More Semi-Stealthy NASA Presentations On Human Spaceflight
Keith’s note: On 13 June 2018 NASA civil servant John Guidi, Deputy Director of the HEOMD Advanced Exploration Systems Division, participated in a FISO (Future In-Space Operations (FISO) Working Group) telecon. The title of his presentation was “NASA’s Changing Human Spaceflight Exploration plans”. That’s certainly a topic of interest these days, yes?
FISO telecons are run by NASA GSFC civil servant Harley Thronson and Dan Lester at the University of Texas. The PDF of the presentation is here https://fiso.spiritastro.net/telecon/Guidi_6-13-18/Guidi_6-13-18.pdf unless the link does not work. Then maybe you can try this link http://fiso.spiritastro.net/telecon/Guidi_6-13-18/ unless it does not work either. Or maybe you can cut and paste the URL directly into your browser. Or maybe you can use another Internet access method. Tweeting links is a waste of time since they block that too. This is the sort of games that Harley Thronson and Dan Lester play.
The NASA civil servants who regular participate in these telecons do so as part of their official duties. Often times they release information at these FISO telecons that NASA has not officially released elsewhere. NASA PAO never announces these civil servant presentations as they regularly do for other conferences and workshops. So this all happens in semi-stealth mode – if Thronson and Lester let you know in advance or give you access to materials after the fact. If they do not like you then they block your IP address.
So here we are with NASA pivoting back to the Moon again and a presentation by a senior NASA Headquarters representative about NASA’s current plans for returning to the Moon is available to some taxpayers on a private website but not others on an official NASA website. Why isn’t this stuff posted on NASA.gov? Yea, NASA has this whole messaging thing down, doesn’t it?
– Stealth Future In-Space Operations (FISO) Working Group Telecons, earlier post
– Yet Another Stealth NASA Briefing On Mars Mission Concepts, earlier post
I found commercial space participation curiously (conspicuously ?) absent; only SLS is shown ??
If ppt substitute for progress, we’d be there by now !
So much discussion on how and then much flaunting of the word “utilization” without any real meat or true answering of the question “why” or “what” will this “gateway” accomplish that is new or worth the cost that has even already been spent on it. Tools and instruments that need such a specific location in space to support individual pet projects rather than advance understanding needs for human spaceflight or any transition to planetary surfaces. Nothing a large satellite could not accomplish alone. Additionally, The flight rate will barely support NASA’s continuing efforts of keeping a US human space program afloat. And in the end, the 2020 elections will see a complete revamping of goals yet again as shown in the first few slides. So much waste of time, careers and generational inspiration potential.
I think we miss the point.
* Earth GSO, the Earth-Moon Lagrange points (L1, L2, L4, L5), other lunar orbits a bit lower,
* Sun-Earth Lagrange points L1 (Al Gore’s “Triana” satellite), L2 (the choice site for astronomy this century),
* departure and arrival orbits to/from Earth from/to other points in the Solar System, notably Venus, Moon, Mars, Phobos, Deimos, NEOs and the Asteroid Belts,
— on and on, these are “close” to many other destinations — close in the sense of gravitational potential energy, not distance. This is simply because all trails from/to Earth pass through these points making them important just because we happen to live on Earth, ~11.2 km/s in energy below this confluence of orbits near us. So from the point of view of interplanetary flight starting anywhere near Earth, High Earth Orbit is energetically the place to be. Store propellants there, water ice,…, everything likely to be useful in space. The Solar System General Store.
Well, these things will need raw materials, for processing, shaping, etc, into the finished stuff we need. But we don’t want to keep having to go down to Earth surface to get a bag of nails, so tools, computers, a centrifugal blast furnace, whatever would be convenient there. Thus, bring your raw materials to HEO. A little asteroid might be nice. (With a pet volcano to scrub out, for relaxation, perhaps.)
Call it New New York, maybe, or New Shanghai, whatever. Of course there’s plenty of ROOM, everywhere, so convenience — in time, and energy (? what else? Safety, obviously.) — is what we want, not really cubic meters. So I guess it should be kept fairly compact for convenience, with some (little? — as much as needed for healthy long-term occupation) gravity so things stay where you put them. Make it out of standardized modules, each with enough ECS, power, etc to be self-contained in an emergency, and so they can be hooked together easily to expand it or re-arrange things. Have a propulsion module with chemical/and-or/electric propulsion, that can be expanded with additional propellant modules and power modules, so that interconnected modules can be spaceships if you want, for short or longer excursions. (I think we are going to have to be able to service telescopes at Sun/Earth L2 quite soon.) Then put the core there at Earth/Moon L1, and let it grow.
The proposed Gateway seems like a reasonable start for us, as long as it is not so narrowly designed that we have no flexibility for expanding it, or using it for various purposes unforeseen. It seems to be at about the right spot for maximum usefulness. And of course, unlike ISS, it should be designed to be **maintainable indefinitely**, for reasonable costs. That will guarantee we have something to build on. Probably the new ISS should be built out of modules designed to be experimental for use in the Gateway.
Once we have a good start on this expanded Gateway, we’ll have a good start at establishing the basis for permanent human expansion into the Solar System, and beyond. And this time we will be there for the long term.
The timing of the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) (2022) and the end of NASA funding for the ISS (2025) could be beneficial. Supposing that NASA does not find any willing commercial entities that want to take control of the ISS (a reasonable assumption), and that Russia, by some reports, wants to use some of its modules in a new Russian international station, then how about unbolting some of the rest of the ISS and boosting it to, first, HEO, and finally, to lunar orbit, using the brand new PPE? (or maybe more than one PPE) I can imagine right off, two of the integration nodes (Harmony and Tranquility are the newest), the airlock (Quest), and possibly the US lab (Destiny). Keep the Cupola on Tranquility. Keep Canadarm 2, as well as the “hand”. This would be an extremely challenging technical mission (would have to disassemble and dispose of certain elements of ISS on a piece-meal basis, store others in a “parking orbit”) but that alone might make it worth doing, to further develop engineering prowess in space. And, although this disassembly would be expensive, it might be equal to fabricating all new components for the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway.
First of all, humans will not be going to “Venus, Moon, Mars, Phobos, Deimos, NEOs and the Asteroid Belts..” given the current flow of affairs in the US or world. Second, there are no known “recoverable” resources on any of those bodies (except Mars) and if the path of prospecting progress remains as it is it will take decades to amass enough information so as to find appropriate sites to even begin the processes of mining, processing and production, which we have no clue how to really do as of now anyway. Third, doing “science” will never provide enough impetus to get many humans off Earth, as no one has even clearly defined exactly what they will be doing in order to make the endeavor cost worthy. thus the “Gateway” remains a bridge to no where.
What “recoverable”, in this context meaning usable elsewhere in space, resources are on Mars?
I am using the word “recoverable” as a layman’s proxy for the petroleum/mining industries term “Reserves” which dictates many things need to be in place, understood, before anyone ever starts mining/drilling for a resource. On Mars, there is only 1 resource that has been identified in known volumetric quantities that are needed by humans and that is ice. And currently it only exists in that form at the North Pole. Not a place you would land human missions. No other resource exists in this framework and therefor unusable for mining and landing site determination. People really need to stop saying that there are things in space we need to use and lets just go get’em. It does and will not work that way. This is also the very long pole in the tent. And we have not even began talking processing, manufacturing or users.
You are a little behind on your Mars science. They seem to be finding water everywhere they look. Even down to low latitudes.
But if we’re using your definition of “recoverable” to be needed by humans on Mars itself, then you have the air itself. CO2 will be a feedstock for oxygen and fuel production. Additionally, if electric drives dominate interplanetary travel, argon in the Martian atmosphere was expected to be a source.
On the moon you have a high likelihood of water ice (amongst other volatiles) in the permanently shadowed craters. You also have a proven quantity of elemental nickel-iron in the regolith (easily separable with magnets), which advocates believe (and demo on Earth) can be used to create bulk-metal parts and structures.
That elemental metal comes from asteroid impacts. We know that there are metallic asteroids, we also know there are volatile rich asteroids.
My personal definition of “recoverable” is in the commercial sense of mining. A resource has to be able to reach markets in a usable amount at a worthwhile price. Not just that it’s useful locally to reduce the cost of living there. At our level of technology, that limits you to lunar ice and asteroidal materials. The remaining issue is the whether the price of recovery and transport can be reduced to compete with Earth launch. (Or in the case of asteroid metals like PGMs, whether they can compete with Earth mines.)
The only way we’ll know is if we do the work of assaying the resources and developing the technology to extract them. And at this stage of development, when looking at mining, that’s typically a government function. (Basic geology research, blue-sky R&D, university-funded chem-processing work, etc.) Before it gets handed over to industry.
And that’s precisely the work that NASA seems to actively avoid. Instead chasing wrong-headed ideas like SLS/Orion.
Actually I am exactly up to date with both Mars and Lunar science and have presented such at the Space Resources Roundtable and other venues. If you have similar such presentations or work, I would like to see them. And your use of “high Likelihood” and “proven” in your discussion of lunar resources is wrong.
The second link worked for me ..a 38 page power point presentation …
“ends direct federal government support of the
International Space Station in 2025.”
Looking at those slides I can’t help but recall presentations made by the late Steve Jobs. He knew that slides are there to *support* what the speaker is saying. This deck looks like it is the other way around.
Does NASA have some sort of agency award for ppt decks?
“Does NASA have some sort of agency award for ppt decks?”
Promotions.
Flaunting a lot of meaningless words like exploration and utilization. This is a platform/project in search of a mission. There is not a lot of science going on out there now for a reason-its not of much value as a place for science. No one is exploring anything out there; it is simply a mini station out in the middle of nowhere from which no real locations are accessible.
If you want to build anything there is no infrastructure out there and no reason to put the infrastructure out there at all. The source for in situ resource utilization is the Moon, and this LOPG is not on the Moon and not that close to it. There is no reason to place it out in the middle of nowhere except that nowhere is the only place Orion can reach given its inadequate delta-G capability.
It’s like the old joke about the drunk searching under a street light instead of where he actually lost his keys, because the light’s better.
When NASA was supposed to focus on going to Mars and the asteroids, they planned the “Deep Space” Gateway, because it was as far as SLS/Orion could go. Now they’re supposed to being returning to the lunar surface, and they plan “Lunar Orbiting” Platform Gateway, because it is as far as SLS/Orion can go.
They didn’t proofread it very well — slide 9 is a duplicate of slide 6.
No, that’s intentional. The highlighted text (in red) is different on the two slides. Slide 6 is about the FY19 budget, with points about exploration highlighted. Then there are a couple slides about exploration. Then he goes back to the same FY19 budget slide, with the points about LEO and commercialization highlighted, and then follows with more slides about that. Repeating the same slide to return to the big picture is a moderately common presentation technique.
That’s one problem with putting the slides online for the people who couldn’t attend the meeting. It’s a good step in the right direction, but it’s incomplete. There’s more communicated with the spoken words and the flow of the talk, so the slides alone are incomplete.