Papa’s got a brand new bag — NASA’s ARM mission.
Ideas can come from anywhere and sometimes institutions are created with the express purpose of generating ideas from which advanced technologies, products or capabilities may eventuate. These “think-tanks” have occupied a prominent place in American history since World War II, a time when science and technology emerged as a critical part of our national intellectual infrastructure. A remarkable series of concepts were developed out of such efforts, including the transistor (Bell Labs), game theory (Rand Corp.), and the Internet (ARPA). Less well remembered are ideas that for various reasons didn’t pan out, such as the Picturephone (Bell Labs) and atomic bomb-powered spaceships (Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Institute for Advanced Studies).
The W.M. Keck Foundation privately funds the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS). Located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, KISS conducts “think and do studies” whose aim is to generate advanced concepts for space missions in order to revolutionize our approach to and the implementation of spaceflight. They hold workshops on a variety of study efforts, ranging from sweeping strategies for space exploration to the outline of specific mission concepts. Workshops are conducted by Caltech and JPL staff members, with a smattering of outside invitees included to give the patina of soliciting a broad range of ideas. Interestingly, two concepts coming out of Keck workshops drew the sudden attention of the keepers of our national space program: the human Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM) and the robotic Lunar Flashlight mission. Since these concepts were unveiled, the spaceflight community has been in turn bemused, amused and outraged. How does an idea (sometimes of multi-billion dollar scope) developed by a small group, with minimal input from the community at large, suddenly emerge as a national program? In the case of the ARM, it was a think-tank idea that fortuitously appeared at the right time.
In April of 2010, President Obama gave a speech on space policy at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In it, the President denigrated the idea of the United States returning to the lunar surface, advocating instead a human mission to an asteroid – allegedly as an interim deep-space step towards a human mission to Mars. It was quickly apparent that technical experts had not vetted this new policy idea and that its potential benefits (such as they are) were poorly articulated by the administration. Topping things off, no suitable near-Earth asteroid target – one that satisfied the various spacecraft, flight duration, abort and launch energy constraints – could be identified.
This was a serious embarrassment – a major re-vectoring of the human spaceflight program had been carried out by executive fiat with no suitable target destination identified (all dressed up and no place to go). Enter the Keck Asteroid Retrieval Mission. Since we cannot find a suitable asteroid to journey out to, it proposed hauling an asteroid back into lunar orbit and then going there to examine it. Never mind that the very idea largely negates the alleged principal advantage of an asteroid mission as a Mars precursor – to check out long-duration, deep spaceflight systems and procedures. Of course, one could accomplish such technology validation in cislunar space and on the Moon, but that uncomfortable fact would fly in the face of the President’s claim that there’s no national need to go back to the Moon because “We’ve been there.”
As far as scientific return goes, retrieval of an asteroid to lunar orbit does not advance the science of small Solar System objects one whit. We already have abundant samples of near-Earth objects in the form of meteorites, and we’ve conducted, or will soon conduct, extensive exploration of asteroids by a variety of robotic flybys, orbiters, landers and samplers.
To counter the growing chorus sharply criticizing the asteroid mission, and to obscure the many questionable judgments on display in the President’s 2010 KSC space speech, the ARM concept was eagerly seized upon by the agency. As a rationale for a strategic change in the national space direction, ARM is pretty thin gruel. Despite their best efforts to put lipstick on this pig, ARM continues to come in for criticism from a variety of directions, including former NASA management, space advocates, and the scientific community. In fact, about the only people strongly supporting the ARM are its original Keck workshop advocates.
A new robotic mission called Lunar Flashlight is another Keck workshop idea. This micro-sat mission concept involves sending a small package of cubesats (miniaturized spacecraft packaged as 10-cm cubes), along with a large solar sail, into lunar orbit. To look for evidence of hydrated material, the solar sail will attempt to reflect sunlight into the permanently dark areas near the poles in a bid to obtain near-infrared spectra of the soils in these craters.
Multiple scientific and technical issues can be identified with this mission concept. It is not clear that enough sunlight can be reflected into the permanently dark areas near the Moon’s poles to illuminate the soil and obtain good spectra from Lunar Flashlight. But more importantly, we already know from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) laser altimetry that bright surface deposits occur in polar dark areas and that clear evidence of water frost is seen in UV imaging of some dark regions (although not in others). One of the biggest drawbacks to Lunar Flashlight is that a variety of evidence (including neutron spectroscopy and radar) suggests that much of the polar water on the Moon is found at depths of a few cm to tens of cm below the surface, thus rendering images of the surface spectra largely irrelevant to a quantitative inventory of polar volatiles.
In any event, Lunar Flashlight is a possible future robotic mission, probably because it is cheap (although no cost data have been provided as yet). The spacecraft launches as a secondary payload, hitchhiking a ride to GEO transfer orbit, whence it flies itself to the Moon. Lunar Flashlight is not the only possible lunar ice-detection mission considered in the Keck study, but reading through the workshop presentations illustrates a dearth of imagination. For example, the use of penetrators to obtain sub-surface polar information is discussed, but not hard-landing surface probes, cushioned by crushable enclosures. This may seem to be a “way out” idea in its own right, but this type of probe was built to fly to the Moon in the 1960s as a deployable part of the hard-landing Ranger spacecraft.
Given their influence on American space policy to date, one shudders to imagine what other ideas might arise from future Keck workshops – skywriting in orbit and hamsters to Jupiter are all in play. The space program is trapped in an irretrievable death spiral, where foolish ideas are pitched and adopted, then discarded as their public relations value declines once the concept is critically scrutinized. With each of these episodes, our nation and national space program lag further behind and lose more credibility. Instead of designing a technically credible space program that extends our reach into space, we are regaled with an endless parade of proposals for silly stunts. In regard to human spaceflight, we sometimes hear that “doing something” is better than “doing nothing.” Doing nothing might be a better option when the “something” being proposed is patently absurd. A static program might alert the public to what has been happening to our national space program.
“no suitable near-Earth asteroid target – one that satisfied the various spacecraft, flight duration, abort and launch energy constraints – could be identified.”
For discussion purposes I’ll refer to the administration’s pre-SLS based plans as their FY2011 budget plans. Adding SLS to the picture changed their plans as SLS/Orion redirected the proposed spending initiatives in the FY2011 budget plan, and the administration’s objectives were oriented around that new change in spending and are different now.
The FY2011 budget had a funding segment called Robotic Precursor missions that was to be funded at something like 3 billion dollars over the 5 year purview of the administration’s FY2011 budget plans. One component of this spending was to have been a asteroid survey sat to better identify mission target candidates. I will directly compare this to launching a lunar reconnaissance satellite prior to determining where to land humans as part of a human lunar campaign. Part of the administration’s plans was to fund work that would expand the very target purview prior to such a mission, to better identify a target.
It might surprise you that another part of the robotic precursors plans was a lunar isru studying robotic lander and rover. While the administrations preference for the Mars objective displaced the lunar objective, it is a myth to say it completely eliminated any lunar oriented work in their plans. In fact the FY2011 budget was much more pro-lunar than the current reality of SLS/Orion focus and fiscal tightness today, where such a robotic lunar lander isn’t budgeted at all.
“Never mind that the very idea largely negates the principal alleged advantage of an asteroid mission as a Mars precursor ”
There’s no money for anything more ambitious like the original FY2011 plans. ARM is something like 2 billion during a period when more than 30-45 billion will be spent on SLS/Orion. SLS/Orion ate the budget envelope.
ARM is just a downscoped microcosm of the administration’s original intent of investing in Mars forward technology that would be first used on an asteroid mission. Pre-SLS it was an actual hab to an actual asteroid, post-SLS all that can be afforded is the much less ambitious ARM. The administration’s conceptual ideas for a Mars mission involve SEP and ARM advances SEP a bit.
It might surprise you that another part of the robotic precursors plans was a lunar isru studying robotic lander and rover.
Provide a link for this please.
There’s no money for anything more ambitious like the original FY2011 plans. ARM is something like 2 billion during a period when more than 30-45 billion will be spent on SLS/Orion. SLS/Orion ate the budget envelope.
First, there is no basis for believing that $2 billion number — it was simply produced out of thin air by the Keck study. Second, your “$30-40 billion” (if correct, which I doubt) would have given us a genuine, recurring lunar capability, instead of a single-point, one-off stunt. The two activities are not comparable. Moreover, the canard that there was “no money” to go to the Moon is false; the Augustine 2009 committee heard testimony that reconfigured Constellation to permit exactly that. They ignored that input.
Your comments on SLS eating up the budget are similarly misplaced as the original administration plan called for a “decision” on a heavy lift vehicle by 2015. Thus, the claim is that they were planning to build an SLS-class vehicle, so those costs would have had to be paid in any event, but by then, all of the Shuttle manufacturing infrastructure would have been gone (their original intent, in my opinion).
Finally, you don’t have to haul an asteroid to develop Solar Electric Propulsion. We already have that capability (e.g., Dawn mission) and large cargo variants could have been used to transport cargo to the Moon (and were in some architectural studies that were done in early phases of the VSE).
A stupid idea is still a stupid idea, even if implemented in a slightly different manner.
-SLS/Orion/SLS Ground systems burn 3 billion a year in development costs and later operations cost; I’m just counting the first 15 years till 2025.
I’m not arguing that 45 billion dollars couldn’t have advanced a moon objective, or arguing the superiority of the administration’s subjective plans over what you subjectively prefer. I just simply disagree that SLS/Orion is the best spending strategy to advance either objective.
-FY2011 was not an express commitment to develop an SLS class HLV. That was merely one path they could have “decided” upon. Other paths include selecting no HLV based exploration or further delaying the decision to acquire a HLV. FY2011 only spent money on developing a large hydrocarbon engine that could have use on such a HLV, but could have also been used as a replacement for the RD-180 in domestic medium lift vehicles like the Atlas 5.
-I disagree with your expectations of HLV costings and reject your myopic Shuttle program obsession based judgement. The world has moved on from the space shuttle and there are superior continuing manufacturing bases for launch vehicle development than it. An EELV or SpaceX based HLV would have been cheaper, and would have allowed HLV building to be delayed so that money could have been invested in payload development maturation. It does no good to spend 99% of your budget on a HLV and not what goes atop it. A better balance is preferable to enable better outcomes.
-That input wasn’t ignored, it just isn’t the magic bullet your obsession with the Shuttle C paints it as amid your extreme sympathy that glosses over its faults and your extreme hostile antipathy toward other launch systems that ignores their benefits.
-Here are some links:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/457443main_EEWS_ExplorationsPrecursorRoboticMissions.pdf
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/474236main_Jenkins_ExploreNow.pdf
This FY2011 budget document scopes out the Robotic Precursor Missions segment within it:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420990main_FY_201_%20Budget_Overview_1_Feb_2010.pdf
Some analysis around the time that laid out the disparity of the Senate’s anemic funding:
http://restorethevision.blogspot.ca/2010/08/not-so-great-compromise-robotic.html
The Robotic Precursors Missions would be completely eliminated to pay for SLS/Orion, a forgotten casualty.
The Robotic Precursors Missions would be completely eliminated to pay for SLS/Orion, a forgotten casualty.
It wasn’t a “forgotten casualty” because it was never real. Those “missions” were thought-experiments produced at a management retreat.
By the end of 2010, SpaceX had flown Falcon 9 only twice and had no credibility as the possible builder of an HLV alternative then (and precious little now). An EELV alternative (with depots) is not really less expensive than an HLV (a Delta-IV Heavy costs about $500 million each and only lifts about 28 metric tons to LEO), especially Shuttle side-mount, which you discount as not “cost-effective.”
And regardless of what you think, the alternative lunar architecture presented to Augustine WAS ignored. If it had been considered, it would have been discussed in the report, along with an explanation of why it was discarded.
FY2011 was not an express commitment to develop an SLS class HLV. That was merely one path they could have “decided” upon.
Not according to the “fact sheet” the White House issued after the April 2010 speech:
Those words do not write heavy-lift as an “option.”
-Delta 4 Heavy only costs 375 million. That’s the price paid for the EFT 1 flight later this year. That price may even be inflated because ULA is still paying back Boeing a per core reimbursement to cover Delta 4 development costs, and that is slated to run out prior to any hypothetical usage for NASA exploration. Furthermore, increased procurement of the Delta 4 may lower its per unit costs as its fixed costs are spread over a wider array of launches. The Atlas 5 is another contender for usage for exploration purposes and it is generally regarded as the superior of the two EELVs on a cost basis.
-Since the decision was to be made in 2015, then the performance of SpaceX in 2010 isn’t the determining factor, but rather SpaceX’s performance in 2015.
SpaceX, today, is the world’s premier rocket development firm. They’ve developed a rocket system that is competitive on the global launch market and is also making major strides toward re-usability. They’ve developed a working cargo capsule system and are progressing on a human spaceflight capsule. It is only your extreme hateful mentality that blinds you to their credibility.
-SpaceX is developing an EELV competitor that may result in a product that beats EELV on costs, so NASA could have transitioned to this lower cost basis for launch had they pursued a competitive medium lift based architecture for their exploration program.
The Shuttle C can’t hold a candle to a RTLS reusable first stage Falcon Heavy, or even a fully expendable Falcon Heavy.
-Furthermore, an EELV or SpaceX medium lift based architecture incurs no expense for launch during the years when there is nothing to launch or a lesser amount to launch, unlike the parasitic burden of supporting the activation of a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle throughout all budget years.
-I think NASA developing an HLV in 2015 was weighted favourably in the original plans due to the inertia of their initiatives, but I would not have ruled out the competition of a no HLV plan which could have advocated for itself during the period, and their plan to delay the decision gave themselves the freedom of action to make that decision despite their rhetoric, rather than locking themselves into an immediate HLV development
-The plans for the robotic precursor missions are what would have occurred had that program not been subsumed by SLS. Had Robotic Precursors been funded instead of SLS then they would have been real.
Saying they were never real is like saying Ares 1 was never real when it was simply replaced by different spending priorities. Had Ares 1 spending continued it would have continued.
-It was included in the Augustine report, it was simply lumped alongside the inline shuttle derived vehicle option because the difference between the two isn’t as big you think it is.
It is only your extreme hateful mentality that blinds you to their credibility.
So it’s “hateful” to judge them on the basis of what they have promised vs. what they have (to date) delivered, huh? Nice try.
The Shuttle C can’t hold a candle to a RTLS reusable first stage Falcon Heavy, or even a fully expendable Falcon Heavy.
Laughable, considering that the Falcon Heavy does not exist, even in mock-up form. The Shuttle stack did exist, for 135 flights. The so-called Falcon Heavy supposedly will lift 53 tons to LEO; Shuttle side-mount could have done almost 80.
Now you’ve had your say here and spun your SpaceX commercial. Begone.
“-on the specific heavy-lift rocket that will take us deeper into space.”
If only they had specified “Nova” class thrust, the original Moon rocket that Saturn was a reduced size version of. “Deeper into space” means a bigger launch vehicle. Really.
This subject has been pretty extensively discussed before I discovered it, but I will add a couple of points about “libs0n” supposed justifying links about lunar precursors. Once Obama had put the moon off limits none of the” thought exercises” in the links was going to be funded.
As proof you only need look at the wording of the presentations:
– He says “This FY2011 budget document scopes out the Robotic Precursor Missions segment within it”. Yet in the document the only “scoping is on page 8. It says: “Missions may include: Landing on the Moon with a robot that can be tele-operated from Earth and can transmit near-live video. Demonstrating a factory to process lunar or asteroid materials for use for various purposes”. That is not a lot of scoping and the may statement makes even that a joke. It might as well have said “Missions may not include”, it would mean the same thing.
– The disclaimer on the second page of his first link is very illustrative:“DISCLAIMER: The following charts represent at “point of departure” which will continue
to be refined throughout the summer and the coming years. They capture the results of planning activities as of the May 25, 2010 date, but are in no way meant to represent final plans. In fact, not all proposed missions and investments fit in the budget at this time. They provide a starting point for engagement with outside organizations (international, industry, academia, and other Government Agencies). Any specific launch dates and missions are likely to change to reflect the addition of Orion Emergency Rescue Vehicle, updated priorities, and new information from NASA’s space partners.”
They could have saved a lot of verbiage by just saying:
“DISCLAIMER: The contents of this presentation are unfunded and not taken seriously by anyone who currently has funding authority.”
Do not misunderstand my intent; I am not attacking the authors of these presentations. They were merely doing what was required of them by the situation put in place by the political “leadership”.
The point is that his linked documents do not support his assertions.
There’s no logical reason to use a hydrocarbon fueled rocket engine when the world is desperately trying to wean itself from the fossil fuels that are melting our ice caps, raising global sea levels, and acidifying our oceans.
Marcel
Marcel, I appreciate your concern for the ecosystem but think of it this way; would you rather have methane and kerosene with their carbon footprint or solid rocket fuel chemical pollution?
I believe in the long term the 15 to 30 million pound thrust launch vehicle using twin monolithic solid rocket boosters will be found to be the only option. I think this environmental penalty is going to have to be paid if the far bigger pay-off of clean energy from space (from the Moon) is realized.
Unless something cleaner comes along like this, but such things are probably too good to be true.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/416464/a-new-recipe-for-rocket-fuel/
If given a choice between perchlorates and CO2, I’ll take CO2 any day! Better yet, give me LO2/LH2–>H2O a la Delta IV Heavy! As for aluminum rockets, they have good thrust, but lousy Isp (except for some exotic, theoretical LH2/LO2/Al tripropellants). I think ALICE had something like 150 s; ALLOX would be more like 280 s IRRC. RP1 is up to 350 s; LH2/LO2 450 s. About the only reason to use ALLOX from an ISRU perspective is if you have no hydrogen available. On the Moon, it looks like there is plenty of that if you look in the right places. I could see maybe using aluminum rockets for lifting some super heavy payloads into LLO, with a LH2/LO2 2nd stage or tug taking over from that point.
“Marcel, I appreciate your concern for the ecosystem but think of it this way; would you rather have methane and kerosene with their carbon footprint or solid rocket fuel chemical pollution?”
I don’t think putting major coastal cities underwater for future generations is a minor thing!
You could easily replace the solid rocket boosters with the SLS LOX/LH2 core rockets, similar to the Delta-IV heavy configuration– which would actually significantly enhance the lifting capability of the SLS. Boeing has proposed a similar heavy lift vehicle in the past using three 8 meter core rockets. The SLS would use three 8.4 meter core rockets. This, of course, wouldn’t be possible until the expendable RS-25-E rocket engines are in production for the SLS which probably won’t happen until at least 2021.
Marcel
A rocket launch with hydrocarbons does not release as much CO2 as does the rest of the hydrocarbon powered infrastructure.
And don’t forget that there are biofuels that are emerging that can directly take the place of fossil fuels.
–And don’t forget that there are biofuels that are emerging that can directly take the place of fossil fuels.–
Biofuels do not lower CO2 emission.
The CO2 emission from the total rocket launched per year, is utterly insignificant. It’s insignificant in comparison to CO2 emitted by airplanes, and airplanes are insignificant compared to surface transportation. And all transportation is significant, or a portion of all CO2 emission, but as great part is amount of CO2 emission from electrical power generation.
China currently emits about twice as much CO2 as US,
and this mostly due to China using coal to electrical power generation- about 80% of it’s electrical power generation is generated by burning coal.
The US used to get about 40- 50% of it’s electrical power from coal and now it’s:
In 2013, energy sources and percent share of total electricity generation were
Coal 39%
Natural Gas 27%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 6%
Biomass 1.48%
Geothermal 0.41%
Solar 0.23%
Wind 4.13%
Petroleum 1%
Other Gases < 1%
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
Or reason US total emission is lowering, is because of improvements in energy efficency, but *mostly* due to burning less coal and instead burning more natural gas {methane]. Nothing much to do with cars, and certainly not anything to do with rockets.
“The CO2 emission from the total rocket launched per year, is utterly insignificant.”
The ultimate goal in space transportation is to– dramatically increase– the rate of space launches so that the human species can begin to permanently expand its civilization beyond the Earth. And this could happen well before the end of this century.
Practically, any manufacturer of a particular brand of hydrocarbon using transportation vehicle could argue that their– particular contribution– to global warming is– insignificant. The owners a Ferrari could argue that their total contribution to global warming is insignificant. But even big greenhouse gas polluters like the natural gas companies argue that ‘they’re clean’ because they “only” produce half as much CO2 as the coal companies:-)
America and the world needs to become carbon neutral within the next 30 to 50 years if we want to avoid trashing the future for future generations of humans and other animal species on this planet.
So wherever it is easily possible for a fuel system or transportation system to become– easily– carbon neutral, it should be done. And its already possible in space transportation with hydrogen fueled rockets such as the Delta IV and the future SLS and future hydrogen fueled space planes such as SKYLON.
Marcel
President Obama came into office in 2009 with a human space flight related budget that was approximately $8.4 billion a year: $3.4 billion for the Constellation program, $3 billion for the Space Shuttle program, and $2 billion for the ISS program. In order to increase funding for the Constellation lunar program, the Space Shuttle program and then the ISS program were scheduled to be eventually discontinued.
The President, of course, cancelled the Constellation program and the notion of returning to the Moon. While the President decided to continue to allow the Space Shuttle program to come to an end, he also decided– not to end– the ISS program after 2015, instead he decided to continue the ISS program at $3 billion a year until 2020 and is now trying to extended this LEO program to 2024. Of course, he also decided to add funding for a Commercial Crew program.
The President’s proposed beyond LEO program was shamefully unambitious: a visit to a NEO asteroid in the middle 2020s and a flyby past Mars in the middle 2030s. What the administration was proposing was clearly not a pioneering human space program but a stunt program with some astonishingly meager goals. Also, the appalling infrequency of such crewed beyond LEO scenarios was obviously politically and operationally unsustainable.
The President made himself very very very clear on the idea of returning to the Moon:
“Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before.”
Words that will live in infamy!
Marcel
The ISS was never going to be deobrited in 2015.
“NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told the press conference that the ISS would be a 100-billion-dollar (63-billion-euro) asset when completed, and it was unlikely that the station’s partners would want to give up this investment when the facility’s official life comes to an end.
“I believe all the partners expect to go to their governments supporting the extension of the station’s life… beyond 2015. I personally think the station will continue to be used as long as its use is productive.
“I think the idea of having a fixed end-date for the space station is technically and politically unrealistic,” said Griffin.
“One doesn’t put up a 500-tonne orbiting research facility, one doesn’t decide to simply shut it off because a certain calendar date has been reached.
“There will come a day when the space station’s sustenance costs us as a partnership more than the value of the research that continues to be generated from it and on that day the partnership to move on to other things. But that will be a utility-driven decision in my opinion, not a date-driven decision.””
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Space_chiefs_ponder_ISS_transport_problem_post-2015_future_999.html
Griffin even testified to that to congress.
NASA’s priority after the Space Shuttle program was going to be the Constellation program. If the Russians and Europeans wanted to keep the ISS going after 2015 with their own funds, that was up to them. Russia currently wants to end the ISS program in 2020.
A highly centralized microgravity space station makes no sense if your priority is good science because the activities of other people aboard the station can disrupt your experiment. Charlie Bolden stated that himself and admitted that the future of microgravity research at LEO is going to be aboard small private space stations– not the ISS.
Also, the hyper expensive and unnecessarily massive ISS is easily replaceable since it only has a pressurized volume of 837 cubic meters. An SLS hydrogen tank derived microgravity space station could easily be deployed at LEO with a pressurized volume of more than 1000 cubic meters– with a single SLS launch.
Marcel
I am talking reality, the ISS was never going to be deorbited in 2015, you are talking fantasy and what if’s.
The United States ending its participation in the ISS as of 2015 was part of the Bush Administration’s plan for the VSE. It was needed to finance the new program without an increase in NASA’s overall budget.
That plan (in fact the entire VSE) did not continue when Obama became president and cancelled the whole program. You may approve of that decision, but you are trying to rewrite history to say that the plan was a “fantasy”.
So you honestly believe that the ISS would have been deorbited and congress would have put their stamp of approval on it? Griffin said it was never a serious option and was never actually considered. I take him at his word.
You just commented about NASA making presentations that are done by people just doing their job. That is exactly what Griffin alluded to when he said he had to write up the deorbit option, but he knew that it was never actually a viable option because politically it was a non starter.
(1) The decision to end American participation in the ISS in 2015 was made by the Bush Administration not the NASA administrator.
(2) You (as usual) are trying to put words in other people’s mouths (mine and Griffin’s). The ISS would not necessarily have been de-orbited because of an American decision to leave the program. That would have been up to the Russians and other participants. The Russians are considering leaving the program as of 2020, while the current Administration claims to want it continued longer. If the Russians do leave in 2020, that does not mean that the ISS would automatically be de-orbited.
(3) You play by the rule “he who posts last, wins” that is popular on some other websites, I do not. Everything that needs to be said about this straight forward subject has been said. If you choose to keep reasserting you “point of view” that is your privilege and I hope you enjoy talking to yourself about your fantasies.
Absolutely, Marcel! NASA continuing to hover in LEO for another 15 years will do NO one on Earth ANY good! The United States just goes on stagnating, as a space power, doing nothing more than repeating the previous fifteen years of confined-to-the-ISS activity. Making NO tangible strides at possible new deep space efforts.
Believe you me: if the Obamian powers-that-be, who control NASA right now, get further terms in office, the ISS could easily go on flying, as basically our only manned spaceflight project, clear up to 2030. The Commercial Spacers would of course be glad & content with such a dullsville-as-usual near-term future. Their reason-to-be will have been granted its multi-decade lease. In the interim, we had all better hope that the Chinese manned space program does NOT settle into a copycat LEO-only program, and that ultimately the sentiment to perform manned Lunar trips, before or by 2030, comes to the forefront. I hate to say it, but it looks like the future fate of human space development is squarely depending upon just what China does, with its space capability in the next decade &-a-half!
“In regard to human spaceflight, we sometimes hear that “doing something” is better than “doing nothing.” Doing nothing might be a better option when the “something” being proposed is patently absurd. A static program might alert the public to what has been happening to our national space program.”
The ISS program is human spaceflight and I assume in terms of human spaceflight, one means doing more than the ISS program.
It seems if we continue to do nothing other than ISS, we will eventually stop doing ISS.
One aspect related to ending ISS, could involve an accident in regards to ISS. And an accident could something happening within the space station or a collision with something in orbit. And there is also possibility of something more of something of criminal nature happening rather than an unforeseeable error.
Another demise of ISS, could related to political decisions and/or lack of funding. So I believe it’s been agreed to continue operating ISS to 2020, and so given another 5 year, it’s possible that in future extending it further, may not happen. Or one could be fairly confident that ISS will be flying until 2020, but less confident it will flying in 2030 or beyond this- in terms of a plan to continue, will could altered by various events which would disrupt this expectation. So, needed upgrades, or major maintenance needs could be delayed and/or influence such planning.
And impact with station may not involve a really major impact:
“A description of the largest observed damages will be provided in the paper. In addition, a discussion of significant MMOD impact sites with operational or design aspects will be presented. Some of the ISS modules/subsystems damaged by MMOD to be included in the discussion are (1) Solar Arrays, (2) US and Russian windows, (3) EVA handrails, (4) Radiators, and (5) Russian FGB module.
Publication Date: Jan 01, 2014 ”
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140007414
So doing nothing in regards to human spaceflight [other than ISS] may evenually lead to do nothing in human spaceflight including not longer having ISS program.
I think not having ISS program unquestionable will alert the public, particularly when the headlines
are about ISS’s reentry into the Earth atmosphere. That’s seems like a topic that media talking heads will spend some time addressing.
I was not referring to ISS work in this post — my comment about “doing something is better than doing nothing” is in regard to comments made by Tom Jones in regard to the ARM and its relation to other post-ISS human spaceflight.
I would describe ARM in terms of magnitude as similar to Mars sample return.
The problem with ARM is we have an incompetent President and President with little [or no real] interest in space exploration- or at least any American space exploration. He wants to lead from behind, and also thinks American should be nation which is less forward.
Though I suppose Obama buys into idea that US needs to catch up with Europeans in terms of a government running the nation’s healthcare.
Arm is based upon premise of doing a cheaper asteroid mission, something one could start now, rather than a 2025 trip to asteroid.
But there is no real support for going to any asteroid, and delaying
doing anything was as much a purpose as anything else- it was an excuse for pretending to do something- not to be seen as anti-space.
So Obama during his term in office need not increase NASA funding to go to a rock by 2025. Or if his goal was the Moon or Mars, he would need to support the 130 ton SLS, or lunar related robotic missions [and/or depots]. As ARM requires couple billion [or expensive than robotic lunar lander].
Anyhow, Obama is currently a lame duck, who could not do anything regarding space exploration, even, if he wanted to. The near term hope,
will be related to mid terms in few month.
It’s possible a spectacular win, will require a spectacular goal from congressional leadership- and merely ending the already dead Obamacare, is not spectacular.
And currently the Heavy Falcon is not on spaceflightnow schedule:
http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html
But in few months it might be.
I would describe ARM in terms of magnitude as similar to Mars sample return.
I wouldn’t. A robotic Mars sample return is significantly more challenging than the ARM. It is also scientifically much more valuable, as samples collected in context from a complex planetary surface has much more scientific information than a piece of ordinary chondrite, of which we already have tons in the meteorite collection.
-I wouldn’t. A robotic Mars sample return is significantly more challenging than the ARM-
Yup. It could easily be twice as much. And more risk in terms successfully getting the Mars sample back to Earth.
And I agree that a Mars sample return, would have more value.
Literally speaking more value per gram [obviously] and more value in terms of additional robotic and eventually manned mission to Mars.
And I would say, a critical requirement before a manned mission to Mars.
Of course I think polar lunar sample, would be much easier, and have similar value as Mars sample return.
Obamacare was originally a Republican concept to force people into the arms of the private health insurance companies. Of course, once Obama adopted this Republican idea, Republicans suddenly viewed it as a radical.
The liberal idea for health insurance was to offer the American people a– public option which is the way most industrialized countries successfully insure their populations.
I don’t buy into the idea the Obama is a liberal. Trying to privatize NASA’s human space program is certainly not liberal except for those on the left who simply view human spaceflight in general as a waste of tax payer dollars.
I consider Obama’s political philosophy as rather Nixonian. In fact, Obama himself said that his policies are closer to that of a moderate Republican which is probably why he’s about as popular these days as Nixon is today:-)
Marcel
Trying to privatize NASA’s human space program is certainly not liberal except for those on the left who simply view human spaceflight in general as a waste of tax payer dollars.
Surely by now you’ve realized that the whole “private sector space” thing as promoted by this administration is merely cover for their attempt to dissolve and eliminate the space program from the federal portfolio.
I normally try to avoid general political discussions, but will make an exception here.
The whole left wing/rightwing thing is antiquated (based on the layout of the British House of Commons – dating to the 19th Century).
Obama is a statist of the left (like Nixon was of the right) in that is he believes anything he considers important should be controlled by the state (example – health care). Obama considers space (in particular HSF) to be unimportant and thus is willing to “privatize” it. If it fails, so much the better. It gets him off the hook for having destroyed it, but he is just as happy it has been destroyed.
The fact that he is damaging both health care and HSF is ironic but not salient to a discussion of his motives only his competence.
–I consider Obama’s political philosophy as rather Nixonian. —
Very similar in many ways {though NIxon was probably one of most effective presidents in terms of foreign policy- bloody hell, he changed China and “Nixon going to China” is common expression}.
But Nixon was a liberal- as is well known.
An Example is his wage and price controls. Which today would regarded as even more of over reach than Obamacare.
So one could say Nixon was more liberal than Obama. And such policy would be unacceptably liberal today, not only to Republicans but also for Democrats.
Of course there is also the abuse of power and the threat of potential impeachments.
Of course liberal is not same term as lefty- Nixon hated lefties, and Dems have been taken over by Lefties. Obama is far more of Lefty than any president- including Carter.
“Surely by now you’ve realized that the whole “private sector space” thing as promoted by this administration is merely cover for their attempt to dissolve and eliminate the space program from the federal portfolio.”
I think Obama and Holdren probably support NASA’s unmanned robotic space program. But I’ve strongly suspected since 2010 that the current administration believes that a government financed human space program is a waste of tax payer dollars.
Still, I strongly support the government helping to finance private Commercial Crew development. And I believe that commercial crew launches can be very successful for private US companies– if they focus on crewed flights to– private space stations– rather than to government space stations.
Marcel
Nobody is happy with Obama concerning the space program except the New Space clowns who have many Ayn-Rand-in-space-libertarians in their ranks. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Mitt wanted to “privatize” NASA. Take your pick.
I do not think this is a left right problem at all. It is a corporate profit problem; space is hard money so for now any space program needs to wait until the easy money is all gathered up. Compare a Spaceship and Missile Submarine and there is far more money to be made underwater.
Follow the money if you want the truth; politics is all about deception and is a distraction.
Diverting an asteroid is an obvious proof of concept for active planetary defense. In military terms this mission is an Exercise rather than an Operation.
Using Orion and SLS to send astronauts to the asteroid to gather samples is a second mission that has been added to the first.
Diverting an asteroid is an obvious proof of concept for active planetary defense
Not this technique. An asteroid big enough to cause a civilization-wide catastrophe (~ > 500-1000 m in size) could not be “bagged” as in the ARM concept. It would have to be diverted through some more sophisticated means, like embedded thrusters or gravitational deflection.
Using Orion and SLS to send astronauts to the asteroid to gather samples is a second mission that has been added to the first.
No, the whole concept was grabbed by NASA to have someplace NOT the Moon to send Orion.
“It would have to be diverted through some more sophisticated means, like embedded thrusters or gravitational deflection.”
Sophisticated? Or just a way to keep nuclear energy out of the scenario?
Thanks for the link to the Project Orion book Dr. Spudis. It is out of print though and expensive; it is available in most large public libraries. The B612 foundation has popularized the idea of a “gravity tug” and does not like nukes for planetary protection. I think nuclear energy is the solution.
Whether it is space solar energy or planetary protection or both, the super-heavy lift vehicles launching every month or two to make our space program viable are not in the budget. For energy or deflection only a Moon base will make possible the use of nuclear energy because LEO is not the place.
Nukes for asteroid deflection need lead times of at least a decade. Two decades would be better, 100 years would be preferable.
A gravity tractor with a mass of one ton can deflect an Apophis sized asteroid with two years lead time.
Take your pick.
Source, “Death From the Skies”, by Phil Plait.
Bombs work. Tested over one thousand times. The most powerful device ever created by humankind. But let’s not use it except to scare each other……..stupid.
We have better ideas than this.
Best I’ve seen is the gravity tractor, where mutual mass is used to redirect an asteroid the size of Apophis, which is much larger than the “target” of ARM.
Another, better idea is a kinetic impactor.
No, ARM is merely a stunt that does little to advance our understanding.
On the topic of something better than nothing, there is an idea that I read once.
It involves going to the moon slowly, with sortie missions that take place once every other year.
An empty stage is put in orbit by an EELV. Then other EELVs top it off with hypergolic propellant.
The stage is meant to be as large as the first stage of a Titan rocket, with similar engines.
A lunar lander is sent, followed by Orion.
It then conducts a lunar mission, Apollo style.
How long, I don’t know. At least a J-mission class, I think.
Incidentally, it is not my idea, but Ed Kyle’s of Space Launch Report.
I just offer it here as something to consider in place of the ARM.
Here is the link.
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/moonslo.html
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/moonslo.html
I think having 1 or 2 year separation from each trip to the Moon has appealing aspects such having enough time to digest information gained from the exploration of lunar surface and use it to guide the later lunar landings.
But think the length of program is a major costs, and I would use crew to doing stuff too difficult for robotic missions to try to do or augment robotic exploration with crewed exploration. So I wouldn’t sending crew into the dark, and have robotic missions preceding manned.
Or view crewed missions to surface as the finishing task in terms of lunar exploration to find minable lunar water. Or in terms of budget spent roughly 1/2 would spent on crewed part and half is spent of robotic part. And such ratio is also similar what I think should be done in terms of Manned Mars exploration, though maybe more weighted on robotic than crew in regards to Mars. Or lessons learned and possible improvement in regards to robotic will determine how one explores Mars in terms of this balance.
So robotic with crew follow up and one does this with say 5 potential locations [or manned landing] that have selected or narrowed down due to robotic exploration.
So if each takes 2 years, than just manned aspect will take a decade, and I think the manned part should take about 2 or 3 years in total and robotic 3 to 4 years before this.
Or goal should be exploring the Moon in about 5 years in total.
Before the beginning of lunar exploration program [and obviously the Mars program], NASA should establish the operations of using depots. Of of course it’s possible or even likely that depots store more easily storable rocket fuel such as N2O4/UDMH but since the premise of exploring the Moon is to find minable water, it seems at least part of NASA depots should involve the transfer of LOX. And it seems NASA could forgo the need to store and transfer liquid hydrogen. If spacecraft using LH&LOX the most massive component if LOX, a spacecraft could bring hydrogen from Earth, and add the LOX from a depot. Or spacecraft could bring Methane and add LOX from a depot.
In terms of minablity of lunar water, I think one needs the high ISP of LH&LOX rocket engine. And the transfer from Lunar surface, to lunar orbit and back to lunar surface, could be about 1 day in total duration, and therefore boil off of LH&LOX doesn’t seem like much of a problem. And storing liquid oxygen and hydrogen in cooler polar region
should be fairly easy- though one is storing any quantities only in sense accumulating enough to ship it- though if large quantities are needed, a 100 tons of liquid hydrogen
could made and stored until the time they would be needed to ship [100 tons is HUGE
amount of liquid hydrogen which is more than needed- Space shuttle used 106 tons of LH],
Anyways, for Manned Mars one will need depots. For mining the Moon one needs depots. And lunar exploration should make cheaper by using depots. And for robotic part of Lunar exploration [and all robotic exploration beyond earth- and particularly something like Mars Sample return] NASA should use depots.
It should be noted, that potential bottleneck for idea of 5 year lunar exploration which using so much robotic elements, would be making robotic missions fast enough. But this has another side to it, in that if managed well, it could significantly lower unit costs of robotic missions- which is quite high at the moment.
Though due in inability, to get robots out the door, one might be forced to be more dependent on Manned missions- or failure of doing robotic mission fast enough, could require more Manned missions. Or Manned mission in terms of total amount of exploration done- is at moment and near future is inherently faster.
“-since the premise of exploring the Moon is to find minable water, it seems at least part of NASA depots should involve the transfer of LOX. And it seems NASA could forgo the need to store and transfer liquid hydrogen.”
And you mention most of the other types of propellent in some fashion GB……… It might be helpful to delineate the theaters and restrict nuclear propulsion to outside of the Earth’s Magnetosphere. This is of course not a perfect dividing line because said magnetic field shrinks and expands. I encourage you to think of the “arena’s” where humans spaceflight can be expanded as two circles; GEO and lunar polar orbit.
In my view the third arena is beneath the Moon using nuclear excavation. Hovering over a spot on the equator 22,236 miles above the Earth or in a polar orbit above the Moon or in an underground lunar factory; these are the 3 places humans will be working hard. I think your speculation on commerce between GEO an lunar polar would be interesting and a far better use of your brain cells.
Just remember you can lift thousands of tons of product off the surface of the Moon using nuclear propulsion because it is outside the Earth’s magnetosphere (propellent byproducts will not return to Earth). And you can produce thousands of tons of product in lunar underground factories. This “product” has so far been identified as solar power arrays to beam energy down to the Earth.
I am not quite sure where your fuel depots fit into this. I think the whole fuel depot concept is a fabrication of New Space advocates trying to apologize for their inferior lift hobby rockets.
“Doing nothing might be a better option when the “something” being proposed is patently absurd.”
Fight, flight, or freeze, as the baboon scientists say. Or in the military, “OODA”; observe, orient, decide, act. Or as an old armored cavalry trooper would say; sneak, peek, report, and retreat.
Our Phd host is displaying critical thinking ability but unfortunately the human race may not actually be defined as intelligent. Aliens might consider us extremely bizarre life forms because of our ephemeral lifespan and ability to accomplish anything when we disagree on everything. Just the observed practice of murder might make us an “x-rated” and “undesirable” civilization.
Considering the evidence for billions of Earth-type planets and mass communications the majority of the human race should collectively be informed that it is “quiet” out there- and this is a problem. The “Great Filter” has yet to be found. We do not know why we are not detecting radio signals from other civilizations. But considering the possibility of an engineered pathogen or asteroid impact or new volcanic epoch or other end-of-the-world scenarios, a good possibility is that biological life has a strong tendency to self-destruct when it reaches a certain level of technology. Or circumstances that promote complex life such as the strong protective magnetic field of Earth have a double edge (volcanic extinctions). Astronaut Ed Lu has speculated that systems with earth-like planets are more likely to periodically absorb extinction level comet and asteroid impacts (our gas giant gravity wells may be protecting us). Some astronomically rare aspect of our system may have made intelligent life an event here and almost nowhere else in the universe. It may be a short-lived event.
I have not seen “Cosmos” yet so I do not know if Tyson addresses the great silence but I have heard Kaku talk about the Kardashev space civilization scale with categories all far higher up the scale than Earth. What is so interesting when discussing space civilizations is the scales of time in the millions of years. We started using electricity about a hundred years ago. What of a technological civilization a hundred thousand years old? The standard excuse for the failure to detect other civilizations is that we are not listening at the right time or in the right way. Maybe. Dr. Spudis is asking an important question concerning resources that space advocates cannot psychologically bear to part with- it means too radical a change. The SLS may have only one valid mission; to carry the largest possible telescopes into space for integration into a massive space observation/detection system.
It may be that Human Space Flight Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (HSF-BELO) will not be accomplished for several decades; we might be entering a period of astronomical discovery necessary before the next space age can become reality. If we can detect young worlds without complex life yet within a hundred light years or so then a new space age would probably begin almost immediately. In fact, with hydrogen bomb pulse propulsion we could start building a starship now- the only missing technology would be to freeze people for several centuries.
Obama is a left wing apologist liberal, but mainly he is simply incompetent. There was never any reason to think he would have been competent since he had essentially no applicable experience. The situation in the mid east right now could easily lead to WW3 and the blame lies squarely with Obama.
As far as the human space program, Obama never made it a secret that human space was not his priority, it wasnt even an interest, and that he was going to attempt to divcert funding.
As far as commercial crew, so far it has the best potential for the US to maintain a human space flight program. Orion is a dead end and personally I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it cancelled once any other vehicle becomes available. The only potential use for an Orion is an Apollo like lunar mission, and we already saw with Apollo that it wasn’t sustainable. Sustainable missions would require a lunar outpost or base; it might be a mobile base which would be used for an extra need period as crew members do e and go. But that is a third step. The first step is an earth orbit to lunar orbit and back transit vehicle, and the second step is a reusable orbit to surface lander and ascent vehicle-probably 2, one optimized for cargo and the other for crew. No Orion is needed. If you needed a capsule, perhaps as an emergency crew escape pod, then either the Dragon or the CST would be cheaper and just as capable.
…used for an extended period as crew members come and go…
“Orion is a dead end and personally I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it cancelled once any other vehicle becomes available. The only potential use for an Orion is an Apollo like lunar mission, and we already saw with Apollo that it wasn’t sustainable. Sustainable missions would require a lunar outpost or base; …”
Actually, under Constellation Systems, the Orion Vehicle was being designed to support a Lunar Base. That top level requirement was flowed down (by the Constellation Systems Architecture Requirements Document – CARD) into all its systems requirements.
“If you needed a capsule, perhaps as an emergency crew escape pod, then either the Dragon or the CST would be cheaper and just as capable.”
You would definitely want an “escape capsule”, at least until a safe haven other than earth can be trusted. But neither the Dragon nor CST-100 (as currently designed) would meet the requirements.
Since SpaceX is secretive about the details of the Dragon, I will illustrate with the CST-100 design.
The CST-100 circulation fan system is designed to be fault tolerant (that is if the fan fails it is not a catastrophic occurrence), by over sizing the breathing gas tanks. If the circulation fan system fails, it is backed up by “blowing down” the tanks, which will give sufficient hours for the vehicle to land. But for a BEO vehicle the time required for earth return could be days to weeks. Therefore the fan system would have to be redundant. That may sound simple to you, but it is not. Not only would it require the additional fan and ducting (which would take up pressurized volume and increase the power needed to circulate the air through the increased flow path), it would increase power/cooling requirements causing changes to those systems as well.
Multiply that change by similar ones required for other systems and you soon have a very different vehicle (in fact one probably very much like the Orion).
I do not mean this in any way to be derogatory to Boeing or the CST-100 design, they are trying to develop the cheapest, lightest, simplest LEO “taxi” they can (exactly as they should be), but the BEO requirements are much more stringent.
“That may sound simple to you, but it is not.”
Excellent comment Joe.
As a mechanic I have cursed helicopter designers roundly and frequently for some of the more difficult maintenance procedures. For example to change the windshield wiper motor on the old Sikorsky H-3 you have to disassemble most of the nose compartment. Then you have to ground check all the systems you reconnected- takes a couple people half a day to loosen 4 bolts on a 3 pound little motor. People might think a windshield wiper motor on a helicopter is not a big deal but it is on a dark and stormy night hovering over a ship at sea.
Engineers that design these systems sometimes have no choice given their time, budget, and other constraints, but to just make it work no matter how ugly it is. This might seem shocking when considering the tens of millions rescue helicopters and other aircraft cost these days but it is business as usual. In my view the Apollo 1 fire was a central event of the Moon program. There is no cheap. In fact one of my technical schools in the military was “hi-reliability soldering” which existed because of the huge quality control problems that NASA solved in the 60’s.
“But for a BEO vehicle the time required for earth return could be days to weeks.”
Years.
About simplicity, there is an old cliché: “The devil is in the details.” Some clichés are true.
As to the duration of a BEO return time, I was limiting my response to cis-lunar missions (my own current interest); for interplanetary missions years would be appropriate.
“Engineers that design these systems sometimes have no choice-”
Sorry, I did not mean to disparage engineers. Of course there is always a choice to seek new employment.