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Comments: 151 +- Science: White House Panel Considers New Paths To Space on Sunday June 21 2009, @07:03AM
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kdawson
on Sunday June 21 2009, @07:03AM
from the leave-it-to-yoyodyne dept.
from the leave-it-to-yoyodyne dept.
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Neil H. writes "The White House's Human Space Flight Plans blue-ribbon panel (the 'Augustine panel') has posted the material from their first public meeting on the future of NASA's spaceflight program, which was held on Wednesday. NASA officials presented their Ares I rocket plans and their belief that they can work around its design flaws, with projected development costs ballooning to $35 billion. The panel also heard several alternative proposals, such as adapting already-existing EELV and SpaceX rockets to carry crew to orbit; these proposals would have better safety margins than the Ares I, be ready sooner, and cost NASA less than $2 billion to complete, but are politically unattractive."
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Men on the moon (Score:5, Insightful)
We really ought to be way past the phase of getting wet in the crotch about putting a man on the moon. We've got the t-shirt already.
What we ought to be looking at is beginning construction of a moon base and the development of the infrastructure to perform longhaul transport back and forth from the Earth to the Moon. That means both reusable capsule technology and low-cost fuel.
If the original space race taught us anything, it's that there is a lot of prestige in doing the impossible. Putting a man into orbit is now not impossible. Putting a man on the moon is now not impossible. It's time to look beyond that towards building habitats elsewhere.
Re:Men on the moon (Score:5, Insightful)
"there is a lot of prestige in doing the impossible"
Not only prestige: there is awesome a lot of money for those who invent the Next Industry. Had Minutemen not needed guidance systems, we could be using teletypes connected over phone lines to big mainframes.
We need simple, cheap and reliable heavy-lift vehicles. über Saturn V's running on cheap fuel made from aircraft-grade parts. And putting a man on the Moon is not impossible, but making him stay for 6 months has never been done before. Only a dozen guys have that t-shirt.
Parent
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A lunar colony with little to no near future return on inve
Re:Men on the moon (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, maybe we need to open the definition of "value" a bit. If you add up the total US dollar value of the last 10 blockbuster movies made by Hollywood that might even get you close to paying for a manned Mars mission. Maybe it is a bit unseemly to sell space exploration as "entertainment" but we have been doing it as fiction for 100s of years. Why not do it as non-fiction?
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Re:Men on the moon (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuel costs are at the level of noise in the costs of running a rocket. Liquid hydrogen costs $3-$4 per kilogram. The shuttle goes through 10600 kg of liquid hydrogen, so thats only $40,000. Liquid oxygen is about ten cents a kilogram, or $60,000 per launch. It costs an average of $450,000,000 to launch a shuttle, so even if fuel prices quadrupled, they'd still be less than 1% of the total cost of a launch.
The problem with the fuel is that it is in the wrong location. We need fuel depots in strategic orbits: Low Earth Orbit, Lunar orbit, etc. The bulk of the mass that you lift to do a space mission is fuel, and the more massive the payload, the bigger and more expensive the rocket you need. You may be able to reduce the cost of a mission by launching several smaller rockets rather than a single large rocket.
I agree with the reusability aspect, although I'd rather see an HL-42 [astronautix.com] style crew module rather than the Orion. Ideally, that would only be to "shuttle" the crew from planetside to orbit and back. Once in orbit, they'd go to the Moon or Mars in a much larger Trans-hab/Bigelow styled craft.
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Well, I'm not entirely sure you are correct about the need to put a man on the Moon. You see, it's not us with the t-shirt, it's us wearing our parents' t-shirt. For a lot of us it's grannie's t-shirt.
When China puts a man on the Moon, they'll be making a statement: America doesn't do this sort of thing anymore. They're coasting. Look to us for leadership and vision.
True, doing something that had never been done before would be even better for that purpose, but still they'll be doing something we don
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"What we ought to be looking at is beginning construction of a moon base and the development of the infrastructure to perform longhaul transport back and forth from the Earth to the Moon."
NASA has had a problem since Apollo of plucking a goal out of the air to use as a justification to keep the manned space program alive, without actually setting a goal that really makes sense and is worth doing. We need to figure out a reason or reasons to have a base on the moon, ideally some reasons with some benefits t
I'd rather use NASA money for interesting payloads (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama's economists decided that they need to spend their way out of this recession, and even though Orion would not pass muster by my bang-for-buck standards, it's not the worst way to spend money if spending money is what you're trying to do.
Of course we could do better: We could dream big like JFK and (for the first time since the 60's) try something truly ambitious and expensive. As Americans, it's time we finally accomplish something! Ever since we lost the Vietnam war, we've been complete pussies about big projects. (It doesn't help that when we do try we fail miserably, like when we try to impose Western democracy to Iraq) As far as I can tell, the largest public project recently was the Big Dig in Boston. We can't even rebuild Ground Zero. We act like a country who lost faith in ourselves, in a time when it's very important that the rest of the world has faith in us (and our currency). We lucked into the internet - yes, that was cool, but it wasn't something we deliberately set out to do as a public communication tool.
I think that Obama should just ask to dust off the Titan V blueprints and build factory to produce them on a massive scale. Then use those to lift into space something really cool, like a 100m mirror for a telescope, solar collectors that beam power back to Earth, etc.
ownership (Score:2)
Without it, nobody is interested in space.
Re:ownership (Score:5, Interesting)
There's considerable truth to what you say. However what exactly is being claimed doesn't have to be the space equivalent of real estate.
In the 1960s, a race to claim thenational prestige of doing things first drove the space race. The early goals, being relatively simpler and more closely spaced in an absolute difficulty, encouraged a leapfrog approach to competition. Going to the Moon earned the ultimate "shut your mouth" bragging rights. It was a huge jump, and the Soviets had no chance of beating us to it. All they could do is watch, knowing that sooner or later they'd have to send a message of congratulation to whoever the US president was going to be. The Soviets were forced drop their sights to Earth orbit -- more practical in countless ways, but a loss in the prestige race.
Now I happen remember the Moon landing. I was only eight, but I read the newspaper every day. Not a few folks wondered why we didn't claim the Moon. We were planting our flag there, after all, in the time honored colonial fashion, so in their simple-minded way of looking at things it ought to be ours, fair and square. What those people didn't realize was that if we'd done that, we'd have wasted all the money we spent getting there. We weren't staking a claim to the most barren land ever trod by human feet. We were staking a claim for leadership of our species. Not absolute leadership of course, but a kind of first among equals status. That was worth far more to America than ownership of lunar real estate might have been. The only way to get it was to plant our flag there in the name of all humanity.
One wonders if the course of the Cold War would have gone differently if we had turned the Apollo Program into a land grab. Even decades later, as the great technology transfer program that is the H-1B visa program got into full swing, I'd meet young foreign engineers who were delighted to be in the US, because they imagined America to be the great driver of human technological progress.
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You know, with a 100m magnifying glass in space, we could create a free chicken toasting area right here on earth, thereby reducing the vast global power consumption of McDonalds, KFC, Burger Kings, etc.
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But that would cost us nearly as much as one month of war. Sorry, can't do that. Have to murder people, and be called "a true hero" by everyone. Including the commentators on the Colbert Report full episode site.
Re:I'd rather use NASA money for interesting paylo (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'd rather use NASA money for interesting paylo (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA's highest budget years (in today's dollars) were 1963-69 and topped out at 5.5% of the federal budget. In the 70s this dropped to below 2% then below 1% where it stayed until the late 80s early 90s where it went back to 1%. It then went back down below 1% and has stayed there since. The total cost of Apollo was somewhere around $145b in today's dollars. For comparison the ISS is at about $150b with about $100b of that being paid by the US. The Interstate highway system between 1956 and 1991 cost about
Current NASA Used car salesmen (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me crazy, but as far as I can tell, we're a month away from the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. The bulk of the current population of the earth was born into a world where man had walked on the moon.
And NASA is asking for (another) $35B and a couple years to develop a rocket that can launch humans into space, never mind to the moon? Seriously?
I'm all for space exploration (and exploitation), and I even partake in the probably misguided notion that there is real value in having humans go into space, even though for the most part, it makes more rational sense to have robotic probes go in our place.
But even I have to question the sanity of pouring billions and billions of dollars into an organization so fscked up that they have to reinvent technology they provably had over forty years ago, and who keep losing people and equipment because they refuse to listen to their own engineers.
I grew up admiring NASA and the astronauts, and with a burning desire to be one myself, or at the very least work there, but today I wouldn't buy a used car from the current crop of hacks running the place.
Re:Current NASA Used car salesmen (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not NASA's fault that they lost the technology used to put the first people on the Moon. It's the fault of the government of the USA. They are the ones who set NASA's goals. They killed manned space exploration with the Space Shuttle, which was a compromise designed by committee for the purposes of putting up and bringing down spy satellites and to "build the space station."
After the Challenger disaster (a direct consequence of the Shuttle's poor design), the spy satellites went up on different vehicles.
How long did it take them to design a space station? It must have been the better part of a decade that they spent arguing about it before any of it got built.
As people keep saying, they could have build it with about 3 launches of a Saturn V.
The space shuttle is an over-engineered, fragile, over-complicated, unreliable piece of design by politics. It's an exemplary lesson in how not to design things.
Politicians, as usual, ruined manned space exploration.
But why should it be up to the Americans on their own to put human beings in space? Yes, Russia and China have done it, but I'm very ashamed that ESA hasn't done it yet.
If China were to announce plans for a semi-permanently staffed Moon base by 2022, say, things would become interesting again. Go China.
Russia should not be overlooked too. They have huge gas reserves, and if they stop being aggressive towards their potential customers, they could make huge amounts of money out of it to fund their space programme.
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"I'm very ashamed that ESA hasn't done it yet."
Don't be. LEO is a very boring place for humans to be. Until there is a credible way to go somewhere (hint: the Moon) there is little reason for humans in space.
Or, perhaps, a satellite repair crew could be stationed in LEO and operate a fleet of unmanned tugs to bring back and forth damaged satellites for refurbishing. I am sure the math would not work out at first, but it would be an insanely cool thing to try.
And, if we develop the cheap launch technology, i
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It's not NASA's fault that they lost the technology used to put the first people on the Moon. It's the fault of the government of the USA. They are the ones who set NASA's goals. They killed manned space exploration with the Space Shuttle, which was a compromise designed by committee for the purposes of putting up and bringing down spy satellites and to "build the space station."
Nonsense. NASA wasn't some powerless orphan pushed around by bigger forces. They were the only ones who really understood what they were doing. The Apollo program worked as advertised and possibly ended later than planned (after all, once someone walks on the Moon you've satisfied all the requirements laid out at the beginning by Kennedy!). Sure they didn't have the ability to retain their cushy Apollo era budget, but Congress didn't force them to design a vehicle that only made sense with an Apollo era bud
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The "spy satellite" capability only was needed when NASA's vehicle became so big that they couldn't fund it solely with NASA funds.
I understood part of the shuttle design had 'input' from the military who demanded it be big enough to launch spy satellites. NASA wanted a smaller one for crew.
Ambitions have changed since 1969 (Score:3, Interesting)
But even I have to question the sanity of pouring billions and billions of dollars into an organization so fscked up that they have to reinvent technology they provably had over forty years ago, and who keep losing people and equipment because they refuse to listen to their own engineers.
Standards have changed since 1969. The Apollo programme was expensive and dangerous. Building another Apollo mission today would still be expensive and dangerous, and worst of all it wouldn't meet modern ambitions. NASA is looking at building an inhabited lunar outpost, visiting an asteroid, launching a large deep-space telescope, and a mission to Mars. It might be a short hop from the Moon to Mars on a poster of the solar system; in real space it's a whole different prospect. Doing new stuff requires
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Standards have changed since 1969. The Apollo programme was expensive and dangerous. Building another Apollo mission today would still be expensive and dangerous, and worst of all it wouldn't meet modern ambitions. NASA is looking at building an inhabited lunar outpost, visiting an asteroid, launching a large deep-space telescope, and a mission to Mars. It might be a short hop from the Moon to Mars on a poster of the solar system; in real space it's a whole different prospect. Doing new stuff requires new technology.
The irony here is that if the US had launched Saturn V's all along, they'd already have this, probably back in the late 80s. Bending metal and launching the vehicle in question is a more certain routine to safe and reliable launch vehicles than paper rockets like the Ares V.
My view is scrap the Shuttle after completion of the ISS and develop manned versions of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (or EELV) Atlas V Heavy and Delta IV Heavy (breaking up the ULA in the process). Develop orbital propellant
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"it makes more rational sense to have robotic probes"
No robotic probe can tell you how it "feels" to be there. A robotic probe is a machine. A manned spacecraft is a part of Humanity.
But, about pouring billions into NASA... Well... I seems like they lost their mojo. They need to reinvent themselves, be willing to take risks more smartly (it took over 100 flights, 7 deaths and a lost spacecraft for someone to even look at what kind of damage a shuttle takes on launch? Seriously?).
I guess NASA needs more test
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with NASA is that it has been hobbled by the past several administrations. NASA simply does not have enough money to do what it is supposed to do. This is particularly true with Bush's vision for space exploration. He wanted NASA to develop a new launch architecture, build a Moon base, and send people to Mars, all with the current level of funding. It is hardly surprising that things are not working. As Scotty might say... Ye canna change the laws of economics.
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Well, there is truth to that, but it is not the underlying problem. The underlying problem is the lack of funding, and underlying that (which I did not mention in my original post) is the lack of a well-thought-out vision of what NASA is supposed to be doing. The NASA-is-a-bad-bureaucracy story is largely a myth. I have worked in many large organizations and NASA (where I currently work) is no worse than many others. The problem with the bureaucracy at NASA is that NASA has been in a holding pattern for
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Give me $499m. I'll get 'em there.
Oh, you mean... in working order?
If we have to choose (Score:5, Interesting)
If we have to make a choice between health care and building a moon base, I say go with the less expensive lift vehicles and health care.
The moon base will just have to wait.
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Re:If we have to choose (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Science can make health care better. Health care can not make science better.
Also, with 6.7 billion people on earth, who cares if 10% of them die? We reproduce quicker than anyone can kill us. Remember when we were at 6.0 billion?
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Health care problems don't require funding, they require the political courage to fix regulations.
If only we had that choice. (Score:2)
The big problem with health care spending is rising faster than inflation. In a country where over 15% of the GDP is spent on health care, that ought to concern us. It's projected to hit 17% of GDP very soon.
A simple minded projection would have us spending 1/5 of every dollar created on health care within a decade; 1/3 in about 25 years; 1/2 some time in the 2050s.
Of course that won't happen. The economy will collapse well before then, if it isn't doing so now. There are basically two options: crash a
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Stephen Baxter predicted these times a decade ago. (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also no small mention of how asteroids are flying goldmines. If we want to head off-planet, it would be wise to take advantage of resources that aren't already at the bottom of a gravity well that costs what, $30,000/lb. to LEO?
Buzz Aldrin thinks the moon is a waste of time (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/magazine/21fob-q4-t.html?ref=magazine [nytimes.com]
NASA is just not that expensive. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a lot of people are down on the idea of sending people to the moon, or to mars, or to any other place outside of earth's gravity, for the sake of doing so. I think that is exactly why we should do something. In the short term, there is no logical reason to put people in space. But in the long run, we know that we must go there, and thus, we must make halting, childlike, inefficient steps to learn how to get there.
As a species, our first craft to traverse the waters with were not 70,000 ton container ships, 100,000 ton aircraft carriers, or 200,000 ton oil tankers. Most likely it was a crude piece of wood that floated. Later, we would learn to hollow things out, or put pieces of wood together. It took us many years to get from those days to now.
There does not need to be a contest of manned exploration versus unmanned science. At most we are quibbling about an additional 5 to 10 billion dollars per year. Out of a federal budget of several trillion dollars, this is chump change. I would shocked to find that as we have achieved some sort of victory in Iraq, we cannot use some of the nearly 700 billion dollars a year in military spending for this purpose.
Fix the invisible hand (Score:2)
What I learned is that Adam Smith's invisible hand is broken -- although technosocialism like the Shuttle program is even worse.
So fix the invisible hand by reforming government to attend to its real business: Paying out citizens dividends under the social contract that brings us together to protect property rights that would not exist in the absence of that social contract. As with any dividend stream, there is an optimum for the s
Politically Unattractive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Politically unattractive is the idea of depending on the Soyuz to get to the ISS while we continue to develop a new launch vehicle that by any reasonable metric should be done by now.
I'm a huge fan of the Russian space program, but I also feel that it's a matter of national pride to have our own crew launch vehicle(s). If NASA is incapable and commercial interests can step up, then let's go with commercial interests - bidding out to American companies means it's still an American project; an American "win."
What's more attractive - sending US Astronauts into space on a SpaceX or Scaled Composites launch vehicle, or bidding for space on a Soyuz launch (at over $40 million a seat) while bureaucrats continue to insist Ares/Orion will work?
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As soon as you invent the materials. Now, turn off your computer and get back to your lab.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Come now. He didn't say it needed to be a BIG space elevator.
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Well, yeah, if you brought the sun down to the surface of the earth, it might provide enough power to do what you're proposing. The side-effects might be a problem, though.
The power of a magnetic field falls off exponentially with distance. Even if you could shape your field in such a way that all the leakage doesn't fry electronics for hundreds of miles around, you'd still
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Without getting into the energy requirements ... the most obvious problem I can think of is the change in tidal forces. You'd be changing not only the strength of the gravitational influence between the two bodies, but also the orbital velocity of the moon. I don't have any numbers to back me up here, but it seems quite likely that you'd wipe out half the planet in the process.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If you try hard enough down also works. *ducks*
Re:"New Paths" (Score:4, Funny)
We should conquer Australia for their strategic "down" path to space.
Parent
Re:"New Paths" (Score:5, Funny)
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