If that does not fall under the heading of ‘the right thing,’ I do not know what does…

Yes, I know your problem is with ISS too. Yet anywhere else we go, if we intend to stay there longer than the consumables carried along will support life and operations (Apollo, of course, did not), then somebody had darn well better be able to provide an affordable supply chain to that place. Even ISRU and 3-D printing will make you only so self-reliant. Sooner or later, humans need those…groceries.

And there’s nothing radical or new about the government contracting such things out to multiple commercial entities. Space doesn’t change that logic. Manned space ops have always, and understandably been shot full of redundancy, yet past experience of US and Russian human (and otherwise) access to space being down for extended periods, after greater or lesser launcher/spacecraft problems, and no transportation alternatives, seems lost on you, and redundancy suddenly becomes a bad word…

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/740684main_LightfootBudgetPresent0410.pdf

“Even if the plan above wasn’t so full of holes and could actually make large advances in planetary defense, it’s hard to swallow a $2.6 billion robotic NEO retrieval stunt — on top of billions and billions on SLS/MPCV hardware that can’t get to a NEO on its own in the first place — just so we can spend $20 million on some better NEO searches and prizes.”

That’s not a good trade, but the trade doesn’t seem to me to be as bad as that. The pile of billions wasted on SLS/MPCV (and Ares/Orion) will be wasted anyway. I don’t see this mission being the reason to keep SLS/MPCV, and removing it wouldn’t remove SLS/MPCV. So let’s say it’s $2.6B spent on the NEO retrieval mission as a cost. On the other hand there’s $20M on better NEO searches and a small prize competition, and let’s assume those are benefits.

The NEO search improvements probably aren’t going to be just for 1 year. I think an article about the NEO search hosted payload from some time ago suggested $50M for that. Assuming other search improvements … maybe over several years you’re in the ballpark of $80M vs $2600M. It still sounds bad, but we’re used to $400M commercial crew vs $4000M for SLS/MPCV/SLS ground systems, so if this is a compromise, we’re starting with low expectations.

The value of accomplishing the SEP technology demonstration (if we assume they can do it) could also be counted in the “benefit” column. That value might be in the hundreds of millions.

If we assume the NEO retrieval can actually be done, the science value could be considerable. The Planetary Science community values NEO retrieval, as demonstrated by OSIRIS-REx winning the last New Frontiers competition. That mission’s cost is probably on the order of $1B, a significant fraction of $2.6B, for small sample retrieval and robotically checking characteristics of the asteroid. I’m not sure how Planetary Science would value this new mission. An OSIRIS-REx success might diminish the value to them somewhat, but differences in the retrieved samples from the 2 missions might have science value. Of course the amount of material retrieved for the new mission would be much greater, and the ability to have astronauts investigate and sample the object in situ might have value. Future telerobotic investigations might also have science value.

The budget teleconference transcript has bad news for the idea of carefully selecting the object. I wasn’t sure what their approach would be in this respect. It looks like they might take a “check the box off” attitude for selecting the object:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/740871main_FY14_budget_telecon_trans.pdf

“And there have been some estimates published by others. In particular, the Keck study published a figure of $2.6 billion. We do not think at this point that it will be that expensive for two reasons. One is that the Keck study didn’t take into account all the
activities we already have going on in our base, so we wouldn’t need 2.6 billion of new money. And also, because the Keck study was very particular about what kind of asteroid it wanted to go get, and it was focused on carbonaceous chondrites, which are actually a little farther away than a lot of other asteroids, and so it would take you longer to go get—on average longer to go get it, so the program would be longer.”

That would likely considerably reduce the science, ISRU technology demonstration, and commercial potential of the mission. If NASA doesn’t care whether it gets a “good” asteroid, it probably also makes it unlikely that there would be a series of small close-up missions to check out the objects to be able to select the best one, thus eliminating any side benefits (science, commercial, etc) of such missions.

The transcript also outlines exactly what the initial $105M funding would be for:

$20M – Science, improvements to NEO search
$45M – Space Technology
$38M – accelerate Solar Electric Power Demonstration
$7M – “a broader initiative to look at hazard mitigation technologies” (so maybe some Planetary Defense progress)
$40M – Advanced Exploration Systems – uncooperative targets technology

So far it’s all for technology development/demonstration and science, so the current funding proposal doesn’t look objectionable in the sense of SLS/MPCV or an asteroid version of JWST … yet.

One other item from the budget proposal suggests that the search funding wouldn’t just go to search time and the hosted payload, but also to search improvements:

“The budget request includes a doubling of NASA’s efforts to identify and characterize potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). NASA will prioritize partnerships and incentives that can enhance detection, characterization, and follow-up in the next few years.”

The Lightfoot slide presentation has a schedule for “Asteroid Detection, Characterization, & Selection Segment” with a label of “Enhanced ground assets & Initial candidates” around 2013-2015. Year 2013 has a picture of SST (DARPA Space Surveillance Telescope) and 2014 has a picture of PS-2, so maybe they intend to put a dent in that problem (whether or not it’s soon enough for the 2021 SLS/MPCV mission). The same schedule shows “GEO-hosted payload detection” and “Final target selection” for 2016.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/740512main_FY2014%20CJ%20for%20Online.pdf

“More bullcrap. NASA has intermittently run GEO Quick Ride Programs for years at GSFC and LaRC, but has never flown a GEO hosted payload. The agency has never been serious about this, is way behind the USAF (which has at least flown a payload or two) in this area, and would have no clue how to interface with commercial comsat builders and operators even if the will was there.”

Maybe this is a chance to get them to take it seriously. NASA hasn’t flown a GEO hosted payload, but they have a couple in the works. We will see if they make it through sequestration. The recent “Earth Venture – Instrument” selection of TEMPO is supposed to use a hosted payload on a GEO satellite. If that line continues, I imagine NASA will have to get used to hosted payloads. Page 10 of this has an article on TEMPO. Page 14 includes their hosted payload plan, which involves work with the Air Force’s “Hosted Payload Solution” program. Hopefully that will get their feet wet.

http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/eos_observ/pdf/March_April_2013_508_color.pdf

Space Technology also has the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration project, which is supposed to be hosted on a Loral GEO comsat. This one is also some years away from flight, but you have to start somewhere.

Apart from GEO comsats, NASA Space Technology also plans to fly the Deep Space Atomic Clock technology demonstration mission as a hosted payload on an Iridium comsat. Also, SeaWiFS was a hosted payload from the 1990’s.

” After 2-3 years, the Space Technology Program (now Directorate) couldn’t even get an orbital launcher competition for a 1kg payload off the ground. Unless it’s some software programming competition, they’re not capable of pulling off an asteroid prize.”

Oh, don’t get me going on the Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge, or the recent Centennial Challenge status in general. But in the event that they get and keep funding for it, it’s possible that it would be something like a software competition, maybe image processing to search data archives of telescope images and other data for NEOs. Maybe it would have a ground-based telescope component. Maybe it would just be “find me a 7-10m NEO with such-and-such parameters, and prove it”. Who knows? I’m not picturing something extremely ambitious like a B612 telescope or a PS/DSI type mission. But I think with some small changes they could manage something like that. After all they did the Lunar Lander Challenge. A lot of what NASA would need to do is “keep hands off”.

Based on best estimates, past surveys had a goal of finding 90% of all NEOs over 1,000m and current surveys have a goal of finding 90% of all NEOs over 140m. That leaves 10% of NEOs in those classes undetected, based on best estimates.

“What makes you think you know more about detection capabilities than the experts who worked on this study?”

Where did I say that I thought that?

Please don’t put words in my mouth.

I will repeat that there is a very limited number of telescopes that do these NEO searches, with only a limited amount of observation time on each telescope. To the extent that you’re spending that observation time doing long integrations to find very small and faint but non-threatening NEOs — and even more observation time pinning down the orbits, spin rates, compositions, etc. of many of these non-threatening NEOs down to the gnat’s eyelash — you will have less observation time on these telescopes available for rapid scans to find the larger, brighter, dangerous NEOs.

And I’ll repeat — that’s a stupendously stupid misallocation of resources.

“More importantly, why are you trying so hard to find objections to it,”

Because NASA and the US taxpayer shouldn’t spend $2.6 billion on a stunt to provide a figleaf for another multi-billion dollar launch vehicle and capsule that was suppossed to, but can’t, do the job that the stunt/figleaf is pretending to do.

“and why are you looking to set up as large bureaucratic obstacles as you can?”

I’m a poster on a blog site. How am I setting up “large bureaucratic obstacles”?

“If you want NASA to immediately fly a few men to Mars, and think that should be NASA’s only goal, then please be clear about it.”

That’s not my desire. We’d kill the crew with our current technical base.

“I have a simple question for you: What do you think NASA’ main goals should be? Manned Moon? Manned Mars? Planetary probes? Searching for Little Green Men? Measuring CO2?”

NASA’s human space exploration goal should be to establish the technical base, including flight demonstrations, to enable affordable and repeated expeditions to multiple deep space locations, including Lagrange Points, asteroids, and Mars.

No, they don’t. ESAS had 14x more published detail, examined hundreds of hardware combinations, and had the benefit of an independent review. The Keck study has 14x less published detail than ESAS, is a point design exercise, and had no independent review.

“After his advisors’ initial plan was rejected, Obama went and took up Goldin’s plan for using an asteroid visit”

What “Goldin plan” for an asteroid visit? Link? Reference?

“Otherwise, all of the technologies and systems have already been reviewed extensively.”

No, they havn’t.

NASA’s Space Technology Program (now Directorate) has rejected proposals to develop and flight test robotic capture mechanisms for spent rocket stages and other debris in Earth orbit. Now they’re going to develop robotic capture mechanisms for multi-hundred ton rocks? And operate them far beyond Earth orbit?

Yeah, right.

High-power electric propulsion systems have been a priority on the NRC’s space technology decadal survey for several years now. But instead of following consensus priorities from a national report that NASA asked and paid for, NASA’s Space Technology Program (now Directorate) has pursued technologies like solar sails and green propulsion that don’t even appear in the report. Now, all of a sudden, NASA’s Space Technology Program is going to get out of the sandbox and have the focus and fortitude necessary to bring high-power electric propulsion into operation within a handful of years?

Yeah, right.

“If you have another goal, or path to that goal, would you please be clear about it?”

I’ve always been fine with a real human NEO mission as the next step. Short of an Inspiration Mars-type mission, it’s by far the best bang for your tax-buck when it comes to testing the systems necessary for human exploration of deep space. And it would have examined one representative NEO of the right size to threaten Earth.

But this isn’t a real human NEO mission. It’s an Apollo-era lunar orbit rendezvous mission.

Drop SLS and MPCV, and NASA will have plenty of budget and personnel to apply toward the hardware necessary for a real human NEO (or other deep space) mission.

This is not directed at you, Red, but I call bullcrap. Only one (PS1) of four PanSTARRs telescopes has been built, and much of its data is compromised. If PanSTARRs is ever properly funded, the other three telescopes are built, and the system becomes operational, then maybe some years from now it will make a serious dent in NEO detection rates. But in 2014, the Catalina Sky Survey will continue to dominate NEO discoveries. Pan-STARRs isn’t going to make a substantial contribution to a 7m NEO target list in time for one of those NEOs to be hauled back to lunar orbit for the crewed MPCV test flight in 2021.

“In support of the future human mission to an asteroid, the Science Mission Directorate and the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate will release a joint Announcement of Opportunity for a space-based NEO infrared telescope, to be flown as a hosted payload on a non-NASA geosynchronous spacecraft.”

More bullcrap. NASA has intermittently run GEO Quick Ride Programs for years at GSFC and LaRC, but has never flown a GEO hosted payload. The agency has never been serious about this, is way behind the USAF (which has at least flown a payload or two) in this area, and would have no clue how to interface with commercial comsat builders and operators even if the will was there.

“Initiate at least two new Centennial Challenges, including one relevant to near Earth asteroid detection, characterization and mitigation efforts.”

Bullcrap, again. After 2-3 years, the Space Technology Program (now Directorate) couldn’t even get an orbital launcher competition for a 1kg payload off the ground. Unless it’s some software programming competition, they’re not capable of pulling off an asteroid prize.

“Of course this doesn’t require the NEO retrieval mission itself to happen, or the SLS/MPCV mission to visit it. Not only the NEO search, but also close-up NEO investigations (which may or may not be included in all of this) and the SEP technology demo don’t require it.”

None of these things are going to happen, regardless. The “plan” in that budget justification relies on telescopes with major issues and NASA programs that have never been used or have had major problems in recent years. If that’s really the agency’s plan, then they’re going to spend the $20 million reworking the plan until it’s workable and that’s probably about it.

“However, the ‘package deal’ with the later possibility of the retrieval and SLS/MPCV visit missions might make it easier to fund those other (likely more near-term, affordable, and useful) things.”

Even if the plan above wasn’t so full of holes and could actually make large advances in planetary defense, it’s hard to swallow a $2.6 billion robotic NEO retrieval stunt — on top of billions and billions on SLS/MPCV hardware that can’t get to a NEO on its own in the first place — just so we can spend $20 million on some better NEO searches and prizes.

How do you know? Eros was discovered 115 years ago. Astronomers have been searching for NEOs ever since.

“Why you think all NEOs have the same luminence (reflectivity) violates their known physics.”

First, the term is “albedo”, not “luminence”. “Luminence” isn’t even a word.

Second, where did I write or imply that all NEOs have the same albedo?

“The most likely ones to hit are dead comet fragments, which have the reflectivity of charcoal.”

Thanks for repeating well-established facts.

And your point is?

“While the US could and can carry out this program using SpaceX or ULA based launchers, I do not think that is the best way to go right now.”

Why? Because it would save billions of taxpayer dollars for other missions?

“The outlined mission will leave the US in a good position for the 2020′s.”

How is blowing 10-20 billion of taxpayer dollars so that a couple astronauts can clamber around a 20-foot rock “leave the US in a good position” for anything?

“Griffin blew that $8-%10 billion on Ares 1, not on SLS.”

We’ve already blown $4.2 billion on SLS.

Your point?

“My bottom line analysis is that in pandering to Utah, Griffin screwed Florida, Alabma, Mississippi, Texas, and too many other states to list here, including Ohio and Virginia.”

SLS uses new SRBs. We’re still pandering to Utah.

And pandering to Utah has nothing to do with the robotic NEO retrieval mission.

Your point?

“Europe is a good partner for MPCV”

Then why hasn’t ESA committed to fully funding it?

And why is ESA only willing to produce one copy with spares?

“DBN, my immediate space goals differ from meny peoples, including yours.”

My goal for you is for you to put together a coherent argument that doesn’t wander in a dozen directions without ever making a point.

“I think that this mission is an excellent recovery from Griffin’s fiasco.”

How? We’re still stuck with a suppossed human deep space transportation system that is too expensive to actually do anything in deep space with humans. It’s the same problem.

“Project Lasso wil never happen simply because it is a silly concept to start with and and an expensive one to attempt.”

You keep forgetting that this asteroid mission was a way to provide some sort of need for your precious SLS. Without this proposed mission, the SLS has NOTHING to do but sit on it’s butt and kill the grass underneath it.

Or did you not understand that?

That’s reason enough to kill it and use it’s funding to finish Commercial Crew and build exploration hardware that flies on existing rockets.

“You have no idea what they did up there today to justify the expense.”

It’s funny how ignorant and wrong you can be.

I did a quick search and found the Weekly Recap From the Expedition Lead Scientist.

Apparently if you don’t stick your fingers in your ears and scream nonsensical words you can find just about anything about the ISS. Maybe you should try it next time, huh?

“I hope the next administration can come up with innovative uses for the SLS and Orion…”

Once the President of 2016 takes office, then you have to hope that the Congress of 2016 wants to actually spend money on SLS missions.

However you do realize that if the Congress of today wanted the SLS to be used, they would just direct NASA to create a plan to use it? Congress can define the high level goals, provide the budget estimates for NASA to use in determining how the goals can be funded, and ask NASA to present their plans to Congress.

But Congress hasn’t done that yet… know why? Because they know there is not enough money to do a steady stream of SLS missions, especially missions that will start in 2021.

And let’s see, if they do wait until 2016 (2017 actually) to start funding SLS missions, then it’s likely the SLS will be sitting on the ground for at least 5 years with only the MPCV to lift.

With that being the case, what’s the rush to build the SLS, but not fully fund Commercial Crew? Don’t we all want to stop sending our money to Russia and have a domestic crew capability that can become a self-supporting transportation industry?

The money math is a pretty simple one here…