Hmmmm.

That's a tough question.
I think I'll take a crack at it.

Let me think.....

"To boldly go where no man has gone before"

Nice try, Dennis, but no score.

The deal is not why people should go into space, but why it is NECESSARY that they go into space. Economic development of the solar system, eh? At least for nearby objects, certainly for the Moon, and with due regard for cost and value, telerobotics and telepresence is absolutely the way to go. What, you say? Mining the Moon without arms and pickaxes? You bet. Go to many industrial mines on Earth and you'll see just that being done. No, we don't have the machines that can do that now on the Moon, but nor do we have the hardware to keep people on the Moon or support them in the manner that human miners would need to be supported.

In fact, the MIT report pretty much hits the nail on the head.

It's about "exploration, national pride, and international prestige and leadership. Human spaceflight achieves its goals and appeals to the broadest number of people when it represents an expansion of human experience."

Yeah, those are pretty airy fairy words. But they're right.
Just like the words "liberty" and "freedom", and others of the same ilk. Sometimes airy fairy words are how we see ourselves as a nation and as a culture. Better than words like "platinum"!

And protection from asteroids? Get a grip. We DO need to assess the threat from asteroids, and we DO need to develop a strategy to protect ourselves, but human beings picking up rocks on asteroids are NOT going to do it, nor will humans like Henry Stamper blowing them up.

What you're saying is "Dammit, there MUST be a good reason to send people up into space to get rich." Yes, one would like to believe that there is. One would desperately like to believe that there is. But with an absence of any credible reason for that right now, we'd better latch onto something more marketable.

Well, one reason would be -- bit glib as it is -- Because exploring space is about the coolest thing a country, indeed the human race, will ever do.

Really:
Many people are anticipating this (except for the current administrator) and are formulating their plans on how we can "improve" upon Dr. Griffin's ESAS architecture.

Ah, "Improve"

How about "Remove" and "Change" as in "was", "is"
change pages

"ESMD" was and is now "SEMD" assigned to the DOD for management out of Redstone Missile Command.
could very well be.

SMD, SOMD and ARMD will be improved.

The nations that lead on the frontiers dictate the course of human history.

Any questions?

Dennis Wingo asks the question, "Why Space? Why Now?

That is a very tough question. Is there an answer that we can give, that will truely reach the average person out there? Dennis valiantly tries to make the case based on the mining of natural resources. Elon Musk has made the statement: "I don't believe in mining of stuff in space. The transportation costs are so horrendously high that I don't think there's anything...if there were packages of purified crack cocaine in orbit right now, I'm not sure it would be financially viable to go and retrieve them."

Is there anything out there, that we can cost effectively mine? The point I believe that Elon was making, is that launch costs are TOO high and must be brought down. Dramatically lowering launch costs IS one of Elon's stated aims. He is also working on lowering costs, to open up space for many, many more people. Not just the privileged handfull. Many of us have hoped for decades, that one day launch costs would come down enough that maybe one day, if we work hard enough, we may have a chance to go into space. It was not that many decades ago, that air flight was only for the rich.

That brings us to the cost of human launchs in the U.S. At this time, only NASA can launch people in to ORBIT in the U.S. Please correct me if I'm wrong. What does it cost for NASA to launch a person into orbit? I don't know, but I'm sure it's a tremendous amt. The more important question is, are human launch costs coming down? Does it cost NASA less to launch a person into orbit now, than it did 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 30 years ago? Allowing for inflation of course.

The point I'm making is, that if we are ever going to be able to make it possible for more people to reach orbit or go to other planets or cost effectively mine resources, then human launch costs have to be lowered dramatically.

I feel that NASA's and America's number goal for right now, is to "DRAMATICALLY LOWER" human (and cargo) launch costs. Once we have done that, then anything becomes possible.

The point I believe that Elon was making, is that launch costs are TOO high and must be brought down.

With all due respect Elon is wrong. Launch from the Earth is only the first step. We have been going around in circles here on the Earth for so long with this mantra of cheap access to space and what has it gotten the advocacy community? Absolutely nothing but broken dreams and bankrupt investors. Even Elon admitted this past year at ISDC that all he was going to do is to reduce costs around the margins.

This is the mistake that Mike Griffin made as well, focusing on a heavy lifter as it has the lowest cost per lb to orbit for an expendable system. However, as Von Braun said, a bigger rocket is easy, it just costs more money.

It is much easier to develop reusable in space transportation systems, and unless I am mistaken, if you are going to go anywhere but LEO, transportation is a requirement. It is far easier today to build a RSV (Reusable Space Vehicle) than it is to build an RLV. The pay off is immediate and on going.

We have to get beyond this mindset that requires super low cost access to space before you do anything. A reusable cislunar human and cargo transport, coupled with a reusable single stage to orbit (Lunar) transit vehicle, and we have the critical elements needed. We can drop that megawatt of solar power on the Moon for no more than a couple of billion dollars using the existing Atlas and Delta fleet. If we quadruple the production of these vehicles (along with the Falcon 9) the price of launch will decrease by 50%.

With ISRU derived propellants and with local industrial development along with local food production, we can change the entire cost structure of operating in cislunar space.

Or we can continue to sit on the Earth and whine about needing cheap launchers.

Frankly this argument has 30 years of failure written all over it, it is time for a change in our thinking.

Yeah, those are pretty airy fairy words. But they're right.

Those words have been used since the 1980's as justification for space exploration and guess what it has gotten us.....

Nothing.

ISS was ultimately justified by geopolitics in the 1990's with science thrown in as a sop, immediately discarded when Dan Goldin ran out of money.

ESAS tried the MIT formula as well (Griffin ignored the White House and OSTP) and guess what that has gotten us....

The world's largest vibrator and not even a single robot on the Moon.

Sorry but these arguments are dead letters and it may be that this entire generation of American space advocates must die before rationality and practicality enters the equation in space. Either that or China and India, which are both using practical benefits and wealth from space as reasons, will do it for us.

= Yeah, those are pretty airy fairy words. But they're right.

== Those words have been used since the 1980's as justification for space exploration and guess what it has gotten us.....

OK, so now we'll try a strategy that will work, right? The Platinum Strategy! Sheesh.

Actually, those airy fairy words may well have saved any shred of U.S. human spaceflight since the 1980s. Do you honestly think that without the promise of exploration, national pride, international prestige, and leadership, we'd have done shuttle or ISS? It's sad we haven't made more progress, but I'd say it has gotten us quite a bit.

Now I'm happy to sip the Kool-Aid and try to convince myself that fortunes await us as we bring the solar system into our economic sphere. I can dream. But the expansion of human experience is a concrete and attainable goal. Unlike your Platinum Strategy, I KNOW we can do it.

My apologies for reading too much into them, but your justifications for human space flight strike me as not being driven by resource development or national security (since there are better ways to do those things), but by a desperate need to find some excuse to colonize the solar system.

I feel that NASA's and America's number goal for right now, is to "DRAMATICALLY LOWER" human (and cargo) launch costs.

That's strategic rubbish. You dramatically lower launch costs and then you'd STILL be trying to figure out what to do with those cheaper launches. Yes, lowering launch costs is an important objective to do anything in space and fulfilling any major goal, but the American public would like to believe that a "number one goal" would be something that refers to a profound improvement in the quality of life or the development of our civilization. Ah, platinum, perhaps?

Dennis is right. Forget about making ACCESS to LEO much cheaper. How in the heck can you do it? Physics is physics; you need a certain amount of energy to get up there and you have to get that energy somehow. Chemical propulsion seems to be about all we have to do it with for the forseeable future. (I'd love to see fusion drives, matter-antimatter power plants, zero-point energy, and warp drive as much as any other dreamer, but for now we have to live in the Real World.) So, let's deal with the world as it is and concentrate on getting as much material up there to do something with as soon as we can. Wingo points out that you can make launch systems somewhat cheaper by building a lot of them - fine, do it. He also points out that if you start building making use of specific stuff up there, you can get the energy you need for transportation (rocket fuel) from resources up there, and that it is a heck of a lot cheaper to use if from there.

Finally, as to why: "Great nations must do great things or they cease begin great."

There is no economic justification for humans in space, as the first poster noted the price structure just is not there even for the most precious substances. Sure, there has been economic benefit from space exploration but it has been a secondary effect from technology developed to ensure survival and data collection in space. Geo-observation and environmental studies are valid reasons to be in space, but they don't require humans.

However, you can turn the question around and ask the same thing about government funding of science. There isn't a direct economic benefit. As an industrial researcher I know first hand that practically nothing done in academia will be of benefit to my company in the next 10 years or more. My company spends 10's of millions of dollars annually to fund academic research with practically zero direct economic benefit. The lack of direct economic benefit is NOT a good reason not to fund science. Sure, 95% of the money or more is wasted on totally trivial work, but we have yet to discover a good way to predict the winners with any degree of accuracy.

So my answer to the question "Why space" is "because we can, because it forces us to think outside the box to create unique solutions that address one-of-a-kind problems, because in the past that has created enough economic benefit to pay for itself". Someone at NASA should really do a DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE estimation of the economic benefit from technologies developed to enable space travel and compare that against cumulative expenditures, then let the numbers speak for themselves.

Why Space, why now? I'll tell you why. 20 years ago it was cool to walk around with a pole up your butt and nose in the air pontificating about how the risk wasn't worth the return on mining the Moon. Today, however, we are faced with 4 serious space programs all aiming at the Moon. The Russian, Chinese, Indians, and Japanese programs are all viable, and in the case of the Russian and Chinese programs we already know their socialists are better than ours.

So today it isn't a question of what the odds are of a good return if we go to the Moon looking for mineral wealth. The question is, what are the odds that the next country to get there won't find any exploitable mineral wealth? Is it 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000? Seems to me like it's a lot lower than that, but are any of those odds the kind you want to take? Can you live with a 1 in 100 odds that we will have to go hat-in-hand to one of those nations begging for natural resources extracted from their mines on the Moon? Are you willing to take those odds on America no longer being the premier economic power in the world?

If you are willing to willing to risk those odds, if the American people are willing to risk those odds, then I think history will deal with us appropriately. We were there first, but gave up. We were the best, but gave up. We were the generation to do the least with the most, because we gave up.

The burden of proof is not on the Dennis Wingos of this world anymore. The burden of proof is on the educated idiots at MIT now. It is on the smarmy, "it looks like you're just trying to justify a space program" idiots now because the Russians are going. The Chinese are going. The Indians are going. They're not waiting for someone else to find those resources first. They're going. Sit there with your thumb up your butt if you want to. They're going, and they're going now.

former CA resident: Forget about making ACCESS to LEO much cheaper...

I'm sure glad the aeronautics development and the airline industry didn't follow this line of reasoning. We'd all still be riding trains, or worse.

The moon is a 9 BILLION acre unclaimed asset waiting to happen.

For those that say it would not be economical to bring anything back. That even if you loaded the shuttle with gold it would not pay for the cost. Well I would just do what they did in california when faced with expensive transportation costs. I would put the lunar gold in a metal box and hang a sign on my habitat with one word on it. BANK

I would conduct business electronically and never have to move the bullion. Gold that enters a bank vault doesn't move around much once it goes in.

The planet has to come to terms with the property rights issue first or no point in going.

If a land grant was given for a couple hundred thousand acres how much would it be worth?

Regolith processing rights.
Each individual mineral mining right.
Gemstone mineral rights.

It is having the land claim or mineral rights claim that is used for raising capital. If I bring back one shiney lunar "diamond" and sell it on EBAY for 5 million a carat how much is the 10,000 that are laying around my lunar claim worth? How much funding can I raise?

My apologies for reading too much into them, but your justifications for human space flight strike me as not being driven by resource development or national security (since there are better ways to do those things), but by a desperate need to find some excuse to colonize the solar system.

There is no desperation here at all. It is business eventually that drives this. The government has a legitimate role in providing the initial infrastructure that allows private enterprise to build upon. This is no different than the Erie Canal, the National Railroad, or the Panama Canal.

If resource development is not an eventual goal, what the hell is? National prestige is going to carry us to the next star system? Sorry but you have to look around and see what the problems that confront our world are today and see what space has to offer. The resources of space have a lot to offer our current problems, probably more than any other field of endeavour.

There is no economic justification for humans in space, as the first poster noted the price structure just is not there even for the most precious substances. Sure, there has been economic benefit from space exploration but it has been a secondary effect from technology developed to ensure survival and data collection in space. Geo-observation and environmental studies are valid reasons to be in space, but they don't require humans.

Here are a set of questions for those who say that there is no economic justification for space.

1. Do you know what the production cost is for PGM's today?

2. Do you know all possible space architectures and whether or not they can make PGM's viable?

3. If mankind is going to the Moon anyway, do you know the delta costs for developing PGM mining activities?

Yes I know the Elon Musk crack cocaine answer but it does not fly if you really look at the details of how the initial NASA architecture would play out and how things can be built from there.

For some details on how to build upon the NASA ESAS type architecture google my NNL06AE27P contract deliverable.

I spent 33 years within the "Agency"... I am now a pragmatic entrepreneur. Commercial space is alive and well. What can carry the costs, thrives in space. The answer(s) are clear and obvious once you are on the outside. What my children need now for their future and security is reliable, cost effective energy independence, followed by a North American economy that can outperform the world with respect to profit margin. Not an outpost on the moon or Mars. If The Space Program cannot be a keystone in the above goal, it is frankly, irrelevant.

If I'm reading all this right, the STS has less incremental cost than Dragon, and obviously several times the trunk-space. (I keep finding numbers in the 60 to 100 million per launch range.)

Everyone knows why that doesn't matter much right now. We don't do many launches.

But obviously if we had 50 flights worth of work to do, we could use it as-is for dramatically cheaper launches, and buy newer, better Shuttles and unmanned Shuttles.

So we have the technology, on the shelf, ready to go, and a seriously improved Shuttle is perfectly feasible.

There's just not enough to do with it. So spending more to develop a better bridge to nowhere is barking up the wrong tree. We already tried making a better system in the hopes that it would spur activity. The system worked. It's called the Space Shuttle. It didn't so what we hoped.

If we don't think up what we're doing first, we'll get nowhere.

Just think of something. It may not even need to be profitable; the government does a long line of unprofitably things. That's what makes them the government.

If you have something to do, the launch cost problem practically solves itself.

Platinum is an interesting concept. I wouldn't discount it so quick. We routinely spend very large sums of money on things that are not directly profitable, but give our country a competitive advantage. Having an education system and a military are two examples.

I think space advocates seriously undersell the possibilities.

We just spent over a trillion dollars ensuring that oil from Iraq is traded in dollars and not euros.

Maintaining air superiority when we'll have no air battles in the foreseeable future is obviously worth 68 billion dollars on the F-22 program, and billions more on the F-35.

The '22 and '35 don't make a profit for this country. But if we wound up in a situation where we'd need them, they would be priceless.

Is a mind-blowing amount of platinum one of those things?

Why not?

Fuel cells can't become big without that platinum. It's not economical. But if you were to bring it down and MAKE them big, we could CREATE a big new market and have a global monopoly on it from the start.

As oil dwindles we would be the only country with a metal critical for powered transportation. Powered transportation is a critical capability for everyone; hence the big deal about oil.

We spent over a hundred billion on a pair of new fighter jets on the slim chance that we might really need them. That's not irrational.

Two hundred billion on something that could give us global dominance over a critical part is surely worth it.

Don't just say "platinum" and giggle, like someone suggested going to space for buried treasure.

Nobody else thinks this way except space advocates. We downplay the best ideas because we're afraid of looking silly, then fallback on lofty nonsense that we know is bullshit.

Which reminds me. What is one of the top complaints people have around here about NASA and space folk? They suck at getting people to support them.

One last thing. Do we need people to harvest asteroids? I don't think we need people bolted to the side of an asteroid with pickaxes and shovels.

But a system like Constellation or anything else that lets people fly to deep space would give you the ability to teleoperate complex robots in real time, with hands and thumbs and such, and grind through the work in pretty short order without actually needing a manned asteroid lander.

It would also let people build large projects in LEO, as we've done before.

These could both be critical capabilities for such a project.

Dfens

I think that you are absolutely right. After the paper at LPSC last year regarding the fate of low velocity metallic impactors on the Moon, I am absolutely convinced (well at least 98.5%), that we will find mineable large fragments (million ton sized) on the Moon. I am really hoping that Paul Spudis's radar instrument on Chandryann will find splashes of material similar to what it appears the Japanese radar is seeing (it is so hard to get real information out of those guys on the subject).

What would be the result of the find of a billion ton Ni-Fe object on the Moon within 250 km of the lunar north pole? I think that it would be amazing and I think that the likelyhood is better than 2 to 1 odds that one will be found. There are tantalizing indications from the Mercury Messenger mission as well of Ni-Fe impacts that have left large volumes of material which could be Ni-Fe fines.

I had some private feedback from someone and I want to clairiify something. I do not think that PGM's alone are financial viable. Think that as part of a larger development of infrastructure and resources that PGM's will become viable as a product delivered back to the Earth. I ran a couple of calculations and returning PGM's to the earth would return more net energy value than beaming energy directly from the Moon's surface. Think about what could be done if we had a gigawatt of power on the Moon for industrial processing!

In the end the Moon in microcosim mirrors the problems that we have here on the Earth in Macrocosim, which is that if you are going to build a prosperous civilization, you must first start with energy, then resources, then industrial development. The development of our terrestrial civilization has always been very ad hoc and kind of blundering forward. Doing this on the Moon will help to also focus our thinking on how we need to develop our own prosperous planetary civilization here. Hint, without resources from space, it is not going to happen and all the doom and gloomers will be proven right.

It actually amazes me that it is in the space advocacy community where the most opposition to offworld industrial development lies. When I print similar articles in other non space forums the response is a lot different. You might say that since they don't know what we in the space advocate community does that they can have a pollyanna view but the response of a friend of mine that built a silicon valley style company in Huntsville Alabama is pertinent.

"We were too stupid to know that what we were doing was not possible, so we just did it" He and his partner built a billion dollar business by not having any preconceived notions about how hard it was. Sometimes we space advocates are too smart for our own good and let that get in the way of actually getting something done.

All right. Even though I will salute the effort, I, Mr. Senator CongressMan, am still unconvinced. All I read is an effort to convince me, Dr. NASAEngineer. Now, I don't need to be convinced. And by the way, if I am a Neuroscientist I can care less about mining on Pluto, the planet, or whatever it is today. However, how do I get to convince Dr. Biologist whose friend is Mr. TheButcher? HOW? Today we have a "few" things we need to address, in no particular order:

. Education: We need more than beautiful roads and bridges. Do we want to stay at the forefront of science? Of politics? Yes POLITICS. Well educated politicians make educated decisions, not educated "guess".
. Energy: The challenge of sending humans to space requires the development of effective and frugal energy sources.
. National Security: How about Apollo, for example, gave us the most advanced technological lead for about 40 years, unsurpassed, till about now. Something like the microprocessor... And for those of you who think China is a small player, let me remind you that they actually are flying to space with a new vehicle. But then again we can keep our heads in the sand.
. Economy: JOBS, how about JOBS? How many jobs were created and sustained during Apollo? How about a lot of those jobs were to highly educated people? Highly educated people usually make a decent amount of money. Then they need all kinds of people to help them in their work: admins, cooks, maids...

In any case. We need to SPELL IT OUT to the guys who hold the money. Oh, and by the way, how about it'd be better for those guys to get a sustainable workforce that in turn will vote for them. Something like: We went beyond SRBs and used the current workforce to educate the next one. And we develop new launchers with new technologies. With those new technologies...

I will not claim that I covered all there is. But everything else is merely detail. How often have you had to request a budget from a manager who at best does not understand what you do or at worst does not care? How do you do it? How do you explain it is in his/her own interest to fund your project, since, let me repeat, he/she does not understand what you do.

Let me remind you how far we've gone since 1972... LEO and it's not even sure anymore.

@Dennis Wingo

"Sometimes we space advocates are too smart for our own good and let that get in the way of actually getting something done."

I think that about sums up the negativity. We can all think of a dozen reasons something can't be done, so we stop there.

I don't like the gold and\or crack cocaine in orbit lines. I did, but I don't anymore, because it's a straw-man.

If there was a 50,000 pound piece of gold in orbit, conveniently shaped for the STS cargo bay, we couldn't retrieve it profitably. True, true, true.

But if there were 50 of them? Economy of scale kicks in, and suddenly it's not 500 million dollars per shuttle flight any more. It's less than 100.

And if it was platinum, it would have very real value beyond the market price; it could grant civilization new capabilities.

There isn't a 50,000 pound piece of platinum in space.

There is a lot more than that.

Enough that if we could find it with some cheap geology sats, and bring it back in bulk, we could do it profitably and even grant civilization new capabilities - including the ability to harvest OTHER things from the Moon if we want.

The cargo bay shaped bag of crack is a red herring.

One thing I'd like to add is that water and energy are the two biggest "jump start" industries in space. Water makes all life and rocket fuel in-situ & energy for use in-space and as beamed power. I don't see metals manufacturing making sense until there is real infrastructure which means many decades after we have built facilities from LEO to Ceres with Earth-made parts and local energy and water. For first-resources it is hard to beat those two - going forward metals, He3 and other materials might be feasible.

If the Moon has water and ready energy go there. Otherwise look to GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, Mars/Phobos, NEOs and Ceres for those resources.

Platinum, or something like it, is also a very clear and measurable goal.

"We want to acquire lunar platinum because it will grant our country X new capability, which is great for doing Z. Everyone else wants to do it too, and we'll be the sole supplier."

^^^ that is a solid, strong argument. I can't imagine a better argument for going to the Moon. If you can back it up with equally strong facts, the Moon is won.

Solid, strong arguments survive administrations. Like this one:

"We need a new fighter because Russia makes great fighters, and if we need to fight someone who buys Russian fighters, they'll bone us."

That's a solid enough argument even if the war of the moment doesn't give it much to do. And with that, the F-22 survived almost 2 decades of problems, delays, threats and overruns.

It's done. It's flying. We have it now.

Find holes in the facts but please don't waste people's time with lofty nonsense.

Is it not directly profitable enough? Does it take a huge investment? Yes. That's why we're talking about the government doing it. That's the kind of stuff they do.

One thing I'd like to add is that water and energy are the two biggest "jump start" industries in space. Water makes all life and rocket fuel in-situ & energy for use in-space and as beamed power. I don't see metals manufacturing making sense until there is real infrastructure which means many decades after we have built facilities from LEO to Ceres with Earth-made parts and local energy and water. For first-resources it is hard to beat those two - going forward metals, He3 and other materials might be feasible.

You should read some of Paul Spudis's papers on the subject. In the polar region, even away from the cold traps there is up to a couple of liters of water per cubic meter of regolith can can be baked out with temps of no more than a few hundred degrees C. With just about all of the ISRU processing systems out there you easily get oxygen, and if we are going to do it, there are many processes that get metal as well. I simply do not understand this mindset that thinks that it will take decades to do. We already are profitably mining on the Earth gold, platinum, and other metals at gram per ton rates and if you are using Fe2O3 as a feedstock you literally get 2.4 tons of iron for every ton of oxygen. This is well understood chemistry that is already in some areas being used on the earth.

Even the most inefficient processes get metals and again, read the Apollo mission reports and the early papers from the early 70's on the samples. There is literally 10 kilograms per every ton of regolith that is pure Ni-Fe that can be separated with nothing more complex than a magnet.

Is it not directly profitable enough? Does it take a huge investment? Yes. That's why we're talking about the government doing it. That's the kind of stuff they do.

Amen. The national railroad would have not been built for at least several decades if not for the government. In the middle of a war for the life of the nation, that Railway act of 1862 was passed.

When the Chinese and Indians begin to toil around the Solar System (in 10 - 20 years), then the United States will get serious about what it wants to do in space. I'm for the U.S. exploring and developing space for the following reasons:

1. It helps younger Americans think outside the box, wonder about the future, and provides goals.

2. Economic nationalism. I'm OK with the U.S. developing the Solar System's resources for use by America.

3. Establish a part of America off the planet... in the event America doesn't make it on Earth.

sc220, I am somewhat puzzled concerning your impressions about the magnanimous cost savings you claim have been provided by our private sector aeronautical brethren:

I am paying the same amount (in inflation adjusted dollars) to fly from O'Hare to LAX on a regular basis that I did in 1966 (and I have the stubs to prove it). Maybe you are sweeping inflation under the rug?

This is no different than the Erie Canal, the National Railroad, or the Panama Canal.

Wanna bet?

Those were about transporting identified goods and resources. Aside from the fact that boats and railroads needed human beings to drive them, those elements of early transportation architecture had nothing to do with people, except that those goods and resources had already been found and developed, and were being churned out, as it turns out, by people. Those historical analogies are pretty lame.

There is no argument that we need a more ambitious space transportation architecture to do anything, but aside from the words "exploration, national pride, international prestige, and leadership" which, by the way, are the words you are deriding, the value of humans in space which, by the way, you are advocating, is hardly clear. I'm saying those words are fundamentally important justifications for humans in space. You're saying they aren't.

I certainly will say "platinum" and giggle. The deposits have not been clearly identified, and the extraction techniques have by no means been proven. In fact, a wholehearted guffaw would be more appropriate. I could also say "beaver pelts", and giggle as people desperately tell me how much they are needed for hats. Let's see. We're not doing that anymore, are we.

By the way, a country that has the ability to mine, extract, refine, and return substantial amounts of platinum from space economically is not likely to have much need of it for fighter planes. Loud giggle.

"By the way, a country that has the ability to mine, extract, refine, and return substantial amounts of platinum from space economically is not likely to have much need of it for fighter planes."

I didn't suggest that...? Giggle?

I was using fighter planes as an example of something that doesn't produce any money but offers us an advantage and a capability that is deemed worth the money. These capabilities are deemed valuable enough to spend dozens of billions of dollars on the system. Because it's reason to exist is solid, it gets continued support.

I did say it could be a critical part of powered transportation, and I was referring to fuel cells. We're working on fission and fusion and solar power, etc., but you need something to like, store that energy, if you're going to have a car. Unless your car is directly solar powered. (Giggle.)

There are multiple options. Batteries, most obviously.

As it is, fuel cells are not gonna be the winner if you can't make enough.

But if that wasn't the case, maybe they'd be the more attractive pick. We should have a look at things like this.

"The deposits have not been clearly identified"

That's what probes and rovers are for.

Find something, chart out where it is, and show we can go get it if we want, and that it will give our country a real edge, or solve a particular problem.

So do we need advanced human spaceflight capability right now?

I have no idea. There's a non-zero chance that such resource utilization wouldn't even warrant humans on site - or near it. I guess I just wanted to say not to discount harvesting space resources with government funds. While I have some emotional attachment to the idea of sending people to do it, if that's actually superfluous than so be it.

Those were about transporting identified goods and resources. Aside from the fact that boats and railroads needed human beings to drive them, those elements of early transportation architecture had nothing to do with people, except that those goods and resources had already been found and developed, and were being churned out, as it turns out, by people. Those historical analogies are pretty lame.

Huh? What is under discussion is the role of government in providing the capital to foster a completely new capability. While on the Central Pacific side of the railroad there were customers from SF to Sacramento and to the gold fields but little beyond that. Reno was the only town that existed and it was a mining town as well. As far as the Union Pacific goes, heading west, there was nothing past Iowa. The great plains were called the "great American desert" and absolutely no private entity would have paid to build a railroad that way or even on the more southerly routes. Sorry but the point is that the railroads cut the time from San Francisco to New York from 6 months to 6 days. It was a transformative event.

The Senate passed the Pacific railway act on the same day as they passed the first version of the Emancipation Proclmation in the Territories of the U.S., June 20, 1862 and the cash bonuses flowed to the railroads through the darkest days of the war.

I certainly will say "platinum" and giggle. The deposits have not been clearly identified, and the extraction techniques have by no means been proven. In fact, a wholehearted guffaw would be more appropriate. I could also say "beaver pelts", and giggle as people desperately tell me how much they are needed for hats. Let's see. We're not doing that anymore, are we.

Of course they have. All of the Apollo regolith samples had between 0.1 to 1% by mass Ni-Fe material. Recently at LPSC the simulations results were presented that confirmed my hypothesis about the survivability of the low velocity impactors.

If you are so sure in your guffaw then I would expect that you have read the book "Resources of Near Earth Space" published by the University of Arizona Press, which was an early (1990) compendium of peer reviewed papers on the resource potential of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids as it was understood at the time. Since then the story has gotten better not worse. Guffaw all you like, but perhaps the last laugh is not in your court.

As far as the Union Pacific goes, heading west, there was nothing past Iowa.

I guess the tens of thousands of Mormons in the Great Salt Lake Valley didn't count as anything...

Question: Why Space? Why Now?

Answer: Why not?

Rationale: $18B/year is a drop in the bucket as far as spending goes. Also, there's no point in every 4 years having to rejustify space to those that in any case will oppose such efforts no matter what is argued.

Another approach might be simply to argue what happens if space is not supported. Trying to save a few billion per year in space is not going to balance the budget but will most certainly devastate U.S. access to space and cede the high ground to Europe, Russia, China, and others. Can we sleep comfortably with the Chinese red flag, and a future outpost manned by the People Liberation's Army, on the Moon while the flags left by Apollo are probably bleached white (the space environment is far more caustic than people realize) by now? I wouldn't.

The argument against space is not unlike that in ancient China which resulted in the burning of its huge fleet (not unlike the abandonment of Apollo) and a ban on building ships with more than one sail. As a result one century later unchallenged European nations had settlements and colonies right under their nose, two centuries later they had colonies right on chinese territory, ... etc. By the time the Chinese realized what the situation it was simply too late.

Kicking the bucket down the road is not the way to go.

Dear friends, I for one truly hope that humans can explore the Solar System but I haven't read here a compelling argument to get any budget from Congress to do just that. I've seen bits and pieces that can make one though. I still say that if we do not specifically adress the "why" there will be no change. Platinum and mining or He-3 or any of those are the "what" and sometimes the "how" of the argument.

Since I am a little slow I will ask again WHY???? Key National Issues anyone?
. Education
. Energy
. National Security
. Economy

If we address each one of those (more?) specifically we stand a chance otherwise... And we'll need numbers, ball-park numbers of things we claim. The NASA "should do this and that" opinion has as much substance as NASA "should NOT do this and that". Indeed they both only are opinions, not reasons why.

Also, deriding an MIT Academics plan does not make another such plan any better.

Heck! NASA should run the human exploration of space and hire me as an astronaut. Because it'd be really cool.

Although HSE [Highly Siderophile Elements - includes rhenium (Re), osmium Os), iridium (Ir), ruthenium (Ru), rhodium (Rh), platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd) and gold (Au)] were present in the nebula from which the Earth formed, as the young planet evolved and heated up they were stripped, along with other heavy elements, from the silicate mantle into the iron and nickel-rich metallic core. The presence of HSE in the mantle is still a matter of debate. However, a widely accepted theory is that HSE were added by meteorite impacts as a veneer of material over the Earth's surface after the core had formed, about 20-30 million years after the planet's accretion. - Science Daily

Would this effect not have worked equally for both the mantle of the Earth and the Moon? Should we not expect similar concentrations of HSE metals in the exteriors of both bodies?

2006: Same question same problems... http://www.thespacereview.com/article/644/1
Excerpt below... Good luck to us all!

----------------------

As Guillermo Söhnlein, chairman of the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs, put it, “If you’re not sure internally why you exist, it’s very difficult to expect anyone outside to understand why you exist.”

"Since I am a little slow I will ask again WHY???? Key National Issues anyone?"

Well not all key national issues are the ones in the public eye.

Let's take platinum for example. Let's imagine we know where to get it. It's on an asteroid, or the Moon, whichever. We know that we can go to the Moon if we want to, that we can mine things, that we can build application specific robots to do all sorts of things, and that doing these things in bulk isn't so costly if you think about it.

What key national issues does it solve?

Energy: If we want oil independence, fuel cells can store energy for powered transportation. PMGs allow fuel cells.

Where will that energy come from? It's the future. Modern nuclear technology may proliferate, solar technology is advancing steadily, America has 200 years of coal if you don't care about CO2, and we should know by 2020 if fusion can work.

But you don't actually have to produce the energy to be part of the solution. Energy storage is an issue. Fuel cells are an option. If metal scarcity was a non-issue, I'd say it's instant win against harvesting our food for oil. I don't know how it'd stack up against batteries or internal combustion engines running on hydrogen. I'm sure someone else here does.

Economy: We create a new market. We acquire exportable resources. Powered transportation is far more compatible with the climate.

Better economy means more money for whatever you want, including education and national security.

Lots of schools are getting hit by budget cuts due to the sour economy.

FWIW, it's also a big make-work program. Think of the Hoover Dam, except you need tens of thousands of really smart people over a long period of time.

Some of those things would hold true no matter what it is we're bringing back, but energy storage is an aspect of a current national problem, so this resource is uniquely suited to solving certain national problems.

Is there a better option than fuel cells even if you remove platinum scarcity from the equation? Is there not enough platinum in the first place?

Then nevermind.

But heck, if it was gold, and we wanted gold for some reason (I'm sure it's useful for something?), and there was enough on the Moon or some asteroid to bring it back in bulk, than that's an economic boon and the economy helps just about everything.

Let's not create artificial barriers like expecting everything to be easy, cheap, elegant, safe or directly profitable.

The military is none of those things. We spend hundreds of billion a year on a nuclear military even at peacetime. Nuclear ships, nuclear bombs, RTG powered sats... Which is fine.

I'm just saying that if space could solve a national problem, at the cost of nuclear LVs & ships for 200 billion a year, that wouldn't be unprecedented.

Uhh, I wanna add something else.

The powers that be have decided that the reasons we have now, from senators pushing for local pork to ones who like the science, are worth about 10 to 15 billion a year. Maybe 20.

If you give them the same reasons, I think they'll value it about the same.

So if you want to go to the Moon on those justifications, expect about that much money.

If you want to go to the Moon on that, you can if you're willing to wait a bit, and while those might be reasons to go to the Moon, they're not reasons to go in bulk.

So an architecture geared towards a few flights a year is probably just what the doctor ordered.

If you want to study the Moon, to learn about Moon rocks (always a joy - no sarcasm) and do astronomy for national pride and to "inspire the youth", you can do that with 4, maybe 8 staff on-site doing 6 month terms.

That's gonna be less than ten flights a year.

If you try to come up with an architecture to do a handful of flights every year.

You're probably not going to want a spaceplane, or anything fancy, complicated or reusable, because it'll just be a lot of overhead. Something like Constellation or DIRECT or whatever is probably what you want.

>>>Well not all key national issues are the ones in the
>>>public eye.

Maybe so but the public pays for all this stuff. So here is your customer you need to convince.

---

We spend hundreds of billions [The 2005 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States] because DOD is a good example as to why they exist. They have a very simple effective message: Fear. Fear is a good driver for any expense. The day we have as good a message is the day when you will see $200B into Space exploration. Until then we have to justify every penny.

I guess the tens of thousands of Mormons in the Great Salt Lake Valley didn't count as anything...

Oh good lord, and how far is it from Iowa to Salt Lake City? Them Mormons were not exactly wanting to integrate into the mainstream of American society. At one time they wanted to secede.

"Until then we have to justify every penny."

Okay, I understand.

I guess right now the mission really is exploration and other things I previously referred to as "lofty nonsense", including national prestige, and R&D. That's what they've been going on for a while and I think their budget reflects the value of these goals well enough.

If there's a reason out there worth 200 billion a year, our current program should be able to find it with probes, and give us the tools and know-how to go for it if we find it.

I think I summed up well enough how the platinum could satisfy "national objects" you listed; the very public ones. But as has been mentioned it's debatable if the stuff is actually there, and there are alternatives to fuel cells.

Does all this make sense?

The great plains were called the "great American desert" and absolutely no private entity would have paid to build a railroad that way or even on the more southerly routes.

The historical analogy is still lame. The rail lines were for efficiently connecting far flung reaches of civilization. The human space transportation architecture is, from a resource perspective, a bridge to nowhere right now. Hey, if the Moon had a Senator, you could get some big earmarks to do this! Actually, federal investment in covered wagons would be a more relevant historical analogy here.

"The deposits have not been clearly identified"

That's what probes and rovers are for.

Bingo! But what we're talking about here is human space flight. Not probes and rovers. More power to all the the probes and rovers that will reveal the riches of the universe to us and help us decide if we want to send people with pickaxes to get it. But, um, where are those probes and rovers? Oh, yes, we've got an LRO to reveal the Moon to us. But the boss says we don't need any more of those things before we start making footprints and dig for platinum.

Look, forget platinum. The resource you really want to return to Earth is high quality vacuum. The cost per ounce of high quality vacuum is absolutely enormous, and there is loads of it in space. Sorry, but this resource discussion deserves something that everyone can giggle at!

"But, um, where are those probes and rovers?"

We have many probes and rovers, either at or on the way to the Moon, Mercury, Mars, the Saturn System, Vesta, Ceres, Pluto and other KBOs.

While I'm not too confident about the reasons for sending people to the Moon right now, I am not worried about the small number of lunar probes because astronauts on the ground will get loads of work done.

If, for whatever reason, you are sending people to the Moon to do research, than "the boss" is probably right saying you don't need too many probes.

Rest assured we'll learn a lot about the Moon.

Evidently the reasons I've referred to here as "lofty nonsense" aren't that bad, as the powers that be value it at around 15 to 20 billion a year, and that is enough to send probes everywhere and new expeditions to the Moon. *shrugs*

I just put a high level version of this on the Obama Citizens Briefing book site.

Please vote this up if you agree.

http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/ideaList.apexp?lsi=1

Dennis

Sorry, wrong link.

http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000004nmb&lsr=0#comments