Pivoting From Mars To The Moon
Human flights to Mars still at least 15 years off: ESA head, Reuters
“Dreaming of a trip to Mars? You’ll have to wait at least 15 years for the technology to be developed, the head of the European Space Agency (ESA) said, putting doubt on claims that the journey could happen sooner. “If there was enough money then we could possibly do it earlier but there is not as much now as the Apollo program had,” ESA Director-General Jan Woerner said, referring to the U.S. project which landed the first people on the moon. Woerner says a permanent human settlement on the moon, where 3D printers could be used to turn moon rock into essential items needed for the two-year trip to Mars, would be a major step toward the red planet. U.S. space agency NASA hopes to send astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s and businessman Elon Musk, head of electric car maker Tesla Motors, says he plans to put unmanned spacecraft on Mars from as early as 2018 and have humans there by 2030. The ESA’s Woerner said it would take longer.”
– Moon and/or Mars: Challenging Human Exploration Orthodoxy, Earlier Post
– #JourneyToMars Via #ReturnToTheMoon, Earlier Post
“Elon Musk, head of electric car maker Tesla Motors, says he plans to put unmanned spacecraft on Mars from as early as 2018 and have humans there by 2030. The ESA’s Woerner said it would take longer.””
ESA is a slow lumbering wheezing bureaucratic swamp that lives like a vampire sucking up taxpayer subsidies.
They are in the process of getting spanked by SpaceX.
If they ever get to Mars, it will be to check into the Tesla Hotel overlooking the Mariner Valley.
Except that Musk Time’s “2018” and reality’s “mid 2030s” may very well end up being the same thing. Heard about that maiden Falcon Heavy launch from Vandenberg back in 2013?
The Heavy was a victim of SpaceX’s success. Falcon 9’s massive business drew the available manufacturing and technical resources, while at the same time enhancements to the F9 lessened the need for the FH.
A single FH uses 3 F9 cores and there simply has not been the surplus. That is changing.
The 2018 Red Dragon/Falcon Heavy mission seems eminently doable. Are you suggesting that it will be delayed until the mid-2030s?
Yale, every launch provider on the planet in the same lift range as the SpaceX Falcon 9 has been soundly trounced for at least the last year. That lift range will soon be extended when the Falcon Heavy becomes reality. Apparently, one of the first Falcon Heavy cores has been seen outside of the Hawthorne facility in the last 2 days.
ESA is just one of those launch providers which includes ULA, Roscosmos, Ariannespace (ESA), JAXA and others.
When SpaceX starts launching payloads on “used” rockets, the situation will go from bad to worse for all those launch providers.
Don’t forget that one of the first SpaceX customers was Asiasat, a Chinese company. Why? Because he was able to charge less than China for the launch, and still make a profit.
ULA I think is potentially reaching an existential moment. If they commit to Vulcan, they may not get the funding they need from their parent companies. Those companies can do the math and see that it does not add up.
On the other hand, JAXA, Arianespace, and to a major degree Roscosmos, are government vanity projects and can directly command resources even if it makes no classical economic sense.
All are destined to suffer big-time from SpaceX competition.
True but governments have many reasons for supporting a space program; profit may be on the list but it’s one of many.
absolutely agree. European governments have beat up satellite customers for having the audacity for shopping SpaceX simply because it is a better deal:
http://spacenews.com/airbus…
That’s why I pointed out that ULA is a much riskier proposition. its only real prop is that the (rather unhappy) US gov is willing to pay extra to maintain “assured access” with multiple vendors. When Blue Origin ramps up its orbital launcher then ULA is not just in trouble, it is in the outhouse. I can’t see Boeing and LM, who can see the trainwreck coming, going all in on the Atlas and delta replacement.
I could see a case being made for the (almost sorta) plug ‘n’ play AR1 engine for the altlas. But ULA doesn’t see it that way, so I think Tory may need to dust off his resume in a couple of years.
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What’s with the hate on ESA?
ESA is not a launch provider, Arianespace is. The ESA launch directorate is suborned to CNES. Good for SpaceX but space access is a strategic issue and not purely commercial (out side of the US that is). Not sure ESA are interested in being held over a barrel by either the US or Russia to launch their satellites. Jan was head of DLR who were pushing very hard for a lunar lander a few years back. None of the other nations bit and the project died at just before Phase B. Now he has the reins it is natural to give it a fresh coat of paint and throw it out there.
IMHO: Riddled with Administratium they may be but ESA has a fifth of the budget that NASA has, and are run by a dysfunctional board of directors (the National Space Agencies). They are punching well above their weight on the science and exploration side. Solo HSF is just too damned expensive for them.
Its not hate. My only feeling towards them is sadness at their shackled existence. I am simply pointing out their characteristics that leave them slow and inflexible. You concur with my original characterization as you say: “Riddled with Administratium…. and are run by a dysfunctional board of directors.” And as I point out lower in this thread that I agree that the Europeans demand an independence that transcends simple profit and loss issues.
BTW – SpaceX is far more than a “launch provider”
Mars has been 15-30 down the road since Wernher von Braun started talking about it in the late 50s – early 60s. There is no true motivating factor. And no one can be surprised that this is ongoing since the space community itself cannot coalesce and commit to a single viable path and governments wont fund what is needed. This is the status quo, and taken with the full social picture its a symptom of the “Rome burning” statement that Keith made in another post.
Space is hard. Not if you have a blank check, but if you want to do it on a sustainable budget. What we need is not a decision between Moon and Mars and another Apollo. What we need is a sustainable space technology program oriented toward reducing the cost of access for both human and unmanned missions.
Cheap access to space or CATS. Advocates have been pushing for this since at least the 1980s on Usenet Newsgroups.
Indeed. The argument can be persuasively made that $18B a year plus a sane roadmap could result in real accomplishments.
This is just Director-General Jam Woerner trying again to sell NASA on his Moon Village as the next step after ISS. As soon as it is
clear the U.S. is not going to buy in and bankroll it ESA will drop it.
Of course ESA could just go forward with it on their own, but that would required the EU to greatly increase their spending on space, which just isn’t going to happen. Europe just isn’t into showing that type of leadership in exploration and development anymore. European nations used to be such world leaders, they created the modern world economy. But since the U.S. took over protecting them militarily and economically after World War II they have just lost any real initiative. The U.K. is the only European nation that shows even a spark of that old drive. It will be interesting to see what happens IF they leave the EU and IF as a result that spark will mark their rebirth as a true world leader.
That is a little harsh reading of the European situation there. Takes more that a couple of generations to recover from the an entire century of conflict both hot and cold that was played out in your house. It is also a bit of a bummer when your crown jewel technology gets frog marched to the US or Russia….
Technology follows markets and money and it always has. Also some of the worst European wars were in the 17th and 18th Century when Europe was building the world economy. The U.S. also suffered from the Civil War which was destructive. The difference in those cases was no one came in to “protect” Europe or America afterward so they had to pick up the pieces and move forward.
That is the basic problem with Europe, it was become overly dependent on the United States for leadership. It needs to stand on its own again and ESA embracing and supporting a commercial return to the Moon would be place to start. Paradigm changes are a good time to demonstrate leadership and ESA could jump ahead of NASA and the Russians in this area is they leverage the commercial interest in going to the Moon in their favor.
There is a difference between leadership and having all the chips. though I suspect the distinction is lost on many: A complacent lack of insight it would be unwise to use to guide policy. You do raise an interesting topic I am not sure if Henry Tizzards surrender of Tube Alloys, the cavity magnitron, the gas turbine and Bletchley Park along with operation Paperclip can be regarded as a market forces action or simple vae victis. As for the civil war point it was well made and was probably a contributing factor to the European ascendancy in the late C19. However the civil war left the most productive aspects of the US economy untouched in the north and thrashed an anachronism in the south from which it was comparatively easy to recuperate. Not an accusation that any could realistically be leveled at a post war Europe: All the economies fragged, most industries serving a now defunct military, the technological jewels in the hands of the Russians and Americans and millions of displace people. Thank God for the Marshall plan… or was that just economic imperialism?
Keep in mind both World Wars were the result of European politics, wars that eventually pulled the United States in. The purpose of the Marshal Plan and NATO was so the U.S.wouldn’t have to deal with a third world war. And don’t forget the problems the U.S. is dealing with now in the Mideast are the result of the mess the Europeans made of the region after World War I and then World War II when they tried to fill the vacuum created by the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
Perusing the list of Nobel Prizes I see lots of European countries represented over the past 20 years (and too lazy to tabulate). Robotic deep space missions are quite cutting edge; and of course there’s CERN.
It’s true that ESA is hobbled by the necessity of spreading the wealth. But it’s also true that NASA is similarly hobbled by Congress.
You are assuming that basic scientific research is the same as world geopolitical leadership, a view common among scientists. But its the application of those discoveries to military and commercial applications that creates global leadership, not the scientific discovery itself.
It was a Russian researcher that discovered the basic equations for stealth technology. It was the United States that invested billions in the technology to make it operational and leads in its application.
The WWW was invented in Europe, but it was American business that actually made it a world wide economy.
Your point about basic research and application thereof is well taken, but your claim that the WWW was invented in Europe, and American business made it a world wide economy is an oversimplification. The basic idea of a world wide network of hyperlinked documents was first proposed by American researchers in the 1950s-1960s. Ted Nelson has/had a long running project, “Xanadu” to implement those ideas (even was supported by Autodesk for a period), but Berners-Lee developed a practical implementation first. Also, there was the French Minitel system developed in the 70s which was definitely applied (it allowed online purchasing), and successful, but never became world wide. Finally, the turning point for the WWW, was probably the development of the Mosaic web browser… developed by American academia.
Yes, Claude Shannon outlined the basic architecture in the 1950’s while at Bell Labs and DARPA funded the first nodes in 1969. But many associate it with CERN and Berners-Lee. The development of graphics based browsers was indeed a turning point. But key was the ability of American firms to quickly offer goods and services for sale on it. The Boucher Amendment of 1992 that allowed commercial use of the NSF was especially important and the commercial activities really drove the rapid development of the technology.
The Internet is a classic example of a technology developed by government research making the transition to commercial use. Space should be the second example.
Bringing this back around to the topic. If ESA is really interested in a Moon Village, and in showing space leadership, instead of building one on their own they should just announce they will be a customer for any private ventures on the Moon. They could also set a leadership example by offering a set price per gram to buy lunar samples returned to Earth by private firms, something well within their budget. But I expect they will do neither since it is just not in their philosophical view of the world.
Of course you are correct on the leadership question.
I’d point out that Europe became a world leader by way of resources available from various colonies. This fact accounts for the failure of the continent in general to maintain a world leadership position compared to a country like the US with abundant and internal resources.
It’s an over-simplification to be sure.
The EU does not fund ESA its funded buy indiviual states including Canada
Actually the EU does fund ESA. FYI from the ESA website.
http://www.esa.int/About_Us…
“The European Union (EU) and ESA share a common aim: to strengthen Europe and benefit its citizens. While they are separate organisations, they are increasingly working together towards common objectives. Some 20 per cent of the funds managed by ESA now originate from the EU budget.”
Now the remaining 80% does come from member nations like Canada, but Director-General Jam Woerner is hoping to get EU to contribute more and that is one argument for the Moon Village, to be a flagship project for the EU.
FWIW the EU funding comes through specific programs (i.e. Gallileo, Copernicus, et al.) rather than any of the general budgets. ESA acts as the prime contractor for the EU. Brexit should make things interesting there. Although the EU enforces best value rather than geo-return it will be interesting to see the stance they take on UK subbies.
So much for ESA and EU being “independent” 🙂 I am sure the European ministers are in a mood now to be that vindictive against the English for their decision. Hopefully clearer minds will prevail after the shock wears off.
But that would not be in the best interest of ESA. Given the UK recent upsurge of interest in space they could well double down on their decision and withdraw from ESA. The end of the world?
No, not if the UK leverages its historic connections in the Commonwealth of Nations. Instead of ESA, the UK could likely forge a far better path to space by creating a new international space organization built around a core of the Commonwealth member states of Canada, Australia and India along with other members of the Commonwealth that might wish to join in. With a combined GDP of around $8 trillion it would bring together the space expertise and resources of the respective nations.
Together such a Commonwealth Space Organization would easily have the capability and, more importantly, the geopolitical desire to build a Moon base, go to Mars or beyond. It would also be a natural partner to NASA, perhaps more so than ESA, given the shared historical heritage, including their shared science fiction literature.
A very intriguing idea indeed.
I’m just glad they clarified that the Apollo program was the program that landed men on the moon. I wasn’t sure.
So without getting myself into (too much) trouble I will simply add that we can do both. Look, Elon is hell bent on Mars. When you go into SpaceX you see a giant frigging mural… of Mars. SpaceX has a shirt… #OCCUPYMARS.
Everything SpaceX is designing and doing… is for Mars. That being said we can do both. If you really want the moon just use Elon’s stuff. It is for sale for a nominal fee.
We have this argument all the time and no one really wins the case for what should come first. Some say the moon is a proving ground while Mars folks say we will be stuck in CIS lunar for another 50 years.
Personally, and my opinion, whoever has the dollars – wins. Elon has the dollars and he says Mars. Its his company. He can do what he wants with it. There is enough private sector knowledge to go to the moon using things like Bigelow, SpaceX, ULA, Thin Red Line, and others.
I guarantee you as SpaceX revenues go up the SpaceX Mars program quickens. If someone wants to buy SpaceX products to go to the moon it only helps SpaceX and Elon’s Mars visions of settlement.
Finally – some congressional folks (both sides here) need to embrace what SpaceX (and others) are doing here and quit fighting it. The arguments that SpaceX cannot deliver simply is not accurate anymore. FH will fly before SLS. Dragon flew before the Orion test article. Dragon v2 will fly before Orion v1. Dragon v2 will land humans back on earth before Orion v1 flies them into orbit.
The goal is #occupySpace. How it starts doesn’t matter.
Out of curiosity, if British exit the EU, how does that affect the ESA?
Hardly at all, as the EU and ESA are different entities. The most notably effect would be, that UK based companies and institutions could no longer be taken in consideration for contracts in regard of EU funded missions like the Copernicus programme. Everything else (Cosmic Vision, Aurora, human space flight etc.) wouldn’t be affected.