10 9% of the 21st Century Has Been Used Up

This is a magical time. Americans are richer, healthier, and live longer and more productive lives than at any time in our history. I have a handheld piece of plastic and metal on my hip with which I can talk to someone on the other side of the world. I am instantly and personally connected to a global web of information and entertainment that offers (literally) all knowledge at a few keystrokes.

Space is just now beginning to open up to multiple users for a variety of purposes, not simply as an experimental, government program. Maybe we're not as far as we should be, but at least we can see the direction we need to go.

After the Apollo program, America spent the last 40 years simply daydreaming about our future in space-- instead of creating our future in space!

Marcel F. Williams

Marcel pretty much summed up my thoughts about the waste of 40 some odd years, not just the past ten. Yes, we've wasted the past ten years so far as NASA is concerned, with the only bright spot being the decision to retire the shuttle. If nothing else that one "idea" has forced us to examine just where we want to go, if at all.

what should he direct NASA not to do?
Do not try design and build an operational launch vehicle ever again. ( X-Planes are A-OK )

The rest takes care of itself.

The last several years will not have been wasted if we build an HLV based on the Ares V Lite concept utilizing an Ares I upper stage with J-2X, Core stage with RS-25s, and two strap-on 5 segment booster. This will make good use of all the Ares I development to date, just applying to a new vehicle configuration, loads, and environments, which should be more benign compared to Ares I. The Ares I US and FS teams will remain intact, and those coming off the Shuttle ET and SSME projects will staff the Core Stage Element. Everything else will have been excellent training for a Marshall team that hasn't fielded an operational launch vehicle in decades. With the lessons learned, we can do a much better job thru SRR, PDR, and CDR.

For me, at least, the big disappointment of the 21st Century (from a space technology point of view) is the failure to reduce the cost and complexity for getting into LEO. There have been so many good ideas - a variety of single- and dual-stage air-breathing designs and investigations into improved TPS technologies. They all came to naught for one reason or another and the world is still using techology basically designed in the 1930s (the shuttle is loosely derived from von Braun ideas, for example).

On the upside, we have seen the possibility of the birth of real private sector spaceflight. Even if technological progress is slow now, ultimately, private sector pressures (and the inevitable public interest in such 'stunts') will start forcing down prices.

Oddly enough, I think that, when the histories are written, the most important development of this era might not be considered the shuttle-replacement LV, whatever it is, but the Falcon-9, the Dragon, the Taurus-II and the Bigelow hab module.

I think an important accomplishment of this era is the space station. We built something significant in space. It gives meaning to having heavy lifters and crew launch vehicles. It is a stepping stone. And, whether the space station does or does not have a purpose, it will define how we approach space in the future.

What I would like to see is that the administration/congress provides the resources to give the space station the best chance of success possible. If it becomes a valuable asset we will not be discussing why we are in space.

The film 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in the 1960s. It is still a remarkable film. I lived in the San Francisco area for a time in the late 1960s. 2001 was especially popular there. If you told people that very little of the vision expressed in the middle of the film (the supposedly realistic space part) would have come true by 2009 but that General Motors would be in bankruptcy, people would have told you to ease up on the LSD and go talk to the nice people down at the clinic.

pspudis -- the wealth of the average American is in decline and has been for 30 some years. A few people are getting very rich at the expense of everyone else. We do have some interesting technological advances, though.

NASA needs general reform. A top down, authoritarian culture came in during the height of the Cold War with the late, unlamented Soviet Union. This culture has stifled discovery and progress. Check out the Columbia accident report for support of that observation. Interestingly enough, the contrasting more open culture of Silicon Valley etc. has produced things like that communication device pspudis rightly praises.

The amazing thing is that anything has been done since Apollo with the lack of long-term support and a long-term plan. My hat goes off to any commercial or government backed effort that did anything for space exploration from the mid 70's to now. The lack of support by the public & our Congress ultimately has lead to little R&D and no resources to follow-up on any new effort that was proposed (e.g. RBCC's, new materials, etc). I believe we (the public) lost interest because we thought "we had won the race" when we really just "took the first step, first". The lesson is, being first is great but it is not a promise of perpetual greatness.
Though we have extensive experience in hydrogen, I'd like to see a kerosene-based first stage on a Heavy Lifter. It is the better packaged, more operable fuel for boost phase. What about a next gen Atlas? NASA should team up with DoD. (strategic plan, eh?) The Russian RD-180's are at some risk due to attrition. It looked as though we were on the right path with the US version, RS-84, but we may have stopped that effort way too soon. Again, not enough dollars to do new propulsio - so we hunt for largest thrust item, a la RSRM. But it was not used as an in-line first stage, thus we're having to do major work to make it work. (It can work, but nothing's free, and it's very hard to swap tinker toys, in the low-margin world of space flight.)

Catchy headline, but ignorantly premature. Try 9%.

Now that dosen't make of a headline, does it? Maybe you can post this again next year.

Editor's note: you might want to check when the 21st century actually began ....http://answers.ask.com/Society/Other/when_did_the_21st_century_start

The one time in 40 years we've actually gotten close to picking up where Apollo 17 left off is probably over and, ironically, its demise even cheered by most around here.

With 25% of the new administration already behind us the space program is still a toss up, and by the time a new program takes shape we'll be under a different administration and yet another set of priorities.

The same argument about supposedly 'cheaper human access' to space was used to justify the termination Saturn I/V production in favor of the Space Shuttle. Been there, done that already, it didn't work.

Most of the visible advances of recent decades have been in the field of computers. We have
super computers on our laps, and you might say in our pockets.
If we came from the sixties in a time machine, we would be baffled at the 3D CGI movies in the theaters and on little diskettes, and at the WWW, and the ability to gather information we want so quickly and easily.

But we don't have jet back-packs or household robots.
And strangely, we don't have the SST anymore, or any hope of a new one--we've de-progressed in that regard.

But I find it even harder to accept that, 40 years after the the moon landing, we're being asked to accept "Apollo on steroids" for our 21st Century space ship. I don't think anyone, young or old, is excited by this development.
I think there's still time to reverse the depressing situation of the chosen CEV. If we're moving on from the Ares-1 fiasco, maybe we'll also come to our senses about the Orion model-T-on-steroids space capsule.

On the positive side:
-The Hubble Space Telescope is more powerful than it was ever planned to be.
-As stated, we have various means of seeing extra-solar worlds.
-The X-37B looks like a versatile new space tool.
-Plasma engines, VASIMR et al, are near term promising.
-It seems reasonable to speculate about sending a nuclear submarine to explore Europa.
-The water on the moon development could be the start of big things.

We've put great potential before ourselves.

The thought has been crossing my mind a lot lately, with 2010 almost here, that we are in the future now. The reality is, of course, a lot more mundane than the 2010 of science fiction, though that's not a totally bad thing--I'll take mundane over a "Mad Max" future any day.

As far as space is concerned, for me the highlights are the Cassini mission, the MERs, the ISS, and the first steps that have been taken towards commercial HSF. Cassini is at the top of my list, since it's been such an amazing performer, and the Saturn system is, to me, the most interesting place in the solar system outside of Earth.

The MERs have taken Mars exploration to a new level, though the orbiters have also done their part.

The ISS project has advanced our capabilities in many areas, such as large scale orbital construction, long-term operations, international cooperation, EVAs, etc.

SpaceShipOne and Two, Bigelow's prototype Genesis modules, Space Adventures' space tourists, and SpaceX's work, among others, are steps on the path to commercial HSF. Commercial HSF is, in the long run, far more important than anything done by NASA or other government space agencies, in my opinion.

Other highlights are unmanned missions that have explored comets and asteroids, and Venus and Mercury are getting another look. Also, the Voyagers have reached the termination shock, a significant first. Ion propulsion has reached operational status for deep space missions.

The biggest problem right now is the turmoil in NASA's HSF program. As I expected, Obama's delay in making a decision has allowed congressional supporters of the program of record to dig in their heels and solidify their position, guaranteeing a nasty fight if there's a change in direction. The current economic situation isn't helping either. I think this is far from a magical and rich time economically, unless you work at Goldman Sachs or something.

A lot of good things have happened, so I don't think the last 10 years have been wasted at all. The great hope is that commercial HSF will finally get moving. The first steps have already been taken.

OK, this is like totally WRONG (and BLUNTLY ignorant):

http://answers.ask.com/Society/Other/when_did_the_21st_century_start

First date AD was January 1st, 1 (there's no 0th year!), ergo the first decade started on that very date. The first decade ended 10 years later minus 1 day on December 31st, 10. The next (second) decade began the very next day: on January 1st, 11.

Following the same line of reasoning the first century started on January 1st, 1 and ended on December 31st, 100. The second century AD began on January 1st, 101. The third century began on January 1st, 201.

Getting the drift now?

This (current) decade, century and millennium started on January 1st, 2001 and the first decade will end on? Bingo! December 31st, 2010.

Q.E.D.

The unbelievers may count from 1 to 2011 and get back here...

The result: we have used up almost 9% of this century and the title of this article, and its content, only works to promote ignorance in general public. Kudos!

Ignorant Editor's note: Thanks!

With respect to space exploration:

To my mind, the most amazing discoveries and awe inspiring adventures have been through NASA's robotics programs: Cassini, Galileo; Voyager, Pioneer, Viking, HST, GRO, etc. etc. etc. There is no end to what we have learned, the new questions we've begun asking, or the world wide web of community that has grown from the robotic side of NASA.

Wrt HSF: Clearly the building of the ISS has been a major achievement in international cooperation, engineering and persistence. I can't say though that folks can point to an iconic scientific discovery made aboard the ISS - scientific discoveries? Yes, but not of the magnitude and breadth of the robotic missions.

Wrt Utilization: Clearly in the past 40 years the use of space for communications, weather monitoring, earth science has been very successful; but the utilization is via robotic missions again; not HSF activities.

I'm with Mr. Divine: NASA and the Aerospace industry has to shift from a top down militaristic government led paradigm, to one of non government led entrepreneurial, bottoms up approach. I think we are beginning to see this with the emergence of the new space companies. The future looks bright.

We all went through this as we approached 1/1/2000, Y2K, Millennium, etc. Bigger point, related somewhat to Avatar feature above, its just over 50 years until Star Trek predicted first contact. Given our progress, we may just beat that. Maybe not face-to-face (OK-OK Roswell, et al :0 ) but at least detection.

You know "Flash001" your arm waving "logic" in your statement that

"I don't think anyone, young or old, is excited by this development."

just crack me up. There are plenty of us old engineers (and I would bet some younger ones) that were excited about "Apollo on steroids". When the job entails a return from a lunar mission I seriously doubt that we could develop, in the required time, anything better than the old blunt body re-entry vehicle that was the shape of Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury not to mention the Soviet's re-entry vehicles.

The shuttle is a great piece of engineering (for LEO) but is a technological dead end if you want to return from the moon or Mars. Maybe the technology could be advanced but not without a serious amount of cash, which is why we're having this discussion in the first place. That's why we call it "engineering trade-offs".

I'm interested in a U.S. return to the moon and eventually a trip to Mars and don't really care if it's not "elegant". Winged and exotic shaped space vehicles may be the fancy of the younger crowd (even Von Braun loved them) but without the money, we use the technology we know. Forrest Gump would say "that's one less thing" and one less thing in this case saves a ton of money we don't have.

An old purchasing agent once told me, there are three things that govern the purchase of anything. They are fast, cheap, and good. Pick two, you can't have all three. If you want it cheap and good, it won't be fast and that is precisely where the U.S. HSF program is right now.

In short, if you want to posit a need for a new paradigm please don't presume to speak for some of us old timers. We understand the systems and the trade offs and we don't have to make broad generalizations about groups of people (with the exception of politicians) to make our case and you shouldn't either.

The single most important thing that we need to do is to complete the Ares V. A lot of the initial work has already been completed with a 5 segment solid booster up and running, and development of the J2X engines well underway. Both of those projects are the long polls in the tent, and the more we scrimp now, the more the program will pay later. When people say we need a HLV, it seems to me that term takes in a lot of territory and a huge range in capability. From all that I have read, the Ares V will give us a truly capable vehicle, withthe lift capacity & volume capacity to accomplish truly great things in the future. Smaller pay loads can still be handled by the Delta/Atlas family of boosters, or by one of the other COTS start-up companies if they ever pan out.

The second most important thing is to complete a full up Orion spacecraft, to give us a capable deep space vehicle. The Orion will be important no matter what target we eventually get the gumption up to go explore.

Unfortunately, all of this is predicated on getting more than $1 billion extra per year. I don't think I need to remind anybody at this website that the budget of the United States is over $3.5 trillion. The current NASA budget is less than 0.53% of the total Federal budget in 2010. Just increasing NASA's budget to the 0.75% of the Federal budget would give us over $26 billion a year. This would stll be far less than 1% of the budget, but it would enable us to develop Ares V, Orion, continue the ISS, continue the expansion of commercial crew and cargo transport, continue unmanned exploration of the solar system, and do critically needed research & development (such as nuclear thermal propulsion).

"irst date AD was January 1st, 1 (there's no 0th year!), ergo the first decade started on that very date. The first decade ended 10 years later minus 1 day on December 31st, 10. The next (second) decade began the very next day: on January 1st, 11."

OK, total side track - so I apologize. But this was all done to death ten years ago for the millennium. Yes, the real 'mistake' of the calendar was not having a year zero, so that means we have an offset. But psychologically, what matters is what the number looks like. The reason everybody but a few curmudgeons celebrated the turn of the millennium on Dec 31 1999 -> Jan 1 2000 was just that - the roll over from a 19-leading year to a 20-leading year. All sorts of hang wringing around that time lead to my mind the best solution for thinking about this - those guys in the first decade just got short-changed a year (i.e. the guys from 1-9 AD lost their first year). Ah well, at the time, no one noticed. Although mathematically correct, arguing for decades where the X0 year belongs with the (X-1)Y years is never going to fly in the public imagination. Just let it go.

With regard to space exploration and utilization, have we wasted this decade? What has been done right? What has been done wrong? While NASA is not (and should not) be the only game in town when it comes to space, what should the President direct NASA to do in the decade ahead? Moreover, what should he direct NASA not to do?

I think we have seen amazing unmanned exploration & utilization, either as carryover from previous decades (or approximate decades) or as new projects. Unfortunately, as the unmanned successes pile up, most Americans think we're just fumbling around with the ISS. I don't think so, myself-the experiences gained from working in space on it, Mir, & the Hubble would be great building blocks for when we can afford to venture past LEO. One of the problems NASA faces is that it has a hard time explaining to most Americans why what it does is vital. If that could be solved, I think some of NASA's other problems (funding, for instance) would be easier to solve. Aside from improving outreach, I'd direct NASA to work on several angles :

• There needs to be some cultural re-engineering. The divides between contractors & civil servants & between techies & managers have to be bridged. Knowledge management & lessons learned in engineering & management need to be taken seriously. "Not invented here syndrome" needs to be stamped out.
• Ask ARMD to work on alternate fuels & more efficient motors. Getting the petroleum monkey off of America's back would be a brilliant geopolitical move, & research into fuel & motors is something that goes back to the old NACA days.
• Replace ailing Earth observation satellites. See if a common probe/satellite bus could be developed in order to save money. Similarly, design a common rover bus-the Moon & Mercury deserve the same kind of attention as Mars gets!
• Work with international partners to create a common human spaceflight vehicle, preferably one that's modular & has more reusable components. That way, you don't have to redesign everything for a trip to LEO, vs. a trip to the Moon, vs. a trip elsewhere. Similarly, reopen research into life support systems, especially ones that try to recreate the Earth's biosphere. Put some of the developments from ARMD in green flight into play here-this is NASA's showboat section, where the folks who won't buy the clues in any other way will see what NASA's doing.
• Don't put barriers in the way of commercial space flight. If the private sector has developed vehicles that could dock with the ISS, let them, & start buying passage, retaining the ability to get there via the previously mentioned vehicle as a rescue. After all, the post office doesn't have its own trains to move the mail around.

My friend Paul Spudis, as always, reminded us of what we in the west have at our disposals, in terms of technology, wealth, and with all its faults notwithstanding, the world's leading spacefaring nation. Yes there are serious troubles brewing just off the horizon, beginning with our economy, debt, and global challenges from friend and foe alike. But for now, America has survived a devastating attack on its soil (911), avoided another, and for many of us, improved access to education and jobs and the security of our friends and family in this decade.
As Tiny Tim said- God Bless us Everyone!

I don't tnink that the last decade was wasted - it's the previous 2 that could have been utilized better.

This past decade, the Shuttle is doing what it should have done in the 80s and 90s - build and service a space station. And once the Shuttle began flying, work on Shuttle Orbiter 2.0 should have started. The X-37 should have been flying 10 years go.

Without a doubt we need Ares V and a spacecraft that can leave LEO, but retiring the Shuttle and abandoning the 28 years of experience operating a reusable spacecraft doesn't make sense. Neither did abandoning the Saturn V, that could have put the ISS in orbit with 5 launches.

It makes more sense to develop the Ares V and a launch vehicle like the Russian Energia with liquid strap-on boosters around a liquid fueled core that can launch the Orbiter or a slide mounted cargo vehicle or put an Orion CEV on top with a launch escape system.

After Apollo most of America presumed that NASA, or someone, was working to make our future in space possible.

At some point we were going to have to go back and finish the work of the X-15, or put real funding into lightcraft, or space elevators, or find some kind of alternative to the ground launched rocket.

Ares, like Saturn, is where the evolutionary path of the rocket leads. We either accept that as the cost of doing business, or go back to the drawing board on how we access space.

The past decade has been the most productive in space since the Apollo era. ISS has been nearly finished and private space has also begun to blossom. The MER and Cassini probes have opened new vistas. Good times.

It was the decade in which I still had absolutely no prospect of ever being able to afford to go to orbit, let alone the Moon.