February 27, 2010
Talismanic Thinking
The SP-100 space nuclear reactor
Wild claims are being tossed about regarding the future U.S. space program. Recipes for success are touted and e-mailed around – concepts based more on wishful thinking than on solid science and engineering. My friend Rand Simberg refers to those who would replicate anew the means we devised to go to the Moon several decades ago, as having an “Apollo cargo cult” mentality (i.e., Pacific islanders waiting for parachutes to once again drop wondrous things in crates from planes, as they did during World War II). A counterpart to the so-called “Apollo cargo cult” also exists in the space community and they rely on their own talismanic thinking – a belief in some technique or item that allows us to go farther and longer in space, with incredible new capabilities. The talisman takes different forms for different groups, but in all cases, they ward off the evil spirits of physical and bureaucratic reality.
Early in the history of the Vision for Space Exploration, talismanic thinking was apparent with Project Prometheus. This was a program to develop an advanced space nuclear reactor for missions to the outer Solar System – where the Sun’s rays are too weak to provide enough energy to power systems. Used anywhere, such a capability enables activities to take place in a power-rich environment, making many necessary and routine operations easier, safer and more efficient. Former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe was enamored of Prometheus, so much so that he often unintentionally overstated its capabilities. For him, Prometheus was a talisman – a unique capability that enabled the otherwise unobtainable.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden fancies his own talisman – the technology to “go to Mars in days and weeks, rather than months.” Bolden is probably referring to VASIMR, the plasma rocket engine designed and undergoing testing by former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz. In principle, a VASIMR-powered vehicle could go to Mars on non-minimum energy trajectories, thereby cutting transit time between planets to a fraction of that required for a chemical rocket.
VASIMR is an interesting concept and some form of it will be very useful when we are ready to travel to the outer planets. However, one aspect about it that I have not heard mentioned by Bolden is the low mass, high power system needed to run it. The only known systems approaching the necessary power density needed are nuclear reactors. Which brings us back to Project Prometheus, a joint NASA-Department of Energy (DoE) effort.
Prometheus was canceled in the FY2006 budget. It was deemed too complex and too costly for its proposed use, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. This was a robotic spacecraft designed to tour the Jupiter system and obtain data on its satellites during multiple flybys. Note well: this power system was thought to be both too complex and expensive for a robotic mission. A similar system for human missions – which involves many more systems, power requirements, and propulsion – would be even more complex and expensive. Tack on international participation and – well, you get the picture.
So where does this leave VASIMR? Chang-Diaz notes that nuclear reactors can be launched empty and then assembled and fueled in space, presumably by human astronauts. Thus, there are no safety considerations associated with its launch. The problem is that the pieces of this reactor don’t exist and aren’t even being thought about being built. For decades the DoE community has talked about a space reactor of the 100 to 1000 kW class; a VASIMR-powered Mars vehicle would need a 10 megawatt reactor. Billions of dollars went into the SP-100 program in the 1980s and 1990s and still the reactors needed to power VASIMR exist only in the mind’s eye of some space dreamers. The United States Navy has been building and operating nuclear reactors for over 60 years, so one would think that building a space reactor would be achievable, but practice has proven otherwise.
VASIMR is Bolden’s talisman, the magic beans that will grow a stalk that we can climb to Mars. Such a rocket engine would be a technological breakthrough promising capabilities well beyond our current reach. But for now, a Mars craft using VASIMR is imaginary. Reality will not come about by spending massive amounts of money on general technology investment. When VASIMR is finally built, it will be because it is needed for a specific application or mission. Once again, the ends will drive the means, not the other way around.
Talismanic thinking is common in much of the current discussion about the new path for NASA. Other talismans include cheap access to low Earth orbit, commercial transport replacing Orion, and an “exciting space goal” to engage the public. These new dogmas (all of them means, not ends) clearly illustrate that there is no strategic thinking or thoughtful leadership guiding America’s space program. Those at the top need to know where they are going and understand why; the fact that they currently do not bodes ill for the future of our country.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently said that “he is trying to find middle ground between groups “radically” in favor of keeping the Constellation program and others lobbying for reliance on commercial space entities.” But he is still confusing the means with the ends. We should re-affirm that our mission is to use the resources of the Moon to build a transportation infrastructure whereby all can travel to wherever they choose as often as they want. Our direction in space goes through the Moon or we go nowhere.
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Of course it’s important for NASA to have goals, but having the means to meet those goals is essential. VASIMR (I think you misspelled it) may indeed be a talisman for some, but something as basic as cheaper access to LEO will be essential to any practical and affordable exploration program, and pays dividends for many other programs. There are in fact a number of basic technologies that are enablers for all kinds of exploration activities, and it is legitimate for NASA to pursue them as technology development programs.
There is a danger to having no goals, of course: wasting money and time on technologies that never get used. There is also danger a danger to the mentality of “the mission is everything”: You may wind up building a throw-away system that doesn’t leave us any closer to being a true space-faring civilization.
Comment by Bill Hensley — February 27, 2010 @ 4:09 pm
Bill,
First, thank you for the spelling correction — I have fixed this in the post.
Second, I am not against technology development and I don’t think we’re fundamentally in disagreement. The point I have been trying to make since this new budget came out is that in the agency’s past, two kinds of technology development have occurred — those in support of specific mission goals and those part of a general technical development effort. The former includes things like fuel cells and inertial guidance; the latter includes any number of widgets and incremental improvements in existing systems. If you have a specific mission goal, you’ll get all the technology development you need. If you don’t have such a goal, you’ll get a lot of random development, some useful, some not. But technical development alone is not why we have a space program. People expect accomplishment. My concern about the new direction is that a perfectly logical and rational strategic direction was discarded, without any real thought or rationale. I think that was a major mistake.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — February 27, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
Perhaps we are not that far apart, as you say. I, too, am uncomfortable with the lack of a clear plan into which all of the technology development pieces can fit. VSE was good, but Constellation became narrowly focused on flags and footprints (at ruinous expense).
Comment by Bill Hensley — February 27, 2010 @ 9:49 pm
Unfortunately, General Bolden doesn’t seem to understand the incredible value of a lunar base and the idea of reducing cost through the exploitation of extraterrestrial resources. Could you imagine what a game changer it would be if lunar base astronauts were manufacturing oxygen on the Moon for air and as a major component of water? And what if we really could extract significant amounts of water from the lunar regolith!
As far as interplanetary game changing technology is concerned, light sails are the key to opening up the solar system, IMO. Even if you deployed a simple 20 tonne 2 kilometer in diameter Mylar light sails at a Lagrange point, each one could potentially bring back a 50 to 100 tonne NEO asteroid to a Langrange point every year. Just ten of these reusable vehicles could bring back 500 to 1000 tonnes of small NEO asteroids to a Lagrange point every year!
Relative to such resources from Earth, small asteroids would be an extremely cheap source of hydrogen and oxygen fuel for space depots which could dramatically lower cost for traveling to the Moon. Asteroids could also provide mass shielding for Lagrange point space stations.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — February 28, 2010 @ 12:38 am
I think what is wrong is how many are confusing near term program implementation with future R&D.
The near term job is to replace the Space Shuttle, using everything we’ve learned from it, to build something that is safer and more affordable to operate. If we do not have any access to LEO, and we will not have any in another few months, and if we do not have an affordable earth to LEO program, then you can forget anything else. In this case there is no sense even talking about the moon.
That goal, that development, that vehicle to take us to LEO is what the next program should be.
NASA also needs an ongoing R&D program to develop the technologies that permit the next steps. That R&D effort, and those activities, whether they are a lunar base or a Mars mission…are not part of the current program.
There were two management screw-ups under the last Administrator. The first was creating a program, called Constellation, that included the entire future of space flight. Why not just call that NASA ? Then within Constellation, apparently those managers were so giddy with excitement about being handed the entire future of American space flight, that Orion’s and Ares’ were off working to put men on the moon. Their goal was to pick up where Apollo left off. They missed their near term task which was to be able to put people in orbit.
Constellation was a failed construct as a management institution. Constellation failed us all.
All of your talk of future goals and road maps for how to get there are great, but in the meantime within a few months we can no longer put anyone in space.
Comment by Enon — February 28, 2010 @ 9:05 am
Constellation was a failed construct as a management institution. Constellation failed us all.
This is a bit of an overstatement. Constellation had many programmatic problems and issues, but those could be fixed (and yes, within the existing budget envelope) and provide adequate Earth to LEO transportation. Ares I as its principal launch vehicle is a separate issue (the Orion crew vehicle could be launched on an EELV).
The issue I am addressing is the complete lack of any mission with the “new path.” Earth to LEO transport is important, but it is only the first step to everywhere else. If there is no strategic horizon, you could easily spend another 30 years in low Earth orbit, with no human missions beyond it at all (which I suspect is what some desire anyway).
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — February 28, 2010 @ 9:39 am
I disagree.
If Constellation/Orion had been focused on designing and building a LEO ISS logistics vehicle in the near term, the capsule would have been smaller and lighter. In that case it could have been launched on an EELV as you suggest. It also could have been made to land on land rather than water, which means it would have been less expensive to operate.
As it is currently, Orion is too large and too heavy for existing EELVs.
There are other problems with Orion. The fact that it splashes into the ocean makes it largely not reusable, which makes the operating costs very high.
Orion is really not optimal as an ISS carrier. Certainly in its current manned form, it cannot carry the kind of cargo, like racks, that ISS will need. If the program had continued with a cargo version then perhaps they could have optimized support of the ISS cargo logistics requirements.
It is also not a good thing, after spending 6 months or longer in orbit, that you dump astronauts into the ocean. Spaceships are not cruise ships and its a very poor environment to be dumping your astronauts in after they’ve been debilitated by 6 months of weightlessness; this probably holds true for 1/6 G though its a question that still needs to be answered.
Orion is really not optimized for crew escape. Its large size, in part due to the program decision to place a commode inside the crew compartment, means that its larger, more massive, and requires more energy to get away from a malfunctioning booster. (which also drives total mass and booster payload requirements) What really dictates the need for the commode? Probably the 2-3 day transit time returning from the moon. Presumably if you sized an Altair for the lunar surface operations the Altair would need a commode. If the entire crew is descending to the lunar surface, then you do not need the commode in the Command Module until you begin the return trip. And for a 2-3 day requirement, when the mission is 6 months to a year long, there are alternatives.
If you were going to do something like a lunar outpost or base, then you are going to have to create mission-specific modules for other reasons, and one of those could have been a module optimized for planetary or lunar habitation during the return trip. I think Mr. Bigelow has already developed and tested just such a module. You could have optimized the Orion capsule for an entirely different architecture.
Orion makes no use of any of the capabilities and lessons we learned from the last 40 years of Shuttle development and operations. So from that aspect, it really is not a continuation of anything we’ve done or learned. It throws all that knowledge away.
So as I said, the near term job was a replacement capability for Shuttle which is needed today. Orion is not what was really needed but even if the decision had been made to go with a capsule approach, the Orion should have been optimized for that near term capability.
What the proposed extended R&D program promises are answers to a large number of other questions that are critical particularly for deep space or Mars missions. The answers to these questions will dictate the approach and architecture and those decisions should be made years in the future after we know the answers.
If you can develop and field a propulsion system like VASIMR, then you probably can avoid a high energy return from a lunar or Mars trajectory entirely. In this case a variation of a cycler type of spacecraft, as Buzz Aldrin has been proposing for decades, makes the most sense for getting people and material to the moon, asteroids, Mars, returning to the vicinity of earth, and it saves considerable costs because you continue to use your hardware for many years rather than throwing everything away every time you do a mission. This means that what we are learning today in terms of how to design, build and operate systems on the ISS is directly applied in the next program, and it makes it synergistic for long term habitation on the moon or Mars.
If you think through the need to provide artificial-G for long duration missions, which many in the human physiology community will tell you is a given if you are going to do deep space long duration missions, then you do not optimize an Orion capsule for long term habitation. Instead you would need a habitation module that would take on many of the life support functions, including waste management. If you have to provide protection against solar radiation and cosmic rays, then the long term habitation module is different from an Orion capsule.
So Orion was optimized to do a kind of mission that may never need to be supported. It certainly was not optimized to do the ISS logistics mission. Only in the last year did we hear from the Orion Project that they were changing their requirements to now focus on the ISS mission. Remember, under the prior administration, there was no need to focus on ISS support. They were dumping ISS in 2015.
So they missed entirely on supporting the near term need and no one is yet certain that what they’ve conceived is what would be required for the long term program. That architecture, like the architecture of the long term lunar base, is something they decided not to even consider.
Comment by Enon — February 28, 2010 @ 11:24 am
[...] post was written partly inspired by Paul Spudis’ and Clark Lindsey’s talking about the importance of the Moon as an enabler for other stuff [...]
Pingback by Far Away, Yet So Close « Gravity Loss — March 2, 2010 @ 5:17 am
OK, Dr. Spudis, I think your point is quite well taken by now. I think it would be interesting (in your future posts) to start exploring more positive and constructive angles re: the budget…especially since your problem seems to be not so much with the budget itself, but rather with Bolden’s Mars-ish unfocused ramblings and the lack of any lunar ISRU or development planning.
I’d be interested in hearing how you think the new framework can work with your ideas, rather than against them–even if you feel it’s unlikely that it will actually pan out that way. For example, as I understand it the budget includes a $1 billion increase in funding for robotic precursor missions over the next few years, at least some of which are likely to go to the lunar surface. In light of the recent LRO data and north pole ice etc., what sorts of missions become possible with this extra slice of the budget (pried from the corpse of Ares I)? Also, Robert Bigelow was quoted last month as saying that his company had already blueprinted soft-landing some of his conjoined BA-330 modules on the lunar surface, in order to rent out the lab space. This obviously isn’t going to happen anytime soon, but if private sector initiatives are going to play a part in determining how things move forward in space exploration, how do you see this potentially playing out, from LEO across cislunar space to the lunar surface? What are your recommendations for the private sector, and how could NASA work with or guide them, ideally, to lead towards lunar development? You spent most of this post bashing VASIMR-to-Mars wishful thinking, but Ad Astra’s shorter-term plans for the rocket have focused on providing slower, cheaper cargo transport to the moon. How much of a difference do you see this making?
In short, I think there are plenty of things to think about in the wake of the budget besides just criticizing it (although criticisms are also, of course, fair game), and I’d enjoy reading any discussions of these issues that you’d like to post. Since a detailed strategy hasn’t emerged from NASA yet–and won’t for a while–it seems like now would be a good time to voice as many positive ideas as possible.
Comment by Jared — March 2, 2010 @ 2:46 pm
Jared,
In short, I think there are plenty of things to think about in the wake of the budget besides just criticizing it (although criticisms are also, of course, fair game), and I’d enjoy reading any discussions of these issues that you’d like to post
I suggest that you can start by going back in this blog and reading any and all of my previous 50-odd posts, where I lay out exactly why we are going to the Moon, what it’s value is, and how it can help us create a sustainable human presence in space.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — March 2, 2010 @ 4:15 pm
“Our direction in space goes through the Moon or we go nowhere”
“Once again, the ends will drive the means, not the other way around”
Awesome Paul you are in tune to reality check. As an engineer I know full well where the random Garver “flex-path” will lead. We are already seeing that upfront flex will become the “lobby path”. From there over the next few decades who knows. Bolden is looking more and more like a Garver/Obama puppet a mere figure head. It is now apparent to me who is really calling the shots at NASA. And that is very troubling.
The moon offers the resources to develop free markets and to define the technologies required to harvest those resources and move outward. Putting the technologies in place prior to defining the markets will not guarantee that those technologies will match what the market demands.
For me its not Constellation vs. commercial. It about applying some common sense project management practices and accountability in place to ensure a successful lasting transition to commercial development.
Comment by Doug Gard — March 3, 2010 @ 1:36 am
[...] We can wait and hope for the proposed technology development program to provide us with magic beans, or we can begin that process now by returning to the Moon with robots and humans to learn how to [...]
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Dr. Spudis, What is your explanation why the Augustine commission, NASA refuse to mention or acknowledge space nuclear technology and at the same time proportion funds for research in this area?
Doesn’t this smell like irreconcilable differences between public policy and R&D.
Wouldn’t a clear public commitment signal a willingness taxpayer funds are well spent on advancement in space technology?
What is your position on Nuclear thermal rocket propulsion and power ?
Comment by Bruce Behrhorst — March 24, 2010 @ 4:24 pm
Bruce,
What is your explanation why the Augustine commission, NASA refuse to mention or acknowledge space nuclear technology and at the same time proportion funds for research in this area?
I don’t know what their thinking was, but I can hazard a guess that it’s largely because of the high perceived cost of space nuclear power. This high cost is caused not only by technical issues, but almost more significantly by the enormous bureaucratic/legal overhead that would have to be paid on the launch of any nuclear reactor.
I have no “position” on space nuclear power/propulsion. If it makes good architectural sense (i.e., both technically and fiscally), then it should be developed and used. If it doesn’t, we should seek alternatives to it. I look upon it as a means, not an end.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — March 24, 2010 @ 4:31 pm
Wouldn’t the ‘enormous’ bureaucratic/legal overhead be of the gov’t own making. How could past launchings of RTG (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator ) missions be any different in launch logistics other than launch capability of for example, on an Ares HLV?
Dr. Spudis, what I don’t understand is why everyone is ignoring the obvious elephant in the space capsule. Propulsion and power is the name of the game in space. This superior alternative to chemical is proven technology and has been sitting on the shelves of gov’t labs for 50 yrs. Is waiting for a politically correct alternate method of power and propulsion in space any inspiration ?
Comment by Bruce Behrhorst — March 24, 2010 @ 5:08 pm
Without space nuclear power, I have a hard time seeing how you are going to make much use of any space resources. Where is the energy going to come from for you to operate on the dead oxidized rock of other planets to extract your oxygen, metals, volatiles, ect?
Space nuclear energy isn’t just important for overcoming the fundamental specific energy limitations inherent in present interplanetary spaceflight, it’s necessary to drive chemistry as well, to power the high energy industrial metabolism needed to make use of what are essentially variations on the theme of rock.
Comment by Aaron — April 3, 2010 @ 5:16 pm
Aaron,
Where is the energy going to come from for you to operate on the dead oxidized rock of other planets to extract your oxygen, metals, volatiles, ect?
In the inner Solar System, solar is the only alternative. Fortunately, the poles of the Moon are power-rich environments, with some areas receiving sunlight for more than 85% of the lunar day. The sunlight can not only generate electricity (and when we are able to make solar cells on the Moon out of local materials, at the megawatt and gigawatt levels), but solar thermal is particularly useful for volatile extraction, specifically melting ice. We could build a complete end-t-end processing system on the Moon using nothing but solar power. This would bootstrap lunar industry until nuclear reactors can be brought on-line.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — April 4, 2010 @ 5:05 am
[...] Paul Spudis has repeatedly pointed out, many in the human spaceflight community are confusing the ends with the means. I view the [...]
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