Industry Day: Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Acquisition
NASA Preproposal Conference for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Acquisition
Bridenstine says "this will not be Lucy and the football again we are going to the Moon"
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 8, 2018
Is the video of Bridenstine’s full talk online anywhere yet?
“…Lucy and the football…”
Good metaphor. 😉
Its also a good metaphor for getting one’s hopes up with promises of change and then jerking out the football anyway.
Someone is going to the Luna, of that I am certain…after NASA teaches them how and then steps back.
Is it NASA’s job to settle far worlds ? Isn’t NASA’s primary job the science behind such settlements, and the discoveries that can be made there ? Ok, NASA went to the moon as a political objective, but also they proved the technology to go off world. To some extent the issues with going off world are (somewhat) understood (of course new ones will keep appearing), so is the rest “just” engineering ? LOP-G may be a national or international asset, an initial lunar base could be a NASA proof of concept or a commercial prototype. Sure NASA should be interested in using the lunar outposts, to do science; others should be interested for commercial reasons.
btw, liked the metaphor too. Hope Jim isn’t the football ?
A President named Kennedy seemed to think so….
“So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this
State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them.
This country was conquered by those who moved forward–and so will space.”
President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, September 12, 1962
https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh…
He also had this to say about implementing it which is still relevant today.
“New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact, aggravate them further-unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”
https://www.nasa.gov/vision…
President John F. Kennedy May 25, 1961
But then that was when NASA was young and the GI generation believed it could do anything… He would probably be disappointed in the NASA of today, as would President Johnson who created it. Just look how many decades it has taken NASA to just build Orion, and its still no where near flying.
The US has been playing a waiting game in every important arena since the advent of the Southern Strategy, while we decide which way we want to go: an increasingly socialist approach, or relying on the assumption that a rising tide raises all boats, otherwise known as capitalism.
Meanwhile: space suffers. Infrastructure suffers. Education suffers. Environment suffers…
As we refuse to decide, the malaise elects who it will.
Worse, we no longer dream.
My two cents worth:
1) Long overdue. Like 40 years long overdue. Nixon screwed the pooch when he canceled the Saturn V program. All the other excuses for cancellation of Apollo and Saturn are nothing more than Kabuki Theater for the masses by the elites.
What budget considerations? What a crock of poodoo – money was spent anyway on STS development and operation. Imagine what the evolution of the Saturn V launch vehicle would look like today.
We might see S-1-Xs soft-landing at Kennedy, S-II-Xs as orbital refueling stations, and S-IV-Xs completely reusable, and routinely making round trips with payloads BOTH ways between Earth and Moon.
2) Put a stake into the lunar surface, which clearly says, “United States” on it, and OWN IT.
3) Let commercial interests like Blue Origin and SpaceX develop the transportation and delivery capabilities derived from NASA-designed infrastructure requirements.
4) Open up the lunar surface as “new territory” for complete exploration, development, and civilization.
You can absolutely bet that the first commercial organization which discovers *how* to, and implements, a growing and financially successful business model based on lunar resource use will open the floodgates for investment, and complete conquering of our Moon. If we don’t do it, others will.
#2 and #4 are going to be problematic, from a political angle as well (more?) than a technical one.
I’d recommend reading the NASA Watch post and discussion that talked about the “1979 Moon Agreement”. Basically, the UN has declared that that the Moon could be the property of no Nation (or person), and more over, all profits and resources that could be derived from lunar development must be shared with all UN nations. (Note: No space-faring nation has ratified the agreement, but enough other nations–many whose economies are kept from collapse by natural resources–ratified it to make it binding.)
http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
Until that Agreement gets amended or cancelled, I don’t see how anyone can implement a “growing and financially successful business model based on lunar resource use.”
The “Agreement” is dead. Non-space faring nations can’t take advantage of the agreement, and let’s call the the giant elephant in the room what it is – do you truly believe China will abide by it? The Chinese could not care less about the 1979 Agreement. They will go, they will establish colonies, and at some point they will claim Luna as Chinese territory. Just look at what is happneing off the coast of VietNam – there is no diffenrence.
Except for the fact that the South China Sea is on top of some valuable oil deposits. It is also on major trade routes, and valuable for several other reasons. I am confident that China will do what is in China’s best interests (or their government to do what is in their government’s best interests.) With the Moon a source of uncertain uncertainties, I wouldn’t expect China to place the same emphasis on the Moon. (And, yes, lunar resources are uncertain. How much of what, where (exactly) and how easily exploited, are all open questions.)
No, the UN has no authority to order nations to comply with a treaty they did not sign. The most they can do is orchestrate sanctions or authorize other nations to send in troops to enforce a resolution. And the United States (as well as the other four permanent members of the security council) can veto any such resolution. The UN isn’t a world government, or even a regional, partial one like the European Union. The US, for example, has never acknowledged the authority of the World Court in Den Hague, despite the fact the the UN chartered it. If the US can do that, then the US can blow off anything the UN has said about extraterrestrial property rights.
Show me the money. Congress is already telegraphing that they won’t let ISS be cancelled. From a Tweet I saw, Bridenstine mentioned SLS/Orion as part of the transportation architecture. So, where’s the money coming from to actually land people on the moon? I don’t see it.
This is yet another example of yet another grand NASA “plan” whose key problem is lack of funding. Something’s got to give or we’re not going to see astronauts setting foot on the moon in the next 10 years (which is a bit more than the time it took to go from Kennedy’s moon speech to actual astronauts on the moon the first time around).
Apollo/Saturn was part of the Space Race with the Soviet Union. Both the Space Race and the Soviet Union are long gone. Why can’t NASA Administrators seem to get this through their thick skulls? Speeches alone won’t get us to the moon.
There is some money in the budget proposal for lunar public private partnerships, a few hundred million per year. Not much by old space standard, but COTS started with $500M total, so it’s not nothing.
And what exactly does “long term exploration and utilization” really mean? What is the pay off for NASA or a “commercial entity” regarding exploration? Especially in light of ever stretched federal budgets as we get another 100 million citizens by 2040. And what exactly is going to be utilized and by who? Setting up a 7-11 on the moon without customers is a little premature. Inglorious and superficial hand-waiving and emotional elicitation will end sorrowfully and wastefully.
Regarding a 7-11 on the Moon (well, on Mars), see Ray Bradbury’s “The Off Season.”
the pay-off for exploration is the tax income (direct and indirectly) from what is found there, it has ever been thus. Prospectors go first and find signs of valuable resources, VC comes next to develop these resources, once proven CC comes in the continue the harvesting of these resources.
So. Throw the other guys a bone called “CLPS”: as I watched this i envisioned that bone thrown up in the air in the opening sequences of “2001”, a bone that morphed into something else entirely.
Rather than call for RFPs to deliver the enchilada to the moon, NASA is all “move aside; the Big Boys got this”.
The next 10 years are going to be exciting.
Regarding my opinion, below – see the screen shot in the news today, above. The Moon is no different – international law will be ignored, and rendered impotent. We simply must decide whether we will engage the challenge, or sit on the sidelines, reminiscing over “the good old days.”
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…