The space subcommittee of the House Science Committee is holding a hearing at 2 pm EDT today on “Next Steps in Human Exploration to Mars and Beyond”. The focus of the hearing, based on the hearing charter, will be whether NASA’s plans to redirect a near Earth asteroid into lunar orbit, to be then visited by astronauts, is a better stepping stone to human Mars missions than human lunar missions currently not in NASA’s plans. “Is the proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM), a lunar landing mission, or another mission better as a precursor for an eventual human mission to Mars?” the hearing charter asks. “What things could we learn and capabilities would we develop from a Moon landing that we could not learn from the proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission?”
Among the witnesses at the hearing are Lou Friedman, the executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society and co-lead on a 2012 asteroid retrieval mission study by Caltech’s Keck Institute for Space Studies that served as a blueprint of sorts for NASA’s own mission plans, as well as Paul Spudis, a planetary scientist and long-time proponent of human missions to the Moon. Also testifying are Steve Squyres, a Cornell University planetary scientist and current chair of the NASA Advisory Council; and former NASA associate administrator for exploration Doug Cooke.
Last week, Friedman’s own Planetary Society offered “conditional” support for the asteroid retrieval mission concept, while seeking additional details. The organization said it saw the mission as worthwhile if “a technologically-achievable, scientifically-valuable mission emerges in the coming months, and if appropriate levels of new long-term funding are provided to implement it.”
One Mars mission advocate who is not testifying today but holds strong views on the utility of an asteroid retrieval mission is Robert Zubrin. In a Space News op-ed this week, he leaves no doubt about where he stands on the mission, starting with his title: “NASA’s Asteroid Absurdity”. He claims that “the entire purpose of the initiative is to find a way to shirk the challenge of human interplanetary flight,” finding little scientific, technical, or other utility in the mission. “It thus represents an enormous waste of time and money that could prevent NASA’s human spaceflight program from achieving anything worthwhile for decades. Congress must not accept this.” We may get a clue today how much some key members of Congress are willing to accept this asteroid mission on the basis of supporting human missions to Mars.
“Is the proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM), a lunar landing mission, or another mission better as a precursor for an eventual human mission to Mars?†the hearing charter asks.”
Of the three, the latter is the best.
If the goal is Mars, then spending resources wrangling an asteroid does not help achieve that goal since capturing asteroids is not needed (at this point) for surviving a trip to Mars.
If the goal is Mars, and the primary barrier to going to Mars is learning how to survive the trip and be confident & competent BEO travelers, then spending resources on hardware to land on the Moon and do things on the Moon does not help achieve that goal.
To me, the original plan to visit an asteroid was at least part of the critical path for getting to Mars. However the current asteroid retrieval plan is nothing more than a massive slight of hand maneuver to give the SLS it’s first “real” mission, and to disguise the fact that because NASA is forced to build the SLS that it has no money to actually DO any BEO HSF missions.
It’s all about the money, and as long as these Congressional hearings avoid asking the simple question “how much would your idea cost”, then the answers they get will be meaningless.
And as long as every plan requires an unaffordable BFR, then we’re not going anywhere anyways. It’s all just make-work activity.
I think “sleight of hand” suggests that people are getting fooled by this. Let’s call it what we all know it to be. It’s a stunt. It’s devoid of rationale and, unlike stunts done by Evel Kneivel and some contemporary commercial space folks, the taxpayer will be paying for it.
Let’s not confuse the conditional support from the Planetary Society for ARM with Friedman’s devotion to that mission concept. Friedman no longer leads the Planetary Society. Friedman’s infatuation with ARM (since, of course, he was one of the leaders of the KISS study, which came up with the idea) is conspicuous in his fawning op-ed in the latest AvWeek. There he admits that the most important reason for ARM is that it is “audacious” and “exciting”. I can’t argue with that, but something that is audacious and exciting without rationale is a stunt. What is really grating is that this stunt, done partly in the name of impact mitigation, is using money that could be used for a sensitive survey, which would be truly enabling for that important work.
Hiram said:
“What is really grating is that this stunt, done partly in the name of impact mitigation, is using money that could be used for a sensitive survey, which would be truly enabling for that important work.”
What you highlight is an important point, and part of something that I think is overlooked.
What is the goal?
Impact mitigation is a good goal, but it’s not an official one. Going to Mars is a good goal, but it too is more of an acknowledged goal, but not an official one either.
Until we identify the goals, and identify the outcomes we are looking for, then we’ll never be able to know if what we are doing is the best approach. And if we don’t know that, then most likely we’re wasting money – LOTS of money.
For instance, for impact mitigation one goal would be to say we are going to identify all the potential impact threats of X size that could impact us within Y amount of years. That is quantified, measurable and verifiable.
For Mars, I would suggest the initial goal be to send a human expedition to the orbit of Mars, have them stay for X amount of time, and be able to bring them back without “serious and lasting physical debilitation”. That too is quantified, measurable and verifiable. This is also a requirement if we plan to expand our operations at Mars – if we can’t do this, then we’re not ready to land on Mars.
But vanity words like “audacious†and “exciting†are not enough to justify the tens of $Billions that it will take to do even the most simple of BEO space goals.
For Mars, I would suggest the initial goal be to send a human expedition to the orbit of Mars…” spins Ron.
Why? Robots have and can land and can do it cheaper. Mars is revealing itself to be a superb proving ground for long distance robotics technology development. For the next century, the robots will rule and rove the Red Planet. The future for HSF ops is Luna. It’s the next logical step outward.
DCSCA blathered:
“Why? Robots have and can land and can do it cheaper.”
The acknowledged HSF goal is to reach Mars, and the initial acknowledged barrier is keeping humans alive in space long enough to reach Mars. That’s why I said:
“For Mars, I would suggest the initial goal be to send a human expedition to the orbit of Mars, have them stay for X amount of time, and be able to bring them back without “serious and lasting physical debilitationâ€.”
I didn’t say anything about LANDING on Mars.
Do you need glasses?
“The acknowledged HSF goal is to reach Mars.”
Is it? Please articulate the rationale for HSF in the 21st century by the United States of America. This should be fun. A rationale from which everything else flows.
DCSCA opined:
“Please articulate the rationale for HSF in the 21st century by the United States of America.”
If you want the last official one, it’s here. In summary:
Goal and Objectives
The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program. In support of this goal, the United States will:
• Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;
• Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
• Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
• Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.
I didn’t think the VSE was bad (other than the fake 2020 date for returning to the Moon). However the VSE was hijacked by Michael Griffin and his lame Constellation architecture, and it is now definitely out of date.
And as I’ve pointed out many times, the space community can’t agree on what should be done next, so it doesn’t matter what “vision” anyone in government has.
Me? I think the President should declare that the goal of the U.S. is to be a spacefaring nation, and let the destinations flow from the capabilities (both private and public) that come from achieving that. The private capabilities will be profit oriented, and the public ones are limited by NASA’s meager budget – and that means it will be a slow expansion of capabilities.
Despite your protests to the contrary, I know that you advocate “for HSF in the 21st century”, so layout your “rationale”.
Hiram, NASA’s budget for survey, despite the President’s proposal for a manned visit to an assteriud several years ago, only went to $20 per year last year. It was $5 M per year before that
Your constant assumptions are
1) these thing can be found from Earth
2) they are simply going to pass be repeatedly before they hit.
In point of fact, neither assumption is true.
IMO, NASA’s biggest problem is manned Mars flight enthusiasts. Why? First, because the public as a whole does not want to spend their tax money on it. Second, because of their unrealisitc estimates of the difficulties and the expense. Third, they view Mars as being like the Earth, and therfore have unrealistic expectations as to how useful manned flight to Mars might be.
“Your constant assumptions are
1) these thing can be found from Earth
2) they are simply going to pass be repeatedly before they hit.”
Stop making stuff up. I never said any of that. At least because those words don’t make a lot of sense … “they are simply going to pass by repeatedly before they hit”? Uh, yeah, that’s exactly what they’ll do, as if that should make us feel any better.
I agree that the amount that we spend on asteroid threats is far too small, and it’s a shame that we’re about to spend huge amounts of money partly in the name of asteroid mitigation that won’t mitigate anything. Human space flight has NOTHING to do with effective asteroid mitigation. I also agree that the emphasis on human trips to Mars is unfortunately driving the bus for human spaceflight. Of course, that’s because there is little compelling rationale to send humans anywhere in space, and Mars is the best we’ve got, it seems. We need some real agreement about why, in this technically sophisticated day and age, humans need to go anywhere in space. Excitement and audaciousness are not real answers, even though we agree on those. The two obvious answers are science and colonization, but human space flight is very much NOT based on the former, and Congress is very much not interested in the latter.
Hiram –
“Stop making stuff up. I never said any of that. At least because those words don’t make a lot of sense … “they are simply going to pass by repeatedly before they hitâ€? Uh, yeah, that’s exactly what they’ll do, as if that should make us feel any better. ”
No, that is not what they’ll do, not always, and most particularly not ELE size impactors.
The asteroid capture mission as a precursor to a manned mission to Mars is absurd. Does NASA plan to move Mars into a more favorable orbit so their little rockets can fly to it? Zubrin’s refutation is complete. I predict that after today we will hear little more about the mission.
Congress has provided no money to fund a deep space hab.
Congress has provided no money to fund a lander of the kind they will allow to be built (Altair). A cheap, simple lander would Evul – too much like CC
Etc…..
The asteroid mission is all that can be done, if you are given a giant rocket, a giant capsule and…. that’s it.
“The asteroid capture mission as a precursor to a manned mission to Mars is absurd.” notes Windy.
Windy, this project is as dead as Apollo 13’s service module.
DCSCA opined:
“Windy, this project is as dead as Apollo 13′s service module.”
Which is pretty close to the status of the MPCV Service Module, since we had to beg ESA to build one, yet they haven’t committed to the full funding yet. Even then, they may only build ONE, and NASA will again be left without a Service Module for it’s supposed “exploration vehicle”.
Good thing we have a giant rocket to launch it, eh?
lol, what a giant mess sls/orion is…
Considering we basically handed off SLS to the same contractors who botched Ares, I’m not sure why anyone’s surprised.
We spent how many billions of dollars on Ares and the only thing we got out of it was effectively an off-shelf booster with the words “Ares” written on the side.
It’s like paying a shady dealer $200k for a Bentley, having him drive up to your house in a 20 year old sedan with the words “Bentley” painted on it, and then paying him another $200k to get you a Lamborghini.
LOL!
Funny comment. It’s the nature of the beast for fully government funded space programs.
Why I say the future of space is commercial space.
Bob Clark
I wonder if anyone will be responsible and bring up the actual cost of a lunar landing mission.
Oh wait, I forgot, they don’t intend to actually pay for a lunar landing mission. Just call it that on paper. Silly me.
Stephen C. Smith said:
“I wonder if anyone will be responsible and bring up the actual cost of a lunar landing mission.”
Though I disagreed with parts of the Spudis/Lavoie plan, at least they did try to quantify the costs – they estimated it would cost $88B over a 17 year period. However their plan called for a progressive build up of robotic explorers first, and I’m not sure that’s what SLS supporters are looking for.
But in general you’re right – cost is ignored.
If they use F9R boosters and some Blue Origin hyrdrolox core it probably won’t cost the taxpayer a cent, and they may even get something back from the rent of the pad.
I think people are putting rather more eggs into the SpaceX basket than they really should. I’m a big SpaceX fan, but it bears remembering that they still only have one successful platform: the Falcon 9. The Falcon Heavy hasn’t flown yet, and the upgraded Merlin engines have yet to be tested on an actual mission. And the re-usable boosters, which are key to driving down launch costs, have yet to be implemented.
I’m looking forward to two developments in the coming months on the SpaceX front: one, the inaugural flight of the Falcon Heavy; and two, the man-rating of the Falcon/Dragon stack. If the Falcon Heavy delivers on Elon Musk’s promises, that could make the L1/L2 infrastructure idea much easier to achieve.
Do you actually think this guy is going to let his launch vehicles burn up and fall into the ocean one second longer than he has to? Get a grip.
Guest said:
“Do you actually think this guy is going to let his launch vehicles burn up and fall into the ocean one second longer than he has to?”
You are not adding anything to the conversation – everyone already knows that Musk has stated that reusability is their goal.
And keep in mind that his present business model works just fine by “letting his launch vehicles burn up and fall into the ocean”.
Get a grip.
That’s the ‘status quo’ business model who’s time has long past.
That’s not how you build entirely new industries and whole new job sectors. What you are proposing is doing things you can’t afford with infrastructure you can’t afford, even with EELVs, it’s not going to happen. Get a grip.
Guest said:
“That’s not how you build entirely new industries and whole new job sectors.”
Being the new guy around here, you are late to the game on this.
“What you are proposing is doing things you can’t afford with infrastructure you can’t afford, even with EELVs, it’s not going to happen.”
I’m not proposing anything. All I stated is that Musk has stated reusability is his goal, and that his current business model works just fine right now – SpaceX is, by far, the leader in lowering the cost to access space.
In contrast, you are the one that imagines that Musk wants to use reusable methane powered single-stage rockets to land on the Moon.
Get a grip.
What do you think he’s going to do, launch satellites for external customers for the next 25 years?
In contrast, you are the one that imagines that Musk wants to use reusable methane powered single-stage rockets to land on the Moon.
You can lie about what I am saying all you want. All I have pointed out is that physics clearly indicates that two stage to escape velocity is possible, which allows him to both deliver a payload to lunar flyby orbit and deliver the core stage to aerobraking descent onto Mars. If you want more lame euphemisms, this is a guy who is giving you your cake and allowing you to eat it as well. EELVs and ULA and Boeing and NASA, not so much.
Coastal. Let it go.
I don’t think he is a “new guy”. I recently read a “proposal” that describes the use of F9s and SLS or other “core” booster – what are the chances different people have similar ideas?
The “proposal” is utter nonsense.
FWIW.
The “proposal†is utter nonsense.
In that case I look forward to the very near future where ULA launchers and legacy engines are a distant and forgettable memory, real soon now. It will be a future when perusing old space forum archives will be enlightening and entertaining at least.
If SpaceX hold their price per Kg at around their current level, they are the cheapest launch company on the planet.
The current prices are not based on re-usability.
If the flight rate goes up to their projected numbers this year, look out for the international storm about this. ESA & the Russians will be very unhappy.
ULA will comfort themselves that they US government contract only, but that will only buy them a bit of time.
That’s without re-usability……
spacex’s plans are far more credible than anything nasa has put forward recently. why? because spacex has demonstrated that they can actually build working hardware without blowing the budget or schedule slips that are measured in decades. nasa cannot, not anymore.
“I wonder if anyone will be responsible and bring up the actual cost of a lunar landing mission.
Oh wait, I forgot, they don’t intend to actually pay for a lunar landing mission. Just call it that on paper. Silly me.” says Stephen.
You’d have been a lot of laughs to have around the conference room table in 1961 when the $20 to $40 billion numbers were being kicked around for Apollo. ‘Course injecting that much spending into the national economy worked and created wonders for the contractors, business and associated industries across the country, aside from the international political benefit for the U.S. Ol’Tom Paine once said you set the goal then find the budget for it– you don’t set a budget then decide what goals you can fit into it. Beancounters and accountants are seldom credited as a source for bold initiatives or progressive ideas. But they do keep tidy books.
True words. Think about what could have been done with the $15 billion spent over the last 5 years with ISS. What do we have? ISS occupants with nothing better to do than strum ‘Major Tom’ while mugging for the camera.
amightywind said:
“Think about what could have been done with the $15 billion spent over the last 5 years with ISS.”
Keep in mind that without the ISS or something exactly like it, no amount of money would have allowed us to send humans out into space for longer than a few weeks.
You keep forgetting that we don’t yet know how to keep people alive for very long in space without them coming back with debilitating conditions. So unless your goal is to do endless “Flags & Footprint” missions, we have to spend time and money doing basic research IN SPACE trying to figure this stuff out.
It’s amazing that you can’t understand that.
You keep forgetting that we don’t yet know how to keep people alive for very long in space without them coming back with debilitating conditions.
Yes we do. We are not willing to address the engineering problems directly. We need large spinning sections in spacecraft to simulate gravity. Instead we screw around with hamster houses and exercise machines. See need substantial, heavy radiation shielding. These things and others point to requirements for heavy lift. It amazes me that you don’t come to the same logical conclusion.
“We need large spinning sections in spacecraft to simulate gravity. Instead we screw around with hamster houses and exercise machines. See need substantial, heavy radiation shielding. These things and others point to requirements for heavy lift. It amazes me that you don’t come to the same logical conclusion.”
It amazes a lot of the rest of us that you don’t come to the logical conclusion that all of those technologies could be worked on if SLS is cancelled. So you are not willing to address those engineering problems.
amightywind said:
“We need large spinning sections in spacecraft to simulate gravity.”
Well sure, that would be nice. But I have looked into this (and you can too here), so I’m familiar with the scale of the task, and it’s HUGE. We’re talking about spacecraft that would have to be hundreds of feet across, and using a simple tether won’t allow for sufficient control or mass to be of use.
It’s also impractical to say that we won’t travel anywhere until we have massive rotating ships.
And while you may think that such a vehicle is one of the prime reasons for building the SLS, it’s not. The SLS, being a government owned & operated transportation system, would be the MOST expensive way to build ANYTHING in space.
Something else you overlook is that while such a massive structure is being built, there is going to be a need for keeping the construction crew healthy in zero-G, so no matter what we’re going to have to learn how to stay healthy in zero-G. And the ISS partners think they may know how to do that, but they need to do long-term tests, which is what is already planned. But that won’t happen without the ISS.
A requirement for lots of lift is not the same as a requirement for heavy lift. Lots of lift can be met through lots of flights of smaller vehicles.
“What do we have? ISS occupants with nothing better to do than strum ‘Major Tom’ while mugging for the camera.” notes Windy.
Indeed, Windy. It was a pretty foolish thing to do– so pedestrian that the media exacerbated the issue and ran with it. A massive display of wasted time– very expensive on orbit time BTW– by a Canadian national no less, aboard what Ron like to call ‘our’ facility. Forty years on, NASA still takes criticism for Al Shepard;s self-serving slices of a few golf balls on Luna– when lunar surface EVA time was calculated (in 1970 dollars) to be roughly $1 million/minute. And that is about all anyone remembers from Apollo 14 anyway– especially when an Archie Bunker rerun slamming it is aired. If they’ve got time to play with guitars up there, they ain’t doing anything close to be justifying the cost. And besides, a clever creative teenaged computer geek with a $300 laptop and a cheap Gibson could have created a similar video with the same effect a lot easier and a lot cheaper, eh Windy.
I’ll try to make it as simple for you as possible. Earth orbit first, BEO later. We haven’t sent humans BEO for the last 40 years mainly because of how expensive just reaching orbit is. Are you really that thick?
I’ll try to make it as simple for you as possible. sez Boozer.
This is more to the point: LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where, fast. The future is Luna, not LEO.
Maybe I need to make a nice brightly colored picture book primer with simple illustrations.
Yes, LEO is going in circles by definition. Duh!
Even if Luna is the future, until you can get to LEO economically, you can’t get to the Moon economically and on an indefinitely sustainable basis. Yes, we are only going to LEO now, but we are gradually lowering the cost to LEO in the process. Once cost to LEO is lowered enough, then back to Luna and elsewhere. Remember from Apollo: first LEO, then TLI, then Lunar orbit, then landing. But until the first step is economically practical, forget it because we’ll just be repeating Apollo with just a few landings at best. In the case of SLS we won’t even get that far.
As I say in my new book on the subject, “The laws of Economics are as inescapable as the laws of Physics”
Since it is obvious that any literate educated person with at least half a brain should be able to grasp this very simple concept, it is also obvious that you are just trying to rile people and you don’t really care if reasonable adults take your opinions seriously. What a silly lame and puerile way to get your jollies.
DCSCA whined:
“LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where, fast.”
If that’s the way your brain works, then apparently you miss the fact that the Moon is in orbit around the Earth, so it apparently “is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where, fast.”
And then remember that the Earth is in orbit around the Sun… that’s how inane your logic is.
Face it Putin-boi, until you can come up for a good reason FOR going to the Moon, no one cares what you don’t like.
DCSCA whined:
“A massive display of wasted time– very expensive on orbit time BTW– by a Canadian national no less, aboard what Ron like to call ‘our’ facility.”
Just shows how out of touch you are – with over 14 million views on YouTube, it is one of the best advertisements for space exploration that have come along in years. And not only was it coordinated with NASA and RSA, but it was blessed by Bowie himself.
“NASA still takes criticism for Al Shepard;s self-serving slices of a few golf balls on Luna…”
The whole point of the ISS is to figure out how to live and work in space. Hadfield has been doing a whole series of education video’s from the ISS on just that, and the song was just one of the last.
Shepard hitting golf balls on the Moon showed how elitist the space program was – how many people play golf, and what kind of people are they? Compare that to the number of people that have guitars and like to make their own versions of songs – and he was showing that it could be done in space!
For someone that claims to have been part of the media, you sure don’t understand it.
Heaven forbid that the astronauts try to connect with people on Earth in their personal time.
haha, 15 billion wouldn’t have been enough to get ares 1 flying, let alone the rest of constellation. ares 1 first flight would now be scheduled for 2025 at the earliest and the first moon landing in 2040. lol
constellation was a total disaster. time to face reality, windy…
Another hearing… So we have a NASA Admin who says the goal is to go to Mars. Why do those people need to hear yet so many other options? Do they think that suddenly Spudis et al. will say that it is a great idea to go to Mars? Why don’t they let NASA does its job? Why don’t they let the private sector does its job? How much money are we supposed to spend on those ridiculous hearings? Do they plan to tell NASA what to do again? To design the lunar lander(s)? What is wrong with these people?
“Another hearing… So we have a NASA Admin who says the goal is to go to Mars.”
He and his pronouncements are fast becoming irrelevant. His boss is already nearly a lame duck.
half a year after he won reelection. sure, if you say so, dcsca…:)
Do they plan to tell NASA what to do again?
There’s an excellent chance, IMO, that that’s exactly what they are planning to do. Remember, NAA2010 expires this year and the new NAA is being drafted; don’t be surprised if it mandates a return to the moon using SLS/Orion. Also don’t be surprised if funding for the additional hardware needed for RTTM doesn’t get appropriated.
The Spudis/Lavoie plan for manufacturing lunar water and depositing these resources at Lagrange point gateways for providing mass shielding, air, drinkable water, and cryogenic fuel for manned interplanetary vehicles– is the key to quickly getting to Mars at reasonable cost. Plus the lunar water manufacturing technology might also be useful for manufacturing water on the surface of the Martian moons, Deimos and Phobos.
The delta-v from a Lagrange point gateway to high Mars orbit is less than 2 km/s. That should make it much easier to transport a heavily radiation shielded vehicle from cis-lunar space to Mars orbit. Trying to that from LEO is going to more than double the delta-v– even if aerobraking into the Martian atmosphere is utilized. Plus the delta-v to get fuel to a LEO launched interplanetary vehicle would range between 9 to 10 km/s. But to transport water or fuel from the Moon to a Lagrange point gateway is less than 2.6 km/s.
Neil Armstrong was right on this one. A Lagrange point gateway is the best way to travel to Mars.
Marcel F. Williams
I think you’re correct in that we’d do better to build a near-earth space-based infrastructure before setting out to colonize Mars. Launching everything we’re going to need from Earth’s deep gravity-well will simply be cost-prohibitive, even if launch costs fall dramatically.
So if we assume that the near-term goal needs to be the industrialization of near-earth space, then what do we need to do to achieve that goal? First: learn how to extract and refine/process raw materials in space to be used in space. This ranges from volatiles refined from water to raw materials (minerals, metals) for building and manufacturing. Is the moon better for this kind of operation, or asteroids? The answer is: we don’t really know. I personally think asteroids may end up being a far better source of raw materials than the moon, but…we don’t really know. So what’s the better bet? What’s a better use of limited funds?
I suspect the answer is “asteroids”, but I still think using L1/L2 installations makes a lot of sense regardless of the source of the raw materials. If Bigelow’s BA330 tests out, that would be a good candidate to form the backbone of the L1/L2 station hubs. The lagrange-point stations would need to be something more than mere gas stations or hotels, though. They’d need to be something like the big truck stops you see on the interstates: places to refuel, refit, reprovision, and rest. They can’t just be tiny little outposts.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’d feel better if NASA would simply commit to spending the next decade or so just focusing on building out the near-earth space-based infrastructure in partnership with private industry. That’s sort of what they’re proposing with the asteroid mission, but NASA isn’t making it clear. And the role of private industry apart from providing launchers isn’t clear either. Bechtel’s partnership with Planetary Resources might provide some clue as to what private industry is planning: resource extraction provides the profit motive that industry needs to go to space, and NASA can help by breaking the trail ahead of them. If that’s the point to the asteroid-capture mission, I wish NASA would say so; if not, then I’m not sure what the point of the mission is.
The deposition of small asteroids (meteoroids) at the Earth-Moon Lagrange points could be competitive with lunar water if light sails ever become a mature means for transporting massive objects. Light sails won’t require any fuel. But carbonaceous chondrites typically only contain about 20% water. So you’d have to transport at least 100 tonnes of asteroid mass to a Lagrange point in order to exploit 20 tonnes of water.
The Moon may also have another huge advantage in the long run since the US NAVY has already invented a portable electric mass driver that should be capable of launching over 100 kilograms of material off the lunar surface per minute.
Marcel F. Williams
Monty nails it. If the asteroid capture mission isn’t a prelude to multiple parallel experiments in free space in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), then it has no rational purpose. The captured rock should be placed at L1 and its yield used to build way station infrastructure there and at L2. We can learn to do all this close to Earth so mission travel times are small and a quick bug out is always feasible if things go suddenly pear-shaped.
The Mars connection is that lessons learned can – to recast a notion of Mr. Williams – be directly applied in Martian orbit with Deimos and Phobos as the “ore bodies” to be processed. These rocks are big enough to allow extraction of enough refined material to build really big prototype rotating human habitats. A permanent human presence in Mars orbit provides a way station or jumping off point for later missions to the Belt, the Jovian moons, perhaps even ice mining of Saturn’s E ring.
But what about returning to the Moon and landing on Mars. Other than a flags and footprints bragging rights effort to say one did it, is there really a point? The piddly G fields of the Moon and Mars make extended human habitation on their surfaces problematical at best.
Also, they are both formidable dustballs. Lunar regolith and Martian soil are both finely divided, gritty and composed of sharp little bits that have silicosis written all over them. Perhaps mining Helium-3 will prove to be the killer app that justifies a long-term industrial presence on the Moon. It’s hard to see what else one might get there that isn’t already available whizzing about in chunks of every size in free space. One needs to modify orbits to get it, but not lift stuff out of gravity wells. On a purely cost basis, I don’t see Lunar materials – raw or refined – being competitive. Mars, of course, is in every way, even worse where this sort of potential exploitation is concerned.
The Moon and Mars we should stay in orbit around. We can take up-close looks at anything we find interesting via rover-based telepresence. But working on the Lunar or Martian surfaces should be viewed as temporary hardship duty at best – like a diplomatic posting to Lower Slobovia. As for living on either place – don’t go there!
“A permanent human presence in Mars orbit provides a way station or jumping off point for later missions to the Belt, the Jovian moons, perhaps even ice mining of Saturn’s E ring.”
In perhaps 200 years. Do you think people who want to live off Earth just want to float in space stations orbiting the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, etc? They will get tired of space stations and will want surface mobility, to make discoveries in a day that would take robots weeks to make. Also, thinking of missions now tht will enable human missions to Jupiter is way off course. The environment in Mars orbit is just too different. A strong magnetic field containing trapped radiation does not exist around Mars, neither does the strong gravity field of Jupiter, nor the solar flux environment. Orbiting Mars is NOT an analog for orbiting planets in the outer solar system. Entirely new and different technologies would be needed for outer planet human space exploration.
Do you think people who want to live off Earth just want to float in space stations orbiting the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, etc?
Not float. Walk around in a pseudo 1-G field like humans are evolved to do. Or ride a bike. In a nice, clean, entirely artificial space. With no emphysemic/carcinogenic regolithic dust accumulating in one’s lungs from mucking around the surfaces of lethal dustballs.
Face it, most people on Earth live in cities; environments only marginally less artificial than a large, rotating free space habitat would be. People who can’t abide cities won’t be going into space anyway.
Most city dwellers never need more nature to commune with than is found in a local park. When the people who do go into space want to commune with nature, they’ll do the same. A habitat big enough to house a population numerous and genetically diverse enough to prevent long-term inbreeding will be big enough to have parks too.
Maybe a few of these folks will feel the occasional need to stand on a planetary surface. Visiting the Moon or Mars to do so might be analogous to visiting a national park here on Earth.
So will people want to live in free space habitats instead of on hostile planetary surfaces? Don’t know about you, tovarisch, but I do!
Lunar regolith and Martian soil are both finely divided, gritty and composed of sharp little bits that have silicosis written all over them.
What a silly thing to say. There is no dust suspension in a vacuum. Andr breathing systems are by definition closed.
However you may bring dust in with you from an EVA on your suit…
pathfinder-01 wins the kewpie doll. The lunar and martian dust is dangerous when tracked inside whatever habitations one cares to construct on the Moon or Mars. And it will get tracked in. Once in an atmosphere in a low-G gravity field, this stuff will stay suspended in the air volume and prove very difficult to adequately control with filters. I don’t think the idea of going to live on the Moon or Mars would be very popular if it meant a high probability of expiring early from “Gray Lung” or “Red Lung” disease. The Moon and Mars are horrible places to try planting a sizable human population.
Marcel F. Williams said:
“The Spudis/Lavoie plan for manufacturing lunar water…”
…is at least $88B and a 17 year commitment. Instead of waiting all that time, and risking all that money, starting next year we can be shipping 45-53mt of propellant from Earth using Falcon Heavy at $128M/shipment.
For those that are math challenged, that means for the same money as the Spudis/Lavoie plan (i.e. $88B), by using the Falcon Heavy we could instead ship 34,375mt of propellant (or whatever) to LEO. I think 34,375mt of mass will be enough to go to Mars a couple of times.
In any case, the question of WHERE we get propellant from is an economic one, and one that should be decided by the private sector.
All Lunar ISRU proponents are doing asking for taxpayers to fund their dreams is wasting time – NASA doesn’t even have enough money to build one SLS payload, much less fund and launch a whole mining operation.
“…is the key to quickly getting to Mars at reasonable cost.”
Who said we need to get to Mars quickly?
It was the 2020 return date to the Moon in the Bush VSE that drove so much of the cost for the Constellation program, and cost is what drove it to be cancelled.
In the Project management triangle of “Fast”, “Good”, and “Cheap”, where you can only have two, then obviously the successful plan will go for “Good” and “Cheap”. Without some sort of “National Imperative”, adding “Fast” to the requirements is a waste of money, and increases the chances of failure.
Money is important Marcel. Remember that.
“The Spudis/Lavoie plan for manufacturing lunar water and depositing these resources at Lagrange point gateways for providing mass shielding, air, drinkable water, and cryogenic fuel for manned interplanetary vehicles– is the key to quickly getting to Mars at reasonable cost.”
good one.
Question – “What things could we learn and capabilities would we develop from a Moon landing that we could not learn from the proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission?â€
Answer – Oh, I don’t know. How about learning how to establish a permanently manned base???
Oh, HEY! I got a GREAT “Compromise”
Let them go on out to that asteroid. Bag it, tag it, tow it back to Luna… but not in orbit — Smack its face!! Then everyone gets something:
– the earth will have potentially gotten an entertaining night show if NASA times it right;
– we’d have an asteroid safely placed so it’ll never ever threaten anyone again;
– scientists would see what happens when you hit something with a 500+tn object going high 2-digit Mach numbers (betting pool closes pre-impact);
– to get to that area… oh, darn, looks like we gotta build that pesky lunar out-post, and put it next door to the crater.
And the lunarians & asteroidal fanboys will just have to get along (or we’ll lower the O2 level).
…(I hope you all realize I’m being a facetious)
OK, so the ultimate goal is to go to Mars. But this begs the question of why we need to go to Mars. It it is for science, for the same costs, many more locations on Mars can be reached by sending numerous craft there. If the goal is to inspire kids to pursue STEM, do we need to wait until 2035+ to do that?
But if the purpose is for settlement then why not go to the Moon? It has enough volatiles and other resources to last a decent-sized settlement for a very long time. Travel times and Earth-driven telerobotics makes it a safer and less expensive choice.
DougSpace said:
“But if the purpose is for settlement then why not go to the Moon?”
No doubt the Moon will one day be settled, and we are not somehow limited to choosing just one other place to live in the universe. It’s not an either/or decision, but a “what do we do NEXT” one.
As to why Mars, Mars is far closer to Earth in so many more ways than the Moon is, and that appears to be the deciding factor.
As to why Mars, Mars is far closer to Earth in so many more ways than the Moon is, and that appears to be the deciding factor.
Luna is ‘closer’ in the most critical factor in this time frame given the state of the technologies involved, the economics and politics of the era- it is just 240,000 miles away. Cis-lunar space ops w/a permanet lunar facility beckons. It is the next logical step outward in this periosd on the way to Mars– if th data from the robots deem it is even wirth the trip. This century, the place to develop is Luna. Mars, nto so much. The Red Planet is revealing it self to be a ready-made proving ground for long distance robotic development.
Armstrong was correct in his assessment of lunat potential. Spudis is on the right track as well. You and you LEO space toys are in the proces of being left behind, going in circles, no where, fast.
DCSCA burbled:
“Luna is ‘closer’ in the most critical factor in this time frame given the state of the technologies involved, the economics and politics of the era- it is just 240,000 miles away.”
As usual you don’t understand the topic at hand.
There is no “critical” need to return to the Moon. That’s just a fantasy you cling to.
And though the Moon is indeed “closer” in distance, Mars is “closer” to what we’re used to here on Earth than the Moon is. Mars has twice the gravity of the Moon, has a measurable and noticeable atmosphere, and is far less hot and far less cold then the Moon is.
That’s why everyone (except for lunartics) understands that Mars is the goal, not the Moon.
If you want to plow your savings into a company that wants to exploit the Moon, great, go ahead. But the time for U.S. Taxpayer money to be spent going to the Moon looks like it’s over. Even the Spudis/Lavoie plan – which I doubt you’ve read – takes $88B and 17 years, and has garnered NO public support in Congress.
If the Moon was so important, we wouldn’t have waited over 40 years to return…
You seem to try to be even more detached from reality than DCSCA. Do you claim that manned mission to Mars will be cheaper, faster and safer than equivalent mission to Moon?
By “equivalent” I assume similar result of mission, like same amount of people, same time spent, same usable surface in base, etc.
Mader said:
“Do you claim that manned mission to Mars will be cheaper, faster and safer than equivalent mission to Moon?”
No, that Mars is a more hospitable place to live than the Moon is.
And while the Moon is indeed closer in distance, that doesn’t mean it will be the first choice of future settlers. Mars will be a harsh place to live, but the Moon will be even harsher.
However, if we figure out how to keep people healthy on long trips in space – which is required for ANY exploration we want to do – then distance is no longer a real barrier for WHERE people want to eventually settle.
CR/Mader:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Analogue_Sites
Back to your corners, fellas. One thing is clear- the terrestrial analogue sites for Mars/Luna are pretty much unpolulated- even with some critical resource at hand– like air… on a planet with 7 billion people already.
DCSCA opined:
“One thing is clear- the terrestrial analogue sites for Mars/Luna are pretty much unpolulated…”
Are you just figuring out that the Moon is an inhospitable place?
How daft can you be?
Judging from your comments and arguments, you seem to think that “Mars/Moon first” means “what we want to colonize first”. Wrong.
It means “where we want to fly humans now, after rotting for 40 years in LEO”.
So yes, Mars is more hospitable than Moon. In long term is more suitable for future colonization. However…
…you know that there are many more options on table aside “flag & footprints” and “colonization effort”, right? Riiight?
I expect that first permanent scientific outpost (like those on North Pole) outside Earth will be on Moon, not Mars.
Moon first is inevitable.
“what we want to colonize firstâ€. Wrong. It means “where we want to fly humans now, after rotting for 40 years in LEOâ€.
What you ‘human exploration firsters’ never can explain is ‘why’. There are a million reasons for ‘colonization first’ (which means infrastructure first in reality, but there are ZERO reasons for ‘humans first’ or ‘exploration first’. This is why you remain stuck in LEO – ‘me first’,
‘Moon first’ means ‘reusable rockets first’ and ‘rockets on the moon first’. What we have here is a bunch of different first movements.
Mader said:
“Judging from your comments and arguments, you seem to think that “Mars/Moon first†means “what we want to colonize firstâ€.”
I doubt the U.S. Government will ever have a policy of colonization, not without some sort of “National Imperative” to sustain it anyways. We’re talking exploration, and by inference, opening up frontiers for others to follow.
And as of the last space policy that was released, Mars is the acknowledged goal. The Moon is just a stepping stone on the way there.
If people like DCSCA want to go live there, great. People choose to live in the most hostile of conditions here on Earth. But most people, if given the chance, will choose to go on to Mars, and that many people are focusing on in order to solve the challenges of transportation and survival.
“I expect that first permanent scientific outpost (like those on North Pole) outside Earth will be on Moon, not Mars.”
Maybe. But if so, it will be done under contract with the U.S. Government, not as a government-run effort – a private firm will do all the work, and the government will pay part of the operating costs.
In case you haven’t noticed, the Moon continues to not be a place of interest for Congress – how many rovers have we sent there? And I don’t see that changing. The private sector will take an interest in it though, and I expect they will be very active there.
You basically admitted that Moon will be first. Not for colonization, just as celestial body not being Earth where we will land next for any purpose. Thanks for discussion.
Mader said:
“You basically admitted that Moon will be first.”
I have long said that I think private entities will return to the Moon before a U.S. Government-led effort does.
And the main reason for those private entities to go to the Moon will be for reasons of exploitation, not exploration, since although characterizing the composition of the Moon would be interesting, it’s of VERY limited interest. Exploiting it holds far more interest, and that is the domain of the private sector, not the U.S. Government.
Spudis just called for a robust Moon colonization program. Didn’t say how he’d pay for it. Nothing new here.
Well, what’s worse, is that he didn’t say why we need Moon colonization. His presumption is that it’s gotta happen asap. That presumption is pulled out of clear blue sky.
His passion for developing lunar resources is based on using those resources to go somewhere else in an energetically convenient way. (Oh, and there’s that drivel about 3He too). The presumption there is that we need to send humans somewhere else asap. That presumption is pulled out of clear blue sky.
There is no congressional mandate for space colonization anywhere, and thereby there is no taxpayer mandate for it. Spudis, Zubrin and the lot are just blowing smoke.
In the spirit of exploration and discovery, there are good reasons for human space transportation, but none that require self-sustainance for busloads of travelers.
Hi Hiram –
“The presumption there is that we need to send humans somewhere else asap. That presumption is pulled out of clear blue sky…There is no congressional mandate for space colonization anywhere, and thereby there is no taxpayer mandate for it. Spudis, Zubrin and the lot are just blowing smoke.”
Yes, you’re right.
Not many people have an answer to the “Why?” question.
I and a few others do.
It is not the answer you yourself want to hear, and it is not the answer that most manned spaceflight “enthusiasts” want to hear. But I am pretty certain that it is THE correct answer, and the ONLY answer that can withstand close scurtiny in this time of austerity.
I know a lot of people would just as soon I shut up about the impact hazard; they have done their best to shut me up.
But the facts are that I began reporting on the impact hazard in 1997, and in this current crisis following the Ares 1 fiasco, NASA is focused on the immediate mission of finding and learning about these things.
I just happened to spot THE answer very early on.
Please feel free to fight amongst yourselves about what to do with the launchers after that. Don’t be surprised if events overtake you.
My estimate is that the largest launchers in the near future will be in the medium-heavy range.
One of the more obtuse replies. You have the answer, and it’s THE only answer that can “withstand close scurtiny in this time of austerity”, but you’re not going to tell us what it is? What game are you playing?
Basically, he’s referring to the ‘lifeboat moon’ concept. In essence, his argument rests on two assumptions:
1) An impactor whose effects, even if not extinction-level, would severely impact the Terran biosphere and possibly have knock-on chaotic social effects is inevitable on a reasonable time-scale (less than 1000 years);
2) Resource depletion and social decay on Earth is such that the window for the colonisation of another planet is actually quite narrow, possibly as short as one century from now.
If you accept these two assumptions, and I’m not sure I do, then the time to throw everything into a self-sustaining moon-base in now.
It would seem more reasonable that, instead of presuming that an impact had happened, and we were desperate to leave, that we would make it that such extinction-level impacts didn’t happen. We have the technical skills to do that. So no, that response is highly obtuse. He didn’t say what he meant to say, but if he meant to say what you’re saying he meant to say, then it’s just dumb.
If I understand, what you’re saying is that the nature of the impact hazard is that we’d better look for somewhere else to go. That’s just crazy. The nature of the impact hazard is that we have to prevent it from happening, and that’s a task that is technically feasible.
Hi Ben –
No, I am not referring to “Lifeboat Moon”, a few people living on the Moon.
What I am talking about is sustaining human life with advanced civilization here on Earth.
THE answer is dealing with the impact hazard, and the mapping provided by the current mission will go a long way towards doing that.
One other key thing that the current mission will do is keep in place the resources needed to construct and maintain the CAPS (Comet and Asteroid Protection System) detectors on the Moon in the 2020’s.
If its any comfort to you, in my view, that course is about the only way that manned missions to Mars will be possible later on.
Aside from that, there will likely be a cometary debris stream in the inner solar system to deal with around 2022.
wow, can’t you get a little more pretentious, please?:D
Hi Josh –
Pretentious? I am not one of the people running around yelling at the Congress how they urgently need to spend billions in taxpayer dollars to fly a few men to Mars.
From listening to the speakers, seems to me that once again, NASA is putting forth the Asteroid Retrieval Mission, w/o any buy in from Congress, other stakeholders, potential partners,,,,just like it did once Cx was cancelled, and Flexipath was presented. Congress does not like surprises.
Poor planning and leadership from White House, NASA, etc on this.
Obama does not want the moon, because its too close to a reality, and he’d have to make commitments of goals and monies to realize it. Mars is so far away in terms of capabilities, its a safe goal that won’t require any real commitment to a mission or mission specific systems (R&D on technologies, sure, but that’s’ still a safe plan)
I think you’re right about Obama’s commitment to Mars. A speech saying you’ll be around to see the first landing on Mars is one thing, but actually formulating a plan and proposing a budget to meet that plan, and working with Congress instead of coming up with an asteroid stunt independently without consulting them, is the truly what is needed. So far I haven’t seen any evidence Obama is serious about Mars.
Where are the proposals and road plan to incrementally develop capabilities to send the first people to Mars by the 2030s? Where are the deep space missions after the asteroid stunt to prepre for the 6 month or so long journey to Mars? Where are the sample return missions to demonstrate rendezvous in Mars orbit to capture the sample canister as might be needed similarly to dock the crew ascent vehicle with the earth return vehicle, or ascent stage demonstration missions to show we can launch something from Mars’ surface, or habitation demonstration missions, or EDL demonstrations to show we can land houses on Mars and not just cars? The asteroid visit is planned for 2021, but what about the next 10 years? Where’s the stepping stone list of missions? Bolden says the asteroid stunt will require more powerful SEP systems that will be useful for Mars. Do we plan on sending humans to Mars using SEP? I hope not, otherwise we’re talking way more thn 6 months to get there. Maybe cargo could use SEP. and how does redirecting an asteroid to lunar orbit prepare us even for Mars orbit? I think it is completely unrelated to human Mars exploration nd is simply a stunt exercise to save some semblance of the original Obama asteroid mission, but it hardly does even that.
We need a deep space mission to a deep space asteroid and we need a demonstration mission on the lunar surface to test surface habitation technologies, and we need demonstration missions to Mars for the systems tht will be required to deliver crew nd cargo to Mars, as well as system to retun to Earth. In my view, we need to test systems in both deep space and on the lunr surface to test the systems that will be needed for both the journey to Mars and the stay on Mars, as well as the return. The only rationale for the asteroid retrieval is planetary defense, not Mars, and it barely even fits that bill, or retrieving th asteroid for commercial mining tests. It would be a technical feat in terms of engineering but I fail to see how it is a critical item needed for human missions to Mars.
“Where are the proposals and road plan to incrementally develop capabilities to send the first people to Mars by the 2030s? Where are the deep space missions after the asteroid stunt to prepre for the 6 month or so long journey to Mars?”
Not getting funded by Congress.
What Obama and Bolden propose doesn’t really even matter at this point, at the end of the day Congress simply isn’t serious about funding space exploration. It doesn’t matter if the administration pushes a Mars mission, an asteroid retrieval mission, or even if it caves to the Cx crowd and goes back to pushing a lunar surface mission – Congress isn’t going to give any proposal the necessary funding.
Here are Paul Spudis’ 5 minute opening remarks:
I thank the Chairman and members of the Committee for this opportunity to share my thoughts on the appropriate next steps for human exploration of space.
The past 50 years have witnessed enormous accomplishments from our national space program. We have surveyed the entire Solar System and launched hundreds of spacecraft, making us more knowledgeable, prosperous and secure. Despite this history of accomplishment, lacking a clear, long-term direction, our space program is withering away. To find a sustainable path forward, we must consider the utility and purpose of human spaceflight.
Although much can be accomplished in space using robotics, many tasks require the presence of people, who combine high-level cognitive abilities with intricate manual dexterity. I believe our long-term goal should be to possess the ability to go anywhere we choose in space, to do whatever job or study we can imagine. Such capability requires an affordable, extensible space transportation system, one built incrementally over variable time scales to prevent fluctuations in funding from preventing its completion.
There are two very different approaches to spaceflight. One conducts a public spectacle, a one-off, flags-and-footprints mission to some new and exotic destination. The other approach uses incremental, yet cumulative building blocks that enable the gradual extension of human reach beyond low Earth orbit. The former produces a media event while the latter links capability with progress and creates lasting value.
A transportation system that can access the lunar surface can also access all other points of cislunar space – the domain of nearly all the world’s satellite assets. The experience of building the International Space Station and the servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope has demonstrated that people and machines working together in space can accomplish much more than is possible through the launch of smaller, custom-built, expendable spacecraft.
Our current template of design, launch, use and eventual abandonment of space-based assets can be transformed into one of building and maintaining large, extended and distributed space systems of unprecedented power and capability. This capability will produce enormous economic and societal return – it will create new wealth, not simply consume it.
To achieve these ends, I believe that a return to the Moon to access and use its material and energy resources is the best next step for human spaceflight. The Moon is important for three reasons:
The Moon is close. It is easily and constantly accessible, while its proximity permits early development before human return, using robots remotely controlled from Earth.
The Moon is interesting. It retains a unique record of its own history and processes as well as those of the Earth-Moon system, the Sun and galaxy. This record gives us insights into the past and future of our home planet.
Most importantly, the Moon is useful. Its material and energy resources can break the logistical chains of Earth. Several recent missions have discovered and confirmed abundant water at the lunar poles, all close to locations of near-permanent sunlight. This relationship enables our long-term presence on the Moon, where we can extract water for use as life support consumables, energy storage, and most significantly – to manufacture the most powerful chemical rocket propellant known: hydrogen and oxygen.
Water, oxygen, energy and rocket fuel are vital enabling assets, provisions that will not have to be launched from the surface of the Earth, the deepest gravity well in our Solar System. Harvesting these resources from the Moon creates our first off-planet “coaling station.â€
We are not capable of sending humans to Mars now or in the near future, in either a technical or financial sense. We need a cohesive intermediate goal, one with specific, scalable activities and benefits that help assemble a permanent space faring system – a system that will open the way to Mars and all the planets. The Moon affords us this opportunity and the incentive to create such a system – a “transcontinental railroad†in space.
Included with my submitted material is an architecture showing how we can incrementally and affordably develop this system.
We went to the Moon in the 1960s to prove that it could be done; we return to the Moon 50 years later to prove that we can use its material and energy resources to create new capabilities and commerce. A cislunar transportation system, developed and powered with lunar resources will extend our reach into deep space and revolutionize the paradigm of spaceflight. This effort is not “been there, done that†– it is a wholly new, untried, and necessary pioneering enterprise in space.
I thank the Committee for its attention, I welcome your comments and thoughts and I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Thank you for posting that Anne!
IMO, the presence of large quantities of lunar ice at the poles is probably one of the most important discoveries in the history human civilization. And the probable presence of carbon and nitrogen resources at the lunar poles could be equally as important.
NASA needs to go the lunar poles to accurately quantify these resources for the government and for private industry, ASAP!
Marcel F. Williams
Good points Marcel.
Bob Clark
Add this to it, Anne:
“The lunar vicinity is an exceptional location to learn about traveling to difficult distant places…. The long communication delays to destinations beyond the Moon may mandate new techniques and procedures for spacecraft operations … in the case of severe emergencies…. For Mission Control on Earth to play an important and timely role in flight operations… communication delays with Earth are less than two seconds. [By contrast] Mission Control cannot provide a Mars crew their normal helpful advice if … the time delay of radar, communications and telemetry back to Earth is 19 minutes…. Flight experience at lunar distance can provide valuable insights into practical solutions for handling such challenges… there is much to be learned on Luna – learning to survive in the lunar environment, investigating many science opportunities, determining the practicality of extracting Helium 3 from the lunar regolith, prospecting for Palladium group metals, meeting challenges not yet identified. [Luna] leaves more than 14 million square miles yet to be explored… I support the encouragement of the newcomers toward their goal of lower-cost access to space. But having cut my teeth in rockets more than 50 years ago, I am not confident. The most experienced rocket engineers with whom I have spoken believe that it will require many years and substantial investment to reach the necessary level of safety and reliability.†– Neil Armstrong, Congressional testimony excerpt, 2020.
The future for HSF in the 21st century is Luna, not LEO, nor Mars. The Red Planet is ready made for robots in this century.
DCSCA exclaimed:
“Neil Armstrong, Congressional testimony excerpt, 2020.”
Are you saying that Armstrong had himself frozen, plans to come back to testify before Congress in 2020, and has already released the written version of what he plans on saying in the year 2020?
Or, maybe it’s just another of your egregious typo’s that detracts from the message you were trying to get across…
Okay Ron, it’s a typo- should read 2010. But his assessments are just as valid today or in 2020 and beyond. You’ve got nothing to offer but that- and your LEO toys in this discussion. Little wonder you advocate and embrace the venue that keeps going in circles, no place, fast.
DCSCA whined:
“You’ve got nothing to offer but that- and your LEO toys in this discussion. ”
Toys? You mean the internationally supported, Congressional designated National Laboratory that’s been continuously in use and occupied by U.S. personnel for over 12 years?
I remember you used to call the SpaceX Falcon 9 a “hobby rocket”. Now that it’s generated over $266M in revenue I notice that you’ve realized how wrong you were.
And what is the plan to return to the Moon? Of yeah, there isn’t one.
Remember that.
I remember you used to call the SpaceX Falcon 9 a “hobby rocketâ€. fibbed Ron.
That’s inaccurate and you know it. won’t quibble with labeling Musk a hobbyist with deep pockets.
Goalpost moving. And with each year this kind of remarks are more and more detached from reality.
We will not be going to Mars in a single launch – unless they go with my idea of Sea Dragon scaled to 10,000 metric tons to LEO
We probably won’t be going to the Moon is a single launch – even with SLS.
Future missions will be much closer to taking a space station for a spin round the solar system. The numbers for electric propulsion show and incredible increase in efficiency for getting from LEO to escape. Yes, you’ve got slow passage through the Belt – send the crew out to meet the station/ship outside the Belt.
Geo orbits and escape have very similar dV requirements – have a look at how satellite buses are going electric….
So we will be building ships in orbit, over a period of time… check them out, take them out for test flights.
a flight every other year might build such systems, but how do you support and maintain them in between?
We will not be going to Mars in a single launch
Why do you say things that are simply not true? Any vehicle that reaches escape velocity reaches Mars just fine, we’ve done it several times now.
Getting back is the problem.
Darn! Just got an idea. It’s all clear now.
Let’s launch a mission to retrieve an asteroid and bring it in Earth vicinity as a precursor to a mission to retrieve first the Moon and second Mars and bring them in Earth’s vicinity!!!!
How’s that??? Everyone is happy then!
I solved the problem. Common sense solved the problem!!!!
Yeah.
Anne Spudis said:
“Here are Paul Spudis’ 5 minute opening remarks:”
A link would have sufficed.
Paul Spudis said:
“We went to the Moon in the 1960s to prove that it could be done; we return to the Moon 50 years later to prove that we can use its material and energy resources to create new capabilities and commerce.”
I have no doubt that we can utilize “material and energy resources” from the Moon, asteroids or other places in space to do whatever we want. And the only reason we haven’t so far is that we haven’t needed them.
Do we need them to go to Mars? No, of course not, we can ship them up from Earth. But that brings up the real issue, and to me it’s about the economics of supply and demand.
If we’re going to invest so much money in a lunar ISRU venture, there must be a clear ROI attached to it. What is the break-even point compared to competition from equivalent resources from Earth? And will competition from Earth be allowed? What about competition from asteroid sources? If any free market competition is to be allowed, then why should the U.S. Taxpayer fund this at all?
The economics of lunar ISRU are not yet defined enough to commit vast sums of money. It’s a solution in search of a problem.
“Do we need them to go to Mars? No, of course not, we can ship them up from Earth.”
But you see, there’s a difference in perspective here. If you want to send armies to Mars, with kids, aunts, uncles, and grandmothers, as well as pets, I presume, having propellants and survival resources available in a low gravity environment makes some economic sense. But if you’re just sending a few people to Mars, whether to leave footprints, do science, or make a minimal outpost, it doesn’t. The key perspective here is the importance of colonization, and moving not just humans to another world, but moving societies there as well. Paul Spudis can’t get it out of his head that it’s all about colonization and settlement. That, to him, is what the Moon (and probably Mars as well, sometime later) is truly for.
As I keep saying, colonization and settlement of other worlds is NOT A NATIONAL PRIORITY. Our representatives haven’t dared come close to saying that it is. But some dazed and confused space advocates are presuming that since, in their mind, it’s the destiny of the human race to be roasting marshmallows on Mars or Europa, we need to start the moving vans rolling across the solar system, and setting up gas stations and rest stops along the way.
I think the idea of sending humans back to the Moon or to Mars is a wonderful idea. But let’s not extrapolate that capability into something that there is no consensus about, and demand that we start producing the infrastructure to serve that extrapolation.
On the contrary, I believe human space exploration is your own personal fantasy that this nation simply can no longer afford, and no longer needs. On the other hand the colonization, exploitation, industrialization paradigm is unfortunately, with the orbital debris problems, financial crisis, environmental crisis and overpopulation issues, along with the disintegrating third world political problems, is unavoidable and absolutely necessary if anything is going to be salvaged from this mess. I’m so convinced of that – I can disregard your statements entirely, sorry. You can yammer on all you want, I have enough hard science in my pocket that my opinion on this matter is not going to change and you can’t fool me.
Guest yammered:
“I believe human space exploration is your own personal fantasy that this nation simply can no longer afford, and no longer needs.”
Either you have a hard time understanding what people are saying, or you are responding to the wrong conversation.
I say that because what you wrote is in no way related to what Hiram wrote.
Get a grip.
I think the idea of sending humans back to the Moon or to Mars is a wonderful idea. But let’s not extrapolate that capability into something that there is no consensus about, and demand that we start producing the infrastructure to serve that extrapolation.
I was responding to this statement. If you have something to add to your content free comment on my response, feel free to do so. My point remains, I consider human space exploration to be a unaffordable and unnecessary fantasy that is keeping us from accomplishing the bare necessities which in my opinion is the detection of asteroids, the resource mapping of the poles of the moon and the development of reusable space launch systems and vehicles that can make the exploitation of these resources possible. The asteroids and Mars are on mission timetables and costs that are orders of magnitude below what is necessary to achieve what I believe to be national priorities on extremely urgent timetables. ULA based conventional and incremental approaches and architectures are wholly insufficient in cost and schedule as well.
Guest opined:
“I was responding to this statement.”
You think space exploration is HIS personal fantasy? And you’re saying this on the “Space Politics” forum, where the vast majority of people that come here to discuss space topics ARE in favor of space exploration. We may disagree about the where and the when, but we all agree there should be.
Except for you apparently. You continue to be the outlier among outliers. Just sayin…
Ok, fine, it’s your fantasy too, that that make you happy? To me the two most URGENT missions of space exploration are the detection of all near earth asteroids and the mapping of resources on the poles of the moon.
Somehow, I don’t think you are happy with that assessment, simply because it doesn’t satisfy your fantasies of space exploration.
Let me clarify. There is nothing wrong with personal fantasies. The problem is when personal fantasies become national fantasies, and when personal fantasies pretend to respond to national needs. In the words of Lou Friedman, ARM is “audacious and exciting”. Yep, and we all love audacious and exciting things, don’t we? Those things are wonderful! But that doesn’t constitute rationale for taxpayer expense.
Asteroid detection is indeed an urgent need. Not so sure about lunar polar resources. So what are you going to do with those resources if you find them? Well, according to Paul Spudis, you use them to send armies of people farther out into the solar system, and build cities on the Moon, which you consider unnecessary fantasy. I’ll tell you, we don’t need that water here on the Earth.
But as audacious and exciting and wonderful as I think human space flight is, I agree completely that if we can’t come up with a more compelling reason to do it, it is unaffordable and unnecessary. I think that giving every American a ton of chocolate would be audacious, exciting, wonderful, and totally unaffordable and unnecessary. Want to share personal fantasies?
Hiram said:
“I think the idea of sending humans back to the Moon or to Mars is a wonderful idea. But let’s not extrapolate that capability into something that there is no consensus about, and demand that we start producing the infrastructure to serve that extrapolation.”
Well said. And that’s why I say let the free market determine where supplies should be sourced from.
As of now, it makes economic sense to ship up propellant from Earth, if we don’t have that much activity. But setting up ISRU on the Moon implies that we have a constant and growing need for huge amounts of propellant – which we don’t have.
Going back to the Moon to set up 7-11’s and gas stations is premature, and a waste of money considering NASA can’t even afford ONE SLS-sized payload, much less a Mars-bound fleet.
“…that’s why I say let the free market determine where supplies should be sourced from.” dreams Ron.
Then CC doesn’t need $825 million from the U.S. Treasury. The’free market’ can provide all the capital requiremenrs you want. Thanks, Ron.
Put SLS out to tender. No development money. Price per mission.
Are you up for that?
No. SLS is more like a standard military procurement. We cannot spend enough on it.
“We cannot spend enough on it [SLS].”
Only if what we wish is to go nowhere in deep space.
SLS is nothing like a standard military vehicle procurement. There was no design competition. There was no prototype evaluation.
CR: “A link would have sufficed.”
Here is a link to Paul Spudis’ complete submitted statement.
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113-SY16-WState-PSpudis-20130521.pdf
Ann see my comment below. Also, Ron is right about the incorrectness of your comment that Earth has ” the deepest gravity well in our Solar System”. Jupiter’s gravity well far exceeds Earth’s as do those of three other planets. In fact technically the deepest gravity well is the Solar System is the Sun’s.
Oop’s! Meant to say Dark Blue Nine rather than Ron.
It’s because they meant the deepest gravity well with people in it.
Say what now? It is the *only* gravity well with people in it? Well. See, if we had people on the Moon that would not be true. So put people on the Moon and an industry and habitats and we won’t launch from the deepest gravity well in the Solar System with people in it. Say what? We need to launch people from the Earth to the Moon??? Let me repeat then. We launch people from the deepest gravity well in the Solar System with people in it to possibly the shallowest gravity well with people-to-be in it. We let them do whatever it is they will do and in about a thousand years, if they survive, they will launch people and vehicles from the shallowest gravity well with people in it. Say what? Where to? Well, to the Earth of course because after you’ve lived even a week on the Moon, or in the Moon (you know radiation, impacts, dust, etc), you probably would literally kill to see the Earth, an ocean, a river, a tree, have a bbq in your backyard…
Say what??? The cost? $88 billions plus change. Say what now? Unreal? Don’t be a defeatist now.
Tiresome.
Seems to me the deepest well is the one you are stuck in.
You could have been funny but it did not work. Too bad. Missed opportunity…
And, unfortunately, if we continue down the SLS path, then we won’t be returning to the Moon, going to an asteroid, Mars or anywhere else. Want NASA to go back to the Moon? Do it using the economically practical techniques mentioned in NASA, university and industry studies that don’t include SLS. Otherwise, you’re just unrealistically fantasizing.
“… provisions that will not have to be launched from the surface of the Earth, the deepest gravity well in our Solar System.”
I have a hard time putting faith in plans and cost estimates from “experts” when they can’t even get a grade school astronomy fact right.
Sigh…
http://xkcd.com/681/
Thanks for that Anne. I like that fact about Earth having the deepest gravity well in the Solar System. I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it is certainly true of bodies with a solid surface.
Bob Clark
Dr. Friedman so far is the only one talking budget reality … Here comes Dana …
Given the state of the technology in this era, developing cis-lunar ops, methods and procedures, infrastructure and hardware for long duration off-planet habitation is the next logical step outward. Building a ‘bridge between worlds’ is a worthy and exciting space project of scale and a fitting, if not inspiring endeavor for space faring nation(s) for the next 75-100 years- if not longer. And make no mistake, it will take at least that long to establish a foothold. We are alreaddy nearly half a century on from the Apollo landings. And it will take a long time to establish and sustain a permanent presence on Luna. A facility to explore and exploit the resources waiting to be doscovered, serviced by both government and commerical interests. And given the character of the powers and politics of our world in this era, it can be ‘seen’ around the globe, inviting economic participation while projecting political strength. A challenging and worthy enterprise for HSF ops in the 21st century. Mars, not so much. The Red Planet is revealing itself to be s perfect proving ground for developing long distance robotic technologies in this century.
For HSF, future is Luna, not LEO. Not Mars. Not tail-grabbing asteroids, either. It is just a ridiculous proposal to begin with. And it bears repeating– nobody gave the United Stares authority to start messing with the natural order of orbiting celestial bodies.
Memo to Marverl William.s. Well said.
Memo to Paul Spudis- “Go, baby, go.” As yuo noted, “We are not capable of sending humans to Mars now or in the near future, in either a technical or financial sense.” This is the voice or reason. And when commercialist cranks propose flybys and othe such nonsense, it just pushes HSF to Mars further into the realm of the absurd.
DCSCA prefers a ‘bridge between worlds’- a ’causeway’ as it were, to a 19th century ‘transcontinental railroad’ reference for Luna. But you’re on the mark.
Exploring and exploiting Luna is just the next logical step outward in this era given the state of the technolgies, the economics and politics of this era. Nice posting, Anne.
dream on, dcsca, dream on. your ramblings won’t change a thing…
Friedman says China has no HSF program for Moon. Spudis claims China has a “vigorous” lunar HSF program. One of these two don’t live in our reality.
Did Spudis just say we have to send our “values” to the Moon ahead of China?! Really?!
Did Spudis just say we have to send our “values†to the Moon ahead of China?! Really?!
Yes, really, Stephen. Red Moon. Friedman is just wrong. Spudis is on the right course. Or perhaps you champion the PRC hallmark9ng the most visible object in the night sky seen around the planet as theirs for this century. You do realize that roughly half the planet’s population wasn’t alive when Americans went there back in the 60’s. For all intents and purposes, it’s fresh ‘high ground’ in the here and now.
DCSCA blathered:
“Or perhaps you champion the PRC hallmark9ng the most visible object in the night sky seen around the planet as theirs for this century.”
The Chinese can’t even build a competitor to our Delta IV Heavy, and you think they are hell bent for the Moon?
What a laugh!
The Chinese can’t even build a competitor to our Delta IV Heavy, and you think they are hell bent for the Moon?
I believe that is a feature and not a bug. I’m surprised that you are suggesting that the DIVH is competitive with anything nowadays. It’s a highly specialized milsat launch vehicle that will soon go the way of the dodo bird and mammoth.
“red moon”
you’re on a roll tonight, dcsca. thanks for the laughs:D
Wow! A patriotic space scientist. Paul Spudis is apparently not the hand wringing defeatist you’ve come to expect. You must be shocked.
As far as the issue of space access is concerned, Paul Spudis has a one track mind and it’s derailed.
I sent this into the Houston Chronicle earlier today: http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2013/05/washington-is-stinting-nasa-as-usual/
Paul Spudis has the right idea. Buzz Aldrin’s ideas are not too far out either.
I am heading towards 60 years old and have given up on expecting humans to visit any new worlds during the rest of my life. My mother is 90 and mentally in good health so I hope that I can last that long. I am grateful that I was alive and paying attention during the Apollo missions and that I experienced them vicariously. I dont expect another such opportunity in the next 30 years.
I do not see that NASA has a sensible plan now. I also do not see that NASA is doing what it needs to do in order to build confidence that might result in more hard-earned budget dollars being spent in order to pursue a program that will make the necessary gains in technological capability.
I think a lot of NASA’s decision on how to spend its budget are based on fear that future programs might be cut back rather than on necessity of what is required in order to pursue the right programs today. For instance, as far as current allocations, the International Space Station is up there, in operation, functioning and has been for a dozen years. Its budget ought to be cut back or re-allocated towards developing new technologies – technologies that could make the ISS more useful in the future. I do not see that happening. The same amount of money seems to be going to ISS just to keep the same people working on the same old systems and operations. Even the integration with Shuttle and the assembly operations of a few years ago are no longer required so why is the budget still sky high? Why aren’t people being moved to new areas for new development? I suspect it is out of NASA’s fear that if it were to move dollars and people off of ISS then the dollars might not be reallocated where they are needed.
As far as the future, I see a lot of money going into the Orion MPCV today. Orion is an enlarged Apollo capsule. Its probably too large since it was so heavy they had to cut its crew size back from 7 to only 3 or 4. The smaller Apollo capsule always carried 3; it had the capability to carry 6. Dragon, Elon Musk’s commercial capsule which is supposed to be flying in a couple of years can carry 7 and has all of the capabilities of an Apollo capsule; space politicos, especially those working for the Orion’s prime contractor will tell you that Dragon was “meant†for low earth orbit and Orion is “meant†for lunar or planetary missions, but in reality that is an artificial dividing line. Musk always intended that Dragon could be used for lunar and planetary missions and Orion was originally intended to fly to the ISS just as Apollo capsules were used for several earth orbital missions together with the Apollo moon flights. But Orion has been in development now since 2005; 8 years, It has cost about $1 billion every year. It will not fly for another 8 years or longer. That is a lot of money and time for something that adds no new technological capabilities, is suffering from an inadequate design to begin with, and which is totally redundant with at least one other vehicle that could be flying much sooner. So why is the Orion/MPCV needed at all? It would only be used for a flags and footprints mission-though no footprints on any asteroids. I suspect NASA wants it only because of NASA’s fear that if it were to curtail Orion then the dollars might not be reallocated where they are needed.
And besides, why has Musk been able to field Dragon for about $700 million total in about 8 years of work, when NASA is taking twice as long and ten times as much money? Why can’t NASA work more effectively?
Another question which needs to be asked, is do we want to throw away something as large and expensive as an Orion every time it is used? It is estimated that NASA can build about 1-2 Orion’s a year at a cost of about $2 billion per vehicle. Apollo was not sustainable because we threw the entire vehicle away every mission. Apparently we have not learned anything since the 1960s?
It seems to me that if we want to go to lunar or planetary distances, a modification of the types of modules, elements and systems used for the ISS
would make a lot more sense. It is made a sortie vehicle so it can cruise from low earth orbit to higher orbits or lunar or planetary trajectories. The NASA expertise to build ISS-based modules and systems is available now-the same people who have been doing ISS. Add advanced propulsion like Chang Diaz’s electrical engines. Add and test revisions of the already functioning ISS closed loop environmental control system. This vehicle would need not be thrown away. It could cruise to higher earth orbits first and eventually to visit asteroids, orbit the moon, fly by Venus or Mars.
One of the problems with Orion is that while it might have the capability to do lunar or planetary (or asteroid) trajectories, it has no lander so people will not be landing anyplace like on Apollo. If the same sort of money that goes into developing an Orion doesnt get funneled into a manned lander until ten years from now, no one is going to land anyplace for perhaps another 15 to 20 years if development of the lander takes as long as development of Orion. And does it really make sense to throw that entire vehicle away after every mission?
A lot of NASA’s problem is an internal organizational problem. NASA’s budget dollars are mainly allocated to the programs. ISS gets a budget. Orion gets a budget. The dollars ought to be going towards systems. Environmental control and life support (ECLS) ought to be getting a big budget so that people can work on the ECLS of ISS today and once they undertsand it, can then be refocused to the advanced ECLS required for the future space mission. Similarly for spacesuits, for thermal control, for controls and displays, for human systems…that was how NASA functioned in the APollo era.
NASA does not have a good plan. NASA is not organized properly. NASA is not using the people’s money wisely or effectively. Until we see a reasonable plan and see NASA work effectively, why will anyone want to give NASA more money?
Musk has been at it for 8 years. It will be four years or more until someone has the guts to climb into a Dragon. I’d say 1960’s NASA performed much better to schedule.
amightywind said:
“It will be four years or more until someone has the guts to climb into a Dragon.”
At the Space Tech Expo two days ago Garrett Reisman of SpaceX stated that their goal remains unchanged – a crew flight test in mid-2015.
“I’d say 1960′s NASA performed much better to schedule.”
As always you forget about the money involved. If you throw enough money at a task, of course you can do it faster than if money is a scarce commodity.
For someone that purports to be a “conservative”, I guess that means “conservative” in politics only, not the fiscal sense. In the fiscal sense, you resemble a drunken sailor…
Oh no. I would have no problem cutting the budget 2 for 1 elsewhere in the budget for any increased funding for SLS.
amightywind said:
“I would have no problem cutting the budget 2 for 1 elsewhere in the budget for any increased funding for SLS.”
NASA would require AT LEAST $20-30B/year just for building the mission payloads, and that ignores the additional budget that would needed for OPERATING all that hardware.
And just to put that in simple terms, if a 450mt space station in LEO costs $3B/year to operate, imagine how much it will cost after a decade of 70-130mt mission payloads going up at a rate of 2-3 per year? That would be at least 1,400mt of hardware that needs to be supported operationally within NASA’s budget.
You have no clue what the SLS cost structure is, and your whole scheme depends on a MASSIVE increase in NASA’s budget. Congress has shown no interest in doing that.
Of course, since SLS is the most important thing to you and not real progress in space. How are things on Bizzarro World?
because your job depends on it. you could at least be honest about it, windy. draping yourself in the flag is not fooling anyone. you want your government handout and that’s all there is to it.
Well, that was self-serving.
I recorded the hearing. It’s uploading now to YouTube. It may take a while but once it’s been rendered the link will be http://youtu.be/8qXV7X5HKxg.
Just returned home … The video is rendered and online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qXV7X5HKxg.
You do understand that these videos are usually archived on the House Science website, no? Might save you some trouble. Those for Senate Commerce are also archived at the committee website. A year or two ago this was not the case. Well, right now the video for this particular hearing is offline, but I suspect it’ll be back up before long.
Herb wrote:
You do understand that these videos are usually archived on the House Science website, no? Might save you some trouble. Those for Senate Commerce are also archived at the committee website. A year or two ago this was not the case. Well, right now the video for this particular hearing is offline, but I suspect it’ll be back up before long.
You answered your own question. Archives sometimes disappear, or don’t show up on line at all. For example, try to find the webcast of the March 2012 House Appropriations subcommittee hearing in which Rep. Frank Wolf falsely accused a Chinese contract worker of being a spy, which led to the young man’s arrest. The video is not online. Was it ever there? Did Wolf have it removed? Who knows.
By archiving them on YouTube, we have a resource independent of the whims of Congress.
I record it live if I can. If it’s an archive, I download it while it’s available and upload it to YouTube. If it disappears due to Congressional shenanigans, we have an independent option that documents what happened.
I think everyone on the Senate and House committees for appropriations and space need to reread the CAIB report. Here are two quotes that seem to be repeating for SLS/Orion and Commercial.
“The Board is not convinced that NASA has completely lived up to the bargain, or that Congress and the Administration has provided the funding and support necessary for NASA to do so. This situation needs to be addressed – if the nation intends to keep conducting human space flight, it needs to live up to its part of the bargain.â€
“This chapter shows how previous political, budgetary, and policy decisions by leaders at the White House, Congress, and NASA (Chapter 5) impacted the Space Shuttle Program’s structure, culture, and safety system (Chapter 7), and how these in turn resulted in flawed decision-making (Chapter 6) for both accidents.â€
The Authorization/Appropriation committees and NASA need to be on the same page or it’s a disaster waiting to happen. It is clear that NASA doesn’t have sufficient funds to complete any grand space plans thus the catch an asteroid concept from NASA. I image the president didn’t just order this up to NASA, that NASA gave it to him. I know that many would like to see the end of ISS but the Committees haven’t had any intention to do so and the true short term cost of that isn’t public. The committees need to stop blaming the President and set a REALISTIC goal for NASA based on real budgets, maybe with some margin, I’m sure any President would get behind a REALISTIC goal. Otherwise we are going in circles and not the good kind. The only people that can give NASA money is the appropriation committees, the rest of congress will follow their parties representatives on the committees for the most part. We have two reports that point at congress as a problem CAIB and Augustine. I have lost faith in Congress since politics are more than important than action. Any congressional advisers on this blog should reread those reports assuming that they were read at least once. They do know that lives are at stake?
The Authorization/Appropriation committees and NASA need to be on the same page or it’s a disaster
waitingcontinuing to happen.Improved that. In case it hasn’t been noticed, NASA HSF’s currently in the middle stages of a train wreck.
Miles, you are probably right. Really what you are explaining is simply poor NASA management They need to get their collective head on straight, figure out what they need to do, and figure out how to go do it. Instead we are all still suffering under the legacy of the previous Administrator’s knee jerk reaction to try and re-create Apollo redux. Until they figure out that is the wrong model, NASA and the US are going no place-not going very fast, and wasting a lot of money.
“Miles, you are probably right. Really what you are explaining is simply poor NASA management.” suggests Guest.
Indeed. This was being pointed out by the Apollo er managers as far back as 1989 in open forums and discussions groups. The shuttle era dead wood has to go.
Yes and no.
The problem is the entire Congressional-Senatorial-Executive-Branch-Industrial-Nexus.
In this structure, a program survives on the following
1) Jobs created in the right place.
2) Political value
3) Usefulness
In that order.
Remember how the B-2 was built in all 50 states? A bit of the pie for everyone.
So, if you are running a company, a 10 billion dollar program and spreading it around so that only 500 million stays in house is better than a billion dollar in house program to do the same thing. The billion dollar program won’t get the votes….
Cutting costs is literally going against the system. Success is an option.
What’s wrong with a rocket to nowhere? A rocket to somewhere might cost less and that would mean less votes in the system. A rocket to nowhere *is better*.
After listening to today’s hearings it seems quite certain that history is going to repeat itself wrt lack of funds to carry out the future of HSF. And now commercial crew is an entrant into this dysfunctional history repeating game as the CC budget is slowly being short thrifted
And why does history repeat itself even though all participants of the game whine about how it’s been ? Because the best way to prove what happened was wrong is to repeat it. And so Congress and NASA and the White House continually repeat History.
I am so glad we place so much emphasis on learning from our history so we don’t repeat it.
James said:
“And why does history repeat itself even though all participants of the game whine about how it’s been ?”
Because the politicians that fund these dead-end programs are not losing anything when the programs fail. All that matters is that their constituents make money somehow. In fact, the politicians that originally voted for the programs may no longer be in Congress, so they could care less about the outcomes
This whole hearing is an out-of-touch theater of the absurd.
Orion MPCV is 5,000 pounds too heavy for its parachute. Of course, it’s doubtful Orion MPCV will ever get that close to finishing its mission cycle, since NASA doesn’t understand the cracking in Orion MPCV’s heatshield and Orion MPCV is another 1,200 pound too heavy at launch.
NASA can’t produce a cost estimate for SLS beyond its first mission, doesn’t know whether SLS can meet NASA’s human rating requirements, and doesn’t even know whether the SSMEs can meet SLS needs.
Congress has an independent report from the Government Accountability Office detailing these problems:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-276SP
And this litany of major technical issues exists despite a combined 11 years of development (8 for Orion MPCV and 3 for SLS) and billions and billions of taxpayer dollars wasted.
So instead of dealing with the civil space program’s real issues — a broken capsule design, a rudderless HLV project, and no funding for any actual space exploration hardware after paying for these jokes of development management prowess — what does the leadership of the House Science Committee decide to do?
Hold a hearing on which is the better path to sending humans to Mars: an $88 billion Moon base to be developed 17 years from now for which no budget has been provided in NASA’s runout or a $2.5 billion (and climbing) robotic mission to guide a 7-meter space rock into orbit around the Moon for which only $100 million has been provided in NASA’s runout.
Way to deal with reality, Congress. Way to deal with reality.
Take heart: maybe it won’t matter what NASA does, or does not do (apart from the possible waste of tax dollars). If the private sector can find a viable market for space travel and space industry, then NASA may become irrelevant to — or at most a bit player in — America’s (human) future in space. Is this bad news or good news?
We all know that NASA is a terribly dysfunctional agency, and some of this dysfunction isn’t even their fault: they are slaves to a fickle Congress and a disinterested Executive. The JWST debacle is only the latest example of NASA’s inability to properly manage large projects or contain costs, which in turn makes a skeptical Congress even more skeptical. And this siuation doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon. Nevertheless: NASA is what we’ve got, at least in the public sector. If we want the public sector to drive America’s push into space, then a comprehensive re-think of NASA is mandatory. And Congress finally needs to fund NASA commensurate with the tasks the agency is being asked to achieve. (But this presupposes a NASA that can accurately forecast costs, which so far has not been the case.) NASA is going to have to become far less risk-averse, more entrepreneurial, and more agile.
But governmental bureaucracies resist change, and NASA is no different in that respect. So I personally look to the private sector for the really interesting stuff. It’s still premature to talk of a truly private space industry since most spending on space is still done by governments, but that may change in the next decade. Technology and costs may finally have reached an inflection point where companies can profitably exploit near-earth space. And the great thing is that there doesn’t really need to be any overarching plan or ethos: the act of industrialization will open new avenues, just as it always has in the past. New markets will present themselves, new technologies will emerge, and companies will emerge to fill those voids. That’s always been the way of things — commerce has driven exploration from the very first, from the Silk Road to the circumnavigation of the ocean to the colonization of the new world.
So while I wish NASA was less of a disaster-area, I do not despair because now there are private-sector alternatives. Who are not beholden to a schizophrenic Congress or hostile Executive.
“Way to deal with reality, Congress. Way to deal with reality.”
See you have it all wrong.
Congress deals with vision (some may even say visions and the cynical among them may even say hallucinations), the future and what is best for our nation.
Only people deal with reality, most often the reality imposed upon them by Congress.
Excerpt below of Congress best practices with reality:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/11/health-care-law-repeal_n_1666917.html
“their efforts to repeal the law have come at a major cost to taxpayers — to the tune of nearly $50 million.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57479021-503544/cbo-health-care-repeal-would-cost-$109-billion/
“CBO: Health care repeal would cost $109 billion”
Florida Today on yesterday’s hearing:
“Mars Mission Sparks Stepping-Stone Debate”
“Money is important Marcel. Remember that.”
President Obama inherited an $8.4 billion manned spaceflight related budget from George Bush ($3 billion for the Space Shuttle, $2 billion for the ISS, $3.4 billion for the Constellation program).
But only about $3 billion a year is currently being spent of the SLS/MPCV program. Another $3 billion is being spent on the ISS. $800 million a year is supposed to be spent for commercial crew development starting in 2014.
Once the ISS and Commercial crew funding ends at the end of the decade, the beyond LEO program should have more than $6 billion annually for lunar development and operations. That should be plenty of money– if lunar water resources are utilized.
Only continuing the ISS program beyond 2020 would keep NASA trapped at LEO.
Marcel F. Williams
You know, I am having a hard time with your continuing nonsense.
How often do you need to be told that it is Congress that decides where the money goes? How often???????? How do you want President Obama to affect decisions made by Congress on their own?
You cannot be *that* thick.
Marcel F. Williams said:
“Once the ISS and Commercial crew funding ends at the end of the decade, the beyond LEO program should have more than $6 billion annually for lunar development and operations.”
You only talk about how much money will be available, but that is not the problem – it’s how much money the SLS requires to do anything.
The elephant in the room today is how much it will cost to build SLS-sized payloads. I’ve asked many SLS supporters (including you), and none of them will provide an estimate, educated or not, for how much SLS-sized mission payloads will cost to develop and support operationally (just like the ISS, you have to support on-going missions with NASA money).
Based on current NASA programs, I have estimated that SLS-sized missions will cost at least $10B each and take up to 10 years to develop, build, test and be ready for launch. Both of those estimates are likely to be on the low side, but let’s see what it takes us.
Since NASA says it needs to fly the SLS at least 2-3 times per year to keep up it’s operational competency (otherwise they start losing a higher % of flights to mistakes), the math works out to a budget need of $20-30B/year for SLS payloads. And that doesn’t account for the operational budget needs for all those SLS missions either.
So while you think $6B is enough, it’s not. Not while NASA is locked into the SLS.
What does everyone think – too high, too low? Provide details.
Give him a break. I can conceive of an affordable payload for SLS that will help stun the world with the performance of that magnificent rocket. The Chinese will bow at our feet. (Isn’t that what it’s all about?) Concrete is about $100/ton, so a few thousand dollars will fill up an SLS nicely. Just have to figure out what to do with it when we get it into LEO. Ooooh, we could put it into a deep retrograde orbit around the Moon and send astronauts to put footprints on it, and maybe even wrap their arms around it. They could plant flags, and try to mine it. It all fits.
“send astronauts to put footprints on it”
Another unrealistic goal. Pleeeaaasse. If you use rapid setting concrete it will never happen – I mean footprints. Another NASA mission with no proper requirements. Can’t you guys get your act together? For once?
Oh and by the way try to plant a flag on concrete here on Earth as a precursor mission and then come back and tell us how easy it will be in space.
Unbelievable.
No, no. You bring a concrete drill for the flag! We are serious, here.
And for footprints, just smear some ink on your EVA boots. Of course for a microgravity asteroid, that’s the only way you’ll leave footprints anyway, unless you launch yourself at a dusty surface.
Look, NASA needs a rock badly. It needs a big, nearby, and accessible rock badly. Fulfilling a presidential directive depends on having that rock. But NASA is building the launcher that will serve that need, and Charlie is quietly drooling over the prospect. Let’s honor the strategic wisdom of the Senate leaders who understood this need, and their sly planning for SLS that leaves no funding wedge for a more functional payload.
“No, no. You bring a concrete drill for the flag! We are serious, here.”
Yeah, serious about escalating cost… That kind of serious.
Your mission is not properly defined several posts (possibly hundreds of minutes or even hours) into development and you just realized you needed a drill. It’s like saying we built a LAS and then realized years later you actually need to save the crew!
Call that requirements on the go I suppose.
When will you learn?
Well, c’mon. No future BEO human space flight mission has ever been “properly defined”. The idea is that, armed with flags, we’re going to go, you know, explore. Whatever that means. Forget the drill. Our astronauts will have g-picks on their belts, and they will whack and whack at the concrete until they triumphantly knock out a hole big enough to hold a flag. Of course, on a chunk of concrete, you don’t even need a hole to hold a flag. It’ll just stand there by itself and formation fly with the chunk. Just don’t let it rotate, and don’t sneeze.
But the SLS is thus justified as a concrete hauler. Hey, you could stir some rare-earths into the concrete before it hardens just to sweeten the deal.
Look, this plan is audacious and exciting. Louis Friedman would go nuts over it. But we don’t need to ask anyone about it. We don’t need to achieve any sort of consensus or develop any solid rationale for it. That’s unimportant these days. What we desperately need (as NASA AA Lightfoot is hilariously reported on today as supporting … http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/05/nasa_associate_administrator_r_1.html) is something to do with SLS while we’re waiting for Mars and, of course, a rock under our control to serve a presidential directive.
Well, OK, with a 50mT limit for BEO application, I think that means we’re only talking about a 4 meter chunk of concrete. But it’ll make Orion look big!
Okay then I guess you make some sense.
So if such is the case then I want to offer my option again. We use the asteroid retrieval mission as a precursor mission to effectively retrieving the Moon, and in the distant future Mars, to bring it to a nearby Earth orbit. In such a way you can use the SLS to beyond-sub-orbital flight (you know, SLS-X kind of, you wouldn’t really need the SSMEs to perform all that well) and appease all parties: The NEO fans (no not the Matrix kind), the lunatics and the martians.
Of course, the question remains about the drill. But seriously now, do you really need a drill? As you so aptly demonstrated flag and rock can possibly formation flight. The Moon has dust and so has Mars, with a big enough shove you don’t need a drill.
I have to say that I like the idea we are actually making progress on this mission and with innovative thinking finally starting to save some cost.
Thanks.
Marcel, the US doesn’t own ISS unlike the Shuttle or Freedom so we cannot just dictate that we will pull all our money and support from it without creating some very bad blood among our partners. The decommissioning of ISS will be a joint process that will likely happen post 2020, on top of that we have contracts with US vendors that would need to be resolved and cancellation fees may apply. In sum, ISS isn’t going anywhere.
Commercial space is the only way we will settle the solar system and SLS/Orion isn’t commercially viable. They can do interesting missions, given the money but they cannot sustain a growing presence in space. NASA can either facilitate commercial growth in space in a big way; give it a little trickle or none at all. The amount resources that NASA devotes to commercial space will determine the speed of expansion with no support taking the longest. NASA is currently trickling money into Commercial, which is working since the Commercial companies don’t solely depend on NASA for money. The SLS/Orion program depend nearly 100% on NASA finances to survive. That’s just scary with all the budget pressures.
I know I’m whistling into the wind but that last hearing has me banging my head against a wall.
Refer CR post above. SLS can’t do ‘interesting missions’ due to the aforementioned lack of funding.
I hope that commercial space will be able to settle the solar system but there is currently only one individual in that space who has publicly gone on record as wanting that done. No one else to the best of my knowledge has stated such a thing.
I don’t count Mars One in that since they aren’t commercial.
Cheers.
The NASA-Bigelow collaboration for private sector Moon programs had a big press conference today in D.C.:
“Bigelow Aerospace to Study Moon Base in Deal With NASA”
“Destination Moon: Private Spaceflight Companies Eye Lunar Bases”
You just know the Congressional space subscommittees are going to wig out over this. How dare NASA take away their SLS pork by letting the private sector do it cheaper, safer and faster?
Expect outraged hearings in the next few weeks, boys and girls.
And who is going to be made pay for all of this?
Another article, this one from Florida Today:
“NASA, Bigelow Partner to Study Opportunities for Space Exploration”
Gregori wrote:
And who is going to be made pay for all of this?
If you read the article, it would be a group of private companies banding together to produce a private vehicle capable of taking a customer beyond Earth orbit, possibly to land on the Moon. The customer might be NASA, other nations, or private interests. Obviously the private companies have expressed a willingness to invest in this as they see a market for it, NASA or no NASA.
its all hawking their wares to governments because no business case for private spaceflight
Gregori said:
“its all hawking their wares to governments because no business case for private spaceflight”
Not much of one at today, that’s for sure. At least not beyond rockets, which the private sector does indeed dominate.
But that’s today, and if humanity is to ever expand out into space, it’s going to be because of a combination of both public and private money.
And maybe you haven’t noticed, but there is a plethora of companies that are in fact trying to find business cases for space related activities. Some want to satisfy firm government needs (supplies and crew for the ISS), some purely private (sub-orbital tourism).
I think Bigelow is a good example of what the future will end up looking like, where he is taking technology that NASA couldn’t develop and deploy, and Bigelow is commercializing it for a mixture of potential customers, including NASA itself.
Since NASA’s budget is far too meager to expand our (currently) permanent foothold out into space by itself, the only way we’ll do it is with the help of the private sector and other governments.
So in my view, those that aren’t rooting for the private sector to succeed, are not hoping humanity expands out into space.
Yeah, NASA great at press conferences. Pity they can’t be great at their real work.
Ok, my comment was done as a spur of the moment one and I’ve now looked at the articles referenced by Stephen.
Interesting. Perhaps some in NASA are smarter than the average bear and are seeking to move ahead in spite of what some in Congress may want.
Although I favour a direct approach to Mars, I can see how this approach could be a stepping stone provided it doesn’t detract from Mars as a near-term objective. It’s going to eat some funds but it may provide some useful systems and process development that can then be transferred to the Mars scene.
I guess I’d just like to see some progress.
NASA isn’t going anywhere near Mars for at least a few decades (barring some major breakthrough or huge funding increase). I think that both NASA and enthusiasts here on the ground need to reconcile themselves to that fact. It’s not a technology issue, it’s funding. There just isn’t the money or political will for a Mars mission any time soon. And, frankly, NASA at present is far too dysfunctional to oversee such a vast project even if it were funded. If you count bureaucracy as a kind of technology that needs to be matured — and I do — then NASA is nowhere near ready to tackle a Mars mission.
I’m not even sure they’re up to the asteroid mission, come to that. I’m almost certain that SLS development is going to stall, and Orion is already deep into development hell. If even everything goes perfectly, we won’t see human beings riding an SLS/Orion stack into space until 2020 or so, and things are certain not to go perfectly. So we’re probably not looking at a sigificant BEO mission capability from NASA until well into the next decade. Which means we’ll be well into another Presidential Administration by then, and we all know how much Presidents love to kill their predecessors’ space projects.
That’s why private-sector development of cislunar space is so vital. If companies can learn how to operate in space and start doing actual resource extraction, refining, and industrial production, then technology will race ahead by leaps and bounds — that’s always been the case historically, and I have no doubt that it will be true here as well. NASA will benefit from these technology innovations, just as private industry has benefited from NASA R&D over the years.
I think it is going to be the private sector and not NASA that leads the way deeper into the solar system, driven by the strongest lure of all: profit.
NASA isn’t going anywhere near Mars for at least a few decades
With humans, I meant to say. I expect they’ll keep sending robots there.
I’ve listened to the press conference twice and here’s some take-aways I got.
Gerst expects ISS to last till 2028 but before then it will become mostly commercially run with NASA only using parts of its capability. He hopes whatever is going to come online after ISS will be online before ISS is splashed so there is no break in capability. But whatever is coming online won’t be run by NASA. The impression was that NASA intends to leave LEO, Orbital Facilities, and the Moon to commercial with NASA focusing on asteroids and Mars.
If Bigelow can come up with a really good Moon plan, using his habs and other commercial assets, NASA may help out and play a small part but not take the lead.
After talking to other commercial players (SpaceX and etc.) Bigelow is satisfied there will be more than one 70+ ton lifter online by the time he needs it to lift his big habs.
There’s a whole lot more and my interpretations might not suit some so you are encouraged to listen to the press conference yourself.
Thanks, JimNobles, for the summary … I’ve been trying to find a recording online but so far no joy.
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I’ve been trying to find a recording online but so far no joy.
I believe this is where I got it:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/23338469/Bigelow+and+NASA+Press+Conference.zip
It’s one of those gaming file sites so there’s some minor hoops and annoyances.
Thanks, that worked. I appreciate the reference.
KLAS TV in Las Vegas, which broke the story in March, has a video report on the deal:
“I-Team: NASA, NLV Aerospace Co. to Explore Space Together”
This story ties directly into the original topic of the thread. NASA’s strategy is to turn over LEO and lunar activity to the private sector as the primary contractor, with NASA a possible customer. NASA will do the asteroid/Mars thingie.
Like I said … Congress is going to flip out.
“Congress is going to flip out.”
Let them flip out. There’s no money in the federal budget for expanded space projects, ergo NASA is going to have to live with fairly small budgets for the foreseeable future. SLS, as currently constituted, is going to gobble up a lot of that budget to no very good purpose.
I’m not a huge fan of the asteroid mission, though — it’s basically a make-work mission to give the SLS/Orion stack somewhere to go once it’s finished. It won’t really do anything to advance the state of the art in terms of human space flight, or to prepare us for an eventual Mars mission. The private sector is where asteroid missions get interesting because there’s a profit motive in ISRU; companies can mine the asteroids for both volatiles (water, air, fuel, etc.) and metals (platinum-group metals, even iron and nickel). NASA doesn’t really have much to offer here except for moral support and to act as a customer for space-based resources (buying rocket fuel from space-based depots?).
I don’t know why NASA is so down on the moon, other than the cost. If the ultimate goal is to put people (not just robots) on Mars, the Moon is an obvious and essential first step. We want to accustom human beings to living and working not just in space, but on planetary bodies, and asteroids do not offer that. The moon does. The mission isn’t about science or resource-extraction; it’s about engineering and building the capability for robust and extended human operation in space.
But…the cost. America is broke and getting more so. NASA’s budget is flat and will remain so. The question at this point is whether the SLS/Orion stack is worth the investment. If NASA is truly going to defer LEO and cis-lunar operations to the private sector (and yay for them if that’s true), then they need to get out of the lifter business. If the Orion will work with an Atlas V or Delta IV Medium/Heavy or Falcon 9 Heavy, perhaps the SLS should just be killed and the money re-dedicated to other areas of the manned space program.
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I don’t know why NASA is so down on the moon, other than the cost.
I think if it was 10 or 15 years ago they’d be happy to do the moon stuff using all that awesome moon equipment they designed prototypes for. But now that they don’t have the money and it doesn’t look like they are going to get it they apparently decided to leave lunar to commercial and do the outer-system exploration stuff instead. Must have been quite a blow to all those in NASA who’ve been working on Lunar related stuff all these years.
But realistically, NASA probably would never have enough money to do a proper job of developing resources on the moon. I guess if it can be done commercial will have to do it.
and do the outer-system exploration stuff instead.
And now they don’t have the money to do that, either. One of the things we’ve learned recently is that NASA jumped at the ARM idea because it avoids the need to develop a deep space habitat, which there is no funding for.
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One of the things we’ve learned recently is that NASA jumped at the ARM idea because it avoids the need to develop a deep space habitat, which there is no funding for.
I noticed Bigelow was practically begging NASA to use one of his BA 330s. Bragging about how NASA wouldn’t have to put any R&D money into it at all. Even bragging that the the next bigger ones wouldn’t involve any NASA R&D money either. I wonder how much one of those Bad Boys goes for?
“If the ultimate goal is to put people (not just robots) on Mars, the Moon is an obvious and essential first step.” says Monty.
Yep. But this has little to do with NASA and everything to do with the national character of the United States and it’s lack of a fundamental ratrionale for HSF in the 21st century. Everything flows from that.
It may just be that the nature of American culture lacks the conditions necessary for that kind of proactive rationale to take root. The rest of the world plays soccer, too. American space efforts have always been reactive, not proactive. And so far into this century, there’s little evidence that mind set has changed.
DCSCA said:
“It may just be that the nature of American culture lacks the conditions necessary for that kind of proactive rationale to take root. ”
Considering that we have lots of research & development to do before we can be ready for long-term exploration beyond LEO, the ISS is a good example of proactive space activity.
The SLS is purportedly “proactive”, but it’s not since we won’t need that kind of capability for decades, and no potential customers were advocating for it.
“American space efforts have always been reactive, not proactive.”
Apollo was a political effort, and tied to the Cold War, so it could be considered reactive.
However the Shuttle was attempt to utilize the Apollo workforce capability to build transportation infrastructure. The ISS is certainly proactive, since it exists to solve the problems related to future space exploration. Lastly, the Constellation program certainly wasn’t “proactive” but an bungled attempt to carry out the VSE, but the VSE was an attempt to lay out a plan multi-decade plan for our space exploration.
We can do better of course, and we’ll need to if we’re going to maximize our ability to expand out into space, but where parochial government interests are concerned inefficiency is not unusual.
“Destination Moon…” etc., etc. says Stephen. A work of science fiction, just like the film from 65 years ago, that championed a private enterprised effort to get to Luna. Of course, that business plan had them turnning a profit by finding uranium.
Florida Today published my editorial letter about Tuesday’s hearing:
“Affordable 21st-century space program needed”
Read it. A lucid and eloquent rebuttal of Posey’s nonsense.
“Read it. A lucid and eloquent rebuttal of Posey’s nonsense.”
Except it’s not.
“In current dollars, Apollo would have cost about $150 billion” cries Stephen. Over a decade or so. ($25 billion in 1960’s dollars.) 1960’s technology, too, Stephen/Rick.
In current dollars, a 23 inch Admiral color television set Americans could have watched Apollo on in their living rooms would have cost about $2,100.( That’s $350 in 1960’s dollars.) 1960’s technology, too, Stephen/Rick.
Today in an era of trillion dollar deficits, the United States spends $2 BILLION/WEEK on the Afghanistan war alone- a war that has been going on for over a decade or so. Or roughly more than the average annual cost of Project Apollo over a decade, using your number, in less than EIGHT WEEKS.
This country spends a half billion dollars on a single F-22 fighter and $ 2 billion on a a single B-2 bomber, both costed out for possible loss in conflict and/or accident. And American women spend $7 billion/year just on cosmetics. Injecting $150 billion for a government program over ten years into the national economy stimulating the technologies in the associated industries, sub-contractors and affialiated businesses makes Apollo look like a bargain today.
Yes, Stephen, what this country needs is a good 5-cent cigar. =eyeroll=
God, I want to try some of what you are smoking. How much Apollo cost, how much we spend on military aircraft and women’s cosmetics have nothing to do with what we should be doing with NASA’s current budget. Stephen just brought the Apollo amount up to show how improbable such a mega-program is under today’s circumstances. It certainly doesn’t mean we should be spending billions more of that budget than we need to on SLS when there are more options that are more economically practical.
I agree with the main thrust of your letter to the editor that an Apollo rerun is not budgetarily realistic or responsible (or valuable from a policy or technical viewpoint). But this statement:
“give birth to an asteroid mining industry”
Is not supported by NASA’s approach to this initiative. NASA is not planning to undertake the small, robotic, precursor missions that would be necessary to ensure that an asteroid appropriate for resource extraction testing or exploitation is retrieved. Even Lightfoot admitted in his budget presentation that NASA is just going to grab whatever NEO is retrievable by 2021 based on ground observations.
So you know, as more planetary scientists weigh in, the Keck plan is also looking less and less feasible. This Science article is behind a paywall, but per this excerpt, the community has doubts even about the observation campaign being successful:
“The problem is twofold, scientists say. A suitable candidate must meet stringent criteria: It can’t be too big, too massive, spinning too fast, or too oblong. In addition, its orbit must bring it back to the vicinity of Earth in the early 2020s in order to meet NASA’s 2025 goal.
Then there’s the brief window of opportunity available. All the characteristics of a suitable candidate must be determined in the few days or a week between when a passing tiny asteroid is discovered and when it moves beyond the range of the telescopes and radar needed for its characterization.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6133/668.full
FWIW…
Dark Blue Nine wrote:
Is not supported by NASA’s approach to this initiative. NASA is not planning to undertake the small, robotic, precursor missions that would be necessary to ensure that an asteroid appropriate for resource extraction testing or exploitation is retrieved.
Not true, simply because NASA hasn’t decided yet what the specifics will be. The budget proposal asked for the money to start work on deciding the details. Anything on paper right now is what NASA refers to as “notional.”
Furthermore, I think your logic is like saying that Mercury will be a waste of time because it doesn’t immediately do Apollo. The 2021 mission is the first step.
So you know, as more planetary scientists weigh in, the Keck plan is also looking less and less feasible.
They’re not doing the Keck plan. The Keck plan was the inspiration. But they’re not doing the Keck plan.
Look, I realize the SLS is a dog. We’re stuck with it. Until the day arrives when Congress wises up, I’d prefer to at least have some sort of specific use for it. Personally, I find it embarrassing to tell taxpayers all about SLS and then have to explain it has no mission or destination. I want to be able to say it’s going to be used for something.
I’ll also note that, anecdotally, as I talk to people about it in general the public seems excited by the idea. For example, one person from the Midwest yesterday exclaimed, “That’s very cool!” I get to see a cross-section of people from across the nation and the world. The latter don’t count because they don’t pay taxes here or vote, but the domestic feedback I get is very positive.
NASA’s original purpose was to develop new technologies that could be passed on to the private sector, even if that technology changes. NASA might even do research that shows a particular approach doesn’t work, which means the private sector won’t waste money on it.
I see the general idea in the spirit of what NASA was created to do. Let’s Congress to buy off on the idea, and we can work out the specifics later.
The alternative is we keep pouring money into the SLS sinkhole with no use for it.
Yesterday’s NASA-Bigelow teleconference suggests that, by decade’s end, the private sector will take over anyway. We’ll see when the final report is issued, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find that Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are interested in partnering with Bigelow and a commercial crew company to do a follow-up to whatever NASA does with the asteroid initiative. My guess is the partnership will give direction to NASA about what information they will need, so NASA will do the early work and pass along their results to the private sector.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bigelow and his colleagues haven’t been in on the whole asteroid initiative thingie from the beginning.
“Not true, simply because NASA hasn’t decided yet what the specifics will be.”
They have. The Associate Administrator presented NASA’s “FY 2014 Asteroid Strategy” in an 11-slide presentation as part of the budget rollout. The strategy has a lot of specifics from which ground telescopes will be used to the power range of the solar-electric propulsion system to the year-by-year schedule. Only small parts of this strategy have any qualifiers.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/740684main_LightfootBudgetPresent0410.pdf
Nowhere in this presentation is any role reserved for commercial asteroid mining interests, even in the most blindingly obvious areas.
For example, it’s long-established public knowledge that the two companies interested in asteroid mining, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, both have microsat telescopes as the first step in their business plans. NASA needs to find a very small, faint, near-Earth asteroid with the right size, trajectory, and spin. It’s painfully evident that NASA should leverage these microsat telescopes towards finding that magical NEO — while also supporting PR and DSI’s establishment — by buying data from these firms’ telescopes, purchasing copies of these firms’ telescopes, or another mechanism. But does NASA’s strategy baseline such an approach?
Of course not. Instead, NASA is going to build its own instrument and deploy it on a GEO comsat. (See slide #5. No doubt the Administration already had to promise Mikulski that the instrument will be built by GSFC.)
Leveraging PR and DSI’s microsat telescopes towards NASA’s sub-7m NEO search is the straightforward first step in supporting the development of a commercial NEO mining industry. Everything after that gets harder, more complex, and more expensive. If NASA can’t even put that simple first step on paper in its “Asteroid Strategy”, it’s hard to see how the agency will do anything substantive to help develop this nascent industry. And after the Associate Administrator publicly rolled out that “Asteroid Strategy” as part of the Administration’s official budget release and then briefed it to Congressional staff, no one in NASA is going to reverse those details.
“They’re not doing the Keck plan. The Keck plan was the inspiration. But they’re not doing the Keck plan.”
Reread the excerpt from the Science magazine article. The planetary science community thinks that the NEO parameters are too narrow — that such a NEO cannot be found with reasonable resources in a reasonable timeframe. That’s a fact of nature and how telescopes work — it’s not anything specific to the Keck plan.
“Look, I realize the SLS is a dog.”
This has nothing to do with SLS. SLS and MPCV aren’t needed for this mission. Assuming some miracle occurred and NASA was able to redirect a NEO to lunar orbit for less than $3 billion, NASA astronauts could visit that NEO in a modified Dragon launched on a Falcon Heavy. Golden Spike, Inspiration Mars, Georgia Tech, ULA, etc. have all shown in spades that SLS and MPCV aren’t needed and are needlessly expensive for this class of human space exploration missions.
The problem with the asteroid retrieval mission is that it’s an utter waste to spend $2.6 billion-plus of taxpayer dollars on an activity that is ostensibly about:
— extending human space exploration when it will not travel substantively farther than Apollo 8 travelled;
— improving planetary defense when it sucks resources away from large hazardous NEOs towards one, very small, non-hazardous NEO;
— advancing planetary science when this mission has never appeared in a planetary decadal survey and the planetary science budget is getting cut to pay for this mission; and
— commercial asteroid mining when NASA does not plan to leverage even the earliest and most obvious capabilities of the nascent asteroid mining industry and the Associate Administrator has ruled out the caution needed to retrieve a NEO of commercial interest.
The asteroid retrieval mission is so bone-headed in its stupidity that it’s not worth pursuing even with MPCV on an EELV Phase 2 or DragonRider on a Falcon Heavy. Adding SLS makes the mission even dumber (as hard as that is to believe), but SLS doesn’t make the mission stupid in the first place.
“Personally, I find it embarrassing to tell taxpayers all about SLS and then have to explain it has no mission or destination. I want to be able to say it’s going to be used for something.”
Taxpayers should be told the truth — that SLS and MPCV aren’t necessary to execute the asteroid retrieval mission.
Don’t fool yourself. Even if you like the asteroid retrieval mission, SLS and MPCV aren’t on its critical path.
“I’ll also note that, anecdotally, as I talk to people about it in general the public seems excited by the idea. For example, one person from the Midwest yesterday exclaimed, “That’s very cool!†I get to see a cross-section of people from across the nation and the world. The latter don’t count because they don’t pay taxes here or vote, but the domestic feedback I get is very positive.”
I recommend you tell the public that something approaching $3 billion of their tax dollars will be spent to redirect a rock to lunar orbit that will likely be smaller than the space capsule that visits it and then see how “positive” their reactions are.
“NASA’s original purpose was to develop new technologies that could be passed on to the private sector”
Agreed. But there’s only two new technologies involved in this mission: high-power solar-electric propulsion and a mechanism to grapple large objects in space. You don’t need to spend $3 billion or retrieve a very small NEO to develop and flight test either of those technologies. The high-power SEP could be a stand-alone satellite or space probe in the low-hundreds of millions of dollars. The grappling mechansim could be tested on a large piece of orbital debris like spent rocket stages for an order of magnitude less than that. By definition, technology development should be a lean and mean process that tries and fails or succeeds quickly — not something that gets bogged down in a multi-billion dollar operational human space flight mission.
NACA didn’t test new airfoils by flying WWII bomber crews over Berlin.
“The alternative is we keep pouring money into the SLS sinkhole with no use for it.”
Again, you don’t need SLS or MPCV for this mission. They still have no use.
“In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bigelow and his colleagues haven’t been in on the whole asteroid initiative thingie from the beginning.”
You’re just smoking dope, here. Bigelow has repeatedly made it clear that his human space exploration goal is a lunar surface base and that he thinks poorly of the asteroid retrieval mission. Here’s one quote:
“Bigelow Aerospace to Study Moon Base in Deal With NASA
… Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune in budget hotels and has bet $500 million on his space venture, said the asteroid mission is ‘a distraction to other more efficacious missions that NASA should focus on.'”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-23/bigelow-aerospace-to-study-moon-base-in-deal-with-nasa.html
FWIW…
Hi DBN –
I do love the way that “planetary scientists” decide that asteroids and comet fragments are not part of planetary science.
It is also very interesting to watch the amount of effort “enthusiasts” put into criticzing this program.
They appear to think that if this program is not pursued, money will be “freed” for the goal they desperately want.
That exactly parallels the way that supporters of Musk’s effort assume that if SLS is shut down, money will be “freed” for SpaceX.
In my view, this program as it now sits is within the current budget and enjoys general support of all of the tax payers, and not just enthusiasts of either manned flith to Mars or manned flight to the Moon.
In the meantime, I wish tht the critics of this program would stop making falaceous claims about the impact hazard and impactor searches in their arguments.
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That exactly parallels the way that supporters of Musk’s effort assume that if SLS is shut down, money will be “freed†for SpaceX.
I think you meant to say that supporters of SLS assume that if ISS and Commercial Crew were stopped then the money would automatically go to SLS.
“I do love the way that ‘planetary scientists’ decide that asteroids and comet fragments are not part of planetary science.”
They’ve never decided to exclude asteroids and comets from planetary science. In fact, the most recent planetary decadal survey, setting planetary science goals the years 2013-2022, has an entire chapter dedicated to asteroid and comet objectives (Chapeter 4: Primitive Bodies). And the survey recommended a Comet Surface Sample Return and a Trojan Tour and Rendezvous as priority flight mission. Asteroids and comets also show up as priorities in the recommended ground programs. See:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13117
For someone who whines at length about small bodies, you don’t know squat about the research actually being pursued in this area.
“In my view, this program as it now sits is within the current budget”
It’s not. The Keck study lays out a $2.6 billion mission, not including the SLS/MPCV rendezvous. The Administration has only budgeted $100 million in FY14. The remaining $2.5 billion is missing from the budget runout (FY15-18).
“and enjoys general support of all of the tax payers [sic]”
You contacted each and every U.S. “tax payer [sic]” about this?
Really?
“I wish tht the critics of this program would stop making falaceous [sic] claims about the impact hazard and impactor searches in their arguments…”
There is no “impact hazard” associated with the NEO retrieval mission. A 7-meter (or smaller) asteroid poses no hazard to anyone on Earth. Don’t make up lies.
And if you’re going to accuse other people of “making falaceous [sic] claims” then you should learn how to spell the word “fallacious”.
Lawdy…
I’d also point out that just last month, the Deputy Administrator publicy promised a workshop in June on how to best leverage the private sector in its asteroid initiative:
“Garver said NASA would hold a workshop in the ‘June timeframe’ to look how to best leverage the NASA investment and that the agency was open to tools like data buys and prizes to get information on identifying asteroids that could be potential targets of the proposed NASA mission.”
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2013/04/16/garver-role-for-private-sector-in-nasas-asteroid-mission-plans/#comments
Well, that promise has gone to crap. The June workshop has turned into a half-day lecture session at NASA HQ where the agency leadership will again try to sell the asteroid retrieval mission. As Marcia Smith notes, there are only ten minutes on the agenda for anyone other than a NASA official to talk or provide input:
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-to-hold-public-forum-on-asteroid-retrieval-mission
Again, with such a dreadful start, it’s hard to see how NASA will incorporate any substantive commercial NEO mining industry activity into the NEO retrieval mission.
HI DBN –
While the time for input from interested parties has been limited at this event, contact imformation for them will be given to them then, as well information on specific problems being worked.
The 15 minutes at this event are:
11:35-11:50 Summer Engagement Calendar–TBD
So even though Mars weinnies have had a little soapbox taken from them, opportunities for “public input” have actually been expanded.
“So even though Mars weinnies [sic] have had a little soapbox taken from them,”
No one ever said that this was a “soapbox” for “Mars weinnies [sic]”. Don’t make up lies.
Deputy Administrator Lori Garver publicly committed just last month to a workshop in June for the nascent asteroid mining industry to provide input to NASA. That promise is now broken. It’s been turned into another dog-and-pony-show from NASA leadership, with less than a half-hour for input (from industry or anyone else).
There’s no June workshop or any other real opportunity for input or exchange. It’s just NASA leadership blaring their horn again after the original asteroid retrieval rollout with the budget release was poorly received. It’s a joke.
“I’ll also note that, anecdotally, as I talk to people about it in general the public seems excited by the idea. For example, one person from the Midwest yesterday exclaimed, “That’s very cool!†I get to see a cross-section of people from across the nation and the world. The latter don’t count because they don’t pay taxes here or vote, but the domestic feedback I get is very positive.”
The sense I get is that among space advocates, who would be more knowledgeable about the issues involved, there is little support for the idea. This includes the NASA rank and file, aside from the administrators.
This might be in fact be the first human spaceflight proposal ever made by NASA that isn’t even supported by space advocates.
It might be interesting to do a survey specifically among space advocates. By that I would mean those not just in favor of space travel but who actively advocate it in some fashion, for instance by membership in space societies such as NSS, attendance at space oriented conferences, participation in forums such as this one, etc.
Here’s one question I would like to see asked:
Which manned mission would you prefer us to do first:
1.)A NASA flight to an asteroid, which would likely be only a flags-and-footprints mission.
2.)A return to the Moon whose purpose would be to set up a permanent lunar base AND to harvest propellant for use with a Mars mission.
or
3.)A mission to Mars which likely be a flags-and-footprints mission only.
My guess is a rather small proportion would want choice 1.)
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“Which manned mission would you prefer us to do first:
1.)A NASA flight to an asteroid, which would likely be only a flags-and-footprints mission.”
It’s clear that you certainly don’t understand the real goal of a trip to an asteroid.
The primary goal would be to develop the technology and techniques we’ll need to travel to Mars, and a trip to an asteroid would be in line with what the Augustine Commission called “Flexible Path”. In part they described it as:
“A Flexible Path to inner solar system locations, such as lunar orbit, Lagrange points, near-Earth objects and the moons of Mars, followed by exploration of the lunar sur- face and/or Martian surface.”
So a trip to an asteroid would be a way to validate our capabilities, and the specific destination and what we do there are secondary goals.
“2.)A return to the Moon whose purpose would be to set up a permanent lunar base AND to harvest propellant for use with a Mars mission.”
Which you describe in #3 as a “flags-and-footprints mission only”. So in essence, you’re saying the return to the Moon is in support of “flags-and-footprints missions”?
The problem with choice #2 is that the government is highly unlikely to fund such a venture without a clear need for propellant, and there isn’t any. Besides, exploitation is the realm of private enterprise, not the government, and where propellant is sourced from should be based on economics, not emotion.
So you are in favor of NASA’s plan of a trip to an asteroid to be our first BEO destination?
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“So you are in favor of NASA’s plan of a trip to an asteroid to be our first BEO destination?”
Yes. We already know how to land on the Moon and return safely – we’ve demonstrated that many times.
But keep in mind too that it’s not like we’re ready to go anywhere. We lack an exploration vehicle that is BEO capable and large enough to carry a large enough crew to test out the technologies and techniques we’ll need for far longer journeys. The MPCV is not that, since no one is going to live in that thing for six months, and it is in danger of being cancelled because it’s 20% too heavy to safely carry humans.
And before we set off on a 6-month journey to an asteroid, we’ll need to do far shorter trips around our local system to make sure everything works.
If the goal is Mars – and the majority of politicians agree with that – then we have a lot to learn about surviving the trip before we can set off for Mars. And mining water from the Moon doesn’t help with that, since water is not an identified constraint at all.
“And before we set off on a 6-month journey to an asteroid, we’ll need to do far shorter trips around our local system to make sure everything works.”
To where?
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“To where?”
Beyond LEO, but not all the way to an asteroid. Do you require exact coordinates?
Our terrestrial Navy, when they take possession of a new class of ship, spends time doing shakedown and training trips. They do progressively longer and more challenging trips until they feel they are ready for deployment. I think the same concept will happen with our exploration spacecraft.
We did the same with Apollo, but since were didn’t have reusable/refuelable spacecraft, we did it with new spacecraft each time. That’s too expensive for NASA now, and our technologies are more mature. That’s also where fuel depots and the Crew & resupply systems come in, since they allow us to do proper training for a low sustaining cost.
You really do your darndest to avoid that “Moon” word. Hilarious.
Mader said:
“You really do your darndest to avoid that “Moon†word.”
Moon. There, you happy?
And apparently you missed the whole part about this being about getting ready for a trip to Mars, and that we’ve already proven we can land on and return safely from the Moon (oops, I said it again!).
Try to keep up with the conversation…
Hi RC –
The sense I get is that among space advocates, who would be more knowledgeable about the issues involved, there is little support for the idea.
Those “space advocates” you mention are mostly “enthusiatic” supporters of manned flight to Mars or manned flight to the Moon. And they are a small percentage of the taxpaying public.
While manned flight to Mars remains as a long term goal, my view for a long time has been that the only answer to the “Why?” question is dealing with the impact hazard.
While neither NASA nor Congress seem to have any good ideas, one significant thing I have noticed is that NASA has apparently resigned itself to being a big, old bureaucracy that simply will not work efficiently or effectively. In fact the NASA managers seem to be thumbing their noses at everyone saying-‘look at us, we accomplish nothing, we go nowhere, we do a lousy job of defining requirements and building spaceships,but we collect the big bucks and no one can touch us.’ And neither the President, nor Congress nor the American people care enough to demand anything more.
Its a sad situation. I do not foresee any improvement.
“I’ll also note that, anecdotally, as I talk to people about it in general the public seems excited by the idea. For example, one person from the Midwest yesterday exclaimed, ‘That’s very cool!’ ”
Having public support for an idea is important, but public support is also cheap. If I told the public that NASA would be planning to teleport humans to Uranus, or that we were going to drop atom bombs on the Moon to excavate it, they’d say “That’s very cool!” Coolness doesn’t translate into rationale or value. The decision order is the following — solid rationale searching for public support. Not public support searching for rationale. The ARM has no discernibly sensible rationale. But that doesn’t stop Friedman. The most important thing about the mission is that it gets the public excited, he says. Is our strategic planning so bankrupt that getting the public excited constitutes rationale?
the asteroid capture mission is uninspiring, unneccessary and a distraction from the real goal (mars). imo there is a 90% chance it will get cancelled within the next three to five years. same for sls. if and when that happens nasa might actually contribute something worthwile. right now commercial crew is the only bright spot in the mess that is nasa’s hsf program.
Given that the asteroid visit mission is a creation of the current administration and has little support among Congress or the actual engineers at NASA, you are likely to be right about that getting canceled with a new administration coming in.
However, for the SLS that at least does have some support in Congress and much if not most of NASA.
Bob Clark
“However, for the SLS that at least does have some support in Congress and much if not most of NASA.”
I will grant you “some support in Congress” but “much if not most NASA”???? Where did you get that from? References, links please. I think I was not mistaken about at least some of your thinking and this is absolutely ludicrous. Go ask the scientific community at NASA what they think about it when their budget will be raided to continue this nonsense. And yes it happened before. It was called Constellation. On the other hand I think this NASA Admin will not let that happen if nothing just because this WH won’t l;et it happen.
“much if not most NASA”????
Preposterous.
For the simple reason that much of NASA is working on it.
Bob Clark
“For the simple reason that much of NASA is working on it.”
This is absolutely false. Why do you make up stuff like that? NASA’s budget is around $16B, SLS around $3B. How can much NASA be working on it??? It’s less that 20% of NASA.
Again. Preposterous.
Ok, much of NASA’s manned spaceflight section is working on it, which is what the debate is about.
Bob Clark
“Ok, much of NASA’s manned spaceflight section is working on it, which is what the debate is about.”
No it is what you want the subject to be about.
Congress does not vote budget only for HSF but for the whole NASA.
MPCV has almost as much budget as SLS. MPCV (even though it will never fly, just like SLS) does not require SLS to fly.
Furthermore, what you have is about 50% of the HSF workforce dedicated to SLS.
If you add ISS and Commercial you go well above 50% of NASA HSF budget. Therefore if I follow your logic I will say that more than 50% of NASA HSF workers do not support SLS, nor MPCV.
But no matter what, you still cannot say that “much of NASA” support SLS. NASA workers will work whatever they are told to work on. They are not asked to support it. You’re mixing up stuff.
You need more work in your assessments.
Did I say preposterous?
Ooopss some edits.
Furthermore, what you have is about 30% of the HSF workforce dedicated to SLS.
If you add ISS and Commercial you go well above the 30% of NASA SLS budget. Therefore if I follow your logic I will say that more NASA HSF workers support ISS and Commercial rather than SLS or MPCV.
Robert Clark said:
“Ok, much of NASA’s manned spaceflight section is working on it”
The MPCV is HSF, but the SLS is not, it’s just a form of transportation out of Earth’s atmosphere. And the last I heard, most of the SLS end up on the ocean floor, not flying around in space.
If anything, Commercial Crew is more related to HSF than the SLS is, since no matter what you have to move crew to space before you can start any HSF missions. And with the MPCV being 20% too heavy to safely carry humans back to Earth, it’s looking more and more like Commercial Crew vehicles will be used for more than just ISS support.
No it is what you want the subject to be about.
Dude, I just have to step in right here while you step all over Bob. It’s alright. That is allowed in a debate. You can talk about what you want, and push your point and agenda.
Let it go. It’s ok for people to think differently than thou. It’s called debate.
“Dude,”
Yo Dude, wha’s up?
“I just have to step in right here while you step all over Bob.”
Yeah dude we all step each other. But you stepped in. And I stepped all over Bob. Watch where you step Dude.
“It’s alright. That is allowed in a debate. You can talk about what you want, and push your point and agenda.”
Oh great thanks Dude, I didn’t know.
“Let it go. It’s ok for people to think differently than thou. It’s called debate.”
Great. Great. Hey Dude whenever you feel like adding to a debate feel free. You was really constructive. Yo.
“The laws of Economics are as inescapable as the laws of Physics†says Boozer.
Of course, the variables in such a hilarious statement make for astronmical laughs. Tell us how many different laws of economcas there are. If your ‘book’ was scrolled in sandscript, you’d have been paid in salt. But the laws of physics remained in place then as now.
DCSCA mumbled:
“astronmical laughs
laws of economcas”
Too bad your message is overshadowed by your inability to communicate…
I won’t count up the number of laws of Economics, but one you are evidently not familiar with is the Law of Supply and Demand. That one alone dooms SLS in the long run.
As I said, you really don’t care whether your comments are taken seriously. All of the really serious issues are just joke to you and a way to get an online adrenaline jolt.
As many posters have noted, and as Steve Sqyuyres noted, there is a lack of funds , or even missions/rationale, to fly the SLS more than once every two years.
I can’t wait to read the findings of the SLS Accident Investigation Board:
…”despite all the post-Challenger and post-Columbia changes at NASA and the agency’s notable achievements since, the causes of the institutional failure responsible for Challenger and Columbia have not been fixed”
SLS AIB
Don’t you love it when History repeats itself!
as Steve Sqyuyres noted, there is a lack of funds , or even missions/rationale, to fly the SLS more than once every two years.
Yes, and he told the SLS Senators precisely that back in September of last year. Crickets then, probably crickets now.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/legislative/hearings/2012%20hearings/9-12-2012%20SQUYRES.pdf
No, they listened when Doug Cooke told them what they wanted to hear – that NASA can build large exploration programs serially.
A staffer said that to me earlier this week and I simply replied, “I’m a survivor of the Constellation Program. I’ll believe it when I see it.” He really didn’t have anything to say to that.
I wasn’t aware that there were any survivors at all, only the zombies remain now. Constellation II (SLS and Orion) are unsurvivable because everyone is gone. It just takes a while for the zombies to realize that, and then wind down their operations.
Guest said:
“Constellation II (SLS and Orion) are unsurvivable because everyone is gone.”
Gone? As long as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are getting paid for their work, they will have no problem staffing their programs.
And, regardless of the inability of Congress to fund the actual use of the SLS, the challenges involved in building the SLS and MPCV makes for worthwhile employment. No doubt there are a lot of quality people working on both programs, and I wouldn’t blame them for the design choices forced upon them by Michael Griffin.
Are you that daft? I’m talking about the principles of this entire sordid affair. And yes, I can blame the zombies for continuing an idiotic program and project that was idiotic even well before it was conceived. This runs all the way back to the NLS.
If you don’t like my assessment of blame, tough.
“I’m talking about the principles of this entire sordid affair.”
“Principles” are gone?
Obviously not “everyone is gone”, however one is clearly gone here.
Guest said (or maybe didn’t, it’s hard to tell):
“I’m talking about the principles of this entire sordid affair.”
That wasn’t what you said. Call me old fashion, but I tend to think that what someone says is what they mean, not something else.
“And yes, I can blame the zombies for continuing an idiotic program and project that was idiotic even well before it was conceived.”
Congress is the one to blame for the SLS, not the people that work on the program. I don’t even blame Boeing, since it’s only natural for companies to lobby for high-value sole-sourced contracts.
A few in Congress wanted to protect jobs in certain states and political districts, and that’s what they got. And it’s doing exactly what was intended, but it is also a detriment to NASA’s hopes for future space exploration.
“If you don’t like my assessment of blame, tough.”
As I’ve said before, you’re relatively new here, so you’ve missed out on all the big debates about the SLS. I’m glad you aren’t an SLS supporter, but you don’t have clean hands either since you have previously advocated that Congress spend MORE money on the SLS by incorporating “improvements” you like.
The best possible outcome will be when the SLS is cancelled and Congress allows NASA to fully rely on the American commercial aerospace sector for all their launch services needs.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. I’ve heard from my friends in Lockheed Martin that the Orion teams have been gutted for the sake of “running lean”. The people that are left are overworked, even for as little capability as the unmanned test flights will have. I’ve never heard one of my friends as demoralized as the last conversation we had.
Hi Justin. If they’ve been gutted, then where is the $3 billion being spent and on what?
Most of it is going to SLS, as I understand it. The rest is going to a minimum-capability MPCV.
I say that I’m a “survivor” because I got out of CxP in 2008, before the inevitable collapse, and was able to stay in the aerospace industry by moving to ISS work.
You would be a good person to ask. What’s your sense about how NASA views the SLS. Do you think most of the NASA rank and file want it to continue?
Bob Clark
In this morning’s Florida Today:
“Space Act Deals Draw Lawmaker Scrutiny”
The upshot of the article is that Congressional Republicans hate Space Act Agreements even though they save NASA a lot of money. Go figure.
Stephen C. Smith said:
“The upshot of the article is that Congressional Republicans hate Space Act Agreements even though they save NASA a lot of money. Go figure.”
Yep, the irony of SAA’s versus traditional contracts is lost on Senator Shelby, for sure. From the article:
Some lawmakers, such as Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, who view the agreements as little more than blank checks.
“These agreements lack transparency and incorporate significant schedule leniency,” he said at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing last month on NASA’s budget request for fiscal 2014. “Traditional government contracts provide full insight and control over the contractors and the product throughout the process to protect the government’s investment and, ultimately, the taxpayer.”
Senator Shelby forgets to mention that SAA’s can’t go over budget, and as one example the COTS program, even though it took longer than planned, finished on budget.
By contrast, traditional contracts may indeed have more “insight and control “, but that doesn’t stop them from going wildly over budget AND behind schedule. One only has to look at the Constellation program – which Senator Shelby agreed to cancel because it was grossly over budget – as confirmation of that.
Shelby is just pissed off that he can’t extract even more money from NASA – it’s all about the pork for him.
COTS is still going for Orbital.
“And before we set off on a 6-month journey to an asteroid, we’ll need to do far shorter trips around our local system to make sure everything works.â€
If you’re talking about far shorter flights, the best destination would be the Moon.
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“If you’re talking about far shorter flights, the best destination would be the Moon.”
If the goal is to reach Mars, and the spacecraft you’re testing is space-only, then how in the world does it make sense to crash land on the Moon?
You are weird Bob…
For some of the larger asteroids you would want to land. For the small asteroid contemplated for the asteroid retrieval mission you would not land but that is only because of the small sized forced on us by its retrieval.
It would be nice to be able to test the landing for this new system for which it had not been tried before.
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“For some of the larger asteroids you would want to land.”
While it might be nice, it’s not a primary goal.
No matter the size, getting there and back is going to be the practical goal, and what will keep the public engaged is the “fun and excitement” of reaching the asteroid, and the remote characterization of the asteroid itself.
It’s likely all target asteroids will be tumbling, so other than getting up close with humans in space vessels like NASA’s proposed SEV, no doubt we’ll be useing robotic systems to do the dangerous stuff like landing and taking samples.
Trying to land humans on an asteroid doesn’t help us travel to Mars, so it would be a distraction of time and funds.
“It would be nice to be able to test the landing for this new system for which it had not been tried before.”
The term “landing” doesn’t apply when in reality what you’re trying to do is grab onto the asteroid and hold on so you can deploy some remote systems.
But this is an interesting conversation though, because I think it highlights two different schools of thought on what we should be doing.
You seem to focus on getting your hands dirty on a physical piece of something – the Moon, an asteroid, etc. You want to dig, and look around, build stuff, explore. Things like that, which is something that we want to do in the future.
Me and others are focused on the ability to go to the places you want to dig into. I want to build the infrastructure that takes us places, and do it safely for the least practical cost.
You seem to think we’re ready to go back to the Moon, but I don’t see that transportation infrastructure as being anywhere near ready to support that.
Does that help explain why many of us think that focusing on returning to the Moon is the wrong priority right now?
-
“If you’re talking about far shorter flights, the best destination would be the Moon.â€
There’s no way to land something on the moon. Congress isn’t going to pay for a moon lander, especially not one that would cost as much as it would if NASA had to build it. The only one that things they can land anything of size on the moon in the relatively near term is Bigelow with one of his flying moon bases. I believe the man thinks it can be done in about five years. That’s it as far as I know.
Now the astronauts could hop an Orion and follow the Bigelow base to moon orbit then hop on its back and ride it down like Slim Pickens in Failsafe. I’d pay to see that on pay-per-view.
I’m probably reading too much into the entrails, but a meme may be emerging
that SLS is justified by capabilities, not by specific missions. In a just-published
article based on his experiences in the hearing last week, Paul Spudis says the
following:
And indeed, Dr. Spudis’ earlier comments that he references above conclude
with:
This interpretation sounds similar to remarks made last month by John Shannon,
formerly a participant in the “180 day study.” The study apparently was
unsuccessful in identifying affordable missions for SLS/Orion beyond orbiting
the moon, so there might be a bit of post-hoc justification here.
Just how this meme squares with the newly embraced asteroid retrieval mission and with some of the Members’ interest in return to the moon isn’t clear. Perhaps such matters will be thrashed out during drafting of the new NASA Authorization Act this summer.
“I am saying that there is a concern on the Hill that with the retirement of the Shuttle system and its infrastructure, we are discarding a national capability that may be needed — or may even be critical – sometime in the future.”
Really? And it suddenly came to them almost 10 years after the facts? If it sounds like BS, it reads like BS, you know. It probably is BS.
““SLS is every mission beyond low Earth orbit. The fact that NASA has not picked one single mission is kind of irrelevant.â€
Irrelevant???? What a pile of nonsense. So we design a vehicle by assembling boosters together with no requirements since there is no mission selected and w do what? Hope it will work doing something? Well for sure it’ll make a lot of noise and stand tall on the pad.
Can you see the idiocy that is being spread?
common sense said:
“Irrelevant???? What a pile of nonsense.”
Well, keep in mind that John Shannon works for Boeing now, and Boeing is building the SLS. What would you expect him to say?
“What would you expect him to say?”
Maybe that the cost of keeping the workforce idle is $200M a month ($2.4B a year) and that SLS will maintain the staus quo?
That by doing so SLS will not ever help NASA HSF accomplish anything?
Nah I know. I know.
But I would like that others have a little more critical thinking and put things in perspective.
Egad said:
“I’m probably reading too much into the entrails, but a meme may be emerging that SLS is justified by capabilities, not by specific missions.”
I think that has always been the justification for those that refuse to look at the lack of money available, and the lack of any known need for the SLS.
And it’s a false justification – patently false.
The Shuttle program was a sustaining program with no real cutting edge technology when it shut down, and we didn’t lose any skill sets from it’s cancellation that we needed. Air & Space even has an article in the June 2013 edition called “Where Have All the Shuttle Engineers Gone?” that follows where the former Shuttle employees have been going. They are not disappearing into thin air.
The U.S. is in the middle of a renaissance in space related entrepreneurship, and our aerospace industry has never been stronger. Aviation Week confirms that too.
Besides being a lunar ISRU advocate, Spudis is also somewhat of a right-winger, imaging that we need a “strong NASA” to counter future lunar incursions by China and Russia. Needless to say, I don’t share his concerns or fears, as even if other countries somehow started another space race, the U.S. has the best technical base by far, and it’s not getting smaller, it’s getting larger.
The plethora of NewSpace companies is a good indication of that, and little SpaceX has been showing how an American company can beat the pants off of entire countries like China in a technology race.
Spudis et al are trying to make a mountain out of a turd (i.e. the SLS).
For some reason the “Reply” link is missing next to some comments so I’m using the comment box at the bottom of the page.
common sense said:
Perhaps you mean MPCV will never fly on SLS? It’s planned to fly on a test mission on the Delta IV Heavy next year. Because of the comparative low cost of the Delta IV Heavy compared to the SLS and the nearness in time, it’s quite likely that launch will happen.
It would be an interesting survey to do of NASA employees on whether they support the SLS. I gather many if not most planetary scientists would be against it, because its expense is viewed as taking away from planetary missions. Those however whose jobs are directly related to the SLS would be for it.
An interesting question though would be in regards to those who are involved in human space flight such as with the ISS but not with SLS. My guess is that most would be for it.
And for those not involved with spaceflight at all such as the aviation sections? No idea.
Bob Clark
It varies pretty widely in the human space flight community and across generations. SLS isn’t even on the radar of most of us who work on ISS projects. The idea that NASA should focus on in-space systems and leave launch systems to service providers is gaining traction amongst those frustrated with the endless start-stop cycle of human exploration programs since Apollo.
Thanks for the response. I’m a supporter of commercial space. On the question of the SLS, I’m neutral. The reason why I’m not against it like many supporters of commercial space is because the cost savings in commercial space will become so apparent, that it will become the predominate means of producing new launchers/spacecraft whether or not the SLS continues to be funded.
The SLS fills a political need. It supports the large number of jobs both at NASA and in industry that were maintained by the shuttle program. Sooner or later though we will make the transition to a more commercial approach to producing space systems. The SLS just allows that to be a more gradual transition.
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“The SLS fills a political need.”
Then you’re not neutral on the subject of the SLS. You support pork.
“It supports the large number of jobs both at NASA and in industry that were maintained by the shuttle program. ”
No, it really doesn’t. Most of the ATK workers that supported the Shuttle program were laid off, all of the Shuttle tile workers were laid off, and the support services people for the Shuttle were laid off. I referenced an Air & Space about this earlier.
What the SLS program supports is the jobs that were going to go away with the cancellation of the Constellation program, both for the Ares I/V work (now the SLS) and the Orion (now the MPCV).
The Constellation program was relying on a massive boost in budget in order to absorb the Shuttle workforce, but that was also the reason why the Constellation program was cancelled, since Congress would not support adding more money to it. So those Shuttle workers were never picked up by follow-on NASA programs, and have scattered to the winds.
So now that you understand that the SLS program didn’t do anything to help the Shuttle workers, does that change your opinion? Or are you going to find another reason that the SLS supports “a political need”?
You are correct that many shuttle program workers were laid off, but not to the extent that a 100% shut down of all of Constellation’s components and its successor the SLS would entail, which might even include shutting down some NASA centers.
When commercial space comes into full steam, and it will, we might not have a need for all these NASA centers, but I would not have been in favor of shutting down such centers overnight.
Since my opinion is that commercial space will continue to build momentum regardless of whether or not SLS continues, that’s the reason I’m not so gung ho about canceling SLS.
Bob Clark
Robert Clark said:
“but not to the extent that a 100% shut down of all of Constellation’s components and its successor”
The people working on Constellation didn’t have degrees that said “Ares I Only”, they have degrees that allow them to work in many varied areas and industries.
That said, if Congress was concerned about too many highly degreed people losing their jobs at one time, they had many other remedies they could have used instead of creating a fake program.
“…which might even include shutting down some NASA centers.”
Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Everyone, including NASA knows they have too many centers. I think Bolden even mentioned that he wished they didn’t have to support so many.
“When commercial space comes into full steam…”
What exactly is “commercial” to you? Because to me “commercial” has been running at full steam in the space segment since the 60’s. There is no question that companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin are better at designing and operating hardware than NASA is, the only question is who does what, when, and who pays for it.
It’s an economics question, not a capabilities one, and so far we are doing it the most expensive way possible (i.e. NASA building an operating their own transportation).
“Since my opinion is that commercial space will continue to build momentum regardless of whether or not SLS continues, that’s the reason I’m not so gung ho about canceling SLS.”
That makes no sense what’s so ever. As long as the SLS lives, there is no money for NASA to do anything in space. If that’s your goal, then cheering on the SLS makes sense.
For me, I want NASA to be able to do space exploration, even if it’s on a small budget. But the only way to do that is by leveraging commercial launch services, not wasting $30B on the largest rocket never put into operation.
You know I now think you are jut parroting stuff you read here and there. What would be the rationale behind shutting a NASA center? And on the other hand you are concerned with Shuttle jobs?!?!
NASA has a lot of talented employees, civil servants and contractors. What is missing is imagination and a more flexible Congress. Also it is the impression that when someone is hired by NASA they will do the job they were hired for sure but for the rest of their lives. And that is totally absolutely ludicrous. So in essence if you know how to deposit the grained propellant in a canister for an SRB then you will do that forever? How idiotic. Private sector which is most everybody else has to adapt to the market environment. Why would NASA not adapt to their own market environment? Let’s put it this way. If the public were ready to invest $16B a year to shovel dirt and you get paid $100K to do it would you do it? If not what would you do? Change job? Here. That is your answer.
NASA must adapt now or it will go away. And especially NASA HSF. And FWIW NASA “traditional” HSF (i.e. MPCV, SLS) is resisting as much they can. Well good for them. Maybe the next WH/Congress will give NASA a mission and a budget? Right? Maybe? Well maybe not.
Robert,
As far as I know there is no budget to fly on the Delta for MPCV either. But I strongly believe neither SLS nor MPCV will ever fly and the report from GAO abounds in my direction. Please read it and make an effort to understand it. It is not aimed at engineers and a layman can read it. http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653866.pdf
Even if they get something to fly on the Delta it will absolutely not be representative of a full-up Orion. That requires a little more research and a critical eye as well but you can check for yourself.
I am sorry but your idea of a survey is not all that interesting. What would you derive from it? NASA is the best government agency to work at anyway. http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/overall/
When you use words such as “I gather” did you actually run your own survey? Or do you actually assume? These mean different things.
Why do you need to have SLS if “because the cost savings in commercial space will become so apparent” – future tense? It is apparent and it is one of the reasons there are so many fights about it.
Anyway. “Much of NASA” does not support SLS. This kind of assertion is not healthy in a debate. I hope you understand what I mean.
If the ‘ultimate goal’ is Mars, the ‘immediate future’ is Luna, not LEO, or NEO asteroid grabs. LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where, fast.
Garver’s future remains to be seen. Clearly she’d like to follow Bolden. Key may be her relationship with the Clinton camp and past dealings as station ramped up. Would HRC bring her in as Administator or would Garver be more effective back as a lobbyist. Space policy for the Obama Administration is essentially in free drift for the remainder of his term as his agenda continues to be stalled- of late by missteps within his own administration. Space may come up in the meetings w/PRC officials in Palm Springs— no doubt cyber issues around DoD ops will, which neighbors space ops technooogies.
DCSCA said:
“If the ‘ultimate goal’ is Mars, the ‘immediate future’ is Luna, not LEO, or NEO asteroid grabs.”
The only ‘immediate future’ for Luna is to be striped mines by private companies. Congress could care less about the Moon.
“Space may come up in the meetings w/PRC officials in Palm Springs”
Congress does indeed care about NASA talking with China about anything, so nothing of any significance will happen regarding space in Palm Springs or anywhere else in the universe. And you can thank your buddy Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) for that…
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“technooogies”
That’s my favorite word of yours yet. Seriously. No offense but I just had to break in and say that.
“If the ‘ultimate goal’ is Mars, the ‘immediate future’ is Luna, not LEO, or NEO asteroid grabs. LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where, fast.
There you go with the blathering again. It’s not hard to understand. LEO now is just setting the stage for Luna and beyond. It’s very hard to take you seriously when you support SLS, which will not even make it to LEO much less Luna.
But then, I as pointed out earlier, this forum and indeed the whole human space flight issue is just a standup comic forum for you to get your kicks.
Oops, in too much of a hurry. Restating the last sentence in my comment above.
But then, as I pointed out earlier, this forum and indeed the whole human space flight issue is just a standup comic forum for you to get your kicks.
“But then, as I pointed out earlier, this forum and indeed the whole human space flight issue is just a standup comic forum for you to get your kicks.” weeps Rick.
You’re projecting your oen insecurities regrding CC HSF ops, Rick. the real comedy is your effort to seek parody w/experienced governmsnt HSF ops having failed to launch, orbit and sfely return anybody from LEO, let alone Luna. That’s pretty funnyu, indeed.
Again, at least NewSpace has orbited something. SLS has not even gotten that far and won’t. I am the one who can honestly claim actual evidence of flight progress, the only one with the insecurity complex is you. People who live in glass houses . . .
The difference between you and me is that if SLS was indeed practical, I would be all for it. It’s what is possible that matters to me, not what I wish would be. You talk in hindsight about what a piece of crap Ares-1 was, but you are not honest enough to admit the same kind of flaws doom SLS. Grow up.
SLS/MPCV is a geo-political strategy. That you cannot or will not see it is almost as amusing as commerical HSF attempts to seek parody w/government HSF ops while not even attempting to launch, orbit and return anybody from LEO, let alone Luna. If you put as much energy into getting somebody up around and down safely as you do oppising SLS/MPCV, you’d have been flying years ago. Except you didn’t. So you don’t.
“SLS/MPCV is a geo-political strategy.
If that were so, it would be a very poorly conceived geo-political strategy if the aim is advancing American human deep space capability. I can’t think of a better way for the Chinese to pull ahead of NASA in human deep spaceflight than to have the agency continuing to waste its time and money on SLS.
But it’s not intended as such a geopolitical strategy; instead, it is primarily a jobs program for the traditional space states.
“LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where, fast.”
I always think it’s funny when “place” is defined as a hard surface. By that token, none of our federal agencies and federal investment serving national need are going to any “place”. Yep, NIH is going no place. They just pump money into labs and hospitals. The fluid in their flasks just go round and round. The doctors just circulate doing their duties. They never get anywhere! Why our national pastime involves going round and round. You hit the ball, and run, and come back to where you started! They aren’t even going “fast”. But we do good stuff while we’re going in circles. As we do in LEO.
NASA is about rockets. It’s about propulsion. It’s about going fast. It’s about lifting big things. It’s about learning about space. That may involve sending humans “places”. But it may not. Yep, just go look at the Space Act, which defines the agency.
Going in circles, nowhere, fast. That’s what comes across when I continually hear those words, which are said over and over and over.
Hiram said:
“I always think it’s funny when “place†is defined as a hard surface.”
Apparently DCSCA doesn’t like our Navy or Air Force either, since they keep returning to the same place – just circling out of their bases and coming back, over and over…
Keith Cowling nicely sums up the current fiasco that’s NASA, Congress and the WH as he heads off on his Summer holiday.
Neither are particularly useful if you plan on going to Mars.