This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Exploration

Doing Something Again For The First Time

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 28, 2017
Filed under ,
Doing Something Again For The First Time

Keith’s note: There is a lot of talk these days about yet another pivot in America’s civilian space policy. This time it is “back” to the Moon. Mars is not off the agenda – but it is not moving forward either. Personally I think we have unfinished business on the Moon and that creating a vibrant cis-lunar space infrastructure is the best way to enable humans to go to many places in the solar system – including Mars. Regardless of your stance on this issue, a common refrain about going back to the Moon – starting with President Obama is that “We’ve been there before”.
Humans first reached the South Pole by an overland route in 1911/1912. While we visited the pole by plane in the intervening years, no one traversed Antarctica’s surface again until 1958. 46 years between Antarctic polar traverses. Why did we go back to do something – again – in a similar way – to a place “we’ve been [to] before” after 46 years? Because there was still something of interest there – something we’d only had a fleeting exposure to – and we had developed new ways to traverse polar environments. James Cameron revisited the Challenger Deep in 2012 – after a human absence of 52 years. Why? See above. It is understandable that explorers seek to explore new places and not redo what has been done before. There is only so much funding and there are still so many places yet to be explored. But it is also not uncommon for explorers to revisit old, previously visited locations with new tools – and new mindsets.
Look at the stunning imagery Juno is sending back of Jupiter. Compare that to what we got from Galileo – and Voyager – and Pioneer. Why send yet another mission to the same destination unless, well, you have better tools – tools that enable the pursuit of ever greater exploration goals.
I was 15 when humans first walked on the Moon. The generations who have followed mine have never seen humans land and walk on the Moon. Indeed a lot of them seem to think it never happened. But American space policy is made by Baby Boomers (and older) population cohorts so we just operate on our own biases i.e. been there, done that.
Take a look at the chart below. More than half of the Americans alive today never saw humans walk on the Moon – as it happened – including the person slated to become the next administrator of NASA and the entire 2013 and 2017 astronaut classes. If/when we go back to the Moon in the next 5-10 years this number will increase. For them these future Moon landings will be THEIR FIRST MOON LANDINGS. That’s several hundred million Americans waiting to see what I saw in 1969.
Just sayin’

https://media2.spaceref.com/news/2017/united-states-population-py.jpg

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

204 responses to “Doing Something Again For The First Time”

  1. Joe Denison says:
    0
    0

    As a younger person I agree 100%. It doesn’t matter to me that it was done first 48 years ago. I have never seen human beings go beyond LEO in my lifetime. As a child in the early days of VSE and CxP I can’t tell you how excited I was that we were going back to the moon. Now with multiple BLEO flights planned for the near future I can’t wait to personally witness humans on lunar soil.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      As an older person who saw the rocket lift off and watched the landing on crappy TV I agree 100%.

      • Steve Pemberton says:
        0
        0

        Of course the landing wasn’t shown live so you didn’t miss much there, instead the networks had animations running showing the LM coming down. ABC actually used prerecorded film of a model coming down onto a fake moonscape, with flames coming out the bottom of the LM that reminded me of Flash Gordon. Funny thing is since the animations were based on the scheduled touchdown, both ABC and CBS showed the LM touching down about twenty seconds too early, clearly not matching the now familiar calls by Buzz Aldrin and Charlie Duke (I can’t find NBC coverage of touchdown but assume theirs was similar). Viewers at the time had no way to know when they actually landed until the networks flashed text over the animations confirming it.

        ABC’s was really funny, right around the time Aldrin says “Contact light” they reran the last couple seconds of the animation and showed the model touching down again.

    • djschultz3 says:
      0
      0

      I recently attended a seminar by Dr Harrison Schmidt. At the coffee break I casually mentioned to him that most of the people in attendance had not been born when he flew his lunar mission. He replied “yes, but I was trying to avoid mentioning that”.

  2. Bernardo de la Paz says:
    0
    0

    The “been there done that” lunar phobia of the post Cx years was a national tragedy. Glad it’s officially over.

    • muomega0 says:
      0
      0

      CxP ‘cancelled’, yet 60s Incredibly, expendable, unaffordable, LV/capsules to nowhere are not officially over:

      The grand challenges require demonstration that the crew and equipment can survive the long duration (~ 1 yr) trip economically *in the proper environment* (micro-g, full GCR) to head beyond Earth/Lunar Orbits. Must also have ability to land heavy objects on Mars through atmosphere. The entire architecture must be based on reuse as stated in the VSE.

      None of these enabled by ‘mooning’. Hypocritical and Complicit in one post. Congrats?

      GWP: “Stage 2 initiates human exploration of the solar system with a variety of destinations including “near Earth objects” such as asteroids, the Lagrange points; and the vicinities of the moon and Mars. Note that human landings on the moon or Mars are not included, although landings on the Martian moons (Phobos or Deimos) could be made, as they have negligible gravitational attraction and no atmosphere…both safer and more cost effective than going directly to the planetary surfaces as landing and ascent vehicles would not be required.”

      o Asteroids brought all the resources to Earth/lunar
      – most of those are near Mars and beyond.
      o Common LV configurations lower certification costs
      o LVs that carry cargo provide demonstrated reliability
      – they may find that ‘unknown unknown’
      o Higher annual flight rate spreads fixed costs lowering $/kg
      o Solids increase LAS mass and are expendable
      o 80% of mission mass is dirt cheap, Class D propellant
      – enables future LV changes and pursuit of resuse
      o Excess launch capacity; largest payload <= 20mT
      o NASA demand enables multiple smaller LVs launch rates
      – lowers the costs to DOD and other payloads
      o No one launches 1B+, 10mT capsule on 1B+, 100mT LV

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        The VSE was a good policy. Cx was a very failed attempt to implement it, especially in regard to the directive to be financially sustainable. But the VSE was not lunar phobic – in fact, the initial stages of the VSE were focused on the moon.

  3. DougSpace says:
    0
    0

    If done the right way, our next return to the Moon will be far more than just exploring it better. If a commercial transportation system were developed using public-private programs (aka “Lunar COTS”), we go for the telerobotic harvesting of ice for propellant, and we establish a permanent, shielded habitat with extended crew stay then we will establish humanity’s first permanent foothold off Earth. About 70% of the nations could afford to conduct their own lunar, suborbital exploration. With a cost-effective launcher (e.g. FH), reusable lander (e.g. Xeus), ISRU propellant, and the flight frequency of international exploration, the price of moving to the Moon could be within reach of well to do individuals. If done right, it could be the start of off-Earth settlement. SpaceDevelopment.org.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      I’m about half through “Artemis”, in which Andy Weir imagines a lunar settlement program very similar to your thinking.

      • DougSpace says:
        0
        0

        Apart from retirees making up a large portion of the population what other similarities are there?

        • Michael Spencer says:
          0
          0

          Just finished it. He doesn’t characterize the population of around 2,000. Central character is a 28 year old woman raised on the moon. Kenya (yes, THAT Kenya) is the center of space launches on Earth. There are very rich people, sure, but also poor people, including the central character Jasmine.

          It’s what you’d expect from Weir- lots of science, with more character development than you’d think. America doesn’t figure in the story, but Saudi Arabia does.

          He imagines limitless O2 and H20 as a bi-product of aluminum smelting.

          Fast read (well, listen, as audio is the way I’m able to consume 4 or 5 books a month). As ‘good’ as ‘The Martian’? I haven’t decided.

  4. Saturn1300 says:
    0
    0

    At the recent SLS hearing a Rep. tried to get Gerst. to say that Mars was still the main focus. He would not say that. He said he was interested in equipment. He may be waiting for the Moon plans from VP Pence. Or Mars plans are done and they are working on Moon plans. A recording of the hearing is available.Sad. But the Moon is also good. Something to cheer me up was that Ross 128 has a possible earth. Only 11 light years and no flares.

    • Richard Brezinski says:
      0
      0

      Gerstenmaier might be THE issue. He seems only to want to build hardware-the newer and more different the better. He does not seem to have a strategy. But in his position he is no longer supposed to be the engineer, he is supposed to be strategizing. I have not heard him do it. Maybe he doesn’t know how?

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
      0
      0

      Nothing sad about that at all – fantastic news that he said that! Nice to hear, thanks for posting.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
      0
      0

      Mars need to stay on the agenda, but the goal should be setting up a Bigelow habitat on one of the Moons to use as a base to search for life on it. A Mars Cycler could then support it.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      Hard to blame Dr. Gerstenmaier for hedging. He gets a lot of criticism, but in reality he’s walking a tightrope that never ends.

  5. Nick K says:
    0
    0

    Last night PBS had a series of space stories-the [almost] 1 year astronaut, the 1 year astronaut 1 year later, and Voyager. They were all talking about ‘mission to Mars’. No one said anything about a return to the moon-well Scott Kelly said the Moon was the right approach but everyone else was talking about that trip to Mars in 15 years. Of course Jim Lovell suggested to the new astronauts that maybe it would be their grandchildren who would make it to Mars and that it was unlikely to be them.

    I am with the people who say this focus on doing something new and different, and that going someplace, anyplace, is just stupid. I am for step-by-step, marginal advancements, each mission going a bit further than the last. Use the systems you’ve developed to improve upon and make them better, go further.

    This is NOT the NASA way, and so NASA needs to change. If NASA cannot change then it is time for something different. NASA loves nothing better than to take Saturn, throw it away, build a Shuttle. Throw Shuttle away, build an SLS to try and regain the Saturn capability. Along with the hardware, NASA throws away their expertise and supporters.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      Yes. One of my favorite themes is the heavy and deleterious burden placed by Apollo on NASA. A burden largely unrecognized that informs NASA’s point of view.

      Obvious examples include the institutional acceptance of equipment slashing, the ‘not made here’ syndrome, the tendency to deny incrementalism (which requires longer term planning), and the notion that any place we go will be hugely unbelievably expensive and can we have more money, please?

      Once the home of fresh thinking, NASA leadership is institutionalized. COTS has injected new (and painful) thinking, for which we will all benefit.

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        Although I agree, there is a counter argument. NASA is, more-or-less by charter, supposed to impress and inspire. If it isn’t doing big, incredibly difficult and incredibly expensive things, is it being inspirational? People don’t usually say, “wow, I want to be like that,” about incremental and efficient work.

        • Paul451 says:
          0
          0

          People don’t usually say, “wow, I want to be like that,” about incremental and efficient work.

          And yet… the public reaction to SpaceX. Especially young public.

          I’ll also note that NASA got vastly more public interest from Cassini and New Horizons (and to a lesser degree Juno and Dawn) than it gets from the multiple-times-more-expensive ISS and the even-more-expensive SLS.

        • Vladislaw says:
          0
          0

          Look at the first mandates A. B. C. C is seek and encourage to the maximum extent possible the fullest use of commercial space …. no impress no inspire…

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        One of the most deleterious (but more subtle) burdens placed by Apollo on NASA has been the legacy of using NASA as a vehicle for dispersing public funds to sustain private industries that are not otherwise economically self supporting. It started as an understandable expedient to achieve the aggressive goals of Apollo, but like all sugar based diets became an unhealthy and very hard habit to kick. COTS has, so far, proven to be just more of the same.

        • Michael Spencer says:
          0
          0

          So…you are equating the sub-billion dollar investments of COTS with the expenses associated with Apollo?

          Lots to do with that argument. Let me just point out that after the minuscule COTS investments the nation has received real, operational, reusable rockets with new engines, currently flying a stunning manifest and frequency.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            That costs more per unit mass delivered to ISS than the shuttles that used to do the mission. Shuttle was a budget taxing burden, but COTS has not turned out to be an improvement.

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          SpaceX has done 12 commercial launches and five US government ones this year. Of the government launches, only three were ISS supply runs. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if most of their business (and profit) is from commercial launches, isn’t that “economically self supporting”?

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            The non-government number of launches has not generated enough profits to have paid for the development costs. It’s not obvious that it ever will. So far, spaceflight remains an essentially government funded industry.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            We can’t really say, since we don’t know how much of profit they make per launch. We do know they are selling launches for $62 million, that the development cost for Falcon 9 was $846 million ($450 from Space X and $396 from NASA) and that they have flown 27 commercial flights. So, not counting the expected profits from future flights which are already under contract, they would be in the black if they were making $16.7 million per commercial flight. That would imply it at a plausible $45.3 million cost per launch to SpaceX.

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
      0
      0

      NASA very much wanted to hold on to Saturn and the Shuttle indefinitely. It was the political leadership that made an enforced those decisions. (Recall that Shuttle started as the vehicle for shuttling crew and cargo to LEO stations launched by Saturn.)

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      And bring commercial space with every step of the way.

  6. ex-rocket scientist says:
    0
    0

    Well said, Keith. As an 11 year old, I was inspired by watching us land on the moon in 1969 and I ended up working on the Space Shuttle program for almost 29 years. It has always frustrated me that we stopped manned flights for 6 years after Apollo resulting in a “brain drain” and our government didn’t learn that lesson during the Shuttle program and we now have to hitch rides with foreign governments. Are we going to be the Portugal of the Space Age? I certainly hope not. Portugal had the best navigators when mankind explored the new lands and routes of the world but it was England and Spain that dominated. We need to return to the moon, not only for science and to explore but to learn what it will take to successfully survive a trip to Mars and prosper when we get there. We are still not technologically ready to go to Mars because of radiation, bone lose, travel time and supply lines to name a few. There is so much to learn from living and working on the moon as we take our baby steps into this new ocean. Mars will come but we need to learn the lesson from Apollo and not just plant a flag and call it a day.

    • james w barnard says:
      0
      0

      I was 27 when I watched Apollo 11, et al, and worked on Shuttle and other aerospace programs for the next 20 years. Your comment on becoming the Portugal of the Space Age is what I have been saying for about the last 40 years! Your comments on the effects of space conditions on the human body are the reason we MUST go to the Moon before Mars. We need to see if LOW gravity, versus zero-g can counteract the bone loss, etc. If not, then we may need to set up a centrifuge on the Moon to simulate 3/8g. We need to develop ways to protect humans from cosmic rays, and learn how to do ISRU on the Moon, so we will be ready to do it on Mars. On the Moon, we could develop advanced propulsion systems that can be done on Earth because they are politically untenable (Rover, NERVA, etc.).
      No, I was not a “rocket scientist”… I was an “acid-on-the-hands rocket ENGINEER” from about age 15! 🙂

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        The Moon isn’t the best place to try some of your best ideas.

        A variable gravity centrifuge is probably easier to do in space and with tethers, rather than on a planet’s surface.

        In situ resource utilization is something we have extensive experience with on Earth. We do it all the time. A well is ISRU. What we don’t have is experience in a relevant environment for space applications. Whether or not the Moon is a relevant environment for Mars or an asteroid is highly debatable.

        While we don’t want (or aren’t allowed) to do open air tests of nuclear rockets in Idaho, I don’t see the advantages of testing them on the Moon rather than on orbit.

        • james w barnard says:
          0
          0

          Because testing nuclear thermal rockets almost anywhere on Earth is politically, perhaps geo-politically untenable. Probably violates all sorts of open-air testing treaties, etc., etc. And you can’t static test any rocket in orbit, because if you fire them for any duration, you will find yourself OUT of orbit…or at least in a much higher one! 😉

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            I don’t see static testing as a requirement. Do a burn in LEO taking the testbed spacecraft up to an eccentric orbit with a high apogee. Then turn it around and, at the next perigee, do another burn returning it to a circular, low Earth orbit. Repeat as often as needed. That does limit the tests to under about 3 km/s per burn, but since it tests multiple firings, I don’t see that as a fundamental flaw.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        Even more important, there are still perfectly good reasons to go to the moon that have nothing to do with going to Mars. Arguably even more and better reasons than there are for even going to Mars at all. (For instance, there are plenty of good ideas for how to access raw materials available on the moon at an industrial scale, but there is no solution yet to the challenges of accessing the surface of Mars at such a scale. Perhaps someday that will be figured out, but for the present the moon has far greater economic potential than does Mars, with far better prospects for success.)

  7. ThomasLMatula says:
    0
    0

    More to the point, when Sir Hillary returned overland to the South Pole there was already a base there that was established by air waiting to receive him.

    BTW it was even longer between trips to the North Pole. After it was reached in 1909 overland the next overland journey to it wasn’t until 1968 when a private group reached it again by snow mobile.

  8. Jeff Greason says:
    0
    0

    Not to mention the deeply entrenched fallacy of the “but we have been there before” argument — the fallacy that the ONLY REASON we would ever send expeditions to a place is to plant a flag and take photos of footprints of us “being first”. As if once Lewis and Clark had crossed North America, there was now no reason for anyone to cross the Mississippi ever again.

    • Michael Genest says:
      0
      0

      Yes, excellent point! That whole Obama era “We’ve been there before” comment was possibly one of the most inane remarks I have ever heard coming from the mouth of a politician…..which is no small accomplishment. Can you imagine the bigwigs of Europe upon Columbus’ return from the Americas in early 1493 turning down any subsequent explorations across the Atlantic because “Columbus (like Buzz re: the Moon) had already been there”? Ridiculous.

      • Jack Burton says:
        0
        0

        It was a horrifying comment for a nation born of the frontiers.

        • Glandu says:
          0
          0

          It’s horrifying whatever the nation.

          I’m from a country whose only real benefit from its huge, centuries-long past exploration & colonization program is a spaceport not far from Brazil, and we shall neither think like that. Neither should the Chinese who, for only the second time in their history, have the means to do proper exploration. Neither should anyone else.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
          0
          0

          President Obama understood that reducing the cost of access to LEO was of practical value, and returning to the Moon with technology much too expensive to be sustainable (which is unfortuntately the current plan) was not of practical value. When he said “been there, done that”, he was not referring to the Moon as an astronomical feature. He was referring to the Apollo program as a strategy for human spaceflight.

          • Jack Burton says:
            0
            0

            I don’t think he even thought that hard about it at all….. “Chiao suggested the decision to remove the Moon as a possible destination was driven by politics, rather than what might be best for the US space enterprise. “Frankly, it came down to us on the committee to not talk too much about the Moon, because there was no way this administration was going to go there, because it was W’s program,” he said. “Ok, that’s a pretty stupid reason not to go to the Moon. I’m hopeful with this election cycle that maybe the moon will be a possibility again.”

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            Really? Wow. I’ve heard conspiracy prone folks speculate that such political attitudes were a factor, but I’d always assumed it was just speculation borne of frustration at otherwise inexplicable policy decisions. I wasn’t aware there was actual evidence or testimony that such appalling pettiness was the driving factor in the post Cx direction. Villainy of historic proportions if true.

          • Michael Spencer says:
            0
            0

            It’s happening now in the current administration, with no attempt to hide it.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            Such as? Right or wrong, such changes as are being made or proposed are being done so with at least a pretext of belief that they are an improvement. I’m not aware of any policy changes merely for the sake of being different than the previous administration. In this or any other administration, barring the claim in Jack Burton’s statement above. Not to say it’s never happened, but this blatantly?

          • Paul451 says:
            0
            0

            When he said “been there, done that”,

            Quibble: He didn’t actually say that.

      • Michael Spencer says:
        0
        0

        Not so much.

        I’d cut President Obama, and others, some slack here.

        Remember ‘magnificent desolation’? Buzz planted in the mind of Americans a vision of true wasteland, one visited at enormous cost to satisfy a political goal. And this being the case, so it was thought, what’s the point of going there again? We’ve been there!

        Folks in these parts know more about space than your average person or politician or Mr. Obama. In the popular mind the moon IS a dead, grey and dry place with very little to attract more expense.

        • Michael Genest says:
          0
          0

          Sorry, Michael, but that excuse won’t cut it. For starters, I doubt most would agree that a single 48-year old utterance from the lips of one astronaut should form the basic foundation of space policy in the 21st century. And besides, other moonwalkers had nicer things to say about the Moon, like Gene Cernan’s descriptions of the beauty of Taurus Littrow or even Jim Irwin’s remark about being on the lunar surface, “I felt the power of God like I’d never felt it before”. Nope, I stand by my view that the whole “been there, done that” idea expressed by our former president was totally unsupportable, as apparently plenty of others on this thread do as well.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            Single statements by one person can, if they capture an idea very well, can and have guided a nation’s policies for decades. Consider, for example, Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” phrase (made after he was voted out of office.)

            In any case, it isn’t fair to blame all of the “been there, done that” on Mr Obama. The general apathy or antagonism to lunar exploration goes back to the 1970s. He wasn’t even ten when some people started thinking the Moon was boring and we’d already been there.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            President Obama’s speech had been written long before he got on Air Force One. Buzz Aldrin was simply used as a photo op, just as Elon Musk was later used as one. Remember as a candidate President Obama was finst space policy called for a cut in spending on space to fund education. It was only when realize it would probably cost him Florida did he change his policy. Focusing on Mars put the goal far enough out he could brag about it being visionary without having to spend more money on NASA.

        • Bernardo de la Paz says:
          0
          0

          I suspect most people would think places like Arabia, west Texas, the Alaskan north slope, etc. are just as “magnificently desolate” as the moon. But the folks that did not pass those places by sure have gotten rich and enriched the rest of humanity from what they did there (as well as countless other “desolate” places).

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      Jeff: It’s easy to see exploration on Earth and Luna as essentially equal enterprises. But they are not. Even without exploration we knew that the rest of the continent would be full of resources, living and not, and that an enterprising person or company could make herself rich.

      This is not the case in space beyond LEO.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        Well, there was a time when the great plains of North America were seen by all the wise people as nothing but an obstacle to be crossed on the way to useful places. Other wise people called Seward a fool for buying Alaska. History is full of cases where wealth came to those or because of those who explored the unknown without certain knowledge of how to profit from their explorations.

        • tutiger87 says:
          0
          0

          Well you can breathe in Alaska….

        • djschultz3 says:
          0
          0

          A lot of Americans still think of the great plains in that way. They call it “fly over country”, one of them said that the only way he wants to see Oklahoma is from 30,000 feet with a drink in his hand…

          • hikingmike says:
            0
            0

            Yeah that term is a little insulting. Most of the time I am flying to or flying from the Midwest. So it’s not “fly over country” for a lot of people. I think roughly half the people in the country live not on the east or west coasts. I’m sure the people of Oklahoma don’t feel any pity for the guy having to spend time crossing over their state. More likely they’d prefer he be 30,000 feet or more away when he does.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            That’s because they don’t pay attention to where their food comes from.

    • Donald Barker says:
      0
      0

      There were plenty of tangible, useful and easily accessed reasons to keep crossing the Mississippi including all natural resources, land for growing Eastern human populations, and national power expansion, at a minimum. Now, make a similar list for the moon given the same, “tangible, useful and easily accessed reasons” and show the proof. Second, for a modern validation, any such “reasons” need to be couched in a 25 to 50 year sustainable plan, at a minimum.
      We have plans to splash the ISS in 2024, now; arguably the most technologically difficult and expensive human construction project ever. Its survival to 2028 or longer may occur if approved by the money holders. Either way, the ISS has only been considered complete for about 7 years. How many of you live in buildings that are reinvented and rebuilt after only 10 or so years? If you cant make and show a sustainable path and goals, then the “been there before” argument will most likely take precedence.

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        As a business plan, since you want “tangible, useful and easily accessed reasons”, how about this:

        If lunar (or other extraterrestrial) water were available to fuel a LEO-to-GEO space tug, it would extend the lifetime of every new communications satellites by X years. This would save money and increase profits by $Y per year. Therefore, spending $Z on prospecting for such ice is a wise investment.

        That’s not original, but I’ve heard it attributed to people with lots of money invested in communications satellites and a long track record of operating them. (And, yes, X, Y and Z need to be specified for this to be convincing; all I know is people in a position to know those numbers appear to be convinced.)

        • Vladislaw says:
          0
          0

          How much to get that started v.s. for now, launching fuel on reusable rockets?

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            I don’t know. At the NASA’s planetary science “Vision 2050” workshop last spring, one of the speakers said Luxembourg was spending money on the idea. It wasn’t clear how much money, if it was just a paper study to establish the costs, or if it was the government of Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg-based communications operator, SES (but the government is a major shareholder in the company.)

            The logic was that communications satellites have, in the past few years, been shifting over from chemical propulsion to electric. That’s a big mass savings, but it does mean they end up spending much more time in the radiation belts on the way to GEO (with a resulting hit to lifetime.) I think that means definitely think this has advantages over sending up chemical propellent on _expendable_ launch vehicles. What it means for a reusable launch vehicle is another matter. I guess it all depends on how much cheaper a reusable launch is.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            That’s just the problem. ISRU requires infrastructure. Infrastructure requires low cost launch from Earth. Low cost launch from Earth can refuel tugs in LEO. At the very least, it makes sense to explore the moon robotically (including the potential polar ice deposits) before making a decision about the practicality of ISRU.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        I’m not aware that Thomas Jefferson backed up the Louisiana Purchase with a particularly detailed and iron clad business plan.

        • Paul451 says:
          0
          0

          People in that era understood the critical value of inland waterways.

          The French government was desperate for money, if they’d sold to the Spanish or Mexicans, it would have allowed them easy (hence fast) access to the interior, which would have largely cut the US off from the rest of North America. (And probably eventually forced them to go to war to take it.)

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          I’m not sure if you’d call it a business plan, but the treaty was debated at length in Congress. That amounts to justifying the Louisiana purchase in some detail.

    • Matthew Black says:
      0
      0

      Yeah! I mean; we’ve been into Earth orbit hundreds of times – perhaps we’ve ‘been there, done that’ there, too…

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        Indeed. While it is fantastic that we are moving past the lunar phobia, we are still headed full speed towards foolhardy abandonment of human space flight in LEO. That policy failure also must change.

      • Paul451 says:
        0
        0

        Hence Obama proposed turning Earth orbit over to commercial operators, with NASA merely as an anchor client, allowing NASA to develop the technologies (new generation rocket engines, space-rated nuclear reactors, etc, via billions in freed up funding) to push further out.

        Congress baulked and created SLS as the-only-bits-of-Constellation-they-were-going-to-fund-anyway, neatly absorbing every dollar that could have gone into next gen technology. (Remembering that the last gen gave us Bigelow, SpaceX, and SNC, (via TransHab, Fastrac, and HL-20.), think about what that wasted $20+ billion has denied us, and what the next wasted $30b will deny us.)

    • Paul451 says:
      0
      0

      the fallacy that the ONLY REASON we would ever send expeditions to a place is to plant a flag and take photos of footprints of us “being first”.

      Except that’s exactly what Constellation had devolved into, before it was cancelled.

      It was originally advocated by Bush (as VSE, pre-Grifiin, pre-Ares) as a stepping-stone to Mars. Implied, using polar resources for fuel, with a side-serving of permanently shadowed lunar astronomy.

      Year after year, the ambition withdrew in the face of the program’s costs, flat funding, and Griffin’s apparent incompetence, that left nothing for Altair, let alone any serious mission, let alone bases, let alone polar bases and ISRU and fuel-tugs for Mars missions…

  9. Steve Pemberton says:
    0
    0

    Although I understand the Mars first viewpoint, it had gotten to where you couldn’t even mention going to the Moon without being barraged by condescending reasons why it makes no sense to go to the Moon.

    And I suspect NASA has been going with popular sentiment, not wanting to appear stuck in the past, even though they they probably realize that they have no way to go to Mars right now with the current technology and budgets. I’m glad that the Moon is finally being discussed again as a viable destination. Hopefully the old “Don’t we have enough Moon rocks?” slogan that helped end the Moon landing program has been answered, the answer of course being no. Not to mention expanding the number of explored sites.

    I got to meet Harrison Schmitt and I asked him what did we miss by not continuing with the Moon landings, not just the cancelled missions 18,19 and 20 but if we had continued beyond that. He immediately rattled off a list of several different locations that they had been considering, including one on the far side. I told him I was surprised that a far side location was being considered back then. I would think they would have done that only if they could have continuous communication, which could have been done back then with an orbiting satellite, but I think that’s a lot more feasible now.

    • fcrary says:
      0
      0

      The far side communications satellite is scheduled for launch in June of next year. It’s part of the Chang’e 4 mission (a far side lander/rover) and will operate from an Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit. Unfortunately, NASA can’t buy or trade for telecom services, since it’s a Chinese spacecraft.

  10. mrisu2you says:
    0
    0

    Keith – is this graphic copyrighted or protected in some way? I’d like to use it

  11. Odyssey2020 says:
    0
    0

    It ain’t happening folks:
    Human’s to Moon>120 Billion
    Humans to Mars>500 Billion

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      Care to make up some other imaginary mission costs? Troll.

      • Odyssey2020 says:
        0
        0

        These cost estimates came from NASA itself.
        NASA manned moon plan:104 Billion http://tinyurl.com/yao56kw6
        NASA manned mars plan: 500 Billion
        http://tinyurl.com/y9ln6kdb

        • kcowing says:
          0
          0

          12 year old numbers reflecting an architecture that was never built.

          • Odyssey2020 says:
            0
            0

            It is very frustrating, they’re not building it and it’s very expensive.

          • unfunded_dreams says:
            0
            0

            I wouldn’t turn my nose up at this. A group of reasonably intelligent people put together a notional architecture and what it might cost. Maybe the answer is $70B instead of $120B, maybe it’s $180B. But if you’re not willing to consider a cost on that order of magnitude, you should advocate for doing nothing.

            Could we get back to the moon for $5B? Possibly. But if we’re just landing there to get more boot prints on the moon, then that is most likely wasted money. If you’re trying to set up a presence, have a function, have research conducted on the moon etc – you have to be contemplating a big number. $120B is as good a number as any until someone develops an alternative conops, end goals, and associated architecture and costs.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            The problem with those estimates is that they reflect a specific way of doing business. For example, there is a recent estimate by McNutt and Delamere that puts a minimal Mars landing at over a trillion dollars. But they estimated the mass of hardware assembled on orbit, said ISS was our only example of large structures assembled on orbit, and used that to convert kilos to dollars.

            Assuming they did everything right, it doesn’t tell you the cost of a Mars mission. It tells you the cost of a Mars mission done by NASA in a traditional manner. At the same time, NASA officials have publicly stated that the total cost of Falcon 9 development was a tenth what it would have cost if NASA did it in house and according to their traditional practices. So we’ve got an example of _how_ you do it making a factor of ten difference. I don’t see why the same thing wouldn’t apply to a Moon or Mars landing, and that makes the traditional NASA cost estimates a bit meaningless.

          • Michael Spencer says:
            0
            0

            a Mars mission done by NASA in a traditional manner

            As you’ve pointed out before the value of a study can reside in assumptions. Nowadays we have at least one alternative to the ‘throwaway’ approach, summarized as the use of reusable, extremely heavy lift rockets capable of landing on Mars and Earth.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            It is amazing how numbers like those scare space advocates, especially as you are looking at spending over a number of years, say 10 or so. That only makes it $12 billion a year.

            So some reference points.
            Americans spend $30 billion on pizza each year.
            Amazon revenues for 2016 were $136 billion
            2016 Global spending on space was $322 billion
            2016 Walmart revenues were $482 billion
            The 2017 federal budget is $3,650 billion
            The U.S. GDP was $18,570 billion

            In short $12 billion a year is not that much money in today’s USA. It’s only 50% more than a single deep water oil platform.

            https://www.forbes.com/site

            Bad Timing? Chevron Christens New $8B Deepwater Oil Platform

            And one more number. The only lunar sample (Russian) sold legally went for over $450,000 a gram. Assume a market price of $40,000 gram for lunar regolith. You would only need to return 300 kilograms a year to Earth to reach $12 billion.

          • rb1957 says:
            0
            0

            there are So many things we could accomplish with 1% (or even 0.1%) of the defense budget.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            The value of Moon rocks depends on their rarity; they have no intrinsic value. If they become more common they will be worth less.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            They have a lot of intrinsic value. Many of them contain economic concentrations of industrially useful materials and all of them happen to be located in a much shallower gravity well than the surface of the Earth. To be fair, increasing the market supply would certainly depress the value well below $450k/g though…

          • Michael Spencer says:
            0
            0

            So would the cost of mining, smelting, and returning them to Earth.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            Yes, the price would slide down demand curve as the supply increased until the point where the production would shutdown because the costs are not being covered by revenues. I estimated that point at around $40,000 gram. The key question is what demand would be at that point.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            That would be $200,000 per carat. I haven’t priced any recently, but isn’t that a couple orders of magnitude more than most gemstones?

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            Never under estimate the desire to demonstrate wealth by spending on luxury goods.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            I don’t. But in the case of gemstones or moon rocks, I think the luxury good market depends on rarity and limited supply. (Although De Beers marketing of diamond engagement ring is a counter example.) Most meteorites don’t sell for $40,000 per gram, and those which do are the extremely rare ones. Say the martian SNC meteorites. I really doubt that would support a luxury goods market for Moon rocks.

          • Vladislaw says:
            0
            0

            I say gemstones because of the weight issue to return them …I also believe unique lunar art and 3rd printed from lunar material collectables?

          • Vladislaw says:
            0
            0

            Mrs. Facebook . Honey, when am I going to get a lunar diamond like Mrs. Gates?

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            You’d be in a better position than I to know the numbers. I’ve wondered how some examples of corporate stupidity cost, compared to a space mission. For example, how much did Volkswagen loose for programing cars to cheat on emissions tests? As much as five or six Discovery missions?

            I’ve also realized that I wouldn’t be exaggerating too much if I said that, within two miles of my current location, I can buy a spaceship for less than a house. Ok. the median cost of a house in Boulder hasn’t quite hit a million dollars yet, and the spaceship would be a CubeSat. But… You are quite correct to say the big, scary numbers associated with spaceflight aren’t actually all that big by many standards.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            There are entire books that have been written on the mistakes corporations have made and how the markets have punished for it. The average life cycle of corporations is about 40 years until accumulated mistakes put them out of business. Sometimes governments prevents the market from doing its work, as with Lockheed and Chrysler, but the fear of bankruptcy for the poorly managed keeps them focused.

            By contrast when a government agency is poorly managed there is no threat of bankruptcy. NASA is a good example. It takes them longer to study a problem today, even with computer simulations and design programs, then it took them to cut metal and fly when they were new.

            For example the entire Mercury Program only took about four years from idea to final flight in an era of slide rules, drafting tables and human computers, and without any experience of putting someone in space. CCP and Orion have taken how long to get to where they are today with first flights still years away?

            It seems that whereas CAD and computers have speeded up product cycles in industry they have slowed them to a crawl at NASA. Maybe it’s time to replace the computers at NASA with slide rules, drafting tables and humans 🙂

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            I’m not sure how much I’d mind going back to slide rules. One problem with the CAD and other computer modeling/analysis tools is that people think they need to use them. I’ve noticed that actually hurts in the early stages of hardware design and development. There are lots of old, simple ways to make rough estimates (most predating modern computers.) The results aren’t good enough to fly, but they are good enough to tell if an idea is viable or not. That’s actually very useful for considering many options and possibilities. Instead, I see quite a few people today insisting on going straight to the sophisticated computer models and analysis. That means time and effort going into studies which a back-of-the-envelope calculations would show are probably just not going to work.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            I agree. I often do my best work with a pencil on paper.

        • ed2291 says:
          0
          0

          You mean the same NASA that paid a billion dollars per space shuttle launch and has been running for years what may be the most wasteful government program ever with the SLS/Orion? The NASA that has not been out of low earth orbit with man since 1973?

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            SFAIK NASA is planning to return to the Moon with SLS/Orion plus a manned base in lunar orbit, landers and surface infrastructure that would have to be funded. That makes any major cost reduction difficult. Commercial providers could do it at a somewhat lower cost, but they would need a business plan, i.e. a long term customer that would pay for the transportation. It isn’t clear who that would be.

          • Michael Spencer says:
            0
            0

            Almost all of that equipment, aside from a manned base on the surface, is obviated by RSHL (I propose the term Reusable Super Heavy Lifter over BFR to emphasize the concept over the company or contractor).

            No longer science fiction.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            Any technology that reduces cost of access will enlarge the market and allow greater access. But even SpaceX is having to resize the BFR for LEO transport, where the market is. If it can’t provide an ROI it will be unsustainable.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            And your use of “RSHL” matches one of the smarter things NASA does when soliciting proposals for unmanned missions or instruments. They typically specify the desired measurements, mention an example of what sort of hardware _could_ do the job, and then say they are open to any proposal which would do the job, whether or not it resembles that example. Juno is a good example. The job was measuring the composition of Jupiter’s atmosphere at depth and at multiple locations. The example was multiple decent probes. But Juno is doing it with orbital, microwave remote sensing.

        • Neal Aldin says:
          0
          0

          Does anyone really think NASA could really build a moon program for substantially less than ISS? Remember NASA did not build a lot of ISS. They were contributions by the internationals, which leads one to wonder why it was so expensive.

    • Bill Housley says:
      0
      0

      Do your research please, then itemize launch costs separately and adjust them down to SpaceX/Arian/China levels. You may be surprised.

    • Michael Spencer says:
      0
      0

      Those numbers were silly then and they are silly now.

    • DougSpace says:
      0
      0

      I credit you with tracking down official estimates. But consider some new information in which NASA calculate the significantly reduced cost when it’s done using public-private programs:

      Launcher development at 1/8th the cost:
      https://go.nasa.gov/2zMc0yU

      Cargo delivery at 1/2 the cost:
      http://bit.ly/2APsy65

      • Odyssey2020 says:
        0
        0

        Hey DS, thanks for the links..definitely something to consider.
        Also, it’s nice you didn’t attack and insult me like others.

  12. Tom Mazowiesky says:
    0
    0

    Keith,
    I think you make excellent points here. I think with the limited resources NASA has and the lack of commitment to a primary human mission, the goals will change with every new administration.

    I was 12 when Apollo 11 occurred and have been impressed with NASA’s technical abilities for a long time. Lately though they have become so risk averse that I’m not sure that NASA is the right vehicle for space exploration any more. With the advances in electronic technology and computer systems it seems that the safety aspect of any hardware launched today will be at least an order of magnitude safer than Shuttle.

    But we should still realize that sitting on a few million kilos of high explosive is an inherently risky undertaking (no pun intended).

  13. Bill Housley says:
    0
    0

    I was 5.
    We are the moon children, Keith. That event shaped us…as it will shape others when it begins again. We as a population lack the resolve to go to Mars. We also lack the tested infrastructure for long-duration, deep space crewed voyages. Reviving lunar exploration will fix both of those things. We’ve delayed human missions to Mars because it is so far away…essentially. We’ve ignored the Moon for human missions because someone else has already been there first. So what? So we do neither and for 40 something years fail to inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers?

    Fortunately, it might all soon be out of Government hands.

  14. John_K_Strickland says:
    0
    0

    I had just graduated from college as the first humans went first around and then to the moon. So it has been a Looooooong wait ! It is clear that we need to go to the moon first before we go to Mars. What is important is that we have clear reasons to go back. (We would not want to duplicate the Lewis and Clark Trip on horseback and canoe to Oregon again.) So when we go, it will NOT be another flags and footprints type mission. We will put equipment on the lunar surface to use.
    The highest priority should be to establish a lunar polar mining base, and if practical, start producing LOX-hydrogen propellants to use for vastly cheaper Mars missions. A base would also give direct scientific access to the lunar surface.
    Once such a mining base is operating, and is storing propellant at a cis-lunar logistics base, we need to immediately start human Mars missions.
    The previously quoted program costs of $120 billion and $500 billion for lunar and Mars programs assume the old fashioned flags and footprint type missions using expendable boosters and vehicles unique to each program. An integrated Lunar-Mars program that uses common elements such as crew habitats to reduce costs, and also relies heavily on privately designed and built spacecraft and boosters, would radically reduce the cost of both lunar and Mars operations, and also end the Moon-Mars tug of war that has lasted for over a generation. The tide is now turning in favor of both reusable boosters and reusable spacecraft.

    John Strickland

    • fcrary says:
      0
      0

      “The highest priority should be to establish a lunar polar mining base”

      Actually, that should be down the list a little. I think finding that water might be a higher priority. I wouldn’t want to design and build the mine before we know where the water is (exactly, as in depth from the surface to better than a meter), how it’s distributed (are there concentrations on kilometer to sub-kilometer scales) and what form it’s in (occasional veins of relatively pure ice, distributed and filling pore space in the regolith at few percent by weight concentrations or hydrated minerals.) How about saying the highest priority is ice _prospecting_ in the polar regions?

      (Oh, and along the lines of other comments, two months.)

      • Michael Spencer says:
        0
        0

        This discussion – where first? – will be easily resolved once we have a sense of what the hell we are doing. Which we don’t.

        Aside from the scientific bonanza, why? Don’t know, do you? Nobody does*. That’s why we are fighting with air swords.

        As far as I can see swinging back and forth over the years and decades – Moon, Mars, Moon, Mars moons, etc. – is emblematic of one simple fact. Nobody has yet proposed an actual reason to go to any of those places.

        We went to the moon because we were in a race. Great. But why should we go back? Or anywhere in space?

        Signed,

        Debbie Downer

        * I know the whole ‘it’s our destiny’ argument; ‘because it is there’; ‘we are an inquisitive race’; we are running out of room, etc. They don’t count because they won’t motivate the necessary effort.

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          Well, maybe NASA should make it a policy to fund “fishing expeditions.” That’s the derisive term frequently used to criticize proposals without a clear focus or goal. The current system does not really support efforts unless they have specific, anticipated results. You can’t get funded if you just say, “I don’t know what we’ll see, but we’ve never been there. Let’s go and take a look.”

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            What NASA needs to do is revert to its old NACA model of funding technology that allows industry to advance. COTS and CCP are good starts, but until NASA gets out of the hardware business (no ISS, No SLS, no Orion, no NASA own Lunar Gateway) space progress will lag.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            Perhaps. But government have, in the past, supported “go somewhere new and see what’s there” ventures. Usually not well-funded, and buying rather than developing the needed hardware. How would the Lewis and Clark expedition fit into your model? Or should we have a NACA-like agency and also an exploration service?

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            Remember, Lewis and Clarke followed in the footsteps of the commercial fur traders who already knew the area, that is why they hired them as guides. And they hung out on the cold foggy Oregon coast hoping a Yankee Trading ship would give them a ride home. Almost all of the American West, Alaska and Canada were explored by employees of the fur companies or individual trappers exploring the land, but the results had economic value and were rarely publicized as a result.

            Space is an anomaly in that the government proceeded private enterprise instead of following after it. That is the source of most of the policy problems and Stagnation. The norm of history is for privately funded adventurers going were no one has good before.

            If Elon Musk first sets foot on Mars it will be far more with the history of exploration than if the first foot is by a NASA astronaut being first.

          • Vladislaw says:
            0
            0

            Native Americans also provideo a lot of useful information when the trappers married in to the tribes.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
            0
            0

            Yes and were a key element of the business, supplying furs and supplies. One of the key purposes of the Lewis and Clark expedition was to inform them, and fur traders, the US had replaced France in the region. The another was to inventory their locations and names.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            COTS and CCP are antithetical to the old N.A.C.A. way of doing business and the most counterproductive programs for the goal of fostering an economically viable industry. But I do agree with you that NASA needs to get back to the N.A.C.A. mode of operation. The most important aspect of which is for NASA to return to being a provider of technology and to cease being a provider of funding. The N.A.C.A. contribution to the development of the airline industry had everything to do with the facilities and technology developed by N.A.C.A. but absolutely nothing to do with buying tickets on said airlines.

          • Paul451 says:
            0
            0

            However, prior to and in parallel with NACA, the US government did “buy tickets” on nascent airlines. Starting with airmail contracts.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            NACA was chartered in 1915, before the first airline, because even then, only a dozen years after the first flight, America was losing the race to conquer the air. France, Britain and Germany were already putting tax dollars into R&D to jump start what they appreciated was a critical new industry that private enterprise could not exploit without help.

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      Who is currently demanding those propellents and how are those propellants currently being launched in to leo?

  15. ed2291 says:
    0
    0

    The bigger point is not moon vs. Mars. The bigger divide is doing something vs. doing nothing. I had not started 10th grade when we landed on the moon and recently signed up for medicare. Humans have not been out of low earth orbit since 1973! I have hopes that Musk will take us to a new place. (I don’t care where!) I am very tired of all future advances always being 20 years out.

    • rb1957 says:
      0
      0

      no, IMHO the question is what else can we do with the money ? where do we get the most benefit ??

      we could choose to spend the money on some social welfare program (yes, I’m north of the 49th). Or it might get siphoned away in some “waste” (which of course isn’t beneficial, but is probable).

      a consequence of this could be that private investors will do it, then NASA’s job (well, one of) would be to ensure safety, like the FAA.

      a consequence could be that a foreign government might do it, then you’re “helically wound around a shaft”.

      But should NASA get involved in founding outposts/colonies ?? Maybe NASA’s role is that of “pathfinder” … putting the flag on some distant shore to show it can be done, then let other people/investors come forward to develop what we’ve found; staying involved on the science-side of exploration, developing the science for the national good ?

      • Michael Spencer says:
        0
        0

        Or, we could evolve as a species, learning that the units of valuation might be something other than dollars.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
          0
          0

          Sorry, but that type of Star Trek view of the world only leads to socialism and decline. Star Trek may show the universe as a social utopia, but it’s economy simply wouldn’t produce the progress shown. One need look no further than the Soviet Union whose economy was based on scientific decision making driven by the “greater good” to see an example.

          Money used in free markets to allocate resources has historically led to more progress and the wealth. It was this surplus that allowed them to engage in luxury activities like science. It’s why science advanced far more in nations like Italy, Germany, England, the U.S. etc with market based economies.

          And yes, it will be wealthy individuals like Robert Bigelow, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that will get humans, and not mere robots, to the Stars.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            Two points. First, I’m not sure what the hang-up with money is about. Mr. Spencer, who doesn’t like an obsession with money, does talk about “units of valuation.” Dollars (or euros or yen) are the traditional units. Their real value is nothing more than what you can exchange them for.

            Second, I note that private property and commerce did exist within the Soviet Union. At a small scale and not affecting major factories or industries, but people could actually go to a market and buy a potato (unlike one Star Trek movie which depicted paying bus fare with money as archaic.)

            I suspect Mr. Spencer’s doubts about money are less about using it as a measure of value, and more about the common view that it is inherently valuable. Saying, “I just made $40,000 dollars,” is less meaningful than saying, “I just earned enough to pay for my son’s college tuition this year.”

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            Money is just a common form of exchange for the time value of labor. In any civilization advanced enough to include the mutual trade of labor as opposed to total and complete self reliance, it is impossible for the concept of money to not exist.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            Sure. But as well as the unit we use to measure the value of labor (and other goods), many people consider money to be a status symbol and making money starts being the goal (as opposed to being making money to afford something you want or need to buy.)

            I guess you could say status symbols have intrinsic value because people want them. But there’s nothing wrong with criticizing this. Just as criticizing someone who drives expensive cars as a status symbol without implying we should get rid of cars.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            Well, Star Trek sure made Gene Roddenberry rich. But I suppose he was subject to the economic laws of Hollywood, not the United Federation of Planets…

        • Bernardo de la Paz says:
          0
          0

          Bitcoins?

          • Michael Spencer says:
            0
            0

            Late to this part, but…look, as I’ve said time and again, the aficionados of capitalism forget a few facts, one being that we are born into the system and hence feel obligated to defend it.

            Capitalism has many flaws, not the least of which is the distribution of wealth. Capitalism is simply n incremental step to something more equitable (and not even imagined, yet).

            And I’d leave with this: born in 1400 one would argue to the death the divine right of kings. Things change. Towards a more equatable system, eventually.

  16. George Purcell says:
    0
    0

    The notion that we are “done with the Moon” is farcical on any level. It’s essentially a small planet on which we have had a total of something like 150 total landed person hours exploring tiny pinpricks. And people seriously suggest that a mere six days of exploration by non-scientists taught us all we need to know about it? To say nothing of the engineering knowledge to be gained for developing structures and systems to live and work in low-G, airless environments?
    A century from now enterprising scientists will still be discovering new things about it.

    • fcrary says:
      0
      0

      Schmitt was a PhD geologist. So the Apollo work wasn’t entirely done by non-scientists. (And the rest did get a first rate, if brief, summer school-level course in field geology.)

      But let’s put this a different way. How close do you need to be, in order to really see significant differences in rock formations? Spectra from orbit can say if a rock (if resolved) is basaltic. How close to see if it’s from an `a`a or pahoehoe flow? I’m not a geologist, but I’d guess ten or twenty meters might do it. Now how much of the Moon’s surface (or Mars’ surface for that matter) has been observed at a distance of under ten or twenty meters? I’m not going to calculate it myself, but well under a millionth.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
      0
      0

      And there is the big show stopper, arguing for it based on science. Science is a small scale activity that could be done with a handful of robots. Humans will never go beyond LEO if you use science as the reason.

      Mining, manufacturing, industrial research, even tourism are large scale activities that requires humans, lots of humans, and has the promise of revenue that turns the billions needed into an investment in the future, what with a possible ROI.

      • Michael Spencer says:
        0
        0

        Science is a small scale activity that could be done with a handful of robots

        The robot continued walking through the riverbed of the Colorado River running through Grand Canyon, all the while marveling at the beauty all around. Finally, looking forward to the elevator ride from the canyon floor back to the canyon rim, he wondered why he felt weightless on the way down…

        • ThomasLMatula says:
          0
          0

          Exactly, human travelers do a lot more than mere science. But if all you are interested in is the science a robot would be far better at imaging the rocks and do analysis of them. Remember the ideal robot eliminates human emotion and just follows the data which is what a good scientist tries to do.

        • Bernardo de la Paz says:
          0
          0

          Nicely said. 🙂

  17. jski says:
    0
    0

    When I heard our previous president summarily dismiss the Moon with “Been there; done that.” then follow up with some nonsense asteroid mission, I knew immediately the next 8 years would be a complete waste. And they were.

    Now, thanks exclusively to commercial space, we have the chance to correct that mistake and return to the Moon and do it right. Not the late 60’s and early ’70’s drive-by missions. But build a permanent presence on the Moon. Learn what it means to live off-planet.

    The obvious 1st step on our way out into the solar system and beyond.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
      0
      0

      For six consecutive years the Obama Administration’s ambitious funding request for commercial spaceflight was slashed by Congress, until they finally realized the it was the only strategy likely to succeed.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        Congress clearly wanted NASA to down select to a single CCP provider. Given that the NASA of the Obama Administration set a clear life limit for ISS that requires too few CCP missions to justify more than a single provider and that no viable market for COTS or CCP outside of ISS has materialized, it was quite rational for Congress to insist on a down select but irrational and insubordinate for NASA to act in defiance. Any CCP funding shortfall was purely NASA and the administration’s own making.

        • Vladislaw says:
          0
          0

          Chicken and the egg scenario. … no one would put up a habitat without transportation ., no one would build transport without a commercial destination

        • Daniel Woodard says:
          0
          0

          Who told you that? The Obama Administration never set a life limit on ISS, and proposed stable NASA funding focussed on space technology and reducing the cost of human access to space. Congress insisted the money be spent instead on the SLS and Orion, despite their unaffordable and obsolete 40-year-old technology. Regrettably, there is no feasible design change which will reduce cost sufficiently to make it possible to send a meaningful number of people into space with the SLS and Orion. Some members of Congress wanted to steer all the commercial Crew funds to contractors in thier districts by picking a winner, fortunately the Obama Administration was able to maintain two highly competitive programs.

          Moreover any launch system can be grounded by an anomoly. In fact Orion/SLS has been repeatedly proposed as a “backup” access to ISS. This doesn’t seem necessary as long as it already has two comercial providers, but if that could be cut to one…

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      You are misquoting.

  18. Daniel Woodard says:
    0
    0

    I was disappointed by Obama’s language but the reality is that he began with a very clear priority in space, to accelerate commercial spaceflight, both cargo and manned, and advance the space technology needed to make human spaceflight sustainable and expand human presence in space beyond a handful of professional astronauts.

    When Congress made this impossible by restarting SLS/Orion and demanding that he come up with a mission for them, Obama tried to find the least expensive option that would meet Congress’ demands, since they were not offering the additional billions that would be needed for a lunar lander and base.

    Indeed, we have yet to see if this additional funding will be forthcoming, or if a new lunar landing program will be sustainable, or provide any practical benefits, or if it will end like Apollo and leave us with an unsustainable program and insufficient resources to even sustain our presence in LEO.

  19. mfwright says:
    0
    0

    Though the Moon has now come back into discussion but Mars is also part of that discussion which immediately demands more money. FFS, first establish a sustainable and scalable lunar program (start with rovers investigating water ice in one of those craters that LCROSS did a brief encounter.

    I haven’t followed Moon Express program that much, there is chatter
    about a lander of sorts planned for 2020 or maybe next year? Paul Spudis
    is an advisor for this group.

  20. My 2¢ says:
    0
    0

    I feel that robots have negated the need to send humans to the moon or Mars. Lets find signs of life somewhere first and then send humans there.

    NASA needs to accept the challenge of building a huge space telescope. In the words of Matt Mountain. ““With a 20-meter telescope, we can see hundreds of Earth-like planets around other stars. That’s what it takes to find life.”

    • Nick K says:
      0
      0

      Only possible legitimate need near term is tourism and in time, transportation, Earth-to-Moon and back. It is really a commercial game that requires investors. There are legitimate reasons why the government might have an interest and they can invest like anyone else. Science and ‘exploration’ are not reasons the US taxpayer should be spending money at the rate of multiple billions per year. If someone like Space X and maybe even Bigelow can establish a foothold for recreational tourism, then that will lead to manufacturing, then settlement, resource exploration, economic growth, etc. NASA is not on that path at all and NASA will never get there at the rate they are moving and spending money.

      • DougSpace says:
        0
        0

        The national pride derived by citizens watching their national astronaut heroes taking the risk while exploring lunar lava tubes and whatnot is another, large, potential source of demand for transportation service to the Moon. The key is to lower the cost to the point where smaller nations could afford it.

        • Nick K says:
          0
          0

          What national pride?

          There are astronauts in orbit today; no one even knows it. NASA wants scientists to conduct zero-G research on the station; very few are aware there is an opportunity and most would not spend their own money to do it. NASA lost the initiative when they made it difficult, expensive and time consuming to put science on board and that was ten years ago. Earlier in the program, NASA gave grants to researchers-NASA decided that was not NASA’s appropriate role; a lot of scientists have never forgiven NASA for destroying their graduate and research programs. NASA has not yet recovered from these lapses in judgement.

          During Apollo, people lost interest after Apollo 11. There was a bit of a resurgence when Apollo 13 nearly killed the crew, and it was all downhill from there. In Russia, astronauts and space workers are ridiculed for staying on the public dole when there are far more high-paying jobs in commerce and industry.

          No, national pride will not support such an effort.

          Really, spaceflight today is no more exciting than watching airliners at your airport, or than looking out the window on a jetliner. Yes, once a year some people ( a small minority) will fork over $20 to go to an airshow.

          Lower the cost of space flight to the point where common people can make the trip.

        • Vladislaw says:
          0
          0

          Kim Kardashian would get more views exploring than a nasa astronaut. Smiles

          • DougSpace says:
            0
            0

            That may have been a light-hearted comment. But it is true. I envision a TV series from the Moon highlighting recent developments there. Celebrities exploring the Moon would increase viewership and generate revenue for the venture. So, why not?

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        “Science and ‘exploration’ are not reasons the US taxpayer should be spending money at the rate of multiple billions per year.”

        The National Science Foundation’s FY18 budget request is $6.653 billion. Essentially none of that is space-related (other than ground-based astronomy.) Do you object to that?

        • Daniel Woodard says:
          0
          0

          While the NSF (and DOE) laudably support considerable efforts in basic science research, the NSF is under serious budget pressure under President Trump, and may actually lose money. In contrast the administration is asking for $639.1B for DOD.

        • Nick K says:
          0
          0

          NSF spreads its spending across all sciences, education, assessments of national plans and goals-a lot of things all in the cause of advancing science through funding of basic research mainly in US universities. NASA used to spend a lot of its human space flight money on basic research and and education; that was one reason why NASA’s budget is triple the NSF’s-they were spending money on science as part of human space flight to show that worthwhile science can be done in space.

          Think back to Skylab, for example. NASA ran a solar physics program and an Earth resources program. NASA paid for developing the instruments, paying the investigators, running an entire air force to gain ‘ground truth’ data on the information they were collecting in space.

          NASA eliminated most of that science and education spending in the last 15 years. I attribute it to chauvinism-they think the important thing is to fly spaceships and they really only use “science” as an excuse to keep the program going. .

          Now the NASA management expects that someone else will pay for space related science and education. Mainly NASA just wants to “fly spaceships”. They have not come up with a good reason for it, and they cannot seem to make up their minds where to go, because they do not know what they would do when they got there.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            But most of the things you associate with the Skylab era _are_ still funded by NASA. Trust me, that’s what pays my salary. Also, if you look at instruments being built for Europa Clipper, most aren’t coming from NASA centers or JPL. Nor are most of the scientists involved directly employed by NASA.

            I just looked up the NASA FY17 budget request (I couldn’t find the actuals, but that’s close enough.) NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (planetary, Earth science, heliophysics and astrophysics) was in for $5.6 billion. Aeronautics research for $0.7 billion. Space technology (development) for $0.8 billion. That’s less than the $8.4 billion for human exploration, but it’s a lot more than you seem to imply.

          • NArmstrong says:
            0
            0

            I suspect you work for science mission directorate. I think they do unmanned science missions. Human space flight had its own science budget. Now the human space flight science budget pays for people to talk about the science they used to sponsor and that used to be done.

          • fcrary says:
            0
            0

            Almost. I work for a university. But my salary is covered by contracts from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. I don’t think I’ve ever really worked with human spaceflight (other that a undergraduate class taught by a spacesuit design guy from NASA/Ames.)

  21. NArmstrong says:
    0
    0

    I wonder whether NASA, the US Government, or the American taxpayer are the right people to manage, organize or pay for this effort?

    When should it be a taxpayer funded US government/NASA run effort, and when does it make sense to do it a different way?

    NASA and the US government mean political interference, constrained and uncertain funding, and a lot of added time and expense because of bureaucracy. Also I don’t think they usually put the best, most capable people on the job. They are constantly trying to re-learn lessons they ought to already know.

    Afterall, look at what Space X accomplished as far as landing spent rockets stages. This is arguably every bit as difficult as landing on the moon. In fact we had landed things on the moon before, but I don’t think anyone had ever landed a spent rocket stage on a mid-ocean platform or on a launch pad. Why do we think only NASA could land something on the Moon? And even more significant, for what reason is NASA or the government the right way to do it? Are we researching something-new methods of propulsion?

    The new Administrator and VP ought to take a lesson from commercial cargo and crew, and go beyond that. I think any of the independent ‘commercial’ companies could do the job. They need some incentive to do it quickly and inexpensively. An external source of funds-probably investment needs to be found. NASA’s budget is not increasing and NASA cannot afford to do it in a meaningful way on its budget. Sell bonds. Offer land plots or shares of ownership in the transportation company. Take the burden off the taxpayers and take the capriciousness of the Congress out as a factor.

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
      0
      0

      NASA is not and never has done anything to stand in the way of anybody willing to do anything in space without using taxpayer dollars. Mr. Bezos seems to be doing some interesting things with his own money for example, in which case any discussion of NASA policy is irrelevant.

      • NArmstrong says:
        0
        0

        Not quite true.

        NASA is often the competitor against commercial projects.

        A few examples, the Max Faget Industrial Space Facility which promised a man tended space station decades ahead of ISS. NASA killed it. Or the STSOC commercial contract to operate Shuttle commercially. The NASA Mission Operations organization refused to relinquish responsibilities to a commercial provider. Even now on Commercial Crew, NASA refuses to permit a commercial provider to provide the astronauts.

        Think back to the US Air Mail Pilots of the 1920s and how the military insisted they needed to fly the airmail. They killed a lot of people. When commercial industry took over it became much safer and more commercially viable. The situation is not too different today.

        What is the proper role for the government?

        Government is usually involved in things like research when there is no immediate commercial need or value.

        I don’t think NASA can figure out their role; they seem to want to operate their own ‘space force’. They are holding up industry and commerce instead of encouraging it.

        Maybe Trump and the Republicans have the right profit motive to be able to do something different. Space commerce and industry could be much bigger than NASA-it could rival the economy of the US. But not with NASA standing in the way.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
        0
        0

        I disagree. There have been many instances of NASA competing with industry and attempting to eliminate commercial industry competition. The current SLS versus alternatives like the Falcon Heavy, or the current plan to provide their own NASA pilots and astronauts instead of commercially provided crew. I wonder whether NASA will also provide all their own crew trainers and mission operations support?

      • Vladislaw says:
        0
        0

        Elements inside nasa has… remember when Dennis Tito wanted to visit the space station and nasa had a cow … space participant ..lol

        Congress has put up roadblocks for decades by not putting regulations in place. They still have not.

  22. DougSpace says:
    0
    0

    Those who have the science-only perspective tend to favor Mars as it does have better science. Those who favor commercial space tend to favor the Moon as it is closer, cheaper, sooner, and near the markets. There are exceptions of course, but in general this is the correlation. But if we aim towards developing cost-effective transportation systems to each then we get both. At both destinations, refueled landers could conduct a ridiculous amount of scientific exploration by the nations.

  23. lanegab says:
    0
    0

    I claim that there’s nothing humans can do in space that robots can’t do better and cheaper – except tourism. And the taxpayer should not be paying for tourism. For the cost of sending a human to space send hundreds of robots and give every person on the ground gloves and goggles to explore the virtual universe on their own.
    But I liked Keith’s thoughtful piece.

    • DougSpace says:
      0
      0

      For science exploration, harvesting resources, and ISRU construction I would agree. But they cannot do national prestige as well as national astronauts. They can’t do human settlement either. Virtual experience (retiring not just tourism) isn’t as good as going there in person and experiencing 1/6th gravity. Neither can robots wow your peers when they find out that you and your spouse could afford to retire in an exclusive community on the Moon or Mars. Stuff like that.

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        In a way, that sums up fairly well, or shows we need to make some higher level decisions. What’s the whole point? Is it:

        Science exploration
        Harvesting resources
        National prestige
        Human settlement
        Wow[ing] your peers

        Those all imply deeply different targets and methods. Maybe we won’t settle a Mars versus the Moon or astronauts versus robots debate until we agree on the goals. Personally, I’m all for two or three of those goals and wouldn’t mind an everyone-for-themselves approach. But that’s more consistent with private efforts than government policy.

      • hikingmike says:
        0
        0

        I agree with that. But I think starting with robots can get people there quicker and bigger… then all that stuff is still done.

        • DougSpace says:
          0
          0

          I agree. That is why, in my Plan for Sustainable Space Development that I have a Telerobotic Phase first, focused upon the harvesting of lunar polar ice for propellant to drive down cost for all that comes later and to work out bugs on the lander before sending the first crew. After lower cost transportation is established then international crew can do refueled lunar suborbital exploration for the purpose of national prestige. For cost-effective scientific exploration, the landers could do suborbital hops and discharge telerobots. Between the international astronauts and telerobots, the Moon and Mars could be highly explored within, say, 10 years of the first arrival of crew. SpaceDevelopment.org.

    • james w barnard says:
      0
      0

      I don’t care how “intelligent” AI robots can be created, when they break down, it’s still a good thing to have a repair tech handy with a wrench! Before tourism gets started, and for testing the effects of 1/6g on the human body beyond six months, you will have to send government sponsored astronauts up there!
      As far as virtual experience is concerned, do you really think your kids or grandkids would be happier actually going to Disneyland or “experiencing” a trip there virtually? And if you sent a robot instead, no matter how “sensient” you made it, could it actually experience the trip? Even Star Trek’s Cdr Data had trouble feeling what humans did.
      I don’t play golf, but I’d bet there are some folks who would pay whatever it cost to set up a golf course and play 72 holes around Trump-Tranquility Golf Course.
      How about continuing development of nuclear-thermal propulsion systems on the Moon? Do it on the far side and the tree-huggers would never know about it! Then maybe we can get to Mars in a month!
      Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!

      • Daniel Woodard says:
        0
        0

        A generation ago electronics lacked the sheer complexity of the human brain with its trillion synapses, but this is rapidly changing. Today I have difficulty finding any fundamental aspect of biological neuroscience that cannot be duplicated in an artificial construct. Even emotions and self-awareness are ultimately simply a flow of information.

      • Paul451 says:
        0
        0

        I don’t care how “intelligent” AI robots can be created, when they break down, it’s still a good thing to have a repair tech handy with a wrench!

        However, for the cost of that single wrench monkey, you could have sent a dozen or more brand new replacement robots.

        And that gives you the only goal that NASA’s HSF should have. To change that equation. (And not by making robots more expensive, they are too expensive now).

        Lower the price of human space activity until it’s genuinely cheaper to send a human researcher rather than design a billion dollar bespoke robot; at least for anything other than the most repetitive, mundane tasks.

        • james w barnard says:
          0
          0

          I’ll go along with that! But NASA won’t be the one to lower such costs as long as Congress is bent on spending more money than necessary on a “super rocket”, when private industry, with a profit motive involved, will do their best to cut costs.

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      Tourism is funded directly and indirectly at ALL LEVELS of government. From your potato. Harvest festival to a federal museum … roads airlines and airports shipping ports for cruise ships on and on and on. . How many states give tax breaks for theme parks heck even Noah’s ark took in millions. Tourism is the number 1 economic activity of humans.

  24. John Thomas says:
    0
    0

    One thing that’s needed for going to the moon is a plan and good reasons. While I’d like to go back just to go back, we need good reasons such as science base for low gravity human research, far side radio observatory, visual observatory, material research including mining and processing of lunar material.

    Secondary objectives could be construction investigation including subsurface habitats, building materials for both lunar and deep space habitats, methods for transfer of material off surface including electromagnetic.

    • DougSpace says:
      0
      0

      If one can significantly lower the cost of going, it makes it easier to make the rationale. If one lowers the costs then multiple rationales become viable.

      The analogy that I use is that if I were to say, “Hey John, how would you like to go to Tahiti for $2,000?” I could give any number of reasons to go but you would probably defer because of the cost. But if I were to say, “I forgot to mention, I have an extra ticket for free. But could you cover our taxi ride for $20?” You would be crazy not to take such an offer. Any reason to go would be sufficient. So it is a cost / benefit analysis not just a benefit analysis. And we can do some things about the costs.

      In my Plan at SpaceDevelopment.org, the FH would be used to launch a reusable Xeus lander. Telerobots would harvest lunar polar ice. A habitat with regolith covering and an indoor cebtrifuge would allow for extended stays. Recycling would reduce the amount of cargo needing to be shipped. ISRU would provide propellant, water, organics, and metals.

      By my calcs, it would cost about $80 M per seat to send each crew member to the Moon. With a refueled lander, international astronauts could conduct suborbital exploration of the Moon. At those low costs, I believe that most all nations would jump at the opportunity to send their national astronauts to explore the Moon in behalf of their citizens and in their own language. National pride might seem like a superficial reason but at those low prices, it would be a sufficient reason. Wealthy, private individuals wanting to move to the Moon because they think that it would be “cool” to do so could be another sufficient reason, Etc.

  25. Daniel Woodard says:
    0
    0

    The problem symbolized by Keith’s graphic is not just that many adults don’t remember the thrill of the first Moon landing. It is also that many of today’s space enthusiasts don’t remember the overwhelming lack of interest of the American public in spending tax dollars on human spaceflight after Apollo 11 and think that things would be different today. Human spaceflight cannot rely on geopolitical imperatives or the whims of public interest. it must be practical and self-sustaining. That means it must begin with sustainable colonization of LEO. If we cannot make human spaceflight productive and sustainable in LEO, we cannot possibly do it on the Moon or Mars, where costs will be much higher.

    • fcrary says:
      0
      0

      “If we cannot make human spaceflight productive and sustainable in LEO, we cannot possibly do it on the Moon or Mars, where costs will be much higher.”

      I don’t think I’d go that far. In low Earth orbit, there is nothing (other than the ions and electrons I like studying.) The availability of in situ resources is a key issue. Note that essentially no one would seriously consider the idea of a floating “colony” in the middle of the ocean. But crossing oceans to colonize the land on the other side has, historically, been quite productive and sustainable.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
        0
        0

        Yet the mid-ocean is infinitely more habitable than either the Moon or Mars. Even Antarctica has only a handful of semipermanent colonists, and those on the fairly temperate Palmer Penninsula. Alaska and northern Canada, despite vast resources, are largely uninhabited. We are quick to say that ISRU will solve all our problems. This ignores the immense infrastructure required to turn raw materials into all the things we need to live.

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          Again, I agree and disagree. I was not ignoring the difficulty of a Mars or lunar base, compared one in the Arctic or Antarctic. My point was that, compared to empty space, a martian or lunar base does have the advantage of in situ resources. To my mind, that makes it, in order of difficulty for sustainability, the most difficult places on Earth, Mars, the Moon, and empty space. Saying that Mars is easier that empty space doesn’t mean I think it’s as easy as Amundsen-Scott at the South Pole.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
            0
            0

            Mars is harder to colonize than empty space. Vastly so.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            I agree. LEO is rich in energy, as captured by the solar panels of the ISS, and rich in information, as captured by Hubble and the many Earth sensors in LEO. It is gthe rare human who lives entirely on the resources of his plot of ground; our very bricks and nails may be shipped from another continent.

            Moreover, we live in the post-material era, when sophisticated manufacturing (requiring, unfortunately, massive infrastructure) has overtaken any properties of materials,

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            Amudsen-Scott was made possible by the development of modern aircraft that could reduce the cost of resupply and make it feasible, Similar advances are needed for space.

        • hikingmike says:
          0
          0

          We are quick to say that ISRU will solve all our problems. This ignores the immense infrastructure required to turn raw materials into all the things we need to live.

          Use robots. Involve NASA, academia, and companies. Increment. It won’t cost too much relatively. Robot abilities will increase over time. Infrastructure can be built to some degree without people leaving Earth. ISRU can be improved to some degree.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
        0
        0

        “Nothing” in LEO other than a limitless supply of microgravity, vacuum, etc. more cheaply accessed from Earth than anywhere else in space. How quickly we are forgetting some of the principle justifications for ISS.

        Quite a large portion of the world’s energy supply comes from “colonies” in the ‘middle’ of the ocean.
        The most practical concepts for large population “colonies” off the surface of the Earth devised so far are for free flying “colonies” in empty space, not located on any natural body at all.

        • Paul451 says:
          0
          0

          Quite a large portion of the world’s energy supply comes from “colonies” in the ‘middle’ of the ocean.

          Rot. Zero proportion comes from the middle of the ocean. Few rigs have ever gone more than 200 miles offshore. “Mid-gulf”, not “mid-ocean”.

          The most practical concepts for large population “colonies” off the surface of the Earth devised so far are for free flying “colonies” in empty space, not located on any natural body at all.

          They were envisaged as work camps for lunar operations, building SPS using lunar resources. Plus they weren’t really “practical”, as they were intended as a thought-experiment of how large you could build a rotating habitat with realistic materials; then adding details to solve the problems as they arose (precession, lighting, etc.)

        • Nick K says:
          0
          0

          I totally agree, not to mention there is a great deal to be seen from Earth orbit; flights to the planets there will be nothing to see most of the time and even at the planet, why not just send a robotic spacecraft?

        • fcrary says:
          0
          0

          We’re talking about a sustainable presence, and I believe that means replacing imports with in situ resources to the greatest extent possible. Since there is no such thing as a 100% closed life support system, and colony or station on orbit will have to import oxygen, a buffer gas (probably nitrogen), water and whatever you need for food (fertilizer, nutrients for hydroponics, whatever.) Replacement parts for broken equipment, or the raw materials to make then, would have to be imported. Although it would take substantial infrastructure to get rid of (most of) those imports for a lunar or martian colony/base, it’s possible in theory. The same isn’t true on orbit.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            The infrastructure itself requires infrastructure, and a transportation system that would even make it possibe to assemble it all on Mars or the Moon would require higher capacity and lower cost transport than we currently have, which would in turn make infrastructure in LEO easier to support.

            A co-worker was a crewman on a sub tender, they had an extensive machine shop that could fabricate a complex valve for a nuclear sub out of a block of raw metal. But it was a fairly large ship built entirely for maintenance and logistics, and even they couldn’t mine and smelt the metal and other raw materials. The South Pole base goes for six months of the year without supplies, but its hard to see how it can be stretched much beyond that.

      • Vladislaw says:
        0
        0

        I would contend a 3000 passenger plus the 2000 crew cruise ship
        is pretty close to a floating colony ….. smiles

  26. Donald Barker says:
    0
    0

    Keith: “That’s several hundred million Americans waiting to see what I saw in 1969.” is assuming a little too much I think. Given today’s linkage to the mass visual communication technologies and the blurring between fantasy and reality, going back to the moon for these younger generations may not be as psychologically intriguing, motivating or inspiring as to those alive in the 1960s. There is an advancing tech. variable that many people don’t seem to take into consideration. Interactive/communication technology is a double edged tool today, more than any other technology before. It gives access to knowledge for all and yet plays right into our “instant gratification” tendencies – affecting learning and retention in both positive and negative ways.
    And, though I agree with your review of the “revisiting of old places” especially after technological improvements in transportation, recording and presenting (usually decreasing relative costs) data and information have been made. I tell my students: the more you look, the more you see, the less you know. And therefore there is always a reason to look more.

  27. Synthguy says:
    0
    0

    I’d argue that ‘we’ve barely done that’ with regard to the Moon. Six lunar landings do not mean we have explored the Moon. Add to this the potential offered by establishing a permanent human settlement on the lunar surface (supported by a deep space gateway in cislunar space) as a foundation for building up a large, self-sustaining and expanding human presence off-Earth. Add to this, the Moon as a convenient jumping off point for potentially resource rich NEAs…. you get where I’m going.

    At the end of the day, Mars is still there, and what we learn by going back to the Moon, and this time staying will probably give us the ability to get to Mars faster (in terms of travel time), safer, and cheaper, and when we get there, we stay. Oh, and then we keep expanding outwards to the main belt asteroids and the outer planets.

    The worst thing we could do is a ‘flags and footprints’ mission to Mars that might get us there by the 2040s, and maybe we do two or three if we are lucky, and then the funding is cut.

    In any case, this is all moot – the private sector is going back to the Moon, and soon, whether NASA agrees or not.

  28. Vladislaw says:
    0
    0

    I can just imagine if President Obama told Congress. … we are going to the moon… the freedom caucus in the house would have heaped praises on him and raised nasa funding and mitch McConnell would have not fillibustered and would have shouted to the heavens…. because no matter what he proposed Republicans always supported it

    • Daniel Woodard says:
      0
      0

      That’s essentially what happened to commercal crew. The Republicans repeatedly slashed Obama’s requests even though it was a perfect match for the traditional Republican phylosophy, and forced him to fund Constellation even though it appears on the the surface to be exactly the sort of massive government program they nominally oppose.

      That’s what happens when we think of ourselves as Democrats or Republicans first instead of citizens of the galaxy.

      • Michael Spencer says:
        0
        0

        This could be a record for Keith- a post with the most comments. Of course they get buried and probably unread at this depth.

  29. brobof says:
    0
    0

    Excellent post Keith. And a good point. My tuppence. The digital generation will be more interactively involved this time with the Lunakhods. Lots and lots of Lunakhods. Boots and footprints for ESA JAXA CSA and (fingers crossed) CNSA.
    But when it comes to the Moon bots rool!
    Rudy Rucker “Software” applies!

  30. jasondugas says:
    0
    0

    We’re not going back to the moon. We’re not going to Mars. Not with this President, not with the last FIVE Presidents.