Congresswoman Giffords doesn’t want to put all her launch eggs in a “single” basket:
The chair of that committee’s space subcommittee, meanwhile, makes it clear she does not approve of elements of that new plan, particularly its scrapping of Constellation in favor or developing commercial systems to reach low Earth orbit. “I don’t like putting all our pace eggs into a commercial basket,” Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) told the Sierra Vista Herald. She said it’s “not a good idea” to rely on the private sector, telling the newspaper that she’s worried “the country’s national security could be harmed if private companies are given the opportunity to send missions into space”, without elaborating.
So, putting our launch eggs into a “commercial” basket, that has multiple launch providers — bad. Putting them into a NASA basket with a single monstrously expensive rocket that is years from development — good. Gotcha.
And NASA rockets — good for “national security.” Commercial rockets — bad for “national security.”
I can see why she didn’t attempt to elaborate.
These are the morons in charge of our space policy.
I challenge anyone to tell me what putting people in space has to do with national security.
I do think there is more availability risk in using a market available crewed launch system (there are none at the moment, although SpaceX is pretty close) than designing your own government sponsored launch system. But it is worthwhile to expand the commercial launch market to crewed launches. In the long run, for development to be possible, space must be commercial.
In order for commercial manned space to happen, government must not create onerous safety requirements. To decrease availability risk and increase competition multiple providers should be funded (IMO three providers is a reasonable number).
Regarding Constellation, VSE was a nice concept, but ESAS was just plain horrible execution.
Oh no, “NASA plans more outreach to Muslim countries” Just what we need, even more international cooperation in our space activities :-\
So, are they going to force commercial launch providers to cooperate with international partners? And is it a good idea to provide rocket technology to a society which actively seeks our destruction? I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.
I do think there is more availability risk in using a market available crewed launch system (there are none at the moment, although SpaceX is pretty close) than designing your own government sponsored launch system.
If NASA needs assured access to space it can obtain it in the same way as the DoD: through a launch capability contract. For better results and a greater stimulus to commercial development of space it could award multiple such contracts competitively. You could award contracts both for launch vehicles and crew vehicles. You could award extra points for launch vehicles capable of launching two or even three crew vehicles and for crew vehicles capable being launches on two or even three launch vehicles. If necessary you could insist on performance bonds.
These are the morons in charge of our space policy.
If only, Rand. It’s much worse than that. These are the morons in change of our entire federal government.
national security could be harmed if private companies are given the opportunity to send missions into space
??? This doesn’t make any sense, no matter how many times I read this. And she was a Fulbright Scholar and Cornell grad? Intellectual gymnastics.
Tucson deserves a more intelligible Congresswoman.
The University of Arizona’s SEDS chapter should pay her office a visit.
Since Obama’s budget is a boon to the interplanetary robotics that UA’s LPL specializes in, I’m confused why she’s fighting it.
This is business as usual, and explains why the Dems “bought” the car companies with Porkulus bucks. They wanted a SINGLE government car company and I have the perfect name. It’s quite appropriate too, given the leanings of the current administrations leanings. They can call it the People’s Car. Now doesn’t that have a nice, friendly ring to it.
Comments such as these from Giffords make me wonder if we actually lost the cold war.
Kurt9–yes, we did. The sympathizers and fellow-travellers in this country are now in charge of our government. 🙁
I challenge anyone to tell me what putting people in space has to do with national security.
If you can divert an asteroid, can you not redirect it?
Despite the movies that may have depicted it, having humans in space has nothing to do with deflecting asteroids. They are simply additional payload that could be better spent on more megatons. They’re even worse since they have to be shielded from the blast and brought home, theoretically. If faced with a real asteroid threat, we would immediately move to see if the asteroid was going to cross its line of nodes before it hit us. If so, we would direct as many megatons as we could to that point. If not, we’d try to hit it as far away as we could. In neither case would we send people to do an explosive’s work.
Nah Der Schtumpy. People’s -whatever- is outdated. It sounds too communist. Might have worked until the 1950s but no more. Call it the Freedom Car (oops, that one has been used already). Or the America Car.
Despite the movies that may have depicted it, having humans in space has nothing to do with deflecting
Despite the movies, deflecting an asteroid is a bit more complicating than just launching a bunch of nukes, Kirk. I suggest you do a bit of research before insulting people who know more than you about the subject.
The topic was the national security value of humans in space, which was diverted to a discussion of nuking asteroids. I would greatly prefer to talk about the original subject, which perhaps you, Mr. Wright, could shed some more light on for me–what is the national security value of putting humans in space? If you know more than me about the subject, please enlighten me.
> “the country’s national security could be harmed if private companies are given the opportunity to send missions into space”
This struck me as one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard, but to be fair, it turns out it’s actually a journalist’s summary, and not necessarily what she said verbatim:
http://www.svherald.com/content/news/2010/02/16/giffords-opposes-obama-s-space-plan
Godzilla,
how about the “AmeriCar”, but the picture is still applicable.
Fascists in charge of industry, with not a clue how business or markets work. All they need now is a group on which to blame the worlds problems, like rich people, or Christians, or Conservatives, or rich Christian Conservatives.
Wait a minute…
what is the national security value of putting humans in space?
The same value as putting humans on land, at sea, or in the air. The claims of the “robots only” have been disproved time and again. Diverting asteroids is a much more complex subject than you realize, and will quite likely require some hands-on inspection.
I suggested that you do some research — I did not promise to do your homework for you.
That’s funny–I’ve worked for some time with military space planners and I’ve never once heard them mention the value of humans in space. Perhaps you could offer more evidence for your assertion that humans in space are just as valuable as they are on the ground. The only thing I know is that they are orders-of-magnitude more expensive.
“Hands-on” inspection of an asteroid? You mean something that the human eye alone could do? You mean, something that the multispectral imager of the reconnaissance probe(s) couldn’t relay back to Earth for a multitude of sharp minds to examine? And this has been proved time and time again? Please, share examples.
Kirk, not to be contradictory, but I know many of those same military planners (during the past forty years) and they are usually fighting the last war. Just consider the twenty-year-long battle to get UAVs integrated into the force. It took DARPA, not the USAF, to fund most of the early work (and the US Army do do some of the very earliest, because the USAF wouldn’t listen).
The utility of humans in space for military missions is very much TBD in my view. It is a very hard sell today given launch costs and risk avoidance, but that doesn’t mean it will always be so. Unfortunately, I can’t provide the examples you request in a public forum. But there are a few green shoots out there.
Will military humans in space drive the market? No. But once the market is functioning, it may drive military humans in space.
Gary, the drive for additional use of UAVs is a perfect example of the trend against humans-in-harms-way that will work against putting humans in space for national security objectives. I repeat my original question, and I am utterly sincere–can anyone think of a national security need to put humans in space? The Congresswoman seems to think she has one. Anyone know what it is?
Well, if you plan to fight beyond Earth orbit, on site humans allow for faster decision making and reaction.
@Godzilla: I agree. I for one, cannot believe the Army made it so many years purchasing Jeeps. I mean, you never know when Chrysler is going to stop making cars /sarc /irony
Neil H.
Good point.
Kirk,
The reason so many national governments are interested in putting humans into space is that it is a recognized way of advertising the advanced state of your aeronautic capabilities. Rather than saying to your (potential) enemies, “hey, come have a look at our new supersonic fighter and the armament of missiles it can carry”, which has the negative effect of confirming their belief that you have been arming yourself for a future war, you can say “hey, come have a look at our human spaceflight program” which is a nice, peaceful, way of saying “we can make supersonic fighters with a wide armament of missiles any time we like, so don’t mess with us!”
In the case of the USA, the screams of “giving up human spaceflight is a danger to national security” is twofold:
1. it means the USA is bowing out of the game of demonstrating prowess by a high technology peaceful program, so (potential) enemies may feel the need to do the same.
2. without a strong “inspirational” national goal like human spaceflight, numbers of next generation engineers may be seriously diminished. Kids don’t grow up thinking “I wanna make bombs and missiles”, but apparently they do grow up thinking “I wanna work for NASA!”
And yes, I know that is cliche, but you’re asking a question which “everyone” knows the answer to, so you’re getting the standard response. Which also means that if you start arguing with me about it I’m not going to respond.
Drill down to the original local newspaper story. It seems the Congresswoman’s husband is a NASA astronaut scheduled to fly on the second-to-last Shuttle mission. Further speculation as to motive not required.
Dick,
Everyone knows that too.. her husband answered the “what’s it like to be in space?” questions at SpaceVision09 and then she had a little pro-Constellation speech.. and eventually they figured out that the audience was turning on them, so they try to get out but the press wanted their photo opportunity and their sound bites. Oh, and Kelly had made some comment like “if you want your kids to work hard in school, just threaten to get them a job as a welder”, which was just hilarious cause Ben Brockert had just given his talk on Masten’s vehicles and all the welding he did on them…..
A couple of months ago someone explained that with Vega and a restarted nuclear energy program Italy has most of the major components and infrastructure it would need to develop a nuclear missile. Manned activity isn’t essential for this, but it makes for a nice cover story. If you wanted to spend money on developing nuclear weapons this might be a good way to reduce domestic opposition.
Trent, that is a totally lame argument that I’m surprised you even took the time to write. If you actually believe it, then there’s really no point in us discussing it much further.
Kirk, reading between the lines (i.e., guessing) I think she may be referring to keeping the industrial base for large solids active. For some time, DOD has been a bit of a free-rider on NASA’s budget in that regard and is now beginning to complain about it, given that the Shuttle SRB production is going away. I don’t think her comments have anything to do with humans in space, only Shuttle booster production.
Gary, that’s the best argument I’ve heard thus far. If that’s the case then they should just come out and say it–we need large solids for national security and strategic missions. They shouldn’t try to mix human spaceflight up with that.
Kirk, it’s an argument that congress critters believe.. and that’s all that matters.
And, frankly, there is a bit of truth to it. Australia aint making any supersonic aircraft, and we don’t have a space program either.. India on the other hand..
“I challenge anyone to tell me what putting people in space has to do with national security.”
I don’t think anyone is saying that need to house marines someplace in the space environment as some kind of immediate plan.
But if the US did not have any kind assets in Space, our military could be easily defeated by any nation which did have assets in Space.
So our involvement with space is critical aspect of national security- of the same order as saying having a navy or an air force is a critical aspect of national security.
But what you wish to debate is whether any manned operation in space is necessary- in other words you wish engage the old manned vs robot debate.
The basis of your argument is the cost of lifting stuff into orbit and that in the foreseeable future the cost of lifting anything into space will be expensive. And therefore your solution is to try to limit the amount of stuff which needs to lifted into space.
In contrast to your premise, is the position that it is possible and desirable to significantly lower the cost of lifting stuff into space and that this is possible within the foreseeable future.
I think everyone can agree that using a socialist model of building and operating space vehicles has not and will not significantly lower the costs of lifting anything into space.
The only left to discuss in terms of lowering the costs of getting stuff into space, is the one way and only way that has in the past consistently lower the cost of doing anything- a free market.
No matter how much you lower the cost of launching stuff into space, there will always be an advantage to launching 100s of times less stuff to do the same mission, and launching something that doesn’t have to come back. The military’s made their choice between robots and humans, and robots have won the day hands down in space. What is interesting to watch is how robots are beginning to win the day back on Earth, with UAVs and UCAVs. All the trends are against any military need to put people in space.
As for your marines in space analogy, I’ve been in the loop for all the SUSTAIN-talk, and have been to some of their meetings. That is an example of an especially foolish and poorly thought-out idea. Whether launching them ballistically or garrisoning them in orbit, in either case the costs are gargantuan and the military benefit questionable.
So Trent, you repeat an argument that you don’t really believe, but you think congressmen believe? I would amend that to be “congressmen with major NASA facilities in their districts or marital relationships with astronauts.” That’s a pretty small subset.
“No matter how much you lower the cost of launching stuff into space, there will always be an advantage to launching 100s of times less stuff to do the same mission, and launching something that doesn’t have to come back. The military’s made their choice between robots and humans, and robots have won the day hands down in space. What is interesting to watch is how robots are beginning to win the day back on Earth, with UAVs and UCAVs. All the trends are against any military need to put people in space.”
Last time I checked there was still troops in Afghanistan. And in 20 years there would still need to use troops in a situation like afghanistan- though perhaps significantly less troops could be needed.
But don’t think anyone is arguing against automation or technology in general.
“As for your marines in space analogy, I’ve been in the loop for all the SUSTAIN-talk, and have been to some of their meetings. That is an example of an especially foolish and poorly thought-out idea. Whether launching them ballistically or garrisoning them in orbit, in either case the costs are gargantuan and the military benefit questionable.”
With the military you must plan for the future.
I would say that at this point in time, the cost of doing suborbital flight has not been lowered significantly, but simply looking at a 10 year horizon, that could change significantly.
Now also, suppose that in the future, 20 men and robotic system could replace 100 men- wouldn’t that factor reduce the “gargantuan” cost of some “ballistic” operation, by a significant amount?
I think the main point of the military looking forward, is so it not so desperately behind the times by the time the future arrives.
I think Kirk Sorensen’s right, that there is very little that humans can do in space that machines cannot. Robotics technology improves at a Moore’s Law like rate. Humans do not. Needless to say, the environmental conditions of space, not to mention the high-G maneuvering used in military flight operations, is more conducive to machines than humans. The fact that the Soviet shuttle flew in 1989 in fully automatic mode (with Soviet electronics and control systems) should tell you something about flight automation.
The same is true for economic activities. The only significant economic activity for deep space is asteroid mining for Platinum group elements. This requires prospecting for the right asteroid and bringing it back. The prospecting is done by probe or even from Earth using spectral-analysis and, perhaps, some excavation, which can be done robotic-ally. The retrieval of the asteroid can also be automated. This would be far cheaper than sending a crew out to do it, and the first asteroid mining ventures are likely to be on shoe-string budgets.
Even in the mid 1970’s the L-5 Society space conferences concluding that the entire world’s supply of SPS’s for electricity production could be build by a crew of 2,000 people. With the automation of today, this is likely to be about 20 people.
Do not misunderstand me. I am a fervent advocate of the human expansion into space. However, this can only be accomplished by the emergence of a competitive space transportation industry. The national socialist approach of a government funded space program in the form of NASA has failed to produce this in any form, whatsoever. It should be discontinued.
This December 2009 Congressional press release is less extreme than the quote from the Sierra Vista Herald:
Folks, I’d try to keep the personal attacks on Congress-critters (and others) to a minimum. I doubt that calling them idiots makes them listen to the substance of your arguments. Perhaps, it helps getting their attention, but can’t we strive for a more polite firmness rather than just more anger?
I try to believe that Gifford’s statements are meant to protect the NASA/human spaceflight budget in general and that she is open to negotiation on the details. We’ll see if that is true, but in the meantime I’d rather rejoice in the new opportunities that may be opening up with the cancellation of Constellation.
I’m very happy to see the end of Ares 1, but I have mixed feelings about the end of Orion and other parts of Constellation. Does this mean that NASA will now have the time and motivation to totally distort/mess up human commercial spaceflight? At least Constellation kept them busy.
Whether launching them ballistically or garrisoning them in orbit, in either case the costs are gargantuan and the military benefit questionable.
Again, if you can’t or won’t quantify what you think the costs are, vague adjectives like “gargantuan” are meaningless.
Regarding military use of robots vs humans, I think relying too much on robots is dangerous. Machines can be hacked. If you read some reports you will see that the UAVs in particular sent unencrypted video feeds and do other dangerous practices. If you remember WWII, one reason, probably the major reason the Allies won was because they decrypted the Enigma cipher and could read all their communications. Imagine if you could not only read their communications, but control their units as well!
I believe UAVs and UCAVs will be more used, with humans eventually acting mostly as forward controllers. rather than doing front line fighting. However we must be aware of the dangers of such practices.
Oh, BTW, I am in favor of automated landings and takeoffs on UAVs and UCAVs. Against automated firing mechanisms however. Human should be the ones designating targets.
Humans in orbit may have their purpose. The best is for repair, most likely. A multi-billion-dollar spy satellite isn’t going to cost a heck of a lot less even if launch prices decrease an order of magnitude, but a human spaceflight capability with an order of magnitude less launch costs and a reusable (not just refurbishable) human spacecraft could likely be used to repair such a satellite, especially if it fails before a replacement is available.
What are the causes of satellite failure? Inadequately deployed solar arrays, antenna, gyroscope failure, optics defects, etc? It has been shown that those sorts of things can be fixed by humans in LEO. People are good at this sort of troubleshooting (and dexterity and situational awareness) which may be much more difficult to design into a robotic spacecraft, at least for the foreseeable future.
Humans are also much more robust than we usually give them credit for. Radiation has not killed any astronauts so far (besides maybe latent diseases far later in life), but our conversations about human spaceflight focus on exactly this radiation (an overblown problem, IMHO as a physicist) which has caused many errors in satellites.
How many probes and satellites have failed simply because the solar panels accidentally turned away from the Sun or the antenna away from Earth? Such a problem could be almost trivially fixed if an astronaut were on board (a capability which is, admittedly, not at all trivial). The salvage of Skylab is another good example of humans being able to fix problems in orbit.
If launch costs come down, it will no longer seem like a good idea to “just launch another” when it comes to failed satellites.
Of course, people are not ideal for snapping pictures, etc. Also, the ground support staff for astronauts is far too big to make any but a rare few repair missions worthwhile. Perhaps a commercial astronaut corp will help that.
We humans are not yet obsolete and the singularity has not yet arrived (if it ever will.) To date, robots have remained tools and have not yet replaced us. We may find that we are harder to replace than some people imagine. Even in space. Even in the future.
Robots can be stronger and computers are faster at processing most type of data… but so far, they do not think, they implement programs which are a mechanical thing. In theory (although it’s never been practical) anything software does can be implemented in hardware without any software. Thought is completely outside such a system (whatever thought is.)
There are two ways to control a robot. Remotely or with some kind of on-board artificial intelligence (not any kind of thinking by my prejudice) or a combination of the two. Remote operation has well known time lag issues. With on-board control the problem is a lack of flexibility. Although software can be uploaded we can’t always anticipate what situations a robot will find itself in. Yes, we may use a higher percentage of robots to humans in the future, but we’re not obsolete. Not by a long shot.
As analysis, let me remind folks that its the members of Congress that are running for re-election in the fall, not President Obama, and the further they are able to place themselves from President Obama and his policies on jobs and national security the better their odds of re-election in the current political environment.
President Obama’s space policy, killing America’s return to the Moon is clearly triggering memories of American greatness that are linked to the Apollo. It reminds folks how much this nation has declined in the world since then and so it makes a perfect platform to show how they differ from President Obama, especially as they know that space is one area he cares so little about that he will not pick a fight over. All he might do is express some regrets that the Augustine Report (distancing himself from his policy decisions once he see they are rejected…). But he won’t veto the NASA appropriations bill given the importance of other agencies funded with it. That is also why he has made no specific mention of the new policy, ensuring there are no sounds bites to use against him when his policy fails.
The fact that in the process of rejecting President Obama’s policy the members of Congress will be able to position themselves as saving tens of thousands of gold collar jobs, preserve America’s space technology base and not be seen as surrendering space to China and/or Russia are all a plus for opposing it. Remember most of America has no idea what “New Space” is or if the do they associate it with super rich “space tourists” spending more money on short “space vacations” then 99% of Americans earn in a year, not a good association in this period of high unemployment and declining economy.
No that is not an accurate picture but I find that many space policy advocates have a magical belief in facts and figures in politics when actually most political decisions are made based on emotion and perception…. Politics is not as simple as rocket science, its about human behavior and psychology, subjects that are too complex for the simple mathematical formulas used in physics and engineering to model.
The big fear New Space should have now is that Congress will go to the extreme and kill COTS as push back to President Obama’s policy, especially if SpaceX has any developmental troubles with the Falcon 9, which for better or worst is now the poster boy for commercial crew.
It may well be that New Space, like the greedy fox in the old fable, might have gotten too greedy. If you recall the fox was carrying a chicken home Crossing a bridge he looked in the water and saw “another fox” (his reflection) and dropped it so he could take the better chicken away from the other fox. That might well be what is going to happen here.
That should have been – the Augustine Report recommendations were not followed…