NASA

A tense issue

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, as you might expect, didn’t make much in the way of policy pronouncements in a speech Tuesday night at Purdue University. But in a Q&A with the audience after his speech he did stumble upon one issue: how do you refer to Constellation? “Orion and Ares are two components of a program that was called Constellation–or that is called Constellation,” he said, catching himself. He explained that he’s required under the FY10 appropriations bill to continue work on Constellation “although President Obama and I decided that that was not the program for NASA going forward.”

Later Bolden was asked what the problem was with the program that caused the administration to seek to cancel it. “Constellation was an incredible concept. The Vision for Space Exploration, I think, was really good,” he said. But, he said, “a strange thing happened, which is not unusual in our country: neither the Congress nor the administration chose to fund it.” The result, he said, was that when he became administrator Constellation had become a “lunar-focused” program without surface systems and “no vision, no possibility, that we were going to reach Mars or a NEO or anything else other than maybe the Moon in my lifetime. And then, we we got to lunar orbit, no way to get to the surface.”

He warned that in future budgets “we’re going to have to make very difficult choices as to how do we phase the systems that take us beyond low Earth orbit.” A case in point is a heavy lift launch vehicle: do you start on it now, or instead start on other programs, like a crew vehicle? “Those are decisions that we agonize over right now,” he said. However, earlier in his speech he indicated that decision had been made—or, perhaps, was being made for him, contrary to original plans. “A heavy lift rocket that can get us out into deep space seems likely to be one of our priorities,” he said in a discussion of technologies needed for exploration.

38 comments to A tense issue

  • Anne Spudis

    The result, he said, was that when he became administrator Constellation had become a “lunar-focused” program without surface systems and “no vision, no possibility, that we were going to reach Mars or a NEO or anything else other than maybe the Moon in my lifetime. And then, we we got to lunar orbit, no way to get to the surface.”

    The architecture chosen by Mike Griffin to implement the Vision (VSE) was a rocket program called Constellation. It morphed the Vision away from the Moon.

    The Vision was always lunar-focused with emphasis on building a sustainable space-faring infrastructure by learning to use the Moon’s resources

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Translating Bolden’s somewhat meandering statements, Constellation was great and wonderful, but the administration just didn’t want to do it for reasons of its own. But now it looks like it is not entirely serious about going to a NEO either.

  • Justin Kugler

    Bolden was clearly talking about the Bush Administration not choosing to fund it, Mark. As I’ve said to people who have asked me, the promise of Constellation did not match what we really ended up getting from Congress and the White House.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Justin, actually he was referring to both. Obama was in office for over a year before he decided to go after Constellation. He did have the option of funding it, since it seems that was its only issue. Instead he decided to do this NEO nonsense which, it seems, he is not going to fund either.

  • Bolden was clearly talking about the Bush Administration not choosing to fund it, Mark. As I’ve said to people who have asked me, the promise of Constellation did not match what we really ended up getting from Congress and the White House.

    Mr. Whittington is repeating bleatings of reich-wing ideologues for the sake of anything anti-Obama, not because of anything factual.

    That’s a shame.

  • amightywind

    MRW has it right. In the Obama administration, transformational change in NASA means the transfer of HSF funds to Obama friendly supporters in Newspace and the environmental sciences.

  • Anne Spudis

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 8th, 2010 at 5:47 pm [Didn’t it concern you at all that Constellation was going further and further over budget and way past schedule? Have you no concern about how well a program is being run?
    This is why I get the impression that it’s “The Moon At Any Cost” with your group.
    ]

    >>>>Anne Spudis wrote @ September 8th, 2010 at 10:40 am

    [Technology has been used to study the Moon for some time now, and will for some time to come. That was designed into the VSE. As we all know (and knew almost from the onset and tried to correct) the architecture chosen by NASA was not about implementing the intent of the Vision: Return to the Moon and learn to use it’s resources to build a sustainable infrastructure to Mars and beyond…..]

    “Gordon: Administration sent Congress and “unexecutable” NASA budget: Space Pollitics September 6, 2010

    ———

    Coastal Ron,

    Alarm bells went off almost immediately after Mike Griffin took the helm at NASA.
    Behind the scene communication with Mike was useless (similarly, others have reported their inability to get a fair hearing with him about his direction). Couple being played, ignored and/or stonewalled by a director set on building his rocket and an agency being steered by entrenched Mars-centric scientists and it becomes clear why the Vision was smothered.

    I know you’ve read some of Paul’s work at Air and Space (Once and Future Moon Blog) but since you asked that question Google and read these essays (I can’t seem to get a link to post).

    The Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and Project Constellation (Dec 12, 2008)

    NASA Lost its Way (April 2, 2010)

    Confusing the Means and the Ends (February 13, 2010)

    Vision Impaired (February 3, 2010)

    Objectives Before Architectures – Strategies Before Tactics (SpaceRef-Sept 15, 2009)

    Two Views of the Vision (August 11, 2009)

    Would More Money Improve NASA? (July 8, 2009)

    Value for Cost: The Determinate Path (March 24, 2010)

  • @ Coastal Ron,

    My recollection is that Mike Griffin very much wanted a lunar “touch-n-go” to be done solely as a way to practice for Mars. No infrastructure, no ISRU and that is why Ares V grew so big. Without ISRU and infrastructure NASA would need super-heavy HLV.

    I recall people at Griffin’s NASA using terms such as avoiding the lunar “cul-de-sac”

    Back then (in 2004) I also was a “Mars first” guy because I didn’t believe the lunar water predictions. Okay, I was wrong about that.

    = = =

    Also, if in 2004 O’Keefe and Steidle had been willing to use Shuttle C and/or NLS inline shuttle derived (rather than seeking to eradicate the STS infrastructure in favor of EELV-centric spirals) we might have been gearing up for a 2014 moon landing, today.

    But they wanted STS to go away entirely and Griffin wanted his super-heavy and here we are today.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 7:56 am

    “Justin, actually he was referring to both. Obama was in office for over a year before he decided to go after Constellation. He did have the option of funding it, since it seems that was its only issue”

    that is an overarching understatement.

    funding was not Cx only problem…the main problem was that it was a 200 billion dollar 2 decade program that was consistently under performing and seeing its schedule slip.

    I know big government programs are your thing now…but gee.

    As for an any BEO in the 2020 time span. The notion itself is ludicrious.

    We are talking at least three or four more Presidential terms to even remotely have the capability to do anything outside of LEO (at the Cx rate)…thats goofy.

    The Mark Whittington who supported and wrote part of the NAA would not support such foolishness.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Justin Kugler

    Mark, a lack of funding was not the only problem with Constellation. The GAO report from August 2009 stated unequivocally that NASA had not closed the business case for the CxP architecture and was leaving itself open to technical risks. The Augustine Report and the CBO’s April 2009 report also both made it clear that the POR architecture could be completed, but at significant financial and opportunity cost.

  • Farley Mowat

    Tell us more about your theory of global warming, Anne.

  • Coastal Ron

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 7:56 am

    Obama was in office for over a year before he decided to go after Constellation. He did have the option of funding it, since it seems that was its only issue.

    So you wanted Obama to clean up yet another Bush 43 mess? Why didn’t you lobby for Bush to fully fund his own “Vision” in the first place?

    You have a weird sense of who’s responsible for things…

  • Coastal Ron

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 6:48 am

    The Vision was always lunar-focused with emphasis on building a sustainable space-faring infrastructure by learning to use the Moon’s resources

    The President who issued the VSE is gone, the hardware chosen to implement it was never going to meet the date, and Congress is getting ready to remove humans on the Moon from future budgets.

    At some point you’re going to have to come to grips with reality – the VSE, with regards to the Moon, is now a historical document, not a working one.

  • Anne Spudis

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 11:19 am [At some point you’re going to have to come to grips with reality – the VSE, with regards to the Moon, is now a historical document, not a working one.]

    Just resigned to the dustbin of history, huh? Hardly.

  • Coastal Ron

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    Just resigned to the dustbin of history, huh? Hardly.

    Can you point to some major group in government that is using the Moon part of the VSE as their bible?

    It was a goal that Bush set, and then he immediately underfunded it. Your argument is with Bush, not with those that followed.

  • MrEarl

    Ron:
    Looking at the HEFT study it would seem that NEO’s are that things that are beyond our grasp right now.

  • Anne Spudis

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 12:51 pm [It was a goal that Bush set, and then he immediately underfunded it. Your argument is with Bush, not with those that followed.]

    First off Coastal Ron, you said and then specifically, accusingly asked me this: [It appears that people heard what they wanted to hear, because many of us heard “anywhere, but NEO was the next target”. That’s what the flexible plan was all about. It didn’t exclude the ability to go anywhere.

    Nevertheless, Bush couldn’t even make his own target, as the projected date for a Constellation Moon landing was closer to 2030 than 2020.

    Didn’t it concern you at all that Constellation was going further and further over budget and way past schedule? Have you no concern about how well a program is being run?

    This is why I get the impression that it’s “The Moon At Any Cost” with your group.] End Coastal Ron quote.

    ———–
    Ron, I know you are familiar with this:

    – Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond (A Journey to Inspire, Innovate and Discover June 2004)

    “Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the costs of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions. Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth’s gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost. Also, the moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. We can use our time on the moon to develop and test new approaches and technologies and systems that will allow us to function in other, more challenging environments.”

    ———————————————————
    Administrator Mike Griffin did not implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond. He implemented the Ares Rocket program and named that architecture, Constellation.

    ——————————————————–

    Here are some dates:

    “In pursuit of these goals, the Vision called for the space program to complete the International Space Station by 2010; retire the Space Shuttle by 2010; develop a new Crew Exploration Vehicle (later renamed Orion) by 2008, and conduct its first human spaceflight mission by 2014; explore the Moon with robotic spacecraft missions by 2008 and crewed missions by 2020, and use lunar exploration to develop and test new approaches and technologies useful for supporting sustained exploration of Mars and beyond; explore Mars and other destinations with robotic and crewed missions; pursue commercial transportation to support the International Space Station and missions beyond low Earth orbit.”

  • Coastal Ron

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    Here are some dates:

    Regarding any VSE Moon related stuff, it ain’t gonna happen, so that’s why I say it’s a historical document, not a working one.

    – The CEV was not developed by 2008.
    – The “whatever” program is not conducting it’s 1st human spaceflight by 2014.
    – Constellation ate the lunar robotic mission money, so that didn’t happen.
    – There are no plans for crewed missions to the Moon by 2020, or any other date.

    The Moon part of the VSE has become irrelevant. It no longer applies. It was a goal that Bush included, and then his administration didn’t follow through. Pray to it all you want, but it’s time has passed. When we finally do return to the Moon, we won’t be using the VSE as a reference document.

    McCoy: He’s dead, Jim

  • Wodun

    Maybe they should of designed their CEV, then designed a rocket big enough to launch it.

  • Anne Spudis

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 1:55 pm [McCoy: He’s dead, Jim]

    The Vision was build on lunar return and resource development. But the Vision was not set in motion — Constellation was.

    Constellation was over budget.

    Constellation pushed back dates.

    Constellation failed.

    A lunar return outlined in The Vision for Space Exploration was ignored by Griffin and called a Mars program by scientists controlling the “search for life” template at NASA and academic groups getting research grants from NASA.
    Mike raided everyone’s budget for his brand new rocket. The Vision got what? LRO/LCROSS. It’s amazing they did. Actually a miracle.

    How many times has water been yet again “discovered” on Mars? For the last 30 years. Mars has not been neglected over the last 50 years. Actually, it’s more accurate to say “We’ve been there!” Currently — Spirit and Opportunity and now a $2.2B+ Mars Science Lab “Curiosity” ready to go next year.

    A growing picture of abundant utility began to emerge from small, hard-fought-for orbiters, and lunar return became a priority. We can use the Moon. We can access Cislunar space and all our space assets by building an infrastructure using lunar resources. The VSE took shape

    1994-CLEMENTINE radar NASA-DoD– Ice signal. (Clinton line item vetoed Clem II)
    1998-Lunar Prospector–more evidence of lunar ice.
    2008 – Chandrayaan-1 Indian lunar probe–(2 U.S. instruments showing more ice and water)
    2009 – LRO-LCROSS — Ever growing data set of lunar resources and evidence of multiple sources of water-ice.

    But now the President says, we’ve been to the Moon and it’s time to do something more demanding. We’re told to just walk away from all the economic and national security interests that the Moon offers, and for what? Flybys and flags and footprints?

    And, btw, it’s very naughty of you to keep twisting my position.
    Robotic precursors have always been a major and neccessary part of the VSE. But they were cut to fund Griffin’s Constellation rocket.

    The Vision for Space Exploration was never auditioned, it is still waiting in the wings.

    I’ll finish with these comments Paul Spudis wrote in response to the President’s April 2010 announcement of NASA’s new direction:

    [Excerpt] So let me respond to the President’s new plan by reminding the readers of this column why the Moon is our goal and of its significance and value to space exploration.

    It’s close. Unlike virtually all other destinations in space beyond low Earth orbit, the Moon is near in time (a few days) and energy (a few hundreds of meters per second.) In addition to its proximity, because the Moon orbits the Earth, it is the most accessible target beyond LEO, having nearly continuous windows for arrival and departure. This routine accessibility is in contrast to all of the planets and asteroids, which orbit the Sun and have narrow, irregular windows of access that depend on their alignment with respect to the Earth. The closeness and accessibility of the Moon permit modes of operation not possible with other space destinations, such as a near real-time (less than 3 seconds) communication link. Robotic machines can be teleoperated directly from Earth, permitting hard, dangerous manual labor on the Moon to be done by machines controlled by humans either on the Moon or from Earth. The closeness of the Moon also permits easy and continuous abort capability, certainly something we do not want to take advantage of, but comforting to know is handy until we have more robust and reliable space subsystems. If you don’t believe this is important, ask the crew of Apollo 13.

    It’s interesting. The Moon offers scientific value that is unique within the family of objects in the Solar System. The Moon has no atmosphere or global magnetic field so plasmas and streams of energetic particles impinge directly on its surface, embedding themselves onto the lunar dust grains. Thus, the Moon contains a detailed record of the Sun’s output through geological time (over at least the last 4 billion years). The value of such a record is that the Sun is the principal driver of Earth’s climate and by recovering that detailed record (unavailable anywhere on the Earth), it can help us understand the details of solar output, both its cycles and singular events, throughout the history of the Solar System. Additionally, because of the Moon’s ancient surface and proximity to the Earth, it retains a record of the impact bombardment history of both bodies. We now know that the collision of large bodies has drastic effects on the geological and biological evolution of the Earth and occur at quasi-regular intervals. Because our very survival depends on understanding the nature and history of these events as a basis for the prediction of future events, the record on the lunar surface is critical to our understanding. A radio telescope on the far side of the Moon can “see” into deep space from the only platform in the Solar System that is permanently free from Earth’s radio noise. The Moon is a unique, rich and valuable scientific asset.

    It’s useful. In my opinion, this is the most important and pressing argument for making the Moon our first destination beyond LEO. Because of the detailed exploration of the Moon undertaken during the last 20 years, we have a very different understanding of its properties than we did immediately following Apollo. Specifically, the Moon has accessible and immediately usable resources of both energy and materials in its polar regions, something about which we were almost completely ignorant only a few years ago. For energy, both poles offer benign surface temperatures and near-permanent sunlight, as the lunar spin axis obliquity is nearly perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This relation solves one of the most difficult issues of lunar habitation – the 14-day long lunar night, which challenges the design of thermal and power systems. In addition, once thought to be a barren desert, we have recently found that the Moon contains abundant and accessible deposits of water, in a variety of forms and concentrations. There is enough water on the Moon to bootstrap a permanent, sustained human presence there. Water is the most important substance to find and use in space; not only does it support human life by its consumption and provision of breathable oxygen, in its form as cryogenic liquid oxygen and hydrogen, it is the most powerful chemical rocket propellant known. A transportation system that can routinely access the lunar surface to refuel, can also access all of cislunar space, where all of our national strategic and commercial (and much of our scientific) assets reside (many satellites reside above LEO and are inaccessible for repair). Such a system would truly and fundamentally change the paradigm of spaceflight and can be realized through the mining and processing of the water ice deposits near the poles of the Moon. Space exploration should be a driving force in our economy not merely a playground for scientists or a venue for public entertainment.

    Given the real and potential benefits of lunar return, the question is no longer “Why the Moon?” but “Why bypass the Moon?” [End Exceprt]

    http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2010/04/

  • Martijn Meijering

    Is anyone here arguing that VSE should be dead? Or merely that unfortunately it appears to be dead? The latter is my personal opinion.

  • Coastal Ron

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 3:57 pm

    I guess my suggestion about excerpting wasn’t taken… ;-)

    OK, I skipped over all the stuff that Paul wrote, because it didn’t add anything to the conversation. Yes, there are resources on the Moon – we all know that. Yes, they will be needed for future human occupation of the Moon – ditto. Yes the Moon could be a source of exportable resources – ditto again. All that in one paragraph, and I could still add in the link – brevity can work.

    The Vision for Space Exploration was never auditioned, it is still waiting in the wings.

    Bush’s VSE was a point in time. You keep pointing to it as the bible that has to be adhered to forever, and I keep trying to tell you that his VSE was not a living document. The Moon plan he stated is not happening. So therefore, when the time comes when a future President wants to etch their Moon plan in stone, it won’t be the Bush VSE that is used. Different President, different goals.

    I actually believe that no future Moon plan will ever reach that level of promotion, or at least not for initial lunar settlement. I think occupation of the Moon will come as an outgrowth of our expansion into space. It won’t NEED a President to decide to go, as it will be so easy that no multi-decade plans will be needed. All of a sudden lots of people will be going, and for many reasons. But it won’t be in 2020 like Bush said.

    And, btw, it’s very naughty of you to keep twisting my position.
    Robotic precursors have always been a major and neccessary part of the VSE.

    “naughty” or not, I keep trying to NOT talk about robotic missions with you, and you keep bringing it up. Maybe my alter ego is holding these conversations with you, but I didn’t think I was. I’ll move on if you will.

  • MrEarl

    Ron is arguing that the VSE should be dead. I think he wold prefer to go to NEO’s than a return to the moon.
    After looking at the HEFT plan that NASA is working with, it just makes me more confident that the moon and cislunar space should be our next destination. I don’t think we can seriously consider any other destinations till we have an infrastructure in place that supports easy, timely access to the moon and the materials it can provide for exploration beyond.

  • Anne Spudis

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    If calling a lunar return something other than the Vision, is what people need to move on, great! Call it Obama’s Moon Mission for all I care. Just do it.

    And I felt the 3 reasons to return to the Moon outlined above: “Close, Interesting, Useful” was quite succinct.

  • Anne Spudis

    MrEarl wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 4:42 pm [I don’t think we can seriously consider any other destinations till we have an infrastructure in place that supports easy, timely access to the moon and the materials it can provide for exploration beyond.]

    True. And if we don’t, it will signal the continuing decline of our space program and our national will.

  • DCSCA

    Bolden’s position is to carry out policy- not create it. He best pick up a copy of ‘The Peter Principle.’

  • @ Coastal Ron

    Can you amplify the details of this . . .

    I think occupation of the Moon will come as an outgrowth of our expansion into space.

    Who will be writing the checks for this expansion into space, and why?

    And where will the expansion be to, if not the Moon?

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    Ron is arguing that the VSE should be dead.

    No, I’m saying that the VSE, as a guidance document for the Moon, is out of date (i.e. it is a historical document, not a current guide). It stated:

    Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations

    As of today, we’re not going back to the Moon by 2020, the current President has a different idea of where the next “mission” in space should be, and who knows where Congress and the next President will decide to go (or not). None of these excludes the Moon as an eventual destination or it’s use thereof, but no one is being sued because the 2020 VSE date was missed.

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 9th, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    Can you amplify the details of this . . .

    I think occupation of the Moon will come as an outgrowth of our expansion into space.

    Who will be writing the checks for this expansion into space, and why?

    And where will the expansion be to, if not the Moon?”

    Aside from NASA & other space programs, the only money for expanding into space is going to come from commerce. We already have a commerce base for commercial satellites and launchers.

    What I hope will happen next is that commercial crew gets going for ISS support, and between that and commercial cargo to the ISS, non-ISS crew and cargo business starts growing. This will take some amount of years to develop and grow, mainly because of the dollar amounts involved, and that doing stuff in space with humans is still fairly new (outside of governments).

    At some point though, travel to LEO will be considered routine, and where it once took years & years of planning, now it could be less than a year. Between easy access to LEO, shorter planning horizons, and the decreasing costs in getting payloads to LEO, that will allow groups to consider missions in space that were once only doable by governments. The Google Lunar X PRIZE could finally “take off” and try out their landers, and who knows what other uses of space will be tried out because the cost & availability barriers have been lowered. As in any marketplace, these types of activities create their own sources of excitement and further interest/investment.

    At some point too, I would imagine some private group is going to try trips around the Moon, and that’s when public excitement about the Moon will start rising again.

    Bottom line, is that commerce and capability expanding off of Earth to LEO, can then expand past LEO to the Moon or wherever.

    I think this will take years to happen, and that NASA and other governments can help it go faster, but I know that NASA has too small a budget to do it by itself, and really, when was the last time NASA ran a big program that finished development? The ISS is pretty much done, but if not for having outside partners/investors, who knows if the U.S. would have stuck it out on it’s own. It may have even ended after Columbia without Russia.

    Though I have preferences about where I think NASA should spend it’s space mission money, I foresee many groups wanting to land on the Moon and exploit it for what ever they can – and the U.S. Government will go along too for exploration and other reasons (too many to list).

    My $0.02

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Interesting comments CR. I’d agree that commercial will eventually get involved in BEO. Clearly Bigelow has his eye on this and SpaceX’s CEO is on the record as wanting to get to Mars – ok scoff if you like but at least he’s stated his position. Doesn’t necessarily believe SpaceX will do it but that’s certainly part of their vision. But you’re right, LEO has to become routine and then there may be some hope for the rest.
    NASA needs to refocus on enabling technologies and programs and give up the ‘big’ programs which it clearly can’t handle.
    They also need to get out of the bed they’re in with the large contractors and their cost+ contracts other than for truly research and possibly some developement contracts. The rest should be strictly fixed price with delivery milestones.
    Cheers.

  • Anne, if the Moon is so interesting then why is there no robotic exploration on the ground? For some reason it seems lunar scientists are uninterested or unable to get even one robotic rover on the Moon.. whereas the Mars scientists have gotten 3 in the last 15 years. This is simply baffling as, for a variety of reasons, the Moon is much more suitable for robotic exploration.

    Having being spoiled by the horribly expensive lunar sample return of Apollo, the majority of lunar scientists have become precocious. The few who are interested in the gaps in the field won’t accept robotic exploration, as trying to argue against theories based on samples with only remote sensing data is too much like hard work.

    If the Moon is of economic value, so what? Sending humans to exploit it is never going to be cost effective. Mining operations on Earth are becoming more economical to run by teleoperation and automation.

    In regards to it being “close”, that’s not an advantage. LEO is close and, because of this, the ISS can’t go 6 months without resupply. The Moon will be no different. The best we can hope from a NASA operation on the Moon is another ISS. Instead of studying “zero-g adaption”, they’ll be studying “reduced gravity adaption”.. and because of the prohibition on animal testing (only Italy has flown mice on the ISS) virtually no important questions will be answered. Certainly, *the* most important question – can mammals reproduce on reduced gravity – will *never* be answered by NASA.

  • Anne Spudis

    Trent Waddington wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 6:05 am

    I think robotic precursors is what we need. I just posted this to another thread:

    [Let’s just begin by getting serious and sending some precursors. Let’s get a couple of communication satellites orbiting the Moon. Let’s work out some way to get a radio telescope on the far side. How about a solar array field? Begin processing the lunar regolith to create and build on the Moon. Start using the water. Begin to understand what it will take to live off Earth and use what you find in space. The Moon offers something for many disciplines of research and development beyond human presence but exploration, resource exploitation and human migration is ultimately why we’re going.] And I’d like to add that the Moon holds impact and solar wind history that we can study to understand our own history and possible future.

    You ask: [if the Moon is so interesting then why is there no robotic exploration on the ground? For some reason it seems lunar scientists are uninterested or unable to get even one robotic rover on the Moon.. whereas the Mars scientists have gotten 3 in the last 15 years. This is simply baffling as, for a variety of reasons, the Moon is much more suitable for robotic exploration.]

    To be brief, we didn’t know about water on the Moon from Apollo (actually it was believed a bone-dry rock by many). We didn’t have a Cislunar space filled with national and economic resources. Space science blossomed following Apollo and they saw Mars as a “livable” destination. The “search for life” grew to be their theology. For decades they’ve built academic departments and space societies around getting to Mars — huge departments that bring in federal dollars and they need to keep being fed. They do not want to take a detour to the Moon.

    Lunar scientists have had to battle for everything they’ve gotten. Even the discovery of water was fought against in science publications. It’s been 16 years since Clementine radar got an ice signal. But Clinton line item vetoed Clem II. Lunar Prospector followed 4 years later and confirmed ice on the Moon. Then came getting a ride for 2 NASA instruments on an Indian mission and even more varieties of water-ice were identified — some almost pure. LCROSS/LRO was a battle but something had to give besides “the” rocket Griffin wanted. If the VSE had been followed as planned, there would be a lot of robotic exploration of the Moon working and in the works.

    You don’t think this threatens Mars people? Of course they’re going to do anything to avoid the detour and delay that they believe developing a space transportation infrastructure on the Moon would do to them and their funding.
    I actually believe they want to send probes not people into space. The Moon is too dangers because of all that it offers and they can’t chance getting “stuck” on the Moon.

    The Moon:

    It’s close. Unlike virtually all other destinations in space beyond low Earth orbit, the Moon is near in time (a few days) and energy (a few hundreds of meters per second.) In addition to its proximity, because the Moon orbits the Earth, it is the most accessible target beyond LEO, having nearly continuous windows for arrival and departure. This routine accessibility is in contrast to all of the planets and asteroids, which orbit the Sun and have narrow, irregular windows of access that depend on their alignment with respect to the Earth. The closeness and accessibility of the Moon permit modes of operation not possible with other space destinations, such as a near real-time (less than 3 seconds) communication link. Robotic machines can be teleoperated directly from Earth, permitting hard, dangerous manual labor on the Moon to be done by machines controlled by humans either on the Moon or from Earth. The closeness of the Moon also permits easy and continuous abort capability, certainly something we do not want to take advantage of, but comforting to know is handy until we have more robust and reliable space subsystems. If you don’t believe this is important, ask the crew of Apollo 13.

    It’s interesting. The Moon offers scientific value that is unique within the family of objects in the Solar System. The Moon has no atmosphere or global magnetic field so plasmas and streams of energetic particles impinge directly on its surface, embedding themselves onto the lunar dust grains. Thus, the Moon contains a detailed record of the Sun’s output through geological time (over at least the last 4 billion years). The value of such a record is that the Sun is the principal driver of Earth’s climate and by recovering that detailed record (unavailable anywhere on the Earth), it can help us understand the details of solar output, both its cycles and singular events, throughout the history of the Solar System. Additionally, because of the Moon’s ancient surface and proximity to the Earth, it retains a record of the impact bombardment history of both bodies. We now know that the collision of large bodies has drastic effects on the geological and biological evolution of the Earth and occur at quasi-regular intervals. Because our very survival depends on understanding the nature and history of these events as a basis for the prediction of future events, the record on the lunar surface is critical to our understanding. A radio telescope on the far side of the Moon can “see” into deep space from the only platform in the Solar System that is permanently free from Earth’s radio noise. The Moon is a unique, rich and valuable scientific asset.

    It’s useful. In my opinion, this is the most important and pressing argument for making the Moon our first destination beyond LEO. Because of the detailed exploration of the Moon undertaken during the last 20 years, we have a very different understanding of its properties than we did immediately following Apollo. Specifically, the Moon has accessible and immediately usable resources of both energy and materials in its polar regions, something about which we were almost completely ignorant only a few years ago. For energy, both poles offer benign surface temperatures and near-permanent sunlight, as the lunar spin axis obliquity is nearly perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This relation solves one of the most difficult issues of lunar habitation – the 14-day long lunar night, which challenges the design of thermal and power systems. In addition, once thought to be a barren desert, we have recently found that the Moon contains abundant and accessible deposits of water, in a variety of forms and concentrations. There is enough water on the Moon to bootstrap a permanent, sustained human presence there. Water is the most important substance to find and use in space; not only does it support human life by its consumption and provision of breathable oxygen, in its form as cryogenic liquid oxygen and hydrogen, it is the most powerful chemical rocket propellant known. A transportation system that can routinely access the lunar surface to refuel, can also access all of cislunar space, where all of our national strategic and commercial (and much of our scientific) assets reside (many satellites reside above LEO and are inaccessible for repair). Such a system would truly and fundamentally change the paradigm of spaceflight and can be realized through the mining and processing of the water ice deposits near the poles of the Moon. Space exploration should be a driving force in our economy not merely a playground for scientists or a venue for public entertainment.

    http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2010/04/16/%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99ve-been-there-before-buzz-has-been-there-%E2%80%9D/

  • Coastal Ron

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    Re:
    http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2010/04/16/%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99ve-been-there-before-buzz-has-been-there-%E2%80%9D/

    You’re copy & pasting again Anne. If you’re going to link, then you don’t need to duplicate a massive amount of text. You’re contributing to global warming… ;-)

    For anyone following the link, don’t forget to look for the comments I made (Coastal Ron), which provide balance to a number of the issues discussed.

  • Anne Spudis

    Thank you for the advice CR.

    The last 3 paragraphs are a quote that is linked.
    The part at the top isn’t.
    Why don’t you make a general announcement to all posters about limited space on this site.

  • Vladislaw

    From the VSE:

    Goal and Objectives
    The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program. In support of this goal, the United States will:

    • Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;

    • Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;

    • Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and

    • Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.

    The return to Luna was just a small part of the overall goals.. it was not the keystone.

    One aspect that I never see get discussed about the vision is this:

    “NASA will launch dedicated robotic missions that will demonstrate new technologies and enhance our scientific knowledge of these destinations. These new technologies and discoveries will pave the way for more capable robotic missions and eventually human missions. The first human explorers will be sent to the Moon as early as 2015, as a stepping stone to demonstrate sustainable approaches to exploring Mars and other worlds.
    To support these missions, a number of key building blocks are necessary. These include new capabilities in propulsion, power, communications, crew transport, and launch,”

    and

    “The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter is enabled by Project Prometheus, NASA’s program to develop space nuclear power and propulsion technology. The nuclear power and nuclear-electric propulsion technologies that support this mission are also key to enabling other advanced robotic missions and human missions beyond Earth’s orbit. In addition to mapping new oceans, the systems on the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter will be a forerunner of the systems needed to send humans to other worlds, to supply power for human expeditions on these worlds, and to pursue other challenging robotic science missions.”

    and finally:

    “In the days of the Apollo program, human exploration systems employed expendable, single-use vehicles requiring large ground crews and careful monitoring. For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews. NASA plans to invest in a number of new approaches to exploration, such as robotic networks, modular systems, pre-positioned propellants, advanced power and propulsion, and in-space assembly, that could enable these kinds of vehicles.”

    Granted, we all know Griffin went off the reservation with constellation but how anyone can read the VSE and NOT come to the conclusion that it was TOTALLY technology driven is beyond me. The 2011 budget, as proposed by President Obama included more aspects of the VSE than anything being talked about in the house and senate.

    How anyone can read the VSE and not come away with ‘gone are days of large ground crews’ meaning NASA was being cut out of the launch business is once again, beyond me.

    President Obama called for advanced power and propulsion, aerocapture and fuel depots… without those .. all the rest is moot anyway. Until America finally comes to it’s senses on having gas stations in space we will continue with unsustainable exploration.

  • Anne Spudis

    Vladislaw wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 9:50 pm [……The return to Luna was just a small part of the overall goals.. it was not the keystone….]

    But is was (is) the keystone Vladislaw. And robotics figures heavily in it — always did. But that fleet never materialized.

    If we are to migrate into space, we must learn to use what is in space.
    To do that we need robotic scouts and machines. The Moon is the logical place to begin learning these skills. And once it has been demonstrated that it is possible, commercial involvement will explode.

  • Vladislaw

    yes i do agree it was a keystone, but always, as you read the VSE, technology is always the driver. From robotic technology demonstration missions, launch systems, return systems, life support systems, refueling systems, ISRU systems, power systems, propulsion systems.. in almost every paragraph of every page technology was the driver for that segment of the roadmap laid out.

    As bad as I want America on Luna, asteroids and Mars I first want sustainablity.

    I would rather see a sustainable LEO2GEO ‘gas n go’ , space based vehicle that could routinely travel 25,000 miles to geo that could solve a lot future problems we have to conquer then a couple one off missions to the moon and a back to the future of what happened after apollo because it was unsustainable.

    For me, the economics of bringing costs down is increasing the flight rate of commercial concerns so that there will be actual competitve pressure to invest in reusable earth to leo launch vehicles. There is basically three things to launch that increases flight rates. Humans, perishables to sustain them and fuel. Reusablity will not be human centric first .. it will be cargo.

    For me, America should pursue the technology more so than to just get ANY form of lunar program going. I do not believe we can do gas and go to the moon yet because all additional infrastructure makes the costs go so far above the budgets we can expect there is no point in pursuing it yet.

    By creating a vehicle for the hop to GEO and the gas station to service it we create launch demand at the same time we get to pursue the technology we need for the future.

  • Anne Spudis

    Vladislaw wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    Thank you for your post.

    I understand how you view this but if we continue to do one-off missions, routine space infrastructure will be pushed back.

    I see the use of space resources (beginning on the Moon) as vital to developing this infrastructure.

    Technology will be developed as needed and that need will be accelerated with the Moon as a base of technical operations. Commercial will also be spurred as people again realize the potential and excitement of space.

Leave a Reply to Justin Kugler Cancel reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>