“Roger, Roger. We have clearance, Clarence.”
The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space recently held a hearing on a proposal to change how the NASA Administrator is selected and the agency is monitored. The bill (HR 823, The Space Leadership Preservation Act of 2013) is co-sponsored by five Republican Congressmen. It is a revised version of a similar proposal from the last Congress. In brief, it would establish a committee composed of “space experts” jointly selected by Congress and the Administration. This committee would nominate three candidates from which a NASA Administrator would be selected to serve a fixed six-year term (the last version called for a ten-year term). The new group would also monitor the agency’s progress in implementing whatever long-range direction was selected for the civil space program.
Although many details of this proposal remain obscure, I find the motivation for it interesting. Clearly, it stems from a belief that the current direction of the agency is aimless, unacceptable and in need of independent oversight. Moreover, I take the proposal for a committee-nominated administrator as a not-so-subtle rebuke to the current management of the agency. How and why did we arrive at this sorry state of affairs?
As described here earlier, the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) was the previous administration’s attempt to give some long-range direction to the national space program. Former Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldridge chaired a commission to study how NASA should implement the VSE. Their report outlined several broad recommendations designed to better enable NASA to execute the new direction.
One recommendation was for the re-establishment of the National Space Council. This body had existed twice before, first from the inception of NASA through to the initial development of the Shuttle, and then again during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, from 1989-1993. The Council provided strategic guidance to the President on matters relating to space policy – specifically, whether the agency was properly implementing a given program or strategic direction. In 1992, the Space Council decided that NASA was not implementing the “Space Exploration Initiative” and a change of management was needed, so the President replaced Administrator Dick Truly with Dan Goldin.
The basic rationale for having a National Space Council is that most people within the Executive branch and the Congress have neither the time, inclination, or background needed to monitor and make decisions on technical topics. Agency drift is less likely with oversight from a group that includes both technical expertise and political influence – individuals that can identify and correct misdirection early in the process, thus keeping a program on track. The Aldridge Commission wanted to re-establish the Space Council for precisely those reasons. The idea was not to create a panel to micro-manage the agency’s daily operations but to provide broad strategic oversight to ensure that NASA was implementing the Vision as intended.
Of the many recommendations of the Aldridge commission, the one to re-create the Space Council was pointedly ignored. That is not too surprising – no administrator wants some super agency authority looking over his shoulder. At the time, arguments against the need to re-establish the Space Council were twofold. First, it was planned that the Aldridge Commission itself would be called back together at regular intervals to review progress (that did happen – once). Second, the agency already had an advisory council (the NASA Advisory Council or NAC) that would serve the ostensible function of a Space Council. The problem with the latter argument is that the NAC is chosen by and answerable to the administrator and so tends to rubber-stamp whatever tactical path he takes. Furthermore, the NAC has no independent standing or influence to steer agency direction; it merely “advises” the administrator on tactical aspects of current programs.
As an example of the need for a Space Council, one need only recall how the agency went about re-writing their strategic charter in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of the VSE. To recap that episode, one of the principal objectives of the VSE was to return to the Moon to learn how to use it to create new space faring capability (this “mission” was clearly articulated in the Presidential speech given at NASA Headquarters in January 2004). But by the summer of the same year, that original objective mostly had been forfeited, morphed by the agency into a “touch-and-go” on the Moon in support of an Apollo-style Mars effort. At the time, many involved in the effort pointed out the mismatch between the Vision’s objectives and the direction the agency had taken, but their concerns were ignored. Soon the idea that the VSE was in effect a human Mars mission became hardwired into both the architecture and the mindset of the agency, leading many in the space community, the media and the public to forget (or to never understand) the original rationale for lunar return – it was now misunderstood and described as a rerun of Apollo, not as a sustainable new approach to our space future by learning how to live and work effectively on another world.
On the basis of these impressions, after President Obama took office in 2009, he created a new committee to review the agency’s long-term direction of human spaceflight and its implementation. Given that the agency had changed the direction of the VSE, the conclusions of this effort were entirely foreseeable – we were going on (what they thought was) the wrong path (i.e., the notion that lunar return was simply a repeat of Apollo – confusion caused by the agency’s re-direction of the VSE had become the perception) and without the necessary funding (so they told us) to reach it. Although both of those conclusions were suspect (or at least arguable), they were used as the justification for a major re-vectoring of the agency. Now, several highly questionable decisions later, we have arrived at the current pitiful “going nowhere” state of the U.S. civil space program.
Thus, because of the lack of adequate oversight and action on how NASA management was implementing the VSE, we now have a national space program that is being dismantled and discarded. If the National Space Council had been established at the beginning of the VSE, as the Aldridge report recommended, their review of agency activity would have shown that the Vision was being steered in a different direction. Neither the Augustine report nor its subsequent destructive effects would have transpired if a Space Council had stopped this drift and helped to identify a rational, affordable, step-wise implementation.
The Space Leadership Preservation Act of 2013 will establish a national space council; it will be accountable to both Congress and the Executive (arguably an improvement over the old Space Council, which was strictly a White House body). The identification of “three candidates” for administrator is problematical – it’s not clear that a term of office for the NASA Administrator independent of the current administration would be acceptable to any President. However, the review and oversight function of a space council – to “keep NASA on track” – could be critical, as recent history has shown how easily the agency re-writes its marching orders to accommodate its own desires and interests, rather than to serve a national goal.
The agency’s misdirection and lack of focus have irreparably destabilized our national space program. Other space faring countries recognize that the U.S. program is adrift and floundering. They are offering their astronauts Chinese language classes and actively (and very publicly) courting involvement and association with China’s space program and leadership. China has moved steadily toward the goal of manned lunar access while America has retreated from that arena, content with fantasizing about a human Mars mission that won’t occur for many decades, if then. Rather than facilitating a strong American presence in space, our current administration has sent the world a strong message – that they are fine with the ongoing atrophy of national capabilities in human spaceflight. American space leadership has left the building and Congress is arriving late in the game in calling for legislation to preserve it.
“Other space faring countries recognize that the U.S. program is adrift and floundering. They are offering their astronauts Chinese language classes and actively (and very publicly) courting involvement and association with China’s space program and leadership. China has moved steadily toward the goal of manned lunar access while America has retreated from that arena, content with fantasizing about a human Mars mission that won’t occur for many decades, if then.”
They are halfway there with their hypergolic expertise. They may even try and make fuel depots a reality using hypergolic propellents as in our Agena-Gemini rendevous except with a much larger booster of course.
It would take a monster of a hypergolic stage to go to the Moon but it could be broken up into several launches like a Von Braun graphic from the 50’s.
We went with liquid hydrogen and oxygen but they may go with what they know will work.
The SLS is the only machine that can take us Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO).
NASA has really been adrift for nearly 40 years, IMO, since the end of Apollo and Skylab. This was because the Executive branch, starting with Nixon, and Congress didn’t see any need for NASA to take the next logical step of establishing a permanent human presence on the surface of the Moon.
So over the past 40 years, the Presidents and Congress have attempted to appease those who desire a real pioneering manned space program by simply sending astronauts into low Earth orbit over and over and over again like those tragic astronauts trapped in a time loop in a Twilight Zone episode.
The Bush administration and Congress finally thought it was time for NASA to have a manned beyond LEO program again. Unfortunately, the Constellation program gradually drifted away from its promise of returning to the Moon– to stay– in favor of Apollo style missions to the Moon and eventually Mars which quickly pitted Mars first advocates against Moon first advocates.
The Obama administration, of course, ended the Constellation program and tried to end NASA’s manned space program by simply turning manned spaceflight over to private companies. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress rejected this radical idea, forcing the administration to continue to fund the development of a beyond LEO vehicle in the form of the SLS and the MPCV.
So now, Congress is barely funding the SLS/MPCV program with no serious beyond LEO missions for the vehicle in the near future:-)
Since the Obama administration clearly has no desire to direct NASA to proceed towards any serious near term beyond LEO missions for its manned space program, its really up to Congress to fill in the vacuum by defining and prioritize the missions for their SLS/MPCV baby.
Congressional leaders simply need to reach the logical consensus that the mission priority for the SLS/MPCV program should be to establish a permanently manned outpost at one of the lunar poles. That’s it!
Such an outpost would be used for the production of water and fuel, to determine how self sustaining humans can be beyond the Earth by using lunar resources, and to determine how well humans and other animals can adapt to a low gravity environment over periods of a few years to several years. And such an outpost should quickly lead to similar outpost on the surface of Mars a decade or two after.
A lunar outpost is critical to America’s strategic and economic interest. Falling behind other nations in the pioneering of the Moon and the rest of the Solar System would have serious strategic and economic consequences for America’s future.
Marcel F. Williams
Thanks for the informative article, especially about the fact the VSE mission was changed from developing a lunar presence to further human space travel into an Apollo-style Mars mission.
BTW, in your proposal with Lavoie on a low cost lunar colony, how much cargo only needed to be delivered to the lunar surface to set it up and how much yearly cargo had to be delivered?
I’m trying to estimate a cost for the cargo/supplies to be sent if we used the Falcon Heavy for that purpose along with high efficiency Centaur-like upper stages. Then separate from that we can estimate costs for the human flights using either the SLS or commercial flights if they are found to be reliable.
Bob Clark
Bob,
In our program, we place roughly 80 metric tons on the lunar surface, delivered over the course of 26 missions; in addition, we place propellant depots of 16 metric tons in LEO and 8 metric tons in low lunar orbit. The rate of activity is scaled by the available budget, but on the assumption of fitting under the Augustine committee run-out budget, we had tentatively planned for 2 missions per year, resulting in a 13-year program. At that point, the outpost is producing more water than needed to fully sustain itself, permitting water to be exported to cislunar space for sale or use by other programs.
Complete technical details can be found in our paper, available for download here.
“-we place roughly 80 metric tons on the lunar surface, delivered over the course of 26 missions-”
I would like to read about what you could do with, say, 6 out 10 SLS launches per year dedicated to landing payloads on the Moon for the next……30 years.
We just finished with 30 years of Space Shuttle operations; it was a Saturn V class launch vehicle and I see no reason not to expect a higher flight rate with the SLS considering there is no shuttle to turn around.
We just finished with 30 years of Space Shuttle operations; it was a Saturn V class launch vehicle and I see no reason not to expect a higher flight rate with the SLS considering there is no shuttle to turn around.
It’s not a question of preparation time and turnaround — it’s simply a question of money. I look for a lean, cash-strapped future for NASA, if it has a future at all.
I will be optimistic for you Dr. Spudis.
I am thinking this will be “The Year of the Comet” and impact defense will become a major issue.
The Moon is the place to launch nuclear missions to intercept impact threats.
It would be great if that comet hits Mars; but it is too much to hope for.
6 out of TEN SLS launches per YEAR? That would be nice. I believe the current schedule calls for one SLS launch per every two years….
Ten SLS launches per YEAR is probably about the most efficient considering the shuttle program launch record.
As for the current schedule……..it will change. All it takes is shuffling some money from the next half a dozen spy satellites to impact defense.
This is the Year of the Comet and there will be no cheap.
But then, I said they would build Sidemount- so I might be wrong.
“Agency drift is less likely with oversight from a group that includes both technical expertise and political influence – individuals that can identify and correct misdirection early in the process, thus keeping a program on track.”
IMO oversight is the critical factor; oversight after the Apollo 1 fire might have been the most important event guaranteeing the success of the Moon program. But the oversight that landed humans on the Moon was a problem for industry so by the time of the Shuttle they had watered down authority. The result was programs such as employing paroled felons to attach ceramic tiles (who purposely damaged tiles to extend their employment). The funding for the shuttle was cut several times and it was alleged some development money went under the table to programs like the B-1 bomber. The shuttle ended up being multi-purpose as a spy plane for the military and having such a poor cargo payload it could not take on any more weight for important systems like…….escape. Many complained so they cooked up a think tank study that said 50 launches a year would equal very low prices per pound to orbit. It was hailed as an airliner to space when wings and landing gear in a vacuum was in reality a tragicomic waste of lift.
So yes, the political influence is great unless it turns into favors being returned and lies about performance -then we end up with a component built in every state like the V-22 Osprey, which could never be killed despite going through tribulations that would have ended any other program a dozen times over.
The SRB’s on the Shuttle are much maligned but they were much developed over the decades (because of Challenger) and now the 5 segment booster is ready to pair up and deliver almost as much thrust as a Saturn V. Likewise a quarter century of SSME development has now resulted in an expendable version. I hope the SLS will be what the Shuttle should have been.
If you could post future entries on some of the technical aspects of your Lunar surface operations plans, specifically on mitigating the dust problem, operating machinery in 40K, methods of ice extraction and how would you deliver it from the mining site to the processing site out of the crater, that would be great. Thank you!
Or,
If you could post future entries on some of the technical aspects of your Lunar surface operations plans, specifically on mitigating the dust problem, operating machinery in 40K, methods of ice extraction and how would you deliver it from the mining site to the processing site out of the crater, that would be great
A lot about these issues has already been discussed elsewhere on the net. I talk about some of the (vastly overblown) lunar dust issues here:
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2009/04/the-deadly-dust-of-the-moon/
I discuss some of the technical aspects of lunar mining here:
http://spudislunarresources.nss.org/Bibliography/p/102.pdf
Certain specific problems (such as excavating the icy regolith feedstock for resource processing) need more data (e.g., concentrations, physical properties of the soil) from the surface to fully explore the technical issues.
I was reading in your recent “Once and Future Moon” blog post “That sounds familiar” about how Mars scientists were able leverage the interest in extraterrestrial life into numerous robotic missions thus diverting resources from Lunar exploration (and to derail Lunar HSF efforts).
So why not push the idea that there might just as easily be life on the Moon?
After all, simple BOTE calculations demonstrate that there must exist subsurface zones in the Moon where the pressure and temperature conditions favor the existence of liquid water. The only question is how deep are these zones and whether there would be any water at all in such potential aquifers.
As to the latter, the Brown University reanalysis of the volcanic glass beads shows that the interior is wetter than previously believed, so there just might be some liquid water in there somewhere.
As to the former, regolith is an excellent insulator, and the recent GRAIL results show that the Moon’s crust is much more fractured that previously suspected. The result of such fracturing is to reduce the thermal conductivity of the Moon, thus raising the “habitable zone”. Furthermore, it stands to reason that there might exist mantle plumes, albeit too weak to form Hawaii-like volcanoes, but that might nevertheless cause local warm spots, thus further raising the potential liquid water zone–perhaps right up to the base of the regolith in certain places. We think that the Ina “D” caldera was caused by a gas expulsion, but the idea that the gas might have come from liquid water that instantly flash exploded into vapor perhaps as a result of a smallish meteor impact is as likely an explanation as any other IMHO.
It would be the height of irony that after spending decades and billions and billions traipsing all over the Solar System in search of life, only to find that it was right under our noses on the Moon the whole time.
Warren,
Two comments in regard to your suggestion.
First, the Moon already has been recognized as an important part of the global strategy for the search for extraterrestrial life, specifically, the polar volatiles and the organics within the dark areas are natural laboratories for the study of pre-biotic organic chemistry. There are reams of studies outlining the questions and techniques needed to provide answers to these issues; check out the LEAG exploration road map for details.
Second, even given this fact, I object in principle to making the “Quest for Life” the cornerstone of the civil space program. Searching for life is only one question among the hundreds that we have regarding the origin and evolution of the Solar System and the universe. But more significantly, if you make the quest for life the central objective of the space program, you’ve set yourself up for failure — if you don’t find it, you’ve “failed.” Such an effect is not hypothetical — we’ve already seen it at work with the Viking missions over 30 years ago, which after finding no life at two places on Mars, resulted in no Mars missions for over 20 years.
There are too many other important and compelling national reasons for human spaceflight and science isn’t even the most important one.
Thanks to Warren for the tip on the Once and Future Moon article (I had missed it).
As to the use of finding life as a motivator for gaining support for either Lunar or Martian activities, I will add one further idea.
Actually finding life might be as detrimental to long run activities as not finding it. If my engineer’s (as opposed to scientists) understanding is correct any life found (past or present) would likely be of the microbial sort. Most of the general populous (including the press) think of something considerably more than that when they hear life.
If “all” (however important it might be) they get shown after a big build up is something that can be looked at under a slide, the reaction is likely to be – “that’s it”.
“-a belief that the current direction of the agency is aimless, unacceptable and in need of independent oversight. Moreover, I take the proposal for a committee-nominated administrator as a not-so-subtle rebuke to the current management of the agency. How and why did we arrive at this sorry state of affairs”
Nothing to be afraid of like the Russians dominating space. But at the height of the cold war they discovered that impact site in Mexico; and ignored it. Kind of hard to ignore after the equivalent of a nuclear weapon exploded over Russia. And it was a small rock. A bigger one flew through our ring of satellites the same day. This is it! This is the window through which the public can see a base on the Moon. I have been waiting for this for years. Now is the time Dr. Spudis. They should have had you on that panel next to Ed Lu testifying about a Moon base from which to launch nuclear interceptors.
Let’s Go!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/20/174851714/scientists-no-options-to-stop-massive-asteroids-on-collision-course
“What would an asteroid that is a kilometer in diameter, what would it do if it hit the earth?,” Nelson asked.
“That is likely to end human civilization,” said Lu, who is now CEO of the B612 Foundation, which aims to hunt devastating asteroids
I challenge that, billgamesh: spending money on NEO collision mitigation is a waste of money.
Watch the known NEOs accumulate at http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/Unusual.html at the rate of hundreds of new NEOs per year. Geologically, we are retiring NEO collision risk at breakneck pace.
And robotic telescopes to find NEOs are absurdly cheap in comparison with nuclear interceptors launched from Moon bases. If you want lower NEO collision risk, then get a few more wide-field scopes going.
All that that will cost is pocket change.
That is, detection of NEOs is cheap.
Mitigation against a NEO already on its way to Earth, either by blasting it or redirecting it or whatever — that’s expensive.
So it makes sense now to put extra money into detection, not into mitigation.
Ron,
You seem to be confusing NEO detection with NEO protection.
What you say about the telescopes for finding the NEO’s is true, but without a method of diverting them there is no risk mitigation.
No, I’m not confusing them. Spending money on methods to divert NEOs on a collision course with Earth is a complete waste of money. Spending money on detection is not.
“Spending money on methods to divert NEOs on a collision course with Earth is a complete waste of money. Spending money on detection is not.”
This is one of those things we will just have to disagree about. I am not sure that the risk is sufficient to make this a high priority national goal. But for anyone convinced that it is, detection without protection is to me a complete waste of time.
“-without a method of diverting them there is no risk mitigation.”
Detection is not deflection.
NASA needs a mission- this is it. Safeguarding the human race from extinction is the penultimate moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.
This is ultimately about a base on the Moon because nuclear weapon systems to deflect impact threats are not going to be assembled, tested, and launched from Earth orbit. Survivably packaged bomb pits and fissionables for a nuclear propulsion system will have to be transported to the Moon where they can be assembled, tested, and launched.
Fortunately we have a Heavy Lift Vehicle with a powerful escape system soon to be available to transport fissionables and interceptor crews to the Moon.
Make it a multinational operation with manned interceptors from different countries and we can move all the nuclear weapons off the planet and into space. It will cost the same as fleets of bombers and nuclear submarines.
Ron says: March 23, 2013 at 5:14 am
“That is, detection of NEOs is cheap.
Mitigation against a NEO already on its way to Earth, either by blasting it or redirecting it or whatever — that’s expensive.
So it makes sense now to put extra money into detection, not into mitigation.”
First of all an explanation my comment dated March 23, 2013 at 9:04 am was posted before your second post was available for viewing, however your statement “So it makes sense now to put extra money into detection, not into mitigation” deserves some discussion.
To me at least to concentrate on detection only is the equivalent of proving (to your own satisfaction) that your next door neighbor intends to kill you next Tuesday and doing nothing about it except continuing to attempt to try to find out the intentions of your other neighbors.
“Using near-infrared data provided by the WISE spacecraft in 2010 and early 2011, Mainzer et al (2011) were able to determine diameters and albedos for 250 NEAs with a minimum uncertainty of 10% and 20% respectively. Hence they were able to determine the albedo distribution of these objects with known diameters and this distribution was then used to compute diameters for previously known NEOs with known H values but unknown diameters or albedos. They provided an estimate of 981 (±19) NEAs as the total population of NEAs one kilometer and larger. At the time of their analysis (Spring 2011), they also estimated that 911 (±17) of these large NEAs had already been discovered.”
The discovery rate for very large NEOs is going down, even as robotic scopes have become more numerous and more powerful. We’re running out of NEOs > 1km to discover.
With a little bit of extra money for detection over the next decade, we’ll be able to get to the 90% mark for NEOs above 100m. During that time, the risk of getting walloped by a large NEO will be almost infinitesimally small.
You’ve got to include probabilities in your mental computations.
“Our journey will require the government to embrace fundamental changes in its management
and organization. This exploration vision must be discovery driven – and it must certainly
necessitate placing greater reliance on the private sector. We should take advantage of this unique
opportunity to inspire our youth, motivate our teachers and improve math, science, and engineering
education for our future workforce.”
Signed by two of my favorite scientists- Paul Spudis and Neil DeGrasse Tyson- the Aldridge commission made some interesting recommendations.
Perhaps the concepts of fundamental change and discovery-driven-vision ten years ago may be reinterpreted now in light of following developments?
The mini-sar radar that detected hundreds of millions of tons of ice on the Moon, the mounting evidence of an impact threat that is essentially random, and the realization that cosmic radiation is the showstopper for Human SpaceFlight Beyond Earth and Lunar orbit; IMO these factors change the situation from one of voluntary exploration to mandatory self-defense.
Without the ice on the Moon and with no appreciation of the impact threat, the difficulties involved in establishing a Moon base were problematic.The long ignored cosmic radiation hazards also made long duration deep space missions with humans a far more difficult enterprise.
“Greater reliance on the private sector” was to morph into the private space tourism inspired cheaper-smaller-is-better flexible path which IMO has in the public eye has certainly turned NASA into a pseudo space agency. The absolute bottom line of all this talk of profit driven private space activity is that impact crater in Mexico I mentioned in a previous comment; private space is not going to deflect any dinosaur killers on a budget.
Sending unmanned interceptors to stop doomsday is not the optimum solution considering the track record of star wars; if any mission needs a human crew it is impact deflection. Unlike a certain movie such a mission cannot be put together in a couple weeks or even months. A couple thousand megatons precisely applied several hundred million miles away will require many years of preparation. Every minute we wait is natural selection at work.
The ice on the Moon made a massive water filled cosmic radiation shield for a spaceship practical and the isolation of the Moon from the Earth’s magnetosphere makes a Moon base the only practical place to safely play with nukes for both deflection and propulsion.
What makes sense is spending money- vast amounts of money- on a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages to take us to the Moon ten times a year so we do not end up like the dinosaurs. We could get hit tomorrow and then the next day and on the scale of geologic time it would just be a blip on that convenient probability curve; but there would be no one left to say “Wow, what were the chances of that happening?” Kind of like the recent events.
Of course I have said most of this before in other comments and I sincerely thank Dr. Spudis for the opportunity to express my opinion, I do think this is important- not trivial in any sense.
Gary Church
OK, I’ve let everyone have the their say, but this discussion ends here.
To be clear once and for all: I am not interested in asteroid interdiction and I will not host an endless discussion of it on my blog. Please take this conversation elsewhere.