October 7, 2010
The Authorized Version
Congress disposes....
NASA’s new authorization bill (S.3729) was passed by Congress before they cleared out of town and will soon be signed by the President, codifying into law the federal government’s formal abandonment of the Vision for Space Exploration. In its place is a mish-mosh of platitudes, entitlement programs, pontificating blither about “unique” missions, commercial aerospace welfare and most significantly, an utter lack of direction for our national space program.
I’ve already heard the reaction to the sentiments above, as the space blogosphere has hashed and rehashed space access, space direction and space pork and now is left with – what? Defensively, we’re told, “The new bill does too have direction!! We’re going to Mars! We’re going to a near-Earth asteroid!! We’ll develop new, “game-changing, leap-ahead” technologies to make spaceflight easier and cheaper – that will take us there sooner! The commercial sector will develop new, ultra-affordable launch vehicles to allow the movement of humanity into space!” They will just … “Make it so.”
A statement that “Mars is the ultimate destination” is not programmatic direction, but rather an exhausted platitude, unsupported by any facts in evidence. We do not now have the technology, the will or the national wealth to expend on a human Mars mission and will not for decades. The idea that some new “magic beans” technology will spontaneously arise to enable a human mission is technically illiterate. The quasi-religious belief by some in the efficacy of “New Space” efforts to provide routine and inexpensive access to LEO is touching, but unsupported by any evidence. It is certainly true that many NASA programs have cost more and taken longer than promised or planned, but that’s been the nature of the space business since its founding 50 years ago. At least NASA had a track record of building and flying spacecraft, under a variety of difficult technical and fiscal conditions. But for now, NASA’s manned space workforce has been told to make tracks for other employment.
The likely effect of the proposed new “direction” for NASA by this administration has been apparent to many of us for some time now – the end of human spaceflight by this nation. Although some of us suspect that this shattering of a national capability is all quite deliberate, motives do not matter at this stage. The new authorization bill makes some significant changes to the administration’s proposal. The only pertinent question is, can pieces of the space program be picked up and re-assembled again, sometime in the future after years of destructive non-activity? It is in this vein that I want to examine some of the language of the new authorization bill.
The most prescriptive part of the new authorization is its language dealing with a new NASA-developed heavy lift launch vehicle (HLV) and a Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), replacements for the now-terminated Project Constellation. The launch vehicle description reads as though the authors of the bill had some solution (or range of solutions) in mind, a surmise supported by the requirement that the agency use “existing Shuttle parts and infrastructure to the maximum extent possible.” The specific requirement is for a vehicle with a payload capacity of 70 to 100 metric tonnes to LEO, capable of growth to 130 mT, including a possible “Earth departure stage.” It is further specified that this vehicle be capable of launching the MPCV into orbit and to supply cargo and crew to the ISS.
The crew vehicle description is a little more vague, as befits a spacecraft with no defined mission. Although it is specified that the MPCV shall be capable of conducting missions beyond LEO, its primary mission seems to be crew and cargo delivery to the ISS. In addition, it must be capable of supporting “rendezvous, docking, extra-vehicular activity” and “servicing of assets” in “cislunar space” (interesting wording that). The bill goes on to define the intent of this provision in another section (804) related to making space-based telescopes (like the James Webb telescope at Earth-Sun L-2) serviceable by humans. But by using the term “cislunar,” it may well be that something else might be lurking in the background.
The prefacing language in the bill (the seven “findings” of the Senate) is even more interesting (Section 301a). Cislunar space is mentioned in 4 of the 7 provisions of the prefacing section; human lunar surface presence is mentioned in 3 of those 7 sections. Strange language for an authorization bill that “abandons the Moon as a destination,” as claimed in many press reports. What should we make of this unusual language and phrasing?
I think that the bill’s provisions for a NASA-developed HLV and crew spacecraft reflect a fundamental ambivalence on the part of Congress for the “new direction” adumbrated by the administration last spring. It would seem some healthy skepticism exists as to whether a purely commercial solution to human LEO access is possible or even desirable. In addition, although the President is now famous for remarking that a return to the Moon is pointless because “we’ve been there,” someone on the Hill fortunately recognized the lack of understanding embodied in that statement.
The bill’s wording about human access to “cislunar space,” as well as the mention of “in situ resource utilization” indicates that some in Congress are not blind to the wealth of knowledge recently acquired showing that the poles of the Moon contain abundant water – material useful to those countries willing to go after it in order to achieve affordable space faring capability and routine access to cislunar space, where all advanced countries’ satellite assets reside.
In short, I detect in the new authorization bill the hand of someone in the bowels of the committees – a staffer perhaps – who has perceptively salvaged a slender thread of capability for the use of some future national leader, one that supports a robust American space program. I note that the authorization calls for a report in 90 days on how the agency proposes to implement the new plan. Somebody will be watching them.
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Excellent article as usual Dr. Spudis. But I believe the silver lining to all of this is the immediate building of a heavy lift vehicle- which was not the case with the Ares I/V architecture. If we build it, we’ll have to use it! And the most practical way to use an HLV, IMO, is for building a permanent base on the Moon. The fact that President Obama doesn’t realize this clearly indicates his general lack of interest in NASA and the space program in general.
However, there are already indications that the current administration will attempt to undermine the building of a real HLV– claiming that NASA has the right to build an HLV with a lower payload capability. But I don’t think Congress will stand for it! That’s why they had to be so specific on the minimum payload capacity (I’m still not sure, however, if the bill was using English tons or metric tons?????).
But once we have an true HLV, and EDS stage, and a Crew Exploratory Vehicle then funding a lunar landing vehicle should be relatively easy.
But I absolutely agree with you as far as Mars is concerned! An HLV does not solve the huge radiation problem of going to Mars and a manned asteroid mission doesn’t even really help you to get to Mars since a Mars mission requires substantially more massive radiation shielding.
Ironically, a Moon base does help to solve many problems related to an interplanetary journey since astronauts staying on the lunar surface for several years would have to live at facilities that are properly shielded from radiation by either regolith or by water extracted from the lunar poles. A Moon base could even test slush hydrogen (a mixture of liquid hydrogen and solid hydrogen)as the lightest of all radiation shielding material over several months and even years. Slush hydrogen also has a lower rate of leakage relative to liquid hydrogen thanks to its lower temperature and higher density. And the Moon should be the cheapest source of slush hydrogen shielding for future interplanetary journeys to Mars launched from L1 (the place with the lowest delta-v requirements to Mars from cis-lunar space).
What an HLV does,IMO, is to make it easy to conquer cis-lunar space which should eventually make traveling beyond cis-lunar space a lot easier and cheaper by using lunar resources for shielding and possibly for fuel.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — October 7, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
Marcel,
Thanks for your comments. I think that the main benefit of keeping HLV alive is that it helps preserve an industrial capability (infrastructure and workforce) that would otherwise be irretrievably lost. Admittedly, this is probably not the solution either you or I would come up with if asked, but it is something.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 7, 2010 @ 5:16 pm
Well, my heart has been broken since Nixon decommissioned the Saturn V back in the early 1970s. So at least it looks like NASA may get back its ability to place large payloads into L1 AND lunar orbit.
Then all we’ll need is a rational President who really wants to use it and will commission the funding of manned lunar landing vehicles again.
I’d love to see a lot more focus on– unmanned missions– to asteroids to land, retrieve samples, and even capturing small asteroids and bringing them to the Langrange points for examination and exploitation. But there’s no logical reason to send humans to an asteroid right now. So while other nations are exploiting the Moon’s natural resources for strategic and economic gain in the next decade, our expensive– manned US mission to an asteroid– will probably finally be seen as a huge waste of tax payer funds that could put the final nail in NASA’s coffin since folks will probably blame NASA for losing the Moon.
I’ve never seen any polls that suggest that an asteroid mission is more desirable by anyone over a base on the Moon!
Marcel F. Williams
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — October 7, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
I can’t agree with a lot of your reasoning.
The key point, it seems to me is the failure of NASA to provide any access to the ISS after the shuttle retires.
Orion was too far down the track, and there was no NASA launcher to put it on anyway. This 5-10 year gap in NASA HSF, along with declining confidence, after the Ares 1 fiasco, in NASA’s ability to actually build anything meant that the only way out of this hole NASA had dug for itself was commercial crew.
The fact that Dragon is on the pad ready to fly and the rapid progress of Boeing with its CST-100 is a good indication that commercial suppliers can deliver.
Add to this the pending announcement of Bigelow, with his 6 national customers and plans for 2 active space stations by 2017 means that the press for commercial crew access to space will soon be a major HSF driver outside NASA’s control.
In this context it doesn’t matter about the Heavy lift part of the budget.
The budget asks NASA to build a HLV in half the time with half the money they had for Constellation. This really is just setting NASA up to fail again. Several experienced NASA managers have already come out and said it can’t be done.
If there is any hope at all of moving beyond LEO it is in the hands of Commercial.
They may succeed. They may fail. Time will tell.
Comment by Fred Willett — October 7, 2010 @ 6:38 pm
Since the author and Marcel F. Williams have the “glass half empty” side of the argument quite well represented, I’ll chime in with a different view.
I liked the originally proposed NASA budget precisely because it focused on putting in place basic transportation & technology capabilities, and did not focus on destinations.
Constellation was a bad program for a number of reasons – not because it had a destination (the Moon), but because it was forced to use space infrastructure that was too immature. Constellation had to create every piece of space hardware that it needed for the mission, but because of funding limitations, it could not build that hardware in the most reusable way (everything was single use). Not only that, but it’s funding overruns were stealing funding from other NASA programs, which no one should be have happy about (except for Constellation workers).
The original NASA budget proposal, as well as most of the approved Senate bill, focuses on the transportation and technology that is needed to get to LEO. And as author Robert Heinlein once said, “Once you’re in orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.” This is the key part that was missing from Constellation – dependable access to space that did not require extraordinary efforts by NASA to maintain (i.e. Ares I & Ares V).
If anything, the President has left the decision of destinations wide open. Though he has voiced his opinion, he has not committed NASA to any one place. This makes sense, since we still have a number of years before we’ll have our LEO transportation in place, and certainly a number of years until an HLV could be ready.
In fact, we don’t even need an HLV to go back to the Moon, or to an NEO. All the wishlist items that Marcel talks about can be accomplished by using the current generation of launchers, and with the money we could save by not building an HLV, we could pour that into the technology & systems needed for the mission.
But what is keeping us from going back to the Moon is not Obama (or Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton), or some secret conspiracy, but the need to go back. I know at some point we will go back to the Moon, and I have no doubt that someday it will be the source of supply for the things we do in space. But that day is not here yet, and the lack of resources from the Moon is not holding us back from anything at this point. Sending robotic precursor missions is a good idea, but human expeditions at this point would be premature and costly, just like Constellation was.
Comment by Coastal Ron — October 7, 2010 @ 10:17 pm
Fred,
Very good recitation of all the talking points, but virtually none of it is accurate.
along with declining confidence, after the Ares 1 fiasco, in NASA’s ability to actually build anything
Ares I was never built, so what “fiasco”? Not that I was a supporter of it, but the real issue with Ares I was its cost, not its performance.
the pending announcement of Bigelow, with his 6 national customers and plans for 2 active space stations by 2017 means that the press for commercial crew access to space will soon be a major HSF driver outside NASA’s control.
Announcements about the advent of new commercial spaceflight have been “pending” for the last 30 years.
The budget asks NASA to build a HLV in half the time with half the money they had for Constellation. This really is just setting NASA up to fail again. Several experienced NASA managers have already come out and said it can’t be done.
Completely wrong. A Shuttle side-mount concept was described to the Augustine committee that fit completely under the run-out budget and would have been ready for first flight in 2014. They simply ignored the option.
In any event, as you say, “Time will tell.”
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 5:16 am
If anything, the President has left the decision of destinations wide open.
That’s not how NASA reads it — they think they’re going to an asteroid. In 25 years, that is. There’s vision for you.
But what is keeping us from going back to the Moon is not Obama (or Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton), or some secret conspiracy, but the need to go back. …… human expeditions at this point would be premature and costly, just like Constellation was.
Your argument for continued focus on humans in LEO only has been heard and rejected by the administration, Congress, and NASA. They all want to go somewhere beyond LEO — so the issue is to where.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 5:22 am
> The only pertinent question is, can pieces of the space program be picked up and re-assembled again, sometime in the future after years of destructive non-activity?
Yes, that really is the heart of the question. I believe that the answer is a “Yes…if”. Yes, if, in three years from now (after the end of the funding of this bill) history has repeated itself. If the HLV development is going slower and at more cost than expected, and if commercial space is successfully delivering cargo to the ISS at a set cost, and if commercial space is getting awfully close to being able to transport humans to the ISS. The result could well be a fundamental re-evaluation of NASA’s direction in favor of those of us who recognize the great value of developing lunar water ice for all cis-lunar and beyond the Earth-Moon system.
Commercial space is our friend, not an unproven concept to be dismissed out of hand before it is given a chance to prove itself. The orbital, cis-lunar, and lunar surface realms have real commercial potential which beyond the Earth-Moon system does not. Commercial space are our natural partners. But commercial space cannot do it itself. Marrying NASA funding with the commercial development of cis-lunar space is the secret. And in three years, the case for doing so may well be stronger.
> The quasi-religious belief by some in the efficacy of “New Space” efforts to provide routine and inexpensive access to LEO is touching, but unsupported by any evidence.
I don’t think that you are being fair. You are equating anyone who wants to see if commercial space can reduce the cost of access to LEO as being “quasi-religious” or holding “touching” sentiments. And is the successful Falcon 9 launch no evidence whatsoever? Why be categorically opposed to commercial space when there is a case to be made for the commercial development of cis-lunar space?
> At least NASA had a track record of building and flying spacecraft, under a variety of difficult technical and fiscal conditions.
SpaceX has former NASA employees. Even if Armadillo and Masten have no former NASA employees, they seem to be successfully testing a series of craft. The technical knowledge is so much greater now and past NASA experience can be utilized by commercial space companies. Commercial space is not the enemy.
The big problem, as I see it, is that the HLV was included in the bill. This is a two-fold problem. Billions spent developing the HLV could have been used to permanently open up space by developing a cis-lunar system for Lunar Ice To Leo (LITL). And worse yet, if the HLV is built then untold billions might be spent maintaining the workforce for ongoing launches of the HLV thereby depriving (for decades) the development of a LITL system.
My hope? is that the HLV development will prove to not be staying on budget. If this is the case then perhaps the HLV will be seen as threatening even the scaled-back-from-Constellation program. If Congress begins looking for alternates for the HLV yet still wanting to do an asteroid or Martian Moon then perhaps the development of a LITL system could look like their solution. If people such as yourself working with others during the next three years can make a strong argument that a LITL system can solve NASA’s problem then maybe there is hope. If SpaceX has successfully launched and retrieved animals in its Dragon then Congress could be tempted to believe that the commercial development of cis-lunar space could serve both American business as well as NASA’s HSF goals.
Comment by JohnHunt — October 8, 2010 @ 7:57 am
John,
I never said (nor do I believe) that “commercial space is the enemy.” My contention is that their promise is one of potential, not of demonstrated ability. It’s one thing to launch a vehicle or to orbit a satellite. It’s quite another to create a working business, one that can deliver services for a contracted amount for many years, repeatedly and on a tightly defined schedule.
But that aside, shoveling government money at contractors is certainly not my idea of “free enterprise.” And this fake space program is being used as justification for terminating pursuit of the Vision for Space Exploration, in my opinion the best strategic direction NASA ever had.
So in sum, I simply do not buy the line being peddled by supporters of this plan. Your mileage may vary.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 9:23 am
Paul D. Spudis said:
“the Vision for Space Exploration, in my opinion the best strategic direction NASA ever had.”
You may like the VSE, but you really only support one aspect of it. Here are the major VSE goals, and let’s see which one you support, and which ones you ignore:
A. Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;
B. Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
C. Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
D. Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.
Well you certainly support “B”, although Constellation was never going to make the 2020 date, certainly not without massive additional funding (a no-no with Tea Party Republicans). President Obama recognized that fact, and also that the rest of the VSE was being usurped by the Constellation program – kind of like eating your own seed corn. It was unsustainable, and it was also the wrong architecture (one-time use hardware vs reusable).
Since the 2020 date is not going to be made, and it was really only a goal anyways (no penalties for missing it), if we remove that date, then the VSE really looks like what the proposed FY11 NASA budget wanted to do, and quite a bit like what is in the approved House/Senate legislation.
In reality, President Obama is actually following the VSE better than it’s creator, President Bush.
Now, you made the following comment in your article:
“The likely effect of the proposed new “direction” for NASA by this administration has been apparent to many of us for some time now – the end of human spaceflight by this nation.”
I challenge you to defend this statement. Show us how Constellation would have provided more people or days in space, or more activity. Use facts, not rhetoric.
Under Constellation, the U.S. participation in the ISS was to end after 2015, which meant no more HSF except for Constellation (the only funded HSF program). Under the Constellation program, other than a couple of test flights, U.S. astronauts would have been cooling their jets on the Earth for at least 10 years – that would have been the end of human spaceflight by this nation, because if Constellation continued to run over-budget & schedule (very likely), then it could have been cancelled, thus ending any U.S. human spaceflight program.
Under the new budget, human spaceflight by this nation is guaranteed to continue, and in fact the groundwork is being laid so that non-governmental organizations are allowed to take humans to space also. That never would have happened with Constellation, which continued a government-run space transportation system (i.e. a government monopoly).
By any measure, the new budget, and the cancellation of the Constellation program, is better for promoting U.S. human spaceflight.
Comment by Coastal Ron — October 8, 2010 @ 11:38 am
You may like the VSE, but you really only support one aspect of it.
You don’t have a clue as to what I support and why. You still clearly equate the VSE with Project Constellation, even though I have made the point on this blog repeatedly that they are distinct and different. You claim that Obama’s plan does what the VSE promised, yet the Moon was specifically removed as a destination for the nation in the very speech in which he articulated his new direction.
Use facts, not rhetoric.
You mean like this statement?
Yeah… there’s “facts not rhetoric” for you.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 12:47 pm
We don’t need Blackwater to replace the US military and we don’t need Space X to replace NASA. We just need the politicians to allow NASA to be the space pioneering entity that it once was during the Saturn V era and not merely a symbol of space travel as it has become during the Space Shuttle era. A Moon base should be NASA’s next logical step.
Private companies need to focus on Space Tourism not big government programs. Let NASA do the pioneering so that private companies can later do the privateering . I believe space tourist launches will surpass NASA commissioned manned space launches by the 2020s and probably dwarf government launches during the 2030s.
These private companies need to take the money that NASA is giving them and start their private commercial ventures. But the last thing we need is another so called private company that is mostly or largely dependent on tax payer dollars.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — October 8, 2010 @ 12:58 pm
A good analysis of where things are. The question now has to be asked, given the cards we have been dealt, what sort of plan could be developed to get our space effort back to where we want it?
Comment by Mark R. Whittington — October 8, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
I never said (nor do I believe) that “commercial space is the enemy.” My contention is that their promise is one of potential, not of demonstrated ability.
Paul, ULA has been reliably launching billion-dollar satellites for years. Falcon 9 will be launched in a few weeks with a functional Dragon capsule. Boeing (which built every manned spacecraft that NASA ever ordered) can certainly have their own capsule ready in a few years, given funding.
On the other hand, Marshall hasn’t successfully developed a launch system in over three decades, and they have never developed a cost-effective one. So which has “demonstrated ability,” and which has “potential” again?
Comment by Rand Simberg — October 8, 2010 @ 1:52 pm
ULA has been reliably launching billion-dollar satellites for years.
So has the Space Shuttle. Launch is only the first part of spaceflight.
Falcon 9 will be launched in a few weeks with a functional Dragon capsule.
Fine. That’s a start, not an establishment of “demonstrated ability.”
Boeing (which built every manned spacecraft that NASA ever ordered) can certainly have their own capsule ready in a few years, given funding.
“Given funding” from NASA’s budget, I suppose. How is this “private sector space” again?
Marshall hasn’t successfully developed a launch system in over three decades,
True enough. But they did develop one once.
and they have never developed a cost-effective one
The only ones that ever did that (so far) are the Soviets. As for the rest, it remains to be seen.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 2:08 pm
“Given funding” from NASA’s budget, I suppose. How is this “private sector space” again?
Now you’re moving the goal posts. The issue is whether or not they can do the job.
I don’t really care whether it’s “private sector” so much as whether it’s effective, and cost effective. But would you say that Microsoft isn’t part of the “private sector” because some of their revenue “comes from NASA’s budget”?
Comment by Rand Simberg — October 8, 2010 @ 2:53 pm
We don’t need Blackwater to replace the US military and we don’t need Space X to replace NASA.
No one is proposing that SpaceX replace NASA (or, for that matter, that Blackwater replace the US military).
Straw-man arguments just make you look foolish.
Comment by Rand Simberg — October 8, 2010 @ 2:54 pm
Now you’re moving the goal posts.
All that you guys have done since this idiocy started is move goalposts.
Let me spell out once and for all exactly what I object to:
1. The Obama space plan abandons the most logical destination (the Moon) without any serious thought or consideration for a plan that’s nebulous and promises everything, meaning that we’ll get nothing.
2. Many of the New Space companies have promise, but have not yet demonstrated that they can deliver on their promise to provide low cost, routine access to space. No one in their right mind is against such a thing but after years of blather about how superior they are to NASA, I’d like a little evidence for this via some real hardware, real missions, and real accomplishment.
3. The new agency focus on “technology development” is a prescription for 20 years of Powerpoint engineering with no spaceflight. We get technology from doing flight projects, not by spending endless money on the next widget.
would you say that Microsoft isn’t part of the “private sector” because some of their revenue “comes from NASA’s budget”?
Does NASA give Microsoft money to develop and write their code? Or do they purchase finished product?
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 3:15 pm
The new agency focus on “technology development” is a prescription for 20 years of Powerpoint engineering with no spaceflight. We get technology from doing flight projects, not by spending endless money on the next widget.
A propellant depot demo is not “Powerpoint engineering.” It is a flight project, and one that would fly quickly, given funding.
Does NASA give Microsoft money to develop and write their code? Or do they purchase finished product?
I don’t know about Microsoft, but NASA does pay people to write code, and they are in the private sector.
But again, “private sector” is a red herring. The issue is the nature of the procurement. NASA has been paying for fixed-price milestones on COTS, and it seems to have been working quite well, relative to a cost-plus development program (e.g., Ares). There is no reason to think that it won’t work equally well for commercial crew.
Comment by Rand Simberg — October 8, 2010 @ 4:28 pm
A propellant depot demo is not “Powerpoint engineering.” It is a flight project, and one that would fly quickly, given funding.
Yes, it is Powerpoint. And there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the so-called Flagstaff Technology Demos will ever fly — they are just window-dressing designed to convince people that NASA is doing something. They are good at this — I’ve seen it in action for over 40 years.
Note well: I did not say that it couldn’t happen – I am saying that it won’t happen. Time will tell which of us is right.
NASA has been paying for fixed-price milestones on COTS, and it seems to have been working quite well, relative to a cost-plus development program (e.g., Ares). There is no reason to think that it won’t work equally well for commercial crew.
Perhaps. But no one has a working, demonstrated system for doing it. In the mean time, your statement is one of faith, not fact.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
But no one has a working, demonstrated system for doing it. In the mean time, your statement is one of faith, not fact.
Paul, I continue to not understand why thinking it likely that a system that is essentially developed, and only awaiting flight test is “faith,” but thinking that a program that had little to show for tens of billions of taxpayer dollars by an agency that hasn’t successfully developed a launch system in decades was going to provide useful results wasn’t.
Comment by Rand Simberg — October 8, 2010 @ 4:58 pm
So has the Space Shuttle. Launch is only the first part of spaceflight.
There’s at least two examples of excessive delays of years in Shuttle launches coming from vehicle accidents. The DoD had to develop their own launch platform, the Titan IV precisely because the Shuttle was unreliable. With ULA, you don’t have to worry that your satellite launch will be delayed for several years due to an accident.
As to the first point above about making explicit destination goals, I don’t see value to making a goal that no one has to achieve. For example, the VSE had several planetary goals, but NASA from the start failed to move towards those goals. Admittedly, that failure may have contributed to the current change in strategy, but I doubt the current strategy will last without any concrete movement toward beyond LEO exploration, even if those activities aren’t explicit goals of the current fiscal year authorization.
Considering the second point, commercial launch providers are delivering. I frankly don’t see them as higher risk than yet another Constellation program or poorly thought out heavy lift vehicle. If NASA actually had experience in this area, you might be correct.
As to point 3, I’m not interested in technology development, flight projects (just another form of technology development), or twenty years of power point. I’m interested in increasing commerce, particularly US commerce, in space. Cheaper, more effective commercial spaceflight does that. Sure government action can contribute to that, but I have yet to see anything like the great government-commercial efforts of the past (such as building the continental railroads or electricity infrastructure).
As I see it, the great strength of the US for over two centuries has been commerce and the enabling of risk taking. Sure you can call my appreciation for New Space efforts “quasi-religious”, but they’re at least pursuing approaches that have worked well for the US (and predecessor governments) over many centuries. Sure space development is a harder problem than settling the US West, but that by itself doesn’t demonstrate a need for a change in strategy.
Comment by Karl Hallowell — October 8, 2010 @ 4:59 pm
For example, the VSE had several planetary goals, but NASA from the start failed to move towards those goals.
Wrong. The immediate goal of the VSE was the Moon and we built and flew an orbiting platform to map the poles and determine whether usable resources are present there. That spacecraft (LRO) is still orbiting the Moon and returning data. And it found exactly what it was sent to look for.
Admittedly, I’m not happy that we don’t have a follow-up lander/rover mission in the works to take the next steps. But it is incorrect to say that we “failed” to move towards those goals.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 8, 2010 @ 6:22 pm
Wrong. The immediate goal of the VSE was the Moon and we built and flew an orbiting platform to map the poles and determine whether usable resources are present there. That spacecraft (LRO) is still orbiting the Moon and returning data. And it found exactly what it was sent to look for.
Wrong? I don’t consider a single mission “movement”.
Admittedly, I’m not happy that we don’t have a follow-up lander/rover mission in the works to take the next steps. But it is incorrect to say that we “failed” to move towards those goals.
And this is why. Yes, we failed to move towards those goals.
Comment by Karl Hallowell — October 8, 2010 @ 7:12 pm
@ Rand Simberg
“No one is proposing that SpaceX replace NASA (or, for that matter, that Blackwater replace the US military).
Straw-man arguments just make you look foolish.”
Oh, yes they are when they say that NASA shouldn’t be flying to LEO to its own space station and that only private industry should be providing those services. That’s like saying only private industry should own and operate military ships and airplanes.
Musk also doesn’t see why he shouldn’t provide heavy lift capability for NASA also. Again, these private companies need to focus on private ventures, and not try to promote their participation in big government programs like the ISS whose funding by the tax payers should probably be either reduced or terminated.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — October 8, 2010 @ 8:09 pm
I’m curious about what HQ is putting together in the report due in 90 days on how it proposes to execute and drive for success under the guidance in the authorization. It would be refreshing to see an actual plan rather than the continued rehashing of positions on commercial versus government systems for crew transportation….
Comment by Joe Williams — October 8, 2010 @ 8:13 pm
The irony abounds. On one side of the Cape, workers are tearing down a pad. On the other side, workers are building a promising new rocket that may fly this year. Guess what side of the Cape that NASA is on and which side is the private sector. Any confidence in NASAs ability to execute, let alone plan a return to manned space flight ignores the hard reality that is the Cape today. Soon we will be gone, execpt for the ppt jockeys that got us in this mess.
Comment by Pawn — October 8, 2010 @ 10:32 pm
“The question now has to be asked, given the cards we have been dealt, what sort of plan could be developed to get our space effort back to where we want it?”
The bill gives us SLS, MPCV, commercial crew, exploration technology development, and robotic precursor budget lines that, if carried into the later budget years as outlined, can be expected to fail in all those areas.
The SLS is the huge budgetary problem that squeezes everything else. It gets about $3B/year in later years if you count the KSC infrastructure budget line. Eliminate SLS. Divide the $3B/year into commercial crew, exploration technology demonstration missions, robotic precursor missions, KSC/Cape upgrades (a political necessity), Delta IV support and additional MPCV capabilities, and transition costs. For simplicity, suppose that gives $500M/year boosts to the existing bill’s projected funding lines for each of those areas.
The additional commercial crew funding and KSC/Cape support should make commercial crew viable.
The exploration technology demo boost should get the solar electric propulsion, propellant depot, space tug, inflatable module, lunar ISRU, and ECLSS demos flown. These will be flight demonstrations that would be used as real missions right from the start. For example, the SEP demo mission would fly real instruments to an interesting target like the Moon, and would be applicable to many near-term missions beyond NASA. The inflatable demo would be used for real ISS work, and could have near-term applicability to commercial HSF missions. The space tug would be used to deliver these missions, and later to do work like delivering an additional node to the ISS. The lunar ISRU demo would fly on a robotic precursor mission. In addition, these technologies would also have roles in lunar development. The technologies could be integrated into the MPCV plans to give more of an operational urgency to them.
The additional robotic precursor funding enable multiple lunar missions. The robotic science portfolio could also be given a greater focus on the Moon without changing SMD’s overall budget.
The $500M/year boost for MPCV would be on top of an already significant MPCV budget line. The boost would add capabilities and deliver Delta IV support. In addition, it would be integrated with the new demonstrated exploration technologies when appropriate. Robotic science missions would be designed to be serviced by the MPCV as appropriate.
When transition costs are covered, we could even have an additional $500M/year to dedicate to some other job (a modest EELV-based HLV, cislunar space operations, etc).
None of this gives us a space economy based on lunar resources, or even gets astronauts on the Moon. However, it would set us up nicely to be able to make that move in the future, and in the meantime it would all be useful.
As Dennis Wingo recently wrote: “The economic development of the solar system was the core value that made George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration exciting and worthwhile to the nation. The implementation was horribly done in the most wrong way possible. The Obama plan is the right implementation, but without the core value of economic development starting at the Moon, it is bereft of a moral underpinning.”
Comment by red — October 8, 2010 @ 10:45 pm
Wrong? I don’t consider a single mission “movement”.
I assume that this same standard applies to Falcon 9 as well.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 9, 2010 @ 4:34 am
without the core value of economic development starting at the Moon, it is bereft of a moral underpinning.
That has been my point on the new direction from the beginning.
You seem to think that all that is hinted at in the anti-Vision (technology demo missions, lunar robotic missions) will actually occur as flight missions. I’ll believe that when I see it, not before.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 9, 2010 @ 4:38 am
I assume that this same standard applies to Falcon 9 as well.
Of course, it does. We do need to keep in mind that the Falcon 9 is the sixth launch attempt and third successful launch by SpaceX. That is movement. And unlike Constellation, SpaceX is likely to build on that success with a variety of contracts from both the US government and the private world.
And there’s the ULA, which has somewhere near a hundred launches (between three launch platforms) over the past decade.
Comment by Karl Hallowell — October 9, 2010 @ 1:24 pm
We do need to keep in mind that the Falcon 9 is the sixth launch attempt and third successful launch by SpaceX
As an aside, I don’t think a 50% success rate (before considering launch abort systems) is remotely acceptable. But the current activity by SpaceX does look consistent with a launch system that transitions from experimental vehicle to a system reliable enough even for NASA.
Comment by Karl Hallowell — October 9, 2010 @ 4:21 pm
[...] read Dr. Paul Spudis’ commentary, please click - The Once and Future Moon FacebookTwitterDiggItTechnoratiDel.icio.usBlinklistFurlreddit October 12th, 2010 | Category: [...]
Pingback by Spudis Highlights ObamaSpace’s Flaws in: The Once and Future Moon « AmericaSpace — October 12, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
My fingers are crossed that the new SLS will work out as planned. In theory (if you write-off the the development costs that will be 3-4 times–at least–an equivalent 70-ton ULA Phase 2 HLV), if they can get the launch rate up high enough, the cost per kg to LEO would be on the order of $5,000. The way things in general are going, it’s quite likely we’ll see another Republican in the White House; who knows? So perhaps the VSE will be restored within another couple of years. Then the SLS could form the backbone of an ambitious lunar program. I see the best use of SLS as launching fully loaded ACES-71 space tankers to an L1/L2 depot. The goal should be 700 tons of propellant to LEO per year for starters. This would keep an SLS plenty busy. As for it being a set up for failure, supposedly this version will more closely follow the DIRECT design. So it should, in theory, be much less expensive to develop that Ares…. Of course, the details are still up in the air, and an HLV of any sort is still not a given.
As for the robotic precursor budget being the size of a rounding error, and therefore no NASA plans for a lander to ground-truth the recent CPR results, there is still Chandrayaan #2. My question is whether there are any plans to send directly into the middle of one of the anomalous craters. If not, what’s the problem? If it’s lack of line of sight communication with Earth, couldn’t there possibly be a way to finagle LRO or some other polar orbiting satellite to relay signals?
Comment by Warren Platts — October 12, 2010 @ 12:44 pm
Chandrayaan #2. My question is whether there are any plans to send directly into the middle of one of the anomalous craters. If not, what’s the problem?
I’m not involved in Chandrayaan-2, but my understanding is that a lander and rover is planned, site is not (as yet) selected. The mission will have an orbiter and lander, so there could be (in principle) a communications relay for out-of-Earth-sight operations.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 12, 2010 @ 2:43 pm
One of the core problems with the Constellation program was that there wasn’t supposed to be any serious funding for the lunar architecture (Ares V core vehicle, EDS stage, and the Altair lunar lander) until after the development of the Ares I and the termination of the ISS.
This raised the possibility that a future President or Congress could terminate the lunar architecture even after the LEO oriented Ares I was built in order to extend the ISS program.
Funding an HLV program now, forces NASA and future presidents to use it. In fact the authorization bill signed by Obama says:
“Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on the following assets and capabilities:
(A) Any effort by NASA to expand and ensure effective international collaboration on the ISS.
(B) The efforts of NASA, including its approach and progress, in defining near-term, cis- lunar space human missions. ”
That will probably mean journeys to lunar orbit and the Earth-Moon Lagrange points which will only wet the thirst of Americans to return to the lunar surface, IMO.
I think once the HLV is operational, it will become clear to Congress and a future President that we need to fund the development of a manned lunar lander. And since the CEV, HLV and EDS stage will have already been built, funding a new lunar vehicle should be a lot easier for NASA to afford– especially if they decide to build a single stage LOX/LH2 lunar vehicle instead of a two stage hypergolic ascent and LOX/LH2 descent stage.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — October 12, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
Paul:
It is good to read commentary from someone who actually knows what he is talking about. When it comes to space exploration, there is always room for differences of opinion, but the recent NASA debate has been dominated for far too long by armchair ameteur engineers, political activists, and vested interests.
Please keep up this very health dose of reality.
Comment by Nelson Bridwell — October 12, 2010 @ 4:07 pm
Paul, I am wondering if you have had a chance to listen to Dr. Wendell Mendell who spoke with David Livingston on The Space Show recently? He was pragmatic and optimistic about the new authorization bill. Though I am not happy with the new authorization bill just signed, I am not ready to be doom and gloom. There are some opportunities in the bill.
Comment by Gary Miles — October 14, 2010 @ 1:41 pm
if you have had a chance to listen to Dr. Wendell Mendell who spoke with David Livingston on The Space Show recently?
Yes, I heard it.
I am not ready to be doom and gloom. There are some opportunities in the bill.
Did you read what I wrote in the post above? I make that exact point — that there is language in the new bill that may permit lunar activity in the future.
However, in regard to both Wendell’s views and the bill itself, the real problem is that NASA will apparently do nothing for the next few years. That’s another few years irretrievably lost. Worse, capabilities and infrastructure are being lost, as Shuttle production shuts down and skilled people leave the program.
There is very little upside to the new bill. Yes, cislunar is mentioned and even lunar surface, but it is clear that at least for the next few years, wheel-spinning will be the principal activity of the agency.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — October 14, 2010 @ 2:07 pm
[...] with Republicans in the majority. After these new committee chairs take charge, will they set new priorities? Only time will tell but past statements by those mentioned to fill these positions give some [...]
Pingback by Can NASA Get Its Groove Back? | The Once and Future Moon — November 6, 2010 @ 11:32 am
[...] for the agency; space settlement is not one of them. But routine access to cislunar space is; cislunar space is specifically mentioned in the new NASA Authorization Act of [...]
Pingback by From “One Small Step” to Settlement | The Once and Future Moon — June 4, 2011 @ 6:01 am
[...] outlines the rationale and goals of the space agency’s human exploration efforts. As I have written previously, in the seven points dealing with future agency activities, cislunar space is mentioned in four and [...]
Pingback by Everyone's Gone To The Moon | The Once and Future Moon — June 5, 2012 @ 3:29 pm
[...] In contrast, the VSE came along just as NASA was in the middle of ISS construction, with the program’s end clearly in sight. There was no future plan for human spaceflight beyond Shuttle/ISS and the agency sorely needed some high-level direction. The idea of Shuttle retirement came from the Columbia Accident Investigations Board report, which contended that the Shuttle system was inherently dangerous and that we ought to develop a new space transportation system as soon as possible. In contrast to uninformed reporting and Internet mythology, President Bush did not “retire” the Shuttle – he ordered that it first be brought back to flight status (so that ISS construction could be completed) and then transitioned and replaced with new human spacecraft capable of journeys beyond LEO (which became the now-cancelled Project Constellation). In contrast to SEI, the VSE came to NASA with price limits already in place – after a small incremental increase in the early years, it was to cost no more than we were then spending on human spaceflight (about $8 billion per year) with funding available from the gradual decline in spending on the Shuttle/Station program. Finally, unlike SEI, which never had much Congressional support, NASA was given two Authorization bills (in 2005 and 2008) that strongly endorsed the VSE (many VSE goals, though ignored, remain in the current 2010 Authorization). [...]
Pingback by Failure to Launch, Failure to Lead | The Once and Future Moon — July 2, 2012 @ 10:47 am