I am very impressed with how Jim Bridenstine handles meetings like this one. Very few people can speak this well about space topics with the depth of knowledge he has about what’s going on with space. He sounds like he is going to be a great ambassador for NASA when he finds ways to communicate with the public. It’s what’s needed to keep the money flowing.
It is what happens when you have an Administrator who is interested in being an Administrator, not its Chief Scientist or Chief Engineer.
I like his idea of selling naming rights to rockets and spacecraft. Naming rights bring in hundred of millions of dollars to sport franchises. Hopefully the new committee, run by Mike Gold, he added to NAC will determine how the laws governing NASA need to be changed to enable it. (starts around 25 minutes into the tape, naming rights are discussed around 36 minutes into the presentation).
Imagine a Google Space Mission to Saturn or Amazon Lunar Rover in the future.
BTW he barely acknowledged the existence of SLS/Orion. I think he mentioned them once, probably out of politeness. 🙂
Selling naming, or just advertising space, is definitely a viable source of funding. If memory serves, the first Russian launch vehicle to carry a commercial payload had an ad for an Italian insurance company painted on the first stage. (As a first, and since the payload was European, the launch was widely broadcast and lots of potential customers saw the ad.)
Nor is naming limited to commercial companies. The light rail line from downtown Denver to the airport is the “University of Colorado A line”, despite the fact that it doesn’t go anywhere near a University of Colorado campus. The University chipped in and they get value from the naming and the fact that video screens on the train show a mix of arrival times, tourist information and ads about how great the University is. That strikes me as a fine investment in marketing or advertising.
But when it comes to NASA or any federal government agency, there are laws about (or against) that sort of thing. You and I might think it is a fine idea. The NASA Administrator might agree. But I think making it happen requires changes that only an act of Congress can provide.
Yes it does require the Congress to pass a law allowing it, and that is exactly the purpose of the NAC Committee that Administrator Bridenstine created, and which he put Mike Gold in charge of, to determine how to create a law allowing NASA to profit from its brand. And to allow Astronauts to profit from giving endorsements. It’s a brave new direction he is trying to take NASA in, to boldly go where no government agency has gone before in creating alternative revenue flows ?
Fine, but there are reasons why government agencies are not allowed to get outside income. Controlling the funding is one of the critical ways congress can check and balance the executive branch. Allowing an agency to have a source of funding which is outside congressional control compromises those checks and balances.
If NASA used naming and ad placement as a source of funding, NASA would have source of funding which was not subject to congressional, or possibly even presidential, control. Allowing that for any government agency if a very serious matter.
I agree, which is why I have been proposing for years a Lunar Development Corporation as a solution. Modeled after existing government entities like the TVA and Bonneville Power Administration it would be able to engage in just the type of commercial activities Administrator Bridenstine is proposing.
PDF file from Lunar Exploration Analysis Group in 2010.
In addition to using co-branding strategies, media rights and resources development as revenue streams it would be have authority to issue bonds to fund specific projects, all or in part, like the Gateway. As the presentation notes it could also allow easier international participation. It would allow NASA to focus more on science and advanced technology development while it focuses on developing applied technology and duel use infrastructure.
If successful it could be a model for a Mars Development corporation and another for Solar System Resources.
Nice, forceful presentation, but really, Mr, Bridenstine: “Flags and footprints” is a nice soundbite, but the Apollo astronauts also left behind scientific instrumentation that revolutionized our understanding of lunar geodesy and the composition of the solar wind — and thus the history of the solar system, to name only two. I hope this is not an indication of where science lies among the new Administrator’s priorities.
Its a bad and misleading shorthand, and we all know we won’t be staying after some future administration )most likely the next one) decides it’s a waste of money. Considering the enormous deficit hole into which this administration plus Congress has plunged us, it’s unlikely any part of NASA will be protected against serious rollbacks in the next 2 – 6 years.
I don’t see a big rollback in anything other than dollars, and I think that’s what you’re thinking of. But launch costs have gone down substantially in the past few years and promise to continue to decrease. For robotic missions, that means we could, potentially, continue to fly missions of the same quality and at the same frequency, on a substantially lower budget. The new (and still limited) willingness to consider higher risk but much lower cost missions also changes things.
NASA’s budget is already pretty trivial compared to the deficit or debt maintenance. I don’t think that’s going to be a real issue. Even for manned, lunar missions, the trick to sustainable presence isn’t keeping the budgets high. It’s finding a way to do it on a budget that is small enough not to become a target. We do that in Antarctica for all sorts of other, terrestrial field science. Doing it for a human presence on the Moon is a much larger challenge. But I think that’s the right challenge to address. Doing much more than Apollo on an Apollo-level budget isn’t sustainable.
Which is probably one factor in Administrator Bridenstine seeking to create revenue flows independent of tax dollars. Imagine for example networks having to compete for broadcast rights for the next human missions to the Moon or Mars like they do for the Olympics? And of course when the winning network buys the rights they will have every incentive to hype it to earn revenue and thereby making future rights more valuable generating more money for NASA?
Yes, but the US Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit corporation which does not receive federal funding. If it were, there would be a case for free coverage of events our athletes participated in. If, as you have suggested, a government-chartered not-for-profit conducted the Moon and Mars landings, rather than a government agency, there would be fewer (or less justified) objections to selling rights to cover it.
Oh please, one of the reasons NASA has been stuck in the rut it has been in because everything it does has been measured by its science value. NASA is far more the just science and its far past time it started serving those interests as well.
You meant that as satire, right? NASA fell back on science when it had no human spaceflight anywhere ion the horizon other than on rented seats from the other guy. NASA is far more than engineering and human exploration, if you want to look at it that way.
Both exploration (with humans) and exploration with robotics are co-dependent.The taxpayers would never pay for the latter without the former (except maybe HST), and the former might face any number of disasters without the latter.
Which is why NASA needed an Administrator like Rep. Bridenstine who understands that rather than someone who just wants to be Chief Engineer or Scientist. The Adminitrator’s job is to build public support and get funding for NASA, not make decisions on its science or technology. Those need to be left to individual’s in those fields, which is exactly what he stated in his talk.
That isn’t always a good thing. If someone is too focused on the job of building public support and getting funding, he might be biased towards things which are easy to explain and sell. That can also happen within NASA, or in the decadal surveys conducted by the NAS. It leads to an emphasis on things which sound flashy and exciting, while things which seem dull don’t get attention, regardless of their importance.
I’ve previously mentioned that real, serious studies of planetary atmospheres require regular, repeated and continuous observations of more or less the same thing; a global image once an hour repeated forever. But that isn’t “sexy”. Even the Weather Channel doesn’t rely on that sort of data to get good ratings. I hope Mr. Bridenstine doesn’t fall into the trap of supporting work which is easy to explain and market. But it is an easy trap to fall into.
Solar wind measurements had been previously measured by seven Explorer missions (Interplanetary Monitoring Platform or IMP-A to -G), and their ability to measure composition was at least as good as the relevant Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package instruments. Similarly, I’d say the revolution in lunar geology came from the surface images and samples, not the ALSEP instruments. If you’re saying ALSEP makes the Apollo landings some sort of long-term presence, I think that’s stretching it.
I’ve heard from at least one senior (now retired) European solar wind researcher that the Apollo foils gave much better information than any other source before or since. I pressed him pretty hard on it, too.
I’ll admit “composition” is something people in the field don’t always agree about. When I talk about it, I mean things like the He++ to H+ ratio, which affects the plasma physics and is a tracer for different sorts of solar wind conditions. For that, the pre-Apollo IMP spacecraft were fine and possibly better than ASLEP in several respects.
I might say the charge state of heavy ions like oxygen is also interesting, since it tells us something about how the solar wind is accelerated. For that, we have better data from spacecraft like ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer), but that was a post-Apollo mission (1997 to present.)
Other people are interested in cosmochemistry and want to know about isotope ratios. For that, the you really want to collect and return samples to a terrestrial lab. The Apollo foils did that. So did the Genesis mission, although the return capsule crash compromised some (but not all) of their samples.
But I thought you were talking about experiments which were conducted after the astronauts left. The solar wind samples collected on the foils were returned to Earth along with the astronauts. That was what made precise isotope ratio determinations possible. In terms of the instruments left on the Moon and which provided data after the astronauts had left, I don’t think the solar wind results were revolutionary.
I am very impressed with how Jim Bridenstine handles meetings like this one. Very few people can speak this well about space topics with the depth of knowledge he has about what’s going on with space. He sounds like he is going to be a great ambassador for NASA when he finds ways to communicate with the public. It’s what’s needed to keep the money flowing.
It is what happens when you have an Administrator who is interested in being an Administrator, not its Chief Scientist or Chief Engineer.
I like his idea of selling naming rights to rockets and spacecraft. Naming rights bring in hundred of millions of dollars to sport franchises. Hopefully the new committee, run by Mike Gold, he added to NAC will determine how the laws governing NASA need to be changed to enable it. (starts around 25 minutes into the tape, naming rights are discussed around 36 minutes into the presentation).
Imagine a Google Space Mission to Saturn or Amazon Lunar Rover in the future.
BTW he barely acknowledged the existence of SLS/Orion. I think he mentioned them once, probably out of politeness. 🙂
Selling naming, or just advertising space, is definitely a viable source of funding. If memory serves, the first Russian launch vehicle to carry a commercial payload had an ad for an Italian insurance company painted on the first stage. (As a first, and since the payload was European, the launch was widely broadcast and lots of potential customers saw the ad.)
Nor is naming limited to commercial companies. The light rail line from downtown Denver to the airport is the “University of Colorado A line”, despite the fact that it doesn’t go anywhere near a University of Colorado campus. The University chipped in and they get value from the naming and the fact that video screens on the train show a mix of arrival times, tourist information and ads about how great the University is. That strikes me as a fine investment in marketing or advertising.
But when it comes to NASA or any federal government agency, there are laws about (or against) that sort of thing. You and I might think it is a fine idea. The NASA Administrator might agree. But I think making it happen requires changes that only an act of Congress can provide.
Yes it does require the Congress to pass a law allowing it, and that is exactly the purpose of the NAC Committee that Administrator Bridenstine created, and which he put Mike Gold in charge of, to determine how to create a law allowing NASA to profit from its brand. And to allow Astronauts to profit from giving endorsements. It’s a brave new direction he is trying to take NASA in, to boldly go where no government agency has gone before in creating alternative revenue flows ?
Fine, but there are reasons why government agencies are not allowed to get outside income. Controlling the funding is one of the critical ways congress can check and balance the executive branch. Allowing an agency to have a source of funding which is outside congressional control compromises those checks and balances.
If NASA used naming and ad placement as a source of funding, NASA would have source of funding which was not subject to congressional, or possibly even presidential, control. Allowing that for any government agency if a very serious matter.
I agree, which is why I have been proposing for years a Lunar Development Corporation as a solution. Modeled after existing government entities like the TVA and Bonneville Power Administration it would be able to engage in just the type of commercial activities Administrator Bridenstine is proposing.
PDF file from Lunar Exploration Analysis Group in 2010.
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/me…
In addition to using co-branding strategies, media rights and resources development as revenue streams it would be have authority to issue bonds to fund specific projects, all or in part, like the Gateway. As the presentation notes it could also allow easier international participation. It would allow NASA to focus more on science and advanced technology development while it focuses on developing applied technology and duel use infrastructure.
If successful it could be a model for a Mars Development corporation and another for Solar System Resources.
How did the commercial satellites launches on the Space Shuttle work? Where did that money go?
Nice, forceful presentation, but really, Mr, Bridenstine: “Flags and footprints” is a nice soundbite, but the Apollo astronauts also left behind scientific instrumentation that revolutionized our understanding of lunar geodesy and the composition of the solar wind — and thus the history of the solar system, to name only two. I hope this is not an indication of where science lies among the new Administrator’s priorities.
it’s short hand for “we are staying this time”
Its a bad and misleading shorthand, and we all know we won’t be staying after some future administration )most likely the next one) decides it’s a waste of money. Considering the enormous deficit hole into which this administration plus Congress has plunged us, it’s unlikely any part of NASA will be protected against serious rollbacks in the next 2 – 6 years.
I don’t see a big rollback in anything other than dollars, and I think that’s what you’re thinking of. But launch costs have gone down substantially in the past few years and promise to continue to decrease. For robotic missions, that means we could, potentially, continue to fly missions of the same quality and at the same frequency, on a substantially lower budget. The new (and still limited) willingness to consider higher risk but much lower cost missions also changes things.
NASA’s budget is already pretty trivial compared to the deficit or debt maintenance. I don’t think that’s going to be a real issue. Even for manned, lunar missions, the trick to sustainable presence isn’t keeping the budgets high. It’s finding a way to do it on a budget that is small enough not to become a target. We do that in Antarctica for all sorts of other, terrestrial field science. Doing it for a human presence on the Moon is a much larger challenge. But I think that’s the right challenge to address. Doing much more than Apollo on an Apollo-level budget isn’t sustainable.
Which is probably one factor in Administrator Bridenstine seeking to create revenue flows independent of tax dollars. Imagine for example networks having to compete for broadcast rights for the next human missions to the Moon or Mars like they do for the Olympics? And of course when the winning network buys the rights they will have every incentive to hype it to earn revenue and thereby making future rights more valuable generating more money for NASA?
If that’s a Tesla mission to Mars, it could make sense. If it’s a national mission, it belongs to all of us, and the coverage should be pooled.
Why? The Olympics are a symbol of national achievement, but they are not pooled but strongly protect their media rights and brand.
Yes, but the US Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit corporation which does not receive federal funding. If it were, there would be a case for free coverage of events our athletes participated in. If, as you have suggested, a government-chartered not-for-profit conducted the Moon and Mars landings, rather than a government agency, there would be fewer (or less justified) objections to selling rights to cover it.
Oh please, one of the reasons NASA has been stuck in the rut it has been in because everything it does has been measured by its science value. NASA is far more the just science and its far past time it started serving those interests as well.
You meant that as satire, right? NASA fell back on science when it had no human spaceflight anywhere ion the horizon other than on rented seats from the other guy. NASA is far more than engineering and human exploration, if you want to look at it that way.
Both exploration (with humans) and exploration with robotics are co-dependent.The taxpayers would never pay for the latter without the former (except maybe HST), and the former might face any number of disasters without the latter.
Which is why NASA needed an Administrator like Rep. Bridenstine who understands that rather than someone who just wants to be Chief Engineer or Scientist. The Adminitrator’s job is to build public support and get funding for NASA, not make decisions on its science or technology. Those need to be left to individual’s in those fields, which is exactly what he stated in his talk.
That isn’t always a good thing. If someone is too focused on the job of building public support and getting funding, he might be biased towards things which are easy to explain and sell. That can also happen within NASA, or in the decadal surveys conducted by the NAS. It leads to an emphasis on things which sound flashy and exciting, while things which seem dull don’t get attention, regardless of their importance.
I’ve previously mentioned that real, serious studies of planetary atmospheres require regular, repeated and continuous observations of more or less the same thing; a global image once an hour repeated forever. But that isn’t “sexy”. Even the Weather Channel doesn’t rely on that sort of data to get good ratings. I hope Mr. Bridenstine doesn’t fall into the trap of supporting work which is easy to explain and market. But it is an easy trap to fall into.
Solar wind measurements had been previously measured by seven Explorer missions (Interplanetary Monitoring Platform or IMP-A to -G), and their ability to measure composition was at least as good as the relevant Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package instruments. Similarly, I’d say the revolution in lunar geology came from the surface images and samples, not the ALSEP instruments. If you’re saying ALSEP makes the Apollo landings some sort of long-term presence, I think that’s stretching it.
I’ve heard from at least one senior (now retired) European solar wind researcher that the Apollo foils gave much better information than any other source before or since. I pressed him pretty hard on it, too.
I’ll admit “composition” is something people in the field don’t always agree about. When I talk about it, I mean things like the He++ to H+ ratio, which affects the plasma physics and is a tracer for different sorts of solar wind conditions. For that, the pre-Apollo IMP spacecraft were fine and possibly better than ASLEP in several respects.
I might say the charge state of heavy ions like oxygen is also interesting, since it tells us something about how the solar wind is accelerated. For that, we have better data from spacecraft like ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer), but that was a post-Apollo mission (1997 to present.)
Other people are interested in cosmochemistry and want to know about isotope ratios. For that, the you really want to collect and return samples to a terrestrial lab. The Apollo foils did that. So did the Genesis mission, although the return capsule crash compromised some (but not all) of their samples.
But I thought you were talking about experiments which were conducted after the astronauts left. The solar wind samples collected on the foils were returned to Earth along with the astronauts. That was what made precise isotope ratio determinations possible. In terms of the instruments left on the Moon and which provided data after the astronauts had left, I don’t think the solar wind results were revolutionary.