BTW, I’m not Sebastian. 🙂

1. Find radiation sanctuaries on the Moon. The most likely such sanctuaries are lava tubes and the low gravity of the Moon makes it probable they are truly immense. We need to find them.

2. Bring water up from the shallow gravity well of the Moon and partially fill empty rocket stages in lunar orbit. The wet workshop. These components can be assembled into “true” space stations and transited back across cislunar space into GEO or mated with nuclear propulsion systems thus creating “true” spaceships.

The next administration can start with dumping the space station to nowhere and associated taxi’s and indefinitely shelve any Mars Missions. Then increase SLS core production and launches to once a month or so. Then……. stay the course.

No, No, NO! It is absolutely not. That does not matter anymore.

It is all about what the next administration is going to do. Obama is almost gone and the ONLY issue is whether the next administration is going to reverse course away from the flexible path and back toward the Moon.

LEO and Mars are dead ends- the Orwellian brain-washing of the public that has gone on for close to a decade has to be renounced and undone. Billionaire hobbyists are not going to take us anywhere. A certain celebrity scientist stated it perfectly:

“The delusion is thinking that SpaceX is going to lead the space frontier. That’s just not going to happen, and it’s not going to happen for three really good reasons: One, it is very expensive. Two, it is very dangerous to do it first. Three, there is essentially no return on that investment that you’ve put in for having done it first. So if you’re going to bring in investors or venture capitalists and say, “Hey, I have an idea, I want to put the first humans on Mars.” They’ll ask, “How much will it cost?” You say, “A lot.” They’ll ask, “Is it dangerous?” You’ll say, “Yes, people will probably die.” They’ll ask, “What’s the return on investment?” and you’ll say “Probably nothing, initially.” It’s a five-minute meeting. Corporations need business models, and they need to satisfy shareholders, public or private. A government has a much longer horizon over which it can make investments.”

Dr. Spudis has written about a “space navy” a couple times and that is probably the most practical solution. It is not like another government agency cannot be created in short order- I was there when the Department of Homeland Security became a reality.

Human Space Flight – Beyond Earth Orbit would include Beyond Low Earth Orbit (BLEO) space stations, space solar energy, moving the nuclear deterrent off of hair trigger alert into deep space plus performing asteroid and comet interception, and interplanetary exploration missions. The immediate prerequisite for such a new service is a Super Heavy Lift Vehicle that can place worthwhile payloads on a trajectory to that place where in situ resources will allow true nuclear propelled spaceships to be assembled.

Abandoning LEO and Mars and diverting a significant percentage of the defense budget into this new service should be the basic space policy of the next administration. Of course talking about this kind of government sponsorship drives the Ayn-Rand-in-Space crowd absolutely nuts.

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Upper_Stages/ACES-Stage_Concept-AIAASpace_2015.pdf

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Exploration/DepotBasedTransportationArchitecture2010.pdf

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Exploration/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdf

This is actually closer to what I was trying to get at; how much I detest what has been done. It was never about bias.

If I didn’t get this across, then it is my own fault at communication difficulties, brought on by my ASD.

I am a democrat- both Joe and Dr. Spudis are well aware of that and that I side with the republicans on space policy and detest what the Obama administration has done over the last 8 years in regards to our space program. OUR space program.

Time to address space and not left and right bias.

Do you have an article on that? I haven’t heard about such a commitment. Just the idea, which I think is interesting.

How so?
I have no influence in any decision making process.
I’m merely a civilian that is voicing his opinion.

I never said it was a right or left issue.
The issue is the choice that was made by Obama’s administration to abandon lunar missions.

Had this not been done, and if we had simply reorganized NASA’s strategy for lunar return (and reemphasized the reason for it), NewSpace would just be on the back burner.

But in reality, the tax payers have ended up paying almost twice as much for a LEO program that’s only given us a space station that’s only partially under the control of the American government while the Apollo era gave us crewed landings on the Moon plus a large national space station for merely half the price.

NASA’s human spaceflight related program will probably spend between $5 to $10 billion a year over the next 25 years ($125 billion to $250 billion). The question is, will NASA have anything of significance to show for all of that spending. Or will we still be trapped at LEO discussing how wonderful the Apollo era was:-)

Marcel

They only know what they are told and when the people telling them tailor their message for that particular person- using hundreds of hours of research in some cases- they can be made to support just about any boondoggle you can imagine.

I am very familiar with this from my military experience. One example being the H-60 helicopter. Many of the features of this aircraft exist because of a size requirement that it be able to fit into a C-130 transport with a minimum of disassembly. Somebody thought this was a great idea but in reality it made the helicopter far more complicated and expensive than it needed to be. Sikorsky did what they were paid to but it just barely fit with inches to spare. It was and is so much trouble that it is almost never done. I could go on with many many other examples. Whoever sold the idea to the brass knew exactly what to say and managed to hide the overwhelming disadvantages.

NewSpace is all disadvantage.