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Exploration

NASA Is Still Very Interested in the Moon Even If Obama Is Not

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 6, 2015
Filed under , ,
NASA Is Still Very Interested in the Moon Even If Obama Is Not

Quietly, NASA is reconsidering the moon as a destination, Houston Chronicle
“Despite a declaration from President Barack Obama that the moon is not a planned destination for American astronauts, senior NASA engineers have quietly begun reconsidering it as a staging point for an eventual mission to Mars. William Gerstenmaier, the chief of human exploration for NASA, does not see the president’s plan of a direct, 900-day mission to the red planet as achievable. Instead, Gerstenmaier believes large amounts of ice at the lunar poles may provide an important reservoir of oxygen and hydrogen fuel to propel rockets and spaceships across the 40 million miles of space to Mars.”
NASA Disputes Chronicle Report That NASA Is Reassessing Lunar Surface Plans, SpacePolicyOnline
“NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz told SpacePolicyOnline.com via email that Gerstenmaier was only responding to a question from Berger about the possibility of using lunar resources for Mars missions. “The Evolvable Mars Campaign, which envisions using the lunar vicinity to support a human mission to the Red Planet, is in line with and designed to advance the president’s ambitious space exploration plan. We’re making great progress on this journey to Mars. A key element of our plan to get to the Red Planet is employing a stepping stone approach, including living, working and learning in cis-lunar space.” … The statement sidesteps the substance of the Chronicle article that NASA engineers are reassessing the need for lunar surface missions, but are in a “delicate position” because returning to the lunar surface is not part of President Obama’s plan.”
Keith’s note: The interest in the Moon inside NASA is a lot more pervasive than they’d have you believe. There are some folks at JSC and elsewhere who have never given up on it and are keeping things warm until there is a change in Administrations. The fact that certain members of Congress and their staffers are interested in the Moon as a destination for humans is seen as bolstering this internal position. To many the clear logic of including human surface activity on the Moon in the overall utilization of cis-lunar space (and beyond) is inescapable. The only place it is not mentioned by NASA is in public. Stay tuned.
Yes, NASA really is reconsidering the moon, and here’s why that’s important, Houston Chronicle
“It’s easy to understand why NASA is defensive about stories that bring to light their renewed interest in the moon and its resources. The President, in 2010, made it clear that he wanted to avoid the moon, perhaps partly because that was part of President George W. Bush’s space policy. Nevertheless, the general consensus is that in the modern era of a constrained NASA budget, the most feasible pathway to Mars goes through the moon. So NASA deserves credit for reconsidering this approach. Even if it’s not yet quite ready to talk about it.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

112 responses to “NASA Is Still Very Interested in the Moon Even If Obama Is Not”

  1. Joe Denison says:
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    Glad to hear of the internal NASA interest in returning to the moon. I still get a little upset whenever I remember President Obama saying in a condescending way, “We have been there before.”

    I loved Mike Hawes recent quote, “Some of the lunar science guys have done a plot where they put all of the Apollo traverses, even with the rovers. It’s on the scale of the National Mall in D.C. — and we didn’t even explore the entire mall, so we have not “been there and done that.””

    While I do want to see a landing on Mars in the near future I 100% agree that the moon and the rest of cis-lunar space should be our near term goal. Lunar exploration is easier than Mars but more interesting and challeging than the current path (ARM and then Mars eventually). It also has the broad backing of our international partners.

    • Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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      I still get a little upset whenever I remember President Obama saying in a condescending way, “We have been there before.”

      The President’s point, which apparently was lost on you, is that returning to the Moon is politically a “no starter”. Which basically means the money to do that is not there. He’s right.

      People who think a new administration, especially a Republican one, will want to increase the National debt by paying for a Moon mission are only kidding themselves.

      • John Thomas says:
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        And you think a Mars trip will be cheaper? The only reason Obama mentions that is it will be after his administration before any real money will be required.

        • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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          Shush…. You’ve let the dirty little secret of this administration’s space policy out of the bag.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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        You mean how there was never a President or Congress that spent years supporting the lunar focused VSE? Or do you mean to say you somehow think that since there isn’t a national will to go to the moon that instead the nation can be convinced to spend 10x as much to go to Mars instead?

      • adastramike says:
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        Returning to the Moon was politically a non-starter for Obama because he wanted to spend that money on social programs or just wanted to separate from the previous Administration’s policies. That is not the same as being a non-starter for all. Another President can change the direction. I’m not one any side of the political fence, but there are still several in Congress who think a return to the Moon is the next logical step. They don’t need to break the bank or “increase the national debt” to return humans to the Moon. We simply need an affordable way to get there. That simply requires investment in the right technologies to reduce the larger costs.

        There are possibly multiple ways to return humans to the Moon without re-starting an Apollo-like project with Apollo-like funding. One could be an international partnership. Another could involve commercial companies for delivering cargo. We could, at the very least, send a fleet of robotic scouts to the lunar poles to prospect and mine the water-ice and other resources there, developing in-situ resource utilization technology to allow extraction of water, oxygen, hydrogen, and other resources.

        You seem to think Moon return = Apollo-like mission. That is not necessarily the case. After the ISS’s missions are complete, the nation and Congress will want to know what comes next for NASA human spaceflight. I’m glad that many in NASA are still quietly studying the lunar return problem, as it’s a mistake to simply declare the Moon as “off limits” forever just because one President said so. A President is not a king. If the details of a plan to send people to Mars can be enhanced or enabled by conducting some lunar missions, for reasons many have already laid out, there is nothing wrong with that in my view.
        Destinations in space are not the property of political parties. They are open to all of humanity. And if we are serious about a stepping-stone approach, then the Moon is a “stone” we should use on our way out to farther stones. If some feel an asteroid is better to test long-duration deep space flight, then how about we actually fund that rather than bringing back a boulder and putting it in orbit around the Moon, and calling it an asteroid.

    • jski says:
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      The statement, “we’ve done that before”, is possibly the most ignorant statement I’ve heard coming out of a president’s mouth. And that’s saying a great deal considering the many stupid things said by past presidents.

      The one logical next step is the moon. Mars is too far for any near term mission and the moon offers excellent location for building a base. To learn to live in situ.

      A permanent human presence on the moon would do more to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers than any amount we could spend on STEM projects!

  2. Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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    The ISS has demonstrated that lifesupport equipment for microgravity is different from lifesupport in gravity. Before we go to Mars we now have to learn how to do lifesupport in low gravity. The low gravity Moon says “Hi”.

    Next land vehicles that work in a vacuum and low gravity need developing and testing. Not just wheels and motors need devising and testing, one of the biggest challengers will be the door. The vehicles will have to dock to the buildings – on Earth we can get away with just parking cars outside and walking in. Both Mars and the Moon are near vacuums with large amounts of dust.

    • TheBrett says:
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      I bet you could rotate a spacecraft to do simulated Mars gravity for testing for cheaper than setting up a moon-base.

    • Paul451 says:
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      Next land vehicles that work in a vacuum and low gravity need developing and testing. […] Both Mars and the Moon are near vacuums with large amounts of dust.

      However, the moon and Mars are completely different. Partial atmosphere vs hard vacuum, completely different thermal properties, 25hr day vs 29day day, 1/6th g versus 1/3rd g (double the gravity), and the nature of the dust is completely different. Lunar regolith is unweathered (horribly sharp splinters of rock, glass, and metal, evil stuff) and electrostatically “sticky”.

      The technology that works on the moon won’t work on Mars. Oh, there’ll be some vague overlap of requirements, just as LEO requires pressurised modules, ECLSS, airlocks and solar panels and so does the moon. But there’s no real transfer of technology.

      • SpaceRonin says:
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        hmmm.. the Moon scopes Mars. Harsher environmentals, Propulsive only down mass. Lower G for physiological adaptation studies.. we got zero G almost dialed. Relatively close for rescue and return. Bigger thermal and rad challenges. Get a telepresense op model from orbit sorted and we can avoid landing till a functional haven is built and verified. Managing that lander cost nicely. Also a direct mode shake out for a realistic Mars assault: Oribtal telepresence infrastructure development. Precision landing (will have to be largely propulsive, Aero dispersal too high)

        Got a program name sorted… we have had Apollo, given the path this one has to be Dionysus.

        • Paul451 says:
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          the Moon scopes Mars. Harsher environmentals,

          Harsher, but not in a linear way: Ie, Mars is not on a “harshness line” between Earth and the Moon. It is harsh in different ways. Therefore learning to live on the Moon doesn’t make it easier to learn to live on Mars.

          Get a telepresense op model from orbit sorted

          However, all you are practising on the moon is the delay itself, which you can easily simulate on Earth (and people do.) None of the actual designs are transferable.

          Different robots due to the completely different environment. Also different control systems due to the moon’s fixed rotation. Teleop’ing from Earth to a nearside robot will be direct line-of-site. To a farside robot via a satellite in L2. For Mars, the orbit of the Earth-ship means that you’d need a network of satellites to relay signals, or only control the robot occasionally when it’s within line-of-sight.

          Propulsive only down mass.

          However the launch back to orbit is much easier. Mars is closer to the requirements of a first stage of a launcher on Earth.

          Bigger thermal […] challenges.

          Not bigger, different. The moon, of course, has the fortnightly temperature swings much larger than Mars, but Mars’ atmosphere means that thermal convection is an issue.

          For example, greenhouses will not be as easy as many Mars advocates think because you can’t hold the heat from that much surface area. You can’t use Mars air because plants will die from that much CO2, but you can’t not cycle the air because oxygen build-up will become dangerous. You can’t use Mars soil because it’s toxic, and you can’t even site the greenhouse directly on the ground because air pressure is a tonne per square metre of roof/wall area (you can’t hold it down). When you start drilling into the details of having a greenhouse on Mars, the complexity quickly becomes overwhelming.

          (I’ve seen many discussions where someone finally just says, “Why not just build it underground (say lava tube) and use artificial light”, because building on the surface starts to feel impossible.)

          Mars is a really difficult environment. But it tricks people into thinking it’s “Earth-like” (or at least “more Earth-like” than anywhere else). With other environments (moon, asteroids, free-flying space-stations, Venus) you can quickly see many of the issues you will face. But with Mars, you are fooled by the supposed similarity to Earth into thinking you can “just” do what you would do in a barren place on Earth. It feels easier. You know a greenhouse on the Moon will be hard, so that’s your starting point, but you don’t realise how hard it will be on Mars, so your assumptions are much less realistic.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        Absolutely agree with Paul451. As a specific example, cooling of the Apollo lunar space suits was done via sublimation of water and would likely be the best approach for new lunar suits. Unfortunately, that will not work at all on Mars with its higher atmospheric pressure.

        Things that are different, just aren’t the same. The moon is not a “stepping stone” for Mars. The requirements are vastly different.

      • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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        So the inside of vehicles, building and spacesuits including the ECLSS can be transfered. It is the outsides that are different. The outsides have ‘systems’ that do similar jobs but work under different conditions.

        • Paul451 says:
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          So the inside of vehicles, building and spacesuits including the ECLSS can be transfered.

          No more than they can be transferred from Earth. A duct is a duct. A fan is a fan. Light is a light.

          But there’s nothing specific about the moon that is different from Earth but similar to Mars.

          The exception is some of the techniques, such as your example of the need to dock vehicles directly to the hab-modules/air-lock. But the docking system itself won’t be the same as that developed for the moon but somehow different than what you can test on Earth, or on ISS for that matter. All you are doing is adding another whole inevitably hugely expensive development program, with little or no overlap with a subsequent Mars program.

          There’s nothing that requires the moon, there’s nothing about developing for the moon that is a “stepping stone” to Mars.

          [Disclaimer: I have no particular objection to a Lunar program. OTOH, I am opposed to a Mars program, which I consider to be a complete dead-end and waste of resources. However, even if you want Mars as the end goal, Mars is not a suitable justification for a lunar program.

          And looking at the path Constellation was taking before it was sort-of-cancelled, any lunar program will be reduced to flags-n-footprints-redux unless its defined to exist solely in its own right. As soon as it is defined as a “stepping stone to Mars”, it actually becomes worthless. (See the similar contraction of the original asteroid mission proposal (which would be 2/3rds of a Mars-orbit/Phobos mission) into the embarrassingly limited ARM.)]

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            No more than they can be transferred from Earth. A duct is a duct. A fan is a fan. Light is a light.

            An air tight construction is an air tight contruction. And a gravity fed water system is a … what at 1/6 the gravity?

          • Paul451 says:
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            An air tight construction is an air tight contruction.

            Air tight on Earth. Air tight in LEO. Air tight in L2.

            What does putting it on the moon add that gets you closer to Mars compatible technology than Earth/LEO/L2 don’t?

            And a gravity fed water system is a … what at 1/6 the gravity?

            If gravity is going to be such an issue where neither experience under 1g, nor experience under 0g can teach you enough about operating under 1/3rd g, why would you assume that 1/6th g will?

            If you want to go to the moon, you need to justify it in its own right. The purpose needs to be on the moon, for the moon.

            If you try to justify going to the moon because “it’s a stepping stone to Mars”, you are going to screw up both your Mars program and your lunar program.

            Look at Constellation for an example. Bush Jr proposed building a lunar base at the poles to use ISRU to fuel a later mission to Mars. Stepping-stone to Mars!

            But once a combination of funding realities and the Griffin-monster glomming his idiotic Ares design onto Constellation, the idea of a lunar base was dropped (outside of PR), as was ISRU, as was any polar visits. The entire Constellation lunar program contracted down to a slightly larger, uglier version of Apollo’s flags’n’footprints missions.

            Because the goal of going to the moon wasn’t defined strictly (even the polar ISRU element was hand-wavy, Bush didn’t mention fuel or the poles), everything beyond “return to the moon” could be safely ignored when someone (like Griffin, or LM and their Congressbitches) wanted to attach their pet project to Constellation’s funding teat.

            Neither a lunar base nor “stepping stone to Mars” survived the process, and we lost another decade to the stupids.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            What does putting it on the moon add that gets you closer to Mars compatible technology than Earth/LEO/L2 don’t?

            Putting a habitat on a spacestation, Moon or Mars forces a total solution. There is no delivering suplies by truck, electrical power from a gasoline fuelled generator or sending a repair man that tends to happen on Earth.

  3. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Mr. Obama has nothing against the moon per se. Unfortunately the Augustine Commission presented a list of alternatives of which only one was affordable (without landers) so Mr. Obama was forced to defend it. A manned mission to Mars with the SLS and Orion (which were of course designed for the lunar landing mission) does not seem feasible.

    But if the mission is sustaining a human lunar base for the indefinite future there has to be a practical value that justifies the cost. If Congress then (or now) would listen to reason and stop using NASA as a venue for funding key districts and pursuing ideological conflict, simple and affordable evolutionary strategies would become obvious.

    • pennypincher2 says:
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      Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives…..

      • PsiSquared says:
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        Not necessarily, like all humans Americans can always find a way to avoid doing the right thing. It doesn’t matter which political flag those Americans fly.

        • wwheaton says:
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          We usually get there eventually, but it’s a long, expensive, and rather scary process.

    • John Thomas says:
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      My impression was that Obama was against moon missions because he wanted the money to be spent on domestic programs.

      • Paul451 says:
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        After the Augustine report, Obama asked for an extra $1b/yr for NASA and to redirect the Constellation funding towards technology research and leveraging commercial development.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        My impression is that he was not enthusiastic about Constellation. When it was put on hold, the funding was transferred to an substantially enlarged space technology program, which included plans for orbital demonstration of solar-electric propulsion. It was later greatly descoped as Congress directed the resources to SLS and Orion.

    • Lewis says:
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      I think that this guy Gerstenmaier is saying that going to the moon, getting ice, splitting the water with electricity, and collecting the fuel and oxidizer into tanks, that this would be “cheaper” to do than trucking it off the surface of the Earth.

      See, this is cool stuff. This is what these NASA guys are supposed to be about all the time!

      I don’t see anyting about a base in this Chronicle article. It’s definitely better to lift tanks of hydrogen and oxygen off the moon with no atmosphere and less gravity.

      I would avoid talk of bases if I were in these guys’ shoes. They’re in a situation where they can’t get off Earth. I think they have to be very realistic and not go overboard with base talk. Just going to get fuel, that’s guys in orbit, maybe a lander going down and up, but making the fuel, that’s a big robot.

      Why talk about a base?

      • wwheaton says:
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        I think a completely robotic reusable system for mining ice on the moon, turning some of it into LH2/LOX, and trucking ice or LH2/LOX to LLO, might pay for itself. It does however require a purpose for the ice in LLO. Supporting a reusable Mars surface shuttle, running from Phobos to the surrface and back (delivering the ice etc to Mars with SEP) might be such a purpose.

        But for that, we have to bite the bullet and convince the world that human space settlement is a valid end in itself. I favor an Apollo style commitment to the establishment of an independent human colony off earth by the end of this century, as an appropriate goal for humanity. Especially combined with satellite solar power, it could save us.

        • Lewis says:
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          The chief benefit of space exploration is to divert the normally destructive forces of aerospace to something less harmful. People like to talk about pocket calculators and protein research, but employing four or five hundred thousand people that would normally be making bombs, that’s the stuff.

          One of the proposals in Apollo Applications was solar farms on the moon. That came from the same serious guys that built the Saturn V system in the first place.

          I think that the maximum lift capacity is what’s most important. If anything saves people here, it’ll be the ability to get something off that’s threatening all of them.

  4. Steve Pemberton says:
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    I have always believed that steady expansion is better than fits and starts. Of course no one thinks fits and starts are good, but we tend to keep doing it because of choosing compelling goals that are not incremental.

    The sequence in my opinion (and in hindsight) should have been:

    LEO initial foray
    LEO permanent habitation
    Moon initial foray
    Moon permanent habitation
    Mars initial foray
    Mars permanent habitation
    Europa and Callisto initial foray
    Europa and Callisto permanent habitation

    Instead we jumped straight from LEO initial foray to Moon initial foray, but then we couldn’t take the next step forward because we did too much too fast and we were forced to retreat. The result was a setback of 34 years, from Gemini XII in 1966 (end of LEO initial foray) to Expedition 1 in 2000 (beginning of LEO permanent habitation).

    Of course there was a reason that we went straight to the Moon, a valid one, and I am not questioning Kennedy’s decision. But in hindsight we can now see the setback that resulted. Apollo was a fantastic program and the lunar landings are now a part of history so no use in hand wringing. But my point is let’s learn the lesson that it taught and not repeat it by skipping incremental steps. The next step in my opinion should be permanent habitation of the Moon.

    The obvious criticism of this approach is that we can’t afford to build on top of each preceding step, i.e. we can’t afford to maintain a space station and also mount an expedition to the Moon, etc. Well if we can’t afford whatever the next step is as an addition to what we are already doing, that means the technology isn’t developed enough and we need to keep working on it.

    What about Musk wanting to go straight to Mars? Doesn’t bother me, I hope he proves me wrong. But even if he doesn’t, his contributions are making the next incremental step that much easier.

    • Robert van de Walle says:
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      The Moon is like a rest stop along a freeway. It won’t be a place until there is another place to go.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Like where? As a locus for permanent habitation Mars and the moon are pretty much equal. A Mars colony will be a huge money pit sucking billions and billions every year. And for what?

        For scientific research. Ok. And what else?

        I am a genuine space guy. I want humans all over the galaxy. There’s a big but: unless we find a way to make space pay it is just not going to happen.

        The $$$ are in the asteroids, folks; the time will come when we run out of resources (Li and other elements already in short supply). And THAT is when space will start to make sense. We will need space-based smelting. Soon, 3D printing and associated heavy manufacturing will create spacehabs to support the acquisition of resources to be moved planet side or to be used in situ. There’s $$ trillions out there waiting to be made.

        Meanwhile, down on the surface of Mars, nothing happens.

        Hyperbole? A little. But basically that’s the roadmap.

        • DTARS says:
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          That is why NASA doing ARM is good thing, if only they could lose SLS

        • wwheaton says:
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          I agree, we need a program that returns enough value along the way to sustain itself. I see the moon as possibly viable if we can really mine ice there for LH2/LOX for use elsewhere. That is one possible way to pay for the moon base.

          I recently estimated for myself that a reuseable single-stage robotic shuttle from the moon to Low-Lunar Orbit and back, could deliver about half its takeoff mass to LLO & return. (I guess that would about double the cost of the LH2/LOX delivered.) So what is the cost of that fuel or ice on the surface going to be? We need a realistic cost estimate for that — mining the regolith, refining out the water content, purifying it for useable rocket fuel, and packaging it for delivery. My hope is ice in LLO will be cheaper than ice delivered to high orbit from earth (where it could enable a sustainable Mars program) but it has to pay for itself somehow. That is a key issue. (Academic science is not enough.)

          The other possible thing that could conceivably make a moon base economic is as a source of silicon solar cells and panel for satellite solar power plants. If we make the solar cells on the moon, then lift them up to LLO (if the ice there is really useable), and move them to GSO with SEP, that might make a system that could pay for itself, and solve some problems on earth as well.

          If either of these (or something else) could work, I say go to the moon. But don’t go unless we have a completely reuseable system, where we don’t routinely throw away precious hardware hauled up from earth, and a system which returns value to earth arguably commensurate with the cost of running it. Otherwise, it is just going to die a horrible death, like Apollo.

    • Panice says:
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      You’ll need to watch out for the people would want to destroy LEO permanent habitation to fund their pet missions. To build on a previous step, we need to maintain it. That’s why we have to do Moon initial foray all over again if we want to build a base.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        This may be true if the hardware developed for the “initial foray” can be used to help build a base. Whether that is new copies of hardware or reusing actual hardware is a detail which figures into the overall cost.

        For example, a lunar lander design that can be flown by astronauts or land autonomously would be a great help in building a base. But, an “initial foray” lander that is designed only to be flown by astronauts is a dead end.

      • Steve Pemberton says:
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        I don’t think we need to do Moon initial foray again, that was done very effectively by Apollo. Of course any future landers used for habitation will probably have one or two test flights where they just land, walk around, then take off, but that’s just testing the new hardware and new procedures. No different than sending a new capsule to LEO on a test flight before putting it into operation.

        • Panice says:
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          I was speaking of recreating the capability, not rerunning the mission. The whole infrastructure for landing and returning must be recreated, while making sure that the base in LEO isn’t raided to fund deep space missions.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            I understand where you are coming from, that Apollo was a long time ago and that it used technology that would never be used today, so in that sense it’s like starting all over again. But to call it an initial foray in my definition (you are welcome to yours) is as if we had never been to the Moon and had only guesses and theories about what to expect.

            It would be an initial foray again (sort of like déjà vu all over again), if they decided that the knowledge and experience gained from Apollo, and from the subsequent decades of spaceflight experience, was not sufficient to initiate a program to design and build an operational lunar lander, and that an interim program would be needed, à la Gemini, as a testbed to develop lunar landing and return capability..

            I sure hope that isn’t the case. But if it is, so be it, and we just have to continue with initial foray to the Moon for now until we figure out the best way to do it. Which would just underscore my point about how far behind you can get when you get off track.

      • PsiSquared says:
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        Therein lies the problem: NASA doesn’t exist in a universe where programs that are following an incremental path can’t be gutted to fund pet missions.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        What do people DO at this moon base? I get the research part. What else? And at what cost?

        • DTARS says:
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          Mine ice, Make fuel, maintain robot mining and fuel making robots. Maintain Lunar hotel. Entertain tourists, both tourist that fly to the moon and run an AVATAR moon business so that earth bond customers can experience the moon too. Base on the pole of the moon. Follow the water/ice. Moon fuel used to send people too Mars.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            All (some?) true. And all of this requires stunning amounts of enabling technology.

            It also requires large amounts of “stuff” to be either uplifted or manufactured in situ or manufactured via asteroid resources.

            It is a stunning amount of work.

        • Steve Pemberton says:
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          I think establishing a permanent presence on another world would be looked back on as an important moment in human history, and it would have long term benefits . Of course those benefits are intangible at the moment so it’s just an opinion, one that is not shared by everyone.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Of course that’s true, Steve. But it is not enough. Apollo was a similar milestone.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            “But it is not enough. Apollo was a similar milestone”

            The Columbus voyages by themselves were not enough. But add Jamestown and you now have an actual history changing event, not just a historic footnote.

        • hikingmike says:
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          Tend to the robots.

    • DTARS says:
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      I want to start tourist business to the moon. I want to setup the infrastructure as cheaply as possible. I want my customers to be able to launch on a falcon 9R, in a reusable dragon.
      Couldn’t I buy a used Dragon V2 and convert it to a lander by losing the heat shield and adding tanks and legs?
      Where would i put my fuel depots? and Bigelow habs

      Is there any advantage to to flying my customers to Geo first before they transfer to the vehicle that takes them to the L point to meet my lander?

      I don’t think NASA needs to go to the moon.

      I think NASA needs to help US go to the moon.

      • Steve Pemberton says:
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        You should do all of those things! Private enterprise can do what it wants. I am referring to NASA. And yes I think NASA should help private enterprise, however normally that would be NACA style technology assistance. COTS and CCDev is different that is where NASA is assisting companies to assist NASA in meeting its goals.

        If your tourists don’t want to visit a space station as part of their tour package that’s no problem. I can envision three types of tour packages; 3 days in a space station, or 1 day in a space station plus 2 days on the Moon, or 3 days on the Moon

        I just don’t think NASA should deorbit ISS just so it can afford to leave LEO. If ISS is too expensive to maintain (which it is) then the next step should be to build an affordable space station. Musk and Bigelow and others can assist with that as part of a CSSDev (Commercial Space Station Development) program.

        An affordable LEO station will then pave the way for an affordable lunar station.

        Affordable of course being a relative term, I don’t mean it won’t cost a lot of money but at least we can afford it unlike current planned projects that we can’t afford.

        • DTARS says:
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          To deorbit ISS is stupid
          ISS needs to be made more affordable.

          • Lewis says:
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            How do you make the ISS more affordable? The money has already been spent. It’s history.

          • DTARS says:
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            already been spent??
            How so??

          • objose says:
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            DTARS what is special about ISS? Keith keeps saying (and I am starting to believe him) that all useful research there is done. Sell it. Donate it. Get it off NASA books. NASA is for “next step” programs. If you want spacex to have LEO work why do you want NASA to have ISS work?

          • DTARS says:
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            I don’t care if NASA sells it or not. But to de-orbit the hardware is crazy

          • DTARS says:
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            NASA should be helping SpaceX and big slow with next step work. Both in LEO and beyond. The whole divided commercial only Leo, NASA expensive beyond is just plain crazy.

          • Panice says:
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            To deorbit ISS is stupid
            ISS needs to be replaced with something more affordable. My preference would be multiple commercial space stations that specialize, including one at low inclination for a transportation hub.

          • DTARS says:
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            I don’t know enough about the hardware in space to know if it is the hardware in space that is expensive to keep up or just the expense of the government programs supporting it?????? MY guess would be some one else/a business could run it way cheaper????

        • Lewis says:
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          NASA has tried to involve its self with private enterprise. They had a lab module on the shuttle and they try to do the same with the ISS. It’s never really gone anywhere.

          They said, during design, that the shuttle would deliver low cost to low earth orbit based on this three leg stool thing where the legs were: military, science (NASA/academia), and then industry.

          Industry never went anywhere and basic science was exclusive to NASA. The cost of the vehicle remained very high.

          I think that it’s best to stop trying to find “alternative” funding, to just get tax money and go forth as they did during Apollo.

          Or, remove human space flight from NASA and turn that over to the tourist industry, Space X, the airline guy, and that hotel fellow. Let them work the magic everyone is always talking about.

          Apollo worked. Everything since then (manned) with the fancy financing has been a disaster. I would go back to what worked or just stop. The data is in.

          • DTARS says:
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            Turning human spaceflight over to Spacex the airline guy and the space hotel fellow is the fastest way to get us off this rock.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Paying for results instead of programs (i.e. welfare for engineers) is indeed the way forward.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Apollo worked because of the “waste anything but time” philosophy that came along with the fact that it was being used as a proxy war with the Soviet Union (i.e. the “Space Race”). It accomplished the goal quite well.

            But, the unfortunate side effect was that the Apollo/Saturn program was unaffordable long term. Funding that was appropriate for the Space Race was not appropriate when the US was up to its eyeballs in Vietnam along with spending money at home for expanding social programs. Manned space funding necessarily was reduced at this point.

            Apollo/Saturn was an economic aberration, not the rule.

          • wwheaton says:
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            We could have flown 100 Saturn Vs for the cost of developing the shuttle. The Big Mistake, IMHO (I am OWBSID — often wrong but seldom in doubt) was in throwing away a capability that was paid for, instead of using it, evolving it, That was essentially a political mistake and it’s history, just please let’s not keep doing it.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            What numbers are you using for development costs for the space shuttle and the per flight cost of a Saturn V? My guess is you’re playing fast and loose with the numbers, especially that of the per flight cost of a Saturn V. There were huge infrastructure costs for Saturn V and you need to include those to be fair.

            Also, while ramping up the flight rate of the Saturn V was theoretically possible (and would cost money to do so and would lead to even higher infrastructure costs), payloads were not exactly forthcoming. Actual missions would still have been costly. Consider the cost of an Apollo CSM plus a LEM or the cost of Skylab. The Saturn V was just too big to use for the sort of scaled back missions which were flown during the shuttle era (excepting perhaps the construction of ISS).

          • wwheaton says:
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            Perhaps, yet number I remember from the 1960s for marginal launch cost was $100M (1960s $) per flight, certainly not including payloads. The key to low launch cost for any vehicle is probably a high enough launch rate to keep the fixed overhead costs reasonable and the standing army busy, and that was certainly never achieved, for Saturn V or for the shuttle. The same thing is obviously going to happen for SLS, barring some miracle. (Maybe Falcon Heavy will give us what we need at a lower cost.) But I stand by my belief that throwing away the Apollo system in favor of STS was a huge mistake.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            The extremely high payload of SLS will necessitate a low flight rate. Arguing the cost effectiveness of SLS based on marginal costs is disingenuous in an era of NASA budgets which are not increasing at a rate to make actual exploration missions using SLS affordable.

            You may certainly stick by your belief that throwing away Apollo/Saturn was a mistake, but to do so is to ignore political and economic reality. Revisit Apollo/Saturn V history and take a look at exactly when Apollo/Saturn V production was stopped. I’m not talking about final assembly of the vehicle, I’m talking about ending the contracts for the components needed to build a Saturn V. Most space buffs are shocked to realize how early in the 1960’s this really happened.

            Certainly there was hope to restart Saturn V production (coupled with the hope that the space shuttle program would be killed before it truly began), but it clearly never happened. Understanding the political and economic drivers behind this is key to truly understanding how NASA can, and cannot, move forward in the future.

            You can’t run a manned space program on hope. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

      • DTARS says:
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        How should I start my tourist business. Maybe Spacex would sell me the rights to one F9R and one dragon V2 which they launch my LEO flights too get things started.
        Then flights to Bigelow habs
        Then direct flights around the moon using FHR

  5. Steve Harrington says:
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    The problem with the moon is that the American voter does not want to spend extra money on the project and no Nasa center or contractor is willing to reduce any of their current funding streams to make it happen because the next congress or president might change everything.
    President Bush tried to move money around for his moon mission but it didn’t work. As long as the lobbyists are in charge money will get spent but there is no mission, no great adventure, just people doing their jobs but accomplishing nothing.

    • Lewis says:
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      When Bush announced constellation people at NASA talked about how they didn’t even have money for the art work.

      A lot of American voters don’t know how to tie their own shoes, politicians know. Politicians care zero about how American voters feel about anything, unless it’s a month before an election and somebody’s talking about social security, and even then they just lie.

  6. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    These NASA Moon dreamers seem to have forgotten why the Apollo program was unceremoniously cancelled. Although the cost of continuing the program was high, the real reason was the there wasn’t much justification for the cost.

    There still isn’t much justification for a Moon or Mars mission, especially when one considers the staggering costs involved. People in NASA can still wish that their little delusions will come true despite what reality forces on them.

    • TheBrett says:
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      With the Moon, especially, the closeness also makes it amenable to much cheaper robots. As long as you can relay the signals, you can control them quite easily from Earth.

    • Lewis says:
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      The cost is justified in that it keeps engineers and managers busy making stuff that doesn’t blow up over peasants that have oil under them.

      If welfare and medicaid are justified, so is NASA and big, BIG programs.

  7. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    There are some folks at JSC and elsewhere who have never given up on it
    and are keeping things warm until there is a change in Administrations.

    These folks are able to do this because there is little real accountability at NASA compared to the private sector. This kind of wasteful game-playing is why the agency is becoming more irrelevant to the nation with each passing day.

  8. TheBrett says:
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    I doubt that Moon space missions will be useful for Mars missions any time soon (or ever), but they have value in their own right – and the Moon definitely does have the advantage of being only a few days away.

    Of course, that’s also the problem. It only takes communications with the Moon about 1.3 seconds to get there, each way. You can practically control rovers on the service in real-time with that.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      “they have value in their own right”

      What would that be- other than scientific value, of course, and value as some sort of stepping stone, one supposes. Still, in the manner that we have come to define ‘value’ to mean ‘profit’- what is the value of a trip to the moon?

      • DTARS says:
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        Paying happy customers

      • TheBrett says:
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        I was talking about the scientific value. Researching the Moon has scientific merit, even if it’s close enough that I think robots remotely controlled from Earth would be a nearly-acceptable substitute for humans.

        Commercially, it’s more difficult. I guess you could launch robots and look for any veins of valuable metals close to the surface, but that’s needle-in-a-haystack territory.

      • Lewis says:
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        Learning how to do it? People trot around these days as if going to the moon is no big deal. I submit that we are in a place now where it can not be done.

        SLS just puts up Orion. There’s no space for an adapter ring to put a lm in. And we don’t have a lm. And we don’t have a service module for Orion.

        We have… nothing.

        Quacks would give this talk of bypassing the Moon like we have the hardware sitting in a garage… the name: psychotic. To be sure.

        • DTARS says:
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          If we focus on the moon again, would you use SLS and Orion since we are already burning tons of money building them?

          How would you get the moon explorers off earth? Would you need to fly them off earth in a man rated safe vehicle like falocn 9, dragon V2 then dock with an empty Orion then fly to the moon. SLS will not fly enough times to be certified to carry humans, right? At least Orion has an escape system, unlike shuttle.

          • Lewis says:
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            I don’t know. I was interested in the F-1b, it was off on a contract for modernization, don’t know what happened to that. If SLS made sense I would be for it. I would be for it big time if they were going to build the F-1B. I reflexively don’t like solids, but I could easily be wrong on that.

            I did get a chance to talk to NASA engineers that had a model of the thing and were out on public relations, next to ATX fellows, and there I learned about the service module, that and they showed me the different parts of it, how it didn’t have multiple adapters for a lunar module and what not. Then they talked about how they’re not actually supposed to be goign to the moon.

            So, if SLS made sense, real engineering sense, and it had actual financing… I would go for it. Though I would like to see that decision made very soon, not two years from now, with one flight every year or whatever it is. As it is right now it should be cancelled because nothing is happeneing.

            In which case it would be multiple flights on systems we already have. I saw the thing get pushed up by a delta 4 heavy, so that seems to be closest. Atlas has an engine issue that will go off into four five or ten years for a solution. I don’t like that, but that CST thing is getting good reviews so that’s another gigantic question. Falcon? Sure, if it’s man rated. Same for Dragon, but I don’t want to wait around for a decade while that’s man rated. In the end that rocket will cost the same as the others. It’s all accounting tricks to say they’re much different, if they have the same capabilities. Maybe Space X is less money because of pensions and complex R&D billing, but if the success of Space X is based on payroll, then I have as much use for that as I do for Walmart.

            Though I would like this to start now because we don’t have any of this stuff and there’s a lot of work to get even the most basic things going.

            What I’m seeing is people talking about the moon as if we can go, but it’s inconvenient or too expensive… that really needs to stop. It is insane to behave in such a way.

            We can not go to the moon. Going to Mars is a joke. Permanent bases, that’s also a joke. They can’t even do laundry on the ISS. We need to get serious about what is possible and what is science fiction.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            A reusable strap-on booster based on the F-1B would be better in the long term than an expendable (or nearly so) five segment SRB. The trick is how to return it to the launch site. Since you can’t throttle it deeply enough, you can’t do a vertical landing under F-1B power.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Engineering reality, folks. Read and weep.

          • Lewis says:
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            Verbosity has its merits…

  9. Joe says:
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    Is it not in everyone’s best interest for the agency to include potentially viable options in their trade space when determining what is the most efficient, effective path for astronauts to safely reach Mars and return to the surface of Earth?

  10. Littrow says:
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    I’m not surprised to see that NASA is not sure which way to go on this. After 10 years in his position, Gerst seems to be continuing to equivocate; yes it might be useful to go to the moon; no we cannot go to Mars without some serious enhancements to both fundamental knowledge and our technological capabilities; right now we keep on a path to a kluge of an asteroid mission that maybe exercises our rocket and capsule, although there is not much purpose to such a mission. We are trying to come up with excuses for doing such a mission. Maybe we will learn something about deflecting asteroids (not likely); maybe we can bring a rock back from an asteroid (who cares?); maybe its a test flight of the system that will have some potential future use in two or three decades (not much purpose in that). That is like saying thaqt ‘the use of the Apollo 45 years ago was a good test of a planetary mission in 2025’.

    This is the lack of NASA leadership.

    The reason von Braun is held in such high esteem by so many was that he laid out a blueprint for the big picture of what to do and in which order and the systems that would be required to get us there. Apollo short circuited that, but George Mueller and George Low and later James Beggs laid out a logical plan.

    It was logical because it was based on existing capabilities, made incremental steps forward in hardware and understanding, was negotiated to be affordable, was rational and which has ultimately been carried out though over an awfully long time and ridiculously higher than necessary expense.

    Where is NASA’s plan? Today there is no such plan. There is no architecture for the future of human space flight.

    Ten years ago Gerst and Griffin tried to divest us from the technology and hardware that came from Shuttle and Station; only later was it realized maybe we ought to try and use some of that Shuttle hardware and capability, after we’d totally shut it down, laid off the people, costing billions more than if it had been laid out logically from the start.

    It is too late for Obama; he screwed things up 5 years ago with his call to go beyond the moon without a way to make that happen. NASA management ought to be working now to lay such a plan out for presentation to the next Administration and they ought to be getting some support behind the proposal.

  11. kcowing says:
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    He’s quite correct.

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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      No, incompetent leadership at the DC levels is why NASA is suffering. This sort of do the right thing yourself rather than quit trying is exactly the way motivated troops should respond when faced with failed leadership and is what will save a remnant of NASA for better days. 21 months to go.

  12. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    Outstanding! Best news in many years.

  13. DTARS says:
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    How much would it cost Boeing, LM, OrbitalTDK or SpaceX build lander for themselves without NASA or with NASA under cots oversight????
    Couldn’t a healthy orbital tourist business create a market for a lunar tourist business.
    I have said before that i don’t think the current capsules carry enough people.

    • Lewis says:
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      Grumman got two billion for ten or twelve vehicles. So these days fifteen billion.

      Space X could do it for 720 million.

      There’s one hanging over the snack bar at the Apollo Center at Kennedy. You might put that one on a Falcon 9 after a few million to touch up the paint.

      • DTARS says:
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        few million for the paint job? I guess your assuming Boeing does the paint job cost plus?

        • Lewis says:
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          You know, there’s one at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. They have it sitting outside inside this gated area next to a city street, getting rained and snowed on year round. The last time I was there I got this security guy to open the gate and let me in, and the engine bell is just sitting on the ground, that thing they engineered to absorb shock in case it hit something. And it’s sinking into the dirt such that grass is growing up around it. There’s no engine, but you can see the way that the airframe was built.

          That was the first time that I tried to bribe somebody, that guard. He was resisting letting me climb up to get in it because he thought somebody would see. I was telling him that we were surrounded by idiots that would only be upset if we stepped on one of the cars parked in a street. He had told me minutes before that they had let a group of day care children climb in the thing.

          I offered that guy a hundred and four bucks in small bills. To this day I can not believe he wouldn’t take it.

          When you’re standing outside a Lunar Module in the rain, you get a certain clarity that can not be had anywhere else.

  14. iceguy31 says:
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    This article is spot on. NASA hasn’t baselined the EM roadmap (SLS missions) yet because they are waiting on a change of President. Given that missions have to be the sitting president’s/congress’s idea, they are waiting for this before committing to use the moon as the transit habitat and surface systems proving ground head of the mars mission. Gerst has even hinted at this before if you read between the lines. ARM will get modded or scrapped before KDP-C, and EM-2 will start testing tech (EUS long term loiter) in cis-lunar space. He wants at least one SLS mission a year starting with EM-2, so expect L2 station buildup in the mid 2020s ahead of moon landings, then on to mars in the 2030s. NASA’s media department is trying to walk the line of answering BOb’s directives while keeping the public interested while not divulging the common sense approach being planned internally.

  15. mfwright says:
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    It seems to me Moon is technically a better goal than Mars (asteroids seem to be an in-between). But nobody talks about the Moon because if that is the goal then contracts are quickly needed to start building hardware, and that means someone has to put up money like right now (plus development work of design-build-test and then have to deliver working hardware instead of posting PPTs). Mars is a convenient goal because the job of getting money to build hardware is deferred into the future (and it’s always 20 years into the future) to someone else in the future to deal with that task. Unfortunately it is a zero-sum game, money will have to be taken from other NASA programs if they decide to go to the Moon.

  16. Paul451 says:
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    the administration deliberately chose to keep the NASA budget constant.

    The Obama budget request was an extra $1b/yr for NASA.

    Plus, through cancelling Constellation, freeing up another $2.5b/yr for additional research. (Including a specific request for new family of large hydrocarbon engine. Which would have been handy right about now for those companies dependent on Russian engines, no?)

    It was Congress that crippled NASA’s budget, by refusing the requested increase, repeatedly shutting down government, and burdening NASA with the cost of SLS.

  17. Lewis says:
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    It makes one wonder why the president is allowed to dictate national space policy in the first place. They’re only around for eight years. Why let them just cancel things? Perhaps there should be some separate legislative committee that can have checks installed to keep some continuity going.

    • wwheaton says:
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      Congress can just cancel things too. We do need a better system for committing to large programs (“entitlements”? Oh dear! ) and then shutting them down sensibly when a consensus exists that they need to ramp down. Sounds harder than designing a Mars colony.

  18. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    Now go home, troll.

    I’ve been posting here for many years.

    I’ve worked closely with NASA for several years and have seen both the good and the bad firsthand. Unfortunately, some parts of NASA have devolved into prodigal sons returning home to certain patron Congresspersons to ask for more taxpayer money after they have squandered their allowance through hubristic mismanagement and blundering incompetence. My opinion is not just based on what I read on the internet.

  19. Michael Spencer says:
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    where does the profit come from?

    I tire of making the argument that makes this leftist hippie look like Rand Paul 🙂 But still.

    • DTARS says:
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      MR. Paul,
      The profit comes from the business you make after you have a reusable space liner business.
      Which of course that starts on a barge too.

      Road to the moon and to mars starts on a barge.

  20. objose says:
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    Saw video 2 points: Bolden differentiates explore vs. pioneer in relations to Mars. Pioneer Mars means a permanent presence. Well we have “explored” the moon but not pioneered it. It has resources. It can teach. Why not “Pioneer” the moon first? Columbus explored the new world but pioneering was what made it part of the European world. Let’s pioneer the moon for water, H3 and the rest.

  21. Neil.Verea says:
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    President Obama in essence has set back Human Exploration at least 10 years, through his dismantling of Constellation. every year that has gone and that goes by, is further loss of corporate memory on large integrated programs. This is what will be required when the country decides to pursue another exploration program, and will need to rebuild that knowledge again and not just hit the ground running. Constellations Problems could be summed up that it had poor misguided leadership at all levels above level 3

  22. Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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    Can we get a lander flying within 4-5 years? That is a presidential term.

    NASA can start with Project Morpheus and Lunar CATALYST.
    The LEM manned lander came in 3 parts – a lander stage, an ascent stage and the cabin, They are interrelated but can be developed as 3 separate projects.

  23. Half Moon says:
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    Obama nixed the moon because it was logistically and technically very feasible to do in the time his administration would be in power. Remember during his campaign he dissed Constellation, initially wanted to cancel it, but then realized he needed Florida. So, opting instead for Mars accomplishes the same goals : No big spending on hardware ‘stuff’ for NASA while I’m president’ ergo No Moon

  24. Dan says:
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    I don’t even care at this point. Let’s just go *somewhere*. The problem started back in Apollo when people gave Kennedy the credit for going to the moon. Using a time measure starting at Kennedy’s moon speech, and ending at Apollo 11, Kennedy was president for about 18% of that time. LBJ did most of the work keeping NASA’s funding high, being president 75% of the time. Nixon came in right at the end and contributed 7%.
    So we give Kennedy the credit, and LBJ and Nixon the shaft. No wonder subsequent presidents like to cancel the programs started under the previous guy.
    If we, as a space enthusiast community, were being fair, LBJ should really get the credit. And if we were politically savvy, we’d give Nixon the credit. Encourage the next president to provide more funding, not less.

    • Paul451 says:
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      You should give Eisenhower the credit. It was under his administration that the original work on the moon proposal was done at NASA, and particularly the work on the F1 engine was begun.

      Without that prior work, Kennedy’s challenge would have been worthless. Just as every subsequent space “challenge” by later Presidents were worthless. Nixon’s “space truck” shuttle. Reagan’s giant space station Freedom, Bush I’s “return to the moon to stay and on to Mars!”, and Bush II’s “return to the moon and on to Mars”.

      [Carter and Clinton just tried to force the existing failing programs back into shape. Carter, the shuttle, Clinton, ISS. There wasn’t much in the way of grand challenges.]

      One of the things I liked about the original Obama proposed asteroid mission (before the SLS zombie was forced back in), was that it was essentially 90% of a Phobos mission. It required EOR. It was general purpose infrastructure. Long duration BEO manned hardware.

      So Obama’s people do the work to get the mission ready, deals with all the “Obama killed the space program” BS, the next President gets to do the photo-op with the returning astronauts – and then propose “on to Mars! (…orbit)” at little or no cost and able to be completed within his term. He gets the credit, as Kennedy did to Eisenhower. It would have given people a real sense of progress having two major milestone missions within a short time. And by then, hopefully, you’d start to see commercial crew flying paying passengers (part of Obama’s original proposal was fully funding CCDev) and maybe Bigelow’s stations coming online.

      That then would allow NASA to buy an L2 space-station essentially off-the-shelf. So if a next-plus-one President, choosing back to the moon over a Mars landing, could easily fund everything except the lander at low cost. That frees up a lot of resources for the lander and surface facilities. That increases the chance of the surface facilities being actually useful (for eg, ISRU), rather than just flags’n’footprints. Those sites (L2 station and lunar base) provide a next target for commercial cargo, and later commercial crew; freeing NASA to pursue the next step out when the next-plus-two President says “Mars base!”

      Instead, we got… this.