NASA, Other

AIAA space exploration panel raises a few hackles

On Monday, the AIAA announced it was holding a “dialogue on deep space exploration” on Capitol Hill on July 24. “The panel will examine the next steps in deep space exploration for the United States, the medical barriers that must be overcome before increased exploration is possible, and the costs and benefits of relying on robotic rather than human exploration,” the release states, adding that the panel will also examine destinations for exploration missions, international cooperation in such missions, and even “possible fuel sources” for them.

Scheduled to speak at the event are Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL), a member of the House Science Committee; Scott Pace of the GWU’s Space Policy Institute; James Green, head of NASA HQ’s planetary sciences division; Brian Duffy, an ATK vice president; Jim Crocker, a Lockheed Martin vice president; Kris Lehnhardt,a physician and professor at GWU; and Ralph McNutt of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab.

At first glance, that looks an an inocuous enough panel, with a mix of industry, academia, and government representatives. But the event has attracted some critical attention, in part because of the panel’s composition but also because of who is the current AIAA president: former NASA administrator Mike Griffin. NASA’s Alan Ladwig expressed his criticism of the panel’s composition in a tweet on Tuesday:

Griffin, though, may not have helped his cause by including in the release his beliefs about the next destination for human space exploration. “The next stop on that frontier is the moon, and it is indeed still new. It is no longer enough to point to our past achievements; most of today’s world cannot recall the time when our astronauts could voyage to the moon. It is for us to resolve that they will do so again, and soon,” he stated. He warned that the US can still choose to lead the way, but “within a very few years, it will belong to others.”

68 comments to AIAA space exploration panel raises a few hackles

  • Keith C. has the best mocking of this over at his website…NASAWATCH you can go there and find it…it might have scrolled down by now but its worth the find..

    What to say about Mike Griffin…and Scott Pace part of the problemRGO

  • Coastal Ron

    Griffin, though, may not have helped his cause by including in the release his beliefs about the next destination for human space exploration.

    Indeed. Griffin may have a personal opinion, but he is not the President, nor the Congress, and I doubt he is voicing the consensus of AIAA on this matter.

    Sheesh, what an ego.

    The AIAA forum lacks balance. A Romney rep, but none from Administration. Legacy companies, but no NewSpace. Griffin makes hi s mark.

    Pretty blatant that they don’t represent a consensus view. All they are doing is promoting the further schism of the space community – which seems to be what Griffin is good at.

  • Chris B

    A small 10klb thrust nuclear thermal rocket engine would be nice. I guess it’s too forward thinking to happen.

  • That’s Mikey for you. He and Pace showed up recently in Cleveland — strictly in a personal capacity, mind you, and not representing the Romney campaign they are both advising — to scare people with the possibility of cuts at NASA Glenn. No mention that Griffin cut almost as many people there as Obama is allegedly considering. No mention that Romney’s promised 5 percent across the board cut to non-military discretionary spending would devastate NASA far more than anything Obama has ever proposed.

    Now he’s putting together a biased panel to promote his agenda without any connection to the Romney campaign. It reminds me of these supposedly independent Super PACs that march in lockstep with the candidate they support. It’s hard to believe.

  • It is actually not unexpected that this would happen. Right now you have a lot of people questioning the “Government Option” when it looks as though the private sector might be the way to go.

    Moreover, you are talking about 10s of billions of dollars here. Certain people want to ensure their “entity” is firmly embedded in the funding stream. Sadly, events like this will continue to occur. Certain companies will continue to out perform the government and these “rocket wizards” from yesteryear will continue to look foolish as we press to settlement.

    The only people getting in the way of real exploration and settlement in space are those who stand to lose the most… and it is very shameful.

    Respectfully,
    Andrew Gasser
    TEA Party in Space

  • Fred Willett

    As Sally Ride showed during the Augustine committee
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwqYIw_C-4
    Constellation (see chart at 31min) was just unaffordable.
    The chart Sally presents here led Jeff Grerason to comment “if Santa Claus brought us this system (Constellation) tomorrow, fully developed, and the budget didn’t change our next action would have to be to cancel it.” (33min)
    It seems Dr Griffin wasn’t listening.
    The problem remains all about the budget. And looking for more money in the current environment (including for lunar plans) is just plain silly. It ain’t gunna happen.
    The only way forward is to reduce costs. And the only way to reduce costs is to push for competition in all things space related. It’s the great power of markets that they work to lower costs, reward innovation and, well, you know the stuff capitalism brings in its train.
    The point is this stuff really works. It works in all other sectors of the econnomy. It will work in space.
    Unless, of course, SLS eats all the commercial seed corn.

  • DougSpace

    @ Fred
    I may be reading too much between the lines but it is not obvious to me that Griffin is specifically advocating a resurrection of Constellation. The Moon yes, but there are now different ways to go to the moon. If Constellation cost too much and if SLS also costs too much and if COTS is costing less than the FAR approach then I think that the logical path forward is a “Lunar COTS”, But it is also not obvious to me that Griffin or even others here are specifically advocating that.

  • josh

    griffin = biggest disappointment as nasa admin ever, now just a pain in the ass

  • red

    How embarrassing and shameful for the AIAA.

    Griffin: Constellation.
    Pace: Constellation.
    ATK: Constellation.
    LM: Constellation.

    Nice “dialog”.

    “I may be reading too much between the lines but it is not obvious to me that Griffin is specifically advocating a resurrection of Constellation. The Moon yes, but there are now different ways to go to the moon.”

    Griffin always pushes Constellation. He talks about going to the Moon, but always wants to not go to the Moon by wasting the available funding on Ares and Orion.

    The panel is called “Deep Space: Relaunching American Exceptionalism”. What do wildly wasteful projects like Ares/Orion/SLS/MPCV have to do with “American Exceptionalism”? What do they have to do with “deep space”? What do they have to do with “relaunching” something?

  • Just curious … Does anyone remember a former NASA administrator so blatantly partisan political as Michael Griffin?

  • kayawanee

    Coastal Ron wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 1:22 am

    “Sheesh, what an ego.”

    Exactly what I was thinking. I wish this guy would just go away.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “griffin = biggest disappointment as nasa admin ever, now just a pain in the ass”

    It is sad how much Griffin has debased the office with his antics.

  • Fred Willett wrote:

    As Sally Ride showed during the Augustine committee

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwqYIw_C-4

    Constellation (see chart at 31min) was just unaffordable.

    Thanks for the link. That’s very valuable. I’ll have to go through all of them.

  • The question: How much influence would Griffin have on space policy should Romney be elected? It may be substantial.

  • ferris valyn

    Stephen
    I have heard the comment that “He makes Dick Cheny look like an elder staesman”

  • amightywind

    Looks like Constellation could be making a comeback. A Romney victory would set things right at NASA.

  • Egad

    As Sally Ride showed during the Augustine committee
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwqYIw_C-4
    Constellation (see chart at 31min) was just unaffordable.
    The chart Sally presents here led Jeff Grerason to comment “if Santa Claus brought us this system (Constellation) tomorrow, fully developed, and the budget didn’t change our next action would have to be to cancel it.” (33min)

    I suspect one or more scenes similar to that occurred during John Shannon’s 180 day study, and that’s why we haven’t seen the 180 day study.

  • Jimmy Richter

    As I read through these comments, and especially Alan Ladwig’s tweet, I wonder if I’m missing something. The announcement and this story both report that Dr. James Green from NASA’s Planetary Sciences would be on the panel. Wouldn’t he be expected represent the program of record?

    Also, a quick search on NASA Watch brings up the last space panel AIAA held. It was in February, and focused on the benefits of commercial space to the economy. In the comments, I didn’t see anyone commenting or complaining about the one-sidedness of that panel.

    It seems to me that too many people on this forum let the name Mike Griffin stir them up so much that they cannot accept the value of having these panels continue which create awareness on Capitol Hill of the benefits of a robust space program. With sequestration hanging over us, I am glad that somebody is talking about why as a nation we should invest in aerospace.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “Looks like Constellation could be making a comeback. A Romney victory would set things right at NASA.”

    Very doubtful:

    “”If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired,’” said Romney, a former businessman.”

    http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/01/26/romney-mocks-gingrichs-plans-for-moon-base/

    “Romney attacks the lunar base idea, also quoting the $500 billion figure. The press release suggests that building a lunar base is crazy…”

    http://news.yahoo.com/romney-santorum-attack-gingrich-half-trillion-dollar-lunar-221400819.html

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Ladwig is pretty funny, all things considered. There are perfectly good reasons that the administration and their so-called “new space” clients are not included. Obama’s potempkin space exploration program is not a serious effort, under funded, with no destination or schedule. The commercial companies that Obama controls through commercial crew subsidies have no solutions to the problem of beyond LEO exploration. Even if they did, it would be politically unwise for any of them, considering that the commercial crew down select is coming, for any of them to appear on the same stage as Griffin and Pace. Obama is well versed in the Chicago method of punishing people who stray.

    Mind, I’d love to see a summit happen between — say — Elon Musk and Mike Griffin. They would likely agree on more things, as both of them have actually built and run businesses, than disagree. But in today’s political climate such a meeting would have to take place in secret, with no media present.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    I’m not sure, by the way, why Griffin did not help his cause by stating the obvious, that the moon remains the next logical destination. No one seriously believes that an asteroid is a reasonable choice. Two years after Obama’s announcement, no one at NASA can say which asteroid will be visited, when, or even how. The moon is where it has always been, with bountiful resources, and is close by. I have begun to think that the approach of Planetary Resources is the correct one. Don’t send people to a NEA asteroid. Grab it, bring it in, and then explore and exploit is at leisure. How’s that for a commercial solution?

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “Dr. James Green from NASA’s Planetary Sciences would be on the panel. Wouldn’t he be expected represent the program of record?”

    Only the robotic planetary science program. Green doesn’t work or represent the human space exploration side of the house.

    “the last space panel AIAA held. It was in February, and focused on the benefits of commercial space to the economy. In the comments, I didn’t see anyone commenting or complaining about the one-sidedness of that panel.”

    It was just an “update”, there was no industry panel (just one congressional rep and one FAA rep), and it focused on science payloads, not human space flight (or economic benefits).

    “It seems to me that too many people on this forum let the name Mike Griffin”

    If Griffin wants to beat the drum for his personal viewpoint on his own time and dime, that’s his choice.

    If Griffin wants to infer in public fora that he sorta, kinda, maybe represents the Romney campaign, even though his viewpoints on NASA’s role and space exploration are diametrically opposed to Romney’s, that’s his choice until the adults in the Romney campaign to shut him down.

    But Griffin shouldn’t abuse the office of the AIAA President and misuse AIAA resources to set up events so he can flack for his personal interests (or his interpretation of a campaign’s interests). That office and those monies belong to the AIAA membership at large, not Griffin.

    “the value of having these panels continue which create awareness on Capitol Hill of the benefits of a robust space program.”

    The congressmen and staffers with large NASA workforces in their states or districts are well aware of the benefits of NASA’s budget to their reelection efforts.

    Few else working on the Hill will care or attend.

    “With sequestration hanging over us,”

    It’s naive to think that a couple industry org panels (AIAA or otherwise) are going to reduce the impact of sequestration on a government agency (NASA or otherwise).

  • amightywind

    Don’t send people to a NEA asteroid. Grab it, bring it in, and then explore and exploit is at leisure. How’s that for a commercial solution?

    Indeed. A great mission would be to rendezvous with a very small rock and adjust the orbit. Then you could melt the damn thing if you wanted to. Seems to be an obvious and fruitful scientific mission with an eye toward exploiting space resources. One of my great frustrations with our Potemkin space program, as you put it, is that it is utterly devoid of interesting ideas.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “Obama’s potempkin space exploration program is not a serious effort… with no destination or schedule.”

    Obama Wants Mission to Asteroid by 2025, Mars by mid-2030′s

    http://www.universetoday.com/62766/obama-wants-mission-to-asteroid-by-2025-mars-by-mid-2030s/

    And it’s “Potemkin”, not “potempkin”.

    “The commercial companies that Obama controls through commercial crew subsidies have no solutions to the problem of beyond LEO exploration.”

    SpaceX Unveils Ambitious Exploration Goals

    http://www.aviationavenue.com/spacex-unveils-ambitious-exploration-goals-aviation-week

    United Launch Alliance Exploration Papers
    •   Evolving to a Depot-Based Space Transportation Architecture
    •   Lunar Lander Configurations Incorporating Accessibility 2006-7284
    •   Affordable Exploration Architecture 2009
    •   Dual Thrust Axis Lander (DTAL) 2009

    http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/pages/Education_PublishedPapers.shtml

    “Mind, I’d love to see a summit happen between — say — Elon Musk and Mike Griffin. They would likely agree on more things, as both of them have actually built and run businesses”

    Griffin has never “built” any business, and the closest he’s come to running one was as CTO at OSC. (In fact, aside from a couple modest MDA satellites, Griffin hasn’t “built” much space hardware, either.)

  • josh

    “Obama is well versed in the Chicago method of punishing people who stray.”

    lol, you’re trying your very best not to be taken seriously, aren’t you? you sound like the caricature of a wingnut. or maybe that’s just who you are, having substituted reality for ideology..
    anyway, you’re wrong about new space not having solutions for beo missions. i would give that job to spacex over nasa any time. they can produce flying hardware, nasa lost that ability a long time ago.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “No one seriously believes that an asteroid is a reasonable choice.

    Human Mission to an Asteroid: The Orion MPCV

    http://www.universetoday.com/88434/human-mission-to-an-asteroid-the-orion-mpcv/

    “The moon is where it has always been, with bountiful resources… I have begun to think that the approach of Planetary Resources is the correct one.”

    Planetary Resources’ entire business plan is focused on the asteroids. They clearly do not think that the Moon has “bountiful resources” or that “the moon is where it has always been”, at least in comparison to the asteroids.

    You can’t have it both ways.

  • Bob

    “I’m not sure, by the way, why Griffin did not help his cause by stating the obvious, that the moon remains the next logical destination.”

    Because it is national policy that our next destination beyond LEO for astronauts is an asteroid, not the Moon. Mike Griffin, private citizen, is welcome to think that the Moon is a better destination, but when he says that using his AIAA affiliation, in an AIAA press release for an AIAA event, raises eyebrows about what he is doing with what is supposed to be a nonprofit, apolitical organization.

  • amightywind

    raises eyebrows about what he is doing with what is supposed to be a nonprofit, apolitical organization.

    So is NASA (hah!), NPR, CBO, AARP, the Supreme Court… Don’t be naive. There is no such thing. I am just glad NASA traditionalists have a home in a respected organisation like AIAA.

  • William Mellberg

    Mark R. Whittington wrote:

    “Mind, I’d love to see a summit happen between — say — Elon Musk and Mike Griffin. They would likely agree on more things, as both of them have actually built and run businesses, than disagree.”

    Actually, Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX) and Mike Griffin are both on the Board of Directors at Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems, as is Burt Rutan:

    http://www.stratolaunch.com/leadership.html

    It seems SpaceX and Mike Griffin are already working together, which must come as something of a shock to the members of the Mike Griffin Hate Club.

  • common sense

    “It seems SpaceX and Mike Griffin are already working together”

    They have and for much longer than StratoLaunch…

    There is politics and then there is work…

    FWIW.

  • @William Mellberg
    “It seems SpaceX and Mike Griffin are already working together, which must come as something of a shock to the members of the Mike Griffin Hate Club.
    There was extensive discussion on this blog some time ago about Griffin’s involvement with StratoLaunch. Sorry you missed it.

  • GUEST

    I am not sure why anyone is worried about debating the moon vs. anywhere else at this point. We are going to be plenty busy the next 5-8 years building a flotilla of vehicles, including two lunar/planetary capable – Dragon and Orion, and an SLS heavy launcher. Maybe if there is a new administration, or maybe if commercial comes along more quickly then government might change direction, but in the meantime it seems Congress has decided how we will proceed. We can begin to discuss destinations around 2018 when we will be ready to start designing and building the ancillary components, like an MMSEV, a lander, a mission module, etc.

  • Mark R. Whittington wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 11:11 am

    I’m not sure, by the way, why Griffin did not help his cause by stating the obvious, that the moon remains the next logical destination”

    You sound like a stuck record “there has to be a destination, there has to be a destination”…which makes you out to be someone trying to fight the last war (or campaign).

    There is no reason that HSF needs a destination. Right now there is nothing that humans in the loop on Earth cannot do with robotic probes in deep space exploration, that humans at the end of the loop bring to the issue can do that is worth anywhere near the cost of keeping them there.

    This is particularly true when the two programs you support, those bastions of crony capitalism, SLS and Orion consume about 3 billion a year…which if focused on exploration would bring actual results; instead of simply supporting government technowelfare jobs.

    You have supported programs (Cx/SLSand Orion) which since 2005 have done nothing but spend taxpayer money (those technowelfare jobs) and accomplished nothing. and all to support the notion of “Apollo on steroids” which is to recreate the GOP’s notion of “American exceptionalsm” which is expensive programs that affect really no one.

    What the nation needs IS AFFORDABLE SPACE TECHNOLOGY which will allow it to do things that it so far has been unable to afford to do in space…

    You are even repeating tired old NASA babble “the next logical destination” is really just “the next logical step” that has been used to justify every goofy thing since Apollo

    BTW what is a “potempkin” village? A place Mitt Romney wants us all to live in?

    RGO

  • Dave Klingler

    When Mike Griffin became NASA Administrator I rejoiced, because NASA was finally getting a real engineer and not a bean counter. Griffin’s amazing list of academic degrees made him truly unique as well, and at least gave him a solid foundation of theoretical knowledge on which to draw.

    What ensued was baffling. For all his exposure to the academic world, Griffin doesn’t seem to have ever benefited from exposure to the real world, where money has finite value and is in finite supply. Every time Griffin speaks he proposes things that require a far larger budget than NASA has. For all his degrees, he doesn’t propose plans for technical or practical reasons but rather for moral and nationalistic ones.

    I believe Griffin came close to ruining NASA as an agency. I hope he doesn’t ruin AIAA as well.

  • Dave Klingler

    Mark Whittington wrote:
    “I’m not sure, by the way, why Griffin did not help his cause by stating the obvious, that the moon remains the next logical destination. No one seriously believes that an asteroid is a reasonable choice.”

    You would do well to remember that there are those who believe that Mars is the next logical destination, and those who believe that the asteroids are the next logical destination.

    You would also do well to remember that rockets are not the only tools required for space exploration. We had a nuclear rocket at the end of the NERVA program, but NASA planners ran into the fact that we didn’t have any of the other pieces. A big heavy booster certainly doesn’t do as much toward that end as NERVA, yet the problem is the same forty years later because it hasn’t attracted the budget to be addressed. We need more skills and tools for space exploration before we can go BEO. We need refueling, better ECLSS, better suits, bigger ion drives, better single and dual-person crew vehicles…none of these things seem exciting but together they become the enablers for real missions. Until we have the discipline to spend a few years working on the little stuff (which I perceive we are doing now), we aren’t really going anywhere no matter how big our rockets are.

    Oh, and one more thing. We need to be able to afford the launches.

  • amightywind

    BTW what is a “potempkin” village? A place Mitt Romney wants us all to live in?

    I have always believed a spelling flame is the last resort of one defeated by argument. I thought Whittington’s description was accurate and funny.

  • William Mellberg

    Robert G. Oler wrote:

    “What the nation needs IS AFFORDABLE SPACE TECHNOLOGY which will allow it to do things that it so far has been unable to afford to do in space …”

    Affordable to whom? Concorde cost less than the Boeing 2707. Neither was affordable in the commercial sense. Which is why Concorde only went into service with the support of tax dollars and never made any genuine contribution to the growth of the commercial air transport system. It’s the same reason the Boeing SST never flew … and the Tu-144 was abandoned. Even the Soviets couldn’t afford a supersonic transport.

    But how do the Chinese determine what is affordable in space? What value do they place on space leadership?

    Don’t get me wrong. I am all for bringing down the cost of putting payloads into space. It’s something that must be done. But the word ‘affordable’ means different things to different people.

    Between December 1968 and November 1969, the United States launched five Saturn V rockets and sent four manned spacecraft to the Moon — landing two of them on the lunar surface. That was a Saturn V launch or lunar mission every 60-90 days. Was that affordable? Yes, it was, in that the U.S. Government had “the will to do it” (as Wernher von Braun noted) at the time.

    The word ‘affordable’ is relative.

    Robert G. Oler also wrote:

    “… the GOP’s notion of ‘American exceptionalsm’ which is expensive programs that affect really no one.”

    The GOP’s notion of American Exceptionalism?

    I thought it was President Kennedy who set the goal of making America the “world’s leading spacefaring nation.” It was President Kennedy who wanted Americans to be the first men on the Moon. And, in fact, it was President Kennedy who was determined that the United States would match the Anglo-French Concorde with its own, bigger and better supersonic transport (despite the cost). And President Kennedy was … a Democrat.

    There was a time not so very long ago when American exceptionalism was not a partisan issue.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “We can begin to discuss destinations around 2018 when we will be ready to start designing and building the ancillary components, like an MMSEV, a lander, a mission module, etc.”

    No, under any realistic budget scenario, there is no budget for any of this stuff through at least 2025. See the “In-Space Elements” line towards the bottom of page 7 in this presentation:

    http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=38348

    NASA would have to get billions more than what Congress authorized in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act to get anything going before 2025. In 2010 and 2011, NASA got _less_ than the NASA Authorization Act _and_ the President’s Budget. The SLS/MPCV budget is actually going down slightly right now.

    And now discretionary agencies are facing ~8% cut under sequestration or other budget reconciliation.

    The only way for NASA to get back into human space exploration is to terminate SLS/MPCV, pursue lower-cost avenues for getting large masses and crew into space, and use the freed up budget and workforce to get the in-space elements built. Additional budget dollars for in-space elements are simply not forthcoming.

  • I thought Whittington’s description was accurate and funny.

    We think that all of your descriptions are inaccurate and funny.

    Affordable to whom?

    Affordable to those who want to do it, and have the money to pay for it.

  • Harris Tweed

    I think it should be underscored (as was pointed out before) that Griffin is now AIAA President. As such, and in creating such a blatantly biased panel (geez, he’s even including two industry leaders whose companies are very much involved in current NASA procurement) he’s using the AIAA as a tool to serve his own policy inclinations. As an AIAA member, I’m appalled. I could understand why the AIAA might want to foster some dialog about policy, as the “policy voice” for public aerospace. But that’s not what we’re seeing here. This is Mike’s voice. I frankly have a lot less respect for Griffin’s policy inclinations than I did before. One of his policies seems to be to use the AIAA as a tool for himself and his industry friends.

    Did you notice that Mike has a video on the AIAA website that addresses the changes he wants to see in that organization? He wants aerospace professionals to explain better why they do what they do, in order to remain relevant. That’s a nice idea, but, what Mike is doing here on the Hill is telling us why he does what he does. He’s not speaking for an aerospace community.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    About the spelling, you got me there. Aside from that, no one has seemed to have countered any of my points, though it was interesting that someone reminded everyone that Griffin and Musk are already business partners. That shows that Musk is far smarter than some of the people who are his alleged supporters.

  • Vladislaw

    William Mellberg responding to Robert Oler:

    [Robert G. Oler wrote:

    “What the nation needs IS AFFORDABLE SPACE TECHNOLOGY which will allow it to do things that it so far has been unable to afford to do in space …”]

    Affordable to whom?”

    Clearly Robert was refering to the United States. I can not imagine him writing what the Nation needs is for China to have affordable space technology so America benefits.

    Why would you bring up China? It makes absolutely no sense. The Nation needs more affordable and sustainable space systems so we can do more in space. Seems pretty simple and straight forward, doesn’t need to involve the Chinese at all.

  • William Mellberg wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    Robert G. Oler wrote:

    “What the nation needs IS AFFORDABLE SPACE TECHNOLOGY which will allow it to do things that it so far has been unable to afford to do in space …”
    You replied (boiled down to two questions)
    Affordable to whom?

    …….

    But the word ‘affordable’ means different things to different people.”

    “affordable” is like most qualities (pretty, smart etc) relative but primarily it is relative to “value”.

    The US and China are “rich”, despite the Tea Party rhetoric both nations can do and afford just about anything that they want to do as a nation. But “what they want to do” has some relationship to the “cost” which is another way of saying “is it affordable in terms of the value (support) it has in The country”.

    You note “Yes, it was, in that the U.S. Government had “the will to do it” (as Wernher von Braun noted) at the time.” but the “will” was not generated by a desire for something great in space; it was generated by the desire to be a superpower in relationship to the Soviets. When that desire/need vanished so did the will.

    Since Apollo advocates of large space programs have argued that a “leader” could do this again, Spudis constantly does it on his rag, almost in a pure vacuum…ie all it takes is someone with “the vision” to want this or that hugh program and all ofa sudden it will have value.

    That is just political nonsense… The Chinese might be enamored of the technology or the “leadership” that this or that space first (at least for them ) generates…but at best that is ephemeral. At somepoint the “first” will cost to much money relative to the support and even they will start (as the US did) to shy away from those as a signature of national “leadership”.

    Right now the Chinese have it easy, if the leadership says its national greatness to have people in space…well then it by Mao’s book is. The US has a much more intense ladder to climb the “people” have to in some part be interested in it…and we all saw how that worked out for Newt in FL.

    The hill gets even steeper if we are talking about private industry doing things…then the “cost” have to have some measure of value for profit…

    So I would argue that to be relevant to our times; absent some conditions like were present in the early days of the Kennedy administration where “The hard things” have a measure called superpower confrontation…there has to be some value DIRECTLY for what is done (instead of indirectly as in the race to the Moon) that is commensurate with the cost.

    That is getting harder in the US because with NASA programs the cost is going up not going down. SLS/Orion make my point the only value to most of their supporters is found in the project itself…

    and to be relevant to a commercial group (ie human spaceflight) the value is measured in some profit margin.

    NOW you can argue all you want that there is some human future in spaceflight based purely on government funding for “national greatness reasons”…but history so far is flowing against you.

    So far those efforts have done worse then the SST programs. oddly enough

    RGO

  • William Mellberg wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    I thought it was President Kennedy who set the goal of making America the “world’s leading spacefaring nation.” It was President Kennedy who wanted Americans to be the first men on the Moon. And, in fact, it was President Kennedy who was determined that the United States would match the Anglo-French Concorde with its own, bigger and better supersonic transport (despite the cost). And President Kennedy was … a Democrat.

    There was a time not so very long ago when American exceptionalism was not a partisan issue.”

    It was also Jack Kennedy who started the peace corps and made large progress is human rights for Americans who were not white and….

    The notion of what is American exceptionalism is and has always been partisan…but the intensity grew when one political group has started defining it as merely “support for their projects’.

    Today going to the Moon is not viewed by most Americans as American exceptionalism RGO

  • amightywind wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    I wrote:

    BTW what is a “potempkin” village? A place Mitt Romney wants us all to live in?

    You replied:
    I have always believed a spelling flame

    it was not a spelling flame…and I would be the Last person to get into that as my speelleing is horrible…lol

    I honestly did not know what a potempkin village was…it was in no real context for a Potemkin as he was relating it to Obama’s policies in human spaceflight which are quite solid…so I thought it must be something else. RGO

  • Mark R. Whittington wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 6:03 pm

    About the spelling, you got me there. Aside from that, no one has seemed to have countered any of my points”

    You had points? really? RGO

  • Vladislaw wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 6:07 pm

    William Mellberg responding to Robert Oler:

    [Robert G. Oler wrote:

    “What the nation needs IS AFFORDABLE SPACE TECHNOLOGY which will allow it to do things that it so far has been unable to afford to do in space …”]

    someone else wrote:

    Affordable to whom?”

    you replied;
    Clearly Robert was refering to the United States. I can not imagine him writing what the Nation needs is for China to have affordable space technology so America benefits.”

    Yes. The thing with the Chinese is that “all” their projects of national greatness are single ended with the government…ie as long as the government thinks it serves their purpose to have three or six or whatever people doing (this or that) in space then it will be done…but that pony only rides as long as the government thinks it does.

    In the US the government does those sort of projects; but they are at the whims of the “people”…and human spaceflight has probably run its course in that respect. One saw what kind of reception Newt got when he tried to as a function of his vision for America project some lunar based vision.

    In the US we achieve true “greatness” in an effort when the private areana gets involved. Health care for the elderly as a function of Medicaid/care has benefited the elderly because now that everyone has it…the private sector feels like developing technology for it. (it will do the same thing for health care for everyone). The “internets” are what they are because DARPa’s net (grin) reached past universities and started to move to everyone…

    We celebrated the 50th anniversary of Telstar yesterday…those were very expensive minutes to start with; and now because almost all are involved; the numbes go down.

    As long as human spaceflight is an exclusive club of government the Chinese and Russians and Europeans will probably be able to afford it better then we do…although even the Europeans are flacking out. NASA is driving up cost and limiting access ….but at some point if the pie branches out and more people and industries become involved in it…then it becomes more affordable. The trick is to develop the technology that goes that direction…

    And I would argue that is the role of government RGO

  • William Mellberg

    Rand Simberg wrote:

    “Affordable to those who want to do it, and have the money to pay for it.”

    True. But that applies more to people who are interested in space tourism or space exploitation rather than to those who are keen on space exploration.

    As Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation wrote in his recent op-ed piece about the Chinese space program:

    “Basic research in space science should be a major focus of NASA and other U.S. aerospace agencies. But the commercial sector, ever intent on reducing costs, has a different incentive structure for certain missions than the government does. Space exploration arguably requires the government. The business of space exploitation — whether resupplying the ISS or promoting space tourism — does not.”

    http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/06/space-program-responding-to-china-s-manned-space-challenge

    Which brings us back to my question: “Affordable to whom?”

    Dean Cheng is correct. Space exploration is not a profit-oriented endeavor. Not yet, at least. Therefore, while the private sector (with taxpayer support) is attempting to exploit space through commercial enterprises, the exploration of space is still (for the most part) the province of governments (the US, Russia, China, Europe, etc.).

    Which brings us to another question: “What is space exploration worth to governments?”

    Once again, the answer is relative.

    But the question is related to Mike Griffin’s comments in his AIAA statement:

    “Human history is the story of societies expanding the frontiers of their time, exploiting and consolidating their gains on those frontiers, and moving on again. That history is not written by or about the people who stayed home. We now face the new frontier of space, what President Kennedy called ‘this new ocean,’ and the question is not whether humans will sail upon it, but whether Americans will be among them … We can lead the way on the space frontier, or we can watch as others do so. Today that choice is still ours to make. Within a very few years, it will belong to others.”

    Leading the way might be worth more to some governments than to others. And lowering the cost of space access by some relatively marginal amount might not matter as much to the government in Beijing as it does to governments elsewhere. The Chinese might believe that the geopolitical and economic value of becoming “the world’s leading spacefaring nation” is worth whatever it costs (as Americans did during the Cold War).

    So while I agree with you that affordability is determined by “those who want to do it, and have the money to pay for it” … America’s space exploration policy shouldn’t be held hostage to what the commercial market will bear. It should be a factor of what is in our national interest over the long run.

    For the moment, it appears that some of America’s political leaders no longer place as much value on basic space exploration as they did in the past.

    While I am all for the commercial sector achieving whatever they can using private capital, I am saddened that so little attention seems to be focused on a well-integrated, government-funded program of space exploration (including robotic missions to the Moon, to Mars, to the Galilean satellites, to Titan, etc.).

    Yes, lowering the cost of access to space will enable us to do more with limited dollars. But how long should we wait to explore the new frontier of space? After all, no matter what new systems are created to lower costs, there will likely be other new systems after them which will lower costs even more. Should we wait for those rockets — 20 years from now — before we accelerate humankind’s move into the Solar System?

    This is why I mention the Chinese. Whatever their long-term goals are in space, I don’t think they’re putting their program on hold in order to develop newer and more cost effective systems. They’re building on the systems they already have in a step-by-step approach.

    Bottomline: I think the next American president might be reassessing America’s space program in the years ahead as the Chinese accelerate their space program. Unless we have totally abandoned our leadership role in the world, it is hard to imagine Americans ceding the Moon and its resources to China … IF the Moon and its resources turns out to be what the Chinese are aiming at.

    As Dean Cheng concluded:

    “Beijing has used its space program, including its manned space efforts, to highlight its technological prowess, build diplomatic bridges, and signal its growing military capabilities. Washington, despite a wider array of space capabilities, seems to have employed them less effectively, but it can make significant improvements.”

  • William Mellberg wrote @ July 11th, 2012 at 8:13 pm

    “Yes, lowering the cost of access to space will enable us to do more with limited dollars. But how long should we wait to explore the new frontier of space? ”

    We are doing it now…

    We, the US has probes around Mercury, Mars, the Moon, one headed to orbit Jupiter, one in orbit around Saturn, one going to fly by Pluto, one in orbit around an asteroid (which will visit several), and several others going to various places or doing various things outside Earth Orbit.

    We have at least one rover on Mars, soon there might be another…we landed one on an asteroid that we studied up close…..

    Oh you meant human space program…

    The uncrewed probes are returning far more data at far cheaper a cost then the “human spaceflight exploration” programs that ahve been started and stopped and started since Apollo…Cx alone consumed 15 billion and returned not a bit or byte of data.

    So you think that national greatness programs would do more? you write ”

    I think the next American president might be reassessing America’s space program in the years ahead as the Chinese accelerate their space program.”

    well its Obama or Willard in 12…what do you think that the Reds need to do to convince either of them to reassess Americas space program?

    Next four years? RGO

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “no one has seemed to have countered any of my points”

    I provided two posts and four links showing that your statements were wrong.

    “… Griffin and Musk are already business partners. That shows that Musk is far smarter than some of the people who are his alleged supporters.”

    They’re not “business partners”. SpaceX is a supplier to, not a partner with, Stratolaunch. And Griffin is just one of Stratolaunch’s advisors. Griffin himself has no known business relationship — partner, supplier, customer, or otherwise — with SpaceX or Musk.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “As Dean Cheng concluded”

    You selectively quoted Cheng and you totally misrepresented his second recommendation, which was for the U.S. and NASA to: “Increase reliance on the business sector”.

  • So while I agree with you that affordability is determined by “those who want to do it, and have the money to pay for it” … America’s space exploration policy shouldn’t be held hostage to what the commercial market will bear. It should be a factor of what is in our national interest over the long run.

    My comment had nothing (or at least little) to do with the commercial market. It stood on its own. If you want the government to do more in space, step one is to reduce the cost of doing so. It is a “tinkerbell” fantasy to think that we will somehow colonize any planet or space itself before we do so.

  • pathfinder_01

    “ Affordable to whom? Concorde cost less than the Boeing 2707. Neither was affordable in the commercial sense. Which is why Concorde only went into service with the support of tax dollars and never made any genuine contribution to the growth of the commercial air transport system. It’s the same reason the Boeing SST never flew … and the Tu-144 was abandoned. Even the Soviets couldn’t afford a supersonic transport.”

    William, Affordable, profitable, and efficient are three different things. Concorde was commercially affordable to purchase (airlines could buy one), it just was not profitable to run for the purpose of transporting passengers without subsidy (and not all airlines get direct subsidies, so why bother) and was a loss to its builders and to the British\French governments (not enough sold).

    Neither the Concord nor the Tu-144 are as efficient at the job of moving passengers as sub-sonic planes hence their much higher costs per seat. Sure they move passengers faster, but require more fuel and mover fewer of them and take as much labor if not more as a sub-sonic plane. To be blunt the materials and labor put into Concorde and other supper sonic would be better spent assembling other aircraft. They certainly should not have been spent building more of them.

    In all systems be it capitalist, or socialist resources are limited. In a capalist system money drives what products will or will be made and what services will or will not be done. In a socialist system the government decides. In both cases it was determine that the speed of supper sonic flight did not return enough value to warrant further investment in the field. Rather like Apollo (Tu-144) and to a great degree the Shuttle (Concord- i.e. why it ran so long without replacement) and most Shuttle derived concepts (–Boeing 2707–NSL, Shuttle-C, Ares 1 and very likely SLS).

    What needs to happen is the HSF needs to become efficient enough that it is profitable and meaningful to a larger segment of the population than space geeks and suddenly affordability problems will greatly decrease. Imagine if you had a plane that say could match concord’s speed, carry 200-300 passengers and barely use more fuel than subsonic planes and still be efficient enough to use on sub-sonic routes. Such an aircraft would have a better chance at finding a market than Concorde.

    My non space geek, airplane fearing friends don’t care about what model of airplane they fly in. They do care that they are able to use said plane to get around the country faster and that the prices remain low enough that they can afford a ticket. That by the way is why Daley could put an X in Meigs field but would have been removed from Office if he put an X in O’Hare. There were almost zero commercial flights out of Meigs(no impact to my friends cause we all knew we would never fly out of it cause we don’t own our own airplanes), nor get much employment by it(it had no room to expand and little aircraft repair capabilities like say Palwakee or Lansing-it didn’t even have hanger space!).

    Meigs is like the current space program, something that just does little for everyday Joe besides watch it. Sitting by the lake and watching planes take off from Meigs was pretty and inspiring, it however was not inspiring enough for the city to be able to afford or for massive amount of political will to do whatever it takes to keep it open. And people just love the new park area!! That park is likely more profitable to the city(bands play their) and the local businesses(thousands come for a concert…Meigs barely had 100 flight a day and that was mostly 2 seaters) and defiantly more useful to the citizens.

    If you can tie a profit motive and competition to something it generally increases its efficacy. It isn’t profitable to fly people super sonically without a subsidy and no one could depend on the government or the airline to further develop the technology to make it more efficient. It can be profitable to fly satellites into space (ULA, Space X, and Orbital) and so they have some incentive to become more efficient and that efficiency could be useful to HSF.

    NASA has little motive and ability to become efficient if it is running the program by itself (i.e. Saturn/Shuttle) which will always limit its relevance to the country at large. Commercial at least has the potential to do more. I.e. In 1860 what would become the automobile isn’t relevant, by 1930 it is very relevant to people’s everyday lives. Look at Space’s control room vs. the shuttle and in the case of Space X a rocket that only needs 50 people to prep to launch at the pad vs. the Saturn or the Shuttle’s massive armies. One is a step in a direction that makes spaceflight affordable the other is not. One has the potential of gathering broader support. Lower the price more tourist come(and all the services said tourist may want like the local hotels) or more people do things in space like say the B612 foundation(they would have been laughed out the room 20-30 years ago, today people take their risky proposal seriously)).The other must rely on the limited support of the government and the few it employs(since there is no hope of getting more employees via growth)forever.

  • BeanCounterfromDownunder

    Interesting comments William. I understand your arguments concerning cost of space exploration, well let’s simply call it access to space, which has been increasing exponentially and there’s nothing on the current horizon (other than so-called Newspace) to stabilise or reduce this.
    When you add to that the fact that Congress is hell bent on spending a large portion of NASA’s budget on a monster rocket with no missions or support funding identified, then you’ve got to wonder just where any exploration program is headed or even how it gets up and running. While this situation exists, there is no exploration effort.
    In addition, it’s not simply future launch vehicles eating NASA’s budget, look at the effort surrounding JWST. Enormous budget and shedule overruns.
    I think NASA has 2 major issues, lack of management rigour wrt budgets and schedule, and a Congress that’s only interested in short-term porkery.
    The gamechanger here are the newspace companies, particularly SpaceX (launch and space vehicles), possibly Boeing (oldspace but operating in a newspace way wrt their space vehicle). However VG (sub-orbital launch vehicle) and Bigelow (space habitats) hold promise also. I don’t include Blue Origin or SpaceDev ‘s DC since those systems appear less mature at present and likely to take longer to bring to fruition.
    One must acknowledge NASA and COTS however that happened since COTS has assisted in a significant shift in thinking about how space is accessed or rather how funding contributing to that access is modelled.
    So to sum up, the U.S. doesn’t have a space exploration program unless it gets budget and schedule matters under control and the MonsterRocket dies. That’s what’s eating all the funding at present.
    I think the LV cost issue will go away through the efforts of SpaceX.

  • Fred Willett

    China is mysterious, poorly understood, far away and it’s internal politics are archane. There are few experts on China in the west and they often disagree. So you can pretty much assign what ever motives you like to the Chinese and who’s to know if you’re right or wrong?
    So if someone starts telling me what China thinks and that we should be quaking in our boots and hiding under our beds I just smile inscrutably…

  • @GUEST
    “I am not sure why anyone is worried about debating the moon vs. anywhere else at this point. We are going to be plenty busy the next 5-8 years building a flotilla of vehicles, including two lunar/planetary capable – Dragon and Orion, and an SLS heavy launcher.”
    Only one problem with your summation. SLS will never fly. Fortunately there are alternatives to SLS that can be implemented much faster and more cheaply after SLS is cancelled. Otherwise, you made a good comment.

  • I will make a personal comment about AIAA at this point.

    I joined AIAA in 2004. At first I was welcomed. I led the Maryland Public Policy Team for a number of years. My section — Baltimore, now MidAtlantic — was given awards for its public policy work among large sections three times during my time in AIAA. I received the last award in January 2010 for my work in 2009. I was summarily fired from that volunteer position in February 2010. I let my AIAA membership drop in September 2010. I still occasionally showed up AIAA events. In March 2011 I paid a visit to the people doing Congressional Visits Day. I brought with me a copy of a Rutgers University Alumni magazine that focused on STEM. I used a couple of articles and comments to illustrate why young people were avoiding STEM fields. As a result of that act, I now have a letter from an AIAA lawyer ordering me to not come to any more AIAA events. If I did, I was told, I would be escorted away by security.

    FWIW, I am a polymath with formal academic education in physics and social psychology. I worked at NASA Goddard’s supercomputer center for nine years, helping scientists better use said center. I really understand the culture stuff in the Columbia investigation — something Mike Griffin admitted he didn’t in his first speech as NASA Administrator in 2005.

    I’ve written a good bit about space stuff from my rather unique perspective on my blog Independent Broad Minded Centrist.

  • GeeSpace

    The panel will examine the next steps in deep space exploration for the United States, the medical barriers that must be overcome before increased exploration is possible,

    And how to the smart NASA people plan to reduce the medical barriers before increased (human) exploration?? Send test robots, send monkeys, do a lot of short term, or range missions. Yea, no wonder the American human space exploration and development program is almost non-existence.

  • William Mellberg

    Rand Simberg wrote:

    “If you want the government to do more in space, step one is to reduce the cost of doing so.”

    And how much of a reduction will justify the cost of sending robotic explorers to the Moon and planets? Again, who defines what is “affordable”?

    “Affordable” by your own definition is what people are willing to pay to do something.

    Are robotic spacecraft (like Curiosity) not affordable using existing launch vehicles? We have been sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon, planets and asteroids for 50 years. But now we’re supposed to stop exploring until … what? Because given the normal progression of technology, we will always be developing newer and more cost effective transportation systems.

    Using your logic, perhaps the airline industry should have waited to carry passengers until the 747 was developed since it lowered the seat-mile costs significantly — making air travel more “affordable.” But the industry started with Fokkers and Fords and has spent the past 85 years constantly building better and more efficient aircraft, the latest being the 787.

    Today’s “cost efficient” Falcon 9 will be tomorrow’s fuel guzzler. That’s the history of transportation. So maybe we shouldn’t be pinning our hopes for lower cost access to space on SpaceX … maybe we should be waiting for somebody else to build something else better than Falcon, Dragon, etc.

    The point is, we could wait forever. It’s as if the early pioneers waited to settle the American West until the interstate highway system was built and they all had SUVs.

    I say, let’s begin the process of exploration and settlement … and let the transportation systems catch up with it.

    “Step One” isn’t to reduce the cost. Step One is to explore the Moon, Mars and other bodies robotically to see if they truly do have resources that can be exploited. And since Luna is the closest of those bodies, it is the logical place to start.

  • William Mellberg wrote @ July 12th, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    sorry those are straw man arguments. no one is suggesting the extremes you are talking about RGO

  • William Mellberg

    BeanCounterfromDownunder wrote:

    “In addition, it’s not simply future launch vehicles eating NASA’s budget, look at the effort surrounding JWST. Enormous budget and shedule overruns.”

    True. And lowering launch costs doesn’t save much when the price tag on the payload soars out of sight. It becomes all the more costly if the payload (e.g., the JWST) fails to work.

    I have my fingers crossed for the $2.5 billion Curiosity mission. The ‘sky crane’ landing system will be hailed as a tremendous idea if it works. But if it doesn’t …

    Let’s hope for the best. Arrival is just a few weeks away.

  • William Mellberg

    Fred Willett wrote:

    “So if someone starts telling me what China thinks and that we should be quaking in our boots and hiding under our beds I just smile inscrutably …”

    I prefer the Boy Scout approach: “Be Prepared.”

  • Using your logic, perhaps the airline industry should have waited to carry passengers until the 747 was developed since it lowered the seat-mile costs significantly — making air travel more “affordable.”

    An absurd analogy. If aircraft flights had cost hundreds of millions per flight, there never would have been an aircraft industry. But aircraft were affordable from the beginning.

    I say, let’s begin the process of exploration and settlement … and let the transportation systems catch up with it.

    We’ve already done that, and it is happening. But Congress is determined to keep it expensive, and it will never happen with SLS/Orion. They are unaffordable, and they will not survive the coming collision with fiscal reality.

  • William Mellberg wrote @ July 12th, 2012 at 3:41 pm

    I prefer the Boy Scout approach: “Be Prepared.”

    There is a difference between being prepared and foolishly anticipating…and the supporters of some Chinese lunar base/take over are the later.

    What we have in the US today regarding Chinese space intentions (at least for humans) is “this is what I would do if I were them” sort of babble and it comes from people who all along have wanted to do “this” anyway.

    It reminds me of the discussion in the 1935-41 period of how the Japanese would fight a Pacific war. The vasst majority of US Naval “opinion” was war gaming one Jutland scenario after another mostly around the Philippines.

    In 1936 the actor Chevy Chase’s grandfather wrote a paper for the War College that almost got him tossed out of the navy. He described a fierce four day carrier to carrier battle around the island of either Wake or Midway. It is an amazingly prescient piece that the War College head openly mocked.

    What kept Miles Rutherford Browning in the Navy was that his piece got the attention of the “former Naval Person” who had the best seat in the oval office…which was good because a few years later, Miles was on the flag bridge of Big E, advising Ray Spruance. Meanwhile the head of the war college was off on a useless cruise in his Battleship.

    Think not what you would do, but what they would do. RGO

  • Vladislaw

    William Mellberg wrote:

    “Are robotic spacecraft (like Curiosity) not affordable using existing launch vehicles? We have been sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon, planets and asteroids for 50 years. But now we’re supposed to stop exploring until … what? Because given the normal progression of technology, we will always be developing newer and more cost effective transportation systems.”

    The normal progression of technology, as it relates to human spaceflight and exploration, has never ever followed, The private sector commercial firms is what drives the innovations in every form of transportation. The NASA monopoly has retarded the normal progression not advanced it. Anyone that believes the commercial sector would fly the shuttle for thirty years and never see new models or the prices come down is nuts, plain and simple.

    Only now, with multiple commercial players, will the Nation start seeing the normal progression of technology.

    Affordable is nothing more than a product or service that is priced within your financial means. Which means, you got enough to buy it, doesn’t mean it is a bargin or the best deal/price. Just means you have enough dimes in the piggy bank to pay for it.

    Launching Apollo a few times was affordable, but that does not mean it was great deal and politically sustainable. We could afford Apollo we just didn’t have a national consensus on breaking into the piggy bank to keep paying for it.

  • RockyMtnSpace

    Just catching up on some reading after several months of brutal hours prepping for reviews so just seeing this topic. The community should know that James Crocker from LMSSC runs the Sensing and Exploration Systems division at LMSSC. This group is responsible for developing robotic spacecraft for deep-space science exploration, not HSF. Think Genesis, Stardust, MRO, Odyssey, Phoenix, Juno, GRAIL, MAVEN, OSIRIS-REx. They also develop spacecraft for Earth science and astro/helio-physics including SIRTF, HST Servicing, GOES-R, IRIS, etc. Hence his participation along with Jim Green makes sense if the topic of discussion is on the challenges of deep-space (BEO) exploration. Casting him as just another Constellation-supporter out to perpetuate the pork just because he hails from LMSSC shows a profound ignorance of what “old-space” companies are really about. None are monolithic and I suspect many in Crocker’s organization welcome reduced LV costs promised by SpaceX (and Orbital if they are successful) as that enables more of the type of missions they fly which enhances their line of business. Just saying …

  • pathfinder_01

    “The point is, we could wait forever. It’s as if the early pioneers waited to settle the American West until the interstate highway system was built and they all had SUVs.”

    Actually in the case of the west, the government did not need to design build and run wagon trains. Settlers were able to afford sending themselves and it was commercially profitable to supply them. This might be a precondition for the settlement of anywhere including the moon.

    “Step One” isn’t to reduce the cost. Step One is to explore the Moon, Mars and other bodies robotically to see if they truly do have resources that can be exploited. And since Luna is the closest of those bodies, it is the logical place to start.”

    Ah we are doing so now(lunar reconnaissance orbiter, Atrimis, Grail) If anything Apollo led to a “been there and done that” to lunar exploration as no probes post Apollo went to the moon till the 90ies. The probes of the 60ies due to lack of technology and due to the space race are all focused on finding a safe landing spot.

    Anyway the trouble with lunar resources is that there is no way to expoit them in a cost efficient manner and this problem is related to launch costs, spacecraft costs and lack of market. Reduce those problems enough and some maverick will prove me wrong but if you need one of the richest countries on earth that spends the most in space to increase space spending further, it is not a good sign about the profitability of said venture.

    Commercial to a degree is addressing those issues. Space X and others working toward cheaper lift vehicles. Space X working towards cheaper and reusable spacecraft (Dragon). Bigelow towards affordable habitats in space. Ad ad astra and others toward more efficient in space propulsion. Heck thanks to the Google X prize there are two private missions under development right now.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi RGO –

    “there has to be some value DIRECTLY for what is done (instead of indirectly as in the race to the Moon) that is commensurate with the cost.”

    Yes. The “Why?” question reworded.

    And there is a peculiar disconnect that has occurred in the US in answering this question.

    The only cost/benefit justified project I can find is CAPS, the Comet and Asteroid Protection System, which uses Moon based instruments for impactor detection.

    If you have any other answer, then please share it.

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