Future of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Looks Bleak 452
coondoggie writes "Things don't look good for NASA when the report outlining its future begins: 'The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. [NASA] is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations.' Today the Augustine Commission handed to the White House the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report, after months of expert review and testimony. Many observers expected a bleak report, but ultimately the future of US manned space flight will hinge on how the report's conclusions are interpreted. Keep in mind too that NASA has spent almost $8 billion of a planned $40 billion to develop systems for a return to the Moon."
Baseline shuttle extension (Score:5, Interesting)
All the options presented to the White House will include shuttle extension in one form or another, however only Option 4B extends the shuttle beyond 2011 (you may remember the shuttle program was supposed to end in 2010). The arguments for extending the ISS beyond the currently deorbit date of 2016 are very attractive. It seems likely that US support for the station will continue until 2020, at least. With ISS extension comes commercial crew to orbit, but the committee seems convinced that this capability will not be available before 2015.
The administration needs to make 3 decisions:
* Get out of LEO or not. This is a non-decision, they have to or there's no program.
* Extend the shuttle to 2015 or not. This is an unlikely decision, the production lines are closed, restarting them is incredibly expensive.
* Return to the Moon or not. The whole "flexible path" thing is gaining traction, but its basically just a nice way of saying don't go anywhere, or stay there.. and the political capital of going back ot the Moon remains strong. In my mind this is a non-decision, we're going back to the Moon and on to Mars.
And so, with that I feel confident in saying that the White House will choose option 4A, in form if not in name, probably with some bonus thing tacked on the side.
Keep in mind (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah. And, when NASA spent all the money on the X-33 [wikipedia.org] they ended up with nothing to show for it.
Post-Apollo, NASA has a poor track record of developing new launch systems. I'm certain there are many bright and dedicated engineers at NASA, but as a collective organization, NASA just sucks at developing new launch systems.
I propose we take the remaining $32 billion that NASA hasn't spent yet, and deposit it in a bank somewhere. The first American company that lands human beings on the moon, keeps them there for one day, and returns them to Earth can collect $20 billion. The second company that does this can collect $10 billion. The third can have the last $2 billion.
No money will be paid for designs or plans, no matter how sincere. Only results will be paid.
It would be even better still if there were bounties for a useful space station (with fuel tanks and other infrastructure) to encourage solving the problem in a long-term way, rather than an Apollo-style pure race to the moon. These bounties should all be tax-free, of course.
I am 100% confident that bounties like this would result in America developing manned spaceflight capability. If we keep giving money to NASA bureaucrats to spread around to the military-industrial complex, I am less than 100% confident.
steveha
Re:How can you... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, arguably, a nation that doesn't turn a profit will see things like -- well, like last year. Yes, I know that's an oversimplification, but still. If you let the nation's economy go down the tubes, it will have pretty bad effects.
Having said that, I have personally a strong belief in non-profit scientific expenditures. And if the US wants to maintain its role as a superpower, there is really no alternative. It has to produce some results -- not just profit -- if it wants to be seen as the leader of the world.
I had a feeling this was coming... (Score:5, Interesting)
When the shuttle program ends, it will be the end of the US manned space flight program. People have been asking why are when spending $X (what seems like a really big number) on manned space flight when we've been there, done that, and have Y number of problems still back on earth. This has been going on since Apollo 11. We stop sending people to space, people won't miss it. NASA may continue to fund some great robotic programs, but it doesn't capture the public's mind. And if they can't do that, they'll find their budget dwindle a little more each year. How many people, outside of slashdot, really care that the Mars Rovers are still going how many years later? And I think it barely survived the last budget cut. Even then you get into the politics of , "Yeah, it maybe doing something, but your eating up $Z dollars that could be funding my new flashy thingy!".
Back in the 1960's, NASA had a mission. Since they completed that mission, they've been floundering in the wind. They still done a lot of good work, but they've not really had a well defined goal to reach since 1969.
And as far as costs go, what is NASA's budget, $18B or there abouts. Didn't the Federal Government just give the state of New York $18B to improve the IT department of the states health services.
Re:Stop sending humans... (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason would be thinking really long term. As in, on a scale of hundreds, maybe thousands of years.
No, of course sending people to the Moon or Mars will not produce "profit" (in the financial sense) on a scale of years or decades. But in the extreme long term, we'll have new worlds to populate, new planets to colonize.
We can't stay solely on Earth forever.
Re:The end of being the space superpower (Score:5, Interesting)
Without the usage of something other than chemical rockets, there will be no meaningful human space flight.
Every space agency should temporarily abandon manned space programs and pour the money they would have spent into propulsion research.
Re:Baseline shuttle extension (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole "flexible path" thing is gaining traction, but its basically just a nice way of saying don't go anywhere, or stay there
I don't really agree with that. Putting an ISS at a Lagrange Point would be far more stable and a 100x better long-term investment than putting an ISS in LEO.
Since an ISS at LEO will require *constant* re-boosting to keep its altitude (its orbit naturally decays about 20km lower every month and fuel needs to constantly be ferried up to keep it from falling down), but an ISS at a Lagrange Point would require trivial stationkeeping.
Therefore, an LP base makes more sense than a LEO base. Now, one could say that a Moon base makes more sense because it has raw materials available, but that is ignoring all the Near-Earth Asteroids, which could be reached from an LP at trivial fuel amounts. You can mine the NEOs just as well as you can mine the Moon, thus building a nifty base at an LP that would serve as a great staging ground for humans in space. No gravity well to descend into or try to get out of.
The #1 thing humanity should build is a mining/smelting/shipyard at a Lagrange Point. Before a moonbase, before anything else, really.
And Flexible Path accommodates those kinds of goals.
Re:The end of being the space superpower (Score:2, Interesting)
Apollo was meaningful because it was new.
There were many other meaningful things to Apollo than just its newness. You may not believe space exploration to be inherently meaningful, but I for one do.
Doing the same thing again with the same vastly expensive inefficient technology would be pointless
I agree that doing the same thing would be pointless. Instead of just going, planting a flag and coming back home, we should be building an infrastructure in space that will eventually facilitate staying there.
Getting humans further than the moon, and back again (eg to Mars and back) with chemical rockets is a joke. Never going to happen.
I'm inclined to agree, but I didn't say anything about further than the moon. There's plenty of infrastructure to build inside the moon's orbit. Like our first space shipyard at a Lagrange Point.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
I am 100% confident that bounties like this would result in America developing manned spaceflight capability.
What gives you this confidence? Political ideology?
Re:Return? (Score:3, Interesting)
Which rocks [slashdot.org] are you talking about? ;)
Re:The end of being the space superpower (Score:3, Interesting)
Without the usage of something other than chemical rockets, there will be no meaningful human space flight.
What do you mean by "meaningful space flight"? There's still quite a lot of room for cost-efficiency with chemical rockets -- Elon Musk of SpaceX figures there's at least room for an order of magnitude of a price drop. IMHO, NASA should focus on getting the prices of chemical rockets to drop with things with things like commercial space transport procurement [thespacereview.com], while using the money it saves to resume its efforts into developing new space technologies. Unfortunately, when the Ares I going overbudget, instead of canceling the Ares I they just canceled almost all of their (already sparse) technology development efforts.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA gets slightly more than half of one percent (~00.6%) of the federal budget. Isn't it also worth debating if this is the right percentage of our tax dollars to spend on this endeavor and what other federal programs should be cut (or even taxes raised) to *properly* fund NASA?
I hope they chose the flexible path (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope that they chose the "flexible path," maybe with a little more than $ 3 billion per year in extra spending they view as the minimum price. The asteroids are where it's at in a bunch of ways - easy to get to the first ones, easy to deal with, and the likely source of economic activities in space (raw materials, etc.) for the rest of this century. Plus, if a NEO was discovered that looked like a threat to the Earth, the flexible path would provide the infrastructure to deal with it.
One interesting thing you could do with the flexible path is build a lunar space elevator with existing technology. If that was done, you could then land on the Moon without building a new generation of lunar landers. That to me sounds like a cost effective and forward-thinking way to go to the Moon and develop a space flight infrastructure, not the lunar option outlined in the Augustine report summary.
Re:How can you... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't get is why we don't just buy some Soyuz spacecraft [wikipedia.org] off the Russians and be done with it.
Because buying Soyuz wouldn't create many jobs in Florida and Texas. The manned spaceflight side of NASA is a jobs program which just happens to occasionally put some people into space.
No need for manned space exploration (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How can you... (Score:3, Interesting)
When things became untenable for the Jews in Germany during the 1930's, people like Einstein chose the US as a place to emigrate to. Of all the countries that some of the world's top scientists could have fled to, they came to the USA.
*That* sort of results -- building that sort of country.
Re:The end of being the space superpower (Score:5, Interesting)
Things *used* to be done on a sane budget, until everything became a nest of private contractors trying to get their hands in the pie.
I'm from Huntsville, AL. My neighbors growing up came over from Germany with von Braun. My high school English teacher was retired from NASA, but he was the guy who designed the Lunar Rover. No fancy expensive components here -- he bolted the top end of a lawn chair to the thing for a seat.
Re:How can you... (Score:1, Interesting)
I read the Lord's Prayer as a request for assistance making one's way through the world, not a request for absolution of facing life. In that light, I view what St. Francis wrote as an expansion on the themes I see in the Lord's Prayer.
As an aside, only on the Internet can a discussion about NASA go off on a tangent about interpretation of the Bible.
Re:How can you... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma/ [wikipedia.org]
Have you heard the term false dichotomy? I'd actually love to hear a reasoned argument over health care, the war, or really any other issue, but it seems that all we can do is talk about how stupid the other side is. It's rather depressing.
The Deep Space Option is better than the moon, IMO (Score:5, Interesting)
The deep space option where you learn to visit and land on Near Earth Objects (and perhaps later the moons of Mars and asteroids in the asteroid belt) is more interesting, because it allows you to reuse your exploration infrastructure. With the Moon and Mars, you leave much of your equipment at the bottom of a deep gravity well instead of bringing it back to Earth orbit to reuse it. Also, this is absolutely NECESSARY for the survival of human beings on Earth, since you learn how to work on and around potentially-killer-space-rocks. This is what makes us better than the dinosaurs, otherwise we'll die.
Also, the Deep Space option allows progressive increases in capabilities, without a decade of nothing interesting going on. Deep Space infrastructure could evolve all the way to a manned mission on Titan:
1)Characterize radiation environment and shield (passive or active) or otherwise protect (anti-radiation pills? Pick people from Iran or India with innate genetic resistance to radiation?) your astronauts, if necessary. Do this while you are doing other interesting missions (checking out NEOs, etc) in Deep Space that are shorter than a trip to Mars.
2)Characterize whether artificial gravity is needed or not (as opposed to just exercise).
3)Experiment with fuel depots in orbit. This is helpful, but necessary for Deep Space. This is where commercial launch providers can compete and shine.
4)Add electric-propulsion (like VASIMR) at your leisure, without needing them to work before you start doing interesting missions. Fuel Depots are a backup plan in case this doesn't work.
5)For electric-propulsion, you can start out immediately with solar power (which has a LOT of growth potential in Power per kg) in the inner solar system and upgrade to Nuclear reactors for missions further out in the solar system.
6)Develop increasingly closed-loop life support systems to reduce consumeables on long trips.
7)Flyby and orbital missions to Mars would allow teleoperated rovers, which would be much more productive than autonomous rovers.
8)Develop and test a small lander for short stays on the Lunar surface.
9)Make the lander's tanks bigger and send it to Mars with your now-mature Deep-Space orbital mission package. You spend most of the time in orbit around Mars but make a short trip to the surface before returning to orbit.
Now, you've made boot prints on Mars. This time, don't let your human spaceflight infrastructure rot and make you spend 40 years more stuck in LEO. Take the momentum and go with it:
Really awesome options:
10)Develop ISRU on Phobos, if you find water-ice or other volatiles. This would enable refueling of Mars craft, which greatly reduces mission costs and risks and also will allow reuseable Single-stage-to-martian-orbit Mars Descent/Ascent craft (notice, this isn't really possible on Earth, but it is on Mars because of the lower delta-v).
11)Take your ISRU technology already used on Phobos (Martian moon) and perhaps the Earth's moon (if there's ice in the craters) and use it on Mars to support longer stays and a base.
12)The Final Exam on this whole thing would be a mission to Titan. You'd need nuclear power, Electric (or nuclear thermal rocket) propulsion, ISRU, closed-loop life support, mature lander technology, and long-term radiation-mitigation technology. And gonads.
13)After you've gone to Titan, sit back and reap the benefits of your human spaceflight infrastructure: launch costs cheap enough to make space-based solar power viable, mining of the asteroids has already begun (Phobos was once an asteroid), and you probably already have a permanent base on Mars that could someday grow into a colony.
Notice, this doesn't require space elevators (although I'm a fan of them).
Re:How can you... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course there's the rational Christian view that there's no evidence the rapture is going to occur within the next millennium and a large chunk of rock may hit Earth before then. The thing about the Christian faith is that you're not supposed to take it for granted that GOD will save you from some horrible fate. You're supposed to go about your business as though no one is looking out for you. With that in mind, I sure as hell want a competent space program that can have sustainable colonies on other celestial bodies as well as one that can protect us from celestial threats regardless of the fact that I believe GOD exists and sent his only son to die for our sins.
Re:How can you... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am part of a research project that is reconstructing the Apollo project, and I can say authoritatively that large parts of the Saturn V knowledge are indeed missing. Only some of the booster physical structure blueprints are on file at MSFC. That does not include the wiring diagrams, the internal diagrams of the Instrument Unit, or the software that actually flew the booster. That was designed by IBM Federal Systems, and when IBM was broken up as a monopoly the documentation and software were lost. We have been chasing after this stuff for YEARS. If it existed we would have found it. We have taken to searching out and contacting former programmers and engineers to see if they took anything home with them that we might be able to scan. We have even gone so far as to take apart one of the remaining Saturn LVDCs to try to read the core memory out and see if the software is present. (This is a potentially destructive effort and is still ongoing. It will be at least a year before we know anything.)
Also missing are the procedures by which the software was used, the prelaunch checkout procedures, we have almost NO documentation of the software, tools, and procedures that the ground controllers used, and so on. There's a lot of missing pieces.
Re:How can you... (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure that's what we need. Thing is NASA has repeatedly failed to deliver it, now they want to outsource to spacex, which they maybe should have done in the first place. I when the military needs a new fighter jet or stealth bomber or something they get design bids from boeing, lockheed martin, etc. NASA wanting to reinvent the wheel every time and not even doing it well does not help the cause of manned space flight, look for it to be much more privatized soon enough.
Re:How can you... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you don't "get" it because you don't know what you're on about. The Soyuz is a great little vehicle, but its complete lack of capability is the reason why the ISS is in the terrible orbit it is in - Space Station Freedom was supposed to be in a sensible orbit that would allow building spacecraft to go beyond LEO, that plan was down-rated when the Russians were invited to participate because they were incapable of reaching such a useful orbit. The Soyuz rocket can put about 8t into LEO.. that's less than the smallest EELV currently in service in the US. The Proton rocket is a little better but doesn't have this glorious service record you mentioned.
In comparison, the Ares I (if it ever flies) will carry over 20t to LEO and the Ares V (presuming they don't downrate it again) will carry 188t to LEO. *And* they will do them with much lower marginal costs. I think your objection here is to the political bullshit that gets in the way of making these vehicles.. well that's just as bad in Russia.
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, two commercial companies making rockets in the 13t to LEO range might be more your cup of tea.. less political bullshit, but less of a published schedule too, so you might get what they promised, when they're damn well ready.
Re:How can you... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think he means worship of the almighty barrel.
There, fixed that for you. Keep in mind that Afghanistan is where a group of ppl attacked America, EU, Indonesia, India, China, Russia, etc. IOW, there is a REAL reason for being there. OTH, Iraq was purely about oil. It was never about WMD, attacks on Poppa Bush, etc.
And there is more (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How can you... (Score:2, Interesting)
No offense, but that sounds an *awful* lot like the No True Scotsman fallacy [wikipedia.org]. After all, what is Christianity if not the sum total of the actions of it's followers?
Re:How can you... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes in the 60's and 70's at the height of the US manned space program there was no religion in US society and a temporary wave of Atheism swept the nation.
Or you're full of shit.
You Internet "Nu Atheists" are really starting to get annoying by the way, about as annoying as born again Christians the way you interject your (extraordinarily ignorant) personal rants against the other "team" into absolutely EVERYTHING to score some cheap points in your own mind.
Oh and by the way, if you don't want people lumping all atheists into a collective when attacking you (as you all seem to hate) it's best to not speak for all atheists as though you all *are* a collective when it suits you as you have done here.
Please someone deliver the west from the mindless, fanatical Christians and Internet Atheists...two sides of the same bent coin.
Re:How can you... (Score:5, Interesting)
The shuttle was designed as a compromise between a load of different requirements and ultimately ended up with a number of major flaws including
* while it was reusable most of the advantages of reusability were lost because of big refurb requirements every flight. Furthermore the reusability made incremental development harder. So IMO we ended up with the worst of both worlds there.
* The shuttle is essentially a mini space-station that goes up and down every time. Great for standalone work in space but very wasteful when working with a proper space-station.
* the side-mount "stack" is fundamentally dangerous because it means if something goes wrong with the stack it is far more likely to damage the crew compartment than with a traditional stack. The foam that took down columbia would have been a non-issue with a traditional stack and even an incident like the challenger one would probablly have been more survivable with a traditional stack.
Re:How can you... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, the old "whitey's on the moon"/"so much trouble in the world" problem.
Frankly I think we need to get whitey on the moon as fast as we can to stop the fucker messing around in Baghdad, Kabul, Tehran, Islamabad and just about every other fucking place you can think of.
But the bugger just won't go.
Re:Escape the fishbowl (Score:3, Interesting)
I would love to go to Paris; I have little interest in paying for someone else to go to Paris. I would love see the Great Barrier Reef, but scar tissue in my ears means I'll never dive again. I've watched videos of the reef; they are not as good as being there, but worth watching. It has never occurred to me I'd want to be sure those videos were made by a hand held camera, not one mounted on an unmanned submersible. I certainly can't see why I'd pay hundreds of times as much for the DVD on that basis.
Re:How can you... (Score:3, Interesting)
On paper anyone can list magic materials and say "oh that would be good for a rocket motor or spaceship". The assumption being that just because a material or technology has one good property that it will be good for all uses. To reiterate the GP's point, rocket science is hard and engineering rockets is even harder. Just because an alloy is "lighter and stronger" than another doesn't mean it is necessarily better. The ability to machine a material within particular tolerances is often as important if not more important as weight and strength. If your magical new alloy or composite material is too difficult to form or machine or is three times as expensive then it's not appropriate for the job. All materials are not good for all purposes. For instance, carbon fiber is light and strong but is not always appropriate for use inside the habitable volume of a spacecraft because it can absorb water and outgas VOCs. In a system like the ISS where water vapor in the air is recycled into drinking water, having your walls suck up water can be annoying if not dangerous.
Rockets are hundreds or thousands of individual parts operating at hellish temperatures all of different materials each with their own physical properties. It takes a long time to make sure those materials in that design not only work well but that you also understand that configuration modes of failure. Changing the material of even one of those components alters the parameters of the design even if only slightly. A lot of small changes can lead to large failures. Even if some new alloy ended up being perfect for rocket turbopumps it would still require a significant amount of testing to make sure it's "perfect" nature didn't affect any of the thousands of surrounding parts.
Rocket engines and spacecraft don't just appear because advanced technology to build them exists. It takes a lot of system integration to make a workable design. Research in advanced technology is fine but research and development in rocket science is also important. Rockets don't just spring forth from piles or advanced technology. Rocket science also works in the reverse direction. Trying to find a better or more cost effective material for motor housings or turbopumps might find a material that works really well for gasoline engines or turbojet engines. It might make a rocket half a percent more efficient but might make a jet engine on an airliner fifty percent more efficient.