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Space Development: Going Everywhere and Nowhere

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
June 19, 2013
Filed under

Moon, Mars, or Asteroids, Which is the Best Destination for Solar System Development?, Dennis Wingo
“The Moon!, no Mars!, no Asteroids! Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century and in the NASA, space advocacy, and commercial space worlds one of these three destinations are being touted (largely to the exclusion of others) for their value to science, human exploration, and economic development, but which one of them is the most valuable, the most deserving, of our attention?
This argument is taking place today in the vacuum of space policy that we currently live in without any unifying principles or policy to inform our decisions. Without a guiding policy and sense of purpose that encompasses more than narrow interests and singular destinations it is exceedingly likely that the human exploration and development of the solar system will continue to be an expensive and futile exercise. We must develop a firm moral, technological, and fiscal foundation for this outward move that will attract capital investment, spur technology development, and encourage innovation in a manner that people can understand, believe in, and thus financially support.”

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

29 responses to “Space Development: Going Everywhere and Nowhere”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    *Sigh* Another one of these. I suppose I should be grateful that he’s admitting the need for gradually expanding outwards. But it’s the same problem with so many Grand Plans: they look too far ahead, plan too far in advance, and ultimately don’t survive the electoral cycles.

    If you want your program to survive, you need shorter-term goals built around getting actual hardware into space as quickly as possible – hardware that requires missions from that point on. The ISS, Hubble repair missions, and Space Shuttle have shown that it’s easier to keep a program actively doing missions with stuff in space going than to start new programs from scratch.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      Did you actually read the article? Do you not understand that the reason we keep peeing in our cornflakes regarding space is that there is no one today willing to actually have the guts to say that the economic development of the solar system is the reason for a space program.

      John Marburger had the guts to say it in 2006 and he is the only one since George Keyworth in the 80’s to even postulate a reason that was not a science project and we see where that has gotten us.

      The Space Power Theory book that was done in 2005 was buried as soon as possible and when Newt Gingrich tried to talk about it during the last election he was lampooned and ridiculed.

      I don’t give a rats patootie whether or not the U.S. government develops this policy today. In the earlier years of the republic it was the people who developed the aspirations and the government followed with policy to support it. Today we expect some soviet type top down blessing from the president and all will be well. We see what that got the Russians.

      It is up to us to develop this further as a policy and do what we can within the capitalist system to implement the policy. The problem that the American government has today is that it has quit listening to the people. When that happens the end of the republic is a countdown away.

      This article and others and efforts by capitalists is our way of saying LISTEN TO WHAT WE ARE SAYING.

      • muomega0 says:
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        “provide more money” “NASA (?) is unwilling to consider alternative architectures” “economic development” “robotic prospectors for thorium, titanium, asteroid fragments” “must go beyond throwaway vehicles”

        Looking far ahead is as important as the incremental steps, because you may not fund short term increment if the performance or cost upsets the current of far term program.

        The HLV product lines fit this dilemma today. The technology is ready to go with decades of experience, but it provides NASA with too much mass to LEO while consuming too much budget. So does Orion. The 20,000 kg Orion is too big for short lunar sorties and its 20+ day capability is way to short for a trip to mars, lacking volume for supplies and crew health, and its primary function should only be earth return and launch. That’s 2.5B/yr.

        So it is not “NASA” ,but rather a part of Congress dictating HLV, so when you advocate for “more funding”, most of NASA sees that one could start with a cheaper IMLEO solution: A LEO ZBO depot and smaller LVs, and spend the remaining funds on the critical technologies need to sustainable explore. Defer the HLV to the future.

        While gathering resources could bring an economical benefit once the launch costs are reduced, technology that NASA requires to explore could provide shorter term benefits. For example, active radiation shielding, lighter than passive absorbers, will provide an economic spinoff to the US in the short term. Filling up a the depot provides margin for all science missions: want to add an instrument–off load propellant and fill up at the LEO gas station. Building a long life depot that does not expend expensive, long life equipment with a refueling stage each mission saves cash now and in the future. The cryocoolers on the depot can be modified for the active shielding and for ISRU propellant. The ability to land heavy objects on Mars helps ISRU, HSF, and the science programs by reducing the number the of trips to achieve the same landed mass and hence saves costs.

        This is an example of how long term thinking affects short term goals and vice versa. What’s missing today is that one someone has a technology that does not fit, its forced back in.

        Since a significant amount of cash is then needed for all the equipment to explore, it clearly shows that the need for 10*100mT/year possible with HLV is just not required in the next few decades. Rather a single 10*20mT/year is likely sufficient, especially since the US and world has multiple launchers with excess launch capacity. Perhaps modest funding can be allocated to maintain the capability.

        I am surprised you do not state the obvious in your blog., so I agree with TheBrett, it looks too far ahead without stating some of steps required in the short term.

        Perhaps you can comment on
        Squyres recommendations:
        – Mars is the long term goal
        – narrowly focus on activities to landing humans on Mars, operating there
        – cis-lunar space as the next milestone
        – no milestones without ample funding

        http://science.house.gov/si

        • Denniswingo says:
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          So it is not “NASA” ,but rather a part of Congress dictating HLV,

          You have it backward. After the announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), the usual suspects ran to NASA headquarters to push an HLV. It was rejected out of hand by Craig Steidle’s ESMD as being too expensive with far too much overhead, basically being the Shuttle on steroids.

          If you want to know the thinking before the Griffin era you should dig up the Concept Exploration and Refinement (CE&R) documents from the studies that were done. There were few HLV’s in those architectures and they were heavy on operations and ISRU.

          After O’Keefe left and Griffin came on board this was all tossed out the window because Mike came in knowing what he wanted and the ESAS architecture came into being. Being the very smart guy he is he basically bashed all opposition out of the way, forcing retirements of the old hands and ignoring the advice of the Apollo era people.

          His architecture was unsustainable from day one and everyone knew it but he felt that if he pushed enough of it through then it would have an element of sustainability. He was right, but for the wrong reasons. The HLV was sustained but it looks more and more like a rocket to no where, with no money for payloads, and no destination because all of the destinations require landers which cost too much money. It is supported by a few senators and no one else cares as it is a rounding error in the larger budget debacle our nation faces.

          This missive was meant to help bring some clarity to the subject for policy makers. You would be surprised who reads NW and there are still those in government with brains who actually want to help the nation. Yes I know that it is an outmoded concept but there it is. It was not mean to delve into the technical details of such trips.

          My next missive, because some friends still think that I am too focused on the Moon, is to develop some near term asteroid missions that are more in keeping with the goals and the financing available from the Science Mission Directorate at NASA and or private enterprise. NASA talks big talk about the asteroid missions but we are woefully ignorant of what is out there. This must change before we can even think of missions there.

          • CadetOne says:
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            I’d like to see more of your thoughts on architectures using current launch vehicles on planned extensions to current ones. Are fuel depots important? Do you think small companies such as Armadillo Aerospace or Masten Space Systems could play a role landing small rovers on the Moon? Is there a collection of seriously thought out business plans for space (like your Moonrush)? How much would it cost to get any of these Lunar X Prize contenders to the surface of the Moon? Can X Prize approaches be useful for expanding space exploration? (I seem to recall Newt Gingrich proposed such a strategy… maybe in Zubrin’s The Case for Mars?)

          • Denniswingo says:
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            A really good place to start are the CE&R studies from the Steidle era at ESMD, if they exist anymore.

            I am working some of this now.

      • TheBrett says:
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        Do you not understand that the reason we keep peeing in our cornflakes
        regarding space is that there is no one today willing to actually have
        the guts to say that the economic development of the solar system is the
        reason for a space program.

        There are plenty of people willing to talk about how space is the economic future, comparing it to the American Frontier, talking about mining asteroids, etc. The problem is a relative lack of private sector support to sustain such aspirations – even companies like SpaceX are dependent on contracts from the government. Planetary Resources is different, but they’re also at the point where they’re trying to make sure their telescopes are profitable.

        • Michael Reynolds says:
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          “The problem is a relative lack of private sector support to sustain such aspirations”

          That is because so many private companies and investors are caught up in the instant gratification culture so rampant in society today. If they cannot be rewarded for their investment quickly they will not invest at all.
          This should be something of importance for people in my generation to invest in (I’m smack dab between the millenials and gen-x) because it will be us and our children that are the ones fighting the future resource battles. Of the few venture capitalist that I know and talk to about this they tend to agree about the future resource battles, but see them as inevitable and would prefer to live on the high hog (short term) before these crisis get to a head and the world goes down the toilet.
          It also doesn’t help that the other side of the coin (public funding) is one big corrupt quagmire that is a result of the short election cycle combined with horrible campaign financing laws/regulations.
          Ultimately what needs to be pointed out (rammed repeatedly into people’s heads)is that the pay-out for the investment in expanding our economic sphere is not short-term profits, but to keep our society from spiraling back into the dark ages (i.e. your life and the lives of your descendants)

        • Denniswingo says:
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          Just as the national railroad would not have happened for additional decades without a federal policy that supported it, it is extremely difficult today to do lunar, asteroidal, or Mars development by the private sector without some guiding policy that says that their investment will have some legal protection.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I’ve long figured that it was the designating of, and agreement to, where the tracks were to be laid that was the critical factor to making progress with the railroads, once the money had been sorted out.
            All this discussion of policy, I believe, has the root purpose of nailing down the details of what is to be done in a national space program — where to lay the tracks, how many engines of what size to have built. etc. These decisions must be made before the work can really begin, and these decisions are absolutely dependent on the space program’s purpose(s) (the things to be achieved). And the latter is what, it seems, we never stop debating.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            There were two routes. The far easier route was across the southern tier of states and territories (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, to the budding town of Los Angeles and up the coast to SF. The system could have been finished years earlier.

            It was the uncivil war that took out the opposition to the northern route and it was immediately baselined and enshrined in the Pacific Railway Act of 1862.

        • CadetOne says:
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          “The problem is a relative lack of private sector support to sustain such aspirations – even companies like SpaceX are dependent on contracts from the government.”

          For some period of time NASA and the government will be a *major* customer for most private enterprises. Most companies, especially new ones, need every customer they can get. If you look at many transformational industries (railroads, airlines, computers, networking systems, …) the government was a critical early customer.

          I believe SLS (and potentially later down the road ISS) are a disincentive to investors and entrepreneurs because these government systems are seen as being competitors to private ventures.

  2. meekGee says:
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    I dunno. Looks to me like we’re heading for Mars pretty quickly. Except we’re it without a government grand plan. What can be better?

  3. majormajor42 says:
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    Weren’t some of these ideas, Gestalts, articulated by Jeff Greason in his ISDC keynote speeches? Where you are saying EDS, he is saying Settlement goals by means of a Planet Hopping strategy (although I think he includes the Moon and asteroids as part of the formula) with a good helping of ISRU tactics. Are they different ideas? Of course, it is also possible that some might say that these ideas fall under Flexible Path as well (what doesn’t?).

    SLS continues to be built, soaking up the budget with a low anticipated flight rate. NASA is doing its best to come up with a mission that it can afford, so the asteroid mission is the best we’ll get. I see no magic pill for increasing the overall budget to allow for other cooler surface missions. Recent history is littered with administrations that thought they were presenting just that, but failed. I can only hope that some ISRU (EDS) objectives will be part of the asteroid mission.

    There is lots of hope to go around within the status quo. There is hope that the small rovers headed for the Moon will explore the poles, in an attempt to uncover some of that ice. But these small GLXP efforts are hoping for lower launch costs. Lower launch costs are a key to many hopes, including EDS, I think. And there is hope that CC will keep getting funded enough, in the shadow of SLS/Orion, that it will take off.

    We see how our democracy is working. We are not convincing members of Congress to go against their acute self interests. Congressman Rohrabacher, who sits right next to his colleagues, doesn’t even seem to have that ability. So we have hope in our grand shadow policy that is inching in the EDS direction. And while Obama says “Been there, done that”, Griffin (who is saying things many prominent space policy lawmakers want to hear) says things like “Can’t deliver the laundry!” or basically “Lower cost commercial has not been there, and therefore can’t do that!”

    We see how committee meetings are structured. One thing they are not is an opportunity for someone like Greason and Griffin to debate each other while the wise, non-space experts, law/policy makers sit and listen, and maybe ask some non-leading questions and learn something.

    Unfortunately, the Griffin mindset holds sway in certain halls. Until the shadow policy catches up, and tons of equipment is being lofted at a lower cost, opening up opportunity to numerous destinations, the single destination policy prevails. You are laying the foundation of what will come. At some point it will be self-evident, but not yet.

    • CadetOne says:
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      “Weren’t some of these ideas, Gestalts, articulated by Jeff Greason in his ISDC keynote speeches?”

      I think there are a lot of similarities. The key to these (IMHO) is this is a policy (not a program or mission) and the policy should be clearly articulated and strongly embraced by a broad range participants so it doesn’t get changed with the next President or Congress.

      I recall Greason has started his speeches saying this is an unstated policy that no one is willing to say publicly. That is a problem,

    • CadetOne says:
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      “it is also possible that some might say that these ideas fall under Flexible Path”

      I agree. Unfortunately “Flexible Path” has a bad reputation.

      I think of it as having the ability to pivot when assumptions turn out to be wrong or conditions change. But until one of those things happen, you stay doggedly focused on getting to the next milestone. As Steve Jobs said, “Focus is about saying ‘no’.”

      No one can accuse NASA of being doggedly focused in a long time.

  4. CadetOne says:
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    Marburger’s phrase “incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere” significantly shaped my view of what the space program should be, and it is echoed in one way or another in most of my comments on this site.

  5. CadetOne says:
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    IMHO one problem we face is that much of the conventional space expertise in this country (within NASA, the primary contractors, and academics) is that they see NASA money as almost the sole source for funding all of space exploration. That is part of their DNA.

    I would prefer to see NASA money serve as a catalyst to bring in non-government money and expand the total amount of money brought into and circulated within space exploration.

    While Wingo’s article uses the railroad as a model, I would use the Internet (in part because it is more recent and more directly touches people today). When I first started working in Internet security in 1988, the Internet was mostly a government-funded operation through vehicles such as NSF. Since then it has taken off with a life of its own, creating huge amounts of wealth, transforming societies and relationships, and creating new unthought of technologies (e.g., iPhones). Very little of this was imagined to any great detail early on.

    But I also remember the efforts to begin commercializing the Internet was fought by the purists. I remember the first ads/promotions appearing in emails and discussion groups, and the the flames against these companies (I think “flame wars” is largely a product of the Internet too).

    I suspect the term “economic sphere” for many of the space purists generates similar antagonism. But I believe simply focusing on “missions” and “NASA dollars” will not seriously move us beyond LEO.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      The first browser, Mosaic, was done as a NSF contract through the University of Illinois by a young student named Mark Andreeson.

      • CadetOne says:
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        Who went on to found venture funded Netscape, which did a lot popularize the WWW and eventually made him rich. Now he is a venture capitalist himself with a couple of billion under management.

        That is bootstrapping.

        • Denniswingo says:
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          This illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding in seeking to compare space with the Internet or the computer industry.

          Andreeson was part of a small team an the NCSA at the University of Illinois who took the worldwide web, developed to support the fusion physics community (University of Illinois again), and used hypertext and a GUI to improve the plethora of less user friendly tools that were in place to support the budding Internet.

          Space is structurally akin to the mining industry with large capital cost structures, i.e. investment, before the first returns are had. This industry is thriving, growing 7% just this past year and has several hundred billion dollars a year in revenue. What has to happen is for money to be made available through some structural tweaks to the equity markets (treat space ventures like mining ventures or like wildcat oil ventures).

          • CadetOne says:
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            Several years ago Musk once quipped something like, “How do you become a space millionaire? You start off as a space billionaire.”

            My version is: “How do you start a space company? First start a technology company.”

            Carmack, Musk, Bezos, Ansari (who financially backed the X Prize), Allen (who backed the X Prize winner) earned their wealth in software/internet companies and now spend part of it on space.

            It is hard to start a space business without extremely deep pockets and very patient investors.

  6. Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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    Britain’s railways were built using private sector money. I suspect that most of the British Empire’s railways were as well. You may want to read up how the money was raised and what goals they had to meet.

    • LPHartswick says:
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      One problem with that model is that no matter where those railroads went you could eat the food, drink the water, and there was air to breathe. They also went there to procure goods that people back home would pay the coin of the realm for. The exploration of space is not really analogous to anything that we’ve done before. The harshness of the environment is another order of magnitude entirely. Europeans opened up the new world usually because of desperate circumstances. Those circumstances force them to take risks that they would not otherwise take, and only a very small percentage of people were willing to take those risks. Even in the relatively pacific environment of the New World we fed explorers into that endeavor like meat into a sausage grinder. A true accounting of the death toll opening the New World would probably be staggering to most modern sensibilities. I still feel that this endeavor will be the realm of governments for the foreseeable future, because I don’t see any real customers except for governments. That is unless you discover unobtainium on the moon, or in an asteroid. By the way, for every railroad that was a success, there were dozens that were failures.

      Please don’t misunderstand me. There is no bigger fan of space exploration than yours truly. I pay a boatload of taxes, and they could double my levy, if I could choose what the august spent the money on. For the time being the best we can hope for is to continue commercial crew, complete SLS/Orion, and hope the politicians will come to their senses on advanced propulsion technology development and return to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars.

      • Denniswingo says:
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        For the time being the best we can hope for is to continue commercial crew, complete SLS/Orion, and hope the politicians will come to their senses on advanced propulsion technology development and return to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars.

        Waiting for politicians to come to their senses is a very desperate tactic to take.

        • LPHartswick says:
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          LOL! Dennis in my business its called learned helplessness. I’m like Pavlov’s dog.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      Britain’s railways were built using private sector money.

      You need to re read your history. At least in the beginning they were supported by the crown, just like the waterways were.

      • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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        Britain’s railways were built by private sector companies using money raised by bank loans and issuing shares. The Government involvement was to pass laws allowing the compulsory purchase of the land.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

        • Denniswingo says:
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          Like I said, supported by the crown. Do you think that they could have obtained those bank loans without the emminent domain of the crown behind it? Read the history of the Manchester railroad, lots of politics in that.