NASA = Mars = Delusional, Paul Spudis
“Apparently, NASA believes that as this movie takes off in popularity, a public wound-up about space exploration will demand that the agency be showered with additional money.”
Keith’s note: No, Paul I have yet to find a single person even remotely involved in PR or EPO efforts at NASA who thinks that this is going to happen and/or have adopted this as a strategy. Indeed a lot of them are a little leery that some space advocates seem to be operating under this delusion. NASA PAO folks are doing the PR for the reasons I cite below in “Growing The Next Generation Of Space Explorers” I do have to pose the question: why are so many movies (viewed by the public) about going to Mars, and so very few about going to the Moon? Hollywood (at least) tries to make movies that large audiences will go and see. The Moon is not sexy right now – hate to burst your balloon. Whose fault is it that the Moon is not hip right now?
That said, if you strip out Paul’s barely suppressed hostility about Mars-o-mania, he does touch on some important points in this posting – and you should read it. As Spudis knows, I think the notion of sending humans back to the Moon has been ignored for far too long. So has the notion of sending humans to Mars. We should do both in a coordinated, synergistic, evolutionary way. The fact that prominent space advocates/scientists fight in public like this simply reaffirms my ongoing commentary about how space policy is (rather is not) made and that space advocates need to stop talking to one another and go outside their sandboxes into the real world and see what passes for important.
I suspect that the elusive secret sauce needed to link what NASA and the space sector can do, what they should do, and how they should do it – in a growing fashion – lies outside the agency all together. Space fans just have to accept some humility, adopt a open mind, and look. Its there. Sometimes it lingers just out of reach when a big space movie comes out. Other times its brought on by something interesting in the sky. Its there. Its like dark matter since we can see its influence. But space fans have yet to figure out how to actually detect it.
So long as prominent members of the space science/policy advocacy communities have these stark, incompatible, almost religious disagreements about where to go (and where not to go) they will make no progress. Indeed as costs increase they are going to continue to make negative progress. Absent from all of these intramural squabbles is a lucid explanation as to why NASA should spend billions of “regular” people’s tax dollars on things that a lot of regular folks simply do not understand – all while college tuition has become obscene and health care costs are increasing like a runaway train. Given this dysfunctional behavior I remain totally baffled as to how the space community at large (or its various dueling tribes) thinks that they can just turn around and get the public to clamor for more money for ANY of these projects when they are so utterly detached from the real world that pumps money into NASA’s lap in the first place.
Yeah, I see Spudis and Zubrin as two sides of the same coin. Monomania of different camps will keep us all below low earth orbit. http://hopsblog-hop.blogspo…
The both have clear value. But ….
But Each one costs 3.5 Billion per year and has a “temporary” high cost 15 years into the program.
to do both means you have to lose the ISS budget line item
Ditto – It’s too bad Spudis has shut off comments at the original articles site – I still believe that at some point, someone has to define how incremental advance lives inside a real NASA budget.
There are some good ideas out there, Spudis and Lavoie’s Lunar paper as one example of some good work. Nonetheless, we’ve seen programmatic factors get ignored or under-played as if the programmatic plan that goes with the technical approach is to be sneaky, to go about things quietly and hope no one notices.
Constellation is one historical example of this, but I can think of many others. Did anyone really, seriously think about the single programmatic assumption that Constellation made – the deorbit of the ISS in 2016, to free up funds? (This actually traces back to the Aldridge report before ESAS).
As time went by that little programmatic assumption being whispered about, but never being questioned, that relatively soon after finishing the ISS we would end it, came back to haunt Constellation with a vengeance.
Any plan, lunar, Mars or other has to address programmatic factors, a whole NASA budget context, alongside any elegant technical, acquisition and phasing approach. Strengthen the buy-in around the programmatic factors, out in the open and well understood, be it about canceling this or that (Orion, etc.) or how Science and Aero get a chunk as well of any budget plus-ups at the total NASA level, and you’ll be on the road to a real plan, not just the parts where optimism rules.
I think Paul got a little nauseous from #JourneyToMars showing us how #JourneyToMars is taking #JourneyToMars to next level of #journeyToMars , thats all. After all #JourneyToMars is in every mailbox with #JourneyToMars headline, #JourneyToMars promoting website and soon in #JourneyToMars cinemas too.
And as every informed observer knows, its all a #JourneyToMars teeny little #JourneyToMars lie, or a hoax as Keith himself put it when writing about #JourneyToMars
#JourneyToMars got it #JourneyToMars
The Moon Vs Mars thing – a dichotomy of being both a manufactured AND
real problem(?!) is to me a reason why the shaky ‘Mars One’ venture
should build a prototype lunar outpost first to test somewhere between a
little and a lot (all?) of their technologies and intentions. If they
could live successfully for a year or two on Luna (dubious) they’d have a
much better chance of succeeding on Mars. Perhaps just six pioneers, in
a couple of landed Bigelow inflatables? I know Moon-Mars is not
directly nor perfectly analogous, but important lessons and technologies
will be learned. Smarter people than me think so…
Mars is delusional at this point.
We do not have the required environmental control, radiation protection, propulsion, Mars aerodynamic, or a host of other systems and all require serious research before anyone is going to Mars.
Spudis is right; we need to develop systems that can support cislunar first and then gradually be evolved to support planetary distances.
To a limited extent that is what ISS started, but NASA has made the same mistake that it did with Shuttle by accepting that ISS is fully developed and requires no further work.
Likewise, Constellation got NASA off to a really bad start on the “flexible path” to Mars. Constellation was conceived as Apollo redux, which itself was a mistake, and then by focusing on the return module, Orion, they focused on a capability that was not the first needed, and in fact after Dragon and CST is no longer needed at all. NASA should have been focusing on using the talent of ISS engineers already experienced in long duration systems to focus on a maintainable, reusable, refurbishable cislunar cruiser that could have served as a sortie vehicle for testing the systems, and once properly outfitted could have performed circumlunar and asteroid missions, and eventually could have been outfitted to go further. First Orion was the wrong way to start, and then the obscene costs and slow pace of Orion sidetracked any genuine lunar or planetary efforts indefinitely.
As far as the movie, its entertainment. The real NASA mistake is in trying to hype the NASA Mars mission as having some relationship to The Martian. This happens because NASA really does not know where it is going or how it will get there.
You can blame this on Obama and the current Administration, and for space, the current Administration starts with the NASA leaders. It was obvious Obama needed help and guidance and it was obvious NASA leaders failed to provide any. The prior NASA Administrator and leadership was every bit as bad as the current one so the blame can be equally shared with the prior Administration.
If Bob Jacobs were serious about the significance, to NASA leadership, of education, then NASA would be trying to educate the broadest cross section of the population and particularly school kids, about the history of the space program, the significance to exploration and international cooperation, the value of ISS to future programs, and a semblance of an idea about an orderly progression of future programs and missions that could one day take a future generation to Mars. First it has to have some semblance of an idea, and that is missing.
NASA needs to figure out what it should focus its education efforts on, instead of the current totally uncoordinated education effort that at present hardly even talks at all about the current human space program efforts, value or meaning. Although the unmanned science effort has had some success in education, owing to the fact that a percentage of every program’s budget went to an education project line, the effort was totally uncoordinated as has been identified for at least a decade. NASA has not learned and has made no changes. The manned education effort has not even done this well. It is nonexistent.
If you actually look at much of what NASA education outside of planetary/science currently does, and this includes the HSF it is focused on basic principles of physics, biology, computers, robotics, and other sciences where, quite honestly, NASA should not have any effort at all. There are plenty of existing texts, online sources, and other agency’s to handle the basic sciences.
Instead the current NASA human space flight focus is on a capsule that has no value and no mission for decades, and on a lot of hype about a mission that will not happen for the current generation.
More than anything else someone, like von Braun in the 50s, and George Mueller in the 60s, some ONE needs to figure out and sell a meaningful way forward. I think Paul Spudis has the right idea. Adapt and develop the systems for cislunar first and gradually extend the capability.
NASA needs to figure out a proper role for itself-one of which is advancing the system capabilities and another which is education.
Some of the top NASA leadership has understood this-people like O’Keefe and Abrahamson. Apparently some are too close to the day to day space operation to know, politically, what NASA needs to do.
Generally I come to the defense of Mr. Obama. As I read this thoughtful post, however, I wondered about electing a young president; a person with insufficient life experience to be truly knowledgable in the various arenas operated by the federal government.
NASA has to do what President’s vision is and what Congress funds it to do. That is what is happening with the Starliner, Dragon v2 and Orion/SLS. As for education, NASA has an education channel and social media & other programs. It is slowly evolving it’s capabilities in education from the Apollo/shuttle era. Is it where it needs to be education wise? No. Politically? No. Everytime the white house changes hands, so does NASA’s vision.
That was because common folks saw a personal opportunity to get rich, if they wished, from settlement of the West, and since the federal budget was funded by consumption based taxes they were not as noticed by the public. In short the public saw low personal costs and the potential of high personal gain from the policy.
That is not the perception the public has of space where they see it as being very expensive (lots of tax dollars required) or virtually no opportunity for personal gain ( it all goes to government contractors and scientists getting government grants). So why should they support it? What is in it for the taxpayer trying to support their family?
Just more transfer of money from the poorer to the richer.
What did Newt say?
A bunch of guys that sit around thinking about space.
Spudin’s rather optimistic if he thinks his cislunar architecture is going to sail under the political radar, although it’s at least somewhat more realistic than the Journey-to-Mars idea. What’s the point of building propellant production on the Moon if there’s no money to actually build whatever’s going to go sit in the Moon’s orbit to refuel before heading out?
Spudis isnt arguing for Moon or for Moon vs Mars. Read his piece
I did. He talks about how the current “journey to Mars” push is a fantasy, compared to his “achievable” cislunar transportation infrastructure. But it’s nothing of the sort – no one’s going to put money into said infrastructure if you don’t have any funded missions that need it. It’s a gas station with no cars and nowhere for them to drive.
I dunno, seems to work for SLS.
Does it? The program limps along with its paucity of actual launches – I wouldn’t be surprised if they just cancelled it at some point if the mid-2020s come and they decide they’d rather do another space station (or continue ISS after new modules and repairs).
Same thing could easily happen to the cislunar architecture.
Didn’t you just describe a successful program from the view point of the congress, senators and the primes?
The public seems to like NASA more with time, although that doesn’t translate in any more money unless it’s something like saving Hubble. We forget how dovish Americans were on the space program back in the 1960s.
The ‘public’ has not a f**ing clue about space. Case in point: I was pretty stoked seeing Endeavor in LA a week ago, and whipped out the phone to show my thoroughly uninterested acquaintances , several of whom thought it was still operating, and none of whom knew we need the Russians to launch humans to orbit but so what?
On the other hand, mention NASA and everyone lights up, swelling with pride, knowing or thinking that NASA is the repository of American smart people.
Still digesting this. I just don’t know what to think.
One thing it reflects is the lack of education of the public about space. In the 60s, there was nearly continuous media coverage: Life Magazine, National Geographic, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, articles with bylines of von Braun and Gilruth, TV coverage, and in the schools, NASA Facts on the walls, 16mm movies of nearly every program, manned mission, and weekly short film and radio programs…. Today NASA seems to aim for lots of YouTube videos. Apparently it doesn’t have the same effect. The space program started in the 1950s with a series of Colliers articles and Disney programs. That was not by chance-they grew out of a 1950 conference about how to tell the public that the age of space was upon them.
Railroads were built by private companies, often through bonds. The right of way was ceded by the federal government. It’s a private-government partnership.
Vast areas of land were given to the railroads, not just the rights of way.
I would be for giving NASA a big piece of the Moon, if they would get around to exploring it- say twice the size of KSC- 340 sq km times 2.
Not just the right of way. They also received extensive land grants in a patchwork style alongside where the track was being laid, as well as per-track subsidies. Those were turned into bonds via financial engineering that would get you imprisoned for securities fraud today.
To an earlier generation, the Moon was the mythical goal, as envisioned in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. IMO it would make more sense to develop infrastructure first in LEO, then on the Moon. The shift to Mars as a first target followed Congressional demands that the Obama administration identify an actual mission for the SLS/Orion, itself the product of a Congressional demand. Why didn’t Congress simply demand that the Constellation program be continued, perhaps including even the ill-fated Ares 1, with the goal of building a lunar base? Perhaps the need for additional funds for landers, habitats, etc. precluded this otherwise obvious strategy. A more practical alternative would have been to drop the SLS and Orion and simply allow both SpaceX and Boeing to beef up the heatshields on their capsules for the lunar mission. Unfortunately politics would not allow it.
As a Democrat I am unhappy with the Administration’s “Mars first, but decades from now” policy. But Mr. Obama’s initial strategy, to drop Constellation and put the resources into LEO infrastructure, commercial crew, and a major push in space technology, was the right one. When he was forced to continue with SLS and Orion, without funds for lunar landers and base support, there simply was no right answer.
“Moon Huggers” – I believe the technical term is “Loonies”
I wonder if RAH coined that term.
I believe so
Keith and Paul, while criticizing space advocates for failed approaches for communications, go on to call eachother Moon Huggers and Delusionists. Leading by example here
Mars is strictly exploration, and it will be so for probably another century, the moon has at least the potential to have some economic usefulness. I think that’s what the Moon vs Mars division in the space community is mostly about: those who want to build vs those who want to explore.
I knew I was Loonie
The advantage of the cislunar approach that Spudis (and many others) have recommended for 40 years is that as you develop the infrastructure it becomes easier to do the next step. You go to Mars when it becomes easier and more affordable. The alternative is flags and footprints, and as we’ve seen, unless there is some external driver, like in the 1960s the cold war, no one will pay for flags and footprints.
You seem to be arguing that Spudis and other Loonies see the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars.
If that’s what you’re saying you’re wrong, the Moon is the goal in itself, true Loonies aren’t the least interested in Mars.
Mars might be an eventual goal but doesnt have to be.
In the Cislunar, flexible path approach, you start from where you are-in today’s NASA world we have ISS, we have the capability to develop testbeds for advanced ECLS, advanced propulsion, advanced radiation protection, advanced habitability….
You extend your reach into cislunar space; eventually you might decide to go back to land and set up outposts on the moon; you do not need to make that decision today.
The mistake of Constellation and Orion was to throw everything they had ten years ago, away, and start over. They shut down all of Shuttle, laid off all of the workers, closed the plants…because they were going to do something different. After several years Congress saw that wasn’t going anywhere and demanded NASA put in place SLS, which was based on Shuttle, but now plants had to be reopened, new workers hired…
In the 1970s, MSFC talked about an incremental approach to a space station with small modules and elements that would be developed on a continuing basis. This flattened but continuous spending meant that people were continually employed in their areas of specialization. JSC and the space industry wanted a grand, big, expensive space station. They sold station on the basis of the low cost incremental MSFC approach but they started designing the grand station. Nearly killed it in the process. Now we have a completed grand station; we are trying to figure out what it is good for and what to do next. And if you notice, the continuing cost to maintain the ISS is no less now that its been completed than it was while it was still being built. Whats the reason?
Most planetary and science missions do not get enough money to do the grand, enormous programs. So they’ve been done incrementally and they seem to get the job done. This might be changing with something like the Webb telescope. It might not be a good change.
The flexible path ought to be based on what we have now and develop system advancement incrementally and continually. NASA’s leadership has been all for dumping everything we have now in favor of something new and different that gives us a Mars mission in 20 to 40 years. The plan does not fit the budget. In fact, the less NASA does with the fairly flat budget it gets, the more pressure to reduce NASA’s budget since people see they do not get much for it.
Sorry, but that is just incorrect. Lunar advocates see the Moon as the gateway to exploring and developing the Solar System. Its the Mars folks that believe the goal in space should be Mars and only Mars.
But nowhere in the writing of lunar advocates will you see lunar advocates saying that humanity should stop space exploration at the Moon.
Maybe we’re just looking at the matter through opposite ends of the telescope.
Loonies see the Moon as a destination in itself, not as a stepping stone (a stepping stone is a rock in the middle of a stream that has no importance other than as a step to the true goal, which is the other side of the river) to Mars specifically.
No where did I say Loonies think we should stop at the Moon. So stop trying to put words into my mouth.
.” The alternative is flags and footprints, and as we’ve seen, unless there is some external driver, like in the 1960s the cold war, no one will pay for flags and footprints.”
Which is why the NASA way will never get us to Mars, or even back to the Moon. You could have the best leadership in NASA that’s imaginable, the problem is it’s a broken system.
Exactly so. Mars will end up being so expensive that it will be abandoned after a few missions and we will be back to where we are now.
Which IS the plan!
I’m just skeptical you’ll get the funding for incremental cislunar architecture if you don’t have missions that actually require it – and none of the crewed missions actually funded do, nor do any of the robotic missions.
http://spirit.as.utexas.edu…
The “commercial” Lunar Fuel depot plan, could we afford both? (Mars) I have my doubts
Let Musk worry about Mars
The Lunar Fuel Depot outline in that FISO telecon make little financial sense. The price tag for 200 metric tons of propellants at L2 annually is $3B (about $6800 per pound of propellant delivered). Excluding the development cost & setup cost of the Cis-Luna infrastructure required for this scheme. If you need 200 metric tons of propellants at L2, it is a lot cheaper to send it up from Earth. Or better yet use a LEO propellant depot. With $3B you can get about 20 expendable Falcon Heavy flights at $150M each to lift about 1000 metric tons of propellants to a LEO propellant depot.
Short term yes, but you need to start thinking about the long term and leveraging the experience curve to lower costs.
Short term it made more sense for the English to use wood for cooking and heating, not coal. But when the English Crown limited the use of wood the investment was finally made in coal as an energy source, and the world changed as a result.
You’d need a lot more flights to make it worthwhile to have that lunar fuel production, and I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future. The math for that gets worse, too, if they manage to get launch costs down on Earth.
Down the line, that becomes more possible. But that’s because you’re using increasingly capable robots to do all the work for you.
There are launch methods for getting propellant (water) off the Moon other than rockets, in principle firing it to LLO or L points far more cheaply than the cost of lifting it off Earth.
Exactly, high G (500+) mass drivers or railguns powered by solar energy will make exporting fuel and ore from the Moon extremely cheap and easy.
So you need more infrastructure to develop and maintain a Luna mass driver delivery system along with the associated power requirement.
Also people will be weary of what is in effect a functional Earth bombardment system.
Has no one heard of the lunar launch sling?
“Also people will be weary of what is in effect a functional Earth bombardment system.”
You watch too much SciFi.
Nope. It is from Heinlein’s “The Moon is A Harsh Mistress” book from 1966.
Which is SciFi, I’ve read it.
If you’re going to worry about TMIAHM scenarios you will really be stressing out about the millions of guided missiles we have in the hands of amateurs rocketing down our roads, each one able to take out numerous people.
Achieving orbit or even aiming for EML2 is one thing. Aiming for Moscow or New York City is another. Not only would the rail gun need to be much more powerful and accurate, but the enemy could see rocks coming almost a week in advance.
A mass driver is an easy centralized military target.
Atomic bombs are far cheaper and more effective. The kinetic kill weapons from Heinlein’s TMIAHM aren’t plausible.
But battleships were so cool!!! 🙂
If you fired enough kinetic impacters you will get enough within the circular error radius. We are talking about kinetic weapons around a few hundred kilograms in numbers of tens of thousands. So instead of a few citybusters like in TMIAHM, it will be a rain of city blockbusters..
Maybe they could see the rocks and lots of accompanying decoys incoming. Can they tracked them all. Even if they can tracked some of them, how are they going to naturalizing the incoming deluge. There aren’t that many high altitude anti-ballistic systems around. Unless they are nuke-tipped systems, might not even neutralized a chunk of rock.
How are you going to take out a Lunar surface mass driver installation without a cis-Lunar vehicle that is easy prey to the mass driver with a week for target practice.
We gone off topic enough. Back to the affordability of the FISO Moon fuel depot proposal.
You’re talking a lot of small rocks? Google ballistic coefficient. Also terminal velocity.
Also, rail guns would likely be similar to railroad tracks. Not very movable. How do you aim these at different cities?
That is a fascinating story that i never heard before.
The story of the transition from wood to coal is told well in Barbara Freese’s book “Coal: A Human History”. 2004. It is also why ship building became a major industry in the English colonies with their easy access to large trees.
It might be $3 billion/year to start. But forever?
Phases 1 and 2 talk about small landers with earth propellent. Phase 3 talks about reusable lunar landers that use lunar ISRU propellent. When phase 3 kicks in, transportation costs will go down.
Also as lunar infrastructure increases, they will be able to manufacture more of what they need from local resources. Lessening the need to import stuff from earth will decrease expenses.
How is LEO better than EML2? From EML2, TMI can be accomplished with 3 burns totaling about 1 km/s. From LEO, TMI is about 3.6 km/s.
Did you miss the part about excluding the development cost & setup cost of the required cis-Luna infrastructure in addition to the annual $3B operating cost for this scheme.
The transition from phase 1 & phase 2 to phase 3 of this scheme will be much longer and costlier than outlined in the paper. From the simple fact that no one have try to have long term working infrastructure on the Luna surface with regolith dust everywhere. Especially if you need people to maintain the infrastructure.
The comparison between a LEO and a L2 propellant depots is a wash IMO. Since you have to factoring in the delta-V required to bring the propellants to L-2 along with maintaining a zero boil off propellant depot at L-2. With cheap heavy lift, which is required for this Luna fuel depot scheme. It is simpler and cheaper to get the propellants from Earth with constant stream of propellant deliveries with heavy lift. Along with the vast existing global infrastructures.
Ongoing transportation costs aren’t development cost & setup cost, sorry.
I will factor in delta V to get to EML2 vs LEO:
Lunar cold traps to EML2: 2.5 km/s
An asteroid in lunar orbit to EML2: .4 km/s
Earth surface to LEO: 9.5 km/s.
9.5 km/s vs 2.5 km/s is a wash?
Reusable boosters are doable but this is not sufficient to reduce transportation expense enough for settlement.
We also need reusable upper stages. And upper stages are a different animal. Delta V budgets of 8 km/s mandate 90+% mass be propellent. Then payload’s a few percent. This shrinks mass budget for structure and thermal protection to around 4%. Shedding 8 km/s via air braking subjects the ship to extreme conditions. Structure and TPS more tenuous than a Coke can is not going to endure this punishment.
Extra-terrestrial propellent is a pre-requisite for cheap space flight, IMO.
How much of that 1000 metric tons gets me to L2 with 200 metric tons
Or how much Xenon to get me that Earth sourced 200 metric tons to L2?
There is no need to transfer the propellants to EML-2 with a LEO propellant depot.
Ask how much of that 1000 metric tons do you need to go from LEO to TMI directly. As compare to the propellants needed to get from LEO to EML-2 than from EML-2 to TMI plus the propellants needed to transfer the EML-2 depot supply from Luna surface to EML-2.
Instead of the cost to set up and maintaining the cis-Lunar infrastructure, that budget is used to develop hardware for Mars.
This is what SpaceX is considering with their MCT plans IMO. Except the MCT is the propellant depot.
To answer you original query about if we can afford both a Luna Fuel depot and go to Mars at the same time. I don’t think so.
Just ship water from Mars, since it has plenty of it, you need a water production unit there anyway, and can accumulate it far faster than on the Moon, at much less cost.
To become rich on the Moon:
Step 1: Ship Mars-water to the Moon.
Step 2: Wait for Moon-water miners to go bankrupt.
Step 3: Buy Moon-water miner’s assets for $1.
Step 4: Relocate assets elsewhere on the Moon and mine for something else.
Step 5: $$$$$ Profit !!!!
Mr. Obama requested full funding for Commercial Crew for years, only to have it slashed by Congress. Reducing the cost of access to LEO and indeed restoring US human launch capability was his priority, and properly so. Congress has the legal authority to micromanage the budget, and they did so. Had they kept their fingers out of the pie we would already be launching humans form American soil.
I’ve asked myself that question several times. It’s hard to put yourself in someone’s shoes, even more in this case, but it’s also true that Mr. Obama was slapped very hard in the face by a serious economic issue on Day 1. It was distracting.
I realize that to some this seems like a cop-out, and to the extent that the economy is now, finally, 6 years later growing a bit. I have no apology for that other than the obviously recalcitrant opposition he has faced. In fact he’s done a good job moving his programs forward in the face of the opposition.
Not enough for some of us, too much for others. It is called Democracy.
When Mr. Obama was running for his first term, he chose Lori Garver as his space adviser. She provided a coherent plan based on extending the Shuttle as much as possible (one or two flights) and accelerating development of lower cost human access to space and new technology for LEO and BLEO flight. Congress has the ability to force federal programs in a different direction, and led by Wolf in the House and Shelby in the Senate, they passed laws that made it clear that the NASA budget would be slashed if things weren’t done their way.
When Obama proposed scrubbing the unaffordable Constellation and setting NASA on a path for renewal, the space community screamed bloody murder. People (who should know better) still accuse him of shutting down the shuttle program, of “killing” manned space flight, of plotting to destroy NASA. People still, today, whine about the throw away “been there, done that” criticism about Constellations reduction to a Flags’n’Footprints program, five [expletive deleted] years ago.
With an audience like that, how much effort would you expend when you have to spend every day dealing with a Congress that’s passed one budget in about six years?
It’s too bad Spudis has shut off comments at the original articles site – I still believe that at some point, someone has to define how incremental advance lives inside a real NASA budget.
There are some good ideas out there, Spudis and Lavoie’s Lunar paper as one example of some good work. Nonetheless, we’ve seen programmatic factors get ignored or under-played as if the programmatic plan that goes with the technical approach is to be sneaky, to go about things quietly and hope no one notices.
Constellation is one historical example of this, but I can think of many others. Did anyone really, seriously think about the single programmatic assumption that Constellation made – the deorbit of the ISS in 2016, to free up funds? (This actually traces back to the Aldridge report before ESAS).
As time went by that little programmatic assumption being whispered about, but never being questioned, that relatively soon after finishing the ISS we would end it, came back to haunt Constellation with a vengeance.
Any plan, lunar, Mars or other has to address programmatic factors, a whole NASA budget context, alongside any elegant technical, acquisition and phasing approach. Strengthen the buy-in around the programmatic factors, out in the open and well understood, be it about canceling this or that (Orion, etc.) or how Science and Aero get a chunk as well of any budget plus-ups at the total NASA level, and you’ll be on the road to a real plan, not just the parts where optimism rules.