It Takes More Than Movies and Buzz Words To Get To Mars
Don’t worry. Matt Damon won’t get stuck on Mars. NASA can’t get him there, Washington Post
“We’re setting expectations for something that is decades away. The public has a short attention span,” said Lori Garver, the former deputy administrator of NASA under President Obama. Doug Cooke, a former NASA associate administrator for exploration, thinks NASA needs to spell out intermediate steps to Mars. There’s one obvious stopping point between the third and fourth rocks from the sun: The moon. Cooke says it could be a proving ground for off-world living. “There needs to be more of a plan for actually getting there,” Cooke said. “You can’t have a flat-line budget indefinitely and think you’re going to put all of this together by 2030.”
Astronauts again blast off at box office, ‘The Martian’ lands with $55 million debut, US News & World report
“The 20th Century Fox release, starring Matt Damon as an astronaut left for dead on Mars, exceeded expectations to nearly rank as the top October debut ever. The estimated North American opening of “The Martian” surpassed that of Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” ($47.5 million) and virtually equaled the debut of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” ($55.8 million).”
Keith’s note: Once the feel-good hoopla surrounding “The Martian” fades, NASA will be in the exact same place it was before the film was released: frantically inserting “Journey To Mars” into every public utterance – however tenuous the actual connection – with no clear plan or guaranteed budget to actually make it all happen. And there aren’t any more Mars movies in the Hollywood pipeline to keep the buzz going.
The Martian: How NASA Soars – and Stumbles – Simultaneously, earlier post
I love NASA but even I’m getting tired of #JouneyToMars. We need some type of milestones here.
The mission to Mars as a PR initiative just started in the last year. If you are tired of it now, just wait another 15 years, when they are getting ready to launch a crew on Orion on the first beyond LEO mission!
Seems like it would have more “oomph” as a marketing effort if they were actively paring it with a public lobbying effort for more funding from Congress.
Law actually prohibits all agencies of the federal government from actively lobbying the public for bigger budgets. That’s why the big contracting firms have to do so.
That explains that.
While NASA cannot lobby and do marketing, they are chartered to educate the public.
Which is actually a thin line. Outreach and education at NASA has a very strong focus on what NASA has done right, tends to avoid mention of mistakes, and downplays failures. At what point does outreach with a spin on it become lobbying?
You know in the film someone mentions , something like, “look bad to the public if we let him die” (something like that).
Answer: “In a year nobody will remember.”
It’s true, though; generally the public doesn’t recall Apollo 1 or two lost orbiters. No reason they should , I suppose; the public dent know what heroes these people were either.
No one is willing to follow a leader that advocates for space. Look what happened to Newt ..
I don’t think that was what sank his chances…
Gentlemen
I agree with Neil that we have a leadership problem, however I doubt it is what Mr. Driver perceives.
Why have parts of NASA been so unproductive for so many years? Because it has been in the interest of the rich leaders and investors that run the big companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin to do as little as possible while milking the taxpayer.
Let’s be honest what was the moon program about? It was a big dog and pony show to let the world and the American people know/think we have the best government and economic system in the world.
Back in the 60s we had a giant middle class and more of us/percentage of the population could afford to spend more of our tax money on fun extra things like flying to the moon.
What has happened since? The rich have gobbled up all of the money that once belonged to the majority of the people.
Regardless of whether you are republican or democrat or independent may I suggest you listen closely to what the man has to say in this video.
https://youtu.be/8Y-u0UnKZ_U
Listen to the distribution of wealth.
Listen how our country has been stolen by the few. Isn’t this the same thing Old Space Company’s did/are doing with our public space program? Taking all the money and being as unproductive as possible?
How do we fix our space program to make it truly productive?
BY FIXING OUR GOVERMENT FIRST.
As Mr. Sanders suggests our country is becoming an Oligarchy. I don’t want to live in an Oligarchy on the Moon, Mars or on the Earth.
If I want to be entertained watching NASA go to Mars, I don’t need SLS or Orion. I’ll simply pay ten bucks and watch THE MARTIAN again.
Instead of this NASA fantasy if you want to see a more realistic portrayal our future in space, may I suggest another movie Matt Damon starred in.
https://youtu.be/_VGVYb80aiY
If I understand correctly either NASA or the new Planetary Society report is saying it will take 12 preliminary SLS flights to position equipment . Then 10 SLS flights for first landing and 10more for second landing
How in the heck is that going to be done let alone paid for
Crazy flight rate from what I gather
Can anyone with sme knowledge of this comment.
She was saying these things behind closed doors. She said in public what her bosses permitted her to say and probably a bit more. Also, it’s a good time to start a new round of policy discussions for the election year.
The more I think about it, the less I like that argument. I actually don’t and can’t know what she said behind closed doors and that’s the problem.
I’d say only “sa[ying] in public what her bosses permitted” reflects the absolute worst of top-down management. If all decisions are made behind closed door, no one knows how or why decisions are made. That invites all sorts of destructive rumors, suspicions about ulterior motives, etc. There is a lot of talk about getting buy in from stakeholders over these sorts of decisions. I think you actually need buy in from the public and the people doing the actual work.
That means open, public discussion (and disagreement) about what to do, followed by a decision. Then everyone can feel that, even if it isn’t the decision they’d have made, their opinions were heard and considered, and now it’s time to implement the decision. That isn’t a popular way of managing things, probably because it’s very difficult to accomplish and involves getting people (including or especially senoir management) to keep their egos in check. But having people continue to oppose a decision, because they suspect it was made for the wrong reasons or didn’t consider something important, is worse.
“The more I think about it, the less I like that argument. I actually don’t and can’t know what she said behind closed doors and that’s the problem.”
I agree, and I feel if we don’t know what our leaders are dealing with, how can we follow them with design, build, test to actual requirements?
OK let’s be clear. While you work for a company or government agency at the executive level you are legally and contractually bound to toe the company line. Even lower level employees, unless they have a heck of a union, are fire-able for cause if they discuss company or agency business without permission. You might complain privately to friends or relations, but you better not do it where it can become public knowledge. Unless your reporting actual criminality under the whistle-blower statutes or unless you already have your desk cleaned out and the office tidied, you keep your disagreements inside the closed meeting rooms. If you work for a government agency like NASA it’s even more important to shut up because, in general, you are executing strategy and policy that was directed by the President and the Congress of the United States. If you don’t like the policy, leave. But the rule has always been, you take the King’s shilling, you do the King’s work. It wasn’t and isn’t Lori Garver’s Space Agency, it belongs to the Government of the US. While she was there she played by the rules. Now she’s out and can tell us what she really thinks.
I disagree to some extent. You say, “While you work for a company or government agency at the executive level you are legally and contractually bound to toe the company line.” I believe this practice is a common (but not universal, e.g. it’s actually against policy at most universities) and current (but has not always been that way.) Regardless of current practices, I maintain that this is harmful and “reflects the absolute worst of top-down management.” I was talking about whether the practice is healthy, not whether its existence or extent.
For a company, those conditions on employment are a choice by senior management because they think it is best for the company. Partially, that is because they do not think employees opinions matter (possibly true if the employees work on a factory line, but more doubtful if the employees’ work requires some creativity or initiative) and that the less the public knows about corporate policies and how they are set, the better off the company is. The later is probably true, but a very poor model for a government agency, especially in an administration originally elected on a promise of “transparency” in government.
I also note that DoD officials have made several statements about buying Russian rockets. These statements are pretty close to public lobbying for their preferred policy and not “toe[ing] the line.” Higher level dissent has been known to happen in the past, and in other countries (e.g. parliamentary systems with a coalition government) is’t almost expected.
Nor do I agree that senior officials should just be “executing strategy and policy that was directed by the President and the Congress of the United States.” Part of the job is, or should be, advising the President and Congress on what their options are and what the results/consequences of a given policy will be. At lower levels, that’s advising the next most senior person, so he can provide advice to more senior people. This inherently means arguing and advocating for what one considers the best choices. If the people running NASA think their job is simply about passively following orders, then we would have a real problem with a lack of leadership. Err.. which many people think we do.
This is the behavior of McNamara and Colin Powell as well, I should point out.
Innovation and creativity are the foundation on which our economy is really founded.
Rogers Commission:
“NASA officials must live in reality in comparing the costs and utility of the Shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects.
“Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them.
“Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it.
“NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Apollo succeeded because of open collaboration. Today its competition (which means duplication), no collaboration, and gaming the system. Each, it seems, brings ‘success’, one with little innovation.
BTW: Is the Monarchy back, or is the commission wrong about citizens making decisions? If Congress takes most of its campaign shillings from a few hundred Folks/Kings, do they do Kings work or act in the national interest of the USG?
🙂
Garver was appointed to NASA in 2009, the Admin terminated Constellation in 2010–but the stonewalling Congress retained the billions-per-year SLS–there are no excuses for the bosses. The previous 2005 Congress, who appointed Griffin, went out of their way to discard the depot centric architecture to build Constellation/Ares and retain more excess launch capacity and decades old production lines, costing NASA billions per year per Internal Studies.
Stanley confirmed the incredibly expendable Constellation Ares I/V/Orion was entirely driven by the moon, not Mars. The flawed 2005 ESAS study forced a less than three launch mission set to the moon (120mT /2 is ~ 70 mT LV or 140mT and 10mT for “1.5”). So Cooke was correct when he states, under his guidance, the HLV architecture designed for Apollo redux has no plan for Mars. Ares I with solids then drove LAS mass to ~10,000+ lbs, more than the LEO capsule, a tremendous performance penalty for a system that likely will never be used.
So the 2010 Congress, against the Admin and Garver’s recommendation, gladly swapped out a Ares I LV with no margin remaining for SLS, since it retains all the old product lines. Consequently, closing the gap to LEO by 2007 was abandoned since it made little sense flying a billion dollar capsule on a billion dollar 70 mT LV to ISS–the gap was no longer a concern unless it justified shuttle derived. Meanwhile, DOD was reducing flight rate, especially for the EELV ‘heavies’. ULA states they are not competitive without cadence and new LV. However, the two non sole source EELV providers can easily support NASA’s needs without HLV. IPs can also further reduce launch costs to launch dirt cheap, Class D propellant, which is ~70% of NASA mission mass.
NASA’s bosses currently spend $8B+ on SLS/Orion/ISS ( 1 capsule + 1 LV + ISS IP flights) and less than a $B on CCP (2 LVs and 2 capsules).
So the old and current bosses in Congress do not care about being fiscally conservative …the old bosses do not care about destinations nor exploration within a budget…only rockets and capsules to nowhere..thank you for confirming the intentions of the bosses. Ironically the only ones with executive experience to recommend fiscally conservative polices to meet NASA objectives appear to be O’Keefe and Garver…brought to you by…those who bet donuts?
Mars one will get to Mars before NASA!
Want to bet?
http://www.engadget.com/201…
Considering that Mars One intends to contract launch services to SpaceX, yeah, that’s definitely possible.
Let’s see, a nonprofit organization that has never attempted or managed a space program or activity of any kind. It may take NASA a long time to actually send humans to Mars, but Mars One won’t be waiting for them. I’ll take that bet.
Alan, did you read the link from las Vegas??
Point
No one is going to Mars alone, if at all.
The only way Mars one could go, is if SpaceX every really does build MCT, As a customer.
The only way NASA might go, is if they help SpaceX as Musk leads the way.
Alone the only way NASA is going to Mars, is if they send all their civil servants and engineers, in the next few weeks to the movie theaters.
Better hurry!
The opportunity to see Mars up close and personal, in 3D only lasts a few more weeks 🙂
I don’t disagree. A successful mission will require the resources of government, the private sector, and other nations.
Ha-Ha! No bet! I figured that was her strategy ever since she resigned from NASA. It’s much easier to get the Administrator’s job from somewhere outside than from within. Don’t misunderstand. My thinking this way is not intended as criticism. In fact, I think it’s a very smart and shrewd move on her part.