A conversation between the president (and some schoolchildren) in the White House and astronauts on the International Space Station isn’t the ideal forum for discussing space policy. But President Obama did make some brief references to the agency’s new direction in Wednesday’s call to the ISS crew, the first things resembling a public comment by the president on this change in policy since its unveiling at the beginning of the month. From the official transcript:
And so we just wanted to let you know that the amazing work that’s being done on the International Space Station not only by our American astronauts but also our colleagues from Japan and Russia is just a testimony to the human ingenuity; a testimony to extraordinary skill and courage that you guys bring to bear; and is also a testimony to why continued space exploration is so important, and is part of the reason why my commitment to NASA is unwavering.
But instead of me doing all the talking, I wanted you guys to maybe let us know what this new Tranquility Module will help you accomplish. One of the things that we’ve done with our NASA “Vision for the Future” is to extend the life of our participation in the Space Station.
This is the first reference I recall seeing the agency’s new direction called the “Vision for the Future” as its proper name. The first impression is something, well, bland and almost redundant: shouldn’t your vision be about the future?
A little later, after some comments by ISS astronaut T.J. Creamer about research being performed on the ISS, Obama also discussed the technology R&D efforts in the budget proposal—as well as a particular planet:
Well, some of the things that you talked about are in line with where we want to see NASA going increasingly: What are those transformational technologies that would allow us to potentially see space travel of longer durations? If we want to get to Mars, if we want to get beyond that, what kinds of technologies are going to be necessary in order for us to make sure that folks can get there in one piece and get back in one piece and that — the kinds of fuels that we use and the technologies we use are going to facilitate something that is actually feasible? And we’re very excited about the possibilities of putting more research dollars into some of these transformational technologies.
The video of the event is available on the White House web site.
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This is the first reference I recall seeing the agency’s new direction called the “Vision for the Future†as its proper name. The first impression is something, well, bland and almost redundant: shouldn’t your vision be about the future?
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Vision for the Future? It’s the perfect Obamaism. Many suckers will see whatever they want from that mush, regardless of what the policy might really do. Just as many Obama voters were suckered into projecting their fondest hopes onto Obama instead of paying attention to the real candidate.
I think it’s telling to compare the new Obama slogan “Vision for the Future” to the old Bush slogan “Vision for Space Exploration”. Hello daydream, goodbye exploration.
(I wonder who will win the strawman prize, for being the first to accuse or imply that my post is some kind of defense of Constellation?)
If the name isn’t good enough for Brad how about THE STRATEGIC VISION FOR SPACE EXPLORATION (SVSE). Because that is what it is. I’m just not sure “Strategic” is in 1st, or 2nd grade vocabulary.
Here is what Obama says that is important – and who cares about the name:
“If we want to get to Mars, if we want to get beyond that, what kinds of technologies are going to be necessary in order for us to make sure that folks can get there in one piece and get back in one piece . . .”
Sure Bush’s plan (VSE) was going to put us on the Moon some day, but it wouldn’t have provided the technologies to go beyond that. The Obama Administration is touting that their plan will provide the potential to get people to the Moon within the same time frame, but also get us beyond the Moon, Mars, and even beyond that! Ok. AND DO IT SAFELY. When he says beyond Mars, that means something very significant to me. It means that we are planning for the century ahead, which is a strategy that promises much greater strides in the long term and just as competitive of a leap to the Moon as VSE. The critical problem that Obama was referring to about safety was the speed and shielding, which Bush’s plan did not address. His plan was back to the Moon in an aluminum can, and then build a base under regolith bricks, or in a cave, which would have provided some radiation protection on the ground, but nothing to protect astronauts en route to the Moon, or in Orbit around the Moon. That’s just dumb. We are better than that. This is the 21st Century people. It’s not mush at all!
Obama just doesn’t give a proverbial sh@t. I wouldn’t. And I can understand him.
Stay classy danwithaplan
Storm
You seem to confuse VSE with Constellation. Sadly, an all too common error. Plus your evaluation of the beyond LEO plans of the new NASA budget are filled with unrealistic hopes.
The cancellation of Orion, all by itself is proof enough there will be no manned mission beyond LEO before 2020. The money pledged for a new clean sheet design HLV will not lead to flight ready hardware until as late as 2030; Bolden himself has said so. And what manned spacecraft is this hypothetical HLV supposed to support? There isn’t any plan yet for an Orion substitute needed for deep space flight, and one can only speculate that such a project might proceed, at best, in parallel with the HLV program.
That means a first mission date possibly later than 2030.
As far as beyond LEO manned flight goes, the Obama budget is a plan to kick the can down the road. Mere political theatre. Evasion of taking responsibility for delaying manned space exploration for a generation. They don’t want to take the hit for giving up.
Now there is a strain of thought, which says that we have neither the money nor the technology we need for manned deep space exploration, therefore it should be put off to some unknown future date. That instead a focus on LEO operations is all that we can hope for during the next fifteen to twenty years. Perhaps. But that is not how the Obama budget is advertised.
Project Constellation was a mess, and was not going to effectively advance the goals of the Bush VSE. But Obama isn’t advancing space exploration either. He hasn’t fixed the problem, he is only pretending to have fixed it.
Brad
As far as I read and hear Obama does not want NASA to focus on LEO. He want’s to get companies involved to get us to LEO. NASA will focus on new ways to travel beyond LEO and heavy lift capabilities.
You’re saying that Constellation won’t succeed and neither will the new route proposed by Bolden and Obama. O.K. I respect your view and I’m interested in what you think should be done to really get us exploring the solar system.
Hey Brad;
“I think it’s telling to compare the new Obama slogan “Vision for the Future†to the old Bush slogan “Vision for Space Explorationâ€. Hello daydream, goodbye exploration.”
Sorry, Constellation was a dream; actually, as it was not coming together, more like a nightmare. It would not have gotten anyone anywhere for a decade and wouldnt have gotten anyone to the moon for a generation.
Obama’s Vision is not too dissimilar from Bush’s. It is the right way to go.
I think US industry will get us moving at a pace much faster than what we knew was happening with Constellation. Is it a 100% guarantee? No, but at the rate Orion/Ares was moving, we knew it was going nowhere fast. Boeing has already said they are working on a smaller lighter version of Orion and Lockheed should be able to come in with a design more quickly.
I think its time we move forward. Constellation was a dismal failure as anyone’s idea of the implementation of a Vision.
Obama’s rhetoric is pretty meaningless. It reminds one of Jimmy Carter pledging to have a military “second to none.”
@Mark
Well, Mark, what do you think should be done to get NASA on track? The current Constellation progress seems to get us Ares V in the late 2020’s and then we’ll have Ares I, Ares V and Orion, with no other spacestation or vehicles. Aries will be in development by then. So, Constellation won’t get us anywhere soon.
[…] 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 […]
Strawman prize? What is that? Does it come with a gift? I cannot turn down prizes! Brad – your post is a knee jerk defense of Constellation!!! Shame on you!!
I’ll give you an address later to send the prize to.
But back to the work at hand. The phone call was just more campaign promises, vague phrases. Right now the NASA centers are scrambling to come up with some science projects to spend their money on – look for them to do a lot of make work for the next couple of years. The reasonable thing to do, with millions of new (borrowed) dollars, is run over to the Pentagon and see what DARPA, etc are doing. Put money into existing projects in a sort of echo of the Stimulus. But that would move the budget out of the existing NASA centers and leave the NASA folks possibly doing remote support of DoD research.
What is gonna happen is that the NASA centers will quickly start some random science projects and when an actual goal becomes apparent – many of them will be dropped partly completed.
Sigh.
“You seem to confuse VSE with Constellation”
VSE without constellation was just a destination. Any president, and frankly any third grader, can stand up and say “We should go to Mars.” So in reality Constellation was pretty much the only piece of the VSE we had to go on. And since Bush signed on to it as his chosen implementation of the VSE, you can understand why people might equate the two.
CharlesTheSpaceGuy
Sorry Charles, surprise entrant “barsoom” wins the prize.
Hey strawman barsoom,
VSE is not Project Constellation. VSE came first, it was a strategy announced by Bush in early 2004. NASA administrator Griffin announced Project Constellation more than a year later, it was a means to pursue the VSE strategy. Get it? Try googling “ESAS.”
aremisasling
“VSE without constellation was just a destination”
Nope. Not even close.
Abe said:
‘Aries’ will be in development by then… I meant Altair of course.
Mark Whittington
“Obama’s rhetoric is pretty meaningless. It reminds one of Jimmy Carter pledging to have a military “second to none.—
That’s right Mark, and that is what we got with amazing new types radar evading stealth aircraft beginning with the F117 Stealth Fighter, which was born during the Carter Administration.
Brad,
You still don’t seem to understand – with our current technology all we can do is really just get back to the Moon. And that is what we did 40 years ago. In 40 years humans still haven’t solved the fundamental dilemma of the vastness of our radiation inundated solar system. If human beings are going expand their reaches in the solar system they must answer the radiation problem and the incredible distance problem. Constellation was sucking up all the money that could have been spent on solving the propulsion issues and radiation research on the ISS to start taking steps beyond the Moon. Constellation was going to strangle us – and now look at what Russia has planned. They are already in the concept stage of designing a nuclear engine, which is nothing new to them as well as other game changing technologies that Obama wants NASA to design.
Your play with words regarding the HLV that Bolden mentioned is just that – a play on words. Bolden gave a big window on the HLV hardware: 2020-2030. We won’t have a better estimate until their plans become more definite, but I don’t see a big difference in the HLV plans from Ares V, except that Bolden’s HLV promises much more capability in line with getting beyond the Moon. With respect to the Ares I, commercial rockets promise a much more affordable and hard driven approach to LEO. It’s a no brainer.
@Abe
“As far as I read and hear Obama does not want NASA to focus on LEO.”
Well, President Obama may say that but his budget says something different.
He’s actually going to increase the budget for the ISS program which is already funded at $2 billion a year and actually increase this– LEO on steroids program– to over $3 billion a year by the year 2013. He also plans to extend this LEO program past its original termination date of 2015 to at least 2020. And Bolden has even talked about continuing the ISS program to 2028.
So we’re talking about nearly $30 billion spent over the next decade for a LEO program. That’s more than enough all by itself to fund a shuttle derived HLV at about $14 billion and an EDS stage at about $3 billion, the two basic components for a beyond LEO program.
Mark R. Whittington wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 7:56 am
Obama’s rhetoric is pretty meaningless. It reminds one of Jimmy Carter pledging to have a military “second to none.â€..
goofy. There is no one who admires Ronaldus the Great more then I and in particular his military buildup…but that buildup built upon very hard decisions made in the Carter administration (who I think overall was a poor President)…
There are several examples…but I’ll pick one AEGIS
Once the weapon system was in hand (and that was perfected more or less as early as 73 on USS Norton Sound) the big question was “what hull to put it on”.
The Carter administration made a very difficult and at the time somewhat controversial choice to base the platform on a DDG (now CG) 47 hull instead of the CGN 42 hull. The difference has made AEGIS affordable in very large numbers.
I dont think all in all that Carter was a very good president in terms of the overall strategic goals of his administration (although to be fair he got the deck in what until now were very difficult times) but some of his individual decisions in various areas were quite well thought out.
If the decision Obama has made (or more correctly Bolden has made) in terms of direction of the space program turn out to be as well done as the AEGIS hull decision. We will be just fine.
Robert G. Oler
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
“So we’re talking about nearly $30 billion spent over the next decade for a LEO program. That’s more than enough all by itself to fund a shuttle derived HLV at about $14 billion and an EDS stage at about $3 billion, the two basic components for a beyond LEO program.”
Marcel,
Your planned 6 month journey to Mars has the whole crew DOA. Its worse than the Constellation program. At least Bush wasn’t ignorant enough to plan sending astronauts on such a deadly mission. The fact is we can’t plan a mission like that until we solve critical technological tests and demonstration in LEO. If we took your direction there would be no humans in space at all, and the international partnership in space, which has encouraged peace and development between the United States and Russia, would be over.
Brad wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 2:01 am
I thought the “exploration” thing was a stupid policy. Who cares about a bunch of NASA astronauts on the Moon or sitting in a can going to Mars.
Robert G. Oler
Oler,
I care about human exploration in space. I just think we’re pushing the cart before the horse. Human space exploration is the biggest challenge to ever face humanity – that and world hunger.
I want vast set of infrastructure for robotics and humans in LEO before want to even plan for manned missions into the cosmic radiation void. Such a mission at this juncture is dumb dumb dumb dumb. And what does it solve? Its really just a demonstration of our capabilities, and nothing more. I say we hunker down in LEO for now and get ready for star flight, which is way into the future while we send robotic probes to Mars. That’s why I agree that an HLV is not so critical yet. 2030 is fine for an HLV as far as I’m concerned.
I’m asking myself, “what in the heck are these people planning?” A basketball court in GEO?
Storm wrote @ February 18th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
there are two realities that people today need to wrap their arms around.
1. There is no prospect for significant human settlement (at least as it has been defined in our past) “off world” for maybe half a century. The worlds economic order is resorting itself so there is little (no) excess cash. Worse there is no real justification for it.
2. We have to develop a on orbit commercial space industry to make off world settlements even remotly possible. If there is no money to be made in human spaceflight in LEO there is no future for it period.
Once one accepts reality then one can really (grin) make a plan for the future. For objects past the Moon (and in some cases the Moon) the reality is that the best bang for the buck right now is increasingly sophisticated and large numbers of robotic craft. “The vision” has consumed what 12 billion so far in all its glory and accomplished “nothing”…12 billion could have fired off A LOT of probes to various parts of the solar system or even concentrated them on one or two particular areas.
I look at life in 20 year chunks…sort of like the track predictor on the EFIS…where will we be in 1, 5 and 20 years. As Mr. Carter figured out my wife and I are pregnant…imagine 20 years from now, she (our child) has gone through childhood, teenage years and is in college…and what is NASA doing? Trying to do what they have been trying to do since 2004 or so. with hardware that is now 1/4 century old…and it really has not flown.
The twenty somethings in the family are standing by to fly planes (the F-35C) that essentially cranked up in the mid 1990’s…if they are lucky the planes will get to the fleet in 2014…maybe.
Twenty year acquisition cycles dont work unless the environment one is working in is not dynamic.
The only “20 year acquisition cycle” that I think should be in vogue…is a baby!
Robert G. Oler
@ Storm
Beyond LEO doesn’t necessarily mean going to Mars. We should be going to the Moon first to establish a permanent presence before we go to Mars to establish a permanent presence. And you’re not going to get to Mars using chemical rockets for an interplanetary journey.
If we seriously want to get to Mars then we’re to have to start funding, developing and deploying very very large light sails. A light sail weighing less than 100 tonnes could transport several thousand tonnes to Mars in less than a year. Several hundred tonnes of hydrogen or water would be all you need to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation and solar events during long interplanetary journeys. Light sails are also reusable space craft that don’t require any fuel. They can also be used to capture small asteroids for return to Langrange point.
So its pretty easy getting to Mars, IMO, if you use light sails. And no break through technologies are required (this is a very old and simple concept). Of course, if we’re unable to build something as simple as big aluminized kites at a Langrange point for interplanetary travel then we really don’t belong in space.
“The cancellation of Orion, all by itself is proof enough there will be no manned mission beyond LEO before 2020. ”
And that is because????….
What Oler said.
@ Marcel F. Williams
I like the solar sail idea, but NASA has never launched a demonstration. Why is that? And Planetary Society still hasn’t successfully launched one. Even if the idea is simple, there needs to be at least some testing before we even provoke the image of carrying humans to far flung destinations. Also, solar sails will have to be huge and the robotic or human craft will be much too heavy for a solar sail to haul without some kind of positronium gamma ray laser, or something. So I would urge you to support ISS in the idea that it could be used to rapidly demonstrate various solar sail designs along with laser testing to see how they perform. We need a detailed analysis of their propulsion characteristics.
I also like the idea of a permanent settlement on the Moon, which is why I strongly urged Bush 2 to launch a space program to do so before He even announced VSE. The result, to my embarrassment, was the sucking sound of money coming out of every department of NASA, particularly out of studies like those on solar sails. NIAC was terminated. It was a dark turning point for our future in space, and to some small extent, or maybe even large extent, was my doing.
I urge you to carefully listen to Oler.
@Storm
Large solar sails capable of transporting thousands of tonnes through interplanetary space are not very massive at all. See Eric Drexler’s classic article on this subject:
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Authors/Engineering/Drexler-KE/SS.html
You really only need to use lasers if your planing on returning light sail space craft from beyond Jupiter.
Below are some interesting experiences that NASA has had utilizing photons in space:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/31jul_solarsails.htm
Ok, I looked your websites, which are nothing new to me. Here’s what I read.
“To date, no solar sail has been successfully deployed in space as a primary means of propulsion.”
And since I interviewed the Japanese scientists who are the only ones to ever deploy a solar sail, I know they didn’t even measure what little propulsion they were getting from their small sail. It was just an unfurling test. So to date the only ones who have achieved significant testing on solar sails are agencies like NASA, which have done so in laboratory conditions, and you don’t see them rushing to deploy solar sails. And now their testing is dead in the water to pay for Ares.
The first link you sent me was from 1976 and talks about launching tons of mylar into orbit, which isn’t state of the art, and in 1976 they didn’t know didly.
My question to you is – How the heck are you going to pay for it? Once the mission is over what have we achieved? Have we become the space ferrying civilization that Oler and I vision?
Let me remind you that back in the 1960s and 1970s we knew how to develop rockets in just a few years and send people to the Moon. And we did all of this in less than a decade. So we were a– can do– nation back in the olden days.
The Drexler article discusses manufacturing large aluminum solar sails in space– not mylar sails. The fact that no one has deployed a solar sail into space just means that– no one has deployed a solar sail in space.
Light sails allow you to conveniently exploit asteroid resources such as oxygen and hydrogen which should make trips beyond LEO dramatically cheaper.
http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/AsterAnts/paper.html
@Storm:
“What Oler said.”
I assume you were answering my original question about beyond LEO flights?
If so then think of it like this. The cancellation of Orion does not mean no flight beyond LEO. It means no NASA flight beyond LEO, possibly. Not even sure. Robert bases all his reasoning (?) on the commercial/market aspect of things. He does not necessarily know what every one is doing. So cancellation of Orion and no market are to different things. The cancellation is natural as it is as much in a mess as is Ares since it hinges upon ever changing Ares requirements. In its current definition it is dead. Does that mean there will be no son-of-Ares? How do we know?… But first things first: Enable commercial access to LEO then we’ll talk again about beyond LEO as we develop the necessary technologies. See?
If I may, let me broaden the conversation from solar sails and the length of Mars missions.
NASA’s culture over the past 15 years at least has shied away from the small, rapid, focused experimental technology demonstrations that certainly typified both the X-plane era under NACA and, I would argue, the “try 3 different approaches and hope to god one works” era of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo. There are examples of attempts to do that from time to time in the 80s or 90s… Goldin’s bastardized “faster better cheaper” comes to mind. Even the huge windfall for space transportation technology in the early 2000s didn’t actually produce much in terms of TRL-6 “operational environment testing”.
Consider, for example, propellant storage and transfer. It is, far and away, one of the highest leverage enabling technologies for large-scale human space exploration, development, and settlement. You need it to make launch AND in-space transportation more affordable, and you need it to fully benefit from ISRU.
Hell, Griffin endorsed it a bunch of times. But he never put a dime into it, because he was focused on using, or recreating, OLD technology that had important political patrons (I’m looking at you, Utah) to build the rocket he thought he knew how to build today. I’m sure Ares 5, aka Magnumlifter, is a wonderful rocket. But even that behemoth was going to require — according to NASA’s own chief engineer — 12-17 launches to conduct a Mars mission. In what Rocket Boy’s wet dream (since 1981) has NASA ever planned for 10+ Shuttle/Saturn-class flights in one year. Hell, you couldn’t even integrate the solids onto the Ares 5 stacks without risking blowing up the VAB.
We don’t need far-out technologies like space elevators or laser-launch or nanotechnology-constructed personal spacecraft to open the space frontier, but we do need to constantly and steadily actually take ideas out of the lab and fly them in space and see what works and prove them out so that real live missions can be designed aroudn them.
Griffin and his former patron Sen. Mikulski want NASA to be mission driven. But for all the babble about spinoffs and innovation, NASA needs to become technology-enabled more than mission-driven.
That is the brilliant and wonderful thing about this new policy/plan.
I’m not a technologist. I’m a DC hack. I don’t want technology for technology’s sake. And I hate many NASA technologists’ penchant for the bleeding edge, “hard enough to be worth doing” stuff.
I hope we can find a way to explain the requirement for planting the seed corn of future human settlements on the moon, research stations on Phobos, and crank-em-out, high-ISP-driven probes all over the outer solar system.
We’ve scrounged every last berry and nut we can find, and killed off most of the wild critters we could catch. It’s time to plant some actual crops.
“The cancellation of Orion, all by itself is proof enough there will be no manned mission beyond LEO before 2020. â€
Saying that is like saying if Toyota cancels production of one of their automobiles no one will be driving. It is silly at the least and insanity on a bun at the most.
Orion is ONE design out of hundreds that could be designed. you will never convince me of the logic of launching a capsule from the surface of the earth, dragging it to the moon, mars, asteroids and using it as your LEO to earth return vehicle is the best design.
You spend enormous energy to get your “space ship” into earth orbit and then you drag it back down into a gravity well.
Let commercial space design, develop, build and operate the “pop & drop” rocket and capsules for access to LEO, let NASA focus on IN SPACE reusable systems for exploration.
@Vladislaw:
YEP. AND: If we do it that way, we may, just may, start the building of an infrastructure from the “top” and the “bottom”. The “top” is advanced technologies required for deep space exploration things that don’t existed today and require lartge amount of cash: The USG. The “bottom” is the commercials which will use existing technologies and build quickly a “low” cost access to space. Once we have those 2 things started then we will be able to get the infrastructure, the ISRU, the advanced re-entry vehicles. Until then we only have utterly ridiculous competition to build 1950/60 technology. And that is not progress in any way shape or form.
Let NASA be the pioneers and let private companies be the privateers.
Why should I trust NASA’s access to orbit to private companies that get down on their knees every time Fascist China barks or throws money at them!
My problem with the “cancel group” on her is why? We have the Orion more than halfway developed but we must cancel it. Why was we can build some COTS capsule. But will the COTS capsule really be man rated and operational before we could complete Orion? The hang up is Ares 1 so why not just put the Orion on a heavy EELV? Then we have a spacecraft that can do the LEO missions but can also go beyond when the HLV (which most of you and certainly Bolden support) is ready to take us there. But what is this HLV going to be in the limit budget environment going to be? Are we really going to design another Saturn V (fully liquid fuelled)? No. We can’t afford it. So we are going to do something that uses Shuttle SRBs or a version of them and RS-68 engines. So it will either be Ares V, Ares V-lite, Direct, or something like that. If we are going to do Ares V (why are the others that much better?) then Ares I is a step in the direction of the SRBs for Ares V. So there is a good case for just staying with Constellation and phase it to meet the budget. The key thing is to have some policy stability. I think we also need some hard driving management to make things happen on a budget. Perhaps if we have NASA scared these smart people can figure out how to get it done with less.
The point is that unless you can do Constellation then the Bolden/Garver talk is just hot air. If you can do Constellation then do it. We need to break the cycle of change for the sake of change.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ February 19th, 2010 at 12:02 am
“Why should I trust NASA’s access to orbit to private companies that get down on their knees every time Fascist China barks or throws money at them!”
You brought up a good point, but the ITAR regulations exist for the reason you stated. There are many however that feel we need to loosen up ITAR regulations because it is preventing our companies from getting their hands on valuable contracts in other countries. I think we must remain careful with respect to China in this area.
http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar_official.html
My problem with the Ares I/V architecture is that it requires too many vehicle developments in order to get the job done. Plus I question how high the vehicle demand will be for the Ares I and Ares V vehicles which are the keys to lowering operational cost.
In order to launch the Orion and the Altair into lunar orbit, the Ares architecture require the development of a new 5 segment SRB, a new upper stage for the Ares I, a new heavy lift core vehicle, and an EDS stage.
For Direct to launch an Orion and Altair into lunar orbit, it only requires the development of a new heavy lift core vehicle and an EDS stage. That’s it!
Right now, NASA doesn’t need any more breakthroughs. The NASA shelves are full of break through technologies that have never been utilized. NASA just needs to do things as simply and as efficiently as possible with existing technologies.
Obama says he is committed to NASA yet is proposing to gut HSF at NASA?
Orwellian.
The man is a liar. This is not what he promised in Florida during the campaign now is it?
He doesn’t care about NASA, only what it can DO for him.
Today was a PR stunt. A pretty lame one. Boring and as inspiring as well, his so called nebulous “vision”.
Right now he is desperate to say he is “creating” jobs.
Doesn’t matter he wipes out thousands of them in the process and rips the heart out of NASA.
He needs a reality check to.
His understanding of how to get things through congress is clearly weak. He is making rookie mistakes. Thank god.
Abe
“You’re saying that Constellation won’t succeed and neither will the new route proposed by Bolden and Obama. O.K. I respect your view and I’m interested in what you think should be done to really get us exploring the solar system.”
That’s a fair question Abe. To do it justice was pretty difficult, I didn’t want to just dash off a quick response. The over riding politics boxing NASA in limits the reasonable options.
I should start off though by saying that I approve of some of the new choices Obama made for NASA. Ares I and Ares V had to go. Encouraging commercial manned access to LEO is good, even at the cost of a purely NASA manned spacecraft.
Bear with me. I now have an overall NASA plan in mind and the reasons to justify it, but I don’t have the time right now to type it up. I promise to post it all very late tonight or (more likely) on Saturday. I call it NASA on a Shoestring (budget).
“We have the Orion more than halfway developed but we must cancel it.”
Because Orion design is based upon the LV it sits ontop. Ares I is dead and so is Orion. The required re-design for another TBD launcher would put Orion further away at a great cost. Orion dead does not mean there will be no son-of-Orion, just not now. But you really have to think in terms of design integration: Orion + LV + LAS. It takes time and money, a lot of both. You do not design Orion as a standalone vehicle or you get in the mess that LMT described some time ago.
“But what is this HLV going to be in the limit budget environment going to be?”
Why do you neeed to know NOW? Why? Don’t you think you need to identify a mission first? What is the mission? Going back to the Moon? Nope it has been cancelled. Could it be that they are trying to figure what capabilities can come on line in the near future before deciding?
” Ares I is a step in the direction of the SRBs for Ares V.”
Nope it was not supposed to be, not in the current, former implementation anyway. Read ESAS.
“So there is a good case for just staying with Constellation and phase it to meet the budget. ”
No, I am afraid there is no such thing.
“The key thing is to have some policy stability.”
Not at all.
“I think we also need some hard driving management to make things happen on a budget. Perhaps if we have NASA scared these smart people can figure out how to get it done with less.”
They had their chance, it was a VSE REQUIREMENT to do it within budget and they scr…d up. Too bad. They should go. In real life they would go, but who is going to replace them at NASA? It is a cultural issue.
“If you can do Constellation then do it. ”
You just cannot do Constellation and it why it is being cancelled.
John: “My problem with the “cancel group†on her is why? We have the Orion more than halfway developed but we must cancel it.”
Per Augustine, Ares I/Orion won’t be ready until 2017-2019, most likely more on the later side. It started in 2005, so that’s not halfway, especially considering the Shuttle budget that would go that way in the later years.
Considering that the budget for Ares I/Orion would have forced ISS to be lost before Ares I/Orion could service them, and thus Orion would have no real work to do for decades, it just doesn’t make sense.
John: “But will the COTS capsule really be man rated and operational before we could complete Orion?”
We don’t know for sure of course, but the best assessment of Augustine and the Aerospace Corporation was that they would be ready at the latest by 2016. NASA is planning to put much more funding into commercial crew than the Augustine Committee suggested, which may give them an even better chance to be ready earlier. Also remember that Augustine was equally skeptical about the dates given by Constellation for Ares I/Orion and the potential commercial vendors they interviewed.
John: “The hang up is Ares 1 so why not just put the Orion on a heavy EELV?”
This would still have taken time, money, and rework. It does strike me as making more sense than Ares I/Orion though. However, there’s no reason some derivative of Orion couldn’t compete in the commercial crew competition.
John: “Then we have a spacecraft that can do the LEO missions but can also go beyond when the HLV (which most of you and certainly Bolden support) is ready to take us there.”
The HLV probably wouldn’t be enough; Orion would also need rework for this. That’s more time and money. The HLV is likely to take tons and tons of money and time. I wouldn’t count on it. It may make more sense to wait until a suitable rocket is developed and then start work so there aren’t rocket/spacecraft change cycles as happened with Ares I. Also, NASA might be more interested in a space-only beyond-LEO craft.
John: “But what is this HLV going to be in the limit budget environment going to be? Are we really going to design another Saturn V (fully liquid fuelled)? No. We can’t afford it.”
I think that’s true.
John: “So we are going to do something that uses Shuttle SRBs or a version of them and RS-68 engines. So it will either be Ares V, Ares V-lite, Direct, or something like that.”
I think those would also be too expensive.
John: “If we are going to do Ares V (why are the others that much better?) then Ares I is a step in the direction of the SRBs for Ares V.”
Ares I and Ares V are far too expensive to develop and operate, and take far too long to develop.
John: “So there is a good case for just staying with Constellation and phase it to meet the budget.”
Ares I/Ares V don’t phase well with smaller budgets. That’s one of the many central points of the VSE that ESAS violated. VSE was supposed to be robust in the face of changing budgets, but ESAS completely collapses given small budget changes or technical hurdles. That’s how we go from a 2012 Ares I goal to 2019, and a 2020 lunar goal to 2035. The 2011 budget is much more robust in the face of possible future budget changes. Just dial up or down on 1 or 2 technology demos, R&D projects, space technology investigations, HSF robotic precursors, ISS experments, human research plans, or whatever — the rest of the program survives intact because the tight interdependencies aren’t there.
John: “The key thing is to have some policy stability.”
There’s no reason to have policy stability if the current plan is a complete disaster.
John: “I think we also need some hard driving management to make things happen on a budget.”
One thing management always wants is a smarter, more experienced, more hard-working workforce. The reality is that they aren’t likely to do much better than they are. It’s not as if they are trying for a less smart, less experience, less hard-working workforce.
John: “Perhaps if we have NASA scared these smart people can figure out how to get it done with less.”
I wouldn’t count on it.
John: “The point is that unless you can do Constellation then the Bolden/Garver talk is just hot air.”
I’m not following this part. I don’t see how not being able to do Constellation makes the current plan hot air. If you can’t do Constellation, cancel it, and do something better. That’s what they’re doing.
John: “If you can do Constellation then do it.”
We can’t – not without unreasonable sacrifices to the rest of NASA, missing out on many very worthwhile opportunities, using far too much money, waiting too many decades for results, and even if successful getting results that just aren’t worth the cost.
John: “We need to break the cycle of change for the sake of change.”
‘Change for the sake of change’ is how I’d describe Griffin’s destruction of the key points of the Vision for Space Exploration: science, economy, and security benefits, a sustainable program, major commercial and international participation, a strong robotic precursor program, and a strong technology development effort. There was no need to remove these VSE cornerstones to make an empty “Apollo on Steroids”, but he did with no justification. The current change has ample justification; see the Augustine Committee report, GAO reports, the VSE itself, etc.