Congress, NASA

A difference of opinion between space subcommittee’s leaders

The chair and ranking member of the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) respectively, are often on the same page when it comes to space issues. However, in a pair of op-eds published in The Hill yesterday, they have somewhat different opinions about the future of the administration’s revised human spaceflight plan for NASA.

Olson is clearly opposed to the plan, reiterating previous concerns about the plan and its affect on US space leadership. “The president acknowledged recently his initial proposal to alter NASA’s mission was dead on arrival in Congress,” he claimed (an assessment the White House would not likely agree with). “Unfortunately, his new vision isn’t much better.” Among other things, he’s critical of the space workforce task force formally established by the president earlier this week, saying it “discounts the important mission control team at Johnson Space Center in Texas and its historic role in human space flight”. (In fact, the task force’s charter allows it to examine workforce issues elsewhere, although the $40 million the president pledged is only for Florida.)

Olson, at the end of the op-ed, was pushing for a restoration of Constellation with “adequate resources”. “Several of my colleagues have joined with me in requesting that NASA find the means within their budget to continue Constellation,” he said.

Giffords, like Olson, is also concerned with many aspects of the president’s plan, noting that “the president’s budget did not offer a serious path to realizing those dreams” of human exploration beyond LEO. However, she doesn’t call for a complete restoration of Constellation. “We cannot continue to argue between the president’s plan and the status quo. There must be a third way,” she writes. That alternative approach would provide “assured access to the International Space Station on an American spacecraft” and also transfer those flights to the commercial sector “when it is mature and ready and demonstrably safe”. She acknowledges that a plan that does that and fits into the planned budget will be “challenging”, and she is working with her staff and fellow subcommittee members on this.

There’s one other key difference between Olson’s and Gifford’s op-eds. Olson, who described himself as “a proponent of returning to the moon”, took a full paragraph to explain why a human return there is important, for science and also preparation for later missions to Mars. Giffords, by comparison, says this at the end of her essay: “I have every expectation that our astronauts will make the first human trips to an asteroid, deep into space and ultimately to Mars.” She makes no mention of future human missions to the Moon.

107 comments to A difference of opinion between space subcommittee’s leaders

  • Robert G. Oler

    Olson is predictable…he is like Whittington brain dead in terms of reality

    Gifford is however coming on board.

    this is just another step of the reality that Obama’s plan is going with minor mods (insignificant mods) to win

    Robert G. Oler

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler is certainly predictable. He has not read the following concerning the prospects for Obamaspace:

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-obama-speech-ignored-040510-20100505,0,4996654.story

    Since Olson will be running the committee next year, one suspects that his view will pervail in the long run.

  • mike

    Gifford is predictable, she is just bucking to try and find a ride and mission for her astronaut husband.

  • amightywind

    “There must be a third way,” she writes.

    This is about as compelling as Obama’s quote about the moon, “We’ve already been there.” The party in power ought to be embarrassed about the trivial level of the debate. The ‘third way’ is the path to weakness and technological oblivion.

    Robert G. Oler is still fantasizing that all is well with Obamaspace. Political reality suggests otherwise. Funding NASA by continuing resolution instead of by Obama’s plan is a little more than a ‘minor mod’. It is a bipartisan opposition aligning with President Bush’s NASA vision.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:26 am

    No I read it, saw it on your web page.

    It is about in the category of stuff that the last administration use to use to prove that Saddam had WMD. It is about like Rummy saying “we know where the WMD is” (that is a very accurate paraphrase).

    the only people who get excited about stories like that are those who no longer function in the world of reality.

    Sorry Mark, you are just blinded by dislike of the Obama administration…remember you once were for exactly this policy…in print.

    sigh

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Robert G. Oler is still fantasizing that all is well with Obamaspace. Political reality suggests otherwise.

    gaffaw.

    when stories about the opposition start with words to the affect/effect of “they cannot agree on an opposition plan”

    then I dont worry.

    Robert G. Oler

  • vulture4

    It’s too bad none of the Republicans now attacking Obama were concerned in the least when Bush ordered both ISS and Shuttle canceled four years ago, our only human spaceflight programs that are actually working.

  • MrEarl

    Oler;
    You do seem to have your head in the sand. There is very little to no support for the Obama plan as presented on Feb 1st and April 15th. Most members of congress and objective observers can tell this is really abandonment of US human space flight by this administration. I know that is the reason for your support of this mess that Obama has prepared. Gifffords is just being a good partisan poll and not dismissing the president from her own party out of hand. Mikulski on the senate side is also very leery about the Obama mess.

    It seems to me that a third way is being formulated by members of congress that may be more along the lines of a small shuttle extension and design change for Constellation along the lines of the Boeing proposal / Direct.

  • MrEarl

    Vulture4:
    When the VSE was announced on Jan 24th 2004, the reasons for the shuttle and ISS terminations were explained and there was a clear path forward with Constellation.
    The Obama mess hopes that commercial space will pick up the slack for human space flight to LEO, which I think they will eventually, and abandons BEO human space flight.

  • Bennett

    “…and abandons BEO human space flight.”

    Repeating this lie over and over again does not make it true.

  • MrEarl

    Bennet:
    Calling that statement a lie dose not make it so.
    What program did the Obama mess create that will take us BEO?
    None.
    R&D and little technology demonstrations are not a program to get us beyond Earth orbit.

    If you care about US human space flight wake-up and realize that Oler feels that human space flight is un-necessary. That’s why he supports the Obama mess. That says a lot about the proposal for human space flight when it’s endorsed by people who see HSF as un-necessary.

  • Andy Clark

    I think that Obama has placed the responsibility for funding human spaceflight, indeed any spaceflight exactly where it belongs – On the back of Congress. it appears to have been an adroit political move on his part.

    If the Congress wants space leadership then they have to fund it and fund it properly. When all the arguing and posturing is over we may or may not have any space program but the responsibility for that will lie fairly with those who have consistently asked NASA to do more with less.

  • Ben Joshua

    A sub-committee ranking member has a bit of political power, not decisive. Sub-committee recommendations are often diluted or changed in full committee. Looking for tea leaves? Watch appropriations in the Senate.

  • Bennett

    Andy Clark wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 10:03 am

    Well said Andy. I was thinking about this last night, about how glorious it is to have an uproar over how important our county’s HSF programs are. “Adroit political move” is a great way to describe it, and is not how a president who “could care less about NASA” would have played his cards.

    If the Republicans get all fired up over this, maybe they’ll put their “national security” money where their mouths are and pull some money from defense to fund both Flexible Path AND Constellation (not that we need Constellation but you get my meaning).

    MrEarl, the problem here is that you don’t think NASA can pull off the recommendations of the Augustine Report. Why? BEO is spelled out in detail, and given the recent evidence of LOTS of water ice on the Moon, it will be easy to move in that direction much sooner with an infrastructure than with Constellation.

  • Al Fansome

    Last time I checked:

    * there were 435 votes in the House of Representatives, and it takes >50% to win a vote on any issue

    * there were 100 votes in the US Senate, and it takes >50% to 60% to win a vote on any issue.

    * the real power to fight with the White House is in the appropriators (authorizers like Olson and Giffords are mostly toothless, which is why they let freshmen like Olson and Giffords run the subcommittee.)

    * the Democrats are in charge of both houses in this Congress

    * the Democrats generally want to support their Democratic president, particularly on issues he has made a priority.

    * Those Democrats have no need to make speeches in order to support their President. All they need to do is “pass” the budget and appropriations, as proposed by the President.

    * The Republicans may well take over the House, and even the Senate (but this is a long shot), but that will be in the next Congress after the decision on this year’s budget is made.

    * Based on history, there is likely to be a continuing resolution on many appropriations, beyond the election in some cases.

    * However, there is a vanishlingly small probability, rapidly approaching zero, that if the Democrats lose control of the Congress in the November elections, that they will NOT come back as lame ducks and pass the appropriations bills.

    A lame duck Democratic Congress would have a HUGE incentive to pass ALL the FY11 appropriations bills before they lose control of Congress in January 2011. The Democratic base, as well as the Democratic Congress, would put major pressure on them to do so.

    * NASA is part of a much larger appropriations bill, which also includes the Commerce Department, Justice Department, NIH, NSF, International Trade Commission, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Bureau of the Census, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Legal Services Corporation, Ounce of Prevention Council, Minority Business Development Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Economic Development Administration, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Drug Enforcement Administration, etc.

    Imagine a scenario where the Republicans take over the House and/or Senate this FAll.

    Do you really think the Democratic Party is going to let the Republicans determine the FY2011 budgets for the Justice Department? Or the International Trade Commission? The Commerce Department? The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights? DEA? Legal Services Corporation? Minority Business Development Agency?

    It is not going to happen.

    One way or another, a Democratic Congress will pass an FY11 appropriations for “Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies”.

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • MrEarl

    Mr Bennett, this is your May wake-up call.
    The Obama mess has not put forward any plans to build an infrastructure. Under the the Obama mess we won’t be going back to the moon because as the Prez said himself, ” we’ve been there before”.

    Andy:
    If you support human space flight you don’t want congress to take the lead. Out of the approximately 500 members of congress you”ll most likely find 520 different opinions of what to do and how to do it. Plans get bogged down in parochial concerns and infighting.
    Departments like Defense, Homeland Security and NASA benefit and work best with firm direction from the executive in consultation with congress. You can tell there was little to no congressional consultation by the way the committee chairman were blindsided by the FY’11 budget when it came out.

  • Al —

    My concern is (as Fred Barnes put it) a “Mad Duck” congress, that tries to ram through the most radical things they possibly can before losing power, which guarantees endless Republican filibusters. Why would the Republicans go along with late appropriations bills when the CR is keeping the government running until they come into power?

  • CharlesTheSpaceGuy

    One thing that we should seriously study – so as to eliminate it from our planning before we waste much money on it – is this crazy idea of people going to an asteroid. What fool thought of that as a major, short term, goal? After having taken a brief look at the idea – it is very tough to find a suitable candidate. It would have to be large (almost all small asteroids would be rotating), come near the Earth, be in a well understood orbit.

    Then – what vehicle are we gonna use to rendezvous with it???? The Dragon?? Cygnus?? The energy used to match orbits would put the people into an orbit that would take them well beyond Mars – so you gotta match speeds and then have a very reliable way to UN-match speeds!!!

    The implications of this mission are extremely serious – we would need to develop the method to reach the asteroid, match speeds, possibly land. Then get away from it QUICKLY since all asteroids are in orbits that rapidly go far from Earth. And then land, with a high speed re-entry profile.

    In comparison, going to the Moon is easy. At least the Moon is not receding from Earth too fast, if you need to tinker with the engines for a day you will not be heading into deep space. Flying in space is difficult and dangerous but a trip for people to an asteroid presents many tough engineering challenges. A quick literature search gives me a story in New Scientist by David Shiga, has the Planetary Society or someone done a study???

    This is another example of the irresponsible way that President Obama tosses out goals. He does not consider the difficulty of doing them.

  • Doug Lassiter

    So how many in Congress would support adding $3B to the annual NASA budget? Not many, I’ll bet. Oh, so Olsen has a few colleagues who would support that? Easy to guess who those might be.

    The idea that Obama has thrown the issue of human space exploration over to Congress is partly right. But more significantly he has spurred some real national discourse, certainly emotional, about what our our human space flight program should be doing. This national discourse has been LONG overdue. With regard to human space flight, this nation had been pretty much on autopilot for a decade or three, with ISS and Shuttle. VSE should have been the start of a national dialog, but it was hijacked by an agency administrator who had his own steroidal plans. What we’re seeing in Congress right now is precisely that long needed discourse, and the fact that they’re being forced to wrestle with the problems that we have.

    Some would call it a train wreck, but I guess if you’re going to have a train wreck, you might as well have it when only $10B has been spent.

    One thing this discourse should accomplish is figuring out what space leadership really looks like. Does it look like getting back to the Moon for the first time? Does it look like an outpost there? Does it look like beating the Chinese? Does it look like compelling commercial involvement? That’s a political decision, and it’s one that Giffords and Olsen are going to have to face up to.

    In many respects, it’s somewhat courageous of Obama to even start this discourse, knowing full well that the political fallout was not going have him end up with a gold star on his chest. One can accuse him of not caring about space exploration, but if that were really the case, he would have held to the status quo and maintained an illusion of progress with Constellation. That would have been the easiest path for him. Just ignore the whole thing as it slowly craters.

    So the birds eye view of this is that these are arguments that we simply have to have. It’s an investment, and it’s the way politics works. The program (whatever it turns out to be!) will be vastly healthier once we’ve had these arguments and put them behind us.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 9:28 am

    Oler;
    (snip) There is very little to no support for the Obama plan as presented on Feb 1st and April 15th. Most members of congress and objective observers can tell this is really abandonment of US human space flight by this administration.

    nope. “Most members of Congress” dont give a fig about human spaceflight nor do they view the plan in ANY particular light. Most members of the GOP dont like it because they are stuck on “no” for anything Obama and or they share the nutty theory that the Chinese are going to take over the Moon or view human spaceflight programs (not so much the actual thing) as some sort of anatomical measuring stick between nations.

    If the anti Obama forces had been able to coalesce around any viable alternative (ie can be done on the same money) and or had been able to get any significant support for a common program among the space groupies in the Congress well things would be different.

    Problem is that they are all massing around their pet theories (driven by the home crowd) of what they want…and most of that is impossible.

    There is no viable shuttle extension, the Boeing plan (do you really want Congress to design the heavy lift?) has no cost figures, and there is no real “exploration” dollars now.

    sorry, you folks see noise and think it is something. Watch KBH and a few others who are sliding into support for this thing…you can see how it is going

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Repeating this lie over and over again does not make it true.
    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 10:02 am

    If you care about US human space flight wake-up and realize that Oler feels that human space flight is un-necessary

    thats not correct, indeed it is almost a misstatement or direct falsehood.

    I dont believe that human exploration beyond GEO is either necessary or prudent or even really technologically possible unless all one is talking about is a flag and footprints gig on the Moon…and I dont see the need for that.

    for the 10 billion that has been wasted on Ares/Orion we could have had a very robust program to answer almost every vexing question about the Moon and put in place a more robust infrastructure to explore Mars with uncrewed vehicles and maybe even run somethings more around Mercury.

    Instead we have just kept people employed.

    I think that there is a use for humans in space up to GEO and eventually (sooner under Obama’s plan) there is going to be the technology and the affordability to send them on exploration missions.

    It will easily cost 20 million dollars a day (just in mission cost) to keep a human on the Moon for two weeks. What do you think that they are going to do for that money that has value near the cost…

    Whittington thinks they are going to fight the Chinese

    LOL

    Robert G. Oler

  • The Man

    it is very tough to find a suitable candidate.

    out of how many asteroids and other bits of flotsam and jetsom in the solar system? You must be kidding

    It would have to be large (almost all small asteroids would be rotating),

    Yes, asteroids do rotate. Phobos and Deimos are synchronous I presume. So rendezvous with a pole. Next.

    come near the Earth, be in a well understood orbit.

    As should all asteroid orbits be well understood. It’s a jungle out there. I know of an asteroid as big as a planet. Well, it is a planet. Get a grip man.

    See for instance this.

  • MrEarl

    Oler,
    You keep saying people are sliding into support but reading the comments by those members who will have a direct impact on the NASA budget point to support sliding away.
    When left to congress things get messy. Just look at the Health care bill. Stakeholders in congress and elsewhere are starting to turn twords a third option, but that option has not become fully formed yet.

    With no plan to get GEO much less BEO the Obama mess is a bust even by your minimalist standards.

    The $10 billion spent on Aries/Orion is only wasted if we abandon those efforts for the Obama mess.

    Pet peeve of mine:
    “It will easily cost 20 million dollars a day (just in mission cost) to keep a human on the Moon for two weeks.”
    If I made that statement without extensive references I would have been crucified by Tom, CS, Bennett and you, yet Oler can make that statement and it’s taken as fact. I would like to know where you get that figure. ;-)

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 11:51 am

    Pet peeve of mine:
    “It will easily cost 20 million dollars a day (just in mission cost) to keep a human on the Moon for two weeks.”
    If I made that statement without extensive references

    I assumed that you could take the current cost for an Ares 1 and Ares 5 launch take the number of crew, the stay time and do the math.

    The station now is taking about 10 million per day per crew (see the Space Review article) and that is for longer stay times. Actually given the multi billion cost of each lunar toss, we are probably talking near a hundred million per day just in mission cost…if we count development cost…yikes

    The $10 billion spent on Aries/Orion is only wasted if we abandon those efforts for the Obama mess.

    nope. Nothing makes things that have been badly spent in the past better spent.

    If you go out and buy a vehicle and pay 10 times what you should pay for it…well you might find something to justify that cost but its hard to imagine what it would be because the vehicle could have always been acquired cheaper.

    What you have fallen into is the old government spending trap…it goes something like “if we give up now all those (lives, dollars, pieces of equipment) will have all been wasted, only by spending more (lives, dollars, pieces of equipment) can we (honor, make whole whatever) the previous investment…oh and BTW we have to keep doing what we were doing to start with.

    that only makes sense to folks in DC…to the rest of The Republic waste is waste.

    And BTW this is why the anti Obama forces are going nowhere.

    Watch what happens to Nelson’s new love for the shuttle knock off booster when he finds it is going to take oh about 12 billion or more to develop…and there is nothing to fly on it.

    you folks are so well naive.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    The Man wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 11:41 am

    The asteroid I think would be “fun” would be one of the pair that “coorbit” (cant think of an example…) each other and are not to far apart…so one could tether to both ends and do a sort of elevator.

    Phobos or Demos and a suitable space vehicle would be fun that way…what a ride. Actually there was a great sci fi story written two decades or so ago where one used an “elevator” off of Phobos to go to Demos and the judging was based on who used the least propulsive gas (of a set amount) to get to the outer moon…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Horning

    “…and abandons BEO human space flight.”

    Repeating this lie over and over again does not make it true.

    What program did the Obama mess create that will take us BEO?
    None.
    R&D and little technology demonstrations are not a program to get us beyond Earth orbit.

    There is no reason to believe that any money outlined to become appropriated for travel beyond LEO under Constellation would have ever happened. That was and still is in the distant future for a date when Ares I eventually reached completion. I’ll admit that the Orion capsule was designed in part for sustained and long duration spaceflight…. presuming that it would get somewhere outside LEO, but that isn’t even a given either. What makes Orion so good for that long duration flight also makes it a good emergency escape module for something like a backup/replacement for the Soyuz “lifeboats” that currently trade off on the ISS as well.

    I certainly don’t see any sort of mission to Mars or even to one of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points under the proposed plant. Charles Bolden has in congressional testimony stated quite bluntly that even the raw technology for getting people to Mars has yet to be invented. I have to take that as expert testimony on the topic, and noting any sort of statement that killing Constellation also kills all potential American human spaceflight is also just as ludicrous.

    If we are going to go anywhere beyond the Moon, some significant technologies need to be developed and some baby steps along the way need to happen. As of now, it never was with the Constellation program, and even getting to the Moon was pushing the technology to the hard upper limits… essentially repeating Apollo and getting on with perhaps the originally slated Apollo 18 through Apollo 20 missions that were supposedly developed… assuming that would even be a follow up to what Harrison Schmitt did with Apollo 17.

    At the very least, if those supporting Constellation are consistent, admit that the whole of the Shuttle program itself was a bad idea and that we should have kept building Saturn V rockets. I’ve even go so far as to argue that point, even though it is now water under the bridge that can’t be replaced. My argument there is that for the price of the Shuttle program together with all of the launches of the various Shuttle missions, that we could have had more launches and fewer casualties (perhaps not zero casualties, but perhaps fewer) including more time in space and not just one but several space stations and continued activity on the Moon or even beyond had the USA simply stuck with the Saturn rocket family instead. Certainly just as many astronauts could have earned their flight patches and have performed nearly all of the science that has been performed over the past 30 years using that older technology for at least similar if not cheaper costs.

    The only spaceflight capability that was missing is the down-flight capability of the Space Shuttle, which can carry equipment and even fairly big chunks of stuff from orbit to the Earth. I can only think of a couple of shuttle missions where that was significant at all, and only one mission where that capability was uniquely necessary to complete the objective: the long-term exposure satellite. It should be noted that Constellation is abandoning even this one advantage… and at what cost?

    I can’t think of a single spaceflight capability that is supposedly going to happen with the entire Constellation program that can’t be carried out more effectively, cheaper, and sooner with existing or soon to be built vehicles like the Atlas V, Delta IV, Falcon 9, or Taurus II launchers. If the Ares I is such an awesome vehicle, why doesn’t NASA simply cut ATK some slack and let them offer that to other customers on a commercial basis, treating already prior contracts as “seed money” to get one more commercial competitor into the business? If the Ares I can’t compete against the other launchers on a commercial basis, it doesn’t deserve to be supported with taxpayer money. When viewed from this perspective, even the “safety” record of the Ares I doesn’t look favorable to other commercial launchers either.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    “Sorry Mark, you are just blinded by dislike of the Obama administration…remember you once were for exactly this policy…in print.”

    Nope. What I supported was a broad range policy that included contracting out flights to ISS to the commercial sector and efforts to facilitate private markets for such services. There is none of the latter in Obamaspace.

  • Bennett

    Slightly off topic, but the launch of the Pad Abort System this morning was just great. All involved deserve a big hand. Now we have an excellent Common Pad Abort System that could (if common sense prevails) be adapted for use with Atlas V, Taurus II, Falcon 9, and Delta IV launchers.

    Human rating for these vehicles may have taken a huge step forward this morning.

  • Vladislaw

    ““Several of my colleagues have joined with me in requesting that NASA find the means within their budget to continue Constellation,” “

    I am sure, for Olson, the means are simple. GUT science and technology, isn’t that always the answer? Eat the seed corn to feed pork to my district.

    ——
    MrEarl wrote:

    “When the VSE was announced on Jan 24th 2004, the reasons for the shuttle and ISS terminations were explained and there was a clear path forward with Constellation.”

    Actually, when the VSE was announced there wasn’t any Constellation. The VSE called for a CEV to be launched on a COMMERCIAL launch vehicle. There was never supposed to be an Ares I. It wasn’t until O’Keefe was gone and Griffin brought in that the ESAS came out with Constellation in 2005.

    You also wrote:

    “R&D and little technology demonstrations are not a program to get us beyond Earth orbit. “

    They are the TOOLS you need in your toolkit first to THEN build your program around.

    —-

    CharlesTheSpaceGuy wrote:

    “In comparison, going to the Moon is easy. At least the Moon is not receding from Earth too fast, if you need to tinker with the engines for a day you will not be heading into deep space. Flying in space is difficult and dangerous but a trip for people to an asteroid presents many tough engineering challenges. …..

    This is another example of the irresponsible way that President Obama tosses out goals. He does not consider the difficulty of doing them.”

    It amazes me, I have seen more quotes of Kennedy in the last couple months then in the last 10 years. The quotes have always been used to support the Constellation program. We went to the moon, according to Kennedy because it was a hard challenge that tested us technologically.

    Isn’t that what going to an asteroid would do? Test our metal, so to speak, on a new technology challange?

    —-

    Doug Lassiter wrote:

    “So how many in Congress would support adding $3B to the annual NASA budget?”

    They wouldn’t add to the NASA budget, they would simply pull every dime from climate studies, earth science and other science directorates.

    —-

    Robert OIer wrote:

    “I dont believe that human exploration beyond GEO is either necessary or prudent or even really technologically possible unless all one is talking about is a flag and footprints gig on the Moon…and I dont see the need for that.”

    Although I find us on the same page most of the time, I would have to add a qualifier here. In exploration mode that is basically all you do. You plant a flag make your claim for king and country, leave some foot prints and come home and report to the big cheese on what you found. It is up to them to then decide what to do about the discoveries.

    The point, for me, to exploration is to locate resources for exploitation. ( I know … exploitation is an evil word and my liberal friends and even family members chide me for using that word, but I am a realist.)

    If locating resources requires pushing the technological envelope than lets push.

  • Ben Joshua

    Imagine you are a congressperson or senator from a non-HSF district or state, or better yet, from a district or state with a non-HSF NASA center.

    Along come the pro-constellation folks, telling you they want to up NASA’s budget by 3 billion per year to pay for their mammoth program.

    Do you say:

    Sure, you’ve got my vote!

    Well what happens when the cost goes up further, as happens with all big NASA programs?

    If Constellation gets re-instated, but without full funding, are the program managers going to re-design on a new, smaller budget?

    If NASA needs to grab from Peter to pay Paul, in order to make up for the Constellation budget shortfall, won’t it be my district’s or state’s non-HSF NASA center that gets budg-gutted? What will my constituents have to say to me about that?

    What DO you say, to Rep. Pete Olson and his pro-constellation colleagues, if you can truly place yourself in the shoes of a non-HSF congressperson or senator?

  • Robert Horning

    One thing that we should seriously study – so as to eliminate it from our planning before we waste much money on it – is this crazy idea of people going to an asteroid. What fool thought of that as a major, short term, goal? After having taken a brief look at the idea – it is very tough to find a suitable candidate. It would have to be large (almost all small asteroids would be rotating), come near the Earth, be in a well understood orbit.

    I’m sort of curious why this is such a problem, for targeting an Apollo asteroid of some sort or at least something that comes fairly close to the Earth from time to time. The mission that has been proposed, so far as I’ve heard before, is to target something that will eventually be quite close to the Earth and send out a team of astronauts to that rock, do the exploration, and have them “ride” the asteroid where they would jump off as it gets somewhat close to the Earth.

    I do agree that it would take some considerable delta-vee to reach that asteroid. OK, I’ll bite on the issue that it would have to be a vehicle or something built to operate in space. So tell me….. why do you need to take the mass and payload of an Earth re-entry vehicle all of the way to an asteroid and back again? What does that give you for capabilities and why does hauling that heat shield all that distance give you some sort of extra advantage for exploring a world that has no atmosphere of any kind?

    Any mission to an asteroid, to the Moon, or to Phobos or anywhere else for that matter should be a spacecraft that is designed and built to complete that mission. The Lunar Lander built by Grumman was precisely the kind of vehicle that I’m referring to here, where it was something that was intended only to land and take off from the surface of the Moon. If you need to head off to an asteroid, perhaps put two of those kind of vehicles together as a redundant capacity (aka Apollo 13 “lifeboat” safety).

    We need to learn the lessons of the past and not be stuck on the Apollo lunar orbit rendezvous philosophy of sending everything needed to complete the mission at once from sea level in Florida. There is a huge difference between what is needed to travel in space vs. the requirements for getting up and back down again through an atmosphere of roughly 100 kilopascals of pressure and 10 m/s^2 gravitational acceleration. Those are unique engineering design requirements for only one body in the Solar System, and don’t apply elsewhere.

    That only Grumman ever has built a manned spacecraft going to another world is besides the point. Perhaps that is something which should change?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    “ What I supported was a broad range policy that included contracting out flights to ISS to the commercial sector and efforts to facilitate private markets for such services. There is none of the latter in Obamaspace.

    I dont know what Obamaspace is but the space policy put out by Obama is contracting out flights to ISS to the commercial sector with efforts to facilitate private markets for such services.

    To not recognize that shows that you are simply no longer dealing in facts but rhetoric.

    In the pretend world of Rush and Fox News it would be great if we could simply stop government run programs that kill private enterprise and then wait for the evolution of private systems as they “rush” into a market that is filled with other private folks wanting to make a buck.

    Problem is that after 50 years of programs that did nothing but kill private enterprise in human spaceflight there is no real space rush by those trying to create a new product (that there is any at all is amazing)…and at the same time there is a national asset (the space station) which bad decisions by the administration that you fawn over (the Bush administration) left without American access in a few months.

    Hence it only makes sense to try and couple the two together to jump start a currently still born private human spaceflight industry.

    The piece, which you asked to have your name put on, addressed that issue. It recognized that there were to start no markets other then those which fullfilled government national power efforts and which were now being serviced by government structures which could be replaced by more efficient private groups.

    The illustration was (at that time) ATA which had moved into the military market as it grew into large turbojets…but we also mentioned the airmail contract…

    what you have done is in your hate for Obama (it must hurt losing all those battles) is blinded yourself to reality…and you have embraced a big government program spending money wastefully that is nothing but flags and footprints.

    how sad.

    Robert G. Oler

  • MrEarl

    Oler
    I didn’t want to assume the figures you are working with. Using your figures, and realizing that the VSE and Constellation were planning 6 MONTH stays not 2 weeks that works out to $1.5 million per day. What a bargain if the ISS per day price you quote is accurate.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Vladislaw wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    I dont have a problem with exploration or exploitation but it has to be efficiently done.

    the people who support human space exploration/tation passed GEO act as if we are in the 1960’s and our machines are Ranger era. Most of their policy ideas have nothing at all to do with anything but earth bound politics

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 12:55 pm

    There is almost no chance that Altair was going to stay on the Moon the current spec of 210 days.

    none

    Robert G. Oler

  • MrEarl

    That’s right, I keep forgetting that Oler has the gift of prophecy and knows that Altair had no chance of meeting the specs that it was to be designed for.
    Even if it only lasted a month on the moon, that comes to less then the $10 million per day for an astronaut on the ISS.

  • MrEarl

    Since Bennett has taken us off-topic….
    Has anyone seen what type of LAS that the Dragon capsule is proposed to have?

    Launch abort systems are designed specifically for the booster/capsule combination. I could be wrong, in which case there are plenty on this blog to point out my mistake. :-)

  • Bennett

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    From the NASA Facts paper on the Pad Abort System.

    “Testing the LAS performance and LAS to crew module interface are the principal objectives of PA-1. This data will have wide applicability to future launch vehicles and will also demonstrate the performance of three new types of motors and innovations in their design.”

    So, I guess I HAVE seen what type of LAS the Dragon capsule will be using. :-)

  • MrEarl

    That’s quite a leap from the NASA Facts statement to declare that you have seen the type of LAS to be used by the Dragon capsule. The data is applicable to designs for other capsules but not specific for Dragon. Has SpaceX approved this design?

  • Ferris Valyn

    MrEarl

    There are a few publicity images of Dragon’s LAS system, but AFAIK, there hasn’t really been any data released.

    The link below has an image of the LAS on Dragon/Falcon 9
    http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/partners/spacex/index_prt.htm

  • amightywind

    Congratulations to Project Constellation and a successful pad abort test!

    I would like to celebrate SpaceX Dragon’s abort system, but they don’t have one. (I minor omission quickly corrected by the free market, I know!) Let’s see. Ares first stage test? Check. Guidance? Check. Roll control? Check Orion PDR? Check. Pad Abort Systrem Test? Check? Seems to me Ares development is proceeding well, despite the efforts of the saboteurs who now lead NASA. Fight on project Constellation! Defy the NASA junta!

  • No one will use this abort system. No one going up on a rocket other than Ares I would need it. It’s too heavy, too complex and too expensive for anyone else to want it.

    Ares first stage test? Check.

    Ares first stage had not been tested. Ares 1-X had a four-segment solid. Ares I needs a five-segment solid, which has only been horizontally ground fired.

    Guidance? Check.

    The guidance on the Ares 1-X is not the guidance that will be used on the Ares I.

  • amightywind

    Facts are inconvenient things. I’m just ticking off things that Constellation has done. Not what someone is gonna do 5 years from now, which is what Obamaspace is all about.

  • Bennett

    “That’s quite a leap from the NASA Facts statement to declare that you have seen the type of LAS to be used by the Dragon capsule.”

    I don’t know that it is “quite a leap”. SpaceX may have started work on their own LAS, but for my money (and it is my money), I’d want all NASA support possible for Commercial Crew. An “off the shelf” LAS (some things can be standard, like docking ports) for the different LVs makes sense and saves money.

    You do want to reduce that “gap” don’t you?

  • Vladislaw

    MrEarl wrote:
    “Oler has the gift of prophecy”

    Everyone is a wanna be prophet on space politics. We are all trying to predict a future outcome of what happens with the 2011 budget.

  • Ben Joshua

    Checking off items on a pretend checklist is part of how NASA got into trouble and lost public confidence in the first place.

    How is a 5 segment ground test the same as a 5 segment flight test?

    How is a 4 segment sub-orb flight test the same as a 5 segment orbital test?

    How is a one time borrowed guidance system for said sub-orb flight the same as a real guidance system for a full up orbital flight?

    How is roll control on a 4 seg with dummy upper stage and non payload a test of roll control on a 5 seg with live upper stage and “Orion-on-a-diet” on top? Thrust, internal stresses, CG and CP, dynamic forces are all different.

    Check … I guess since all those items are checked off, no funding is needed for additional funding in those areas … by all means let’s proceed to operational flights in 201…

  • Bennett

    Rand Simberg wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    “…too heavy, too complex and too expensive.”

    One more reality of the Constellation program hits home.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Facts are inconvenient things.

    That they are

    I’m just ticking off things that Constellation has done.

    Yea, not so much, since a good chunk of Ares I is not check off, like a first stage, or an guidance package (which, BTW, Ares I-X was using a different guidance package)

    Not what someone is gonna do 5 years from now, which is what Obamaspace is all about.

    I’d rather have real test of game changing technology (4 large scale tech demos starting in 2014), combine with working multiple earth to LEO vehicles (Atlas V check, Delta IV check, Falcon 9 stand-by), then the “promise” of a vehicle flying in the 2017-2019 timeframe, just to get us to LEO again.

  • Gary Church

    “Red” got upset with me yesterday about my statement that AresI somewhat resembles what the shuttle should have been. I am puzzled why all of you rocket scientists never discuss the possibility of building “real” spaceships. There is alot of water on the moon and that is now the reason to go back. Why? Because radiation is the show stopper for man in space. Water- a couple thousand tons of water- is an effective radiation shield we now do not have to lift out of our well. We can lift it from a much shallower well. How do we push that water around the solar system? Bombs are the only thing we have that will work- probably for the rest of this century. We have plenty of bombs. Cruising around the solar system or setting up factories in the asteroid belt where all the resources are means staying out there for years at a time. This will require 1G. For humans to stay healthy in space will require one earth gravity and to get that you have to spin. The most coriolis a person can adapt to is about 3RPM and that means a spaceship with a diameter of around 5 or 6 hundred feet. Getting the picture? So how do we make this happen? Wet workshops- the empty second stage is the most important part of the launch vehicle. Everything gets used or re-used; the monolithic SRB of 260 to 325 inch diameter, the 2 million pound engines used for the second stage re-enter with their own ablative shield, the escape tower and the capsule- all parachute into the ocean and are refurbished. That is why the AresI “somewhat” resembles what the shuttle should have been. You people are going nowhere. There is only one way to get up there and that is with Heavy Lift way bigger than even AresV.

  • The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed Constellation in 2009, issuing a report in August.

    Click here to read the report.

    To quote from the report:

    NASA is still struggling to develop a solid business case—including firm requirements, mature technologies, a knowledge-based acquisition strategy, a realistic cost estimate, and sufficient funding and time—needed to justify moving the Constellation program forward into the implementation phase. Gaps in the business case include

    • significant technical and design challenges for the Orion and Ares I vehicles, such as limiting vibration during launch, eliminating the risk of hitting the launch tower during lift off, and reducing the mass of the Orion vehicle, represent considerable hurdles that must be overcome in order to meet safety and performance requirements; and

    • a poorly phased funding plan that runs the risk of funding shortfalls in fiscal years 2009 through 2012, resulting in planned work not being completed to support schedules and milestones. This approach has limited NASA’s ability to mitigate technical risks early in development and precludes the orderly ramp up of workforce and developmental activities.

    In response to these gaps, NASA delayed the date of its first crewed-flight and changed its acquisition strategy for the Orion project. NASA acknowledges that funding shortfalls reduce the agency’s flexibility in resolving technical challenges. The program’s risk management system warned of planned work not being completed to support schedules and milestones. Consequently, NASA is now focused on providing the capability to service the International Space Station and has deferred the capabilities needed for flights to the moon. Though these changes to the overarching requirements are likely to increase the confidence level associated with a March 2015 first crewed flight, these actions do not guarantee that the program will successfully meet that deadline. Nevertheless, NASA estimates that Ares I and Orion represent up to $49 billion of the over $97 billion estimated to be spent on the Constellation program through 2020. While the agency has already obligated more than $10 billion in contracts, at this point NASA does not know how much Ares I and Orion will ultimately cost, and will not know until technical and design challenges have been addressed.

    These are not politicians or political appointees. These are auditors. They are not NASA employees, nor are they employees of contractors seeking government business.

    People can spin all they want, but the GAO is neutral and objective by definition. Their conclusions are the bottom line, whether you like it or not.

  • Mr Earl: “Launch abort systems are designed specifically for the booster/capsule combination. I could be wrong, in which case there are plenty on this blog to point out my mistake.”

    You are correct, funny thing though, due to high dynamic pressure of the Ares-1 the LAS system just tested can’t get the crew outside of the SRB debris field (a product of the Flight Termination System so the SRB won’t chase down the crew) for about 60 seconds of the ascent. So for about half of the SRB firing time an abort by the crew will kill the crew. Not a big improvement over the Space Shuttle in which an abort before the SRB burn out is not feasible, ie about 120 seconds. Gee a 60 second improvement over the Space Shuttle, sure doesn’t sound like the safest system ever conceived on the back of bar napkin after too many drinks to me.

    Now one could design a LAS with enough power (ie about double the mass of the LAS just tested) to solve the unique problems of the steroidal challenged stick conceived after one too many drinks above but then we would have to leave the Orion Service Module behind due the serious performance issues of the shaft. So any lunar mission would be one way trip, not so good. The serious engineering disconnects in the PoR are just too many to list anymore.

    Another funny thing, the LAS just tested would work perfectly for an Orion on top of the Jupiter-130 because the peak dynamic pressure is about half that of the Ares-1. And for an added bonus all the system redundancy, safer land landing, and the all important Service Module (important safety tip if you want to return from the Moon) can be added back to Orion. What deal.

    Yes, Amightwind, I’m really happy that we had a successfully test of what will hopefully be the LAS system that is on top of fully Beyond LEO/Lunar Capable Orion that is on top of the Jupiter-130.

    See under the PoR the LAS was more a feel good thing where the abort handle is actually a kill switch for the crew for about half of the SRB burn time. Under the President’s Zombie Orion ISS lifeboat plan we don’t need it at all. Only under the DIRECT plan does this successful LAS test or the Orion Beyond LEO features for that matter have any relevance.

    Here’s to hoping that the success that has been achieved under the PoR, of which there have been many thanks to the talented engineers at NASA, will have ‘direct’ relevance in the future.

  • amightywind

    Ben Joshua wrote:

    “..lost public confidence…”

    Not as represented by congress who support Constellation in favor of Obamaspace. Your nth order hair splitting demonstrates my point. Constellation has results to evaluate, compared to ‘how great its gonna be’ with SpaceX. Its that ‘hopey changy thing’ you leftists got going.

  • Gary Church

    One last word. We are discussing the politics of a few hundred billion dollars. Man in space, as I explained, requires radiation shielding, artificial gravity, and closed cycle life support using oxygen gardens and reformers. Thousands of tons of moon water in a spinning disc close to a thousand feet in diameter using nuclear reactors to power the systems in deep space. There is only one possible way to propel such a ship and that is with bombs. Getting all this nuclear material into orbit safely is a problem. Detonating nuclear devices in earth orbit without contaminating the atmosphere is a problem. Building such ships in orbit and filling them with moon water is a problem. Obama was right in canceling Constellation; the only worthwhile goal is hundreds, of times more difficult and costly.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “So how many in Congress would support adding $3B to the annual NASA budget?”

    “They wouldn’t add to the NASA budget, they would simply pull every dime from climate studies, earth science and other science directorates.”

    Nope. You pull money out of the science directorates, and you’ll have congressional representatives from all 50 states on your case. That’s politically unfeasible.

    That’s what makes human space flight so easy to diddle with. There are relatively few legislators whose constituents are directly impacted.

    Funding Constellation would have required new money. A lot of new money.

  • Ben Joshua

    amightywind wrote:

    ‘how great its gonna be’

    When a major policy blunder like Constellation is corrected, a lot of people get hurt, and we should be mindful of that when we look forward to a different solution.

    Still, relying on Atlas V, with its enviable track record, seems less “hopey changy,” less gee whiz wow, less speculative, than the Ares-1.

    Even if Ares-1 technical shortcomings are resolved, how does the cost come down enough to be acceptable to congress, which will see the comparative costs of ULA Atlas, Delta, Russian Soyuz, and perhaps, and yes I understand SpaceX could flop, Falcon?

    In the meantime, Ares proponents seem to be arguing for continued dependence on Soyuz for at least 7, more likely 9 or more years.

    Basket – place all eggs here.

  • MrEarl

    Steve:
    The real problem with the Constellation program is the Ares1 and Giffin’s insistence on sticking with a 1.5 launch structure. The 5 segment SRB, later to be 5.5 segment, was not producing the power lift the Orion. This forced a lot of design changes on the Orion project greatly impacting it’s funding and schedule.
    If Griffin had moved to a 2 launch structure, scraped the Aries1to start development of the Aries 4 or 5 in 2008 when it was becoming clear that the Aries1 was not working out, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion right now.
    Kill Aries1 and the schedule and funding starts to come back into line.

  • Doug Lassiter

    With regard to the comments in this thread about human visits to asteroids, it’s worth noting that the NRC study just released — “Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Final Report” devotes about one paragraph out of a hundred pages to such visits, and stated that “The committee identified no cost-effective role for human spaceflight in addressing the hazards posed by NEOs.” Of course, they recommended that if we went anyway, we should be sure to get some data!

    Now, such a visit could certainly be justified as proving operational prowess and technology, and perhaps even tourism, but, according to this panel, don’t bother doing it if all you’re trying to do is save civilization. This committee was more than just scientists, and included representatives from NASA human space flight, industry, and aerospace engineering.

  • brobof

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 2:11 pm …
    I have seen comments (unverified) the Dragon intends to use a pusher type LAS. But I have also seen this. (With p.s. apologies to Ferris Valyn u.s. but my picture is bigger than yours!) Thus the jury is still out. However under the new ObamaVision, NASA is to be more responsive to the needs of commercial: Vide the removal of in-orbit endurance as a commercial requirement by the repurposing of Orion into a Soyuz equivalent. Thus it seems a no-brainer to see a less brutal (17 g!) version of the LAS made available to any Commercial Capsule operator. This has the added advantage that a NASA designed LAS will necessarily be a NASA approved LAS.

    To address comments made by CharlesTheSpaceGuy wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 11:04 am and in response Robert Horning wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 12:50 pm.

    The date is telling: 2025 means that the target is 1999 AO10

    “It is estimated that there are at least 1500 NEO’s with diameters about 1 km or larger, along with many more smaller objects. Given the diversity of available targets, we assert that it will not be difficult to find a suitable destination when the program is ready to take this step. As an example, the figure illustrates a one-year mission profile to near-Earth asteroid 1999 A010 with a launch in 2025, including a 60-day stay at the asteroid.
    This trajectory is typical of opportunities that occur regularly.
    {…}The scenario that was chosen for the purpose of the proposal to visit a NEO, targets the NEO “1999 AO10 – which holds three human launch opportunities in 2025, 2026 and 2032 – with three robotic precursor opportunities in 2019, 2020, or 2021.”
    pps 64-67 “Next Steps in Exploring Interplanetary Space” (Ed. Wes Huntress)
    http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Studies/nextsteps.pdf

    Throw away those old conceptions: i.e. ‘landing’ on a body with less gravitational field than the visiting (nuclear powered) International Space Ship! Instead we will co-orbit and visit using jet packs and tethers. Exploring a small body will be closer to an ISS EVA than a moon walk!
    Add a possible NEO exemption from the OST and you could be talking Business. Literally.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 1:09 pm


    That’s right, I keep forgetting that Oler has the gift of prophecy and knows that Altair had no chance of meeting the specs that it was to be designed for.

    prophecy no, but judgment yes.

    If a “project” consist of four part and three of the four parts are over budget, under performing, and failing to meet any 0f the technical metrics…then it is a reasonable assumption that the fourth, run by the same thunderheads will be that way.

    thats not prophecy, that is reality

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 3:36 pm


    Kill Aries1 and the schedule and funding starts to come back into line.

    how?

    Ares V uses the same SRB’s that are going way over budget with Ares 1. Ares V uses a new ET which has not even gotten off the drawing board…and doesnt it use the second stage off of Ares 1.

    So if Ares 1 systems are not working, over budget and generally under performing it is hard for me to understand how simply clearing it off the boards makes the budget come in line, unless that is only on paper and for a very short time.

    ever manage any technical programs?

    Robert G. Oler

  • The date is telling: 2025 means that the target is 1999 AO10

    If 1999 AO10 is the only “convenient” NEO we can reach in the ~2025 time frame, then shouldn’t NASA start saying that?

    Or in the alternative maybe release a data base of NEOs that would be feasible to reach with a 2024 to 2027 or 2028 launch window, together with delta v and delta t requirements?

    Actually, a modest prize could perhaps be offered for student teams to perform the calculations needed to verify delta v and delta t figures for potential target NEOs assuming mission launch between say 2024 and 2027 or 2028.

    Let JPL validate the student work and award money to the student teams that appear to most accurately describe the mission requirements to reach (and return from) various NEOs.

  • brobof

    Largely done http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/sbag2/presentations/PlymouthRockasteroidmission.pdf
    page 13!
    However NEOs are a moveable feast as we keep discovering new targets!
    The constraints are: duration of life support and type of propulsion. Game changing technologies could enable all sorts of targets.
    Note that 1999 AO10 is not a feasable mission using Ares/Altair!

    “Asteroid missions: be patient, or bring lotsa gas” by the excellent Tom Hill
    http://www.thespacereview.com/article/838/1

    “…Three asteroids jumped out as candidates to show the complexities of a crewed mission to each. The first one, 1991 VG, requires a relatively low delta-v to enter and exit proximity operations (833 m/s each) and comes fairly close to Earth at five lunar radii. The one problem with this asteroid is that its close approach doesn’t take place until the year 2068. If doubling the proximity delta-v is an option, then there’s another mission opportunity with the asteroid 2000 SG344, which comes within three lunar radii in 2028. The tradeoff is a required delta-v of 1686 m/s to both enter and exit proximity operations. Nearly doubling delta-v needs again opens an opportunity with the asteroid 2001 GP2 in the year 2020.”Based on this analysis, the following asteroids represent some of the best candidates for a survey mission until the year 2100. “

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Exploring a small body will be closer to an ISS EVA than a moon walk!”

    But what exactly are you doing there? Yeah, I know, flags, footprints, and some flavor of national pride. Don’t get me wrong. There is value in that. Anything else? Same question about a Moon walk, though there you can at least mumble stuff about ISRU and practice for Mars. Perhaps practice for Phobos?

    Exploration? Hmmm.

  • Vladislaw

    There was a study done, I believe in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s I do not recall. It was on people’s interest in space and how to get more attention for it. The study showed that people, when it comes to space, wanted one of two things. They either wanted to see ‘firsts’ for the nation, or wanted to be involved i.e. they either wanted to go into space themselves or do ‘hands on’ type stuff like teleoperate a robotic lander.

    When Bolden did his first trip to capital hill explaining the budget he was very specific in using that exact same language about firsts. He talked about the game changing technologies leading to “a series of firsts”. And talked about how that would excite people the most and reinvigorate an interest in the sciences.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Vladislaw wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    I dont really think that the world situation is going to allow much of anything to be spent on “human spaceexploration” in the next 10 or so years…in fact I would not be surprised to see us have to work hard to simply hang on to what is there now.

    But if I were going to do some exploration in the next 10 and the choice was between going back to the Moon or an asteroid…only knowing what we know right now…

    I would suggest that the best course would be to attempt some asteroid mission.

    An asteroid mission can be put together (if done correctly) pretty much on the cheap…working some issues on radiation what is needed really is a space borne ISS (or mini ISS), some modern EVA suits etc and most important in my view the crew will have the ability to easily “check out” the entire asteroid and do a wide variety of site inspections for whatever time that they have available.

    Contrary to what most lunar folks think a lunar effort is very shortly going to rival the ISS folks for being boring. Even if a lander could stay 210 days (and it wont we will be lucky to do one full day cycle the area that can be explored is going to be limited and it will quite quickly all look the same.

    Plus somewhere along the line such a mission would try and teach a thing or to about how to do missions where time delay and other things are a big part of the equation.

    I dont however hold out much hope that these things are going to happen. In my view the world economic situation; particularly among the overspending democracies is about as fragile as a new hatched chicken (or an old person waiting for Sarah Palin’s death panels)…while I dont see catastrophe on the horizon I do see times where hard choices are being made and a refocus is occurring on how the country works and I dont see a lot of excess federal spending happening.

    Indeed more and more I am starting to view Obama’s budget as about the best that can be expected.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    Were those supposed to be answers to my question? What exactly do we want to do on an asteroid?

    Doing something “first”? Certainly an expensive way to do something first! But yes, that’s flags and footprints and some semblance of national pride. I already said that.

    Check out the entire asteroid and do a wide variety of site inspections?
    Heh. Why? To do those things the NRC said were not cost effective with a human mission?

    Not being boring, like the Moon or ISS would be? See above.

    Time delays? OK, but putting artificial time delays in a communications stream is dead nuts simple. That’s like sending someone down to the bottom of the sea to practice getting wet.

    C’mon. There must be something else!

  • Vladislaw

    I agree Robert, for me, the space program, on the federal level, should be about creating technologies that leads to wealth creation for the Republic. That means, excluding the pure science aspects, human space flight should be about pushing technology an then turning it over to the private sector. That is why I have beat the dead horse on lunar property rights, it creates wealth.

    Luna is a 9 billion acre unclaimed asset. That is wealth just waiting to be taxed (smiles). Any “exploration” done should be for the ultimate goal of how can that exploration lead to job and wealth creation.

  • common sense

    Re: Asteroid Mission.

    Well. It does not answer the exploration, not really. I agree that no human is needed to do anything there.

    I would venture it is about technology development. Save for a lander, be it lunar or martian, going to an asteroid will require some advances.

    Is it cheaper to go to an asteroind than to go to the Moon? To Mars? Anywhere else?
    AND
    Are these advances useful to long term “exploration”? Are these advances worth a return on investment here on Earth? Can these advances help the private sector improve their operations, current and/or future?

    I think if you can answer yes to the “cheapr” question AND at least one of those questions above you may have a case.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    C’mon. There must be something else!

    there probably isnt.

    Really there probably isnt. I only said “if” I had to make a choice. To be fair I dont see any real reason at this point for humans to drive out of GEO…I see it as a wealth transfer for reasons that have almost no real value.

    this will get even worse as we (hopefully) at some point tackle the real problems of US debt/deficit spending.

    At some point we get down to the real argument in human exploration of the solar system (including the Moon)…why? Right now the answer between robots and humans is robots. One can say “oh wow humans are far better at this more versatile at that or whatever but in the end the question comes back to the cost…for what we get by the better or more versatile is the THE VALUE DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE COST

    so then we get into the “Whittington Wave”

    lets go because the Chinese are going or it makes us look 20 feet tall or ….

    reasons which the value is whatever is assigned to it by the person hawking it.

    If the choice is to go to a NEO with a solid series of uncrewed vehicles or humans and taking the difference in cost to either retire some part of the deficit or try and keep people in their homes…or build a distributed power grid…

    guess which is more important

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Vladislaw wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pm


    I agree Robert, for me, the space program, on the federal level, should be about creating technologies that leads to wealth creation for the Republic. That means, excluding the pure science aspects, human space flight should be about pushing technology an then turning it over to the private sector. That is why I have beat the dead horse on lunar property rights, it creates wealth.

    we concur completely. I would add that unless we get on that road very quickly we will find that the folks of the western democracies are going to tire quickly of the dollars/euros being spent.

    We are in my view standing a good chance of very big changes in our poltiical/politics and I dont mean a GOP landslide…there are other winds blowing right now.

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    “this will get even worse as we (hopefully) at some point tackle the real problems of US debt/deficit spending.”

    For us to do so, I mean really tackle the issue, it would require something worse much worse than the current debacle on WS. I fear.

    “THE VALUE DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE COST”

    Precisely why today HSF is better served by the privates and not by the government. If there is “value” the private entrepreneurs will find it. If not, then I guess I and others will have to find another job…

    “there are other winds blowing right now.”

    Wow. It’d be something to get out of the old 2 party paradigm! Talk about a shift…

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:45 pm

    For us to do so, I mean really tackle the issue, it would require something worse much worse than the current debacle on WS. I fear.

    I hope not but suspect we are drawing toward seeing it.

    If I have one major (and I have a few less major but still big) complaint about the Obama administration (and the GOP but they are brain dead) it is that they are acting like the Captain of the Titanic did after he struck the iceberg….they cant seem to get their hands around the equation that the ship could sink.

    What we dont know (and we wont be told) is why the US stock market took its “dip” today. They are pawning it off as an error in transactions but I dont think thats it. There is something else at work…people with hugh amounts of cash are starting to worry that the Greek scenario (a government that cannot fix its spending takes a loan and then has internal riots against policies that HAVE to happen to keep the country afloat) is going to spread. The big mass of cash is the baby boomers going out the door into retirement…and well…

    The cuts are very difficult. You can see it here “Oh its only a little bit of the budget”…and yet they have to be made deep along with some other reforms if we are going to get spending under control.

    that is why I think human spaceflight has to prove it can create wealth soon…or we are not going to do it much more then what is being done now.

    I have thought for sometime that the parties are coming apart…and I would not be surprised if that is the messsage of the 2010 election going into 2012. If Obama is perceived as a failure in 12 and the people are open to another direction I can see this is the moment for a real independent.

    Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    Oler

    You see the handwriting on the wall. In a 2 year orgy of desperate spending the libs are finished for a generation, and they left a hell of a mess. Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts. Today we hear that the good guys won another in BG. The GOP is taking over just like 1994. We’re gonna turn Obama into a fiscal conservative just like Clinton. Sarah Palin/Bristol Palin 2012!

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    thanks for the laugh. Lorelei is having a bit of colic and the crying is a little loud so I needed the relief.

    drill baby drill

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    This is a great blog. By this time I was banned on the space review. Only one person has used swear words about me. Maybe I am home. Thank you all for being so nice to me- or just ignoring me. Does anyone remember what Dana Rohrbacher said about the shuttle being the best method ever devised for burning up taxpayer dollars? I read several books on the shuttle- about 15 hours or so of reading. So I know what people have written in books about it- some politics, some engineering, some military stuff. But what no one is talking about is learning from mistakes and building something way way better. The R-7 soyuz has been flying for half a century; the DC-3 of space travel. America needs to build something that will fly for the rest of this century. Something reusable. Improved quality control and non-destructive inspection technologies make very large monolithic SRB’s the best answer for a first stage. An F-1 class hydrogen engine with a reentry shield is the best answer for a second stage. An escape tower and Orion type capsule is the best answer for man-rated flights. All of it gets parachuted into the ocean except the most important part; the empty second stage is the key component in building spaceships for long missions to where ever we want to go. Ares1, V, Direct, Delta heavy, and the smaller private birds are not going to put America in space the way any of us want. So this heavy lift vehicle Obama is vaguely specifying looks like the best shot. Could we all get behind it, left and right, private and public, manned and unmanned, and agree we need a new miracle machine, a new Saturn V?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Gary Church wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:25 pm

    Could we all get behind it

    LOL you have to be kidding…”could we all get behind it”…space activist? really…

    Cats are herdable with a can of tuna…space activist…run for the fake phasers

    (humor off)
    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Really there probably isnt. I only said “if” I had to make a choice. ”

    Yes, I was being half facetious asking for one. But I thought I’d see if anyone wanted to bite, or had some unexpectedly compelling answer. Of course, NEOs are talked about routinely as destinations for human space flight, but aside from flags, footprints, and firsts, there isn’t a strong reason to do it. Those are mildly good reasons themselves, but the word “exploration” doesn’t quit fit. Adventure, maybe.

  • Ben Joshua

    My view of spaceflight economics is that we are well due for private sector innovation to be encouraged, very much in line with the NASA charter. This view would be right at home in “Reason Magazine” or with the Cato Institute.

    So when I am assumed to be a pro-Obama leftist (already a contradiction in terms) I enjoy a good laugh, but then think a bit about the complexity of people’s views, when they are at heart economic conservatives, but have an affinity for centralized, big government space initiatives, to the exclusion of private sector innovation.

    I look forward to the NASA that emerges from the benefits of private sector LEO. I suggest the future NASA will be more robust and exciting, in robotic exploration, technological innovation and charting a human path to Phobos, Deimos and Mars.

    I think on a practical level, that future will happen sooner with private sector energies focused on LEO services, and NASA centers freed up to pursue the details and off-earth architectures that achieve safe transits between planets.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:36 pm

    the saddest most destructive thing that has ever happened to human spaceflight was Apollo and the “end of the decade” thing.

    It had value with the politics and political situation of the times, but since then has been the ghost that has simply haunted a future that is different from the past.

    It is truly amazing to me that 49 years after A. Shepard…we are still obsessed with big government space programs that perform badly and accomplish almost nothing.

    Exploration/adventure is only valueable when one has everything else under control…or at least the big things

    We dont

    Robert G. Oler

  • Vladislaw

    Gary Church wrote:

    “make very large monolithic SRB’s the best answer for a first stage. An F-1 class hydrogen engine with a reentry shield is the best answer for a second stage. An escape tower and Orion type capsule is the best answer for man-rated flights. All of it gets parachuted into the ocean except the most important part; the empty second stage is the key component in building spaceships for long missions to where ever we want to go. Ares1, V, Direct, Delta heavy, and the smaller private birds are not going to put America in space the way any of us want.”

    I would not want SRB’s for manned launches, you can not control the burn and they are more polluting. I would rather see the U.S. study tetrazoles for propellants, I believe Germany is doing that presently.

    I don’t believe the federal government has to fund reusable rockets for either cargo or crew to LEO, that will be a function of the market. Once a few space facilities are in place and competition sets in for resupply and human cargo that will be the long term goal for anyone in that form of transportation business.

    I would prefer federal funding move towards reusability for space based vehicles and again, to then push that technology into the private sector.

    I believe the F1 engine was not designed for high atmospheric flight, but only the first leg, it would not be the optimal engine design for the push into a vacumn. Unless my memory is failing me.

  • red

    Gary Church: ““Red” got upset with me yesterday about my statement that AresI somewhat resembles what the shuttle should have been.”

    I’m more of a “let’s fly lots and lots of smaller missions until we can do them reliably and affordably, and build up from there” kind of person than a “build bigger than Ares V” kind, but that was somebody else. I posted after you, but I was responding to someone else’s post. I doubt that I’ll get upset with anyone during Internet space discussions, even if I disagree with them.

  • Starjock

    Ms. Giffords, your article gives a lot of “lip-service” to preaching that America be a leader in Space Exploration. However, you and your colleagues have failed to adequately fund the NASA to meet these objectives for the past 20 years. Just because it is an election year and jobs are in jeopardy I see that you and other politicians have suddenly become very active. But, what will happen next year and in the future? A new Congress, different objectives for NASA, and more constrained budgets for NASA.

    Furthermore, have you noticed that NASA has become just another bloated federal bureaucracy? The technical talent and expert managers have been long gone from NASA. Hooray for President Obama’s attempt to find some other path beside NASA to bring back America’s ability to build successful spacecraft and explore Space.

  • Curtis Quick

    Bennett wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    Actually, SpaceX is developing a push escape system for Dragon. In a video interview a few months back Musk explained that they were not going with a traditional launch escape tower to pull Dragon away from an exploding, or otherwise errant, rocket. Instead they are designing a system for the service module under Dragon to ignite its engine and push Dragon to safety. The chief advantage of this design is that they do not have to pay anyway near the same weight penalty to lift the LAS at launch as the traditional pull-away launch tower. Musk explained that since the service module engine was needed for in-orbit maneuvering as well as the de-orbit burn that it could just as well be used for LAS.

    In any case as Rand pointed out, the Orion LAS is designed for a much heavier spacecraft that Dragon. Also, since Dragon is on a liquid booster (Falcon) and not a solid (SRB) it will not be accelerating as fast during the critical early launch phase when a LAS is needed, so Dragon won’t need a LAS as fast as the one built for Orion..

  • Bennett

    Curtis Quick wrote @ May 7th, 2010 at 2:34 am

    Thanks Curtis and Trent!

  • Andy Clark

    Vladislaw is correct, the F-1 engine was a LOX/Hydrocarbon engine. It did generate about 1.5 million lbs of thrust in its original form and the F-1A engine got to around 2.0 million lbs of thrust.

    2.2 Million lbs of thrust is 1000 tons and we will need engines in this class if really heavy lift is contemplated. However, they would be very expensive to develop and right now we have no need of such engines.

    I see no reason to build this type of engine now and if we do it should be a purely commercial venture. I am also unsure of why I might want to throw away an engine of this capability after one flight, although the MTBF may be quite low particularly in the early incarnations of such an engine.

  • @ CharlesTheSpaceGuy…..Hey there, dude! Your comment on May the 6th, IS VERY MUCH ON THE MARK!! This ridiculous thought of journeying to an asteroid instead of the Moon has got to be stopped!! This is just the latest obsession of the Anti-Moon fanatics: They want the Moon to be completely avoided and bypassed. Not just turned into an anemic program: they want Luna absolutely ignored! In favor of what?!—an asteroid! Oh yeah, right….THIS will happen! HA HA HA!!! The U.S. government will build a huge heavy-lift rocket just to visit a giant, oversized pebble!! The Moon with all its resources, including water ice, a mere three days away, is not enough of a draw, but some irregularly-shaped shard of rock, hidden deep in the darkness of space—requiring two or three MONTHS just to get to—is! Astronomers DON’T even know what the surfaces of these bodies are like precisely: Can they accommodate the docking & anchoring of spacecrafts & astronauts?? [Could a flag even be emplaced….could footprints even be made??] This crusade to prevent a Lunar Return has now reached the point of ludicrous farce. Flexible Path will be the death march of NASA, if Congress doesn’t do its job, this time!

  • Doug Lassiter

    Re Apollo … “since then has been the ghost that has simply haunted a future that is different from the past.”

    Well put. It was good enough to want to do it on steroids. It was good enough to offer a metric for managerial and technical talent. But it wasn’t good enough to provide anywhere near a sustainable or properly forward-looking plan, or to even credibly define the future of human space exploration . It was a wonderful accomplishment, but a disastrous template for future work. As an accomplishment, it inspires everything we’ve been trying to do. As a template for future work, it haunts everything we’ve been trying to do.

    As long as we see future space exploration through Apollo glasses, we’re doomed to failure.

  • Derrick

    AbreakingWhittington wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 12:24 pm:

    “What I supported was a broad range policy that included contracting out flights to ISS to the commercial sector and efforts to facilitate private markets for such services. There is none of the latter in Obamaspace.”

    Okay so let me see if I understand this….you have all these congressman and senators on the right bitching about money going toward investment in private industry to launch humans to orbit, instead of a BIG GOVERNMENT RUN program that has given us jack for our money other than a test of a dummy second stage on a shuttle SRB that was delayed, a working abort system for a capsule that doesn’t exist yet, and jobs in space districts….and you are saying that putting money towards private companies so they can compete to provide access to LEO is not “facilitating private markets” …?

    What are you guys smoking??

    I also thought Doc’s message via the Mars Society was humorous…especially the part where he talks about saving constellation because we could be “back to the moon by 2022.” Hey…weren’t we promised new footprints on the moon by 2019? Whatever happened to 2019, Doc? Ares 1-X was supposed to launch in the first 100 days of the new administration…what happened there? And you’re saying Ares I/Orion would be done by 2015….puuhlease.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “This crusade to prevent a Lunar Return has now reached the point of ludicrous farce. Flexible Path will be the death march of NASA, if Congress doesn’t do its job, this time!”

    This view, that the new direction for NASA human space flight (which is unfortunately not exactly the Augustine “Flexible Path”, BTW) doesn’t include the lunar surface as a destination, has also now reached the point of ludicrous farce. What the new direction does is to remove the Moon as the •sole• destination, where we would sink all our money, steel, and concrete into the regolith to build an outpost, and where we’d probably spend most of our time just keeping it operational, much as we’ve been doing with ISS for the past decade.

    The point about the Moon versus NEOs is an interesting one, though. I wouldn’t say the Moon is necessarily a lot easier. Both are fundamentally reliant on propulsion. With a NEO it’s about matching orbits, and with the Moon to counter gravity. If your propulsion fails, the result is death, but in rather different ways.

    But the bottom line is the “why”. If you want to build outposts and mine resources to do other stuff, the Moon is probably the best place to go. If you want to go to new places at distances that push out the edges of cis-lunar space, a NEO might be a good place to go. If the ultimate goal is a visit to Mars, the latter is probably more relevant. If the ultimate goal is colonization of the solar system, the former probably is. But we have no national statement that really resolves that choice.

    So this business about completely avoiding and bypassing the Moon is nonsense. The crusade isn’t about avoiding a return to the Moon, but about avoiding being stuck there.

  • common sense

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:57 pm

    “If I have one major (and I have a few less major but still big) complaint about the Obama administration (and the GOP but they are brain dead) it is that they are acting like the Captain of the Titanic did after he struck the iceberg….they cant seem to get their hands around the equation that the ship could sink.”

    Yes I tend to agree, but it is also because the people at the helm are the exact same people who did not see the iceberg coming. Geitner et al…

    “What we dont know (and we wont be told) is why the US stock market took its “dip” today. They are pawning it off as an error in transactions but I dont think thats it. There is something else at work…people with hugh amounts of cash are starting to worry that the Greek scenario (a government that cannot fix its spending takes a loan and then has internal riots against policies that HAVE to happen to keep the country afloat) is going to spread. The big mass of cash is the baby boomers going out the door into retirement…and well…”

    Yes again I tend to agree. It is so bad that the Euro zone does not seem to be able to fix it, or not willing. A lot of people did not want Greece, Spain, Portugal and other lesser economies part of Europe. Maybe something at play here too.

    “The cuts are very difficult. You can see it here “Oh its only a little bit of the budget”…and yet they have to be made deep along with some other reforms if we are going to get spending under control.”

    The cuts will come. The mega spending was only there to keep the darn bank afloat or we’d all be sinking. I do not like it but what is the alternative of bailing those guys. There will most likely be several waves of stock destruction, can they all be contained? Nope surely no. We cannot feed cash to those guys forever. Or the taxation rate after all is said and done will be interesting to see. A very nice way to wipe out the middle class with all the associated consequences on security at home (e.g. riots). This governement better be taking actions and setting up strong regulations quickly.

    Oh well…

  • brobof

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
    Robert G. Oler wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
    and again
    Doug Lassiter wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:36 pm

    Under the plan outlined by Huntress and proposed by President Obama; we will get prior latent prox ops with ‘Bot precursors and (possibly) a little ISRU. However the microgravity + loose regolith environment + time delay is probably too chaotic for REMOTE remote ops. Such precursor missions WILL get into trouble. Later on, with a human visit, proximity operations using fresh ‘Bots operated from the safety of a co-orbiting International Space Ship can get these precursors back out of trouble whilst minimising exposure to whatever nastiness there may be in the form of contamination. (Cyanide if are really lucky!) Additional experimentation/ exploitation only possible with immediacy will ‘pave’ the way (probably with microwave sintering :) After we have removed/ mitigated the hazards: humans will follow. Probably to fix the ‘Bots that have misbehaved or bed down some mission specific hardware that needs problem solving in a chaotic environment. My vote is for a REALLY BIG ion drive using a REALLY BIG hammer.

    Once we have ground truthed NEO operations with 1999 AL10 (or other suitable target) we can probably let the ‘bots do their own autonomous thing with other promising “Flying Mountains” whilst the Human Adventure concentrates on turning Phobos into a Transportation Node to the Main Belt and Deimos into an Aldrin Cycler back to Earth!
    Ceres beckons whilst Mars Is Just Another Well.

  • Gary Church

    Sure, let’s go to Ceres. Vlad and Andy, you need to pay attention; I did not say the F-1, I said an F-1 class hydrogen engine. And I did not say it was expendable, I said it would come back with it’s own heat shield, parachute into the ocean and be reused- as proposed in Shuttle C or one of those heavy lift designs using shuttle components. As for the NO SRB’s crowd; the segmented railed in from Utah boosters and the 260 to 325 inch monolithic submarine hull boosters are very different animals. Instead of Apollo on Steroids, I like to think of it as Titan times ten; a couple of those 2 million pound thrust core engines with a 14 million pound SRB on either side.

  • common sense

    @Gary Church wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:25 pm

    “An F-1 class hydrogen engine with a reentry shield is the best answer for a second stage. ”

    @Gary Church wrote @ May 7th, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    “I did not say the F-1, I said an F-1 class hydrogen engine. And I did not say it was expendable, I said it would come back with it’s own heat shield, parachute into the ocean and be reused- as proposed in Shuttle C or one of those heavy lift designs using shuttle components.”

    Would you care to expend on this? How do you see 2nd stage vehicle design? Where would you put the heat-shield? Any idea of the reentry velocity of your 2nd stage, since it makes it to orbit? Why do you think it’s never been done before? Impossible design? Cost? Both?

  • brobof

    Gary Church wrote @ May 7th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
    Sure, let’s go to Ceres.
    We are!

  • Gary Church

    Gee whiz guys, pay attention. With a wet workshop the empty stage stays in orbit. The engine has an ablative heat shield and parachute and reenters. Why are you asking me all these questions? Look up shuttle C and wet workshop on wikipedia.

  • @ Doug Lassiter…..Hello. Look, the Moon is a mere three days away. THREE DAYS AWAY. Plus, the Lunar surface resembles plenty the stark, airless, extreme temperature, vacuum conditions of far-deep space. Hence, whatever length of time you spend upon its surface, or in orbit around it, you are clearly rehearsing the situation of interplanetary-distance flight. Keeping men alive there for five or six months, is in itself a test-bed case for the one-way trip to Mars. But the Moon is far more valuable, in and of itself, than just as a mere practice zone for Mars. There is a treasure trove of natural resources to be utilized. Industrial development can take place. Constellation was all open ended about how quick we’d get on with that, but clearly that is the implication of the need for a Lunar Return. I am so aghast that the Anti-Moon lobby has somehow gotten the upper hand, and has the ear of the President of the U.S. no less, with their ridiculous crusade to stampede America’s Return Mission there! You got a group like the Planetary Society—who I dislike and have never joined—who have done all they can to sabotage this. Level-headed & pragmatic men in Congress are now our only hope, of Obama getting overturned on this major issue. When American navy men were assigned the mission of re-exploring & emplacing bases in the Antarctic, it DIDN’T make a darn difference if a previous generation of discoverers had been there before! We returned because there was major work still to be done at that destination. Manned stations on Antarctica were deemed a worthwhile endeavor for the nation. And a host of other countries followed suit. By International Geophysical Year, 1957, Americans were poised to reach the South Pole—yes, a return trip for explorers, yes—-but a return which brought in its wake, newer acheivements, which Roald Amundsen & Robert Falcon Scott could only imagine. The expansion of the human presence on the glaciated continent. We go back to the Moon, to transform it into humanity’s overseas province! Onward with Project Constellation!

  • Andy Clark

    Several points; I just read MrEarl’s comment on my congressional requirement. Sure, I want Congress to actually s#@t or get off the pot. There has been way too much sniping and bickering about this. Congress is the organization that appropriates and spends the money. Everyone else just has a say in policy and its development. All I was saying is that we should put the responsibility for the state of the current and maybe future space program where it really belongs – on Congress. They have to put up or shut up. I wonder what the odds are of them doing either or both?

    The other issue I have is a broader one that leaves me wondering why we do not just bite the bullet and develop the infrastructure that gets us to and from LEO reliably and relatively cheaply. Infrastructure ain’t sexy but it is necessary. We could then tailor our LEO access vehicles to just one task and not many. as we do with current launch vehicles. For instance we could have one rocket that does nothing but lift cargo to a specific LEO and one that just takes people to that same LEO and back as necessary. Given that we can then build whatever we want to in LEO and more importantly we can develop the ships and spacecraft that can go elsewhere. Fuel depots are then just one part of a larger infrastructure.

    As for diving into strange gravity wells; I guess we’ll do it sooner or later but they do add a level of complexity to programs that is not necessarily warranted at the moment, especially if an atmosphere is involved

    Of course, this is logical and I have very carefully avoided things like markets and money. Just want to see if we can get an exploration or exploitation philosophy in place first that most people can buy into.

  • brobof

    Chris Castro wrote @ May 7th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
    The Moon is 1.282 seconds away. Say 2 secs for latency and packet switching.

    Space has a temperature of 2.725 deg. Kelvin. The Moon varies from 100-390 K. In short the Moon simulates the Moon and nowhere else. Just to hilight one little example: Electric Craters.

    You can simulate the interplanetary flight at the ISS and the radiation exposure with some shielding and mice in Lunar Orbit.

    “There is a treasure trove of natural resources to be utilized. Industrial development can take place.”

    Well putting the OST and Moon Treaty to one side; if this were true why hasn’t the Moon Rush started already? The answer is that there is a cheaper treasure trove on the ocean floor and as your gulf coast is discovering it ain’t that easy! As others have pointed out even if there were Moon Diamonds and Platinum Rocks (which there are btw) it would not be cost effective to mine the Moon without some game changer like matter transmission or anti-gravity.

    There is no Anti-Moon Lobby. (With the notable exception of Zubrin et al.) There is a pro-sustainable space program lobby (me) that realises that the Moon can be explored and (shh) exploited using robots. And is trying to get the message across to people who want the glory days of Apollo all over again that the place for humans in the space exploration loop are in locations where ROVs fear to tread. I.e. where comms latency and chaotic conditions prevail.

    And the real reason for American Adventures in Antarctica? Byrd! But let’s not go there.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “the Lunar surface resembles plenty the stark, airless, extreme temperature, vacuum conditions of far-deep space.”

    No it doesn’t. Deep space doesn’t have temperature extremes. Vacuum/airless? Go to LEO. Starkness? Well, um …

    “whatever length of time you spend upon its surface, or in orbit around it, you are clearly rehearsing the situation of interplanetary-distance flight. Keeping men alive there for five or six months, is in itself a test-bed case for the one-way trip to Mars.”

    International Space Station. Check that box. Oh, but then there’s that starkness we’ve got to get used to. Maybe LEO isn’t stark enough?

    “There is a treasure trove of natural resources to be utilized.”

    So say some people. But the proof of that will come before humans are necessary to be there with shovels and driving bulldozers.

    “Constellation was all open ended about how quick we’d get on with that”

    The words “quick” and “Constellation” don’t go together. Open-ended? I’ll say. The end was never really in sight.

    Re Antarctic exploration “The expansion of the human presence on the glaciated continent. We go back to the Moon, to transform it into humanity’s overseas province! ”

    Riiiight. Much like we did with Antarctica. Humanity’s overseas province, eh? Have you ever wintered over there? The outdoor pool isn’t heated, you know. Yes, we put human beings in Antarctica because there was good work to do there, but also because telerobotics didn’t exist. And also because compared to space, putting humans there is dirt cheap.

    Get a grip. The lunar surface is not off the table in the new strategy. In Constellation, the Moon *was* the table. That was the problem.

  • @ Brobof & Doug Lasiter…. So you two would just have NASA do nothing but hover in LEO for the next 15 or 20 years??! (THIS IS WHAT HAPPPENS UNDER OBAMA’S PLAN, regardless). If we follow Obama on all this, then the only reason to ever break low earth orbit and go out into the void is to reach 100% Virgin Territory. In other words, we NEVER actually set up shop ANYPLACE. We just go to experience that mad rush of euphoria: “Oh, to be the First, just to get there!” Then we plant our flag, grab a few rocks, and NEVER ever go back THERE again. We’re done with THAT place forever! Now onto the NEXT planetoid! Wash & repeat. People, Flexible Path is the biggest deception ever tossed on the space interest community! It promises a ton, but actually will deliver NOTHING! When we’re all done with those one-time-only jaunts to miscellaneous asteroids, then what? What really follows THEN? There’s SO much doom & gloom in Flexible Path, and it leads squarely to nothing & NO progress.

  • @ Brobof & Doug Lasiter…. So you two would just have NASA do nothing but hover in LEO for the next 15 or 20 years??! (THIS IS WHAT HAPPPENS UNDER OBAMA’S PLAN, regardless)

    That was what was happening under Constellation, with little prospects for ever getting even back to the moon, let alone anywhere else. Flexible path isn’t a destination — it’s an actual capability. That’s why it’s called flexible.

  • […] more here: Space Politics » A difference of opinion between space … Share and […]

  • @Rand Simberg…..Flexible Path puts our attention in way too many directions, all at once! We should be focussed, and conduct our forays using our past capabilities—with just a little updating—and RETURN to a past destination, in order to expand the scope of our operations there. The Moon is turning out to be a far more fascinating & valuable place than scientists ever thought! The industrial possibilities are huge. Development could indeed be a mere matter of marching! We focus on the Moon first, because it is the closest and most easiest destination to reach. We learn about managing long surface stays there first, before moving onto other worlds.

  • We focus on the Moon first, because it is the closest and most easiest destination to reach.

    No, we focus on making it possible to get anywhere beyond LEO first, and then we can figure out where we want to go, and how much.

  • Once again, with Flexible Path, NASA would be focussing on TOO MANY directions at the same time. Hence, the specialized-for-a-specific-destination spacecrafts will never get built. Lunar development is going to require highly specialized landing craft. This idiotic avoidance of deep gravity wells, via the Flexible Path asteroid jaunts, is going to lead to inferior space vehicles, and will teach us NOTHING about the advanced landing technologies that we’d need to work towards, if we are ever to do more ambitious manned landings on places like Mars, in the future. Have you even read recent articles about just how stupendously difficult it would be to merely soft-land a heavy payload onto the Red Planet?? THAT task is going to require major capabilities, which do NOT exist yet, but which a Lunar Return can teach us a lot about eventually doing.

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