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 🖖🏻

53 replies on “The Force Is With Bridenstine – But Maybe Not With NASA”

  1. LOL What a great tweet Keith. This is so true! So many managers just care about the paper and the PowerPoint.

    Sad times if I am honest about NASA. The glitz of Apollo is finally starting to diminish… just a bit. Marshall cannot live off that legacy anymore.

    We do not need Stennis anymore.
    Marshall is just a shell of what it used to be.
    We do not need a lot of the infrastructure at Kennedy.

    If a Catagory 5 Hurricane hit KSC the biggest lost would be the SpaceX facilities… followed by ULA.

  2. It sounds like to me that the people at NASA really don’t want to send people to the Moon (and perhaps Mars too). They really, really have their hearts set on 2028. Is that critical mass for a certain number of retirements. Since Constellation started in 2005 that means some people would have worked on the program for 23 years.

    1. Whenever we proposed a space science mission that had any substantial overlap with a previous one (I realize earth science is different), we’d be told that “NASA is an R&D organization; we don’t do the same thing twice.” Is there a good reason why that doesn’t apply to putting humans on the moon and bringing them home safely?

      And please, spare me the “We’ll go to the lunar south pole” line. How will we communicate with people in a south polar crater when a command module isn’t close to overhead? Won’t we need a series of polar orbiting relays, or relax our safety rules?

      1. How will we communicate? Gateway in NRHO, spends the vast majority of its time overhead the south pole.

        1. The two cubists that accompanied inSight recently performed admirably, demonstrating that NASA is thinking about the issue.

          1. I’m satisfied with a 8000 bps data rate for scientific data, and a MarCO-like CubeSat could do quite a bit better from the Moon rather than Mars. But some people want live, streaming, HDTV video of astronauts on the Moon. I think that’s too much for a CubeSat. But it’s also something that a small spacecraft could do. Say three ESPA-class (150 kg) satellites rather than three 6U (8 kg) CubeSats. When you’re talking about landing people, putting three, 150 kg spacecraft on lunar Molniya orbits is pretty trivial.

        2. Technology has improved a bit since Clarke invented communications satellites. We don’t need astronauts on board to replace burned out vacuum tubes. Three, unmanned spacecraft in a Molniya-like constellation would be just fine.

          1. Astronauts on board? Why would you assume I was talking about a manned Gateway for communication relays? What a foolish strawman.

            There is no need for some vast constellation of communication satellites, such as sunman42 accused. The Gateway orbit can provide all the reasonable communication relay requirements of the south pole, with a single spacecraft. It shouldn’t even need saying that such a function would be unmanned and automatic!

          2. Let’s see, the current NASA plans call for an astronaut-tended space station in one of those NRHO orbits, and call it “Gateway” (or “Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.”) If you write something about “Gateway” (capitalized, even) in a NRHO orbit, without any further qualification or description, what do you expect people will assume?

          3. No, NASA never intended Gateway to be human tended like ISS. Where the heck did you ever get that idea?

        1. That’s what I used to do as a (much) younger person when I first got my ham radio ticket. Those were the days.

      3. The only good reason is that NASA is a government agency and through the machinations of Federal politics the Moon is a goal to achieve. This isn’t just a Trump thing as NASA has been working on it since 2005. Outside of that the Moon is the closest celestial body and the one most easy to visit and it is still full of scientific interest.

        If the higher up bureaucrats in NASA don’t think the Moon is a worthy enough goal, then that would certainly explain the somewhat slow effort to get there (outside the contractors just milking the program for every dollar).

        Regarding the relays, the SLS has a cubesat ride hitching capability. I suspect a series of small relay sats could be placed in orbit around the Moon using that capability.

        1. A CubeSat as a communications relay is a really bad idea. The ones hitching a ride to the Moon with EM-1 have an extremely limited downlink capability. Downlink rates are all about power (which means solar array size) and antenna size. Well, maybe not “all about”, but things like powr efficiency and on-spacecraft data processing and compression go against small satellites as well. In fact, it’s a difficult enough problem that there’s at least one proposal for a large, commercial lunar satellite, to act as a relay for any small satellites or CubeSats willing to pay for the service.

          1. The simplest strategy is just to limit the mission to the periods when the Earth is visible from the lunar South Pole. Remember, although the Moon is tidely locked with the Earth there is some wobble, so the Earth will rise and fall below the horizon at the lunar South Pole depending on where it is in its orbit. Someone with the right software should be able to determine the launch windows that would be available.

            Now if you are talking about going into the craters near the pole that are always in shadow, that is a different matter. You will need to set up a relay station on the rim. But given the extreme cold in those craters I don’t expect astronauts will actually go into those craters. More likely they will just send rovers in and control them from the rim.

            https://www.youtube.com/wat…

      4. When it comes to planetary science missions and that “NASA is an R&D organization; we don’t do the same thing twice” attitude, I’m been hinting at having some people on the next planetary Decadal Survey who are _not_ planetary scientists. I’d like to hear what someone studying the Earth’s atmosphere thinks about the fragmentary data set we get from the sort of attitude you describe.

        For telecom from the lunar poles, you’ve got another problem which will make telecom issues go away (or make them a moot point). I assume the equipment and people in a permanently shadowed crater will need electrical power. And that much nuclear power isn’t a near-term prospect. So you’re going to have solar arrays outside of the permanently shadowed regions. When (if) you can do that, putting the high gain antenna next to the solar arrays shouldn’t be a problem.

    2. My sense is that they want to get back to the moon, and to get working again, but many have been burnt way too often. So they’re waiting to see the money. We say now “we’re going back to the moon” … for good ? a permanent colony ? or until the budget well runs dry (like ISS) ?

      Also this is a different paradigm for NASA … very fluid (maybe SLS, maybe SpaceX).

      I wonder if Bridenstine feels like the captain of the Titanic ?

      1. At first I wondered that too; but he’s a smart guy that surely know what he was getting into.

    3. No. It’s because many have heard this song and dance before. Why should they believe in it now?

  4. The bombshells Bridenstine dropped, wow! He really seems engaged and willing to consider unorthodox solutions.

    Not only was the discussion of Falcon Heavy interesting, he was also open to changing EM-1 to a flyby if that meant hitting the 2020 deadline. And what about his favoring a smaller two man lunar lander? Dang…

    NASA has lucked out with this guy as their administrator.

    1. A nice human mission to the moon needs about 100mT of mass in LEO- Mars about 10X more. While a 140 mT Saturn V could address the lunar IMLEO, it needs to be staged for Mars. Note the launch $ alone at $10,000 to $100 per kg.

      LV $/kg decrease with flight rate. Shuttle designer Max Faget recognized that “we really need to get behind a reusable first stage” to further reduce costs. At least 70% of the mass is propellant with little intrinsic value. Five launches of a 20mT LV or 2-3 launches of two LVs would meet the lunar needs without any significant risk (studied in depth).

      Boeing’s Amplification factor outlines the benefits of gas stations. 2-3 LVs can meet the needs of the entire USG. With distributed launch, in space propellant and re-use, and International Partners, it sets a sustainable exploration path.

      Decades of experience lead to the 2004 VSE. “For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that apply to more than one destination. NASA plans to invest in pre-positioned propellants”. Architecture change required.

      The spiral architecture was cast aside with just a few flaws added to the VSE: 1) return to the moon by 2020 2) in preparation for human exploration to Mars and other destinations. The deadline killed all tech development, while Lunar technology has nothing in common with Mars.

      Now its once again humans to the moon by 2028 without a sustainable architecture. Another generation of explorers realizes they just lost the moon and mars. All aboard.

    2. Yes, I really hope that President Trump is re-elected and that VP Pence follows with two more terms so he is able to remain the Administrator for a long, long time. Not only would he get NASA back to the Moon, but finally to Mars as well.

      1. God help the country if that happens. But that has littlew to do with my opinion on the space business.

        The real issue should be how do we keep it going if Trump isn’t re-elected. That’s been the problem since JFK was assassinated.

        1. I think that would be Nixon in 1968. Before Johnson became president, he was Kennedy’s vice president, and supportive of the Moon landing initiative. Similarly, the Reagan/Bush transition didn’t involve any big changes in space policy. I might say the same thing about the Nixon/Ford transition, but I don’t think Ford had any space policy. The big jerks in space policy seem to happen when the new administration is from the previous opposition party.

          1. Yes. Which is why I predict SLS has at best 5 more launches, and at worst 2 more, all depending on when a new President takes office.

            By 2025, the terrible economy of SLS in contrast to the superior commercial options then available, will be impossible to ignore, making it painless for a new administration to pull the plug; and SLS will have launched at best 5 times by then.

        1. No one remembers or cares about the debates of the Portugal Court in the early 15th Century. Nor do they remember why Portugal started the Age of Discovery. They just remember that it marked the start of the road to the modern world. So will it be hundreds of years from now.

          1. Looking it up would be cheating, so off the top of my head, they were probably thinking about what the Christian Kings next door would do, once they finished the Reconquista, and they wanted to get control of certain trade routes from the Venetians. The problem is that it’s hard to predict the future. Who knows what current events will have a large impact on what the world is like a few hundred years from now? I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume the Trump legacy will be a positive impact on the space program, and not a negative impact from something else he did/does/will do.

          2. Actually both were related and drivers of Prince Henry mission and were why his brother, the King, supported him in terms of granting him a monopoly on the trade from newly discovered lands. A key driver of his exploration was cutting off trade from the interior of Africa to the Moors in North Africa in order to weaken them.

            In terms of President Trump, one of the advantages of our form of government is that it’s nearly impossible for a president to mess things up long term. Herbert Hoover might be the classic example. Although his policies help to turn a recession into a depression the U.S. recovered and became stronger as a result.

            Climate change is another example. Although President Trump isn’t doing anything about it private entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and many states are. Indeed, if anything his lack of response drives others to address it.

      3. President Trump is like a breath of fresh air for both the economy and space. Hopefully, he can find the political support to continue to Make Space Great Again.

      4. So far there has been no concrete sign beyond rhetoric to show Trump is any better than every president we have had since 1972 on having NASA do its job.

      5. Well, I’ll grant you the Moon. But NASA isn’t going to be first to Mars. Only SpaceX is relentless driving for Mars.

        I’m going to go out on a limb here, and predict the first manned flyby of Mars will be a SpaceX Starship departing Earth during the 2025 Mars launch window.

      6. Just imagine actually thinking a potentially one-off Moon landing and speculative Mars landing is a good reason to re-elect Trump and then going on to elect the extremely anti-LGBTQ Pence for two terms.

  5. So a Falcon Heavy + ICPS (modded Delta 4) upper stage can send Orion and its service module to lunar orbit? And Delta 4 Heavy couldn’t get them to Earth orbit?

    Oh, Myyyyyy…. [George Takei voice]

    NASA Admin. Bridenstine talking about Falcon Heavy + Orion, Falcon Heavy + ICPS + Orion, etc. Plays at 29m 54s.

    https://youtu.be/o2gz2E-Wrw…

    1. The folks at Teslarati have already posted images made by readers of what an Orion would look like on top of a Falcon Heavy. It actually looks a lot better than on top of the SLS.

      https://www.teslarati.com/s…

      SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy: “It could help NASA land on the Moon in 2024”

      By Eric Ralph
      Posted on April 2, 2019

      1. They obviously didn’t listen to the Administrator when he discussed that configuration.

  6. The folks at NASA know there is an election soon. If the Democrats win they know that any plans to return to the Moon will be dropped simply because they came from the Trump Administration. So why get excited when they know that the football will be pulled away again at the last minute?

    2. Or it’s because it is billions of dollars over budget and delayed time and time again. Meanwhile new private sector companies have not only achieved spaceflight for a fraction of the costs but also with better tech. Some while doing multiple projects.

      That and it doesn’t look good that the SLS, using off the shelf proven tech, will have taken longer than the Apollo program without even being flown.

  7. Several alternative theories explain the Administrator’s recent behavior:

    1. While interviewing with the Senators pre-confirmation, he explained that NASA needed a big shakeup, and that SLS was in the firing line; they being pragmatic souls saw the handwriting and agreed to let the new kid blaze a new trail, albeit with a leash of unknown length;

    2. Or, they told him to leave SLS the hell alone, in which case he is playing with fire.

    This is fun.

    4.4.2019, Another likely trivial thought:
    The one thing that the interviewing Senators would not have done? Ignore SLS. In fact, SLS would have been front and center.

  8. We’re seeing two different things happen but with the same goal, reforming NASA. On one side NASA is given a mission that will require a significant shift in culture, increase in management and tech competence, changes in internal politics and contractor relationships. Can they do it? Yes, it is possible. It requires commitment, both personal and professional. In a 1st, NASA can’t outwait the Executive branch on this one. They have 5 years to demonstrate significant progress/capability (within one administrations 8 year term). If they can’t or won’t show progress and quickly, commercial options will be used. This time commercial options exist and are cheaper. That’s a game changer.

    Ask yourself, if SLS can be accelerated to meet 2020 why wasn’t that baseline all along? SpaceX with far less money, in much less time developed a capability that can do the EM-1 mission (and recycle all 3 core stages). SLS can’t. NASA no longer needs to build its own rocket. Its 2019, not 1969. Yes, provide R&D, do exploration mission, but buy rides and stop competing with commercial providers. Other providers like Blue Origin are getting ready to fly. Think what the overall market will be like in 5 years?
    One SLS launch very 12-24 months @ 3.5 billion a year is not sustainable. If it is, consider give all remaining SLS development to any aerospace contractor to complete. Make part of the deal an offer to guarantee buy say 10 launches in 5 years (that should cover the investment/cost + profit) and see who bits. No one will.

    The other is pushing people out of NASA who have outlasted technical competence and do little during their last 10 years in the agency. They become a drag that reduces progress to a crawl and technical decision to the least impactful (can’t upset the apple cart). They don’t care. So many programs have be cancelled over the years, why would this one be different? They never lose a job, only the contractors do. It’s just money. That mindset needs to be altered.

    NASA needs to change to survive. If NASA won’t step up and meet the mission, the agency will be changed to meet the mission. Maybe it should anyway before this decade is out and we lose another ten years going to where fast.

  9. Nobody is going back to the Moon within five years, and never on SLS. Everyone in the room knows it; B. is the only one who must pretend otherwise in public.

    1. In a reasonable world, this assertion would be correct. Five years is a long time, as SX has shown.

      Based on what I’ve read publicly the Starship will likely be capable. But there is SO much we don’t know about that critter. Are they going to use COTS Garmin gear for avionics, for instance. What about life support, and a whole range of sometimes niggly things that NASA has been slowly working for decades. If the life support and related command/control issues can be resolved it’s possible for SX.

      Not likely, I’d say, except for this: Elon is mighty impatient.

      1. As far as navigation is concerned, using GPS above low Earth orbit is really tricky. It’s actually not impossible, but it’s a bit dodgy and intermittent. You can only use the satellites which are just above the edge of the Earth’s disk. So Spaceship isn’t going to land on the Moon with heritage Falcon navigation systems.

        1. Point taken. OTOH, as you’ve pointed out, a few satellites in Molniya orbits about Luna would be straightforward; I wonder if they could be integrated into GPS?

          1. I’m not sure. Actually, I’m not sure if a Molniya orbit is right for communications satellites. There are a bunch of similar orbits which also work well for users at high latitudes. But the requirements for GPS or similar navigation satellites are different. Molniya orbits are designed to make sure one satellite in the constellation is always more-or-less in the same place in the sky. For navigation, you want to make sure several satellites are overhead at the same time, and ideally in different very directions.

            But that’s the nice thing about small satellites. In terms of orbits and mass, there’s no reason why you need to combine the communications and navigation satellites. The mass of one Orion CSM is the same as 172 of those 150 kg small satellites I mentioned. That’s more than enough for separate communications and navigation constellations.

            Of course, we’re talking about infrastructure which wouldn’t be in place for the initial landings, unless someone really though ahead, and the US isn’t known for thinking ahead about infrastructure.

            There also might be some issues with operating a GPS constellation from Earth. It takes a fair amount of tracking, commanding station keeping maneuvers, and resynchronizing their clocks. I’m not sure if the range to the Moon would make that more difficult or less accurate.

          2. “I’m not sure if a Molniya orbit is right for communications satellites”

            These orbits are being used by some of the smaller systems; I am thinking of Japan and India. Japan, because they wanted better singles in very highly congested urban settings; India, because they simply need more bandwidth. Now I think about it. I seem to remember discussions that centered on South Korea as well.

            It is an interesting idea. First, can these systems web easily integrated into GPS? The answer being ‘Yes’, I can think of dozens of interoperability questions.

            More to the current topic: Does anyone know the types of antennae used by GPS? What I mean is how they radiate away from Earth? While I’m thinking about it, what about signal strength? These birds would be significantly higher; the inverse square law being what it is, maybe this type of satellite would be necessarily much larger, bigger with more powerful output.

            Who knows (a little research is in order but ISRO can be data-stingy). Receiver tech these days is nothing short of stunning. These sats wouldn’t have the abilities of DNS; but then again, the abilities of DNS and the extremely quiet receivers at stunningly high frequencies is truly stunning.

            Enough already. It’s a fun topic.

          3. I think the orbit Japan uses isn’t exactly a Molniya. But it’s certainly similar, and based on the long dwell time at apoapsis you get from an eccentric orbit, and the magic inclination of 63.4 deg. which keeps apoapsis at the desired latitude. When I said I wasn’t sure about Molniya orbits to support a lunar, polar station, that’s the sort of detail I was thinking of. Molniya-specific things like an eccentricity of 0.74, or a half-day orbital period, or three spacecraft per constellation might not be the right choice.

            The same thing’s true for a lunar GPS system. The terrestrial GPS’ number of planes and spacecraft per plane was deigned for global coverage and allowing a position fix at any time. A single lunar base or station might not need that, and for landings, a few hours per day of availability might be fine.

            Actually, that (and combining functions) would be an interesting design study, and one NASA ought to be funding if they are serious about a sustained presence on the Moon.

            As far as the details of GPS are concerned, I’m not sure about the antennas. It’s probably not something in the public domain, since it is, fundamentally a military system. The navigation signals are L band (1200 MHz), and poking around a little turns up a received signal on the Earth’s surface of around -150 dBW. Which tells me nothing, since I expect energy in watts per square meter not watts.

            The one thing I’m sure of is that the beam points down but the beam pattern covers slightly more than the entire planet. There is a CubeSat constellation idea (low frequency radio interferometry) which requires high precision position information data in geostationary orbit. They made it work with GPS because the GPS signals are broadcast into an angle slightly wider than the Earth.

          4. By an amazing coincidence, there was a NASA release on this subject on the same day I replied. It looks like the Magnetospheric MuitiScale mission (MMS) is getting GPS fixes at very high altitudes (about a third of the way to the Moon.)

            https://www.nasa.gov/featur…

            It looks like they are using the side lobes of the GPS signal, as well as the fraction of the main lobe which misses the Earth (that was the part I wrote about.) The piece has a nice figure of the main and side lobes and how the cover which orbits.

          5. Thanks for the link. That page has an interesting illustration.

            Something I wonder about (and will need to research): when GPS gives a user-location, what is the reference point? Are my (X,Y,Z) coordinates offsets from the center of the earth? Or offsets from GPS satellite locations?

            The answer I think might be part of how the system could be example tended to satellites in lunar orbit.

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