Re-Thinking The Large Space Project Paradigm
What can Space Resources do for Astronomy and Planetary Science?, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
“The rapid cost growth of flagship space missions has created a crisis for astronomy and planetary science. We have hit the funding wall. For the past 3 decades scientists have not had to think much about how space technology would change within their planning horizon. However, this time around enormous improvements in space infrastructure capabilities and, especially, costs are likely on the 20-year gestation periods for large space telescopes. Commercial space will lower launch and spacecraft costs substantially, enable cost-effective on-orbit servicing, cheap lunar landers and “interplanetary cubesats” by the early 2020s. A doubling of flagship launch rates is not implausible. On a longer timescale it will enable large structures to be assembled and constructed in space. These developments will change how we plan and design missions.”
After JWST is launched, I would like to see a Congressional investigation into why and how the program went so seriously out of control. Too many innocents were slaughtered for the questions to remain unanswered. lest it happen again.
It was clear from the beginnings of the JWST program that they would be pushing the limits of some newer technologies. This seems to happen in many large space projects. Rather than sticking with existing tech (e.g. something along the lines of Hubble 2), they went with bleeding edge tech. Besides the segmented primary mirror, here is a webpage devoted to the new technologies pushed by the program: http://jwst.nasa.gov/newtec…
A better approach is to test new tech on a smaller scale (e.g. X-vehicles, technology demonstration satellites, and etc.). Then, only when the tech is matured, integrate it into a large, expensive, project.
I agree. The Nanoracks exposed facility is a good opportunity to approach the problem from the opposite direction. Develop simple, serviceable, evolvable astonomical sensors that can be fabricated by graduate students in university labs, flown on the ISS at modest cost, and replaced and upgraded whenever required. These cound range from simple cubesat sensors to instruments with apertures of perhaps 1 meter.
Just out of curiosity, where is the Nanoracks facility? For Earth observing, I’d want nadir pointing, but for astronomy, zenith.
End of the Japanese module.
http://spacenews.com/wp-con…
As I understand it if there is demand Nanoracks can provide either zenith or nadir orientation. At the moment most of the interest seems to be in Earth observation.
NREP should be able to attach to any of the 12 connectors on the EF, if available, so its nano-payloads could face in any direction.
Whenever that is proposed, the scientists kill it. Exceptionally short sighted, but they want their science NOW…
The questions were answered. The only way to reduce costs per mission is to make the system more efficient, multiple overlapping bell shaped curves–> More missions. More missions means more flight rate, less cost per launch. But one needs to shift excess capacity to missions/R&D.
The only way to reduce launch costs is to consolidate LVs and set the goal of reuse. Having a depot allows PMs to offload propellant and not spend as much time optimizing for mission mass. Common busses, etc..too many to list.
Congress did cap the dev. funding for JSWT at ~8B which is step in the right direction. Perhaps JWST was low balled, but did anyone really believe the 12B HST could be replaced for a few billion? 400B for F35? 30B+ for SLS/Orion? capped?
Not to mention that the departing 2008 Congress cut the 2009 JWST budget by 100M which resulted in a 1B increase, so should they be held accountable too for not providing a more optimal funding profile with margin? See Figures 5.3 and 5.6 in the link: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/499…
Most want more programs and more efficiency. Is there a way to achieve this and keep folks employed too? Yes!
The GAO (Government Accountability Office) and the OIG (Office of the Inspector General) have already done several inquiries into the JWST and its cost overruns. Search around and you can find them.
The short story is that developing the technology for the JWST was much more difficult and took longer than expected, partly because congress cut the funding early in the development phase, which resulted in great cost increases later on. Short-funding of technology development projects always results in cost overruns and delays, because big-ticket items that could have been done earlier get pushed out to later budget years, meaning they get started later and so will finish later than planned, however they still need to pay everyone working on the project the entire time. Employee salaries and storage costs for items that got completed earlier in the project quickly add up over time.
Did you see a similar investigation after MSL/Curiosity landed? It was badly over budget and behind schedule, on the same level as JWST. After landing, it became a huge “success”, and no one wanted to say it was a _technological_ success but a management failure. In fact, the management involved were rewarded by getting the 2020 mission handed to them. Of course, by some standards, I guess that makes it a management success…
What about the cost of the Space Shuttle? That ended up at least ten times what was originally predicted. And the ISS? Nobody wants to look back at what happened and figure out why our cost estimates were consistently and massively in error.
In my opinion it is because we have abandoned the evolutionary approach to development that was traditional in aviation, and in the programs of the NACA. Technology development should come first, then extensive prototype testing, then design and fabrication of operational systems.
Instead managers sketch the final design on a napkin (wasn’t that what happened with the Shuttle?) and tell the engineers to “build it” to a set cost with no idea what problems they will encounter. To appeal to Congress the goals are unrealistically high and the cost “estimate” is unrealistically low. What possible incentive do we have to control cost? “Cost” is whatever you can get out of Congress for the current fiscal year. Use it or lose it.
In some respects SpaceX has returned to the traditional strategy of evolutionary design, made possible in part by their freedom to act independently under the Space Act. They have also resurrected to the revolutionary idea that reducing cost will increase demand.
A very good introduction that – “more light” paragraph. Beautiful. Someone speaking to the truth, astronomy and sci having “hit the funding wall” is so refreshing and needed. I’ve written myself, as with human space flight, how the rate of growth of our ambition, if it were measurable, far exceeds the rate of growth in our budgets. The need to change HOW we do WHAT we do is clear, and here’s hoping a paper like this wakes up the community. Though sadly what I’m seeing is that for most, having hit the funding wall, the only thing big project advocates want to do is what got them as far as they got, which is hit the gas.
“the rate of growth of our ambition… far exceeds the rate of growth in our budgets”
May it ever be so.
Yes, true. And if it is ever to continue, the need is there to reassess how we do things. Otherwise it’s all just ambition, dreams but no results. We lead to a world of an ever smaller number of big projects, producing less – a NASA spaceflight/science version of Augustine’s law about the fighter jet that cost so much that just buying one unit eventually uses up the whole budget.
It’s easy to dream. It’s easy to have ambition. Change that fits ALL that talk into the real world, not as easy, but just as needed.
PS – a great line from the paper – “If we do not think creatively about this crisis we will all be competing for the one place at the shrinking water hole.”
The rate of growth of our ambition…is matched by the rate of growth of our public debt. May commercial space end that disastrous, self destructive, downward spiral.
By far the cheapest way to get scientific results is to let someone else get them, then read about the results when they’re published. The US is getting the benefits (such as they are) of the discovery of the Higgs boson without having to shoulder the burden of building the LHC.