The Non-Plan For NASA's #JourneyToMars
Unfortunately @DavaExplorer has no more detail on the actual way that #NASA will do the #JourneyToMars than anyone @NASA has #H2M2016
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 17, 2016
Here’s why many in aerospace remain skeptical of the Journey to Mars, Ars Technica
“There’s no question that Dava Newman is a very smart person. She is a highly respected scientist who was a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before coming to NASA. She also is not entirely new to the job as deputy administrator, having been with the agency for a year as of May 15. So it’s difficult to explain her meandering response to a straightforward, valid question. These are questions NASA ought to be striving to clearly answer, because they’re exactly the kinds of things a presidential transition team will be asking about at the end of this year. It is one thing to bluff the media and hold NASA “social” events where space enthusiasts are shown hardware and dazzled by astronauts and senior NASA scientists. Newman also will undoubtedly get a rousing roar of approval after her speech to the Humans to Mars conference today.”
Keith’s note: After one year at NASA, it would seem that Dava Newman’s transformation from a normal person into a NASA bureaucrat is now complete. She is incapable of giving a simple, direct answer when asked important questions about NASA’s “plan” to send humans to Mars. But its not really her fault. No one at NASA can give a straight answer about the plan. There is no plan. All NASA has is a Twitter hashtag #JourneyToMars. Anyone at NASA who tries to tell you otherwise is being less than honest with you. Listen to this video from the Humans to Mars meeting yesterday. At one point Newman cuts Frank Morring off and then goes off on a time-wasting diversion to run out her time on stage without getting into details.
Agreed that there is no real plan (milestones, budget, and etc.). NASA has little budget for “Journey to Mars” beyond SLS/Orion and a tiny bit of funding for studying a cislunar HAB. Beyond that, it’s deliberately vague.
There are three good reasons why an Apollo style Journey to Mars with discrete elements doesn’t matter:
1.) If there was, opponents would add up all the costs and try to kill it because it would likely be a half trillion dollars. Over 20+ years with multiple nations involved, that’s not unobtainable but put it out there now and soon it will be a target for Tea Party budget cutters – especially if it starts to grow.
2.) This President and Congress can’t agree on anything – what are the odds that will change in the next eight months? NASA is an executive branch agency controlled by the White House, it can’t shop its own plan independent of them.
3.) We don’t know what will be available technologically or from a business case ten years from now. When Space Station started, IBM was going to develop a big HAL 9000 like main computer – now astronauts largely use laptops; its cheaper and better but nobody predicted that this would be possible when station began in the mid 1980s. Similarly, in 1998 when ISS began to be built, nobody knew that new commercial space companies would develop capabilities and provide commercial cargo and soon crew services to ISS?
NASA’s approach to focus on incremental element development is smart – and practical given the political, technical, budget and international land mines it must navigate.
First, it is a shame that the media can’t tell the difference between scientist and engineer, most universities mandate college students to take some intro science classes regardless of the student’s major. Second, it is puzzling why can’t Dr. Newman give the straight answer that NASA can’t really “plan” big projects like mars mission without congressional mandates and funding commitments. NASA can only dream about such things without the money.
NASA similarly dreamed about the Moon soon after the transition from NACA. It’s an eery comparison, actually, as they were really high in those days about conquering the solar system, but awaiting $$$ from congress. Then along came Mr. Kennedy, of course.
Buzz Aldrin trashes NASA’s “Journey to Mars” and the SLS specifically:
http://arstechnica.com/scie…
Let’s hope that this is just the beginning: sensible people talking about SLS/ FH. The timing is right as the administration changes.
You make it seem like it’s NASA’s plan to make. I believe this is a continued deliberate action to keep the cards close so they don’t get everyone spun up on a plan just for the next president to cancel since it wasn’t their idea (like Obama did). The people at the working level (I’m one of them) know what it takes to get to Mars and right now congress isn’t allocating money for it. When congress gets serious about wanting it do it (which requires the public to get serious) then we can start doing useful work to that end and inform them of the plan options. So until then we’re stuck developing “capabilities”. We know we need heavy lift, we know we need a capsule, we know we need a hab, so we’re working it and trying to make it generic enough to apply to those multiple possibilities. The public has demonstrated that they care more about their own welfare check and subsidized healthcare than being a nation that does great things again. Until that mentality changes, we’re stuck making do with what we have to work with.
Can you explain to me why we need heavy lift as part of this capability to take humans to Mars? The only reasonable explanation I have received was that we needed it to launch the nuke reactor, which we couldn’t launch in separate pieces and assemble in orbit.
There is an economy of scale with larger vehicles carrying big pieces like transit habs, surface habs, and landers. SLS (or equivalent) could have carried ISS equivalent volume in just a couple flights (or even one, if Bigelow works out). It’s easier and cheaper to assemble this stuff on the ground then send it up in one go so you avoid the repeating costs of ground crews, manufacturing, testing, etc. for each smaller piece. It also lets you move on to actually using the stuff instead of waiting for it to be launched and assembled.
That’s the theory. But said theory assumes that the designers and builders of larger transport vehicles have the same regard for economy as those of smaller vehicles. When that unstated, but crucial, condition actually applies, then the results are as you assert. When it does not apply, as it most certainly does not in the case of SLS vs., say, Falcon 9, then results will be otherwise than expected.
The Falcon 9 was designed, built and is operated in ways calculated to provide the maximum economy. So is/will be Falcon Heavy. When boosting maximum loads, FH will, therefore, be even more economical than F9. The mysterious BFR, due to be revealed in late Sept., should carry this progression one step further. All three vehicles are designed by the same entity, SpaceX, so it is unsurprising that they exhibit just the progressively greater economies of scale with increasing size that you posit.
SLS was not, however, designed to be economical. Quite the contrary, it was designed to be expensive. This is because its designers and backers are not paying for it, the taxpayers of the entire country are. The designers and backers, though, are benefiting directly from appropriations to cover its design, construction and operation.
Thus we find ourselves in a situation in which SLS would be, not the least, but the most expensive vehicle upon which to base a Mars mission plan. Even the modest-size Falcon 9 would be both cheaper and more logistically sensible to use.
The money is there. What we need is a plan for expanding human activity in space that works within reasonable, likely NASA budget scenarios. While the idea that a blank check would be nice is inarguable, awaiting an inheritance or winning the lottery would not pass the test of being called a financial plan by anyone (well, almost anyone). Awaiting the killer asteroid, aliens (hostile or not), some Sputnik moment, or (always an over-rated favorite) “real leadership” is just more of the same wish fulfillment. A comforting fantasy, not a firm grip on reality, not a plan.
An honest set of trades, an awareness of all the “how” options mixed in with a range of goals and “what” and “why” is a start that NASA leadership has been avoiding like the plague since Constellation got hit. What little is out there has not been shown in greater detail to the public more likely because it’s so superficial, so full of poor assumptions, so scared to produce realistic cost and schedule estimates, so scared to look at what needs to change in the scenarios that work, that it would only be embarrassing to present.
I know. I’ve seen it. There is no there, there.
I’m not sure if this is fair to Dr. Newman. People on this forum have frequently said that a senior civil servant must, in public, unequivocally, back the policies of their bosses (e.g. the director of NASA and the President.) I personally don’t agree, and think some differences of opinion should be allowed (along the lines of, “This isn’t the plan I would have picked, but that’s what the boss decided was best, so now we’re going to do it.”)
But if you do believe that unequivocal support for the boss is part of the job, then is it fair to talk about Dr. Newman’s “transformation from a normal person into a NASA bureaucrat”? Isn’t she doing what you consider to be her job, by supporting the boss’s policies (no matter how pointless and poorly thought-out they are.) By that standard, isn’t anyone who works for NASA damned if they do and damned if they don’t?
No.
A straight answer is a straight answer.
The Ars Technica article is a good one and Buzz’s statement that NASA is going about the Mars program in the wrong way is accurate, but thats about as far as it goes. Buzz’s comments, and the comments of all the people talking about the article, all are referring to a Mars concept that is nothing more than a modern day flags and footprints Apollo. First, there is little reason for a flags and footprints mission, other than maybe continuing the international collaboration started on ISS. No one needs to be racing to get anywhere. We are not trying to beat anybody. In fact, unless a Mars program is set up to be sustainable over the long term with ongoing growth, expansion, eventually a base, eventually colonization, is the wrong approach. Another thing that most people commenting miss, is that NASA in earlier years did not do the design, development and construction themselves. NASA usually runs a series of design studies looking at specific problems and alternative resolutions. For these they had NASA engineers in charge and they hired contractors to run the Phase B studies. (NASA often did the Phase A study to identify the parameters). The Phase B studies wound up with lots of good data, NASA as a “smart buyer”, the contractors knowing important details and study results, so the engineers thought they knew what they needed to do, This permitted NASA to write the RFP for Phase C/D, which was the actual Program hardware. The contractors competed, using what they knew, to propose their best solution. Unfortunately, no one at NASA remembers this any longer, and they obviously do not understand their own history. NASA has lost its way. The contractors and public isn’t helping.