NASA Wants You To Know Crew on EM-1 Is Doable – Just Send Money
NASA Internal Memo: EM-1 Crew Study Results Summary
“NASA determined it was feasible to fly crew on EM-1. However, in the balancing of the cost, schedule, and technical risks, and the fact this is a long-term exploration program, it was determined that the current baseline program was the better long-term solution. The study was beneficial and has improved NASA’s overall planning for SLS, Orion, and ground systems. Given the decision not to fly crew on EM-1, NASA continues working toward an uncrewed first flight as the first mission in a series of deep space missions beyond the Moon in preparation for sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.”
– Original Memo via Buzzfeed
NASA Could Have Flown Astronauts Around The Moon In 2020, BuzzFeed
“NASA wants people to know it could have done this, if they had the money, but won’t because they don’t,” Keith Cowing of NASAWatch told BuzzFeed News. “It does kind of beg the question of why they weren’t doing it this way all along if it was such a great idea.”
Only add crew to a mission if they are really needed. Don’t do it as a stunt. It’s unsafe and expensive. http://Www.robert-w-jones.com
A good point, but it begs the question…. when is a crew really needed?
Things like the Hubble repair or where intelligent decision making is needed in real time and far from earth.
Watch the landing of one of the SpaceX boosters. Humans could never make intelligent decisions with the speed and precision such flying requires.
A straw man!
Certainly your point is true. But it’s not relevant, is it?
A rich infrastructure enables this conversation between two people who’ve never met (you’re not a bot, are you, Dr. Woodard? 🙂 )
Another example: Rockets can and will take us to the furthest reaches of the solar system — and, one day, some type of machine will take us to the stars. Depending on them doesn’t lessen the experience.
I agree. But the voyage is only experienced by those who actually go. Consequently a strategy that permits a thousand people who have never flown in space to visit low Earth orbit (more or less the strategy advocated by Lori Garver) is far more valuable in terms of experience than one that sends four astronauts who have already experienced space to Mars.
That would be the zero-sum argument; it assumes that there are only two choices.
When one wants to know what it is like to place the first footprints on a new planet. Or write a poem about it. Or paint it.
I know your predisposition on this subject. But surely you see that machines are incomplete substitutes? Particularly if you accept as motivation the desire from the human heart to see over the next horizon, there’s no substitution for human eyes.
I agree, for the present. But we have already lived to see people as excited about the success of the (antropomophized) Mars rovers as they were about the (later) Moon landings with humans. Machines are an extension of the human race, carrying our eyes, ears, and hands.
Moreover, emotion is an inherited characteristic that has evolutionary survival value, as it motivates us to survive, interact socially, and procreate. I work with many humans who are incomplete, whether physically, mentally or emotionally, and I see both positive and negative effects. We will have little choice but to program it into our created descendants, and try to make its value consistently positive.
The hurdles in AI development are huge but I would not be surprised if we live to see AI that has emotions comparable to our own, and it is hard to see, in any physical sense, why AI would even be limited to our emotional depth.
Are you saying that there are no situations in which a human presence is desirable? or even superior?
Building bespoke robots is expensive. Humans are adaptable. If you can lower the cost of launching, supporting and operating humans in space, they’ll become more effective than robots for non-routine tasks.
MSL cost $2.5b, it’s successor Mars2020 will cost around the same. If you could get the price of a manned Mars mission below $3b, they would achieve much more than Curiosity or M20.
But… Apollo cost over $200b in equivalent dollars. That’s not a viable alternative to robots. Likewise, ISS costs $3b/yr, the price of a major unmanned mission plus a couple of second tier ones… every… single… year. Does ISS really deliver anything like 30-50 times as much value as MSL/Cassini/HST/Kepler/Dawn/etc?
I’d quibble with some of your numbers or assumptions (replicating a moon mission needn’t replicate the Apollo budget, for instance).
But perhaps you are missing the point?
I’d say that the importance of scientific investigation needs no defense. It’s paramount.
But humans will go to space for reasons that are entirely separate, a completely different answer set because it’s a different question. It’s true that scientific investigations will be needed in advance.
But we will go because we want to go.
Building the inadequate SLS and equally inadequate Orion will consume $60b before there’s any money for hardware to do actual missions. So it’s not too far off.
If you want humans to compete with robots, you need to lower the cost of getting humans into space, operating humans in space, and supporting them there. Do that and the robots-vs-humans thing takes care of itself.
Don’t do it, and only Apollo-type spending gets humans into space, and only for tokenistic flag’n’footprints missions.
And yet we don’t, so we mustn’t, yes?
Back in the days humans were needed but thanks to technology (microelectronics, robotics, etc.) developed by the space program then for many missions it is more feasible with uncrewed space vehicles. Reminds me of a website called Rocketpunk where in 1950s it was envisioned hundreds if not thousands of people manning communications, weather, and recon stations orbiting earth. The website went on to explain NASA ruined all that by replacing all these people with a few kilograms of electronics. I guess being objective about it, it becomes more difficult to justify. Yes, a real life geologist on the Moon has more capability than a robot but it’s much more difficult to get that person there. So far there hasn’t been the money.
As someone who has built, tested and certified a lot of space hardware, and also having heard John Young say that manning Shuttle on its first flight was a mistake, I know that on a new rocket like SLS there are too many known unknowns. Any NASA manager who said that flying SL S manned on its first flight should or could be done apparently is too unknowledgeable and inexperienced and should be taken off the program before he is allowed to screw it up.
I don’t think I’ve heard that comment attributed to Capt. Young before. An interesting assessment from someone who should know.
I wonder though if he made the comment before or after the flight?
I can’t find the reference, but I’ve heard this before and it would definitely have been after the SLS-1 flight. It may have been in 2003. I did find a reference to a talk where he discussed the large number of serious, in-flight anomalies and things he and Crippen weren’t told about until after the landing.
By all rights Young and Crippin should have been killed when the unanticipated shock wave from the SRB ignition was reflected from the bottom of the flame trench and hit the Shuttle. It drove the body flap 15 degrees from the neutral position, creating pressure in the hydraulic lines that was well above the required burst pressure.
I wonder if that reflection is in the realm of the pre-flight knowable: if any sort of modeling would have isolated the issue.
Yes and no. A previous rocket (the Saturn V, if memory serves) had a similar problem. So they could (or should) have known something along those lines was possible. Perhaps even likely. But how serious an issue it would be, or what part of the Shuttle it would affect? I don’t think they could have predicted that in advance. I’d say numerical modeling of that would be challenging with today’s state of the art. In 1980, I really doubt anything useful could have been done.
Not just $$$.There is small print buried in the memo which says EM-1 is nowhere near being rated for human space flight. In its current configuration it doesn’t have an abort system, displays, life support, even a hatch that can be opened from the inside. The statement in the memo “These systems can be added to EM-1 for crew will but will add cost and take additional time to design and implement” is a little coy!
The relevant part from the Memo is below:
“As planned, EM- 1 lacks some systems necessary to support crew. This was done to reduce EM-1 budget costs and spread development costs across early missions due to budget uncertainty. Most notably, systems needed to support crew on EM-1 include:
– Environmental control and life support system (to provide 0 2 and remove C02 and control humidity).
– Crew displays and controls, plus significant software development.
– Active abort system.
– Miscellaneous crew support items such as the ability for the crew to open the hatches from the inside.
These systems can be added to EM-1 for crew but will add cost and take additional time to design and implement. “