Did President Trump Just Cancel The Moon 2024 Thing?
For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2019
Keith’s note: It took NASA 4 hours to translate President Trump’s original tweet …
As @POTUS said, @NASA is using the Moon to send humans to Mars! Right now, @MarsCuriosity and @NASAInSight are on Mars and will soon be joined by the Mars 2020 rover and the Mars helicopter. pic.twitter.com/Br1sTYfNzd
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) June 7, 2019
Sure looks like it.
He’s impulsively done bigger things than that via Twitter. Heck, he once almost declared war on another country via Twitter. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Jim Bridenstine has to say about this.
The moon is a part of Mars. Who knew?
“The Moon is historically part of Greater Mars. This is our final territorial demand!”
As far as I can tell, Trump’s strategy for everything is to sow chaos in order to prevent any “opposition” from being able to create a coherent response to an incoherent state of affairs. However, I don’t see in any way that NASA is a sufficient political target that he even needs to have a strategy like this. Why would he care?
You give Trump way too much credit. He doesn’t have a strategy for ANYTHING. He has the attention span and knowledge of a child. The chaos is a natural result of this.
Yep, he did!
Ya’ll elected him.
Here we go switching directions again…..smh
No, he was watching Fox News and gets everything scrambled up in that “stable genious” mind of his:
https://twitter.com/ddale8/…
He is the President and he said it – so the damage is done. It may not matter that much because it was never a serious proposal. His remarks expose Artemis and the Space Council for what they are – a glitzy sham – an Emperor with no clothes. We have been to this show before and we should stop behaving like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. Lucy is going to keep tee-ing up the ball – saying we are going somewhere – but we need to play a different game – this one is getting us no where.
Translation: They didn’t find enough support in Congress for accelerating the Moon landing to 2024.
Since I was a little bit responsible for the VP’s decision to send us back to the moon, if I may, while sweating bullets here, let me attempt an interpretation of these somewhat imprecise comments by the President. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
I think attempting to make sense of the tweet is probably futile. The more parsimonious explanation is that it is the result of dementia, and no sensible meaning can be found in it.
I’ll partially agree. But maybe not dementia, probably a general lack of attention, combined with a poor command of language. I expect the parenthetical phrase was added by one of his handlers.
I fully agree that attempting to interpret a Trump tweet is a futile effort, one on which we’ve wasted far too many bytes already.
I don’t think any handlers review any of Trump’s tweets before he tweets them.
If he has any handlers going over his tweets, they are less competent than Dan Quayle’s back around 1990. And that’s really saying something.
Yep. And here’s what some of the problems were.
President Trump is realizes NASA is focused on the Moon mission as the ultimate goal while only giving lip service, talk, about going to Mars. The reality is the budget, schedule, expertise and other resources are focused on meeting the moon mission with little focus on the bigger picture of Mars.
When I saw first hand the 5+ years of bickering over Orion window specs I wondered if NASA was even serious about going back to the moon. Two years of purposely not focusing images in testing windows by the JSC contractor imaging experts was truly disheartening- especially when paid again to screw up over and over. JSC engineers refusing to sit in the room with the astronauts and others for technical discussions set back Orion program too. These kind of things were happening across the entire Orion Program. There never seemed to be any sincere drive to meet the Orion schedule. The “complicit liability” policy with contractors the Windows lead at JSC professed took a huge toll on Orion due to double funding of exact same efforts by the management who are in bed with the contractors.
I think President Trump realizes NASA isn’t really even trying to go to Mars. NASA is barely even trying to go back to the moon- dragging feet and perpetual bickering is easier and more profitable.
Also when the boots on mars was the big vision under Bush HQ NASA came to each research center stating that there wouldn’t be much funds because the boots on Mars was going to be done with mostly off the shelf technologies. Essentially NASA was pretending to go to Mars using this ridiculous excuse. For 10 yrs virtually no vision or research to actually try in good faith to do the boot on mars mission. It has been a PR scam since 2001.
NASA only has so much money. They don’t have the budget to pursue both the moon AND Mars at the same time. Trump told them to focus on the moon and that’s what they were doing, until now.
NASA managers at HQ have pushed this vision on each President since announcing boots on Mars under Bush in 2001. Under a Bush boots on Mars HQ actually told the research centers there’s little research needed because mostly off the shelf technologies are needed. Now we all know that’s a lie. Nasa said that because they had no intent to even try to put boots on mars. They spend money on studies and a very expensive cartoon movie to pr going to Mars. When Theranos faked we called it a scam. That’s what it is.
NASA counts on each President letting them pretend to work on going to mars. Maybe PTrump will have the guts to end this practice.
You’re right about the money- but NASA HQ and Bridenstine should sign NASA up for a reasonably challenging 10 year vision. Nasa should never have plannned getting away with a PR scam forever.
They spend money on studies and a very expensive cartoon movie to pr going to Mars. When Theranos faked we called it a scam. That’s what it is.
——-
What I’ve said before is NASA is selling a very expensive bit of science fiction.
Do you think he actually thought of that all by himself? Hah!
Mr. Hickam, I would be much obliged if you could explain why you persuaded the VP to return Americans to the Moon by 2024.
It was NOT Pence’s decision. He doesn’t have the authority. This was Trump’s idea all the way. Pence is just doing what Trump wants.
Dr. Woodard, thank you for the research that you’re doing. Very important! In answer to your question, The VP is a fan of my novel Back to the Moon written some 20 years ago. Although fiction, that novel reflected some of my frustration that we hadn’t gone back and is filled with reasons to go and the VP and I talked about that. So, however the VP reached his decision, I’m glad the moon is back as our priority in space which I have pushed for over many years because I believe our “eighth continent” will provide wealth to the Earth economically, scientifically, and psychologically. It will also not surprise me if life is found in the water on the moon. In any case, we have decades of work to do there. As for Mars, I think it should continue to be explored robotically (and other planets and moons, too) while the technology to fly humans that far out is developed. In that regard, I did suggest to the VP that nuclear rockets become a higher priority for NASA and was thrilled that the VP included that in his speech. On the method to go back to the moon, I have my opinion on that but however we go, let’s just go.
I hope there is no life in the water. But it is something to watch out for. If life is found it would probably result in planetary protection putting it off limits for lunar development.
Planetary protection is not a huge problem. As long as it’s just adding a few hundred million to robotic mission’s, no one really cares. And some institutions actually like the idea of getting more money to deal with it. But the treaty requirements and national laws are pretty vague. A President who could get a few billion out of Congress for “his” space program, or censor government reports on things like climate change, could also easily tell NASA’s office of planetary protection to change their interpretation of the treaties and laws on the subject.
Thanks for the input. I too took the President’s tweet as an indication of frustration at the lack of progress at NASA regarding HSF.
This is the best attempt at a save I’ve seen yet – so congrats, or something.
He just needs a nap
This was instantly a Rorschach Test, but this is probably the best comment here; a thoughtless tweet by an old guy with jet lag who needs a nap.
Are people commenting here being intentionally obtuse?
Yes.
No, the President is just expressing the frustration many folks have about how NASA HSF has wasted the last decades stuck in LEO, making even a rapid return to the Moon seem impossible. It also makes it a necessary intermediate step to going to Mars.
Combined with Administrator Bridenstine’s comments this morning at ISDC that NASA won’t own a lunar lander but would instead just buy it “as a service” it looks more and more like Americans returning to the Moon will have only minimal dependence on NASA.
Mr. Trump seems to be channeling his inner Obama… Trump: “We did that 50 years ago”, Obama: “We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there.“
For someone that has bragged about supposedly having a very high IQ, it is funny how often his supporters have to explain what Trump actually meant to say.
Matula, Trump’s not an emperor, you don’t have to make yourself look silly trying to explain the bizarre things he tweets and says. Have some self-respect.
No, I just grew up in Chicago and saw many business owners like President Trump so I understand them. President Trump is not a professional politician so stop looking for policy clues in everything he tweets. Like most Americans he just finds it amazing how pouring so much money into NASA HSF the last 40 years has produced such dismal results that NASA is struggling to just do today what it did with pride decades ago. If NASA wasn’t a government agency President Trump would be cleaning house now getting rid of the bureaucrats that have clogged it up.
Yes I know, it is really because of 40 years of “pork politics”, but guess what, voters are fed up with that excuse. And space advocates are as well. And now it appears it’s also engineering graduates. Have you seen the recent poll where SpaceX, not NASA, is considered by new graduates as being where they want to work. NASA has fallen from first place where it was last year to fifth place, behind Boeing in the top 20. The world is indeed changing and changing fast.
Again, nothing stopping Trump from removing SES at NASA.
It is sad but not surprising that NASA isn’t viewed as a top place to work. From what I saw, in-house R&D was pretty much being destroyed. The no risk, the study/vugraph package is the product culture has pretty much taken over.
I am all for commercial space. Prospecting and utilizing resources (if it can become feasible economically) on the moon and asteroids robotically makes sense to me.
But SpaceX and Blue Origin are able to do what they do because they are utilizing a mountain of NASA/DOD R&D. There is a reason why private companies weren’t doing this in the 1960’s. I don’t think even Bezos would be willing to spend a million dollars a day (in 1960’s dollars) to fix a combustion instability problem.
And that was what NASA, and NACA, were created to do, basic research that benefits industry and the military. It’s was the Shuttle and ISS that detoured NASA in encouraging them to start doing routine operations in space.
When the Boots on Mars was announced by Bush around 2002, NASA HQ told the research centers that there wouldn’t be much research money because the program offices decided they would mostly need off the shelf technologies.
In 2015 Lightfoot came to NASA LARC with a briefing on out year plans. One astute new hire asked where LaRC was in these plans. Lightfoot State the NASA Programs don’t want to fund the research centers for anything. Some other new hires popped up and explained how they turned down nice job offers to come to LaRC. Crickets was the response from center leadership Steve Jurcyzk and Lisa Rowe. I retired shortly after that.
It’s weird that NASA will pay for everyone’s salaries but just want busy work and proposals. The proposals are picked before even announced. The chief scientist Bushnell doesn’t want to retire because he feels responsible for his empire of favorites. The favorites brag they don’t have to do reports and produce like other projects and just need to look like its way out there ideas- multi-years Lenr for example.
It’s not just the civil servants. Contractors are often worse. One SBIR I was tasked to manage wouldn’t submit paragraph or 2 quarterly reports.Just refused. Turns out the contractor didn’t do the work proposed and would say what they did. Nasa management just got someone else to sign off.
The JSC windows effort on Orion spacecraft. was another fiasco. They operate under “complicit liabilty. They purposely for 2+ years collect camera images of windows- without focusing the camera just to make the windows look worse in performance. Then they spent another 2 years bickering as the analysis made no sense. That’s when we figured out the cameras weren’t focused and JSC knew it.
On the space station the very expensive windows were permanently covered with scratch panes. The windows lead bragged how the scratch panes were permanently bolted instead of removable. All because she had a feud with the astronaut who go his way getting nice expensive 1/4 wave windows to get nice imagery. So the astronauts ended up going over to the russian side to take pictures through their nice windows.
I can go on and on with even more examples. When the backstabbing as NASA affects operational systems – maybe it’s time to close all of NASA if they can’t get their act together. The intentional starving of the research centers indicates its time to either close the research centers or put them to very productive innovative work.
No, even a businessman with no political experience should know better. Sending confusing or mixed messages is not good for a company. Mr. Musk has discovered that. Mr. Trump’s cabinet isn’t as well organized as a children’s street game. He’s tweeted contradictory statements on many occasions (e.g. shifting from Kim Jong-un being a crazy rocket boy to being a nice, resectable statesman within a few months.)
Let’s face it. He may have some good ideas, or he might be the Antichrist. I don’t feel like arguing about that. But he definitely isn’t a “great communicator” like Reagan or an orator in the same league as M. L. King or Cicero.
What really happened is NASA has pitched this to every president starting with a Bush. Okeefe wanted to fund his navy buds to do high level studies under the guise of getting nasa on track. A very very expensive nice cartoon movie was made depicting boots on mars. Research centers funded things like LENR (low energy nuclear reaction) to be the energy source for going to mars. Lenr people didn’t have any expertise and looks like a scam after a lot of money poured in. It was like every all the village idiots were funded at NASA driving out the top people- all pretending to go to Mars. Every President since 2001 has looked the other way letting NASA talk up boots on mars yet funding junk on purpose.
POTUS is saying hey nasa this is what you keep picking as the big vision- do it. Bridenstine Is setting nasa up for a big fall by his Hubris. Bridenstine, if he genuinely cared, should work with nasa to have an achievable goal for 10 years out. I hope nasa gets totally closed down as an agency if they keep this up. The JWT program hurt nasa so much by this screwing around for more obscene profits.
No. The President was ust probably sitting on the toilet and came up with some random thought, like hes done so many other times.
Worse than that – he got his current “strategy”, affecting the lives of thousands of NASA workers, from a few sentences spoken by a commentator on Faux News.
And now, behold President Good Brain’s apologists as they twist themselves into pretzels trying to make this consistent with his prior direction on the matter.
“Well, which is it young fella? You want I should freeze or get down on
the ground? Mean to say, iffen I freeze, I can’t rightly drop. And iffen
I drop, I’m a gonna be in motion.” Raising Arizona
Presumably he thinks going back to the Moon is easy to do after all we did it fifty years ago and it should be even easier now so it shouldn’t be the focus and the thing that NASA is talking about, they should be talking about and focusing on the bigger and harder goals like Mars.
Of course we know that regardless of it being fifty years later it is not easy to land astronauts on the Moon and to do so will require quite a lot of focus, especially to do it in a short timeframe. So I guess the lesson learned is that NASA needs to keep focused on the Moon but make sure that most of the talking is about Mars. If the Moon comes up in discussion, just say “Oh sure we’re going back to the Moon, no biggie”.
You lost us at “ presumably he thinks…”
I interpret this as “work on a lunar exit strategy ASAP.”
I’m pretty annoyed by this tweet. It just reinforces the perception that the US has lost its way on human space exploration. I’m sure NASA will put something out to explain it, but if POTUS is not 100% behind the return to the Moon, it does raise all sorts of questions about the ultimate success of the program.
It’s not just the perception- it’s what’s really going on. I can give many more examples like this one that I know first hand. Watch the congressional hearing on James web telescope- many of those issues are the same across most if not all programs.
POTUS wants nasa to work towards a big vision. Going to Mars was what NASA wa working on under Bush vision too. Nasa administrator was handing out high level studies to his navy buddies and other favorites who didn’t know squat. Other managers followed suit funding junk rather than genuinely working on the vision Bush directed. Same under Obama. That’s milking the the taxpayers- and nothing came out of all that time and money. Look how Bridenstine blew off the president in his response- the long poles in human on mars isn’t mechanical rovers.
If nasa doesn’t want to really send humans to mars as it’s big vision Bridenstine should respectfully push back. Taking the taxpayers money and doing something else while not genuinely working on boot on mars for decades is scamming the taxpayers.
Mr. Trump may have been surprised that accelerating the Moon program would cost money and that there was resistance to paying for it by cuts in the Pell Grant program, which provides very modest educational grants to poor Americans who are striving to better themselves. How can NASA justify its funding by the inspiration it provides to American STEM students when this program is financed by eliminating actual opportunities for poor Americans to get an education?
The initial funds were coming from the Pell grant surplus (I believe running at $9 billion).
I carefully examined the spreadsheets on the Pell Grant website. There are millions of applicants who are “fully qualified” but don’t get anything, few grants go to students with a family income over $20,000, and the average grant is only $2500, not enough to pay for even a year at a community college for a student who can barely put food on the table. The reason there is a surplus is that the Trump Administration has cut aid to poor students by $200 billion. https://www.americanprogres…
The mind boggles at their motivation. Perhaps they feel American industry is better served by an ample supply of poor and uneducated workers desperate to survive.
The reasons for the surplus are more complicated than those who want to take from it will admit or possibly understand.
https://news.vice.com/en_us…
Bottom line here is that if indeed POTUS has changed his mind and is no longer interested in getting US astronauts back to the lunar surface by the end of his supposed second term, and somehow thinks Mars can be achieved quickly (it can’t) then the US truly has lost it’s way.
NASA should strongly push back against Trump’s tweet and make clear the strong case for a return to the Moon in the 2020s. The return to the Moon will teach us so much about how to do human exploration in deep space, beyond LEO; drive technological innovation that will make it easier, quicker, cheaper and safer to get to Mars in the late 2030s / early 2040s; open up new opportunities for US international collaboration on the high-ground in Cislunar space and on the lunar surface; and drive commercial entrepreneurship to the Moon and near-Earth asteroids. It will be important in an astro-strategic sense for defence and national security as well, looking beyond the traditional LEO-GEO perspective.
Bridenstine should make clear to POTUS that if the US gives up on the Moon before its even gotten started, this will be a humiliating retreat from US space leadership for all the world to see, and the blame will be firmly and squarely laid on Trump. That failure will be part of his legacy – forever.
Finally, Bridenstine should make it crystal clear to Trump that if US astronauts don’t go back to the Moon in the 2020s, then it is highly likely that the next humans on the lunar surface will be Chinese Taikonauts in the late 2020s / early 2030s. They will likely be PLA officers given the nature of China’s space program. Make that point to Trump, and let him think about that for a while.
The end result would be a firm re-commitment to a return to the Moon.
Of course Bridenstine should do that – but if he does, he will be sent packing. Look at the history of former cabinet members who attempted to infuse sanity into this Administration. He’s in a tough spot because if he doesn’t do it – he will lose the respect of the aerospace industry.
President Trump didn’t change. Pence and Bridenstine blew off his direction. POTUS is just reasserting who’s president. Bridenstine and Pence didn’t bother to go back to PTump. It’s obvious from Bridenstine’s response he plans to hype the past rover work as working towards boots on mars. We all know the human factors are the hard problems-which gives away nasa is pretending to be trying- basically a middle finger to POTUS rather than come up with a reasonable vision.
Nasa will take the money and drag out going to the mon as much as they can get away with. They’ll even screw up on purpose/malfeasance like JWT and get paid again and again- because it’s more profitable to screw up, falsify data, lie and bicker than do real work that accomplishes real objectives.
Going to the moon when we’ve already done that isn’t really a big vision. It’s sad that nasa punches for a vision they’re only using for PR and scamming purposes.
The goal should be an interplanetary spacefaring nation. Now all goals should have their intervening steps. Steps designed to achieve the goal. Ideally each step should be cost effective.
No It’s simple. Folks who don’t like the President simply don’t want to understand. For example, if he tweeted the Sun raises in the East I am sure those pundits opposed to him will say he is wrong and that it actually rises in the NNE.
So what is your interpretation of “For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago”?
Going to the moon is supposed to be a stepping stone to the bigger vision of going to Mars. NASA is talking like the moon is the big final achievement. Under the Bush days when the boots on MARs was announced HQ told the research centers virtually research is needed because off the shelf technologies was going to solve most everything. Where did the money go? How did all those “studies” contracts paid to the NASA favorites work out? After 15+ years- how has that decision to rely on off the shelf technologies work out? I think the off the shelf nonsense exposed the scam: take the money- spend it on whatever- PR going to Mars-then ask for more money next year.
POTUS is right. NASA should be wrapping up the moon mission and go in 2024. NASA should be focusing on the next steps. Obviously NASA isn’t preparing for the next steps- they’re actually plotting how long they can drag out going to the moon as easy money and profits while waiting for off the shelf technologies to come along to go to MARs. Or maybe NASA will ramp up funding for LENR and other junk science proposed by favorites pretending to go to MARs.
As I wrote above, that NASA should have been a lot wiser on how it’s spent the half trillion or so dollars it’s gotten since Apollo.
I am hoping POTUS chose his words poorly and that what he really meant to say was twofold (1) with the money NASA gets they ought to be able to do a helluvalot more; previously he has said if NASA cannot get a man and woman on the Moon by 2024, then we need a new organization. I agree with him. NASAs human program is in sad shape given the expense of ISS, its limited utilization, and NASAs inability to launch anyone. NASAs organization should have been fixed a long Tim ago. (2) if the Moon is just a part of the bigger plan, then what is the plan? We have yet to hear a reasonable big picture plan and strategy for hat we will do on the Moon or how we re going to learn how to fly to Mars, which so far neither NASA no anyone else know how to do.
Yes! Every president wants to give nasa a big vision to work towards- but it has to be something reasonable. Nasa is happy and pushes this vision to every president starting with Bush- because they get $ for decades without producing. That’s because they don’t want to commit to any real objective.
Nasa and contractors are scamming the tax payers. There isn’t any drive to go to the moon. Eventually we’ll go but look at how long and what cost to repeat going to the moon while pretending to be trying to go to Mars next.
Luna-tic.
There. I have said it.
“Stay focused.”
Unfortunately, staying focused is not only a Trump problem. Focus and forethought are not characteristics of American politics, well, not European either.
You know the more that I think about it the more I think President Trump is right. It’s 2019 and NASA should not have to be debating how it’s going to return to the Moon. We should have had bases there, humans on Mars and be building the first ship to reach the Jupiter system.
And returning to the Moon today should be easy for NASA to do. Unlike the 1960’s there are off the shelf engines to use, advance electronics, stronger and lighter materials, even existing heavy lift rockets like FH, all of which should make building a lunar lander quick and easy. We also know a great deal about the surface of the Moon which was a huge unknown when NASA built the first lander. Yet NASA seems so paralyzed by analysis it’s incapable of even producing a basic plan.
But in fairness it is just not Apollo. I recall an article I read somewhere about the Hoover Dam and how it would take twice as long to build it today. Yes, we have much better machinery to construct it, but it would take a lot longer to do the primarily studies and design it, let alone touch base getting the needed permits to actually start work. Just as with NASA there are far more hoops to jump through to get anything actually productive done.
The leaders of HSF, I would think, are SES. SES can be fired or moved (in fact moving “elite” executives around the government was the intent). So what is stopping Trump? Oh, that’s right, if he actually tried to fix government he wouldn’t be able to run against the “bad” government. What a con job!
No. You’re just finding a way to defend his tweet.
You are just making this up as you go along – and it shows. NASA has a plan to get to the Moon by (about) 2028, so they can do a good plan. But now pence says to speed it up by four years – because of some fantasy about racing China. How could we speed it up? By cutting lots of corners, skipping lots of testing, accepting lots of risk. Possibly killing more astronauts. All so we could land in 2024 – and what is the motivation for that year vs let’s say 2025?
Rational people know that returning to the Moon is NOT easy for anyone to do! Just launching a vehicle with people that deep into space is still an amazing achievement. Landing and returning would each be amazing accomplishments.
Yes, If today’s NASA was running the old Apollo Program we would still be waiting for the first landing…
There is nothing irrational about saying an Apollo-class lunar landing should be easier today than it was in 1961. Half a century of progress does amount to something. Computers are an obvious place to start. A modern toaster oven literally has more CPU power than an Apollo lunar lander. In terms of launch vehicles, the Saturn 1B didn’t fly until 1966, just over three years before the Apollo 11 landing. The Saturn V first launched in November of 1967, less than two year from the Apollo 11 landing. And some of the early launches were a bit shaky. We currently have a launch vehicle with about three times the capacity of a Saturn 1B and slightly less than half the capacity of a Saturn V. We already know all about orbital rendezvous and docking, either in low Earth or lunar orbit. We actually know what the surface of the Moon is like, so Landers don’t need to be designed with large margins to deal with the uncertainties. The list goes on and on. If NASA can’t do an Apollo class landing on five years notice, something is very wrong.
NASA’s past plans have all assumed they would have to do more than an Apollo class landing. The agency has an obsession with follow up project having to be an order of magnitude better than the previous one. But that has stranded human spaceflight in low Earth orbit for half a century. The budget and the political interest just aren’t there. I don’t see what’s wrong with asking NASA just to recreate the capabilities it had half a century ago, and prove that progress really has made it cheaper and easier to do. And I would mind seeing the scientific results from Artemis 2, 3, and 4, even if they are on par with Apollo 18, 19 and 20 could have done.
Not the first time causing me to remember the valuable lesson, in childhood, before the degree, –the story of the scorpion and the frog.
I find it fascinating, but also disconcerting, that the space enthusiast community and the Twitter-verse have lit up over the presidents inarticulate description of the moon vis-a-vis Mars. Yet I’ve not seen a single comment or reply, either here or on Twitter, about the fact that he feels that NASA should be “focused … on Defense …”? I guess $700B just ain’t what it used to be. As for focusing on Science, perhaps that time spent with Prince Charles did have some effect.
I think in his extremely muddled and inarticulate tweet, he was referring to planetary defense. But who knows?
My guess would be something about the Space Force idea, mixed with some vagueness about the fact that NASA is a separate, civilian organization. After all, all those famous astronauts were military test pilots, so isn’t it obvious that NASA is part military? People who express themselves much more clearly than Mr. Trump make that mistake fairly often.
And let’s not forget that NASA has worked with the military in the past, for example on some of the shuttle flights.
That was during the time the shuttle was mandated to be the only US launch vehicle. That ended after the Challenger disaster. Trump would be totally oblivious to that bit of space history. You’re trying too hard to rationalize the utterances of an increasingly senile individual with no intellectual curiosity.
Yeah, I guess that’s plausible. I can see Trump believing that NASA would be involved with the proposed Space Force.
Disconcerting? Why?
The “space enthusiast community” has been tossed about since Apollo by suceeding Administrations incapable of making thoughtful assessments and derived policy. So, even to those of us who are not supporters of the President, I welcomed some policy clarity, only to learn that the President is persuaded most by the last person he heard (in this case, Mr. Cavuto).
Seems as if the moon/Mars part of the tweet was clearly an inarticulate way if asking NASA to stop fixating on the Moon and from a PR standpoint, to talk about it in the larger sense of human exploration and ultimately, settlement of Mars. But the confusion by the President about NASA “focusing” on our nation’s Defense, while troubling in and of itself, was not as disconcerting as the fact that no one was even commenting or questioning that NASA should divert resources or attention to defense. God, I hope not – we’ll not accomplish any exploration goals were that to happen. Perhaps he WAS thinking planetary defense, but I rather doubt it.
I’m not sure of that. There are some ways NASA could improve, when it comes to exploration, which are also very much in line with ideas for protecting military space assets. To a large extent, NASA is currently stuck in an approach of flying a small number of very big, expensive spacecraft which must work. Some people (myself included) think it would be far more efficient and effective to fly a large number of small spacecraft, and not worry too much if 20 or 30% of them failed. Oddly enough, that’s also been suggested for military and national security satellites. If they set themselves up to use a constellation of large number of small satellites, an enemy could disable a bunch of them, and the constellation as a whole would still be able to do its job. That seems like a subject which both NASA and defense concerns could benefit from studying.
“Some people (myself included) think it would be far more efficient and effective to fly a large number of small spacecraft, and not worry too much if 20 or 30% of them failed” Oh you mean like “Better”, “Faster”, “Cheaper”? We tried that, and when a couple of high visibility missions failed (that were NOT part of the BFC missions), NASA went back to full “Risk Averse” stance. The problem is that the publicity follows the failures and not the successes.
Yes and no. Modern CubeSats are a better example. The problem is that Mr. Goldin both failed to deal with the bad publicity competently and by failing to frame the whole “Cheaper, Faster, Better” thing in terms of the program not the mission. It simply doesn’t make sense in terms of individual missions, since a cheaper and faster mission simply isn’t going to be better.
The idea does work and make sense, but only for the overall program. Cheaper means you can fly more missions. Faster means you can have follow-on missions and next generation instruments in five, rather than twenty five, years. That does mean the individual missions are more likely to fail, and the will be less capable when they succeed. But that actually ends up accomplishing more. Twelve Discovery missions, even if a couple of them fail, accomplish more than two completely successful flagship missions.
Having been on the receiving end of a cheaper, better, faster failure…
One thing that is consistently overlooked is the human fallout of those mission failures. The losses are devastating for the people involved – we actually had grief counselors sent in, and there were real worries about suicides when some people just vanished off the face of the Earth afterwards. You have real problems when talented people walk away because they can’t take that kind of repeated damage – and the irony is that the best people who care the most are the hardest hit. It’s all well and good to talk about the health of the “program” when 30% of the birds fail, but it’s another for individuals, who usually sank anywhere from 5-10 years of long, long hours into that specific failure.
That’s another reason Mr. Goldin couldn’t make his idea work. It takes all parts of cheaper, faster, better to be viable. Specifically, you’re talking about what happens when half of someone’s professional life is devoted to a mission which fails.
One solution, the one NASA currently favors, is to make sure missions don’t fail. Except that isn’t possible. Even pulling out all the stops, failure rates are still at the 10% level.
The other solution is to fly many, frequent missions. Enough that no one devoted more than about five years (FTE) to any given mission. Then a failure isn’t over a decade of your career wasted. It’s just a moment to shrug and try again.
But that requires cheaper and faster missions. Possibly an order of magnitude higher than current flight rates. Which is only possible if you get away from the idea of optimizing everything (a habit resulting from every mission being a once in a lifetime opportunity) and avoiding risks at all costs (another habit resulting from every mission being a once in a lifetime opportunity.)
That’s why the whole idea only works as a package and a radical change in approach. If you’ve ever worked with nonlinear optimization problems, you are probably familiar with local rather than global minima. There can be many spots in parameter space which look optimal. A small change in the parameters gives a less optimal solution. So you can think that’s the best solution. But somewhere else in parameter space, there could easily be a much better solution. You could be sitting at the top of a small hill and thinking it’s the highest point around. In fact, there could be really tall mountain nearby.
People are being intentionally obtuse, OrangeManBad and all.
The same people that are complaining that this return to the Moon is just boots on the ground for a vanity project are now also complaining the President wants the return to the Moon to be for something more.
It’s pretty ridiculous.
While this tweet does somewhat undermine what Bridenstine et. al have been trying to accomplish I think people are reading way too much into it.
There is no indication of an actual change in policy. Just a poorly worded attempt to emphasize the Moon is on the path to Mars (among other things) by someone who doesn’t really understand space policy.
When people who actually understand space policy like Pence and Bridenstine are around I suspect the President’s comments will be more clear and disciplined.
It may not represent an actual policy shift, but it was already going to be tough to get the funding to return to the moon. If Trump is not perceived as being 100% behind the effort, it’s not going to go anywhere.
Having had a little more time to think about it, I and a few others jumped to a few conclusions. The lesson with Trump I think is wait a few days or even weeks to find out what he really meant.
Sums up this administration in a nutshell.
Many (most?) past presidents have proposed grand plans for the space program then never mentioned them again nor provided any funding for them. This is the first time a president has proposed a grand plan for the space program, then openly criticized his own plan just a few months later.
The problem with Twitter is you only get so many characters (words), which doesn’t give a whole lot of space (pun intended) for a clear, concise statement. It should be obvious, regardless of how he expressed it, that (if) Mars is the objective, then the Moon must be part of the process! As far as NASA is concerned, they HAVE wasted years and a LOT of money since Apollo! Recall, if you will, that when Apollo was still going on, it was said that we should “be on Mars by 1982”!
The likelihood is that SpaceX, Blue Origin, et al, will be the one to actually put men and women back on the Moon, and develop the infrastructure and the tools that will be absolutely necessary for us to get to Mars. Yes, the commercial sector will need funding from the government (Congress through NASA). But the word coming from “the Head Shed” to NASA had better be “lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!” Otherwise, it will be Taikonauts on the Moon first!
What needs to be more clearly expressed is that neither the Moon, nor Mars, nor Jupiter, not Titan is the ultimate goal of Humankind! These are but waystations along the road to the universe!
Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra! (To the Moon! To Mars! To the Stars!”
Well, you’re completely right about Twitter limiting what you can say. By its very nature, it can not be used to clearly communicate anything complicated. That does not excuse people who insist on using it to try and communicate something complicated. That’s just going to cause confusion and misunderstandings.
You CAN tie tweets together and do long reports that way. I have read quite a few journalists that post 30 – 40 tweets in a ribbon that is tied together a one long post.
Sure. And I can also send messages by radio using Morse code. But I’m not sure why I’d want to do that. (Actually, I can think of one case where I would, but I really hope I’m never end up in that sort of fix.) My point was that Twitter is simply not designed for clear, detailed communications which require more than a few words. Yes, you can force it by stringing together multiple tweets, but (1) I don’t think the current President has ever strung together more than two or three and (2) there are more efficient ways to communicate without quantizing your message into 140 character blocks.
and my point is the orange cheeto could get a PHD to type a coherent message included LONG DETAILED accounts of anything he wanted. He is the president. INSTEAD we get the gold throne ramblings of stable genius .
The text is translated by the translator.
Motto: The Martians did not order this construction.
Premise: Is Mars a planet that will stop the US?
Introduction.
“Trump Space Towers for Mars” – description (comment: Risks and machines on Mars) – NASA Watch “Risk And Exploration Go Hand In Hand”.
Scenario – example:
NASA – coordinates the organization of cargo expeditions to Mars along with the support of space flight missions, starting every 26 months with 10 rocket-cargo space ports.
BUSINESS – company “A”, which has a rocket-cargo and offers transport using NASA ports. Performs an order – export of the construction company “B” (technical means: photovoltaic power plant with storage and charger of electricity, materials and autonomous construction machines, robots equipped with artificial intelligence). The delivery has landed and the company B machines start working on Mars. For example, they build, like in the movie “Elon Musk Mars City by 2050” [3.0 – 3.15] – a cave.
Questions:
1. – Company B paid A for the delivery of material and technical resources to Mars, but what will the construction company have?
2. – Is the investment of company B, sent to work, machines, works and construction materials, and where is the profit?
3. – The clerk will not fly to Mars, no one will check if the construction has been done?
4. – Will NASA supervise the company B undertaking and confirm construction performance?
5. – How will company B prove to its shareholders that the construction was carried out on Mars?
6. – Will construction of the building on Mars by company B be associated with obtaining the right to ownership of the site covered by the construction?
7. – Will NASA issue permits for the construction of objects on Mars?
So, where will the real business be: on Mars or, for example, in the USA?
The Martians did not order construction? Who ordered the construction on Earth?
Company B, which will know how to get a profit from building on Mars, will be an elite company, having a “know how” service to build up meals using autonomous machines on Mars.