A Shift in Policy? Moon Base Axed?

There is certainly the smell of a re-org. The GS 15 jobs offered under ESMD are apparently being cancelled.

FWIW

This pretty much means we are not going to the moon at all. Why go there is we are not going to build a base. I believe that is a bad idea. The chances of us building a moon base anytime by 2030 is a whole lot better than going to the mars or NEO's. That is a crazy to change plans like that.

Sounds like a classic case of "kick the can down the road"...until it's someone else's problem.

The more things "change" the more they stay the same...

How depressing...I'm gonna go watch Star Trek...our only "space program"...

With the Moon base canceled and COTS-D advancing (albeit slowly), NASA can lay off all their pilot astronauts. They can send their resumes' to SpaceX.

What in world is going on?? Go watch Star Trek indeed, this is so depressing! Thank god for SpaceX and all this Google Lunar stuff. This certainly doesn't make me want to ever work for NASA...

Folks shouldn't be depressed. CxP would still go on, it seems. NEOs are vety interesting, and probably where a lot of our exploration future hides. Heck of a lot of science to do there. And this would be getting out of the cislunar system. We'd be in deep space (in other words, beyond 1 million km) for the first time!

Honestly, I've never understood the rationale behind a moon base at this time. It would be just our luck to build it and end up 100s of kilometers away from the things on the surface that are interesting. A program of sorties makes more sense. Yes, it should have been done as Apollo but it wasn't.

No longer going to the previous destination.
No determination or passion about going to the new destination. (This may change.)
They are just wondering at random and will end up going no where.

@Eric Hedman:

This was already happening with Orion: http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Fly_Us_to_the_Moon.html?#

Difficult to justify "pilots" when the vehicle is "auto-piloted"...

Cooke replied: "The direction that we have is to continue to pursue the 2020 date," but added that the agency was still assessing how the 2010 budget might affect that.

waffle at best.

show no progress in 5 years and still assessing how the 2010 budget might affect that. 2016 for the first launch or Ares 1 and Orion, maybe.

Amend the CxP contract Now and have the IG investigate the program for mismanagement and waste.

NASA can lay off all their pilot astronauts., No, they are on Detail from the DoD, they can return to Service.

My concern with going with a Mars or asteroid mission is that, if it is successful, it would be likely to be like the Apollo moon missions. Once accomplished, then what. Funding would be cut and we'd have to wait 20 or 30 years before figuring out what to do next.

At least with the moon base, it would be an ongoing program that could provide a way to learn how to live away from earth and perhaps derive some resources from the moon as well. This experience could then be used to support ongoing missions to Mars.

I'd far, far rather see a mission to a NEO than to build a moon outpost. It seems to make a lot more sense politically, China has talked about both Mars and even Saturn missions. Sure, they would occur long after we would have abandoned the moon base, but I'd rather see NASA working towards getting there earliest as possible.

I never really liked the idea of a lunar outpost anyway. I'm scared it would turn the moon into the thing which the ISS turned LEO into: boring. Isolated missions always seemed to get the most press attention. One single mission to a NEA would probably gain more attention than every shuttle mission since 107. Of course, so would the initial lunar missions, but they would probably become just as unnoticed as the ISS missions (or, probably a better comparison, Apollo 14-17). For the majority of the public, I'm talking to. I thought Apollo and the ISS are great :D

But I'm not sure if the comments are substantial, they seem to just be saying 'Lunar outpost isn't going to be happening', rather than a great refocus on NEAs or similar. But I'm jumping the gun here, it's only the words of an acting administrator. But we'll see how it goes.

View from the inside-

Do not be mislead by mentions of NEO's or Mars. The real reason such plans would be scraped is that the RECURRING operations and production cost of an expendable Constellation dual-vehicle architecture, the cost of getting there only, transportation only, leaves no remaining funds in 2020 given (1) current ops and production projections and (2) considering small growth in those costs as likely.

Do the math. Ask the hard question: Is this space transport dual vehicle system for government operated human space flight going to cost as much, more, or less than Shuttle?

Look at the public sandcharts. The answer is more. Adjust for inflation. To be more precise, about 2X as much Shuttle.

Do the math.

This kind of nonsense is why I'm not going to believe in change unless the President appoints a Gen Xer as the next NASA Administrator.

Here's a wild concept - maybe the kids aren't tired of the Moon, maybe they're tired of Apollo. I realize that the Boomers are, by and large, incapable of associating the Moon with anything else but Apollo, but as a front-end Gen Xer I am sick and tired of being shackled to decades-old history that someone else made.

There are plenty of good reasons to go to the Moon that have nothing to do with flags and footprints (link at sig), which is what both an asteroid and a Mars mission would be. RIGHT NOW that's what either one would inevitably be, and neither would contribute anything to a sustained American human presence in space, only to a continued 'bread & circuses' for the U.S. public.

As opposed to things like jobs and resources used to build wealth and prosperity. Don't get me wrong - I do think we'll get to Mars. I don't think it's really an urgent priority RIGHT NOW, and I'd rather we took our time and did it right and went to Martian space (I'm partial to Sun-Mars L-1) in a robust way that ensures the success of efforts to go there to stay. Personally I think we'll get to NEOs first, especially if we go back to our Moon by way of the Earth-Moon L-1.

This kind of milquetoast ambivalence that we're seeing on display about what exactly it is that NASA is going to be doing in their human spaceflight efforts is why I don't ever bother going to the NASA 'big program' presentations at space conferences.

Hey NASA, instead of $#![-canning a Moonbase, why don't you try talking to American industry and seeing what kinds of needs/wants they would have if they were going to do operations on the Moon. Use that to figure out what kind of facility to construct (i.e. one where industry could plug in a module(s) and share the load), instead of locking a bunch of brainiacs up in a room to exercise their engineering fantasies in designing something you're going to 'abandon' to 'industry' once you're off to Mars (without ensuring that anyone would have a means of getting there, of course, sort of like the Catch-22 you set up with the STS external tanks).

This kind of thing just tells me that NASA management still doesn't get what the Vision for Space Exploration laid out. A path that serves security, economic and scientific ends. An architecture that provides a means for all of the actors in the American story to participate in the human development of space, not just NASA.

Methinks it's not just a new Administrator that NASA needs...

"They are just wondering at random and will end up going no where."

No they are not.

This administration clearly values the human space flight accomplishments of NASA. Obama refers all too frequently about the inspirational value of what was done by NASA. But that doesn't mean that the current plans have any such value. I believe, and I suspect the White House does too, that they don't.

We have plans for a lunar base for reasons that are frankly quite obscure to everyone. The original idea was to use the Moon as a steppingstone to go other places. The present idea is to dig in and get stuck. The original idea had Mars as a far goal. The present idea is that we shouldn't talk about that anymore. The original idea was to develop an economical space transportation system. The present idea is to pretend that we have.

You go somewhere because there's a purpose in going. The previous administration, and the managerial remains of it at NASA, never managed to make that purpose compelling. In the case of the previous White House, they never even tried.

I look forward to some serious thought, deliberation, and debate (and none of this 60-day garbage) about what we should do and why we should do it. Obama just possibly could pull that off, and not by pulling a Vision out of a hat and handing it over, carefully washing his hands afterwards, to an agency administrator that had his own.

I agree with Anon and I will add that if we don't do it, some other country will and we will be forced to play catch up.

It doesn't matter if you have a real space program as long as you can maintain the perception of a space program.

@Ken Murphy - Outstanding reply

http://www.outofthecradle.net/archives/2008/06/25-good-reasons-to-go-to-the-moon-2/

When were we supposed to have this Moon base, again? Maybe 2020? How many Administrations away is that?

And in what decade could we get to Mars?

We are saying that we are gonna try to develop some launch vehicle, almost anything, and then see what we can do with it.

We don't have the closed loop environmental systems to allow us to get anywhere near Mars. We would run out of water and air long before we got back to Earth. Where would we develop those systems - there is no real development program for them now (except indirectly with the Station).

Every GS-2 in NASA will have comfortably retired before we ever get near Mars.

We don't need a lunar exploratory program. We need a lunar base program. We've explored the moon-- already. It was called Apollo.

The Constellation program needs to be a lunar base program-- right from the start!

Each launch of the Ares V should be able to place nearly 20 tons of payload on the lunar surface. So it should take only a few launches of the Ares V to establish a permanent facility on the lunar surface. And it would be a lot safer for astronauts who travel to the moon to have a pre-assembled facility already waiting for them and already properly shielded with lunar regolith.

We need to know if humans can actually remain healthy living under 1/6 gravity over an extended period of time. So the humans that are sent there need to stay on the lunar surface for a year or more so that we can find out. There's no logical reason for expensive manned lunar missions that last only a few weeks! Such missions really don't tell us much about the human ability to survive in the New Frontier.

We also need to know if animals, including humans, can successfully reproduce under a 1/6 gravity environment. We need to know if we can grow food successfully there under artificial conditions.

Of course, while humans are there, they could also explore the lunar surface too:-) But eventually the moon could be a place for the manufacturing and launching of satellites destined for Earth orbit and also a place for tourism and even to bury the ashes of our dead. All would be extremely lucrative businesses, IMO.

If the financial resources needed to establish a permanent facility on the lunar surface requires the US to abandon its commitment to that silly International Space Station, then so be it. Skylab was a lot cheaper anyway.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/

Let's see - we're going to spend $Billions to make Ares 1 (Old Wheezy) flight ready, with its problems of roll (single-engine issue - the exhaust stream turns into a vortex, which induces an opposite direction roll on the longitudinal axis), high-g vibration that has to be countered with active dampers, and solid-fuel shutoff problems. BTW, did anyone ever take note of the fact that a few PSI of chamber pressure in the Falcon 1 1st stage engine caused it to rear-end the second stage (resulting in loss of vehicle)? And that solids don't shut off, but the thrust tapers off, which thus that creates a staging problem for Ares' second stage? And did anyone ever note that ULA and/or Lockmart offered to man-rate the Atlas for less than $1B?

At the burn-rate of funds for Ares, one could pay LM to man-rate Atlas and buy a whole bucketload of them for the same funds as getting the first Ares 1 launched.

This whole thing is either a bad dream or a joke. Moon? Hell, we'll be lucky to get Orion into LEO before someone decides to cancel the thing. Without a Lunar near-term goal that politicians can 'enjoy' while they're still in office, the chances of a long-term goal like Mars or NEOs is about zero. Or less.

Call me a cynic, but I can't help it after watching the so-called space program founder for years.

"My concern with going with a Mars or asteroid mission is that, if it is successful, it would be likely to be like the Apollo moon missions. Once accomplished, then what. Funding would be cut and we'd have to wait 20 or 30 years before figuring out what to do next."

WRONG! More like a century!

I am a FOUNDING MEMBER of the Mars Society, but I believe it is a bridge too far right now.

"We don't need a lunar exploratory program. We need a lunar base program. We've explored the moon-- already. It was called Apollo.

The Constellation program needs to be a lunar base program-- right from the start!

Each launch of the Ares V should be able to place nearly 20 tons of payload on the lunar surface. So it should take only a few launches of the Ares V to establish a permanent facility on the lunar surface. And it would be a lot safer for astronauts who travel to the moon to have a pre-assembled facility already waiting for them and already properly shielded with lunar regolith.

We need to know if humans can actually remain healthy living under 1/6 gravity over an extended period of time. So the humans that are sent there need to stay on the lunar surface for a year or more so that we can find out. There's no logical reason for expensive manned lunar missions that last only a few weeks! Such missions really don't tell us much about the human ability to survive in the New Frontier.

We also need to know if animals, including humans, can successfully reproduce under a 1/6 gravity environment. We need to know if we can grow food successfully there under artificial conditions.

Of course, while humans are there, they could also explore the lunar surface too:-) But eventually the moon could be a place for the manufacturing and launching of satellites destined for Earth orbit and also a place for tourism and even to bury the ashes of our dead. All would be extremely lucrative businesses, IMO.

If the financial resources needed to establish a permanent facility on the lunar surface requires the US to abandon its commitment to that silly International Space Station, then so be it. Skylab was a lot cheaper anyway.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Marcel F. Williams at April 29, 2009 9:34 PM"

Absolutely correct, Mr. Williams! As far as abandoning the ISS, it is time to bring the commercial world up behind the exploration sponsored by NASA. That is how it has always been done. Governments explore; commercial enterprise develops. SpaceX, or some other commercial outfits will take the place of NASA getting stuff up and down from the ISS or whatever else eventually becomes commercially profitable in LEO and higher Earth Orbits.

So far as NASA creating Moon bases is concerned, NASA needs to set the stage on the Lunar surface, and then let the commercial folks take over.

I agree that if we are to determine whether people can survive and thrive on Mars, we need to know if 1/6G is too much for long-term survival. If the answer is yes, then 1/3G should be a slam-dunk. If the answer is no, then we will have to determine what the lower threshhold may be while the subjects are only a couple of days away from Earth, not two years!

In spite of the money that has already been spent(this is ALWAYS THE ARGUEMENT FOR CONTINUING A BAD PROGRAM), Ares I should be abandoned post-haste. NOT ORION, however! Even if it means a greater gap in IOC of Constellation, we need to proceed DIRECTly (PUN INTENDED!)to Jupiter 120/232 or to Ares V or to EELV's or Wiley E. Coyote's Acme slingshot! Ares I-X can still be useful for testing the escape system. But rather than cutting redundancy/weight/etc in Orion to make up for the low lift capability of the "stick", lets proceed to a booster that has potential for expansion. AND DO IT NOW!

The arguement that we can't afford such with the current economic crisis is bogus! Those characters in Foggy Bottom and the White House had better pony up, or the United States will become the Portugal of the Space Age!

Trailrider - who remembers how it was BEFORE, DURING and after Sputnik I!

I have a couple of questions about NEO missions for anybody that knows. How often does an NEO pass near Earth on a trajectory that the Orion capsule with an Earth Departure stage can actually reach and rendezvous with? Are these common occurrences? Or do they have very small launch windows that leave long gaps before they can be repeated in case of a launch delay?

I recall when in Huntsville, 1987, the outrage was that the ISS would top $10B and people were calling for it to be scrapped. A LUNAR MANNED BASE - ISS Deux, ISS Reloaded. Alternative: Send up a succession of increasingly more capable robotic surface vehicles to build a science outpost. Something like Wall-Es. MOON & MARS: Robotics, baby but first can some of the managers at GSFC and JPL. That is, give them a baseball cap, a box of kleenex and re-assign them to Review Boards or Tiger Teams.

hello reality

Yep, This is a some funny stuff, turn the toaster to dark. No butter or coffee, chomp chomp..

Unlike previous years, today NASA is asked to reinvest in observations of
Planet Earth and to reinvigorate its aeronautics research. These programs suffered at the
expense of the Constellation program, so this is a welcomed change. NASA is to continue
with its development of the existing “vision” and the new generation of US human space flight
capabilities – the cost of which, as I commented earlier, continues to mount and the timeline
for initial operating capability gets pushed further and further into the future. The Shuttle is to
be terminated in 2010, creating a gap in US human space flight of at least five years before
Orion and Ares are available. The Space Station continues to fly, used as a platform for far
less research than supported by its original justification, until 2015 at which time its fate is
uncertain. If the decision is to cease the use of the Station at that time, we could be
developing portions of the Constellation program for a one-way trip to low Earth orbit to take
the Station from orbit. Is it any wonder that it has been so difficult to find an Administrator for
this agency?

Ahh this is the coolest thing is has read in 8 years.

It wouldn't bother me one bit if NASA scrapped ALL of it plans for the Moon and started putting their money on manned Mars expeitions.


America has already won the race to land humans on the Moon.


Why would we want to race China to the Moon?


Now is the time to win the race to put humans on Mars and return them safely to Earth.


Oh yeah, while our guys are on Mars, they can collect samples and bring them back and save on the money for that silly sample return mission that keeps going nowhere.

So just this week we've heard that they are slimming down the crew, abandoning the moon base idea, and possibly extending the shuttle's lifetime. There is still plenty of time left before the Constellation missions to abandon more integral parts of the idea for budget concerns. Seems like what we're being left with is an Apollo re-do, the value of which is certainly going to be called into question given the cost. Which really makes me wonder if there will be any outside-LEO Orion missions at all. I could definitely see Orion becoming the USA's 21st century Soyuz, reliably taking NASA into orbit while replacements and more ambitious plans are shelved due to cost and risk. Competition from other countries and from the private sector seems to be the only major factor pushing against that scenario becoming reality.

Lots of lunar base fans here it seems.

Makes no sense to me. If you look at scientific gains there is not much on the Moon beyond geology/astronomy, both of which can be done robotically. Learning to live and work in space......isn't that what the ISS is for?

Mars is more interesting in scientific terms, and also has a lot more potential for future settlement. Even the first mission should have many months on the surface. To me it makes so much sense, research the life science for long-duration on ISS, develop the heavy lifter, go on and you might start with Mars exploration by the mid/end 2020s.

This lunar base, it's just too timid and too expensive for what it delivers. Learning to work in 1/6 g, how is that more interesting that 0 g?? Is the Moon better for colonization than Mars?? Do we really think some tin cans on the lunar surface are going to excite people over tin cans in orbit??

I guess as a 29yo PhD I'm this kind of gen-x'er, even though I don't use twitter etc. Just my 2 cents, but I think a $100+B Moon base isn't going to fly with this generation. It seems more like the status quo. Why not use the capabilities and talents that are there for something really ambitious and worthwhile.

"I have a couple of questions about NEO missions for anybody that knows. How often does an NEO pass near Earth on a trajectory that the Orion capsule with an Earth Departure stage can actually reach and rendezvous with? Are these common occurrences? Or do they have very small launch windows that leave long gaps before they can be repeated in case of a launch delay?"

I've asked the same question of the teams that are doing this work. They tell me that the launch window is actually quite wide. Weeks, most likely. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but that's what they say. I think the opportunities are every few years.

I think this makes sense. There's no reason to chide it.

A long duration mission to the Moon - maybe with some temporary base-like infrastructure, could be really useful for studying long term microgravity effects on mammels.

But you don't need a huge permanent base for that. I don't believe its conducive to exploring the Moon either; you're going to run out of stuff to look at in that spot. For lunar exploration, if robots aren't enough, the people that go should be doing sorties to various places. Like Apollo, yes.

And beyond, to NEOs and such.

There's some talk about using the Moon to acquire oxygen for outer planet exploration infrastructure - to supply big ships and the like.

That's fun sounding but you don't need a manned Moon base for that either. That can be operated from Earth, and if you have Altair and trans-lunar infrastructure, you can do a sortie just to set the thing up and grab some core samples while you're there.

I know everyone wants to say "Haha stupid NASA changing their plans", but is this really a downgrade???

I suddenly have this mental image of NASA dropping Ares-I for an EELV, and everyone shows up here to chide NASA for backpedaling.

There was a strong, persistent theme here that Mike Griffin came in and dictated a bunch of crazy stuff. Mike Griffin is now gone. If that's the case, isn't it the right thing for them to correct the course a bit?

I'm seeing the same thing on 4-seat Orion and on the COTS-D threads. NASA chops the Russia seat requirement, they start putting money into COTS-D, and toss the 6-seat ISS Orion configuration.

Isn't that all exactly what everyone on here has been _demanding_???

What changed?

@ken murphy

Let's see your data supporting your insulting comments about boomers. Some of us have tried to keep ANY dream of going beyond Earth alive, even if it includes the Moon. But we're not all focused on Apollo... it's what spurred many of us into science and frankly, many of us are science and exploration's biggest boosters.

But, if you're younger than a boomer, I can accept that you'd like to blame anybody else for NASA's failings. Each generation thinks it invented sex.

I am disheartened by this apparent wandering attitude of NASA - it does need a strong administrator, especially after years of neglect and active hatred by the right wing "leaders" under Bush.

It's time for all of us to pull together to spur new exploration before some other country stakes claim to the Moon and washes the U.S. out of the picture.

The hints of a change are pretty disturbing, particularly so soon after downsizing Orion, but they could reflect a range of circumstances, from an unwillingness to make bold statements in the absence of strong leadership from the administration (for the moment) or the realization that there won't be enough money in the run-out to achieve the necessary milestones to an internal desire to throw the dice again because NASA didn't agree with the Vision.

I do think, however, that if the country proves incapable of setting an ambitious goal (as both the President, Republican Congresses and Democratic Congresses did before 2009) and working consistently towards it until it's achieved, then it will be time for NASA to fold its tent as an agency capable of achieving big things. If we shift from the moon to asteroids so easily, then there's no reason to believe we'll stick with asteroids long enough to achieve that mission either. Instead, we will have to be satisfied SMD's accomplishments--which are simply awe inspiring--and look to either the private sector or a foreign government to achieve great things on behalf of humanity.

So, what do folks think? If the nation can't stick with the moon long enough to see it through, are we capable of achieving any other equally-ambitious goal?

Scolese's initial written and oral statements to the subcommittee:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/338546main_NASA_Testimony.pdf
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/338547main_Oral_Statement.pdf

It's time to step aside and let the Chinese and Indians land humans on the Moon. The U.S. had their time.

So, what do folks think? If the nation can't stick with the moon long enough to see it through, are we capable of achieving any other equally-ambitious goal?

Well, we stuck with Space Station through many upheavals and challenges. At the end of that tunnel we had an Administrator who said it was a waste of time. I have a feeling that a lunar outpost would be met with a similar greeting several decades from now.

It's pretty evident that the days of government-funded, big ticket, decade-long human space flight development programs are over. You're always stuck in a damned if you do and damned if you don't conundrum.

"impossible tasks" - that what is likely needed...
I've always thought NASA was in the business of making longshots happen, they still do. But to the public, hmmm...making NASA relevant and awe-inspiring to the mainstream again may be the "impossible task" by which NASA will have to take on an "impossible task" to achieve...

What ever happened to the idea of international participation/financing help with a Moon base? Wasn't the idea that country "X" would build habitats, country "Y" would build a power station, etc. Wasn't the Moon Base supposed to be the 21st Century version of the international scientific outposts in Antarctica?

I really think it was the method of deployment of the "new" program.
Trying to revamp the Truly era of Exploration and recall the Apollo effort brought forth by President Kennedy.

Making rapid changes, delete funded programs/grants and gather any and all funds that are not "needed". This activity tends to create chaos which is has. Then the rife and ugly mess shows up in short order. Can we really be suprised that CxP and ESMD are "Under Review".
When you take Steroids what happens to you in the long term, Look at the examples, Your ability to stand on your own merits come into question and ethics involving fair play our brought to the public.

This is true when Political forces such as in Delay, Shelby, Nelson and a few others along with Biased Administrator, AA and a few Centers are seen as corrupt and wasteful by the agencies technical workforce.

If Human Spaceflight can remove the Drama, Fictional Plays, False discussions and outright misinformation it may find it's place once again.

You people keep trying to apply logic where there is none, much less any real engineering or use of current technology. Ares is a quick fix to a bad problem that will just keep getting worse, the shuttle program is way pass it’s bed time. The X-33/Venture Star was a poorly conceived and managed replacement that wasted time and a lot of money unless you where the prime. There are no real plans to go anyplace except to the LEO, maybe, but I wouldn’t put money on that either. The current administration would like to just keep flying the shuttles for a few more years or at least four more or until our friends the Chinese or Russians have better vehicles that will provide access to the ISS, end of story!

words from 46 years ago ...
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, ..."

it's disappointing how cautious we're gotten in 46 years.

NASA seems to act more like a full employment program now and less like an exploration program. It is thinking "old" these days. NASA needs to stop acting like a source of "pork" and get back to doing new stuff so fast it amazes people.

Space is exciting and useful when we explore. Put a bunch of cheaper (than man) robots all over the Moon now. Look to see if there really is water or helium or something else economically or intellectually worth sustaining our presence on the moon before we spend 2 decades getting there.

Make plans based on real budgets and costs so the programs don't fail so often. Realize that 25 year programs exceed our attention span for now.

Keep the Shuttle going a few years (until it can be replaced) so we can still get men into Space. Work within real budgets to replace the Shuttle when possible without choking off everything else.

Spend some money on Earth observation where it helps humans on earth so as to get some ROI. Help bootstrap some companies interested in uses for space.

Go to Mars with Robots for now and find life on Mars.

Put TV cameras that broadcast to the Web in interesting places in Space (LEO, GEO, Comets, Moon, Mars) let people see what exists out there. Google Earth is very popular.

Build a self sustaining earth orbit platform for people. Prove we can stay in space.

Explore Comets and NEO. Get an economically useful one into Earth Orbit.

Get private people into Orbit.

As a non space specialist these are the things that interest me. Learn from Colbert and Google what catches people's interest today. Money (and the ability to do stuff) follows our interest.

Greg

From Eric:
What ever happened to the idea of international participation/financing help with a Moon base? Wasn't the idea that country "X" would build habitats, country "Y" would build a power station, etc. Wasn't the Moon Base supposed to be the 21st Century version of the international scientific outposts in Antarctica?

How about NASA's legendary - and still very prevalent - arrogance, including little things like standards? NASA is a participant in several international standards that would ensure interoperability with the international community, but the Constellation winkies are so convinced that they are the smartest people in the room that they know that they can do better. Hence, the standards are tossed in favor of new, unproven technologies and techniques, and in the process, potential partners are reminded of NASA's arrogance. Would you sign up under such circumstances? I thought not...

BTW, the NASA community is itself divided heavily. The group with true deep-space operations of interacting spacecraft (JPL) believe in the CCSDS standards, while the LEO group (GSFC) hates them with an almost irrational passion. Who gets better international cooperation?

@sc220 and Eric Sterner:

NASA has wandered off the path of innovation and scientific achievements with its current implementation of Constellation. I for one believe (note I say believe) that this is better left (LEO and Moon) to the likes of COTS with EFFECTIVE support from NASA. No, I am not only talking $$$ but technical and scientific support. If COTS-D happens to be successful then how do you justify Constellation?

NASA has enough talents and people to grasp much more difficult tasks such as Mars exploration for example. Long term settlement of the Solar System which will require patience and hard work. Think of what we could achieve energy-wise if we were even trying. Yet Apollo redux-on-steroids unfortunately will not do.

And extending Shuttle will probably be the nail in the coffin of Constellation. I may be doom and gloom but I don't know where NASA will find the budget it REALLY needs to do both.

@Howard: NEOs go by Earth (within 10's of Mkm) a LOT. About once a day, in fact, with present detection methods. Now, a lot of them don't have the best orbital params - you want something with a low inclination to keep delta-V low. Also, interesting NEOs (big, useful for resources, lots of science) are a smaller subset, so you might wait a year or two for one to be interesting, but you'll have lots of backup destinations. Windows are, indeed, quite large, with decent on-surface (floating next to surface?) time. There's a wide range of different types, different resources available, etc, so a NEO mission doesn't have to be a one-off. It's also a test of what we need for Phobos/Deimos missions, real deep space missions, and Belt missions (which is where it gets real interesting for long-term branches of human civilization).

Marcus, working in under zero g (microgravity) conditions is deleterious to human health over an extended period of time. So in the long run, the human species cannot survive in such an environment.

We need to know if this is also true in the 1/6 gravitational environment of the moon and the 1/3 gravitational environment of Mars. We also need to know if the human species can survive and breed under rotational simulated gravity conditions.

Why?

Because we need to know if humans can permanently survive beyond our planet of evolutionary origin-- if we are to ensure the long term survival of our species.

Continuing to confine all of humanity to the surface of the Earth leaves our species-- vulnerable to extinction-- from thermonuclear war, extraterrestrial impacts, and global pandemics. And these threats will only increase as our civilization proceeds through this new century.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/01/space-frontier.html

Greg: ...As a non space specialist these are the things that interest me. Learn from Colbert and Google what catches people's interest today. Money (and the ability to do stuff) follows our interest...

I think you've identified some good goals and made a good point about what interests the nation. Unfortunately, the small constituency of space exploration advocates doesn't see it this way, and will not accept the fact that Apollo-style exploration just doesn't excite many people anymore. The true believers lament that the nation has lost its bearings and vision, and had the right perspective 40 years ago. But I'll tell you, the support for space half a century ago was driven primarily by fear, not the desire for adventure. Until the Chinese start pumping out missions at least more than a few times a year, you're just not going to see much concern from the general population.

@sc220:

>>> Unfortunately, the small constituency of space
>>> exploration advocates doesn't see it this way,

Not quite true here. I would rephrase as "A small VOCIFEROUS constituency". The others unfortunately don't seem to say much.

China will not change anything as people in the US have other preoccupation far, FAR from space... They can't even see how endebted we are with China. And neither China nor the US have any real incentive for conflicts, unlike with the former USSR.

How are we going to live off world if we don't live off world? LOL

@ Marcel F. Williams

I would agree with you, but why not focus on the 0 and 1/3 g as data points? As I understand it, conjunction class missions would entail spending a lot of time on the martian surface. So that gives you good comparative data. The Moon would be nice but a bit expensive for what it gets you.

Also, I think people would support Mars if it would be sold the right way. So what if people are not watching NASA tv the way they watch Colbert. Does interest need to be so massive and 24/7 to support a long-term program?

This is travesty for those promoting space development rather than expensive space stunts. A moon base is the next logical step if we are trying to develop the capabililty to live off world. We need to learn to live off the land not just say, "I got here first." We need long term off-world habitation. No asteroid mission is going to give us that and the distance as too far for most of the orbits to even try safely. We need to establish lunar outpost in a similar fashion to our Antartic Endeavors. The moon is a constant distance away, eventually it could support regular tourism. That's not going to happen with any asteroid outpost.

What's happening now is what I feared from this administration from the outset. American is not going to have any positive space leadership for the next 4-8 years. The way things are going we'd probably be better off keeping the STS operational and expand its uses to the pre-Challenger capability. As long as we have ISS access I wouldn't expect the administration to lift a finger to advance human space exploration, they don't truly believe it's beneficial.

So, what do folks think? If the nation can't stick with the moon long enough to see it through, are we capable of achieving any other equally-ambitious goal?

The nation can't stick with the Moon because, frankly, there is little there that has ever been identified as offering national value. As such, comparing it with some other ambitious goal that does offer national value is just nonsense. Oh, geez. Don't rant about He3 and palladium. Pulleease.

I would phrase the question differently. If the nation can't come up with a compelling reason to go to the Moon, are we capable of dropping it and moving on to some better ambitious goal?

By the way, if we can't come up with national value for visiting an asteroid, I would hope that we drop that before we start. Now, I am actually hopeful that an inspired leader will be able to come up with such value-rationale, but we haven't had one of those for a while.

Hermione, spot on. We can't be stubborn about this sort of thing.

I'm pretty sure the rationale for going to an Asteroid is to learn about asteroids. Ditto for going to the Moon, and about 99% of what NASA is doing. People seem happy with that. I'm happy with that. People like learning about those things and its worth a half percent of the federal budget to Americans.

That is _not_ rationale for a Moon base, though.

If we're doing lunar exploration, it would be nonsense to spend tens of billions to plop down in one area and study it to death.

If we could do each Moon mission for only a few billion, we would probably learn a lot more doing sorties to various places, longer missions, maybe even setting up a small scale inflatable biology lab to see how mice do on the Moon for two years.

That would probably tell you all you need to know about the effects of 1/6 gravity on mammels, reproduction, etc.

By the way, if we can't come up with national value for visiting an asteroid, I would hope that we drop that before we start. Now, I am actually hopeful that an inspired leader will be able to come up with such value-rationale, but we haven't had one of those for a while.

Considering the dismissive nature of your post concerning already identified resources, I don't think that anything would ever please you.

The value is there, it is just that we may have to wait for the Chinese and Indians to do it as it is easy to be a naysayer, but very hard to be a real doer.

Hermione

I can only think of a single thing that would have great national value and is germane and generic, indeed fundamentally prerequisite to all future destinations in space - a diverse variety of commercial orbital space transportation systems. Since we are already well established on our way to that goal, I can only suggest that NASA focus on ISS crew evacuation and rescue, something that should be easy to field in a very short time.

Lunar bases were certainly delusions of grandeur, as were the giant rockets on steroids. We alreay have all the elements in place for an advanced rocket program, but those rockets won't be huge monsters, they'll be more efficient and reusable version of what we already have.

Considering the dismissive nature of your post concerning already identified resources, I don't think that anything would ever please you.

The value is there, it is just that we may have to wait for the Chinese and Indians to do it as it is easy to be a naysayer, but very hard to be a real doer.

No, not dismissive, or a naysayer (anymore that you're just a dreamer, or perhaps a hallucinator). Just explicitly critical, looking for solid arguments. I would be delighted to see such an effort as a major national goal if there were really something to be gained for it. "The value is there" you say. OK, why is the value something that you need hands to go pick up? Besides, NOTHING that we'll mine on the Moon is worth it, with the present cost of lift. Chinese and Indians do it? Hah! As soon as we set our sights on an asteroid, they'll be right in line behind us.

I can only think of a single thing that would have great national value and is germane and generic, indeed fundamentally prerequisite to all future destinations in space - a diverse variety of commercial orbital space transportation systems.

I think that may be right, for the reason I gave above. But, you know, you don't have to put human outposts in the lunar dust to do that.

Chris Scolese should be sacked for even presuming to change NASA Policy like that (or allowing Orion to be scaled back either) ... Acting administrators should NOT be able to enact policy changes like that ... their job should be to maintain the status quo until the next Administrator appointed by the president and approved by Congress is installed.

Let's face it Obama is no JFK. JFK sent us to the moon. JFK wanted to shut down the FED. And JFK got shot for it. No Bucks, no Buck Rodgers. Space's only chance is the space elevator and the sunsat in that order. Right now the USeless US government is going to screw up car makers like NASA has punted our space program. Our only hope is private enterprise figuring out how to make a buck in space.

apologies, this one is a potpourri...
well folks, there you have it, the other shoe is beginning to drop: this is the logical consequence of the budget presented a few weeks ago which carried flat allocations for NASA for the next 5 years - an item most of the regulars here have studiously ignored; without at least inflation-adjustment, hoping to build anything other than "simple" replacement access to LEO is a pipe dream; secondly, as pointed out very clearly on another blog, linked by our terrific acting editor, after 2020 just what do all of these wonderful "diverse" space transportation systems to LEO that some here say we should build get to do? ISS will be done by then (or soon after) without major refurb (how much will that cost?). Orion has no capability for on-orbit experimentation or EVA-servicing operations, and with station gone there will be literally nowhere to go - oh wait, of course, they can go to the space hotels...

... and, to whoever thinks the Moon is dull and has nothing to contribute scientifically, wait til the experts start to tell you about asteroids - there may be big chunks of iron or platinum floating around out there, but science - give me a break

lastly, Wingo doesn't need me to make his case, but instead of throwing out pejoratives like "dreamer" why don't some of you folks read his thorough postings, papers, and book to see real hard-science-and-engineering reasoning for establising a base and operations that will provide real return...

I am as discouraged as anyone about the prospect of the space program changing directions yet again. The possibility that the lunar base may be cancelled is unfortunate.

History teaches that transportation systems develop and improve after a community or market is established. The ISS is one case example. The road to its completion was a long and torturous one due in large part to NASA's decision to develop the space shuttle system.

But now that the ISS is almost completed, the COTS program has stimulated commercial launch enterprises that promises to reduce the cost of space access down closer to $1000/lb. A tremendous achievement. Such a program is possible because the ISS established a market for transporting goods and passengers from Earth to LEO.

So each time a manned permanent outpost is established in Earth's orbit or on the Moon with a necessity for regular transportation of goods and passengers, a market is established by which companies have an identifiable source for revenue and profit. This is what drives innovation in developing cheaper access to space allowing more humans to go into space.

Going to Mars or to Ceres is an exciting endeavor and I certainly support those goals. However, the greater endeavor is for the human species to become a spacefaring race and I firmly believe the United States should have a part.

Some really upset folks on this:
"NASA will probably not build an outpost on the moon as originally planned, the agency's acting administrator, Chris Scolese, told lawmakers on Wednesday. His comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid."

The plan is going to change, face it the plan ESAS was not what was being followed, If you remember Dr Griffin stating the activity was Pay as you Go.

I look forward to:
reinvest in observations of Planet Earth and to reinvigorate its aeronautics research.

The Spacestation will become a National Lab with Commercial transportation and funding from the international community.

If CxP wishes to land on the moon and create a base station like Google and SMD, it best get its act together and start acting like it works for NASA not NASA is CxP and the best thing since sliced bread.

No, not dismissive, or a naysayer (anymore that you're just a dreamer, or perhaps a hallucinator). Just explicitly critical, looking for solid arguments. I would be delighted to see such an effort as a major national goal if there were really something to be gained for it. "The value is there" you say. OK, why is the value something that you need hands to go pick up? Besides, NOTHING that we'll mine on the Moon is worth it, with the present cost of lift. Chinese and Indians do it? Hah! As soon as we set our sights on an asteroid, they'll be right in line behind us.

In this is the central fallacy that you believe in. If it were the ESAS architecture and its Ares V I might well agree with you but.....

The ESAS architecture is not the only one out there and there are many indications that as soon as we get a new administrator this will be revisited. The key is using local resources. This can be done in a bootstrapping manner (before you worry about bringing metals back) that first reduces the logistical burden of cargo flights by local resource usage, and then flips the equation of what low cost launch means by using ISRU based propellants (oxygen and aluminum are both widely available and useful as fuels.

When this flip happens, which can be done with about 1 megawatt of emplaced solar power, then the net flow of goods back toward the earth can become positive. Gordon Woodcock showed in 1984 that if you could deliver LOX to LEO at a space station (ISS), then the cost reduction was 63 to 1 as 90% of what you lift out of the gravity well is fuel. This is a fact of physics that is littled changed by what type of launch vehicle that you use.

So what I would propose is that we look beyond the limited viewpoint that we must have an RLV before any real progress is made. The Viewpoint that should at least be seriously considered is how does the implementation of ISRU and ISFP (In Situ Food Production) change the game for lifting payloads from the Earth.

An easy example of this is that in energy terms, it is closer from the surface of the Moon to GEO than it is from LEO to GEO. In space everything is energy related and we can make rapid progress as soon as we get ISRU up and running.

If you want to contest that ISRU works, then I would suggest that you read up on modern mining operations that use many of the same methods to gain metals here on the Earth that would be used on the Moon.

Therefore I do cast you into the mold of a naysayer in that your only way of looking at the problem, is through a single solution set.

Think Different About Space.

The moon is probably going to make us a lot more money than Mars: satellite manufacturing and launching, lunar tourism and lunar burial.

The moons of Mars probably have a lot more commercial value than landing on Mars. In fact, remotely mining the Martian moons in real time from the Martian surface is probably the best reason for establishing permanent human facilities on Mars.

But sending people to Mars is not all that easy. NASA still doesn't know what its going to do about shielding astronauts from galactic radiation for several months at a time during long trips to and from Mars.

The utilization of extraterrestrially manufactured lightsails might solve this problem since they could transport hundreds and even thousands of tonnes to Martian orbit. So mass shielding from the moon and perhaps even aluminum from the moon to manufacture the sails could be utilized.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/09/mining-moons-of-mars.html

@Hermione

In the long run, any nation that establishes a self sustaining colony on the moon will:

1. dominate the future multi-trillion dollar satellite industry since its a lot cheaper to launch a satellite from the moon into Earth orbit than it is from Earth.

2. A lunar base could also quickly launch back up satellites into Earth orbit if US satellites are crippled by a nuclear EMP attack from a nation or terrorist organization

3. Lunar launched satellites won't pollute low earth orbit with high velocity debris from space launches

4. The export of lunar soil could harden and shield space craft from galactic radiation, micrometeorites, and dangerous high velocity particles

5. The export of lunar aluminum could could be used to manufacture lightsails that could give us access to asteroid resources that are high in platinum content

6. Astronomical telescopes on the moon could be more easily and less expensively maintained than space telescopes. Such telescopes could also be used to detect large asteroids and comets that are potentially dangerous to the Earth

7. The burial of cremated human remains on the moon could be a multibillion dollar a year industry someday, IMO.

8. Lunar tourism could also be a multibillion dollar a year industry someday

9. Expanding American civilization to the moon adds to our national security-- putting an end to any mutually assured destruction scenarios-- at least for lunar inhabitants:-)

So a simple lunar base where humans could survive and grow their own food could be the beginning of a whole new era in human civilization.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/

Did we really all think we were ever going back to the moon?
We live in gutless times. We have leadership in Washington whose number one priority is getting re-elected. I also think O'bama looks at NASA and DOD as a cash cow to fund his socialist agenda.

"Current launch costs" are kind of irrelevant to any sort of "harvest all the ___" program because any serious program could probably afford a better launcher.

There's a million ways to do much, much cheaper launches if:

a) We're doing them in bulk
b) Are actually doing them

You could have a Virtual SSTO launcher to lift cargo and fuel. It would look a bit like the STS, but with fuel in the back, and in a drop tank, and no boosters, and cargo in the nose or something. A reusable launch vehicle. Drop the tanks, reuse the launcher. Do lots of flights. It would outcheap the Shuttle by a mile.

You could have some reusable lunar lander. You could have an electric or nuclear translunar architecture using oxygen, harvested from the Moon, as reaction mass.

There's any number of things you could make up to get the job done. It's all been studied to death hasn't it?

I'm not saying we need to plop a Moonbase without a mission down in any random spot. That wouldn't be conducive to harvesting anything.

Nor am I suggesting we spend eleventy billion dollars developing an RLV if we don't actually plan to do anything of the sort.

I'm just saying that, NASA has a budget and set of hardware appropriate for space exploration, not mining. But if you were actually going to mine anything, you wouldn't do it on that budget or hardware. You'd get a space mining budget, and make space mining hardware, and then you'd do your space mining.

Saying you can never, ever space mining because the off-the-shelf rockets of today won't do is just plain nonsense. Horses for courses.

They are concerned that the public won't be enthusiastic about a moon base? I don't think the public is enthusiastic about the manned space program at all. What is the purpose of the manned space program anyways? The only people who are interested in moon bases are people who watch too much star trek. I question the ethics of spending all this money on the pointless manned space program when the money could be going elsewhere. Seriously what IS the purpose of moon bases, space shuttles, space stations, ect? Is it science driven? If science is NASA's priority it seems like the 'robot' half of NASA produces alot more science.

In the long run, any nation that establishes a self sustaining colony on the moon will:

(Wow, I don't know where to start. So much BS here ...)

1. dominate the future multi-trillion dollar satellite industry since its a lot cheaper to launch a satellite from the moon into Earth orbit than it is from Earth.

Um, OK, once you've built that satellite on the Moon, it's cheaper to launch it from there. But how much does it cost to build it there? People, equipment, life support, power and propulsion for all of that. C'mon. Do a serious cost study here.

2. A lunar base could also quickly launch back up satellites into Earth orbit if US satellites are crippled by a nuclear EMP attack from a nation or terrorist organization

Ditto. And what's to protect those replacements? Pow!

3. Lunar launched satellites won't pollute low earth orbit with high velocity debris from space launches

Nor, I guess, would all the launches to get the equipment to the Moon, right?

4. The export of lunar soil could harden and shield space craft from galactic radiation, micrometeorites, and dangerous high velocity particles.

You just want plain old soil? Get it telerobotically, perhaps from a NEO.

5. The export of lunar aluminum could could be used to manufacture lightsails that could give us access to asteroid resources that are high in platinum content

Huh?

6. Astronomical telescopes on the moon could be more easily and less expensively maintained than space telescopes. Such telescopes could also be used to detect large asteroids and comets that are potentially dangerous to the Earth

Flat out wrong. Such telescopes are far better put in free-space. An old, tired argument that has been largely abandoned. In a few weeks we'll be maintaining a space telescope for the fourth time.

7. The burial of cremated human remains on the moon could be a multibillion dollar a year industry someday, IMO.

Not IMO. (Scraping the bottom of the barrel here, eh?)

8. Lunar tourism could also be a multibillion dollar a year industry someday

Yes, it could be. But I don't think it will. Tourism to the bottom of the ocean, to Mt. Everest, and to the poles sure isn't.

9. Expanding American civilization to the moon adds to our national security-- putting an end to any mutually assured destruction scenarios-- at least for lunar inhabitants:-)

"American civilization"? Interesting phrase. With a phrase like that, you'd be getting shot at on the Moon just as on the Earth. Yeah, good for a smiley face.

Nice try. Well, maybe not ...

For Mr. Wingo, what I would say is that one should prove ISRU concepts robotically before you make outposts. That's a much more sensible approach, because it can help you optimally design a subsequent outpost. I have no problem with the fact that modern mining technologies work well on Earth. But that's not the question. The question is how or whether they work on the Moon. I see you as the one with the single solution set.

"lastly, Wingo doesn't need me to make his case, but instead of throwing out pejoratives like "dreamer" why don't some of you folks read his thorough postings, papers, and book to see real hard-science-and-engineering reasoning for establising a base and operations that will provide real return..."

I've read plenty of his stuff. So I get to throw whatever I want to throw. (Actually we're just throwing stuff at each other. No sweat!) His stuff is creative and innovative. He's a true visionary. But the problem I have with it is the assumption (and it seems to be just an assumption) that putting humans there is the way to get it done. Science, mining, whatever. That assumption is firmly based on terrestrial realities, which don't apply on the Moon. You don't dig holes telerobotically on the Earth because you can go to the day-labor site and pick up someone who will do it much more cheaply. You don't do science telerobotically on the Earth (well, actually we do, for undersea exploration, which is almost all telerobotic these days) because it's so easy to get people just about anywhere.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is based on "what we could do if we have people there?", without first asking the question "is putting people there the easiest way to do it?" That the latter question is resisted is, I'm afraid, a backhanded way of justifying human space exploration that relies more on a belief system than common sense. NASA, the Administration, Congress, and the nation will have to deal with that latter question before moving ahead productively.

@ Maybe_I_Know_Something

Actually, many scientists that are using robot probes to study Mars now are arguing more and more for human exploration of the planet as the next step. Two of them express this view in this recent debate between lunar/Mars proponents:

http://www.nianet.org/salectureseries/2009/moon-mars.php

If you have 1 1/2 hours to watch it ;) But a case can be made, still, I think.

@Folks.
Seems to be a lot of either-oring going on when it comes to this matter. If NASA chose to do NEO missions before a lunar base, it doesn't mean a lunar base isn't in our future. Hard to imagine there won't be one, one day. Physics just means that you pass the NEO mission capability on the way to any large lunar capability. And NEOs represent something closer to real exploration (lots of them), real science (they're real old), and real resource destinations (don't have a major gravity well, generally have less extraction problems), for lower cost, than lunar equivalents. In particular, they allow the costs of building large landers to be deferred. When you look at Altair's limited downmass capabilities, you can see some of the physics problems, at this time, of doing much in the lunar case. Once ISRU grows, things will change, as Dennis says. But making good choices en route to our future in the solar system is also important, given limited resources right now, as Hermione says. It's all a bootstrap process - we'll need to leverage the small resources a single-planet species has to get us to the point of being multi-planet. But you leverage best, and get there faster, in the end, by looking for the lowest hanging apples. NEOs happen to be those (as do Phobos and Deimos for the Mars system).

In the end, all of the things we want will happen. It's just an optimization problem. If NASA makes some good optimal decisions, especially on keeping focus on exploration and allowing development to go to industry, and science to go to academia, that's a good thing.

@Dan Roberts

NASA is a socialist agenda! If we had to wait for private industry to invest the billions to initially launch a satellite into orbit, we'd probably still be waiting.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/

It’s too early for serious engineering of a moon base. No one really knows what one should look like. Why does the base need to exist? What is the best mix of robots vs. humans? What is the mission of the base? Instead of spending money to produce fanciful drawings, Powerpoint presentations and CGI movies of huge manned lunar bases that may never be built, NASA needs to focus resources on developing the spacecraft we need to replace our aging fleet of shuttles. And do it sooner, not later. We also need to use the ISS to do the basic research it was designed for and we should send a lot of unmanned probes to more thoroughly explore the places that humans may one day visit or colonize. Designing bases, labs or mines for the moon, Mars or an asteroid should be left to sci-fi aficionados and space science geeks. Amateurs create plenty of good concepts and many of them would happily let NASA use their artwork in futuristic PR materials at no expense to the taxpayer. Dropping the NASA, all NASA, and only NASA, moon base design program now might be a step towards recreating some real hardware that our grandkids will need to go to the moon and beyond.
That’s my 2-cents worth… Well, maybe it’s not worth two cents. But these comments are given for free because I would really like to see our space program succeed.

@Hermione

"Um, OK, once you've built that satellite on the Moon, it's cheaper to launch it from there. But how much does it cost to build it there? People, equipment, life support, power and propulsion for all of that. C'mon. Do a serious cost study here."

You have to spend money to make money. Colonizing the Americas wasn't cheap. But it was still a good investment.

" And what's to protect those replacements? Pow!"

Its lot more difficult to launch an EMP nuclear device to the moon than into earth orbit. And the a large thermonuclear EMP explosion would only effect satellites from LEO to GEO.

"Nor, I guess, would all the launches to get the equipment to the Moon, right?"

That of course would be only temporary once a satellite manufacturing and launching facility is fully established on the lunar surface perhaps 20 or 30 years from now.

"You just want plain old soil? Get it telerobotically, perhaps from a NEO."

Its going to take hundreds and even thousands of tonnes of mass in order to adequately protect space structures. And you're probably going to need light sails in order to economically access that material from asteroids or the moons of Mars.

"Huh?"

Light sails utilize sunlight for interplanetary transport. And the manufacture of light sails in space requires-- aluminum which can be found in abundance on the moon.

6. Astronomical telescopes on the moon could be more easily and less expensively maintained than space telescopes. Such telescopes could also be used to detect large asteroids and comets that are potentially dangerous to the Earth

"Flat out wrong. Such telescopes are far better put in free-space. An old, tired argument that has been largely abandoned. In a few weeks we'll be maintaining a space telescope for the fourth time."

Yeah right. Its pretty obvious that its easier to maintain a telescopic device in a place where people already exist than to have to launch such personal from Earth.

7. The burial of cremated human remains on the moon could be a multibillion dollar a year industry someday, IMO.

"Not IMO. (Scraping the bottom of the barrel here, eh?)"

I'd rather have my cremated remains buried on the moon than on the Earth. Believe it or not, send human ashes into space is already starting to be offered.

8. Lunar tourism could also be a multibillion dollar a year industry someday

"Yes, it could be. But I don't think it will. Tourism to the bottom of the ocean, to Mt. Everest, and to the poles sure isn't."

If there are people already willing to spend 30 million to visit the space station, once access to orbit becomes cheaper and more convenient, I guarantee you that a lot more folks will travel to the moon once there's a permanent facilities there to accommodate them.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/01/space-frontier.html

Ken, the Moon base needs to exist so that we can find out if humans can live and survive long term on the surface of another world by mostly living off the land.

If it turns out that living in the 1/6 gravity of the Moon for a year or more is seriously deleterious to human health or not seriously deleterious to human health, then I believe that would be a significant discovery as far as human survival is concerned beyond the confines of our planet of evolutionary origin.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/01/space-frontier.html

That assumption is firmly based on terrestrial realities, which don't apply on the Moon. You don't dig holes telerobotically on the Earth because you can go to the day-labor site and pick up someone who will do it much more cheaply. You don't do science telerobotically on the Earth (well, actually we do, for undersea exploration, which is almost all telerobotic these days) because it's so easy to get people just about anywhere.

Actually I am making no assumptions other than the basic one that humans are required in some manner and at some level. We are simply not at the point in the development of robots that they can do everything that needs to be done. When we were doing our work on the on orbit assembled telescope, we had a metric of 90% robotics and 10% humans doing the work. The humans do the setup and the repairs that the robotics would be very difficult to develop to do.

Humans are valuable and in the long run it is simply unsatisfying that you would leave all humans on the Earth and do the work with robots.

"You have to spend money to make money. Colonizing the Americas wasn't cheap."

- Compared to colonizing the Moon, it was fantastically cheap.

"That of course would be only temporary once a satellite manufacturing and launching facility is fully established on the lunar surface perhaps 20 or 30 years from now."

- (Shrieks of laughter ...)

"Its lot more difficult to launch an EMP nuclear device to the moon than into earth orbit."

- Yeah, I'll bet it's difficult to send an EMP to the Moon after you have a satellite factory up there. Sure thing.

"Its going to take hundreds and even thousands of tonnes of mass in order to adequately protect space structures."

- One Ares V puts 60 mt out to c3=0. So you need a few of those. Thousands of tons? No, you're making that up.

"Its pretty obvious that its easier to maintain a telescopic device in a place where people already exist than to have to launch such personal from Earth."

- Duh. Already exist? Where did those personnel come from, pray tell?

"Believe it or not, send human ashes into space is already starting to be offered."

- Yes, and where do those thimblefuls of ashes finally end up? With the rest of the ashes.

"I guarantee you that a lot more folks will travel to the moon once there's a permanent facilities there to accommodate them."

- Now, there's a business plan that would leave jaws hanging.

........ Sorry. This is just waaay too easy ...

"Actually I am making no assumptions other than the basic one that humans are required in some manner and at some level."

Dennis, I believe you're probably right about that. The problem is that we're throwing gobs of money at a goal without knowing what that manner or level is. That "leaving all humans on Earth is simply unsatisfying" is simply simplistic. We've got to have a better reason for doing it than that it is simply unsatisfying.

The first step after NASA was handed the challenge of the Vision, was to define how the vision should be implemented and for what reasons. Reasons should have included leadership in aerospace, the future economy, new technologies, international participation, the continuing challenge for future generations.......NASA did not do this. After first taking a look at spiral spaceplanes, a Lunar Architecture Team was convened to establish false support for the Administrator's plan to set up a moonbase, and the announcement was made that we'd proceed with Apollo redux on steroids (now reduced to Apollo on vitamins). There were no goals, there were no reasons for why we were doing it. The long term was forgotten in favor of the Griffin moon plan. Immediately NASA started complaining about lack of money even though NASA's budget has been stable for 40 years and NASA had already been told it would be maintained at this level for the future. What NASA needed was a visionary leader who could utilize the manpower at his command to develop political support - that was his most important job. Instead, what we got was a technically competent manager who wanted to implement his technical plan. We've been making negative progress, spending lots of taxpayer money, destroying the NASA aeronautics and science programs, ever since. And NASA has not taken the first step yet. We needed to use expertise to step off smartly. As we are now finding with failure to reach PDR and the constant cutbacks to Orion and the likely termination of the moon plan, we have made no progress in 4 years. The right team could have had the new vehicle in orbit by now; in Mike Griffin's words, the first step is a Gemini type vehicle - we know how to do that. The right people could have done it. The wrong people are still trying to figure out what to build.

Ok dokey

It is called the man machine interface. I really do not know why NASA is not doing more science on this effort rather then build a buggy to test how it might work on the moon. It appears to me, to make it safe NASA is working on take the Human out of the loop for Launch and Entry/Return at both ends being the earth and moon and spending billons on a frustum and rocket to get there and back.

Given the Spaceshuttles ability to dock with spacecraft and transfer humans from point to point, it appears rather ignorant to me building a Apollo like nose cone for the crew that cannot dock with anything like the shuttle can. Why not start the journey from ISS with a moon spacecraft and return to ISS and then conduct science experiments along thge way.

Instead, the rather then forward looking SpaceCenter managing the effort calls for its workforce to be full funded for the next 50years making an already done before systems that will likely not proceed in the near future.

I've got a better idea...let's just sit here and argue about what the "best" use of limited funding is.
Then we can embrace an old industrial chestnut:

"When all is said and done, more will be said than done."

I suppose that I can kiss Man's return to the Moon goodbye in my lifetime, and Mars is out of the question...

@ marcus

Thanks for the link! I suggest all you bloggers get yourselve informed on this moon base justification topic by checking out the discussion at http://www.nianet.org/salectureseries/2009/moon-mars.php

Its much more informative than the weak article this blog references. Its also the best discussion I have heard on the justification of the manned space program. We have to remember that we aerospace nerds don't live in an isolated world filled with spaceships, moon bases, and aliens. Lots of other stuff going on in the real world that we need to pay attention to. How does NASA fit in the federal government and in the general public interest? Does NASA have a REAL purpose other than doing 'cool' stuff, employing engineers and providing political capital to our nation?

@Hermione

Lunar soil weighs approximately 1.7 tonnes per square meter. It takes 5 to 10 meters of lunar soil to protect humans from galactic cosmic radiation (reducing it to terrestrial levels of radiation exposure). If humans were enclosed within in a square room in space just 3 meters (10 feet) on each side, the lunar shielding mass required would be between 500 to 1000 tonnes.

However, liquid hydrogen instead of lunar soil might reduce the shielding mass more than half. But that tiny room would still require over 200 to 400 tonnes of liquid hydrogen shielding which over the long run would eventually leak away.

Obviously larger human habitat areas within space structures would require a lot more mass shielding.

The best source for this material would be the moons of Mars, IMO. But lunar soil could be the initial source needed to get humans out to the moons of Mars in the first place.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/09/mining-moons-of-mars.html

Man-Machine-
You're right. The Man-Machine interface group was called the Man-Systems Group. When the program managers were handed the budgets and the institution was left to fend for itself, several of the managers who now lead Space Operations, Orion, Constellation and the ISS Program dismantled it. Man-Systems as a systems function no longer exists in the US manned spaceflight program. There is no longer a central group with expertise that has responsibility for the vehicle man-machine design. There are bits and pieces in lots of places.

I have seen the subject of getting private industry involved or at least see what they are interested in or would need if they did become involved in a Lunar base. I agree, maybe someone ought to get on the phone with the guys at SpaceX or Bigelow Aerospace since these folks seem to be ahead of the curve trying to come up with money making ways to operate in space. Yes they want to make a profit, no problem with that! But they are also trying to develop the means to allow us to get into space as well as work/live there.

I think the Bigelow guys could adapt some of the inflatable modules they've been working on to allow NASA to traverse the Lunar surface while still having a viable means of habitation for extended periods without having to recreate the wheel every place they decide to stop a spell. Just a couple of random obsevations and thoughts. I look forward to any replies.

John

Dennis, I believe you're probably right about that. The problem is that we're throwing gobs of money at a goal without knowing what that manner or level is. That "leaving all humans on Earth is simply unsatisfying" is simply simplistic. We've got to have a better reason for doing it than that it is simply unsatisfying.

Easy, in my professional opinion, robotics is no where near the level that it must be in order to operate independently, or even under telepresence control, for long periods of time doing the type of tasks needed to develop a lunar industrial infrastructure.

The 90/10 rule is a great place to start (kudos to Pierre Thuot who came up with that metric).

There are bits and pieces in lots of places.
Yep James correct, let us hope for a comeback

This is ISS CDMS

Ok Ok the the Space Space Station Station is is going going to to become become unstable unstable, go go command command stable stable.

over over and and out out.

Or Ares 1 with Orion, just double click the big red button vibrating at 10hz with 1mm displacement to excape in the corner of the unreadable LCD. While the joy stick is no-op because the switches vibrated loose the crew recalls there last moments.

One can only hope not.!

Hi Marcel,

I agree that we will need a base on the moon. Someday we will need dozens of them linked by railroads. A radio-telescope on the far side of the moon might be especially useful. The question is how to get there.
NASA moon base plans are always beautiful pictures that emphasize large numbers of humans working on the moon. That’s PR. It’s just not realistic in the next 50 years. Robots, controlled remotely by humans that remain on Earth, will be able to do most of the lunar mining and construction work. Humans will be needed from time to time to repair or rescue stranded machines. But that can be done by small crews on short-duration missions. Moon bases can be man-tended like the Hubble Space Telescope until they become large enough to merit full time human presence. And it can’t be just a NASA show. There must be a role for international cooperation, private enterprise and capitalistic competition.
The issue is how does NASA spend its money now? The number one priority of the manned space program should be to build a replacement for the shuttle, sooner rather than later. I don’t care if that means getting Ares I/Orion to work or developing something else. Either approach will be expensive. NASA should build a spacecraft that can deliver crew and cargo to and from the ISS and which can be a part of future systems to go to the moon and other places. We will need a heavy cargo rocket too. NASA should cut the budget for PR and Powerpoint presentations. I’d rather see real results from a robot on the moon than watch an elaborate manned truck drive down Pennsylvania Ave. while the nation pretends this has something to do with space exploration.

Marcel, Ken, and many others here,

To anyone that has followed the Mars Rovers, it is clear that robotics on the Moon is the logical next step. I think a trio of Manned landings might be reasonable as support - setup, configuration, of a robotics Lunar program. I do not buy into the Moon being a stepping stone to Mars Manned landings though. Either you organize an international Mars Mission or increase R&D into next generation propulsion systems to send Humans to Mars before 2030.

Eventually, robotics on the Moon will build up infrastructure and habitat for a cost-effective Human presence. A Space Elevator on the Moon which could be constructed using robotics is far more practical than one orbiting Earth. Humans to the Moon or Mars means exploration - discovery past/present life, or valuable natural resources. Either can be done cheaper with robotics. If one argues that Robotic vehicles don't have the creativity of the human mind, manipulative ability of the human hand, then wait 5 years.

Once long-duration stays on the Moon or Mars are viable, Humans will go there either for 1)Vacation, 2)Create a permanent Human presence. If the latter, the Low-Gravity of the Moon and Mars will force Humans to remain and not return home. Exchange of commerce will not be practical unless shipping costs can be dramatically reduced which would be some time after human permanent habitation could begin.

If you want to send Alice to the Moon, for now send robots and let holography and 3-D Imaging and Video bring the Moon and Mars to our living rooms. Our ROI and sense of exploration will be far greater using robotics that can stay and last years, if not decades on the Moon and Mars. And if you are going to mine asteroids, investing in next-gen propulsion and robotics rather than Manned Moon landings and Lunar Base (ISS Deux) is the better choice.

Ken, I believe that the fundamental reason that most Americans support spending tens of billions of dollars every year on our space program is that they believe it will lead to the next step in our cultural evolution, the permanent expansion of humanity beyond the surface of our planet. That's what people want!

But if all we really want to do is simply explore, then robots could do that at least ten times cheaper than sending humans into space.

The question, IMO, is not whether its financially possible to send people to the moon and Mars, (the space program is cheap) the question is whether people could really survive on another world or even an artificial world independent of the Earths resources.

We already know that living in a weightless environment is deleterious to human health. So now we need to know if this is also true in a hypogravity environment like the moon or Mars. We also need to know if humans can survive and reproduce under a rotational simulated gravity environment.

Yet humans have been traveling in space for nearly 50 years and NASA still doesn't know if humans can survive and prosper under low gravity or artificial gravity environments.

So establishing a permanent lunar facility where humans can remain on the moon for a year or more is the first tiny step towards answering the fundamental question as to whether or not the human species is permanently trapped on our planet of evolutionary origin or will we be able to expand our civilization to the rest of the solar system and maybe eventually to the rest of the galaxy.

http://www.newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/

Max Q, ISS was Skylab Deux. But we've never had a moon base. And I would have rather spent the ISS money on a moon base.

ISS is a huge waste of tax payer money, IMO. And I was against if when Ronald Regan first argued for it. Skylab was much simpler and much cheaper.

You're probably right about ISS. Why would we need any practical experience assembling large, integrated systems in space? And further, how hard could it be to integrated the engineering methodologies, technical standards, and operational philosophies (let alone cultures) of a group of international partners - some of whom not to long ago stared at each other across barbed wire and concrete. What could possible be learned from logistically supporting those systems and people in LEO? By all means we should leap to such an enterprise at Mars.

Maybe what we need is a comprehensive plan. Not just a vision for exploration, but a real strategic plan that takes the best of what we have learned and merges it truly integrated strategy for near and far space objectives. Our military, commercial, and science objectives are splintered and some branches are headed toward evolutionary dead ends. Economics and politics are holding us back and the dreamers are reaching too far too fast. We need some leadership with balance.

Marcel,
I just meant that building a Manned Lunar Base would be at least as costly and protracted an experience as building ISS. I disagree that a Moon Base would have been a better alternative. Just as costly, more so, then as now and resupplying and maintaining would be beyond the budget NASA presently has. We do need to reclaim the ability to return to the Moon but not for a Base and not a dozen landings. Three well planned landing sites and mission plans could return very valuable science and new understanding of the Moon for practical purposes as well as pure knowledge. LRO will provide the landing sites. Beyond that send the robots to do the grunt work.

MaxQ, a dozen landings won't tell you much about the human ability to survive long term on the moon. The only way to tell how well people can survive in a low gravity environment over the long run is for people to remain there on the lunar surface for a year or more. And in order to do that, you need a base.

But if-- all you want to do-- is simply explore the moon then about a dozen unmanned rovers placed in different areas on the lunar surface and operated from Earth should be able to do that at a price that would probably cost at least ten times less than sending people there.

Current military rockets could launch these remote controlled rovers to the lunar surface so you wouldn't even need to develop an Ares V or an Ares 1.

http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/01/space-frontier.html

As far as the gravity is concerned, wasn't there an unfunded project to put mice in an orbiting centrifuge sat to simulate Martian gravity?

Something like that would tell us all we need to know.

If it has to be done on the Moon for some reason, you could fit the mice experiment into an Altair ascent stage and hurl it at the Moon on a lone Ares V.

When its done, it launches along with any other onboard experiments and you send two dudes to pick it up in an Orion.

(It sounds super expensive, BUT, if you already have the Altair and Orion, than its probably cheaper than doing custom hardware for such a mission.)