ESA's Director General Prefers The Moon Over Mars
Moon village would host first class research, Nature
“[ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Wörner]: The Americans are saying Mars is the ultimate goal, but I’m rather convinced that Mars is not the ultimate goal. If we continue on planet Earth, I’m sure humans will go even beyond Mars, but the question is when and how. We need some targets in between. The Moon is a very scientifically interesting body and it’s reachable by humans even with today’s technology. For Mars and other bodies, we need totally different technologies. Imagine if you send a human to Mars on a two-year return journey and after two months he or she gets difficult health problems. What do you do? We have to have better technology, stronger launchers and other propulsion systems, to go to Mars.”
I wouldn’t mind that as the “new ISS” in terms of international goodwill manned space projects, as long as they commit to some stuff in advance. I don’t want it to become like the ISS, where they have these promises about what they’ll do there but the funding falls much short.
That said, I think I’d prefer an L5 international station with rotationally simulated gravity over that.
We can build on ISS, but we cannot abandon it, at least not until an even more capable base in LEO is operational.
I wouldn’t be in favor of abandoning it unless we have another project to use its funding.
There are always projets to use funding. But if we abandon ISS the funding is likely to go into tax cuts or deficit reduction.
Hopefully the next administration figures that out quickly, because if they keep limping along the current path post 2017, it will become impossible to avoid a decade or longer halt in U.S. human space flight.
Why not? We abandoned indigenous HSF without a replacement?
I’m sure some folks said the same thing about the impending retirement of STS: “Don’t stop flying till a replacement is at hand”. A logical point of view.
We know that is not what happened. Logic/common sense does not prevail when it comes to HSF. This is the impact of the phoniness that is rampant in Congress and the WH
Well, we certainly should not put ISS 2 at a Baikonur driven inclination.
Ahhh, the joys of international partnerships. Sometimes they don’t just roll over and do exactly what you want. Sometimes, they do what THEY want. (In this case, I hope ESA gets its way! Imagine that, the Europeans may actually save the U.S. program.)
“My answer was not the Moon village indeed” Perhaps landing on an asteroid instead? Time for some MoonShot Thinking “Humanity’s progress has been a series of amazing audacious things…..” https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I suspect returning to the Moon, then establishing and maintaining a permanent base there is a much better fit for our current and near-future capabilities than going for a Mars mission. Much less envelope pushing required.
I use “a mission” deliberately because it’s unrealistic to imagine funding and political interest could be sustained over the lengthy period of time a series of multi-year Mars missions would require.
So… go for the Moon, put a base there, put a big remotely operated telescope on the dark side, focus robotic missions to Mars specifically on searching for life — or at least the PR — (that generates more taxpayer interest than geology) and push development of propulsion schemes that can get us to and from Mars in weeks. Then go.
NASA continued to send men to the moon long after the public lost interest so the most logical way forward is flexible path to *all* destinations. Unlike NASA, only those who want to build an operate decades old hardware do not want to push the envelope. Imagine landing crew on a asteroid or servicing the depots, satellites, tugs, or the habitats as PR for the Mars expeditions and beyond to the limitless frontier.
Chris Hadfield has also talked about the technical shortfall for a trip to Mars. His concern was focused on the lack of an adequate power source to run a base there.
We need a space qualified reactor. Nothing else has the 24/7 power capacity. It’s that simple.
Sure. remember the fuss when Cassini was launched? And when it did the flyby of earth?
That’s one reason that there’s a Jupiter mission with solar sails, the other being a lack of Plutonium, of course. And while these are two entirely different issues in the public mind it’s **radioactivity**!!! Keep the nukes out of space!!!
RTGs use plutonium, which is extremely toxic. A reactor initially contains only uranium, which is essentially nontoxic, so it is not hazardous at launch. After the reactor is activated it accumulates toxic isotopes, but this would only be done after departure from Earth. A reactor is safer to launch and produces much more power than an RTG.
The sun is only half as bright at Mars and just 2% as bright at Jupiter. The Juno mission uses solar panels to generate power but this is only possible because it needs very little power and can carry huge solar panels. HSF needs much more power.
As much as I like nuclear power in space, this isn’t really true. A RTG uses plutonium dioxide, which won’t even dissolve in water, so its toxicity is quite low. As you note, once you turn a reactor on there are all sorts of daughter products and activated materials. Some are fairly nasty. The designs I’ve seen for space-based reactors are all fast reactors, which just makes the whole problem worse. Unfortunately, many of the ideas for getting the reactor away from Earth before use are circular: Using it to power electric propulsion, for example, requires using the reactor for months while still in Earth orbit.
Several navies of the world know a thing or two about handling reactors in hostile environments. And while deep space and deep water aren’t entirely analogous, still, the US, Russian, French, and British navies* have an incredible knowledge that could be put to good use in space.
*(I may have missed another nuclear navy).
I get that launch mishaps with a nuclear payload are terrifying. But so is an implosion at depth. I don’t have the technical knowledge to say whether or not a nuke intended for power production in space could be engineered to survive a launch explosion.
Sticking my fingers in my ears and running in circles!! Remember 3 mile island! NASA can not launch nukes into space!
in the public mind it’s **radioactivity**!!! Keep the nukes out of space!!!
NASA is a Public program which can’t educate the public or do something practical and smart like you suggest.
in the public mind it’s **radioactivity**!!! Keep the nukes out of space!!!
in the public mind it’s **radioactivity**!!! Keep the nukes out of space!!!
in the public mind it’s **radioactivity**!!! Keep the nukes out of space!!!
In the low-information, scientifically illiterate left-wing public mind it’s **radioactivity**!!! Keep the nukes out of space!!!
Not a lot of Tea Partiers singing this song.
Plutonium is both radioactive and toxic. But so is Uranium. Uranium is much less radioactive than Plutonium, but both are toxic heavy metals and produce symptoms similar to lead when ingested.
Just wanted to clear that up.
All true, and forgive me for conflating these disparate methodologies. Bt it was for a reason: in the public mind there’s no difference between RTG and reactors. Anything radioactive on any level ever will be lumped together.
We are paying a harsh price for being a scientifically illiterate country by and large. Peoples irrational fear of anything to do with nuclear is crazy. I was contemplating the RTG during Dr. Stern’s discussion this weekend. We have a very capable spacecraft, zooming away from the Pluto/Charon System. What a waste, over time, all that energy, for a limited data set. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re going to do wonderful things with the data, but if we had a larger booster the probe could’ve been designed to enter orbit, and think of all the data we could be collecting for years. To do that you have to have people with enough vision to appropriately fund space exploration. Sitting around hoping that somebody’s going to pull a rabbit out of the hat, and suddenly alter the laws of physics with drastic price reductions I believe is unrealistic. What we need rather Is sustained effort by all who care about space expiration in enlightening political class into the importance of assisting the effort in the country’s future. We do not need to be engaged in an endless food fight over who’s technology is cooler. To explore the solar system robotically in with human presence is going to require us to learn to do something we don’t do very often in NASA. We have to chew gum and walk at the same time. It’s going to require significant development in multiple areas of technology. We were only manage that once for a brief period of time. It really is a lack of vision and commitment.
If we had a nuclear rocket engine, we could easily put a probe in orbit around Pluto…
A few months back Gwynne Shotwell said SpaceX is looking at electric propulsion for MCT. I Guess SpaceX may have to lead the way there too.
Discussion with Gwynne Shotwell, President and CO…: https://youtu.be/ApvSHdZGnwU
I thought that was NASAs job??
Stick of gum anybody??
Because you seriously think nobody else has been working on electric propulsion development since, well, since Robert Goddard himself?! Or that such things as SERT, Meteor 3, A2100, Resurs-O, Elektro, 702SP, Deep Space 1, Hayanusa, Dawn, etc. never existed?! That nobody at NASA or ESA or JAXA or Roscosmos is looking at electric propulsion systems for human space exploration?!
Nice list
Thanks 🙂
Yes it is. It’s one that’s easily obtained by a simple internet search. So much for that whole spiel about SpaceX “leading the way” on electric propulsion.
Which is exactly what I did. 😉
I have no connection to the electric propulsion business, but I thought the original comment was unjustifiably condescending to the many players in that field.
There is a lot that I like and admire about SpaceX, but the ‘all things SpaceX are genius and all things not SpaceX are stupid and sinister’ attitude from some of the ‘less well informed’ fanboys on this blog is getting rather tiresome.
When SpaceX presents performance data from some electric propulsion engine, then it will be time to believe that they have a plan in action. As it stands, SpaceX isn’t leading the way in electric propulsion.
Thanks for… ‘space expiration’ … I’m going to use that from now on, brilliant!
It is worth pointing out in that context that the current political climate in the US favors saddling college grads with six-figure debt loads. This is a long-range deleterious policy that dissuades young people from going to school in whatever field of study.
Our great country can surely open the doors of its institutions to any capable student. The benefits would be enormous.
Unless, of course, you are a banker.
Human space flight beyond cis-lunar space isn’t going to happen without nukes. If we can’t figure out how to ignore the nuclear-phobic hippy leftovers still tripping on the acid they dropped in the ’60’s, then we for sure aren’t going to be sending anyone to Mars.
I’m one of those hippy leftovers that has come to realize that nukes (of a certain type) on earth and in space are the best way forward, a point of view that has alienated some compatriots.
Then you clearly aren’t one of the Luddites I was referring to. 😉
Hey! I resemble that remark!
The nuclear power in space problem is two fold: a lot of folks don’t understand how this stuff is packaged and tested and the levels of protection to prevent rupture of the vessel; and far too many folks replace thinking with political points.
That was my point about nuclear navies, a point made too obliquely. The rector vessels in these ships are designed to withstand implosion at depth and by analogy could be made to withstand explosion during launch.
Yeah. Damn those anti-science Republicans!
Oh, wait…
The threading from Disqus makes it hard sometimes to figure out exactly what comments are responses, you know?
And that’s one of the easier problems to solve about going to Mars.
Mars will continue to be the destination as long as the President wishes to avoid spending any more money on HSF – especially developing flight systems – and continues to be opposed to HSF.
No president dare cancel HSF. It would look awful for their legacy. They just have to keep the destination unattainable.
So….. Commercial Crew is not HSF?
CC is indeed HSF. And spending money on it allows for the pretense of ‘pretending to go to Mars’ continue, while hiding ‘I have no interest in spending what it takes to do so’
I didn’t say a President will cancel HSF. I said, they’ll keep it going, only so they can avoid having to cancel it (cause that would look bad on their legacy bucket list), and they’ll always pick and unattainable destination that is so far away in time and budget that they can also avoid having to ‘up’ the budget, or deal with any flight system failures during their watch (Also something that would look bad)
That’s one interpretation. Another might be something like ‘let’s keep CC chugging along, moving towards the Mars-thing as best we can with very limited available funds’. Funds limited, I should point out, by SLS, by ISS, by that new-fangled telescope, and by Old Think.
Yes CC is HSF as much as ISS is HSF.
Well, it’s not commercial and unless there is a major policy change, it doesn’t have a lifespan beyond 2024 nor any planned follow-on.
Interestingly, Congress does not seem at all interested in increasing funding enough to make HSF beyond LEO not only possible but sustainable. Of course, you can ignore Congress’ hand in the problem and just blame everything on which ever president you want. No one has to acknowledge facts.
Congress is complicit with the pretence as well.
All they care about is: ‘Votes for me in my district’. That means ‘jobs’ in their district that people can attribute to their actions in Congress’
So they will pretend to be interested in advancing HSF beyond LEO, but are hiding they too have no interest in destinations and real money as long as the status quo creates jobs in their districts
So between the Presidents phoniness and Congress phoniness, we have a stagnant HSF program that is struggling with its purpose and existence. Evidence of this is the SLS. The biggest debacle in the history of NASA. The rocket to nowhere.
Remember that Saturn was a rocket to nowhere before Apollo existed, but Apollo could not have been started with the goal it had from the outset had Saturn not already been underway.
Well, not exactly. The ‘initial Saturn Rocket was only a first stage idea that VonBraun was developing for the Army Balistic Missle Agency in response to Sputnik (1957). Eventually this nascent project was transferred to NASA, shortly after NASA opened its doors in 1959. Debates about a 2nd stage ensued. It’s not clear to me what NASA was going to do with this early Saturn configuration. And surely, this Saturn, was not powerful enough to go to the moon, and only after Kennedy’s speech (probably before, because Kennedy surely knew of the Saturn project, and that it could ‘morph’ into a moon rocket) did the ball get rolling to build a moon rocket, and the F1 engines and 2nd stage engines were all formulated/designed.
I don’t think the Saturn history is equivalent to the SLS.
One error in your story. The E-1 engine was in work and morphed into the F-1 for use on Saturn V and Nova.
One thing a lot of Apollo afficianados and even Apollo veterans forget is that NASA was working on Apollo and even a lunar program prior to Kennedy’s speech. It was not going anywhere too quickly until Kennedy and Congress got behind it, but there was a plan. The Apollo CSM spacecraft had a space station version and a moon flight version and even a moon landing version, prior to May 61.
Actually, the F-1 had begun in 1955 and was pretty well developed prior to the Kennedy lunar decision. The R-10 was in a similar state and the J-2 had already been designed and contracted and was in early development testing. The first Saturn I flew in October of 1961, barely a few months after the lunar decision, the S-IV and S-IVB stages were contracted and the S-II out for bid before May 1961, and the EOR capable and LOR capable with F-1 powered S-I stages C-3 and C-4 were in conceptual design prior to the lunar decision. (For that matter, the Apollo capsule itself was already in conceptual design.) Had the Saturn program not been so far into development, it’s doubtful they would have ever considered starting Apollo in 1961, certainly not with the beat the Russians to the moon goal. Prior to the Kennedy decision, Saturn and bounced around under a huge and confusing variety of mission requirements and passed through a variety of owners and funders. Key elements had existed as distinct development programs for at least seven years, with some preceding elements such as the Super Juno and H-1 arguable for over a decade prior to having a clear and distinct requirement.
Saturn is very much a classic case of “If you build it, they will come.” We tend to forget that now.
I agree – it is not the same. Saturn development was far more expensive and from the ground up with far more challenging technology and infrastructure development needs but with much less clear goals in its early development than SLS. (See history discussion below.)
While there may be concerns with SLS, history shows that the lack of clarity in mission definition at this phase is not an issue.
That’s about the clearest summary of the present administration’s human spaceflight policy that I’ve ever seen.
Isn’t that pretty much what happened when STS died?
Truer or more accurate words are rarely spoken on this website. Anyone gives it more than 30 seconds serious thought understands that moon has to be the next step. It’s the one place we can gain experience in living outside the earths magnetosphere, in a gravity field, and relatively close to home. That is not rocket science, it is obvious, and it is doable. And anyone who thinks that good song it’s can’t be done on the moon is crazy. We all seem to have forgotten what we learned as a child. First we crawl, and we stand, then we walk, then we run.
“Doable” is the most important element. Human lunar missions are possible with today’s technology and within realistic budgets. Mars is not doable without major technology advancements and future expenditure increases well beyond anything that can be hoped for.
The only thing being accomplished by the focus on Mars as the future of human space flight is to divert effort and funding from everything that actually has a chance of being the future of human space flight.
Unfortunately no President needs to cancel HSF. If ISS suffered a serious problem, without Shuttle it could very well prove the end of HSF. The Constellation Mars nut cases have left us with no back up for a myriad of problems.
I don’t understand this line of thinking. Are you saying that the President is diverting HSF dollars to an under-funded ‘go to Mars’ campaign simply because he doesn’t want us to have HSF capability?
I’m not sure an ‘under-funded go to Mar’s Campaign’ is separate from HSF; ergo, one couldn’t divert funds from one to the other as they are the same.
I am saying the President, and Congress have no real interest in HSF being anything other than it already is: Something that chugs along going no-where. They will both pretend that ‘going to Mars’ is the long term goal, while they hide that they aren’t committed to that goal.
Status quo keeps them all safe. It’s their survival mode of operating.
I guess that is one interpretation. Another might be something like this: scrap as much money together as possible in the current political climate to at least keep the program alive. Protect the investment as best we can.
You are talking about SLS here, Correct????
It’s reducing the cost of HSF so that we can someday see more than four Americans in space at the same time.
Yes, more than 4 Americans in space flying in LEO; not to the moon (as long as Obama is Pres) and certainly never to Mars.
Perhaps you remember Apollo 12? Neither does anyone else. As long as we do one-off space spectaculars HSF will be reduced to flags and footprints. To be sustainable HSF must be affordable, productive, safe, and routine.
Au contraire, mon frere. I remember Apollo 12. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, the Merry Pranksters of the Apollo era. I miss Pete. If he was still alive I think he’d be in the thick of NewSpace.
As a space enthusiast, I agree. But public interest cratered after the first moon landing. If human spaceflight is to be sustainable it must be much less expensive. If someone else thinks they can do this more effectively than SpaceX, then my all means let them try.
No evidence of your hypothesis exists. Please provide factual analysis supporting your position.
See above.
Are you implying that SLS/Orion and any of the commercial crew outfits are in the same league?
Exactly how are they not in the same league?
If you can’t see it, nothing anyone says will open your eyes. I’ll give you a hint: Performance/Capability
Explain, please. You’ll need to present facts, not your opinions.
Except for it’s not going to actually reduce the costs when you look at the actual cost numbers. $58m / seat best promised versus $74m / seat actual latest Soyuz costs (IIRC) is not going to produce enough savings over remaining ISS life to pay for the development costs. And that’s before the learning curve of the remaining couple years of development and post CRS-7 fallout.
I’m not saying Soyuz shouldn’t be replaced, but if you think CCDev is going to produce a net cost savings over the current status-quo without fundamental redefinition of current plans for post 2024, then you aren’t paying attention to the numbers.
Do the numbers just include the SpaceX side of the development cost.
Or both Boeing’s and SpaceX development?
Didn’t Boeing charge nasa nearly double to develop a simpliar capsule than SpaceX?
Seems like Boeing is milking CCDev making CCDev look worse.
Then People like you say SpaceX is expensive?
Isn’t CCDev per seat price so high because Boeing jammed us again?
Taking into consideration only SpaceX’s proposed development and operational costs, the total program cost for ISS crew support still comes out more than using Soyuz at projected costs. As I keep saying – I’m not arguing that Soyuz shouldn’t be replaced for other reasons or even what the best alternative is, just that CCDev has failed to show a net cost savings, regardless of which contractor you are talking about. I’m not even saying that it is impossible to achieve a net savings in some way, only that the current CCDev players have failed to do so. The numbers are what the numbers are.
As for your other comments, you should be careful making accusations like ‘milking CCDev’. It could be that the higher costs one contractor charges are just the cost of achieving a better record of success. Or not, I don’t personally know. But I do know that you do not have the inside information necessary to backup the implicit accusations that you made.
Aren’t you including cargo? The total; per seat cost is lower for both CCP providers.
Not including cargo. Yes, the projected per seat cost of both providers is lower than current Soyuz per seat costs. I started off with that assertion. The problem is that the per seat savings is too low to offset the development cost over the projected number of flights given the present administration’s human space flight policy, so the total program cost amounts to a net cost, not a savings compared to the status quo. When actual costs per seat are demonstrated, the comparison is probably going to look even less favorable (on a cost basis).
You neglect to include what accounts call the ‘residual’ benefit of at least one fully functioning space transportation company. That single fact would be reflected on any fair-minded balance sheet.
Don’t get me wrong. Elon Musk is not in business to lose money. SpaceX is already charging over a billion dollars less than Boeing for the same services, but there is no price elasticity of demand in the government market, so it would accomplish nothing to charge less.
There is substantial elasticity of demand with price in both the commercial satellite market and the orbital tourist market, so we can expect Musk to set aggressive price points in both these markets.
Forgive me but you are making a huge error here. The benefits of CC are far beyond the direct replacement costs of seats to ISS (even though your numbers make assumptions I wouldn’t include). The program has yielded an exciting and operational company (SpaceX), and it has jump-started several others. Taken as a package the program is a screaming success.
I made no such error because I made no such claim. I only said the cost savings isn’t there, because it isn’t. Now you are claiming other benefits in exchange for the investment, which is a different discussion entirely than where this started. My point is that Daniel Woodard’s statement above: “It’s reducing the cost of HSF so that we can someday see more than four Americans in space at the same time.” was in error.
I agree that is an excellent goal and well worthy of investment. Personally, I think it is THE most important goal in space flight right now. However, by the numbers, CCDev fails to achieve that goal. (As did shuttle BTW, and many others.) That doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up on the goal of finding a cheaper way to do HSF, nor does it mean that there can’t be some other justification than cost savings for the CCDev program.
A fine point, but true.
The Soyuz is not a NASA or even a US launch system; NASA has less input into Soyuz design and ops than it does with SpaceX and Boeing commercial. The cost for the Dragon (and quite possibly the CST as well) would be considerably lower than it already is if NASA filled all seven seats rather than purchasing the entire launch and using only four seats. The only NASA-managed human spacecraft in development is the SLS/Orion, which even for LEO access would cost about $250M/seat.
You completely failed to address the point. I don’t disagree that replacing Soyuz is a good idea. The only point I was making is that your assertion that the CCDev program will achieve cost savings relative to the status quo is not going to be realized. I’m not saying a Soyuz alternative should or shouldn’t be done, just noting the facts that based on the numbers and working to the current administration’s policies, net costs savings is no longer a mathematical possibility.
As for Orion, why would you compare it to SLS/Orion? If NASA were to use Orion for the ISS crew mission, the logical thing would be to launch it with EELV. Orion launched on SLS has a totally different mission than ISS so any per seat cost comparison is irrelevant. I have no idea what an Orion / EELV cost would be. Not sure anybody does.
If congress had funded on time those numbers would look MUCH better. If they hadn’t been delayed by congress we would be flying flights today.
So CONgress has succeeded in making CCDev a failure by the numbers. Correct?
They didn’t work to the current administration’s policies as you imply.
I have seen no suggestion that stretching out development funds has lead to an increase in projected operational costs for CCDev. Nor has there been any mention thus far of any descoping of design goals due to lack of development funds. In general, it is theoretically possible that stretching development schedules can lead to a net increase in total development costs due to carrying fixed costs over a longer development cycle, but I haven’t seen any discussion that CCDev has experienced such development cost increases to any noteworthy degree. I suppose that there might be an argument that if more funding had been provided faster that CCDev might have been able to fly a couple more flights that will now go to Soyuz, for a possible savings of a few million dollars, but certainly nowhere near enough to turn the overall program into a net cost savings. Keep in mind too that the current operational costs are just projections with a couple years more of development remaining ahead. History shows that the actual operational costs will almost certainly grow more as the development matures. (Of particular note, the currently available estimates have not yet factored in the fallout from CRS-7.)
On the other hand, there does not appear to be a strong case that larger development funds could have accelerated the development schedule very much. The CCDev contractors certainly appear to have been peddling as fast as they can to make the progress they have to date, with numerous delays on many program milestones attributable to various technical and capacity reasons other than lack of funds.
So, no, not correct. You have not supplied any data to support the notion that CCDev could have achieved a net cost savings had Congress provided funding faster.
However, Congress has been clearly signaling their intent that NASA should have down selected vendors sooner. Had they done so, then clearly the total development cost of the program would have been dramatically lower, possibly enough that the marginal savings on operational costs might have been enough to offset the development. It doesn’t look to me like the numbers show it would have worked out that way, but certainly the total cost would have been lower and it would have been closer to a net savings.
Again, I’m not saying NASA shouldn’t fund an alternative to Soyuz. I’m only pointing out that the numbers don’t support the claim some of you folks are making that CCDev will achieve a net cost savings. Making unsupportable claims like that does not help with the advocacy of space flight.
And again I will point out that your assertions leave facts on the table. The calculations you make illustrate everything that is wrong with the modern notion that governmental actions must ‘close the business case’, whatever the hell that really means.
For consistency consider this: any modern company carries a line item that represents ‘good will’; this is the value of a company’s reputation or stature or standing in the business community. It’s a real number, too, one that guides company valuation.
Taking for a moment the silly notion that governmental activities are analogous to business or that they even should be comparable, one must include the real value that CC has left behind. It has jump started several companies and it has invigorated public participation, among many other benefits. These residuals have brought real value to our great country, lasting value.
I don’t know how to value these residuals but they are >$0.
Fair arguments and not points I ever disputed. See my answer to Michael Reynolds above. All I have said is that the cost numbers don’t add up to justify CCDev on the basis of cost. Thank you for offering some justification other than cost savings. How much investment is warranted in those those other values you propose is another discussion entirely.
We certainly have not seen the estimated operational costs driven down to a low enough point yet to actually enable a self -sustaining human space flight industry, so all that has been ‘jump started’ so far are some new faces in the pool of available government contractors. That is not necessarily an unworthy thing of course.
(I’ll go ahead and address your inevitable Bigelow argument – show me the line of billionaires that can afford the $58m/seat launch cost, $1m/day room fee, and months long commitment, that are capable and interested in spending their time and money that way for no payoff other than personal vanity, and that is long enough to keep even one such hotel filled over its operational life span. Yeah, I don’t see such a line either. Until somebody finds a way to knock some more zeros off those costs, HSF (beyond suborbital) is going to remain a government funded game. Polishing business models for efficiency is not going to knock zeros off the cost.)
This argument about comparing the cost of Soyuz to CCDev is apples to oranges. If you’re going to compare apples to apples as far as CCDev in comparison to Soyuz, then you would need to incorporate the development cost of Soyuz (including inflation). This comparison is nigh on impossible to make because the fact that Soyuz
has several versions (of varying costs), the first of which was developed in the 1960’s in the USSR.
There really is no way to compare costs to other programs of a similar nature because CCDev is unique, in exception to maybe the Orion capsule of course.
Again, you miss the point. Soyuz development is a sunk cost. The cost to NASA to use Soyuz is the cost per seat charged by the Russians, period. The cost to NASA, today, to use CCDev is the cost to develop CCDev and the cost to operate CCDev because it has no other customers or other means of amortizing those costs and it won’t happen unless NASA pays for it. For the nth time, I’m not saying this is a reason not to do CCDev. All that I am saying is that contrary to the initial statement above, CCDev does not offer a net cost savings to NASA under current HSF policies compared to the alternative. We need to stop claiming a cost savings that is mythical as one of the justifications for CCDev. If cost is the only concern and 2024 is the end for ISS, then the logical answer is to just keep flying on Soyuz. If that’s not the answer you want, then focus on the reasons that do justify the answer you want.
Would not your argument then regard the developmental costs of CC as ‘sunk costs’?
No, quite a lot of those costs are still in the future.
Can’t give you an exact number but it would be a big one. Orion is so heavy it needs at least a Delta IV Heavy to put it in LEO. Delta IV Heavies, according to ULA, are going to get even pricier than they already are as the medium Delta IV’s are withdrawn from service. Then there’s the fact that Orion is basically an expendable capsule design and, in spite of its bulk, only carries four crew. Despite all that, Orion to LEO on Delta IV Heavy would still be cheaper than Orion to LEO on SLS, but it would remain an order of magnitude or more beyond what anyone could legitimately label “economical.”
if you think CCDev is going to produce a net cost savings over the
current status-quo without fundamental redefinition of current plans for
post 2024, then you aren’t paying attention to the numbers.
Once again, your analysis is far too government-centric. You are correct that the U.S. government has no definite plans for LEO beyond 2024. This is not, though, equivalent to saying that there are no plans of any kind for the post-ISS era. Bigelow Aerospace certainly has such plans. NASA is even tacitly assuming its LEO HSF role will be to be one of his customers.
And forget the $58 million/seat number for Commercial Crew missions. That number will hold for ISS missions because of three factors:
1) NASA demands a new spacecraft for each mission.
2) NASA will only be flying four crew per mission instead of six or seven.
3) NASA will be splitting the missions between Boeing and SpaceX, the former having a cost structure at least double that of the latter.
NASA only does two crew transfer missions in a typical year. Bigelow plans for each twin-BA330-based station to have a dozen crew slots and to change out crews every 60 to 90 days. That will require up to a mission a month per such station. Bigelow will go with what’s most economical for crew transport; actual reuse of hardware and maximum passenger loads.
Bigelow, like NASA, also wants at least two crew transport suppliers. Boeing is likely to be the only alternative supplier in the early going, but Bigelow will insist on reflying its CST-100’s and carrying larger passenger loads than NASA. If ULA can’t provide a competitive partially reusable launcher, said CST-100’s might well fly on Falcon 9’s for Bigelow missions.
A bit further down the road, there is strong likelihood of both Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada becoming LEO crew transport market entrants. By the early 2020’s there will be multiple LEO destinations and what will seem, by current standards, a fabulous amount of crew transport traffic to service them.
You are correct that, considered in isolation, the ISS cannot generate a positive ROI on CCDev investment. Toss Bigelow into the mix, though, and LEO crew and cargo transport is likely to become a major chunk of the total launch market, cementing practical reusability, drawing in additional suppliers and quickly driving the cost per seat down into the low seven figures and perhaps even into the high six figures.
Exactly!
There is a serious lack of general interest in the scientific community about sending humans to mars, except for a small number of enthusiast. HSF out of the earth’s gravitational potential well is very much a sport, it is more symbolic than useful.
From the narrow point of view of advancing science, that might be true. The potential of human space flight is about much more than just science.
I’m 50 years old and have wanted to see mankind walk and work on Mars since I was a child. But even I’m beginning to realize that a NASA/International/Private Space partnership to build one or more small outposts on the Moon may be the only way forward for the next 10 or 15 (or more years)… :'(
Very well said. The only part he got slightly wrong is: “The Americans are saying Mars is the ultimate goal”
That’s not what the Americans are saying, that’s just what the current idiots in charge are saying and they only have 15 months left to say it.
An unaffordable lunar exploration program will once again distract from an economical architecture to explore *all* destinations and efforts to meet the Space Grand Challenges. The moon is only 3-5 days away, so long duration (>6 mo) efforts in the proper environment (micro-g and full cosmic radiation) will be shelved. Prior to such a repeat endeavor: LEO gas station-reduce LV size and increase flight rate for multiple LVs including IPs; EP tugs to ferry propellant/supplies on more efficient trajectories; DSH voyagers to extend crew duration in space, and missions that avoid gravity wells– at substantially less cost than equatorial sorties. With the ability to refuel and common hardware, the vision of depots and staging, in work for decades, points the space-fairing nations towards that limitless frontier that includes *all* destinations *economically*.
I tend to agree with you about wanting to avoid dropping back down into another gravity well. Which makes an argument that of all the places in the solar system that we could conceivably send people, Mars is the LAST place we should want to do so given that it’s the next deepest gravity well after Earth were there is any possibility of human presence.
“missions that avoid gravity wells”– asteroids, the martian moons, servicing satellites or depots or tugs, assembling the mission hardware, or simply demonstrating that that crew and hardware could travel >6 months in the proper environment not shield by the moon or earth (e.g. ISS).
At last I find myself agreeing with you! I don’t understand the current obsession with Mars either.
I miss those L-5 guys…
As far as zealots go, they were WAY more interesting than these Mars fans.
Sign me up as another member of the Extra-Terrestrial Dirtballs are Icky Society.
“current idiots”?
At the moment and for the last several years NASA is without a human spaceflight program.
There is no plan. There is no strategy.
For several years there is not a capability to place Americans in orbit, on the moon, near Mars, or anywhere in space for that matter.
The nuts who were in a hurry to go somewhere, anywhere, have killed the program. We had a fantastic capability in the form of Shuttle that should have been a jump in off point for safer and new capabilities, but instead we flushed it, same as we did with Saturn’s 49 years ago. For all the talk of Orion and SLS,and for that matter, Dragon or CST or Falcon, none of these provide a replacement for Shuttle,and none will fly for years with crew, and none of these ships will get us close to the moon or Mars.
Fortunately we have ISS for now. It allows us to hang on to a handhold in orbit mainly though the help of our international partners. Although if there were a serious problem replacing key elements, without Shuttle survival is at best problematic.
We had best continue to extend the earth orbital and cislunar infrastructure in the hope of retaking the moon in a few decades. If we cannot hang on to do this, which is really the very least we can do, then human space flight will not survive.
“Fortunately we have ISS for now. It allows us to hang on to a handhold in orbit mainly though the help of our international partners. Although if there were a serious problem replacing key elements, without Shuttle survival is at best problematic.”
And if the relationship with Russia – which right now is pretty hostile and does not look like improving for many years – gets worse, the Russians can shut the US out of the ISS almost at will. Until the US can prove commercial access to and resupply of the ISS, it is totally dependent on Moscow’s continued good-will to access Space. Admittedly the ISS was planned during a period of reasonably good US-Russian relations, but contingency planning should have been in place if those relations deteriorated, and that was never done because no one dreamed that the relationship would collapse as quickly as it has. Now the US is left with nothing, at least for a few more years. Not a good place to be right now…
True, except that there were people who dreamed that the relationship with the Russians could deteriorate and contingencies should be put in place, but that notion was not popular with the prevailing political mindset of the 1990’s.
How could this be done soonest to START building infrastructure to the moon “now?”
Using the commercial that we have or nearly have.
U tourism to build infrastructure as we go, one tiny step at a time.
Now THAT is a much more sensible and accurate summation of our situation.
You nailed it. The only hope is that in 15 months the politics will get scrambled again and maybe there will be an opportunity for change. Maybe.
new idiots!
Given that the current gang of idiots is termed out, the next gang of idiots will, perforce, be new. Or at least different. Given the proclivity of both (R) and (D) administrations to recycle pre-owned minions, it’s a better than even money bet that the space muckety-mucks of the next administration will feature at least some familiar faces.
Betting the farm on the non-idiocy of the next administration’s space minions has proven to be a serial non-starter as a strategy.
That makes it extremely important for notions such as that sketched by DTARS, above, to reach initiation points soonest.
Its blindingly obvious that the focus should be the Moon, Cislunar Space and the Lagrange Points, and Near Earth Asteroids – not Mars. Mars will still be there decades hence, but our focus needs to be not just returning to the Moon in a series of quick stays, but the establishment of a permanent lunar base that is substantial in size, self sufficient, and which can play a mutually supporting role with other human activities in Space.
An automatic focus on Mars by the current Administration suggests a lack of deep thinking and a narrow-minded linear mindset on the part of decision-makers – we went from LEO to the Moon, now of course we must go to Mars. Why? Why not focus on establishing capabilities to fully exploit the Moon and its surrounding environs in a cost effective and efficient manner, not just for science, but also for resource exploitation? Use lunar resources and NEAs to build large space structures – space-based solar power satellites for example, or even develop a Space Colony inside a mined, hollowed-out asteroid. To me these are valuable and worthwhile goals to a much greater degree than a flags and footprints mission to Mars, which based on current levels of funding, will be lucky to eventuate by 2050 let alone 2030.
Fully use commercial space corporations rather than making a return to the Moon a NASA or ESA affair. Let the likes of Space-X and Bigelow take the lead, with NASA contributing where it can. NASA can focus on developing advanced hardware that could support the lunar missions, rather than flying the missions themselves.
The Moon and the Lagrange points are logical stepping stones to the Near Earth Asteroids, many of which might be resource rich. Establish a comprehensive infrastructure on the lunar surface, in lunar orbit, and at the Lagrange Points. Design and build cost-effective fully reusable spacecraft designed to operate in that environment, rather than constantly hauling everything up Earth’s gravity well whenever we want to do something or go somewhere. Expand humanity’s ‘off-Earth’ population from 6 on the ISS to several hundred on the Moon or near the Moon. Go out to Near Earth Asteroids, and fully utilize Cislunar Space. Then once we have perfected new spacecraft propulsion systems that can make a Mars transit fast and safe – then go to Mars. It may mean Mars in the 2040s or 2050s, but that’s okay if we have returned to the Moon in the 2020s. At least in that intervening time we have made real progress and done real exploration beyond Earth Orbit, rather than endlessly wallowing in LEO, or worse, being planet-bound with the SLS flying only once every few years.
Very well said, with the exception that NASA is going to have to drive the mission for a little while longer before a real commercial space industry can take hold in human space flight. The market just isn’t there yet and it’s not going to be until the technology and infrastructure gets more developed. If there is not a NASA funded follow-on to ISS, then human space flight will end for the foreseeable future, except maybe for the Chinese efforts.
Start small business
Customers pay much as possible
Agreed – so this all takes time. But I think if the market can be established, commercial can really be the driver, and NASA can focus on innovation in technology for deep space exploration. A key goal in my view should be to make space travel to LEO, beyond LEO and into deep space for humans faster, more cost effective and safer.
Partly true, but you are still missing a couple key points. Yes the focus should be on enabling a commercially sustainable market, but not just for LEO, but for deep space flight as well. (That will of course take a little longer.) On the other hand, there will never come a time when innovation in technology is not NASA’s job in LEO or deep space or any other aspect of flight. Just as NASA still plays a role as a technology developer for the commercial (and military) aviation industries, it will always have such a role to play for all space flight. That is NASA’s purpose – to incubate the advancement of the technology for all manner of flight, from kites to Pluto probes, and there is no reason that should ever change. On the other hand, NASA should NOT be in the business of providing de-facto startup capital for new businesses. That is Wall Street’s job. Having the government play venture capitalist is how you get Solyndra disasters. Commercial business can only be the driver of human space flight once the technology is established to make it commercially sustainable. We are obviously not at that point yet, otherwise it would already be happening – just as it is in the commercial communication satellite and remote sensing satellite industries. (And even in those industries, NASA still plays a role in advancing technology.) The only aspect of human space flight that is showing any signs of true commercial activity at the presently available level of technology is the nascent suborbital tourism market. Maybe. The problem is not establishment of the market, the problem is development of the technology to a point where a market can feasibly exist. The technology of human space flight has not yet reached such a point and will not with anything currently in development. NASA is, at present, utterly failing to address that technology short fall.
So I have to correct something I said in another thread recently. Regarding development of space flight technology that has potential for really serious cost reductions, I said that the only example I was aware of that is actively working to do so in a practical way is the Skylon program. (Not to ay that there aren’t plenty of other concepts out there that aren’t very active at the moment.)
Well, I just learned of another one today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Don’t know if it will work, but looks very promising.
This is a perfect example of the sort of technology development NASA should be spending it’s money on, whether it its own labs, or by awarding development money grants to projects like this.
SpaceX gets no subsidies, but it is still reliant to some degree on development and launch contracts with NASA. The scale and importance of both should diminish a lot after 2017, especially if Bigelow gets its first commercial LEO station up around that time.
Except for CCP, all of SpaceX’s projects – especially the new broadband LEO satellite project – is aimed at securing ever-increasing amounts of private-sector revenue that will enable the Mars project.
I think it is all but inevitable that a significant fraction of that revenue will, beginning a few years hence, come from private and governmental – not necessarily U.S. governmental – parties that want to do cis-lunar and lunar stuff or non-Martian BEO stuff and simply need affordable rides. Those will be on Falcon Heavy and/or SpaceX’s upcoming Raptor-powered BFR with any human crew involvement going uphill on Falcon 9-Dragon 2’s.
Commercial crew is a utilitarian capability intended to enable orbital access. In that sense it is very much part of HSF. It just is not much of a program. The capability that might be provided in a few years, by Orion, by CST and by Dragon are all essentially redundant. The redundancy is wasteful in a time when resources are so constrained. SNCs DreamChaser would have provided more capability. Whether Orion ever permits anything like the hype coming out of NASA, and whether Dragon or CST ultimately provide less capability, only time will tell.
Why would SNC’s dream chaser provide more capability? I have heard this several times over and asked this same question without an answer outside of the glide return capability; which doesn’t explain the MORE capability part.
Need a stretched dream chaser that carries more people and put it top of a reusable falcon heavy and get tourism started.
Put a larger version of Dragon 2 (Dragon V3) that carries more people and put it atop of a reusable falcon heavy and get tourism started…see what I did here.
Once again your answer does not answer my question as to how SNC-whatever size has more capability than the capsules?
I have no problem with bigger capsules. I think tourism is the low hanging fruit, which requires the ability to get more people up there to help pay for infrastructure.
I won’t argue that tourism is a good start, but I think it is going to require a launch per seat cost plus stay at a station of sub $5 million if not sub $1 million to really be a catalyst for any large scale infrastructure in space. There are just not enough people who will dole out the ~ $50 million to go to a Bigelow station. Even when factoring that maybe 5 people would go to the station and split the cost of leasing, it still comes out to ~ $35 million a person.
I personally think that Bigelow station(s) will be more heavily utilized by the poorer nations of the world who want a space program/station of their own.
Well, it’s cooler 🙂
Ha! Subjective, but sure. I would argue that when and if the Dragon V2 does a propulsive landing it will be as cool if not cooler.
Glide return to a runway, airport, research facility is an important capability me hen it comes to returning humans and experiments. The alternative is the inglorious flop onto ocean or land, requiring considerably more difficulty in getng people or experiments back to their destinations.
Numerous experiments have been returned by the cargo Dragon without problems. Both Dragon and CST have land recovery systems that avoid the landing impact of the Soyuz.
Runway recovery is really only essential for large craft like the Shuttle for which parachute recovery is not practical. The X-37B will show if runway landing can be made cost effective.
Orion is not redundant to CCP for LEO access since Orion is roughly five times as expensive. CST and Dragon are redundant by design; together they provide assured human access to space.
Here we go again. Hey! Where’s my wooden stake? 🙂
The assertion that SpaceX is dependent on ‘subsidies’ is just ill-informed at best and nefarious at worst. SpaceX received developmental money and in-kind assistance from NASA. It’s no secret. And SpaceX has a contract with NASA exactly the same as hundreds of other companies (albeit with more visibility).
I wouldn’t call that a subsidy.
instead or starting with a big government moon program. Wouldn’t it be smart to just take small steps. What if I wanted to start a tourist business around the moon to get started.
A FALCON H/depot in Leo to store and fuel my moon vehicle.
A service module for my lunar flyby spaceship
Could Ula modify a second from one of their second stages?
Couldn’t a lunar flyby spaceship be built out Dragon 2 small bigelow habitat?
Don’t we already have the basic hardware to fly customers around the moon?
Doesn’t some body just need to do this to START building the ISSH Inner
Solar System Highway.
One of the technologies needed for a Mars mission might be within reach. The article says nothing about the mass or mass density of the metal foams in question.
http://physicsworld.com/cws…
Recognizing that the answer will depend on a multitude of factors, I wonder how much it would cost to maintain a small lunar outpost with 4-6 scientists.
We’d need lots of new hardware for sure, plus more reliable human-rated rockets. But putting ourselves a couple of decades in the future, and there’s an ISS-class facility. I wonder how maintaining the critter would impact NASAs budget. Aside from construction costs could NASA afford such a thing?
It would cost a lot more than the current maintenance of 3 to 6 crew on ISS, 250 miles up, unless we drastically change our methods. We can only barely sustain the 2-3 $billion annual cost of ISS so a lunar outpost will not be sustained with throwaway rockets and capsules. NASA was on the right track 35 years ago and they lost their way. 10 years ago the Griffin Constellation philosophy, reembracing unsustainable Apollo, set HSF back half a century.
That’s my sense. And there’s no talk whatever about reusable ‘spaceships’- hardware designed to work in space and accessible via other methodologies.
Accessing a moon base will require such a device. It probably lives/serviced at some sort of orbiting station where it’s refueled and where the pilots hang out. Given the moon’s low gravity it could land at Moon Base.
The idea that anything beyond LEO should be explored with capsules launched from Earth is just plain illogical.
And there in just a few words is what we call a pipe dream, mostly because current thinking is dominated by the Big Bad Rocket approach. Nothing will happen until finesse became part of the package.
Perhaps the policy we should propose is to focus on reusable systems, with a base in LEO and separate reusable vehicles for the earth-to-LEO and LEO-to-lunar surface legs.
Phrases like ‘milk from the government’ tip your hand.
As Spencer noted above and I noted below, SpaceX receives no subsidies, it provides development and operational services to the U.S. government and gets paid for those.
That L.A. Times article you cite is pretty much nonsense. To begin with, most of the alleged “subsidies” are associated with Tesla, not SpaceX. And they’re still mostly not subsidies.
The only flat-out subsidy Tesla benefits from is the $7,500 per car zero-emission vehicle rebate. That only applies to U.S. domestic sales. This is slated to expire soon and hasn’t been a significant factor in Tesla’s sales.
Tesla also benefits from selling zero-emission vehicle credits to other automakers whose fleets are judged insufficiently tree-huggy by the U.S. government. I, personally, regard these as subsidies too as they are obvious government-initiated market distortions ala carbon credits and taxi medallions.
Tesla takes advantage of these, in my view, bad government policies, but did not create any of them and relies on none of them to close its business case. Other carmakers could also receive such government largesse, but have largely declined to make zero-emission vehicles that qualify. Tesla has put all its patents in the public domain so these decisions can no longer be attributed to there being no way to justify the R&D expense of all-electric drivetrains; no R&D required, no expense.
Tesla did get a U.S. government-backed loan of nearly a half billion dollars. So did Fisker. But Fisker went broke and Tesla paid its loan back early.
The vast majority of the “subsidies” alleged in that article are tax breaks Tesla has negotiated with various jurisdictions before building facilities. These tax abatement agreements last up to 30 years. The author of the article took all 30 years worth of tax breaks – assuming each to be worth the maximum possible dollar amount per year – added these numbers up, et voila, an impressively large “subsidy” total for the headline. It’s garbage. Tax abatements aren’t subsidies.
SpaceX certainly doesn’t have to be any kind of “miracle” to nonetheless be a cure for many ills currently afflicting both governmental and commercial space.
Given that, in your view, “it’s not cost and budgets,” what exactly is it that you see as the “fundamental problem” you refer to above?
Gotcha.
I gather that by “leadership” you are referring specifically to government officeholders, particularly the U.S. President. With respect to strictly governmental leadership, I not only don’t dispute your premise, I wholeheartedly endorse it.
But there are other forms of leadership than governmental: religious, academic, business and entrepreneurial to name a few.
Like governmental leadership, the first three of these are attitudinal near-dead zones when it comes to motivating the movement of humanity out into the cosmos. We are fortunate, though, to live in a time when private sector entrepreneurship is increasingly a viable substitute for the dearth of space-related leadership on offer elsewhere.
Elon Musk is far from alone as such a leader, but he has the highest profile among them as he has done more and done it faster than any of his other space-centric entrepreneurial colleagues. One indispensable essential of leadership is getting out in front of the parade. There is a space entrepreneurial parade and Elon is indisputably leading it. Count me among the many who find this to be a good thing.
“Leadership that believes in what we do… long enough to lock down plans long term and fund them properly” was your own prescription. Sounds like a pretty good capsule description of what Elon Musk and SpaceX are doing. And he is not – fortunately – the only one these days.