National Disagreement Over NASA’s Goals and Objectives Detrimental to Agency Planning, Budgeting Efforts, NRC
“A current stated interim goal of NASA’s human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025,” said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the committee that wrote the report. “However, we’ve seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA’s own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community. The lack of national consensus on NASA’s most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency’s ability to guide program planning and allocate funding.”
Because the whole asteroid->Mars plan became mired in the political infighting of the post affordable care act saga. Since this was Obama-space, it suddenly became (in broad strokes) “The moon is for republicans and Lockheed Martin, Mars is for democrats and SpaceX” which is completely foolish.
Shrug. With the way private space is maturing, and since each private space effort can select their goals as they see fit, governmental-pace 30-year plans are getting kinda non-relevant.
It’s not that simple. I’ll remind you that President Obama tossed off that musing about an asteroid as our next destination several years ago, essentially making it a national mandate. Also, a trip to an asteroid is part of the Lockheed “Stepping Stones” concept.
But President Obama’s somewhat flippant and poorly thought-out musing has taken a few years to digest by the space flight community, and what has happened is that a human trip to an asteroid now looks a lot more challenging (and expensive) than it did then. An additional demerit is that we don’t have much of an idea of why we should do it. Pick up some pebbles with fingers? Plant a flag on a rock we’ll never visit again for a long time? Assess strategies for pushing a rock that’s very unlikely to be the one that’s going to hit us? Go farther than we’ve ever gone before, and end up with dirt in our toes? No, those ideas just don’t hold water.
That’s why there is limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA’s own work force, by the nation as a whole, and by the international community.
But that’s correct. The lack of a national consensus about human space flight is much less important than it used to be.
Well, the way I saw it, the administration was taken aback by the vehement “you’re killing human space flight” reaction, and just couldn’t and wouldn’t touch it anymore. They had bigger issues to deal with, so if this is going to be “like that”, then seriously, why should they?
I think we screwed it up, “we” being the space community. Or more precisely, “we” being that part of the space community that went bezerk over the asteroid/Mars plan.
(Oh, and by Lockheed Martin I sort of implied “old space in general” – I don’t think either LMCO or Boeing really cares which way NASA decided to go as long as they get contracts out of it…)
An asteroid mission just doesn’t inspire the imagination like missions to the moon or Mars would.
Somebody should tell Lori Garver this. Why is it the Political Officers are the last to know?
The thought process here for Lori Garver is simple. We need to put feet on distant rocks, she believes. What’s the most affordable way to do that? Her answer is an asteroid, and she may well be correct.
It doesn’t get any harder than that. She’s between, er, a rock and a hard place, if she going to define exploration as feet on distant rocks.
Yes, Obama wasn’t much enthused about rocks we’ve already been to, but I think that’s not what’s driving the bus here.
I don’t think Garver really believes NASA’s mission is to put a few boots on rocks, since in the past she has advocated putting large numbers of feet in orbit instead. She is politically astute enough to know that Congress demanded a mission for SLS/Orion without providing the money for an actual base on the moon or Mars, and that publicly opposing them will get the NASA budget slashed. So there was no choice but to propose a mission for SLS/Orion that doesn’t require landers or bases. She probably suspects that the program will be canceled in a few years and that this is the least costly way to concede to Congressional demands for the few years the charade has to run.
Putting large number of feet in LEO doesn’t serve “exploration”. It serves diplomacy and world peace. That’s what the ISS is to our nation and, in particular, to this administration, whose badge Garver wears.
Look, if it wasn’t important to put feet on rocks, Garver would see to it that SLS was used to quadruple the size of ISS. You know, more world peace, and all that.
But that’s a good point about cancellation. Going to an asteroid that is accessible maybe once a century guarantees that you’ll never go there again and, more importantly, you won’t be setting up any kind of costly human base or outpost on it that requires any sort of commitment.
You say ‘Putting large number of feet in LEO doesn’t serve “exploration”. It serves diplomacy and world peace’ and I think this is the crux of the matter.
Some want to send (small) teams of explorers further into space. Others are looking for a way for humanity to expand into space. Both are exciting, but in different ways.
One requires a big rocket++, the other requires a gold rush. One is technically do-able, the other may not even be possible (there may be insufficient money to be made in space).
For my money – which is easy to say since I’m not an America tax payer – putting large numbers of feet in LEO is the difficult bit, and needs ghastly politicos like Lori Garver, not rocket scientists or even astronauts. IMO it’s also the bit that matters.
However SLS/Orion was not designed for ISS logistics. Gerstenmier has said, I believe correctly, that SLS/Orion would not be optimal for that mission. Many existing launch systems (Atlas, Delta, Falcon, Ariane, Proton, Long March) can transport similar amounts of materiel (or in the case of Falcon, Atlas, LM-2, or even Soyuz, comparable or greater numbers of crew) to the ISS at much lower cost.
If the asteroid mission does go ahead, I hope they’ll have enough money (and brains) to glue to it every long-life, long-range sensor they can think of, hooked to an efficient telemetry system aimed back to Earth, and then left it ride back out into the solar system; the further out it’s orbit takes it, the better. I’m not looking for anything in particular; I just think it makes a lot of sense to look, when the long part of the ride is for free.
We might even consider using a NEO asteroid for the initial BEO thrust phase of out system probes. Just hang on to the asteroid until the right time, then detach and add the thrust vector you want to get you on your cruise trajectory.
I think we need to consider other ways than just bigger rockets. Asteroid taxi anyone?
Delta-V from LEO to a NEO to the outer solar system is worse than the delta-V from LEO to the outer solar system, pretty much by definition. Unless the NEO serves as a fuel depot, there’s no advantage, and much added logistical disadvantage.
In reply to Paul451
Paul,
I don’t think we’re envisioning the same scenario here. Things would depend entirely on the trajectory of the particular asteroid. I picked a NEO because it comes “near Earth”; we don’t have to go out to the asteroid belt to meet up with it.
When the NEO is close in, between Earth orbit and the Sun, that ‘s when its velocity relative to the solar system is at a minimum, and therefore the best time to catch it (minimum delta-V from LEO to NEO).
Launch timing would be such that the NEO is crossing Earth’s orbit outbound at a time when Earth itself is near the same point in its orbit.
So, we catch the NEO close in, attach to it, and hitch hike out away from the Sun using the NEO’s momentum, no additional spacecraft thrust required at all. And the longer we hitch, the faster we’ll be going outbound relative to the Sun.
Since it’s an asteroid, it’s almost certainly not going anywhere near the outer reaches of the solar system (like a comet would), so at a calculated point in time we “let go” of the asteroid and keep on traveling outbound (a sling shot). At this point, depending on asteroid attitude parameters, the spacecraft would probably have to provide a little bit of thrust for course correction, if we have a specific trajectory in mind.
Since I’m proposing looking/sensing for nothing in particular, just looking, we don’t have to worry about deceleration delta-V; we just keep coasting. Worst case, we might want to slow down if we’re traveling too fast for our instruments to work well. Velocity could also be controlled by when we “let go” and/or inertially deploying a solar sail temporarily.
So, where a typical out system probe launch is thrust followed by coast, this one is thrust followed by lots of free additional thrust (from the NEO) and then coast. From an energy perspective, it’s Christmas. Does that make sense?
Steve
[From below. Missed your reply, sorry for the delay.]
“Catching” and “releasing” from the asteroid doesn’t mean anything in orbital mechanics. The asteroid is not under thrust, therefore it doesn’t impart velocity to your ship. In order to “catch it” you must match its orbit, therefore you have already put your ship in precisely the same orbit as the asteroid, and you will continue in that orbit whether you’re hugging the asteroid or free-flying or whether or not the asteroid even exists. Likewise when you “let go” you don’t continue outwards, you stay in precisely the orbit that the asteroid has, the same orbit you went into when you did your final burn to match the asteroid’s orbit. The asteroid itself plays no role in any of this.
Asteroids can provide shield mass, they might be able to provide air/water, and maybe we can use them to refuel, but they can’t provide delta-v.
Paul,
I am familiar with orbital mechanics. An asteroid, or anything else, in a free fall orbit has momentum. If you were to attach a probe to it, the probe becomes part of the NEO system and momentum is transferred from the asteroid to the probe (the system total being conserved, of course). This is from the perspective of both LEO, where we started from, and the Sun, the focus of the NEO’s orbit (I deliberately picked a NEO).
You could also look at it from the simpler perspective of location in the solar system. You catch up to the NEO from LEO (delta-V provided by the probe system) and “ride” the NEO back out, just like riding a bus through a city. At the appropriate point outsystem, you detach (get off the bus) and with a little more delta-V provided by the probe, you transfer to the probe a new (desired) trajectory.
Orbital mechanics tells us that the NEO’s orbital speed along its free fall path is increasing constantly as it moves farther from the Sun (we caught up to it close in to the Sun when its orbital speed was at a minimum.) That increase in speed (which comes at the cost of decreasing angular velocity) while we we’re riding the NEO bus stays with the probe after it detaches, and the net result is that the probe has accelerated a great deal during the bus ride and we got all that acceleration for free (the NEO loses momentum proportionally). This all assumes, of course, that the probe mass is much less than the NEO mass.
““Catching” and “releasing” from the asteroid doesn’t mean anything in orbital
mechanics.“
Actually it does. It’s all a matter of perspective. From the perspective of either Earth orbit or the solar system as a whole, the probe transfers from its initial orbit in LEO to the NEO’s orbit and later to a different probe orbit. We caught the NEO and later released our attachment to it.
“The asteroid is not under thrust, therefore it doesn’t impart velocity to your
ship“
As I explained above, the asteroid is constantly accelerating as it moves away from the Sun, even though it’s not a rocket doing the accelerating but rather the laws of physics (specifically orbital mechanics).
“ In order to “catch it” you must match its orbit“
Sorry, but you’ll never catch it that way. What you have to do is time your launch so that you end up in a somewhat higher, faster orbit in a position slightly “ahead” of the asteroid. You then do a retoburn to “drop down” to a rendezvous. This is a basic staple of orbital mechanics. As a side note, because they somehow forgot this basic law, the Gemini 9 crew had to give up on their attempts to rendezvous with an Agena. Everybody missed this screw up in the mission plan, even though Gemini 8 had already done it correctly.
“Likewise when you “let go” you don’t continue outwards, you stay in precisely
the orbit that the asteroid has, the same orbit you went into when you did your
final burn to match the asteroid’s orbit“
Both the asteroid and the probe continue outward until you reach apogee. Assuming that you “let go” before apogee, your direction is outward, away from the Sun. A little bit of probe thrust when or after you let go (before apogee) can put you on any outward vector you like. The more delta-V you apply (away from the Sun) at this point the farther out you’ll go before you reach the new probe apogee and start coming back Sunward. With enough delta-V at this point you could reach solar system escape velocity, but that’s a lot to ask of a probe. Besides, as it comes back Sunward, the probe can both be gathering more data and more reliably transmitting data back to Earth. The key point is that the probe must provide thrust before and after being with the NEO, but while it’s “riding the bus” the probe doesn’t need to provide any thrust at all itself, yet is is continuously accelerating outward from the Sun.
I guess we’re used to thinking in terms of more circular orbits because we’re usually orbiting planets. Asteroid orbits, being very elliptical, have advantages that more circular orbits don’t. That’s one reason why the USSR/Russians used Molniya orbits a lot; they spend the majority of their time out near apogee.
At any rate, riding a NEO “bus” away from the Sun/LEO and picking up outward velocity while you ride are quite within the rules of orbital mechanics. We just have to keep clear the distinction between orbital angular velocity (of revolution) and linear orbital speed (along the orbital path); one goes up as the other goes down and vice-versa.
Steve
Steve,
What you’re saying still makes no sense. The asteroid does not in any way “transfer” any momentum or velocity or
or acceleration or anything to the docked ship.
When the ship has caught up to the asteroid and is stable above the asteroid’s surface ready to dock/land, the ship will be in an eccentric orbit that is exactly the same as the asteroid’s eccentric orbit (plus or minus the few metres-per-second docking approach speed). If it wasn’t, it would crash into the surface at whatever the velocity difference is!
In other words, the aphelion for ship is precisely the same as the aphelion for the asteroid, regardless of whether the ship actually docks with the asteroid or not. The asteroid doesn’t have any effect on the ship’s path (again, baring the tiniest few metres-per-second).
Example, if the asteroid has a perihelion at 1AU and an aphelion of 2AU. Then the asteroid has a velocity at perihelion of 34 km/s.
A ship that docks with the asteroid at 1AU must have a final approach velocity very close to 34 km/s, ie, the same as the asteroid. The ship therefore has placed itself into an eccentric orbit with an aphelion at 2AU… even if the asteroid wasn’t there. Likewise, the ship’s velocity at aphelion will be 17 km/s, whether it rode the asteroid or not.
If the ship has a velocity at perihelion of, say, 30 km/s (circular 1AU orbit) in order to “ride the bus” to 2AU, it will impact the asteroid with their velocity difference of 4 km/s (9000mph). Which is a Very Bad Thing. In order to dock-with or land-on the asteroid, the ship must do a 4km/s burn to kill its approach speed. At which point the ship is in an eccentric 34km/s orbit, same as the asteroid. The asteroid contributed nothing.
Your reference to higher/lower orbits to match position with the target is true, but you must also match velocity before you actually dock. Which means you need two extra burns, to catch the asteroid, then match velocity. Which is why I said originally that riding an asteroid is going to cost more fuel than just doing a direct burn into your final orbit. Unless you get some other benefit from the asteroid, such as shelter or fuel, there is no energy gain.
[I’m wondering if you are getting confused with the Oberth Effect, where you slow your orbital velocity to go into a lower orbit, then do your main burn from the new perigee or perihelion. This increases the efficiency of your main burn. But again, having an asteroid at the new perihelion adds nothing to the manoeuvre, since you have to do your main burn before you dock with the asteroid, in order to dock with the asteroid.]
“However SLS/Orion was not designed for ISS logistics.”
Re my comment below, if the goal was to quadruple the size of ISS, Gerst would be kissing the feet of SLS.
The fact that SLS/Orion isn’t designed for ISS makes some presumptions about how ISS is planned to be used.
I’d plan the mission for Phobos. It’s close enough to being an asteroid and might bring the Martians into camp a little bit.
Lori is quite well aware of this but she does not set the policy.
A mission to a Near Earth Object is both scientifically important (remnants of original solar system), important in relation to mitigating potential future NEO threats, and if you don’t reject if off-hand, extremely cool – think of the tiny craft visiting an asteroid that’s the size of a mountain, hanging out in space.
But the main thing, it is a mission that’s half-way to Mars in terms of technology (long-term voyage, but no prolonged on-surface stay) and doesn’t get us stuck in “maintenance mode” – once we visit one, we can choose to visit more, or move on to Mars, but we don’t have to support a permanent base there. This is a good property for a goal that is only a stepping-stone.
Manned spaceflight programs have too large a reputation problem to excite the general public, period. People are looking at Mars rovers, Kepler planets, ice caps on Mercury, spaceflight privatization, even the space station.
I would bet money that a survey would show people are less aware – by a wide margin – of our Mars plans, asteroid plans, the Mars plans 5 years ago, any of it compared to the telescopes and probes.
Take it as a blessing; manned spaceflight can focus on strategic goals and not worry about amusing bystanders.
Is the asteroid mission and/or the machines developed for it conducive to long term efforts?
If we’ve done this, and the political winds have changed and Mars is in the cards budget-wise, will the asteroid mission have been a wasted effort?
What saddens me is that in the 1930’s we had political leadership that thought that hydro-electric dams were a good investment. We have a similar decision point today with space solar power. Solar mirrors in low sun synchronous orbit can double the output of solar power stations already operating on mother earth with less than a six month pay back period. But everyone seems focussed on exploratory manned, and/or robotic science missions instead of a space program that pays for itself. I think this is the very definition of short sighted and non-visionary.
I am unsure of the accuracy of your economic analysis. Orbiting a mirrir is not too difficult. Creating a mirror of the required precision in space and maintaining pointing accurcy despite atmospheric refraction would be far more expensive. Power would still be intermittent. Clouds would block and dissuse the light. Simply enlarging the solar array (particularly witht he collapse in panel prices) would be cheaper. But a demonstration mission mitht be worthwhile.
Maybe some entrepreneur will take this on. Put one of those up and the solar plants will compete for extra sun 🙂
I’m also saddened that in the 1930s we had political leadership that thought hydro-electric dams were a good investment.
We got the Glen Canyon Dam, which took away its namesake, Glen Canyon, which Edward Abbey described as the heart of the southwest, more important even than the Grand Canyon.
Gone.
But in return we get to build cities and golf courses in the middle of a desert, which as we can all see is a brilliant and efficient idea.
One thing I find very disappointing is the fact that many people have asked, basically, “Why go to an asteroid?” and, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely nobody from officialdom has given an answer.
If a mission for going to an asteroid was really exciting the public would never know; they’ve not been told why we’d go or what we’d attempt to do there. So, why should there be the least interest from anybody? It’s like saying, let’s go to New Jersey, or let’s go to the post office. OK, why?
Steve
Steve – I agree with that, and moving forward, your point is more important than past politics. I’ll re-post my reasoning here:
1. NEO hazard mitigation: We can’t deal with a potential NEO hazard if we don’t understand much about them.
2. Solar system science. The moon is made of bits of Earth. NEOs, at least some, are primordial solar system stuff.
3. If we ever want to look at extracting any resources from asteroids, we should learn about them more.
4. Cool factor – think of the tiny craft visiting an asteroid that’s the size of a mountain, hanging out in space.
5. It is the easiest mission beyond the moon, a mission that’s half-way to Mars in terms of technology: long-term voyage, but no prolonged on-surface stay.
6. It is a “point mission” – Once we visit a NEO, we can choose to visit other ones with the same technology, or we move on to Mars, but we don’t have to support a semi-permanent base there. This is a good property for a goal that is only a stepping-stone.
Regarding point 2 – that depends on the object visited. Astronomers think that some of the NEOs might be rubble left over from the formation of the Moon. So, more Earth bits.
Good reasoning about the need to viit a NEO. But #1,2 and 3 are doable robotically. We’re doing a lot of it now. What do you need people there for? Oh, to do it more expensively?
Re #5 and #6, there are other destinations (e.g. Lagrange points) that offer the same opportunities and are actually enabling for lunar exploration.
Re #4. OK, that’s one. Why not just push that to the top and get rid of the other ones. Of course, there is the fact that “cool factor” is not a metric for success of our space agency. That’s a bit awkward, no?
Sorry, but we’ll have to do better than that if we’re going to justify such a trip.
If the question was: How do we best explore a NEO, then there is a valid argument between robotic and human exploration. (I don’t have a clear answer on that one) But this wasn’t the question.
The question in my mind is: Assuming we want an HSF program, what our next goal: LEO(ISS), L2, Moon, Mars, or NEO.
Off of these, I raised the arguments above.
I think Mars as the next major/ultimate HSF destination trumps all others, and a NEO complements it greatly as a stepping stone.
“The question in my mind is: Assuming we want an HSF program, what our next goal”
Thanks. But no, it wasn’t obvious that was the question. That assumption isn’t well grounded. Because if sending a human to a NEO is largely to do things that can be done MUCH less expensively by other means, then the goal itself is faulty.
I think what you’re saying is that the real reason to have humans go and explore a NEO is one that is consistent with wanting a human space flight program. That being the case, it’s all #4. We have to suck it up and admit that’s what human space flight is for in a robotically sophisticated era. Or else come up with stuff that simply can’t be done robotically. To the extent that we’d be robotically limited by time delay, it just means one would need more time with a robot than with a human in situ. But time is cheap if you don’t have people risking their lives in a spacecraft.
I don’t think that’s true – it’s a false choice actually.
If you agree that we need a manned program because the ultimate goal is to expand civilization to space, and I’m sure we agree we don’t have the technology to do so now, then we need to chart a course from here to there.
And that course is made of stepping stones, and you need to choose the stepping stones according to various criteria. For example – do they advance us towards the final goal. are they distractions? do they have scientific or other (e.g. commercial) value?
What you don’t want to do is keep asking yourself – “can we do this robotically?”. Because if we can, it only means that doing so would be good for a robotics-based program… it does NOT mean that it’s a bad goal for an HSF-based program.
(and yes, robotic missions are cheaper than HSF ones, but they also achieve less – it’s an endless argument which is actually quite balanced and besides the point if we’ve decided that we do want an HSF program)
To explore sustainably and for a long duration, NASA must
address *all* of its Space
Technology Challenges.
“The challenges are centered on three key themes: (1) Expand
human presence in space, (2) Manage in-space resources, and (3) Enable
transformational space exploration and scientific discovery.”
Economic Access to space is just *one* of the space challenges as
mentioned by Synthguy.
Unfortunately, the past decade has provided funding for 4
engine development programs and capsules, and ignores the rest of the challenge puzzle, while at the same time extending the future of ISS. In addition, Mars DRM 5 architecture needs to be completely reworked, for many, many reasons. Per VSE, one of its flaws was the statement that the moon prepares NASA for Mars–it is simply is not true per the current plans.
The asteroid answer is quite simple:
NASA can address * all* its technology challenges to provide
a sustainable architecture for long duration exploration by planning and
executing an asteroid mission, which includes with a L2 gateway, within its budget, while maintaining reasonable crew flight rates. Where NASA’s destination is after that is flexible.
But the workforce has not provided detailed long term
planning on how the technology challenges are addressed because Congress has
dictated a plan that, well, began with fitting a square peg in a round hole with
Constellation, and has evolved into a rectangular peg into an elliptical hole
with SLS/Orion. Spinoffs?
The mass drivers to Mars are, in order, galactic radiation
protection, cryogenic boiloff, aerocapture, advanced propulsion, closed loop
ECLSS,…, completely ignored in present and past plans.
All of these development
efforts can be address with the L2 gateway and the asteroid mission with substantially
less energy expended (and hence cost) than heading directly to the moon or
mars, and still maintains a reasonable flight rate for the crew: the best of two worlds—exploration and
technology development with known spinoffs back to earth.
I think going to an asteroid would be very exciting to the public. It would be for me. If going to an asteroid seems boring, just think about the L2 Gateway Station.
Yeah I agree. Asteroids just seem so much more foreign. It’s like for a Middle Age European, Mars would be China, and an asteroid would be the New World.
An asteroid mission inspires MY imagination (not that that means I endorse it.)
But “inspiring imagination” is what Hollywood does. They have a development period that lasts maybe two years and still they often struggle.
It’s pretty hard to inspire imagination with ANY program that will take 10-20 years to carry out, changing along the way with every change of congress, administration, poll, funding battle, redesign, what have you.
People don’t have decades-long imaginations anymore (if they ever did.)
What is NASA?
Is NASA a science agency?
Is it a public works project?
Is it a program to stimulate a business sector?
Is it performance art?
It can’t be all of these things. Maybe it’s time to decide which one of these things we want it to be.
I vote for science agency, and I find science inspiring because I'[m a science geek. But don’t imagine for a moment that the average citizen will ever find the pace (or even results) of a properly carried-out scientific program “inspiring.”
If NASA is a whiz-bang special-effects company to provide entertainment, it’s in deep trouble – its tech has been superseded by CGI.
A mission intended to perform real asteroid science would certainly be robotic, like NEAR and Hayabusa, since the same science could be done at a fraction of the cost of a manned mission. I find that very exciting.
Me too.
But pictures of an astronaut near an asteroid would be cool too.
Maybe we could send a robot shaped like a spacesuit?
Exactly my point. Pictures of an astronaut serve no purpose except to allow us to feel vicariously that we are there. Kids will think they’re CGI.
The asteroid could really be part of the human sphere with practical reusable launch systems, with advanced propulsion in deep space, to lower the cost to something we could afford to do every year, but we are not investing in these things. All a one-off mission, costing, like Apollo, over 20 billion dollars, will accomplish is to eliminate the excitement of doing it again.
In contrast, by sucessfully anthropomorphizing the Mars rovers, JPL has generated similar excitement with a mission that we can at least afford to repeat every few years with better equipment.
Read the Space Act. That defines what NASA is. That’s the statute that created the agency. It’s about knowledge (let’s call it science), transportation, technology preeminence, and “peaceful purposes” in cooperation with other nations. That being said, it’s also about knowledge that conveys military value. It’s not about “inspiration”, though it wants to be, and it is commonly considered to be of value for entertainment. It’s not a “public works” project per se, but it certainly is used as a spend-money-in-my-district agency. That is, the public that it works for is largely in discrete districts.
But I agree that real asteroid science will derive most value from robotic exploration.
Anything that robots can do at an extraterrestrial destination, robots and people can do better. And NEOs are something we have to pay attention to, have research more fully and on a continuing basis.
So people can do better than robots. Really? Gosh, who would have guessed?
The word I used was VALUE, as in science per dollar. Given the science that we know we’re trying to achieve at NEOs, it can be argued persuasively that robots (with supervised autonomy) are the way to go. Putting a human at a NEO is vastly more expensive than putting a capable telerobot there. By the way, that telerobot can stay there far longer than a human could, and could probably map out the surface in far more detail than could a human doing an EVA.
We can pay attention to many more NEOs robotically than we can by sending people to them. We might even pay attention to the one that’s headed towards us, which gives us information that is hugely more relevant to our safety than information about the very few generic rocks that happen to be reachable by humans.
No, humans and NEOs for science (and safety) just don’t cut it.
But if what we’re after is more than science and safety, then we should come clean and say it.
If you limit ‘knowledge gained’ to only the science obtained at the destination, then you are correct, robots always win on a cost per dollar basis. However, the extra funding that goes into HSF does not go into a black hole. There is invaluable scientific knowledge gained in developing and testing subsystems and vehicles that maintain the health and safety of the crew, which is entirely consistent with Objective 3 of the space act.
“But don’t imagine for a moment that the average citizen will ever find the pace (or even results) of a properly carried-out scientific program inspiring”
Is the Mars program a properly carried-out scientific program? Because tons of people love the @#$% out of it.
Even Mercury makes the headlines every so often.
The privatization is also getting people pretty excited.
Until we land on _something_, people are going to just ignore asteroid plans or Mars plans or anything of the sort because it appears to be something in continual flux.
If Obama goes out tomorrow and says “screw that, we’re going to X and I’m throwing all my weight behind it”, then that will only strengthen the impression that we’re just flailing around.
For that reason, I do not believe _any_ manned spaceflight grand plan will get people excited. So we might as well stop worrying about it, accept the fact that we _are_ getting a budget and think about how to best use it strategically.
Just take the “excite the public” specification, hurl it out the window and see how things look then.
Curious. The term “National Consensus” is in the title of this report (and therefore appears in every page header), but nowhere in the entire report is there a definition of “National Consensus.”
From the text it clearly includes The White House, Congress, NASA, the “scientific community,” and international partners. But who else is included in a NATIONAL Consensus? Voters, The NRC, other government agencies, the military, the aerospace contractors and subcontractors, economists?, etc.
It’s impossible to get a consensus without stating a consensus among who.
Steve
Isn’t it the case that all known candidates are about the size of a house, not mountain. Hopefully something better will be found with sentinel or sooner by PAN STARRS.
Interesting how ‘goals and objectives’ automatically equate to going somewhere and getting boots on the ground. Obviously its important to do that, but perhaps ‘goals and objectives’ for NASA should be focused in the near future on making human spaceflight more affordable, efficient and safer.
Firstly, we should be looking at lower-cost means of reusable space-flight into LEO, that is safe, cost effective, and allows far greater access to space for a broader range of people. To me, Orion on an SLS does not meet that description. But nor does Dragon, or the other commercial spaceflight concepts – they all depend on rockets (old technology) to lift small capsules (or in the case of Dreamchaser, a small shuttle) into orbit in a manner pretty similar to how humans have done spaceflight since 1961, albiet with greater reusability, and perhaps lower cost.
Instead, in my view, the ‘goal’ should be an ‘aerospaceplane’ that is fully reusable and able to take significant amount of payload or persons into LEO at efficiencies and rates approaching that of airlines. Difficult to do and the engineering challenges are clear to all – combined cycle engines is a must, as are scramjets, and we are still struggling with those. But we should minimise the role for rocket technology, and emphasize new approaches. The UK’s Skylon vehicle by Reaction Engines Limited is exactly the sort of thing I’m thinking of.
Secondly, now is the time to boost human presence in orbit beyond what is allowed by the ISS. Start supporting commercial space platforms in LEO, and also other locations (including L2) that can allow an expansion of a permanent human presence in space from a maximum of 10 to perhaps several hundred people, and form the stepping stone for next steps in beyond-Earth orbit spaceflight. The ‘objective’ is a permanent space-based economic and industrial sector that uses the space environment and all the resources in it, to generate profit which can then be reinvested into developing new technologies which enable us to really go to the Moon, Mars, Asteroids, and indeed look at the rest of the solar system for eventual human exploration.
This could also support space-based solar power satellites which could be established and supported ‘on site’ by humans and human-operated robots, that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. With the news this week coming out of Doha that global temps will rise by 5 degrees C by 2100 as a result of anthropogenically induced global warming, most of that as a result of rapid development in China, then its becoming clear that urgent action needs to be taken to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
The final goal of an expanding, spacefaring civilisation (humans – not just Americans) demands a more effective means of deep space travel. I’m yet to be convinced that the Orion ‘Apollo on steroids’ approach, and SLS is the best way for humans to get to Mars, or back to the Moon, or elsewhere. A better solution is a small number of purpose-designed spacecraft that remain in space – they never enter the atmosphere of a planet, and are parked at either ISS or an L2 Gateway. Their sole purpose is facilitating interplanetary or cislunar travel for humans. These vehicles should not depend on traditional chemical rockets, but on new and innovative propulsion systems – solar electric, nuclear electric, nuclear thermal, etc – and should be reconfigurable and FULLY reusable. They are not capsules – they are ‘spaceships’. Build four such spaceships, with two at any time undertaking missions to support human exploration, and two undertaking refit in preparation for future missions. In any case, greater investment should be put into developing new spacecraft technologies – I know Orion is much more advanced than Apollo in many ways, but conceptually, its the same thing. Its yet another damned capsule.
This approach gives a) a more cost-effective and efficient approach to getting payload and people into orbit; b) establishing a permanent and expanding on-orbit presence and a permanent presence out at cislunar space; and c) a more sophisticated and effective means of undertaking beyond-Earth orbit exploration. These are worthy goals, and they contribute towards an objective of a permanent human presence in space, and an expanding space-faring civilisation. To me achieving this is more important than a single ‘flags and footprints’ mission to an asteroid, because it shifts human space exploration into a fundamentally new paradigm that then means we can be much more ambitious in the future. So we may not get to Mars by 2030, but by 2050 we could have a substantial human presence on Mars, on the Moon, mining the asteroids, and be thinking about humans missions to the outer planets because we have laid sustainable foundations to do that.
Dr. Malcolm R Davis,
Bond University
Gold Coast, Australia
Good points, although I think a reusable booster stage is the first step, not a reusable spaceship. But as an Australian, do you think we should work with China, or against China? For that matter, why aren’t there any Chinese bloggers here? Maybe they are all over at CMSEwatch.
A much lower cost path to reusability is for reusable IN SPACE systems.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to your question re China. I think its too early to make that choice because you can’t divorce US-China cooperation (or confrontation) in Space from the broader strategic relationship, and its simply too soon to know which direction the latter is taking. There are indications that the US and China is likely to slide into a competitive relationship in the Indo-Pacific region, particuarly as China’s economy overtakes the US by around 2020. Their military focus is on developing capabilities designed to counter US military power, and the US cannot ignore that. But, both sides are also working together to try and manage relations, and there is a strong economic inter-dependency between Beijing and Washington that is a key factor. So I don’t see the parallel being the Soviet Union in 1947 – I see the parallel being Imperial Germany in 1912.
That turned out badly in the end (for Europe) and set the stage for an even bigger global clash in 39-45. I don’t think US-China relations in the 21st Century has to follow that path, and perhaps cooperation in Space is one way to manage the relationship in a manner to emphasize the positives. But China, unlike the US, has a largely military-led space programme – and they are focused on acquiring Space Control capabilities designed to neutralise the US military-space systems. So any cooperation carries with it the risk of unwanted technology transfer. How much access does the US give China to its key space systems and technologies? How do we prevent China simply stealing our most important technology – they do it anyhow, but how do we prevent such theft from escalating? The Chinese will use every opportunity to gain advantage, make no mistake. They won’t play by gentleman’s rules.
Yet, does the US have a choice? Can it afford to do by itself all the things in Space it would like to do, given the disasterous state of the US economy? I talk about reusable spaceships and aerospaceplanes, but I know none of that will happen given how bad things are with the US economy, so a multinational effort makes it more likely such capabilities might be developed. Certainly there are other states the US should be partnering with to a greater degree – Japan, India, and Europe for starters (though Europe does not want to spend real money either). The Russians have the hardware and engineering skills to make a real contribution but no real money.
The solution is a public-private partnership – between NASA and the commercial space operators, supported by key international partners where appropriate (btw…why are commercial space companies predominantly American? How about a Japanese or European company…or an Australian one?) I think teaming up with the Chinese is too premature at this point. Let’s see how the main relationship goes, and if it improves, then sit down with them and talk. But if it goes bad, then its more likely the Chinese will be competitors – even potential adversaries in Space.
The latter itself is an interesting thought – military competition on the high frontier? A resumption of the US manned military space effort potentially in a beyond-Earth orbit environment? Or would it be done purely by fleets of (potentially armed) X-37Bs and advanced satellites?
Malcolm
Good points, Dr. Davis. One of our problems inside NASA is that we have no focal point for making these types of arguments; no one whose job it is to advocate, if you will, for these broader space development issues, rather than single boots and footprints etc. That’s why I advocate at the very least organizationally NASA HQ needs a Space Development and Applications Directorate at NASA HQ so there as at least one group whose job it is to think along the type of lines you discuss here; because there is no one now, and without an advocate prowling the halls of NASA HQ and attending the meetings and speaking up, nothing will change.
> “NASA should be focused in the near future on making human spaceflight more affordable, efficient and safer.”
I cannot help but think this is ***exactly*** what many at NASA, i.e. Dale Myers, were thinking in late 1960s. Moon landings will happen but it was apparent that huge expendable launch vehicles and one-use capsules is not sustainable. Spaceflight must be done with resusability to significantly lower costs, be much safer, and have more flexibility. But then STS almost didn’t happen as Dale Myers explained there was concern if HSF will continue to exist after Apollo. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/…
Well, it’s been 40 years since STS was formally approved (mainly pushed as 1972 was an election year and California and Florida delegates were much needed to win presidency).
The important mission is Mars. Anything else is just wasting time and money. I support the President but on the question of our space program I’m sorry to say he just doesn’t get it. I’m a little hopeful that in this second term he will hear the voices in the science community and rethink his unfortunate indifference to the exploration of the solar system.
It is likely NASA is going to ordered to cut back. To the general public a short journey is cheaper than a long journey, so a trip to an asteroid can be replaced by a trip to EML-2.
How about a trip to LEO cheap enough that a significant percentage of the public can actually go?
Cost reduction is an iterative process. The current iteration in trips to LEO for the general public is the COTS and CCDev programs.
The next problem is ensuring that the public can do something interesting when they get to space.
What launch technology? What total cost? What science goals? Why couldn’t it be done cheaper robotically?
Science goals cannot be the pre-eminent reason for this anymore. We have all our eggs in one basket as a planet. It is high time we learn to live off planet.
Every time I see the phrase “”A current stated interim goal of NASA’s human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025,” I always feel out they leave out part two after the comma: “for some reason.”
For pity’s sake can we just cancel a Mars Rover, just bite the bullet and build a lunar lander? Is a no frills up and down transport vehicle really going to break the bank?
Here’s an idea for NASA: put the hardware on the moon (or wherever else) on its own, and just make the lander as cheap as cheap can be, and reusable from the L2 base if possible.