The Purpose of Human Spaceflight and a Lunar Architecture to Explore the Potential of Resource Utilization

This 2016 paper (updating an architecture written 6 years ago ) details how to fulfill the 2018 Presidential Directive to return to the Moon.  It also addresses how to use the existing SLS and Orion programs to enhance the plan.

As you read it, please note how this paper addresses many questions and talking points being bounced back and forth in the current national debate about the U.S. space program.

The new direction. This time, they got the emphasis right.

When new budgets are issued, our first instinct is to see how much we were allocated and then moan about why it isn’t enough. It’s no different with the new NASA budget, and so the predictable responses have started. Budgets are statements of intent and philosophy by administrations. They are changed and modified by Congress during the appropriations process, one that involves a good deal of give and take on both sides. In this case, NASA’s new budget affirms the White House’s intent to return to the Moon, specifically by creating a new program of lunar robotic missions in preparation for permanent human return.

Details are sparse, largely because NASA has no permanent Administrator at the moment and thus, no senior management team to devise an architecture for lunar return. The ridiculous delay in confirming Jim Bridenstine as the new Administrator greatly hinders the agency’s ability to prepare and present a coherent, logical rationale with their budget proposal. The current document is largely a placeholder, designed to indicate general intent rather than advocate any specific implementation. So any talk about the Administration not moving fast enough getting us back to the Moon is moot. We’ve wasted a lot of time and money starting lunar programs, only to have them killed before they could get started. This administration appears willing to try and get it right this time.

The biggest news seems to be President Trump’s desire to end U.S. financial support for the operation and use of the International Space Station by 2025. But rather than simply “pulling the plug” on the program as President Obama did to Project Constellation in 2010, the new plan calls for a “seamless transition” to commercial and/or international operation of the ISS by that date. Many are skeptical of the expression of such intent, but at least this issue has been given some serious thought.

The International Space Station (ISS/Station) – continuously operated and inhabited since November 2000 – was not intended to be an endless NASA program. Originally, a space station in low Earth orbit (LEO) was conceived as a stepping-stone to destinations in space beyond LEO. The original von Braun architecture was shuttle-station-Moon tug-Mars mission, done in that order. The logic of the von Braun plan was that each step into space enabled the next one. It was further envisioned that once emplaced, no asset would be abandoned, although left unanswered was exactly what entity would be financially responsible for an operational waypoint.

That stepping-stone concept was largely abandoned during the 1993 re-design of the ISS, when the station was planned for a 51.6° inclination orbit to accommodate launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Russian spaceport. Due to the difficulty of conducting cislunar voyages from this orbit, plans for a reusable space tug (orbital transfer vehicle) to be based at Station were dropped. The focus shifted from space transportation and exploration to materials science and the study of microgravity and human health in space. The use of Station as a transportation node for deep space missions was eliminated, effectively ending the manned “National Space Transportation System.” Thus, ISS became not a stepping-stone, but an end-point destination and it has served that role for the last 20 years. From that perspective alone, designation of the Moon as the next step is long overdue.

Beyond these considerations, commercialization of the ISS is the logical next step after initiation of the commercial cargo and commercial crew programs. When the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) was unveiled in 2004, some quarters immediately began planning an “exit strategy” for the proposed lunar base. So why is it now such a stretch to plan an exit strategy for the ISS? We have learned much about operations, assembly and maintenance of large systems and spacecraft, and about human health in microgravity. So in that sense, ISS has served some of its role as an exploration “stepping-stone.” We have demonstrated what humans and machines in space can do, and now it’s time to pass this phase on to commercial interests and focus on the logical, constructive next step – the Moon.

For space science, the new budget both giveth and taketh. In contrast to some hysteria, Earth science has not been decimated – continued mission development, launch and operations are supported to the tune of $1.78 billion. Four missions are terminated: three climate science missions in development and one operational spacecraft (DSCOVR). The latter has operated for the last three years and has already met its core mission goals. There has been much gnashing of teeth about the proposed termination of the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), the next generation space telescope. The astrophysics community must accept some responsibility for that, as the James Webb Space Telescope, originally to cost a little less than $2 billion and launch by 2011, now costs over $10 billion (and counting) and a has a launch scheduled for mid-2019, set a poor example of technical and managerial oversight. Lest you think that I unfairly pick on other sciences here, note that my field (planetary science) has its own white whale in the form of the Mars Sample Return (MSR), a mission whose cost would most certainly exceed $10 billion. The desirement of more than 30 years of studies, MSR is barely possible technically and has held questionable scientific value since the late 1980s, when we recognized that certain meteorites come from Mars. Still, the MSR is provided study money in the new budget.

Another criticism of the new budget is the vague timeline for lunar return. Here we must recall how the now cancelled Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM), proposed by the last administration as a substitute for lunar return, not only flew in the face of bipartisan Congressional support for a sustained lunar return, but also consumed valuable time and money, thus delaying plans for a sustained space transportation system using the Moon’s resources. So any suggestion that we’re not moving back to the Moon fast enough with this budget is laughably inappropriate.

Possibly the most serious issue in terms of the new direction is the retention of the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), a program of questionable value for lunar return. This facility is a morphed version of ARM, designed to give the appearance of accomplishment on the “Journey to Mars”. With a need to give the new Orion spacecraft a destination it can reach, NASA plans to place the DSG in what is called a “rectilinear halo orbit” around the Moon. The DSG is thus both “in cislunar space” and “near the Moon,” with the current NASA management claiming that these properties mean that the DSG supports the Trump Administration’s goal of lunar return. In fact, both the location and configuration of the DSG make it irrelevant to that goal. The DSG orbit makes lunar surface access marginal and difficult – it is too far from the Moon, resulting in long transit times and large delta-v (energy) requirements to access the surface. The current strawman design for DSG is that of a “mini-me” ISS – a habitat module, a docking collar, and some solar arrays. We will learn nothing from this configuration that we do not already know from the ISS experience. So don’t blame new the budget for why we’re not “hurrying back” to the Moon.

That said, DSG could become a useful piece of a cislunar transportation infrastructure if it were moved closer to the Moon (a few hundred km high polar orbit). Placed there, it could serve as a transportation hub for a reusable lunar lander and the cislunar crew transport. Ultimately, it could become a lunar orbital propellant depot, with the ability to accept and distribute lunar products. Such a facility would become part of the permanent transportation infrastructure of cislunar space and play its important role in stimulating commercial space development

The new budget also proposes to eliminate NASA’s Office of Education and move that money to exploration efforts. Though widely criticized, I think this is actually a good move. NASA has spent untold millions for “education” over the years, although these efforts have not resulted in any noticeable increase in public support for space. And there are more unemployed aerospace engineers and scientists now than there are actually working in the field. The idea that NASA must have an Education Office to create the next generation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) students is ludicrous – the biggest influx of new technical people inspired by space exploration came during Apollo, when the agency’s outreach efforts were minimal and primitive in the extreme but we were flying to the Moon. I was one of those students and I didn’t need a NASA education program to get me excited about science and space. To inspire the next generation of STEM workers, we need to actually do inspiring things in human space exploration – real and ongoing missions that show there are actual roles and careers in space for their generation.

The good news is that the administration’s budget emphasizes the Moon as the goal. With limited funds in our national purse for discretionary spending, the amount allotted to NASA for space exploration shows this administration favors a strong national manned space program. We can always wish for more money. Perhaps now is the opportune time for NASA leadership to show that it can budget $20 billion a year into an incremental and sustainable return to the Moon.  With a return to the Moon, we can test the viability of lunar resources, science will flourish (e.g., astronomers will be able to see deeply back into time, sheltered from Earth’s noise on the Moon’s far side), and we will create a permanent spacefaring system, thereby, finally bringing the Moon and cislunar space into our economic sphere. It isn’t about “hurrying” somewhere, or the “size” of budgets, but seizing the opportunity to start and remain on a path that sees us reclaim our leadership role in space exploration and space development.

The famous night launch of the Saturn V carrying the Apollo 17 spacecraft on December 7, 2017

Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot and Geologist Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt has posted a new item on his web site: the beginning of a reminiscence of his historic flight, which departed for the Moon 44 years and 11 months ago today (December 7, 1972).  Although only one chapter is posted so far, it is a great read, describing the busy last month of training, simulation and constant work before the launch of an Apollo crew.  I urge readers of this blog to visit his site and enjoy Chapter 4 – Thirty Days and Counting…  I eagerly look forward to the next installment.

On a related note, my good friend Bill Mellberg, who passed away this year, wrote an essay recalling his attendance at the launch of Apollo 17 (which includes a guest appearance by Wernher von Braun).  Bill’s essay can be found at Jack’s web site, HERE.

The new Orion spacecraft — Cadillac or Edsel?

Throwing a wrench into NASA’s engine of progress may not have been the intent of Vice President Pence’s first meeting of the National Space Council with his announcement that a human return to the lunar surface is the new direction for America’s human spaceflight program. But a wrench it was and will remain until pieces of the formerly touted “Journey to Mars” – the heavy lift SLS launch vehicle, the Orion spacecraft, and a relatively recent addition, the Deep Space Gateway (DSG, a small human-tended space station in a distant orbit around the Moon) – are reimagined and torqued into the new strategic direction.

Much venom has been hurled at the SLS launch vehicle, largely on the grounds of its alleged cost and its origins as a “government rocket” (i.e., “pork”). But heavy lift launch capability is extremely useful for the emplacement of a substantial cislunar infrastructure. Heavy lift permits the launch of large and/or multiple vehicles and facilities all at one time, and that makes the coordination of their arrival and assembly at a selected trans-LEO destination easier. The core SLS vehicle delivers 70-80 metric tones to LEO, more than enough to put about 10 tones on the lunar surface, or 15-20 tones into low lunar orbit. In addition, a large rocket also offers a large shroud diameter; volume can actually be more critical than throw mass for large architecture pieces like big landers and habitat elements. Technically, the SLS is a good fit for any future lunar return architecture.

The main argument against the SLS is its cost, but current estimates of $1-2 billion per launch are based primarily on the low projected flight rate planned by the previous program of record, which called for very few missions. A faster pace of a lunar surface return could bring these costs down, although they would still be in the range of multi-hundreds of millions of dollars per flight. If the long-promised and long-awaited commercial heavy lift vehicle eventually emerges, this estimate of cost – and the choice of a heavy lift launch vehicle – should be re-evaluated (but not until then).

The Deep Space Gateway (DSG) is an idea that comes from a variety of architectural studies that looked at the use of a staging node placed beyond LEO – well outside of Earth’s gravity well, for a human Mars mission. Initially focused on the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points, subsequent studies converged on something called a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, a complex path around the Moon that is relatively stable (requiring little orbital maintenance propulsion). The orbit selected for initial study is quite far from the Moon, up to 70,000 km distant. While this distance may make a good staging orbit for a departing Mars mission, it cannot easily support missions to low lunar orbit or to the lunar surface – the new strategic direction (delta-v to the surface from this orbit is near lunar escape velocity, ~2400 m/s).

In our published architectures (Spudis-Lavoie – Using the resources of the Moon to create a permanent, cislunar space faring system (2011) and Lavoie-Spudis – The Purpose of Human Spaceflight and a Lunar Architecture to Explore the Potential of Resource Utilization (2016), a propellant depot/transfer node is placed in low lunar orbit to keep the lunar lander transport a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle, making the lander completely reusable. Moving the node point to the Earth-Moon L-1 point costs roughly an extra 800 m/s in delta-v. Our lander design is already challenged with the requirement of re-usability (mostly propulsion system concerns: multi-start use lifetime, with little to no maintenance) and by having an engine-out capability to provide reasonable abort scenarios. Other design considerations include extreme temperature variations (thermal cycles) and parts fatigue, which results in higher subsystem mass than a single-use lander. All of these factors lead us to place the depot/node at the lowest reasonable point in orbit around the Moon, ~100 km circular. Orbital maintenance is on the order of 500 m/s/yr, which is achievable for the depot. After initial operations, the depot/node can change its orbit to a more advantageous one should future lander designs prove more capable.

Properly reconfigured, the DSG could serve as a low lunar orbit habitat-depot-node. This would require re-thinking its mission (fuel depot in addition to habitat) and its thermal design, because low lunar orbit can be quite warm on the daytime side of the Moon. The “lumpiness” of the uneven lunar gravity field (mascons) makes low orbits unstable and considerable propulsion is necessary to maintain it. However, we now have lunar gravity maps of extraordinary quality that reveal “frozen orbits” – ones where virtually no orbital maintenance is required (the currently operating LRO spacecraft is in such a frozen orbit). Use of these orbits would need to be traded against accessibility and lander energy cost, but in any event, a propellant depot would possess more than adequate propulsion for orbital maintenance. Finally, and most importantly, a station in low lunar orbit is well placed to support operations in space and on the lunar surface.

If both the SLS and the DSG could be adapted to the requirements of lunar surface return, what about Orion? Consider this: Orion was originally conceived as a component of the Constellation spaceflight system; it was designed to transport people to and from the Moon in a manner similar to the Apollo spacecraft. In short, this was a mission launched “all up” from Earth, with pieces discarded after use along the way. In the case of Constellation, two vehicles, Ares I and V, would launch the Orion and the Altair and transfer stage, respectively. The two vehicles would dock in low Earth orbit and depart for the Moon. Burning into lunar orbit, the crew would transfer to the Altair lunar lander and descend and land on the Moon for a period of a couple of weeks. After exploration of the landing site, the crew would ascend to the orbiting Orion and transfer into it for their journey home. The Orion spacecraft would discard its service module and re-enter the atmosphere at near-escape velocity, splashing down in the ocean for recovery. At each step in the above mission sequence, parts are discarded and not reused, requiring high levels of funding and leaving little, if any, hardware in space as legacy infrastructure.

When the Constellation program was cancelled in 2010, Orion was the only piece preserved, largely because at the time, it was the only spacecraft capable of sending American astronauts into space. However, without its Altair lander, Orion was no longer a lunar spacecraft system. It instead became a vehicle whose only purpose is to send crew into trans-LEO space and allow them to return to Earth with aero-thermal entry. It can support a crew of four, for periods of a couple of weeks, but cannot last much longer. It is for this reason that the ill-conceived Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM) concept was born – designed to give Orion someplace to go and something to do. Despite the fact that the ARM was nearly worthless scientifically and operationally, it was a mission configured to the capabilities of the Orion spacecraft. To support this scaled back mission profile, the current edition of the Service Module for the Orion (built by the Europeans) is smaller than the previous edition under Constellation. Unfortunately, that also means that the Orion can get into (but cannot then get out of) low lunar orbit, taking from Orion what little value it had for a possible lunar mission.

Where does that leave things as NASA contemplates lunar return? We currently have three pieces of space hardware, each configured to support a vaguely defined series of missions to deep cislunar space. The SLS can be adapted to transport all the pieces we need to establish and operate an outpost on the Moon. The Deep Space Gateway can be modified to operate in low lunar orbit, making it a possible staging node for trips to and from the Moon’s surface. But that still leaves us with Orion. True enough, crew members leaving the Moon will need a way to return to Earth, but if a permanent outpost is established there, we need to develop a reusable system that transports crew and cargo to and from low Earth orbit on a recurring basis (a reusable cislunar transfer stage). Such a vehicle would fire a rocket to accelerate out of LEO into a translunar trajectory. Approaching the Moon, it could burn into and out of low lunar orbit, delivering crew and supplies to be transferred into the lunar lander vehicle. On the way home, rather than direct entry and landing on Earth, it would aerobrake (i.e., use Earth’s atmosphere to slow the vehicle from escape velocity to orbital velocity) into Earth orbit and rendezvous with a transfer node in LEO. Here the crew would transfer to a commercial vehicle for return to Earth. All of these systems have been envisioned, at least conceptually, by a variety of published architectures over the last decade.

But can Orion be repurposed? In contrast to most informed opinion, I believe that of the three major human spaceflight pieces described here, Orion is the one that is the least useful and most likely to vanish. This should not be too surprising, considering that it is an orphaned, smaller piece of a larger system designed to return people to the Moon. Yet work continues on Orion, heedless of any possible change in mission – and has done so throughout the last 8 years as its mission gradually morphed from Moon-Mars spacecraft, to an asteroid spacecraft, to a “Space Station in Deep Space” spacecraft. This bureaucratic resilience suggests that setting Orion aside is a nonstarter – contractors and Congressional advocates may insist on its continuation, in a manner similar to the SLS “lobby,” which assured continuity of that development program.

Ideally, one would design a return to the Moon using a clean sheet, focusing on early robotic presence and a series of newly imagined, modular, reusable space-based human assets. However, we do not live in that world. So the question is how to “MacGyver” what we have to get what we need. Listed in order of decreasing usefulness, SLS, DSG and Orion can all be used in a lunar return. The SLS provides us a way to get large, heavy payloads to the Moon. The DSG, while not currently configured to support lunar surface activities, could be modified to do so without too much re-design. The Orion could be used for early human flights to the DSG – establishing a human presence near the Moon, while robots would do much of the early resource prospecting and processing work on the surface. After human return to the lunar surface, Orion could be docked at the DSG and serve as a “lifeboat” vehicle in the event that emergency circumstances require the outpost crew return quickly to Earth.

From Super-Apollo to crew assured-return vehicle – a diminished ending to a once-noble vehicle development? Possibly. It depends on your point of view. As it currently exists, Orion is not a particularly useful spacecraft. But if we use it to help establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, it will have served a noble purpose indeed.

NASA administrators, past and future. What makes a good one?

The White House announcement of the nomination of Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R- OK) for NASA Administrator drew some immediate and rather surprising (to me, anyway) reactions. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), whose state is critically involved in America’s space program, both questioned Bridenstine’s appointment. Sen. Nelson believes the space agency needs “a space professional” to run it; Sen. Rubio put forth that the job of NASA Administrator has traditionally been non-political, arguing that appointing a politician to the job will work towards destroying the bipartisan goodwill he claims the space program has traditionally enjoyed.

Let us examine some of these contentions and consider what qualities a “good” NASA Administrator must have. One of the first things to recognize about the job is that the Administrator is appointed by the President and therefore, works for the President. The heads of federal agencies do not set policy – they implement it. That said, it is true that NASA Administrators tend to have a bit more influence on policy than most other agencies, but mostly because as representatives of a technical entity, they deal with issues in which other administration officials are not expected to be conversant. The newly reconstituted National Space Council chaired by Vice President Pence will oversee our national space policy and it will set no policy path that does not have the full approval of the President.

The NASA Administrator’s job is to keep the agency running and funded while at the same time, implementing specific policy directions given by the President. Does such a job description require a “space professional” as Senator Nelson claims? Since its inception, NASA has had eleven administrators (I exclude from this discussion the “acting administrators” because these people held the job for shorter times as caretakers until a permanent administrator could be named). Past administrators have had a wide variety of expertise, backgrounds and temperaments, yet some common threads emerge. Glennan, Paine, Beggs, Goldin and Griffin were all engineers by training but each had considerable executive experience in industry and government. Fletcher and Frosch had degrees in physics, but their work experience was almost entirely as engineers and managers. O’Keefe was trained as a naval engineer, but became a career government bureaucrat; when he took over the reins at NASA, he famously described himself as a “bean-counter” (which was exactly what the then-disastrous International Space Station program needed).

Jim Webb was a former Marine Corps Reserve pilot, a lawyer, a federal bureaucrat and arguably, the greatest administrator NASA ever had. True enough, during the Apollo program, Webb was provided with abundant resources to carry out his mission, but one should note he was also given a monumental task, one that could have easily turned into a complete disaster – and indeed, with the Apollo 1 fire, almost did. Webb was a powerhouse of management competence, a guy who knew his technical limitations and was secure enough to seek and obtain solid advice from competent engineers like George Low and Robert Gilruth. But just as importantly, Webb could explain problems and progress to members of the Executive and the Congress – key people needed to approve the resources and political backing to complete the job. Webb kept the Apollo funding flowing and he completed the assigned task. The glorious NASA that exists in the mind of the public is largely the creation of Jim Webb and the people he hired during the 1960s.

The last two NASA Administrators, Richard Truly and Charles Bolden – both pilots and former astronauts – arguably were unsuited for the Administrator’s job.  Truly is a former Shuttle astronaut who held the reins at NASA during the first half of the George H. W. Bush administration, a critical period in the history of the agency that was undergoing a major crisis of confidence in both its human and robotic spaceflight programs. The Shuttle was flying again after the long post-Challenger hiatus, but little progress had been made on Space Station Freedom, the principal program for future human spaceflight. The robotic program was equally troubled – the Mars Observer spacecraft had been mysteriously lost and the Hubble Space Telescope was found to have been launched with “blurred vision,” caused by an incorrectly ground main mirror.

But Truly’s biggest failure (which led to his sacking) was foot-dragging on President Bush’s Space Exploration Initiative, an attempt to set into motion a new strategic direction for the civil space program by returning to the Moon and undertaking a mission to Mars. Truly disliked the idea, mostly because he saw it as destroying his beloved Shuttle program and he thought that the agency was incapable of the added work, given its problems with Space Station Freedom. The tepid agency response to Bush’s bold space initiative infuriated the President, who fired Truly and replaced him with Dan Goldin (whose reign then proceeded to create new idiocies to replace those perpetrated by Truly).

Charles Bolden faithfully executed the policy path desired by President Obama and his Presidential Science Advisor, John Holdren – the unilateral cancellation of the Vision for Space Exploration (a “bipartisan” space policy if there ever was one) and set a Potemkin Village “Mission to Mars” in its place. So, in a strict bureaucratic sense, Bolden might be considered a “good administrator” in that he faithfully implemented the policy of the President he served. But what remains of the once-glorious agency after eight years of Bolden is almost too painful to contemplate. With the Shuttle retired, we have no American means to get astronauts to and from a space station that we largely paid for and built. Plans for future human missions beyond LEO are meaningless and inconsequential “make work” projects with little value and no lasting spacefaring legacy. Bolden actively promoted the fraudulent “Mission to Mars” mythology created within the agency, a policy that prevented the Congress and the public from knowing they had lost what was once (and was still being) taken for granted – a robust space program that was going somewhere and doing something significant.

So the job that Jim Bridenstine takes on (Senate willing) is anything but a cakewalk. A Bridenstine-led NASA should carefully re-assemble a competent technical base at NASA – replace the lost core of engineering excellence that has died, left or retired over the past decade. The new Administrator will oversee the forthcoming transition to “commercial crew” in which industry will provide transportation to and from the ISS for American astronauts. Most importantly, the new administrator will guide the agency into a new direction for human spaceflight beyond LEO.

That new direction may come very soon. The Space Council meets this month for the first time. Assuming that sanity prevails, both the fake “Mission to Mars” and the gimmicky “cislunar proving ground” ideas will be dropped. What’s required now is a sustained, incremental approach to spaceflight beyond LEO, an architecture culminating in a return to the Moon and the processing of its resources to fuel a permanent space-based transportation system. His published writings clearly indicate how intricately Jim Bridenstine understands these needs. Through his sponsorship of the American Space Renaissance Act, Bridenstine has demonstrated not only a clear, long-range vision, but also a deep technical understanding of and interest in what is required and what is possible for America’s civil space program.

I welcome the nomination of Jim Bridenstine for the job of NASA Administrator – far from being “a partisan pick,” he is an inspired choice. Once confirmed, Bridenstine will knowingly walk into an incredibly difficult situation, one with significant pitfalls and detours along the way, yet he has done his homework. He understands the situation and knows what needs to be done. A “politician?” Certainly. Who better to speak to members of the Congress in an understandable manner about the needs of the agency? Politics is the means by which Americans conduct public business. To put it another way, what agency head in Washington is not a politician at some level? Not a “space professional”? Jim Bridenstine has demonstrated through his background, writings and speeches that he fully understands what our national space agency needs and what should be required from our space program. I contend that Jim Bridenstine understands these things much better than many of the “space professionals” I deal with on a daily basis.

To Senators Rubio and Nelson: Do you want a meaningful, productive and successful national space program? If so, you will support the President’s nomination of Jim Bridenstine for NASA Administrator. However, if you are content with the debilitating and pointless status quo – the stagnation and withering of NASA – then it is understandable that you might want someone other than Jim Bridenstine at the helm. That is the choice at hand.

A new documentary about lunar return from CuriosityStream

The internet video streaming channel CuriosityStream has released a documentary about a return to the Moon produced by Chris Haws.  The five-part, hour-long production nicely outlines the rationale and approach for going back to the Moon to find, develop and use its resources.

I was asked to participate in this production, where I discuss the aspects of lunar return on camera. I am very pleased with the final product.  The graphics are very well done.

You can preview the five parts at the CuriosityStream web site:

Chapter 1: A Matter of Gravity

Chapter 2: Water – The Big Question

Chapter 3: From Outpost to Colony

Chapter 4: Surviving……And Thriving?

Chapter 5: Mars Direct or Moon First

A separate review of the series can be found HERE.

While I received no financial benefit from the production, it certainly advances my own (and others’) firm belief in the value of the Moon to humanity’s future in space.