Grunsfeld Seeks HSF/SMD Synergy
An astronaut and a scientist (interview with John Grunsfeld), Nature
“I would like NASA to articulate a plan to explore the Solar System with humans and associated science investigations, because I see them going hand in hand. We’re not going to send people anywhere, unless we’re out there doing science or enabling science as a part of an exploration framework. My desire is to work more closely with the human spaceflight programme so we can take advantage of synergy.”
Maybe he is taking the Newt approach of thinking and dreaming about space, rather than doing?
We once had an active space program, but that largely came to an end last summer.
US HSF, aside from an ISS crewmember or at times a couple of them, and only n fairly rare occasion because of the constraints of spacesuits and time, is largely defunct for the next decade, and based on how US programs have been going, maybe a lot longer.
I guess we can play games in the arctic or maybe the desert, but aside from an occasional meteorite being found, there is not much science going on there.
Its really a sad state of affairs.
Right on. One obvious candidate is to do amped up telerobotic exploration of the Moon, Mars and other planetary bodies from orbit and Lagrange Points. If the crew is within the cognitive horizon distance of the area of the exploration site (i.e., negligible communication delay due to speed of light), then you have real-time control of the robots. This approach provides a rationale for human spaceflight based on enhancing scientific exploration, while taking advantage of the lower risk and cost associated with robotic operations. The approach parallels the telerobotics revolution we’re seeing with UAVs, ROVs for oceanography and commercial undersea operations, and hazardous mining.
Good to hear and will support Mr. Grunsfeld in his vision.
“We’re not going to send people anywhere, unless we’re out there doing science or enabling science as a part of an exploration framework.”
I can only assume then that these criteria are being applied to sending people to ISS. This is great news.
I have to think that this is bad for science. The more SMD can operate independently, the better chance it has of success. Getting tied up in the behemoth of HSF and the associated political swings is not a way to get things done, to say nothing of trying to work within the bureaucracies of Marshall, Johnson, and Kennedy.
Don’t hold back the robots with those human beings!
If this attitude had held when Hubble launched we would have lost the asset. Yes, I know the cost of HSF servicing, but I also know the cost overruns that JWST has. All of the Hubble servicing missions put together do not equal the overruns on JWST.
I think I understand what you’re trying to say, but comparing costs for HST servicing and costs for JWST overruns and mismanagement is comparing apples and oranges.
Yes, robotic servicing of HST probably would not have been successful, partly because HST was never built to be serviced robotically, and partly because SMD had barely invested any effort in developing robotic servicing. It still hasn’t. Didn’t have a lot to do with the potential of astronaut servicing compared to the potential of robotic servicing. Such investment in the latter could pay off handily both in on-orbit servicing and construction of large telescopes like JWST. Weiler refused to make that investment. Grunsfeld may be able to move beyond that.
The task is to mold HEOMD (HSF) around SMD, not the other way around. The concept making HSF more science-oriented is not new. Sean O’Keefe advocated it a decade ago, and even had John Grunsfeld do an assessment of how it could be implemented.
I remember last year talking to a Mr Anderson of the Glenn ISPT office about an idea that involved using the proposed ULA long term cryogenic upper stage as a power source for outer planet probes as an answer to the RTG shortage. I was met with hostility to this idea,why?
because its also in the exploration budget line item?
OCCUPY NASA! ( you heard it here first!)
How?
So I asked this question in the discovery and new frontiers BAA in the nspires contracting system! A well thought out calm question will get published and answered.
there are others who think mr Anderson of the ISTP office at Glenn showed take down his firewalls,
http://www.neofuel.com/Schn…
“The NASA In-Space Propulsion Technology Roadmap should be
coordinated with and consistent with NASA’s current Exploration
Technology Development and Demonstration (ETDD) Program”
After all I was suggesting the air force and the exploration program pay for the R&D for the long term storage of cryogenic fuel and ISTP offer it to the planetary probe community
I once suggested to Bernard Kutter and Anderson that cryogenic fuel boil off could cool astronomy instruments before powering a on board fuel cell, this also cuts down on the mass of any RTG that may be in short supply 🙂
Something is missing from this picture, because the arguments for combining and sharing assets and people are obvious. For instance, some of us have been saying for decades that robotic probes and human missions should both be utilized, in concert, for solar system explanation. Yet… the obvious hasn’t come to pass. We first started talking about the various synergies possible the day after NASA was formed (and probably before). But instead, with very few exceptions, we’ve always had walls between programs and turf wars over resources, friendly and often behind closed doors, but rarely very cooperative.
I have to believe that it all comes down to money, somehow.
Grunsfeld’s words quoted at the top of this thread are right out of the early 1960’s, yet some people are treating them like a new idea. This point was made long ago, it was agreed with by almost everyone involved, and then nothing was done; no follow through. I must admit, I find it very baffling.
Steve