Cool NASA Tech That Will Never See Space 324
coondoggie writes to tell us that with the "new and improved" NASA budget on the way it looks like many of the cool projects NASA has in the works will never see the light of day, let alone space. The biggest cut looks to be the Ares heavy lift rocket but other cuts include a new composite spacecraft, deep space network, inflatable lunar habitat, and an electric moon-buggie.
FY2011 NASA Budget (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
...If it wasn't for NASA we wouldn't ever have visited or learned so much more about Earth....
Hmmm... ;p ) and brought back safely - Soviet Union
1st object in space - Germany
1st Earth satellite - Soviet Union
1st human in orbit - Soviet Union
1st photograph of far side of the Moon - Soviet Union
1st landing on the Moon - Soviet Union
1st rover on another body - Soviet Union
1st large biological specimens outside LEO (around the Moon, in a Zond version of Soyuz...turtles
1st landing on Venus - Soviet Union
1st landing on Mars - Soviet Union
1st space station - Soviet Union (BTW, the Russian part of ISS was supposed to be called "Mir 2")
And so on. In the meantime Europe could afford to play the game and they ended up being the biggest, I think, commercial launch operator(?). Or of the biggest anyway. With their ATV they are a small step from having manned spaceflight capability. China has one already, India is working on it, Japan has some plans too, and all are quite active in Solar System exploration. Plus you have private companies.
I think we'll be fine
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, Mr Checkov, you are mistaken. The Soviets neither landed on nor put a rover on the moon before the US (we landed manned moon buggies), and the Germans weren't the first to put an object in space, that was in fact the Soviets. The US went to the edge of space with the X-15 plane, but the Soviets beat us (and the Germans) to space proper.
The Soviets also put the first satellite in space.
"Interesting" would have been an accurate mod, but informative it was not. More like misinformative.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
The Soviets also put the first satellite in space.
But they didn't put "the first object in space". The first "Man made object in space" by all official records is the German V2 Rocket test number V-4 made on 3 October 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_V-2_test_launches [wikipedia.org]
As for the rest of your facts, I would suggest you check them. They may or may not be correct but I'm short on time to fact check them all.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:1, Informative)
The only reason why the US didn't put a satellite in orbit first was because of a bureaucratic nightmare. The Navy and not the Army was the agency that was awarded the contract to build "vanguard". Jupiter could have put an object into orbit quite a bit sooner but the DoD had a pissing contest. Plus to Eisenhower it wasn't deemed that important. Also, Korolev saw what he thought were failed Jupiter launches and pushed up his schedule for Sputnik.
Only point I'd like to make... (Score:4, Informative)
is that the list of 'Soviet firsts' should really be 'captured German engineers working for the Soviets firsts'.
And the later 'American firsts' ought to be 'captured German engineers working for the Americans firsts'.
I can't think of any early space-flight that did not depend on lots of German know-how and support. Perhaps the British 'Black Knight' and 'Blue Streak' programs, which were pretty well entirely home-grown. But even they only did this because the Germans had shown that it could be done first....
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:3, Informative)
This is why. (Score:1, Informative)
Electric moon buggies and inflatable habitats are nothing new. Both were developed in the 1960s. (The inflatable habitat wasn't used, of course, although a version of it featured in the film "Moontrap".)
Re-inventing the wheel over and over again -- without actually doing anything with it -- is one big reason why NASA's projects are being cut.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
Technology transfer of NASA tech to private industry already happens. Google "NASA commercialization" and "NASA technology transfer" for more info. For example, here is the NASA spinoff homepage [nasa.gov].
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm... if you count operating for 20 seconds [wikipedia.org] a successful landing... then maybe... not very useful though.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah but lets put this into perspective. (Score:5, Informative)
1st rendevous in space, USA
1st multiple rendevous in space, USA
1st practical spacewalk, USA
Most landings on the moon, USA
1st man to orbit the moon, USA
1st man on the moon, USA
1st probe to Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and soon Pluto, USA
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
So? You still can't argue that NASA is not an enormous contributor to planetary science and remote sensing.
Consider the Soviet Mars program. They sent three landers there over three years, and Russia is just getting around to following up on those. NASA has sent seven missions there over thirty years, very elaborate and sophisticated ones. The Viking lander was a scientific tour de force, and the US Mars Rover mission alone is a record breaker for sheer number of days in operation.
On the other hand, the Soviet space program practically owned Venus, spent decades in a serious, extended effort to gather data there. That's a huge contribution to science, because Venus is hard, but very, very interesting due to its similarities and differences with/to Earth.
As far as the Earth is concerned, I don't think there is any contest, science-wise. Not to denigrate Soviet contributions in engineering, but I don't think we can even begin to calculate the value of something like Landsat, or the other Earth Science oriented missions undertaken by NASA or with NASA playing a key part.
A "punch list of firsts" approach is not a very good way to gauge the importance of a nation's space exploration program.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:3, Informative)
NASA's getting more of a budget ($6 billion over 5 years). Also, NASA will be reviving its R&D efforts, which were mostly ended to fund Ares/Constellation when it started going overbudget. Here's my recent slashdot submission below... please up-mod it if you think it's worthwhile!
http://slashdot.org/submission/1163232/New-Path-For-NASA-Revealed [slashdot.org]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_nasa/ [whitehouse.gov]
New Path For NASA Revealed
"The White House and NASA have revealed in this year's budget proposal their new plans for the agency. The big news is that NASA's budget-consuming Constellation program has been cancelled, as the project was 'over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies,' and would mostly be a repetition of Apollo-era achievements with a handful of astronauts. NASA will also be getting a budget boost of $6 billion over 5 years. Technological development and testing programs will be revived and expanded, in order to develop new capabilities and make exploration activities more cost-effective with key technologies like in-orbit propellant transfer and advanced in-space propulsion. There will be a steady stream of robotic missions to perform science, scout locations, and demonstrate tech needed for future human missions. Research and development will also be done to support future heavy-lift rockets with more capacity and lower operation costs. NASA will be maximizing the return on its investment in the ISS, extending it past 2016 and deploying new reseach facilities (potentially including a long-desired centrifuge to study human physiology in space). NASA will also use commercial contracts for routine human and cargo transportation to the space station, as it already does for most unmanned missions, which will 'help create thousands of new jobs and help reduce the cost of human access to space.' More details will be provided by NASA Administrator (and former astronaut) Charles Bolden over the coming week, and then NASA has to get its plans through a potentially-hostile Congress."
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite. NASA's getting more money, not less. But they're not going to be spending it on things that will be served by free market resources in the near future. Thus, they will have more money for other projects, particularly actual research. Rather than building another 1960's style heavy lift rocket.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
>Because the original Exploration plan *did* close within the current budget. Cost growth and schedule delays made it grow beyond the budget.
Those two statements contradict each other. NASA cant deliver this thing without an extra 3 billion a year for the next 8 or 9 years. The path to the moon is not sustainable and would only relive 1950s era achievements. Better off with robotics and earth science and building a role for private enterprise.
Re:What does this mean for manned exploration? (Score:3, Informative)
If I lived in a SyFy-Channel Movie-of-the-week, I would LOVE it if the Chinese established a permanent base on the moon, and claimed all of the moon for China. The moon is a long-term losing proposition anyway... very expensive to keep habitats habitable.
This would get everyone else in a frenzy to go claim Mars. Probably a multi-national group, including the USA, Russia, Europe, and Japan all ready to go grab a chunk of Mars for their respective countries, before China did likewise. And it would all happen over the course of two thrill-a-minute hours on Saturday night at 9E/8C.
Only problem... "we" all agreed we can't do this, back in 1967, as part of the U.N.'s Outer Space Treaty, which was signed by the US, Russia, and various others... not sure about China. Modeled after the Antarctic treaty, the Outer Space Treaty states that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. The Treaty establishes the exploration and use of outer space as the "province of all mankind."
So yeah, everyone pretty much does expect that a Chinese moon base is just a moon base, not a Chinese grab for all of the moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty [wikipedia.org]
Shuttle "Replacement" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
Have you read the budget documents? They don't say that at all. Privatization only applies to LEO transport -- a well-known, well-defined task with clear profit potential and well-understood risks.
The budget specifically states that its renewing a focus on developing fundamental technologies, something that was lacking in the past decades and the main reason Constellation was a dinosaur. The budget specifically lists some things like enabling technologies for heavy lift vehicles, improving RTGs for planetary exploration (we're about to run out of P238), in-situ resource utilization, lunar regolith factories, and in-space propulsion. There are increased budgets for planetary and earth science.
This is NASA concentrating on its roots. NASA was in charge of getting people to LEO when that was new and challenging and unknown. NASA roots are doing the new hard things, with a focus on exploration.
Re:Philosophically inclined geeks (Score:4, Informative)
>The entire point of NASA is to get people in Space.
That is not the organizations mission statement. You can make up crowd pleasing shit all your want, but that doesnt make it true. Here's the real mission statement, please note these are all doable without shoving meatbags on top of a rocket and having them play golf on the moon:
" To improve life here, To extend life to there, To find life beyond.[10] "
--NASA Mission Statement
" NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.[11] "
--NASA Mission
" To understand and protect our home planet, To explore the Universe and search for life, and To inspire the next generation of explorers... as only NASA can.[10] "
--NASA Vision
In fact, I would argue that finding life beyond the solar system can only be done with robotics. Your meatbag body isnt going to handle a 100 year journey too well and even if it was possible it wouldnt be worth the cost.
Re:NASA needs more budget. (Score:4, Informative)
It's sad really and NASA is definitely who should get more budget.
To be clear, NASA *is* getting more budget in the proposed plan. It's a matter of what the money will be spent on. This latest move is consistent with the findings of the Augustine commission last fall, which was that the program of returning to the moon had little chance of success by 2020 at current funding levels. If you accept that judgment and are actually looking for forward progress, then either you (a) increase the budget for manned spaceflight, or (b) change your goals. Political forces and the current economy make (a) impossible, so they're going with (b).
A problem with NASA's manned spaceflight program is that the footprint is spread across some very influential states (e.g., TX and FL) and companies (Boeing etc.). All of the complaining in Congress about this proposal is simply about saving jobs and govt subsidy of their local economies. Truthfully a big part of why the Shuttle is such an expensive way to get stuff into orbit is the thousands of ground support personnel needed. The Congressional representatives from these states love expensive spaceflight, and will do what they can to protect it.
Post-Success Cancelation (Score:3, Informative)
NASA has *always* started up more programs than it could ever finish, so there'd be a good chance of what would eventually be needed already coming down the pipe. Add to the NASA developments all those designs put together by aero-corps most of which didn't get used. It ends up looking like a set up when something tests out well and then gets canceled. Being successful and being able to fit future requirements are not the same thing, and until a good test, they can't tell what the operating parmeters are for the vehicle. Also in this category are most of the best designs, those done around the edges of the aerospace industries. An example of these is the entire line of a multi-project program's worth of vehicles designed by Robert Truax http://www.astronautix.com/astros/truax.htm [astronautix.com] and http://neverworld.net/truax/ [neverworld.net]
But the biggest culprit is of course programs developed to fulfill the goals of one administration, which get cut by the next or subsequent administrations. If NASA developed programs based on 'stair-step' continual expansion (making each step a requirement for the next) rather than political grandstanding, progress might be slower in gross effect but with far less net cost and effort.
As to 'why cancel the Ares and then start investigating a new heavy-lifter', first, Ares is not a new anything -- it's a hack built from shuttle components, meaning most of the technology is quite old (not to say that's bad, but it could be better). Second, the same could be said every few years for the last half century. Third, NASA and all the companies it feeds through its technology transfer program require constant renewal of R&D program direction in order to invent a whole new pile of golly-gee-whiz tech, and this is what NASA does best.
Take a look at the line of canceled and never-started projects derived from, and intended to expand, the Apollo lunar program. This is the best example of cancels soon after if not before development began. Follow the links below from the index page at http://www.astronautix.com/ [astronautix.com]
Pre- and post-lunar Apollo (and other vehicle) variants:
Apollo Odds and Mods
Project Horizon
Project Lunex
Lunar Gemini
Saturn developement beyond initial lunar landings:
Saturn V
Lunar exploration and expansion :
Manned Lunar Bases
Manned Circumlunar
Manned Lunar Landers
Manned Lunar Flyers
Manned Lunar Rovers
Manned Lunar Orbiters
And a complete program already well into development, with success fairly assured. Had this not been canceled, Armstrong might still have been first one the moon, but definitely would have been the first to fly (not just ride) an orbital space plane. An extremely well documented example of cancelmania:
X-20/23/24 Dynasoar
One project NASA may presently be regretting not following up on was an improved suspension and steering design for the Mars rovers. I'm not fully up on the details, but it would almost certainly have allowed Spirit to dig itself out of the sand. Apparently the story of its development and rejection was covered by some science-based talk show around 10 years ago. Some of the reasons they didn't pick up on it at the time made sense; the design they used was so far along that changing it would have cost much more, and being developed by an individual rather than the design team, training to bring them up to speed just to evaluate it would have taken too long. However, since the alternative design was produced by a college sophomore and was clearly better than that which was produced by an entire team, the fact that they resented being shown up by a kid is a distinct possibility. That's supported by the fact that his performance report was glowing, yet when he went to check out his supervisor told him "Don't bother to ask for a letter of reommendation". Turned out he didn't need one for his next summer job, at the National Ignition Facility. We're waiting to see whether they're using his design on Curiosity.