NASA Media Brief On Asteroid Mission No One Supports
NASA to Discuss Today Asteroid Redirect Mission Capture Concept, Next Step in Journey to Mars
“NASA will host a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EST today during which agency officials will discuss and answer questions on the selection of an Asteroid Redirect Mission concept. The mission is to retrieve an asteroid mass and redirect it into lunar orbit, where astronauts will explore it in the 2020s. The mission will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human deep space expeditions, including to Mars.”
Asteroid Redirect Mission Critique, earlier post
“… It will require an ancillary spacecraft deploying either a huge capture bag or a Rube Goldberg contraption resembling a giant arcade-game claw. Neither technology is useful for getting humans to Mars.”
Wonder when Lightfoot decided he wouldn't decide now. Anncmt of this telecom, with *3* speakers not just him, only made this morning.
— Marcia Smith (@SpcPlcyOnline) December 17, 2014
So the news that #NASA announced today is that there is no news to announce. Typical.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 17, 2014
Not surprising that Lightfoot, Bolden et al can't make decision on Asteroid mission since they still cannot explain why it needs to be done.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 17, 2014
Now now Keith .. there must be at least one supporter in the halls of congress. It has to put some largess in someone’s district.
The congressman from Ceres (California)? 😉
The Administration wanted to cancel Constellation. Congress demanded they continue it, and then demanded they come up with a mission for the rocket the Administration “insisted” on building. Attempting to use logic, Obama decided on Mars rather than the Moon because it moved the costly landers into the next decade. Then Congress demanded a mission now. Obama asked NASA for one that required SLS/Orion for human BEO flight, but for only 28 days and no landers. The Orion can only reach lunar orbit, so put something there. Originally the plan was to bring the asteroid to the ISS, which would have made more sense. So all this was the usual dance of politics. Now Congress, under GOP control, wants to attack Obama any way they can, so they pick on the ARM, never mind that they demanded it in the first place.
Part of the difficulty is that for both sides holding onto political power has become the goal, rather than meaningful progress or good government.
Thats why its called congress, not progress. Duh 🙂
I thought its called the CONgress.
{sigh} And this is why your political system is so broken. Reasonable people want to seem “fair”, and so ignore how utterly lop-sided the craziness is on the US rightwing and pretend “both sides do it”, which lets the crazies get away with murder.
Republicans filibustered more times in the last 6 years than in the entire history of Congress put together. More times in 6 years than in the previous 219 years. But people will say, “Sure, but both sides have filibustered, look at that state dem rep who…”
There are more US embassies without ambassadors (about 25%) than at any other point in US history. “Sure, but both sides have always played politics with appointments, look at that time…”
And on and on.
The result is that lets Republicans shift the very idea of the “reasonable middle” to wherever they want (the “Overton window”), forcing the Dems to swing that way to also appear “balanced”. In reality, today’s Democrat party is not only to the Right of the average American, they are to the right of the average Republican in the ’80s and early ’90s. Result… the left stop voting, because “they’re both the same”, and Republicans win the Senate… Argh.
The shift to the right you talk about. Could it be they are just being incorperated by the likes of citigroup. Seems to me the parties should be renamed the Corporates and the Socialists.
There is only one socialist in Congress (actually a democratic socialist) – the fabulous Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is neither Democrat or Republican (altho he caucuses with the Democrats – of course).
As Paul451 (sounds like either a biblical verse or a Bradbury novel) pointed out, the whole Democratic wing has been pulled rightward because of the simply crazed extremism from the Republican side. These ain’t your father’s Democrats!.
I agree with you on almost every point, but I’ve approached legislators of both parties without being listened to. Unless we can move away from the dominance of politics by money, and the polarization and hostility that are poisoning debate, what we believe won’t matter much.
I think that the ‘next step to Mars’ thing is mostly an indirect connection. As the official orthodoxy is that only HLVs can launch crewed missions to Mars and SLS won’t survive a decade as a hanger queen, finding a make work mission like this could be seen as a survival necessity for the Mars program.
The ARM as a tug makes EELV missions possible or
nothing bigger than 70 ton to LEO
Lets see who wins:
* The state that designs and assembles the SEP spacecraft.
* The states that make the parts of the SEP – solar panels, thrusters, avionics and bag.
* The state that makes the launch vehicle for the SEP.
* The state that makes the SLS.
* The state that makes the Orion.
* The state that launches the Orion and SEP.
* The state that controls the mission.
So several states (and NASA Centers) win.
So far no discussion of cost. Rationale is that it leads to a manned landing on Mars. Risk reduction, space technology, human exploration. Wait a minute, here’s a question about cost and mass. We are required to do an independent cost assessment. (No costs given now.) Mass will depend on LV, i.e. not the SLS, the LV for the actual asteroid retrieval. Each of two teams team has representation from every center, about 50 total (on each team?) It occurs to me that the “boulder” approach could be used for returning multiple samples from a large asteroid, why bring back just one boulder? Get samples until the mass is maxed out.
$160M in FY16, 90 for Space Technology mission directorate. There is more commonality than differences. The SEP effort is common, including a large solar array and thrusters.
Considering SLS/Delta IV Heavy/FH? They are either considering the SLS for the SEP retrieval probe or they are considering the DIV for launching the Orion? Not sure which.
An announcement of a non-announcement!!!
Hmm. Did a politician veto the decision?
Another non-announcement? Why even bother holding junkets with the press if you’re not going to actually announce anything? It’s not like it will make them more inclined to report positively on their unfunded asteroid mission.
So NASA gave a half-asteroid briefing? 😉
very punny
First, we are not going to Mars as that requires a habitat module, lander, and lots of other stuff from supplies, operations and maintenance, and radiation protection (no money for any of that). Second, we are not going to the Moon as that requires a lander (no money for that). So….. if want to send a human to something beyond LEO then it has to be an asteroid (not sure if there’s money for that!). I’d like to see is overall plan how it will be done and with listing of major contracts for various systems needed to accomplish this mission. I think that’s what everyone has been flaming on the forums about how it’s to be done (I get confused much of the time so many well written posts but contradictory).
Deleted
I as “at” a Google hangout with SBA Folks in attendance and not all hate the ARM rather many lust after ion powered stage itself.
The concern is the decadal survey being honored
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/
and
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sba…
if the human spaceflight budget is paying for the ARM mission paying for the project then fine
Then The decadal planning might allow for this,
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sba…
or an instrument using peer review
and my idea
http://yellowdragonblog.com…
The reason we are building the SLS is lust; no more and no less.
The solar electric tug, in contrast, is valuable for a variety of missions, but it certainly does not require SLS or Orion.
And my post did not mention SLS, ion powered tug can go up on a EELV/Falcon
the tug could move around large prepositioned cargo for human voyages not sure would write off Orion,SLS more likely to meet some later demise.
sense I don’t really control the government I saw the SLS as a way to sneak in some R&D that might be useful to EELV or Falcon
A Methane powered RS-25?
A recent ULA paper tells a lot in reading tea leaves,fuel depots are defunded to ground test, the authors of the paper are no longer project managers at ULA of said project.
Yet there is hope!
The same ULA paper suggests that the SLS upper stage could be that long dreamed after ACES stage!
Didn’t mean to imply you had mentioned the SLS. I was just supporting your suggestion that many of of our legislators are shortsighted to say the least.
As I understand it ULA already has a contract with BO to develop the BE-4 methane engine for a new Atlas. This might be less expensive than a new methane engine based on the RS-25.
It’s my understanding that the ACES stage was proposed as a common upper stage for the Atlas and Delta, powered by one or two new-model RL-10s. Doesn’t the SLS upper stage use four engines?
I am trying to read tea leaves,
MS. Gravlee of ULA writs thus,
“The ACES design was taken through its System Concept Review in 2013”
“With up to four RL10C engines, it can support the
heavy lift needs of the DOD and Human Space Flight as well as the broader commercial market”
The paper is on ULA web site or here
http://yellowdragonblog.com…
or here
https://yellowdragonblogdot…
it appears that Ms Gravlee is no longer on the NASA/Glenn cryogenic project as of Oct 204 and the fuel depot work there has been defunded
I do hope someday to see more of her teams work
no money for a lander
Bolden has suggested early one morning two weeks ago an international lunar lander!
House Republicans and Senate Democrats are solely responsible for this mess. Sorry Republicans – you cannot blame Obama on this. This is all on Congress.
Shelby
Nelson
Hutchison
Mikulski
Smith
Posey
“Team Alabama”
Its all on you – you ruined a decade of NASA progress.
ARM will be cancelled soon enough; we may need to wait until the next Administration comes in. However in the meantime NASA really looks like a laughing stock. The more that discussion of these nonsense mission continue the less people take NASA seriously. NASA has enough problems without a meaningful plan, but ARM does a lot of damage to its credibility
To Deimos!
Makes a lot more sense than Mars.
I love it!. That should be the next nasa-based article from The Onion 🙂
Some one in this administration should have recognized that the most important piece of Constellation was its goal: the establishment of a permanent presence on the Moon. This asteroid buffoonery is something that has no technical merit but political merit: it isn’t connected to Bush.
I believe the Europeans would be willing to participate in a Moon mission but have no interest in Velcro-ing astronauts to asteroids
I agree a lunar base is a reasonable goal, while the ARM does not seem sensible. But to junk the ISS to pay for the lunar base makes no sense. If we can’t make the ISS productive, we cannot possibly sustain a lunar base.If we can’t afford both, we need better technology.
NASA HSF is in survival mode. No commitment to anything other than simply surviving. Totally insufficient to gather support for any possible exploration of BEO. Evidence of this is the ARM mission.
Sad really
Though it gets zero attention, ISS still gets a sizeable budget. It is too bad that the people running the program don’t know what to do with it and so much of the effort is wasted.
Hey, there are plenty of us down in the weeds with proposals for ISS payloads that would produce useful data, microgravity science on colloidal processes, multispectral earth observation, even astronomical observation. Yes, from ISS. None of these payloads would, by itself, revolutionize human science and life on earth. Each is a modest but useful advance. We just need a little funding, which is always hard to get if you make realistic promises instead of extravagant ones.
That’s the point. We can utilize space when we can access it for reasonable cost, with regular, scheduled flights, with minimal paperwork, like any scientific instrument.
Right now what we need is the equivalent of nanoracks for eart observation payloads, And we need modest funding. Private industry does not pay for basic research.
I agree that they need more science, more interesting science and more useful science. Instead mainly what flies are old science payloads: PCG and balls of flame.
I thought it was kind of funny that in a recent video they highlighted benefits to people in Mexico and Canada and could not even come up with something pertinent to people in the US who funded the program.
Its a shame that the only things that get on ISS are the simpler cubesat and nanorack payloads. There are so many capabilities on ISS and they seem forced to take the minimalist approach because they cannot get through the gauntlet of bureaucracy.
ISS has an effort going called RISE; apparently it has something to do with research and science, but mainly they took people who have been working in the ISS science organization and asked them to increase the importance of science in the future. The ISS Program Manager recently held an all-hands at which he commended the RISE group for their excellence in graphics and powerpoints.
While science is important, I think even more important should have been an emphasis on technology advancement in the name of exploration. They should have been looking at new R&D aimed at taking ISS systems and building an interplanetary capability. Instead, the NASA leadership figured that they were done with the hardware when assembly was complete and they’ve now succeeded in throwing most of that capability away.
Excellent series conclusion in today’s Houston paper. Most telling are the opinions of the long time NASA leaders, Chris Kraft, George Abbey and Bob Thompson. They, like I, feel that people like Bolden and Gerstenmaier are cheering NASA for its activities. ARM and even the recent Orion test are nothing to be cheering about. They are dead ends that promise nothing for the future. We all see that NASA is failing and withdrawing. Bolden and Gerstenmaier ought to be leading NASA into the future rather than cheering.
http://www.houstonchronicle…
I feel that in many ways the JSC management, including some of those interviewed for this story, created the situation they find themselves in.
George Abbey came out of the Flight Operations group. One of the main elements of that group were astronauts. Chris Kraft invented another group, Mission Ops. The main element of that group were Flight Directors and Flight Controllers. There was often competition between the two groups. With George Abbey, astronauts were put in charge of everything. Though Kraft was gone by the 90s, some of the leading Mission Ops people, like Kraft’s leading disciple, Gene Krantz, were forced out. After George Abbey’s departure, there was swing back and suddenly Mission Ops people were in charge of everything. Notably other groups like Engineering and Sciences were left out entirely.
JSC started life as the Manned Spacecraft Center because their prime job was designing and building spaceships. But under the 15 years of leadership by Operations, there seemed little interest in designing or engineering spacecraft. We were repeatedly told that JSC’s main job was flying spaceships. A lot of the responsibility for building the manned modules of the space station were traded away to other countries. People in Engineering and sciences often could not get promoted. Almost all astronauts were high ranking and in Operations there was a definite ladder for promotions to high levels. When the Shuttle Columbia accident occurred, the accident itself caused by operations people excluding the input of engineering, instead of pursuing in a systematic manner engineering improvements, an almost entirely operations led management decided to terminate Shuttle.
In its place came Constellation, led by people with operations and without engineering or science leadership. One of the reasons Orion wound up too large and too heavy was failure to do a thorough requirements engineering analysis. The people of the human factors organization, part of the science group, and who had designed the space station and the crew compartments of all earlier spacecraft, did not even have a role in Constellation and Orion.
Likewise in the Station program, the science organization had been doing a lot of the payload integration and mission integration for the earlier programs, but almost everyone in Station came out of operations and they continue to struggle today with getting payloads on board in an efficient manner because they actively chose to exclude experienced people.
So I think a lot of NASA’s current problems are a direct result of internal JSC politics by some of the managers in the story, and by many who still hold leadership positions today.
We have met the enemy and they is us.