap ooga-booga, and I’m tired of it.
If you are a pro-exploration insider, you need to be listening to non-insiders who vote and share your enthusiasm, but see space dollars wasted on contractors with their claws in congress. These contractors keep raising the cost and development time for new initiatives.
Exploration will expand dramatically when the cost per pound to LEO drops. The NASA / contractor / congress triangle encourages the opposite.
Kris Ringwood what are the Russians planning to do in space that has got you so excited ?
fly Soyuz?
Robert G. Oler
sc220 reorgs like this have been thought of for sometime, heck I had a article published in The Weekly STandard some years ago that suggested about the same.
I dont right now see the change going that far, although the evolutionary trends might start…
and actually I dont see that “dim” a future for JSC if the transition is handled correctly, in fact I see a very bright future.
JSC has the chance if things evolve right to move in a very positive direction becoming the hub of human spaceflight activities in “Earth space”…that includes commercial and government efforts… There certianly is a lot of change coming,but with a hub of commercial and other activity in Near Earth space centered on the space station (And I think that there will be a lot of that)…the future seems very bright.
Robert G. Oler
If I read the politcal situation correctly the only thing thats going to happen is the apollo retread project will be reduce to a aimless study except for the Orion capsule and the Ares 1. These will proceed in some fashion but when will they ever fly ? The Obama Administration is if you haven’t noticed embattled on many fronts.Obama is not worried about space or NASA so he will just choose the path of least resistance.
Donald Ernst .. lets see. time will tell
Look I voted for the “other guy” in the last three Presidential elections, ie the one that got to go home after election day, not go to The White House. Having said that with all due respect I gave Bush the last the benefit of the doubt after his first election (or Supreme Court victory) right up until he invaded Afland I was like “lets see how this goes, he won”.
There comes a time when one should say “to many bone headed decisions its not working” but at least in Obama’s case and with human spaceflight we are far from there.
Does President Obama care about human spaceflight? I doubt it but then really no President has since JFK used it as a diplomacy and political tool. But he has taken or has had taken on his behalf some prudent steps to try and at least put the program on the path of reality not just one overrun after another. General Bolden is as tough and smart as they come…and has done some battles with the bureaucracy before and won…OK he has got Garver hung around his neck…but even she has seemed to understand what is at stake here.
Give Bolden a try.
Put it another way, the path that Bush the last left us on was doomed.
And no one in his administration (much less him) had the ability to recognize it.
President Obama inherited about the worst national condition that has existed since The Great Depression or the start of WWII…every administration leaves some UXB behind, but Bush the last…well bit since Smith ran his ship along side the berg have things gone from really good to bad,
I am not completely comfortable with what The President is doing, but all the sniping from the right wing (not including you of course) people who were cheering with every mistake of the last group…seems ill placed
Robert G. Oler
“Obama is not worried about space or NASA so he will just choose the path of least resistance.”
Well, of course. As per most of this discussion thread, why would he do anything else? He is clearly not worried about space exploration and NASA in the way we’ve all been led to view space exploration and NASA, and he’s got a solid backing from the American public to spend his energies elsewhere. Unless (and this is the big caveat) space becomes more than just a passionate hobby (sorry, Clark Lindsey!) of a vocal subset of the American public. Yes, a hobby. It gives us pleasure to take part in it if just as observers, it’s a form of entertainment with requisite competition, we can attach all sorts of handwaving justifications to it, and some of us even see it as a bright light for our culture. What I’m hoping will happen is for Bolden, Garver, and the White House to reframe the goal of space exploration to something that is more meaningful to the nation, and thereby make it a real priority. That’s a tall order, and quite a challenge, but it might just be the light at the end of the tunnel here. It’s got to be about more than flags and footprints and Helium-3.
Regarding the relationship between human spaceflight and soft power, I can’t help but speculate regarding how perception might change both inside and outside the US if it should come to pass a few years hence that numerous other nations (China being only one) have people on the lunar surface and we do not.
I can’t say to what degree this would impact diplomacy, national pride, etc, but I am 100% certain that such a circumstance, especially if stretched out over years and even decades, would impact that perception in a negative way.
One should recall the late 70s. It was very subtle, but even my father (working far from the space industry) sensed a certain public attitude during our last spaceflight gap, something along the lines of “Gee, the Russians are sending guys up to their space stations nearly every few months for longer and longer periods, making steady progress, and we’re not doing anything right now. What do they know that we don’t?”
The general positive reaction to the space shuttle’s initial success, in some small measure, was a reflection of people’s relief that we were back in the game…because, obviously, it must be something important since the Russians have been at it all along. That our system seemed to be such a massive advance over their tiny disposable capsules also added comfort.
And even right now, as muddled and, yes, as dull, as current mostly-LEO activities may seem, the fundamental worldview of the American public (and, I think, citizens of other nations), is shaped in part by the “given” that the US is playing a dominant role in human spaceflight. With this fact sitting comfortably (or uncomfortably) in the back of their consciousness, they (average US citizens, at least) are free to put space at the bottom of their list of national priorities because, for them, “it” is as it should be.
And if that fact changes (i.e., the US cedes its role as a primary (for many, THE primary) space operator and steps away as other nations continue, how could the resulting widespread perception change (losing that “comfort” or “irritant” undergirding folks’ worldviews) NOT impact our own nation, our economy, and our relationships with other govts and peoples, and their relationships with us?
[I’m all for genome research (you can’t appreciate HOW personal it actually is for me), but I just don’t see our diligent, brilliant genetics researchers in their laboratories as having anywhere near as great an impact on people’s worldviews as astronauts in their sleek spaceships. Some, yes, but orders of magnitude less. The rightness or wrongness of this disparity is beside the point; reality is what it is.]
While it’s terribly difficult to nail down precisely how it does so, I do firmly believe that our efforts in space carry soft power. This should not be discounted in our policy deliberations.
sc220 reorgs like this have been thought of for sometime, heck I had a article published in The Weekly STandard some years ago that suggested about the same.
Yes, but the thing that’s different now is that the Shuttle will be gone soon…forever. This changes everything.
Once Shuttle is gone, NASA can be spanked, cranked and molded into anything the powers-in-control decide. No lives are on the line, and you can experiment with anything you want.
Bottom line is the human space flight centers should be afraid…very afraid.
sc220 – I would say that what you say is only true IF there are no SDLVs, whether Direct, Sidemount, Ares V, or pick your favorite
If there is one of those, then I think its less likely, but if shuttle goes away, and there is no SDLV, then things are changing
Bob Mahoney.. the American people love a good show…and they have now TV networks that love it even more.
The shuttle era until Challenger was an era where “new” and to some extent “exciting things” were done on most every flight. The Solar Max mission, the “flying backpack” etc…were all a pretty good show.
There were two problems however. The first is that the American people can only take so much of the “show” and then they lose interest…thats why by Apollo 12 walking on the Moon was boring and by 17 almost no one new that it was going on.
The second was that NASA started making really bone headed mistakes…I mean ones which just made not only engineeringly competent Americans go “seesH” but made the average American do the same thing…and that culminated in Challenger.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that NASA was functionally incompetent on the 51L decisions. (as an aside, I was at the Cape with my boss flying “aircap” for the mission right before Challenger went bang…my boss was a fairly well known Naval Aviator Test Pilot and he was talking to his old friend John Young at one of the local bars…Dick shoke his head after Young left and told me “they are going to get someone killed pretty quick”).
Spells (or infatuations) can be broken by such events and the American people (and Ronald Reagan) never came back on board.
If NASA went back to the Moon, it might be exciting (decades from now) for oh about one flight and then the then equivelent of OJ Simpson going down the expressway would surpass it.
Human spaceflight has to somehow have those moments of excitement (“when the crowd you win Rome”)…but to exist between them…it has to have some some real value to the Country that pays for it.
Dont worry…no other country is going back to the Moon, no matter what folks like Whittington say. They cant afford it
Robert G. Oler
“Regarding the relationship between human spaceflight and soft power, I can’t help but speculate regarding how perception might change both inside and outside the US if it should come to pass a few years hence that numerous other nations (China being only one) have people on the lunar surface and we do not.â€
That’s a national conversation worth having, and one that certain legislators don’t want us to have.
China has people in the Gobi Desert, and we don’t. That doesn’t bother us. But looking up in the sky and seeing China when we see the Moon is presumed to be like looking up in the sky and seeing Russia when we saw Sputnik. Seeing Russia over our heads those days was pretty threatening, especially in a cold war in which ICBMs, and heaving atom bombs at you, was the recurrent nightmare. Your nightmares came out of the sky.
But that’s not our nightmare anymore (though maybe it still should be). Right now we can see plenty of foreign craft speeding overhead, if you know when to look. They’re going over us all the time! Now, if you were to look up at the Moon and start thinking about what those sneaky Chinese are doing there that would threaten us, I suppose one could feel worried. But frankly I don’t think that Helium-3 or palladium are going to get people that nervous, and the Moon is pretty far away to look at as any kind of “high ground†for warfare. I doubt that kids will be crawling under desks in school because the Chinese are on the Moon.
I completely agree that there is something captivating about astronauts in space suits and sleek spaceships, but exactly what? More to the point, what’s the national need about being captivated? Is it about heroism and risking ones life? Extreme jumpers and cave explorers do that too. But they don’t do that for me. Soldiers sure do. What do astronauts do for me? We as a nation have to come to terms with that. Oh yeah, they “exploreâ€. But, you know, legions of astronauts have been on ISS for decades. What is there to “explore†in LEO?
As of today, China cannot and should not be regarded as was Russia back then. Times have changed a lot. What is the interest that China may actually have in threatening its largest market? Russia and the US did not have anywhere similar relationship as China and the US today have. It would be suicidal for China to exert military threats against the US and Chinese are practical and pragmatist, I believe. This argument will… never fly. In the same way the US has no interest in any confrontation with China, nor with Russia for that matter but for different reason possibly. Unless the situation dramatically changes but I cannot see why it would. However, it might be worth noting that China can be of help in parts of the world where the US has little influence, Iran maybe? SOme african countries? So some sort of joint space venture may help congeal some foreign policy where China would show some prestige: As capable as the US in space! That could be something the people of China would love to be. But beyond that? On the other hand prestige may be a strong driver for the Chinese, so what if we help them somehow? Would they return the favor? And if they don’t would they lose face? Anyhow as an instrument for foreign policy I think that HSF may have a lot to bring. Not all the people in the world are as blase and cynical as some in the western world. Not everyone is a friend or (exclusive or) a foe. Sometime your friend is a foe and conversely… The good thing about HSF is that it is easily shown all over the world, it still does inspire people. Of course it does not compare with the pioneers of the 60s but still.
FWIW.
Human spaceflight has almost no value in foreign policy if the goal is to achieve specific changes not related to spaceflight.
The move by Clinton (which to be fair I oppossed at the time) to integrate the two programs (US and Russian) did little but preserve the Russian space program…and that might have been a good thing “THEN” for lots of reasons…but the concept that it was keeping “engineers from working for dictators” was as real as “smoking guns smoking mushrooms” or “shovel ready” …they were just all slogans to make the effort more then it was.
Nor is human spaceflight a recipe for continual public relations excitement. The American people just dont work that way.
The bottom line is that at some point human spaceflight has to justify itself just for what it does, not anything else…and so far it has not done that. I think that this can change…ISS to my mind has pointed out the unique abilities of humans in space…assemblying large structures…and I think that at somepoint that will pay dividends in terms of building such structures for places like Geosync and beyond…both commercial and military.
But as long as we “Iraq” human spaceflight, ie justify it on reasons which turn out not to be true..in search of some long term goal (and to be bipartisan the same thing could probably be said about the stimulas package)…then the appitite for the American people to do it is going to be “less”.
The American people are tough…they will put up with a lot; money, death, destruction etc…as long as at the end they still understand why we started something. One reason the last administration left office with record low popularity is that at the end of it, few Americans understood why it had done most of what it had done.
That is true in human spaceflight as well..why the heck are we doing it?
Robert G. Oler
Robert:
Your family is worried about you. They are afraid that you are off again on one of your manic phases where you imagine that you are a space policy adviser to prominent politicians, an F-14 pilot, that you are a Democrat one day and then you are a Republican the next day, and so on. It is clear from your rambling posts here that they are correct. Time to get back on your meds and check in with your therapist.
Roo
Robert Oler:
“The American people are tough…they will put up with a lot; money, death, destruction etc…as long as at the end they still understand why we started something. One reason the last administration left office with record low popularity is that at the end of it, few Americans understood why it had done most of what it had done.”
Well put.
As to your (and others’) comments regarding my comments, I think many of you missed my fundamental point. I wasn’t speaking about military worries or even the lack of entertainment punch in our current endeavors.
I was speaking of something more subtle, perhaps even subconscious, in terms of feeling “good” or even merely “okay” about one’s country (or, for non-US folks, perhaps feeling bad or mad about someone else’s country).
The fact that we are a premier spacefaring nation right now (relatively speaking, mind you) is either comforting to people (even if it’s almost background noise to them) or it annoys them because it fits into their current worldview of the US’s abilities as a nation.
Take the US out of the space game and many, many people’s worldviews about the US’s abilities (and strengths, and will, and commitment) HAVE to change, again, even if this altered reality remains almost background noise coming through as 30-second blurbs in the news about this or that OTHER nation’s accomplishments in space set against the US not doing anything comparable.
And such a change in collective worldview will inevitably affect future US endeavors—and our relations with other nations—because the mental and emotional landscape will be different for all of us since national pride (and many other underlying things) will have a different hue.
That’s a lotta billions of dollars for something subtle or subconscious , concerning mental and emotional landscapes as background noise and altered reality and or changing the hue of a worldview. Whew. Strategically, that’s a hard one to chew on. Kinda squishy, really.
I think what you’re trying to say is that there MUST be something important about human space flight, but we’re really having a hard time putting our finger on what it is. That I accept. Best of luck, Lori.
Marcus D – “The next quarter of a century commencing 2018 +/- 2-3yrs are going to be the most progressive and development intensive period of Near Earth Environment Space Technology we’ll have ever seen.”
Who’s going to watch?
The problem with the justifications for human space flight is that an outcome is assumed, then we try to backfill with a reason to help support it.
For science, the conventional Moon and Mars surface missions can’t hold water. Perhaps eventually, but in the near-term, there is so much more we can effectively do with robotic platforms. The Flexible Path/Deep Space option opens the possibility of a solid scientific justification for human space flight, but this connection should probably worked more thoroughly.
For economic development, there isn’t a whole lot outside Earth orbit that couldn’t also be done with robotic systems. Even if He3 and lunox were viable industries of the future, why not perform the demonstrations and lunar utilization remotely, without the exorbitant and superflous expense of sending people to the surface. For this century, the focus on space commercialization will be Earth orbit.
For national security, there isn’t really any need either. If there was, DOD has a sizable enough budget for its own space activities to take care of it. Why would it want to enlist an open-window agency such as NASA to do the heavy lifting for something as important as this?
That leaves only one justification, and that is inspiration and motivation. However, we can also get this from entertainment, visionary education and a variety of sources in our society. In fact, the inspirational return per dollar from NASA is probably much lower than other activities in our society.
Bob
Take the US out of the space game and many, many people’s worldviews about the US’s abilities (and strengths, and will, and commitment) HAVE to change, again, even if this altered reality remains almost background noise coming through as 30-second blurbs in the news about this or that OTHER nation’s accomplishments in space set against the US not doing anything comparable….
I dont know about that…I dont think most Americans even know what is being done in human spaceflight right now…maybe wrong about that…but I suspect most could not tell you if there were US strows on the ISS or not
Robert G. Oler
Just curious are you guys anti nasa or just anti constellation(dont come to this website often)? seems like yahs want nasa killed entirely. If Obama really does kill NASA Hope someone creates an International Space Agency so we dont enter a dark “space age” (and lose pure science research) and regress too much…
I’m just anti-NASA Ares I waste and anti-NASA Ares I fraud. When the waste and fraud gets up into the tens of billions of dollars in the space launch vehicle sector, somebody has to stand up and say something. It would have been nice if more of the yahoos that post here had said something earlier.
But, you know, such was America during the Bush regime years.
Yer either fer us er agin us.
Omi…depends on what the meaning of the words “Pure science” are…
Robert G. Oler
“argument is overblown as well. It is like saying “you are against containing the Soviet Union unless you are for full blown nuclear warâ€
“There is a thing called “value for costâ€â€¦sure Apollo brought back a lot of rocks, but in the end its cost was far to high for the value…The rovers on Mars…not so…the cost and value are if anything reversed from Apollo…ie there is far more value then cost.â€
“As to expenditures on space science, we’re talking about very different amounts of money than for human space flight. NSF and globular clusters? Geez. The amount NSF spends on globular cluster research with ground based telescopes is worth a sneeze at KSC. Spirit and Opportunity put our eyes on Mars for hugely less money than it would have cost to put flesh there. Is it worth it to put that flesh there? Does the science really demand it? Does our quality of life really demand it? We haven’t learned how to make that argument in a compelling way.â€
Value for cost, sure. Less money spent by the NSF on astronomy then NASA on human space flight, probably even considering the Hubble. These don’t conflict with the main point of my argument. I was responding to the arguments against the more intangible reasons and benefits of exploration and research, such as this:
“As I told Whittington, most of the “we have to explore†stuff is mindless nonesense.â€
Debatable, of course. The big picture “Carl Sagan” type argument would be that the benefits of human space exploration come in the long term, not so much the short term. Just as expeditions across the oceans brought new trade routes between civilizations, our voyages across the stars may eventually lead to trade routes to other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy, assuming they exist. Venturing out into space then gives our species and others a better chance of survival. This is for the far future, but once we image an earth-like planet around another star (which may be sooner than you think), I imagine the demand for human exploration will increase tremendously. I’ll even go as far as to say that a few billion years from now, if we’re still around, the only way to survive will be to leave the solar system–on that timescale space travel is indeed, essential. As for the near future:
I think a pretty high bar is making a buck or two in space… Creating new jobs that pay taxes instead of consuming them, …silly things like that beats flags and footprints anyday.
I agree on the “flags and footprints†argument. I don’t see the point of going to a NEO, a Lagrange point, a free-return trajectory around Mars or whatever just to say we’ve been there. If you’re going to bring the spacecraft out that far anyway, just go the rest of the way—seems like a lot of cost for not much risk reduction. I think if we stayed on the Martian surface for a year (as in Zubrin’s Mars Direct) humans could not only carry out a great deal of research with better flexibility and real-time decision making than autonomous rovers, but it would be the beginning of research on colonizing another world while actually on that world. To me Mars is the highest bar. Human space flight at NASA should be about exploration that actually takes us somewhere. The public has lost interest in the past 20+ years because we haven’t essentially been going anywhere.
Another aspect of the “Zubrin” argument I agree with is the analogy that the moon is to Mars for our epoch as Greenland was to North America for the explorers of the seas. The moon is closer, and might be great for a research station, but I find it hard to believe we have a chance at living off the land there. If any colonization is to happen in space, it will be on Mars.
I don’t see private industry able to take first steps in major space exploration—up front costs are way too high and the benefits don’t come soon enough. Virgin galactic might have a chance at making space tourism profitable–four decades after Alan Shepard’s first flight. Humans to LEO is a whole other animal, and outside of ferrying people to the space station I don’t see how it would be profitable in the near future. The only reason commercial crews have a potential place to go is because governments picked up the tab to build the ISS over decades. Again, benefits from human space flight come in the long term, too long in my opinion for private companies to bear the initial burden.
I wouldn’t risk my life to go to space just to make a buck for myself, or for a few suits. It would have to be for bigger and better reasons than that. As Norm Augustine pointed out, you can’t justify human space flight on just soft power, inspiring youth, science benefits, satisfying the curiosity of the human race or other benefits alone. In my view it’s the combination.
Perhaps I’m bringing up old arguments. I’ve only been following this blog for a couple months in the attempt to gain deeper insight into the influences on our space policy outside of 20 second news clips, short articles in the newspapers, etc. Would be nice to see more thoughtful counterarguments as opposed to the usual cheap shots that seem to be thrown around.
usual cheap shots
Those cheap shots are a whole lot more persuasive and get a lot more work done, than any failed $100 billion dollar human space flight architectures.
And after a couple of cheap shots, we feel a whole lot better about ourselves.
With regard to human space flight inspiring youth, some words from Len Fisk (yes, a space scientist) that came out last year in Space Policy are interesting. Not sure I agree with him that modern human space flight doesn’t use new technology, but it’s a thought I’ve heard expressed that is expressed especially well here.
“Space as a demonstration of a nation’s technological capabilities was a wonderful cover for developing all possible space capabilities. The more you could do, the more you demonstrated your nation’s technological prowess.
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.
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In the USA and elsewhere in the world we are witnessing a fascinating difference among the generations as to what is impressive. To the older generations who witnessed Apollo, human spaceflight is impressive. The astronauts were true heroes. However, to the younger generation,who are steeped in technology, who vicariously participate in all sorts of adventures through their computers, rovers on Mars are more impressive. Indeed, the younger generation would say: ‘what is so impressive about sending people into space?’ The technology, much of which is not new, is primarily to keep the astronaut alive. The rovers, however, are based on the latest technology.They are doing something we have never done before. And would not it be better still if the younger generation could drive them themselves? Indeed, if one of the purposes of the space program is to demonstrate a nation’s technological prowess, which is more impressive? Human spaceflight, which uses the technology of the 1960s, and may in time make it back to the Moon? Or invoking the full power of the revolution in technology that has occurred over the past few decades—in materials, in electronics—and robotically colonizing our Solar System?”
I bring this up because it bears on soft power, and also because Lori Garver is somewhat focused on the “inspiration” angle.
Derrick
Two points.
First off Zubrin is in my view completly wrong about Mars being someplace special. I’ve seen nothing that says survival on Mars is any easier or harder then on the Moon…If there is locatable water on the Moon’s poles then the equation changes in the Moons favor enormously…but then again for all I know there is water somewhere on Mars two moons.
The point is that it really doesnt matter. Zubrin (and the Moon folks) have an overated sense of where technology is today in spaceflight. I am persuaded by Jim Oberg, who I think knows what he is talking about that the technology available in spaceflight is no where near what it takes to survive independently on the Moon or Mars…and there is right now no real reason to invest the dollars to find it.
Second. I CAN see how private access to the Space station and private (read commercial) ability to fly people in space is a game changer…just like the airmail subsidy was. It might not turn out that way…but the way things are going now…well we have tried that method for 40 plus years and we are getting nowhere.
The worst part for the “go to Mars” (or the Moon) People is that they cannot come up with a reason to go that gets the backing of the American people
Robert G. Oler
It looks like we are going off topic again. At leat in my opinion.
The earlier post by red was a lot more on topic. Justification for HSF is a different topic on his own. Here the question is more how to relate HSF to national interests. Can we get back to this?
Did red identify the “correct” national interests? Are there more than that? Should we prioritize them? It looks that national security is on the mind of several posters here but is it the real important one that shouldd be addressed by HSF? I think not. I think it only is addressed through the soft-power way (diplomacy of a kind). What about Energy? Education? Economy? Environment and health? Can we come up with a priority list?
I think the most important are Energy and Health where HSF may provide more bang for the buck. Education economy and environment will follow. Environment may need to be addressed in a new way though, not just Earth observation but what about the effects fo the Sun. On the other hand is this really an HSF related interest?
FWIW.
Yes, things have gotten off-topic. But they almost invariably do…
Much of HSF’s most lasting impact on these disciplines (energy, environment, education, economy, health, etc) is second-tier, presuming, like the old days, we push the technologies to open up new capabilities or new realms of operations, OR improve current capabilities and modes of operation. [Using OTS technology is the opposite of what I’m talking about).
Yet tackling the challenges inherent in perfecting closed life-support, maintaining health in closed isolated environments, implementing compact efficient energy systems, inventing lighter, stronger materials, creating novel means of mining in low-g environments…even just solving the challenge of launching things into space with railguns or such…will create seeds of innovation that will find their way back into all these disciplines back on the home planet.
As a sales pitch, though, spin-offs (which these essentially would be) have failed miserably, certainly compared to their actual infiltration of our everyday lives. [Given my own convoluted medical history, I can’t help but wonder how many times I’ve stayed alive because of innovations derived from the space program…] I’ve thought of a few commercials that might help here, but I don’t think it will serve the bigger purpose as much as needed to justify the program.
For direct impact, I think ‘economy’ may be our best bet, and not just because it’s so in the news right now and impacting so many. How can we ignite people’s passions about the potential to make big money by setting our sights on the solar system in its entirety, a promise of wealth for each and every one of us? Any thoughts on possible avenues along that tack?
@Bob:
My initial aims in terms of national interests were those that relate to the national program, hence energy and health.
As to the economic impacts I think that opening space to commercial operators, a la COTS, really is where money can be made. I’d like to think that this is “private” space, as opposed to NASA. Even though NASA is part of it. So in my dream world there would be a NASA taking care of major issues as they relate to national interests requiring major injection of capital and a “private” space developing a “new” industry that will help the public get on board in may ways including investment and wealth creation (of course there needs to be a market etc).
I would love to separate once and for all military space from civilian space. The military has plenty of cash and very different requirements. Hence my reasoning about national security: Let the military worry about it, essentially. However the State Dept. might be onboard for anything that is diplomacy, what I called soft-power.
Bob:..
To me “exploration” with people is about the largest waste that The Republic has…
what we need is an agency (a NACA type group ) that aides technology development in terms of use by private industry.
I have heard no convincing reason to send people back to the Moon…including the water thing
Robert G. Oler
NASA gets peanuts compared to agencies that make more waste to the “Republic” example Military and political kickbacks like bridge to nowhere….
Are you anti expansion Rob? Humanity needs to leave the cradle sometime…
Oler: Looks like your family has been worried about you. They have been contacting various websites where you post because you have not been returning their calls for quite some time. They are afraid you are on a mantic binge as a space policy analyst again.
Phone home, Oler.