Some of us have described the achievable within existing budgets — the paper I wrote with Tony Lavoie three years ago was an attempt to do just that. The denial comes from entrenched interests who want to continue the existing dissipated efforts to go nowhere and do nothing. And many of these people work at NASA.

As a NASA engineer of 25+ years, I could see some hope in the 90’s when the difficult question of NASA’s future direction (after Shuttle) was being tackled. There seemed to be some acceptance of the need for real change back then. It was understood back then that change had to happen to go further, more often, for the same money, or probably less, that was already there. I should have realized that given the infighting back then over what “improvement” even meant that there was trouble ahead, especially once budget realities would assert themselves. I was naive to think this reality would eventually win over the culture into a realization of the need for change and reinvention. I figured the budget was like physics. Eventually everyone would realize that change was needed, as the budget was a given and could not be gamed any more than the rocket equation. But denial turned out to be the more powerful force. So far denial is winning. We will preserve everything we can, fight off change, and attack all things new, even if it means no possibility of space exploration at all. We will fund SLS and Orion systems that never add-up to produce space exploration, ever, in any relevant time frames, in any plausible budget scenarios. Denial.

That the questioning would devolve into endless study over decades was bad enough. On this I agree with P. Spudis. Something far worse though runs far deeper in the organizational mindset. What I could see first-hand would sink the ship back then was the lack of interest in “improvement”. Sure, anyone could talk about “improvements” when more money was built into the discussion, but that was a symptom of avoiding improvement, of wanting to keep on doing everything just as it had always been done. Affordability was not going to be improved. Reliability was not going to be improved. Safety was not going to be improved. Flight rate was not going to be improved. It was just that going to the Moon, or Mars, was considered a defacto “improvement” over just going to orbit again. Innovating for affordability, to increase flight rate, thinking of new ways of doing business – those were improvements no one wanted to talk about. Why? Because those involved real change. This is the discussion that’s needed – about real change and reinvention; not getting caught up complaining about budgets or debating destinations and project goals. Reinvent the incentives and the attitudes; the rest will follow.

The only place to go really is the Moon. Just the fact that once you leave LEO you are in constant mortal danger from a solar event means you better be on your way to a sanctuary. To go anywhere except the Moon you need nuclear propulsion and since that is not going to happen anywhere near the Earth this once more lands you on the Moon.

What do we do on the Moon? I continue to be intrigued by the idea of Lunar Solar Power; ten years after Criswell proposed it there is a growing realization that it may be the only possible way we are going to have a western standard of living for an entire planet of 9 billion people.

Apparently you did not read my whole post. Try again.

(Though some might argue that it’s NASA’s job to do research and that it’s always good to have some folk looking way over the next hill, I have my doubts: what is the incremental value-add to the country of such research, given the boatload of existing far-future studies that already exist?)

Similarly, the Russians are good at creating press releases, too: it seems every few months I see some description of some new Russian space effort that, in my judgment, seems very unlikely to ever happen.

Your comments about New Space hype not matching reality are apt, but that’s hardly a phenomenon confined to New Space.

Excellent article. I almost hate to add the following but it further illustrates your statement:

“A trained and dedicated technical workforce is disappearing like a vapor, as if it had never existed.”

Background:

– The current EVA Pressure Suits used for EVA operations at the ISS (including required EVA maintenance) are reaching the end of their “shelf life”. Best estimates are the American capability to perform EVA’s with this hardware will expire at the end of 2015.

– The Constellation Systems EVA hardware contract which still exists but has never been fully implemented has been left around sort of on “life support). Oceaneering Space Systems Division won the contract some years ago, which requires them to design, to build, to test, and to certify the “Constellation Space Suit System”, or CSSS which of course they have not been able to pursue due to lack of funding.

– One of the purposes of the Constellation Systems EVA hardware was to (in addition to its lunar mission) make the needed replacements for ISS related EVA.

– To attempt to fill this gap NASA implemented a small (underfunded) program called the Advanced Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) program. Trouble is that (again due to budget shortfalls) this would not lead to even manned flight testing prior to 2017 (leaving a gap of at least 1 to 2 years in American ISS EVA capability).

– There has been some talk (though no action) of reinvigorating the Constellation Systems EVA hardware contract (that while basically dormant still exists) to attempt to alleviate the situation, but so far no actual action.

– In the meantime the Advanced EMU project budget/staffing has continued to suffer losses, thus undoubtedly driving schedules further to the right (that is beyond 2017). That means more losses of contractor personnel with expertise in EVA hardware.

When that 2 year (or likely more) gap appears the only way to maintain the ISS (if we indeed continue to do so) will be to buy EVA services from the Russians. If that transpires the pressure will be there to layoff the EVA operations planning staff as well.

Not a fun thing to report, but that is the situation. We are right at the brink of losing any independent American EVA capability on the ISS or anywhere else.

Joe

Great article, you say publicly what many people say privately……

If they are building their own hydrogen propulsion technology from scratch it will take them awhile to play catch-up. Hydrogen turbopumps have to be about 10 times as powerful as pumps for other propellents and are expensive to make work right from what I read. Which is why private space wants nothing to do with hydrogen.

We were actually working on liquid hydrogen technology way back in the 50’s for a recon bird called Suntan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CL-400_Suntan

This hydrogen infrastructure gave us a jump on Apollo. The Chinese have mastered hypergolic propellents which is a big piece of landing on and coming back from the Moon- but they will need a Heavy Lift Vehicle with Hydrogen upper stages to depart Earth orbit with humans. There is no cheap even for the Chinese.

This isn’t as far fetched as some people might think. I hear that Robert Farquhar helped them with the Chang e’2 rendezvous of the asteroid Apophis.