Back to the Moon
Back to the Moon–For a Fraction of the Old Price, Charles Miller
“As a former NASA executive, I am saddened by the media response to Newt Gingrich’s proposal that we return to the moon. The mockery and ridicule does America a great disservice. Space exploration and development is an important national issue. It’s not only possible and necessary to safeguard our future–it can be a lot cheaper than anybody dreams.”
So when is NASA going to release this study that Charles Miller keeps referring to? Or has been released? If so where is the link to it.
Thomas,
At the end of the article it says, “Originally published in the Wall Street Journal, Provided courtesy of the author.” From that, a Google might get you a reference, but a lot of NASA internal studies like this are not released and were not intended to be released to the public. At first blush, that might seem wrong, NASA being a civilian agency, but often these “studies” can contain information that is not for public consumption (proprietary, classified, ITAR blocked, etc.) but is necessary to the analysis. I’m not saying this is the case with this study; I’m just saying don’t be surprised if you can’t find it.
Steve
Steve,
There is no link from the Wall Street Journal. In fact I have found no mention of this study anywhere beyond Charles Miller’s references to it. If you have one, please share it.
Not making studies like this public may be the case with most, and rightly so, but given the claims being made about it, and the potential impact it may have on space policy discussions, I think you have a good case it should be released. If there is some information that is confidential in it, fine, then blank it out, as is done with documents provided under the Freedom of Information Act. But NASA should make this study public if the price tag is as low as Charles Miller claims it is.
Maybe NASA Watch, with all its connections, will work to bring this important study to the light of day…
The Near Earth LLC study has not been released by NASA yet. However, some of the results were presented by Hoyt Davidson at the NewSpace 2011 conference. You can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
Ian,
Thanks, but I am not interested in Near Earth. I am interested in the $40 Billion RTM. If the numbers hold then its a game changer that eliminates the justification for SLS and as such should be released to be part of the policy debate.
Agree Thomas
I don’t think there was any “NASA” study. Double-check how he worded his article. He only said in 2011 he “challenged a group of NASA engineers” in the paragraph about going to the moon for $40 billion. In a later paragraph he refers to a NASA feasibility study on reusable spaceplanes done in 2010 (a year earlier than Mr. Miller’s “challenge to a group of engineers”).
I don’t think there’s any NASA study anywhere that says we can go to the moon for $40 billion. I think Mr. Miller was spitballing with a couple of guys and wrote a quick budget on a napkin.
The only thing the US government does to inspire our best and brightest is NASA. And the MOST OBVIOUS thing NASA can do to inspire generations of engineers and scientists is to invoke a sense of adventure, exploration,and pioneering by establishing a permanent presence on the MOST OBVIOUS object in the night sky – the MOON.
I work with students several times a week. The most effective thing the US government can do to motivate them would be to reduce the cost of college, so they would be able to get a degree without leaving their parents homeless, and partner with American industry so there would be productive jobs available when they graduate. Hey, these are the major points Mr. Obama made in the State of the Union.
If we are going to have a space program, it must be practical, sustainable, and productive. If you want inspiration, go to a movie. Or better yet, read a book.
Daniel,
Excellent post! Parents shouldn’t have to starve themselves to put their children through school.
And I encourage everybody, of every age, to read books. Read something every day. Even if the book you choose is third-rate slush, it still gives you other environments, lives, social situations and perspectives to make you think differently about your own life and the world around you. Television communicates to the lowest common denominator in people. A book makes you think.
Steve
Or read NASA watch and dream of a solution lol
Putting last kid through college now. Feel like a Salmon swimming up stream to die for it’s young.
I’ve been there 3 times. My eldest was a national merit finalist, valedictorian, had 9 5’s on 9 AP exams, etc., etc., etc. and I was told to pay $40,000/yr by every private school she applied to. NO scholarships available for her !
As a consequence she went to the University of Florida and got an excellent education. … She’s now a doc in her residency.
Who do I blame for the asinine inflation in college tuition costs – Uncle Sugar, who allowed colleges and universities to raise their tuitions exorbitantly by providing parents and students with insane loans to feed this buffoonery. The colleges never felt any push back – loans were always made available.
The consequence – parents and students are saddled with crushing debt. It’s not an accident that tuition inflation rates went thru the roof when Uncle Sugar took over college loans – Sallie Mae.
And yes, I too was told I could sign up for virtual bankruptcy, all I needed to do was to signed on the dotted line for U.S. backed loans. WONDERFUL !
And you want me to look to Uncle Sugar for help with tuition costs? Give me a brake.
The last thing Uncle Sugar needs to do to help is throw more money at the problem !
BUILD THE SETTLEMENT ON THE MOON AND INSPIRE GENERATIONS OF ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS !
God knows we’ll need them if we ever expect to compete with the Chinese, Germans, Indians, Japanese, etc., etc., etc.
—John
Well, be careful what you wish for! In Europe we have the nearly free college-degree education that you are dreaming about. And the results are at best mediocre. In many European states nearly half of the population has college degrees but they are incompetent and lazy. Many young people go for college degree not because they will learn something but to postpone real job for few years.
As the government subsidies for the colleges are proportional to the number of students, there is a race to the bottom between the colleges for lowering the demands and evaluation criteria in order to accept and retain more students.The expensive US education is not for everyone but the ones that DO pay are in many cases forced to learn something because otherwise they will not be able to repay their debts.
Your fired … Mitt Romey, aka Donald Trump
What we really need, IMO, are reusable suborbital boosters combined with a reusable space plane.
Such a booster would provide enough delta-v to carry the space plane to the edge of space where the space plane would propel itself into orbit with only a few tonnes of rocket fuel. The booster would reenter the atmosphere and fly, using residual fuel, and land vertically somewhere on land. The empty booster would be transported by helicopter back to a launch base where its rocket engines would be replaced (mass producing and replacing rocket engines is a good thing) and where it would be refueled for its next launch.
Similar vertical take off and vertical landing booster concepts were proposed as far back as the 1960s but these boosters usually carried their payloads all the way into orbit. Suborbital boosters, of course, already exist. Its the landing part that’s not developed. Something similar to the DC-X as a– suborbital booster– would be a good way to start, IMO.
Marcel F. Williams
That sounds interesting:) Kind of like my bfj/r ideas just another way to skin a cat that NASA never did to get us cheap launch.
Marcel,
Why vertical landing? You’ll have less volume per unit structure mass. You’ll need more mass and fuel to maintain vertical stability on landing. It offers no advantages in terms of pick and return to the servicing site that I can see (a helicopter would be more stable carrying it horizontally along the lateral line, as would a truck or rail car). The landing rockets are going to burn up your landing surface, so you can’t land it just anywhere.
Since you’re breaking the package into two pieces (booster and spaceplane), you might be able to land each one horizontally on a standard-length, standard-duty runway (maybe even both at the same location), which I’d think would be a real plus cost-wise and safety-wise. I would think that if you had an autopilot smart enough to pull off a vertical landing with the booster, it might not be that tough to add landing gear and pull off a horizontal landing.
I was just wondering if you’d considered the possibility.
Steve
For a conventional runway length, you’d need fairly significant wings or a body-shape that serves the same purpose, neither of which allows a fuel-mass-fraction optimal shape. Plus landing gear, which is bulkier, heavier and more complex than landing legs. You also have the extra internal structure to support the weight of the tanks on just the landing gear, which is a whole different load distribution to launch. (Whereas vertical landing legs can attach to the load-bearing points that support the engines.)
I expect it’s a wash in terms of mass, no matter how much extra fuel you need to hover for VTOL.
As for transport, judging by Falcon 9, the stages are built and transported horizontally, so it should be possible to ship it from landing site back to the factory by the same method you use to ship it from the factory to the launch site.
Thing is, the same logic applies to the orbiter. I’m not sure a space-plane is better than a VTOL capsule. (Only difference is, horizontal landing avoids the risk of trying to restart engines that have sat, exposed, in a vacuum (and reentry) for the mission duration.)
That said, spaceplanes look like space-ships. Every time I see a four-way image illustrating a CCDev story, with three capsules and Dream Chaser… one of these things is not like the other…
Thanks Paul. I did think about these things, But I also thought about the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, it’s never been tried or even investigated. Some things we do the same over and over because it’s the best way, or the only way. But sometimes it’s because we’ve simply not tried other possibilities, usually because of risk and cost control, but sometimes it’s just lack of imagination.
With some of the advances in materials science, the mass vs. strength issue is not as limiting as it used to be. I can imagine stowed wings that fan out into landing position at the top of the glideslope, and landing gear that extends out vertically from stowed position and then pivots out to landing position. Since this is all happening at low (approach) speed, it might no be the attitude hold or structural tornado that it first seems. The hard part I see would be avoiding shifts in CG.
Overall, I can’t imagine that the mass overheads are worse than for VTOL, especially if you have any hover capability.
I thought it was worth considering because it would bring a practical-sounding system even closer to airliner-like operation, which would be a major gain. I just wondered if Marcel, or anybody else, had considered it worth investigating. My belief is that if we continue trying to build new systems solely from existing designs and concepts, we’ll just keep ending up with basically the same unaffordable, unsustainable results.
I think part of the charm and promise of Dream Chaser is precisely that it’s not like the other ones. Even though the concept is far from new, seeing someone actually building one feels like progress, something new and improved.
Steve
“I can imagine stowed wings that fan out into landing position”
Ack, no. Any kind of pivoting or folding wing is typically much heavier than a fixed wing. This is why horizontal landing so quickly adds more mass than just adding 10% more fuel.
“With some of the advances in materials science, the mass vs. strength issue is not as limiting as it used to be.”
It’s the egg-shell problem. Squeeze the ends of an egg-shell and it will support a surprising force. Squeeze the middle and <splat>. In vertical take-off, all the forces run down the length, in vertical landing, they are the same. No dramas. But switch to a horizontal landing, and suddenly you’re pushing into the sides.
“My belief is that if we continue trying to build new systems solely from existing designs and concepts”
Strangely, I see the assumptions that make people suggest glide-back over VTOL to be exactly that. In most threads on reusability, it’s VTOL that seems counter-intuitive to people. We have planes, we understand planes. Obviously making rockets work like planes will make space-travel like air-travel.
It’s like the assumption that parachutes must be lighter for capsules than VTOL rockets. I see it in nearly every thread on Dragon Rider. Even though there’s apparently been plenty of trade study suggesting otherwise, certainly enough to convince Musk’s engineers, people can’t seem to accept even the possibility.
I’ve had similar arguments over SSTO. People who cannot even conceive of the possibility that SSTO might be more expensive than reusable TSTO. Ie, that the cost of re-assembly of TSTO may not be more than the massive payload loss of SSTO. Ie, $10m for 1ton SSTO payload versus $30m for 10 tons TSTO payload. TSTO is still cheaper. No, SSTO is cheaper because it must be cheaper because it must be.
Rockets aren’t planes, they aren’t trucks, they aren’t ships. Yet we intuitively expect them to work like those other things. We expect the same design rules and economics to hold true. And they mostly don’t.
Paul
Thinking of your eggs and horizontal tanks on my rocket plane would it be smart it your structure was a struss like a floor joist. Maybe even a box beam made out of trusses. And from that you hang your tank. My question is Is it better to have your tank a cylinder or should the tanks cross section be a tear drop shape? Wouldn’t the tear drop make better use of metals tention properties making for a lighter structure rather than just beefing up a cylinder on it’s side?
Man, it keeps getting harder to find ways to reply in these ongoing topics!
DTARS,
I’ll let Paul answer this if he will. It sounds like he knows far more about it than I do, so he can give you a better answer.
I can give you some basic info like, a spherical tank is the optimum shape in terms of stresses — it puts equal stress on every point of the tank (excluding plumbing connection points); the same reason that a single soap bubble is a sphere — equal surface tension on the entire inner surface. But a sphere is obviously not ideal in terms of fuel volume within the total LV (cylindrical) volume. (An LV is obviously almost always cylindrical for aerodynamic reasons; some of the new VTOL experiments, like Armadillo Aerospace, are trying other concepts.) A cylinder is best in terms of the fuel volume issue and probably second best in term best in terms of equalized tank stresses (assuming it is constructed properly). A tear drop would have similar fuel volume loss to a sphere and the stresses on the tank would not be uniform — the lateral and shearing stresses on the tank material would increase as you approach the “pointed” end.
The idea of “hanging” a tank within a frame structure would add mass while losing fuel volume and in the traditional designs isn’t done. It is often used in spacecraft and landers (different requirements and max stresses). In traditional LV design, the ideal mass/volume case is like the old Atlas D LV used for the later manned Mercury flights. It had almost no structure or rigid components in the usual sense, and the outside walls were also the tank walls, and the wall metal was so thin that you could have punched your hand through it. It was the fuel pressure inside, once the tank was loaded, that gave it its rigidity. So it had to be built horizontally and fueled before it could be raised up vertical and integrated into the rest of the system. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in too many situations. As mass and physical dimensions increase (to what today’s LVs are) this can’t be done. Also, LVs using cryo fuel and/or oxidizer don’t let you get away with this.
If you want to consider any changes to LVs and/or spacecraft (designed in the traditional mode), there are two variables that you have to control at every step:
1) Propellant mass fraction — the ratio of the propellant mass to the mass of the unfueled LV/spacecraft plus payload.
2) Payload fraction (the ratio of the payload mass to the mass of the fueled LV/spacecraft excluding the payload.
These are your primary efficiency factors in terms of launching a load into space. There are similar, slightly different variables for aircraft which are used to determine how much fuel to load for a given flight, so that you’re not carrying fuel that you won’t use for the flight.
Hope this helps some.
Steve
The problem today is not reusability as Charles has accurately referred to in the article but markets. Without a market or more likely multiple markets the putative RLV system would quickly wither.
If tomorrow we could snap our fingers and reduce launch costs by 90% what would happen the day after tomorrow? Nothing as there are only so many payloads that need launching to low Earth Orbit and an RLV would not be able to launch the big comsats without being as large as the Shuttle Orbiter.
There would be an inevitable 2-4 year lag between the fielding of this system and anyone being able to develop new payloads that would fly on them. That is the key problem for RLV’s and people would not risk developing payloads for a vehicle not yet built and proven so there is no chance of parallelism in the effort.
A better use of a prize would be to incentivize markets. There are many prizes that could do this and then as the market size grows a prize downstream for an RLV would make sense. A very good companion to market incentivized prizes would be the second half of Gingrich’s proposal which would make the prize money tax free and to keep the market/product generated by the prize tax free for ten years..
(Thanks Dennis. I was getting ready to write something similar and now you’ve done all the work. So, I’ll just add my thoughts to yours.)
There is an unannounced but completely disconnecting change of subject in Charles Miller’s article. He starts out talking about, “Can we send humans back to the moon, and to the asteroids, with existing launch vehicles?” And the answer was, “Yes, we can.” And they decided that the cost would be “about $40 billion, and that this could be financed out of NASA’s existing annual human space flight budget (around $4 billion) over 10 years.“
Do the math and it looks like they calculated only the cost of getting there and back — a flags and footprints mission. However, I think whether or not their calculated cost is realistic is absolutely irrelevant because, in this day and age, nobody is going to even consider paying for a flags and footprints mission to the Moon. The several reasons why have been explained so often that I won’t presume to do it again.
But after introducing his $40 billion proposal, Mr. Miller completely drops it and starts talking about reusability and a Reusable Spaceplane Prize, geared towards ongoing space activities of no specified nature that I can see. So, I don’t really understand what it is that he’s advocating as a future for NASA and American space. He seems to be concerned about replacing commercial (unhardened) satellites if they should be destroyed en masse by an enemy. I don’t see that as a particularly inspiring future to look forward to, nor a likely scenario. I can’t imagine either of these proposals being given any serious consideration for the mainstay of America’s future activities in space.
So, that leaves the question of whether or not the US, with or without its space allies, is (or ever again will be) interested in pursuing space, past what ever the DOD is doing for their own (exclusive) use. And as I see it, that question then breaks down in to two basic pursuits — “exploring space” and “developing” space. Exploring space can be done robotically or by humans, or both, and which is best seems to be a very subjective topic. Personally, I feel that both robotic and human exploration are required to explore our solar system effectively, but the proportions and timing of each is something yet to be realistically assessed (we can’t seem to get people past the robots vs. humans debate).
As long as the current economic environment exists, the extent and amount of space exploration is, unfortunately but realistically, going to continue to diminish because, from both the tax payer and GDP perspectives, it’s strictly an expense, with no foreseeable monetary returns. Space “development” however, is a different matter. Done properly, it can be an investment, with several kinds of valuable return, including monetary, which would benefit the country as a whole, not just the scientific community.
Many people have compared developing space (as opposed to exploring space) with railroad and airliner analogies, which are partially valid, but tend to ignore one basic, very significant difference — the railroad and airliner developments had enough of a market, almost immediately, to give them sufficient revenue to carry on after the initial influx of tax dollars. In developing space we won’t have it that easy. I think that even the “inevitable 2-4 year lag” that Dennis suggests is optimistic.
Market growth, especially in the beginning, is going to very slow, and, I’d say, there’s really no foreseeable possibility of it being otherwise. The supply and demand curve stabilizes at different rates for each industry/product type, and in the case of space development the high cost for users (customers) is going to make them much more hesitant to commit to buying than someone buying a car or new furniture. Combine that with the fact that anyone exercising proper caution is going to want to wait until any sort of space development infrastructure is finished, or at least major parts of it, before beginning their payload designs in detail, because the capabilities and specifications of a space system of almost any kind historically change between program start and completion. So, we’re looking at the need for some sort of government grant or subsidy for a fairly long initial operating period (this requirement is far too big for angels or venture capitalists).
The growth rate of developing space will be a ratcheting relationship: once more affordable supply is available, an initial small demand will exist. As more “missions” succeed, the cost will drop gradually (very gradually, I believe), coming within the reach of more “customers,” who will have more favorable risk analyses than those who went before. But I’m pretty sure that this initial slow ratcheting will have to go on for quite a while before we see anything resembling economies of scale or price breaks. They will happen, assuming that the whole industry survives, but realistically, I think it will take years, and will be based more on accumulated experience and knowledge than on simple numbers.
Another big difference I see is that the railroad and airliner industries were almost immediately applied to brand new markets (such as the mail contract for planes), which was a critical factor. There is no similar new market for spacecraft and launch vehicles that I can envision or have heard proposed. Any near-future advances in space technology will be used to address only the existing markets, for which demand is currently dropping, or at least leveling off. Will there be new markets with time? Assuming, once again, that the whole industry survives, I think with time there will be, but I don’t think there will be the $billion/$trillion markets springing up over night that many optimists have predicted. Even some of the currently discussed markets don’t really exist, such as space tourism. There is no doubt that there are people willing to pay big money for a “tourism” package, but are there enough people to qualify as a market and make a profit (or even just pay for itself)? I don’t think so, and if it does become a viable market, it won’t be for many years yet, and price coming way down and safety being increased are prerequisites.
A third major difference is that the railroad and airliner infrastructures could be used (and earn income) long before their entire infrastructures were completed, which supplied operating capital from operations, instead of grants, subsidies, loans, etc., and could fuel their own growth from early on. With a space development infrastructure this facility to grow slowly on your own dime from early on doesn’t exist. Although it can be developed incrementally, and to an extent be used in its early stages (and even earn income), the portion of the space infrastructure that would logically be in place first would begin operations in an already competitive marketplace (Earth surface to LEO). A first reaction to that statement might be to suggest, don’t compete; start out with a different stretch of the “highway,” like LEO to GEO, or even BEO (as NASA is currently supposedly concentrating on). But then you’d be at the mercy of competing contractors to get you to and from your workplace and handle your logistics (even though, in theory, you’re all working for the same “customer”; business is still business). Not a good recipe for success. All of this, of course, assumes that the actual construction is being done by contractors either under contracts to NASA or as “owners” of parts of the overall infrastructure. As the “owner” of a part of the infrastructure: you build it; you operate your vehicles and facilities within it; and you exclusively earn the revenues for the next say, 200 years. I think this is a new concept in the aerospace industry, but municipalities in many countries do it to build bridges, new highways, etc., instead of with tax dollars. “Owned” sections of the infrastructure could then be bought and sold, just like similar facilities on Earth. World Court legislation would have to be put in place whereby nobody could make unavailable any part of the system.
What all of this means to me is that for any “plan” to succeed, or even be bought into by the powers that can make it happen, we have to address both sides of the supply and demand curve, and try to envision how it will change over a 30- to 50-year period or more. The market is never independent of the product/service, so both have to be given equal weight in the development strategies of any plan or proposal. And this, I believe has been overlooked time and again in the many different “plans” that have been proposed over the years for space, with attention given only to the supply (product/service) side of the relationship. And I’ll take things one step further; in order to make things work, we’ll not only have to incorporate the behavior of the markets fully into any planning, we’ll have to find ways to actually control those markets to an extent during critical stages of development.
In the operation of any business there are independent variables, things that we can generally make change, which in turn affect how and/or how well a business (or industry) performs. Many businesses fail because they don’t know how to manipulate the independent variables. It’s important to realize that some of these independent variables are actually associated with the markets, not the business/industry itself. Ignoring these independent variables within the marketplace almost guarantees failure.
Ideally, the marketplace (and potential markets) also need to be consulted during the infrastructure definition and planning phases, and as it grows and changes. Who knows better what the customer needs or could use in the future than the customer himself? Unless you can read minds, you have only one way of learning what your potential customers/users may be looking for, planning or considering for the future — ask them. It may require a confidentiality agreement, but that’s a small concession for something that will be mutually advantageous and involve major revenues for both parties.
Some final thoughts. I don’t know of a single large company or facility that became large over night, or grew large and successful by accident. It takes time, and it takes careful, detailed planning. Also consider that successful, long-lasting companies and facilities don’t start out on day one building their biggest, most complex products or projects. If we were to apply these thoughts to the design and building of a national (or international) space development infrastructure (and space programs), then we would realize that because we’ve been throwing away almost every single vehicle, LV, ET, probe, etc. ever built by or for NASA, we’re realistically still at step one as far as space infrastructure and the development of space are concerned. That being the case, in future we need to insist on reusability (as Miller and many others have said) wherever possible, and we need to start small (cancel the SLS nonsense; big toys are for little boys). Think about the number of companies that sell expensive computers, office furniture and photocopiers, but also sell you pencils and staplers. The pencils and staplers came first and represent the more stable, long-lasting market; bread and butter stuff that always sells. Only after they had established themselves into stable companies did they work their way up into the more expensive, more complex products. Service companies establish themselves and then grow in a similar manner. Developing a space infrastructure, and the many new and adapted industries which will use it, needs to be approached the same way. And lastly, we need to pay proper attention to lessons already learned, such as refurbishable is not a substitution for reusable; they have very different time and cost characteristics, as the Shuttle taught us. I don’t really care if we use the words refurbishable and reusable. The important thing is to make sure that we’re all working with the same definitions before anyone signs on the dotted line.
Everything I’ve written here is just my opinion, of course. And I don’t claim to have a crystal ball. So take it with a grain of salt, and please feel free to poke holes in it where you disagree.
I’ve deliberately not addressed the subject of prizes (at this time) because I think, right now, people are overestimating both their potential and reasonable amounts. The original X-Prize was unique and the money was not tax dollars. What worked once won’t necessarily work repeatedly, especially with the dollar amounts being thrown around.
(As a coincidence, Dennis and I were both in the Mojave watching the day Burt Rutan won the X-Prize, and that weekend was also the first time I’d ever seen Dennis in person when he made a presentation (on the Queen Mary at an SFF conference I think.))
Steve
Steve I disagree with you about long posts 🙂
Other ways in addition to prizes to incentivize markets:
* tax policy – variation on the existing R&D credit, orphan drug
* bulk buy of in space/lunar/GEO space assembly capacity.
* automated lunar ISRU w/ EML and LEO prop depots logistic net
* satellite repair/replace/replenish/dispose (like MDA) capability
To keep honest, contract calls for incremental co-investment with 10 year phase over to 100% non-governmental use.
Energy industries use this already on Earth with continual government support – through multiple presidential administrations.
Energy industries use this already on Earth with continual government support – through multiple presidential administrations.
Any links for that? Could be useful.
Romney was just trying to scare people when he was talking about it costing trillions to build a lunar colony.
But none of this has really anything to do with cost. NASA could fund the SLS/MPCV and lunar lander and lunar base for a budget that’s less than the $8.4 billion a year manned spaceflight budget that Obama inherited from George Bush. And $8.4 billion represents a mere 0.24 cents of every tax dollar spent by the Federal government.
This is really about what our manned space program should be about and whether– even one dime– of tax payer money should be spent returning to the Moon or for manned space travel at all!
Once you start laughing about money spent returning to the Moon then you start laughing about money foolishly spent sending people to Mars or the money already spent sending folks around in circles above the Earth for the last 40 years.
If all we want to do is to explore the solar system then robots can do it a lot cheaper than humans; and robots have had good success at it so far.
But if the long term goal is to pioneer and eventually settle the rest of the solar system and to exploit the natural resources of the solar system for economic gain then both humans and robots are going to be needed. But if this is what we want then NASA and other space organizations are going to have to finally make a strong case to the American people– no matter how much or how little we spend on our manned space program.
But I believe that once this argument is clearly made, most Americans are going to be shocked at how little we actually spend on our manned space program relative to other budgetary expenditures.
For less than 1% of our total Federal expenditures over the next few decades, America and private American companies could eventually gain access to astonishing amounts of valuable resources in the solar system that could create immense amounts amounts of wealth and prosperity for Americans and other people both on and off the Earth!
Marcel F. Williams
Marcel you are right again ! We need a reallll infrastructure plan to go do that Steve! We don’t need NASA to flub it again! Hire some one else!
Well Marcel I wrote this inresponse to what you said but from the looks of all the posts here nobody cares.
Why is it hard to convince Joe Q Public that we can to go to the moon?
Joe Q most be very ignorant.
Joe Q knows nothing about how to get into Space.
What does Joe Q know?
Joe Q watched the moon program very expensive very rewarding, a hard expensive climb to the mountain top. Then we got there, planted the flag, hit a few golf balls, saw a dusty airless desert, looked back at our beautiful blue sphere. Now what?
Joe Q watched the sky lab and Mir round and round doing science to study the effects of weightless. Very important science for our future in space.
What next
Joe Q watched the shuttle x plane program. The promise of much cheaper space flights. The promise of a few flights a month. Did the price ever go down? Noo!
Joe Q was told space flight is very hard very expensive next to impossible.
Joe Q watched the shuttle disasters, the shuttles fixes.
Joe Q heard about replacements to the shuttle. Yup they heard NASA was working on it. this is very expensive.
And let’s not forget ISS, one of if not the most expensive building projects every attempted by man. Back in the Reagon years it went by another name billions and billions of planning years and years and nothing to show for it. If he happened to catch a nova special Joe Q may have learned lots of that doe went to Russia to stop starving scientist from selling nukes. Anyway what was the reason to build ISS again? oh yeah to have a place for that expensive shuttle x plane to go.
Well we built ISS to do wonderful science. It cost billions per shuttle flight. Space flight is very expensive you know.
Just when we got ISS built to do all kinds of great science up there. We canceled the expensive dangerous shuttle Finally!
So it’s a new day, time for a clean sheet a new start. Some pc guy shows Joe Q that rockets can be built much cheaper than we have been told.
So what’s the new line from our famous space program.
Orion SlS
Send us billions we are working on it! Space flight is very expensive you know next to impossible! Hey you want to go to the moon?
Maybe Joe Q isn’t as ignorent
as you’ll think.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see when you are getting ripped off!
So why did I write this? Well Marcel said we need to go to the people and show them how cheap and what a great deal a moon program would be. We have to sell our owner on wanting to do build the project.
How do we do that?
Well we need to do two things first we need to take the owner a logical affordable plan and explain the plan to him.
Also we need to demonstrate to our owner that we the builder have the tools to perform (demonstrate cheaper affordable transportation to Leo)
NASA has done neither of these two things.
NASA has only continued the the myth that Space flight is very hard and very expense because it is in their interest.
Show me the beef NASA all I see is pork!
I think I need a different builder to build my project. One that shows me he can perform.
Joe Q
DTARS,
I think Joe Q is largely uninformed about the more complex and detailed issues. He hasn’t the background or the time to learn to understand the details (that would take away from his entertainment time), so largely he “believes” what he hears in the biased 20-second news blips on the TV news (or radio news if he drives his car to work). If the news anchor says ABC is good, Joe believes him. If a different news anchor later says ABC is bad, then Joe changes his view to that. Of course, if the first news anchor says ABC is bad, Joe will stick with that no matter anyone says later. It’s human nature. I suspect that Joe Q can go through his whole life this way, without ever actually understanding most of the issues. And still the majority will be considered “right,” even though most of them will never develop an original informed opinion. (Obviously I’m having one of my less optimistic days.)
Steve
Well you see how my views change lol I hope that is growth maybe maybe not lol
Joe independent Q
Time to vote Ok which one is cuter lol
Unrelated to this topic:
I haven’t seen anything posted by Tinker for a while. Anybody know what’s up? Not yet worried, but maybe concerned. I hope he’s OK.
Steve
I am worried too. I was hoping he had decided to help Spacex debug that system with his computers skills and was not allowed to speak till his work was do.
Mr. Consequence
Thanks for the important list. I’m just a simple construction guy. Marcel had just said you make a case to the people. Get founding from the owner to build your project!
Next you make a good plan Steve
One that starts with a good foundation and slowly grows piece by piece using economic market and physical infrastructure tied together. Cheap lean mean
After you have owner go ahead and plans from your architect what’s next? You make a place to work?
I don’t understand why I hear all this c$&@ about deep exploration human robot telescope or other wise when we should be clearing the crap out of Leo so we can build our space future.
Isn’t it time to really make a plan that’s really designed to get us off this rock?
If NASA can do nothing else they should at least clean up the crap in LEO!
Don’t take this to mean I’m not for science and exploration. I am. But like Marcel said once, we have to go one step at a time.
I would really like to see it possible for someone to be able to hop in a Leo spaceship or robot ships and go clean up my construction site so we can safely build something. Didn’t they have to move ISS a while back to dodge some junk?
It all seems so simple if we could only get our priorities straight. And stop acting like a bunch of fools.
Give me NASA s transportation budget! I would hire many of you to make a real working plan and get this job started!
Sounds silly and foolish doesn’t it. But I sure could do a better job of getting us to have a future in space than what I am watching here on NASA WATCH.
I want my tax money used to help get us off this rock to help people and companies like Elon Musk and Spacex.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt