Today's Video: Inspire Me! Weightless Flights of Discovery

At $10,000 per person-hour this is some expensive inspiration.

What are some ways that NASA's inspiration budget can be better spent?

We barely let astronauts fly knowing the risks. Would the nation allow a child to fly with a "calculated" LOC of 1:2000 (or worse) and a "scary" abort scenario much more likely than that? Remember that a decade of Orion flights will only bring 20 launches ... not nearly enough to build up high reliability or confidence statistics. At best, you are clearly a man ahead of your time ...

Frank's response: My friend, if you just think rationally at your logic, you'll see it doesn't work: Orion is supposed to be safer than any existing launch system..safe enough to carry adults-a father or mother say-but not safe enough to carry one of their children? I'm not saying do it in the early stages of maturing the system, but later...And if not Orion, how about Dragon? Elon, would you give a student researcher a ride atop a matured Dragon/Falcon 9 someday? I'm betting that kids in space could electrify interest in the space program. Again, ok for paying tourists but not hard working, studious kids??? My friend, things just have to change-it can't keep being for an elite only...

This is a pathetic recommendation. So floating makes one want to be a scientist, eh? You put some kids on a rocket, and are they going to come back to be scientists? Nope. They'll come back to be celebrities, and worshiped by space exploration advocates as having special insight and vision. Yes, that's what happens right now to astronauts, once they get their baptism of zero-g. All of a sudden they get wise, and that wisdom qualifies them for high level management and policy authority when they return. All that from zero-g. Not bad! Must be something about brain cells that float? I would gather that the long-duration folks on ISS are that much smarter than their short-mission counterparts. If only they didn't have to undergo large g-loads on liftoff and reentry.

Strapping people onto rockets doesn't make people want to be scientists. Igniting passion for science? Balderdash. Do it right. Train good teachers. OK, get people who are strapped on rockets to do good science. That would sure help.

Frank's response: Sorry Hilda but I'm sticking to my idealism. Getting students into space would ignite all student's interest in the unknown-and give them an incentive, too to make it their careers. I can't stop them from being celebrities when they return, if that's what they choose. But I'd wager space geeks would be less inclined to wanna be on People magazine....why don't you rethink your harsh critique, huh?

JSC Robo: "At $10,000 per person-hour this is some expensive inspiration.

What are some ways that NASA's inspiration budget can be better spent?"

Well, this is funded by Northrop Grumman, so NASA's inspiration budget isn't a factor. Anyway, I think Griffin cancelled NASA's inspiration budget to fund Constellation. Also, I'm not sure how you arrived at the $10,000 per hour figure, but the seconds of actual weightlessness aren't the only inspiration. The inspiration would hopefully extend through the whole flight, to the education, preparation, and discussions before and after the flight, and beyond.

I agree with the direction in Frank's note, but it seems to me like the next achievable steps are smaller: student access (from K through PhD) to suborbital RLVs, traditional sounding rockets, high altitude balloons, smallsats, Dragonlab, and ISS. This would have the dual effects of powerful educational inspiration and helping kick-start some innovative and potentially extremely useful parts of the space industry. Not all of the areas I mentioned exist now, but commitment to purchase rides (if reasonably priced) would be a big help in making them exist. In other cases, student access is there, but rare, and should be more common.

The Teachers in Space

www.teachers-in-space.org/

effort is one aspect of what I've described. Personally, being a bit risk-averse, I'd stick with experiments for a long time while safety is thoroughly demonstrated, but that's just me. TIS is definitely worth considering.

While we're at it, we should be able to get more analysis tools for satellite/space probe data, telescopes, and museum displays in student hands. We also should be able to get more space-themed student competitions going, and more Centennial Challenges that are open to student participation. Again, all of this is dual-purpose, helping education and the space industry at the same time.

All of this could be done with a small fraction of the Constellation budget. In fact, with the whole Constellation budget, we could easily afford all of the following (especially after Shuttle retirement):

- an incredible NASA education program where students really participate at multiple levels
- revitalized ISS use, plus Bigelow/Dragonlab use
- COTS-D commercial crew ISS transport and rescue
- COTS E,F,G,H,I in other areas that can be commercially useful (and perhaps also useful for exploration) if we could get past the initial development
- a strong lunar robotics exploration and engineering effort
- technology demonstrations in space infrastructure and satellite improvements
- jump-start suborbital space access and smallsat industries
(eg: by buying tickets on suborbital RLVs for various science and engineering purposes)
- focused space access oriented X planes and other aeronautics work
- a new series of Earth observation missions: full decadal survey suite, DISCVR, OCO 2, quite a few commercially hosted payloads and commercial data purchases, etc
- a few more modest heliophysics, planetary science, and astronomy missions, as well as instruments on commercial satellites

Note that, on the political front, Florida would lose Ares in this scenario, but it would gain perhaps 1-2 dozen EELV/Falcon 9 launches per year if we make the added science missions stick to modest payload goals - not a bad trade. The scenario above would probably funnel lots of funds into Presidential battleground states like Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada [maybe Arizona and Pennsylvania too if Astrobotic is used].

Frank's note: Red, you are on the right wave length-incremental approach is the way to go BUT let's commit to developing a workable program that eventually-not tomorrow-leads to students in orbit, and to the moon. I'm saying all of the technical and risks can be worked out if people would just think about it....it's ok to fly the father but not the daughter?.....

Yeah, what a crazy idea, sending a teenager along on a hazardous research expedition - like that would ever happen?

http://www.scouting.milestones.btinternet.co.uk/siple.htm

http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/award/award-1667.asp

http://www.scouting.org/BoyScouts/AntarcticScientificProgram.aspx

http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/antarct/ajus/nsf9841/ch2.htm

Frank's note: Hey, Boy and Girl Scouts in space!!! Think of the possibilities...

I'm all for the change, it's just not going to happen on Orion or Falcon for that matter. There is a difference between "safer" and "safe" (in the mind's of the public). And as I said, it will take decades of flights to provide any confidence in safety estimates.

Look at public policy and public opinion, someone gets the flu and they close schools. A few thousand children a year die in car accidents, and they all must wear safety belts. A baby dies in a car seat, and all car seats must face backwards. We barely play the risk/reward game with vaccinations, and the probability of side effects is in the 1-in-a-millions range. Children can't drink until 21 ... Can't fight in the military (a far less dangerous vocation per capita) until 18. Can't drive until 15 or 16.

Who gives the consent that 1:1000 times that child will die? The parent? The child themselves? Parents aren't allowed to choose medical procedures for their children, they are forced on them by law to save lives (same as protecting life)).

And imagine the company that let's them fly. It's one thing to kill a rich thrill seeking tourist, quite another to kill a wide-eyed teen. Did you live through the teacher-in-space debacle at NASA? Do you realize how risk-averse that culture (a reflection of stumping senators and we-know-better bureaucrats) is? Every time you fly there is a 1:1000 chance that it is the end of your company or Agency ...

I'm with you. I'm for a risk taking country that allows these sorts of things. I think astronauts should be allowed die in the service of their country much like soldiers and spies, firefighters and police officers. I long for a world where risks are balanced against benefit and logical decisions are made. However, I'm reporting on things as they are, not as we wish them to be.

We are FAR from kids in space. They need a way into space first.

Maybe NASA should send kids in space via Russia. Imagine the public support for NASA then!

"Oh and by the way, its not us sending them... we dont do that anymore"

I like the idea, Frank, very much (when I retired from the spaceflight industry I suggested that they let the #1 employee of the year of the STS support contractor get a ride to orbit), but one does have to ponder what would happen if that one mission with the high school student on board met a gruesome fate.

As some folks above have noted, the country's (and the media's) treatment of risk is a bit...distorted. I suppose working up a ramp from zero-g flights on aircraft to actual spaceflight is probably the only way we'd be able to acclimate everyone...maybe.

It sure would bring a whole new dimension to a scout earning their spaceflight belt loop!

Frank's response: Sorry Hilda but I'm sticking to my idealism. Getting students into space would ignite all student's interest in the unknown-and give them an incentive, too to make it their careers. I can't stop them from being celebrities when they return, if that's what they choose. But I'd wager space geeks would be less inclined to wanna be on People magazine....why don't you rethink your harsh critique, huh?

OK, Frank. I'll give it some more thought. Try this.

What I object to is confusion about what science is. Let me say that I favor national investment in human space flight, and I'm not suggesting that, as Obama keeps getting banged on for having once said, such funds should be taken and handed over to education. But science is based on discovery, and rocketing people into space is not in itself discovery. Well, personal discovery perhaps. There is virtually no science in being blasted off or in being weightless.

What sending kids up on a rocket might well do is "inspire" their peers to be courageous, perhaps heroes, and even daredevils. Those can be good things. But they don't make a scientist. Perhaps it would inspire a passion for engineering and technology, but that's a reach as well.

I hear the dismal echo of ISS being justified as all about science. That was a disaster, not just because ISS has done little science but, because of the humungous cost, it is unlikely to ever do much of scientific value. Oh, but "science" is a "good thing", so connecting ISS with science was seen as smart. Now, "inspiration about being a scientist" is a "good thing" too, so there is a reflex to make that connection with human space flight as well. Sorry, but that's an argument that is full of holes. Science is about questions, and sitting on a rocket or floating in zero-g isn't about questions. (Well, OK, "Am I going to get sick?" is probably a valid one).

One would guess, by your argument, that deep sea fishing off a rowboat is a great way to inspire kids to be oceanographers? Or perhaps that rock climbing is a great way to inspire kids to be geologists? On belay! How about giving all kids a Wii or an iPod to inspire kids to be be computer scientists? Their eyes light up, and they study extra hard, right? No, it just doesn't work that way.

It is indeed a shame that kids these days are not as interested as they used to be in being astronauts. But you're not going to fix that by pretending that shooting kids up on a rocket will inspire them to be astronauts. That's entirely different than inspiration about science, and I think you have those goals of science and human space flight seriously confused.

Tell you what. Think of something scientifically inspiring for adults to do in space, and then we can talk about kids. I'm serious. None of this Apollo on steroids business.

"response" 34 lines, 1894 characters

@ Hilda

You really should take one of the Zero-G flights. The experience is something that you will never, ever forget. While the Lunar gravity parabolas were my personal favorite, I nevertheless find myself seeking out opportunities to experience weightlessness, like jumping in elevators.

FWIW, I'm certainly not a celebrity, I'm just a humble banker. One who has started attending more science conferences.

Your thesis is flawed.

Hmm. Not all students are children I believe. So where is the problem? Start with students who are older than 18. If they are old enough to vote then I would assume they are old enough to make this kind of decisions.

It's a long shot though and I don't think NASA will do it. I am not even sure that NASA should do it just for the sake of it. It should be related to some science project.

I also think Virgin Galactic first might do it.

@ red at May: "I agree with the direction in Frank's note, but it seems to me like the next achievable steps are smaller: student access (from K through PhD) to suborbital RLVs, traditional sounding rockets, high altitude balloons, smallsats, Dragonlab, and ISS"

Most of the small steps you mention above have been done before. Franks idea is the next logical step.

To wit: In the late 1970's the NASA Get Away Special program was formed allowing anyone to buy a ride for their self contained experiment inside a 2.5 or 5.0 cubic foot canister that mounted inside the cargo bay of the Shuttle. The educational communities grabbed hold of this opportunity with gusto. Over a third of the 186 GAS payloads that flew between 1982 and 2003 (Columbia's last flight)were from student organizations.

In the mid 1990's, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Shuttle Small Payloads Project (SSPP), home to the GAS program, realized that many student organizations struggled in developing a full payload from the ground up, i.e data systems, power systems, structures,and the experiment taking their energy away from the actual science to be achieved. Toi make it easier for more students to access space, the SSPPO developed the Space Experiment Module (SEM) which provided a data systems, power systems, etc. for 10 small experiments inside the SEM canister. SEM was specifically targeted for student organizations K-12, enabling even quicker, easier access to space.

I recall visiting a student science fair one evening at an elementary school in Annapolis, and one of the student science fair experiments was a SEM experiment that was in orbit that same evening. At the beginning of the ceremonies, when the principle announced this fact to the hundreds in attendance, that one of their very own science fair experiments was on board the Space Shuttle that very moment, the auditorium erupted in an explosion of cheers. Think of all the wonderful conversations that one moment kicked off about how NASA was supporting students experiments in space! The room was a buzz with excitement.

The SEM program was so successful that it spawned the sub-SEM, which are student payloads flown on sounding rockets and balloons.

For each of these SEM's the kids took part in the integration of their experiments into the carrier systems, traveling to Goddard or Wallops. What a thrill for them and us.

The SSPPO's Hitchhiker carrier shuttle system also flew numerous university students/organization experiments (controlled from the ground in a control center at GSFC)and ejected numerous small student satellites from the Shuttle's cargo bay.

As part SSPPO's efforts to migrate it's expertise in flying student payloads into space, we formulated a number of low cost student carrier system concepts that would mount externally on the ISS. ISS-GAS/SEM/Hitchhiker concepts represented the end of a roadmap of ever increasing sophisticated student experiment venues that began with SEM experiments.

This road map was specifically formulated to create opportunities for students to continue their exploration of space throughout their educational careers; then once thier educational career is complete, the students are then primed for a career in aerospace industry.

Alas, ISS-GAS/SEM/Hitchhiker, never caught on with NASA HQ, and when the Columbia disaster hit, the entire office was shut down,though we did squeak one SEM experiment onto a Proton ISS resupply mission that came home on the first Return to Flight of the Shuttle.

So, red at May's idea of 'next small achievable steps' have been taken. It can be recreated again, if so desired.

Having been witness to many students of all ages k-phd who had the fortune to fly their experiments on the Space Shuttle, sounding rocket or balloons, I'd bet the farm they would jump at the chance to strap themselves in a Dragon capsule, Virgin Galactic recliner, what have you. (Of course, the parents of the young one's might give pause -smile)

From what I have seen, Franks idea would really take flight.

Gerry Daelemans
Former Chief, Shuttle Small Payloads Project Office
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

"...safe enough to carry ADULTS-a father or mother say-but not safe enough to carry one of their CHILDREN?"

Sorry to throw a bucket of cold, legal water on your line of reasoning, but the law makes one important distinction between children and adults: adults are deemed old enough to be responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Children, by definition, are not.

Children depend upon their parents to make decisions for them, and if some children's advocacy agency gets wind of a parent placing their child in an inherantly risky activity or situation, they will remove the child from the custody of the parents.

While I in fact agree with you, in that "things just have to change-it can't keep being for an elite only...", the cold, hard facts are that until the day when space travel becomes as risky as passenger aircraft, true microgravity will continue to be a "reward" for those whose military and academic achievements have qualified them and separated them from the rest of us.

If we keep working today, someday tomorrow there will be that egalitarian future.

Wow

Thanks Gerry, I was sadden when Spacelab was decomissioned and Spacehab ending with Columbia. I'm not even sure GAS Payloads could fly in the SSP cargo bay after all the power and utilities were removed so ISS modules could be lofted.
The desision to make the MPLM a non-powered device ending flight of any sort of Physical or Biological payload that required processing and upkeep in transit to ISS. Orion cannot even fit the crew much less a science payload. When the SSP is decommisioned we will not even have the MPLM to bring food and water to ISS.

I think Frank has a valid idea
a seat first for a student experiment inside the Crew Module, then flying a student to the ISS to operate it him or herself!
As long as the experiment is peer reviewed and meets a science objective of NASA now that exploration of the solar system may actually take Place.

To be Honest, Education was taken out to the Funding wood shed as much as Fundamental Science Discovery was at NASA.

I understand Hilda has some concerns also. All we can do is push forward with education in research science and hope for the best. The people building the current Rockets could care less about "users" The minds are numb in trying to build a transportation system like a railroad and forget the NASA charter to involve science as part of the effort.
Mike Griffin set this up the ways it currently is, such as it is time will tell if such a plan is valid given the budget NASA has. The cost to develop experiments and fly aboard SSP for the life of the program is one day in the CxP budget. This is really sickening for NASA and its goals.

In in Grad school, I'd go.

Regarding 'inspiration'

It has been my experience in dealing with children as well as adults that if I share what inspires me, what excites me, I've created an opening, a moment, for someone listening to me to also be inspired; for them to see a possibility for themselves that excites them.

There is no 'one' thing that is the 'right' thing to be inspired about.

As long as folks in the aerospace industry continue to pursue adventures that inspire them, and then share that with anyone and everyone, be they a space cadet, or Star Trek geek like me, it creates a moment for others to be inspired about their own lives. That all may sound corny, I agree, and that has been my experience.

Not all the kids who were thrilled to be flying SEM, or GAS space experiments through our Office were headed into the aerospace industry, however, they were thrilled for themselves out of their participation, and I'm willing to bet they had a sense of possibilities for their life they may have only experienced for the first time out of being a space explorer on the shuttle.

To steal a phrase from the OpenGoddard group at Goddard, a collection of folks committed to creating a work place of inspiration, adventure and discover inside of Goddard's mission, lets all "Inspire the Planet" out of what we do at NASA, Northrop Grumman, Space X, Bigelow, Lockheed Martin, etc. I believe the world will be a better place for us doing so.

(pardon my bad grammar folks, I was trained as in engineer!)

I was able to give a family a behind-the-scenes tour of the shuttle training facilities once, including some time in the shuttle mission simulator cockpit. (The only thing the family and I had in common was a similar rare medical condition.) Their two young boys, 9 and 11 at the time (I think), got to sit up front.

The 9-year-old went on to get a degree in aeronautical engineering. He told me years later that my little behind-the-scenes tour, and learning what I had done for my job at the time, had inspired him to pursue his specific career.

I second Mr. Murphy's point, and agree with Mr. Daeleman's observations. Your thesis IS contradicted by the data, Hilda. A properly structured program could inspire thousands if not millions of children/students.