Bolden's Confusing Asteroid Mission Rationale (Revised)
Leading the end of one space era, and the beginning of another, Washington Post
“And this is subtle. I have this discussion with my science friends all the time and those who are purist. The president said by 2025 we should send humans to an asteroid. What he meant was, you should send humans to somewhere between Mars and Saturn, because that’s where the dominant asteroids in the asteroid belt are. But no, he didn’t say that. He said: humans to an asteroid.”
Keith’s note: Unless he is misquoted, Bolden seems to be a little confused. Bolden also neglects to mention that there is a big difference between sending humans to regions of the solar system where asteroids are located as a stepping stone toward sending humans to Mars — and bringing the asteroid to Earth so we do not have to go as far to visit it. This defeats the original intent of sending humans greater distances during longer missions and replaces that intent with placing a small rock in orbit around a place we’ve already visited. We’re really not much closer to sending humans to Mars – and the President never said “bring the asteroid back to humans” either. That idea bubbled up on the 9th floor and at OSTP.
To be blunt, there is no compelling rationale for the Asteroid Redirect & Return Mission (ARRM). There never has been. Based on the way that Charlie Bolden continually stumbles through his conflicting explanation of what the mission is and is not, there never will be a clear reason why it needs to be done.
This is what the President actually said in 2010: “Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we’ll start — we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.”
With regard to the scientific value of the ARRM, the Small Bodies Assessment Group sees little scientific value: “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.”
Charlie Bolden recently agreed (via SpaceReview) : “[Bolden] also deemphasized the role of science in the proposed mission to redirect an asteroid into a “distant retrograde” lunar orbit to then be visited by a crewed Orion spacecraft. “We should not be saying that this is going to benefit science. It is not a science mission,” he said. He said that the mission would accomplish some science, including by astronauts bringing back samples of the asteroid, “but it should not be characterized, or we should not try to characterize it, as a major science initiative.” What the asteroid mission will do for planetary science, he concluded, was “peanuts.”
Then there is doubt on the part of the NASA Inspector General as to whether Orion and the necessary additional payload hardware will even be ready to support this mission: “… even after the MPCV is fully developed and ready to transport crew, NASA will continue to face significant challenges concerning the long-term sustainability of its human exploration program. For example, unless the Agency begins a program to develop landers and surface systems, NASA astronauts will be limited to orbital missions using the MPCV. Under the current budget environment, it appears unlikely that NASA will obtain significant funding to begin development of additional exploration hardware, thereby delaying such development into the 2020s.”
In other words, the value to demonstrating deep space human capabilities will be limited as will the scientific return – and the hardware to send people on the mission might not be ready. But wait: maybe there is a bigger issue here: learning how to avoid asteroid impacts with Earth. Guess again (via SpaceReview): “I don’t like saying we’re going to save the planet, for example,” Bolden said in a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) on July 31 in Washington. “At some point, that may be done, but that’s not–we’re not in a position that we should be saying, ‘Fund the asteroid initiative and we’re going to save the planet.'”
So … why does NASA want to do this mission? Why not just send a robot and focus on sending people to Mars by sending people to Mars?
As for the thrust of the Washington Post article i.e. Charlie Bolden’s management style, there is one critical thing missing from Bolden’s portfolio: True leadership. There is also the inability on Bolden’s part to make the tough decisions the agency needs to make – or explaining the decisions he has made (i.e. this asteroid thing). To his credit, Bolden admits that he is lacking a crucial aspect of leadership: “I’m not a blunt person by any stretch of the imagination. I’m probably too easy and I could be more direct, but I just never learned how to do that. I find that very difficult.”
It is a little hard to lead a large organization when you cannot directly confront the things that need to be confronted or explain the reasons why you are doing things. Indeed, Bolden tends to follow rather than lead – and he often rambles when he should be direct.
I erased my comment here
This says a lot about why NASA is headed off a cliff. The last time NASA had 100,000 contractors was Apollo. And contractors are their cousins? What is he talking about? Bolden has never been able to explain the rationale of the asteroid mission or the importance of commercial partnerships – but he says his number one job is to explain what we are doing to Congress and the public? He then blames them for not understanding? He obviously doesn’t understand or support the mission, so no wonder the Hill isn’t buying it. On leadership he says he’s more comfortable in a deputy position and can’t be direct. This interview is very enlightening. No wonder he doesn’t do many.
Yes, this interview is indeed very enlightening. Now if only the White House can respond by finding a deputy who can make up for Bolden’s deficiencies and, if need be, replace Bolden and get the agency back on track.
Personally, I am not even sure what “on track” means for NASA anymore. Everyone has their own definition.
but do you really think the administration wants to open the can of worms that will be confirmation hearings for a deputy let alone a new admin? I expect the president to let the deputy sit open and just ride out the term. NASA isn’t a priority for him and would just open himself to more criticism during the hearings he can avoid by not doing anything.
That is what I had been saying but sources tell me they are indeed looking to nominate a deputy administrator.
I’m not commenting much these days.
Seems we’re all in the Choir singing to and preaching at one another.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that long term vision in Space Policy until January 2017 will be all about John Holdren’s viewpoint and priorities.
Each of us here knows deep down that it takes a President (in line, or just slightly ahead of the populace) for anything major to happen in space.
Outside of that – we have a serving of boring pragmatism (technology development and some aero and space science) with a heaping side order of congressional pork projects each seasoned with such favorites as ATK’s SRB booster rockets to nowhere.
ATK SRB’s = the MSG of Space tech. they’re bad for us, but we keep using them.
NASA’s ~$17 Billion/yr price tag makes its pork programs too big to kill outright, and too little to matter or provide resources for anything substantive in the long term.
All this time we have been protecting banks as “Too big to fail”
We may be overlooking the obvious-
The Aerospace giants and their loads of lobbyists?:
Too big to succeed.
I think the lack of leadership-partly contributed by Bolden but there is plenty of blame to be shared at the top-is why one era ended without a wimper and why we are at least a decade and maybe several from the next era starting.
Your statement about Bolden’s inability to make the tough decisions applies to several others in the human space flight hierarchy as well. There is no leadership present or visible. None are direct. None can make a declarative decision. And none has any imagination.
The best we can possibly hope for is a change that might occur with the next Administration but even that is unlikely unless the proper road map is laid now, and that isn’t being done.
Basically Griffin got things off on the wrong foot with Constellation and Orion. The management that is still in place today chose the lackies they put in charge and they led us down the wrong path. They’ve been on the road to Abilene for 8 years now. But they are still there. Orion continues on (see the previous story about its delays and poor configuration choices) for no good reason. Everyone seems to see the Emperor has no clothes but the lack of leadership leaves everything in place. They continue towards Abilene unimpeded by anything but their own foolishness. They are going to Abilene by way of Mars, or maybe its the moon or an asteroid-really tough to tell, but they will not get anyplace until we and the NASA human space flight program are all long gone.
I think a big problem with NASA is that they haven’t had a big brains guy at the helm since Von Braun.
It could probably work if the administrator just had a big brains guy to refer to who was an overall authority on all technical decisions, but I don’t there is such a person in the entire agency.
There probably are some low level guys who are extremely smart. But if they raise their voice to say this really isn’t a good idea because of such and such, the response they would get is “And just WHO are you?”
Frankly, I’m not sure there is anyone in the aerospace industry who is has at that level creatively, and intellectually and has high enough management position so that their opinions are paid attention to.
Maybe aerospace doesn’t attract those people any more. They all go into computers.
Bob Clark
I don’t think having a NASA Administrator, with a big brain, has anything to do with the direction the porkonauts in congress are moving NASA. You either play their tune or you are out. or made ineffective.
They want the stakeholders to get and endless stream of cost plus pork in their districts.. the rest .. is theater.
Donald I started this thread with a joke.
I typed
Put me in charge!! Lol I would get my ass fired in a few month!!! RAISE HELL! !!
Seems system is so corrupt 🙁
I know .. the once place you actually take on the special interests. @ 18 billion it is not big enough to really fight over.. just make the taxpayer understand … just how freakin’ bad we are getting screwed and name names and contributions…. and the record of no producting launchable hardware.. after almost a decade.
Would be a good sixty minutes piece!
It’s not about the size of the brain, though native intelligence is a big plus. It is whether that intelligence is sitting in an Alpha wrapper or a Beta wrapper. Von Braun was an Alpha, so was Webb, and kaptain kraizy, among others. We have had a slew of Beta’s lately.
Look at how long Alan Stern lasted at the helm of SMD. Alan was an Alpha…
Beta’s are needed, as said above, “to carry the endless stream of … pork to (selected) districts.
Alpha’s lead and are “unpredictable” hence they are separated from leading the herd.
Von Braun was never in charge of NASA. He was a very capable space popularizer(sp?) and ignited the public’s attention with an idea that Goddard had conceptualized: using multi stage rockets. It also didn’t hurt that he was a rehabilated Nazi and property of the US Army for a while. Sort of a bad boy makes good image. The public was receptive to it.
Who was director of NASA in the 60’s???
NASA was established by law on July 29, 1958. One day later, the 50th Redstone rocket was successfully launched from Johnston Atoll in the south Pacific as part of Operation Hardtack I. Two years later, NASA opened the Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, and the ABMA development team led by von Braun was transferred to NASA. In a face-to-face meeting with Herb York at the Pentagon, von Braun made it clear he would go to NASA only if development of the Saturn was allowed to continue. [59] Presiding from July 1960 to February 1970, von Braun became the center’s first Director.
Copied from Wikipedia
Von Braun was director of Marshall (MSFC), there is no “Director of NASA”
There is the NASA Administrator who for most of the the 1960’s was James Webb. Thomas Paine was Administrator from 1968 on, with Glennan as Administrator from 1958-1962. Dryden was also acting admin for a month in 1962
Griffin’s tenure is proof that having degrees from head to toe is no guarantee of having big brains.
Bob Clark
I wonder if there is something unique or special about the NASA administrator job (between a rock (WH) and a hard place (Congress) and another set of rocks (NASA field centers) and yet another hard place (public limelight/expectations)) that hinders or destroys otherwise effective leaders (or perhaps leaders of a different mold). While I didn’t work with him on any of his STS missions (‘cept for a subbed simulator session or two) I garnered no impression deep in the heart of mission operations that Col. Bolden was an ineffective leader; quite the contrary his missions crew-wise seemed to run smoothly. Plus, whenever I worked with him as an instructor pilot in training sessions I came away impressed with his competence both in systems and with people.
Two NASA astronauts (both with military backgrounds-Richard Truly was the other one) have been NASA administrators, and both will likely go down in history (rightly or wrongly) as being minimally effective in the position. I don’t know Admiral Truly’s military history but I don’t recall ever hearing that he was incompetent in that realm of operations.
Perhaps to be an effective administrator of a government agency you have to be…well, a government administrator, e.g. James Webb or Sean O’Keefe (if only he stayed a few more years…).
i expect there’s a different management style for a mission (one captain, one crew, one mission, everyone understands their roles, everyone invested in “gittin’ ‘er done”) and an organisation (politics, different goals, different perspectives, never sure who’s an ally and who isn’t, you can’t pull rank, …).
On STS-60, his last Shuttle command, a couple members of his crew were also PI’s for the Wake Shield satellite. They knew the Wake Shield would not work properly before they flew though I don’t think they ever told Charlie. I don’t think he was aware of what his crew knew or didn’t know which gives you some idea of his command. When Wake Shield failed and they couldn’t deploy it, then it became a top priority to try and fix the thing during the mission; even though that was not going to happen because the issue was a design problem. But the effort not only was wasted on Wake Shield it also compromised the primary payload on the mission. Wake Shield was not a primary payload-only a secondary. It was not entirely the failure of the mission commander; the lead flight director was equally to blame; neither followed the mission rules. Charlie failed to take charge of the situation. He left NASA shortly after.
If they knew it wasn’t going to work they should have spoken up before the mission.
Lobbying by special interests and the space industrial complex. I would imagine even some universities put pressure for nasa dollars.
The world gets confusing when your trying to make something out of nothing. Maybe he’s confused because his boss could care less. I’m just saying…
I think there is a lot of confusion about what this asteroid thing is or is not – and that this confusion is widespread – and deepening.
It is dispiriting to know not even the NASA administrators know what it is.
Bob Clark
AIUI the asteroid mission was an administration idea. Perhaps it’s the White House who is confused and Bolden’s just being the good soldier and public face of a bad idea.
I suspect that the confusion on this mission is not limited to the 9th floor of NASA HQ…
Keith: You say true leadership is lacking from Charlie’s portfolio…..Really?? One does not get to put on stars in the USMC, leading 3rd Marine Air without leadership skills.
Now, if you want to argue that he can’t play politics, which the NASA Administrator has to do, that’s a different animal.
The military is no different from other organizations – rank is not always related to capability.
Amen.
This is a very critical observation. As a guy with 28 years in the AF, I know that a General officer has far more responsibility in many ways than authority! They have great prestige but have to satisfy many requirements. They MUST be politically astute, they must be able to wield both the rapier and the collection basket. I worked with Charlie on one of his missions (before he was a Commander) and he is decisive, really smart, and a great communicator. Why those qualities have been almost always absent during his time as Administrator is very surprising. His appearance at JSC when he was explaining the cancellation of Constellation was terribly awkward for instance. His legacy may be as a Marine, an astronaut, etc and his time as Administrator may be compared to his effort to develop water resources from sand deposits with George Abbey.
Something has apparently changed when it comes to the way in which Bolden does things.
What changed? I think Charlie took the job thinking he could make a difference. Then, once he got in, realized that Obama, Garver, Holdren, and others had their own agenda. Why doesn’t he leave? Doesn’t want to embarass the President….
Not that hard folks. Charlie has no agenda of his own and doesn’t really care how this turns out, so sometimes he is willing to go along with Obama, Garver, Holdren. That is the sad truth and the reason he has never been able to explain the Administrations policy agenda. He just wants to be liked, so he says what he thinks you want to hear at the time. It is a little easier for him now that many of his friends from the old guard are gone who actively fought the Administration from within NASA (Coats, Scolese, Cooke, Hawes). He changes his mind based on what the last person said, and NASA requires a strong leader. It is likely a bit easier to get 6 people on a shuttle mission to follow-you, or Marine troops who don’t have a different agenda.
You “think” … but you do not “know”.
Actually, Bolden said at the beginning he didn’t want the job because of the politics involved. He was sorted of drafted into it.
Frankly, that may be reflected in his performance.
Bob Clark
I just cannot imagine that a porkonaut like Nelson.. pushed so hard to get Bolden because he thought Bolden was to clean house at NASA.
Doc Morbid said the asteroid mission was an administration idea. …Bolden’s just being the good soldier
This is a lot of the confusion. Bolden is an element of the Administration. He should have a role in defining the Administration goals, ideas and plans. Beyond that he is also responsible for selling those goals, ideas and plans to the Congress and to taxpayers. He also needs to get his own people, whether NASA managers and civil servants, or contractors, in line to support. These are the jobs of the NASA Administrator. He has a 100,000 person workforce at his beck and call to make it happen.
The idea that Bolden, woe-is-me, not direct, cannot make a decision, don’t know in which direction to head, Administrator cannot figure out what he needs to do and makes no effort to try and do it is the problem. That is why he is powerless and ineffective. The fact that his supporting staff has not helped means they are all a bunch of wimps without an imagination or a plan.
The asteroid mission first appeared in President Obama’s budget proposal and Bolden serves at his pleasure so yes, this is a White House idea and agency heads are expected to support the bosses ideas .
http://www.nytimes.com/2013…
“NASA and its rocket scientists are trying to figure out how to proceed.
President Obama had asked them to find a way to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s. They presented their plan in April”
Do you really think the “white house” came up with the asteroid mission and not NASA? Of course it came from NASA and the white house just saw it as a positive mission that aligned with their policy agenda and gave SLS/Orion (as dictated by Congress) something to do. Once again, Bolden is just not an effective leader or communicator so none of us can tell what it is or whether he supports it or cares. Listen to Gerstenmeir, Lightfoot, Garver – they can all explain it, but Bolden gets all the ink and people just can’t look away (sort of like a train wreck)
How do we get to Mars in the early 2030s. Call Mr. Musk and ask him what support he needs. Since Musk is going to Mars create moon missions which employ and test his launchers. And of course you AX SLS an Orion tomorrow and create mission/ programs to clean the trash in orbit!!! Also you have the balls to tell the world a large part of NASA s mission is to Settle Space/intersolar system which of course you do by providing seed money for missions which help/hire commercial space.
Doesn’t that sound smarter than exploration SLS asteroid BULL@#$
I’m all for any good asteroid mission capture whatever just not in rocket made out of tons of pork!!!
How well do fat cells shield radiation!!!! Maybe that why Orion is a deep space vehicle???????
The confusion is easy to explain.
Congress directed NASA to build a 70 mT *and* 130 mT LVs “shuttle derived” and a capsule that consumes the HSF budget and provides no missions except a Apollo 8 flyby redirected to a L2 excursion. then what?
So JSC’s Director Ochoa stated the obvious: “we like the asteroid return idea because it does not require development of another new human spacecraft which would mean alot of new money”
http://www.yourhoustonnews….
IOW: Not giving up on SLS nor Orion, but still want missions.
Then the House killed any asteroid plans, and will not fund other hardware.
http://www.floridatoday.com…
NASA’s plan forward should include a LEO depot which will reduce LV size and increase flight rate to provide more economical access to space, which indirectly cuts fixed costs of the shuttle derived product lines, and allows IP participation.
NASA should then work on its Space Grand Challenges to enable exploration and include International Partners to spread costs.
The rationale for a l2 gateway on the way to Mars is provided by Squyres:
http://science.house.gov/si…
Squyres also states that NASA should not be afraid to abandon the asteroid idea if the results are not favorable.
So the confusion is that Bolden tried to add a mission while being constrained by congress to build SLS/Orion with no new budget. Then the House rejected the new mission. To blame this on the admin when they tried to make lemon aid out of lemons is classic.
It must be tough to answer to a spoiled children. Or perhaps SLS truly is needed for something else that cannot be expressed?
Obama may well have said “astronauts to asteroids” (albeit not in the style befitting of a POTUS) but he also said the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay would close during his presidency! Poor Charlie, he’s more scrutinized than hit-or-miss Comet ISON and his deputy quit recently. Ultimately it’s upto the U.S. Congress where NASA astronauts go post-ISS, not Charlie or Lori and whomsoever succeeds them both. Just ask their predecessor – Mike.
It comes down to dollars. There isn’t any cash left after SLS and Orion to build anything to go further, or do anything but an EVA. This mission was made to fit inside the current budget projections. Yes there are lots of other cool things and much better ways to build incremental progress to Mars, but really this is a pretty ingenuous mission to do something (or anything but just fly around) under the current modus operandi. Any one else think of a better mission for just a cheap?
Yes, pretty easily. Drop SLS/Orion and focus on practical and safe access to LEO, first with commercial crew and then with fully reusable launch systems. Build a productive and sustainable commerce in human spaceflight.Asteroids can be better studied with robotics.
Do a EVA? What EVA capability do you imagine there is for the Orion? Where is the space and support capability for suits and people? There is no airlock so everyone has to be in suits.
I do agree, this is probably one of the best things to do with what we got.
As for those that keep saying kill Orion, kill SLS, etc., save your breath. We are stuck with those whether because they are good (some think so) or because they are the road to slowly killing US human spaceflight while avoiding the politics of saying we are giving it up (some think so). Nothing significant will change till at least 2017 unless we get scared.
Maybe just kill the giant expendable rocket would be a better idea
One part of the confusion concerns what is an asteroid. To those of us in the asteroid community, the target proposed for a human visit was clearly a near-earth asteroid (NEO or NEA). An NEA is a logical intermediate target (or “stepping stone”) on the road to Mars. A few can be reached with a round-trip on a year or so. I don’t think anyone ever suggested visiting a main belt asteroid (between Mars and Jupiter) as a stepping stone to Mars.
Charlie Bolden begs to differ.
As I understand it, there is no longer serious talk about going to an NEA. The current proposal is to bring a small NEA to EML-2 for study.
As it was clearly warned by many when the new Obama administration canceled the CxP program and replaced it with Flexible Path, if you try to go everywhere you will go nowhere. What charlie says and what charlie does are 2 completely different things
Constellation was never cancelled, only the name was changed. Obama wanted to and should have replaced Constellation with Commercial Crew, but was prevented from doing so by Congress which insisted it be continued as a jobs program, without funding landers or lunar bases. A McCain or Romney administration would have continued to use the name Constellation but still not have had the funding the program required, in fact McCain said this even in 2004 when it was first announced. “Flexible Path” was the only for of Constellation that could have continued without massive additional funding. The only Republican candidate who favored increased funding, Gingrich, was laughed at by the electorate when he mentioned lunar bases. Bolden hasn’t shown strong leadership but with CxP/SLS/Orion Congress was calling the shots on both funding and spending, leaving NASA only to say what they would do with just enough money to build a few giant, obsolete rockets.
You are misinformed. The President’s budget indeed did “Cancel Constellation”. only one element (Orion) of the 6 was continued and no level 2 integration was kept. Orion BTW has no specific destination (since it goes everywhere)
Charlie Bolden’s behavior as NASA Administrator and the issue of what exactly is the asteroid mission? / is it worth doing? are two separate things, but people seem to be trying to cram them both into the same box. Similarly, when debating the value in an asteroid mission, people seem to be trying to force their ideas in to the mold of a science mission, and measuring it accordingly. I think there’s been too much square peg, round hole talk going on to move forward.
Has Bolden been doing an adequate job as Admin? Yes/No? Why/Why not? That can and should be measured independent of any particular mission’s value and who’s idea it was. Mission events can provide examples to illustrate behavioral traits, but the missions don’t create or drive those traits.
As for the asteroid mission, let’s quit arguing about an as yet undefined (as far as we know) mission. I suggest it would be more profitable to discuss, in sufficient detail, specific activities that might go into an asteroid mission and why each may or may not be of value — but think big, think over long enough time spans to be meaningful; don’t assume it is to be a “science” mission. Doing that puts many unnecessary constraints on the possibilities and forces the mission to be within the science group’s available (and very meager) budget. The mission evaluation is completely independent of Bolden’s management / leadership skills. If and when this mission flies, he’ll be gone from the Administrator’s chair.
I’ve felt all along that there can be great gains realized from a properly planned asteroid mission. But, instead of trying to force it into the mold of a typical science mission, let’s just think of it as a mission, without worrying about who’s in charge and whose budget the money is coming from. Discuss the possibilities, all of them, then decide on a set of goals and the requirements for the mission, and then take it from there, reviewing and revising as necessary. We may discover that things like saving the planet and acquiring resources may be beneficial to many groups and doable with current / near-term technology. But if we persist in trying to make it wear a science lab coat, that won’t happen.
Wouldn’t it be science, in itself, to bring a rock back to a lunar orbit? The science of moving orbital bodies in motion?
Porkonauts in congress said “okay we will let you finally have commercial crew but it is going to cost you 50 billion in pork FIRST, fund constellation until you cancel it, then fund SLS and Orion .. once commercial crew is operational, you can cancel those pork trains too.
I have a question for all you ladies and gents.
What would YOU do if YOU ran NASA/had Mr Boldens job????????
Falcon heavy could pop a moon sample return in a couple years. That would get musk to Mars faster. DOES Mr. Bolden have a moon mission sample returned mission planned and ready with Spacex yet!!!!!!
Doesn’t it take. NASA two years to just write a mission plan?? Would Spacex. Provide the lander/legged second stage.
Wouldn’t it take NASA a decade to make a moon lander???
FH doesn’t exist yet and neither does SLS or MPCV. That said, I’d bet money that FH flies and is successful whereas SLS and MPCV have the odds against them.
As for Bolden’s current paralysis and seemingly odd behaviour, could it be that it’s all because he’s lost his deputy who certainly understood the politics and governance involved in running NASA?
If I were in charge of this program I’d have this all fixed up already, target asteroids that are now called Trojan’s, I learned about these asteroids back in 98 I don’t know how they got to be news in 2011, anyhow Trojan’s which oddly are the same name of the nuclear reactor my dad worked at when I was a kid, would be the best and easier target than some ridiculously long deep space mission. At the moment without space based rapid manufacture we have craft that are the equivalent of a junky row boat in the Atlantic. Yeah you can get places, and there is a probability of getting there, but you’re establishing nothing permanent, somewhat like building a bunch of Saturn 5 rockets instead of building a few of them and also putting some permanent infrastructure on the moon. Secondly does anyone have a clue how many people died just trying to explore the Atlantic let alone mapping the East coast and Caribbean in 1492. Don’t forget they were not even using open ocean craft for that voyage, and were forced to make modifications to make them work. The challenger blew up and it was like we were ready to call it quits, then the Columbia and again years of time pass and space flight is halted, just think how long it would have taken if after the Santa Maria ran aground and Columbus returned in the Nina that for safety’s sake the Spanish government decided to hold off exploring for a few years until they fully understood why the craft ran aground? We have a limited window of time to show the world that there is something more than petty bickering over limited resources and socio-political viewpoints. If we don’t move quickly with intent time will catch up with us, I don’t think anyone of us is looking forward to living in a post apocalyptic distopia. Without the standard of something greater out —-> there there’s little to stop society from melting down to it’s rawest form. It must be real and it must be NOW not for the kids or some future time, place, generation, for this reality, to make it’s passage into the future less fiction and more truth.
It’s really very simple. The President said to send humans to an asteroid. The SLS and Orion system is utterly incapable of sending humans to an asteroid ” between Mars and Saturn”. There is zero political support to spend the money NASA would need to develop such a vehicle. The only approach possible given the budget constraints is to bring the asteroid close enough for Orion to reach.
No, that is not a clear step on the road to Mars. No one has enunciated what such a roadmap might look like (and cost) in a very long time. It does feed the troughs of the SLS and Orion contractors, though. Regrettably, that is what the human space effort seems to be about these days.