National Space Council Action Item Report
Recommendations Approved by the National Space Council to President Trump
“Recommendations on Human Space Exploration
1. Consistent with the overall goals of SPD-1, the United States will seek to land Americans on the Moon’s South Pole by 2024, establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2028, and chart a future path for human Mars exploration. NASA’s lunar presence will focus on science, resource utilization, and risk reduction for future missions to Mars.
2. NASA will continue to improve its structure and management, and improve cost and schedule performance, to implement SPD-1, seeking legislative authorization as necessary. NASA will create a Moon-to-Mars Mission Directorate and make all necessary efforts to achieve Exploration Mission-1 no later than 2020 and Exploration Mission-2 no later than 2022.
3. NASA will unleash American industry, including public-private partnerships and other mechanisms, to enhance innovation and sustainability of activities from low Earth orbit to the lunar surface and beyond.
4. The United States will engage with and involve current and future international partners to enable a sustainable program of lunar exploration and development.
5. The NASA Administrator will provide an update on the implementation of SPD-1 and these specific items to the Chair at the next meeting of the National Space Council.”
President Donald J. Trump Is Boldly Putting Americans Back on the Moon
Take away the second sentence in paragraph 2 and I’d say that’s a good beginning to meet the deadline. You got to fight a war with the weapons you have, not the ones you wish you had.
Do you think that the specificity in mentioning the lunar South Pole might reveal the presence of a plan already well developed?
No.
I think it means someone isn’t asleep. If someone pushes a return to the Moon, the first question they should expect is, “How would this be different from Apollo?” Five years is too short a time for establishing anything like a permanent presence, so that’s not a viable answer in this case. An Apollo-like mission to the south pole and prospecting for ice, that works. And prospecting for ice does flow nicely into establishing a permanent presence. But that’s only a plan in the loosest and most high-level sense of one.
Agreed, for the most part, and especially on the time frame. For instance: Is “scientific research” sufficiently robust to outfit a lunar station? Or to find a suitable site? Are humans needed for ‘prospecting’? What about the supporting technology needed to support the idea that ice can be turned into fuel?
Five years is very short indeed. And there are so many opportunities to spend money that must later be abandoned because background tech or research is incomplete.
Mission architecture, too, isn’t clear: is a ‘gateway’ necessary? Is the SX idea that your rocket = your lander supportable?
And yes, I know that I have been beating that drum ad nauseam. It’s for two primary reasons: First, assessing this radical idea is very difficult for amateurs. Some qualified people swear it’s workable, while others, not.
Most importantly, though, SX proposes rockets with capabilities suitable for what I’m calling “A Research Team In a Can.” Imagine, for instance, a team outfitted to answer the key questions about lunar water. Starship could be specifically outfitted to do this work, complete with scientists and gear; it would put down where needed. When complete, Starship is either moved, or outfitted for a different task.
I’ve glossed over many serious points in favor of describing the big picture, a research effort radically different from current thinking. Is this approach replete with impossible stumbling blocks? Maybe. One thing for certain: once the bird flies, lots of people will wonder just how to use it.
Throwing good money after bad just wastes more money. At some point you have to man up and wear the shame of walking away from a bad idea.
Great speech! Now that goal of landing American astronauts back on the Moon by 2024 presumes that the 2020 election results will not kill that objective the way similar objectives have been killed by a new president coming in to countermand his predecessor. I do wish the VP hadn’t mentioned the Lunar Gateway. That thing, along with SLS, ought to be cancelled before it starts!
Anyway, it is now time for Congress to put our, the American people’s money where our President and V-P’s mouths are!
Ad Luna! Ad Ares! AD ASTRA!
Interesting that now there is vocabulary of landing a man on the moon, before there was none except as a minor footnote to put a man on Mars. I’m not convinced until I see actual contract to build a lunar lander. I know many point out Musk’s BFR, I still can’t wrap my head around the direct approach like 1950s moon rockets.
However, Trump definitely knows how to use the space program as a demonstration of American power. However unlike how Apollo demonstrated American power during 1960s, it’s not like lots of job openings in Downey and Bethpage.
No bucks….No Buck Rodgers…