When Will We Go Somewhere Again?
Failure to Launch, Failure to Lead, Paul Spudis, Air & Space
“Two Presidential announcements on space In the aftermath of a major Space Shuttle accident, an incumbent President decides that our civil space program needs a bold new strategic direction. In a major public speech, he outlines a path to return to the Moon and go to Mars. The space agency responds with full-color sales brochures, committee meetings, community workshops, and a thousand charts outlining the steps they will take to carry out the new direction. A couple of years pass, a new President takes office, and then – promptly cancels the initiative of the previous administration. Sound familiar? This has happened in our space history – twice.”
NASA’s problem with farmers, the committee, and Tinkerbells, Space Politics
These constituencies are entrenched within NASA and have to become overcome in order to enable real change for the agency. “The longer it goes, the harder it’s going to get because those groups–and there are probably more–get stronger and stronger and stronger.” It was those constituencies, [Mark Albrecht] suggested, that stymied the Bush Administration’s attempts to focus NASA on the Space Exploration Initiative over 20 years ago. “If it didn’t work in 1989, it is going to be much, much harder to do that in 2012 or 2013.”
We will go somewhere again when we develop a viable Space transportation system. The Shuttle was mismanaged from the beginning. In order to sell it to Congress, NASA promised it would be everything to everybody and of course any such horse designed by committee is bound to fall short. What NASA did offer was a return to Apollo and a re enactment of past glories. Throwing away a 300+ foot tall rocket and only having a tiny capsule return is not a viable and sustainable means of transportation. Until the original goal of the Shuttle program is achieved, we are going nowhere except for an occasional set of flags and footprints every couple decades or so.
I think Shuttle was fine at its outset, but where we went wrong was in never making substantial improvements and then in throwing away all we had developed.
I agree that the Apollo capsule approach is the wrong way to go for a sustainable and affordable program.
Though it will cost a number of years, if you leave it in the hands of people like Mr. Musk, reason and cost effectiveness will prevail and the proper efficient system will be developed, because people like Mr. Musk have no alternative to doing the most they can with a limited amount of money.
The Shuttle was flawed from the beginning. It was a horse designed my committee. However, as you said. Upgrades which would have made it more viable and safe were cancelled. Furthermore, the Shuttle C was cancelled which would have given us the heavy lift capability to do even more in Space. One of the complimentary aspects of Shuttle C was that it not only used the Shuttle infrastructure and hardware but would use SSME’s which were nearing the end of their service life. One could imagine that RS-68’s could have been used as well if there would have been more flights than worn out SSME’s
Well Spacex seems to be trying to make such a system with their fly back boosters. Other than giving Spacex the cargo contract what R and D support is NASA giving Spacex to help with recoverable reusable technologies???
Space X promises a vertical landing rocket and capsule. The Devil is in the details as to weather this will work being that you will have to carry enough fuel to land which will take away payload capacity. The Dream Chaser, provided it works as designed holds the true promise of routine access to LEO. If the Dream Chaser delivers, its most expensive component will be having to buy an Atlas 5 for every flight. In this case, we will need to work on an air launch / fly back booster.
Dragon vs Dream Chaser. Let the fly off between these two concepts begin.
George is right – they are succeeding (flights) in incrementally developing the capability.
… as to weather this will work …
Its working. When any of the others join the party …
Fly off nothin use them both lol
Could dream chaser wings be used to assist in a horizontal launch system using jets and rockets???
I have ask here many times if you used wings, jets and throttle-able rockets and flew your system in your jets pressure sweet spot can this be better than vertical lift given the different amount of drag on both systems.
Lol how can you stuff more people in a dream chaser lol, like thirty of them lol.
To me dream chaser type rockets do Leo and dragons do BEO don’t we need two healthy completing companies/vehicles in both categories???
Is there any plan for flyback dream chaser boosters or do they just have to hire Spacex falcons recoverables to get cheaper.
George
Was anyone at the Orion’s press confrence today at the KSC?
What’s an “Orion”?
I kid.
Sort of.
I think there’s more to the problem than just hardware. First you need the backing and support of a significant portion the population for a mission to “somewhere.” As long as most voters are indifferent or outright against spending the money required for a mission, Congress is pretty much free to continue its traditional pork for campaign dollars game. America will go back to the Moon (or wherever) when Americans decide they want to. In my opinion, despite the popular misconception, left solely in the hands of the politicians, NASA and the aerospace companies it will never happen. That’s not where their motivations are — they seek money and power and money and longevity and money…
Steve
The problem is that most everyone in the business, Spudis included, shouts “failure to lead” when what they really mean is “failure to support what I want”. It’s a hallmark of government-led programs.
The only way out of this is when someone like Musk puts his money where his mouth is. And as the stars were aligned, the current administration decided to use it instead of trying to lead a competing effort.
Deleted
It strains the bounds of credence for anyone to think that the current path of the rocket to no where represents a rational policy. Additionally, without an intellectual underpinning that makes sense to the cross section of tax payers, it is unlikely that we will ever have a rational policy, no matter how many stovepipes support it.
The rocket is just a means for congress to channel pork – that’s beyond argument.
The goal is the problem. There WAS leadership. There WAS a goal. There WAS a plan.
But look what happened. Congress basically forced NASA to design SLS. Obama/Bolden/Garver didn’t want it. Orion was resurrected even though there’s absolutely no need for it.
The rocket boys and the Lunar camp went 100% obstructionist with the whole “killing HSF” mantra, basically saying “if we’re not going to the moon, we’re not going ANYWHERE”.
And 3 years later, we’ve got SLS eating up all the money that could have been used for exploration, Orion walking around like a half-shot Zombie, and even Ares I is still lurking in the bathtub like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
The system is inherently broken.
The goal is the problem. There WAS leadership. There WAS a goal. There WAS a plan.
I respectfully and completely disagree. First, it was completely clear that the Griffin Constellation plan was never going to be funded. Norm Augustine basically challenged congress in this regard.
What most people forget today is that the last Constellation Design Reference Mission (DRM-4) had SIX Ares-VI launches and a single Ares-1 launch, along with the associated hardware, for a single Mars mission. That was never a workable plan, especially since they never costed the in space segment of the plan, which conservatively, for one Mars mission, would cost $20 billion dollars. Flags and footprints on Steroids!
The replacement “plan” was never really plan either as the only way they could cut costs, is to cut out any landing on any body, but the heavy lifter was always in there.
Your so called lunar mafia had, has, and will always have, the only workable beginning to the economic development of the solar system, and we could have a Shuttle C type heavy lifter flying today, if that is what the nation needed, rather than the heavy burden of paper that is the only real product from SLS. Let it be understood that a heavy lifter is a product of behind the scenes machinations of people who know how to manipulate congress people and keep a stovepipe filled, in that you are correct.
Let’s start with Moon Mars and Beyond.
Bush took a leadership stance: Scuttle the Shuttle, enough of this LEO nonesense, and even mutter the word “beyond” after “Moon” – a very refreshing goal.
Clearly, there was a goal. Personally, I thing Mars is the only worthwhile goal, but it was good enough for me – anywhere but LEO.
The plan, howeven – Griffin’s CxP, plus an under-funded moon plan that would have at best ended up as a “beached ISS”, barely capable of maintaining itself – was the worst clusterfuck in the Space program’s history.
Then there was Obama’s plan.
Again, a leadership position: Cut CxP out of its misery, never mind the moon – NEO and Mars.
There was a clear goal, and this time I’m even 100% on board.
There was a very good plan: COTS-based launch services as a base layer, NASA gets to spend the same amount of money, but only a fraction of it on launch – what could be better?
Technically, NEO was a great stepping stone between LEO and Mars, with huge scientific value in and of itself, and a great programmatic half-way point.
It got killed by congress, somewhat by democrats, mostly by republicans.
What I hope is that now that a commercial launch company has a proven rocket, that they’ll try it again.
First of all, there was no “Moon Plan” under CxP. We used to call it the touch and go plan, and this was the source of a lot of friction within the groups trying to bring some rationality to the process. There was never any real design or budget for a lunar installation and by ground ruling out ISRU, they made it a complete dead end and 180 degrees away from what Bush proposed for the VSE.
No matter who’s plan it was, Mars is simply not doable in any sustainable manner with large heavy lift rockets and everything brought from the Earth. It is simply mind boggling to me why those who advocate Mars (and I am a Mars advocate) today think that some kind of magic fairy dust will appear that will make the unworkable workable if we just keep working on it.
I agree on the “touch and go” aspect. You can’t have a sustainable program without relying heavily on ISRU.
But, I think ISRU (or any sustained activity for that matter) in the Lunar environment is much harder than the same activity on Mars. (And that’s a separate discussion)
Rocket wise, you need to size the rockets so that there are many launches per year for whatever mission you have in mind.
If you’re not launching several times a month, you’re paying too much for the rocket.
Under that test, FH is plenty large enough.
But, I think ISRU (or any sustained activity for that matter) in the Lunar environment is much harder than the same activity on Mars. (And that’s a separate discussion)
Sorry but I could not nest this under your comment.
It is a very much related discussion. You cannot do any serious ISRU on Mars without nuclear power. The insolation at Mars for solar is about 780 watts/m2 while on the Moon it is 1380 watts/m2.
On the Moon you can also use the much more abundant solar thermal power, and at the near permanently lit poles, it becomes even less expensive to obtain the water and other violates in the regolith.
Yes, there is no where near as much water and resources on the Moon as Mars, but the lunar resources are much less costly to obtain, and become a key enabler for Mars.
There are counter arguments to all of these.
780 W/m2 is tough, but it has to be compared with the level of energy required.
The basic ISRU cycle on Mars is 2CO2 <==> 2CO + O2 and this can be achieved by accessing just the atmosphere – no “soil mechanics”. Soil is notoriously difficult to handle reliably.
The Mars environment is much more forgiving for equipment – as was proven by the MERs. No equipment can work like this on the moon – the hard vacuum means lubrication will fail, and the local dust is “nano dust” that gets into everything. There’s no convective cooling of anything, and temperature gradients are nuts. The average temperature might be fine, but one side of a rock is broiling, while the other is cryogenic. Apollo equipment started failing within 24 hours.
If I were to choose where to design to – it will be Mars, hands down, even with the lower insolation.
If I were to choose where to design to – it will be Mars, hands down, even with the lower insolation.
Are you a designer? I am, and in the polar regions of the Moon, where any sensible installation would be started, the temperature gradients are far less, and the solar energy far more abundant than Mars. Basic ISRU on the Moon can be as simple as electrolsys.
We actually have very little operational experience on the Moon and the vast majority of Apollo equipment lasted until October 1, 1977 when the NASA budget would no longer pay for the data.
I have no fear of operations on the Moon and there are many means to mitigate the issues.
What you continue to avoid is that you will be required to have nuclear power on the Moon for any significant installation and the Mars rovers are posters children for poor productivity science. Look how many years it has taken them to do what the Russian Voskhod rovers did in two weeks.
I am too…
IIUC, Electronics on the moon lasted, but mechanical gizmos started deteriorating as soon as they were used. Anything from the vehicles to the visors on the helmets. The main reason was that lunar dust is like no other dust that you’ll see on Earth or Mars, since there’s no wind or water erosion. Another reason is that lubrication for hard vacuum is very difficult – especially when you factor in the dust.
The MERS are indeed power starved – I was referring to their durability. However, you can design a single-lander ISRU unit on Mars that just sits there and makes propellant. Can’t do that on the moon – need to rove around and excavate water from dark craters – not easy.
On top, I disagree about gradients on the poles being weak. The sun is low on the horizon, but there’s no atmosphere to attenuate it. Any vertical surface facing the sun will get hot. Any vertical surface away from it – cold. Horizontal surfaces are governed by the shadows – anything that’s shaded is either cryogenic or trying to be. And the direction changes around the month.
Mars OTOH has a 24 hr day, and an atmosphere to distribute the heat. It makes all the difference in the world, and you’ll have to live with the lower insolation, but I don’t see that as a show stopper.
IIUC, Electronics on the moon lasted, but mechanical gizmos started deteriorating as soon as they were used.
The mechanical gizmo problem can be solved in a variety of ways and I have ideas for a couple of patents in that realm. Again, I refer you to the Russian hardware, that if we had married American electronics to, would have lasted a very long time.
Then there is the issue of the reactive regolith on Mars that will make interesting the lives of any real equipment there.
The atmosphere of Mars is much like the atmosphere of the Earth at 100,000 feet, i.e, not much, so the heat capacity and thermal conductivity is extremely low compared to what you need to actually utilize it for much help in the thermal arena.
That 24/7 day/night cycle is a bear as well, unless you are going to keep some radioactive pellets near your batteries to keep them warm.
All of this ignores the big picture in that Mars is simply not sustainable without a LOT of cost. Gordon Woodcock once observed that Mars is not any big deal compared to the Moon, it just costs a lot more money. Lifting everything that you need for Mars from the Earth is simply silly and in order for Mars to thrive, we need the gestalt of the development of the resources of the Moon to support it.
You keep repeating the word “nuclear” w/o substantiating. Overnight heat storage is really easy. You’re describing needlessly complex solutions to make your point, and that doesn’t make it credible.
Same with the “100,000 feet” statement – how is that relevant? We already characterized it as CO2, 0.01 Bar.
It is a lot less than Earth’s, but that 1% makes all the difference in the world for outgassing (the lubrication issue) and convection.
The trip to Mars is much longer, but doesn’t require much higher delta-V. Also, agreed beforehand, EDL is harder – but that’s a learning curve thing – we’ll learn how to do it well, and once you’ve mastered aerobraking, the delta-V becomes very comparable.
Anyway, happy 4th, see you on Mars!
You keep repeating the word “nuclear” w/o substantiating. Overnight heat storage is really easy. You’re describing needlessly complex solutions to make your point, and that doesn’t make it credible.
Easy. Any outpost on Mars is going to need a minimum of 50 kilowatts average power. If that is solar, and if you optimize and land at the equator, then you need the following.
125 kw solar to provide the 50 kW average plus allow you to recharge batteries/fuel cells.
125 kW solar is for a minimal outpost with very modest ISRU. If you want ISRU for propellant, it is about 3-5 times this amount.
This 125 kW of solar has to be tracking solar. Without tracking, then the amount of solar goes up to about 175 kW to account for the cosine losses.
With aerospace grade cells at normal 250 watts/kg this is 700 kg just for the arrays. Wiring, batteries/fuel cells kick that up to about 2000 kg dry mass for a lander. Wet mass is about double that.
Then you need an Ares V for a launcher to get that much mass to the surface of Mars. Together this is about a couple billion dollars minimum.
Now take into account atmospheric dust that cuts down the sunlight more. For Opportunity that number is about .5, so double your arrays again. Then account for dust. Right now opportunity has a 60% power cut just from that, so multiply your solar array by a factor of 3/2 again.
Still, that is only 50 kw, which is just a little more than what is available on the station. You still have to power rovers, you still have to have enough to do any serious ISRU. The Surface Exploration Vehicle alone uses about 20 kW power for operations.
Unless you want to sit on your rear and not do anything on Mars, you are going to need nuclear power. A good minimum number is 500 kW. For anything to grow on Mars in any serious fashion, you need a megawatt.
This is just the beginning of your requirements.
Well the battery estimate is high IMO – even if you did want to store the entire 50 kWatt overnight, we’re talking maybe 500 kg.
But here’s the main point:
Even by your estimates, you’re agreeing that the power systems for the outpost are only a couple of tons. Clearly, not a major mass component in the total mass budget. And not requiring a mega-rocket either. Remember – we are NOT talking about a touch-and-go single-mission plan. There will be quite a few landers ahead of the crew, and some of them will be power systems. For a touch-and-go plan, clearly the moon is an easier target. But we agreed touch-and-go is not what we want.
Power is the most difficult problem on Mars, and at least the solution is quantifiable and affordable. Everything else is downhill from there, since the rest of the environment is much more rich and forgiving.
Dennis, are wind generators practical on Mars?
Could astronauts dust off the arrays physically or would that be impractical?
Well the battery estimate is high IMO – even if you did want to store the entire 50 kWatt overnight, we’re talking maybe 500 kg.
I build and sell these systems. My numbers if anything are optimistic.
We have bids for the most advanced Li-Po batteries to replace our 72 kw/Hr (which is only an hour and a half of power on Mars for the 50 kw load) and they weigh 600kg. You are going to need upwards of 600 kilowatt hours worth of battery. That is much closer to 4000 kg. That is why I mentioned fuel cells. They would get that number down to about 2000 kg.
You also have to have wiring, inverters, equipment boxes and all the things required to support the system.
As I said – even using your numbers, you actually make the case that the power system on Mars is affordable.
A few (2-3) tons for a power systems to support an outpost is plenty good enough – it’s only a single lander out of the many you’ll need for the outpost.
As for inferring from the terrestrial system you deal with to Mars – that’s not a good idea. Commercial systems are typically engineered for minimum price, not minimum weight. Other differences – why would you ever want to have an inverter on Mars? Why do you think you’ll need to store peak power over the full duration of night? (Please don’t say it’s for heating….)
Dennis, are wind generators practical on Mars?Could astronauts dust off the arrays physically or would that be impractical?
Wind, not really. Yep dusting off the arrays, probably robotically, is the way to go. That is still overhead and that does not count the dust in the atmosphere, and what happens when a sandstorm a couple months long hits?
As for inferring from the terrestrial system you deal with to Mars – that’s not a good idea. Commercial systems are typically engineered for minimum price, not minimum weight. Other differences – why would you ever want to have an inverter on Mars? Why do you think you’ll need to store peak power over the full duration of night? (Please don’t say it’s for heating….)
I am giving you the optimistic case. The most advanced flight batteries right now are prismatic Li-Ion that are 25% heavier than Li-Po’s. I also gave you a totally optimistic case that allows a 100% depth of discharge. In a real system that you want to survive any time it can’t be more than about 50%. This is why at the end of the day it makes sense to use fuel cells. Much better energy density and after ISRU gets up and going you can buffer Hydrogen and Oxygen to deal with outages.
No terrestrial power system has more than 97% up time so you have to deal with an outage as well.
Inverters, absolutely, if you are going to do anything but the most minimal distribution you need AC power in order to get around the resistive losses in DC power systems. Today Inverters are 97% efficient and so are power supplies. We use AC power for a reason. Large low voltage DC power supplies use a HELL of a lot of copper, copper that you don’t want to ship to Mars.
You also ignore the inevitability of dust storms, and you have not dealt with the reactivity of the Martian regolith, which will bring its own set of problems.
I am giving you good engineering data here and you are ignoring it. There is a hell of a big difference between arm waving Mars and actually doing it.
Dennis – I’m an engineer working on CPV systems. I know the numbers. We can argue on DC vs. AC till tomorrow, it doesn’t matter.
You showed yourself that a power system for an outpost would be 2-3 tons. You have still to explain why that’s a show-stopper.
You showed yourself that a power system for an outpost would be 2-3 tons. You have still to explain why that’s a show-stopper.
No, I did not. I showed that under the most optimistic scenarios possible that the landed mass is outside of the capabilities of existing vehicles and would require an Ares class launch vehicle and lander.
That is for a minimal system that has the crew scratching their private parts rather than doing something.
On the Moon I can put the same capability there in a single Delta IVH launch using a single engine RL-10 on a lander.
No – Some of your assumptions were conservative (storing peak power all through the night), and, since you yourself are arguing for a non touch-and-go approach, multiple landers are just fine – you’ll need more than a couple of landers anyway. A power system is easily broken into multiple independent pieces – it’s actually better to do it that way anyway.
No – Some of your assumptions were conservative (storing peak power all through the night), and, since you yourself are arguing for a non touch-and-go approach, multiple landers are just fine – you’ll need more than a couple of landers anyway. A power system is easily broken into multiple independent pieces – it’s actually better to do it that way anyway.
The fifty kilowatts is the average power, not the peak power. That is clear in the presentation. Multiple landers launched via heavy lift in one two year window? I have not even started on the requirements for ISRU systems, habitats, pressurized rovers and the like.
Which is exactly the point – the requirements on habitats, rovers etc dwarf the mass requirements on the power system, either on Mars or on the moon. So the moon’s advantage in power system mass is not that big a deal. However, the mass cost of the habitats, rovers, and ISRU units on Mars will be lower, due to the atmosphere, 24 hours cycle, and other factors I mentioned.
However, the mass cost of the habitats, rovers, and ISRU units on Mars will be lower, due to the atmosphere, 24 hours cycle, and other factors I mentioned.
The 24 hour cycle means more thermal cycling, not less. The atmosphere equally hurts you with dust as it helps. Try operating on Mars during the planetary dust storm season. Also, with very simple ISRU (no more than thermal concentrators, rovers with magnets, and sand molds), I can make rover parts on the Moon from the metals in the regolith of meteoric origin.
Mars is a worthy goal but to wave aside all of the downsides and the cost to get there is what makes this community so dysfunctional.
More thermal cycling? What does the length of the day have to do with anything?
If you think you can make rover parts from regolith, however, then I give up on this argument – it’s not worth having.
If you think you can make rover parts from regolith, however, then I give up on this argument – it’s not worth having.
Thanks for proving my point. We have been making parts from sand molds for thousands of years. Those of us who study the Moon know how much free metal is there. With very simple apparatus you can make many things, things made of iron, and nickel iron.
The Mars thinking is stuck in 1990 and the old ways of doing things. Come with us into 2012 and see that we now have the capability to industrialize the solar system.
Mars will be the third outpost of humanity, much larger and more diverse than the Moon, but without the Moon, its resources, and its industrialization, Mars will never happen.
Nobody proved your point. I just realized it’s a dead-end argument, so have let it go.
Reality will tell.
Mr. Meekgee. Mr. Wingo Thanks learning 🙂
This interaction annoyed me enough so that I wrote an article about it.
http://denniswingo.wordpres…
Cool
Seems I keep learning that things are more possible or easier, cheaper than we are lead to believe. 🙂
Joe Q
We don’t have a rational policy. We’ve never had a rational policy. Certain groups insist we don’t have a rational policy … and when rationality accidentally succeeds, boy and howdy there’s hell to pay, and they get it out FAST!
Because it’s damn dangerous. Why … it might become TOO successful TOO cheaply.
And then … what would we do?
It’s not about cancelling initiatives, Paul. It’s about cancelling
failed programs. What
consolation would we get from a President who blindly
supports a program that is patently unaffordable, and can never even
come close to meeting the deadlines it has set for itself.
Failure to launch, failure to lead, failure to fund. Yep, that’ll do it.
The
bold new strategic direction, full-color sales brochures, committee
meetings
community workshops, and a thousand charts outlining the steps
they would take to carry
out the new direction doesn’t make for an executable program. We’ve learned that the
hard way. May we do better this time.
Funny how Spudis takes one of the three positions that Albrecht describes. If everyone just realized how great NASA and it’s band of loyal cost-plus contractors, under careful watch of Congress actually are, and we gave them more money and sent them to moon, everything would be fine.
I think ‘failure to lead’ is the appropriate moniker. If I think back to the beginnings of Mercury, the beginnings of Apollo, the beginnings of Shuttle, the beginnings of Station, there was always a civil servant defining the plan, providing the rationale. There were usually one or two more lead civil servants in supporting roles doing the technical design. Their names were Max Faget and Caldwell Johnson and John Houbolt (Mercury and Apollo), George Mueller and Bob Thompson (Shuttle), James Beggs and John Aaron (Station). Not everyone was always in agreement. The original plan for the first American man in space looked more like X-20. Von Braun was against LOR and against Saturn V at first. Faget wanted a straight winged Orbiter and Von Braun wanted a fly-back booster. In all of these cases rationale, both political and technical won out. But in order for them to happen one or two people had to pick up the gauntlet and explain why the rationale made sense.
Have things changed politically all that much? I don’t think so.
What I do not see is anyone providing the political or technical leadership from within NASA. Griffin led but had his eyes closed to political and technical rationale-Constellation did not make sense. Maybe he was trying to placate the political pork interests. He and the people who supported him without any thought threw away our future. They threw away much of our present too.
I also do not think that we have to get the whole of the American people behind whatever we want to do. Back in the early 70s Nixon established the level of funding for civilian space at something under 1%. There was active discussion that as long as the funding level stayed about at that level it was low enough that the program would be left on its own. There have been repeated polls and some have said spend a little more and others have said spend less, but in general the funding was stable and constant. Within that, NASA ws counted on to lead, the the US people were happy as long as there was a good show every now and then.
I think where we went wrong was with Shuttle. It was a great show and everyone loved it, but because of its good show NASA lost interest in trying to change or improve upon it-or maybe they just lost the ability. So far I have not seen from within NASA anyone pick up the gauntlet, someone explain the rationale for what we need to do, someone to define the systems that enable whatever that mission or goal is. Maybe going to an asteroid makes sense-I’ve not seen anyone explain why that is the appropriate next step. But if it is, where is the appropriate spacecraft design for that mission? A fifteen foot capsule? Doesn’t make much sense. Throw away rockets and capsules? We tried that with Saturn and found it unaffordable? Why is SLS going to be different?
I see lack of leadership, lack of rationale, lack of common sense.
Excellent analysis!
SLS’s first test flight to the moon is 2017. We are building a rocket
that will give us the capability to go beyond low earth orbit. I dont
get what everybody is talking about. NASA’s whole existance is based
on SLS. They will make it work, and we will goto the moon, the astroides
No, NASA will not. This return to Apollo will suffer the same fate as Apollo. The cost of throwing away a mega rocket every time you fly simply will not fly and this “Block 3 Apollo” will suffer the same fate as Block 2 Apollo and its Saturn 5.
We will “go somewhere again” when our robots find a useful destination.
We’ve checked out nearby destinations (moon, Mars) a bit, and found nothing very good there. A real self-sustaining colony needs atmosphere, gravity, radiation shielding, resources. Haven’t found them.
We should kill NASA’s manned space program until we find something worth sending humans to. Something with a big benefit, worth the big cost. We haven’t found any such thing yet. Keep the unmanned program going.
I think the average citizen has more enthusiasm in the space program than the people in government do. All the government does is talk the talk but can’t walk the walk. There’s no leadership present. private industries are literally chomping at the bit to participate and have been since the program is initiated back in the 60’s but NASA plays a deaf ear to its overtures.
The Space Program is a jobs program.We have citizens who are begging for space-related jobs who can do the jobs asked of them. I am one who would bust my self in doing an appointed job for the program. If I and others can see this then why doesn’t NASA? Not only is the program great for jobs but its an outlet for education,research and development of technology base.
Its aggravating that the program is going by the waste side.
Do you remember when the Russians wanted to fly the first tourist to ISS lol? NASA fought it!!!!! Lol
They protected their Turf lol
Not in THEIR interest. Lol
Not Obama’s fault. We haven’t found anywhere useful to go in space.