Well, There Seems To Be A Compromise After All

It would certainly be interesting to understand the rationale behind the Orion light reentry only kluge of an idea. As long as we are paying Russians to take people to the ISS, we really do not need an Orion escape capsule at all. If we have a dragon or another vehicle, then we also do not need an Orion lite.

It sets NASA up to once again compete with industry. What a waste and a disaster for commercial prospects.

The msNBC post and Brian Williams NBS Nightly News header item about Neil Armstrong, Lovell and Cernan and company taking aim at the Obama plan was no more cogent than the earlier astronaut epistle. That is assuming the NBC report was even accurate, as it was reported by Jay Barbree who has been producing a fair amount of erroneous news reports of late, mainly false reports in support of Constellation; like reporting that the Ares 1X rocket showed that Ares was ready to carry astronauts in Orion.

These Orion rumors are two different beasts.
In one you have a unit on standby, let’s say for about $5 or $6 Billion to get there, by 2015 or so, which could be a bit less to the degree it’s “lite” vs. being based on what Orion estimated it needed to complete a version capable of LEO and that could be adapted easily to BEO later. But then again, there will be an expiration date on an emergency craft, a life, so a production of two a year might work if the limit is 6 months on station. In that case we are back to something akin to the Orion in just it’s Cx LEO version, so that’s a billion a year indefinitely till 20xx.

Let’s subtract a billion a year then from somewhere in the FY 11 submit?

Scenario 1 takes it out of the ESMD part, from MSFC, and transfers it to JSC, as they already had the CEV office function and this sounds like a continuation. So the ESMD R&D line gets reduced by 1 billion.

Umm…something does not add up…Commercial crew came to KSC, and cargo is under ISS, and ISS stays up there, and science and aero would not be reduced to feed Orion as that upsets the HSF to non-HSF ratio that got so much debate this far, so…we are left with ISS $2B a year, cargo crew services at $1B a year, Space Flight Support at 1 Billion a year, Commercial Crew at $1 Billion a year, Orion at $1 Billion a year…

LEAVING over (9-2-1-1-1-1=) $3B a year for BOTH any heavy development and later operations as well as all the continuous R&D in the agency, inclusive of all payloads to go on the heavy and all in space assets.

Unless someone just increased the NASA HSF budget by $1B a year? Or unless everyone else pays a tax for Orion?

Folks:

This looks like a way for the "Orion Escape Capsule" to get around a human rating for the Atlas V. How does this idea reduce reliance on the Soyuz? Six crew member and nine to twelve seats home. Unless the Russians start doing taxi flights with Space Flight Participants again it seems like unnecessary redundancy to me.

Crew and cargo for the Heavy Lift Vehicle? Shouldn't they be working on human rating an EELV at the same time that they develop a HLV so the two can work in concert for their common mission?

Choose a heavy lift design by 2015? Then start building it? Hell, pick the design now and fly by 2015! Cargo only. If the design is truly shuttle derived it'll haul less the Ares V but still be the most powerful rocket on the planet. Even so, a crew only version would be wasteful and a crew/cargo version would cut into payload margins too much.

This is only a half compromise... and it won't sell.

tinker

P.S. The AP article is very badly written so I don't consider this the final word.

So according to this "leak" - reading into it - we end up with 2 capsules...a Lockheed Martin Orion that never sees crew, except in an emergency that may never arise, managed as an old-style program, with lots of government oversight, and a commercially competed capsule/module, that does carry crew regularly, done in a services type of procurement?

Something fishy in this rumor...

Cracks now in the Obama plan.

Good!

Armstrong is now coming out against Obama big time.
This is just the beginning of the "compromise".
Mark my words.

Up until now I really thought that the Obama-Bolden proposal was a reasonable strategy that was poorly introduced, and that was missing a plan.

With these latest changes, however, I become convinced they have no plan and no strategy other than to kill as much of human space flight as they can, a little bit at a time.

The astronauts today really missed a golden opportunity to lay out a rational concept. They failed completely. Are those old guys really that clueless ?

This BS about a destination and timeline is pathetic. You people are living in the past and need to forget the Apollo way. Do you think Columbus or Lewis and Clark had a timeline and destination layed out to the n-th degree? Do you think the Wright Brothers or Goddard had a detailed plan on where they were going or what they were going to do with the technology they were working on? Constellation had all of that and it was failing miserably. The timeline was moving to the right constantly, the costs were going up and up, and the destination was slipping into oblivion, never to be reached, because requirements were being slashed to accommodate an inadequate design.

This budget is a strategy, not a detailed plan. It's a good strategy for future growth and NASA needs to develop a detailed plan. The immediate task of replacing Shuttle for crew access to LEO is where it belongs, with a capable commercial industry who is up to the task of delivering a capability developed by the government almost 50 years ago. R&D is needed to get out of the technology rut we have been in since the 70's. The only problem is that NASA's senior management and most of its workforce working HSF are incapable of thinking outside the box and doing anything creative. They've been so busy doing Shuttle operations that they are devoid of any design or R&D capability. They proved this fact by running Constellation into the ground and they will confirm this fact again when they botch this opportunity to become a true research agency.

Wow.
Just keeps getting better, don't it?

Now I'm curious as to how close these rumors are to the truth. Because it seems a government program in the middle of a do-or-die commercial plan goes against the whole point of the thing.

Well, several things could be happening here.

1) The "commercial" folks could be figuring out that it is pretty tough to keep a vehicle healthy on ISS for six months and want that requirement to go away. Hence NASA takes that over.

2) People are waking up and realizing that if the "commercials" screw the pooch (or no one bids for less than an obscene cost-plus contract) that there needs to be a backup plan. That would involve throwing money at Orion extra-light and the Altas V to get them into an up-down system.

3) Both

It sounds to me like there is one reason they are letting Orion live and that is to keep jobs. However, I'm OK with that because it presents us with a backup plan if SpaceX or (insert other company here) fails to deliver on manned LEO access.

Accellerating development of an HLLV sounds like a clear path to the Sidemount SSDV. IMO, the biggest flaw in the Presidents plan was an the lack of a clear plan for an HLLV. This sounds a lot better.

Frankly, I'm not an Obama supporter by any stretch, but this plan is sounding half way decent. The real question is, will Congress fund it and fund it consistently?

Keith;

You were pretty far off the mark in your previous post, which got a lot of people's hopes up. It seems some of your sources have their own agendas.

I really don't consider this a compromise, since Bolden and Garver have been saying all along they were going to sift through CxP and see what was worth saving.

Editor's note: stay tuned.

Geese Louise this is a COMPROMISE. Nobody gets everything they want. Orion lite opens the door to production of a government-operated minimalist manned spacecraft and booster that assuages the Congressional critics. Refocused Constellation aims for Mars not a moon landing. If these reports are true it bridges the gap somewhat by mandating a deep space-capable manned capsule while accelerating a HLV, predictably Shuttle derived.

Orion as a government handout to whiny workers is fine. But the money should come from the heavy lift budget. Or else there should be more money.

And the only heavy lift that makes sense is government-sponsored triple-core versions of otherwise commercially-viable rockets. A rocket that is good for nothing but NASA is a waste of money (that is the good part) and competes to put private industry out of business (that is the sinister part)

Well, with deep respect for (and a bit of trepidation on being seen as correcting) KC and especially FS, isn't this more along the lines of inclusive implementation than a compromise? Seems like what is being put out is consistent with both philosophy of Augustine and parameters of 2011 budget.

Lots of folks have been trying to read between the lines to reach the conclusion that there was a conspiracy sneak through a stealth plan to kill HSF. As Obama and NASA put more detail out on implementation, and the specifics are hashed out with Congress and the technical / contractor community, perhaps we can put the well intentioned but frankly often paranoid concerns to bed.

I would suggest that true proponents of HSF work on steering or shaping the details of the new blueprint as it takes shape as it moves through administration / agency / appropriation / implementation curve.

According to the OSTP bullet points, the new plan will "increases the number of astronaut days in space by 3,500 over the next decade."

Arithmetic suggests that they're thinking the Orion capsule will enable seven ISS crew permanently on-orbit, rather than the current six.

That'd be sort of cool.

Libby said, "It would certainly be interesting to understand the rationale behind the Orion light reentry only kluge of an idea."

I suspect it's basically a giveaway to Boeing and those who are screaming mad about Orion maybe being canceled. Plus, it's a backup in case Dragon doesn't work.

What wasn't specifically mentioned was Orion being launched on man-rated ELVs. I suspect the negotiations have begun on that because I read part of an article somewhere that said the ELV people want NASA to pay to upgrade the ELV pads to launch a man-rated version. You know, pay to add stuff like a way to get the astronauts up into the capsule and pay for the extra support equipment that's required to launch people from that pad.

Frank, you read way more into this than what was said.
This is Orion Lite, to be used as a Crew Rescue Vehicle for ISS. No deep space capable capsule.
A promise to decide what TYPE of HLV to START building in 2015. With a 5 to 8 year development cycle this will not be ready till 2020 at the earliest.
This is nothing but a smoke screen but it's good to see they are realizing that NASA human space flight will not go quietly.

This just demonstrates how truly feckless these people are. Orion lite as an escape capsule for the ISS? What an awful idea. Only a bureaucrat could come up with that. He'll let us build a spacecraft that does nothing, goes nowhere, with no one, and for half the price. What a bargain! That's bold!

Oh, and by the way fellows, "let me be clear", if you'll just believe me, and let me gut the program, I promise that after I am reelected in 2015 I'll give you the go-ahead on a brand new HLV, just chuck full of revolutionary technology...no problem. Did anyone hear them say "Once Upon A Time"? Because that is all you will need to complete this fairy tale. Do even the acolytes in the crowd really believe the money will be there for this at the appointed hour? It sounds like a little more take it or leave it from Ms. Garver. Tony Soprano would be proud.

Fool me once,shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
As long as the budget stands as currently written, words are irrelevant. The Law is The Law, and the budget that gets approved by congress is The Law.

Folks...

There's more details to this not out yet.

But let me attempt to explain some business basics to the State Socialists here...

If you have a commercial spacecraft carrying people to and from ISS, you aren't going to want to leave a money-making asset at ISS serving as a CRV. Investors want those vehicles going up and down as often as possible -- creating frequent/robust crew access to ISS.

A smaller Orion can carry 3-4 crew back in an emergency -- only the astronauts that the U.S. is responsible for -- the Russians can come down on Soyuz. Then you can launch Orion-as-CRV w/o even human rating Delta IV or your Atlas V-551...

That Orion can then be upgraded to serve as a rescue capsule for an in-space CEV/Habitation module that is launched on your EELV-derived -- read AvWeek people, it says hydrocarbon-based, not solids -- heavy lift system.

And you start exploring CIS-lunar space as soon as the 45MT version (new CCUS for the Delta IV) is ready. Well before 2020.

Bolden and Garver have done exactly what they said they would: taken the good parts of Constellation and applied them to a new plan.

Take that, Cessnadriver, et al.

- Jim

It seems to be a better solution than the original plan, and at least we will see the development of a new HLV that will take us somewhere....Now, if we only had a clear GOAL!!

...wait, what?

So, ok, I want to make sure I've got this straight now. We're keeping Orion around and basically turning into CRV 2.0? Gee, it's nice that we "wouldn't have to rely on the Russian Soyuz capsule to return astronauts to Earth", but seeing as we've still got to buy Soyuz capsules to get our folks up there, we're really not reducing our reliance on Russia at all, are we? Also, since those Soyuz capsules bring down just as many astronauts as they take to the station, it just means that the Orion CRV is nothing more than an expensive and unnecessary duplication of capability.

Maybe the whole reason for the Orion lifeboat is a commercial spacecraft enabler. You know, now the commercial guys don't have to worry about developing reentry technologies. Of course, this now utterly defeats the idea of creating a commercial market by forcing the commercial guys to be reliant on the Extreme Makeover: Orion Lifeboat Edition to get back home, and I fail to see how it makes any sense whatsoever to have an architecture that requires two separately-launched capsules to do the what one capsule can easily accomplish on its own.

Dude, it's the compromise nobody wanted! Pro-Constellation folks like myself will hate the fact that, for the reasons I've stated above, it's only a matter of time before someone realizes that the neutered Orion CRV is a complete waste of money with no additional capability added to ISS, and then decides to drop the axe on it. Anti-Constellation folks will hate it because it'll still be pulling money with no additional capability added to ISS. At least this "compromise" achieves one thing...now both the pro-Constellation and anti-Constellation crowd can agree that it sucks.

So they demoted Orion from being a moon/mars ship to an escape vehicle that can't even take astronauts up to the station. So much for American achievement in space. It won't fool anybody, least of all Armstrong, Lovell, and Cernan.

They have no destination and no goals except for some vague reference to a mars mission. Maybe someday, not anytime soon. How exactly do they expect us to get to mars if we can't even get to the moon?

The president will be at KSC for a grand total of 2 hours and will not answer any questions about his plan during that time either from the press or the workforce in attendance there.

There is strong bipartisan resistance in Congress against this budget.

I agree with CessnaDriver: the president is losing faith in his own plan. This supposed "compromise" is evidence of that.

I do not believe he will be willing to fight to keep his plan going, when he would rather spend his political capital on something else, say the November elections.

Constellation may not be re-instated as it was pre-February 1 (there may very well be drastic design changes to the Ares 1 and V rockets, they may be dropped completely for another architecture, or NASA may choose to focus on a HLV instead), but the moon program is far from dead.

Not a leak anymore - fully official:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp

historic near-term human missions to NEOs, then Phobos/Deimos, then Mars surface. Potential lunar orbital missions. Orion-(Super)Lite for purely emergency crew return, so commercial for primary HSF launch and return. That's useful, because it does give a way to use Orion technology without having to human-rate EELVs immediately. You'd also get cargo return when you swap out the Orion CRVs and EDL technology tests, without waiting for LAS, or Ares, etc, etc. Moves many milestones way closer than CxP. Maybe most importantly, you develop the ability to rendezvous and return with a crew coming in from BEO, and you have the initial core technology for a BEO S/C being tested in space very early.

It's actually pretty clever. The WH and OSTP continue to be pretty darned impressive compared to earlier efforts.

It's massively exciting - with this, and the real work of doing focused, actual, space technology dev, for the first time in 30 years, there's a real chance at humanity's first sustainable BEO exploration program.

Just read the OSTP document.

What has disturbed so many of us is the lack of time-line in the new plan. I don't know enough to judge the 2015 date to commit to an HLV design and start development, but the very existence of a date well before 2020 is encouraging.

I'm a bit baffled by the Orion part of the plan though. It seems like a lot of money for a capability that already exists in the form of multiple Soyuz docked at ISS.

- Is the Orion part just politics and saving jobs?

- Is there something I'm missing here in terms of future possibilities for Orion?

Despite the questions, it seems things are looking up.

Seems like the real policy we are seeing here is the admin's idea that the manned space program must be dependent on other nations. The key here folks is El Presidende is hell bent on being dependent on Russians. You can believe they'll be part of any compromise that is made.

Just say 'NO' congress. All this so called Orion capsule that Obama proposes does is remedy the concerns of what Mr. Cowing calls the Lunatic Fringe. Which is their fear that our astronauts would be stranded on the ISS by the Russians if things get tense between the two countries.

We'll still have to rely on the Soyuz for launch to the station and for all nominal re-entries. So we go from a capsule designed for LEO, and 6 month lunar missions to one that does X-38's lifeboat mission. Congress, just say NO!

Congress's concerns that there is no defined mission, other than a vague mission to Mars someday, still remains. The course change he wants for Nasa is still without a well defined goal. There is no 'Vision' such as the vision defined in VSE. So there is no reason for congress to vote to cancel Constellation. Obama is still on his crusade to end everything Bush started. Why else would he say he's going to choose a heavy lift vehicle in 2015 (like he'll still be in office) without a space policy to define its requirements? This is probably why Chris Kraft says we need an HLV like we need a hole in the head.

If you're just going to use Orion as a lifeboat and build a shuttle derived HLV in the future, why not just extend shuttle flights out until an HLV is ready?

What? All of Constellation ($9 bill + $2.5 bill in termination fees = $11.5 bill) is reduced to a lifeboat hanging off the ISS? Why not use a Soyuz? More reliable and incredibly less expensive. This makes NO sense.

This administration's space policy is being revealed for what it REALLY is: kill Bush's program (Constellation) and then kill what remains of the manned space program.

BUFFOONERY !!! This president has proven himself to be an absolute Luddite.

> That's useful, because it does give a way to use Orion technology without having to human-rate EELVs immediately.

Lets not go overboard here. The rockets can be, will be, and are in fact ready before any vehicle. Orion backup is a political concession plain and simple, need not load on any false feel-good justification.

Orion as a CRV is an absolutely pointless waste of money.

It's truly an idiotic idea and a very expensive bone toss to placate Congress.

I can't wait to hear the cost estimates on this little gift to Lockheed Martin.

I'm pretty sure that this is just political and has no programatic motive whatesoever.

Political Advantage 1: Obama can now, with a straight face, claim that NASA is still developing a crewed spacecraft, even though this one has little or no purpose.

Political Advantage 2: A Fox News commentator recently suggested that US astronauts on the ISS would effectively be 'hostages' of the Russian government after the retirement of the Shuttle. The pseudo-Orion CRV means that they can get home, even if the "godless Communists" are more treacherous than usual.

On the bright side, it is a fairly easy step now for NASA to say: "Hey, we're building this thing anyway. Let's go all the way with an LAS and crewed launch site and use it as a crew transfer vehicle for the ISS too." I don't think that this will be part of the initial compromise, but I imagine it would be a very popular idea and the politicians will jump on it as a way to avoid further confrontation.

It isn't exactly commercial Orion on an EELV-heavy, but it's a start, I suppose.

"This looks like a way for the "Orion Escape Capsule" to get around a human rating for the Atlas V."

I think you're correct, much less double redundant human rating too, and let me guess - it'll get better cuz Stephen Colbert still has hope for his SpaceChimps and/or the GM Robots to perform the Orion's escape back to earth HSF requirements compliance test?)

DC still doesn't get it.

Note to Merchant 7 and/or NukesonRocket Dem fans:

"Refusing to face reality may be the biggest and most ruinous problem faced by businesses. Tedlow defines 'denial' as the unconscious belief that a certain fact is too terrible to face and therefore cannot be true. Too often it turns challenges into crises (eg. Toyota and its recent problems). Verbalization of denial include "this time it's different,' ignoring those with warnings, and stereotyped, demeaning views of competitors; the worst symptom is 'shooting the messenger...Professor Tedlow's Denial is an excellent summary and set of examples of a major business problem. Now all we need is similar recognition that denial is at least as pervasive in government and non-profits. Tedlow cites NASA's Challenger disaster.......

http://www.basilandspice.com/financial-well-being/5review-tedlows-denial-portfolio2010.html

so how 'bout them "safe" nukes on rockets to ISS & Mars? how does a nukeonrocket accident compare to a coal mining accident or cow farts?

huh Chang-Diaz, Mr. Holdren, Al Gore, and Dr. Hansen?

The destination for Orion is ... Earth ?

The destination for Orion is ... Earth ?

Warp, unless you're being sarcastic, I envy your dogged optimism.

I think you're right for the full Orion, and maybe Orion-Lite, but this is Orion super-Lite. The numbers said Orion-Lite could be ready in 3 years - comparable to LAS development times, and possibly shorter than semi-sequential abort system +LAS development for Delta and Atlas LVs. This version of Orion would have even less systems - life-support and battery can be on the order of hours, solar panel power production can be lower. No waste processing, no multiple human interfaces for rendezvous. Indeed, and I don't know if this is an option, it could use HTV/Dragon/etc Canadarm-2 assisted docking, removing a lot of fine control requirements. So it should be quite a bit less than 3 years, and we usually hear about 3 or more years to get EELV ready (and now ULA is saying it wants more money). Now NASA can just buy the Orion launch commercially from ULA without further LV development. Then CCDEV is more even, for getting crew. With potential incremental improvements, you've then got a Plan C for future development (Plan B is Soyuz). Though I think the incremental improvements should be using Orion as a return from BEO S/C, or rendezvous with BEO, and not as an access to LEO S/C, as a component of a reusable in-space stack.

I'm no sure if using Orion is the best thing, but this could be the best use of Orion, in the present situation. If Orion is kept constrained though - they'll need to ensure this puppy is kept on a small budget envelope, using only minimal development beyond present work, so all the other flowers can bloom in R&D. The good thing is that it can be allowed to fail, because Soyuz is always a backup if the Orion development can't come in under a given price bar, and/or on time.

It takes a little stress off CCDEV in terms of on-orbit stays, but still lets Boeing, LM, Orbital, and SpaceX continue their development if they want to take the CRV role, and compete as a component for the BEO role.

It's hard to stay in this line of work unless you're got an unreasonable, albeit technically moderated, amount of optimism, and desire to make lemons out of lemonade, though!

But it is exciting for those of us working on advanced systems concepts, as it creates opportunity for real BEO and solar system surface access. Most of the interesting surface area of the solar system is not contained on the Moon, or Mars.

I can see one possibility as to why the White House back-pedaled on Orion:

Everybody from the janitor to Neil Armstrong is insisting that NASA should be designing and building new spacecraft. Maybe Orion-lite is being allowed as a test program that will undergo super-scrutiny by Congress, OMB, OIG, even the tooth ferry.

It's a program that's large enough to make for meaningful evaluation, but small enough that it's not going to destroy NASA if it fails. How well NASA performs on Orion-lite is going to give one side or the other all of the ammunition it needs to successfully argue that NASA should or should not be building new spacecraft (at this time).

Those of you who are assigned to the program, beware: all eyes may well be upon you.

I doubt this is the sole rationale for Orion-lite (which is probably mostly a jobs creation exercise), but it may be one factor.

Ok...Let me get this straight...We are going to keep getting rides up and back at a cost of over $50,000,000 for each seat...From the Russians...Then we are going to launch an unmanned capsule that can return people from space...It just boggles the mind...Orion is not back...its punk brother with a low IQ and bad teeth is here...LOL...I guess I am just misinformed or is this...B.S.????....Oh I See.....It's Rocket science!!!!!-"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!!!"

Astropat, you should read a few posts back -- a good explanation of things that can be simplified. It's not BS, it's an engineering option. We now have a way of providing an escape pod, an upgrade/tech development path, and political cover for one low price. It sounds like pure pork when I say it that way, but Warp explained how it offloads worries from other difficult program elements in the short term. I assure you, our government has spent more money for less justification, many times.

Oh, and we're gonna start charging you for each ellipsis. The period key is meant to be used once per sentence.

I am reminded of something my father said about a really dumb pipe-dream I had as a teenager. "You have to be careful with hope son, all it's good for is selling condoms and lottery tickets."

BTW, the change on the on-orbit stay requirements could be a major improvement. One valid issue has been that what happens if there's a Soyuz issue? There is certainly a benefit from having an independent system in place. However, putting long on-orbit times into SpaceX, Orbital, LM, Boeing, etc, systems adds a long pole to the dev tent. With an independent emergency crew return, you can afford to send up Dragon, etc, when you want, and on whatever schedule you want. It can return immediately (with the same crew, or old crew), and not need to remain on-orbit. With Soyuz, right now, things are constrained so that one Soyuz flies per crew rotation, and stays there, the older Soyuz returning. Indeed, this was exactly why a CRV was originally planned! With a true CRV, you optimize on on-orbit life and safe EDL, and do not worry about crew survival on launch, etc. Soyuz and Shenzhou both have design complexity coming from being required to make the two-way journey with humans on-board. Indeed, on another past front, the issue of how, or if, to shroud a lifting-body, carrying humans, on launch was a significant issue. No shroud would cause aerodynamic difficulties, but a shroud produced complexity and nasty risk in LAS. But a CRV could go up on Shuttles, in the old design, or on something like an EELV. In the same way, this approach allows simplification and optimization of Orion (superLite) to happen that would not have been possible if the S/C launched with a crew.

Agreed, in principle, building from a clean design would be better, but politics means as much, if not more, than $ and engineering. Sustainability, in everything, will mean everything in our space-based future.

IMHO, this is almost the dummest thing i've heard.

how can private enterprise compete with the guys who run the game ?

sorry, but what's the point to designing a one-time use capsule, yes i know what an assured return vehicle is.

maybe one point is that the establishment of a lunar base is too expensive for one nation to go it alone, maybe it should be an international moonbase ? maybe there should be an american, a russian, a chinese, an indian, a european (pick one !#, and a japanese astronaut together returning to the moon.

the dummest thing i've heard is a mission to Phobos; that's the moon orbiting mars, right ? why the heck would we go all the way there, instead of completing the trip to mars ?? talk about Apollo 10 (do everything except actually land on the moon, right?)

how did NASA complete it's 1st mission ("to land a man on the moon, safely, and return him, before this decade is out") ? ... by small incremental steps. setting up a moonbase is the same thing. 1st define the goal (remember SMART), 2nd plan the execution, then 3rd execute the plan, and 4th adjust enroute to reach the goal.

i initially took the plan as being that NASA was transitioning to become the FAA of space (have since understood that the FAA is the FAA of space ... how many rocket scientists are there in the FAA ? too many ??) where would we be today with commerical aviation if all the planes were built by the Dept of the Army/Navy ? or worse by the FAA ?? this would mean that there were scary times ahead for NASA scientists; either they'd have to change jobs or transition to a new type of job; but there is a future, it's "just" looking different to the past.