Return to the Moon: Outpost or sorties?
Outpost on the Moon: Too expensive?
Recently, the acting Administrator of NASA testified before Congress on his agency’s implementation of our National Space Policy, previously known as the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). In the question and answer period, he made a rather startling statement to the effect NASA was still trying to understand what “lunar return” means – that an outpost would be “expensive” and that lunar return might instead entail a series of smaller scale sortie missions, similar to the later Apollo expeditions of the early 1970’s. He added that people should remember that the “original purpose” of the VSE was to prepare to go to Mars and other destinations.
I found this exchange fascinating because it suggests that NASA, as an executing entity, still doesn’t fully understand the nature of their mission to the Moon and to the extent that it is understood, they have transformed it into something very different from what the VSE actually said and what was intended.
To begin with, what did the Vision actually say about lunar return? The Vision consisted of both documents and speeches (all linked on this page) that included the following points:
1. The purpose of the VSE is to serve national scientific, security and economic interests.
2. The Moon is a source of material and energy resources that we can access and use to create new spacefaring capability.
3. We return to the Moon to explore it scientifically, to learn how to live and work on another world and how to extract and use lunar resources.
4. This experience on the Moon will allow us to journey beyond the Earth-Moon system, first to Mars and then to other destinations.
5. We undertake this journey with small, incremental, cumulative steps, all designed to fit under NASA’s current budgetary envelope.
Apparently, the view of NASA’s acting Administrator is that the Moon is a box to be checked-off on the way to Mars. Hence, we don’t really need to establish an outpost because we’re just satisfying a political requirement in implementing policy, not conducting a technical experiment to use the Moon to prepare for journeys beyond.
Why is an outpost on the Moon necessary? Or more pressingly, why are sortie missions undesirable? Each time you go to the Moon, launch and spacecraft assets (in the form of equipment and vehicles) are expended. This equipment has significant cost; it is currently estimated that a single Orion sortie mission to the Moon might cost upwards of $ 4-5 billion dollars. A sortie mission goes to a single, specially designated landing site, the crew explores the local area, sets up some experiments and then departs. All equipment brought to the Moon is abandoned. Thus, a sortie mission’s high costs are pure expenditure, not investment. The return from sortie missions is scientific knowledge, something which as a lunar scientist, I certainly desire. But a sortie mission does little to advance the goals of learning how to live on another world or for extracting and using local resources, except for relatively short duration stays and technology demonstrations.
In contrast, an outpost at a single, optimally placed location can be built up from delivered hardware as each flight incrementally adds some equipment or facility. Thus, the cumulative capability of the outpost increases with time. This seems fairly obvious and in fact, has been recognized for many years; Arthur C. Clarke’s classic book The Exploration of Space (1951) notes:
For a considerable time all flights to the Moon would be directed to the same spot, so that material and stores could be accumulated where they would be most effective. There would be no scattering of resources over the Moon’s twelve million square miles of surface – an area almost exactly the same as that of Africa.
An outpost allows infrastructure to be built up rapidly and over the long run, permits and enables more exploration than a series of sortie missions. In other words, you build up capability on the Moon first, then stage the sortie missions from the Moon rather than from the Earth. Ultimately, this permits longer and more capable exploration than would otherwise be possible. The idea that an outpost is “more expensive” than sortie missions is ludicrous; an outpost can be built at any rate that budgetary limits permit. And it represents more value for expenditure because equipment gets re-used or at a minimum, used once to the maximum extent possible.
Much of this is so obvious as to be beyond debate. Could the agency’s focus on sortie missions be because those implementing the program don’t believe in the primary mission, which is to use the Moon to learn how to live off planet? Do they think it unlikely that this will be possible or do they believe that activities on the Moon will “bog them down?” Is the strategy to advocate short duration sortie missions to “get data” and conduct their experiments before ending the program? The Vision’s purpose is clear, so one must conclude that they are eager to “check off the box” for the Moon and get to their mission of going to Mars. To do that, the first three parts of the VSE must be curtailed. As others have pointed out, the Constellation program is not optimized for the establishment of an outpost on the Moon.
A return to the Moon using the Apollo exploratory template is truly a “been there, done that” exercise in space futility. The Vision was never intended to be a repeat of Apollo – the idea was to use the Moon to create new spacefaring capabilities. This is a task that’s never even been attempted in space, let alone accomplished. It is the antithesis of “been there, done that.”
It appears that some at NASA have been successful in obfuscating the purpose of the Vision.
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outpost or nothing! an Apollo-remake has little or no sense! however, also talk now about that is a nonsense, since the Orion/Ares-1 will fly only in 2018 to the ISS and the first/new manned lunar landing should happen in 2022 or later… now, I believe it’s much more urgent to talk about the RISKS of the Hubble SM4 that should start next week
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after posting several comments on US’ space forums and blogs (with links to my article about the Hubble SM4 risks) my question is: “Does the american Press take care of the Atlantis’ astronauts lives?”
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well, while waiting for an answer about this question, I’ve UPDATED my article with other concerns regarding the STS-400 rescue mission, the space-junk problem and the Atlantis’ radiator issue, also, in the same article, I give some suggestions to increase the Atlantis’ astronauts chances to survive to this risky mission (if “something goes wrong” of course)
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http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/044sm4risks.html
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Comment by gaetano marano - ghostNASA.com — May 5, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
This does a very good job of demonstrating that NASA’s purpose these days is very little more than keeping themselves employed. Government space programs exist to put government people into government-operated space; and they have no interest in anything that threatens that. Colonization of space means people living places and doing things outside the government’s purview, and that seriously threatens the paradigm.
One does not need to believe in any conspiracies to explain this; it’s just the result of the economic incentives at work. It does explain why there’s been no meaningful colonization efforts (or even travel beyond LEO since the Apollo days).
Comment by Carl Soderstrom — May 5, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
Well said, Dr. Spudis!
Comment by James Antifaev — May 5, 2009 @ 2:38 pm
Excellent article, a must read for anyone hoping that we’ll get real value from our manned space program. Thank you Dr. Spudis!
Oh, and to gaetano… No one will read your funny site if every other word is in red. Why not go whole hog and have the entire text blinking on and off?
Comment by Bennett Dawson — May 5, 2009 @ 5:23 pm
Good points all Paul.
Comment by Dennis Wingo — May 5, 2009 @ 5:41 pm
I completely agree with Paul, and i know a little about what NASA is doing, since i work for NASA and have been intimately involved in Constellation activities. What this points out is the very real need for some entity OUTSIDE of NASA to set strategic focus and priority for NASA, along with objectives.
When we were working on the first Lunar Architecture Team in late 2006, NASA attempted to gather an international group to help define the rationale for going back to the Moon (publicly called Themes for returning to the Moon). These Themes formed the original basis for the work that we did on the lunar architecture, but later these Themes were increasingly left by the wayside and did not drive the thinking nor the strategic decisions formulating the general shape of the lunar return. As a consequence, lunar architectural decisions were increasingly made based upon hollow strategic and parochial logic as well as cost, and not driven by more specific goals like Paul points out such as “learning to live off-planet”.
Case in point: Orininal need for ISRU investment was strong, and would be strong for a goal or Objective to “Learn to Live Off-Planet”, but subsequent emphasis on it has diminished. Further, instead of forcing NASA to look at local lunar resources for oxydizer for the Lunar Ascent Module, the emphasis now is on hypergolics, which cannot be generated on the Moon.
While NASA does get strategic input and priority for the Science missions, it did not receive this on the human missions, and we have been suffering because of this lack for 25 years.
The best thing that someone can do is advocate to this Administration that Strategic Objectives need to be provided to NASA, not just a general framework, since significant decisions will be relegated to short term cost or parochial interests.
tony
Comment by Tony Lavoie — May 5, 2009 @ 9:20 pm
Yes, these are good points. I also believe the point by Mr. Soderstrom has great value as well.
Mr. Krukin latest post raises an interesting question about President Obama’s understanding of the “commercial settlement and development of space”. The 5 points above should be the foundation of dialog between Americans and their president. How do we create this dialog?
Comment by Evon Speckhard — May 5, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
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WE (talking about that) and NASA (adding more life support time to the SM4) have just FIVE days to give more chances to survive to the Atlantis’ crew
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Comment by gaetano marano - ghostNASA.com — May 6, 2009 @ 9:44 am
Gaetano,
I appreciate your passion on issues in regard to the Hubble mission, but please keep this forum for on-topic comments and discussion. Thank you.
Paul
Comment by Dr. Paul D. Spudis — May 6, 2009 @ 11:35 am
“Each time you go to the Moon, launch and spacecraft assets (in the form of equipment and vehicles) are expended.”
Of course this needn’t be true, even for sortie missions…
http://www.tallgeorge.com/projectconstellation.php#The%20Altair%20Moon%20Lander:2007%20Lockheed%20Martin%20Proposal
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2007/04/lockheed-studies-centaur-applications-for-lunar-lander-concepts/
http://www.slideshare.net/niceguyted/reusable-lunar-lander-1308693
…but in an architecture that doesn’t use Earth orbital assembly and/or refueling (and/or RLVs), it may be unavoidable.
If reusability isn’t designed in at the start, it’s no surprise that it’s not there at the end. Sorties *and* outpost building can only benefit from it.
Comment by Frank Glover — May 6, 2009 @ 11:39 am
[...] Return to the Moon: Outpost or sorties? By Dr. Paul D. Spudis. In the question and answer period, he made a rather startling statement to the effect NASA was still trying to understand what “lunar return” means – that an outpost would be “expensive” and that lunar return might instead entail a series of smaller scale sortie missions, similar to the later Apollo expeditions of the early 1970’s. He added that people should remember that the “original purpose” of the VSE was to prepare to go to Mars and other destinations. [...]
Pingback by Is NASA Missing the Point of the VSE? « National Space Society Blog — May 7, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
This whole thing is nothing but an attempt by the Obama Administration to make it easy to kill any space program that entails flight beyond Low Earth Orbit. First they’ll kill the idea of a lunar outpost, then they’ll kill the Orion heavy lift vehicle and the whole idea of even the sorties. Then we’ll be left with a vehicle with about the same capabilities as the Russian Soyuz and Chinese Shenzhou vehicles and still be stuck in LEO for the next 25 to 35 years. This plain sucks.
Comment by Ross Warren — May 7, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
The NASA FY2010 Budget looks good on the surface. Will someone in the know do an in depth dissection?
Comment by Bennett Dawson — May 7, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
Guys –
I mostly agree with Paul; and totally agree with Tony Lavoie. Even when given an original specific direction, our Agency, once faced with the inevitable challenges (budget, etc.) keeps defaulting to a mode where we forget what the true strategic goals are – or at least, need to be. We did the same with shuttle as budget times got harder and harder; made it unaffordable to own without telling anyone that’s how we were handling the challenges.
The more correct answer to Congress’ question might be something like this:
Establishing a long-term base at one good location, like we’ve had in Antarctica for decades, is justified on a scientific basis alone – Antarctica. But in addition, we know we have to learn to live off the land in space to afford to stay there, and a place only three days away is the best place to do that. Plus showing we can live, work, learn, and reduce the cost of staying there over time is exactly the type of experience we need to show you in Congress and the American people we can go beyond the moon.
This sort of rationale means you don’t put ISRU in the back seat for years- you put it closer to the front. You use scenarios that already exist, like Antarctica; and you also make it clear that we know we won’t get permission or funds to go beyond the moon unless we prove to Congress et al that we can sustainability stay on the moon – and get something out of it in the process. And once we establish a base, others will, too. Commercially (for tourism, first), as well as bases by other nations – again, like Antarctica.
However, if we can’t have, establish, and then operate in a way we can afford to own a simple Antarctic-style station on the moon, then we won’t be able to sustain anything more grandiose beyond it. The moon – and I would maintain even more so, NEOs, with their potential danger and great resources – presents not just technical and operational learning experiences we need; but the needed demos for economic and political sustainability as well.
Comment by Dave Huntsman — May 8, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
[...] others have pointed out, the Constellation program that NASA is implementing is not the same thing as the VSE. The VSE set [...]
Pingback by Antimatters» Blog Archive » Rearranging a Constellation — May 13, 2009 @ 3:45 am
So if it is to become a field trip why not then re-engineer a soyuz for lunar reentry, re-make the grumman LM with modern electronics and send them over using a DIRECT launcher? maybe there wont be as much storage space for rocks but remote sensing equipment is adequate enough these days, right?
You could also build a skylab-sized can and send some ‘big brother’ contestants to mars on a free-return trajectory.
All this could still be cheaper and quicker than the Orion/Ares project, have a similar feel-good factor as well as rate well on TV…
Comment by Phil Thomas — May 15, 2009 @ 6:43 am
[...] equipment in place for future use and expansion by subsequent visitors. This is one reason why sortie missions are inferior to establishing an outpost or a base; sortie missions spread surface assets over a large area where [...]
Pingback by Next Step or No Step | The Once and Future Moon — August 3, 2009 @ 11:25 am