Aviation Week reports that House appropriators have rejected a request by NASA to reprogram fiscal year 2012 funding for planetary science that would have taken money away from Mars and other flagship mission work. The request, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with oversight of NASA, would “drastically scale back spending on Outer Planets Flagship missions, discontinue work on the joint 2016 and 2018 Mars missions being explored with the European Space Agency and allocate a reduced amount to the study of a potential new future Mars mission.” Wolf said he blocked the requested funding shift since the proposed changes there, and in the administration’s FY2013 budget request, “deserves to be fully considered by a process that is more rigorous and more inclusive”. (It was not clear from the report to what projects the reprogrammed funds would have been shifted.)
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of that appropriations subcommittee and a staunch advocate for Mars exploration, “applauded” the decision in a statement on Friday. “NASA’s effort to mothball the Mars program is a disaster for America’s leadership in planetary science, and I’m glad this first step has been rejected by the committee,” he said. “While today’s decision by Chairman Wolf is enormously positive, we still have a lot of work to do to put the Mars program back on track.”
cWolf is the guy who claims letting China join the ISS program would reveal our “secrets”. But ask for a little additional funding and he wants to cut taxes instead.
My advice to Bolden would be to call a spade a spade. The real debate isn’t Commercial vs Mars, its Commercial vs SLS/Orion. Yes, that would precipitate still more infighting, but at least we would be clear about where the conflict lies. The CAIB said plainly that the Shuttle could fly until a replacement was operational, and that the replacement should be designed solely for access to LEO as any more ambitious project would fail because the country does not have the resources.
“Wolf said he blocked the requested funding shift since the proposed changes there, and in the administration’s FY2013 budget request, ‘deserves to be fully considered by a process that is more rigorous and more inclusive’.”
And that’s why there was no mention of Mars during the Senate hearing on NASA’s FY13 budget earlier this week and barely any mention during the House hearing on the same.
Rigor and inclusivity… right… two words that immediately leap to mind when Congress comes up.
Can’t help but look at this action by the appropriators as the SMD version of SLS. That is, Congress rolls in and says, HERE is the plan that’s going to do what we fund you to do. You’ve cancelled the elements of this plan because you say it’s going to be unaffordable, but we’re not going to let you say that. We’re going to make you keep the dream alive, even though we’re not going to tell you how reluctant to pay for it we’re going to be when the bills come in.
Strong echoes of Constellation as well, where appropriators refused to allow NASA to reprogram funds that would have supported continuation of that program that was already pretty much dead.
The rigor and inclusivity that Wolf wants is going to come at a price.
But, you know, the fiscal fingerprints of JWST are all over this.
When budgets are cut at NASA, the first impact on a mission is they have less reserves to use that fiscal year. Inevitably, this leads to putting off work to the next fiscal year, delays the launch date, and increases cost.
Close inspection of the budgets for existing missions in this FY 13 Presidents budget will no doubt show that indeed this is what is happening. Now.
And this dysfunction is the root cause of the JWST fiasco.
History is repeating itself, not only in the MARS program, but elsewhere in SMD.
ArtieT wrote:
“When budgets are cut at NASA, the first impact on a mission is they have less reserves to use that fiscal year. Inevitably, this leads to putting off work to the next fiscal year, delays the launch date, and increases cost.”
There have been many occasions at NASA that it really doesn’t matter what the budget does, because the way NASA does business, launch date delays are routine and so are budgets that are blown sky high.
It has more to do with NASA being not so much a space agency as a delivery system for swine. A pork agency if you will.
There are so much immediate and pressing answers to be obtained from the moon, chasing water and life on mars is almost frivolous. Especially considering the massive imbalance of moon vs. mars probes in recent decades.
Planning/budgeting for future Mars exploration really should depend on whether Curiosity survives its landing and operates when it reaches Mars in August as it’s a very costly ‘rover.’ . A bad day would mandate a re-think on further expenditures for Martian exploratory projects in work.
@vulture4 wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 10:49 am
“The CAIB said plainly that the Shuttle could fly until a replacement was operational…” That went well, didn’t it. “… and that the replacement should be designed solely for access to LEO.” LEO is a ticket to no place. Any investment in a vehicle solely for LEO operations is a trap with consequences for a generation or more, as shuttle operations demostrated. Add that to the past thirty years and it’ll tally up to well over half a century of simply going in circles.
reader wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Really? And what “immediate and pressing answers” would that be?
The question of lunar water resources is neither.
“massive imbalance of moon vs. mars probes” is a boatload of crap.
The Moon is the most well-studied planetary body in history. During the last 5 years alone there have been no less than 8 high-profile lunar missions. There are currently 3 active moon orbiters and 2 at Lagrange points. The only thing I’ll give you is that robotic exploration of the lunar surface has perhaps been somewhat neglected recently, but this is set to be remedied in the near future.
One thing’s clear, if you want NASA to stay relevant in the long term, you’ll need to get it away to some degree from pork politics and the whimsical games of your highly divided legislative.
reader wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 3:23 pm”
“There are so much immediate and pressing answers to be obtained from the moon, chasing water and life on mars is almost frivolous. Especially considering the massive imbalance of moon vs. mars probes in recent decades.”
Like, for instance, chasing water and maybe He-3 on the Moon?
Mars is just a more interesting place than the Moon, at least for contemporary geoscience and atmospheric science that pertain to conditions on Earth. The Moon probably has more relevance to future large scale exploration of space than Mars, at least in the near term, but for science, and for questions about life in the cosmos, Mars is ‘da place. Ask the scientists. NASA did, and in their Decadal Survey of community priorities done a year ago the Moon is not that conspicuous. Frivolity was not one of their drivers.
I agree that lunar science has been poorly served by robotic surface probes, but a lot of that is because there was the illusion that we’d have people down there. The “massive imbalance” you refer to would have been quite the opposite had Constellation been funded. We were headed for massively more investment in the Moon than in Mars.
DCSCA wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
“Planning/budgeting for future Mars exploration really should depend on whether Curiosity survives its landing and operates when it reaches Mars in August as it’s a very costly ‘rover.’ . A bad day would mandate a re-think on further expenditures for Martian exploratory projects in work. ”
Is that sort of like the dependence on whether Columbia and Challenger succeeded? Those bad days did fact mandate a re-think on further expenditures on transportation to LEO, and that re-think resulted in a much better shuttle program. But I agree, Curiosity is an expensive test of EDL technologies.
DCSCA wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
“LEO is a ticket to no place. Any investment in a vehicle solely for LEO operations is a trap with consequences for a generation or more, as shuttle operations demostrated.”
All the Shuttle showed us was that an all-in-one flying spaceship was not the lowest cost or safest design to rely upon.
As far as “LEO is a ticket to no place”, I don’t know if you travel by air, but if you fly on one of the major airlines you’d likely make a stop at one of their hubs. Hubs are not your destination, but they are a transit point created by the airlines for economical reasons. So it is with LEO.
And from an engineering and economics standpoint (not your strength, I know), why in the world would you launch from Earth with the same vehicle you’re going to land on the Moon or Mars? That’s Apollo-type thinking, which was only done because it was expedient, not because it was the most economical or most flexible.
Robert Heinlein had it right when he proclaimed – “Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System.†And if you think people are going to go everywhere in the Solar System in a capsule launched from Earth, you are truly delusional.
But if you disagree, then just outline for us your vision of the transportation system of the future. I’ve outlined many times, as have others, so now is your time to put up or quit whining.
@Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Not really. It’s not a matter of manned vs. unmannded comparison at all. Martian probes have had a high failure rate over the years and the recent series are supposed to be driving down costs and become more cost-effective in the face of the risks involved. Curiosity was — what… $1.2 billion… quite costly and one of a kind. A rise, not a drop in costs. The pairs or probes sent as redundancy proved out to be not only prescient but in the end, cost effective given their lifetimes. Curiosity’s landing profile is quite an ‘iffy’ sequence. A failure of a nuclear powered probe on landing would and should dictate a reassessment. Accordingly, planning further Martian mission profiles really should depend on how Curiosity’s arrival plays out.
Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Mars is just a more interesting place than the Moon.
In the contect of our times, political and economica, no it’s not. Seen one picture of dusty, rusty, red rocks, you’ve seen them all. See something on the moon, we at least have a reasonable skill set and experienced capability to follow along w/humans revisiting. Mars, not so much.
DCSCA wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
“In the contect of our times, political and economica, no it’s not.”
Why? What is the “contect of our times”?
“Seen one picture of dusty, rusty, red rocks, you’ve seen them all.”
Same could be said for the Moon – seen one dusty, gray rock, you’ve seen them all.
“See something on the moon, we at least have a reasonable skill set and experienced capability to follow along w/humans revisiting.”
So what? We can’t gain new skill sets? We don’t have a finite amount of capabilities. If we need to develop new skills, that’s what we excel at. I think this is a false barrier.
“Mars, not so much.”
Regardless what you, me or anyone else feels about Mars, the actions of those in Congress, who fund NASA, seem to have made it clear they like Mars (the topic of this blog post). In the context of our times, that means Mars is the more interesting place.
And let’s not forget that Congress canceled the Constellation program (i.e. our return to the Moon) without any debate in Congress. So again, where are you seeing “the contect of our times, political and economica” biased towards the Moon?
DCSCA wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
“In the contect of our times, political and economica, no it’s not. Seen one picture of dusty, rusty, red rocks, you’ve seen them all.”
That’s fair enough, except we’re talking about NASA science dollars. Those are different dollars than human space flight dollars, and are not easily interchangeable. In the context of our times, scientists are just more interested in Mars than in the Moon. The Decadal Survey proves that unambiguously. No question that if we’re talking about sending humans out in the solar system, the Moon is probably more interesting than Mars. I have no problem with that. Yes, one could hope for better alignment of science priority with human space flight priority, but that’s not something you tell scientists to do. It is something that Congress could tell NASA to do, though.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 11:38 pm
No. See something on the moon, we at least have a reasonable skill set and experienced capability to follow along w/humans revisiting w/technologies on hand in a reasonable time frame. Mars, not so much. Land four rovers with a claw and empty box and set them off on the points of the compass and follow along some years later with sample retrival lander to collect what the four found and voila- fly’em back. Of course, if Curoisity makes it, great. If not, a rethink is in order. You’re just crankin’ to crank.
Coastal Ron wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
It’s been outlined several times- you just don’t read it or accept it. Develop cislunar space operations, the hardware, systems and procedures necessary for long-term off planet stays, establish a permanent lunar facility to test nd refine same, take what you learn a la Gemini was for Apollo and press on to Mars if the trip is worth in in half a century. That’s your space program for the next 50 years or so. Assuming Mars is worth the trip by then and tthe sample return boys get some material back over the next 40 years or so. By then some hard samples and a portfolio full of nice pictures and reams of data from probes sent there may be enough for this century. On the other hand, if Martian dust cures cancer, grab a shovel. You just want to crank to crank.
More uninformed blather.
MSL was not to be a one of a kind. The NON iffy landing system was meant to support other vehicles, such as the Astrobiology Field Laboratory
Who mentioned water resources? The context was planetary science. (Which I am interested in from the perspective of an astrobiology student.)
And no, the Moon isn’t the most well studied planetary body, the Earth is. But to know more about Earth history, we now need to study the Moon part of the Earth-Moon pair, created by a Mars sized impactor.
There are critical issues for planet formation, volatile aggregation, chemical to biological evolution and their timing that only studying the Moon can tell us. Earth is the easiest planet to understand geophysics, astrophysics and astrobiology pathways from.
And we have barely scraped the surface on that, perhaps because some effort has gone into side shows like water resources for cis- and translunar manned exploration. It is fortunate that LRO and GRAIL now have started to research the Moon again, but it is a drop in a very large bucket.
Mars is important for studying protoplanets such as itself, atmospheres and astrobiology potential, but those are different aspects.
I wonder when Congress will realise that they cannot maintain funding for all their various hobby-horses and cut the agency’s budget? Probably never; these are PolSci graduates; math… and likely logic… are not going to be strong-points.
DCSCA wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 1:16 am
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 11:38 pm
Now if only we had a compelling reason to do all that.
Thanks for again demonstrating that you have zero idea about anything related to space exploration at all. Seriously. You don’t know anything about how science works in space. Your statements on engineering make me want to strangle you. When you talk about economics I wonder how you manage even getting your groceries. Nobody has even attempted to make a sense of your indecipherable political views. FFS you even fail at basic human relations, like recognizing that people have different motivations for doing things.
I’ve said it before, I can’t for the life of me figure out why you even care to comment here.
DCSCA wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 1:45 am
“It’s been outlined several times- you just don’t read it or accept it.”
What is “it”? There are lots of ideas and concepts out there, and none have been funded, so nothing is set in stone.
Is “it” the ULA plan I’ve pointed to many times – are you endorsing the ULA plan? Or the Spudis/Lavoie plan? Or the FISO plan? I know you’re not endorsing a Congressionally approved plan, since none exists.
Quit prevaricating and tell us what plan you endorse and quantify why you think it’s better (i.e. lower cost, more redundant, more sustainable, etc.). If you can’t, then you have no basis for telling everyone else they are wrong.
“Hubs are not your destination, but they are a transit point created by the airlines for economical reasons. So it is with LEO.”
In the last four decades we have had many space stations in LEO, as well as tons of traffic going to beyond LEO, and none of these LEO stations have ever served as a practical “transit point”, “hub”, or “gateway” for that traffic. No particular LEO orbit is in fact used as a standard “transit point” when launching commercial or military satellites to their destination orbits. Given the wide variety of earth launch locations and destination orbits a standard intermediate orbit would usually extract an extravagant delta-v penalty. A LEO space station as a “hub” or “gateway” remains the silly sci-fi fancy it has always been.
DCSCA wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 1:45 am
“Develop cislunar space operations, the hardware, systems and procedures necessary for long-term off planet stays, establish a permanent lunar facility to test nd refine same, take what you learn a la Gemini was for Apollo and press on to Mars if the trip is worth in in half a century. That’s your space program for the next 50 years or so.”
But access to Mars doesn’t depend on the Moon. We’re on Mars now, roving and exploring. We haven’t been to the Moon in 40 years, and what we did there on the Moon didn’t pave the way for our present work on Mars. What you’re saying is that Mars is only worth it if we can send people there. At least to those who study Mars, and try to learn about it and the lessons that it tells us for our own planet, that’s clearly wrong.
What you’re talking about is settlement and colonization, and that’s not something that is a high priority for either the science community or for Congress. It might be important, but not to science, and not obviously even to our nation.
If we’re going to go to Mars to explore, you say, let’s do it right, and learn how to send lots of people there first. Well, I guess exploration of the deep ocean should also really also wait until we learn how to send lots of people there.
“…from the perspective of an astrobiology student.”
Wow, you’re basing your future on a science without a subject? Good luck with that!
“And we have barely scraped the surface on that, perhaps because some effort has gone into side shows like water resources for cis- and translunar manned exploration.”
Ha ha! There you go, Coastal Ron. One man’s sole priority is another man’s distracting side show.
FWIW, BTW, actual space industries (i.e. commercial and military satellites) are a far more important potential use for lunar volatiles (i.e. transportation, station-keeping, and radiation shielding of said satellites) than are useless astronaut pilgrimages to high heavenly shrines.
Doug, you’re trying to respond to typical astronaut cult thinking: if it doesn’t carry or house our heavenly pilgrims, it doesn’t amount to anything and might as well not exist. Only the grand space stations and bases and colonies in LEO, the LaGrange points, the Moon, and Mars from the sci-fi pulps and powerpoint slides are real. There may be a few unmanned depots and relay stations and other bits around, but only in support of these grand manned shrines.
The quite different reality normal space engineers and scientists observe, with its satellites and robot rovers being quite useful without a shred of either dependency on or service to our heavenly pilgrims, is some sort of aberrant distraction that will be swept aside for grander things as soon as we have enough “visionaries” in power to make their heavenly and magically low-balled fantasies come true.
none of these LEO stations have ever served as a practical “transit pointâ€, “hubâ€, or “gateway†for that traffic.
Come on Googaw, don’t try to be cute. You know they mean for manned spaceflight, even if they don’t say so every time.
FWIW, BTW, actual space industries (i.e. commercial and military satellites) are a far more important potential use for lunar volatiles (i.e. transportation, station-keeping, and radiation shielding of said satellites) than are useless astronaut pilgrimages to high heavenly shrines.
That seems very unlikely to me. If you think the business case for lunar ISRU given a government-funded manned space exploration program is bad, wait until you see the case without such a program. I think you are confusing the business case for a moon base with the business case for ISRU facilities given there is a government-funded moon base. A bit like the difference between probabilities and conditional probabilities.
Googaw googawed:
“In the last four decades we have had many space stations in LEO, as well as tons of traffic going to beyond LEO, and none of these LEO stations have ever served as a practical “transit pointâ€, “hubâ€, or “gateway†for that traffic. “
Yes .. we have had .. you know .. many space stations in LEO. They have all been large, commercial, facility space stations in the same catagory as LAX or other hub stations. You know .. serving 100’s if not thousands of flights per month with hundreds of passangers embarking and taking off.
Damn Ron, you are just to dense to see just how much that comparison, 2-6 people space stations, and “tons” of traffic, you know .. NASA does like 20,000 – 30,000 thousand flights per year.. and none of that massive traffic utilizes the many many commercial space stations.
So googawed is right… in the last four decades the many many HUGE, commerical space stations, like the size of modern hubs, have never utilized the thousands of weekly space flights so therefore we don’t need them.
Gosh his logic is good, no fighting it.
if it doesn’t carry or house our heavenly pilgrims, it doesn’t amount to anything and might as well not exist.
No, if what you’re trying to do is to enable commercial manned spaceflight then some unmanned systems are of no help. You may disagree with that goal, but it is untrue that simply focussing on existing unmanned applications will advance it meaningfully.
For comparison, consider Bob Zubrin. As is well kown, he wants NASA to go Mars in a decade, and has been wanting that for decades to no avail. You can disagree with his goals, agree with them but consider them overambitious, you can criticise his insistence on HLV which has done him more harm than good, but it is disingenuous to say he should focus on a moon base as the fastest way to Mars (budget considerations aside). If the guy wants to maximise the probability of living to see manned Mars landings, then going for a moon base is not the way to do it. I think it is a hopelessly overambitious lost cause, but hey it’s his life.
Something has to be jettisoned. I think it should be SLS/Orion since we obviously cannot afford to
DCSCA wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 4:15 pm.
@vulture4 wrote @ March 10th, 2012 at 10:49 am
“The CAIB said plainly that the Shuttle could fly until a replacement was operational…†That went well, didn’t it. “…
What do you mean by that??? The post-STS-107 flights were the most trouble-free in the program. The CAIB said that any attempt to design a Shuttle replacement for a BEO mission would end in failure because the US was not ready to commit the necessary resources. They nailed it on that one.
Griffin and his allies claim the Shuttle “proved” that reusable spaceflight is impractical. Such a conclusion is as absurd as flying only the Wright “A” Flyer until 1933 and then concluding that heavier-than-air flight is impractical and going back to balloons.
“Come on Googaw, don’t try to be cute. You know they mean for manned spaceflight, even if they don’t say so every time.”
Actually, normal space engineers don’t robotically imply or infer heavenly pilgrims when they talk about things in space. This is probably because over 99% of the functioning objects in space don’t contain, transport, house, or otherwise involve astronauts or billionaire tourists. Only sci-fi-addled cultists make their (usually imaginary, as here) heavenly pilgrims their default semantic background.
But to translate from cult-ese to normal language, this “LEO hub” idea is all about something that exists only in the fevered imaginations of the cult — so many heavenly pilgrims traveling so regularly beyond LEO that they require a regular “hub” at LEO in which to rest their tired feet (or whatever they imagine actually gets tired during a cosmic journey in microgravity).
@Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
“But access to Mars doesn’t depend on the moon.”
You can throw all the machines you want at Mars, if you can afford it, given the high percentage of failures but for a manned expedition, in fact, it does– at least for the calculated risk of launching an expedition outward given the state of the art of the technologies in this era. Developing a confidence in a GP spacecraft, systems, procedures, operations, hardware and procedures for long term stay capabilities in extreme environments like the moon are esential for a Martian expedition, as a trip out there would dictate a long stay– nothing like the two or three day lunar dawn stays of the Apollos. And by the time the technology is ready, there may not even be a reason to go, if the robotics grow in sophistication and success rates climb. Of course, if they find a microbe up there on Mars, the real questions become is if its native or was it a mutation or contamination from earlier probes not baked clean; should it be observed in its natural environment or should contamination even be risked by bringing it back. Lots of scenarios.
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Doug, you’re trying to respond to typical astronaut cult thinking: if it doesn’t carry or house our heavenly pilgrims, it doesn’t amount to anything and might as well not exist.
=yawn= There’s simply no point to a space program w/o people. You might as well reject the entire arc of human development from day one.
@vulture4 wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
“Something has to be jettisoned.”
Yep- LEO commerical space funding subsidies. The place to source funding for private enterprosed firms is the private capital markets, not the U.S. Treasury.
vulture4 wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
What do you mean by that??? The post-STS-107 flights were the most trouble-free in the program. >>
I am not for sure that is accurate…I think that they are lucky that they stopped before the problems with the ET bit them RGO
Actually, normal space engineers don’t robotically imply or infer heavenly pilgrims when they talk about things in space.
No they don’t, but for people who frequent space forums it is the natural background. Many of these people care more about manned spaceflight than unmanned spaceflight, which is perfectly legitimate.
to rest their tired feet
That’s not what a LEO hub would be for. Getting halfway to anywhere is a tall order, and getting all the way to anywhere is even more difficult, which is part of the reason why HLV-based exploration is so stupid.
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
“Ha ha! There you go, Coastal Ron.”
Ha ha! There you go, Googaw. I didn’t write that post.
“it is untrue that simply focusing on existing unmanned applications will advance it meaningfully.”
Actually focusing on robots does advance even the astronaut cult cause quite meaningfully, if we drop the voodoo idea that astronauts magically making the way for more astronauts is all that we need. Instead think carefully about what people will need once they are up there. Propellant to get around, shielding against radiation, air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, and so on. If you want to do that affordably they (in the far future where any such mass heavenly pilgrimages are feasible) won’t be launching all this stuff from earth. They will need a space-based economy of inexpensive machines. An army of very efficient and very diverse machines to explore, extract, process, refine, and assemble products for our cosmic pilgrims. Lacking such advanced robots (descendants of those mining the oceans today as well as of the rovers drilling into rocks on Mars) there will be no way to transport or house our cosmic crusaders affordably,
Long before that, economically speaking, the smaller ancestors of these machines will be helpful serving actual human needs on earth via serving the satellites in GEO and elsewhere that serve us. Focusing on those markets — solving practical problems in the nearer future — is astronomically more useful than daydreaming voodoo-style about how astronauts launched today at preposterous cost will supposedly pave the way for the dreamed-of mass heavenly pilgrimages of tomorrow.
Note that servicing satellites with propellant, shielding, etc. affordably requires mining and processing machines two or three orders of magnitude smaller than those dreamed up by the astronaut cult. Until the day comes when we can achieve that, all the artificial government stimulus in the world won’t turn this fantasy market into a real one. It will just go to create ever more uselessly distorted white elephants,
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
“In the last four decades we have had many space stations in LEO, as well as tons of traffic going to beyond LEO, and none of these LEO stations have ever served as a practical “transit pointâ€, “hubâ€, or “gateway†for that traffic.”
Let’s hope that you’re not joining DCSCA in the “history is the only guide for the future” club. And of course none of the LEO stations have been transit points because they were meant to be transit points. How can they fail at something that they were designed or meant to be? Weird.
Now maybe you think we’ll never have enough traffic leaving Earth for LEO and beyond, in which case maybe your whole focus is on satellites and robotic explorers. I see a future where people are expanding out into space too, which is why I care about how we’re going to lower the cost to access space.
You also seem to be arguing the same point DCSCA alludes to, which is that you foresee that every person travels the solar system in the same vehicle that lifted them from Earth. That is impractical, and I know of no serious plans that advocate that.
The future I see is just like the one we have here on Earth, where transportation systems are specialized for specific routes. Earth to LEO and back is one such route, and it happens to be the most active one for the last 30 years. Once traffic is high enough for destinations beyond LEO, that is when a true LEO transit point makes economic sense – and this whole issue to me is about the most efficient use of resources to move people into and around in space.
I’ll ask you the same thing I asked DCSCA (but he has avoided answering) – what do you see is the space transportation of the future? If your company was going to send you on a work assignment on the Moon, how would you be getting there and back?
“Ha ha! There you go, Googaw. I didn’t write that post.”
Of course I didn’t say or imply that you did. I was observing, as is clear from what I wrote, that the poster called the goal you would like to force us all to agree on a “side show” and complained that it was distracting his fellow scientists from the goal (theorizing about the origins of the earth) that _he_ would like to force us all to agree on, at least when exploring the moon. Hilarious, but as usual you completely missed it.
“Many of these people care more about manned spaceflight than unmanned spaceflight, which is perfectly legitimate.”
However “legitimate” you might deem this cult, or how popular it may be in space forums, it’s still highly divorced from reality. It’s the same people still scratching their heads about why normal people make fun of Newt “Moon President” Gingrich and why normal politicians were able to make such political hay from his cosmic “visions”. It’s no harder than observing the fact that people tend to make fun of delusions of all kinds.
I suppose astronaut cultists will have to learn the hard way, when the Romneys of the world fire them in order to preserve their treasuries from fantasies bizarrely unhinged from economic reality.
Anyone trying to compare 40 years of two monopoly players, one for the USA and one for Russia as somehow representing how space commerce will look is just plain silly.
Every form of transportation, including horses, has way stations, fuel depots, repair garages et cetera.
To think, when we multiple the distances we will be traveling, (christ it is 25,000 miles just to GEO and that is like a trip around the block) to places like Mars, Martian moons, asteroids, it is plain the same systems that have served humans for centuries on terra firma will not suddenly disappear because we move out into space.
When we have dozens of stations, launch companies for LEO access, and inspace inter-planetary vehicles this discussion today will seem silly.
What Billionaires in the future won’t want their own orbital getway? The keeping up with the Joneses attitudes that we see today are suddenly going away? Today it is a yatch, jet, football or baseball team et cetera, tomorrow it will be your own point to point SS2, a BA 330,
We are approaching that capital and access tipping point.
If you want to do that affordably they (in the far future where any such mass heavenly pilgrimages are feasible) won’t be launching all this stuff from earth.
Such activity is likely to become feasible before we have ISRU to support it. Very large scale manned spaceflight may be required to close the business case for ISRU.
But more importantly, we won’t get to that point until we can launch both people and consumables much more cheaply than today, probably by at least an order of magnitude. That’s what I was getting at, existing robotic applications will not materially contribute towards that.
However “legitimate†you might deem this cult, or how popular it may be in space forums, it’s still highly divorced from reality.
I didn’t say government spending on it was legitimate, merely that the hobby itself is perfectly legitimate. Perhaps you prefer chess and that’s fine too.
Also, divorced from reality or not, focussing on existing unmanned applications will not help their cause as you appeared to be suggesting. If you disagree with their cause, then just say so, don’t pretend your preferred course of action serves their purposes too.
“we won’t get to that point until we can launch both people and consumables much more cheaply than today, probably by at least an order of magnitude. That’s what I was getting at, existing robotic applications will not materially contribute towards that.”
Back in reality, we have achieved orders of magnitude more increase in the functionality/cost ratio in space by reducing mass and increasing functionality than we have by lowering launch costs. That trend shows every sign of continuing.
Luddism and voodoo certainly won’t get us towards where you want to go. In fact, even if you think the most likely route is orders of magnitude lower launch costs — another economic fantasy for the reason stated in the last paragraph, among other reasons, but let’s go with it for the sake of argument — it’s going to take mass production of launch systems — which will take advanced automation.
For example, let’s look at that other Elon Musk company that makes things, Tesla Motors. Robots all over the assembly line. It’s the only way he can afford to make cars in Silicon Valley. If Musk or anybody else wants to mass produce rockets, the same kind of thing will be required. And if you want to dig things out of the ocean or a moon or asteroid, or make things in space, where the labor costs are tens of thousands of times higher than even Silicon Valley, that goes that many orders of magnitude more.
“Let’s hope that you’re not joining DCSCA in the “history is the only guide for the future†club.”
Heaven forbid that we’d study the actual reality of what has actually happened in space, rather than Collier’s magazines from the middle of the last century, to get our bearings on what might further happen in space.
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
“but as usual you completely missed it.”
Occam’s razor – I missed it because it wasn’t there. You used someone else’s quote to speak to me, but you didn’t reference that it came from someone else.
Learn and use the simple rules of conversation that make it clear who is talking to whom about what. Otherwise you’ll have to keep explaining what you meant to explain when you failed to explain it in the first place. Geez.
Back in reality, we have achieved orders of magnitude more increase in the functionality/cost ratio in space by reducing mass and increasing functionality than we have by lowering launch costs.
And that won’t work for tourism. The whole point of tourism is getting people to space, not doing anything useful there. Compare it to going to the movies. The point is to have fun, not to be productive. If you want space tourism, then focusing on robotics isn’t going to help very much.
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 8:04 pm
“we have achieved orders of magnitude more increase in the functionality/cost ratio in space by reducing mass and increasing functionality than we have by lowering launch costs.”
For satellites, sure. Human transports don’t reduce in scale at the same rate, and though you may have missed it, most of the people you’re conversing with are concerned with human transportation issues, not satellites.
“Luddism and voodoo certainly won’t get us towards where you want to go.”
I don’t think you even understand your own references – it looks like you’re just pulling interesting words out of the dictionary and sticking them in sentences. Kind of like DCSCA’s “crankin’ to crank” utterances.
As agent Simmons would say: Let’s not get episodic, okay, old-timer? Beginning, middle, end. Facts, details. Condense: Plot. Tell it!
“Developing a confidence in a GP spacecraft, systems,”
When comparing lunar and Martian missions, there is no such thing as a general purpose spacecraft. The distance, mission duration (days versus years), delta-v required, radiation exposure, micro-g exposure, EDL, abort oppportunities, etc. are all radically different. Propulsion systems, propellant quantities, propellant storage, consumable quantities, radiation protection, micro-g countermeasures, descent systems, redundancy/reliability etc. are nothing like each other.
“procedures, operations,”
Procedures and operations are also radically different. Near real-time communications in cislunar space versus 20 minute delays at Mars. The former does nothing to help prepare for the latter.
Missions to the Moon do little to prepare for Mars. If your goal is Mars, the Moon is a money sink. Terrestrial analogs and deep space missions (Earth-Sun Lagrange Points, NEAs, Phobos/Deimos) are much better investments.
If your goal is the Moon, then it must be justified based on lunar objectives, not Martian objectives.
“what do you see is the space transportation of the future? If your company was going to send you on a work assignment on the Moon, how would you be getting there and back?”
I’m not going to be a part of any company that does anything so stupid as sending people to the moon, for starters.
As for future space transportation systems, a wide variety of them are possible, and I’ve described some of them before. Our most urgent space transportation need is for a less expensive way to launch satellites, and if SpaceX can avoid being distracted and mired in all the astronaut cult nonsense surrounding Dragon (e.g. the latest software bugaboos lest our Precious Astronauts be harmed), Falcon 9 seems to be a great step forward in this regard. But the astronaut cult could easily ruin the whole effort by imposing their delusional obsessions. In which case it will be up to another entrepreneur to repeat or even improve upon Musk’s cost-saving techniques without all the astronaut baggage.
There is probably a niche, primarily in polar orbit, due to the less predictable propellant lifetimes of many spy satellites there, for small depots using storable propellants such as hydrazine. Storables are far more straightforward than the fantasy cryogenic depots that have been concocted in fevered imaginations in pursuit of fantasy astronaut missions. Storables have the inestimable advantage of actually being the propellant that is most commonly used in real commercial and military satellites, as opposed to the Powerpoint creations of people chasing NASA contracts. Once polar orbit is being refueled, the next frontier for depots is quite probably where the greatest number of satellites operate, namely GEO. Depots also make some interesting deep space science missions possible if you apply your imagination as I have.
Farther in the future, once automation is sufficiently advanced (and there’s no point in doing any in situ mining for propellant until it is), one might mine the lunar poles or an asteroid like Ceres for ammonia etc., process it into hydrazine, ship it to a variety of earth orbits (include polar and GEO), and feed it into the depot infrastructure described above. Much simpler and with far smaller machines than the fantasy mines intended to feed useless and preposterously large astronaut missions. Water, from the same ice deposits as the ammonia, is also remarkably storable and directly usable as a thermal propellant, which would be far more straightforward than splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen and trying to store those for long periods in huge tanks that have to be launched from earth. If we can lose both the propellant and the tanks from earthside launch manifests, this gives us a positive feedback loop that will radically lower the costs of travel beyond LEO to the rest of the solar system.
Getting to LEO from the earth surface is alas a far more difficult problem. Far more progress will continue to be made in increasing the functionality and lowering the mass of satellites, rovers, and other unmanned machines than in lowering launch costs.
There are many such future possibilities. Anybody who tries to plan it out today will be wrong. Intelligent exploration of this vast design space requires knowledge of space science and engineering, and above all original creativity, rather than being bound to cult dogmas or the practices of the more familiar phases of space transportation (such as launch where cryogens are far more useful).
“And that won’t work for tourism.”
And how is this economic fantasy my problem? Or even more to the point, why should it be the taxpayers’ problem?
Back in reality, we have achieved orders of magnitude more increase in the functionality/cost ratio in space by reducing mass and increasing functionality than we have by lowering launch costs
True for robotic systems. But at current launch costs only robotic systems are actually feasible. Putting a human in space, whether for tourism or scientific research, is worth quite a bit, but certainly not $70M. For $20M/seat you could sell two or three seats a year. For $1M per seat you could probably sell 50-100, including both tourism and government-sponsored research.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t see anything wrong with robotic systems; they make much more sense for initial exploration. But with reduced launch costs human spaceflight can also be productive. Conversely, to continue to claim that there is some mission of infinite value out there that will make human spaceflight practical at today’s costs is simply unrealistic.
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
“Heaven forbid that we’d study the actual reality of what has actually happened in space…”
See, that’s your problem. You only look at what we’ve done in one category of transportation (to/from space), and assume that our long history of expanding ALL forms of transportation won’t apply. Many of us disagree.
Sure travel to space is expensive, but all forms of transportation start out expensive but decline in cost over time. There is no reason space transportation won’t do the same. And in fact it has been declining in cost over time if you look at certain fungible classes of payloads, such as 10 & 20mt payloads to LEO.
And even though we have fewer data points, the cost per person to buy a ride to LEO has declined from “infinitely high” (i.e. government transport that’s not for hire) to $35M. That’s a big reduction. And there are efforts in the commercial aerospace industry to lower that cost even more, so despite DCSCA’s claims of no commercial firms interested in flying people to space, industry money is going into technology improvements that could significantly lower the costs.
Now maybe you also confuse these early efforts as being the Earth equivalent of the Transcontinental railroad or some other quick expansion of transportation. I don’t see a quick expansion, and I think if we double the amount of people going to space every 5 years we’ll be doing pretty well. If a true “Space Race” unfolds, maybe that will happen faster, but I don’t see one near-term. I’ll be happy with “slow & steady” rather than “go fast and not be able to sustain it” (i.e. Apollo).
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
vulture4 wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
What do you mean by that??? The post-STS-107 flights were the most trouble-free in the program. >>
I am not for sure that is accurate…I think that they are lucky that they stopped before the problems with the ET bit them RGO
The ET stringer failures were analyzed pretty effectively and the problem was, I believe, traced to an error in material selection, resulting in the ET intertank sringers being fabricated from metal that clearly did not meet the specifications or even have the same appearance as the normal parts. Although probably that expertise is now permanently lost. But the component was expendable and similar to the stringer-stiffened interstage structures on ELVs like the Saturn.
I wrote: ““Luddism and voodoo.”
In fact, Coastal Ron, I chose these words quite carefully. They are quite thoroughly applicable. The Luddism of the astronaut cult should be quite obvious. The voodoo thinking about how astronaut missions supposedly lead to space colonization I have discussed several times.
me: “Heaven forbid that we’d study the actual reality of what has actually happened in space…â€
name removed to protect the guilty: “See, that’s your problem.”
Yes, my “problem” is that my thinking is based on reality. Your problem is that you see that as a problem.
Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
“Farther in the future, once automation is sufficiently advanced…”
I do think that advances in robotics here on Earth will be leveraged for space exploration, and considering the cost difference between sending a robot vs a human, we can do far more in space, sooner, with robotic exploration. So on that subject I think we’re pretty close.
Not so much on human space travel, but now that I know your areas of interest and disinterest (which wasn’t easy wading through zombies & fantasyland analogies), I’ll leave this conversation for now.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
“I am not for sure that is accurate…I think that they are lucky that they stopped before the problems with the ET bit them.”
That’s a fair assessment. The ‘popcorn problem’ has been with them in some manner in varying degrees of intensity since STS-1.
@Googaw wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
It appear the only ‘cultist’ cultivating a preference of one of the other is you. Peculiar– or it’s just that you have a pet project, contract, job, or grant to protect.
Dark Blue Nine wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Of course there is– depending on how it is designed and capable of adaptation/modification and how mission planning and flight profiles are developed. Look at Soyuz. Or Progress. The Spitfire had a base design as a fighter plane but was modified and adapted for various needs. And operations/procedures development in cislunar space builds confidence and develop hardware for an extreme environment. And the communications delay aside, consider something more ‘down to Earth’ like dealing with medical emergencies and the need to lug along a doctor and an ER or sorts. Something cislunar experience can not only develop for longer duration spaceflights but add to medicine on Earth. Your mind is closed.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
“…so despite DCSCA’s claims of no commercial firms interested in flying people to space…” ?? uh, no, you said that. There’s obvious interest– there just isn’t any market for it where thet can generate a profit. That’s why governments do it. You’re just crankin’ to crank. Past is prologue. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And if that doesn’t register, in case you haven’t noticed, Soyuz has been a ‘space transportation’ vehicle for over 40 years. With apologies to VW and hie LM ad from ’69, ‘It’s ugly, but it gets you there.’
“For $20M/seat you could sell two or three seats a year. For $1M per seat you could probably sell 50-100, including both tourism and government-sponsored research.”
Russia could have sold more seats, they stated more than once that demand was higher than the seats they could actually sell. They were limited by the amount of space at the destination.
Bigelow Aerospace has commented that just the seven MOU’s and what those countries want to do in space, represented a need for a second station.
You are just not getting it, second tier countries that have never been able to afford their own systems and hardware will beable to have a full up space program for a couple hundred million a year. No longer will they have have to fork over billions to be a player on the ISS.
As currently configued the first facility will be 15 people with 3 of them being BA personal. That is 48 passengers a year with 3 month stays. There are about 40-50 countries that will easily beable to loft people for national prestige alone.
The practical alternative to very big launch vehicles is to use the current approximately 20 metric ton payload to LEO rockets.
20 mT is insufficient to get a person to the Moon. A LEO spacestation would allow the passengers, 20-30 mT maximum dry weight spacecraft and the many tons of propellant needed to assemble.
The film “2001 A Space Odyssey” showed a nuclear powered spaceship going from the LEO spacestation and landing on the Moon. With modern spacecraft restricted to using chemical rockets the passengers and cargo may have to change to a lunar lander at a second spacestation at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point.
The landers, spacecraft, spacestations and lunar base will need developing.
Bigelow has put its plans on indefinite hold due to lack of transport capability. Tourism is a luxury good with sales volume being extremely sensitive to price.
DCSCA: “The ‘popcorn problem’ has been with them in some manner in varying degrees of intensity since STS-1.”
I absolutely agree, that’s why any launch system needs an adequate number of real prototype flights _before_ the design is finalized, so the design can be modified or even completely revised before going into manned ops.
Nevertheless the damage from spray-on foam was sharply reduced in the post-STS-107 missions, to a degree I would never have thought possible, and tedious as they were the inspections in orbit were quite comprehensive and the blocks that caused the loss of Columbia were deleted from the design. Not that a problem like that should have been allowed in the original design, but if it wasn’t safe, we could not have launched STS-108. Even on the last few flights improvements that reduced maintenance hours were being made.
“Of course there is– depending on how it is designed and capable of adaptation/modification and how mission planning and flight profiles are developed. Look at Soyuz. Or Progress. The Spitfire had a base design as a fighter plane but was modified and adapted for various needs.”
This is a ridiculous statement. Soyuz and Progress never went to Mars. The Spitfire never flew in a new atmosphere on a different world.
I can modify a truck with a trailer hitch to perform a new function. That doesn’t mean that the truck can operate on the Moon. That truck is still operating in the same Earth environment.
You clearly don’t think before you type.
“And operations/procedures development in cislunar space builds confidence and develop hardware for an extreme environment.”
No, they don’t. The environments are completely different. 1/6g versus 1/3g. Different solar fluxes. Vacuum versus low pressure CO2 atmosphere. 125C versus 20C for high temperatures. -175C versus -225C for low temperatures. Carcinogenic fibers versus hexavalent chromium for toxins.
You can’t use lunar hardware and operations on Mars. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
“And the communications delay aside,”
The communications delay is huge. Unlike on the Moon, Mars astronauts cannot be in constant contract with mission control back on Earth. In fact, Mars may make the whole concept of ground control for crewed missions obsolete.
You’re so ignorant of the issues involved, you shouldn’t even be posting here.
“consider something more ‘down to Earth’ like dealing with medical emergencies and the need to lug along a doctor and an ER or sorts.”
This is another ridiculous statement. If someone is sick on the Moon, it’s only three days back to Earth (or three days for a doctor to get to the Moon), at most. And if an emergency procedure is needed, there’s little difference between the remote medical procedures that are already performed on the Earth and doing the same on the Moon. Both benefit from near real-time communications.
It takes months to travel to/from Mars (no transporting a sick astronaut back to Earth or a doctor to Mars) and there’s a 20-odd minute communications delay. You can’t cut someone open on Mars and then wait 40 minutes before a doctor on Earth can tell you what to do next. Mars requires very different medical contingencies and procedures from what’s required in remote Earth (or cislunar) medicine.
You don’t have a clue. It’s radically different.
“there just isn’t any market for it where thet can generate a profit”
Another ignorant statement. Space Adventures has been around for a decade and a half. It’s hard to imagine a company being around that long if they’re not generating a profit.
DCSCA wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
“There’s simply no point to a space program w/o people. You might as well reject the entire arc of human development from day one.”
Why? Space robotics includes people. The people just aren’t in space when they do it. How the “arc of human development” requires people in space is really not well founded. It may be that the arc of human development has brought us to the point that we can experience things without being there in the flesh. Denying that is the same as putting a wall at the end of your arc. But again (and I say this repeatedly) colonization of space (which cannot be done robotically) is NOT an established national priority.
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 1:13 am
“Past is prologue”
You keep trying to state that nothing new can ever be created – do you ever leave your basement? I mean the evidence is pretty clear with your recent set of posts.
You have no clue whether current commercial rockets are reliable, despite the fact that United Space Alliance sends out a press release after every launch saying how many successful consecutive launches they’ve had. You could also look it up on Wikipedia.
You also have to reach back to WWII to find a an airplane (the Spitfire) to use as your reference for a vehicle that could be adapted for various needs? WTF? Couldn’t you find a more recent analogy that your audience would better understand? I mean when people think of the Spitfire, the last thing they think of (if it even comes to mind) is that it was a flexible platform. You could have at least referenced an aircraft that was still in service, even an old one like the F-15, which arguably has been adapted far more than the Spitfire.
However I think the F-15 is outside your historical frame of reference, since that was post Apollo, which means you’re not aware of it. Hence my first question – do you ever leave your basement?
And how is this economic fantasy my problem? Or even more to the point, why should it be the taxpayers’ problem?
As I’ve said before, it isn’t and it shouldn’t be. All I’m saying is that for those who do hold this as a goal your advice to focus on traditional unmanned applications doesn’t help, even though you appeared to suggest it would. Fine if you don’t care about that yourself, but could you finally admit that your advice is unhelpful?
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 1:13 am
The Spitfire had a base design as a fighter plane but was modified and adapted for various needs..
Like what? RGO
“Tourism is a luxury good with sales volume being extremely sensitive to price”
I do not know if you have actually listened to many interviews with Robert Bigelow but he very rarely even mentions tourism. It is not the market he is after right now. BA is signing MOU’s with sovergn clients, not tourists companies. He is going after 2nd tier nations who have a big enough checkbook to have a full up space program.
You have to understand the way Bigelow Aerospace is going to do business. If you want to goto one of their facilities, you will have to have a place to park your butt when you get there. He is not creating space hotels for tourists. If a company wants to lease a BA 330 and turn it into a hotel they are free to do so.
A country will lease a given amount of space, full module, half, 1/4 etc and with that will get X amount of rides and food/water for X amount of months.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
=yawn= look it up. Do your own homework.
Coastal Ron wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 12:38 am
“I do think that advances in robotics here on Earth will be leveraged for space exploration, and considering the cost difference between sending a robot vs a human, we can do far more in space, sooner, with robotic exploration. So on that subject I think we’re pretty close.”
I always feel compelled to remind people that the words “robotics” and “robots” mean very different things to different people. To many, a robot is a humanoid that is operating wholly autonomously with its own innate intelligence. The way our culture pictures “robots” is nicely shown in the WSJ slideshow of a few days ago. See here — http://tinyurl.com/7yzbs4d .
But robots can also be used in a wholly telerobotic mode, where they are simply extensions of human senses and dexterity. Aside from the time delay we’d encounter in many space applications, we actually have that capability right now with terrestrial systems. Amusingly, the article that accompanied that WSJ slideshow was about that latter kind of robot.
It’s very frustrating how people confuse these two dramatically different concepts in a single word, and that confusion leads to some equally confusing space policy. To get back on topic, it’s to a great degree the latter implementation of robotics that we’re talking about here, with regard to Mars exploration.
Historical exploration never had either kind of robotic capability. Our history books aren’t filled with romantic stories of noble robotic explorers. So denying that as a credible means to do exploration is just a big mistake, especially because the technology to do it is advancing explosively.
The Spitfire was used as a reconnaissance aircraft in WW2. This required the fitting of a large camera and being given a longer range.
A more modern example is the Harrier jump jet. It was designed as a fighter for the forests of Germany. It was used to carry bombs from aircraft carriers in the Falklands War.
@Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 11:08 am
=yawn= “People have always gone where they have been able to go. It’s that simple.” Michael Collins, CMP, Apollo 11 There is no point to a space program w/o people. And if there is, as you seem to be advocating, then commercial HSF firms are scamming the public they’re trying to tap for funding and the government they’re trying to sell services to.
@Dark Blue Nine wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 9:28 am
In fact, what’s massively ridiculous- if not sad- is your insistence that a GP spacecraft cannot be developed and adapted for space missions in line w/an integrated space program. As we know, Soyuz was a base design for lunar flight and adapted for LEO operations for over 40 years. You have a closed mind with another agenda. And your odd effort to write off emergency medical issues w/a 3 day return from the moon as sufficent is simply absurd and indicates a frighteningly lax knowledge of medical issues to be considered on mid to long term space operations. When a Mars expedition goes, it will most likely take a full ER extrapolated from what is learned from a lunar base experience crew w/appropriate training– which may very well add to Earth bound medical procedures. It’s silly using ‘Space Adventures’ as a supplement for a vibrant active space program when in fact, they’re a travel and tourism operation. They cater to an extremely small, elite, well heeled clientele and currently buys seats on the Russian Soyuz, government-developed hardware lauinched from a government facility. So your concept of a commercial HSF space program is operating a travel agency for a handful of wealthy people willing to pony up for multi-million thrill ride. Worse, still, the top dollar buy is an LEO flight- a ticket to no place. And if they don’t develop a destination on their own, when the ISS splashes, they’ll be left w/zero-G flights a la Branson (who may have an operational vehicle by then.). Quiaint. But hardly a vibrant commercial space program. Next you’ll say Disney has a ‘space program’ too because of their ‘Space Mountain’ roller coaster ride. Your own closed minded ‘ignorance’ punctuated w/personal attacks betrays a blind bravado advocating commercial HSF space and simply reinforces why the policy issues involved may very well be beyond a technician’s pay grade.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 11:28 am
“You keep trying to state that nothing new can ever be created…”
No, you said that. You just keep demonstrating a poor capacity to learn from history. So sorry the Spitfire was ‘over your head’– which is where it belongs. You’re just crankin’ to crank. Maybe the DC-3 is more your speed.
@Byeman wrote @ March 11th, 2012 at 9:31 am
Except it is. And it’s costs are going the wrong way. If it suceeds, great. If you crash and burn, time for a reassessment across the board. We’ll see how it goes in August. But don’t try to kid the public that the landing sequence isn’t ‘iffy.’ Because it is.
The Spit was designed as a defensive fighter-interceptor, a role it served well – but with combat radius of 760km (vs 1865 for the P-51) it had limited range for escort and few weapons for ground attack.
The Shuttle was expensive but versatile as an experiment platform, satellite launcher, and supply and personnel transport, everything for LEO. Dragon and CST are specialized for LEO personnel transport and (to some extent) logistics. Orion was designed for BEO personnel ops and is both very expensive to launch and and low in capacity for LEO logistics.
If we had the resources, urgency and rationale to send a small number of people to the moon again ASAP, Orion would be a reasonable choice. The problem is, we don’t.
If we had the resources, urgency and rationale to send a small number of people to the moon again ASAP, Orion would be a reasonable choice.
How so? Why not CST-100 or Dragon with a new SM? The SM is what’s special about Orion, the CM is just an oversized version of its competitors.
vulture4 wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
And was adapted/modified for various functions, inc;uding photorecon. =sigh= Buy a book.
vulture4 wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
“If we had the resources, urgency and rationale to send a small number of people to the moon again ASAP, Orion would be a reasonable choice. The problem is, we don’t.”
In fact, we do have the resources– we’ve just chosen to spend them on thoer things– like several wars of late; urgency is relative; rationale is embedded in human DNA. If you believe that there’s no point to human spaceflight, then the HSF pitch by commercial firms to tap the Treasury and make a buck at it is a scam.
A M Swallow wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Correct. Spit came to mind as just finisheed a book on it and its various incarnations and usage over its time..
Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
“I always feel compelled to remind people that the words “robotics†and “robots†mean very different things to different people.”
You’re right. I would imagine that will clarify in the future as the distinctions become important. Even as I wrote “robotics” and “robots” I cringed a little, but we don’t have any other good analogies. Any suggestions?
“But robots can also be used in a wholly telerobotic mode, where they are simply extensions of human senses and dexterity.”
I would imagine that the whole range of robots & robotic systems will be used, depending on the various applications. Robots with telepresence like Robonaut 2 and undersea construction systems could be used on the Moon or within Earth local space. Further away you go the more you depend upon autonomous systems, which have been getting much better recently here on Earth.
I would also imagine when we finally do start mining operations on the Moon or elsewhere that our autonomous systems will be smart enough to manage most of their work themselves.
“Historical exploration never had either kind of robotic capability. Our history books aren’t filled with romantic stories of noble robotic explorers. So denying that as a credible means to do exploration is just a big mistake, especially because the technology to do it is advancing explosively.”
I agree.
It’s very frustrating how people confuse these two dramatically different concepts in a single word, and that confusion leads to some equally confusing space policy.
It didn’t help that NASA didn’t/doesn’t discourage people from calling the RMS a “robot arm.”
Does ATK still have that small facility off of US 522, just south of Culpepper, Virginia? Isn’t that in or adjacent to Rep. Wolf’s district?
Hi RGO –
Like to a ground attack plane out of necessity, but it was replaced in that role by the Typhoon.
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
“=yawn= look it up. Do your own homework.”
In other words, you were caught using a lame analogy and now you’ll just pretend that everyone in the world should remember why a WWII aircraft no longer in service was somehow more worthy of mention than all the aircraft that have come in the 74 years since.
And of course you can’t even explain why it was important to point it out in the first place.
Typical.
And as far as your use of the term “past is prologue” you do realize that you’ve been interpreting it wrong all this time?
It means history influences, and sets the context for, the present, not that our future is dictated by our past. Big difference.
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
“=yawn= ‘People have always gone where they have been able to go. It’s that simple.’ Michael Collins, CMP, Apollo 11″
Heh, you make my case very well. Collins represents a generation of people that has no concept of the capabilities and modern potential of space robotics. With all due respect to Collins, I don’t think the view from up there in 1969 gave him a lot of credibility about space robotics.
“And if there is, as you seem to be advocating, then commercial HSF firms are scamming the public they’re trying to tap for funding and the government they’re trying to sell services to.”
I see, they’re selling a product, and you want to judge their commitment as expressing our need for their product. Wow. You really should get some sleep, or maybe take a course in elementary marketing. Sure, they might be intentionally scamming the public, but more likely they’re just following the $$, as every commercial firm should do. C’mon. You can do better than that!
But seriously, this is a question that really deserves some national discourse. I think Congess saw that too, when they asked NASA to fund the NRC to study the importance of human space flight.
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
=yawn= look it up. Do your own homework.>>
Nope you are the one making the absurd claim RGO
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Oh boy, he came up with a new sound bite to endlessly repeat.
I believe I’ve told you before, the broken record routine doesn’t help your case, it rather makes people doubt your mental soundness.
“How so? Why not CST-100 or Dragon with a new SM? The SM is what’s special about Orion, the CM is just an oversized version of its competitors.”
There is also heat shield, radiation shielding and stronger structure (for possible higher g forces) for Orion that CST100 might lack. Dragon on the other hand was built with an eye towards BEO flight. Volume might be a problem in some others like Dreamchaser(there was a plan for a Dreamchaser XL that was larger).
Rand Simberg wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
“It didn’t help that NASA didn’t/doesn’t discourage people from calling the RMS a ‘robot arm.’ ”
Frankly, it’s because the word just means something different to NASA engineers than it does to the public, and NASA doesn’t want to explain it. Of course, they have some incentive not to. The public perception of “robots” is that they are neat, cool, awesome, smart, vaguely threatening, and totally rad things. Why would NASA want to say “er, but we don’t quite do THAT stuff”? Yes, the RMS is a robot arm sort of like a ditch witch has a robot shovel. Sure, the RMS is somewhat “smarter” than the shovel, but who’s counting? Now, the ruse would be complete if you painted a face on each one.
“If you believe that there’s no point to human spaceflight, then the HSF pitch by commercial firms to tap the Treasury and make a buck at it is a scam.”
I believe there is a point to human spaceflight, and that point is to use it for productive purposes such as tourism and research. But the value of human spaceflight is not infinite and is much less than its current cost. To make it worthwhile to invest in human spaceflight we have to make it substantially less expensve.
In 1915 US aircraft companies were being crushed by foriegn compeitors that had more effective government support. The original mission of NACA was to help US industry compete more effectively through research and develpment. Nowhere was that mission abrogated when NACA was combined with other federalinstallations to beome NASA. Right now our share of the commercial market (all sales not paid for with our tax dollars) is declining. If we cannot hold onto high tech manufacturing, human spaceflight will be irrelevant because we will not be able to afford it.
“As we know, Soyuz was a base design for lunar flight and adapted for LEO operations for over 40 years.”
This example doesn’t support your point at all. Taking a system that is designed for something relatively hard, like lunar transit, and adapting it to something that is relatively easy, like LEO transfer, is, well, easy. It’s nothing like going from the Moon to Mars, which is going from something that is relatively easier to something that is much, much harder.
Why are you so dense when it comes to straightforward logic?
“When a Mars expedition goes, it will most likely take a full ER extrapolated from what is learned from a lunar base experience crew w/appropriate training”
A human Mars mission may take a “full ER” but it’s not going to be easily “extrapolated” from “lunar base experience”. The gravitational environments are very different (especially the zero-g environment during transit to/from Mars), the surface contaminants that the life support systems have to keep out of the medical bay are very different (fibrile carcinogens versus asphyxiating hexavalent chromium), and the communications delays involved in remote procedures are radically different (near real-time versus up to 40-minute round-trip delays).
You are utterly and completely ignorant of any of even the most basic technical challenges involved in these missions.
“It’s silly using ‘Space Adventures’ as a supplement for a vibrant active space program”
I’m not using Space Adventures as substitute for a national space program. You claimed that there was no profit in space tourism. Space Adventures proves otherwise.
Can’t you even keep your own statements straight?
“You have a closed mind”
“Your own closed minded”
“Close minded”
Enough with the obsessive-compulsive routine. Get some psychiatric help or stop interacting with other people. You’re a creep.
E.P. Grondine wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Hi RGO –
Like to a ground attack plane out of necessity, but it was replaced in that role by the Typhoon.>>
Yeah. I find statements the other person made pretty silly. The Spit was great at what it did because it was designed for what it did…and was really crummy at everything else. The way to think of the Spit…is that it was the F-104 of its day…you could put jungle camouflage on the 104 and put a couple of 500 pound bombs…but all you had done was take a mustang and try and make a draft horse out of it…same with the spit.
It was like the 104 designed for air combat over its home turf (different environments of course the Spit was a dog fighter) but they had little utility outside of that…
Many years ago I had the honor of talking with a tour guide at the Imperial War Museum who was a spit pilot (we figured that out when he was taking us on a tour and we were at the Battle of Britain part and he was giving that part of the lecture standing next to a group of pictures…one of which had him climbing into his “kite”…)
anyway we (my partner was a pilot as well) talked with him quite a bit abotu the Spit and he talked about the photo reccon version as he put it “something had to give to carry the camera, they took out the guns”
The tour guide ended the war chasing Buzz bombs…he started combat in the BOB with 19 hours in spits, survived it, ground looped only 12 times (grin)…as he put it “A piece of Cake” (great show btw) RGO
I believe I’ve told you before, the broken record routine doesn’t help your case, it rather makes people doubt your mental soundness.
After so many months, why would there be any doubt about either the intelligence or sanity of the Space Policy troll?
DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
“Spit came to mind as just finisheed a book on it and its various incarnations and usage over its time.”
So because you just read a book on a 74 year old airplane, you figure everyone else in the world must have read it too and would understand the weak reference you made?
You do the same thing with the Apollo program, in that you assume that everyone that watched it is still as smitten as you are, and if they were too young to have watched it, then they can’t be as passionate about space as you are (or as smart).
You lack empathy.
@Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
“Collins represents a generation of people that has no concept of the capabilities and modern potential of space robotics.”
Hmmm. =eyeroll= No doubt the robotic imagery obtained of the moon used in his Apollo 11 training escaped his notice.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Lazy. Nothing absurd about it if you tok the time to look it up. Sort of like your error on O’Donnell. Amusing as ever.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 12th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Only lame to you– but as noted, over your head. Still crankin’ to crank as ever.
Sorry, but this conversation has gone way off track. Stay polite and on topic, please.