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Artemis

Artemis Update From Bridenstine and Loverro

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 10, 2019
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Artemis Update From Bridenstine and Loverro

Keith’s note: Jim Bridenstine and Doug Loverro attended the Space News award event in Washington today. I asked them about the Moon/Mars plan that the Vice President and the National Space Council asked NASA to deliver in 60 days. Specifically I asked them if it had been delivered and if so could we see it. Bridenstine replied that it had not been delivered as requested and did not indicate when it would be despite it being rather overdue. See “Where Is NASA’s Plan For Sustainable Moon/Mars Exploration? (Update)
Prior to my question Doug Loverro announced that he was assembling a Baseline Assessment Team to conduct a review to see where the Artemis/SLS/Orion program is and then decide how to move forward. Specifically Loverro said he did not know what the Artemis 1 launch date would be and that this date would only be set once the entire program had been given a look over.
Loverro went on to say that he did not want to see funding as a “crutch” for not meeting the goal of landing humans on the Moon by 2024. He noted that he “does “not complain about gravity or radiation” and that funding is just another obstacle to overcome. Bridenstine cautioned that just because the date of Artemis 1 may change that does not necessarily mean that all other launch dates will be delayed.
When asked about the budget situation Bridenstine said he thinks that there is a chance that NASA will get areal appropriation by 20 December. If not, he said that he’s talking to his lawyers about ways to “move forward in this politically charged environment”. NASA has other lunar-focused efforts underway that have adequate funding and it is possible that some of them could be used to further assist the human lander effort.
With regard to the ISS Bridenstine said “We know that the space station can’t last forever. What are we doing now to make sure we do not have a gap in LEO since we are not going to build another ISS.
Inevitably the topic of Space Force came up in light of recent agreements in Congress. Both Bridenstine and Loverro are strong supporters of Space Force and it showed in their comments. At one point, Loverro sought to link what he’s doing at NASA with what Space Force will be doing at DoD: “I am going to the Moon in 2024 and I do not want there to be any space pirates out there”. He was kidding. I think. But wouldn’t you want a few pirates in the mix? Just sayin’.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

24 responses to “Artemis Update From Bridenstine and Loverro”

  1. Winner says:
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    Sure seems like a wait of many months is a long, long time on the timescale of getting back to the moon in <5 years. Methinks it’s not going to happen.
    All I can think of is our remaining supply of space shuttle engines falling into the ocean, one set per expensive flight.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Well, maybe, but then again

      Doug Loverro announced that he was assembling a Baseline Assessment Team to conduct a review to see where the Artemis/SLS/Orion program is and then decide how to move forward

      So I don’t see how anyone can say the work isn’t progressing! They are planning their butts off!

  2. Paul Gillett says:
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    1961: JFK…“We choose to go to the moon…

    2019: Bridenstine…talking to his lawyers about ways to “move forward in this politically charged environment”.

    “Inspiration” isn’t what it used to be!

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      JFK gave marching orders to engineers, Bridenstine gives marching orders to lawyers.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      In the early 1960s, the Cold War was still very much one of the top political concerns. The Space Race was a non-militaristic way for the US to “prove” its political, technical, and economic superiority over the Soviet Union. The “inspirational” speech that JFK gave was little more than a facade that partly hid the real reason that the US chose to go to the moon.

      There was only a single sentence in JFK’s speech that specifically called out the Soviet Union, but it indicated that indeed the US was in a Space Race with the Soviets:

      Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were “made in the United States of America” and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

      Absent the Cold War and the Space Race, NASA certainly still struggles to articulate why we should be spending so much money on crewed space exploration.

      • Bernardo Senna says:
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        Wouldn’t be nice if “Cold War” = “60 Years of Technological Advancement” at least?

      • Paul Gillett says:
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        I am well aware of the speech and its contents having seen it a few times myself. While I don’t discount that the Cold War was the real priority for JFK; I’ll still take that “single sentence” anytime.

        That said I agree with you that NASA has never mastered the message when it comes to selling manned operations to the public

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          “We choose to go to the Moon…” immediately followed the equally inspirational “Why does Rice play Texas?” Still no answer to this one….

          • mfwright says:
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            Because Rice U team to play against Texas A&M is a daunting challenge, and most likely to lose. Going back to the moon is very challenging, may lose a crew, probably waste a lot of money in the meantime. Either keep the status quo (and continue waste money on this dream of humans to Mars) or go forward attempting to get new capability.

  3. DougSpace says:
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    Are we getting our money’s worth from the ISS? Each experiment has cost about $700k and we don’t know when the ISS will give us solutions to the microgravity, radiation, and equipment safety / sparing for the journey to Mars. But we do know that the $3 B spent each year on the ISS could fully fund lunar return. So there’s a sizeable opportunity cost to the ISS. The goal appears to be a hapless transition to a “commercial” LEO station. In congressional testimony, Andrew Rush (CEO of Made in Space) said that it would be very difficult to turn a profit without the freebies (e.g. transport) that they get from NASA. So, do we need a perpetually-subsidized LEO station, LEO has no material resources but the Moon does. Perhaps we should move on to where the resources are.

    • MAGA_Ken says:
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      I’ve tried to find what success the ISS has had, especially related to scientific discoveries being commercialized, haven’t found any.

      It’s a bit of a white elephant.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        The Clinton Administration sold the ISS to Congress on the grounds it would keep Russian rocket engineers employed so they wouldn’t go to work for countries like Iran and North Korea. That is why they were able to get it to pass by one vote.

    • fcrary says:
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      Perhaps we should actually decide what we are doing in space. You are right to ask if we are getting our money worth, but that depends on what we want to buy. What is that?

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        To be sustainable, the cost of human spaceflight must be less that the price that customers are willing to pay, whether for science, industry or tourism. The size of this particular market is very sensitive to cost. A couple of marketing studies a few years ago suggest that to interest enough customers for a sustainable market (i.e. 100+ per year) the cost of a trip to LEO had to get below $1 million per person, so cost reduction remains the long pole.

        • Donald Barker says:
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          To be sustainable, yes, the cost must be right. But there are many other variables that must be address also: including political will and support, answering exactly why and what we will be doing there and for how long, what resources are there to work with, and so on. Everybody uses the word “sustainable” as a simple sales pitch these days without understanding the full complexity of it. Kind of how NASA sells boxes of “Science” to keep the space program going.

      • Donald Barker says:
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        Yes. Ive been trying to get people to succinctly answer the question “WHY” followed by “HOW” for years without success. Advancing scientific knowledge is great, but doing science alone will never get humanity off Earth .

    • Not Invented Here says:
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      The $3B per year spent on ISS helps commercial space, it’s better than feeding the money to the pork masters (Boeing/LM).

    • Donald Barker says:
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      The “money’s worth” of ISS is that its the best space based technology test bed experiment for human spaceflight ever made. Yes, it has and does support scientific research and yes that aspect could be bolstered, grown and enhanced. It is the wealth of knowledge that has been gained about living and working in space that shows its “worth” and loosing it will only set human spaceflight back many steps – possibly irrecoverably so if all variables are considered over the next 40 years. Second to all that is the fact that we’ve kept humans in space continuously for a huge amount of time and the inspiration and subconscious understanding of this by modern humans is remarkable in extending our world views.

  4. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Interesting that funding cannot “be a crutch”. If the design needs a system (let’s say environmental control) but the budget cannot stretch that far – do they fly without the system? Do they fly with the “best” environmental (etc) system that they can afford – whether it is redundant or not?

  5. Donald Barker says:
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    “…since we are not going to build another ISS…”
    This just says to me that, in light of no true long-term goal that is honestly sustainable (i.e., the difference in science vs settlement), and given political environments and future budget constraints that the future of human spaceflight could be in jeopardy. There is a reason there have been no “commercial” ventures in human spaceflight for the past 50 years and no breakthrough has yet occurred to change that track record. If we don’t get our act clearly straitened out, the next 40 years might not be as rosy as some seem to believe.

  6. DiscipleY says:
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    If a manager/VP/POTUS asks me for something that is going to take a ton of effort, and never follows up, 9 times out of 10 it won’t happen. Right or wrong, if the manager/VP/POTUS doesn’t bring it up again, it ain’t going to get worked; I can’t do everything, I gotta prioritize, I’m gonna work the things that they DO nag me about.

    For this 60day Moon/Mars plan, my guess is that VP Pence never followed up with Bridenstein with simple “How is that plan coming?”, “Got a draft yet?”, “You guys on track to meet the 60 day deadline?” If he did, I’d fully expect NASA would be scrambling to answer the mail and Bridenstein to have a better answer then a “I dunno”.

    Sounds safe to relegate this 60day Moon/Mars plan into the useless “Plan to make a Plan” purgatory bucket, where it can wait to be dusted off anew for the next political posturing budget cycle.

  7. Mat says:
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    Modified basic version of the pilgrim observer would be a good space station, in orbit or landed on a small celestial body. Would need an occasional rotator and some other goodies. Every time it is sent with supplies could add to its increased radiation protection, power supply and sustainability. Could have modules added in the comfort of controlled areas.

  8. Bill Housley says:
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    He has to be joking a about space pirates. To be serious about it would be irresponsibly silly of Jim. 😉