Bolden Seeks To Force Mars Goal Commitment From Obama
Charlie Bolden Intends To Press President Obama on Mars Mission Mandate for NASA
“This long term ISS operations plan did not sit well will NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. Bolden said that he needed to know directly from President Obama whether or not missions to Mars starting in the 2030s was to be NASA’s ultimate goal. If this is not the President’s goal for NASA, then Bolden wondered why NASA should be expected to continue funding the ISS for another decade and a half. At one point, Bolden teared up and said that “Mars is the Goal”. Bolden claimed that he was intent upon going to the White House, “pounding his shoe on the table”, and demanding a commitment from President Obama to direct NASA to send humans to Mars. Bolden said that he needs that commitment to allow him to decide what to do (not do) with regard to extending the ISS.”
I have to agree with Bolden here… but considering how unstable everything is right now, he’s going to have a rough time of getting anything solidified. I think the first goal..obviously, needs to be the extended space station on the moon. If that much can be accomplished…especially if it’s used as a halfway point/pit stop..then I think there’s a lot of promise.
Are you refering to the proposed station at L2?
I think NASA should push for it. We need space based vehicles and having an orbital destination in a halo orbit at L2 allows us to develop that type of transportation system.
I would prefer that it be commercial transportation. NASA order a couple Nautilus – X’s do the field tests then up grade them for travel to an astroid and then have commercial take over that task of LEO to L2.
I’m a big fan of the Nautilus X concept, since it has no technical unknowns and doesn’t require a bigger launcher than the ones we already have. But it doesn’t fit within the commercial spaceflight model that COTS and CCDev are designed to support. That model requires sufficient non-NASA activity to make a commercial spaceflight business profitable. There’s no commercial market for the Nautilus X on the horizon, so whoever builds it for NASA would be operating under a traditional government contract.
How does it not fit within the commercial spaceflight model for COTS and CCDev? Until it is fully constructed and ready to head to Mars or wherever it’s destination is, it will need to be supplied (COTS). Also if SLS is dropped (most likely anyways) in favor of a program like this then it will require commercial crew (CCDev) in the absence of SLS and Orion. Not to mention that Bigelow could play a huge role in constructing parts of it (Inflatable sections) and give Heavy Falcon (possibly Falcon X/XX/X Heavy) business. Because of this I think it will give more more purpose and sustainability to the commercial market than the current SLS program does.
Excellent points Michael. The reason I believe it will be an easy transition is because it is not nuclear powered. A true mars vehicle will ultimately need nuke power and J.Q. Public may not be happy about commercially operated nuclear space craft.
The fuel depots, stations etc all are vehicles for commercial enterprise, all NASA has to do is be the anchor tenat.
Vladislaw,
I agree with your nuclear statements. Educating the masses (and the politicians) to try to overturn their misconceptions about nuclear is one of the things that I feel strongly NASA, and the government as a whole, should have been working on all along. It’s one of those things where life is much less than it could be because of what people believe, rather than what the truth is. Nuclear can be dangerous, extremely dangerous, if it is handled foolishly or negligently, but that’s true of almost anything in our high technology world. With proper safeguards built in there’s no reason why we couldn’t be pursuing a nuclear (orbit to orbit) Mars mission spacecraft. It means separate spacecraft for going between orbits and surfaces, but I think that was always going to be necessary anyhow.
I think that a nuclear orbit to orbit spacecraft would have commercial possibilities long before most of the other “mission” proposals that have been kicked around for the last 30 years (since it is not destination specific). Of course, it still hangs on a cheap, efficient Earth to LEO (and back) system, but it always has. And that is the best reason, in my mind, to keep supporting COTS and CCDev, etc,. and whatever may be the next logical steps to continue what they have started.
Steve
Only those in denial will not see this for what it is and
has been for the last 4 years with this administration. Nothing short of chaos,
no plan, no nothing, just winging it all, with spin from their gullible supporters.
We have been told over and over that Mars is the destination, so why does he
have to go to the President to validate
and confirm this vision? Was that just spin? As for ISS why develop Commercial
Crew if it will only operate for 3 years and 6 or seven flights at best? Is that
really cost effective? If ISS goes to 2020 cancel CCP today. The shoe pounding reminds me of Nikita K.
tactics hmmm…. But I digress. Bolden should not worry about shoe pounding on
Romney’s desk. If he doesn’t retire as is rumored by December, Romney will have
him replaced day 1, along with the other genius on the ninth floor. Of course,
I appreciate Bolden revealing that there has not been a plan for the last 4 years.
I believe that marker will develop if a ship like Nautilus brings the seat price down below what Russia is proposing … 150 milllion for a fly by. Also it does sound like Bigelow wants to put something there, again … does the counties signing the mou’s for LEO .. do they want to rent space farther out?
Off topic, but I bet Bigelow will be making some darn good stations someday since they’ve had all this spare time (and money apparently) to work on things.
Fred,
Try looking at it from another perspective. When you consider the progress in growing commercial capabilities, and when you look past HSF to all of the other things that NASA has managed to do in the last four years — despite all of the infantile roadblocks thrown up by Congress — then a lot has been accomplished, and it has not been chaos at all. One problem that we keep running into is the number of people, apparently yourself included, who equate “vision” with a “mission.” And it’s often worse than that; it can’t be just any mission, it has to be the specific mission that the comment maker wants, otherwise we have no “vision.” This presumes that the comment maker has all of the right answers and knows better than everyone else, which I find impossible to accept. An opinion is an opinion, and everybody is entitled to their own, but it carries more weight when it is backed up by the actual facts. Try looking at what has been accomplished.
Steve
I doubt this will actually happen but maybe Bolden should have done this 2 or 3 years ago and not 1 1/2 weeks before election day. Maybe then there would be a mission for SLS to be designed for.
Or no SLS at all.
This is strange. There are a lot of reasons to want to continue to utilize ISS beyond 2020, if it is technically and financially sustainable, other than just using it to enable humans to Mars. But there is NO reason to spend money on a 130-MT Space Launch System if you are not going to Mars fairly soon. You don’t need 130-MT if you’re just hopping around cislunar space.
(Whether you ever need a 130-MT SLS for anything is a separate issue, but clearly the only reason to build one now is if you’re planning to go to Mars soon.)
So, unless Gen. Bolden gets a “Go for Mars” decision, he would toss out a still-useful tool that already exists in favor of a wholly irrelevant one that’s only one year into its initial design.
Doesn’t sound very rational to me.
You don’t need 130-MT if you’re just hopping around cislunar space.
Jim, you don’t need a 130 ton vehicle at all for cislunar space. On top of that the ISS could be the critical logistics hub for the Moon or Mars, even with the 6% payload hit. Someone has been imbibing large quantities of koolaid.
Not me, I assure you. I was just trying to avoid a religious flame war. (I know, I know… “who are you and what did you do with the Jim Muncy who can’t spell diplomacy?”)
Naa the koolaid imbiber is on E street…
i wait for the day when that will be the default setting, we do not need monster rockets for lunar transportation.
Jim,
I very much agree with most of your post. And I think that it’s worth suggesting that if ISS spending were to be thoroughly analyzed, and then all of the things regularly being charged against ISS which are not really part of using and maintaining it were removed from the ISS budget — and no longer charged to it — then we just might see a dollar figure that is a lot more palatable than what has been paid out in the past.
Evaluating ROI on the ISS is always going to be a very subjective thing, primarily because of all the intangibles involved, but I think we’d get a lot less criticism, and more acceptance of the ISS concept, if it wasn’t so expensive. The catch, of course, is that most of the people who would be called in to do such an analysis have vested interests in leaving things as they are. This suggests, to me at least, that it’s past time to start playing hardball and forcing matters / decisions / commitments, which is perhaps what Bolden is now doing. When I try to put myself in his shoes, I wonder how long could I go along, being a good soldier, and being held publicly accountable for NASA’s situation while having been allowed no real authority in determining that situation.
Whether America / NASA is headed for Mars or not, I think SLS is a huge mistake. Those who dreamed it up, and those who continue to support it, are still stuck on the simple idea that bigger is better, period. And that, to me, shows a serious lack of understanding of the actual requirements to be satisfied in the next half century of developing and exploring space. SLS’s sole benefit is the jobs it has created/saved, even though it will turn out to have been make-work.
Personally, I think Charles Bolden has been given a raw deal, criticized by Congress, the public, and even by the President to whom he theoretically reports, and all the while being forced to do things (and make NASA do things) not of his choosing. Right or wrong, I’m pretty sure that, in his position, I would have marched into the boss’s office long before now, saying you do your job and let me do mine, or find yourself another fall guy.
Steve
Funding the ISS for another decade and a half? That is assuming another extension past the 2020 mark. So the eight year extension is already a done deal as far as Bolden is concerned?
So if President Obama does not commit to a Mars mission today, we should immediately splash the ISS? I am not seeing the logic in this… can anyone explain?
I think when they talk about extending ISS past the current 2020 timeframe they are indicating a previous plan to use parts of the ISS to create the L2/L1 base. All supposition of course.
I’ve heard 2025 or even 2028 being discussed by some commentators (not necessarily informed ones) as a “realistic” date for ISS retirement but that might be just personal opinions and thus meaningless.
Ultimately, it is the degeneration of the systems on the modules that is going to be the deciding factor. Some of the ISS elements are already over a decade old. Eventually, systems will fail that can’t be easily replaced and funding will not exist for replacement modules (even if such could be installed, which is unlikely). So NASA has to plan for the day when ISS cannot any longer be the centre of HSF and, IMHO, that day will likely come in the 2020-5 time-frame.
The issue that needs to be confronted, either by Administrator Bolden or by whoever is appointed to the hot-seat by Mitt Romney, is how to best use the decade or so ahead so that, when the day comes when ISS has to be splashed, NASA has an HSF mission already underway to replace it. This cannot be a series of gesture-politics zero-result make-work projects but must be a focussed plan, developing launchers (if necessary), spacecraft and other payloads as well as any needed technologies so that they are in place when ISS goes “bye-bye”.
I’m personally a fan of the ISS-heritage EML2 gateway station, as an element of a comprehensive human survey of the lunar surface. However, I’m no expert and don’t know if that’s doable; I’m sure the real experts will have a good idea of what can be afforded and scheduled into this interim period.
Space the final frontier. These are the voyages of NASA’s administrator. His 25 year mission to go to Mars and seek out Asteroids. To Boldenly go stomp shoes where no man has stomped shoes before!
“… missions to Mars starting in the 2030s was to be NASA’s ultimate goal.”
How would Obama know? He is not going to be in office after 2016. Mars missions are for a different president to authorise.
Also what have Mars missions got to do the the life of the ISS? Even the extended life of the ISS does not go beyond the mid 2030s.
Andrew,
The point you’re not taking into account is that a manned Mars mission is not going to happen during the same Presidential term it is initiated in. It will take more than four years, and more than even eight years to plan, implement, and execute. This is the major challenge that has clobbered us every time — every new President cancels his predecessor’s plans and start his own, which means we are forever in restart mode, perpetually throwing away whatever gets accomplished during any one President’s term. So Obama, recognizing this, is making statements, like all of his predecessors, which assume that a Mars mission will be allowed to proceed, once begun, through however many administrations it takes. If that doesn’t happen, it won’t be his fault. But some President has to start the Mars program, even if his/her name is long forgotten when the mission finally happens.
As for how the ISS fits in, what we all seem to overlook when discussing its life time is that how long it’s made to last depends a great deal on what it’s being used for. Maintaining only those ISS functions and facilities that would be useful for executing a manned Mars mission would be a lot cheaper, and more viable, than trying to maintain/update all of the functions that the ISS currently (in theory) performs. In fact, with regular reboosts, there’s no reason that I can see why the basic structure couldn’t be maintained for several more decades at least. The solar cells panels would have to be replaced, ideally with a nuclear electric power generator, and any holes/collision damage would have to be repaired as they happened, but otherwise I think the station is in a fairly static situation, and all of the scientific instruments need not be maintained/updated, only those things applicable to assisting a Mars mission.
Steve
As US Presidents only have 7 years of control authority the planning of Mars missions will have to be performed by NASA. The plan will have to operate over several presidencies. When about 7 years from launch NASA tells the president.
Each part will have to be prepared in advance. A mission that using the next part will need approving by the current president. Continue until all the parts exist.
Andrew,
We’re saying the same thing, so you haven’t addressed the catch. If any one President changes the plan, then it’s all out the window. And this is what we’ve seen over and over, every President cancels the previous plans, for better or for worse, and either starts something new or does nothing significant instead.
“the planning of Mars missions will have to be performed by NASA“
This is obvious. They are the only ones that could possibly do it. But if they are not given the same executive orders — to continue on with the Mars program — year after year, then it’s not going to happen. NASA is the employee, not the boss.
Steve
Andrew_M_Swallow
Steve Whitfield it may be obvious that the planning has to be performed by NASA but currently the planning is being (half) done by the White House and Congress.
US Presidents have up to two 4 year terms so major programs need to be split into 4 and 8 year chunks. (Minor programs may be able to go longer.)
The full Mars program will last a lot longer than 8 years, so no president can run it. Consequently the only president able to comit to going to Mars is the one covering the last 6 years before the launch.
Presidents before that have to choose missions suggested by NASA that build and use a manned rover or a habitat or a depot or etc. The information that the equipment can also be used by a Mars mission is hidden in the small print.
As for one president cancelling the previous president’s plans that simply means that all the sub-programs have a maximum length of 8 years. If a sub-program takes more than 8 years split it or do something simpler.
NASA needs all the equipment to go to Mars but with imagination the order of development can be changed.
For some reason Bolden doesn’t seem to get the message that Obama doesn’t want NASA to do anything when it comes to manned spaceflight!
That’s why Obama’s supporting Commercial Crew development in order to end, or to at least dramatically reduce, tax payer funding for manned spaceflight. Obama supports extending the ISS program as merely an international diplomacy program (he loves foreign policy) and also as a make-work program for Commercial Crew companies. But that’s about it!
Sure Obama talks about silly stunt flights———- in the far future—— to an asteroid and to Mars orbit. But he really doesn’t want NASA to have anything built to actually do those things.
Congress had to force the SLS on him! And his administration has tried everything possible to stall, delay, and to underfund the SLS program. And this has angered both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
Like many Democrats on the extreme left and many Tea baggers on the extreme right, Obama appears to view a government manned space program as simply a series of silly stunts and a waste of tax payer dollars! Why Bolden hasn’t come to realize this is beyond me:-)
Marcel F. Williams
I fear you are right Marcel. Manned space flight just isn’t a major consideration for Obama. The ISS and commercial flights suits him OK. The rest of the stuff won’t even happen with in the years of his adminstration, not even an L2 station. So he just doesn’t concern himself with it. Another factor maybe the looming budget cuts. We could be looking at decades of stagnant NASA programs. I see no indication that Romney would be any better.
Well yes, manned space flight is an affectation of fourteen year old boys. Obama is a grown up.
And the reason you are participting in a forum of Nasawatch is…….?
The reason is that probably he or she was kicked out of Mannedspaceflightwatch.
Because manned space flight is a necessary curse for NASA. It is needed to involve the public, but it sucks resources from a lot of stuff NASA does really well that are important wrt Earth observation and space science. What we don’t need is another hole to empty money into (yes, Eli knows about Webb)
Eli, I don’t do very well with “gotcha” discourse but I must point out that the Webb telescope, if that is what you are refering to, is an unmanned project at which NASA is supposed to excel. Fact is, it’s all risky enterprise and easy to mess up with.
I would sure like to see documentation for your opinions.
“Documentation”? Are you asking me to reveal sources? Uh-uh.
That was in reply to Williams, who seems to have a free-form idea of what constitutes verifiable fact.
I guess you didn’t watch the Congressional testimony when Democrats and Republicans in Congress were grilling the Obama administration personal month after month after month on their foot-dragging on the SLS program. It was fascinating!
That is simply HILARIOUS. Grilling? What is the most people that EVER show up for these kobuki theater shows? 4 to 5?
Kay B. Hutchinson, Nelson … lol … Laughable that you somehow equate porkonauts like these with unbaised actors.
They want their BIG MONSTER pork rocket for the jobs… results .. who cares … inflated costs? What inflated costs?
Sheesh come on .. wake up and smell the rocket fuel.
You mean like the $3 billion a year mission to nowhere (ISS) program:-)
Marcel F. Williams
Broken reco…; broken reco…; broken reco…;
Would somebody please fix that thing once and for all!
Papy,
It may take an IQ in about the 40 range to figure out a program has a deficiency, but an IQ of about 140 to figure out how to correct the deficiency. Reading your repeated categorical complaints, devoid of any solutions, where would you say you are in that range?
“dramatically reduce, tax payer funding for manned spaceflight. “
Commercial crew offers longevity for manned spaceflight and increased efficiency with minimal risk from government cancellations which have plagued NASA.
SLS, if it ever flies will eventually be mothballed and prove to never be sustainable.
That could be why Bolden hasn’t adopted your viewpoint.
The SLS/MPCV development program is only costing $3 billion a year out of the $8.4 billion a year manned space program that Obama inherited from George Bush. NASA also says that cost per flight should be about $500 million.
So the SLS is only unsustainable if you don’t want NASA to establish a permanent presence at the lunar poles or if you don’t want NASA to travel to the moons of Mars. The Commercial Crew program won’t get you to the Moon or Mars.
The SLS is also the only launch vehicle currently under development that could launch the largest private commercial space stations such as Bigelow’s Olympus.
But if NASA funded the development of a large reusable lunar shuttle (perhaps $1.5 billion a year over 6 or 7 years) fueled from lunar water resources from a lunar outpost deployed through the SLS program, such a vehicle could operate between the lunar surface and Earth orbit. And that would give NASA and commercial crew launches easy and cheap access to the lunar surface.
Marcel F. Williams
No matter how many times you do that.. say the SLS is “only” costing 3 billion a year. It is still insanity on a bun.
SpaceX, Lockheed and Boeing .. all gave better price quotes than this pork train to nowhere congress have foisted on the american taxpayer.
SpaceX said 2.5 billion. … for their ENTIRE program .. yet you think it is just find and a bargin that NASA is ONLY burning through taxpayer funding at a rate of only 3 billion a year, that three companies have said they could provide for less than 10% – 20% of what NASA’s cost plus pork extravaganza is costing.
Sheesh .. wake up and smell the rocket fuel …
The unnecessary ISS workfare program for Commercial Crew development is going to cost the tax payers $3 billion a year. And it will not get us to the Moon or Mars. So that’s $3 billion a year not spent on returning to the Moon or trying to get to Mars. More money wasted on NASA’s 40 year mission to LEO!
I’m a strong supported of commercial crew development. And I strongly support spending tax payer dollar (up to a billion a year) helping private industry get on its feet. But using the ISS program which only requires only about three manned flights per year from the US side as a means for supporting Commercial Crew development– is Big Government at its worse!
At $3 billion a year year, you could fund at least 20 private flights per year to private commercial space stations vs. three private manned flights to the Big Government space station. Its not even close!
Even Bolden has said that what is being done at the ISS could be better done at private space stations. This extremely wasteful program needs to come to an end!
Marcel F. Williams
Say papy, I wish you’d take another stab at the thoughts and comments you’ve made because I simply cannot make sense of them.
You seem passionate ~ or is that fixated ? ~ on getting to the Moon and Mars. What’s the deal? Did you drop your wallet there or something?
I love the Moon and Mars too, even though I’ve never been to either location, whether for business or pleasure.
To spend $250 Billion for a single round trip ticket seems, well, pricey. But if you have some argument, some reason to go to Mars that is very worthwhile, maybe $250B wouldn’t make my my my wallet pucker.
Ending ISS use to save a relatively paltry $3B is seriously funny, almost like trying to save pennies in a jar thinking it a clever way to pay your kid’s $50,000 college tuition. How big of a jar is required to hold 5,000,000 pennies?
You might be smart to really take a look at some of the cut-and-dry R&D work being done on the ISS, especially if you’re planning a junket to Mars. I take it back, you can skip the R&D review if you plan on getting to Mars, dead.
I suppose you could simply walk out your front door now, as is, and walk to Nepal Tibet and try to climb Mount Everest too, unprepared, lacking supply, survival gear, testing, durable systems, etc. But I really don’t think you’d survive it. (If you do go, please video the attempt.)
You seem to claim that NASA’s 40 year mission to LEO was a waste. I suppose you think a jog to the Moon or Mars would inherently not be a waste? Just WTF are you planning to DO when you get there? Play tag? Print money? Find the Holy Grail? Dig up the Martian Fountain of Youth? Or it is simply the romantic notion of being there? Do tell.
I puzzles me to see you say you like socioeconomics. If so, it would be good to see a serious economic analysis done based on your statements.
Teach us all something about the rigorous economics of tied to being on the Moon and Mars. Summarize it here.
If a private space station is the magical economic answer, just blaring it out fails. Present the analysis and the facts. Comments like “Even Bolden says…” are glib. Explain why the private sector hasn’t done it already.
If I give you $3B so you can fund 20 flights to a private space station, what would you do on the 20 flights? What would create or produce or do on those flights or at the private space station? Anything? Would I get my $3B back or would it just be money down the drain or burnt up for fun? Tell me. If your explanation is really good, maybe I’ll mail you a check.
“At $3 billion a year year, you could fund at least 20 private flights per year to private commercial space stations vs. three private manned flights to the Big Government space station. Its not even close!”
The ISS itself has made it possible to have private space stations. The trouble with a private space station is:
a. You need the technology to build it—The US had not built a station since Skylab and Skylab was not something that could be commercialized easily.
b. You need the ability to send crew and cargo to it.
Those two abilities had previously only been in the domain of Governments.
The ISS itself has helped those problems. The transhab project began as an ISS project. Bigeloew has matured it some more and plans to use it for his station. COTS and Commercail crew can be used for more than just the ISS.
Thanks to the ISS we are now getting into the position where the only thing that a private space station owner would have to build is the station itself. Previously you would have had to build the station, supply craft, and manned spacecraft.
I can see a possible 2028 or so when the LEO portions of the manned space program move into a rented area of a private space station instead of building the ISS 2. In addition the CCREW craft have the potential to be evolved into BEO craft (esp. Dragon). Oh and the FH itself could be used to for lunar missions much cheaper than SLS and sooner.
It isn’t what you do sometimes, but how you do it that makes a huge difference. Commercial programs make it possible for NASA to do things with private investment. Govermnent owned ones do not.
Any ideas where the remaining 5.4 billion for HSF is going? Is it all ISS ops?
$3 billion is going to SLS/MPCV development. That’s about $400 million less than was being spent on the Constellation program when Obama first came into office.
In 2009, $3.4 billion was being spent on the Constellation program, $2 billion on the ISS and $3 billion being on the Space Shuttle program.
Marcel F. Williams
Marcel (and others of a like mind),
I find it curious that after all this time you still refuse to see the obvious. Obama is not out to kill manned space flight, and he has never, to the best of my knowledge, said anything to indicate that intention. Obama’s space plans (which a clueless Congress squashed) were clearly an attempt to do two things:
First — Get rid of the non-doable, ill-conceived programs that were only a detriment to NASA and the country, such as the obvious case of Constellation.
Second — Put in place the necessary R&D and precursor programs that must be done first if we ever hope to someday go back to the Moon and on to Mars in a manner that is intelligent, i.e., in a manner that let’s us build incrementally with each step an infrastructure which increases capability and brings down costs, while decreasing the risks involved. Unless, of course, you’re happy to do nothing but pointless flags and footprints missions at thoroughly outrageous costs.
As far as manned space flight goes, despite the forces working against him, and despite there being no instant gratification missions announced, President Obama has actually done (and attempted to do) more to progress manned space flight than any President for decades. What you’re failing to see is that he’s doing exactly what we’ve been saying was necessary for so long — he’s looking past his own term in office. Unlike his predecessors, whose grand proposals all ended up not happening because their successors would (predictably and rightly) cancel them, he was trying to put into place things that would be prerequisite for doing the manned missions in the future, after his term in office. There is R&D that has been known to be necessary for so long that has never been started for the simple reason (in my opinion) that no President who put it in place would see results within his/her tenure. The R&D fits this scenario, as does the asteroid mission (which would teach us a lot that we need to know), as does the moons of Mars mission, and as does the L2 mission. Yet so many of you look down your noses at these proposals because you want to jump straight to more grandiose missions that we are not yet anywhere near capable of doing.
We finally had what we needed within our grasp, and people not willing to think it through tossed it away. How long will it be until we again have a President willing to put the needs of NASA and space development ahead of his own legacy?
People with only politically-based responses need not reply.
Steve
I didn’t say that Obama is out to kill manned spaceflight. I implied that he was out to kill– government manned spaceflight. There was a reason that he criticized NASA’s efforts to return to the Moon at Kennedy in 2010 and then walked side by side with Elon Musk afterwards.
But trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs will hurt the development of private space programs, not help it! Public and privately funded space programs are mutually beneficial to each other.
Marcel F. Williams
One wonders if this in some way represents Charlie’s “come to Jesus” moment on SLS. It makes some sense. Tell his boss that
we can build an SLS, but only if we have a clear picture of what we’re
really and truly going to do with it. This is not just a challenge to
Obama, but to congressional advocates for SLS.
It is indeed a little odd how ISS fits into this, and why the future of ISS should critically require a commitment to go to Mars. In fact, this whole piece would make a lot more sense if you substituted “SLS” for “ISS” everywhere.
Yes, Congress had to force the SLS on Obama. And his administration has tried
everything possible to stall, delay, and to underfund the SLS program. So it’s about time we figure out why we need it.
Of course, as it has been pointed out, Obama would have no trouble committing to go to Mars in 2030 if he were pushed to do so. That commitment would cost him nothing right now, and it would be a decision that he’d leave behind when he left office. It would just mean that everything that is being done right now could be formally rationalized by that long-term goal.
It is also a little odd that this hits the airwaves now, two weeks before the election. The “Romney advisory team”, such as they are, is aiming at the Moon, not Mars. So by declaring Mars his personal goal, Charlie is basically handing Romney his letter of resignation. Not that he would be kept on, but …
the commercial sector is more likey to provide that senerio. The porkonauts in congress do not care about that .. only their own tax base and campaign contributions.
http://www.technologyreview… I thought this was an excellent article. As Bruce comments in the article, we can continue to putz around without making any progress. I know one guy who already retired, having spent his entire career planning the architecture to support a Mars mission. Looks like there are several more who have wasted their careers too.
Whether or not Obama commits right now seems pretty unimportant. Afterall, he might be a lame duck in a couple weeks; he definitely will be a lame duck in 3 years. We need a long term paradigm to bring von Braun’s 1950s strategy up to date. We need a strategy for the next two generations.
Personally I’d like to see where the NASA brain trust wants to take us. What is the use of the ISS now, for the next 8 years, and for the next 25 years? You cannot decide whether SLS or Orion is needed or not unless you know the plan (Orion is totally redundant with the manned Dragon anyway, so it already is unneeded, which means a lot of money going into a black hole). As work on ISS tapers off how many people can you afford to pull off that program to assign to the next one? Why does each program have almost no continuity from the prior program as far as systems or integration expertise? What is that costing?
NASA leadership needs to put together a story that makes sense and its as much about goals and locations in space as it is about systems development as it is about organizational management and personnel and how best to apply them.
Hopefully the poor planning of the last 8 years has opened some eyes in the NASA top management (though I doubt it-those folks seem clueless).
Von Braun’s 1950s strategy gave us many eventual program cancellations, really don’t see how it won’t result in the same end. I wouldn’t start with that.
Von Braun’s 1950’s strategy was medium lift vehicles, space stations, fuel depots, and on orbit assembly. The cold war race to the Moon changed that.
Either way SLS is a waste of resources and money.
This is all irrelevant. NASA is incapable of building and flying SLS. Maybe if we had unlimited budget, but doubtful even then. It has nothing to do with the President or the Administrator. NASA HSF is 95% morons. I battle them every day and the war is being lost. NASA HSF ended at wheel stop on STS-135. Mark my words. Commercial crew is our only hope, and even that will fail if NASA doesn’t get out of the way. There’s a bunch of morons for you. These people have a basic lack of understanding of engineering in any real sense.
What do you mean get out of the way? The commercial crew companies are actually begging for tax payer money, which they are receiving, so that they can participate in a big government program (ISS) that will give them access to even more tax payer money.
And they are doing all of this while private investors are sitting on over $2 trillion which they refuse to invest in the American economy!
Marcel F. Williams
Can you please provide some quotes and links where representatives from commercial crew companies can be shown to be “begging” for taxpayer money?
Begging and even suing to get access to tax payer money!
Its well documented and well known. And Elon for one, loves getting his hands on tax payer money in many of his enterprises.
Marcel F. Williams
In fact Musk argued strongly against turning the Space Act Agreements into FAR contracts.- In SAAs private companies put up the bulk of the money and take all the risk.
Compare this to FAR contracts where NASA pays all of the cost and takes all of the risk. Why would private companies choose the high cost high risk option (and Musk wasn’t the only one who argued for SAAs) if all they were interested in was sucking on the government teat?
More BS .. if it is so freakin well documented where are the links to the documents…
Are these people on their hands and knees when they are doing this begging? A cup in their hands?
You sure like to toss out the bullshit and not the supporting documents.
Yeah right. Elon’s never taken a dime of tax payer money in his life:-)
Marcel
oh … so now the only qualifier a company needs to be a “begger” of government funds is to have sold something to the government?
Well there are about 14 MILLION companies then that are beggers using your guidelines Marcus.
OK folks, the challenge has been made and the respondent has been backed into a corner. Stand by for the next irrelevant topic change…
Papy, if you’re going to smear Elon you need to show us more than a few claimed instances and that you have first hand knowledge of their strategic plans, and since I do, it’s quite clear you don’t. Read Vlads 2nd reply below. He’s right. If the Fed Gov’t didn’t even exist going forward, it wouldn’t even be relevant to them.
You lose credibility when you whip out these papy smears. Some advice, do your homework first or you may find all of your papyrus zipping through a shredder.
I mean get out of the loop technically. Give them the high level functional requirements and the money to do it. Once there is a business case for profit, private investors will come.
You mean Boeing and Lockheed Martin. NASA doesn’t build rockets.
Marcel F. Williams
Actually the relationship is that NASA designs the rocket
and contracts out to either Lockheed martin or Boeing to build the thing to its
design. In short it would be wiser for NASA, an organization which has not designed
or built a successful rocket since the 70ies to use either Lockheed Martin or
Boeing to design and build the thing. Locheed Martin could then subcontract out to whomever they want if need.
NASA in the current set up is acting as
systems integrator which is not a good thing at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
It would be like me designing a car from scratch then assigning
machine shops and auto parts manufacturers to produce the items(engine, chassis),
and somehow expect all the parts to work together and do so cheaply and
efficiently—not likely. A good example taking a car body or engine built for
rear wheel drive car in the 70ies and attempting to meet modern safety, fuel efficacy
and crash ratings with it. In this case front wheel drive cars have engines
that are basically turned sideways allowing greater packaging efficiency(less
space in the body need for the engine) than a rear wheel drive car which in
turn helps with fuel efficiency. In short you can’t put an engine designed to work in a rear wheel drive car into a body designed to be front wheel drive and if you go atempt to go for rear wheel drive only you can run into the affore mentioned problems(i.e. Fuel efficency).
It would just be smarter to work with say Ford or GM to get
a car that meets my needs same with NASA.
When people press for commercial use they press for NASA using
existing commercial systems(Delta, Atlas, Falcon) to meet their needs instead
of attempting to convert the parts of a reusable space plane designed in the
70ies into a rocket fit for the 21st centaury. An HLV could share
parts, personal and equipment with those rockets, shuttle derived does not and
can not(NASA is by law forbin to launch commercial sats and Delta, Atlas are
not owned or controlled by NASA but ULA. Likewise Falcon 9 with Space X).
“When people press for commercial use they press for NASA using existing commercial systems(Delta, Atlas, Falcon) to meet their needs instead
of attempting to convert the parts of a reusable space plane designed in the70ies into a rocket fit for the 21st centaury.”
The only problem is that those systems don’t currently exist for manned spaceflight, especially for beyond LEO spaceflight. Otherwise, NASA would be flying them to the ISS instead of the Soyuz. And why would you want to simply throw away an incredible man-rated engine like the RS-25 that uses the cleanest fuel on Earth?
The President decided that he wanted to extend the life of the ISS and to utilize future Commercial Crew spacecraft to access the ISS. But he totally dismissed the idea of returning to the Moon while deciding to simply have NASA study the problem of beyond cis-lunar space travel for a few years!
Many NASA advocates in Congress were, of course, outraged, knowing that having government employees spending billions just sitting around for several years just studying the future with no serious goals or destinations would set NASA up for– deep tax cuts– by deficit hawks in Congress– especially during a Great Recession. And maybe that was Obama’s intent all along!
Fortunately, NASA advocates in Congress had the wisdom not to allow that to happen which is why the SLS program had to be imposed on the President. So now we have private options plus a public option in the future for accessing space– which is a good thing, IMO.
Public space programs and private space programs are mutually beneficial to each other and to the general economy of the United States of America.
Marcel F. Williams
The RS-25 is an expensive engine designed for reusability. Hydrogen is a reasonable fuel for an upper stage where weight is more important than thrust, but for a booster stage kerosene (or methane) is generally more efficient because it permits a much smaller fuel tank. There are all sorts of things NASA could be doing to help US industry compete and develop new high-tech exports and commercial aerospace products that might create new jobs. There’s no commercial market for SLS.
A falcon heavy matched with a J2X would be an awesome combination…
Ah ever heard of the
Delta phase I, Atlas phase I, phase II, and phase III? Those were ideas for
Heavy lift based on exsisting rockets. FH itself could do lunar missions if an
high energy upperstage were provided(or a lower mass spacecraft).
If you want to do lagraine point missions, Detla could lift
an upperstage that could push a prepositioned spacecraft like say Orion from
the ISS to l1/l2. A lunar lander(or space station) sent ahead via SEP. In
addition to the use of propellant depots.
The only thing the shuttle and shuttle technology brings is
expense. The problem of how to design,
build and operate a rocket is something best left to industry. They have done
so before. They have designed rockets with lower costs than the shuttle and
they can use those rockets for more than manned spaceflight.
Atlas for instance is planned to lift commercial crew.
Falcon 9 already lifts dragon is planned to lift a manned dragon for commercial
crew and has satelights that it could also lift. By having other users and by limiting government involvement it
makes systems more economical. Where I live there are train tracks. If those
train tracks were just used by the commuter rail system then it would be much
more expensive than by being shared. Instead the tracks are used by Amtrak,
Metra, as well as freight trains. By doing so the cost of upkeep of the infrastructure
is shared. Heck Amtrak and Metra share a
few stations in the region.
Imagine how expensive it would be if we built a whole
highway system just for trucks. That is the kind of problem the shuttle or anything
shuttle derived has. Useless to anything other than manned spaceflight and NASA
must provide both rocket and spacecraft. Imagine how many unmanned missions to
mars would happen if instead of just needing to build MSL, you also needed to
operate the rocket too and said rocket didn’t lift communications statelights
or DOD missions or anything else just probes.
Even worse shuttle technology is old. Old technology isn’t
bad tech, but the assumptions that went into it and future uses of it can be
major different. That is why the shuttle’s engines are reusable( for a space plane
makes sense—for an HLV not so much). Reusablity is what drove the design of
the shuttle. If you wanted cheap heavy lift you wouldn’t choose those parts,
they were designed with something else in mind. The SSME produces poor thrust requiring
the use of boosters. They also were designed to be reused up to five times not
thrown out every flight. In addition they are ground start engines limiting
there use to the first stage of a rocket(without some development).
As for deficit cuts, you are going to get them no matter
what. There would be a lot more people screaming about medicare, Medicaid,
Socail Security, the mail, and the military than the space program. A Program
that tries to build both rocket and spacecraft without any private money and
needs to build both is more at risk than commercial crew. Sure the former
employs more people, but the latter can get more done with less money which in
the end is important if we ever want to see humanity become multi planetary.
When budgets go down a program like the first stalls easier, it has both rocket
and spacecraft on its plate and fewer options to deal with low cash(i.e. Can’t
close a plant without congressional uproar).
The more commercial program
could manage a low budget much better the can close plants and layoff to deal
with low cash or reassign people to other parts of the company. When budgets go up the commercial program can
provide more than the government one. A
good example is $300 million dollars. It is not enough to buy an extra shuttle
launch, but is enough to buy 2 falcon 9 cargo flights to the ISS(and some change)
or 2 FH launches(spacecraft not included) or Almost 2 Atlas flights or a Delta
Heavy flight. With the shuttle you need to spend about $3 billion to keep the capability(which
is one of the reasons why SLS is going slow…). With the ULA, Orbital, and Space
X NASA spends nothing but the cost of
the launch.
What I’m saying is that as long as NASA is in the technical loop, it will not happen. They jerk around the requirements and the design to the point of making it cost prohibitive.
Be patient Bolden, this administration does not seem to want to be a team player, hopefully the new next administration will.
Some things never change.
Let’s see… the last time a NASA administrator forcefully asked a President for Mars, the year was 1969, and his name was Thomas O. Paine.
Does the name Space Task Group rings a bell ? Because Paine was not exactly successfull, you see.
Mr Bolden, you should read this ! http://history.nasa.gov/SP-…
Message to Charlie Bolden: you need to get beyond your astronaut roots Charlie. Astronauts are really good at following checklists and asking for a go ahead before they take any action. We don’t want creative, intellectual astronauts. However, Charlie, you are now being paid the big bucks to be the leader. You are the head of the American space program. Stop playing the mother-may-I approach to program leadership. Its your job, not Obama’s or anyone else’s to put together a meaningful space program plan and get it sold. Obama does not need to worry about Mars. He’ll be long gone before the next Armstrong walks on Mars. Its your job, Charlie, to figure out how to get us there. We are looking for intelligence and leadership.
You are completely ignoring in your soliliquy the White House political officer for NASA, Lori Garver.
I think this, and much of the discussion here, is a bit simplistic. The problem is that most space advocates don’t really have a clue about what a sustainable, multi-administration, even multi-generational, space program looks like. We’ve never seen one. It’s not all about a presidential “vision”, and it’s not all about a NASA Administrator putting together a meaningful space program. Presidential “visions” can come and go. (We just saw one go.) A “vision” that is attached to a President has no significant lifetime. We were lucky with Apollo, and that was just one decade.
Furthermore, it is NOT Charlie Boldin’s job to put together a meaningful space program. It’s his job to put together a functional, affordable space program, once his administration decides what’s meaningful. I don’t trust NASA do decide the meaningful-ness of anything.
But even beyond that, what has to be conveyed is not what is meaningful to an administration, but what is meaningful to the nation. It has to be a national vision, not a presidential vision. That’s the critical ingredient of a sustainable program. A key component of that will be congressional authorization. That’s a multi-year, ideally bipartisan statement of what the nation considers to be important for the future. The national vision has to reflect a real public consciousness about the value of a trip to Mars. I don’t think that real public consciousness yet exists. There should be some thought given about how to best cultivate that public consciousness. Intelligence and leadership helps. But that’s not the whole thing.
We’ve never seen…a sustainable, multi-administration, even multi-generational, space program looks like.
Not true.
ISS has been ongoing since 1984. Its well into its second generation.
Shuttle went from 1972 to 2011. A good two generations. Both many administrations.
They were both sustainable though one of the mistakes was that they did not grow or evolve or reduce personnel or increase efficiencies. One of the big fears is that if they reduce people and increase efficiency, then the funds are lost.
That is not the way the “real world” works. You do not maintain the same designers on a particular commercial airliner once the design (or development, or manufacture…) has been completed.
You are right about Presidential Visions, though I do not think we have really lost the last one yet and Reagan’s belief that the station can prove useful for commerce and scientific research is still an important driving force. We lost a particularly poor attempt to implement Bush’s Vision, though Constellation was not what the Vision had intended anyway. Unfortunately they took a technical leader-well educated though never involved in actually building a significant spacecraft, to lead the effort. That was a mistake. If he had been that good, he might have been a good program manager or AAA for the program, but the job of the Administrator is not technical management.
My point was exactly that NASA, if its going to remain the leader of space “exploration”, needs to decide how to proceed, put together that story, and lead getting the buy-in from everyone who has a voice; and that is why its the Administrator’s job to make sure it happens.
If NASA is not going to do it, who will?
von Braun, Gilruth and Faget established the original capsule-based vision for moon missions. Seamans established the vision of a reusable Shuttle. Beggs with some help from Hans Mark established the Vision for the ISS. These were all people operating at the Administrator or AA level. Kennedy made the final selection of the Apollo vision, led by lots of technical and political input, but he was not the one who laid out the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo sequence and he did not design the LOI roadmap. Nixon decided to proceed with Shuttle and approved the level of funding, which defined Shuttle’s basic configuration, but he was brought the story of the logical sequence of Shuttle and then Station. Reagan voiced made the decision to proceed with Station and his OMB decided the funding level, but what it looked like and what it was supposed to do was pushed by the Administrator and lower levels. The Adminstrator is a Presidential appointee, accepted by the Congress and should be someone who knows how to work the political system in order to advance and protect his agency.
Please… We’re not going to Mars, the Moon, or anywhere else. There’s no money, no political will, no popular demand and no compelling need. I know: reality is tough.
Don’t despair. Things are always darkest just before they fall apart completely.
NASA needs a reality show on FOX.
There is no immediate threat to the country that would justify the expenditures required to go anywhere beyond LEO. Which is why no one, or at least no one in
the reality crowd, believed that we were going to an asteroid or Mars,
despite the assurances and hand waving from Bolden and his sidekick that we were and
that all was rosy.If Obama is reelected the best anyone can hope for is a third rate transportation system to the ISS at best, costing a lot more then flying on a Russian vehicle, even at the Russian’s price gouging prices. If Romney is elected his advisers, which are NASA retired or fired retreads, will bring back CxP like programs that will be dead ends. In either case the future does not look encouraging for those who have high hopes for meaningful space exploration without some “real” catalyst to effect change. If anyone believes that this administration or any other recent of future one really cares about space, you should have a reality check and provide objective evidence to support your delusion.
Wow, not something I would have expected from Bolden. Its great that he has decided to speak out. However with an election looming and the way NASA is structured any agreement to go to Mars from Obama is likely to be changed by Romney should he get in. Another reason for NASA to be free of Presidential decrees.
I am not sure what planet Mr. Bolden lives on. Why would anyone say something so outrageous that he is going to demand something to occur n 2030. This president is focused on November 6th and if he is lucky 4 years after that. For Mr. Bolden to think that the current President and the current administration care about 2030 is a sign of how well connected he is to reality. He tears up way to much about these topics. I think he is ready for his final retirement party.
I’m afraid this is something too little,too late in trying to deal with an administration that remains indifferent to the “space” struggle and wants to deal with it when it only suits their needs.