Pentagon Sets Tone For Future Space Exploration 79
coondoggie writes "It obviously leans heavily on the military's concerns for outer space exploration, but the National Security Space Strategy (PDF) released yesterday by the Department of Defense outlines concerns like protection from space junk and system security that all space travelers in theory would want addressed. The NSSS document emphasizes the Obama administration's desire to protect US space assets and to further commercialize space but also to ensure that the US and international partners have unfettered access to outer space."
OK, fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Now. Where's the money?
Good news for space buffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that the DoD's budget makes NASA's look like a rounding error, getting the military involved in the space program must be warming the hearts of space buffs everywhere. One thing's for sure, the DoD never lacks for funding.
Re:OK, fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that the Chinese have yet to complete an in-orbit rendezvous and some have argued that the "space walks" conducted by the Chinese astronauts may have even been faked or staged, they have a long way to go before I need to worry about the Chinese joining up with a secret Nazi Moon base in an attempt to start world conquest.
This isn't to say that China is completely backward, but don't ascribe more to them than is really true. Furthermore, all China has been doing is to essentially copy the efforts of other nations. There is very little new or original being done by China as they are now up to about 1960's technology for what Russia and America were doing.
As for the "American" space program, I'd give it a decade before private individuals are walking on the Moon. SpaceX already sent a capsule into orbit and now merely needs FAA approval to put some people into the capsule to start its own manned spaceflight program. With Bigelow Aerospace supplying the space stations and Moon bases along with a dozen more private companies nipping at the heels of SpaceX to get into space, it is just a matter of time before the Moon and elsewhere is covered with people and human constructs. A whole lot is happening with regards to American spaceflight, it just isn't being done by the bankrupt government who doesn't care to go into space any more.
Re:Good news for space buffs (Score:5, Insightful)
DoD has always been intricately linked to NASA efforts. While, the separation of civilian and military space programs was an important policy decision by Eisenhower, it was never completely separated. Doing so, particularly at the infrastructure level, would have been unnecessarily expensive and inefficient.
DoD launch requirements are the reason we have robust and fairly reliable EELV services, which are great for NASA as they insulate NASA's unmanned programs from the drama associated with the shuttle program, and give the manned program a good option for the future of the manned program. However, they're also responsible for the huge wings on the shuttle (USAF wanted cross-track landing capability for military operations), and the continued use of solid rocket motors for the shuttle (since this subsidizes military missile production). Sometimes its good, and sometimes its bad, but having military concerns involved in NASA is nothing new.
What is new here is that DoD is getting behind the idea of encouraging competition and market-based reforms within the space-related portion of the defense industry. And this does warm my heart since these policies will enable a capable and flexible space program without Apollo-level funding.
Re:Let's See ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Constellation Program was doomed from the beginning and deserved to be shut down and replaced with something else. In the words of the Augustine Commission [wikipedia.org], even if the spaceflight vehicles were ready to fly today, their first recommendation would be to cancel the program as too expensive and dangerous. On top of that, it was billions of dollars over budget and years behind in terms of getting anything done. The earliest that the Ares V would be ready is 2020 with a very optimistic timeline.
It is also a project that keeps coming back from the dead, but I'll leave that zombie where I can shoot it from time to time... like this thread.
As for shutting down the Shuttle program, that is something which was decided by the Bush administration following the destruction of the Columbia. Simply put, there aren't enough orbiters for a viable Shuttle program, and the loss of any future shuttle orbiter would be its termination anyway. Perhaps a "next generation" shuttle could have been made to continue the lessons learned, but the Shuttle program as has been flying for the past 30 years simply can't continue as it has been flying. The loss of two orbiters is bad enough, and some serious reconsideration for its design was desperately needed. The Constellation Program was not a shuttle replacement but rather a return to.... something else. I'm not even sure what. George W. Bush is the person to blame, not Obama.... not that Obama is helping out here either but that is besides the point.
As for radioisotopic generators (RTGs), the largest problem there is that the nuclear bomb factories have been mostly shut down as the number of warheads in the U.S. arsenal have been gradually reduced through attrition (getting old and having to be refurbished) and various treaties with several countries, including the SALT treaties and the START treaty negotiations with the former USSR. If you are going to blame a U.S. President, you can blame Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Both are indirectly responsible for the current situation with regards to RTGs, unless you are also blaming the anti-nuclear activists who have kept domestic nuclear reactors from getting built. Breeder reactors in particular as a major solution to both RTGs and to reducing or eliminating nuclear waste. There is no need for Yucca Mountain, but for the fact that nuclear engineering is all but a dead discipline now in America.
While I'm not a fan of Barak Obama, his problem has been mainly one of apathy and benign neglect of NASA and U.S. space policy. It took him nearly a year to appoint Charles Bolden as NASA administrator, and Obama certainly hasn't been reining in people like Gabrielle Giffords (when she chaired the sub-committee with oversight of NASA and federal spaceflight policy.... yes the same lady who has been in the news more recently) nor has he really given Charles Bolden the political support necessary to make some of the really tough changes needed at NASA to put everything back on track either. He had the chance and blew it, but the problems remain. He had the chance to set American space policy for the next several decades, but instead has half-heartily reinstated George W. Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" by setting NASA into auto-pilot.
As demonstrated by this policy directive by the Department of Defense, if NASA doesn't "boldly go", the DoD will. About bloody time I might add. At least somebody is showing some leadership in the area. Such leadership certainly isn't coming from the White House. Obama has been transparent with regards to NASA.... he just isn't doing anything worth caring about and thus doesn't matter if it was published or not on Wikileaks or anywhere else for that matter.