Back to the Moon (Again)?
NASA may soon unveil new manned moon missions, Space.com
“The new plans have probably already been cleared with the Obama Administration but have been kept under wraps in case Republican candidate Mitt Romney won Tuesday night’s (Nov. 6) presidential election, said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University. “NASA has been evolving its thinking, and its latest charts have inserted a new element of cislunar/lunar gateway/Earth-moon L2 sort of stuff into the plan,” Logsdon told SPACE.com.”
It certainly raises some questions that hopefully will be answered if they do a “big announcement”. I would think that developing a mini-station at L2 would require a sizable budget increase, so if they plan to do all of this within the current SLS/Orion budget as the article suggests then I am guessing this means that it’s just going to be an occasional Orion flying to L2 and parking there for few weeks then returning to Earth. Similar question about telerobotics, do they plan to install a telerobotic workstation inside Orion, which would again mean short duration telerobotic missions, or does the fact that they are thinking about telerobotics mean that they are also planning to develop some type of permanent module at L2?
Maybe international partners will be involved and they will provide L2 modules?
International partners sounds like a great idea. look how the ISS turned out, billions exta in hardware and development just for sharing. It would pay us to fly another county’s module just to have the elbow room at L2. Then if we want to share costs going to Mars or Asteroids the cogs are already in the works.
Steve,
I think the answers to some of those questions are tied up in the single question of what exactly are the plans for the L2 gateway — what is to be done there? What is it planned to be expanded into, if anything, over time? What is the schedule that goes with the original proposed budget(s)? A lot of us seem to think that an L2 outpost is a good idea (above and beyond simply having something as opposed to the nothing we currently have), but I don’t get any sense of consensus as to its primary purpose(s), and the meager information made available to date doesn’t seem to offer any clarification.
From the time of von Braun onward, there have always people who have presented the logical arguments for developing a fully reusable off-Earth space infrastructure, as opposed to just flying missions with new, purpose-built hardware each time. If the L2 “gateway” is being envisioned as a first step in a bigger plan leading to such a space infrastructure, then, to me, this is the most encouraging proposal I’ve yet heard. If, on the other hand, they are going to build it and then basically let it sit unused, growing mold, then very little will be gained, except perhaps some experience in free fall construction techniques, unless it’s all prefab.
I really hope it isn’t just a prefab or inflatable stuck out there and that’s it. In order to really develop space, to really learn to live and work off Earth, we are going to have to learn to build robust permanent structures which will stand up to the conditions and dangers of the environment. Bigelow modules and ISS-type Tinkertoy modules are OK for construction shacks or temporary waypoints, but even with added shielding they are not, in my opinion, at all suitable as permanent living or working structures.
So, I really hope that the decision makers are looking past simply putting an “outpost” at L2 and that they’re looking at it as step one in our HSF highway to the solar system.
Steve
Something like a well defined plan might make me change my mind about SLS and Orion. and practicing asteroid maneuvers is something we can get a lot of people on board with. Remember Asteroids are natures way of saying “hey hows that space program coming?”
I suspect this will be to go to the moon in 2025 or some other far off date that doesn’t require spending much money the next 4 years.
Let be sure its got glowing ION drives like Star Wars!
Let’s hope they actually accomplish the goal instead of spending multiple billions of dollars and then abandoning the plan like several previous projects.
Or we could just send another 800 Billion to Banks who will just gamble it away and ask for more.
If only it were that simple. GO SOMEWHERE!! is the maxim of sport, not accomplishment. Maybe we should tell our teachers to GO SOMEWHERE!! Or tell our firefighters to GO SOMEWHERE!! Or tell our army to GO SOMEWHERE!! Um, no, they actually do things.
No, the metric for success can’t be that we GO SOMEWHERE!!, but that we do something of value. It’s not how we GO SOMEWHERE!!, but what we do when we get there, and what it means in a greater context. If we just GO SOMEWHERE!! without that greater context, it’s a waste. Pure and simple. It’s about chest beating, and not about real accomplishment.
To the extent that bringing the Moon more firmly into our economic and scientific horizon is an accomplishment of value, sending a Gateway to Earth Moon L2 (or L1) could be of significant use. Proving that humans can prosper outside of LEO would be of significant use as well.
Helen! Don’t be a ‘Grinch’…
Mathew,
Being realistic is not being a Grinch. To go for no other reason than to get there is pointless. This is not like going for a walk, where you might do it for the exercise or just for the enjoyment of it. To go to the Moon, or anywhere else off Earth, we must have sane reasons for going, specific goals to accomplish once there, and it should hopefully be part of a larger, long-term plan which benefits humanity. Otherwise we’re just spending money, risking lives, and taking the chance of getting shut down for good for nothing more than a stunt.
Noah and Matthew,
Why should we go? What should we be doing when we get there, and why should we be doing those things? As a minimum, if you don’t answer these questions, in great detail, then you don’t know what to bring with you and you won’t figure out what you didn’t bring that was absolutely necessary until it’s far too late.
I applaud enthusiasm, but enthusiasm alone isn’t enough.
Steve
Steve,
I like your post. ” To go for no other reason than to get there is pointless.” That, and all of your post.
I like most of Helen’s post too. “No, the metric for success can’t be that we GO SOMEWHERE!!, but that we do something of value.” What a novel thought.
I look at the myriad of views of what we as a Nation might best be doing in space and it’s a kaleidoscope of diverse notions and ideas and visions ranging from the pragmatic to the grandiose to the inane, much of that reflected in the 1000’s of posts here. Those who believe diversity is heavenly will applaud the wild hallucinatory show of chaos, to which I say, hey, enjoy your head-trip because the return to reality may grind you in to dust.
It seems though, that in ways, the visions and aims are irrelevant if the means to accomplish them are broken or defective. And today they seem hugely defective. Oddly, power and control have been so fragmented, it’s not clear how much of anything could get done.
The Administration has one view. Well, more likely five views. The Senate three more. The House 4 more. OMB a few more. NASA, too many to count and varying from week to week. House Science and Appropriations even more. And then all of the NAC and NRC and National Academies and other Space Boards and Associations much more. Toss in fiscal stresses, poor communications, countless biases from self-interests, a lack of urgency, the absence of rigor of prioritization, a blindness to that which is valuable vs. useless, and what do you get? Stalemates. Gridlock.
Control and decision making have been fractured, splintered, and shattered into dozens of pieces, to the point where little if anything can get done. Even when there is an action or something gets done, there are pull backs and take downs. Post judgments. Legal reviews. Reversals. Defunding. Litigation. I suppose at this point someone would say that we should enjoy and embrace “thriving on chaos”. The nation wished for change, and that’s exactly what it will get, endless change and loose change.
npng,
You paint a sad picture, but I think you’re absolutely right.
I, for one, will not embrace chaos, because I still believe that we have it within us to do better. History shows that we can do better.
Part of the human race has just lived through several decades of easy living, when things were better than ever before and easier to achieve.
I think the fracturing of NASA and the federal government is just one symptom of a widespread problem within many countries. We’ve had it easy for too long, and now, for some reason, people seem to feel that it should continue to be easy, that they’re somehow entitled to having it easy. And when they find that it isn’t, everything becomes someone else’s fault.
Are we forgetting how to move forward in this world that the human race spent thousands of years taming? Like Helen said, it’s about what we do when we get there. So the only cure I can see for the “fracturing” is to sort out all of the “why do we go” debates and get some agreement — not just consensus, but agreement — on what we need to accomplish in space.
I think that most of us — and I’m among the guilty — argue for what we want, what we like, and perhaps don’t give enough though to what we actually need to be doing in space. Perhaps we can try getting people more into the habit of thinking about need, instead of just want, and that way maybe get everyone rowing more in the same direction.
Steve
Steven; ‘Enthusiasm alone’ is not an end to itself, I agree – nor have I lost sight of realism. But to think that we’ve got to the point where it is ‘essential’ to ask WHY we should do anything at all in Manned Spaceflight is… Depressing.
Matthew,
Agreed, it can be depressing, but as npng points out above, it’s all in chaos, so I guess it’s bound to be depressing.
The question of “why we should do anything at all in manned spaceflight” I think might be a miscommunication. Personally, I firmly believe that we need to keep on asking the basic question of exactly what should we be doing in space?, because we still have a multitude of answers (opinions), which ends up equating to no answer, since we obviously can’t do everything.
In my opinion, for what it’s worth, we can’t get anywhere close to answering that question as things stand because there’s clearly a lot of floundering debate about who’s in charge. And that will have to somehow be sorted out first. More and more people seem to be assuming that Congress is NASA’s “boss,” because they control the purse strings and because for the last few years they’ve been acting like they were NASA’s boss. And yet: 1) The Space Act, which details NASA’s operational details, and which was created by Congress itself, clearly says that NASA is under and reports to the President, not Congress or anybody else; and 2) Congress has been meddling in NASA activities not because they want a “good” national space program (whatever good means in this context), but for very different reasons of their own. Let’s face it, everybody in game, from the most experienced and informed pros right down to the average novice space fan acknowledges and commonly understands the activity we all call pork. But I don’t see any way in which this Congressional stranglehold is going to change — and that, to me, is very depressing.
Steve
I would add a bit to that …. driving around in a circle might also seem pointless, unless it is a race. then the point of reaching that particlar point, the finish line, is a reason.
Do not say then that there is a financial incentive to reach that finish line and without it, no one would do it. Because actually Americans and most humans for that matter, are willing to race to any point at the the drop of a hat without a dime bet on the result. Cars, boats, planes .. hell even a foot race.
So their can be a point, for going to another particular point on land sea and air (even space) that does not seem to have a national defense, artistic, or financial reason for doing it, but in the long run, makes sense to go there.
For me, it is providing some point, that is both close and provides a location to fly to. If NASA would FINALLY move to space based vehicles and end trying to use ground based vehicles, like orion, we will need a point to fly to.
The farther away we make the point.. to START WITH, the less likely we will be able to fund it. That should be the very starting conversation.
Here is a post I made on Rand Simberg’s site:
When settling the western frontier, people have to understand, that a frontier is the outlaying edge of where you exercise property rights. If you were exploring the frontier and drifted into canada, you were not exploring the frontier, you were exploring Canada. Same with Mexico. The frontier refered to land controled by the U.S. government.
Today there is really only two terrestial frontiers. Antartica, which is a universal frontier with limited sovergn rights and the ocean floor which is still being disputed.
With space, the frontier only extends to GEO. There is sovergn rights for space, governments control slots and you can own “real estate” with property rights out to GEO and that is where the bulk of our assets are. The moon and mars is not our frontier.
If you kick Apollo out of the mix as a one shot “flyer” then 230,000 miles would no longer be the benchmark for human spaceflight and traveling 30,000 miles or the equivalent of ten United States it would seem like quite a trip.
We can not travel 200 miles on a regular basis so the idea of just trying to do pop and drops to LEO and LEO2GEO until it is routine would be something to try and achieve. You get to test and mature technologies close to home. It burns gas, creates traffic to a fixed point, (think railroad – outposts) increases the flight rate and competition and turn around times would be a lot easier.
I would like to see NASA as an anchor tenant for something like that. The ISS cost 100 billion and we can barely service it? A base or fixed station anyplace else would be how much more? Would it be more practical to let ships have a dual function, transportation and act as the station at the destination point? I do not believe we can afford both or get bogged down in another gravity well.
At least they brought something tangible from the Moon. Nice rocks and cool pictures. What’s the latest thing we have from ISS? Urine. A urine sample does a very poor job of electrifying public imagination or promoting science in preschoolers.
Marko,
You seem to be saying that you see the ISS’s purpose as “electrifying public imagination or promoting science in preschoolers.” I don’t understand; where did that idea come from? (If I’ve misunderstood your comment, please ignore the rest of this post.)
The ISS was created for very different reasons, some political, most scientific and technical. How successful it’s been in accomplishing it’s goals is a whole separate question. And when I say that, I’m obviously not referring to the station itself but rather the people who have made use of it, or failed to.
In the final analysis, I don’t think the “destination” itself is anywhere near as important as what is done there (just my opinion). In the case of the ISS, “what is done there” involves much more in the way of intangibles, unlike a Moon rock, which you pick up in your hand, take back to Earth and experiment on. What “comes back” from the ISS is typically more in the way of knowledge. Although that knowledge most often can’t be put into a cool public display (because it’s at the specialist’s level, not general consumption stuff), that doesn’t make it any less interesting or any less important.
Every program that we do in space, or on Earth for that matter, necessarily includes both cool, interesting stuff and dry, non-exciting (except to some specialists) stuff, and the latter most often makes up the larger portion of the total.
If we are ever going to get back to the Moon or on to Mars and do anything meaningful there (as opposed to flags and footprints), we’re going to first have to learn all of the non-“electrifying” stuff necessary to get people there and keep them alive. In addition, any activities planned for a “destination” must be tested and practiced first in an environment as much like the destination as possible (not doing so would be criminal negligence). This is why we spend time and money on the ISS, and on Moon and Mars analogues. It’s no different than astronauts in space suits training in a big swimming pool.
Steve
Actually, what is SUPPOSED to come back is samples and results.
Labs, in general, either produce stuff that goes to other labs for analysis, or receives stuff for analysis. ISS has experiements sent up and they test and monitor and either send back samples or results, plus all the blood.urine etc that goes back that is collected from astronauts that are testing various medications.
There is a also a difference between what a NASA project is sold to the funders to do, and what it is actually designed and ends up doing.
The inspire and imagination thing was and is used as a selling point when securing funding and they always include those lines in committee presentations.
Have to agree with Helen here.
(I know it may shock her)
Helen wrote:
“but that we do something of value.”
Could you clarifiy that a little bit.
I want the federal government, to create, through funding, the conditions so that Americans can create wealth. If the government funds infrastructure, in general, it is creating value. But all infrastructure is not created equal. Some infrastructure, increases, along with jobs and the basic multiplier effect, productivity increases, which is a wealth generator.
Just to build something can create value, but when funds are limited and competition for them becomes fierce, I would prefer a litmus test that funding goes for those projects that can help generate wealth as well as just value.
Common sense in federal agencies is that you don’t trot out a big new plan right before a major election. For one, it insults the candidates in that the winner may not be the one whose agency heads get control. Also in that an election is a line in the sand for policy development. Even a reelected incumbent doesn’t need his or her hands tied. You just don’t do it if you’ve got any smarts. Period.
I suspect that Bolden and Gerst have cleared this plan with OMB and the White House, and just need a Presidential mandate to go forth with it. They have that now.
I suspect this is not landing men on the moon. After all Obama ridiculed that with “been there done that” and that would require a greatly expanded budget or long time line. So this is really not a moon mission per se (no landing). Also don’t see this as a L2 manned or man tended station since that would require a bigger budget as well, ongoing expeditures similar to the SST and additionally would be rather pointless as a gateway of any type unless supplied with refueling propellants from the moon (which is not going to happen). Rather I see this as a test flight mission simulation of an asteroid mission using the Orion at the moon L2. Test to include radiation protection and simulated asteroid mission duration.
It was Romney not Obama that ridiculed a Moon Colony.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/w…
So Obama can build one.
Andrew, Obama also dished/ridiculed a moon landing when he announced the Asteroid/Mars initiative. He used the words “been there done that”. That why I don’t see this as involving any type of moon landing.
That is a manned Moon landing. With a politician talking the ridiculing would not exclude unmanned landings that say investigate ISRU. We have not done ISRU so they are not ruled out by ‘BTDT’.
edited for clarity.
Not sure I follow what you are saying Andrew. Are you saying this NASA proposal is going to be a manned moon landing? Don’t think so. Also we don’t need a L2 facility to operate moon surface vehicles, rovers, robots, etc. Thats an expense way to do it, do it from earth with a simple relay satellite at L2 or some other moon orbit.
I am not predicting NASA’s announcement.
tejasmojo,
The distance from the Earth-Moon L2 point to the Moon is only about 13% of the distance from Earth to the Moon. This means a one-way teleoperating delay of less than half a second, instead of the three-second delay from the Earth to the Moon. And that is very significant (imagine driving your car with a three-second delay). Adding a relay satellite doesn’t change anything, since the distance that an RF signal would have to travel is still the same. So, having a manned facility at E-M L2 makes the teleoperating of equipment on the Moon doable, whereas from Earth it’s not (if it was, we’d certainly have been doing it long before now).
Steve
A manned station at L2 is not needed for real-time teleoperation, simply because, 6 years after a DOD-sponsored autonomous vehicle completed an off-road race, the only reason we do not have autonomous rovers is because NASA is not up to the state of the art.
tejasmojo,
If this is to eventually morph in to something permanently habitable, then there’s going to have to be lots of unmanned precursor missions first, to establish the necessary infrastructure elements, and that will certainly run more than one Presidential term. So, it’s going to be a “greatly expanded budget or long time line” (or probably both) no matter what.
Steve
If you look at the past four years you can see the administration electing to do many various things that Obama claims to personally not like at all. He does, after all, work for everybody. So while Obama may think the Moon is silly, that does not mean that work to that end will not occur under his watch.
Case in point, while there is probably no way we’re going to actually land on the Moon right now (for a number of reasons), this work (if done) can set the stage for whoever’s next to go right ahead and do it in a snap.
I see NASA at this time (under the current admin. and legislature) as rebuilding. We don’t have LEO, but it’s being worked on in a cool, smart, exciting way. We can’t get to the Moon, but infrastructure between here and there is being built.
Whether he says go or not, it’ll be much easier to do so in a few years.
If they do this, and they should make the lander no-frills and reusable. Have it attached the the L2 base, captured by a robotic arm (hell use an old shuttle one), and used just for getting up and down from a similarly no-frills base camp.
Anything that goes that far from Earth needs to be reused and resused a lot. I’m sure there will be the temptation to do Apollo-style one offs, as I’m sure there will be the temptation to build over priced “luxury” landers as opposed what amounts to a fuselage bolted to a rocket with legs.
Hell, does it even have to be pressurized? If not, don’t bother.
COTS commercial, NASA just pays a per seat price. Base it at NASA’s L2 station.
nothing in space is “no frills” !
Anything is better than going around…around…around…around…and around again…
ya … better to go round and round the moon .. round and round mars .. oh wait .. I guess EVERYTHING is going round and round .. including the milky way galaxy …. round and round must be the natural state of things… even the water down the drain … darn that corolis effect
I’ll reserve judgement until I see a plan. That they might be thinking about having a plan rather than just building something, would be a positive sign.
As far as going somewhere, the appropriate plan is to adapt and apply current technology and the current people and their experience, as already developed and functioning on ISS, to a vehicle that has the capability of going somewhere, rather than to throw everything away and starting over with a new and different approach because everything our predecessors have done is a “mistake”. If you recall that was the Griffin approach.
We need to be building on what we have and what we know how to do. I have not seen any signs that the current set of NASA managers is better, more knowledgeable or more capable than the ones that preceded them; they ought to be working on the legacy of building on the work of their predecessors, not throwing it away in the expectation that today we somehow know better.
Hopefully they have put together a complete story and good rationale, technically, politically, and monetarily, rather than another ‘quick get something out there so the bloggers can jump on it’-also the Constellation/Griffin approach. The Vision was not too far off and the original plans in the first year after the Vision was announced was a good start.
I am worried because the Orion (Constellation) approach of throw-away, non-reusable spacecraft that operate in the Apollo mode, with people living in tiny capsules for years and months, while at the same time producing a too large, too heavy emergency escape capsule for launch, is not the right approach for long duration, deep space, beginning to use the resources of space, which is the track we should have been on.
Another plan that will never happen. I feel bad for NASA, they just don’t have the funding anymore to launch a single human into space. They can’t do it five years from now and they might not even do it ten years from now.
What do you tell the current astronauts? Hey folks, just hang out here for the NEXT DECADE and then we’ll might launch you for a test flight. Don’t worry, we’ll keep your walker safe and sound while you’re gone.
That’s the part that kills me .. commercial astronauts is going to be the way to go.
Folks:
2020 something? Oh, come on! This could be done way sooner with what we have or will soon have.
Falcon 9 & Falcon heavy will do for launch vehicles. Bigelow & grounded ISS modules will do for the L2 station. Dragon capsules will do for:
– crew transportation to/from L2.
– propulsion modules. Outfit a Dragon with extra fuel tanks in the cabin to use as a reusable propulsion module for station keeping and for refueling landers. When they are empty, send them home for refurbishment, refueling and reuse.
– landers. Use a fuel tanker Dragon as a cargo lander. Turn the Dragon trunk into a cargo module (pressurized or unpressurized), use the Super Dracos to land, disconnect the cargo trunk and use the same Super Dracos to return the Dragon capsule to L2 for refueling by the propulsion tankers.
– crewed landers. Rig a Crew Dragon and trunk as a SSTFL2 (Single Stage To/From L2). The shortened trunk would have the extra fuel necessary to make decent and assent to the lunar surface, again, using Super Dracos for both.
All of these basic components have or will be proven in flight. Yes, it’s just a beginning but at least it’s technology on it’s way instead of still in the paper dream phase.
tinker
“you are talking fast and cheap .. but .. ah .. where is the pork?” = Congressional Porkonaut
Vlad:
The lawmakers can get their pork the hard way… by encouraging SpaceX to build a Falcon and/or Dragon manufacturing plant in their districts. They could give state and municipal tax breaks the way SpaceX negotiated with Hawthorne to keep their headquarters there or the way SpaceX is negotiating for a commercial launch site in Texas and elsewhere.
The pork is their if they want to work for it! Hey, it’s the same model of reciprocity car manufacturers have taken advantage of for decades. The politicians wanted the car plants in their districts and they give a little bit of effort and negotiation in hopes of get a lot of return. They don’t have a hand at designing the cars (or even care as long as they sell) but politicians might have a hand directing experts to develop a code of safety standards.
Elon Musk wants SpaceX to be treated like any other business that provides a service. They just happen to make launch vehicles and spacecraft is all.
tinker
“well your answer looks sensable and well thought out .. but .. it sounds like work”
LOL
Great answer. Put the competition at the state level rather than the crongressional level.
Congress should set the rules and then get out of the way. Like zero – G = zero – Tax
Set a rule and let the states bargin with each other.
Pork – Look where things happen:
Dragon manufactured – California
Bigelow BA330 – Nevada
Morpheus lander and big Morpheus – Texas
Atlas V launch – Florida
Plenty of pork.
edit: spelling
Texus?
What if the plan is to use SLS Orion programs to get a mission plan out there before the public, Then show/tell the T party congress types that there is a cheaper better way just as Tinker outlines, and we cancel SLS and orion and hire the cheaper new space guys to do the plan cheaper and faster. and letting them keep the hardware installed.
hummmmm??????
Seems like a good way to get us building lunar railroad components to me!!!!
> 2020 something? Oh, come on! This could be done way sooner
I cannot help but think of the movie “Apollo 13” when Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell said on night of Apollo 11 landing, (paraphrase) “It’s not a miracle, it’s was we decided to go.”
From article: “NASA officials think they can pull off such manned missions without busting their budget”
Yeahh, I already heard that somewhere. Ah, yes, Constellation. Newsflash: if you want to do something, you have to pay for it. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
Folks – I am not sure why there is such a rush to explore. Yes we can take great risk and push quickly to get to places like the moon, but this is not a race. This is the next phase in human exploration – let’s consider this a marathon. The present world economy cannot afford to spend significant money to make something like this happen quickly. I also do not think it is in our best interest to rush into this, since we cannot afford a failure. Let’s build up some momentum by investing our limited funds carefully. We can use Arsenal space to perform the research needed to attain our goals. We can continue to fund new space so they build up their experience on lower risk activities. Once we are in a position to make that real push into space we hopefully will have a very robust industry that can sustain the drive. While we have been to the moon in the past, I believe that this is a different goal. Our goal then was just to get to the moon and back. Now it should be to put ourselves in a position to stay there and use the moon as a jumping point. I am excited about the future, but I fully understand that it might be my kids that get to be the witness of great human achievement.
Manned exploration has not occurred since the 1970s. That is about 40 years. The only animal that can accuse us of rushing is a snail.
SciFiFanLA,
Your post makes good sense to me, even though I’m not as young as I used to be and therefore would miss out on some of the excitement of a more leisurely exploration program. But if it’s worth doing at all, then it’s worth doing right.
The one aspect that I would question is your suggestion that “We can use Arsenal space to perform the research needed to attain our goals.” I feel certain that it would end up being done cost-plus and take far longer than necessary. One characteristic of Arsenal space is that they tend to build things into major programs that will lead to additional follow-on programs. They don’t really want to being selling new and better product every year; they prefer to sell the same designs, perhaps with minor modifications, for as long as possible. Obviously that’s more profitable for them, and it gives them the argument that they can provide a product (that is already designed) for a much better price (than something newly designed or upgraded) and more quickly.
I would suggest the alternative that NASA itself do the research to the maximum extent possible (the NACA concept), and keep NASA out of the design and manufacturing mode that they have been getting more into over time. It has not proven to be a strength; in fact their track record in designing/building spacecraft and launch vehicles has been pretty dismal, whereas their R&D record is world class.
Steve
There’s a common thread running through almost all these comments, and most discussions of space exploration–space is viewed as an expense rather than an investment. Aerospace has generated a huge return on investment for the past 60 years. We owe our consumer and commercial technologies to the ICs developed for the missile and space programs of the 1950s-1970s. Someone once claimed that every dollar invested in NASA had returned $10 to the economy as a whole–personally, I would be happy with half that and most private investors would be happy with a 500% return.
Anything that challenges our abilities and our technologies, assuming we meet that challenge, is worth doing even if the ROI is not starkly obvious at the outset. By extending our scientific and technological reach, we add value to the economy in unanticipated ways.
One reason we have lagged so far behind our potential in space is that Congress has repeatedly demanded a visible return on investment before allocating funds. This has not changed, and with the Tea Party entrenched in the House, the situation is even worse–What should be seen as an investment that will generate undreamt of capabilities, markets, and jobs is seen as waste.
To call this short-sighted is a vast understatement; it is, instead, the willful truncation of our future as a nation, and perhaps as a species.
Mark, there are good and bad investments, even in space. In my mind, if we are putting up a facility at L2, we are taking on a costly burden (build and maintain) that needs to be justified. Maybe NASA will provide a satisfactory justification, we will see. Right now I see this as an unnecessary expense that actually takes money away from and slows down an actual manned asteroid exploration mission. We don’t need to build a L2 facility to go to an asteroid or Mars. Don’t see nothing wrong with raising questions.
EML-2 is a good place to change spacecraft if you are going to an asteroid, Mars or the Moon. Even better one when coming back.
EML-2 allows the landers and deep space spacecraft to be reused, so it should be possible to calculate the number of say lunar missions needed to save more than the cost of the spacestation.
“We don’t need to build a L2 facility to go to an asteroid or Mars.“
tejasmojo,
You may be right (I’m inclined to disagree with current technology), but it would certainly be much less risky going by way of an L2 way station. It would also allow for a smaller spacecraft and/or larger mission payload if you could top up your fuel and oxidizer at L2 before going on a BEO mission.
Steve
Why less risky? and where is the fuel coming from? And people talk about contractors driving up the cost of missions, looks like they are getting a lot of help.
tejasmojo,
Less risky for the simple reason that you have a habitable free fall station along the route that you can head for if you run into trouble past LEO. Anything that puts a safe location farther out is potentially going to lessen human risk.
As for the fuel, some of us, apparently not you, are looking a little further down the road to a time when a space infrastructure is in place (NASA has also been talking about fuel depots). Don’t think in terms of only single missions or we’ll remain in a non-sustainable space program for ever.
As for your sarcasm, based on the content of some of your posts, there are some pretty basic things that you apparently don’t understand, so you’d be wise to tread a little more carefully.
Steve
NASA could have a manned lunar lander mission on the 2017 launch of the SLS if they would only think small, viz. the Early Lunar Access(ELA) proposal of 1993:
Encyclopedia Astronautica.
Early Lunar Access.
http://www.astronautix.com/…
It only required 52 metric tons(mT) to orbit, well within the 70 mT capability of even the first version of the SLS.
Bob Clark
He wasn’t ridiculing the idea. He was making a statement of fact. One that Buzz Aldrin agreed with.
Kennedy set a challenge and we accomplished it. Saying we have already achieved a landing on Luna, the President instead laid out a different challenge. An asteroid and then Mars.
His 2010 NASA budget reflected more of what is in The Vision for Space Exploration, as laid out by President Bush, then anything done under the ESAS and Constellation.
What exactly did the VSE outline?
Well one thing it was clear on:
“For cargo transport to the Space Station after 2010, NASA will rely on existing or new commercial cargo transport systems, as well as international partner cargo transport systems. NASA does not plan to develop new launch vehicle capabilities”
Griffin and the ESAS .. well he went right off the reservation with that one and had his thumb on the scale when he was weighing in on using EELV’s of build a new one.
The stakeholders did not want that they wanted new and even bigger cost plus and the porkonauts were sure not happy to see this:
“In the days of the Apollo program, human exploration systems employed expendable, single-use vehicles requiring large ground crews and careful monitoring. For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews.”
Space State congressional representatives were saying “Say wha? small ground crews? Reusable space based vehicles? Fuel depots? “
The VSE was tossed out the window and President Obama’s plan of funding the tech outlined in it .. was a non starter.
In with the new constellation pork train to nowhere, SLS and MPCV.
So, now were given another plan for NASA,more ambitious,challenging.All being held pending the election results.As much as I want to be excited over this,I’m not because it ranks of political pandering to the electoric.No plans by Obama were even offered during the campaign,even Romney was guilty of this.
Now that the election is over,new plans are being offered which sound promising but more details need to be given to convince the public they’re actually feasible and that our leaders can be trusted in their initiation.
An old saying can be applied here and that’s,”put up or shut up”. So……..!
Steve, et al. :
Many of you have expressed a demand that we have a proper reason for going out there and, of course, for spending a huge chunk of money when our nation has been placed in dire financial straits by an irresponsible government.
A government that has slashed the military budget and, along with it, NASA’s budget this year was beginning to look like we might be down to making paper
airplanes only.
So, convincing the White House that actually doing something IS a worthy cause will be a monumental undertaking but, let’s plan as if we HAD the approval.
Well, if my memory hasn’t failed me, I remember NASA saying they had plans and were working on the capability to put a m,an on the Moon by 1959 AND, a permanent base there by 1969. OK, the reality was that the military deemed it to be more important to have a certain number of aerospace craft parked in space where no other nation could reach them.
Since each one carried nuclear weapons, they were a very effective deterent and each crew served a two week stint and then was replaced without then need for these aerospace craft to return to earth. this was done and in place by 1959 unless I’m mistaken.
This is the real reason, I think, why our Moon landing project was delayed by ten years. That said, please let me begin my discussion.
There are many reasons why mankind must be in space and, mind you, on a permanent basis.
1. POPULATION PRESSURE : We now have 1.6 Billion Chinese, 1.2 Billion Hindu and about that many Arabs. The rest of the planet is about 3 Billion people for a total that’s near 7 Billion now. This planet is nearing the end of it’s capability to feed the inhabitants. We must do something and NOW, not later.
Space colonization is exactly what we need and, due to our genetics, for one of our colonies to survive independently for longer than ten generations, each colony must have a minimum of 250,000 inhabitants. More would be better.
2. A NUCLEAR THIRD WORLD WAR.: This kind of war can only have an end result of total devastation which just might be the end of humanity as we know it. A Space Colonization policy would help out a lot.
3. MANKIND NEEDS A CHALLENGE. : We humans just seem to function better when we have a really big challenge. We are behaving like spoiled children in one family. They will fight amongst themselves. However, when faced with an
enemy of an ExtraTerrestrial origin, I’m expecting all of us to pull together and face that enemy as a unified front. We can now place people in Space and have them explore and study what is out there.
4. JUST TO SEE WHAT’S OUT THERE. : Mankind has a thirst to know what’s out there so, does that more readily explain why we’ve been doing this work.
— Ecuadore1 —
Poly,
As to your preamble, I’m guessing (it’s all I can do) that you’re referring to the military’s MOL program (Manned Orbiting Laboratory). It was not a NASA plan and it didn’t actually happen (although there was a lot of work done for it on Earth), nor, to the best of my knowledge, did anything remotely like it happen, so I’m afraid that everything you’ve written based on it simply isn’t true. In particular, there were no nuclear weapons put into space in the 1960’s in the way that you suggest, by the US or anyone else.
As for your reasons for being in space, I can’t argue with you because they are all valid ideas, in my opinion, but I encourage you to go back and do some more research because, at this point in time and at any time in the near future, mankind’s space capabilities are simply not up to the job of alleviating these problems. For example, if we suddenly had the capability to create, in space, habitats for 250,000 people, or however many people you like, how are you going to transport all of those people from Earth to the colonies? Are they to take along and make do with their current possessions, or are you going to outfit them with everything they need? Who are you going to send, the most needy, who are also the least educated, or those people with the most relevant training and experience?
As you’ve said, there are many reasons why mankind must be in space, but we have to do things in a certain order or it won’t work. You can’t suddenly jump to the point where the problems you’ve outlined can be solved, for any amount of money, without first developing and proving the necessary technologies, which unfortunately is going to take many more years yet. There are also difficult social and cultural issues to be overcome.
I salute your spirit Poly, and I encourage you to learn everything you can, and teach others, that will put the world on the road to where we can solve the problems you’ve listed, and many more as well. The first step for all of us is to learn what can and can not be done, and then work towards the things that we’ll need but don’t yet have.
It’s also essential to have a plan that will actually do what you want, and that too is a big task. For instance, in the event of a nuclear war, if our off-Earth colonies are going to be how the human race survives, exactly how many people would be required, in how many places, with what skills and experience, what genetic diversity, and once you’ve properly figured out all of the answers to these types of questions comes the hardest question of all — how do you make sure it all happens according to your plans? There will always be people with money and power trying to modify or even take away your program; how do you stop them? Unfortunately you can’t rely on human nature and hope that people will simply do the right things. History shows us that that doesn’t work. A good plan is absolutely essential, because you can’t change things if you find out too late that there were problems in your plan.
Please don’t be discouraged by anything I’ve said. It’s a very large challenge and solving it is going to take a lot of work, and time, from educated, willing, caring and dedicated people, who aren’t simply waiting around for someone else to solve the problems. I hope you will be one of those people Poly.
Steve
Canada
Population pressure cannot be relieved by transporting people to another plant simply because people can reproduce much faster than they can be transported. A country cannot become wealthy enough to afford human spaceflight without controlling population growth. A nuclear war must be avoided because of the unimaginable devastation it would cause, but surviving the war in shelters (as in Dr. Strangelove) would be less expensive than transporting the same number of people to another planet and establishing a colony that can survive with no support from earth at all. We aren’t likely to see an alien invasion; the cost of such a plan would exceed by many times the value the could be gained. Finally, unless we can substantially reduce the cost of human spaceflight, exploration can be performed more effectively by robotic systems.
The taxpayers will not fund billion-dollar joyrides. If we want to fly in space, we have to reduce the cost enough for a large number of customers to afford it for mundane purposes (research, tourism, etc.).
The only thing that is sustainable is wealth generation. In space, I think that means you start out with Space Solar Power. Lew Fraas’s concept is radically different for SPS. He lofts only mirrors to LEO. He simply reflects photons to existing solar farms already operating all over mother earth. This makes the system ten times lighter than your typical microwave beaming SPS concept to GEO with mirrors, structure, PV cells, microwave transmitters, active beam steering mechanisms etc. I think Lew’s system is simple, cost effective, and will be the appropriate first step toward full blown microwave SPS in GEO, and eventually a Dyson Sphere.
By thinking *small* NASA can have a manned LANDER mission to the
Moon within a decade.
The argument for why this is doable is rather simple. The Early Lunar Access(ELA) [1] proposal of the early 90’s, which deserves to be better known actually, suggested that by using a lightweight 2-man capsule and all cryogenic in-space stages that a manned lunar lander mission could be mounted with only 52 mT required to LEO, half that previously thought necessary. The only technical complaint about its feasibility was that it required a crew capsule of only 3 mT empty weight. But the kicker is NASA is planning a Space Exploration Vehicle(SEV) [2] at that same low 3 mT empty weight. So the SLS at a 70 mT payload capability will be able to launch such a mission using the SEV as crew capsule following the ELA architecture with plenty of margin.
Bob Clark
References.
1.)Encyclopedia Astronautica. Early Lunar Access. http://www.astronautix.com/…
2.)Space Exploration Vehicle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Musk was talking about a translunar passenger service back in 2008: http://www.flightglobal.com…
Impossible with current launch technology and current opposition to taxes. Better to focus on reducing the cost of human launch to LEO.
Classic! – I need to print it out as a poster and put it next to my Saturn V & Voyager prints.
http://www.xkcd.com/1133/
I really like: the “This end should point towards the ground if you want to go to space”
Nice to have read that John Logsdon is still plugged in to the Powers that be, and is sharing some good news.
Hope this is more than just a make work mission for the Senate Launch System.
Oh, and will someone from NASA PR please call NBC news and Brian Williams and let those folks know that we aren’t dead in space? His reporting on NASA activities has been rather cynical /jaded lately. He covered the Shuttle Endeavor move /Removal of LA street trees issue 3 times!
Perhaps the negativity vis a vis NASA over at NBC news is just a holdover from the Jay Barbree days/
Again, I wish that someone in the know (say Miles O’Brien) could so a more comprehensive feature about our new future in Space.