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Comments: 205 +- Science: NASA Hedges Their Bets On Return To Moon on Monday July 06, @05:40AM
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by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday July 06, @05:40AM
from the never-win-big-from-playing-it-safe dept.
from the never-win-big-from-playing-it-safe dept.
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With budget cuts in the works for everyone these days, NASA has decided to float an alternate plan for returning to the moon that is just a little bit cheaper than the current proposal. Of course, the new option would be very reminiscent of the old Apollo space capsule instead of the tricked out shuttle currently planned. "Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion. This cheaper option is not as powerful as NASA's current design with its fancy new rockets, the people-carrying Ares I and cargo-lifting Ares V. But the cut-rate plan would still get to the moon."
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-- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"
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Oh please (Score:5, Interesting)
Sigh, they're not hedging their bets. Shannon thought it was interesting, so his team studied it. That's all. This is what people at NASA do. It's their job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDGBxP3rYWw [youtube.com]
"It is a small effort, it hasn't been looked at across NASA, because we already have a plan: Constellation. I think we should fund the plan."
The point of Shannon's presentation was to say exactly what he says at the beginning of that video. NASA is *always* looking at *all* the options and the DIRECT people are just, simply, wrong; that's why no-one is interested in their shit. Not because there is some great big conspiracy to quash their option.. but because the mission requires a Saturn class or bigger vehicle. NASA has been given the mission to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon, use in-situ resources and stay there permanently.. then move on to Mars. You're not going to land an outpost on the Moon with a 70mt launcher, and you're definitely not going to go to Mars with that.
Re:Oh please (Score:4, Informative)
> NASA is *always* looking at *all* the options and the DIRECT people are just, simply, wrong;
Uhhh, ok.
> but because the mission requires a Saturn class or bigger vehicle
A vehicle that already exists in the majority, and the part that doesn't is much smaller than even Ares I . THAT'S the difference between DIRECT and Ares. Complaining about "their shit" and failing to mention this point is either bad politics or the height of stupidity.
Maury
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Re:Oh please (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right, the codeword for that is "assured access to space" :)
COTS-D will provide that.. assuming it ever gets the funding. My personal opinion is that NASA is waiting for Orbital Sciences to pull their finger out.
meh.... (Score:4, Funny)
why not just outsource it to China....
Outsource it (Score:3, Funny)
You know it makes sense. India or China could do it much cheaper. I'm sure they will be more than happy to stick a Stars and Stripes flag on the moon for you. And from this distance you won't even be able to see the 'Made in China' stamp on the flag.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Obsolescence. Many of the parts used in those old designs are no longer available, and it would cost far more to try and get those production lines spooled up (probably 3/4 of the production lines used to make electronic components for the old Apollo series computers are now EPA Superfund sites...) than to create a completely new design.
Getting TO the moon is easy (Score:5, Interesting)
I love the idea that this is some how shocking.
"NASA investigates other options and doesn't look at problem in blinkered and myopic way" - News at 11.
NASA always looks at these ideas and then normally decides that either the risk profile is too high (the most impressive thing about the first moon landings were the LACK of deaths) or that it just doesn't stack up as something that will deliver the overall objectives.
Hell in theory a great big Trebuchet could get someone to the moon, pretty one way mission though. The challenge here is to get someone to the moon, return them safely to earth and to establish a base on the moon. This is a HUGE challenge and one where a government agency has to do so at levels of safety that a commercial organisation wouldn't bother to meet.
When people bitch and moan about the price then that is fair enough, but please lets be honest here. Getting to the moon remains a HARD problem, the Chinese are going to take a long bunch of years to get there, and you can't solve hard problems with CostCo models. Either the aim is to go to the moon or not. The price comes from the aim and ambition not because NASA act like congress after pork.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
NASA always looks at these ideas and then normally decides that either the risk profile is too high (the most impressive thing about the first moon landings were the LACK of deaths)...
The Apollo porgram lost three astronaunts.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA always looks at these ideas and then normally decides that either the risk profile is too high (the most impressive thing about the first moon landings were the LACK of deaths)...
The Apollo porgram lost three astronaunts.
Which I think shows the point of the OP quite well. That considered is quite a lack of death really given what they were doing.
Re:Getting TO the moon is easy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re-reading the recent influx of 40th annivesary articles about the Appollo program, on every level the success of the moon landings seems absolutely incredible. The more I read, the more my mind boggles at how touch-and-go the whole escapade was. Just watching the LLRV test flights [youtube.com] makes me wonder what the hell was going through their minds at a time when they didn't even know what the surface of the moon was made of.
The more you investigate this subject, the more you realise that modern technology doesn't contribute that much to this gargantuan task. It's just brains, ideas and some sort of test-pilot 6th sense.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell in theory a great big Trebuchet could get someone to the moon...
While I agree it's a great acheivement to get people to the moon AND back, I think you're understating the challenge of hitting an object 382500 km away and moving at 3600 km/h relative to the earth. That's not a bet I'd like to take.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think either the acceleration from the trebuchet or the subsequent burning up in the atmosphere on the way up would make decelerating into moon orbit a moot point.
Unless, of course, your trebuchet is several kilometers high and you can clear most of the atmosphere while being accelerated by the thing.
Hm. I wonder if we'll ever
Re:Getting TO the moon is easy (Score:4, Funny)
But what if we don't want the moon to explode as soon as they land on it?
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Earth or Lunar orbit? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the characters says that by doing that the US had foregone the availability of a space station. It is interesting that the fallback plan goes in that direction, because it could be relatively easy to have the cargo craft double as a lorry to the ISS.
Re:Earth or Lunar orbit? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:4, Insightful)
If a meaningful mission would cost too much now, there's no shame in waiting for the technology to became more mature.
But you must also remember that technology doesn't just mature on your own, especially if it's something specialized. If this were a matter of computing power or technology, for example, you actually could just wait, since there are enough other pressures driving its development to keep it moving. But things like deep-space propulsion, closed-cycle life support systems, and vacuum-qualified hardware are pretty specific to the space industry; if you don't pay to keep developing them, they won't mature.
And even then, you'll still need to use them and test them on occasion. Doing so probably involves flying some kind of mission. And if you're going to be doing that, you might as well accomplish other stuff on that mission, like, oh, land on the moon.
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Re:Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, exactly. All those people who talk about how freakin' pointless the ISS was will completely forget about everything that was learnt about living safely in a vacuum when we start permanently living on the Moon. Then when people are saying how pointless the permanently manned outpost on the Moon is, they'll say the ISS was doing the really important research that we needed for a Mars transit mission. Then when the astronauts land on Mars those same people will say that, actually, it was all the research NASA did into making better aircraft and studying biconic aerodynamics that mattered. Then they'll say, no, no, it actually *was* all that research that was done on the Moon that is now being used to build a Mars base.. wow, it's so obvious now! Then they'll discover life on Mars and go, shit, I guess those 4 independent instruments on Viking that said there was life in the Mars soil actually were right - guess we wasted years of effort to discover what we already knew but were unwilling to accept. But by then it'll be too late, suckers!
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Re:Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:4, Insightful)
Add the latest Hubble maintenance mission to the list. That was an exercise in doing repairs while in space, without the dire consequences (apart from a few hundred million bucks) if it failed.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh yeah, it also showed how completely ridiculous the idea of on-orbit assembly remains. I'd love it if it wasn't true. We could launch up parts, assemble them into some giant battlestar galactica type ship and fly around the solar system in style. But the reality is, just pulling some parts out and putting some new ones in took hours and hours of grueling labor. We really need better suits, with better gloves, and the Moon shot will motivate that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But the reality is, just pulling some parts out and putting some new ones in took hours and hours of grueling labor.
Are you talking about Hubble or the ISS now? Hubble was never meant to be serviced in space, that's why it was such a pain in the rear to do so. The ISS was designed to be modular, and they've been quite successful at adding new modules to it.
Re:Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:5, Insightful)
And that gets right back to my point: You learn by doing , not by making powerpoint slides.
Go back to the first US spacewalks during the Gemini program. Ed White's wasn't too bad, as he was just floating around and didn't have to try and work on things. But the next couple, where the astronauts were given tasks like remove sample packages and mess with tools, were almost scary--they quickly worked themselves into exhaustion and overheated, making work almost impossible. What everyone thought would be easy and relatively effortless actually wasn't.
Finally, they took all of those lessons and re-figured their approach to spacewalking. Handholds were added, equipment was changed, and the training was revolutionized with the now-standard underwater practice. On Gemini XII, Buzz Aldrin put all of that into practice.
The same thing will happen as we move forward. The lessons learned from the Apollo surface EVAs will be incorporated in the new generation of surface suits. Those currently in use for shuttle EVAs have benefited from years of previous experience capturing satellites and working on Hubble. New tools and work methods build on the ones used before.
So yes, develop your new suits and gloves with feedback from the men and women who use them. Make prototypes, and test them. Build flight-ready ones and have someone try them out in a vacuum chamber. Lather, rinse, repeat. But don't just sit on your butt and expect it to happen from nothing. If you want the tech to improve, you still have to pay for it--and I think that's what so many people are missing.
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Re:Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:4, Insightful)
A flight to Titan in ten years would be about as difficult as going to the moon in 1965.
What, did the distance to Titan shrink in thae last 45 years? There are many orders of magnitude of difference in the complexity of sustaining astronauts for a one-week journey vs. getting them (alive) to some place as far away as Titan. It's nice to have ambition, but the the laws of physics are a motherfucker.
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Re:Do it well or don't do it at all (Score:4, Interesting)
Energy supply is the biggest problem out around Saturn so we would have to lose our phobia about operating fission reactors in space. Ion drives have very high specific impulse. With enough power it should be able to push a manned spacecraft. I also think we should look into building a hybrid fission/ion drive. In theory you could go:
Fission -> electricity -> ion propulsion
But since a lot of the energy in an ion drive is used to ionise the reaction mass, and since fission reactors are so good at ionising things I suggest we look at directly ionising xenon with gamma rays.
Anyway I think it is worth doing. Imagine how hard the lunar flight must have seemed in 1960.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Energy supply is the biggest problem out around Saturn so we would have to lose our phobia about operating fission reactors in space. Ion drives have very high specific impulse. With enough power it should be able to push a manned spacecraft. I also think we should look into building a hybrid fission/ion drive. In theory you could go:
The problem here is shielding. If you stick a fission reactor on an unmanned craft, you can get away with much less shielding than if you stick it on a manned craft. And with more shielding comes more weight.
I would use the classic Discovery 1 configuration. Put the reactors and engines out on a truss. The primary radiation shield only has to stop radiation which would reach the hab module. Secondary shielding would be the water stored in the walls of the hab module. But I agree that shielding would be a real challenge.
Hmmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Brooks of The Mythical Man-Month fame has a name for that--"The Second System Effect". Rather than paraphrase, I'll just quote the book:
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bingo. The ultimate goal should be a colony that is capable of growing without further input of matter or energy from earth. In the interim a base would be necessary to sort out the bugs and get proof of concept. There are probably many other things that can generate the know-how on earth for a fraction of the price.
Error in summary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the new option would be very reminiscent of the old Apollo space capsule instead of the tricked out shuttle currently planned.
Methinks that even the author didn't RTFA... The shuttle-based plan is the new contingiency plan. And both plans would involve the same "Apollo-like" Orion capsules. I guess that if no one else does, then its misguided to even expect authors to RTFA?
The worrying part of this design is that the same orion capsule would be only able to carry 2 astronauts at a time during launch, presumably due to fuel constraints. While the rest of it sounds like a pretty reasonable bet, this bit just makes me think "well what's the point?"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a fuel constraint. This "new" Shuttle Derived Heavly Lift Vehicle plan is essentially the Shuttle C cargo-only design that they looked at a few decades back. They've stuck the manned Orion capsule and support module in the cargo container... It simply does not have the lift capacity to put something big enough into trans-lunar orbit. If they cut the crew back to two, and cut all the associated equipment requirements, it barely gets you there. Shuttle hardware was designed to be single stage to
Re:Error in summary? (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV, and you'll have to pay for the privilege and gift the ULA new launch facilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2m-UoOM7eg). Alternately, you could fund COTS-D and have a manned vehicle from SpaceX in 2.5 years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81Zq02eStg). If you gifted SpaceX the launch escape system you can have a manned vehicle next year (I totally just made that up, but it makes sense to me). That said, if you cut Ares I now you're cutting Ares V. Ares I is "behind schedule" because they're working on the 5-segment solid stack. Without that the Ares V won't fly either.. so, sooner or later they have to do this work. Hopefully after the Ares I-X flight test (which, btw, will be a 4 segment solid stack, I know, wtf) people will stop armchair quarterbacking and just let NASA do their freakin' job.
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Re:Error in summary? (Score:5, Interesting)
It'll take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV, and you'll have to pay for the privilege and gift the ULA new launch facilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2m-UoOM7eg).
5.5 years and paying for the priveledge... Apply that to SpaceX please and tell me how that affects your suggestion. You pay for the priveledge anyway. NASA does not build it's own launch vehicles. Even the shuttle, which is a NASA design, was built and is maintained by an army of contractors. Engines are supplied by Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne. Boosters by ATK. Tanks by Lockheed-Martin. and so on. For what it's worth, it probably won't take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV. That, in their own words, is a conservative estimate. It could certainly happen faster. It, honestly, could take longer. Yes, ULA launch facilities are inadequate for manned vehicle launch. Existing shuttle facilities won't work for Ares I or Ares V either. Either way, you have to upgrade the facilities you have.
Alternately, you could fund COTS-D and have a manned vehicle from SpaceX in 2.5 years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81Zq02eStg). If you gifted SpaceX the launch escape system you can have a manned vehicle next year (I totally just made that up, but it makes sense to me).
SpaceX is clearly well on there way. They have, however, set extremely optimistic schedules and have not done significant work to man-rate the platform or the Dragon module. I fully expect them to be performing their COTS ISS supply mission in the next year or two but I don't put as much faith into their ability to scale up to putting people into LEO as quickly as they say they can. That issue was brought up during the Augustine Commission hearing. Gifting the launch escape system to SpaceX won't work -- it's designed for Orion, not Dragon. It would need to be redesigned for use there. Oh, btw, don't take me to task and then use "just made that up" in your reply
That said, if you cut Ares I now you're cutting Ares V. Ares I is "behind schedule" because they're working on the 5-segment solid stack. Without that the Ares V won't fly either.. so, sooner or later they have to do this work
Ares 1 isn't behind because of the 5-segment stack. It's been ground tested. It works. It's behind because there are vibration issues requiring redesign of the 5-segment stack and interstage. These vibration issues are present in the 4-segment stack as well but are damped by the mass of the shuttle system. These changes are specifically required for the Ares I use and would not affect Ares 5, which I'll get back to... There are also limitations on mass, which have required additional engineering on the Orion and a cut in the number of people carried to LEO. A single booster, while it generates a lot of thrust, has insufficient capability to carry a heavy manned vehicle to LEO. I'm aware that the current Ares V design requires the booster; and, that cutting Ares 1 development moves some of the booster development cost to Ares V. For what it's worth, this applies to your previous suggestion to use SpaceX COTS capability as well. I'm suggesting that using the booster in the Ares I configuration to launch people to LEO is a poor plan. The only big issue here is, what happens if the manufacture of the SSRB's is shut down for a while.
I only wish I was armchair quarterbacking... Never mind.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It'll take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV, and you'll have to pay for the privilege and gift the ULA new launch facilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2m-UoOM7eg). Alternately, you could fund COTS-D and have a manned vehicle from SpaceX in 2.5 years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81Zq02eStg).
OTOH, with the Delta IV and the ULA, you'll have a manned launch vehicle in 2.5 years, while you might have one in 5.5 years from SpaceX. What? My prediction doesn't agree with your prediction? Well that's the fun of making predictions when you have no information on which to base those predictions.
If only they hadn't spent all their money (Score:3, Funny)
alternate plan for returning to the moon (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory: have to really ask (Score:3, Funny)
Summary is wrong (Score:3, Informative)
The summary is quite incorrect. The current Ares plan has NOTHING to do with a "tricked out shuttle", but is in fact FAR MORE like the Apollo/Saturn program than the cheaper, alternate plan shown in the article. The alternate plan is to utilize a modified form of the Shuttle launch system, but without a shuttle, instead opting to put modules on top of the external tank instead of alongside it. Obviously some sort of engine mount would be needed on the bottom.
Re:Um, why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because robots are completely incapable of doing the task.
The fantastic work of Spirit and Opportunity could have been done by a competent field geologist in an afternoon.. remember that is the ultimate goal of the VSE, put humans on Mars by learning how to support them permanently on the Moon.
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Re:Um, why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, what? I must have missed the part where the necessary hardware to build super intelligent robots was invented 40 years ago and then left out in the rain.
No new science is needed to put humans on Mars. It's an engineering challenge that we can plan out and do. With a sufficiently interested public it could be done in 10 years. It'll most likely take 25 instead.
On the other hand, we've been fiddling around with AI for over 50 years and have no freakin' idea how far we have to go. So far we can't even make a robot with the same capabilities as a 18 month old toddler.
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Re:Um, why? (Score:5, Funny)
Your 18 month old has an oven in it?
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Re:Um, why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why people... Let's see. The ultimate goal of the program, as stated by Pres. Bush, is to put a man on Mars.
Using the most energetic path we have available, Mars is over 3 months away. Assuming the nuclear power plant is out, then the time to Mars is closer to 9 months with an ion/vasimr engine; or, 18 months coasting.
IF you're going to send people to Mars, it seems like a good idea to test your equipment and get some practical experience living in a little (Mars) or no (Moon) atmosphere, low gravity, high incident solar radiation environment with dust that can best be described using the word "evil". If you can help it, you want to do this as close to help as possible in case something goes wrong. The Moon is 3 days from Earth.
Now someone is about to post the comment whose premise is "The Moon is NOT Mars!" I'm aware of that. So is NASA. Mars has a toxic atmosphere (0.01% Earth pressure, primarily CO2). Mars has water vapor, condensation, and ice, all of which affect equipment and all of which the Moon lacks. Martian dust is not Lunar dust (you could argue Lunar dust is more evil). Martian gravity (1/3G) is higher than Lunar gravity (1/6G). There's still a lot of commonality, enough to gain valuable experience testing equipment and methodologies. It would not be much help to our astronauts if we send them to Mars with equipment that fails within hours, or send them with a survival plan that's unworkable. Especially if those problems could have been found with a little testing.
For what it's worth, I think we will get to Mars; but, it's going to be 30 to 50 years, not the 20-25 former Pres. Bush was arguing for.
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Re:Um, why? (Score:4, Informative)
Err ... the atmosphere of Mars is hardly toxic. The partial pressure of CO2 isn't anywhere near levels required for toxicity. Of course, it doesn't contain oxygen in the partial pressure range required by humans, but that makes it about as toxic as breathing a mix of 99.9% Nitrogen and 0.1% CO2. Fatal, yes, but not because of anything toxic in the gas mixture.
If you want toxic, try everyone's favorite hellhole, Venus. Sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc. But of course, if you happen land on Venus, toxic compounds in the atmosphere are going to be the least of your worries.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Um, why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you also think about how much more successful a human being could be in dealing with the little problems that pop up during a mission, like getting clumpy soil samples into an analyzer or getting stuck in the sand?
Not to mention being able to move a few miles per day, not per year.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Um, why? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Um, why? (Score:5, Insightful)
They, of course, have not the slightest clue how difficult (probably impossible with current technology) it would be to live on the Moon or Mars.
That's exactly the mission NASA has been tasked with: figure out how to live off the Moon, and then Mars.
As for the question of Why, well that's also been addressed. "We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills." [wikisource.org] If you want to know what a America would look like without NASA, just take one look at my country, Australia. If you train to be an aeronautical engineer here you might as well start looking for a job overseas at graduation time.. cause our aerospace industry is non-existent. That has knock-on effects in every other industry.
NASA == high tech and there's no higher tech than manned space flight. The challenge is the journey and the destination.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
umm.. everything on the Shuttle set the state of the art. More information than you ever wanted to know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiYhQtGpRhc [youtube.com]
Enjoy.