Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who is also running for the US Senate, issued his views on NASA that he tied into the president’s call to the ISS yesterday. “[P]hone calls do not make up for the President’s disappointing decision to end NASA’s Constellation program,” Crist said in the statement. “By cutting this program, President Obama is putting an end to significant investment in moon exploration and costing Florida’s Space Coast thousands of jobs.” It’s not surprising that Crist would keep his distance from the White House plan, regardless of the number of jobs threatened in his state: he’s in a tough primary battle with a more conservative opponent, Marco Rubio.
The three Republican candidates for Alabama’s fifth district, including new Republican and incumbent Parker Griffith, discussed NASA at a Huntsville luncheon yesterday, but didn’t appear to say much, according to a report by a local TV station. Griffith said that he is “working with the NASA caucus as we speak” on space exploration policy. One challenger, Mo Brooks, said that “we have to promote our views explain why its so beneficial to the United States and explain how space is the high ground.” Brooks, incidentally, warned of “this drift toward socialism and socialism doesn’t work. That’s where this President wants us to go.” One wonders what he thinks of NASA’s plans to turn to the private sector for human access to LEO…
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) is one of over two dozen members of the House who signed the letter warning NASA administrator Charles Bolden he may be breaking the law by trying to shut down Constellation this year, but that doesn’t mean he’s good friends with another opponent of Constellation’s cancellation, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). LaTourette tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he’s worried that other NASA centers may be “pirating” NASA Glenn projects if Constellation is ended, citing in particular the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama:
“The biggest pigs were the guys down in Alabama,” said LaTourette, a Republican from Bainbridge Township. “They were always trying to take stuff away from NASA Glenn, and it was because of Sen. [Richard] Shelby.”
“Nobody with a straight face could tell you it was based on merit,” LaTourette said. “It was because Shelby was a pretty big wheel in the United States Senate.”
Not surprisingly, the article concludes with a note that Sen. Shelby’s office did not return a request for comment on LaTourette’s remarks.
Sigh. The greatest mistake of this current budget chaos is the opportunity it gives for people to argue, leading to paralysis. The proposed budget is filled with nebulous science projects – leading to an unknown goal. This will give various Centers the opening to fight over the pieces, if the project is some stand alone experiment which Center should get it? An experienced leader would have made a far better managed transitition – rather than this mess.
Charles,
I know people like deliberately mischaracterizing the technology demonstration funding as “nebulous science projects”, but really it isn’t nebulous unless you can’t read, and they aren’t science projects–they’re technology projects. We’re talking about a focused effort to take several technologies that are currently languishing in the “TRL valley of death” (that’s the point where you’ve learned about as much as you can without flying it, but have already done lots of bench tests), and give them the opportunity within 5 years, to be flight tested and demonstrated. They specifically listed at least 10 such technologies, and there’s probably another 50-100 that are interesting. Just look at the old Human and Robotic Technologies program that Griffin gutted to pay for der Griffinshaft. There were tons of good technologies that would increase the safety, performance, affordability, and reach of human and robotic exploration.
Sorry if you think that amounts to “vague science projects”, because they’re nothing of the sort.
~Jon
Jon – Thanks for the well thought out answer. A further question results – sure there are lots of deserving projects but shouldn’t the Administration identify them and then transition over to a project based budget? Instead of sending everyone into a mad scramble to figure out who is doing what, when, with what? My reply is about the waste that we are sure to see as various groups try to figure out what they are working on. This is all so unnecessary – if we were going to transition to a different model we should present the design first and then make an orderly change. Now we have contracts that require spending stimulus money on Orion – which is a project that is scheduled for cancellation. We just finished a tower for Ares – is there anything we could use it for? We could provide dozens of similar examples. Anyone who has ever run an organization knows that they are like steering a large ship – you can’t turn them in their length. This is just management by amateurs.
CharlesTheSpaceGuy
my impression is that the “turn” is being managed as well as can be expected.
Just speaking for myself.
What Bolden has in my view figured out (correctly I think) is that he has to make a clean cut with the past…that includes shuttle and “Constellation”…because he cannot afford the infrastructure that those programs carry.
there is some short term “waste” there…but that waste is more then paid back by the future where those continuing cost do not well continue.
Robert G. Oler
for Robert G Oler: this change is just blundering around – destroying confidence, causing chaos. Management teachers are taking notes, writing another case study in “How NOT To Implement Change”. When you have All Hands meetings where the hostility in the room is like a smoke cloud, you know that your bridges to even your senior employees are being broken. What are the employees with up to five years experience taking out of this? Themselves! This is not short term waste but long term waste. We have all seen big changes made, some were done well and some not. This is titanically badly done.
We could not afford the infrastructure but everyone knows that we are blowing billions on high speed rail, Murtha’s airport (and others), broadband to people who do not even want it, etc etc. There is lots of money just not any money for a controlled transition.
We are told to trust SpaceX since they are real smart – managers must mean that they are a lot smarter than the people who have been doing this for years. Years of hard experience must not be very valued today.
If SpaceX does not make it to ISS – we will not pay them! And people on ISS also do not get the stuff that SpaceX was supposed to ship up – was it that unimportant?
“We are told to trust SpaceX since they are real smart – managers must mean that they are a lot smarter than the people who have been doing this for years. Years of hard experience must not be very valued today.”
What is this again??? Did you care to read who is employed at SpaceX? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Nope. Useless, senseless rant. BTW is being “smart” the new insult in this country? Progressive used to mean progress, now it is associated with socialism. “Smart” is the new “progressive” or worse the new “liberal”?
“If SpaceX does not make it to ISS – we will not pay them! And people on ISS also do not get the stuff that SpaceX was supposed to ship up – was it that unimportant?”
Yes. If SpaceX and OSC, forgot OSC you know they have the same contract, you know that? Do you know that? So anyway it is unimportant as there are other ways to resupply the ISS. In the old capitalistic way we’ll go to the cheaper bidder and that might be the Russians, Europeans, Japanese or Chinese. Live with it this is our US system. If you don’t like it then you can always move I suppose…
Charles,
You’re assuming once again that commercial crew and cargo == SpaceX. It doesn’t. There are dozens of groups, many using existing, proven launch vehicles that are interested in competing. This is not a “all the eggs in one basket” situation, but open competition in a market. Some of the groups (like Boeing) that are proposing crew/cargo options are the same groups who would be building Orion. How are the somehow magically a foolproof solution if they’re on a cost-plus contract to the government, but when they’re bidding fixed-price, with several competitors being funded, it’s all of the sudden this huge ginormous risk?
~Jon
The thing that defenders of this train wreck keep avoiding is that the new policy cancels any attempt to venture beyond low Earth orbit for decades. In one way it is absurd, because no President is able to bind a subsequent President to his multi decade plan, especially one that lacks a mandate or a consensus. Even if the new plan survives the political sausage machine, it will be revisited during the next administration. Maybe even the next Congress.
CharlesTheSpaceGuy wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
for Robert G Oler: this change is just blundering around – destroying confidence, causing chaos. ..
not really no.
there is no controlled transition possible.
NASA and its human spaceflight groups are a classic case of management failure down to the 14 and maybe even to the 13 level. There are failures of both strategery (grin) and execution and both are simply fatal.
Griffin and his thunderheads are responsible, in my view for the “mistakes on steroids” that set the course for failure…but it seeps down farther into management levels that have made any project execution impossible.
A good example of this is the concept of “human rating”. That is completly under the control of NASA and what they have managed to do is to contrive a system of requirements that is simply impossible to fullfill for any reasonable cost…and is several levels of magnitude above what existed for the premier program in NASA’s glory days…Mercury/Gemini/Apollo…and in fact not even the shuttle system meets.
Those “rating” levels really will never be met in the Ares design (even if it were to continue) but what attempting them has done (along with the concept of pushing the performance of established hardware farther then it was intended to go…kind of Delta IIIish) is simply priced the vehicle to the point where it is unaffordable.
What “that” and other things have shown is that there is really no “‘transition” that can be done to what has to happen in order for human spaceflight to survive as a cost possible system.
The closest non government analogy is when UAL created its commuter line “TED”. It was doomed from the start because what they did to staff the management of it was to push across the aisle the very same managers who had made the 737 fleet at UAL one of the most expensive to operate in the industry. And that is exactly what they did at TED.
Now all this does not mitigate the tragedy for the people who are just “troops” in a poorly run army. But those tragedies are being repeated all across the US and tax dollars should not be used to maintain badly operating infrastructure in human spaceflight just because they can.
In the end, for human spaceflight to be “functional” and “affordable” enormous parts of it have to change…it is not the technology (or lack of it) that is making it unaffordable…it is the management structure at NASA (and that says nothing about the engineering management structure which is in the same sorry state).
Sorry, I know this is hard, but Bolden is doing exactly what he needs to do to do this
Robert G. Oler
CharlesTheSpaceGuy wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
We are told to trust SpaceX since they are real smart – managers must mean that they are a lot smarter than the people who have been doing this for years…
in addition to my other post I would respond to this dirctly.
in many respects managers at Space X are “more inventive” than the people who have been doing this for years…mostly the ones at NASA.
I have no doubt that Boeing/Lockmart and some others can think outside the box…but it is clear in every aspect of the “vision” (or Constellation) that the folks who are at management at NASA cannot. (APollo on steroids).
I have no doubt (because I know for a fact) that when SWA started…the folks at BI said about the same thing you are.
Plus in terms of program execution at NASA, it is clear that there is no thinking outside the box. (6 billion for Ares and no rocket)
Worse for you…you continue to confuse spaceX as the sole provider of the “change”. That is tempting I know because they are so innovative.. but before this is done, I suspect Boeing/Lockmart and a few others are going to get a chance to be “innovative”.
In Boeing’s case I bet you that they can do it
Robert G. Oler
A further question results – sure there are lots of deserving projects but shouldn’t the Administration identify them and then transition over to a project based budget?
Absolutely not, IMHO. The project is to make us spacefaring. There are certain projects that make sense if you are going to Mars. There are others that make sense if you are going to the moon. BUT, if you want to make us spacefaring, you’ve got to have it all. And we have a substantial amount of technology that could move us towards being spacefaring, but its stuck, because it NEED to move closer to full up testing.
In other words, we are, in essence, testing for the sake of testing, so that we can utilize it in a number of different programs, rather than a single direction program
Think of a number of things that were removed, because they didn’t have anything to do with going to the moon.
sorry, that first comment was suppose to be a quote from CharlesTheSpaceGuy
Mark R. Whittington wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
The thing that defenders of this train wreck keep avoiding is that the new policy cancels any attempt to venture beyond low Earth orbit for decades. In one way it is absurd, because Even if the new plan survives the political sausage machine, it will be revisited during the next administration. Maybe even the next Congress…
that position is goofy.
Two points starting with the really goofy part first.
” no President is able to bind a subsequent President to his multi decade plan, especially one that lacks a mandate or a consensus.”
thank you for stating the reason that “the vision” and its implementation was idiotic. dumb, stupid, ridiculous, inept, politically dull….the list is long.
Second. I dont think that the US needs a “plan” to venture outside of LEO with humans (because we are outside of LEO with our vehicles) other then to satisfy the ravings of people who have invented a Chinese threat that clearly does not exist.
Mark…try thinking.
Robert G. Oler
“The thing that defenders of this train wreck keep avoiding is that the new policy cancels any attempt to venture beyond low Earth orbit for decades.”
Nope, I don’t avoid, I just don’t give a hoot. And YOU ARE WRONG.
If Obama was being your average politician he would have laid out the same vision he just did, except he would have included continuation of Ares development just to get Florida’s approval. This would have resulted in our going no where.
He’s not your average politician and he said he’d rather be a good one term president, than a bad two term president, and I believe him.
Here’s where I think we’re head if we stay on the Obama track:
1. Like Oler has explained in fairly good detail we will demonstrate COTS/human commercial payloads, ISS research, exotic propulsion, autonomous docking, refueling, inflatables, autonomous and human operated repair and assembly in LEO – perhaps the beginning of GEO Platform, and or prop depots beyond LEO.
2. HLV research will be gifted to commercial contractors for eventual HLV development in 2020’s
3. 2030’s roll along and we’ve done the necessary testing in LEO radiation environment to move human test bed to GEO, L1, or Lunar orbit. As well as propulsion testing to begin development of human mission to Mars (if deemed necessary).
Under this plan you have, perhaps, thousands of people with the option to go to LEO, thriving launch companies, booming commercial assembly and repair operations in LEO and GEO. And with this comes an enormous level of security to compete and exceed China’s satellite destroyers that are lurking on the fringes of deep space, pointing down on our satellites and infrastructure.
Once you get into the 2030’s we have begun to figure out what is required to protect astronauts in deep space from cosmic rays, and you have NASA and commercial companies assembling robotic ISRU to exploit the riches of the trillion dollar space rockets near earth, as well as exploit water for use in protecting astronauts from radiation, and so on. We would have the capacity to put people on the Moon for more ISRU as well. This future could be a real possibility.
The other weave of time, which Charles thespaceguy mentions is that we have a permanent colony on the Moon, perhaps some very wealthy people beginning to go to orbit in the first Bigelow space habs, and not much else. NASA will still be throwing away its money at the Moon in large quantities because it will be relying on NASA to fulfill the orders, which will continually leave the whole program to budget cuts or cancellations because of the extreme costs. Not such a good future.
One wonders what he thinks of NASA’s plans to turn to the private sector for human access to LEO…
The real wonder of all of this is that so many Republicans are proving themselves to be even more complete hypocrits than I thought they were. At least the Democrats had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the relative centerist positions many of them hold today (e.g., the President). Especially where spaceflight is concerned, Republicans seem to be diving headfirst into socialism. Come on, folks, have you no shame? If you believed your own ideology, Mr. Obama is doing exactly the correct thing and you should be singing his praises.
Regarding SpaceX, I’ve just read their Falcon-9 Users’ Guide. It makes very interesting reading, especially regarding attempt for maximum simplicity (or should that be minimum complexity?) and extreme reproducability. It looks like the Soyuz launcher all over again — and how is this supposed to be less safe than the Rube Goldberg Ares-1? From everything I know now, after it’s had a few flights, I’d far rather risk my hide on the former than the latter.
— Donald
sorry I have a correction
“NASA and commercial companies assembling robotic ISRU to exploit the riches of the trillion dollar space rockets” I meant ROCKs not rockets.
Donald F. Robertson
No I don’t think Republicans are socialists, although their views on NASA seem that way. Its really because of their interests in their states, and because they’re vying for power in Congress and in the executive branch. If their power structure is not in favorable terms they ruin the party for everyone else to make the political establishment look like a mess to the public, which as a result causes the public to think there needs to be a change in washington, which means off with incumbent heads, thereby resulting in the overthrow of Democratic leadership. Its a very affective campaign, which costs the Republic dearly.
There are some good Republicans like McCain and Newt Gingrich. Not that I agree with their domestic policies, but they understand the importance of science and technology. But many Republicans, which are mainly rural representatives are very backwards, and I call them “Potato(e) Chips”. Some Democrats are “Potato Chips” as well. These types of leaders have resulted in the loss of American technological leadership and Defense capability and are a direct threat to National Security. These types of leaders advocate wars like the one in Iraq instead of concentrating on real enemies like Al Qaeda, putting many good men and women in harms way, and they advocate programs like Ares/VSE, which are strategically deprived options, which don’t establish the infrastructure to ensure national security in LEO by protecting against strategically advanced adversaries and problems like space junk, which threatens everyone’s space assets.
@Donald F. Robertson:
You’re absolutely correct. Nowadays a fairly centrist level headed lad is looked upon as a crazy socialist. If you’re smart you’re elitist. This attitude is turning this country upside down and outside in. This is utter stupidity when a party or anyone for that matter can only oppose things for the sake of it, not propose anything better, and, even crazier, not support in that particular case even their basic ideology. Pathetic.
common sense,
Yep, and guess who loves the Republicans in power? The Chinese. The Chinese never uttered much condemnation of Iraq – they actually encouraged us to wage our war there and to leave their “sovereignty” alone. The reason being, because our war in Iraq was damaging in the long term and they knew it. 7 years later our technological lead in defense, especially in missiles is either neck and neck, or behind. Instead of planning for a war with an advanced enemy we are mired in conflicts that wasted hundreds of billions of dollars. If China wanted to risk a big war they could knock out much of our pacific fleet within spitting distance of Guam. We’re trying to catch up with their capabilities, but we are behind. Taiwan is in peril. The Chinese patiently wait for the right moment to act.
Afghanistan was unavoidable. We couldn’t ignore that situation, but instead of concentrating on fighting there we wasted time and money on Iraq. The long terms consequences will be devastating.
Now that Obama is in office the prospects are worrisome to China. They are doing whatever they can to test him and make him look week in the eyes of Americans. The result is that Obama has no other choice but to carry out threats in trade disputes, ship arms to Taiwan, and meet with Chinese political opponents. Obama is having to get tough, and the economic consequences could be grim – making Obama unpopular. Chinese leaders can sit rough economic times out, and they would rather bankrupt China than give up their tight grip on power. So they don’t mind going into a nose dive when they see a smart, resilient leader heading the office of their opponent.
Mark said:
“In one way it is absurd, because no President is able to bind a subsequent President to his multi decade plan, especially one that lacks a mandate or a consensus”
By your definition, the VSE and or ESAS was doomed to failure from the start then and you should have been railing against the vision and how it was executed from day one because it could not bind a future President to it’s multi decade plan.
Vladislaw,
You’re exactly right. Instead of a “mission driven” model that lays out specific hardware requirements over many decades (aka “failure”), why don’t we be “technology driven” so our hardware will have versatility for many different kinds of missions.
“The reason being, because our war in Iraq was damaging in the long term and they knew it.”
Any one “smart” enough knew it. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that. It hurst our economy AND our foreign relations. But that is off topic…
But I highly doubt the Chinese would attempt anything. They would essentially ruin their own economy the way we did ours. If they touch Taiwan we will react and whether theirs or ours capabilities match or not does not matter – see Iraq and Afghanistan for example. Wars are BAD for everyone except the Defense contractors and a few others including banks. People just don’t see it because they are hammered with patriotic nonsense.
Oh well…
You’re right, I got off topic. I just get so angry when the Republicans wrap themselves up in the flag and cater to all the other lowest common denominators at the expense of the country. I don’t think McCain is this way, although he threatened to wage war in Iraq for 100 years.
But back to topic – I think there is a long race in the weaponization of space ahead of us. Refer to the statement by a Chinese Airforce general who said that the weaponization of space was inevitable. American simply cannot ignore this possibility. As long as China does not appear to be deploying such weapons then neither should we.
But here is what we can do. We can develop breakthrough science and infrastructure to enable advanced capabilities for robotic explorers. This will yield the type of mission capabilities we want for exploration, repairs, and assembly. These technologies will provide the dual use capabilities we need in case we decide we have to deploy such space weapons. Refueling and robotic repair/assembly fit the bill nicely, as well as missions like the Leroy Chiao’s mission to phobos proposal, which would land a robotic sample mission on phobos, take samples, then take off for Deimos.
I’m sure the administration will be keeping these dual use capabilities in mind. The USAF is already planning intelligence satellites with situational awareness for battle space in GEO to keep an eye on the situation, and I agree whole heartedly with this.
If we have an advanced infrastructure in LEO and GEO like the one that Oler and others are speaking of, then we will carry along the inherent capabilities to defend ourselves from the salivating glands of Chinese aspirations – because I have the deep understanding they know no bounds. I speak Chinese, I’ve been their many times, and my wife is even Chinese. Hence the reason I try to keep a somewhat low profile.
“American simply cannot ignore this possibility.”
I don’t think we are ignoring it at all. We do have a USAF Space Command. But it has nothing to do with NASA and space exploration. People mix up every thing and any thing to make up a point. NASA is not, or no loner, about national security. Not as it was in the Apollo/Shuttle and even ISS era. This no longer is despite the wishes of some people.
“These technologies will provide the dual use capabilities we need in case we decide we have to deploy such space weapons.”
Nope. I don’t agree. The DoD have their own plan and programs to deall with security and considering theeir enormous budget really don’t need any of that from NASA.
I still do not think the Chinese want a direct confrontation be it in space or anywhere else. I have been to China too and met people there and they were friendly to me. They were just regular people. Do not confuse the government with the people. AND the governement seems to be a lot smarter that that of the old USSR. I am sure you realize that. Are they just going to let go of their power? Heck no! Are we going to fix human rights by militarization? Bringing democracy through conflict there or elsewhere? What do you think? China is playing all the right cards in vying for the status of super power and I think it be more important to them than just a conflict. If they can do it softly even better as it will flatter their ego in being smarter than us. Etc… It is more complex than just weapons. I think.
Of course they’re not looking for a direct confrontation with the U.S.. They’re too smart for that. But they are looking for economic and military superiority so they can have their way in a whole litany of aspects. Hard Power goes along way to providing Soft Power. If you don’t understand this, then you don’t understand the relationship between the two.
There are all kinds of Chinese. There are friendly ones, there are angry ones – its just like anywhere else. But their friendliness has nothing to do with. They all have aspirations for a dominant culture in world politics.
You’re right that the USAF has its own requirements for space command. You’re wrong that a vast LEO/GEO space infrastructure wouldn’t yield a greatly expanded defense capability. Not only would such a construct pull our interests into a higher degree toward affective space defense, but it would provide technologies we can only begin to predict toward lending to our Security. NASA is part of our security apparatus. Obama understood this when he said that he was proposing a spending freeze across the whole budget, except for areas related to Security. NASA was the only agency to receive a spending boost besides DoD. That alone proves that your opinion is isolated.
“They’re too smart for that. But they are looking for economic and military superiority so they can have their way in a whole litany of aspects. Hard Power goes along way to providing Soft Power. If you don’t understand this, then you don’t understand the relationship between the two. ”
Of course they are, but who decided to engage into 2, not 1 mind you, 2 un winnable wars? Who decided to waste dollars and people in those stupid wars? And that using China’s loans??? So yes they are smarter and no they do not need miltary superiority. Times have changed. You may have the greatest F-22 in the whole universe but if you need your ennemy’s cash to fly it then what? I am sure you understand that, don’t you?
“You’re wrong that a vast LEO/GEO space infrastructure wouldn’t yield a greatly expanded defense capability.”
I am right and the resaon is that it will be done WITH China. You’ll see.
“NASA is part of our security apparatus. Obama understood this when he said that he was proposing a spending freeze across the whole budget, except for areas related to Security. NASA was the only agency to receive a spending boost besides DoD. ”
Only to the extent that MOST NASA contractors ARE DoD contractors. So you can not separate them, unfortunately.
there’s Potato(e) Chips, then there’s Bliss Cookies
“there’s Potato(e) Chips, then there’s Bliss Cookies”
So you say.
So you want NASA to provide a suppliant role to China? OH NO YOU DON’T Bolden even said that we are a long way off, considering the current environment with China, to be suppliant to China. You have got to be out of your mind.
You’re confused Common Sense. Think China just wants Soft Power? No they want both!
“Nope. I don’t agree. The DoD have their own plan and programs to deall with security and considering theeir enormous budget really don’t need any of that from NASA”
And that only includes what we know about. How much was off the books black projects last year, 80 – 120 billion?
Hell, they could be running a two stage to orbit, carrier plane/manned flyback booster and space plane like dream chaser for that kind of money and we wouldn’t even know about it.
The military is usually 10 years ahead of the private sector, as it should be.
Vladislaw,
I hope you’re right, but my feeling is that Americans feel too smug and way too confident in their capabilities. They can’t imagine that some entity would brush them aside, or worse, attack their assets, or homeland. I’m no fan of Rumsfeld, but I agree about what he warned was a potential “Pearl Harbor in space”.
I’m not a big hawk. I would rather we put our money into exploring the universe instead of defense, but I’m also a bit of a realist. “Liberalism” as a concept can go too far just as realism can. The best policy is to be prepared for any possibility, or at least those possibilities that seem most eminent.
The U.S. is planning a war theater design that is very advanced, based on high speed, stealth air space penetrating UAV, Cruise and Ballistic vehicles. The Chinese aren’t sure what to do. Its good because it does keep them from attacking Taiwan, but they have the option of severely degrading this threat by going after space assets.
But let me repeat the point that having an advanced space-based civilian construct will pull our interests and capabilities to a much higher degree into an affective deterrent.
When Beijing quits threatening Taiwan, amassing troops on the Indian border and slowly but surely staking more claim to their territory, quits seizing islands off the coast of Japan and claiming them as sovereign territory, quits arresting and making dissidents disappear, and finally begins to become more democratic, respecting the rights of free speech then I look forward to providing China with advanced space technology so our two societies and go to the stars as one. We’re not there yet. China wants its place in the Sun. What are they willing to do to have that capability. Most importantly, like WWII Japan, what political power does the Chinese military aspire to have? So far they have proven to be very brash and independent. I would even go so far as to say assertive in Chinese politics.
Sorry I didn’t mean to kill the discussion and frighten everyone. I’m just trying to give a realist perspective of why we need a strong NASA. And why I think that game changing technologies such as refueling/docking and all sorts of other technologies will increase our interests in space, thereby carrying the interests of a strong defense capability depending on how the threats evolve. I also strongly feel ISS should be kept in part to provide a strong bond with the international community.
I’m not just a realist. I’ll just sum it up like this:
A strong outlook based on liberalism prevents the self prophesying of our threat awareness, and in fact spurs a positive self prophesying reality.
Likewise
A strong realist perspective helps prevent unexpected and unwanted consequences.
Mark,
The very fact that NASA policies are likely to change from president to president is one of the strongest arguments for not tying ourselves to long-term projects that are very likely to get canceled or modified along the way. The new proposal doesn’t get rid of BEO exploration for decades (because as you point out, that would be impossible). What it does do is set up some good solid short-term goals that can put us in a ton better position to revisit BEO exploration in 4-5 years once those demonstration projects have started to yield fruit.
Realistically there are only a few ways of doing actual manned BEO exploration on a time horizon short enough that it might have a shot of happening within say a presidential term on anything like realistic budgets. And most of those options are politically difficult.
Instead of wasting large chunks of NASA’s HSF budget on the next going-to-be-canceled/changed manned space program, when we could actually get real results, and put ourselves in a better position five years from now to move forward again on BEO. But this time we’d be close enough to having something executable, that it might be achievable within 1-2 presidential terms. Finding ways to allow BEO programs to be executed on shorter time horizons without requiring unsustainable amounts of money seems like a good deal for me.
~Jon
@Mark Whittington:
The current plan may be the only one that is feasible in the current context. Trying to steer it more towards exploration maybe possible, but wholesale changes seem very unlikely. If going beyond LEO is really your goal, in other words if an HLV is only the means and not an end in itself, then there are other ways, ways that can work very gradually.
To get to the moon, we need a lander. We already have launch vehicles. A refuelable lander precursor can serve as an orbital transfer vehicle, a mini space station and a makeshift depot. It can be developed very gradually, in spirals. Initially it could operate in LEO, on training missions. It could make quick forays into the lower van Allen belt, initially uncrewed, later on when radiation shielding has been demonstrated even with crew. Commercial crew capsules could return the crew to Earth in an emergency. The lander itself could return the crew to the ISS in nominal cases. Stick a robot arm on it and it can do repair missions anywhere from LEO to GEO. Hubble is an old favourite. It can ferry astronauts between a man-tended free flyer and the ISS, it can even be the free flyer. If you’re a bit creative you can come up with lots of missions that are 1) precursors to real exploration, 2) interesting enough to get funded and 3) develop some the most critical piece of hardware you need for exploration, a lander.
To be sure, all of this is less exciting than a full lander combined with an EDS doing real moon missions. But it also requires much less money and much less time. It is something that gets you the most important bit of hardware, the lander itself, very incrementally. This is much better than having to wait for an EDS let alone a new launch vehicle before you even start work on the lander.
Martijn Meijering:
A refuelable lander precursor can serve as an orbital transfer vehicle, a mini space station and a makeshift depot.
Uggh. I agree that it is important to develop these technologies, but this is much better done by a constellation (small-c — or fleet, if you prefer) of small spacecraft than by one big gold-plated spacecraft that tries to test everything at once.
A commenter argued that NASA is part of our national security efforts. I agree that it *should be* part of our national security efforts. In light of our budget constraints and the hard power threat from China, we can’t have NASA frittering away billions that could be used to enhance our hard power. In particular NASA should consider the DoD to be its number one customer. It should develop these advanced technological capabilities (depots, advanced propulsion, inflatables, tethers, etc.) with DoD needs in mind first, commercial needs second, scientists’ needs third, and I’m afraid astronaut needs are a distant fourth.
Because technology R&D works better when it’s smaller scale, and when done a single innovation at a time, it’s much better to have a bunch of small separate systems to test the various technologies. Some can also be tested suborbitally before the far more expensive test in space. The astronauts and their grande-sized spacecraft will have to wait for the next generation when the technology is more mature and more affordable. Right now, and probably for the next decade or two, financial and security concerns are far more important. In the long run the astronauts too will greatly benefit from these technologies, just as they benefited from our investments in ICBMs in the 1950s.
Uggh. I agree that it is important to develop these technologies, but this is much better done by a constellation (small-c — or fleet, if you prefer) of small spacecraft than by one big gold-plated spacecraft that tries to test everything at once.
Hi Googaw, good to see you on this forum too.
The idea is that this is not a gold-plated spacecraft, quite the opposite. It would be the simplest possible manned spacecraft, except for the fact that it is refuelable. This one added complexity removes the need for a large EDS let alone an HLV. It also delays development of specialised craft until they are necessary. Such a craft would ideally operate based at L1/L2, but until there was an operational EDS (say initially Centaur + lunar mission kit, eventually followed by ACES) it would limit itself to training runs to L1/L2 and to operations between LEO and GEO on precursor missions and missions of opportunity.
It is simplified along the following dimensions:
– noncryogenic
– pressure fed
– relatively low thrust
– orbital operations only, just a precursor not a full lander
– single stage
– uses a commercial capsule for reentry
If necessary you could start from something even simpler in the same way ESA is trying to evolve towards a manned vehicle:
Spacelab -> MPLM -> ATV -> ARV -> CRV.
EPS ——^
Commercial capsule SM -> refuelable prox ops tug for space station support -> makeshift depot for tugs/capsules -> refuelable transfer stage -> manned orbital transfer craft.
The point of this would be to support the launch market directly, and not orbital applications. The idea being that launch costs are the biggest impediment and that market forces are best able to find the most promising applications once costs come down.
Not that I think there will be much money for this. I’d be happy with just R&D into depots, automated docking and rendez-vous etc. The HLV R&D is something I would like to redirect to things like ISRU or to the lander precursor I described above. The amount of money available would dictate how incremental you would have to go about it.
In light of our budget constraints and the hard power threat from China, we can’t have NASA frittering away billions that could be used to enhance our hard power.
Perhaps, I was just looking for commercial synergy from exploration. I’m not saying that’s more important than national security implications, although I do not necessarily agree with your assessment of those.
Hi Martin, great to see you here too and great to be here.
the simplest possible manned spacecraft
This is like doing medical experiments with elephants in the “simplest possible” way, rather than using lab rats.
This one added complexity removes the need for a large EDS let alone an HLV.
Not when we’re testing it. When we’re testing it, it might not work, and the astronauts would need to have an already on-board source of propellant. What are the astronauts there for, BTW, except to join the martyrs in spectacular fashion when the test blows up? Refueling is dangerous business, especially when doing it in a new way for the first time. Astronauts in the test will cause it to be preposterously conservative and gold-plated in order to try to ensure safety. (Our astronauts must be safe, safe, safe! cries Senator Mikulski). It’s far, far simpler to cut the astronauts out of the picture until the whole setup has been demonstrated to work on orbit. Indeed it’s far better to cut them out of the picture altogether for the operational depots to be used by commerce and the DoD. The depot is needed for the astronauts, not vice versa.
- noncryogenic
– pressure fed
– relatively low thrust
– orbital operations only, just a precursor not a full lander
– single stage
– uses a commercial capsule for reentry
I agree with all of these except the last: there is no need for reentry. Simplify. You’ve been following the sovereign debt crisis? This technology will be developed on a tight budget and tight schedule or not at all.
Meanwhile, long-term storage of cryogenics, and especially the long-duration thermal shade that makes it possible, is another important technology but can be tested on a completely separate small satellite that just does the storage, not the docking or refueling. Separating concerns lowers risks.
This is like doing medical experiments with elephants in the “simplest possible†way, rather than using lab rats.
Lol, that’s a good one. So what do you think of the idea of doing it very incrementally, starting with a capsule SM or a hypergolic upper stage? No astronauts needed initially. That would be closer to using lab rats than to using elephants.
Refuelable NEO probes would be another way to go about it.
Not when we’re testing it. When we’re testing it, it might not work, and the astronauts would need to have an already on-board source of propellant.
OK, here’s an example of what I’m thinking of.
– lander precursor is launched to LEO almost dry, just with a bit of station keeping propellant. The lander is coorbital with the ISS, 100km outside the approach ellipsoid.
– lander is fueled, either automatically or by remote operation like Orbital Express
– long duration capsule is launched to and docked to the ISS
– crew is launched to the ISS on a commercial vehicle, perhaps on said capsule
– crew awaits correct launch window etc on the ISS
– crew uses long duration capsule to rendez-vous and dock with lander
– crew uses lander to go on a Hubble repair mission and to get back to the ISS (probably with Hubble moved to an orbit nearer the ISS, although that’s not strictly necessary)
– crew returns to ISS with capsule
– rinse, repeat
– crew returns home eventually
What are the astronauts there for, BTW, except to join the martyrs in spectacular fashion when the test blows up?
To provide the pictures that will generate the funding.
If you do it right these missions could be genuinely helpful to later exploration missions and they would also help develop the necessary systems. And note that the astronauts and the ISS are kept safely away from refueling operations.
Note that NEO probes could also provide the funding.
but can be tested on a completely separate small satellite that just does the storage, not the docking or refueling. Separating concerns lowers risks.
Agreed, and that works both ways. I want to keep the cryogenics away from the exploration (and propellant launches) and the exploration away from the cryogenics research. I also don’t want them to get in each other’s way for funding.
Ideally I would want both to proceed simultaneously, but I suspect there may only be money for the cryo research. Still, if people are arguing for more money, I’d like to see that money spent on a lander precursor, not on HLV. This is of course because unlike you I do believe in jump starting the launch market. Take that away and small experiments like Orbital Express would be the way to go.
“So you want NASA to provide a suppliant role to China?”
Where did I wrote such a thing???? Are you making things up just to (try to) win an argument? Please.
More later but first read this and tell me why you think you are right and I am wrong.
I may be iasolated but someone else seems to have similar thoughts…
What is it about Potato(e) Chip again?
http://www.space.com/news/090416-china-shenzhou-astronauts.html
“Once NASA’s space shuttle fleet is retired next year, U.S. astronauts might arrive at the International Space Station via Chinese spacecraft, according to U.S. President Barack Obama’s science chief.
The prospect is being aired by presidential science adviser John Holdren, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology, in an interview posted on ScienceInsider – a web-based blog from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).”
“But let me repeat the point that having an advanced space-based civilian construct will pull our interests and capabilities to a much higher degree into an affective deterrent. ”
Nope I do not agree one bit here. NASA is not part of our national security as described here. The DoD is. The DoD has the resources and budget to do it all, not NASA. We keep putting NASA into a bind with this kind of argument. NASA just demonstrated that if we were to rely on them for any part of national security they may just fail in a way that might really hurt our national security. Again NASA’s HSF is not and should not be part of our national security seen as a deterrent to other countries. This view is ruining all peaceful exploration goals. Please address these concerns to the DoD, not NASA!
Common Sense wrote:
“I may be iasolated but someone else seems to have similar thoughts…”
Your right that we have entertained the thought, but in Bolden’s latest press conference concerning the administration new space vision he acquiesced, saying, in affect that in the current political environment he couldn’t see that happening.
Its not that Bolden doesn’t want to have a closer partnership with China – its that the political landscape has changed since that article was published in April of 2009. China has recently become very emboldened on the world stage. Analysts are nervous, and noting that China is trying to test Obama’s resolve.
Remember Google?
The hacking incident?
Copenhagen?
Senkaku / Diaoyutai Island dispute whereby China reneged on a resource sharing agreement and unilaterally put their oil drilling platform in place?
Spratley Islands and South China Sea?
China amassing troops on the Indian border, and according to India, encroaching beyond the agreed dispute demarcation, resulting in local herdsman being pushed off their traditional herding grounds?
Dissidents disappearing and going to jail?
China’s antisattelite/ABM testing?
The list goes on and on, but that is not what this forum is about, so I’ll leave it to that.
I’m sorry about the bliss cookie and potato(e) chip remarks. They’re just my rantings. I’m a centrist that gets frustrated with left and right view points. Potato(e) chips are rural representatives that disregard the critical importance of technology investment and innovation in their policies.
“in affect that in the current political environment he couldn’t see that happening”
I never said it to be made immediately, you on the other hand said pretty much I was day-dreaming. Let me repeat, eventually, it will all be done with China. We can do it in a cooperative way or in a competing, militarily or economically way. Which one are we going to win when they, for now, actually finance our economy? What do you think? What if they take all their cash away again?
“China has recently become very emboldened on the world stage. Analysts are nervous, and noting that China is trying to test Obama’s resolve.”
Yes and rightfully so! Unfortunately. We are the ones scr…ing around. They are emboldened because we have a very week foreign policy based on 2 stupid wars that this WH seems to have a lot of trouble to finally bring to an end. The issue with Afghanistan is over, and Iraq well Iraq… The “he’s the one who tried to kill my dad” war… Anyway. We are losing our international power along with our capabilities in thsoe 2 wars. In the meantime Iran and China are taking their chances and no matter how many weapons we have in space it won’t make a difference. And in addition to that we are bombing Pakistan which I believe has relatively close ties with China… http://www.cfr.org/publication/10070/chinapakistan_relations.html
Argh!!!
“Remember Google? ”
Friendly nations spy on eah other all the time. Google is right to bring it up BUT they want access to the largest market and therefore make deal with China. How about hypocrisy in the face of human rights? Come on we cannot have the cake and… And it is precisely what we are trying to do. What if China does not buy Boeings? What happens? So blahblahblah. Starting to get my point? Where are your Nikes made in????
“I’m sorry about the bliss cookie and potato(e) chip remarks. ”
Apologies accepted as I was surprised looking at your other posts. Fine.
” I’m a centrist that gets frustrated with left and right view points. ”
Considering what the “right” has done opver the past several years and that the center has moved so far to the right, I am now leaning towards the left like if there was no tomorrow.
I would love to get back to the details that Martijn Meijering and Googaw were discussing. They’re so correct that Orbital Express Technologies should be developed for DoD. And that refueling would lend a load of capability for DoD, so I think Darpa, NASA, and DoD should all work on (DoD pay for hehe) the robotic demonstration of refueling (making sure things don’t explode ect.).
Such refueling capabilities would allow DoD to have a “go anywhere” approach to surveillance of LEO, GEO, and beyond because their hardware wouldn’t run out of fuel. NASA could simultaneously develop this technology for HSF needs.
How is NASA considering providing radiation shielding for areas like the Van Allen Belt? Hydrogen rich plastics?
Commmon Sense,
I don’t disagree with your points. America was stupid to go into Iraq. But the Administration in charge was blatantly fraudulent over the matter and used the CIA to dope our media coverage. Remember CNN -SHOWDOWN IN THE GULF, with all the serious music and drumbeats? Remember all the Pentagon leaks to NYT? Everyday a new threat about how Saddam was going to poison gas us from the air?
Just so you know, I’m a Democrat and I knew that Iraq would leave us poor, with not the needed funds to compete with technologically advanced adversaries. And that is exactly what is evolving. Didn’t we spend $1 trillion on Iraq? What if we had funded NASA with all those funds? Haha! NASA would have us all in LEO. It would be fantastic! Garver, Bolden, Whitesides, and the like would be in orbit around Europa right now.
“Didn’t we spend $1 trillion on Iraq? What if we had funded NASA with all those funds?”
You what is really sad is this, at least for NASA: Despite the wars, this and the previous WHs gave billions to NASA to make it and in the matter of 5, almost 6 years NASA only came up with Ares-1X, The Invention of the Year (sigh). Had they not embarked on this shortsighted scheme of using SRBs with no Plan-B (re-sigh) they would be orbiting right now. No one, not even this WH, would have killed the program, a successful program. It is sad, very sad. A simpler plan as that worked by the contractors during Phase 1 would have had the CEV put on EELVs and then we’d have looked at HLV(s).
I already said that when “you” gamble all or nothing, sometimes you just get… nothing.
At least we have the future to look forward to. China still causes concern, but so does our own country – doesn’t mean we don’t keep on our guard and maintain a strong deterrent.
I found a blog that is close to what Googaw & Co. are talking about. I’m giving it careful thought. I have some learning to do. I’m a polysci degree, but all these ideas make me want to into the engineering field.
http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/11/lunar-depot-enabled-multi-sortie-missions/
They’re right. Why is an HLV so critical if we establish refueling and automated docking? An expensive HLV would only be redundant if we can get prop depots in commission.
I would like to see an HLV in the 2020’s so we could launch enormous exoplanet discovery operations and nuclear propulsion, but for short term HSF lets forget HLV because we don’t need it.
I think its critical for the administration to get as many demonstrations accomplished as possible. He needs to set a precedent for future administrations to follow. I don’t want to see any more Apollo programs – Argh!
@Storm:
I think you’re getting on the right track by getting as much info from as many sources possible. There is indeed a line of arguments that say if we can assemble ISS in orbit why could we not do the same for a deep space craft? Why do we need an HLV? Why now? Can we afford it? Is it worth it? The HLV represents the “norm” since Apollo and it does not account for on-orbit assembly of a magnitude simlar to ISS. My own take is that HLV raison d’etre is expediencey, nothing else. Every one wants every thing now, not tomorrow, just now. So if I were Holdren, Bolden and possibly, hopefully the President, I would look at all possible options and try to get the most realistic approach and that is what started with Augustine. SO today they established the premises: Commercial to LEO. Can we actually do it? Okay we have 2 providers for cargo. Let’s open CCDev and see what others might do for crew. The 2 guys on cargo we already have a good idea of what they want to do. Can they deliver? If so let’s build a new plan where the cornerstone is commercial to LEO. And so on and so forth… See?
Only me and my opinion.
Right,
We can’t afford an HLV for the mere resolution of expediency. We need to consider an HLV as a very large infrastructure launch vehicle for larger operations in the 2030’s when our society has vastly more energy and resources at its disposal. Very large infrastructure means:
The Large Telescopes like I mentioned for finding earth like planets.
Purely robotic ISRU that is nuclear powered and bulky so it can yield a lot of resources.
Nuclear Propulsion such as ICF: Everyone is either saying PLASMA or NERVA. I say we should take the most cutting edge research we can- like what is going on at the National Ignition Facility (which is utterly incredible), and get it down to a size (smaller than a football stadium) that can launch on an HLV. Instead of launching a manned mission to Mars in the 2030’s lets do something even more extraordinary and launch a robotic mission on its way toward Alpha Centauri. Before all these breakthroughs I didn’t even have the inkling. Things are changing, the future is coming upon us more rapidly that we thought. The Bussard concept of a scoop that utilizes hydrogen gas from the interstellar medium as propulsion is actually a lot closer to reality, than I thought it ever would be. I’m sure there will still be the nay sayers, but if we can’t get such a vehicle to Alpha Centauri in a reasonable time frame then at least we could study the interstellar medium and start dropping interstellar dishes/transmitters along the way to provide an cosmic communications pathway toward the stars. It would be a good first step toward what so many have told me is a total impossibility.
Martin:
[astronauts] To provide the pictures that will generate the funding.
In the new Obama budget depot technology is funded directly. No indirect motivation or hypothetical market needed. We should take advantage of it to get as much tech demonstrated on-orbit as possible before the political winds change again.
There’s also great potential for the funding to be motivated by national security, or even paid for by DoD, if the architecture suits their needs for maneuverability to avoid threats, ability to change orbits, and greater lifetimes. There’s also probably a commercial market to extend satellite lifetimes once the technology becomes mature. The benefit comes about because “the biscuits and syrup are never even” — satellites either run out of propellant, in which case they could extend their lifetimes by refueling, or they die with propellant still on board, in which case they wasted money launching propellant that was never used. Depots and refueling could both reduce launch mass required and extend average lifetimes.
Look for applications where flexibility is key, or think of how to tweak applications so that they gain from flexibility. For example, imagine if the Dawn mission to the asteroid belt were refuelable and designed to run for (on average) thirty years. Keep sending it new tanks full of argon once every five years until it dies. That way it can keep going to and past its lifetime, but however long it lives the amount of propellant it wastes when it dies is minimal. It could go into orbit around dozens of asteroids before it dies. Something similar could be done with a mission to visit several Jupiter-family comets, or to keep a Jupiter orbiter operating for a very long time. There are some obvious and not-so-obvious analogs to this in military operations. Refueling provides a flexible path, as they say,
for a given mission. In businessman’s terms, refueling gives you real options, the financial value of which can often be calculated using the formula for financial options.
None of this requires astronauts and indeed people tagging along would greatly weigh down the operations, figuratively and literally, as discussed above. As for how astronauts might in the long run take advantage of the technology, your ideas are interesting, but I think specifics are premature. But here’s a general approach to think about: an on-orbit flexible mission. An Orion or similar sits outside the ISS which is staffed by ISS astronauts who do their normal work up there but are also trained to do exploration. outside. When something interesting happens — for example, a big meteor hits an asteroid, comet, or moon, digging a big crater that exposes what is underneath, which is very scientifically interesting, since we normally only get to see surfaces, which may be misleading — propellant is quickly sent up from earth and the astronauts are ready for the next orbital window to visit the object. Or, closer to home, you send up propellant to visit GEO only when something gets broken up there that they can fix — they stay at ISS until that happens and we need to wait only for the propellant. Hah, that should really stick in the craws of some space activists, we even launch the astronauts before we choose a specific goal.
Googaw,
Bravo! I’m in total agreement. The ideas for refueling Dawn spacecraft would be enormously beneficial for finding the right place for ISRU equipment to land.
I would just say that the human element to all this will naturally evolve along with the robotic technology as long as NASA continues to support the “seedlings” in the commercial space industry. We should continue ISS indefinitely to support continuing research so that we can, at least, provide a pathway for eventual HSF to evolve, whether it be commercial, or NASA.
I hope DoD is listening. Send your remarks to the President and science/tech committees in both Houses. And send them to Defense Link. But also check out Oler’s suggestions, which are fairly closely aligned with yours and mine.
Here’s another flexible mission concept: mobile telescopes. You have several largish spacecraft. Each is in earth’s orbit around the sun but spaced out along it in different positions. Each has an optical+infrared telescope, a nice spectrometers at all these wavelengths, and other instruments. They can move ahead or behind to relocate to other parts of earth’s orbit relative to earth or each other. They can race ahead by lowering their orbit and later reraising it, or lag behind by raising their orbit and later lowering it. Electric propulsion with quite a bit of propellant available.
Now, whenever anything we can see several months ahead of time crosses earth’s orbit at low inclination: NEAs, comets, etc., we can intercept it by advancing or lagging one of the spacecraft along the orbit. Indeed, most objects cross twice and we can intercept it twice with two different spacecraft. For very low inclination objects the spacecraft itself can do the small plane change to make a very close flyby, otherwise it’s not as close as a typical flyby but we still get much closer than earth itself.
When the spacecraft aren’t taking flyby pictures (the vast majority of the time) they do normal astronomy. They can look at the part of the sky that from earth is in daylight that time of year, watching for events we otherwise would miss.
If there are enough earth-crossing objects of interest that cannot be predicted well ahead of time (e.g. new comets), or if we want the flexibility to decide targeting priorities after launch, it pays to launch a minimum amount of propellant (cryogenic xenon or argon) with the spacecraft and then launch more propellant to refuel them as needed.
Even more objects cross Mars’ orbit around the sun, and that orbit also makes a great place to observe the main belt asteroids and watch for events there (asteroid collisions, outgassing events, and so on), but the supply line is longer so the benefit from refueling is less than the shorter supply line to spots along earth’s orbit.
Googaw
I would be interested in such a concept – protecting our planet is even more important than getting to a another one. How would the propulsion mechanism affect the instruments if so?
If it saves time and money it would certainly be a blessing for NASA. Multiple telescopes would enhance the resolution significantly I can imagine. Reminds a little of TPF.
I should emphasize that the biggest benefit from refueling comes when we can’t predict or don’t want to lock in ahead of launch which spacecraft will be doing how much maneuvering. We can have a mobile depot that, by raising or lowering its orbit a bit, slowly makes its way around the heliocentric orbit, refueling each spacecraft in the constellation by however much it needs.
There are a number of spacecraft already that have been spontaneously retargeted to new flyby missions after their main mission was done. For example, the International Sun Earth Explorer was launched along earth’s heliocentric orbit to a halo orbit around an Earth-Sun LaGrange point. Once its main mission was done, an opportunity to flyby the comet Giacobini-Zinner was discovered that crossed earth’s orbit at low inclination. ISEE was redubbed ICE (International Cometary Explorer) and became the first spacecraft to fly by a comet. More recently the Stardust spacecraft, after having sent back the first sample to earth from beyond the moon (comet dust), was retargeted to fly by comet Tempel 1. This flyby will be exciting because it will be the first look at it since Deep Space 1 smacked it with a big copper warhead. Stardust will be able to look at the crater without the big debris cloud in the way. The ability to spontaneously retarget spacecraft is severely restricted by the propellant on board, but nevertheless has been done to great effect.
The telescope network I propose would simply have such spontaneous retargeting as its main mission, restricted only by the ability of a spacecraft to return to its refueling supply chain, which isn’t much of a restriction in this application. If the satellite equipment has long half-lives, the spacecraft could stay in service for on average two to three decades and get close-ups of over a hundred earth-crossing comets and asteroids as well as closer-than-earth telescopy of the higher-inclination earth-crossers and much other valuable astronomy. We could also repeat the Deep Impact experiment and excavate fresh craters on many of these objects, discovering what underlies their often misleading surfaces.
Right, if I’m correct the Deep Impact was able to accurately measure the amount of water in Temple 1, which wasn’t as much as expected, but still much more than you could find anywhere on the Moon, at least according to present knowledge. I think it should be NASA’s goal to know every darn rock in the inner solar system – at least out to the asteroid belt. Asteroid belt may take a while.
The refueling depots have the potential to change the whole way we think of spaceflight. I can imagine infrared vision is what the DoD is looking for too. Such advanced observation capability is no more the weaponization of space than current earth observation by millsats. Not as exciting though as the astronomy/NEO capabilities.
Hmmm. I was wondering if hydrogen/oxygen fuel mixture would be safe for refueling. You discussed the potential hazards of refueling due to combustion. The reason is that if we did have robotic ISRU going, then the fuel would be free!
Once we get good ISRU, the whole economics radically changes. But we’ve got a long way to go to get there. A culture of aerospace engineers and managers (i.e. the whole aerospace industry from DoD to NASA to their contractors) will resist it or, when given the job anyway, do it wrong. They think of problems in terms of air and orbits and wings and rockets, not in terms of prospecting and materials and mines and chemical plants. A whole new organization of mining and chemical engineers will be needed. To start with, private foundations dedicated to researching ISRU are needed. Any space philanthropists out there, that would be a very good use of your money.
“By cutting this program, President Obama is putting an end to significant investment in moon exploration and costing Florida’s Space Coast thousands of jobs.â€
Ending the Space Shuttle program will also mean the loss of a lot of jobs. Strangely enough I do not read much about protests against this.
I agree that all those jobs are very important for the people involved. But if you want to keep those jobs you are surely not going to fight for continuation of a program that costs much more than those jobs and in the end will not really get America on the next level. Why not do your utmost best trying to get those people involved in the new Space program and spend money on helping the remaining people to get a new job and some transition support money?
Is governor Crist really trying to help both the Florida people and America or is he just thinking about his own future in politics?
“socialism doesn’t work” according to Mo Brooks. Well, extreme socialism surely does’t, I agree. But extreme capitalism doesn’t work either, as the financial crisis all to clearly shows. It is becoming more and more clear that neither extreme is the answer. If that were the case then Russia or America would have been a paradise to live in by now and they are neither. Both systems have created a lot of problems as well. Maybe it simply isn’t that black and white as some out there want us to believe.
[…] National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton failed in its bid to secure a shuttle orbiter. He also criticized some of his Alabama colleagues in 2010, inclusing Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), for allegedly diverting funding from Glenn to NASA’s […]