Gerstenmaier Says The Quiet Things Out Loud About Funding Both ISS And Artemis
Gerstenmaier warns against ending space station program prematurely, Space News
“We don’t want to do an Apollo: a rush to a single objective and then have nothing left,” he continued. “We need to build infrastructure, leave pieces behind that the private sector can use, as well as the government, to move forward.” Gerstenmaier said he didn’t know how long such a transition from the ISS to private facilities would take, but didn’t think there was a firm deadline for ending the station. “I don’t know that there’s a hard date where the station needs to be retired,” he said. “I think there will be probably a push to retire the station with the idea that you’re going to free up funds for exploration. That’s what I described to you as a false choice.”
ISS is important, but expensive for NASA. Presumably NASA gets funding from other agencies (US and foreign?) to support the operation. A thought … a Chinese module ? If China is a participant then the costs could be shared. And more international co-operation.
But China probably wants to do their own space station. I get the national prestige, but commercially it’s hard enough to find a business case for one ISS, let alone two.
Why China? Why not India whose strategic interests are more in line with U.S. foreign policy? They also have a good relationship with Russia in space.
Why not China ? heading to become the largest economy in the world. If you’re suggesting that China’s human rights performance is sub-par, isn’t Russia’s also ? Certainly China has their own agenda, do you want to work with them (with some degree of harmony) or let them do their own thing (and maybe come out ahead) ?
But sure, India too.
Why not both?
Why not? It could be a good way to help defuse the Himalayan crisis that is bringing China and India to the brink of war.
China would be good, but India is more realistic given we sell weapons to them and hold joint military maneuvers, so the probability of them saying yes is high. But yes, it would be nice to see China want to be part of ISS as well.
BTW during the President’s visit to India in February there were statements in the Indian press about them working closer in terms of space defense. If the USSF and Indian Space Defense Agency might be working together in the future than it makes sense for NASA to look for ways to work closer with India’s civilian space agency as well especially in terms of HSF and the ISS.
China made persistent overtures to join ISS but was openly rejected. Maybe a new administration would consider using ISS as a way that would build international trust rather than just amplifying conflict.
Perhaps, but given that it was during the first Obama Administration that the legislation was passed banning China from the ISS would VP Biden really reverse it?
Be nice. That law wasn’t anything Mr. Obama had anything to do with (other than signing it rather than vetoing the whole budget bill it was appended to.) That law is courtesy of Representative Wolf (R-Va).
Which of course shows just how limited are the powers of the President…
Maybe adding someone’s module makes sense if you rent them a berthing port on the Station by the month? The original partner nations are responsible for paying their own way. The US owns most of the elements of ISS and provides most of the resources and therefore supports and sponsors most of the operators. In the past when NASA needed “reimbursement” they would take reimbursement in the form of responsibility to design and manufacture ISS elements, That saved NASA money by giving the engineering and manufacturing responsibilities to competing countries. It eliminated a lot of the in-house NASA expertise and gave the expertise to ESA, CSA, RSA, JAXA….but the people who run ISS were not DDT&E engineers; they were “operators” out of the operations organization so as long as their ops organizations were happy writing checklists, training, pushing buttons, others, like engineering, did not matter. We sacrificed people and positions. Does NASA have the expertise to do the job any longer? Did it actually save NASA any money? If you added China or India to the list of partner nations, are they going to help pay the way or do they simply get the benefits of ownership while the US pays the bills? The amount of work that gets done on ISS is very much dependent on the number of astronauts. If you add a Chinese and an Indian, is that at the expense of an American? The US already forfeits crew time to the other countries (except not the Russians), so more crew from other countries means less US work getting done. If you want to add crewmembers that means you need more capacity to manufacture air and water and more electrical power to run those systems. All of those systems to produce and distribute air, water and electrical power are provided by the US and launched by the US. Do we get to add and pay for a few more launches?
Gerstenmaier makes a simple point that NASA has never acknowledged; the mission of Apollo was not to explore or settle space, but to “send a man to the Moon and return him safely to the Earth.” Period. To demonstrate the geopolitical superiority of the US system. Once Armstrong landed back on Earth it was over.
The current pressure to land a woman on the Moon by 2024 is an attempt to recreate this sense of political theater, and as Gerstenmaier points out would leave us in the same position.
If the ISS is abandoned before a more capable replacement is operational then NASA would be acknowledging that even human spaceflight in LEO is economically unsustainable. If we cannot find a way to provide value that is greater than cost in LEO, we cannot possibly do it on the Moon or Mars.
Anything NASA does will be economically unsustainable. The creators of NASA recognized that which was why they created the Comsat Corporation to implement President Kennedy’s other space goal of creating a global telecommunication system.
For some reason, that ‘more capable replacement’ part made me think of the hand-off from Salut-7 to Mir with Soyuz flying between the two stations. Imagine something built out of Bigelow habs parked outside of the ISS’s avoidance sphere with Dragons and Starliners ferrying engineers back and forth until the new vehicle’s control, power and life support systems were ready for fully-independent long-term expeditions.
It has long been an article of faith is that NASA can have a permanently-manned space station or human BLEO missions, not both. Interesting that a person whom you would expect to know is saying that isn’t necessarily the case and that, indeed, that would be counter-productivre.
In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Gerstenmaier is currently working for SpaceX. SpaceX has commercial cargo and crew contracts which would be almost certainly be extended if ISS continues beyond 2024.
Yes, but SpaceX would probably make more money using the Starship to safely return the ISS modules to Earth and building a 40-50 person replacement using inflatable modules from a number of suppliers. Or just putting 2-3 used Starships in orbit to build a 200-300 person station for NASA since each one has more pressurized volume than the ISS.
Actually if once it gets to orbit you take the Raptors off and convert the fuel tanks of a Starship to habitat space you could make a really good replacement for the ISS. Maybe even recycle the ISS solar panels by attaching them to the Starship hull while adding new ones.
Those Starships don’t have to be “used”. A fresh new Starship will cost less than any one of the more than two dozen modules and components that comprise ISS, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. Conservatively, these ISS modules cost $50B. You can buy a lot of Starships for $50B.
why is killing SLS always the answer to these kinds of issues?
I hope Gerst is including the SLS in his list of dead end NASA programs (Apollo, Saturn, Space Shuttle) that have not/will not provide any permanent basis for advancing the U.S. human spaceflight effort. In this pandemic year it’s an uplifting thing that’s going on now with Starship at Boca Chica, TX for all those interested in the future of human spaceflight.
NASA is no longer set up to simultaneously manage multiple programs like they were in the 1960s. Then they had relatively small program offices doing program office like things, and a matrixed system of technical systems managers and contractors who developed the systems. Much of the knowledge burden was placed on NASA. Systems managers had similar skills and often backed one another up on multiple programs. Under poor, unknowledgeable leadership they eliminated systems managers and internal engineering in favor of large contractors dedicated to separate programs. They did this so they could give large budgets to contractors like USA. Now they have minimal in house technical skills. Most of the NASA managers are only business/contract managers. Many of the contractors have minimal experience. so if you wonder why so much of NASA is clueless, now you know.