Why the Moon? Here's Why.

This is very well written with cogent explanations of why building infrastructure and then settling the moon should be the next thing to do in space. I'm in your corner all the way. Let's go!

An excellent narrative which points out accurately many of the problems that are NASA in its current form, together with the total loss of Vision caused by the Constellation debacle.

We need to make use of our existing hard won and too expensively developed capabilities. This is how every other non-US human space flight program operates, and, in truth, how every other successful industry works. No one throws away their knowledge-base and resources in order to start over from scratch. Only when NASA managers have free reign and uncontrolled checkbooks does it happen.

Until a viable STS comes along, any return to the Moon is an expensive stunt. An Apollo on steroids will face the same fate as the original Apollo program. Too expensive and too much throw away hardware.

And the near term cost benefit ratio of this endeavor for life on the planet Earth is?

Seriously, I will welcome these gentleman back to the reality based world with open arms should they ever choose to return.

We are retiring the Shuttle to free up money for the Ares I/Orion. The ISS is scheduled to be ditched in the Pacific Ocean so we can go back to the Moon with Ares V.

This is a recurring theme in the U.S. Manned Space Program. Apollo 18, 19, and 20 are in museums so money could be freed up to build the Shuttle. I once saw a commemorative plaque that went up to Apollo 24.

I believe we should not retire the Shuttle or the ISS to get funding to go to the Moon

I would like to see numbers, instead of words, before I believe this scenario is feasible.

They just had to use shuttle components, right? They HAD to.

Nice going, geniuses.

@Rocket Science: Did you actually read the missive? The ROI on step wise economic development of cislunar space is explained clearly. I found it to be much more realistic than the $100+ billion estimated to build Ares via the Marsall Design Bureau.

Bravo!

Now Thats a viable GOAL!! Hope this happens - Soon.

Near term benefits? What is near term? Part of NASA's problem, in my estimation, has been the lack of long term, sustained vision. Benefits come from developing the technology and skills to do the things that we currently are unable to do. Arguably, that technology and skills are the benefits. There are next to zero benefits to be had doing only what you can comfortably do with current abilities. It's implicitly part of Scientific Method that discovery and benefits require novel applications of skills and intuition, as well as the development of new skills and new insight, to be discovered.

There's no doubt innumerable lessons have been learned from all of the STS missions, but real leaps in technology and intuition require great challenges, and developing a sustained presence on the moon is one such challenge. I'd go as far as to say that we need to go to the moon a few times, exist there for a while, to learn things we'll need to know to get to Mars.

My reaction to articles like this one always comes out, "Yes, but..." It answers the question, "Why Moon?" but fails to answer the larger question, "Why space?" Although I desire a space-faring civilization as much as anyone who ever lived (maybe more), I've never seen any non-circular reasoning in answer to that question. And I write space-faring fantasy for a living.

I like the idea of dropping the heavy lift development. One thing NASA really knows how to do well is assembly stuff in space (see HST , see ISS); The skill set in this area is going to die away unless applied to another task. What better task than assembly on the moon, or in LEO, etc. in support of the WVSE "Wingo Vision for Space Exploration"!

Go Dennis!

There is no proof as of yet that there's water on the Moon. If there isn't any then we might as well go to Mars, albeit at the risk that the Chinese will be standing on the Moon before we head for Mars.

There are no resources to be had in space you can't get cheaper on Earth. We aren't even close to having technology that would allow humans to survive in space if Earth was rendered uninhabitable so colonization as survival insurance is pure fantasy. The only current justification for more space exploration and development is to master NEO deflection and to study alien planetary science and (hopefully) life to improve understanding of our own world.

Dennis, Paul, and Gordon:

The message is dead on target; ignore the naysayers, and stand your ground.

Your plan act as a path to the new ships in our exploration harbor, replacing the vessels which so many of the old NASA either allowed to be burned, or actively set aflame.

Someone will accomplish the vision you have illustrated; I want it to be the US.

We must stop throwing away all of the work and infrastructure which has enormous investment history, and start using it for growing entreprenerism and free enterprise in the inner solar system.

1) Use the existing components of the STS, including the remaining orbiters, for unmanned heavy lift and operation

2) Get an evolutionary approach to all future development and operations to exploration in place, and STICK TO IT.

The precise reason we are experiencing all of the problems as a civilization is due to the fact that we are running out of resources and space to successfully inhabit this planet.

Without an expansion into the inner solar system of Earth's civilization, our culture and way of life is doomed to extinction.

We must start somewhere, and now is the time to do it.

but fails to answer the larger question, "Why space?"

Actually it does answer the question. Earth is essentially zero-sum game for now.
To get to more resources, we have to dig them out from earth damaging its ecosystems even further. Some resources are really scarce on earth ( PGMs for example ) or geographically very unevenly distributed ( Japan and China currently compete over relatively abundant rare-earth metals, and lithium in Bolivia )

Opening up space for development and getting at the resources up there would enable completely new living quality back down on earth too.

For example, why dont we have cars running on hydrogen ? Part of the problem : they are expensive. Why ? Mostly because platinum, used in fuel cells is expensive. Why ? Its limited resource, and good for many applications.

This isnt circular.

( yes, theres recycling, new technologies coming along improving living quality etc etc. But the simple fact of the matter remains : with new resources, you open up new possibilities that CAN improve living quality without magic new technologies )

This is not to propose we should go after PGM mining from asteroids or something like that immediately. We need to walk before we can run. But ultimately space development should lead there. Thats what the article suggests, we should get started.

I think for the short term benefits we could take this from the perspective of a 1400's civilization asking "why the sea?".
Its expensive, dangerous, difficult and there surely doesn't seem to be any profit in running a massive navy that floats about just looking for stuff... and that argument would hold until some other nation went out there and showed everyone what all can be done. Its then followed by panic and embarrassment.

Going to space is obviously more complicated. But I think the principles are the same. We go to learn things we can use to our advantage against other nations. Maybe we'll make a buck, maybe we wont, but we'll have the advantage of knowing what's out there and that can be used to our benefit.

LEO is cluttered with every other nation doing the same experiments we are. Leave that to our private industry so it can cut its teeth on space travel while government looks further afield for new opportunities.

OK, I’ll bite.

“What is clear to us is that we are neither doing the right things in space nor are we are doing things right. Frankly, we do not think that it is possible to do much worse."

That’s a good start (though it was buried deep in the essay). I find it remarkable that these particular authors have some history strongly supporting the whole Constellation program.

The big problem here is the “why now?” part. The idea of colonizing the solar system to develop cheap materials and save the human species is sorta nice, but it’s not something that most taxpayers can be convinced is a necessity. It does seem clear that there are major issues in global warming that need focused attention right now. So these writers say the solution to that is to … leave? Or use lunar ISRU to mitigate environmental waste? Wow. There’s at least one screw loose here.

Dennis Wingo took a stab at the “why now?” problem a few months ago in this venue (“Philosophy of Space, May 10, 2009), and failed just as solidly then. He pulled some scary words out of an article in New Scientist about the year 2099 and built his case entirely around them. Sorry, but we just don’t know how to do strategic planning on a century scale. We certainly don’t have any of the expertise that is necessary to do it on this scale with any confidence yet. We can look to get that confidence, but advocacy of major industrial encampments on the Moon right now are fairly premature.

That being said, this paper does bring up some important points. Firstly, that heavy-lift is not the long term solution. This is connected to their point about orbital assembly and repair capabilities.

“It is staggering to imagine that the current plan for Constellation would discard this hard won capability. It is our opinion that our current orbital assembly and repair capability represents an invaluable national asset that would be extremely shortsighted to throw away.”

Because it is this orbital assembly and repair capability that makes smaller pieces, launchable with contemporary launchers, into big ones. Those big pieces will be needed wherever we want to go. Yes, the Constellation program does indeed throw away this hard-won capability. It is probably the one thing in space we do really, really well. So again, where were these authors when Constellation threw this capability away?

The presumption here is that all this good save-the-world stuff will be done by astronauts tramping around on the lunar surface. The authors acknowledge that “current computers are more than a trillion times more powerful than the computer that guided the Apollo 12 Lunar lander”, but seem not to think that this computer sophistication can much more economically handle a lot of the work that needs to be done. By the time we’re ready to do this stuff, you'll be able to add a few orders of magnitude to that capability increase. Why aren't we talking about major encampments of teleoperated robots?

Finally it needs to be said that the promised economies of this kind of space development are sort of a hoot. So we’re going to “save taxpayers billions of dollars”, eh? Doesn’t sound like much on the $100 billion scale of just putting feet back on the lunar surface. While such economies may well pertain, we have a simply horrible track record when it comes to costing space exploration. We don’t have the luxury of making promises about saving money doing space exploration. Not yet. Perhaps one of the most important goals of the next generation space transportation architecture is developing that taxpayer trust any future efforts will desperately need.

Great thinking

Now if such a program can be managed from Washington DC and distribute resources across America. It might just be feasable to actually start such a project.

When you steal funds and cancel programs without rational thought keeping the effort highly localized it fails very quickly.
E.G. ESMD/Constellation

Could there be a reason JSC cannot hire and it's workforce is capped ? The cirrent effort is stalled and next to worthless.

"Why the Moon rather than Mars?" is not the question that we need to be able to answer. "Why space (beyond LEO) and why now?" is. If we can't answer that in a compelling way, then we can't engage the support of the general public.

I simply must spout off about the robots.

"Why aren't we talking about major encampments of teleoperated robots?"

I think people are wanting to find a reason for humans to physically go to space.

I can't see why teleoperated robots can't do it. I see this as largely a user interface issue. People say AI isn't advanced enough, but AI is irrelevant.

Put some RC arms on a rover, a big high-powered battery that can be charged at a stationary solar plant.

Robots don't need to be able to walk to the store, buy fruit and bring it home. They can be dumb as toast. Its two lightseconds away. Put the brains on the ground.

Even if it takes 15 people to usefully drive a bot, its still cheaper than sending actual people to the Moon.

Yes, I know robotic Hubble repair was going to cost twice as much as a Shuttle mission. But that's a one-off situation where you have the price of developing the robotics weighed against the cost of using the Shuttles we have ready to go.

If you can develop a dumb RC lunar android for under five billion, you've just beaten the crap out of any manned lunar mission scheme.

Get them rolling off an assembly line and start doing lunar mining in _bulk_. Oxygen, PMGs, everything we can conjure up.

I know this isn't a snap, but I can't fathom it being more expensive than the cost of developing the new launchers and\or vehicles needed to shuffle people to the Moon and back.

What am I missing?

Olaf: There is no proof as of yet that there's water on the Moon. If there isn't any then we might as well go to Mars, albeit at the risk that the Chinese will be standing on the Moon before we head for Mars.

Hang on Olaf. LCROSS will give you that answer at 7:30am EDT on Oct 9, 2009.

http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov

Dennis: Dead on. We need to start working NOW on solar arrays and landing site development (fusing the surface to reduce shrapnel), stuff that can be done with very little investment, i.e., analysis on the ISS solar arrays (can they support themselves vertically in lunar gravity?), using groups like Armadillo who have nicely reusable rocket motors (and can run them cheaply) to evaluate how well fusing technologies work under actual rocket motor impact, stuff like that...

Sorry guys but first I do not like the words. It sounds like Moon is a great idea and Mars/NEOs ought to be after thoughts. Not a great way to build a consensus with people like say Buzz Aldrin. Now he may not be that influential anymore but just in case...

Also and I am not going to go through all of it but:

Quote: "A reusable space vehicle, based ... using aerobraking could easily be built at the ISS. ...
Anyone who says that this would be inordinately difficult merely needs to speak to Dr. John Grunsfeld about his team's magnificent work refurbishing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope or the crews who have done such a masterful job building and maintaining the ISS. "

Where is the link between "building" a vehicle in orbit, "reusable" and aerobraking? Who is saying that "building" is inordinately difficult? As you said, it was demonstrated several times. What is inordinately difficult is a REUSABLE/AEROBRAKING architecture. This is DIFFICULT. NOT EASY. And it is not about the aerobraking part of it alone...

I would love that all who actually preach human space flight also have a good idea of what is or not difficult? Anyone devised a CONOPS for such an architecture? A cost estimate? Does it fit within NASA's budget for the foreseeable future? Until these questions are answered all of this will be, I am afraid, wishful thinking.

NASA has claimed Space was EASY for all these years and now they are in a hole of their own making. The scenario depicted here is NOT EASY. Possibly feasible at tremendous initial cost. So, instead of words we need price tags. HOW MUCH? WHEN? Because until you show me the cost I SAY IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE.

Good luck!

I agree with Mr. Barton: excellent essay explaining why the Moon first (admittedly, I've been on the lunar bandwagon since forever because it makes such obvious sense), but the larger justification of "why more and further spaceflight at all" must be established in the public's mind before they are ready for this discussion.

How can we convince the public (and the gov't folks who are supposed to represent them) of the immense value TO THEM of more expansive space endeavors? One can suggest a promise of new economic activity and opportunity, but this does not connect to them in any immediate, concrete ways.

Bridge THAT gap...and lunar development as a starting point naturally follows, and thus will enable all the rest beyond.

But how do we bridge that gap? How do we answer the question: "What's in it for me?"

Can someone help with the following:

1. Where is the info supporting why space travel is so expensive?

2. How much are nations working together to reduce cost, share research, etc? Seems like we all use "saving the Earth" as the main reason for space exploration and given that there is only one Earth, one would assume, in a purely logical sense, that ALL space work should be done under a single global initiative. Do the benefits of this outweigh the costs?

3. How can the average Joe (ok not so average since we are talking about space travel here) be utilized to further advancement in space exploration/technology. I'm a software developer who loves this field but whatever I learn is pretty much useless since I have no where to put that knowledge/hobby to good use.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Two points:

I'm happy that the authors didn't regurgitate the Helium-3 myth.

The authors haven't described ANYTHING that couldn't be done more cheaply with robotics, or teleoperated systems. Robotic miners don't need food, water, oxygen, don't get tired, don't need to be brought home... Using humans on the moon for these sorts of tasks is like using the ISS for space-based solar power. Humans may well be necessary to do science, but not industrial processes.

Anyways, what's up with the constant justifications? Just come clean and say we're doing HSF because it's cool science. Anything else has the aura of lipstick on a pig...

The gentlemen assert, but do not demonstrate, that human colonization of the Moon will lead to major economic wealth, which appears to be the latest in a long, long line of failed attempts to justify the enormous expense of human spaceflight. The same promises were made for ISS. It has been four decades since Apollo 11 and, except for the possibility of large government contracts, private companies have shown next to zero commercial interest in human spaceflight, whether to the Moon or elsewhere. [Compare with the situation in aviation 40 years after the Wright Brothers first flew.] What is it that these three gentlemen have figured out about lunar colonization as engine of economic wealth that no private company has?

Lots of great comments.

First, Robots.

Robots and robotics are no where near the level of maturity required for autonomous long term operation or even via telepresence. We are 100% in agreement that advances in robotics are part of this effort and are a major force multiplier on the Moon, just as they are on the Earth. However, robots cannot do it all and to postulate successive layers of repair bots is not viable.

For an example, even using the existing SPDM robotic arm, it was estimated by GSFC that it would cost $2.3 billion dollars to service the Hubble telescope. The crew, led by John Grunsfeld did the entire servicing mission (about 5x more work than the robotic mission proposed) for less than 1 billion.

This is a real world comparison for something that is less challenging than lunar surface operations.

Second, cost.

How about throwing us a couple of million bucks and we can come up with an entire scenario, with costing and all the bells and whistles that a pre phase A study requires. Of course we don't have every jot and tittle of the plan. What we do have is a lot of engineering judgement, backed by a lot of terrestrial analogs, as well as the knowledge of the lunar surface gained by the Apollo, Clementine, Lunar Prospector, and other missions, to make our case.

Feasibility

It is mildly humorous when someone makes a definitive statement that we can't do things like pour metal into sintered sand molds, something that we have been doing for hundreds of years here on the Earth. Will the alloy be perfect? Nope, but that is where overdesign comes in. That is also what we have done on the Earth in that bygone era before computer stress analysis. This is why the 120 year old George Washington Bridge carries 10X the weight and 1000 x the traffic of what the designers designed for.

We want humans on the Moon? Well duh, I am not really that fond of creating a Borg race to do space exploration for us. As far as wealth generation is concerned, my hypothesis regarding platinum group metals has been verified by the impact dynamicists that do this kind of thing, which leads me to believe that these resources are there. In my 1000 hours in the last year of poring over Lunar Orbiter ultra high resolution images I have found some interesting features that, should they be confirmed by LRO images, can lean to ground truth landers to verify the extent of possible metallic impact debris.

If Paul's data from his radar verifies the extent of water (damn him he won't even tell me whether or not this is the case until the paper passes peer review), even on the low side of the estimates, it will be a revolution in lunar development. Even if we have to go with the simple 3x increase in concentration at the poles due to the better thermal environment, then we still have significant quantities of water and other volatiles, far in excess of what we need for human needs.

I have just spent a couple of days re-reading a lot of the work done before in oxygen and metals ISRU and there is NOTHING that is a show stopper in these areas.

As far as the software issue is concerned. Software will be the lifeblood that makes or breaks lunar industrial development. It is probably more in the critical path of success than any other single thing. We can get massive increases in functionality of robotic systems with good software. I encourage any software writer to think about programming robotic systems and telepresence systems.

Bob Mahoney: "But how do we bridge that gap? How do we answer the question: "What's in it for me?" "

A very good question. What if the answer is "there is nothing for you but satisfying poetic fantasies of a dozen hundred space exploration enthusiasts at your expense"?

What if there is no intrinsic reason for manned spaceflight that a vast majority of paying public can get behind at all? Like there is no inherent reason, nor drive to 'colonize' the bottom of the Marianne Trench in the Pacific. Why don't we 'terraform' the Sahara desert before Mars? Surely it'd be cheaper and more productive as at the very least the Sahara desert has oxygen and familiar gravity.

We should be prepared to abandon the concept of manned space altogether as fanciful and unjustifiable. Personally, I see no problem doing that.

Private companies can of course pursue whatever in space AT THEIR OWN, OR THEIR INVESTORS' CAPITAL (if they can raise it) EXPENSE, but we might have to leave the government out of it just because there is nothing of value in it for the citizen.

Why do we keep getting promises of increased economic activity? Because that's all anyone really cares about. If you could put a dollar figure on "civilization beginning to stagnate, planet overpopulated, money losing value anyway" we would have a city of 3,000 on the moon by the end of next year. Instead, those who understand this are stuck trying to explain it to people who care mainly about budgets and bottom lines. Why space? Because we can't afford not to, that's why.

@Dennis:

"Second, cost.

How about throwing us a couple of million bucks and we can come up with an entire scenario, with costing and all the bells and whistles that a pre phase A study requires. Of course we don't have every jot and tittle of the plan. What we do have is a lot of engineering judgement, backed by a lot of terrestrial analogs, as well as the knowledge of the lunar surface gained by the Apollo, Clementine, Lunar Prospector, and other missions, to make our case."

Ah ah! But you do not even give an order of magnitude figure. I am only saying that the argument, however smarts are in it, will fall short to those who hold the purse. Now since you claim "we do have is a lot of engineering judgement" you MUST certainly have an idea of the cost. Don't you? So let's say Constellation is turning into what? $100B now? And this was "easy". What do you think you propose might cost? 1 order of magnitude more? 2 orders? So how long would it take to implement at even $15B/year? Come on I am sure you can come up with numbers. I am also sure that said numbers will terrify anyone holding the purse, right or wrong.

Now if NASA was to be serious about what they set to accomplish, they might have done a "slightly"-more-than-90-day study to answer the VSE. And of course tried to seek out input from outside, and have a real long term plan, but it is another story. Unfortunately.

So here is my suggestion: Do whatever you can (I know it sounds easy), and get your $2M to run the study? I believe NASA had and RFI or RFP, not sure anymore, about what to do with Constellation (?) which says it all...

" Why space? Because we can't afford not to, that's why."

Ever dealt with bean counters? Managers? Good luck with that argument...

This going to the moon situation is similar to the oil problem. Here’s the analogy.

There are two ways to deal with the oil problem. 1) Drill, drill, drill (go where no one has gone before using any means necessary to get to the moon), not likely in today’s economy or 2) Replace the current automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) with ones that uphold their promise to build fuel efficient cars. Replace current rocket companies (SeaLaunch, etc) with rocket companies (SpaceX, etc) that take people to space cheaper than any one else.

Private companies can of course pursue whatever in space AT THEIR OWN, OR THEIR INVESTORS' CAPITAL (if they can raise it) EXPENSE, but we might have to leave the government out of it just because there is nothing of value in it for the citizen.

Your position is a familiar one. It was similar to the response that Columbus got from the papal states and the city states in Italy when he was looking for backing from their leadership. These states were hurting at the time as the routes to the east to China had been shut down after 1453 and the fall of Constantanople. The poor Spanish state of Castile listened to him and history was changed. The Italian mainland, where one bank had more money than the GNP of Britain in 1470 fell into a decline that has never been recovered from. Spain as we all know leapt to the forefront of nations for a century.

Thus is the fate of the faint hearted.

Has any poster here talked to anyone in the US under the age of 30? Few boys or girls under the age of 30 thinks the moon is anything other than a dry wasteland for "old white guys". But talk to them about Mars and they get excited. Water water everywhere.

There are a lot of older folks (who post here) who have invested their careers in lunar this or lunar that. Nobody of their children's age or younger cares about that. They do care about Martian H2O however. The want to dig it up, melt it, drink it, and breath the air made from it.

Moon is 20th century. Mars is the 21st. Moon is the desert you avoid to get to the green valley.

Has any poster here talked to anyone in the US under the age of 30? Few boys or girls under the age of 30 thinks the moon is anything other than a dry wasteland for "old white guys". But talk to them about Mars and they get excited. Water water everywhere.

The answer is yes. For my work on the Lunar Orbiter Images I was invited to be a lunch keynote speaker at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference this year (this was reported here a couple of weeks ago). In a room filled (well over a thousand people), I gave a one hour presentation on our project and the value of the Moon for our future.

I received a standing ovation. Afterwards I spoke with dozens of people there who asked what they could do to help move lunar development forward. I was also invited to speak at IBM, Adobe, and an international conference.

In that room about 80% of the people were under 30.

I speak to young audiences all the time and have a blog on a non space oriented site and I can tell you that you are 100% wrong on your contention about Mars vs the Moon.

Most kids would rather be at the mall than on a farm. They aren't very good judges of "wasteland" if you ask me.

The moon is important to Mars, both as an experimental playground for practicing our technology and as a training area for astronauts to learn the skills they'll need.
It can also become logistically important depending on how successful our resourcing experiments go.

With so few destinations within our reach its difficult to ignore the closest one.

Ah ah! But you do not even give an order of magnitude figure. I am only saying that the argument, however smarts are in it, will fall short to those who hold the purse. Now since you claim "we do have is a lot of engineering judgement" you MUST certainly have an idea of the cost. Don't you? So let's say Constellation is turning into what? $100B now? And this was "easy". What do you think you propose might cost? 1 order of magnitude more? 2 orders? So how long would it take to implement at even $15B/year? Come on I am sure you can come up with numbers. I am also sure that said numbers will terrify anyone holding the purse, right or wrong.

The purpose of the missive was not to give a financial presentation related to any architecture, but on how to develop an architecture that provides the maximum leverage of our existing assets toward lunar development.

I wrote a contract deliverable for Langely a few years ago (NNL06AE27P) that is available over the internet on how to extend the ESAS architecture with commercial input.

Lets take a few numbers for one part, which is the powerlander.

Today as a finished product Aerospace grade solar panels are about $800 per watt. One megawatt of those (using the slightly more advanced 33% efficient cells) would be about $750 million using batch processing and efficiencies of scale. Including deployment mechanisms that goes up to about $1000 per watt or about 1 billion dollars.

A common lander and common hardware (the first one is always the most expensive, using an RL-10 lander is lets say $500 million each.

A Delta IVH is about $250 million if you buy four for each one.

Your costs therefore are:

$250M solar panels each
$500 million per lander
$250 million per launch
Lets say $25 million each for operations.

That is about $4 billion dollars for a megawatt on the Moon.

Now that I have my lander costs amortized I can fly more payloads at a reduced cost, say half, if I am sending 3 per year.

$250 million each, plus $250 million for each lander for 2500 kg of payload to the Moon on each flight (lets say each payload is $100M each for well overspecified payloads.

This is about $600M per flight or $1.8 billion per year to emplace hardware to be used by the outpost.

One thing to figure is that with a 2500 kg payload, the dry mass of the lander is around 1500 kg. If you use our metric of 80% of the lander is reused, (1200 kg per flight or 3600 kg per year), you now have 1.5 "free" payloads per year. These modular structures are reused as computers, carbon for the carbothermal process, or hardware to build various and sundry things on the surface, including LOX storage systems.

These are all numbers I could defend with anyone, anywhere.

Just because we don't put out every single thing, don't for a minute think that these numbers don't exist and are very conservative.

Using smaller launch vehicles like the Falcon 9 for most of the other payloads and the leverage increases.

"Robots and robotics are no where near the level of maturity required for autonomous long term operation or even via telepresence. We are 100% in agreement that advances in robotics are part of this effort and are a major force multiplier on the Moon, just as they are on the Earth. However, robots cannot do it all and to postulate successive layers of repair bots is not viable.

For an example, even using the existing SPDM robotic arm, it was estimated by GSFC that it would cost $2.3 billion dollars to service the Hubble telescope. The crew, led by John Grunsfeld did the entire servicing mission (about 5x more work than the robotic mission proposed) for less than 1 billion."

Put your thinking cap on Dennis. You know as well as anyone here that the mammoth anticipated expense of HST robotic servicing was due to the fact that the thing wasn't designed to be serviced robotically. Your argument on that is as old as the hills, and it doesn't get more right with time. You can design things to be serviced that way, at enormous economy.

Teleoperated robots will eat an astronauts lunch, capability-wise. They are not quite as dextrous as an astronaut right now (though suit gloves are no picnic), but that will come. We're not talking autonomy here. We're talking the collective intelligence of the entire mission team two light seconds away, incredible mechanical precision, and 24-7 operability. The frosting on the cake is that there is an enormous commercial pull for such telerobotic technology. Not quite as much for capability of astronauts.

This isn't to say that people shouldn't go, but their trip will be for other reasons. Perhaps national pride, and perhaps as a cultural expansion of experience (as per the MIT folks). But let's not pretend that they're going to be needed for excavation, smelting, and looking for sea shells.

How about throwing us a couple of million bucks and we can come up with an entire scenario, with costing and all the bells and whistles that a pre phase A study requires. Of course we don't have every jot and tittle of the plan.

Oh, you mean like we do right now with every single space mission? The ones that are fantastically miscosted? Yeah, heh heh, I'll bet you'll come up with a costing if I throw you a couple of million bucks. But whyever should I believe your costing? Again, the nation has next to zero confidence in space exploration costing. Let's do something about that before we move on. You're telling me "But trust me, I can do it right!" Prove it on something cheaper.

You know, I really support your dreams. I would love to see us become a true spacefaring nation. But the rationalization you're coming up with is just too thin. Even the question "why now?" is something you simply won't answer with a solution to a resource need or survivability threat. We just don't need it now. But you can say the same thing about basic science. You can pull the plug on all basic science and our lives wouldn't come to a screeching halt. We do basic science, as we should do human space flight, because there is an importance that transcends material riches we can plan for and drawing escape routes from our planet. When we learn how to tell that story, we'll become the spacefaring nation we dream about. There's the scenario you should be reaching for.

There's no hope of getting anyone to pay for this daydream in the foreseeable future. The most attractive next step into space is a Solar power satellite system. Carbon-free energy would turn a profit long before Lunar bases ever could.

@Dennis,

Hubble was never designed to be repaired by robots. Complexity? Lunar mining robots do not need to be sophisticated scientific instruments. They should be made simple and expendable. And even then, teleoperation makes your argument moot.

Every gram of payload you waste on oxygen, food, etc... is one less gram of useful stuff to accomplish your objectives, IF your objective is commercial exploitation of the moon.

I guess we can agree that humans would probably be needed for initial set-up, and perhaps prospecting. But before we can establish a long-terms presence on the moon (and I'm talking decades, not 4 years), we need robots to build and maintain the infrastructure.

a resource need or survivability threat.

One of the limitations toward implementing the hydrogen economy is the price and availability of Platinum and Platinum Group Metals. (generating hydrogen is the other issue but that is solved with nuclear power). A simple search will show that the cost of platinum is a major driver in the entire hydrogen food chain.

There are many who talk about solar power satellites but there is not enough gallium for even the lower end of the demand for SPS systems.

Also, most of the repairs and upgrades in the latest mission were never designed to be done by astronauts either, but they figured out how to do it. This is a strawman argument

But whyever should I believe your costing?

I can defend the costs that I laid out to any aerospace professional. If you happen to be one, then figure it out. I have some of the best solar power guys in the business who work with me on this issue and I trust them about 9000 times before I would trust someone without the courage to even use their real name.

Those who know, know, those who don't, don't.

There are other products such as silicon 28, which would bring major benefits to silicon production and is incredibly difficult and expensive to obtain on the Earth (using the same vacuum diffusion techniques that are used to make nuke material)

Then there is the huge cost of the current status quo in satellite manufacturing for the military that could be revolutionized using lunar materials and Earth sourced instruments. It is less energy to go from the lunar surface to GEO than it is from LEO to GEO.

Those who know, know, those who don't, don't.

That's commonly referred to as a tautology.

That's a mighty big chip on your shoulder too.

Tell us what you know about global warming, then.

Very good article. I agree that the Moon should be our target, and NOT Mars, yet. Once we have established ourselves on the Moon we can go on to Mars, with ALOT more experience at colonizing than we have now. Why should we take a huge risk on a hazaedous hail-mary Mars project without taking full advantage of this well placed proving ground, the Moon? Unfortunately there are a number of strident voices out there advocating "direct to Mars", an idea that if it fails is likely to do so tragically, and threaten human interest in even going to space....

Kayuga has confirmed uranium on the moon ..

It would be extremely foolish of our species to continue to confine our civilization solely to our planet of evolutionary origin. Doing so could eventually lead to our extinction either through an extraterrestrial impact, thermonuclear war, or from a global pandemic created by some military researchers or terrorist.

Expanding human civilization beyond the Earth to more places in the solar system enhances the chances of our species survival. The Moon would be a good start in that direction.

Mars could be next.

But ultimately, we could use asteroid materials to manufacture our own rotating worlds with Earth-like environments. There's enough asteroids in the solar system to create enough land area to accommodate hundreds of quadrillions of humans.

"For an example, even using the existing SPDM robotic arm, it was estimated by GSFC that it would cost $2.3 billion dollars to service the Hubble telescope. The crew, led by John Grunsfeld did the entire servicing mission (about 5x more work than the robotic mission proposed) for less than 1 billion."

I'm aware of this, but its just not the same; you're citing a situation where we already have the Space Shuttle.

We don't already have translunar manned transport capability (to the surface), and getting it will cost many, many tens of billions more than a sufficiently dexterous RC bot.

Think about how that would compare if we didn't already have the Shuttle. The Shuttle cost several billion to develop more than the 2.3 billion robotic servicing scheme would.

If the bot basically gives an Earth-based operating crew the ability to manipulate things, than you don't need layers and layers of repair bots. You need one basic type, and infrastructure to send parts. If one breaks, you have another team go repair it if possible. If parts are needed, you have them put into the next shipment out.

If it cannot be repaired at all, you toss it and send another. The whole lunar mining scheme, no matter what you're bringing down, requires a whole translunar infrastructure going _both ways_. You just regularly send more bots.

Furthermore, an all robotic base means that the translunar infrastructure is much cheaper.

You can have a virtual-SSTO spaceplane hurling up cargo, and its OK that it could get a ding in the wing from the fuel tank because it doesn't carry people.

You can have solar-electric tugs with bog standard ion engines shipping parts both ways, and that's OK because nobody on board needs to wait, eat or spend a month roasting in the Van Allen belts.

One of the limitations toward implementing the hydrogen economy is the price and availability of Platinum and Platinum Group Metals.

So who has declared it a national priority to implement a hydrogen economy? Must have missed that one. Ding! Even so, like I said, it's not completely clear what human spaceflight has to do with lunar platinum refining.

I can defend the costs that I laid out to any aerospace professional.

You just don't get it, do you. I believe you can! But I can go to ANY aerospace contractor who has cost-plus contracted on a space exploration mission that ends up being vastly undercosted, and they can trot out aerospace professionals to justify their numbers who are at least as good as those you can trot out.

I trust them about 9000 times before I would trust someone without the courage to even use their real name.

I can tell when a case is falling apart when criticisms about anonymity and accusations about courage start being raised. But you needn't worry. I'm not asking you to trust me with a costing. You're asking us to trust you. I'm being skeptical, and my skepticism can be judged not on the basis of who I am, but on the basis of the words I write. Hey, make it an even number. Go for a factor of 10,000.

Lunacy!!!

If photovoltaics are too expensive for large-scale orbital Solar power then use reflective concentrators, Sterling engines and generators. Profit and/or energy security along with an incremental approach are more likely to attract public and private funding.

I also want to exploit the Moon for science and profit, and visit it myself; these things will happen sooner if we reduce costs and build infrastructure first.

I can tell when a case is falling apart when criticisms about anonymity and accusations about courage start being raised. But you needn't worry. I'm not asking you to trust me with a costing. You're asking us to trust you. I'm being skeptical, and my skepticism can be judged not on the basis of who I am, but on the basis of the words I write. Hey, make it an even number. Go for a factor of 10,000.

There is a world of difference between skepticism and internet quarterbacks. I repeat, the numbers that I used are well within the bounds of the aerospace corporation's costing numbers for space projects. The solar array numbers come straight from efforts that I have been involved with in the last couple of years for space flight projects.

I can tell when I have hit an internet quarterbacks nerve when they start getting snarky.

It would be extremely foolish of our species to continue to confine our civilization solely to our planet of evolutionary origin.

It would be even more foolish to try to expand our civilization into the cosmos before we have the real means to do it.

... to accommodate hundreds of quadrillions of humans.

There's a depressing thought.

There are two fundamental problems with the Wingo-Spudis-Woodcock plan.

First, it pursues a program of technology development that is fraught with risks rather than exploiting and extending proven technologies. It's a recipe that invites problems and frustrations that will drive costs through the roof and induce delays at every step. There are simply too many processes that must be perfected in an extremely harsh and challenging environment

In fact it exacerbates the fundamental problem with the return to the moon plan, repeating the strategic mistake of the last 20 years of human space flight. That mistake is the pursuit of open-ended programs with diffuse goals that do not excite the public instead of pursing new missions of exploration. Hugely expensive extended research and development programs with unclear endpoints do not engage the public imagination. Space exploration does.

Let's face it, the major challenge is funding, and funding requires support of government, and government support derives from public support.

Worthy as it may be, science in LEO on the ISS clearly does not excite the public, nor will a hugely expensive return to the moon that is essentially an open-ended project to develop and test technologies. It would be met with the same public apathy and hard questioning of its economics and utility that Apollo encountered once its mission of landing a man on the moon was accomplished.

Let's look at some things in the history of space flight that actually HAVE captured the public's imagination.

- Putting the Earth's first atificial satellite in orbit astounded the world and focused its attention on the reality of space travel.

- The first human in space did the same.

- Daring to go to the moon, and having humans for the first time set foot on another world was a celebrated milestone in human history.

- The robotic exploration of the solar system has captivated the public for decades.

- The Hubble Space Telescope has engaged the public with stunning images of the universe beyond anything previously seen.

Driving a more advanced moon rover, staying longer on the Moon's surface, and attempting to perfect processes to utilize lunar resources do not come close to these kind of milestone achievements in exciting and engaging the public.

Clear and dramatic goals, in a timeframe with an immediacy that people can relate to is the key to pubic support, and thus political support. The current VSE, and Dennis Wingo's plan, are programs that stretch with decreasing clarity over too great a time span, and can be guaranteed to fail to generate the long term public engagement and support that will ensure ongoing funding. Unlike the milestones listed above, return to the moon plans have no clear and dramatic "We did it!" moments that people all over the world could relate to, anticipate, and celebrate. No new vistas are revealed to humankind. Extremely expensive long range plans without such goals are historically an invitation to loss of pubic interest and funding.

I therefore favor giving serious consideration to setting a readily understandable and inspiring goal that would be pursued as directly as possible and take humans to new frontiers; a goal that can be stated in a simple sentence. "We will send people to Mars by 2025." The plan might be along the lines of the proposal advocated by Buzz Aldrin, but in general looks like this:

a) Development and LEO testing at the ISS of a habitation and operations module for long duration missions.

b) Development of a propulsion stage for deep space missions.

These assets would support the following sequence of missions:

- test missions between LEO and LLO

- missions to near-earth asteroids

- missions to Mars orbit

Once in Mars orbit, the primary mission would be human operation of prepositioned robotic exploration vehicles on the surface.

The public could look forward to the following events:

1) "Mars Ship and Crew Complete Shakedown Cruise to Moon Orbit."

2) "Crew of Mars Ship Explore Asteroid xx Million Miles from Earth."

3) "Humans Arrive at Mars."

By contrast, with existing plans I fear we would look forward to news reports like these:

"Humans Land on Moon Again."

"Fourth Crew Shift Arrives on Moon."

"Efforts Continue to Extract/Process Resources on Moon."

Various vehicles and architectures can get us to the moon and beyond, but it's clear and exciting goals in a time frame that maintains public interest that will sustain a program. If we don't get the goals right, the funding will not be sustainable.

A plan without clear goals that engage the public imagination, and a direct route to those goals, is likely to fail to maintain essential public support.

@ common sense

you win a prize, I had no idea.

@BH:

Finally! Getting a prize! Many thanks!

;-)

@Henri Hoenacker

We're spending the entire NASA budget in less than two months unnecessarily occupying Iraq. Additionally, the military industrial complex spends close to a trillion dollars annually.

So spending 20 or 30 billion dollars a year expanding the human presence on the Moon and Mars and in the rest of the solar system is small relative to far more expensive and wasteful military adventures and will eventually pay us back a hundred fold in the long run.

A plan without clear goals that engage the public imagination, and a direct route to those goals, is likely to fail to maintain essential public support.

I think we need a complete re-think of the role of "public support" for the space program.

NASA has tried to come up with some "magic bullet" that would excite the public ever since the end of the Apollo program. Their supposition is that "public excitement = great bundles of cash rained upon them by Congress." In fact, over the last 40 years, public opinion on space has been (more or less) completely neutral -- 50/50 approval, +/- 10%. This approval rate holds up even during programmatic disasters, such as Challenger and Columbia.

The simple fact is that the majority of people care not a whit for space and never will. Sure, space has its die-hard fans; in other fields, we call them buffs. Aviation, cars, even railroads all have their buffs. They eat, sleep, dream, and live their obsessions. To most of us, these fields of transport are moderately interesting but mostly practical and we never really pay that much attention to them, unless some disaster occurs (does any of this sound familiar?)

NASA (and apparently you) sees this as a problem. But in fact, it is an asset. If the vast majority of people aren't obsessing over everything you do, you have the freedom to do the right thing. In the case of spaceflight, it is to gradually develop a true space faring infrastructure, one that will first take people and machines beyond LEO into cislunar space, and then into planetary space.

A fundamental assumption of the Vision was that it be done under the existing budget (allowed to grow with inflation -- the infamous "sand chart".) It was thought that this level of support is politically "sustainable", primarily on the basis that it has been sustained over the last 30 years (since Apollo, NASA has gotten between 0.6 and 1.0% of the federal budget per year.) So NASA's challenge is to craft a program that gradually builds up capability with time through small, incremental, (and most importantly) cumulative steps. They were NOT tasked to come back with an unaffordable architecture. The last two times in historic memory NASA has been tasked to take people beyond low Earth orbit (1989 and 2004), they have come back with the answer: "Give us more money."

Your insistence that we "excite people" has been the guiding principle of NASA public relations for the last 30 years. And we can see how far that approach has taken us.

@Dennis:

Maybe I missed it but I do not see the cost for development and life cycle cost estimates for an architecture that involves an aerobraking ("cycler" I assume) vehicle, with Earth-LEO shuttles.

I also assume that we are talking about a NASA-led endeavor, so I am not you can use Falcons in your model but even so.

A darn capsule, and SM and LAS contract was won by LMT for about $10B (with a B) way back when in 2006. I don't have the current estimate and it's probably much higher than that! A darn CAPSULE! Something we are supposed to know everything about. So my question again: How much for the suggested aerobraking architecture you suggest?

@Dennis:

BTW, you are the one who became snarky FIRST, not Heywood. He is right in challenging your cost since you are the one submitting your plan to us, the public. Not the other way around. And he's also right about the attitude of cost-plus funded corporation.

Anonimity is something we need, unfortunately, to survive in this environment. It does not lower the values of the comments, now does it?

I would suggest that courage is great as you put your name forward for us all to see. BUT do not tell us there is no intent behind it: Recognition being one.

So let's focus again on the plan you suggest. You never know who might be behind those anonymous IDs. Upsetting a potential ally of yours would be detrimental to your ambitious goal.

Laura

Considering that ISS is there and that crews are going there on a regular basis would tend to refute your thesis that it takes something exciting to get the people to fund it.

When people are worried about the end of civilization through climate change (whether you agree with it or not), if we do not do something to concretely address what civilization needs in the future, it is unlikely to be funded.

Funding is not the issue as the trillions that are about to be spent on climate change and getting us off of oil indicates.

Gordon Woodcock is a legend to those of us who once worked for in Boeing's space programs back in the '80s and '90s. When he tells you something, you should listen, not talk.

It occurs to me that one thing they didn't mention in the article was the ability to use a concave mirror to focus the sun's energy directly on a crucible to melt lunar regolith. You don't even have to convert that energy into electricity to get heat from the sun. A simple concave mirror will do that. Quite a large mirror can be made from a few pounds of carbon fiber and resin. You can add some electricity to reduce stuff like aluminum if that's what you're after.

Iron is easier to get at because you can reduce it chemically with materials that steal the oxygen from the iron oxide. There is probably enough free iron in meteors scattered about the surface to take care of many of the initial needs of an outpost. The first iron tools used here on Earth were made from iron meteors found scattered about on the surface of the planet.

Addendum

I find it incredibly interesting that even the simplest ISRU processes are called "risky". Intentionally in this article we laid out one that theoretically no one who has ever read any of the reports on the Apollo samples could argue with, which is simply using a magnet to pick up the meteoric iron along with the iron that is aggregated in the agglutinates.

With electrical power it takes no more than a vacuum induction furnace (VIF) to obtain this metal. These furnaces can be purchased in any catalog today. I have actually met with manufacturers of these furnaces to see what had to be done to modify them for the Moon. It is actually EASIER to build for that environment than for the Earth for a VIF.

Pouring metal is hard? Homer Hickam and I have similar backgrounds and I know that his dad and my stepfather worked in an environment that was far more hazardous (as well as the machines), than scooping up regolith on the surface and dumping it into a VIF.

Have any of you naysayers ever visited an old iron furnace? In Birmingham Alabama there is a great industrial museum for the Sloss Furnace. It is a great place to go to learn about metals and iron processing before modern methods were brought to the fore.

Can anyone seriously argue that if I sinter a mold of regolith on the Moon (which Larry Taylor has conclusively proven can easily be done with regolith and a microwave beam) and pour hot metal into it, allow it to cool (a rectangle of x by x by y dimension) and then pick it up, set it down and then use a welder (laser welding using a solid state laser) to weld the sections together, that you could not build structures and other hardware on the Moon? Is this seriously what you naysayers are arguing?

I would suggest getting out from behind your computers and go spend time in an industrial setting. I grew up around iron and steel mills as well as the coal mines and none of this is truly challenging to do.

This reminds me of something that Robert Truax told me about the Sea Dragon. When he was doing his design work on the Sea Dragon, he went around to all of the aerospace companies of the time. All of them told him that it was too big and that there was no way that they could build it. Being a Navy man, Bob then went to the Norfolk shipyards and put the specs, the materials and the schedule in front of the guys that build 1,000 ft long Nuclear powered Aircraft Carriers. They looked at the specs for a while and said sure, we have a free dry dock right now, when do you want to start?

Laura

I would submit that the opposite is true. What you are talking about is, in essence, doing stunts for money.
The problem with doing stunts is a need to do bigger & bigger stunts. And doing stunts that are bigger & bigger require a greater commitment, and a longer commitment.

Lets take your "Humans to Mars by 2025" - that means we need a program that, AT A MINIMUM can survive at least 3 different presidents and 8 different congresses - do you think we can honestly sustain political pressure for something that will be viewed as a stunt through all of those people, who have their own adgendas and beliefs. Can you point to an example of funding for a stunt, that lasted beyond a single president? Outside of Apollo?

By contrast, I can think of many government programs that are entitlements, which have lasted for years and years, through multiple administrations. This is why robotic exploration has been sustained for decades - it is seen, by the public, as an entitlement.

Further, let me point out an event, which by its nature, was a stunt that attracted a lot of attention, but which shouldn't because it wasn't anything that hadn't already been done, from a technical standpoint - and that is the first flight into space by SpaceShipOne. In terms of technical achievements, it wasn't that huge - going into orbit is much harder than going into space. And yet, it made major headlines - why?

The answer presents itself - SS1 offered a route for entitlement funding, both in the government sector, and within the private market.

And that is why its not "New crew going to the moonbase" Its "More people are moving to space"

@Laura

What the authors propose is to lay the foundation for bringing about the long-term exploration and exploitation of the solar system. What you propose is a circus train of stunts that have every bit the potential of swiftly becoming yesterday's news just as the original Apollo program did.

One can engage the public with ANYthing if the story is told & sold effectively. The glut of "reality" TV demonstrates that. [If "Ice Road Truckers" can be a hit, ANYTHING is possible...]

Merely changing the destination of where people fly in space is NOT going to engage folks any more firmly or for any longer a period; more effective telling of the stories inherent in the process itself (whatever that process is) is the key to engaging the public and sustaining their interest.

Shouldn't we pursue a sustainable solar system development program that carries the promise of multiple industries arising in its wake instead of settling for a series of headline-grabbing 30-second "wows" for public consumption?

Common Sense

I understand what you are saying (and if you are the one that posts under this name on other forums I have had journalists calling and asking me if I know who you are). However, in the case of Mr. Floyd I laid out some ballpark costs that are extremely well known and conservative by anyone who actually builds flight hardware. There is a lot that goes into these papers that you don't see as well and people who I interact with that I vet some of these things with who would surprise you as well so when someone throws out a blanket challenge to something that I know for a fact is defendable in any meeting at any aerospace company I then know their level of expertise.

Lifecycle costs? If you want lifecycle costs then you have to do a very formal analysis with a group of people who really understand and put together an architecture. If you are the one who posts with a lot of knowledge in these other forums then you know this to be the case. This takes time and money to do right and to just throw out numbers without backup does nothing but fuel the internet quarterback club.

In regards to some of the feedback in this forum on the "fantasy" side, again I offer that here on the Earth with do more difficult things all the time in environments just as deadly to humans. Additionally, with the advance of technology over the past 40 years many of the lunar surface ISRU techniques that were experimental at the time are now part of industry today. Chemical processing of low quality ores happens all the time and yes though we have access to an infrastructure here on the Earth that we do not have up there yet precludes their first use on the Moon, they do exist and they do work in industrial settings. Backing off from that and specifying the simplest possible ISRU was a means to lower the cost of adoption and to help bootstrap the process.

One of the problems that our missive addresses is some of the large upfront costs that have been demanded as part of previous architectures. Spending a hundred billion dollars developing two launch vehicles that will only fly a few times a year is certainly more expensive than buying dozens of existing vehicles. Just a cursory examination of the $45 billion dollar number for the Ares 1 development and trading that with a $1 billion per mission total EELV cost means that before the first flight of Ares I could put 112,500 kg of payload on the Moon.

As for getting people there. The Russians were pushing a commercial $100M dollar class tourist mission on a lunar flyby. Quadruple that cost and you could easily get three humans into lunar orbit and provide a means for their return from that orbit. If there is a lander there, then you can get to the surface and back.

Couple this with the demands for nuclear power (which is the only reasonable way to provide sufficient power for non polar locations) and a lot of other unneeded crap then the cost to first mission grows (and has grown in the past), to a level that congress has not been willing to fund.

Congress is willing to toss NASA $18-$20 billion a year to do space. If we cannot do space for that amount of money then we need to just stop now, end NASA, and return the money to the taxpayers for more fruitful efforts.

@ Paul Spudis

NASA has tried to come up with some "magic bullet" that would excite the public ever since the end of the Apollo program. Their supposition is that "public excitement = great bundles of cash rained upon them by Congress." In fact, over the last 40 years, public opinion on space has been (more or less) completely neutral -- 50/50 approval, +/- 10%. This approval rate holds up even during programmatic disasters, such as Challenger and Columbia.

Let us take this as true because I believe it probably is true.

Let us also stipulate that the vision you and Dennis outline is a path "we" should be following. I nonetheless remain unclear who exactly you mean by "we" and how you propose to persuade NASA or Congress to do things the way you suggest.

But in fact, it is an asset. If the vast majority of people aren't obsessing over everything you do, you have the freedom to do the right thing. In the case of spaceflight, it is to gradually develop a true space faring infrastructure, one that will first take people and machines beyond LEO into cislunar space, and then into planetary space.

Again, who exactly do you foresee "doing the right thing"?

Can NASA change course to follow the path you advocate without the replacement of a great many top level managers at NASA? What are the odds NASA will agree (internally) to change course?

Please note that I am not in disagreement with the objectives described here. Rather, I am asking how you propose to get where you want to go, in a legislative and bureaucratic sense.

"What you are talking about is, in essence, doing stunts for money."

_Thank you_.

Whenever people start pumping an idea for the "excitement" factor, they're basically suggesting a publicity stunt.

Whenever people start suggesting that the Moon is a "publicity stunt", I refute it outright because nobody cares about the Moon.

Lemme point something out. NASA gets half a % of the budget, right? Even on a bad day (and sometimes especially on a bad day) NASA is way more exciting than any of what the other 99.5% of the federal budget goes to.

You know what's way more boring than LRO? Submarines. But we still spend many billions on them.

I'm not saying we shouldn't. I'm saying that excitement isn't the factor here.

The Endaevour cost 2 billion dollars to build. A nuclear sub costs 2 billion dollars. Which is more exciting? Space shuttles by a mile. You think too few people are into space? NOBODY cares about submarines.

But what do we have more of, and who gets to use all the nuclear power they want?

I strongly suspect that people who go down the path of thinking about excitement are doing so because they can't conjure up any material benefits.

And that's _fine_. Our elected officials have even valued the excitement of exploration at about 18 billion a year, which is grand. But if you want 30 for space, you've got to offer something tangible.

Whenever people ask me why we're sending things to the Moon, I tell them that we discovered a bunch of hydrogen there back in the 90s, and now the US, China, India, Japan, Russia and others are hurling things at the Moon to investigate it as a source of resources we need.

They say OK. Sounds rational enough. They don't give a damn about space, but the idea that what they're doing has some actual material benefit is ample.

Yes it is simple: resources good. Moon has resources? Moon good. Still don't care about the Moon, never will, but sounds worth funding. Go Moon.

Try this at home. Find someone who doesn't care about space. Tell him the Moon may have accessible, useful resources in the near future, and that Mars doesn't but its really cool and we haven't seen a dude plant a flag there yet. Then ask what's worth funding.

They'll say "Go Moon", and continue not caring any more about space than about the submarines they also condone funding.

@Dennis:

The development of an aerobraking vehicle with required TPS system(s) and proper abort scenarios is out of reach for the foreseeable future. No, I don't have numbers (but Orion = $10B at least) and it's only my *opinion*. I cannot base my statement on any hard number but rather on observation of the political/technical standing of the current program.

"Lifecycle costs? If you want lifecycle costs then you have to do a very formal analysis with a group of people who really understand and put together an architecture."

Yes I do agree with this statement. That's what things like ESAS should be for. But it'd take a "little" over 90 days to come up with "numbers" for such a plan.

Now I am far from an expert on ISRU and you are one of the only people to actually propose to do something useful, potentially profitable, on the Moon. The problem I see overall is that there is no will at NASA/Congress to do any of that, or such a plan would have appeared in ESAS. More to the point: In the early stages of CEV, in particular *after* ESAS, there was no "science" or anything to be done on the Moon that I can remember as a requirement.

Your only hope, to me, is that Private Space gets real funding - I would not count on the current Constellation to help you out. Then you may have access to the Moon via the private sector and try to do whatever you want to do. If it makes sense you'll know quickly and get wealthy beeyond your wildest dreams. As governement entities even NASA and Congress will benefit from real private entrepreneurs even though they don't seem to understand it. They cannot see this in the US! Blows my mind! Who'd have said?

I have also suggested the rebirth of say NIAC (or something else I don't care) with the charter to precisely define a modular, evolvable, architecture to settle the Solar system. Such a plan would of course include ISRU on the Moon, Mars, NEOs!!! It might as well include things like cyclers, aerobraking, RLVs. This can be done: the only requirement really is IMAGINATION. Such an entity would aim for the future, not 2012, not 2017 BUT 2050, 2100! It would take a little over 90 days... But in order to do any of that you need LEADERSHIP, IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY. And tiss entity would LEAD exploration at a high level. Do you see any of that in the current Constellation? You know the answer.

Ah and BTW, any $ figures put forth only serve as a basis since we all know that costs tend to balloon quickly. You want to get rid of ballooning costs: Remove artificial deadlines that make no sense (see Wes Huntress article at TheSpaceReview for example) and remove the freakin' cost-plus model as well (another article at TheSpaceReview).

I see a lot of roadblocks before any of what you suggest may be even tried. Then again, we voted for change. We shall see pretty soon what the Augustine panel come up with and how Congress will help - or not. I would not keep my hopes too high though: Suffice to see Nelson's flip on COTS and Shelby's protectionism (as if $400M are what will save Ares... Anyway...).

"Congress is willing to toss NASA $18-$20 billion a year to do space."

Congress is willing to toss NASA $18-$20 billion a year.. *to be re-elected in the Space states*.

"If we cannot do space for that amount of money then we need to just stop now, end NASA, and return the money to the taxpayers for more fruitful efforts."

Well. Maybe.

I only am a space enthusiast...

@ Dennis Wingo

As for getting people there. The Russians were pushing a commercial $100M dollar class tourist mission on a lunar flyby. Quadruple that cost and you could easily get three humans into lunar orbit and provide a means for their return from that orbit. If there is a lander there, then you can get to the surface and back.

Yep.

And if the Russians actually did that, maybe people in America would sit up and take notice. Therefore, perhaps Americans interested in developing the Moon for its resources should encourage Russia to make the attempt.

I can tell when I have hit an internet quarterbacks nerve when they start getting snarky.

Snarky? Naw, NASAWatch won't tolerate snarkiness. Keith won't allow any of that. No internet quarterbacks here!

If the vast majority of people aren't obsessing over everything you do, you have the freedom to do the right thing. In the case of spaceflight, it is to gradually develop a true space faring infrastructure, one that will first take people and machines beyond LEO into cislunar space, and then into planetary space.

That is a somewhat novel idea. Had not heard that one before. Since the vast majority of the public doesn't care a whit about space exploration, it makes it easier to do space exploration? I would say that once the nation decides to do space exploration, a disinterested public could make it a lot easier to carry it out by the minority that is interested. But getting the nation to decide to do it in the first place does not seem to be that easy. We're not at the point that we've decided to do space exploration in a big way, and that being the case, I'm afraid we don't have the luxury of wishing the public to get out of our way. Nice try, anyway.

Perhaps worth remembering as we try to get the public enthused about this stuff. We ask them to witness the revelation of the potential of space exploration for saving humanity and making us secure and rich and, that done, tell them it sure would be easier if they'd just go away.

But it'd take a "little" over 90 days to come up with "numbers" for such a plan.

And everyone knows now that those numbers were kaka. Where we start are with numbers that are very well known. We know what ISS ops costs are. We know what ISS modules cost. We know what life support systems costs from ISS. We know what EELV costs. We understand what a lander would cost if we designed it for production runs in the dozens rather than one off's. We also understand that if you buy a dozen EELV's and launch them once a month that the cost of the entire EELV program per bird drops by more than 50%. Landers can be lower cost as well. This is especially the case if we design that lander in such a way that it is modular and we can take parts of it apart and use them on the surface. This is a major force multiplier that few people actually look at, but bring amazing benefits.

We also know what the STS system costs and thus know what the Shuttle C would cost in operations. We also have nice bounds these days on what it takes to do orbital assembly. One of the interesting things that I have heard (which was discussed 20 years ago and no one paid attention) is that the ground integrated truss on ISS is making maintanence more expensive. Whether or not the Langley OOA truss would be less expensive is an interesting thought experiment.

It turns out that NASA is much much better at working in space than what anyone thought 20 years ago. I don't think that people understand today just how much is being done and how productive those guys are up there. What Grunsfeld's team did was little short of miraculous in terms of completely upgrading systems that were never meant for it. In a practical sense the only thing that is original equipment on HST is the structure and mirrors. Everything else has been replaced and massively upgraded. I can see this same productivity on the lunar surface.

The development of an aerobraking vehicle with required TPS system(s) and proper abort scenarios is out of reach for the foreseeable future. No, I don't have numbers (but Orion = $10B at least) and it's only my *opinion*. I cannot base my statement on any hard number but rather on observation of the political/technical standing of the current program.

Absolutely not. The work that was done at Langely 20 years ago is quite sufficient for that. It is unfortunate that Constellation completely ignored this vast experience base. Also, the TPS using by SpaceX relied upon the expertise of some really good folks up at Ames. Just because Constellation is having problems in this area does not mean that this is exceptionally hard.

One thing that dramatically influences aerobrake design is the GN&C of the vehicle. Today we can do so much better than we understood even back in the SEI days. With GPS available at any altitude below about 100,000 km the system can hit extremely narrow corridors. The other part of this is knowing the density of the atmosphere, which can be done very accurately and in near real time from ISS.

The work that I saw from Langley was very much hardware and testing based and it was very good work. I recommend digging it up if you are concerned about this issue.

As far as Augustine is concerned, the fact that this is out there is at least causing the right questions to be asked. It is a political certainty that ISS is going to be supported. There are other political high probability events that play into what we are doing.

I just had a conversation today with a NASA executive regarding what the administration is looking for. I would not be surprised if this thread is read by more people than we know, some of whom are decision makers.

Reading through the responses, it is rather interesting that the positive support comes largely from people who are willing to stand behind their names, whilst most all of the critiques come from anonymous sources. When people aren't willing to stand behind their words that should tell you something.

I'll stand behind the authors, and I do so having done my homework (full research library at sig). I don't work in the space field, nor is my future tied to it. Nevertheless, having done my homework I support the fuller development of cislunar space, and then onto the Moon and asteroids, as a means of developing new economies, new industries, and new ways of adding value to help grow the global economy from an economics of scarcity (which is wholly manifest in engineering decisions, especially re: materials) to an economics of abundance.

What happens when you can tap into enough resources to ensure that every piece of equipment has the ideal materials in all components? You have an engineering renaissance that will make the 20th century look like the Stone Age.

That's a utopian vision. A more pragmatic business-oriented vision would consider things like orbital engineering services, consumables provision, materials and manufacturing niches, pharmaceuticals production, transportation services, debris removal services, salvage & re-manufacturing, and much, much more.

This can be done with not much infrastructure, just some basic elements that can be leveraged by multiple users to achieve multiple objectives. It's not even necessarily about going back to the Moon first. Space exploration and development is an area in which the U.S. has a commercial competitive advantage, and one that we need to be exploiting to create value to pay off all of the debt we're heaping on ourselves. Space is an industry where we can develop future prosperity, and even things like energy independence. I believe that we should expand our economic sphere to encompass cislunar space, our Moon, the asteroids, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Jovian space, and beyond.

If the United States does this, the rest of the world knows that they will benefit eventually. The same could not be said of our economic challengers, who are worthy competitors and should not be underestimated.

I choose to support space development efforts because I honestly believe that it offers a path to increased prosperity for our posterity, and that's something that I want to help make happen.

Electricity generation using Stirling engines and reflective mirrors is possible. These systems are currently being installed on the Earth. The raw materials are available on the Moon.

It may take several years before lunar robots can wind electrical coils but the mirrors and stands should be manufacturable from ISRU materials. This article describes 3 kW and 30 kW solar converters.

I just had a conversation today with a NASA executive regarding what the administration is looking for. I would not be surprised if this thread is read by more people than we know, some of whom are decision makers.

Whoa! With all due respect, Dennis, these 'NASA executives' you speak of are managers and administrators. NASA isn't a business, it's a government civil service organization entrusted with taxpayer money which serves at the pleasure of a president elected by citizens of the United States.

These same executives gave us Constellation, which after four years and billions of dollars put us in the almost unnecessary position of needing a complete overhaul review.

The only people making any decisions here are going to be

1) President Obama and advisor John Holdren with advice of

2) The Augustine Committee.

You'd be well advised to drop the bravado and adopt reality.

Ferris,

What you are talking about is, in essence, doing stunts for money.

If you consider the first satellite, the first manned space flight, the first man on the moon, to be stunts, you may. I think they had far greater significance.

Can you point to an example of funding for a stunt, that lasted beyond a single president? Outside of Apollo?

Apollo will do as an example. But I certainly disagree that its significance was that of a stunt. Note that it had a clear end goal to be accomplished in a relatively short time frame. This element is missing from the return to the Moon plans, and as you point out, long term plans need to be supported by multiple administrations.

This is why robotic exploration has been sustained for decades - it is seen, by the public, as an entitlement.

Hmmm, never heard that view, and not sure if it fits. But if the public values it to the degree that it considers it an entitlement, it's because in addition to it's scientific value, it provides people with the rewards of exploration.

Re SpaceShipOne: Further, let me point out an event, which by its nature, was a stunt that attracted a lot of attention, but which shouldn't because it wasn't anything that hadn't already been done, from a technical standpoint - and that is the first flight into space by SpaceShipOne. In terms of technical achievements, it wasn't that huge - going into orbit is much harder than going into space. And yet, it made major headlines - why? -- The answer presents itself - SS1 offered a route for entitlement funding, both in the government sector, and within the private market.

As a one-off event only for the purpose of the X-Prize, it would be a stunt, but it's leading to a commercial service. People were excited by it because it was part of a highly publicized competition. But it's true that most people do not understand the difference between a ballistic hop and the difficulty of getting to and from orbit. If you're suggesting that it invigorated government support for private efforts (COTS), that would be just fine with me.

And that is why its not "New crew going to the moonbase" Its "More people are moving to space"

This is an issue of perception versus reality. Both "headlines" would reflect reality. I'm afraid that the first headline would be the perception, and as the saying goes, in politics, "Perception is reality."

Bob Mahoney,

One can engage the public with ANYthing if the story is told & sold effectively. The glut of "reality" TV demonstrates that. [If "Ice Road Truckers" can be a hit, ANYTHING is possible...]

Sounds like all we need to do is send a reality TV production crew to live at the Moon base for a while or go along for the ride to Mars or NEOs and we're in business. ;)

Ummm, what happens if the show gets canceled?

Heywood:

Perhaps worth remembering as we try to get the public enthused about this stuff. We ask them to witness the revelation of the potential of space exploration for saving humanity and making us secure and rich and, that done, tell them it sure would be easier if they'd just go away.

You've completely missed my point, which seems to be your specialty. The evidence for my assertion comes from the historical record; we've HAD nearly constant funding of NASA for over thirty years, without doing a space spectacular or having a long-range objective. My supposition is that we will get the same funding for the next thirty years WITH a long-term goal. Therefore, there is no penalty for embarking upon a program that leaves legacy hardware and a transportation infrastructure that can be built upon and extended. In other words, "the right thing" in this case is to incrementally expand access of both machines and people beyond LEO, into the Solar System. The key to doing this is to use the material and energy resources of the Moon to bootstrap true space faring capability. The benefit is a new paradigm of space travel, where we are NOT mass- and power-limited in space and thus, we become capability-UNlimited; this opens up the space frontier to multiple, varied activities by many different people, not just space scientists.

Bill White:

Again, who exactly do you foresee "doing the right thing"?

Can NASA change course to follow the path you advocate without the replacement of a great many top level managers at NASA? What are the odds NASA will agree (internally) to change course?

Now you've put your finger on a truly critical issue: can NASA do space business in a way different from the Apollo template? This is what we were getting at in the Aldridge report when discussing "agency transformation."

To answer your question directly: I don't know. The evidence on the face of it suggests probably not. But let me put it a different way: if NASA cannot change the way they do things, then they are condemned to a program of permanent mediocrity. In other words, they will change the template or we'll go nowhere with them. Perhaps some want this. We'll see.

A chief scientist with China's Moon exploration programme, Ouyang Ziyuan, reportedly told the Beijing Morning Post: "Our long-term goal is to set up a base on the Moon and mine its riches for the benefit of humanity."

Makes me feel warm all over.

For years, Chen had been working with carbon-fiber composite materials to produce high-quality telescope mirrors. But Chen and his colleagues decided to try an experiment. They substituted carbon nanotubes (tiny tubular structures made of pure carbon) for the carbon-fiber composites. When they mixed small amounts of carbon nanotubes and epoxies (glue-like materials) with crushed rock that has the same composition and grain size as lunar dust, they discovered to their surprise that they had created a very strong material with the consistency of concrete. This material can be used instead of glass to make mirrors." - Science Daily

And a mirror to heat a crucible doesn't need to be anywhere near 1/10th of a wave accurate. In fact, it occurs to me that on the Moon we could use huge inflatable clear plastic "beach balls" as refractive lenses to concentrate solar power either on a crucible or on solar cells to enhance their power producing capability. The index of refraction of a vacuum is 1. The index of refraction of carbon dioxide is 1.00045. A 40 ft ball full of CO2 would focus sunlight on a spot approximately 100 yards away. Not an unreasonable distance.

The benefit is a new paradigm of space travel, where we are NOT mass- and power-limited in space and thus, we become capability-UNlimited; this opens up the space frontier to multiple, varied activities by many different people, not just space scientists.

I think that this is what some in the space advocacy community are missing here. We are not presenting this as some socialist government move into the cosmos. Government is an enabler in areas where venture capital fears to tread. Even Elon Musk and Bigelow would not be doing what they are doing without the proof principle of the ISS and a demonstrated willingness by a wealthy group of people to pay for private space flight. Without the huge investments by government this would still be fodder for National Space Society "all you have to do is..." type of presentations. What our missive is, is to help people consider that architectures are about more than just the rocket.

It is also interesting to me that when things like this article is written in non space oriented forums, that the people that read for the most part just assume that we can do these things. The public is far more willing to support things like this than most space advocates, some of whom do nothing more than talk to each other and piss over anyone else's ideas, thinks.

As for who reads these things, one just never knows, does one.....

This is an issue of perception versus reality. Both "headlines" would reflect reality. I'm afraid that the first headline would be the perception, and as the saying goes, in politics, "Perception is reality."

Imagine the headline "billion ton metal mass found in Copernicus crater". This is not outside of the bounds of possibility.

The Moon has not been explored in any meaningful sense beyond the initial forays of Apollo. Most people don't know that every remote sensing mission that has flown uses the Apollo samples as their calibration point and sole point of ground truth. We need more rovers on the ground and we need this today far more than we need "just a good map".

People who have never worked in robotics often have wildly exaggerated ideas about what is feasible.

@Ken Murphy:

"Reading through the responses, it is rather interesting that the positive support comes largely from people who are willing to stand behind their names, whilst most all of the critiques come from anonymous sources. When people aren't willing to stand behind their words that should tell you something.

I'll stand behind the authors, and I do so having done my homework (full research library at sig). I don't work in the space field, nor is my future tied to it."

What is your point? Whats does it tell you? You admit you are not in this business and your future is not tied to it. Ever been in this business? So try and not criticize other's anonymity just because. There is a REASON why people feel obligated to post anonymously. Just try and understand if the counter argument makes sense. If it does why would it matter who wrote it?

And just that we understand each other, it is Dennis, Paul and Gordon to make their case to the anonymous public, not the other way around. Do you think NASA will bow and say how great! OR are they going to question them? Then again, you never know... ESAS...

@ Paul Spudis

Now you've put your finger on a truly critical issue: can NASA do space business in a way different from the Apollo template? This is what we were getting at in the Aldridge report when discussing "agency transformation."

Another question.

Will the distinguished Senator from Alabama allow NASA to do space business in a new way? Or the Senator from Florida?

Wow, using that 1365 W/m2 number from the article, a 40 ft (12 meter) ball would focus 600 kilowatts on a spot the size of your hand. In the vacuum of space that should heat things up quite nicely.

@Dennis:

I assume you are talking of the ESR&T work at NASA LarC? If so yes a lot of very good work in and outside of NASA before it got canned. There is also the DARPA Rapid Eye stuff and probably more. But they are all a far cry from an operational aerobraking crewed system. Note I am not saying it cannot be done. I am saying it will cost an enormous amount of money upfront at least. Ops consideration will have to account for a sick astronaut who needs an immediate return to Earth and you know aerobraking takes forever. Some of that may be mitigated by the presence of a flight surgeon and - who knows? - medical facilities, escape pods. But we are getting close to the 2010 movie vehicle. This is not $10B we are talking about... Think again, $10B for a capsule! Essentially an Apollo capsule. Yes GN&C is part of the problem but, to me, materials will be more important as they dictate mass. On orbit assembly makes sense. There also is a scenario where you use Constellation type vehicles to go start a settlement on the Moon and start building your aerobraking vehicle on the Moon... But you'll have to admit this is VERY long term, don't you think? Most of Congress and NASA will have retired by then. How do you build support for this? The public. This anonymous mass that is ALWAYS being ignored. Put the public in your plan if you haven't. Show that Joe Blow can be a part of it with humble but increasingly exciting goals. Some people WILL pay to go to space, quite handsomely pay. It'd only be the beginning....

Agreed about the Augustine panel. I can see political forces that will object to the conclusions though. We all know that Ares is turning into a failure at its premises were all wrong. Why in heck do we have to "re-use" Shuttle hardware???? Where is this postulate coming from? To save money? Give me a break!!! Take the workforce at MSFC and ATK and give them something new and exciting to do that is based on actual engineering/mission-ops requiremnts, NOT jobs preservation requirements. How more expensive is a failure than a success? And expensive is not short term bs. And failure is not short term bs either. Who will believe in an organization that has not come up with a real LV since Shuttle? A system that gives up (e.g. X-33) on technical difficulties just because it could not be solved right away? Instant gratification is not the name of the game in this business.

Arggh. Feels (a little) better now. ;-)

Apollo will do as an example. But I certainly disagree that its significance was that of a stunt. Note that it had a clear end goal to be accomplished in a relatively short time frame. This element is missing from the return to the Moon plans, and as you point out, long term plans need to be supported by multiple administrations.

What exactly did we get as an outgrowth from Apollo? You can actually extend this to all human spaceflight, to a degree, but lets stick with Apollo compared the first satellite. Every day, I interact with satellites, directly, as does the average American. And thus we can look at Sputnik or Explorer 1 and say "Yes, those have actual relevance to my average life." Can we say the same about Apollo? Well, it is true that we got spinoffs technology, and yes I will agree that it did inspire people to pursue high tech careers. But is there some fashion that everyday life is impacted directly, that we couldn't live without? To put it another way - GPS will not work without satellites - I don't care how hard you try, it will not work - is there an equivalent to the moon, where it is not possible to do something the average person does on a regular basis, without having Apollo? Inspiration and spinoffs fail this test, and I suspect you won't find one.

Now, thats not to say that it will forever remain this way, because, assuming we decide to actually become spacefaring, then it will lead to something big, that impacts the average human every day. But right now, it has not. Therefore, if it doesn't have some sort of measurable ROI for the average person, I think you can describe it as a stunt

Hmmm, never heard that view, and not sure if it fits. But if the public values it to the degree that it considers it an entitlement, it's because in addition to it's scientific value, it provides people with the rewards of exploration.

I did a poor job explaining this - the entitlement is the scientific knowledge - the average person believes that we, as as a society, are entitled to the scientific knowledge provided by robotic probes. Thats the entitlement - not the actual spending, but the scientific knowledge is an entitlement. The average person wants access to that knowledge.

The same can not be said about human spaceflight. People do not put the same value on human spaceflight, which is why there is disagreement about whether human beings should go into space. If we were to get something of real concrete, from human spaceflight, then we'd have much better access to funds.

Concerning SpaceShipOne - as yet, we don't know if its a stunt, or not. As yet, we have not seen the industry get created. Yes, there is positive signs, but the jury is still out. What happens if, 10 years from now, we haven't seen any more flights? People have already noted this, and are beginning to get skeptical. That said, I am hopeful, and optimistic, but we are not YET at the point of having a viable self-sustaining industry.

All that said, people went to SS1's flight because they do think it is more than a stunt.

This is an issue of perception versus reality. Both "headlines" would reflect reality. I'm afraid that the first headline would be the perception, and as the saying goes, in politics, "Perception is reality."
That depends - if it really is just four people living there, no more no less, then you are right.

However, the game changes if we start talking about 40 people. or something on that scale. And that is how to make the perception be "more people are moving to space"

What are the near term financial benefits? This is precisely the kind of thinking that leaves NASA twisting in the political wind.

What exactly were the near term financial benefits of Apollo? I can't come up with much, but it has helped spur leaps & bounds in technology that have, in turn, steadily fed the economy over the years.

Financially successful companies often invest in DEVELOPMENT, to help them maintain their competitive edge. Some development activities fail. Others make huge profits over the long haul. Obviously, on the balance, DEVELOPMENT is profitable, or companies would've surely learned by now.

And for all the hoop-la about how public support for the space program is waning & how "lukewarm" it has been for years (based on the 50/50 number) -- I wonder how many government agencies can claim a stable 50% approval? Looking back over the course of my life, I can recall many, many times that the president would've LOVED a 50% approval rating, so the fact that NASA has managed to keep one through all these years seems pretty remarkable to me.

I can recall many times when the president would have liked to have such a great approval rating.

Bill White:

Will the distinguished Senator from Alabama allow NASA to do space business in a new way? Or the Senator from Florida?

Your questions are clearly rhetorical as there is no way I can possibly answer them. I suspect that you have an answer already in mind. We may even agree on that answer.

I note that new paradigms are invariably resisted. And I also note that if their benefits are clearly manifest, they eventually prevail, regardless of their opponents.

To quote Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince):

"It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it."

All doable in free-space without the dust, gravity well or harsh day-night cycle of Luna. Free space has the advantage of existing human systems being available.

That the authors insist on a single destination is a sign of shortsightedness. What NASA, specifically, should focus on are interesting human and robot pathfinders and tech development while encouraging a mulitple vendor, commercial, launcher-neutral LEO transport strategy. What the rest of us focus on is not for you guys to complain about.

Show me the water.

it is rather interesting that the positive support comes largely from people who are willing to stand behind their names, whilst most all of the critiques come from anonymous sources

Hmm, another anonymity-phobe, I guess. Look, I stand behind the words I present, not any particular name. You give your name, but that name doesn't mean anything to me in judging your words. So you could have signed on anonymously. It would have made absolutely no difference to the way I interpret your writing. You can stand behind your name, but (excuse my bluntness), your name really doesn't mean much to me. Bottom line is that words count in this forum. More than names or reputation. If you're a big name saying stupid stuff, that doesn't make it any less stupid. When you get a name you can stand behind, you can criticize anonymity of others (if you really don't have anything better to do). Thanks, "common-sense". You may have said it better than I just did.

and, for Paul

You've completely missed my point, which seems to be your specialty. The evidence for my assertion comes from the historical record; we've HAD nearly constant funding of NASA for over thirty years, without doing a space spectacular or having a long-range objective. My supposition is that we will get the same funding for the next thirty years WITH a long-term goal.

No, Paul. I think I didn't miss your point. I'm not quite sure what you judge as a "space spectacular". Building an outpost on the Moon is no more a space spectacular than building an outpost in LEO. What's this with "not just space scientists"? We weren't talking about space science. You need to go back and look at your own point. You were talking about developing a space faring infrastructure without continued public enthusiasm. That's a novel thought, though probably a politically unworkable situation.

So my specialty is missing points? Another novel thought, though somewhat OT.

Heywood:

You were talking about developing a space faring infrastructure without continued public enthusiasm. That's a novel thought, though probably a politically unworkable situation.

You've just proven my assertion that you missed my original point -- I am contending that it IS politically viable.

My evidence is that we have already had 30 years of near constant funding, regardless of whatever specific "mission" NASA was pursuing at the time. My conclusion is that public "indifference" (as measured by 40 years of opinion poll data) means that it doesn't matter what the "mission" is (contra the assertion of Laura above, who claims that we need a mission to "excite the public"). My hypothesis is that given this public apathy (with which NASA has continued to exist at level funding), it's as easy to do something constructive and useful in the long run (e.g., build up a true space faring system using lunar resources) as it is to waste money on one-off stunts in space, like a flags-and-footprints mission to Mars.

@Laura

Actually, your quip about sending along a reality-TV crew isn't too far off, assuming you manage the entire package properly and move into other media besides TV.

I wrote thoroughly of this issue before, and please be sure to read past what everyone else seemed to come away with, i.e., that current NASA TV mission converage is boring. In the 1st portion (802) I explain WHY NASA's coverage is so dull and in the 2nd portion (807) suggest concrete ways of exploiting numerous media avenues for better engaging the public.

www.thespacereview.com/article/802/1

www.thespacereview.com/article/807/1

While I do believe that better public engagement would benefit space advancement, Dr. Spudis's observation is undeniable: a certain amount of federal funding has been there all along, even without our jetting off to plant flags on Mars (not to mention NASA TV being the most boring show off Earth...).

Regarding your "What if?" : If we can get the public more engaged in real spaceflight through various media (I'm a particular fan of the idea of inserting quick bits amongst movie trailers), the "show" will never be cancelled, only repackaged...

We KNOW how exciting this stuff really is; we need to get better at sharing that excitement.

@Common Sense

Nope, not the ESR&T, though I was on one of the teams with them. Waay back in the SEI era Langely had the responsibility for developing the Aerobrake for the return system.

Also, I think that the Mars Aerobrake has led you to a misunderstanding of what an aerobrake of this type would do. It is a single pass aerobrake that basically removes all the apogee energy from the vehicle. Then you do an orbit trim maneuver to put yourself into position to rendezvous with ISS.

This takes about 2.5 km/sec delta V out of the energy you need to dissipate to get back into LEO.

Again, I don't think that you realize just how much work was done in this area in the late 80's early 90's. The materials selection was done, a lot of wind tunnel and other work was done. Basically they were ready to build flight hardware.

Ferris,

What exactly did we get as an outgrowth from Apollo? You can actually extend this to all human spaceflight, to a degree, but lets stick with Apollo compared the first satellite. Every day, I interact with satellites, directly, as does the average American. And thus we can look at Sputnik or Explorer 1 and say "Yes, those have actual relevance to my average life." Can we say the same about Apollo? Well, it is true that we got spinoffs technology, and yes I will agree that it did inspire people to pursue high tech careers. But is there some fashion that everyday life is impacted directly, that we couldn't live without? To put it another way - GPS will not work without satellites - I don't care how hard you try, it will not work - is there an equivalent to the moon, where it is not possible to do something the average person does on a regular basis, without having Apollo? Inspiration and spinoffs fail this test, and I suspect you won't find one.

Well, it's not really the subject of this discussion, but not to mention it would be too great an omission in any discussion of the value of Apollo. We of course got something absolutely huge from the success of Apollo that applies to your everyday life. Not GPS, not Google Earth. We won the "race to the moon". It was a magnificent demonstration of American technological capability that impressed the world. The political impact of that achievement was far reaching in the great global struggle of that time.

So to the degree that it was a stunt, it both achieved a milestone in human history, and was politically one of the most effective "stunts" of all time.

So if Apollo significantly affected the outcome of the Cold War, and I certainly believe it did, you are enjoying the benefit of the Apollo "stunt" in your everyday life today. Value demonstrated.

I do understand your point about the technology though.

Paul,

To clarify a crucial point, there were no "flags-and-footprints" in the Mars plan I was advocating.

Keeping the cost of such a plan to practical levels means foregoing humans on the surface in favor of direct operation of exploration vehicles on the surface from the nearby location of Mars orbit.

This keeps the focus on doing extensive surface exploration, and on the development of an extended duration habitation module and deep space transfer vehicle that would open new possibilities for manned missions beyond Earth-Moon space.

Paul,

I'll say again that your idea about the non-importance of wide popular support for space exploration is novel and even oddly attractive. I think you mean to say that a ~$15B/year investment doesn't require strong popular interest to support. That is indeed proven by history. But the effort you're talking about is something I believe cannot be accomplished on a budget that small. It has to be much bigger to do it on the scale you advocate. So we're talking about large increases in the budget for space exploration. Small level budgets are inconspicuous. Large, dramatically increasing budgets are not. I'm not sure this is an argument that you can run with on the Hill, though. Legislators need something they can show to their constituents that offers national value.

But this applies only to a federal support model. If lunar development and resource extraction becomes commercially lucrative, popular support is obviously irrelevant.

Here is a good paper on an aerobraking lunar transfer system

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930016325_1993016325.pdf

@Dennis re: aerobraking maturity

Actually, they WERE building flight hardware, namely the AFE. I saw the structure myself at JSC in the shop. Originally slated to be deployed & retrieved on a shuttle flight as a technology demonstrator. AFE was canned & shelved in the wake of SEI's demise when we were no longer on our way to the Moon and Mars but instead changed our destination to Moscow.

Laura - what effect (with the key point it has to be measurable) did we get from "winning the moon race"? Can we conclusively prove that, without winning the moon race, the Cold war would gone hot, or lasted hundreds of years? I submit that you can't prove that, nor measure it. Yes, it probably did play some role, but a major role, or even a significant? I find that very unlikely.

You need to point to something that is measurable, discernable, and granular from Apollo.

Its not so much technology, but it must be something measurable, discernable, and granular for people to fund it. Even better if there is a calculable rate of return

>> Wow, using that 1365 W/m2 number from the article, a 40 ft (12 meter) ball would focus 600 kilowatts on a spot the size of your hand. In the vacuum of space that should heat things up quite nicely.

I get 113 m^2 * 1.365 kW/m^2 = 154 kW of sunlight striking a 12m diameter ball

(The ball subtends a circle of incident sunlight, not a sphere's worth of area.)

@Bob

I remember AFE! Yea, I am puzzled at this particular objection by our friend Common Sense. I really don't think that most people who have not been around NASA for a long time or interested in space realize how much work was done during the SEI era. I know for a fact that some of the Aerobraking work was attempted to be replicated at JSC a couple of years ago and that in the constellation program there has been little interest in going back and revisiting all that work, no matter its quality.

Here are some great links via google to that work from AFE.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=aeroassist+flight+experiment&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

There used to be a pretty big model of AFE at the Huntsville Airport.

@Bob

I just read your articles at The Space Review. Many, many good points made. I really like the idea of short productions for showing in movie theaters.

I've often watched NASA TV during ISS construction related spacewalks - love those helmet cams. On one occasion I had a tremendous urge to tap on my computer screen (his faceplate?) to get the astronaut's attention and point him to the *other* end of a stuck antenna that was refusing to deploy. But hey, I'm an engineer. Of course I find it interesting. But despite this level of personal engagement with what was going on, I've often been struck by how stunningly boring such coverage can be. Watching a view of Mission Control or various static or almost static graphics of the shuttle when there's no live video feed is excruciating. I've often wondered why there's not a commentator (with some personality, presence, and knowledge) to explain to the non-technical viewer what's going on. As you point out, it would make a big difference in engaging the public. "Ted has been trying to release that antenna now for the past half hour and the time available to get it done is quickly running out..."

Anyway, I notice that the articles are a couple of years old now. Doesn't seem that much, if any of it, has been acted on.

Ferris,

Can we conclusively prove that, without winning the moon race, the Cold war would gone hot, or lasted hundreds of years? I submit that you can't prove that, nor measure it. Yes, it probably did play some role, but a major role, or even a significant? I find that very unlikely.

You need to point to something that is measurable, discernable, and granular from Apollo.

There are things that can be quantified, and things (very important things) that can not.

The Cold War involved, among many things, a struggle by each side to demonstrate the superiority of its respective economic and political system. Who won the race to the moon was both a dramatic demonstration of national technical capability and a highly visible issue of national prestige. We could disagree endlessly about how important a role it played in the outcome of the Cold War, but the idea that it was not even significant flies in the face of it being declared a national goal by President Kennedy, funded at the incredible levels it was by Congress, and treated in general as a high stakes national priority.

We'll just have to differ on this one. I really never intended for us to re-fight the Cold War. We'll have to leave it to historians farther in the future to sort it out.

@Dennis and Bob Mahoney:

I don't know *all* the work done in the 80's and 90's yet I know AFE. I believe I saw the heatshield at JSC as well. And I assume you meant aerocapture then rather than aerobraking?

If I am not mistaken NASA REFUSED to use an asymmetric heatshield a la AFE on CEV. I'd love to know why. Any idea? Suspicion: Unproven method (unlike Apollo, which btw had a canted heatshield but it is another story). So basically NASA could not convince itself that using an AFE might help. Especially on a skip entry. Hmmm. Risk? Cost? Technical issue? It is important to realize the challenge posed in terms of TPS to such a heatshield.

Again I NEVER said it is not doable. I am saying that it will not happen if the same spirit leading CEV/Orion still resides at NASA. And the cost will still be high. Apollo-like = $10B so how do we make a less expensive vehicle?

I hope NASA goes with novel technology but this late in the game I doubt it.

Why does something have to be so big and expensive to be exciting anyway? Only our core group is going to be _that_ excited about a Mars mission anyway. I'm sure that some portion of the US population thinks we've already done it, would not care to learn otherwise and would not care if we did it now.

You know what's really ridiculous? The Genesis mission. We have SUN material. in a frickin' lab. We have Sun. Here.

If you had an awesome to cost ration, that would be near the top.

Why does something have to be so big and expensive to be exciting anyway? Only our core group is going to be _that_ excited about a Mars mission anyway. I'm sure that some portion of the US population thinks we've already done it, would not care to learn otherwise and would not care if we did it now.

You know what's really ridiculous? The Genesis mission. We have SUN material. in a frickin' lab. We have Sun. Here.

If you had an awesome to cost ratio, that would be near the top.

Heywood:

But the effort you're talking about is something I believe cannot be accomplished on a budget that small. It has to be much bigger to do it on the scale you advocate.

This is the crux of our disagreement -- I don't think that it has to be bigger. The key is to use small, incremental, cumulative steps. Putting together an architecture that does this is possible; a few of us actually did so five years ago as part of a robotic lander study. The idea is to emplace robotic assets on the Moon that work together before people arrive. This includes rovers, construction robots, habitats, power and thermal control systems. Humans arrive to a "turnkey" lunar outpost.

Unlike Apollo where money was no object, in this architecture, time is the free variable. But we make continuous, steady progress on whatever time scales budgetary pressures dictate. We take small steps before we take big ones. We prospect and demo resource processing methods using small robotic missions first. A desk-sized robotic plant with a mass of only a couple hundred kilograms can produce several metric tonnes of oxygen in a year. So we start by making consumables for people first, then larger quantities for propellant later.

The argument that we "need more money" has been NASA's response to both the Space Exploration Initiative (1990) and the Vision for Space Exploration (2004). For the Vision at least, that was not the question they were asked -- the question was "you get ~$18B per year -- can you DO anything with it?" Sadly, the answer to that question to date has been "No." I think that, in part, it's because NASA doesn't understand their mission. That's why we wrote this article: to show that there is a mission that can be done under the VSE cost constraint and builds space faring capability with time.

Laura:

To clarify a crucial point, there were no "flags-and-footprints" in the Mars plan I was advocating.

If your mission is only for science, that would have an even smaller constituency than a flags-and-footprints Mars mission. In any event, it would be no more sustainable than Apollo was -- a few missions of red rocks and sand dunes and the public (whose excitement you are counting on to sustain the program) would tune out.

By the way, your proposal is basically the Phobos-Deimos mission that Fred Singer had advocated for years.

Sorry, I squared the diameter instead of the radius. 600 kW is the right answer for an 80 foot (24 meter) ball of CO2 at 1 atmosphere pressure. I should have stuck with the spreadsheet instead of breaking out the calculator. I don't know what would be optimal for this kind of lens. An interesting, and potentially dangerous property of the ball lens is that it works concentrating sunlight hitting it from any direction.

Paul:

By the way, your proposal is basically the Phobos-Deimos mission that Fred Singer had advocated for years.

Fred Singer's Phobos-Deimos mission proposal included a Mars landing. However it was similar to what I'm advocating in that it proposed extensive remote operations on the surface.

I was making no claim of originality. The mission I described was along the general lines of Buzz Aldrin's proposal, which I mentioned in the post.

Be that as it may, going back to a discussion of your proposal, there are references to "trade", "a new economic frontier in space", and "commerce with the lunar spaceport". Is commercial activity a significant part of the plan or what it would realistically lead to, and if so, could you expand on that a bit?

I'd love to know why. Any idea?

There are many factors involved, but to start you have to look at the 9th floor at headquarters. The ESAS architecture focused the majority of the money on the rocket. The former administrator said that he did not care about what we were going to do on the Moon (and by extension Mars) as it was his job to build the rocket. Well the rocket design was picked by fiat of the 2004 Planetary Society study.

This fiat extended to the Constellation system. The Orion vehicle was required to look like the Apollo capsule, end of story. The contractors were specifically told this and to propose accordingly or be left out. Well guess what they did.

In the architecture studies every thing was forward loaded toward Mars with the Moon as an afterthought. This was the touch and go mentality that many of us were concerned about. If you read the LAT studies (the ones that actually surfaced), the emphasis on the Moon was science and the vast majority of the science was merely updating and duplicating the Apollo experiments.

JSC removed ISRU from the baseline or even any serious consideration as it was considered "too low of a TRL". That single decision probably did more to evicerate the entire architecture than anything. The decision for a single location was a hard fought one that was made, and then wavered on.

Then there were the problems with the Ares 1 that started as soon as the engineers started seriously looking at the fiat design that was presented them. It is tragic that no truly serious look at the SRB based system was done before it was dropped into the lap of the engineering teams as the solution. It has driven Constellation from day one.

And then there was the 10 healthy center initiative which basically duplicated efforts, diffused responsibility, and along with the iron fisted control from headquarters on the big decisions.

In a way there is an unstated aspect to what we are talking about here in our architecture. By relying as much as possible on the existing systems (ISS, Shuttle C, ISS hardware), you buy something else, the teams that actually work on these systems day by day. These teams have been together for decades and understand the limitations of the hardware as well as the cost. With this you not only solve the political problems of the jobs at the centers but you bring together teams that do know what they are doing.

Another unstated thing that the RSV architecture does, is change what Orion is. Orion becomes and ISS taxi, which dramatically reduces the requirements on it and thus lowers its costs. If Orion does not have to go to the Moon, then it is a cinch to put it on EELV. I understand why the NASA folks are trying to put Orion on the side mount, but in the end that may cause more problems than it solves.

So in the end there are a plethora of reasons for why the architecture has ended up where it has but at the end of the day, without a real goal on the Moon and with this forward planning for Mars, confusion reigns in the requirements arena, and costs skyrocket as Mars is damn hard and to mix Mars into the mix at all just starts you on the road to hell.

Further comments to Paul:

If your mission is only for science, that would have an even smaller constituency than a flags-and-footprints Mars mission. In any event, it would be no more sustainable than Apollo was -- a few missions of red rocks and sand dunes and the public (whose excitement you are counting on to sustain the program) would tune out.

It's a mission to both further the science and push the frontier of human exploration in a time frame people can relate to.

As I've argued with Ferris, Apollo was a mission of exploration and science driven by the competition of the Cold War. But I listed a series of milestone accomplishments in space, many of which have been sustained and extended, that have caught the public interest, of which Apollo was just one.

I do believe that it would be easier to engage the public in a manned Mars mission than an extended return to the Moon, but as has been generally agreed in this discussion, a requirement of any sustainable program is that it fits realistic budget constraints.

...a few missions of red rocks and sand dunes and the public (whose excitement you are counting on to sustain the program) would tune out.

The same could be said for gray rocks and dunes, but you have to admit that red is more attention-getting than gray. ;)

But aside from its more attractive color, Mars is more geologically and chemically interesting and does hold the possibility of finding signs of life at some point in its history.

I've made my arguments for Mars at this point, and I stand by them, and will let them stand for consideration. I'd like to keep any further comments I make in this thread focused on further exploring your proposal for the Moon, which though not my preferred mission, I don't think is without merit.

@Paul Spudis:

I am with you on the incremental approach, no question!

So, why is it that the smart, rational approach is NEVER even attempted? As you may guess I have my own answer but I'd like to know yours.

Laura:

..a few missions of red rocks and sand dunes and the public (whose excitement you are counting on to sustain the program) would tune out.

The same could be said for gray rocks and dunes, but you have to admit that red is more attention-getting than gray.

The difference is that you're the one claiming that we must "excite" the public, not me. I am assuming a general public apathy, which means constraining NASA space activities within existing (or very modestly enhanced) budgetary envelopes.

You asked me about commercial engagement. We view the the use of off-planet resources as a uncertain, risky venture, one that is unlikely to draw significant private capital, at least at the beginning. That's why we think it's an appropriate task for NASA to undertake -- a high-risk, potentially high-payoff technology. The "mission" of going to the Moon is to experiment with these techniques and see if they are commercially viable. If they are (as we believe they are), the new resource utilization technologies will be taken up by the private sector as new markets in space products (consumables, propellant) arise. Government will be one customer of these products, but not the only one.

So we are effectively proposing that NASA funding become the seed money for future commercial investment in space transportation, by developing new technologies that enable constant and routine access to cislunar space, where all of our space assets reside.

As I've argued with Ferris, Apollo was a mission of exploration and science driven by the competition of the Cold War.

Science was almost never used as a justification for Apollo. I have a great book on "Selling Apollo" that delved into the justifications for the space program that were touted by the Kennedy administration and NASA up to basically when Kennedy was shot.

The expansion of mankind into the solar system was the purpose, with expansive parallels between the Westward expansion. Winning the competition with the Soviets was considered a foregone conclusion. When LBJ took over is when the soviet competitive aspect gained the upper hand.

In his book "The case for the Moon" by Neil Ruzic in 1965 he had made a survey of the American scientific establishment and a remarkable 89% were opposed to Apollo. Science was an afterthought in Apollo as is evidenced by the fact that only one scientist ever made it to the Moon during the program.

So to say that Apollo was about furthering science as one of the major goals that was used to "sell" is to misrepresent what actually happened.

@Dfens

Sorry, I squared the diameter instead of the radius. 600 kW is the right answer for an 80 foot (24 meter) ball of CO2 at 1 atmosphere pressure. I should have stuck with the spreadsheet instead of breaking out the calculator. I don't know what would be optimal for this kind of lens. An interesting, and potentially dangerous property of the ball lens is that it works concentrating sunlight hitting it from any direction.

A carbon ball would be great for the Earth and Mars since they have a lot of carbon. Unfortunately the Moon is very short of carbon. Could a silicon ball filled with oxygen be used instead?

@Dennis Wingo:

Waring, long rant ;)

"The Orion vehicle was required to look like the Apollo capsule". I know that was a ridiculous, unsupported mandate. And remember, that:
1. To make real savings, Orion should have been really an Apollo OML which it is NOT.
2. The Apollo look alike was only to prevent design that looked a lot more like a Soyuz to come to be. Ridiculous and misplaced national pride. A Soyuz shape being a lot safer than an Apollo, in particular for land-landings.

It's funny what you say about the Mars emphasis because my recollection is that per NASA's direction to abandon any Mars requirements, supported by some Congress statements as well. I think this (Mars emphasis) may have been true under O'Keefe but not under Griffin, then again I may be wrong.

"Then there were the problems with the Ares 1 that started as soon as the engineers started seriously looking at the fiat design that was presented them." So true. Sad isn't it? When engineers say don't do it because it's a mess that won't work yet the powers that be actually know better. Problems had been identified as early as the CEV Phase I contract. Not all mind you but enough to show this was not going to be an easy ride. Not to mention the added difficulties of a LAS pulling off of a still firing rocket...

"With this you not only solve the political problems of the jobs at the centers but you bring together teams that do know what they are doing." Here I only agree with the political statement. Such teams (if they exist) can work any problem they are given, any problem! They don't have to rehash existing solutions which quie often leads to complacency (yet another topic). People in this community need challenges and if you tell me that those who design and build SRBs can only do that then we will never go anywhere. Not all architectures require SRBs!!!!! Short-sighted vision bring us failures, not successes. See Ares today!

The ISS capability was only a secondary one under O'Keefe: Should have stayed so and let COTS-D take care of it with NASA's help. Another short sighted vision to make Orion the ISS taxi. Saving more jobs here?

As to the crewed sidemount option I already commented enough on it. Suffice to say: Aerodynamic issues (shock interactions ET LAS tower), obviously high ET contact probability on abort (do we really need an analysis to see this?), AND, best possibly, the LAS motors firing into the ET!!! No wonder why an AFE would not see the light of day.

Now about Mars: VSE stated we go to Mars and stop on our way there on the Moon. Yes requirements are a lot more stringent to Mars BUT if you do not design your overall architecture to do it and you factor in the available near and long term budget you end up with an Apollo like exploration of the Moon. Nothign else. And your ISRU will never come to be as Apollo did not require and was unable to deliver any of that. My recommendation to you is to address the whole plan (easier said than done I agree), i.e. Mars, NEOs, etc, and show how the Moon ISRU integrates as a first step and how doing so will let us on our way to better and more challenging goals. In the eend we need ISRU, robotics and HSF to finnaly get TOGETHER and come up with a plan! Come on it can't be that hard! A plan that will not make each and every one of us happy but a plan we can adhere to as a good enough compromise. If we can't do that then ISRU, Mars and the rest will be nice powerpoints. Politics is not about imposing one's views which will immediately be dismissed by the next guy in charge. It's about compromise and unity towards a common goal.

Finally I believe it was "former CA resident" that once told me something like he did not "believe" what I had said: That most CEV design decisions had been political and not technical...

I strongly believe that as a whole I am RIGHT. Pretentious possibly, still I am RIGHT. Let's admit and face the problems. Let's hope Augustine and his panel will do exactly that.

Fun speaking to you. Thanks.

Dr Spudis, Dennis, Gordon - I've read it again and what you have here is a business proposal. It does not read like something NASA would do, but something NASA would partake. Your case for reuse, medium-lift and ISRU habitats are all compelling. Would recommend the 3 of you incorporate and do it.

Use NASA expertise as available, purchase hardware from Big Aero, new.space and international partners and build a "Space3.0" company that fills that niche and encourages others.

Specific critique of your very good concept - consider putting staging, transfer, integration depot at L1 instead of LLO. Superadobe and other approaches to in-situ habitats may be simpler than metals extraction for early human surface ops.

VSE stated we go to Mars and stop on our way there on the Moon

Uh no, and if this is what you think, you did not pay attention to what Bush said or what Marburger said in all of his pronouncements on the subject.

This is what Bush actually said

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html

Second, the United States will begin developing a new manned exploration vehicle, called the Crew Exploration Vechicle (CEV). The first craft to explore beyond Earth orbit since the Apollo days, the spacecraft would be developed and tested by 2008 and conduct its first manned mission no later than 2014. Though its main purpose would be to leave Earth orbit, the vehicle would also ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the shuttle is retired.

"Our third goal," Bush said, "is to return to the moon by 2020, as the launching point for missions beyond." He proposed sending robotic probes to the lunar surface by 2008, with a human mission as early as 2015, "with the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods of time."

Bush said lunar exploration could lead to new technologies or the harvesting of raw materials that might be turned into rocket fuel or breathable air.

"With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon," he said, "we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond."

So, not only did Bush NOT put Mars out there as the primary end point of the VSE, he specifically stated that ISRU and the Moon would provided the needed lessons learned that would enable us to "go beyond".

What does this say about your own recollections and biases?

Bush also has Orion as the crew taxi to ISS.

It is this complete misremembering of the VSE and the outright ignoring of it by Griffin, that got us into the mess that we have today.

Common Sense:

About your comment below - in general well said, though I'm not convinced that ISRU will help us get to Mars and NEOs in any sensible time frame and introduces an indefinite detour and an uncertain element to such plans. Exploration beyond the Moon for the medium term should rely on extensions of developed technologies.

Now about Mars: VSE stated we go to Mars and stop on our way there on the Moon. Yes requirements are a lot more stringent to Mars BUT if you do not design your overall architecture to do it and you factor in the available near and long term budget you end up with an Apollo like exploration of the Moon. Nothign else. And your ISRU will never come to be as Apollo did not require and was unable to deliver any of that. My recommendation to you is to address the whole plan (easier said than done I agree), i.e. Mars, NEOs, etc, and show how the Moon ISRU integrates as a first step and how doing so will let us on our way to better and more challenging goals. In the eend we need ISRU, robotics and HSF to finnaly get TOGETHER and come up with a plan! Come on it can't be that hard! A plan that will not make each and every one of us happy but a plan we can adhere to as a good enough compromise. If we can't do that then ISRU, Mars and the rest will be nice powerpoints. Politics is not about imposing one's views which will immediately be dismissed by the next guy in charge. It's about compromise and unity towards a common goal.

@common sense

It's funny what you say about the Mars emphasis because my recollection is that per NASA's direction to abandon any Mars requirements, supported by some Congress statements as well. I think this (Mars emphasis) may have been true under O'Keefe but not under Griffin, then again I may be wrong.

Mars was always front and center of Mike Griffin's planning. As far back as the 1980's it was acknowledged that you did not need a 140 metric ton launcher to get to the Moon and that it was only needed for Mars.

You cannot make the statement that Mars was in O'Keefe's critical path as they never came to closure on the architecture. I was on the CE&R teams as well as the H&RT effort and the architecture teams and all of the work that was going on and know this for a fact. Hell the CE&R teams work was completely ignored by Griffin. Another thing that I know is that Steidle was not going to choose a heavy lifter, even after MSFC lobbying, because they knew then that they did not have the money. It was far more likely that something from CE&R or outgrowth's of the OASIS architecture would have been chosen.

Now down in the JSC world they may have thought differently but this was not the case at HQ and ESMD of the time.

@Dennis:

"What does this say about your own recollections and biases?" I totally agree with this statement. I suppose it is/was my interpretation that Moon be a waypoint to other destinations. I am not arguing with the VSE but rather with its implementation: Constellation. And again when I say we can come up with a plan I am referring to Constellation not VSE. VSE has a lot of what we need into it for guidance.

My statements about the secondary requirement from NASA to ISS in the early phase of CEV are right though. I have no link to provide but I am sure you can ask around you. Which makes sense: Going to the Moon but in particular coming back is more challenging than LEO for the capsule. Therefore here again the focus initially was, way back when, on the more stringent requirements.

So, your point on VSE and recollection is duly noted, yet I will stick to my statements that if you do not keep the requirements for the more difficult mission in sight then you end up in a hole. I mean a crater...

The gas ball solar concentrating lens could be made of any container material as long as it is clear. Polycarbonate, acrylic, mylar, polyethylene terephthalate (the stuff they use for Coke bottles), maybe silicone if you could find some that's clear. Everything I've seen was cloudy. Any gas would work, although helium's index of refraction is extremely low. Xenon is a good one with an index of 1.000702.

A slight vacuum is pulled behind an aluminized mylar plastic film to create a very large convex mirror to collimate the visual system in many aircraft simulators. At first I thought it was too bad we couldn't do the same to make a solar concentrating mirror on the Moon, but with a vacuum on both sides, the plastic just sort of hangs there. Then I thought about making a refractive lens by filling a plastic ball with gas. It would work.

We went to the Moon the first time because it was hard to do. Now it's not hard to do. The only hard part is the politics and the screwed up way we do business. Too bad we don't have someone to take care of that end of things so those of us who can, like Dennis, Paul, and Gordon, could get on to thinking about the more interesting technical aspects of setting up a lunar colony.

@ Josh

Dr Spudis, Dennis, Gordon - I've read it again and what you have here is a business proposal. It does not read like something NASA would do, but something NASA would partake. Your case for reuse, medium-lift and ISRU habitats are all compelling. Would recommend the 3 of you incorporate and do it.

Use NASA expertise as available, purchase hardware from Big Aero, new.space and international partners and build a "Space3.0" company that fills that niche and encourages others.

I concur. This is an excellent commercial business proposal and I fear that NASA's corporate culture wouldn't be able to do it justice. Or execute it well. Or persuade Shelby, Nelson et. al. to agree in the first place

Therefore, establish a consortium of international partners and US NewSpace companies and just do it. Ignore NASA in the same way US forces "island hopped" certain Japanese strongholds in the Pacific during WW2.

A Singapore flagged EML-1 "entrepot" transfer station would be a great way to start and perhaps President Obama could be persuaded to support such a neutral flagged facility as an exercise in cooperative and collaborative international space policy.

If you by-pass NASA altogether, what you then need is State Department support to resolve ITAR issues and so forth. Therefore, explain to Hillary Clinton the "soft power" benefits of an international collaborative private sector program to develop lunar resources.

Dennis:

Am following all of this with delight - definitely spirited. Must take issue with one thing, though. "Selling Apollo" completely missed the point and accepted the rhetoric selected by the Kennedy Administration as the justification for Apollo - namely, "manifest destiny" to the stars - the spirit of Lewis & Clark in space - etc.

Sorry, but no. That rhetoric was evolved over a bit of time because it tapped American (idealized) history of expansion into the new frontier. Kennedy's Rice speech - stirring, inspirational - was somewhat at odds with his real feelings, which he articulated at length in a 1962 meeting with then-Administrator James Webb. Webb's position was that NASA should make the lunar mission one of the goals of a broader space program aimed at understanding the space environment (and its physiological effects). He wanted to establish America's "pre-eminence in space".

Kennedy, however, was hard over that the lunar landing was necessary as a goal because it was tangible and would focus both the agency and the public on a clearly defined outcome. Moreover, competition with the Russians was in fact _the_ reason for the program. "This is, whether we like it or not, a race. Everything we do ought to be tied into getting to the moon ahead of the Russians."

Kennedy responded to Webb's press for preeminence as the goal in this way: "We've been telling everybody for 5 years we're preeminent in space,and no one believes us." He restates the goal - to beat the Russians to the moon - and says that doing so "is the top priority of the agency and - except for defense - the top priority of the United States government. Otherwise, we shouldn't be spending this kind of money, because I'm not that interested in space."

Putting the point back into practical perspective, he told Webb that "I think it's good [to explore space], I think we ought to know about it, we're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money. But we're talking about fantastic expenditures. We've wrecked our budget, and all the other domestic programs. And the only justification for it, in my opinion to do it is because we hope to beat them, to demonstrate that starting behind, and we did, by a couple of years, by God, we passed them."

Lewis & Clark notwithstanding. :-)

Thanks to you and Paul and Gordon (who I haven't seen since leaving Huntsville!) for stirring the pot.

MLD

"People who have never worked in robotics often have wildly exaggerated ideas about what is feasible."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0_mLumx-6Y

We can't make that, controlled by motion capture?

Surely without the 8 pound limit and requirement that it hang on a shoulder and be controlled by someone with no hands, we could make one strong enough and dexterous enough to be useful?

Then put it on a battery powered rover?

I'm looking at the guy picking up a grape with the thing. Is this really a "wildly exagerated idea"?

Dennis-

'In a way there is an unstated aspect to what we are talking about here in our architecture. By relying as much as possible on the existing systems (ISS, Shuttle C, ISS hardware), you buy something else, the teams that actually work on these systems day by day. These teams have been together for decades and understand the limitations of the hardware as well as the cost. With this you not only solve the political problems of the jobs at the centers but you bring together teams that do know what they are doing.'

The fact that Constellation did not take the approach of relying on the existing expert teams was a conscious 'political' decision so that a few people could take control and dominate much of the NASA space flight program.

This was an approach pioneered by the ISS program office.

If the programs had let the technical experts work the technical functions in which they had expertise, and if program management had worked the program management functions of requirements, costs and schedules, then there might have been reasonable technical progress and costs and schedules might have been controlled.

When program managers, especially those without technical expertise, start managing the technical content, then there is no balance of power; costs and schedules aren't managed adequately and the technical expertise is lost.

That the poor management processes of the last decade have resulted in the loss of so much technical expertise is a serious problem for US human space flight.

I agree with Dennis Wingo and Paul Spudis that establishing an infrastructure with the Moon as the anchor for extending US economic sphere is the best course of action and will lead to faster commercial development. Where Dennis Wingo and I disagree is whether EELV or ELV approach is adequate or whether a heavy lifter is necessary to accomplish this lunar based infrastructure development. From Dennis point of view, Congress is unlikely to give a sufficient budget increase to support the development of a heavy lifter, so NASA needs to focus on what is affordable. Thus, Dennis argues for a minimalist lanch architecture that basically takes just what you need with the launchers that currently exist today and utilize the landers as best as you can. He argues that much of the materials needed to build the lunar base can be fabricated onsite with ISRUs processing regolith materials. He believes it is not necessary to build a heavy lifter that will take at least a decade to become operational.

The problem here is, IMO, Dennis is way underestimating the necessary equipment, supplies, and facilities necessary to this infrastructure development. He puts too much reliance on this ISRU concept which is essentially unproven. A automated manufacturing process is a fairly complex operation. While the solar array to power the ISRU is a mature technology, the ISRU processing lunar regolith on large scale for mass material production has not been demonstrated. So far ISRU concepts have only been demonstrated in a lab with a rather small limited quantity of lunar regolith. The US and NASA is not going to commit to such an architecture until ISRU production on the surface of the Moon is successfully demonstrated, a project that would take at least 5 -10 years. And if the project fails, then what? Dennis Wingo is also underestimating the number of ELV and EELV launches that will be necessary to make his approach feasible and get humans to the Moon. I believe his plan using ELVs carries far more risks than he is willing to acknowledge.

OTOH, if the New Space companies become successful in reducing LEO space access, then a heavy lifter would in fact be a boon for them. Current ELVs would limit the size and capacity of permanent outposts as compared to heavy lifters. Right now New Space is about ten years away from achieving cheaper human and crew LEO launchers, so the Ares V, if developed, could become operational just at that time. Thus, cheaper LEO launchers could drive the demand for heavy lifters that can put larger installations into LEO therefore enable more humans to stay in space. There is no reason why once the Ares V is developed that the launch system could not be spun off into a commercial space company.

This is in addition to the Ares V or other heavy lifter concept providing the necessary capacity for cargo transport to the lunar surface and creating multi-mission capabilities for NASA.

Josh and Bill White:

One thing that this proposal is *not* is a business plan or proposal. No business plan that doesn't have a clear path to profitability within a fairly short time frame (years) would be taken seriously by even the most adventurous venture capital sources or private investors. I say this as someone who has gone through the process of raising money (seed, private, and then venture capital) for a new company.

Paul Spudis, responding to my question about references to commerce in their proposal, said here:

You asked me about commercial engagement. We view the the use of off-planet resources as a uncertain, risky venture, one that is unlikely to draw significant private capital, at least at the beginning. That's why we think it's an appropriate task for NASA to undertake -- a high-risk, potentially high-payoff technology. The "mission" of going to the Moon is to experiment with these techniques and see if they are commercially viable. If they are (as we believe they are), the new resource utilization technologies will be taken up by the private sector as new markets in space products (consumables, propellant) arise. Government will be one customer of these products, but not the only one.

So we are effectively proposing that NASA funding become the seed money for future commercial investment in space transportation, by developing new technologies that enable constant and routine access to cislunar space, where all of our space assets reside.

I believe Paul's assessment is quite accurate. If NASA supported his proposal it would be funding high risk R&D that might, maybe, eventually lead to commercial opportunities. I think that kind of thing is well within NASA's mission.

I just don't agree that the risk and cost of their proposal (which I believe is greatly underestimated), the open-ended time frame, and the barely sketched out path as to where it takes us, make it a wise direction to commit the space program to at this point. More limited research to further investigate the idea? Sure - but not as alternate plan for manned space flight in general.

Gary-

Then we'd better get to work and prove that ISRU will work.

For the last fifty years we've been talking about recycling waste water and urine in order to reduce orbital resupply requirements. It took that long but MSFC developed the system and its now in orbit and operating and the crew on ISS is depending upon it. Its a truly commendable technical achievement and one of the few strategic jumps to come out of human space flight in the last two decades.

Once we prove we can 'live off the moon', at least in part, at least on a small scale, then creating a larger heavy lift booster and growing the infrastructure might be supportable by government and industry. Right now we have systems in place, after considerable expenditures, and to throw those away in order to start over again is foolish. Throwing away what we had is what we did with Apollo, Saturn and Skylab and what we are getting ready to do with Orbiter.

Laying out these strategic goals is exactly what the architecture was supposed to have been created around five years ago.

@common sense

if you do not keep the requirements for the more difficult mission in sight then you end up in a hole

In sight is much better than having them on the table to be met on day one. The problem is that when these are on the table to be met, you have to meet them. This is where the requirement for Ares V came from. You simply don't need a launcher of that throw weight to do the Moon. You do need it for Mars. Even with Orbital Aggregation the Mars mission was going to take 6-7 Ares V vehicles. Even with that, the Ares V missed its mass requirements by several tons and was going through exercises that basically negated the entire intent to use the Ares 1 as part of a building block architecture.

As far as interpretations go, I do find it amazing that so many took what Bush said about the Moon and Mars came out the other end. I know for a fact that certain centers and center directors immediately had the touch and go mentality as they have always had Mars fever. I also know for a fact that the previous administrator also had this in mind and even the graphics from his first presentations were derived from his FLO ideas. I can't tell you the number of high level people went into his office to try and change his mind, only to leave dismayed. Ivan Beky had some very choice words on the subject.

@Gary

He puts too much reliance on this ISRU concept which is essentially unproven.

What part of a magnetic rake, a front end loader, and a vacuum induction furnace is unproven? We intentionally boiled ISRU down to the absolutely simplest form possible in order to negate that issue. A simple hood to capture the volatiles on the induction furnace is all that is required there. Pouring metal into a mold is something that has been done for centuries by far more primitive means that we can do on the Moon.

The environment of the Moon is no more damaging to mining equipment than any terrestrial mine that is two miles underground. The human involved will be in a far better environment than any miner in south Africa has to deal with.

This is in addition to the Ares V or other heavy lifter concept providing the necessary capacity for cargo transport to the lunar surface and creating multi-mission capabilities for NASA.

It all depends on what your definition of "necessary" is. If we drop all this falderol of multi-mission and focus on the Moon, you reduce the costs for attaining you goal.

The fundamental problem with heavy lift is how much it costs. We did not solve that during the SEI era and there is no way that the Ares V would have been cost effective. Just for the DDT&E of the Ares V I can put half a million kg worth of hardware on the Moon. It is also quite clear that this current administration is not going to fund the Ares V either so either we figure out how to do it without it, or we walk away like we did in 1993. I for one refuse to allow this all or nothing mentality leave us in the wilderness for another decade or two.

As for building things, a machine shop on the Moon works in exactly the same way as one on the Earth. With laser machining today, the requirements for tooling is dramatically reduced. I have already worked with the people at Lawrence Livermore Labs to figure out the size and the thermal environment for these laser machining systems. Just the 30 kW laser (which takes about 200 kw Input power) machining system that is in use now cuts ten cm of steel per second. These are sold state lasers so these are long lived devices.

I challenge anyone who thinks that ISRU is not feasible today (especially the simplistic approach that we are talking about for the initial work), to spend 100 hours researching the subject. That will be about 1/100'th the time that I and Paul have spent and about 1/500th what Gordon has spent.

At NASA they have never funded any really serious ISRU efforts. A revitalized H&RT effort can correct this problem. It will be interesting to see what the new team coming in does in this regard.

As for the business plan approach, it is feasible but some visionary investor with a lot of money to throw out wants to help us enable this is required. There are intermediate steps that are well within the confines of a business plan that could enable this in a stepwise approach and be profitable along the way. We started this with Orbital Recovery, but had the ego problems of our investor to deal with, that is until he became a resident of club fed. It could be done as a private effort but again, it takes someone with the money and without the ego of some of the present crop to allow their money to be spent doing this.

This is why, no matter what anyone may think of Elon, he is to be applauded for putting his money where his mouth is, and at least of late, he has become a bit more humble and realistic about his goals. I do think that this is possible privately though, but this is not the forum for that discussion.

@Mary

What I found interesting about that books is that it did extensively present the actual speeches and writings of these government officials in their public presentations. What they said in private may have been different (and it did change after LBJ came to power), but in public it was the whole Wagon Train to the Stars meme that inspired Gene Roddenberry to do Star Trek.

I actually had the great honor to have Robert Seamans to myself and a few other students for several hours of questions related to the early space age and what Kennedy wanted. Kennedy was much more interested in his legacy than most people realize and Seamans and others had to fight like hell to keep Kennedy from proclaiming that we would make it to land on the Moon by the end of 1968 (his second term). When we have time for a beer, I can tell you more.

"As far as interpretations go, I do find it amazing that so many took what Bush said about the Moon and Mars came out the other end. " Well this is human nature. One tries to find what one is looking for in this kind of case. It's like a pressure pot that you try to open and suddenly blows... People were waiting for so long for something like this that they took all they could from it. It should have been the role of the WH and NASA to actually make every one understand what VSE really was/is. It clearly did not happen.

"You cannot make the statement that Mars was in O'Keefe's critical path as they never came to closure on the architecture." I preferred O'Keefe spiral approach based on incremental progress. Things like Paul is talking about. Even though I initially thought it was very "complicated". Considering the nature of the spiral approach it looked like an open ended architecture, never to really close but rather to evolve with the rest of the technology/budget/etc. Maybe I romanticize it a bit but far better than imposed architecture based upon who-knows-what-requirements. And in this manner you can slowly mind you go from the Moon on to Mars. Slowly but surely.

Let's hope the Augustine panel supports COTS-D and some of your dreams may come reality.

@Dfens
The gas ball solar concentrating lens could be made of any container material as long as it is clear. Polycarbonate, acrylic, mylar, polyethylene terephthalate (the stuff they use for Coke bottles), maybe silicone if you could find some that's clear. Everything I've seen was cloudy. Any gas would work, although helium's index of refraction is extremely low. Xenon is a good one with an index of 1.000702.

There is one silicone that is clear, pure quartz. The silicone dioxide needs making with very big crystals (macrocrystalline). The crystal size is controlled by the manufacturing process.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz[/url]

I noticed that lunar regolith contains the ingredients for ordinary window glass, although the ratios need adjusting. So ISRU windows and glassware may be possible.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda-lime_glass[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_soil[/url]

@common sense.

Amen and yea verily. The problem is that Mars simply costs too much money to do to get to the first landing.

I think that Paul Spudis has it right on funding. Congress and the White House are willing to fund NASA at a certain level and no more. During the SEI era NASA violated the funding level that congress and the White House was willing to pay. I was a PI on Lunar Resource Mapper and in the summer of 92 after the contract was awarded, congress passed a recission bill killed the money for it. The reason? LRM was "the camel's nose under the tent" for a much higher spending rate.

Waiting for something for so long is one thing, but to not understand that when you violate a certain level of spending comfort in congress that you lose it all, should make the adults in the room wake up and say what can we do with the amount of money that we have. Dr. Griffin did understand this, but he thought that if he raped and pillaged enough other programs that he could get his rocket built. It did not work out that way as even with all the funding shifts he still could not get enough money for Ares. Remember that it was this past year that congress forbade Mars from being actively pursued.

Herein lies the danger today that our missive seeks to address. What can we do to boil the VSE down to its fundamental essence in a manner to keep the funding under the tripwire that will simply lead to cancelling everything. By using the existing infrastructure as much as possible you play to strengths not weaknesses. If we use ISS as a staging ground we will have the support of the Europeans, Russians, and Japanese. Do not underestimate the importance of this. All the while that the previous administrator was making the case that orbital assembly and maintanence is too hard, NASA was successfully building ISS through a multinational consortium and doing an incredible job basically rebuilding Hubble from the ground up, in orbit.

So here is the recipe for success.

Play to existing strengths, including cost realism.

Limit the goals to something that is within the amount of money that congress and the White House is willing to fund. We can do the Moon with that amount of money and our missive is at least one way to do that.

Bring in new allies who for their own reasons and agenda will support your efforts. If NASA starts buying 5-10 EELV's and Falcon 9's per year, DoD will love you and support you.

Be successful. Nothing breeds success more than success.

I feel terrible for the talented engineers at MSFC who have been led off a cliff with a bad fiat design that they are forbidden to change. It is a terrible failure of systems engineering that would have never happened during the Von Braun era. More than anything Von Braun was a realist. If you look at his early designs, that used LEO orbital assembly, it was in order to not have to build a heavy lifter, but to build the system with Saturn 1B class vehicles that could be mass produced, thus lowering unit costs and therefore system costs.

Do you really want Mars? Well if you want a mansion but you only make $50k per year, you have to make compromises and work incrementally to get to your goal.

Is this so hard to understand?

"Is this so hard to understand?" Personally I am all with you on this one BUT not everyone is because as you point out "if you want a mansion but you only make $50k per year, you have to make compromises and work incrementally to get to your goal" AND this was clearly NOT the attitude of anyone in this country for the past many years, as it is clearly reminded to us every day. So why would it be any different for the government? They are just people.

If you want a real spacefaring nation/people, we, as a people, have to start addressing problems in our everyday life with REALISTIC approaches based on rational, scientific observations. Not some delusional dreams based on unsubstantiated beliefs. And this is not just rhetoric. It does start at home. Education, science, technology: Realism comes from all of that. It does not impede the dreams nor faith, quite the contrary, it fuels imagination and open possibilities. Then again, where do we stand on those things today? Where is the progress that every one claims we are making? Where is the consensus for anything? All I see is that we are still divided and going backward in favor of instant gratification and political apathy. Apathy is not consensus, neither is status quo. It's like death, nothing moves. And NO it hasn't changed since January, not one bit. I am probably expecting too much, I'll grant you that.

And BTW I don't want Mars. I WANT IT ALL: Moon, Mars, NEOs, all the what-have-yous. ALL. And YES WE CAN have it all. Just not right away. It only requires that we look up for the good of the people and the nation, not parochial interests. Decisions will be hard to make but no decision is like a decision. So what is it going to be? What?

Let's lead again. Yes lead. Not because we have the greatest military in the whole world (shortsighted fear mongering attitude) but because we CAN inspire the world like that day... on July 20th 1969. The WORLD.

Well my friends, it looks like all those dreams of ours are in jeopardy:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-shelby-private-rockets-070309,0,4053077.story

Well done Sen. Shelby. This is a real step towards the future. $100M to Constellation. I hope they will be able to replace their coffee machines with all that money.

Good luck!

Let's lead again. Yes lead. Not because we have the greatest military in the whole world (shortsighted fear mongering attitude) but because we CAN inspire the world like that day... on July 20th 1969. The WORLD.

Thus the circle closes and the reason for our missive becomes clear.

I do think that there are adults at NASA and I do have some hopes for the incoming team and Norm Augustine's commission. Gordon, Paul, and I put this together in order that some of these people at NASA and on the commission would see it and take something positive away. I think that we have influenced, if no one else, your own perception and thoughts in this regard.

This will work, I am absolutely convinced of it. In the next year or two I think that we are going to have further corroboration of some of the resource potential of the Moon. Paul's paper from his experiment is in review now (and no he has not shared anything with me on it yet, the bastard) and it will at least put some bounds on the extent of the polar water. I also have some interesting results coming from our own Lunar Orbiter images that will play off of the impact modeling of Melosh, et al, and others regarding low velocity impactors. What I need is some good LROC images of areas that Lunar Orbiter looked at. If their imager is of similar quality, I think that we are going to be pleasantly surprised.

At this time, our missive errs far on the side of conservatisim in terms of resources, everything else is gravy and would make things easier. If we were to find some thousand ton or ten thousand ton or million ton body, what would that do? Pure speculation at this point but with the new solid state lasers and with the ISRU that we already know what to do, we can make these limits to growth what they should be, a quaint relic of the past.