Huntsville Constellation Layoff Update

Regardless of if you're in favor or against the proposed plan, this has been poorly rolled out and executed. Centers are left in the dark, inadequate direction from HQ, etc. I don't think think HQ seriously considers how much they stand to loose if they don't try to make this transition smoother. Morale is dropping in the civil workforce (a few I know are already job hunting or thinking of earlier retirement), and the contractor workforce isn't just a lightswitch you turn off and back on...

And to think, all of this could have been avoided if people had not voted for Obama.

Editor's note: Um - newsflash - this would have CERTAINLY happened under McCain ... just go look back at what he did when ISS was far less over budget in the 90s ...

Well Keith, we will never know, now will we? In any event, the lesson is to reseach candidates BEFORE voting, all candidates, in primaries and general elections. And by the way, what makes you think I voted or supported McCain? Have we had that discussion?

Editor's note: Oh yes, we know. McCain really does not like NASA. All you have to do is a little research. Look at what he did during ISS development and you'll get an idea what he'd be up to today if he was on the pertinent committees - or President.

Americans had a choice between Obama or putting Sarah Palin (a woman who makes George Bush look like a genius) a heartbeat away from controlling nuclear weapons. Since most Americans would like to avoid having nuclear weapons in the control of fundamentalist religious fanatics, they made the most logical choice.

The Ares I/V was by far the most expensive architecture possible for Griffin to have chosen. Just check NASA's May 20, 2010 Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle Study. Of course, President Obama really wasn't interested in the substantially cheaper alternatives to return to the Moon when he said on April 15:

"Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before.”

Words that will live in infamy!

Marcel F. Williams

Marcel - next to "out of context" in the next edition of the M-W dictionary, there will be a link to your comment.

Above quote was in the context of whether to push from moon 2.0 or for Mars 1.0 as the next goal.

Words that will save our space program.

Gary to blame Obama for the state NASA is in is about as logical as blaming Dubya for the ISS program status when he took office. If you look to President Bush's VSE you'll see something that is more like what NASA doing now than what Doc Horowitz and Griffin cooked up with their ESAS.

The VSE was to go to the Moon as a stepping stone to destinations beyond. Griffin etal created a vision of only the moon. Under the new plan, the moon, asteroids, Martian moons, and Mars are all on the table. Griffin killed human exploration to any place but the moon. Heck, he even wanted to kill ISS, as he called it "a big mistake". Under Griffin (who would have remained in charge under McCain most likely) ISS would be in the ocean in 2016, Shuttle would be dead in 2010 and we would all be waiting until at least 2017 to see Ares-I make it's first kill. Griffin's plan was to kill human spaceflight by taking out all human spaceflight programs but his own. He tried to kill human spaceflight, Bolden and Obama stopped him.

Human spaceflight is INCREASING, yes INCREASING under the Bolden/Obama plan. New technologies, new mission capabilities, new destinations, new opportunities. That sounds pretty good to me.

These are Ares-I layoffs, Ares-I is not part of the plan because it is a death trap that is only good for shaking crews into unconsciousness before it kills them. If Griffin, and ATK executive sorry ESMD top dog Horowitz had conceived of a better rocket and put someone other than that ass Steve Cooke in charge, all of the fine people of Huntsville would be employed for years to come. But they didn't. They designed a horrible rocket that duplicated existing capability, albeit poorly, and cost a bunch of people their jobs.

Obama and Bolden didn't make Ares-I suck, Griffin, Horowitz and Cooke did. Blame them, it is their baby. Their incompetence cost those people their jobs, not Obama and Bolden.

"President Obama really wasn't interested in the substantially cheaper alternatives to return to the Moon when he said on April 15:"

this is what I get a real hoot at.

How many people who are for "returning to the Moon" because it protects their job...would be interested in supporting the program if it did not protect their job...in other words it went to "cheaper alternatives" which employ less people?

Robert G. Oler

I'll toss my two cents in.

Obama was given a HSF program is bad shape. Shuttle was scheduled to end. The POR was going to be very expensive. Since VSE I was a fan of using the EELV's for exploration. It was a matter of safety and economics. Every flight of an EELV for commercial customers was a free test flight. Spending 10's of Billions of dollars on vehicles that will fly 2 times a year is insane. As for safety and human rating. There is a big difference in calculated reliability and demonstrated reliability. I don't think there has been a single EELV failure. The only thing close was a Delta IV that didn't reach it's intended orbit.

So what was Obama to do? I think he made the right decision but how they executed this decision to date has been terrible. Right now the work force is in mass confusion. The was no planning for a transition to this new model which leads many to think Obama wants to end human spaceflight. What needs to be done ASAP is to assign goals to the different centers on what they need to start work on.

The plan I am giving is just an example of what would help not an actual recommendation.

Give JSC the responsibility for turning Orion into a BEO craft that will launch without people. See if it can be made to remain in space so use Earth Aerocapture. Demonstration flights in 2 years.

Give MSFC responsibility for in orbit refuling with demonstration flights to start in 2 years.

Give KSC the responsibility for closed loop life suporrt. Start two programs one for chemical and one for biological. Fly test modules to ISS in 2 years.

Give GRC the responsibility to oversee the commercial crew development standards.

These are just examples. If real programs with real goals were assigned today I think you would see 90% of the opposition fade away. I for one would love to know what I will be working on next year so I can start to get smart on it today. And the money is there and it has to be spent. I haven't seen where it's going. The idea of commercial space is to lower the budget for launching so we can spend more money designing and building stuff to launch. So let's get moving.

Permit me to reiterate, "the lesson is to reseach candidates BEFORE voting, all candidates, in primaries and general elections". Emphasis on "primaries". As in independent, former Democrat, I am not advocating what McCain would or would not have done. I am not defending Bush nor am I doing everyones favorite activity of blaming Bush. The political reality today is that Obama is in charge.

Agree totally with the comment about it being handled poorly. I am a contractor at MSFC. We all have pretty much accepted the fact we are going to lose our jobs, but our civil service counterparts have suddenly begun to come unraveled. The rumor mongering is truly out of control, and I've been in this industry for over 20 years. I've never seen such a panic-stricken group of folks at all levels of the organization.

I can accept a layoff because it's just how the game is played. But if Bolden has something personal against us, then we'll just have to settle it in the Octagon.

It bugs me that guys like you have it exactly backwards - we don't like Shuttle because it's our job. Actually, our job is Shuttle because we like it. We had plenty of other opportunities over the years and opted to stick it out knowing that the end was coming. We know HSF is in this sad state because of decades of NASA mismanagement that botched every Shuttle successor including Cx. We don't like either alternative and will be voting with our feet after wheelstop on the last flight.

It's not a binary choice between Obamaspace and Cx. You don't have to be for one and against the other. The high probability outcome is that both will fail.

"The high probability outcome is that both will fail"....Obamaspace is subject to the same political realities as Cx, Apollo or anything else. I have always wondered why some folks believe Obamaspace will somehow be funded appropriately by Congress and will be more "sustainable" than Cx. Or that the next administration will not do the same thing that Obama has done and reverse engines. Please don't give up on NASA at wheelstop. Keep up the good work.

A permanent base on the Moon is the next logical step for NASA. A Moon base would give us access to the abundant oxygen and possible hydrogen resources that could dramatically reduce the cost of space travel within cislunar space.

This could make transferring communications satellites and future space solar power satellites from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit a lot cheaper (with reusable vehicles) and could also make space tourism flights to the surface of the Moon a lot cheaper. That's because its a lot cheaper to supply space depots with oxygen and hydrogen from the Moon, using reusable space craft launched from a low gravity well, than using expendable space craft from Earth launched from a titanic gravity well.

If we want to help grow the American economy and give our emerging private manned spaceflight companies a competitive advantage over foreign companies in the future, we need to invest in a permanently manned facility on the Moon.

Or we could spend hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars to send astronauts on a single flight to an asteroid (the Obama plan) so that they can get their brains fried by galactic radiation while planting a flag. The ultimate waste in tax payer dollars:-(

Marcel F. Williams

Marcel - Given the harshness of the lunar environment, the break-even point where using lunar resources makes sense is so far beyond what CxP can deliver under any realistic budget that it doesn't make sense as a "stepping stone" to Mars.

Having said that CxP's biggest offense was not the poor strategic approach to solar system exploration, but the decision to go with a completely new launch system baaed on Horowitz's former employer's technology - for no good reason. The program ate up an enourmous budget and produced nothing of value.

The peoepl opposing CxP, including Obama and Bolden, are doing so in the interest of making a very large step forward with a manned space program, and the above is their rationale.

"A permanent base on the Moon is the next logical step for NASA."

lol

The MSFC Center Director all-hands mtg on Friday alluded to even cuts in the NASA badged work force. He didn't directly state that but put up charts showing that they were going to work w/ local leaders to assist employees with out placement, career transition, resume writing, interview workshops, job fairs, etc. He indicated that he assumed that contractors would have similar programs via their company. Thus it could be interpreted that there is a near term potential for a NASA RIF as well.

For those of you who came to the space program in pursuit of your passion please allow me to give you a short message based on my 30+ years of work in the space program. This post is not about me. I am taking my time to write this because I feel a need to paint a more positive picture here. The posts on all the blogs are going off the rail and it is really not called for. Hear me out please.

Since I was seven years old I wanted to work for NASA. I went to college, got an engineering degree and took a job at KSC several levels below average due to my mediocre grades and lack of experience. Within seven years I was managing a senior level engineering group. (My passion made up for my book knowledge.) Challenger came and a lot of people were laid off. I survived the layoff as I volunteered to take a transfer to Cape side to do facility construction management. We built a really cool launch control center and granted it wasn't rocket science but I enjoyed it just the same. A few years later I moved to KSC HQ building to work on ISS and worked there until there was yet another layoff due to the cancellation of ISS. (WDC loves to cancel programs midstream due to politics so this is nothing new with Cx.) I took a transfer to MSFC and continued to pursue my dream working on whatever people wanted me to do including shuttle ops and training. I remained flexible and never told anyone "that is not what I do." I SURVIVED FIVE PRESIDENTS AND NUMEROUS NASA ADMINISTRATORS. I had to change badges but I never let anyone take me off my dream not even the President of the United States. I've never missed a day of work due to a layoff or being fired and I would not be writing this if I didn't think you could do the same if this is your passion. OK you might have to take a few months off to let this mess clear up but there is no reason in the world that you can not find a job somewhere in the space industry if you are willing to move and be flexible.

NASA will be hiring at some point and if you think they won't I will take any amount of bets on that one. No matter how many people on these blogs stay up at night bashing NASA and Cx - NASA is not going away although I agree it may slow down for a period just as it has several times in my career.

NASA is part of America in a way that can't be destroyed and to think otherwise only shows your personal hatred toward NASA or jealousy of those who enjoy working at NASA.

Let the Cx haters beat you down and let the media tell you that you can't work in space program if you like but I am here to tell you its all BS if you have a dream and a desire to work here.

If your dream is to make a lot of money or never make a change in your career the space program is not for you and you should use this layoff as an opportunity to find your passion. You don't get rich working in and around the space program unless you become the founder, CEO or VP at one of the contractors.

If you came here merely for job security you will likely be disappointed as there is no such thing as job security at one job any more no matter what industry sector you select. You create your own job security by finding your passion. Besides - true security in the material world is mirage and you for sure don't find it by selling out an entire career to it.

So it is pretty simple to me. If you love working in the space program for the most part and you are worried about your job - stop worrying and start making a plan. Don't tell me "I can't find a job and there are no jobs out there." If you keep saying that to yourself I can promise you that you will go unemployed and become helpless. If on the other hand you have had enough of this rocket racket which I can appreciate given all the mess lately and don't find it to be your passion or you are doing it just for the money I suggest you have a few beers tonight and try to figure out what you want to be when you grow up and go do that. There is nothing wrong with changing your career midstream and those around you will support you if you are excited about it.

We are at a low point at NASA but I know this will all blow over given enough time and there will be better days ahead for NASA and its contractors. I've seen it too many times to think otherwise.

SpaceX and others will hire a few people and there will be jobs for anyone who truly has a passion to work in the space program. Trust me when I tell you there will be plenty of people hired in FY2011.

I can hear you saying "but I have a mortgage and a family to feed." So did I and I survived pretty well. I grew up in poor family and never had much of a savings when I was younger so there is no silver spoon here. I had to sell the nice house one time and drive an older pickup truck but stuff is just stuff after six months and your spouse and kids will get over it. They would much rather have a happy mom or dad than the big house and new car.

So go ahead blog me back and tell me I am naive, wrong about the job predictions and pollyanna but before you do that - take a closer look at yourself and try to figure out why you are so negative. I've lived it and know the truth and I've never let anyone take me off my game so my suggestion to people who enjoy working in the space program is to be flexible, keep a positive attitude and don't listen to most of the Cx haters. Most of them are jealous or think they have all the answers. I clearly don't know what the next or best rocket is and as you can tell it doesn't really matter as they change it every few years so go with the flow and do your best to find your passion. Each of us have one but it is your job to find it.

One final note: My good friend got laid off after Apollo and went out and started his own company which he sold for a couple hundred million. He had a dream and didn't listen to the the naysayers.

I am pretty sure what he was saying (to contractors) is that the EAP and Career Center are there for everyone, in addition to whatever resources the various contractors will have.

He wasn't real clear just before that. It was like: There is a replan, here are the priorities, and BTW, the EAP is for you too...etc" I think he was uncomfortable (justifiably) bearing bad news and went a bit quick.

Managers were getting the word on contractor reductions early Thursday and given percentages to work on, but it didn't affect civil servants.

A permanent base on the Moon is the next logical step for NASA.

It was 40 years ago, but not any more. Sorry, but you're still looking at the space program through Cold War/2001: A Space Odyssey/Colliers glasses. That vision was transitory and was ultimately unsustainable.

Based on the rate at which they've wasted money, between 12 and 15 thousand people will lose their jobs as Constellation comes to an end.

By comparison, Space-X has had about 1000 people working for the same period of time which gives everyone an idea of the relative efforts and money spent.

Space-X has something to show for their efforts.

The real question is how could this kind of money have been spent for this length of time and produced so little.

It requires an investigation of how NASA management has gone wrong; how can they be so ineffective and inefficient and waste that kind of money with nothing to show for it? We saw a hint of it with managers being appointed who had absolutely none of the requisite knowledge to do the jobs they were appointed to. If you take a look at the Columbia situation, you will see a lot of similarities.

If the root situation is not fixed then the problems will continue.

A permanent base on the moon, however logical a step it may be in the evolution of HSF, is not now nor ever has been supported by the American people, or a majority of members of Congress willing to fund it at a level needed for it to advance. The collapse of Cx was inevitable. Do some people actually want that program to limp along every year with insufficient funding to ever accomplish its mission? Would you rather cling to a program knowing it cannot achieve its goals, or cut your losses and strike out for something new? Yes there will be layoffs and yes the roll out was badly botched. But the facts cannot be denied. It is time for NASA to morph back into a technology and research organization like NACA. There is simply no political will to do anything else.
Period.
Paragraph.

I don’t know that a permanent base on the moon is or isn’t the next step but it seems to me that getting to know our cosmic neighborhood is a logical step and not having to deal with a steep gravity well or a potential dollar trap like a moon base has something to say for it. I don’t know if 1/6 g is enough to keep a person healthy over time. Might be good to know something more than we do about how different gravity conditions effect human and micro organisms. I don’t know how to shield effectively against proton or heavy ion cosmic radiation, but I can see there are some interesting concepts on how to do that and it would be good to know something about that part of our cosmic neighborhood. I don’t know how to maintain a reliable closed loop life support system for a year of so. Might be a good idea to find out how we do that. I don’t know how to build a 1kw/1kg power system for a plasma propulsion system to take us to Mars. Might be a good idea to find that out to. I don’t know how to get to LEO cheaply and reliably. Might be a good idea to figure that out. We might all get some humility about what we think we know and some excitement about what we think we can find out. It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.

I'm glad to see the discussion turning to core matters.

The problem with the moon is that the environment is a lot harsher than almost anywhere else in the solar system - a combination of hard vacuum, extreme thermal cycles, a resultant nano-dust that's murder on mechanics, radiation, and more. Trying to survive on the moon first bogs us down on solving problems that are irrelevant to Mars, and does not teach us to survive on Mars since the moon does not have water and minerals like Mars does.

For example, the polar water is sitting in cryogenic traps. Building equipment that can operate in these conditions is not an issue for Mars, where water can be scooped up under normal-though-cold temperatures, in partial pressure (a very big plus for lubricants and electronics) and where sunlight is available.

The problems we need to solve to get to Mars are long-duration flight outside of LEO, and Mars EDL - both of which are not present in any Lunar scenario.

"Something new"? What makes you think the American people or Congress for that matter are willing to fund your "something new"? Particularly when no one knows what "something new" is or isn't.

Frank,

Nice to see that you've appointed yourself Pope of Space Public Opinion. Does Buzz know that you've usurped his prerogative?

Your claim:

A permanent base on the moon.... is not now nor ever has been supported by the American people, or a majority of members of Congress willing to fund it at a level needed for it to advance.

This may or may not be true. My response is that it is irrelevant. The simple fact is that the vast bulk of the American public is indifferent to what we do in space. They aren't against it -- but they aren't terribly enthused about it either. And despite your belief, this situation has been true since the very beginnings of the space program. We didn't go to the Moon with Apollo because public opinion demanded it. We didn't build Shuttle or ISS because of focus group polls either. The goals are set by the national leadership and then funded (or not) by Congress. The public puts up with it because it is such a small fraction of the total amount of federal spending.

NASA has spent the past 40 years trying to find some magic goal or direction that would "excite the public." They suppose that if such were developed, money would be showered upon them and all their wishes would be fulfilled. This fantasy world they have constructed (and to which you apparently subscribe) is what's really keeping us back in space. The "new direction" for NASA advocated by the administration is just the latest in a long line of wishful thinking -- words instead of deeds and Powerpoint slides instead of missions.

The fact that NASA (and you too, apparently) never understood WHY the Moon was a critical next step has led not a "new way" of doing space business, but rather, continuation ad infinitum of the Apollo paradigm -- one-off, throw-away, launch-everything-from-Earth missions to nowhere and flags-and-footprints forever. No reason to return to a place because "we've been there." Brilliant. That mode of operation leaves us no chance to develop local resources or leave any legacy infrastructure.

But then, that seems to be the real objective anyway.

I think you, Paul and Frank are both wrong.

I think the American people could be counted on to support, in very limited fashion, exploration, or to support the initiation of development of the beginnings of a new infrastructure for transportation or for the establishment of new 'colonies'.

But they'd have to be shown that it can be done, it can be done at reasonable, affordable, reasonably well understood expense; it can be done in accordance with a realistic timetable. And that it was being done for a reason. And it would have to be done so that there would be hope for a future time during which anyone who wants to go, can go into space, and ultimately that there is a goal of a new industry: a system of products, profits and commerce.

Once you or anyone else can show that, the effort could be taken over by investors and would no longer be reliant on the taxpayer. The taxpayer would be paid back through profits and taxation.

The first failure of the space community is to convince anyone that there is a logical plan. I count NASA amongst the failed community; with their combined expertise and their funding and their sheer number of educated people, they should have been leading the development of this plan. They did not/have not done it. We've been waiting for the plan for fifty years.

As we saw in the case of Constellation, when left to their own devices, the bureaucracy became corrupt with a lack of meaningful direction; lack of leadership, a lack of competent capable or even experienced management; a lack of honesty and forthrightness; a lack of any kind of a logical plan; total failure to communicate what they were doing or why. They had never convinced you; they had not convinced the space community that they knew what they were doing; they certainly had not convinced the taxpayers who were going to have to pay the bills for the foreseeable future.

Your talk of setting up manufacturing facilities on the moon (or somewhere/anywhere in space) in order to produce what we need there instead of having to carry it out of the deep gravity well of earth, makes some sense, but any thought that setting up and establishing manufacturing facilities on the moon is simple, straightforward, could be done inexpensively, or with the launch capacity we have in place today, is naive.

I have followed what you've been saying for many years but mainly what I see is a lot of arm-waving with no substance.

For substance I want to see industry leaders, from mining, manufacturing, aerospace, transportation, tourism get behind the plan. You need a consortium of otherwise independent minded supporters who are convinced by argument that it makes sense for them. One lone lunar scientist does not cut it.

As a start, I'd like to see the trade studies that identify whether an initial establishment would be best on the moon or an asteroid or a free-flying station. If the study has been done, where is it?

And please do not start in with the argument that really what we want to do and what we are enabling is 'exploration', because on land the size of Africa, we've only visited a few small locales. That is an alternative argument but does not make for a business case. Sure, exploration can and will continue ad infinitem, but that is not a reason to go at the expense we are talking about.

From the outset of the Vision, the President said that NASA's budget could NOT be counted on to go up substantially and that we would have to figure out how to do it, step-by-step, using the resources of NASA's existing and stable budget, and it has been relatively stable for 3 decades. We really never needed to President to tell us this; the American people made that decision a long time ago.

I think Griffin, Horowitz, Hanley and the rest of the failed leadership, in naiveté and really just sheer stupidity, were under some kind of an impression that their Apollo redux would be so enamoring that the public could be counted on to support them and come up with extra dollars. They should have been smarter and should have known better.

Apollo, which after all had been successful and accomplished at a fast pace, was not supported; why did anyone think the same kind of effort was going to be supported 3 decades later, when the costs had quadrupled and the schedule was, realistically, going out two or three generations into the future.

The American people needed a reasonable plan, argument and public discussion; and it needed to make sense; the GAO called it 'a business case'.

The plan needs to be half marketing and half business management. This is how industries are made and how big business runs.

The clueless engineers and scientists never thought about what a plan might look like.
The failed leadership never even started on development of the argument.

And so far I have not seen anyone else do it either.

The fact that NASA (and you too, apparently) never understood WHY the Moon was a critical next step has led not a "new way" of doing space business, but rather, continuation ad infinitum of the Apollo paradigm -- one-off, throw-away, launch-everything-from-Earth missions to nowhere and flags-and-footprints forever.

The OASIS team certainly did understand the importance of reusable spacecraft. So did Steidle and he also understood the importance of ISRU. Many people unfortunately don't understand the importance of incrementalism. Gradatim ferociter. Both elements are crucial. Griffin understood the ferociter but not the gradatim. The current administration understands the gradatim, but perhaps not the ferociter. Unless you count trying to kill the Shuttle stack as such, as you perhaps should.

"Japanese Asteroid Probe Makes Historic Return"...well I guess we may not have to send a man to an asteroid, Japan's been there done that.

I think the American people could be counted on to support, in very limited fashion, exploration, or to support the initiation of development of the beginnings of a new infrastructure for transportation or for the establishment of new 'colonies'.
But they'd have to be shown that it can be done, it can be done at reasonable, affordable, reasonably well understood expense; it can be done in accordance with a realistic timetable. And that it was being done for a reason. And it would have to be done so that there would be hope for a future time during which anyone who wants to go, can go into space, and ultimately that there is a goal of a new industry: a system of products, profits and commerce.

Marburger laid out the most visionary speech of any government official ever on this subject in 2006

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19999

The administrator of record ignored this completely and this is what led to the growing divergence between the Griffin administration's Apollo on Steroids and what the Bush administration wanted to support. The template was there, Griffin just ignored it.

Although I may not agree with Miles on all the minuate of his post, I have to agree with the general thrust of his comments.

If CxP teaches us nothing else, it is that NASA has found the glass ceiling of public and political support, barring some unforseen event. It is time that NASA (and those of us in the community) came to understand this fact.

The problem with the moon is that the environment is a lot harsher than almost anywhere else in the solar system - a combination of hard vacuum, extreme thermal cycles, a resultant nano-dust that's murder on mechanics, radiation, and more. Trying to survive on the moon first bogs us down on solving problems that are irrelevant to Mars, and does not teach us to survive on Mars since the moon does not have water and minerals like Mars does.
For example, the polar water is sitting in cryogenic traps. Building equipment that can operate in these conditions is not an issue for Mars, where water can be scooped up under normal-though-cold temperatures, in partial pressure (a very big plus for lubricants and electronics) and where sunlight is available.
The problems we need to solve to get to Mars are long-duration flight outside of LEO, and Mars EDL - both of which are not present in any Lunar scenario.

None of these contentions are true. At this time it is far more difficult to operate 5,000 feet down in the Gulf of Mexico than it is on the Moon in the polar regions.

thermal cycles

These thermal cycles do not exist in the most important regions of the Moon, the polar areas. The temperatures vary no more than about 20-40 degrees C and are between -40-20C max.

cryogenic traps

While these exist, these are not by any means necessary for collecting vast quantities of ISRU water. Take a look at this image:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorbiter/frame/?4152

LO-IV-152-H3 is of the Peary region at the lunar north pole.

If you look at the floor of that crater as well as Byrd, and cross reference to Paul's maps of elevated water concentrations, you will find that there are plenty of small craters with water, and as Paul has noted on many occasions, the general regolith in that region has more than 10x the volitiales of the equatorial regions.

It is perfectly reasonable to have an outpost with vast quantities of solar panels on the Rim of Peary while harvesting water from the floor, while it is in the sunshine. This would not require cryogenics, just some good engineering of regolith moving equipment and standard fuel cells for power and heat generation.

nanodust

Do you realize that this dust, which is no more than unweathered fragments of larger rocks, is no different than down in a gold or uranium mine?

There are ways of dealing with this.

Mars

What the advocates of Mars first never consider or consider important is the fact that you are not going to do Mars in any manner more than flags and footprints without nuclear power. On the Moon I can get to a megawatt of power for no more than about $1 billion dollars and four delta IVH flights. This could be emplaced in less than six months. Can ANYONE talking about any serious work on Mars make the same claim? The answer is obvious, no.

With 1 megawatt of solar power located on the rim of Peary, I can build a sustainable and extendable system for a lunar development. We have multiple launch vehicles with launch windows every two weeks to the Moon. We can build Solar electric propulsion systems for heavy payloads transferred to ISS via the Falcon 9 and other vehicles.

The current limitation to Holman transfer orbits make this impossible for Mars. We will do Mars, but we will do it with lunar water and spacecraft built on the Moon, just like President Bush said six years ago.

A permanent base on the moon, however logical a step it may be in the evolution of HSF, is not now nor ever has been supported by the American people, or a majority of members of Congress willing to fund it at a level needed for it to advance. The collapse of Cx was inevitable.

Frank

I submit that you are making the mistake of linking NASA's major thrusts of the last 20 years (SEI, ESAS [not the VSE]) with a permanent base on the Moon. In both the SEI and ESAS era's, the launch vehicles were sized for Mars, not the Moon, and this is what killed both efforts. We DON'T NEED HEAVY LIFT, especially today, to get to the Moon.

Paul Spudis is right in that the American people have a certain level of financial tolerance to allow NASA to do whatever it wants to do and I 100% agree with him that the current NASA budget would allow us to go back to the Moon and develop a sustainable infrastructure that would take us to Mars far quicker than trying to build a heavy lifter to go directly there.

Ben, I'm not sure how you have come to the conclusion that NASA has found the glass ceiling of public or political support. First, the public has never been asked for support. In fact, it is probable that the vast majority of Americans are not even aware of these issues. In my opinion, if you asked the average American whether or not they know we are subserviant to the Russians to access the ISS you would get a resounding no. Second, this web site has numerous articles indicating political turmoil regarding the Obama decision. So I can't see that glass ceiling even close.

There is a good physical argument for going to an asteroid or Phobos/Deimos as a first BEO destination.

It's called gravity.

If you plot the potential BEO destinations versus the depth of the gravity well, it becomes pretty clear what a good ordering of destinations is.

You can prove out your BEO transfer technology much quicker by heading to a destination with a low gravity.

Once you can get between here and there in a reliable and sustainable manner; then you can add lander technology for deeper and deeper gravity wells.

Cart, horse, ordering. :P

re: permanent moon base is logical next step for NASA.

That was then, this is now. That was probably true in 1967, but after 1968, trust in government dropped dramatically and has barely recovered since then. NASA has failed to understand for decades that an elite astronaut corps selected by an opaque process is no way to garner public support. Don't get me wrong - an elite corps is needed for tasks like piloting the Shuttle or repairing Hubble. But the complete rejection of space tourism by NASA (at least officially) illustrates an attitude of entitlement and insularity. That needs to change, pronto. The focus needs to be on volume - how do we go from 500 humans in space to 5000, then 50000. That's how to generate public interest and support.

When the apparent purpose of ISS went from being a research station to what seemed like little more than a self-serving on-orbit construction and integration project, that also eroded the potential for NASA to claim they were working on behalf of all Americans. It seems like only in the last year has NASA begun to emphasize scientific research on ISS. Before then yes there was research, but it's hard for me to think of a project which spent so much for so long with so little to show for it. Perhaps now that there are multiple research nodes we will begin to see some results.

Getting back to the moon base idea, I have never seen anything during the steroids era indicating that NASA planned to open up the frontier for wider access by those not selected by NASA. I seem to recall that more commercialization was part of the VSE (Aldrich commission report).

NASA needs to stop fighting the tide of history and embrace it. There is far more 'work' for NASA HSF to do if they stick to their core mission of exploration than if they try to own 100% of the HSF vertical integration business. At some point, there may be a NASA moon base, but only when there is a much larger space business.

Again, glad to see a technical discussion here.

Dennis - Thermal cycles at the poles are still there. Lacking atmosphere, you're either in sunlight or not.

Averaging over an entire crate can get you a nice steady value (only at the poles) but any single vehicle or piece of equipment is either cooking or freezing. The sun is at an angle, but so are the side panels of said equipment. There is no atmospheric attenuation, it's still full on.

Dust - I disagree. Again, lacking airflow, there's hardly any erosion. The dominant mechanism is particles fracturing due to (yes, again) thermal cycling, and so there's no rounding off the edges of the dust, and hence the very abrasive nature of the dust.

Water distribution - I am not sure about this at all.
First, "more than 10x the volitiales of the equatorial regions" is still negligible.
Second, looking at the data of the recent water finding (rather than at the headlines) I was not convinced I could draw the same conclusions at all.

And still - even if you could scrape up a bit of water - if we're headed for Mars, what exactly did we achieve? there's plenty of water there. Fuel? The delta-V and complexity to go into the moon, then out of the moon, they are not worth the hassle.

And still - even if you could scrape up a bit of water - if we're headed for Mars, what exactly did we achieve? there's plenty of water there. Fuel? The delta-V and complexity to go into the moon, then out of the moon, they are not worth the hassle.

And yet you failed to address the extremely difficult tasks associated with going to Mars. Without nuclear power you are not going to get any significant ISRU so it does not matter what else you talk about, it is not going to happen.

Gordon Woocock had a great statement about the Moon vs Mars. Mars is easy relative to going to the Moon, just add 10x the money. Both SEI and ESAS became shipwrecked by developing a Mars architecture with a Moon budget.

You can argue till Jesus comes and you are not going to change the budgetary realities involved.

It's simple enough. All that sound and fury? It's just sound and fury. There is no solid commitment for the extra funding nor are there attempts to engage the public. Even those most furiously shouting 'save Ares-I' in Congress are not proposing a single extra dime.

NASA is one of those odd things. It has a great majority of people thinking it does worthwhile work. However, most of these people would agree that other people need to pay for it.