It’s about the space economy, stupid.
I agree that developing lunar resources should be part of the mix, though we have a lot of work to do to prove out the techniques to do so in a way that makes economic sense. But as I’ve said before, I’m not that concerned about abandoning that goal for now — it was many years off in any event, and if it’s the momentary price we have to pay to kill off the misbegotten Ares program, it’s one well worth it. We can decide to go to the moon any time, and it will be a lot easier with a low-cost infrastructure than with a high-cost one.
Is that the right link?
It is now.
Obviously, some activities will get more attention, but the core of people interested is probably more important and doesn’t change much. Focusing on economic development means more people will be interested that otherwise wouldn’t be.
A possible validity to ‘been there, done that’ is that other activities may lead to better knowledge, although ‘been there, returning to doing something else’ might work just as well.
I just wish we had a fast forward button… some of us have been waiting for a long time.
I agree with Mr. Spudis on the VSE =/= Apollo thing. Maybe you guys are right and Constellation was a flawed program, but I think VSE was a good vision and a permanent lunar base sure seems a lot more attainable and useful near-term than a flag-planting exercise on an asteroid. I also think a lunar base could open up commercial opportunities beyond just manned flights — for example, the crew of an outpost will need plenty of hardware to scratch out a living and lots of companies could gain really valuable experience with developing space-qualified hardware by fulfilling those needs. And heck, who says the outpost crew have to be entirely USG? It wasn’t just soldiers that lived in frontier forts, a lot of settlers joined them there, both for the protection and to provide products and services the soldiers needed.
I do think, too, that my generation (children of the 80s) probably have a different, more glorified view of Apollo than those who lived through it. I understand that after just a mission or two, people got bored with it to the point that the live broadcasts weren’t even carried by the networks. And of course I know there were many who thought the money should have been spent on solving social ills instead. But I’m not sure Mr. Augustine’s claims that “young people” are bored by the moon are all that accurate. I don’t know anyone who thought the lunar part of VSE was doing the same thing as Apollo — it was clear from day one that a permanent base was a very different achievement from a mere landing, and was frankly way cooler and of obvious value as a step-stone to Mars and beyond.
…it will be a lot easier with a low-cost infrastructure than with a high-cost one.
Are you positing that it’s not currently possible to develop and execute a fiscally responsible lunar program by any means? I mean, I think I know how you feel about Constellation, but this statement seems to imply that you think the current infrastructure makes ANY lunar program too “high cost”.
By that logic, I should never buy a new computer, because next year’s model will be cheaper and I can just buy one then.
Are you positing that it’s not currently possible to develop and execute a fiscally responsible lunar program by any means?
No, I’m saying that we had to get rid of Constellation (and particularly Ares) in order to have any hopes of an affordable lunar program.
we had to get rid of Constellation (and particularly Ares) in order to have any hopes of an affordable lunar program.
Well, we’re getting rid of of Constellation all right, but also any hopes of an affordable lunar program. There’ll be billions spent on NASA — we just won’t get anything for it.
And as for your supposition that Constellation was the target for all of this destruction, note this piece in today’s Huntsville Times:
In other words, the stooge chosen to give the administration technical high cover for their intention to destroy the VSE didn’t think Constellation was the problem. It was the Moon that was the issue. Augustine wants more and ever more one-off stunt missions to distant destinations, all done with stuff launched from the bottom of the Earth’s gravity well in a mega-rocket.
If that’s not “Apollo cargo cult” mentality, I don’t know what is.
These are the people you are throwing in with.
Once again Dr Spudis hits the nail perfectly square on the head.
Paul, I don’t know whether Norm really believes that or (as in the report and hearings) he was just being kind to Constellation workers. Either way, with Constellation, we had no hope of getting back to the moon in any useful way any time soon, and with the new plan, we have much better (not necessarily good, but better) prospects.
You have plenty of time to convince the next administration that they should use the LEO (and perhaps Lagrange-point) depots as a staging point for a manned lunar landing, and in the meantime, you can be influencing near-term robotic tech demos which, as far as I know, are in the plan, else Masten/XCOR wouldn’t be wasting their time teaming to develop the landers for them.
Paul misses the point completely. He isn’t called a dinosaur because he “favors human lunar return.” He’s called a dinosaur because he equates “humans” with “NASA.”
During the Apollo era, NASA was doing advanced exploration. “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” The very sort of exploration that General Bolden wants to do today and Paul opposes today.
Should humans develop the Moon, mine the Moon, and build settlements on the Moon? Yes, but that doesn’t mean *NASA* should be the one doing those things. NASA isn’t very good at developing settlements. Its track record in building the International Space Station shows that. Why would anyone expect NASA to be any more successful in building a settlement on the Moon?
Paul is the Bob Zubrin of the Moon. Both believe that the next development/settlement effort will be success if NASA just picks the right destination. (They disagree about the choice of destination, of course, but their arguments are otherwise identical.) Unfortunately, neither of them realize that what hindered NASA’s plans to develop LEO with ISS (and killed its post-Apollo plans to develop the Moon) wasn’t the wrong destination — it was the wrong means.
The roots of this error were clearly seen in the Aldridge report, which declared that human spaceflight should “remain the providence [sic] of government” — right *after* after Mike Melvill earned the first FAA commercial astronaut wings. The flight of SpaceShip One was on the front page of every major newspaper, but the Aldridge Commission missed it completely.
If we discard the assumption that NASA should have a monopoly on space development, then either/or choices like the Moon, Mars, or LEO go away. By reducing the cost of space access and space operations, we can do all of them. NASA can explore the Lagrange points, the asteroids, Mars, and beyond, while leaving mining to the mining companies and constructing settlements to those who understand construction. That sort of division of labor (like the division we have on Earth) will allow humans to do “all of the above.”
Without it, the Moon will remains “a planet too far,” no matter how fervently Paul wishes it were otherwise.
a flag-planting exercise on an asteroid
Does have a few things to recommend it. It is a lot easier and will take fewer resources than a moon base, while at the same time telling us an awful lot about such a mission. There are a lot of asteroids and diverting them may be required in the future. We need this information.
OTOH, a moon base opens up a lot of economic possibilities. Logistical support could benefit perhaps hundreds of private companies. A few directly and many more indirectly. I don’t see a moon base being independent or self sufficient anytime soon. The moon will be the near term driver that leads to greater things.
I continue to see mars settlements as the greatest driver of economic activity. It’s distance requires more self reliance finally breaking the central planning structure we inherited from the cold war. A moon base only puts a bend in central planning; mars will break it.
I’d still like to see boy/girl-scouts and farmers on Ganymede (Heinlein.)
Paul is quite correct about the real target. Constellation was (is?) a viable program, despite what some of the Internet Rocketeers are saying. Norm Augustine has said so a number of times. He is not the sort of man to “be kind” and lie about that as has been suggested here.
Constellation was (is?) a viable program, despite what some of the Internet Rocketeers are saying. Norm Augustine has said so a number of times.
I don’t know who the “Internet Rocketeers” are, because you never let us in on who is in your imaginary club, but he has never said that. That he has is your ongoing delusion, like your imaginary friends.
Mark, Constellation != VSE.
There are several ways to get across the Snake River. One could use a Skycycle X-2 rocket bike and try jumping across. Or, one could drive across using a bridge two miles away.
Rocketcycles are exciting and flashy and expensive, but building a bridge is far more conducive to commerce and industry and more useful to average people.
Instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and years of effort on one-shot adventures, NASA should be retiring the risk on the first orbital equivalent of gas stations and bus stations and semi-trucks and buses and so on – allowing industry to overcome investment hurdles.
There are about two dozen stepping stone technologies achievable over the next ten or fifteen years that would provide considerable leverage in space utilization. If NASA were to use the projected Constellation budget to bring those technologies up the TRL scale, then fifteen years from now so many things will be happening in cislunar space that discussions of “Moon vs. Mars” or “manned vs. robotic” will seem like the arguments of “monoplane vs. biplane ” 100 years ago.
A moon base only puts a bend in central planning; mars will break it.
An EML transfer station established to provide logistical support to diverse players all of whom pursue lunar resources independent of each other would shatter a central planning model.
It does appear that lunar ice is not concentrated in one place but rather will be found in a great many distinct craters. Having lunar water ice distributed amongst a number of geologically distinct craters (rather than a single monolithic ice sheet) also will facilitate the avoidance of a central planning mindset.
Ice at diverse locations will allow ABC Corp from the US to set up operations in one “cold trap” crater while XYZ Corp from Japan sets up operations in another “cold trap” crater while MNO Corp from India sets up operations in yet another “cold trap” crater. Each can be supported by the EML depot and reusable lunar landers.
One premise of my novel is that this vision will be easier to accomplish if we remove the US Congress from the critical path. Click my name for details.
One premise of my novel is that this vision will be easier to accomplish if we remove the US Congress from the critical path.
Contrary to what you are implying, the US Congress is not on the critical path. The companies working on suborbital spaceflight (both manned and unmanned) will get to LEO eventually regardless of what NASA does. It will just happen a lot more quickly if NASA does exploration based on propellant transfer.
A monopsony is not an excuse for a monopoly and not putting Congress on the critical path is not the same as preserving the MSFC/JSC/KSC/USA monopoly. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
It’s a pity that it doesn’t look as if there is going to be exploration any time soon. We have all the technology we would have needed to do it and lead to RLVs or some other way to get cheap and reliable commercial access to space in the process. In fact we have had it for about thirty years, despite what SDLV naysayers may claim. What we do not appear to have is the political support for exploration.
That’s too bad, but that doesn’t mean we cannot make the best of it. The R&D for new technologies would have been important anyway, and now we may have to settle for just that. It’s not needed, and getting to RLVs sooner would have been more important, but the R&D sure is useful. Not all the billions spent by NASA on manned spaceflight will be wasted, which is a major improvement over Constellation.
A very good article. It kind of helps me to understand why it was that, back in the days when I was active on Usenet, I would find myself and Mars advocates talking past each other when comparing things like lunar resource use or SPS vs. manned expeditions to Mars. All that High Frontier stuff I was talking about was boring, so it was never going to happen. The logic they were using was: exciting goal > excited public > greater public support > more funding. But I think this article very convincingly deflates that argument by demonstrating that not only is there no reason to expect it to be that way in the future, it’s not even the way it was during Apollo.
Edward Wright said:
Mining companies and construction companies know more about mining and construction than NASA does, I’ll grant you. But who besides NASA knows jack squat about doing ANYTHING in space?
Any successful endeavor is going to have to be a more cooperative effort than some of you seem to want to accept. NASA, not private industry, holds all the experience cards when it comes to living and working in space. Companies know that, and are not likely to develop a presence off-world that isn’t first developed and manned by NASA; why swallow all the risk and spend all the money to reinvent from scratch a capability and expertise that NASA already has?
But who besides NASA knows jack squat about doing ANYTHING in space?
Many people do, including (but not limited to) NASA contractors, which is actually where most of the knowledge resides. Why do you imagine that NASA has a monopoly on such knowledge?
…diverse players all … independent of each other would shatter a central planning model.
Yeah, that’s my plan. My point is that time and distance are also a factor. I’ve worked for many that wanted to control my life beyond a simple employer/employee relationship. It’s one of those universals. Distance helps.
‘They’ may not succeed, but I guarantee ‘they’ will try to control lunar activities… the moon is just too close. Many other destinations, while distant, don’t contain within themselves sufficient diversity of resources… so they will remain under the central thumb. Mars and eventually the belt then other places, have the resources within themselves to unshackle themselves from the central planners. The earlier we start the sooner it happens.
If we discard the assumption that NASA should have a monopoly on space development, then either/or choices like the Moon, Mars, or LEO go away. By reducing the cost of space access and space operations, we can do all of them.
So true. But conversely, by picking any of these destination or one of several other plausible ones, either manned or unmanned, it can reduce the cost of space access by basing its transport around propellant transfer. This argues for the simplest, cheapest and soonest of destinations and the simplest, cheapest and soonest of technologies to get there. Unlike some I’m not dogmatic about the choice of destination or propellant, but hey I’m a pragmatic guy.
@Rand: Probably right about the contractors, but then how do you explain why Boeing and LM haven’t already stepped out on their own and done stuff without NASA? I mean, if there really is a fortune to be made out there, and those guys know how to do it, why aren’t they?
Companies go where the money is, and so far NASA has been the only game in town. Why is that suddenly going to change?
I mean, if there really is a fortune to be made out there, and those guys know how to do it, why aren’t they?
Because the market risk is too high. They are not entrepreneurs, nor do their shareholders expect them to be.
NASA has been the only game in town. Why is that suddenly going to change?
Who said it was going to change? All that’s changing is the nature of the procurement. NASA’s going to try to be a smarter customer.
Mining companies and construction companies know more about mining and construction than NASA does, I’ll grant you. But who besides NASA knows jack squat about doing ANYTHING in space?
The US Air Force. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. Boeing. Lockheed. Northrop Grumman. ULA. Orbital Science. SpaceX. Comsat. Loral. Iridium. Globalstar. Echostar. Sirius. Inmarsat. Orbcomm. USRA. Amsat. GeoEye. DigitalGlobe. Earthsat. Bigelow Aerospace. Space Adventures. Comtech AeroAstro. Ball Aerospace. Honeywell. ILC Dover. Pratt & Whitney. FAA/AST. MIT. Cal Tech. UND. U of M. Rice University. John Hopkins. Cornell. The Lunar and Planetary Institute. The Southwest Research Institute. Aerospace Corporation.
Was that a rhetorical question, or would you like me to go on?
Any successful endeavor is going to have to be a more cooperative effort than some of you seem to want to accept. NASA, not private industry, holds all the experience cards when it comes to living and working in space. Companies know that,
Only very uninformed companies “know” that because it isn’t true.
and are not likely to develop a presence off-world that isn’t first developed and manned by NASA; why swallow all the risk and spend all the money to reinvent from scratch a capability and expertise that NASA already has?
All the expertise does not reside in NASA. In fact, NASA hires most of its expertise from contractors, who are available to anyone else who’s willing to pay for it.
What “capabilities” are you talking about? NASA has no capability to conduct launches beyond LEO. American companies do. When the Shuttle retires, NASA will have to capability to conduct launches to LEO. American companies do. NASA has no capability to build inflatible habitats. American companies do. NASA has no capability to build space capsules. (SpaceX has been working on Dragon longer than NASA has been working on Orion, and even NASA is depending on a private contractor — Lockheed Martin — to build Orion.)
I’m sorry that you have such a low opinion of American private enterprise. Why do you think American taxpayers should swallow all the risk and spend all that money to reinvent from scratch a capability and expertise that American companies already have?
Companies go where the money is, and so far NASA has been the only game in town. Why is that suddenly going to change?
NASA is not the only game in town and never has been. The US military launched its first satellite (SCORE) in December, 1958. The first commercial satellite (Telstar) was launched in July, 1962.
NASA didn’t pay for the X-15, DynaSoar, MOL, Keyhole reconnaissance satellites, Dish Network satellites, Ikonos satellites, DMSP or GOES satellites, Genesis modules, or SpaceShip One. To name just a few.
But conversely, by picking any of these destination or one of several other plausible ones, either manned or unmanned, it can reduce the cost of space access by basing its transport around propellant transfer. This argues for the simplest, cheapest and soonest of destinations
If we follow that argument, we should forget about the Moon and Mars — and even ISS. The simplest, cheapest, soonest destination is suborbital. But suborbital isn’t “hard” enough for those who were weaned on JFK and want to do things “because they are hard.”
Picking one destination might reduce the cost of propellant transfer, just as picking one destination for airlines would have reduced the cost of aviation infrastructure, but that misses the point.
Picking the Moon as “the destination” for human spaceflight would be like picking Bermuda as “the destination” for air travel. While simultaneously neglecting the development of domestic air travel (suborbital spaceflight) because isn’t hard enough. And without domestic routes, airplanes never get developed so the Vision of Air Exploration must depend on balloons.
Instead of picking one destination, NASA should focus on developing capabilities, which enable many destinations. A multi-purpose propellant depot probably won’t cost slightly more than one that’s designed for one particular destination but it will have much greater value.
The simplest, cheapest, soonest destination is suborbital.
Well, I’d say there is actually a reasonable case for that, but fortunately the private sector seems to be taking care of that just fine.
Picking one destination might reduce the cost of propellant transfer, just as picking one destination for airlines would have reduced the cost of aviation infrastructure, but that misses the point.
The point is not to reduce the cost of propellant transfer, though that would be nice too. The point is to reduce launch costs, which is the key to everything else. Propellant transfer is just a means to that end. The aeronautical equivalent would be developing affordable short distance airplanes in support of long range travel. It may not solve the long distance problem straight away, but it will solve the short distance problem. That would seem to be the opposite of what you were suggesting.
I don’t see how the destination matters, nor the type of propellant, nor whether the mission is manned or not. I do believe starting with a concrete destination instead of pie in the sky capabilities is crucial. Time also does matter, and that would have an effect on all three in the short run, but not in the long run. I think we ought to be totally pragmatic about where we go first and how. Once we have the capability to do that cheaply we can start thinking about where we want to go today.
Instead of picking one destination, NASA should focus on developing capabilities, which enable many destinations. A multi-purpose propellant depot probably won’t cost slightly more than one that’s designed for one particular destination but it will have much greater value.
Like you, I’m after the capability, not the destination. I’m just not into infrastructure or unutilised pie in the sky capabilities up front, especially if it leads to a delay (or extra cost or extra risk) in reducing launch costs. It’s like the famous YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It) principle in software development. I’m in favour of going somewhere, anywhere, fast, and letting the infrastructure emerge along the way. Most of that can be left to the private sector. I believe that’s the best way to get to those capabilities. If you disagree with that I’d love to hear more.
We don’t need to waste five years waiting for depots and then another five years for landers and EDSs to take advantage of those depots. At least, there are no technical reasons for waiting and plenty of reasons for starting right now if a space economy is what you’re after. But if the political will isn’t there, we’ll just have to make do with what’s available.
BTW, I don’t understand what you mean by a single-purpose depot. Once you have a depot, what would stop you from going pretty much anywhere you want to go?
Well, I’d say there is actually a reasonable case for that, but fortunately the private sector seems to be taking care of that just fine.
Yes, and it will be much easier without a NASA Administrator and his minions publicly telling investors that NASA “proved” reusable vehicles were impossible. In my opinion, that’s the biggest gain in the New Vision for Space Exploration.
The point is not to reduce the cost of propellant transfer, though that would be nice too. The point is to reduce launch costs, which is the key to everything else.
Having only a single destination might reduce launch costs, but having zero destinations would reduce launch costs even more.
I guess it depends on whether the goal is to reduce total launch costs or launch costs per flight.
I don’t see how the destination matters, nor the type of propellant, nor whether the mission is manned or not.
“No one throws ticker tape parades for robots.” The destination may not matter but the mission does. Paul wants the public to pay for his vision of space exploration but he thinks public support (“excitement”) shouldn’t matter. That’s naive. You *can’t* have a sustainable government program without public support.
Public support for NASA is highest when astronauts are doing “James T. Kirk”-type exploration: “To boldly going where no man has gone before.” NASA should always be exploring over the next hill, not looking to build a house where it can settle down and stop exploring.
If NASA spends another 20 years housesitting in LEO or on the Moon, support for it will continue to dry up and eventually the money will also.
Paul can promise that Apollo II will produce “lasting and continuous access to space and its resources to expand our economy and create new wealth.” Okay, but Von Braun made the same sort of promises about Apollo I. Why didn’t it happen? Those who don’t learn from the lessons of history…
And let’s not forget about planetary defense. What would happen to Paul’s dreams if a large asteroid landed in the Gulf of Mexico?
With a rational division of labor, we can develop the Moon *and* prevent global distinction events.
I don’t understand what you mean by a single-purpose depot. Once you have a depot, what would stop you from going pretty much anywhere you want to go?
Nothing. That’s why the Zubrin/Spudis obsession with a single destination (and opposition to all other destinations) makes no sense.
Having only a single destination might reduce launch costs, but having zero destinations would reduce launch costs even more.
I guess it depends on whether the goal is to reduce total launch costs or launch costs per flight.
Ah, it looks as if we were talking past each other. When I said launch costs I should have said commercial launch prices on the open market. The yardsticks I’m looking for are something like the commercial price of launching a kg of payload in the <5mT class into orbit and the price of a ticket to LEO.
“No one throws ticker tape parades for robots.”
That’s a good phrase. It’s true, but even so, Hubble and the Mars rovers are very popular. Project M may turn out to be similarly popular. And that would be a lot cheaper than manned exploration.
But like the propellant, like the launch vehicle used for launching the spacecraft and like the propellant used, the precise destination is not intrinsically important. It’s merely important to the degree it impacts things like time, risk, and money. And political support too obviously has an impact on the money.
If NASA spends another 20 years housesitting in LEO or on the Moon, support for it will continue to dry up and eventually the money will also.
There’s quite a bit of difference between those two destinations. Even for LEO the housesitting may be enough to lead Bigelow to succeed and thus to set in motion the chain of events that will lead to commercial manned activity in space in our lifetimes. In the case of the moon, or maybe just asteroids, I’m convinced it would lead to that provided it used freely competiting launchers of essentially no minimum size to launch the necessary propellant. The reason I’m so convinced of that is that it would be likely to reduce launch prices by an order of magnitude and that there are immediate markets for which that would be useful: LEO->GTO orbit raising and LEO tourism.
Nothing. That’s why the Zubrin/Spudis obsession with a single destination (and opposition to all other destinations) makes no sense.
I don’t think it’s an obsession, it’s just a different set of goals, or maybe not even that, just a different set of priorities. If the moon were my top priority (or on the critical path to my top priority) I would want to have nothing that’s not crucial for that on the critical path towards it. In that case I might not want to have anything to do with propellant transfer, asteroids, Lagrange points etc unless I thought going straight to the moon would be too much of a leap and those intermediate steps were necessary.
But my top priority is commercial development of space and therefore I want nothing that isn’t absolutely necessary for that on the critical path, no matter how useful: not the moon, not Mars, not ISRU, not nuclear power, not aerobraking, not even cryogenic depots. Cheap lift trumps all those.
Note that not having them on the critical path to commercial development of space doesn’t mean they couldn’t or shouldn’t be undertaken simultaneously. I’m merely objecting to having commercial development of space wait on them. Life’s too short for that.
With low cost access to space, Earth resources are cheap enough for space to happen in a big way (millions of people off planet), extra terrestrial resources and excursions beyond LEO are not required.
Low cost access to space and low cost space infrastructure (which ISS is not) is the critical path – not destinations.
I think the problem of extra terrestrial resources can be safely left to the market once low cost access to space has been established.
There are now many companies on a low cost launch vehicle development path (I would not necessarily say that the hybrid mammal/dinosaur SpaceX is one of them). But only one company seems to be developing space stations (Bigelow), and that in a mammal/dinosaur manner. As much pressure as there is on SpaceX for a successful launch, Bigelow is the one that is actually on the critical path. Other commercial space station providers desperately need to be fostered, perhaps even more so than low cost launch vehicle providers at the moment.
I do believe starting with a concrete destination instead of pie in the sky capabilities is crucial.
What’s crucial is mindset. If I may…
As a programmer, I have two ways to approach a task. I can focus on a straight forward, one of, solution or I can step back and consider a generalized solution. You might think the straight forward solution would be faster and better serve the customers needs since a generalized solution is less specific. However, my experience is it doesn’t turn out that way. Not only is the generalized solution often faster to implement; it always allows me to better adapt to changes, which always occur. I know I’m writing a generalized solution, but the customer just sees a solution that fits his/her needs.
Focusing on destination can lead to ‘one of’ thinking. People can often show that a generalized solution is more expensive and takes more time. While they may be right, they are often wrong and think they are right.
My point is that, yes, destination can provide needed focus, but it can often lead to solutions that are not adaptable to other needs because finding a solution to a particular problem, if you have the wrong mindset, can narrow your focus overmuch. An example being heavy lift, because you need it for a particular vehicle, ignoring the fact that other architectures may give better results and be more generalized.
That’s why the Zubrin/Spudis obsession with a single destination (and opposition to all other destinations) makes no sense.
Opposition does make sense if it takes away from the obsession. Does the obsession make sense? I think the right answer is yes/no. No, because it leads to a too narrowly focused architecture. Yes, because it leads to an increase in economic activity. Having an established destination increases the opportunity for private companies to find profitable niches.
With low cost access to space, Earth resources are cheap enough for space to happen…
If wishes were fishes… Lower cost access will happen, it’s not something to focus on (not generally, specific companies will focus on it enough for the rest of us, thank you very much.) It’s not the holy grail. It will happen. Focus should be on increasing activity (launch rates) which just happens to also lower access costs.
Fuel depots are a good idea because they increase potential activity. Launch vehicles of any size benefit and have more options. Lowering costs is a benefit, but not the point. Any individual vehicle is not less costly and comparing big to small is irrelevant.
Well said, Ken.
With respect to generality of purpose, I’d like to point out that the Moon is sort of a special case in that it’s kind of an honorary “deep space” destination, but is close enough that one could actually build and use a transport infrastructure for it using conventional chemical propellants and even rely on strictly mass-based radiation shielding to keep from getting fried during inclement space weather on the relatively brief Earth-Moon or Moon-Earth trip.
This same infrastructure could also be used for unmanned deep space missions and might well, over time, be extended into those deep space regions that prove to be repeat destinations via ISRU. Robots can be built to stand brief high acceleration, long-term microgravity in Hohmann orbit transit and shielded, to any needed degree, against ambient radiation hazards. Robot missions would be much less massive than manned missions as well, needing no food, water, air or systems to provide same via recycling.
To routinely and straightforwardly get humans to any destination outside cislunar space, however, a real – and general purpose – deep spacecraft is required along the lines I already outlined here. The propellant of choice for VASIMR engines is argon, which is readily available on Earth – it’s half a percent of our atmosphere – but is not known to be present elsewhere in the solar system except on the Saturnian moons Titan and Enceladus. Titan has abundant methane and Enceladus appears to have liquid water/ammonia oceans as well. Perhaps Saturn will eventually be the main filling station outside of LEO for both chemical and noble gas reaction masses, but that is obviously not a near-term possibility.
As the total quantity of argon needed as reaction mass for even a martian moons-type (no planetary landing) expedition undertaken with a true deep spacecraft and a human crew is beyond the single launch capability of even the most Brobdignagian chemically-fired heavy-lift vehicle ever proposed, the economical way to accumulate it seems obviously to be lots and lots of cheap, small-to-medium lift Earth-to-LEO missions to one or more suitably-sized cryogenic argon depots. Extending an argon-based reaction mass infrastructure beyond LEO is certainly possible via construction of deep space depots. The materials to construct such depots could be obtained via ISRU, but, except in the possible eventual case of the Saturnian moons already noted, the argon to be tanked there would have to be transshipped from Earth via LEO.
To me, spacefaring means deep space, not cislunar space. A quite different type of vehicle is needed to do deep space than will suffice just to get to the Moon and back. I favor moving toward developing and building true deep space travel capability for humans with all deliberate speed. The Moon seems a useful destination in furtherance of this larger goal only insofar as it can serve as a source of ISRU mass for constructing the deep space ships and other infrastructure. This implies a primary Moon-based goal of establishing mining and magnetic mass driver launch capabilities.
Focus should be on increasing activity (launch rates) which just happens to also lower access costs.
Because who needs good design when we can just use economies of scale to make a bad product economically viable – very Keynesian and mostly bollocks.
Low cost access to space will likely start with a good vehicle design combined with a good business model – and this will not leap fully formed from anyone’s fantasy world.
The destination debate reminds me of an argument I had with my sister (lawyer) when I was young. She stated something and I painstakingly explained why she was wrong, six months later she stated the opposite and I again painstakingly explained that she was wrong. She then reminded me that six months earlier I had argued the opposite, called me a hypocrite and a liar and stormed off.
In a world of science, as apposed to logic, if something is false it does not necessarily follow that the opposite is true.
Mars advocates argue that the moon is the wrong destination – it obviously did not lead to anything the first time round. Similarly moon advocates argue that mars is the wrong destination – it is too far away, with all the disadvantages of a planet and none of the benefits. They are both right, and they are both wrong, and they both completely miss the point – destination is not the question.
Low cost access to space will likely start with a good vehicle design combined with a good business model – and this will not leap fully formed from anyone’s fantasy world.
If not from someone’s fantasy (their mind) then where? Ok, you qualified it by saying ‘fully formed’, in other words, you cooked the books.
What does anybody mean by low cost? Don’t we mean lower cost? I think low cost is the fantasy.
Perhaps there’s a miracle idea that will dramatically lower costs. But we don’t need it. While costs will come down…
Space is economical now!
How can I say that? Because the profit potential at the current level of cost has already arrived. Just because other activities are waiting for lower costs doesn’t change that.
Everybody agrees that lower costs are better, but saying we can’t move forward at the current costs and need some miracle reduction, a reduction that nobody is likely to come up with any time soon, is just counter productive and waste of breath. Yeah, we need lower costs. We’ll get them. That’s how markets work.
I would wager that those requiring lower costs are not going to have anything to do with implementing them. Those just forging ahead and not complaining about costs will be the ones bringing it about.
Does anybody think routine, safe fuel transfer and depots is not the next logical step?
I like VASIMR as well as the rest of your vision (and the kind words, thanks.) Ultimately, we need nuclear power in space.
Near term, I wonder if nukes will limit the participation of private companies?
Long term I expect everyone (in space at least) to have personal nuclear power.
I’d like to point out that the Moon is sort of a special case in that it’s kind of an honorary “deep space” destination, but is close enough that one could actually build and use a transport infrastructure for it using conventional chemical propellants
It’s not a special case. Chemical propellants can get humans to the Near Earth Asteroids, the Lagrange points, even Mars, with a few tricks.
To me, spacefaring means deep space, not cislunar space. A quite different type of vehicle is needed to do deep space than will suffice just to get to the Moon and back. I favor moving toward developing and building true deep space travel capability for humans with all deliberate speed.
That’s like defining air-travel to means trans-Pacific, then saying we should develop trans-Pacific aircraft will all deliberate speed (at a time when we do not yet have safe, reliable, economical aircraft for domestic, let alone trans-Atlantic, flights).
The Moon seems a useful destination in furtherance of this larger goal only insofar as it can serve as a source of ISRU mass for constructing the deep space ships and other infrastructure. This implies a primary Moon-based goal of establishing mining and magnetic mass driver launch capabilities.
>Having only a single destination might reduce launch costs, but having zero destinations would reduce launch costs even more.
Ah, it looks as if we were talking past each other. When I said launch costs I should have said commercial launch prices on the open market. The yardsticks I’m looking for are something like the commercial price of launching a kg of payload in the <5mT class into orbit and the price of a ticket to LEO.
I don’t follow. Why would having only a single destination reduce those prices? From a commercial viewpoint, it would be much better to have multiple destinations. Just as it was better to have multiple destinations for air travel, rather than picking one city and saying that was “the destination” all airplanes should go to.
Hubble and the Mars rovers are very popular. Project M may turn out to be similarly popular. And that would be a lot cheaper than manned exploration.
Not necessarily. Right now, Space Adventures is offering an Apollo 8-style flight around the Moon for ~$100 million. NASA’s unmanned Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter cost almost $600 million. The Human Lunar Return architecture (including all the technology development) would have cost $2.5 billion. MSFC was going to spend almost $2 billion on one robotic lander — and the claim was that 8-10 robots were necessary before humans could land on the Moon. (Huh? Didn’t we have all the data needed to land on the Moon in the 1960’s???) Unmanned missions are not always cheaper, even with today’s launch costs.
There’s quite a bit of difference between those two destinations. Even for LEO the housesitting may be enough to lead Bigelow to succeed and thus to set in motion the chain of events that will lead to commercial manned activity in space in our lifetimes. In the case of the moon, or maybe just asteroids, I’m convinced it would lead to that provided it used freely competiting launchers
The definition of success is different for Bigelow than it is for NASA. To be successful, Bigelow merely needs to take in more revenue than it spends. NASA needs to maintain public interest and political support.
As you say, there’s quite a bit of difference between LEO and the Moon. LEO has more scenery. There’s the constantly changing face of the Earth in the background at all times. From the Moon, the Earth is a small orb and the lunar surface changes slowly, if at all. Remember how quickly interest fell off after the first Apollo landing. The only reason it didn’t fall of quicker than it did was because they were landing at different locations each time. There was at least some variation in scenery. If NASA tries to build a lunar base, however, it will be landing at the same location every time. How often will the public tune in to watch astronauts walk past the exact same set of rocks? As a first approximation, I’d say “once.” Then people will start saying, “Why are we spending all that money on the Moon instead of [fill in the blank].”
I don’t think it’s an obsession, it’s just a different set of goals, or maybe not even that, just a different set of priorities. If the moon were my top priority (or on the critical path to my top priority) I would want to have nothing that’s not crucial for that on the critical path towards it.
If the Moon were the top priority, the Moonies should be open to new approaches that make it easier and cheaper to reach the Moon, as well as other destinations that have synergies with missions to the Moon. But they aren’t. Their top priority seems to be repeating Project Apollo. It is an obsession, just like Zubrin’s obsession with Mars Direct.
I know I’m writing a generalized solution, but the customer just sees a solution that fits his/her needs.
I’m a programmer too (and a sw development consultant) and I used to think the same way until I was introduced to the concept of refactoring and incremental design, including the famous, profound but not self-evident YAGNI principle. Debating the pros and cons of that would take us too far afield, but I’d love to discuss this in a more appropriate forum if you’re interested.
The main point as it relates to space is that the question is not whether the generalised solution is better (it is), but how to get there. My contention is that you should not do it in a vacuum (although…), but within the context of a concrete mission.
What I’m suggesting is that we should think about what is needed to get to commercial development of space and to a mature, commercial deep space infrastructure. Then we should think about priorities and dependencies, minimise the dependencies and focus the priorities. Then we should choose the simplest, cheapest and least risky destination that will allow us to develop the necessary generalised technologies.
I would say that the piece of technology we need most is cheap lift, not cheap crew vehicles, cryogenic depots or ISRU. Having depots will contribute greatly to the development of cheap lift (ISRU won’t), but it cannot be a substitute for it. On the other hand, if we had cheap lift, but not depots we’d still be in business in LEO, which is the most interesting market in the near future and probably even in the long run.
Wit cheap lift and without depots, we could still do cheap government funded lunar missions (cheap by government standards) and even commercially affordable lunar exploration, though it would be available to a smaller number of people than with cryogenic depots. But a thriving commercial sector in LEO would be able to afford the R&D that will lead to cryogenic depots, crew vehicles, orbital habitats, ISRU etc. In other words: once we have cheap lift, we have everything. To first order, nothing else matters.
So what I’m suggesting is that an exploration program should be directed towards cheap lift in the GTO orbit raising could be done without cryogenic propellants and whether it would be more efficient with them is unclear without detailed analysis once you include other potential forms of propulsion like ion propulsion or arc jets. Having the cryogenics as an option would obviously be beneficial, since it offers you another propulsion option and thus reduces risk.
Cheap small lift is what we need, nothing else matters at this point.
I don’t follow. Why would having only a single destination reduce those prices?
Not just one, at least one, as opposed to doing it in a vacuum. And if you want to further the cause of cheap small lift, a destination that allows substantial use of propellant transfer. That probably means beyond LEO, apart from minor training and precursor missions, but not necessarily beyond GEO. And preferably one that doesn’t have to wait for cryogenic propellant transfer, let alone full depots.
But propellant transfer isn’t the only way to do it. Launching bulk materials and parts for solar satellites could be another way to do it, although it looks much more difficult to get funded. Launching a thousand teachers into space each year would work too, but doesn’t look too promising as a source of government funding.
Because who needs good design when we can just use economies of scale to make a bad product economically viable – very Keynesian and mostly bollocks.
Scale (achieved through government demand for propellant) + supply side competition could do the trick however.
I used to think the same way until I was introduced to the concept of refactoring and incremental design, including the famous, profound but not self-evident YAGNI principle.
Yes, I don’t want to go beating the weeds to far afield here, but just had to respond. When I talk about a general solution, I’m not talking about adding unneeded features. Refactoring is actually a big part of a generalized solution. The point is really about anticipating change. The solution isn’t just generalized, it actually fits reality better. It’s that elusive elegant solution.
Ed,
Chemical propellants can get humans to the Near Earth Asteroids, the Lagrange points, even Mars, with a few tricks.
For Mars and NEA’s more than a few tricks, I think. And not very quickly, comfortably or with much margin. Why deliberately choose to go by Conestoga wagon when a train or plane ticket can be had on roughly the same schedule and for the same, or possibly even a lower, price?
A true deep spacecraft could go to all of these places plus the entire Asteroid Belt, the four outer gas giants and their moons, Pluto and its moons, the other Kuiper Belt minor planets recently discovered (and others likely yet to be discovered while we’re developing said true deep spacecraft), plus Venus and Mercury just for spice.
That’s like defining air-travel to means trans-Pacific, then saying we should develop trans-Pacific aircraft will all deliberate speed (at a time when we do not yet have safe, reliable, economical aircraft for domestic, let alone trans-Atlantic, flights).
Bad analogy. There are all kinds of domestic air destinations given any particular departure point, say Los Angeles, whose distances increase in small increments. Deep space isn’t like this. It’s more like the Pacific considered by itself. Again, assuming an L.A. departure point, the Moon is Catalina Island. Mars is Hawaii. The Asteroid Belt is Midway. Etc. You’ve got one, and only one close-by destination. Everything else is a loooong way off. Why spend money developing some marginal lashup that will just barely get to the nearest long-distance destination when the same money will buy you the capability to speedily and comfortably get you to any of them.
Pete,
You are correct that just because one destination is clearly “wrong,” in some fashion, doesn’t automatically make some single given alternative “right.” Personally, I think we should eschew flags and footprints on any astronomical body with an appreciable gravity well until we have traveled to its near vicinity a few times and built up some support infrastructure in local orbit – a local GPS system being one item I think ought to be on every explorer’s checklist – and done at least a few robotic lander/rover missions to the planetary surface. Hillary, not Mallory. I don’t see any reason to do flags and footprints by the skin of our teeth in a mad rush. Maybe that’s just me.
Martijn,
The lowest achievable Earth-to-LEO lift costs are, indeed, essential. SpaceX’s current posted rates are an order of magnitude better than Shuttle’s. As SpaceX acquires experience, their costs will diminish further, even for – as their early flights will be – missions in which the hardware is entirely expended. Their hardware is designed to be refurbished and reused, however, and when this begins to occur, rates should come down again. How far down, in absolute terms, I won’t hazard a guess. Nor do I think Elon’s rockets are necessarily the last word in (relatively) inexpensive Earth-to-LEO lift; they’re just the best near-term solution I see on offer.
Dick:
After cheap lift the next most important thing would probably indeed be a deep space vehicle, and after that ISRU. And the nice thing is that NASA, by focusing on that deep space vehicle, could generate the demand for launch services that will lead SpaceX and other to crack the high cost barrier. NASA could focus on the deep space spacecraft (not launchers) and simultaneously the private sector would work on launch costs.
This works best if you choose a destination that fits with it. LEO would be first, and you wouldn’t even need an AJ-10 for that. After that subsynchronous space, then Lagrange points. You probably still don’t need more than an AJ-10 from a Lagrange point to a NEO, you only need a turbopump on your way there, by goold old RL-10 and Centaur.
By the time we were ready for a full lunar lander, we might already have broken the cost barrier, in which case orbital tourism in all its glory would emerge. Once that happens, NASA would have to become relevant or face dissolution.
Cheap small lift is what we need, nothing else matters at this point.
Actually, a market for cheap small lift probably matters more, but otherwise I somewhat agree with you.
Try replacing the words “mission” or “destination” with the words “business model” and I suspect you will get much closer to a viable approach to space.
The initial market would be LEO->GTO or LEO->GEO orbit raising and LEO tourism. After that, pretty much anything else needs cheap propellant in orbit and cheap crew launches, which is what small launchers can provide. Once we have the technology, the markets will follow. Conversely, if NASA provides the initial markets, then the launchers and thus their truly commercial markets will follow.
I think this is what sets cheap small lift apart from other useful things like ISRU.
What does anybody mean by low cost? Don’t we mean lower cost? I think low cost is the fantasy.
What we mean is a disruptive as apposed to incremental change in the space industry (see the books tipping point, innovators dilemma/solution, etc., for an explanation of what this means.)
To quote Jeff yet again, if one is not on a track to $100/lb then one is on the wrong track. NASA is on the wrong track, as are expendable launch vehicle companies like ULA, Orbital, SpaceX and perhaps I would include Bigelow (who is dependent on large expendable launch vehicles).
Maybe SpaceX can transition to a reusable launch vehicle but I am not holding my breath – dinosaur markets are very pervasive in their corrupting influences and can pervert the design of every little component at the fundamental level.
As I have argued many times, cheap small lift and cheap small markets likely need to be developed concurrently. At the moment few are working on cheap small markets, hence their perhaps being on the more critical path at this stage.