NASA FISO Telecon: NASA Collaboration with SpaceX’s Red Dragon Mission
“The next Future In-Space Operations (FISO) colloquium will be Wednesday, September 21, when we will host Philip McAlister (NASA HQ), who will speak on “NASA Collaboration with SpaceX’s Red Dragon Mission.”
Keith’s note: Elon Musk is getting ready for his big Mars colonization plan presentation at the IAC next week. The first step in this path to Mars is the Dragon mission that SpaceX is planning to send to Mars in 2018. You’d think that NASA would want people to know how it is involved in all of this. Indeed, NASA’s Director of Commercial Spaceflight Development Phil McAlister is making a presentation at this week’s NASA FISO telecon. Yet no mention is made of this presentation on NASA’s calendar, Journey To Mars page, NASA’s Commercial Space Transportation page, or anywhere else at NASA.gov.
Why is NASA hiding this briefing? Is NASA afraid to be seen supporting a competing plan for the #JourneyToMars ?

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

5 replies on “NASA's SpaceX Mars Mission Briefing That NASA Is Not Telling You About”

  1. I usually agree with Keith when he says that NASA doesn’t take enough credit or garner enough attention to its achievements. However, this time, I think NASA is doing the right thing in not being overly vocal about its involvement in SpaceX’s grand colonization schemes. Either:
    1) Elon’s mars plans are a pipedream (disclaimer, I happen to think so) and it is best to not appear to be supporting them lest you look like a fool. OR
    2) Elon will show NASA how real space exploration is done, largely rendering NASA’s current mission obsolete.
    In either case I think it is best for NASA to retain a neutral posture. Admit they are involved in some of the shorter term exploration (i.e. Dragon to Mars in 2018 .. or whenever it happens after the recent failure) but stay away from the big long term plans.

    1. Also, if they talk about it too loud, Congress might hear them and do something obstructive to protect the future demand for SLS.

  2. So many folks still see SpaceX as a competitor to NASA. Please, people, they are a partner…not a competitor. They are filling a roll in NASA’s future plans and NASA keeps egging them on because where SpaceX wants to go is where NASA wants them and their other partners to be with human spaceflight in the end.

    Commercial Crew is a glorified spin-off program…a commercial partner empowerment project. Next Step is Commercial Crew version 2.0…the first step to expanding that same human spaceflight procurement paradigm to the rest of the Solar System. You can expect to see many more RedDragon-like projects, and not just with SpaceX.

    And yes, there is still a little room in it for SLS, just maybe not quite enough to keep it flying. Congress is paying NASA’s paychecks while NASA quietly gives away Congress’ share of the pie by slowly privatizing the traditionally uber-expensive transportation services portion of space exploration.
    NASA will still be fully involved in human spaceflight, they’ll just be spending their money differently and no longer letting Congressional initiative set the pace on flight hardware and exploration projects. Some folks here think that’s a good thing, some folks don’t, but if too many companies wait too long to catch this vision and fill the gaps they are going to hand a deep-space transport monopoly to SpaceX. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing. SpaceX can’t replace NASA, nor should they. If they do it’ll be because some other folks overslept.

  3. The thing that gets me is when I see so many articles quoting “NASA Officials” who seem to talk as if their “Journey to Mars” sometime in the 2030’s (well hopefully!) is the only game in town. Surely an honest and open approach would be far better admitting that commercial companies are working on their own plans that may come to fruition earlier and that NASA will fully support and participate in these plans as and when required in a way that would be beneficial to both NASA and commercial space and if necessary adjust their own plans accordingly. Unfortunately they currently look like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand.

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