NASA Is Formally Interested In The SpaceX Starship
NASA Announces US Industry Partnerships to Advance Moon, Mars Technology
“SpaceX will work with Glenn and Marshall to advance technology needed to transfer propellant in orbit, an important step in the development of the company’s Starship space vehicle.”
Draft NASA Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy Launch Vehicle at Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
“Purpose and Need: NASA’s purpose and need for the Proposed Action is to develop and implement formal agreements with SpaceX for use of NASA assets and to provide services and commodities to enable Starship/Super Heavy launches. Commercial use of KSC real property supports NASA’s mandate to encourage the fullest commercial use of space, supports the goals of the National Aeronautics and Space Act, and advances the National Space Policy that federal agencies shall ensure that U.S. Government space technology and infrastructure is made available for commercial use on a reimbursable, noninterference, and equitable basis. The need for the Proposed Action also aligns with NASA’s Space Act Agreement and the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation’s mission, which is to support the U.S. goal of encouraging activities by the private sector to strengthen and expand U.S. space transportation infrastructure. Additionally, the Proposed Action will support NASA in its continued mission to expand commercial uses of space and the space industry by facilitating SpaceX efforts to strengthen United States (U.S.) space transportation and launch infrastructure. It would also provide greater mission capability to NASA and SpaceX by continuing the development of ever evolving next generation launch vehicles and spacecraft. Additionally, the Proposed Action may support NASA in meeting the U.S. goal of near-term lunar exploration.”
“Operation – The SpaceX goal is to eventually launch Starship/Super Heavy approximately 24 times per year. As Starship/Super Heavy launches gradually increase to 24 launches per year, the number of launches of the Falcon would decrease. The Starship and Super Heavy would exceed the lift capabilities of the Falcon Heavy. Due to the higher lift capability, Starship/Super Heavy could launch more payloads and reduce the overall launch cadence when compared to Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. This would increase the cost effectiveness of the space industry. Starship/Super Heavy missions would include Lunar and Mars destinations, currently not supported by any other space vehicle, increased satellite payload missions, and human spaceflight. Missions could range from tests of the launch vehicle and ship, to cargo delivery. The manifest is incomplete at this time but would evolve as the rocket develops. There could be multiple launches in close succession required to support a single mission (i.e., Lunar Program sending multiple payloads to resupply).”
Great progress by Starship Cape team. Started several months behind, but catching up fast. This will be a super fun race to orbit, moon & Mars!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2019
I can’t help but feel that Starship is the equivalent of the first “Jumbo” like the 747 as compared with a 707. I’m happy to see NASA taking interest in the future. I have little confidence that NASA’s spaceship and rocket will go anywhere but Mr. Musk and his team are on a roll and I have very confidence they can get the job done. Ten years ago I doubted I would ever see us move beyond Shuttle or Station, but today I think the future of space access and utilization is right around the corner.
I see NASA can provide facilities for SpaceX to do tests on new materials, seed money for new technologies that may or may not work. It’s as if NASA is becoming NACA that many argue. I remember reading in a forum, maybe it was NW, in 2003 after Columbia accident, someone (Paul Shawcross?) at NASA HQ proposed no longer fly Shuttle, deorbit ISS so all this cuts NASA funding in half. Use the rest to stimulate aerospace technology development.
And refund planetary science and deep-space exploration.
We’ll look back and see Starship as more of a de Havilland Comet than a 747, the first practical ‘spaceliner’, if you will. The 747s of space are yet to come.
I think the 747 example was a good one. Due to its lower cost per seat mile on long distance flights the 747 essentially opened up international air travel to the masses, or at least you no longer had to be a rich “jet-setter” to be able to afford to make long distance international flights. The 747 created a whole new market that eventually led to other even more efficient long range airliners.
Comet as well as the 707 were certainly practical, the Comet unfortunately bearing the brunt of the jet transport learning curve which kept it from being as successful as it could have been. But even the much more successful 707 had a relatively short lifespan as a passenger transport, compared to the much more efficient 747 which only recently ended passenger version production after nearly five decades.
I’m not saying “the masses” will necessarily be riding Starship, the analogy was the impact of lower cost resulting in the opening of new markets, if Starship is as successful as we hope it will be.
I’d say it’s more of a DC-3.
Considering the Starship’s construction. More a Junkers Ju52 than a DC3, IMO.
Even that was better than the old DH-4’s of WWI.
Ju52s are still flying.
Initial Starship landings at LZ-1
Initial Super Heavy landings on ASDS.
Later, a large landing pad at LC-39A
Initial vertical integration by mobile crane, with a fixed crane coming later.
30+ meter high launch platform + cooled flame diverter
Starship propellant mass has has grown to 1,500 metric tonnes
Development of the 67 acre SpaceX Operations Area on Roberts Rd. between VAB and the Visitors Center
Wow…
It had to happen eventually. They needed to launch it from somewhere and if the powers that be allow other behemouths (SLS and Saturn V) they’ll need to allow another. Big changes.
Thanks for the call-outs … is this from the text of Statement (vs the SpaceX written summary above) or from other sources? So will both stages employ horizontal transport from these new operations center … which I will assume will include an integration facility for segments built in LA?
I suspect they won’t be building anything in Los Angeles. Or at least, not refurbishing anything there. A recent article on the next round of commercial cargo contracts (using Dragon 2 for SpaceX) mentioned landing Dragons in the Atlantic is a major advantage. They can refurbish them in Florida and save all the time and trouble of shipping them across the country. I would expect the same logic to hold for Starship/Super Heavy. (And, although I haven’t read through the whole environmental impact report, I think all of those above details are from that document, not a SpaceX summary.)
Yes, the only thing that will be left in LA after the Falcon 9 is retired is the production of the Raptor engines.
From the LC-39A draft Environmental Assessment for Starship.
This is good as they really need a place to flight test that is able to handle really large rockets. Also it is really the only hope NASA has for reaching the Moon.
BTW 24 launches a year, at 150 tons per launch, would represent the ability to put 3.600 tons into LEO each year, the equivalent mass of 7 ISS. This would be compared to only 95 tons each year with the SLS block 1.
“the equivalent mass of 7 ISS.”
ONE Starship has more pressurized volume than ISS.
Why waste all that money on SpaceX when NASA is already developing a one launch a year $1.5 billion per launch using 40 year old technology rocket?
BTW, Bridenstine can effectively kill the SLS program and here’s how:
The recent GAO said NASA hid program overruns by shifting cost without properly adjusting the program baseline. If the baseline is properly adjusted the SLS is at 29% cost overrun. If the program reaches 30% cost overrun then the program requires a reauthorization from Congress. Bridenstine recently testified before Congress that the SLS is going to require more money. If he determines that the 30% is reached (by readjusting NASA’s financial reporting) then project work must stop and reauthorization must happen.
I think reauthorization would fail thus killing the SLS program. I think Bridenstine would have to actually testify that the money NASA receives can be better spent elsewhere. But with the right cover, Congress critter will follow along with whatever Bridenstine proposes.
Orion is almost in the same boat.
“I think reauthorization would fail thus killing the SLS program” Why would reauthorization fail? Would deficit conscious conservative republicans not vote for this?
All you need to do is remind them that President Obama first proposed it in 2010 and it would fail.
I do not recall the white house presenting congress with a funding request for a future space launch system in any budget proposals sent to capital hill.. which budget did President Obama make this request? I thought money bills had to come from the house of representatives not the white house.
Didn’t Senator Shelby and Nelson propose the monster rocket to replace the constellation program that the bi partisan congress refused to keep funding? Isn’t that why it was referred to as the Senate Launch System and not the Obama Launch System?
I remember that 2010 speech by Obama, one of the things he said was a request of additional $3 billion to study a heavy lift launch vehicle and then decide five years later what to do with it (or something of this nature). There were other things mentioned, I also remember the only two on-going items of Constellation was Ares 1 and Orion (Altair disappeared from discussions). Of course all we remember was “been there, done that.”
And to think that was NINE years ago. compare to what was happening in 1969 to what 1960 was (missions, equipment, people, political situations, fashions, etc.)
Do you want to be historically accurate or do you want to get rid of the SLS? You can’t have both. Remember this is Washington we are talking about. Only by associating it with President’s Obama space program, and not the existing Senators, will you gather the support to dump it.
LOL .. that WHOOSH was it going over my head… you are correct.. who needs historical accuracy if we really want to get rid of this boondoggle. So . we have to make it Senator Shelby’s idea .;… have him blame Obama for this disaster… lol .. it would work .. they have no shame..
Of course not – it’s Washington. The guilty get promoted and honored while the innocent get stomped on.??
No. I recall that Obama/Bolden cancelled Constellation (illegally) and Congress threw a temper tantrum and restarted it as SLS/Orion…ramming it down both of their throats.
I do agree with you though. THIS bipolar Congress might not be capable of reauthorization.
And even if it does it may be vetoed…
The President does not have a line item veto. If Congress packages the NASA budget up with other, more important agencies’ budgets, do you really think the President would veto it over something about space?
Probably not, but it would have to packaged with other items he wants.
It all depends on how or if Bridenstine sells it.
“We have commercial suppliers available now then when SLS was started that can support us and we can get more done utilizing those resources rather than financing continued development of SLS.”
Sometimes giving people an opportunity works. It’s more a gut feeling for me.
Because with the present make up of congress it would be perceived as not having any social benefits.
That depends on how much attention it gets. Huge budget overruns on projects with very little value of any sort are common. As long as enough people benefit and they can convince their congressmen to push to continue the program, the rest of Congress tends to turn a blind eye. If the problems get too big, expensive and publicized, that changes. But just a technical, 30% over budget criteria for reapproval isn’t enough for that.
Maybe, but worth a try. I’m not sure Bridenstine has any flexibility here (other than keeping the phony accounting to keep the cost overruns hidden). The way I read the law the Administrator is required to tell Congress and stop work.
Put it on Congress to reauthorize a project 4 years behind schedule and billions over budget with useful alternatives in the wings that are already launching or soon to be launching.
It’s not like the money will just evaporate. It would most likely be appropriated to the same districts doing more value added work. There are still landers to be made, habitats, transfer modules, suits, etc.
Every Falcon Heavy launch sinks another nail into the SLS coffin…even though FH can’t technically compete with it directly, it is proof of concept. Remember Bolden’s words, “Falcon Heavy isn’t real, SLS is” (or words to that effect)? That was three FH launches ago. SpaceX will possibly send people on a free return trip around the Moon before SLS does, in a spacecraft that seats 100 people. Everyone knows how bad that looks for SLS-Orion. Hence, Artemis.
One Starship launch, ONE, will toss the SLS coffin overboard.
“Would deficit conscious conservative Republicans”
That’s a 40 year old technology too.
Hmmm… Looks like the dinosaurs are beginning to acknowledge the existence of those little mammals scurrying around their feet. Except that at least one of the mammals is rapidly evolving into a very large mammoth!
Go SpaceX!
Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!
I see great promise is some of those “small mammals” as well. Rocket Lab’s Electron if a fine launch vehicle for small satellites. Much better than Pegasus or the old, retired Scout. That’s a niche market, but many species have evolved to live in niches and prospered in them.
Wow 24 Super Heavy launches a year…we’re going to run out of payloads to launch.
And NASA will need a lot more astronauts as the 44 active astronauts it has now won’t even fill up half the seats available on each flight.
Actually, if Spaceship/Super Heavy lives up to SpaceX’ claims, NASA may need fewer astronauts. If there are a hundred seats available (or, better, maybe thirty with lots of room for equipment), what would you need astronauts for? SpaceX would be providing flight engineers and flight attendants, and presumably they wouldn’t need pilots. Why have someone put together a free fall experiment and then teach an astronaut how to run it (poorly, since the astronaut isn’t as much of an expert as the person who built it)? Why not just send up the experiment builder? The current system is based on having more experiments than people to run them.
Yep. Space qualified scientists make a lot more sense.
Not only scientists. Technicians of every stripe. If it’s left up to NASA, it will continue to train PhD’s to be plumbers. Time to break out of the mold and do away with Mission Specialist astronauts and just hire somebody to do the job.
Time to be proactive, giving Space Force/Corps the naval rank system. These and larger successors are ships, not cavalry, tanks or trucks. Numerous crewed flights will eventually need SAR capability.
I agree!
It’s also a question of what the job is. From day one, astronauts have been spokesmen and poster boys for NASA. They want astronauts who will say the right things to the press and not say or do things which will create bad press. If you to spend time in bars where people like plumbers hang out after work (not to single out plumbers, but you did use them as an example) and eavesdrop on the conversations, you’ll hear things that would make a media relations professional cringe. Real people are not who you want giving press intreviews and representing your organization. I have no problem with real people talking like real people. But that isn’t what NASA expects from the people they send into space. Fortunately, that problem will solve itself when we are able to send larger numbers of people into space. Once that’s not “special”, the press relations aspect should disappear.
Ha. I think I may know a different set of plumbers than you do. One of my best friends is a plumber and takes a couple of months off every year to sail the Med. Another is an Italian immigrant who will plumb your house, no problem, but also owns condos in the Virgin Islands and Florida. I trained the astronauts for 20 years and count many of them as my friends but, except for a few exceptional exceptions, have not found them much better spoken on average than so many plumbers, miners, electricians, and construction workers I’ve known over the years who also deal with customers, the public, and people in general. And I’ve also found that blue-collar workers are often more well-read and versed in life in general than some of the astronauts who’ve spent most of their lives in grad school or labs focusing on their technical studies without much social interaction. One of the worst and ticklish jobs I had to do a couple of times was to bring a newbie astronaut down to earth before they’d ever left the earth. Wearing a blue suit, I had to explain, doesn’t make you a hero until you are one so please dial it back a notch during meetings with NASA personnel and contractors because they were doing their jobs while you were still in grade school. And I cringed many times during press conferences for some of my crew when they flubbed their answers or tried to be too cute at the expense of their other crew members and I could see the resentment boiling and knew trouble was ahead between them. People are people. A couple of the crews I trained could’ve benefited greatly by having a fellow on board who’d spent his life fixing things, had his ego in check, and was just happy to be there.
PS – I’ve also hung out in bars with astronauts after a long work day and their conversations are somewhat, shall we say, relaxed.
You are teasing here, aren’t you?…the issue isn’t so much about how anybody is paid; it’s more about the panache.
A lot of NASA support (here I am guessing something I think to be obviously true, but maybe not) from the stature of the astronauts. This transfers readily to the entire HSF program. What happens if these Astronauts are no longer the special human beings that NASA has so carefully crafted? Is HSF similarly decremented?
Similar to the maturing aviation industry of the 1950’s, the time for the Lindberghs of space has passed. To hold back an entire industry so school kids will have someone to idolize is probably not wise. Along the same vein, if we have a Congress that will only fund HSF so astronauts in Houston are available for public relations, we may have a political and policy situation that is something less than ideal.
In the 1950s, we did have people like Yeager. Who, oh, wasn’t really known to the public until years later. And who probably wasn’t someone you’d want to put in front of a camera (at least not back then) and was definitely not the sort of person NASA was interested in as an astronaut (a feeling which was, as I understand it, mutual.) Yes, that needs to change. But I’m not confident NASA is willing or able to make that change.
I obviously wrote that poorly. Let me try again. NASA is looking for astronauts who look good on camera and say the right things to the media. It was a selection criteria for astronauts candidates, and I think it still is (officially or not.) Astronauts are trained about what they can say and do in front of the press. The training might not sink in, but they at least try. Test pilots fit the image they are looking for. So do scientists. Construction workers (or plumbers) don’t. That’s not about reality, it’s about public perception and the image NASA wants to project.
And, to some extent, the PhD might help: Many universities have mandatory training on the things you can and can not say or do at work. I don’t think that’s common for blue collar jobs. And that might be the only thing relevant about requiring a PhD. Oddly, NASA treats it as a box candidates have to have checked. Once selected, the work an astronaut is assigned has no particular relation to the field they got a degree in. You end up with PhD astronomers conducting free fall biology experiments. (Ok, correlation between assigned work and academic field, but it isn’t a terribly strong one.)
As far as NASA astronauts “saying the right things to the press” is concerned, IIRC, when Gus Grissom was visiting the Martin-Marietta plant in Denver, where the Gemini Titan boosters were being built, he wasn’t the most articulate individual. He just said to the assembled workers, “Do good work!” (With all due respect to his memory and my conversation with him at the Holiday Inn swimming pool, before his Mercury-Redstone flight in 1961!)
In point of fact, are passengers boarding a commercial airliner required to be interviewed by the press?
Well, NASA astronauts have been inarticulate on many occasions and said some stupid things on many more. But NASA does try to avoid selecting people they think will make that sort of mistake. The important part is “they think” and what sort of mistakes they are worried about. I think the people at NASA who make the selections have a preconceived notion or stereotype about what astronauts should be like, and that’s about image and how they will interact with the press. That’s an obstacle to sending blue collar workers of the sort Mr. Hickam and I would like to see.
You’ve made that point several times, and while it makes sense, it’s a huge step. It’s hard to imagine this sort of change to the Astronaut Office, especially after the necessary precursor of favoring the SX approach to SLS.
One approach would effectively decrement NASA astronauts by making the Office the ‘over-seer’ responsible for hiring the plumbers. This way, they retain the professional respect so important to them, and to NASA; and a reasonable argument could be made that they are the best selectors and trainers of the plumbers.
Never underestimate the power of a government bureaucracy to ignore a changing world. More likely NASA will just continue to train astronauts for its future Mars missions, and send them with much fanfare to the ISS and Gateway to prepare them for Mars. Remember, as much as Elon Musk might like to go to Mars, the Planetary Protection Office at NASA will prevent it, to “protect” Mars, using every legal, bureacratic and public relations trick in the book. You already are seeing articles about how bad it is that “dirty” imperial capitalists want to “loot” another world.
That is why SpaceX will just need to be happy getting rich from industralizing/settlement of the Moon and mining asteroids. It’s all that it will be allowed to do. And NASA will be fine with that as the Moon is old stuff to then. A barren useless rock. “Been there, done that”
Well, if NASA takes that approach, they will not be able to recruit the best and brightest. There are already people involved in commercial spaceflight because they want to be astronauts and the flight opportunities for NASA astronauts are just not there. That’s a good way to just get left behind, like the State Department’s Antarctic Service. I think it actually still exists on paper. Does anyone know? Or, more to the point, does anyone care?
They already don’t necessarily recruit the best and the brightest. The astronaut office makes the final determination on who will join their ranks meaning they are looking for a person who fits a certain mode and will play well with the others already there. That’s why there are siblings chosen and some from the training ranks that the astronauts already know. This isn’t inherently bad but it should be understood that neither “best” or “brightest” is the top requirement when it comes time to choose from all those who apply.
I couldn’t find under the Antarctic Service under the State Department’s website, so perhaps it was rolled into the office of Ocean and Polar Affairs. I did find this travel advisory on their website.
https://travel.state.gov/co…
“Exercise increased caution in Antarctica due to environmental hazards posed by extreme and unpredictable weather.
The U.S. government is unable to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Antarctica as the U.S government does not have an embassy or consulate in Antarctica.”
I wonder how long before they add a similar advisory for the Moon. 🙂
Now the U.S. does have an Antarctic Program, but NSF has been running it for decades.
Thanks for checking. John Behrendt, in his memoir, Innocents on the Ice, mentioned that the Antarctic Service still existed on paper, but with no staff or funding. But that was at the time he wrote it in the 1990s. (His book, by the way, is a good one about the psychological issues of a poorly managed base in a harsh climate, and his second book, The Ninth Circle, is a good one about risks and people’s attitudes towards them, when doing scientific exploration in a harsh climate.)
The standard warnings from the State Department can be a bit of a joke. My employer forwards them to me when I travel to international conferences. I am so relieved to hear I don’t have to worry about maleria when I go to Switzerland. Or that the tap water in Germany is safe to drink. I do chuckle when they say Italy has a stable, functional democracy, just because the news makes me think they should tack on“mostly” in front of those adjectives. But those warnings also include things about expected rail or aviation strikes, or protests likely to end up being riots. I have found that to be useful. And if I we’re going to some place in the tropics, the note about maleria is something I might also appreciate.
I get the point you are making here, Professor. At the same time, I’m convinced that ‘taking the high road’ when offered a choice is mostly the better choice. When NASA sends out these stellar individuals, each with head high, an important statement is made.
At the same time, Mr. Hickman is exactly correct about the individuals needed in future.
Yes, NASA needs to be the Corps of Exploration and leave the development of launch vehicles, space stations and moon bases to others.
Oil rig wildcats? ?
Or engineers. There are some good experiments that are more about how to build things which work than about basic science. But I would question what “space qualified” should mean. For Antarctic field work, they just require passing a physical and sitting through a few days of safety and orientation lectures. Plus a one or two day field course once they get to McMurdo. It’s not like we’re talking about high levels of physical fitness and really bad eyes plus glasses are fine.
I guess I’d see space-qualified as equivalent to whatever you need to demonstrate to overwinter at McMurdo. Maybe a maximum mass as well since even with Starship that will be a constraint. Might be interesting to see about rating on baseline consumption of oxygen?
Oddly, that sort of criteria would also help diversity. A number of people have pointed out that, in terms of mass and metabolic rate (which means both oxygen and food consumption), women would be better astronauts than men. Not always, of course, but on average.
And them, maybe, we could also turn the thermostat up a few degrees. (Yes, it’s not just a urban myth or a habitual complaint. A comfortable room temperature does depend on someone’s metabolic rate and the standard for office building was set by a fifty year old study about the median comfortable temperature for men.)
Regarding training for Antarctic field work, some years ago a magazine article about kind of person that endures a winter stay at the south pole: Slobs psychologically endure better than neatniks.
I’m not surprised. That’s consistent with other studies and conversations with people who have wintered over. I think it’s not exactly about neatness, but more about the sort of person who wants to be in detailed, meticulous control of his environment. There have been problems with people who insist on punctuality, or (back when logistical support was from the military) formal, military demeanor. Of course, you don’t want people to be too sloppy, either Antarctica or in space, but the sort of person who gets twitchy when a picture is hanging a little crocked is not a good choice.
Blasphemy!!! Everyone knows that only trained astronauts with extensive aerospace experience are able to work in space! Imagine thinking mere mortals could do such work… ?
Yes, but… There are plenty of people who wouldn’t take you comment as sarcasm. There is a view that NASA is supposed to inspire, and that that means the people NASA sends into space have to be special, extraordinary and, well, heros the public will worship like movie stars or the best athletes. I personally don’t like that sort of hero worship. I think inspiring young people means letting them know that this is something they can do when they grow up. But the ingrained idea that NASA astronauts have to be special to be inspiring is real. And it as harmful as the idea that you need a big rocket to be, well, potent.
Both of course have their roots in the space race when we had to show our champions were better the Soviet’s champions were. No different than the culture belief at NASA it must always be focused on seeking firsts, like Mars, and not simply going back to somewhere is was before, like the Moon.
While there will be a continuing need for some NASA astronauts, pilots and scientists, I think the handwriting is on the wall. The days of NASA-government run human space flight are over. With that will come commercially sponsored astronauts.
This isn’t the first time this has been posited. Yet until we have a true space economy there is no earthly reason beyond hyperrich tourism for commercial human spaceflight. For one thing there simply is no destination.
Unlike earlier times we can explore and exploit remotely. Would a human presence be better? Assuredly, but the cost would be orders of magnitude higher and the ROI thus considerably less. What commercial entity would willingly take on such a task? Until the delta cost of moving live bodies into the commercial line is marginal it won’t happen. So NASA Astronauts have nothing to fear in that regard.
But yes, the broader point is well made the right stuff has gone elsewhere.
Let’s see how the InSight lander’s HP3 instrument does. It’s supposed to drill or dig itself down to a depth of 5 meters, and it’s currently stuck at 0.3 meters. Until then, I’ll reserve judgement on how well robots can do on their own.
In 1990, .3m is about how deep a robotic probe drill test went, on our site in Oregon, with a Rockwell engineer there to set it on the ground. We got some data from the test, and drew some conclusions, but there was no repeat. IMHO, whether humans are there or not, when equipment is prying, poking, drilling or melting a sample, a person truly experienced in both the equipment and the basic civil engineering of whatever is being done will be an enormous asset on site. It will be some time before A.I. will be dealing successfully with that.
Not sure the point here. That robots sometimes fail is still not a business case for a several orders of magnitude higher investment. Bear in mind the point in play here is the commercial attractiveness of human space flight. Not the desirability of HSF in general.
It’s not a question of “some” robots failing. I don’t think there is a single case of successful, automated drilling to any real depth, on any planetary mission, ever.
But that is beside the point. I guess I’d say the point is that we aren’t talking about an all or nothing proposition. Clearly, an asteroid mine wouldn’t be viable if all the work were done by people going out in spacesuits with picks and shovels. But, in my opinion, it’s equally clear that a completely automated mine is _way_ beyond the state of the art.
That means the question is how much human intervention is needed to make the operation technically viable, and is that level of involvement still financially viable? If it’s two people supervising a thousand robots, and giving a drill the occasional kick when necessary, then that might be financially viable. If most of the supervision and trouble shooting can be done by teleoperation, that’s even better. But I don’t think you can take people out of the loop entirely, and I don’t think you can teleoperate at multi-minute light delays with the sort of robots we’ve sent into space so far.
Or on Earth as the firm Rio Tinto is learning with their iron mine in the Australian outback. Some task automated well, some need to be done by teleoperation and some need staff on site. And you need strict procedures for guiding how the humans on site interact with the robots to prevent accidents.
As it is they were still able to move the vast majority of the workforce to Perth and Sydney, saving a lot of money, but they still need some boots on the ground to make it work. Space mining will be no different. That is why asteroid mining is impractical at the moment, but lunar mining is using the Rio Tinto model for guidance.
Just to circle back to the core of this thread; that we are on the cusp of some breakthrough in commercial human spaceflight. We all want that. It is the shining city on the hill for most of us but it is not near. I cannot see the human space exploration being privatized anytime soon. Padding your manifest of hyper-rich tourists with NASA astronauts on a fee for service basis is only commercial human spaceflight in a very jejune way. Wishing for it and pushing for it now is all well and good but without a strong commercial foundation it is simply enthusiasm and will be dismissed as such. There is nowhere for them go and nothing for them to do other than mess about up there Instagramming. Can’t wait for the first “Influencer” to try an blag a free ride from SpaceX! Mastering the robotics and automated systems to start revenue generation in space is relatively low risk, in the grander scheme of things. And would set up the infrastructure; physical, institutional and financial, that would enable true commercial human spaceflight. Then we would really end up with ‘plumbers in space’. I think we are a few generations from that point though.
While in my professional capacity I am obliged to cast a prejudicially jaundiced eye on mechanisms in space, I have worked a little with space applications of robotics over the years and I don’t recognize the picture you are painting. Exhibit A: Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity. Every satellite up there is more or less a semi autonomous robot and almost every one is carrying mechanisms too. Also those in GEO are largely outside the protection of the VARB. So I find your characterization to be overly negative and I contend that investment and exploitation of robotics would cost many orders of magnitude less than commercial HSF and the consequences of the necessary failures would be much more tractable. The lesson capture problem would be untroubled by the moral question of hazarding human life in pursuit of third party profits. YMMV
That mission was poorly planned to not be able to pick up the drill and move it to another location. What are the odds that there will be a rock under the one and only place you’re set up to drill?
I’ve never had much faith in automated drilling into real surfaces. Possible because grew up around former field geophysicists who’s work involved drilling lots of holes in real surfaces.
But my understanding of the InSight/HP3 is that the surface is actually too soft, not that they hit a rock. The mechanism requires a certain amount of friction with regolith, and if the surface is too soft and powdery, it won’t move. They may have made a mistake by selecting the most rock-free landing site they could.
By the way, I also lack faith in pre-flight tests of all sorts. You inevitably end up with situations where the test setup isn’t quite right, and someone has to fiddle around a little to make things work. Things are done on a tight schedule and the goal of the tests is, in practice, to prove the hardware satisfies requirements. That generally means people fiddle around until it works, and then declare victory. It’s not too common to go back and redo the tests in a hands-off, no-fiddling manner. On top of that, any planned test involves the sort of controlled conditions which do not exist in the field.
They need SpaceX people to test it out … and if astronauts = NASA staff then we don’t want astronauts.
NASA staff will force SpaceX to go down that Crew Dragon route again. No, we want a few on board SpaceX technical folks and passengers.
Many will be tanker flights to refuel Starship in orbit.
And Musk has already said the v2.0 StarLink satellites would be launched on Starship.
Parking orbit – fuel modules, gases, solar panel modules…why throw away non consigned lift capacity? If you can put it in a reasonably useful location it is like a piggy bank.
I don’t think so, but NASA’s process for funding flight hardware is going to implode. One of the things they currently do, as part of the selection process, is an independent cost estimate. That’s a good thing, because they need to make sure the proposed budget is realistic. But the current cost models extrapolate from past missions. Based on that, the cost of the payload is proportional to it’s mass. Almost linearly, if memory serves. That’s how it’s always been. Given twice the mass, the experimenters have traditionally tried to cram in twice the capability.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, and if we really are looking at 24 flights per year at 100,000 kg payload each, it won’t stay that way. Given twice the mass, an experimenter could build something with the same capabilities for a much lower cost. It saves all the time and effort which usually goes into optimizing and miniaturizing the hardware. I could fly the sort of high-end, modern computers which are radiation soft and would fry in under a day in the space environment. I’d put in a box with five inches of lead on all sides, and everything would be fine. In fact, I’d also just do a ball park estimate to see if five inches of lead is the right choice, not detailed modeling to see if 4.7 inches would do, or if I should use tantalum rather than lead. It would be more massive that radiation hard, flight rated electronics. It might have a larger volume. But it would be cheaper and I’d actually get more computational power.
With that approach, I don’t think we’ll have trouble finding 2400 tonnes of payload per year. But a large fraction of the people in the field are going to have trouble shifting to that way of thinking. Actually, I expect some people will simply refuse to change their approach and some people’s heads will explode.
You could also imagine the type of exploration missions you could do to the outer Solar System with 100,000 kg or even 200,000 kg of mass. Not just fly-bys, but possibly mulitple landers on the Moons of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto… Whole new options for exploring whole new worlds will be opened up, and you don’t even need a crew version, the Starship being planned for satellite deployment would be adaquate for such missions.
And the wild card no one is talking about. The low risk portion of the SHS development. Just imagine the type of payloads the Super Heavy booster could put into LEO on an expendable upper stage. Everyone’s eyes are on the Starship, but the Super Heavy, a NOVA Class reusable booster, creates a whole universe of options all by itself. What could you do with 300,000 kg to LEO? Maybe 400,000/kg? With a 12 Meter wide faring.
Honestly, the flight rates and cost may be more important for planetary science, not the mass to orbit. Small, robotic spacecraft are find for the job. The problem is that they are rare and expensive (although the two go hand in hand.) So scientists tend to think of a specific mission as an once in a lifetime opportunity. And try to make it do everything, and cram as much capability in as possible. For Earth-orbiting projects, it’s not quite as bad, but that attitude is still there to a lesser extent.
Increasing the available mass might not help that. I’ve seen what some planetary scientists think of when they’re told they could fly on an SLS. Not just Europa, at one point people got the idea that robotic, planetary missions of all sorts might fly on SLS. It wasn’t pretty.
Small payloads but direct trajectories. Maybe haul along bigger fuel tanks for insertion and orbital maneuvers.
Sure. There are plenty of good ways to use more mass. But there are also plenty of bad ways to use more mass. Given a launch vehicle with five times the capacity of current ones, there are people who would want to do it in a conventional way. Instead of flying a $3 billion dollar flagship mission, fly a $15 billion dollar super-flagship mission. That flows from the logic that the mission, or any planetary mission, is a once in a lifetime opportunity and it would be incredibly stupid not to make the most of it. I’d rather use that big increase in mass, the higher flight rates and the lower cost to fly much less optimized, $500 million missions more frequently. But that means getting away from the mindset of missions being rare, unique opportunities. I think lower cost launch vehicles flying more often contribute more to that that big payloads.
Yup….and Musk has already tweeted about an expendable Starship-based upper stage for Super Heavy. No leg/fins, a 40t dry mass, solely for the purpose of delivering maximum deltaV. Probably much like StarHopper.
Flood a zone with probes….
Someone get Ad Astra and those NASA Kilopower guys on the phone. I have an idea….
Kidding aside, the day of high-output ion engines is coming soon: to be tested on Gateway. Problem is getting them and their hefty power sources out of the atmosphere and deep end of the gravity well. All this talk of returning to the Uranus and Neptune and touring the Jovian Moons, you really need something more efficient than a chemical rocket, if you don’t want to waste decades in transit. Not to mention cutting down the flight-time to Mars for astronauts.
More power to SpaceX if they can fly Mars-Direct with a Starship, but I’d love to eventually see something more like the ship from Avatar with a Starship (or two) attached as landing / ascent vehicles. However, it will still take a big [Falcon] rocket to get the massive chucks of such a spaceship into orbit for final assembly.
Heck, cross fingers, the Skunkworks Energy Division will hit break-even on their 100 MW Fusion reactor that fits in a truck trailer, and then you’ll really be cooking, but all the electricity in the world won’t make taking off any planet feasible for an ion engine (sorry Millennium Falcon…you have repulsorlifts).
That’s where a cargo-only Starship (shoot…Starlifter’s already taken by the C-141) comes in.
Someone is finally smellin’ the coffee….
Well, NASA is the “Lead Agency” so they really don’t have a choice once SpaceX filed the Environmental Assessment. I view this as not necessarily an endorsement, but an agreement to do their duty and perform the response to the EA. The title is misleading, this is not a NASA EA, it is a SpaceX EA and is waiting for a NASA response. Having said that, this EA was supposedly compiled as a joint exercise between SpaceX and NASA, and so I am sure there will be no “hick-ups”.
It’s not a question of those who fly having not having any training, but of not spending years on it. It’s simply not going to be practical when thousands start working in space every year. Really, does a teacher going into space really need to be trained as a jet pilot?
In terms of solutions, perhaps the military has a good model, Four year academies for those targeted to reach top leader positions and boot camps for the rest. Maybe a four year space academy to train those who will lead, both in government and in private ventures, the missions, the bases, the settlements and the equivalent of boot camp for those who will work at the many jobs required. Does someone need to be an astronaut to run the kitchen at a Moon base?
This entire episode can be subjected to spin in many ways. But in the end, our new Administrator has given us very badly needed: well-considered and thoughtful leadership.
It’s also quite brave. An in-depth book is sorely needed.
Yes, I have to agree, its as though over the last 15 years there has been zero leadership.
Jim Bridenstine is like the Energizer Bunny. He also has injected new life into NASA, via inspirational leadership. I also will give major credit to VP Pence, and to POTUS, for the renewed focus and energy on human spaceflight, and crash program to get Americans back to the Moon (with a near future Mars mission becoming an increasingly real prospect).
I would not characterize this as NASA is now “formally” interested in using Starliner. I suggest this is about NASA doing the paperwork it needs to do to allow SpaceX to use KSC property for Starliner operations.
its a formal process.
StarlinerStarshipStarliner is Boeing’s Commercial Crew vehicle
It isn’t clear to me the Starship/Super Heavy will have a pilot. A Falcon 9 first stage doesn’t need one to fly back and land. Dragon doesn’t have one, and Dragon 2 will have passengers and no crew. But I suppose the FAA may insist on a pilot. I would certainly expect them to require flight attendants, since their job is actually to keep the passengers from doing something stupid and hurting themselves or others in the process.
Those 100 people on a Starship (if that’s the number and it actually happens) won’t be operating the vehicle. They would be passengers or people operating the payload, not the vehicle. And if the experiment doesn’t work for want of operator experience and training, well, just fly it again and send a different person. You would need a certain amount of care, to isolate the payload from the vehicle. But that’s a known and solvable problem. It involves things like circuit breakers.
Is there a human alive who could manually pilot a Starship?
I don’t see how a SpaceX requested Environmental Impact Statement = “NASA Is Formally Interested In The SpaceX Starship” … its just part of SpaceX expanding its facilities on a pad they use for FH and someday Crew Dragon. It is nice to see SpaceX taking this step now as this will be a multiyear process to get approval and maybe $1B to get it all done. Wonder if they can get any FLA money. It is also interesting to see a 24 flight per year target … it seems like a reasonable number to get started with.
I’m not sure I’d use the word “interested” myself, but there are some implications. NASA is the lead agency and, in the process of doing the estimate, they used SpaceX numbers for things like the number of engines and how much noise they will make (lots.) That actually means official acceptance of those numbers as credible. Technically, NASA has officially accepted that Starship/Super Heavy is real, or potentially real, and not just a pipe dream.
The funny thing is that when it starts launching from KSFC I bet the public will just assume it’s a NASA rocket. ?
I’m afraid you’re almost six years late. I was at Cape Canaveral to watch the MAVEN launch in November, 2013. One of the people in the group noticed another rocket, on the next pad to the south of SLC-41, and asked what it was. The JSC employee herding us around didn’t know, guessed, and mis-identified a Falcon 9 as an Atlas. Along similar lines, I’m waiting for the press to describe commercial crew flights as NASA missions.
Actually SpaceX wanted to start test flight of Starship (the upper stage) prototype in 3 to 6 months, so I think we can conclude NASA is “interested” if SpaceX is able to get approval quickly and start the tests as they planned.
I wonder when the establishment will tire of telling SpaceX “that is impossible”?