SBAG Does Not Think Much of Asteroid Redirect Mission
Small Bodies Assessment Group FIndings
“While the SBAG committee finds that there is great scientific value in sample return missions from asteroids such as OSIRIS-Rex, ARRM has been defined as not being a science mission, nor is it a cost effective way to address science goals achievable through sample return. Candidate ARRM targets are limited and not well identified or characterized. Robotic sample return missions can return higher science value samples by selecting from a larger population of asteroids, and can be accomplished at significantly less cost (as evidenced by the OSIRIS-REx mission). Support of ARRM with planetary science resources is not appropriate.”
Unless I’m missing something very basic, SBAG and the NASA Asteroid Mission(s) have two different sets of goals, so it’s no surprise that SBAG isn’t all excited about this mission. I find it disappointing that the SBAG people would condemn a NASA mission seemingly simply because it doesn’t do what they would prefer to see someone doing.
I don’t see that they are condemning it, just saying the it should not be paid for from the planetary science budget. That is fair enough – the mission is about exploration and should be paid from the exploration budget.
It is one thing to present a proposal that is subject to the very useful review of people with expertise in the field, i.e. The Small Bodies Assessment Group would logically be consulted on a program involving capture of an asteroid. To couch said program as a Presidential Budget initiative and proceed full-tilt with no such review is preposterous.
No matter what mission is selected it will never happen. The next administration will come into office and want to “Give NASA direction” and cancel everything the last administration did and we will have blown billions of dollars with nothing to show for it. Let’s just cancel NASA altogether.
By that logic we may as well get them to cancel everything and all go home.
SBAG is comprised of planetary scientists who want every penny of NASA’s planetary science budget applied to only planetary science. They fail to consider the value of cooperation, the broader goals of NASA, the concept of sharing resources to accomplish larger multi-task missions, or the importance of economic value being found in the subjects they study. Personally, I’d rather see NASA demonstrate the technologies needed for asteroid ISRU than pure science. If the Planetary Science community chooses to encourage economic exploitation of NEAR, then in the long run their budget for study will be much greater. ARRM is an important step in bringing ISRU to reality.
The planetary science community is comprised of a very diverse group of people who do a lot of work for very little total money. They are arguably one of NASA’s biggest success stories. And yet NASA has a history of raiding planetary science funding to pay for boondoggles like the James Webb mission to Maryland. And ISRU is nice, but it is not what the planetary science is for. The absolute last thing we need is to have yet another group trying to raid planetary science research funds.
Look at it the other way around — ISRU can be a useful tool to support planetary science, and many other types of space science and development. NASA doesn’t have an ISRU Directorate, so the work and cost have to be spread around.
ISRU consists of mining raw materials, refining them and using them for consumable supplies (e.g. water) or to fabricate equipment (e.g. steel). It can be vital and impressive, but it is engineering, not science. It should be paid for by Exploration.
I think we have to allow for the fact that we’re talking about doing these things in an environment and under conditions that are outside of our experience doing them to date. It would be engineering if we could simply use Earth-based processes and equipment, but that will not be the case. Considerable experimentation and learning will be needed, which I would classify as science. One of the lessons of Gemini was that reality in space differs from theory when it comes to physical processes; learning and practice are necessary.
But I don’t want to argue over a word. ISRU will benefit almost every activity/program in space, even if we only look as far as life support consummables. That being the case, I won’t worry about who in NASA pays for ISRU development, just that it does get paid for and accomplished. For better or for worse, for most of NASA habit seems to be to tie the costs for new process developments to the program that first needs/uses them.
Scientists wanting to do science. Outrageous.
They should willingly go sit in a corner while the managers and contractors allocate 90% of the funds for strategies, reviews, and economic value policy.
That’s an exaggeration.
Let’s try this point of view in another light. How many Earth Scientists (Geologists, etc), work to locate and exploit petrochemicals? How many Earth Scientists would there be if the economic value of the objects they study was ignored?
NASA is not asking for the Planetary Science budget to pay for ALL of ARRM, just to contribute a share. Since science involving planetary subjects will come from ARRM, it is reasonable to ask for a contribution.
OSIRIS-Rex ignores the economic value of asteroids and is embraced by SBAG. ARRM has real value to lead the way to asteroid ISRU and get’s short shrift.
Put Planetary Scientists to work doing something with an ROI and there will be a bigger budget for them overall.
No, let’s look at how it really is: socializing the risk and privatizing the profits. Private companies use results from published, basic research done by academics for their own purposes. They also invest from time-to-time in such applied research as increases their profits. This stays with them as ‘intellectual property’ and is seldom published.
Your statement “Put Planetary Scientists to work doing something with ROI” tells the tale. Why are the private enterprises not lining up to pay for this mission? Because there is no ROI for them unless the substantial risk is reduced. Preferably on the public’s back. Same with the ISS and all its promises of scientific glory.
“Ask for a contribution” – Rob from the poor and give to the rich?
No, there won’t be a bigger budget for the conscripted planetary scientists. If there’s any money made, a pittance at best will be put into research, and then it won’t be anything curiosity driven or fundamental.
For asteroid science the most cost-effective path is generally robotic probes with in-situ instrumentation. ISRU and asteroid retrieval can be made practical, but their goal is to support human exploration.
However with current technology BEO human spaceflight itself is not practical. Even human flight to LEO is too expensive to send more than a few humans a year. Obviously for supporters of human spaceflight correcting this central problem should be the first priority, and requires reusable spacecraft and launch systems. Instead we are making a vast investment in the new enterprise called “exploration”, creating the illusion that the problem of human launch cost can be solved by spending billions on a mostly-robotic demonstration mission flown with entirely expendable equipment.
If you want to reduce space exploration to good marketing, fine.
But if you want to base it on the ability to maintain public interest as if it was a reality show…forget it. The fickle public will always betray you.
Asteroids would be fine (given that the mission benefited science, tech development and long range goals in human expansion into the Solar System). BUT…the skills that don’t seem to exist at NASA are the ability to ‘sell’…to communicate and educate. And when they try…wow. Just turn on NASA TV. Ugh.
People need to be shown why they should value any mission. Cancer researches don’t try to get support by putting their doctors on pseudo-movie posters and all the other sillyness of STEM outreach.
(Additionally…space exploration supporters really…aaaahhh….suck…at being a unified front to push the agenda forward, IMHO. They would rather spend all their time debating propellant trades studies on websites :-/