A Summary of Mike Pence's NASA Speech Today
Pence "America will once again lead in space" #MakeSpaceGreatAgain pic.twitter.com/GuawD15t3i
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) July 6, 2017
Remarks by the Vice President at Kennedy Space Center (with video), White House
I’m getting really sick of hearing that. America already leads in space. Just because NASA does not currently operate a human-rated launch system, folks think the nation has lost its spot as the leader. I reject that notion.
Every almost every current new thing in space is lead by NASA and its commercial partners.
Almost every successful Mars mission has launched from U.S. soil.
ESA has been doing a lot of envelope-pushing things with robotic missions to comets and other things that NASA hasn’t done, but I’m pretty sure they’d still admit that they’re behind NASA there too.
I agree an American company has essentially locked down half the commercial launch market and is implementing incredible feats of engineering that have sent other launchers all over the world scrambling to catch up and this some how doesn’t count as a lead? We have more operating cargo space craft than any iss partner and this isn’t a lead? In a few years we’re about to bring online not one but two next generation manned spacecraft but this still isn’t a lead? China is progressing is manned program at a snail’s pace and Russia has no money to do more than maintain its status quo and by the time any of this changes we’ll be flying our own astronauts again.
I’ve had arguments about how it’s pathetic that we don’t launch our own astronauts anymore, but what’s really pathetic is how despite this we’re still in the god damb lead!
If you’re going with “a few years” then there are actually three. SpaceX Dragon v2, Boeing CST-100, and NASA’s Orion. Maybe even something from Blue Origin and/or Sierra Nevada by then as well.
I think more than one someone will do a moon loop aboard one or all of the above spacecraft within a few years too. 😉
Actually four .. Blue Origin’s biconic capsule.
I’m off and on about counting Orion. It’s test flight is in 2019, but then the next flight isn’t for almost 5 years later.
Agreed, but like I said earlier I read somewhere that the EM-2 Orion capsule is under construction. I think that constitutes a “plan”. I’m not sure it’ll fly. I feel better about EM-1.
We’ll see what happens after EM-1, the first three or so flights of FH, and Red Dragon. Then we’ll know what will happen with EM-2.
Elon claims that they can land a lightly loaded and un-crewed Dragon v2 on Europa using FH. If they do that, and Red Dragon then any SLS missions that follow EM-2 had better go off-paper really fast or there won’t be any other SLS missions.
But, again, FH-Dv2 kicking the crap put of SLS-Orion is still U.S. vs U.S. No one else has anything further along in development than SLS-Orion-Bigelow or FH-Dv2-whatever for Interplanetary exploration. Leadership.
And you didn’t even mention BEAM or Bigelow’s plans on launching as soon as domestic passengers services start. You also didn’t mention the advances MADE IN SPACE has made with 3d printing.. .I mean .. America is hitting a tipping point that 99% are oblivious to and what will happen when literally billions in private capital soon comes pouring in to the space sector.
Hope you are right, Vlad, but aside from NASA as a customer why would anyone invest billions? Maybe- just maybe- Mr. Bigelow has a good idea. But what else is out there? Where’s Lotus, the killer app?
Personally I think the path forward is in situ construction with in situ materials. And we are many, many decades away from that.
https://techcrunch.com/2016…
Vlad_ For whatever reason I continue having problems following links from this site (but not others also on Disqus). But I would like to read this one? a few keywords I can use searching tech crunch would be helpful?
Here is the article headline you can google that
Made In Space plans to create a superior optical fiber in microgravity
Posted Jul 13, 2016 by Emily Calandrelli (@TheSpaceGal)
Thank you. Yes and BEAM…part of the new space procurement paradigm and an enabling tech for crewed solar system exploration.
Oh, and space 3-D printing, a converging enabling tech for future crewed space exploration.
Lots of talk about 3d printing but is it over-hyped? AFAIK it’s most effective when only a single material is used, which is why spaceX likes it for Raptors.
Lots of SF depends on “printers” that use a huge supply of base materials to make everything from food to computer chips. We are a long way from that ability.
Project that tech arc over top of the timelines for crewed Mars exploration and especially Mars colonization and NASA’s Journey to Mars and it doesn’t look that bad. Robotic 3-D printing of structures from native raw materials has already been demonstrated on a small scale. That alone, if it can be demonstrated to work on Lunar and Martian regolith, might turn out to be a huge savings on launch weight. Other 3-D printing capability might make a Mars trip safer.
“Robotic 3-D printing of structures from native raw materials has already been demonstrated on a small scale”
I’m curious about that. Do you have some more details or a reference?
I think the use of raw materials is a big deal for 3D printing in space. Even if you have to bring along the stock material from Earth, 3D printing offers a tremendous advantage. You don’t have to bring along every single replacement part you might need and only end up actually using a fraction of them. That would be prohibitive. Making everything so reliable that replacement parts are unnecessary strikes me as a fantasy. 3D printing and carrying stock for them seems like a viable alternative. You could print up parts on demand, and only as needed.
But when people start talking about using raw materials, and lunar or martian regolith, I think a major step is missing. It involved going from a shovel full of regolith to the powdered aluminum a 3D printer can use. There are some significant steps and infrastructure in between.
http://m.esa.int/Our_Activi…
Note the date on the article. I read it when it was first released. It’d be fun to see how far they’ve gone since then and build an arc and project a timeline to an off-earth trial.
That’s a good point. If you can make replacement parts on location out of pre-processed stock materials, then all you need to send up from Earth are the pre-processed stock materials. You could probably do that as part of a regular run of rockets, and tolerate a higher failure rate in launches if it made for cheaper launches because you’re just launching stock materials – there’s more where that came from on short order.
The article that I replied with points to 3D printing with the regolith itself, not aluminum.
You can do 3D printing of separate parts, made of different materials, and then assemble them by hand. That’s still much easier than machining the parts and then assembling them. I suppose you could also make a 3D printer which used different materials, but they would have to be similar in some ways (e.g. all metals which can be sintered from powders in a similar way.) I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it ought to be possible.
I think there may be some confusion about leading versus being in front. I think the US, especially in robotic missions and the new commercial service providers, is in the front of the field. But “leading” implies setting the direction everyone or everything is going. That’s not quite the same as being in front of the competition.
Ok and how is America not setting the direction? We say we are making a super heavy lift vehicle that will reach its ultimate configuration in the 2030’s and low and behold both Russia and China make similar plans. Space X an American company reduces the cost of spaceflight and proves you can land and reuse a first stage and it sends the world scrambling to answer or catch up. America says it’ll make a space station other countries hop on. Sls’s first flight slips and suddenly so does China’s modular space station. We may not be setting a direction enthusiasts are pleased with but we do set the direction and pace.
What have you done for me lately?
It’s a common political move to denigrate your predecessor in the name of fixing things. For instance, the President has repeatedly said that crime in America was running rampant (words to that effect). Not true, unless you live in a few particular places like Chicago. But nationwide? Not true. Not even close. Or blame Mr. Obama for a sudden rise in national debt, forgetting certain, shall we say, exigencies?
Or the claim that folks are out of work. Not even close.
It’s at least partly forgivable, I suppose. And yea, we have some issues at NASA (hello, SLS? and Webb?).
But to claim that somehow NASA isn’t leading the world? To denigrate the scientists and engineers doing cutting edge work?
It pisses me off.
While I’m still mad, let me add this: what would have been wrong with the VP marching out some of our scientists/ engineers, applauding their work and promising even more support?
“These are the kind of people who have labored far too long with fear of losing their livelihoods but still do work more complex than I can imagine. And I pledge today to give them the long-term support they need to take us to the next level”.
I’m not sure I’d say it exactly that way. Blue Origin isn’t what I’d call a NASA “commercial partner.” I’m not comfortable with the assumption that American leadership in space and NASA leadership in space are interchangeable.
The comet mission thing is also a little embarrassing. We were going to do, in effect, exactly what the ESA did with Rosetta. It was called Comet Rendezvous and Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) and it was canceled in 1992. It was massively over budget. I can’t say that’s a good example of NASA leadership.
I think the suborbital space planes qualify as leadership. Suborbital rockets and capsules? Not so much. They are “also-landing”, and a commercial entity, and way cool.
My mention to cometary exploration was as an example of deep space missions. Sorry, I should have been clearer. Voyager, Pluto, Juno, and New Horizons are tough to top.
The public sees spaceflight as humans – period.
Robots are nice but its humans boldly going where no one has gone before that indicates leadership. The reality that we need to pay the Russians to fly to the ISS is an political embarrassment.
I am a proponent for not sending a robot to do a man’s job. The upcoming generation does their math homework more because they want to walk on Mars than because they want to operate a robot that walks on Mars. But leadership is setting the direction. Leadership is having the stuff that other players need to get things done. International missions get cancelled when NASA backs out. The U.S. does not lack in human spaceflight missions, capability, or infrastructure. The IIS has human NASA employees on board and flies…in space. The U.S. lacks, only, CURRENT, human space LAUNCH capability…for now. With their Commercial partners NASA leads in future human space launch and space flight projects and isn’t that what leadership means? The EU has to heavily subsidize Arian Space to enable them to compete with SpaceX pricing. SpaceX is setting the price point and is based in the U.S. and is one of NASA’s most important partners for current and future capability. They are benefitting from NASA policy which encourages them to do exactly that. Not having our own human launch capability is a huge embarrassment, this is true, but you and I should be far more embarrassed that such a thing can be so capable of being an embarrassment because folks here are so poorly informed about the big picture. Congress should be embarrassed because most of what I just said about the direction of pricing and future capability leadership was done without their approval and with their open hostility and resistance.
Exploration of the solar system and the search for life and studying exoplanets…most of which is not even relevant to human spaceflight, and won’t be for anyone for a very long time, is the direction. NASA clearly leads in that respect as well. If anyone tries to land something on Mars without NASA participation, the odds of putting that something in the Pacific Ocean, or permanent solar orbit, or at the bottom of a new Martian crater go up precipitously. That is called leadership.
My daughter was on her High School robotics team. KSC hosts an annual robotic mining competition for university teams with hundreds of participants. Thousands of students alive today will find careers in robotics, vs a dozen that might walk on Mars. It may well be that robotics is actually more inspiring to today’s students than human spaceflight.
Perhaps. Also, robotics is used throughout industry, so it is a very important skill and most people entering robotics because they were inspired by the success of Cassini might never build a robot for space, but will still have a good career elsewhere. Industry will thrive from having all of that skill available.
However, Tracy Caldwell Dyson from my earlier post is a chemist. There are also geologists, xenobiologists, meteorologists and others who will enter their fields because they want to work their craft on Mars. The odds of an individual in this generation getting to actually do that is far better now than it was for someone from ours.
Only because it’s got a closer horizon. Nothing will replace the sense of looking at a Martian sunrise – with your feet on Mars.
Nothing is even close.
But Bill HSF is an awfully big part of the “lead in space” formula, isn’t it?
While all of your points are correct, wouldn’t it be more accurate that nobody is leading in space?
HSF (Human Space Flight) happens every day on board the ISS. NASA is one of the two leading partners there. The U.S. is operating (and improving) a new supply transport paradigm (a critical component of long-duration HSF) and developing an extension of that paradigm for HSL (Human Space Launch).
Oh, and testing what is probably the next-gen space habitat tech for HSF (BEAM).
Ask instead who is doing more than this.
We’ve heard that one before…
See what he meant, but it sounds like Moon to Mars. Back to the Moon. Can only do that so Mars will be put off. I hope reporters will ask what he meant. 10 years til someone lands on the Moon. Musk might be on Mars before then.
Hardware for keeping people alive in deep space for 18 months without support or rescue possibilities does not yet exist and is as yet untested. May as well test it in cis-lunar space. Development of a Mars mission is not a linear follow-on to that but a parallel one.
Musk might not be on the moon by then, but someone with an “X” on their spacesuit likely will be by 2027. No argument there. They won’t be there without NASA partnership though.
And again, Trump inherited that momentum. He just needs to stay out of the way and try not to let Congress do anything else to get in the way.
Praise the Dear Young Leader.
I read the VPs remarks to say that the future of US human spaceflight rests with private industry. The government and NASA will be there to provide support where it can. As far blogger’s comments as who’s ahead, NASA, together with industry and academia still lead in unmanned and planetary missions. However, I think more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the future of US human spaceflight rests with industry because NASA has lost its way. Shuttle, which represented US leadership, is nothing but a distant and fading memory, having joined the ranks of Saturn and Apollo. Trump’s goal is not to put a lot of new money into NASA’s program.
Yep, it doesn’t look like the SLS is going anywhere..NASA has NOTHING in the pipeline for human spaceflight.
Again…(sigh) ISS participation IS (human) spaceflight. It has humans aboard and it flies in space. The temporary shortcoming is space LAUNCH capability. We send up human spaceflight missions regularly to the ISS. The fact that we pay Russia to LAUNCH those humans on Soyuz for some 10 minutes up and 10 minutes back is bad, but it doesn’t mean that NASA has no human spaceFLIGHT missions.
Furthermore, SLS/Orion and Commercial Crew are both human space launch development programs with a clear direction. If SLS/Orion lacks missions it is only because Commercial crew might result in the capability to fill those missions dramatically cheaper than ever in the history of spaceflight. Looks like leadership to me.
Part of leadership is setting a direction and following it. The perception is that for the past several years U.S. space policy, at least for manned spaceflight, has been the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. So far nothing has, except for inventing new ways to resupply ISS with cargo and crew. And that’s a mission that won’t last much longer, with no coherent plan of what comes next.
Yes the U.S. has accomplished many fantastic unmanned missions exploring the solar system, a few of which are still in progress. But after the current missions end, what next? A few things are in the proposal stage, preliminary design, but as part of what overall plan for deep space exploration?
There may be a plan, but does it much resemble the plan from five years ago, or the one that will exist five years from now? If a leader keeps changing their mind, people tend to stop following. I think that is the concern. It’s not a slam on the technical expertise that exists in the U.S. But that technical expertise with be underutilized, and in a worst case scenario dissipate, if projects come and go and priorities and goals constantly shift. Certainly many of the innovative ideas seem to be coming lately from the commercial sector, but that’s not the same as setting the goals for the nation in space. That’s a job for our elected leaders, based on the input and advice from experts, as well as the commercial players, and scientists. We can only hope that the current administration realizes this and listens to the input and then charts a realistic course, one which will be backed by congress and supported by commercial partners. How likely that is with the current administration remains to be seen.
“But that technical expertise with be underutilized, and in a worst case
scenario dissipate, if projects come and go and priorities and goals
constantly shift.”
According to the speech, no project is coming and no project is going. It is strictly status quo for the next four years. So whats everyone kicking about? On the one hand people do not want goals to constantly shift and when the admin doesn’t shift any goals and only makes grand speeches with nothing to back it, in effect saying that they are not changing any goals, people complain.
No, its status quo until the NSC formulates a new direction. This Administration is not going to be rushed but is seeking to set a solid foundation for the future.
And key to that is creating an organization structure to see that the vision is accomplished. Whipsawing NASA from one vision to another is not leadership. Hopefully the NSC will break that cycle and lay a solid foundation beyond just NASA.
The U.S. has a clear direction with “manned spaceflight”. NASA is one of the two primary partners on board the International Space Station and Congress clearly and consistently encourages that participation. The ISS flies in space with NASA crew on board non-stop. NASA has clear and consistent direction for human space launch capability as well. Commercial Crew and SLS/Orion are both very much active and progressing projects…one or both of which will eventually result in interplanetary capability that will live on after the ISS ends. Who else is doing that?
Well I guess pointing away from Earth is a “direction” so in that sense yes there is a clear direction. But after ISS there are only vague plans to travel beyond LEO using SLS and Orion. Circling Mars, landing on Mars, circling the Moon, landing on the Moon, lunar outposts, visiting one of Mars’ moons, an asteroid, Lagrange point, all have been tossed about but so far no decision made, thus no hardware design and development is occurring other than for the launcher and the launch/reentry vehicle, which on their own can’t do any of these missions except for maybe circling the Moon or going to a Lagrange point.
If it’s taking this long just to build an upgraded Apollo capsule, how long will it take to build a Moon or Mars lander, lunar surface modules, interplanetary habitation module. A firm direction is needed soon so that hardware design and development can begin. Each time the plans change is a setback.
Well, these days U.S. direction and leadership includes NASA’s commercial partners like SpaceX and Bigelow. It also includes (as someone here reminded me) non-NASA partners like Blue Origin. Testing a Bigelow module, flown to the ISS in the trunk of a Dragon, shows momentum on post-ISS LEO and cis-lunar human transportation and habitats.
I don’t see Russia flying and testing any new habitat module designs or spacecraft.
As far as the robotic missions go, there are quite a few in development. In terms of the real and tangible, we’ve got InSight launching for Mars next year (at least, it better) and the Mars 2020 rover being built. The Europa Clipper is still in Phase B, which is nominally preliminary design, but they are bending metal and building engineering (test) models of hardware. Two Discovery missions, Lucy and Psyche, are in development and should be ready for launch in 2021 and 2023. Step one selections for the next New Frontiers mission are due out late this year. As for overall direction, I’ll agree it is a bit diffuse. But “explore the solar system” is a pretty broad goal.
Other than LEO missions, what are the US future plans after 2020? All I’ve heard of is a push for a MRO follow on mission which hasn’t been approved. When is a Mars sample return planned? Talk is cheap.
Elon Musk lives in the U.S. and plans to put humans on Mars by 2023. SpaceX will not be able to do that without some level of NASA partnership…funded or un-funded.
EM-02 is a loop around the moon launched on SLS with humans aboard Orion. That Orion spacecraft is under construction and the mission is planned for 2023. Pretty much the only thing that might kill that mission will be if SpaceX does it first…but again, SpaceX is a U.S. company.
Here is photographic proof that NASA has a spaceflight program. It is a picture of a NASA woman flying in space. I’ll bet if anyone asked Tracy how long she flew in space, she’d include her time aboard the ISS and not just her Shuttle and Soyuz flight times.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…
So PLEASE everyone stop saying that NASA does not have a human spaceflight program.