Quoting from the press release: “The Planetary Society today outlined a vigorous new approach to space exploration for the consideration of the new U.S. Administration and Congress.” Right. It’s so vigorous that it almost completely ignores the fundamental source of vigor that will be necessary if the Roadmap is to be achieved. Not to mention two other significant flaws.

While the Roadmap makes some good points about interplanetary flight, the need for international commitment and cooperation, and for letting capability drive the timeframe, it is still too mired in the ClassicSpace paradigm of national space programs. I simply do not see enough evidence to believe that any nation’s government space program, or collective multi-national programs, can maintain the consistent political and funding support required to achieve the Roadmap’s goals. The best solution is to use a wise combination of public-private efforts that take advantage of the competitive nature of the emerging NewSpace industry. Unfortunately, there is barely a breath about the emerging entrepreneurial space industry (NewSpace) in the Roadmap, and certainly not to any degree that reflects an understanding that NewSpace must be the fundamental underpinning rather than a mere supporting player.

The Planetary Society’s solution for insufficient funding leads to another significant flaw. Again, quoting from the press release, the plan calls for “deferring humans landing on the Moon until the costs of the interplanetary transportation system and shuttle replacement are largely paid.” What kind of vision is this? It makes no sense to bypass what will become humanity’s first celestial economic subsidiary.

I can only assume that the proposed deferring of human lunar landings is a direct outcome of The Planetary Society’s inability or unwillingness to move beyond the ClassicSpace focus on exploration. And therein lies the third flaw in the Roadmap; the complete exclusion of the word “settlement,” which also occurred in the very useful June 2004 “Report of the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Sace Exploration Policy” (aka, The Aldridge Report). Note that “Exploration” is in the title of both documents.

Whether it’s President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration or The Planetary Society’s Roadmap, neither offers the economic sustainability and New World excitement that settlement would provide, which will only occur with the private sector leading the way.

My comment in regard to asteroids was only in the context of Carl Sagan’s famous opinion that the Moon is “boring.” If he thought the Moon boring, how is it that asteroids could be “interesting” as they display fewer planetary processes than the Moon does.

I am not against asteroid missions, but think that we have work to do on the Moon first. Moreover, the materials processing experience we get on the Moon is directly applicable to asteroid mining.

Ah, as a famous politician once said: “There you go again” Dr. Spudis. Despite a recent NRC report supporting the scientific importance of returning to the Moon, the arguments for spending huge sums to send US robots and astronauts back to the Moon can not be justified upon close examination notwithstanding such an illustrious endorsement. (See “A Critique of the NRC Report: The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon-Final Report,” Space Times, Sept/Oct 2007 issue By Donald Beattie) If placed in a priority list of what are the most important programs and questions that should be addressed with NASA’s limited resources, studying the Moon would be low on the list. We are not in a race with other countries to land on the Moon despite what some proclaim. If they want to spend the huge sums needed to repeat what we accomplished 40 years ago, so be it.

Even NASA says it is not a top priority but would be done in conjunction with other objectives NASA has listed for returning, also of questionable importance. NASA space exploration should not be dominated by one objective, a priority that I doubt will be embraced by the next administration and congress. Consider the April GAO report that estimates to complete Constellation will require $230 billion, and that does not include Ares V or other requirements to put an outpost on the Moon. ALL NASA programs must be placed in priority, including aeronautical research, and then probable future budgets applied accordingly. Respectfully, Don Beattie

Thank you for the post. Well done. I was a member of TPS years ago… let my membership lapse. The lapse will continue.

Hey! Why are you dissing asteroids? You are making both a scientific case for understanding the origins and evolution of the solar system, and for the use of space resources to expand our economic sphere. Surely you would agree that asteroids are essential targets for both of those areas. They provide information about the original building blocks of the solar system that has been obscured in the Moon’s very complicated and possibly massively violent history, and they have abundant resources that are not trapped in a deep gravity well like the Moon’s.

While the Moon is a very worthy and under-appreciated target both scientifically and economically, I think you do your case disservice by trying to cast aspersions on asteroids as targets simply because they are advocated by a report you didn’t like. It seems to me that your stated interests in a human expansion into space and the understanding of the evolution of the solar system would lead you to strongly advocate both Lunar and asteroid missions.

True priests try to keep their minds open to newly revealed wisdom and always question, with thorough deliberation and consideration of potential new insights, if the precepts of their subscribed religion conform to a greater more accurate truth.

TPS has always struck me as more akin to a Mars-obsessed cult, self-appointed keepers of an exclusive vision based on a “superior” knowledge.

Describing them as an elite priesthood is insulting to many priests.

The greatest irony here remains the fact that it was a TPS-sponsored study, co-chaired by the current NASA administrator, that begat the ESAS architecture (Big Stick & all) that is currently hobbling the original, grander purpose of the VSE that was articulated so well by both the President and Marburger. How ridiculous it is that they themselves would now seek to derail its foundational premise of lunar return as a stepping-stone to the rest of the solar system.

1. To overlook the Moon as a point of exploration is akin to saying that all scientific exploration of the Moon has been exhausted. And yet, we know very little about this planet, the closest neighbor to our own, and, as the article points out, one with a “complex history closely tied to the origin and evolution of the Earth.”

2. The Vision for Space Exploration was, and is, intended to benefit a broad range of people. Indeed it seems fortuitous that NASA would go so far as to write a proposal benefiting not only NASA scientists, but private space as well. For humankind to benefit, we need competition AND collaboration. We cannot limit ourselves to the larger, sexier targets, but we need to open up markets and possibilities beyond the scope of pure science.

While Sagan was portrayed (largely by himself, no less) as the scientist spokesman for the people, in truth he was always about educating the elite few while throwing scraps to the masses to placate them. The priesthood of science was his domain. He did not hesistate to trash on anyone who thought differently from him and his little cabal of followers.

How much of a planetary scientist was Sagan if he could actually call the Moon “boring”? This just shows he had another agenda in mind, one that had nothing to do with science. Read the Sagan bio by Keay Davidson to get some clarity on the true motives behind this man.
They weren’t all scientific, that’s for sure.

Way too much has been made about Mars. The Moon is our first logical stepping stone. Let us hope as Sagan’s memory fades into the past that his outdated agenda will as well.

In the meantime, let us stop supporting groups like TPS that do not care about science and the public. Hit them in their bank accounts.