Bridenstine Focuses On Congressional Relations
After rancorous confirmation fight, NASA’s Bridenstine mends fences with the Democrats who opposed him, USA Today
“In a statement Wednesday to USA TODAY by the agency, Bridenstine made clear his desire to build the congressional relationships he’ll need to propel the Trump administration’s ambitious space agenda including returning astronauts to the moon. “NASA is one of America’s most storied agencies and has long had bipartisan support,” he said. “Just as all previous administrators, I intend to build and maintain great relationships on both sides of the aisle so NASA can continue it’s history-making science, exploration, and discovery missions. Phone calls and meetings on the Hill and at NASA headquarters facilitate these relationships.”
The focus of NASA’s manned space program SHOULD be the Moon – end of story. Mars is a bridge too far – firstly because of funding and secondly because of technology. Bridenstine is right to be a bridge-builder. Moon First!! No matter who is in office…
NASA is not yet on a journey to Moon or Mars. First they need to establish cost effective access to LEO and cis-lunar space. There is no sense trying to go beyond if they have not done that first.
Are you saying that the Moon is a smaller technostep than Mars?
Yes, FH basically gives the US the Moon if NASA designs an architecture around it instead of the SLS. SpaceX could probable ramp up to do monthly, mane even bi-weekly launches with it at $140 million a flight compared to the once a year pace of the SLS at a $billion plus a flight.
Unfortunately, the Moon is probably a dead end for near-term human exploitation, as it does not appear to have the mineral and chemical resources we need to justify the cost of fighting its gravity (weak, but still an expensive complication) to land and take off.
What we really need is VOLATILES, to make an economically attractive go of it. Unfortunately, based on the way it seems to have been formed (as a ring of Earth crustal material, with most volatiles lost to space), it seems unlikely that the volatiles are there in useful abundance and concentration, and none have been found so far. (Platinum, … etc, are likely abundant in asteroidal materials, but the earth-crustal light elements seem unlikely to turn up any Au, Pt, or whatever style high-Z bonanzas there.)
There is the undemonstrated possibility that water ice could make it pay off, but a serious investigation (mining-engineering type — unmanned, Mars Curiosity-style could probably do it…) of the polar regions is needed to demonstrate that, before we invest billions and decades in another major dead end. My impression is that not very many folks actually want to settle on the Moon. And I don’t imagine anyone is dreaming of a self-supporting colony there.
— In contrast to Mars. It is actually cheaper, in terms of mission velocity, to make a round-trip from LEO or HEO to Phobos than to the surface of the Moon. There are excellent prospects of getting a reasonably economic Phobos <-> Mars surface shuttle working, using water ice from Phobos (likely some) or Mars (obviously lots) to make LOX/H2 or CO fuel, so that only an ion-drive cargo ship would be needed to complete the connection from Mars surface to Earth. (OK, I’d sink for a high-powered nuclear-electric passenger ship, for the long trip back and forth, to deal with high-energy cosmic rays and 0-g.)
Phobos, of course, appears to be the perfect place for a Base Camp, to get us established on Mars. I’m not sure about terra-forming Mars, but I am quite sure we can get everything we need (given the solar and/or nuclear energy there) to make a living locally, after a few decades to get local infrastructure in place.
Otherwise we’re just going to end up with more footprints and buggy tracks on the Moon.
So: PHOBOS FIRST !!
“Unfortunately, the Moon is probably a dead end for near-term human exploitation, as it does not appear to have the mineral and chemical resources we need to justify the cost of fighting its gravity (weak, but still an expensive complication) to land and take off.”
Actually the moon has water. You can crack that and get H2 and O2. So that’s rocket propellant (LH2 and LOX) as well as water and oxygen for sustaining human life. So to say that the moon is a dead end is disingenuous. It’s actually a way to get rocket propellant to use for other destinations without having to lift it up earth’s much deeper gravity well.
That’s a big part f the Zubrin argument, and others as well; just crack the water! But there are lots of problems here:
1. Were’s the ice?
2. What’s the density?
3. How do we get a big dozer or whatever to move the ore about?
4. How is the ice purified?
5. How is the resultant stored (a easier bit)?
Also:
6. How do we transmit electric power from always-on mountain tops down to the refinery?
7. Microwaves- really?
8. Etc.
All your points are correct and significant. But I’d also say it’s been done before. Similar issues had to be addressed, when we went from some slimy stuff seeping into a creek in Pennsylvania to having a petroleum based economy. The real problem is how to get funding and support the development work to go from “something useful is somewhere in those rocks” to selling fuel at the spaceport.
I agree it will take time and effort to extract water from the moon and turn it into something useful. But that’s exactly the sort of thing NASA ought to be working on, IMHO. New enabling technologies for the commercial sector, just like NACA did for the US aircraft industry.
SLS/Orion doesn’t have any new enabling technologies within it.
Having real world experience with construction projects, you are well aware that there is a lot more involved than just having a potential resource in the ground. The financing is also critical.
Finally, a NASA Administrator doing the real job of the Administrator, building a good relationship with Congress to get the money needed to accomplish NASA goals.
Mark my words, Congress won’t be willing to significantly increase NASA’s funding. The hope that “a miracle will happen” and Congress will increase NASA’s manned space funding by 2x or more to fund an actual lunar landing program (or Mars landing program) is daft.
NASA needs to figure out how to manage the money it’s getting better than it does today. Commercial cargo proved successful at 1/10th what the NASA cost models predicted and we have two providers currently flying with a third coming online for the second round of commercial cargo.
Commercial crew will also beat Orion into space, again with two providers. Also at a fraction of the cost of Orion.
We need more programs run like commercial cargo and commercial crew instead of the “sole source” contracts we have like SLS and Orion. That’s also a political fight since SLS/Orion is mandated by Congress.
NASA has all the money it needs.
What’s missing is clear-eyed leadership.
Yes, it does have the money to do a lot, but what it needs more than leadership is not having Congress micromanage it.
If Administrator Bridenstine is able to get them to realize they could get a lot more done using commercial space rather than doing it the Old Space way and probably increase the jobs in their district as well he would go down as one of the better Administrators.
As the LOPG debacle shows, NASA has plenty of freedom to pursue the direction in which they think they need to go or want to go. Fact is, LOPG provides an excellent example of the total lack of leadership, starting with an Orion that is not optimized to do anything, to a Service Module, a sizeable portion of Orion, which isn’t even being designed or built by NASA or the US, to the decade of schedule delays, the fact that the leadership which has been so poor for so long is still in there taking us no place.
It is my impression that NASA was required by Congress to build Constellation, which became SLS/Orion, and then required to find a mission fo it. There is no easy answer.
As usual I’ve over-stated; you are quite right about Congress.
I just think that in the big picture, $18B would buy a hell of a space program. And as Mr. Brezinski below points out, the in-house decisions are head scratchers.
NASA does more than just ‘a space program’. There are two A’s in NASA.
An important correction, and one often overlooked, relying on context; thank you.
I agree that there will be little if any more cash for NASA, not should there be. It is not so much a matter of NASA managing the money, though they could be doing a better job of it. They waste so much of what they get; they are not getting the job done. Until they show they can do something with what they get, any additional is just throwing good after bad and they’ll waste even more of it.
Thumbs up. He is taking a good first step.
Gotta give credit where credit is due. That’s a great first step.
Nobody gets ‘credit’ for doing what they are paid to do.
Lots of people try to take credit for doing what they are paid to do. We just shouldn’t let them get away with it.