There’s a good piece over at the Washington Times:
Imagine what could be done if resources being thrown into the furnace for the Space Launch System was repurposed for technology incubation, commercial projects, or heaven forbid, actual missions. For the cost of SLS, you could afford close to 170 launches to the ISS, 55 missions to Mars with cargo or for probes, or more than 220 Falcon Heavy launches. There are opportunity costs to funding bad projects, and funding SLS costs mankind nearly 500 opportunities to actually go to space.
But it gets it wrong at the end:
When President Obama came to office, NASA was working on the Constellation Program, its most ambitious project in decades. The plan would have seen the United States return to the moon and establish a permanent base as a first step toward the manned exploration of the solar system. Fiercely lauded in the scientific and space community, it even earned the rare but ringing endorsement of Neil Armstrong. However, this highly ambitious project was clumsily canceled by the Obama administration in the name of cost-cutting in 2010 — only to be replaced with the government monstrosity known as SLS a year later.
No. A reader would imagine that Constellation was just peachy, but it was just as programmatically disastrous as SLS, slipping more than a year per year in schedule with continuously ballooning costs. It (like SLS) needed to be cancelled. The mistake of the administration was not in cancelling it, but in not working with Congress in doing so, or providing a coherent explanation of what the replacement was to be. Constellation may have been “fiercely lauded” by some in the scientific and space community, but it was just as fiercely, and justly, attacked as a barrier, rather than a mean of serious human spaceflight beyond earth orbit. It’s curious that Mr. Jacobs seems to understand the current problem without understanding the actual history that led up to it.
Did Constellation get cancelled? Aside from a new destination and the demise of the Ares I, it looks like Constellation is chugging right along.
There was an interesting article up over at NASASpaceflight the other day about how they want to use SLS and in-orbit assembly. Looks like that argument, in relation to using more launches on smaller rockets, is getting tossed out.
Yes they start out with a good point but it includes the wrong assumption that government should take the lead. It’s a forgivable mistake since space activities are expensive (but not anywhere near what the government wastes on them.)
Commercial activities require profit. SpaceX has demonstrated it can be done since they’ve been profitable continuously since the first year they turned a profit. Other profit potential exists as well that hasn’t been exploited yet since many of the precursor elements have not yet occurred. I’m hopeful for the future of commercial activity since it seems there is little that will prevent those elements from eventually happening. For example, Bigelow is going to put his Alpha Station in orbit someday. We don’t know when, but it will happen. We just have to be patient. It will happen because it’s clear that leasing space on it will provide a break even return in one or two years; after-which, profit will be very high relative to the operational costs.
Many of you may disagree with the idea that martian real estate can pay for martian colonization. But what you can’t disagree with is historical truth. People going to live on mars will end up being property owners. That land will have value which will appreciate over time. This isn’t the only economic factor but it will not be insignificant.
NASA isn’t going to put colonies on mars. At most it will do some of the research that allows others to do so. We may not have colonies on mars at all. The only hope for that is that those with the resources follow a vision that gets us there. Elon is perhaps the most significant visionary in that regard. Zubrin and others as well. That’s what will get us there. I it will be done because of the laws of economics and not in violation of them.
Some provisos…
The one element missing in all the mars mission plans is individual liberty. None of the other plans I’ve read puts that element out front which I consider a huge flaw. There is no charity for others in them. It is a huge and obvious (to me) blinder they all share. But that’s ok. They put blinders on some race horses to get them to perform. If some plan (that includes the blind spots) gets us to mars, that’s ok with me because history will not be denied. However, it wouldn’t be too hard for history to be denied for centuries and the people going to mars become to some extent slaves to those that sent them. A pity since it doesn’t have to be.
Mars will for some time have a low population and no need for anything more than small town governance. It has no military value for nations to fight over. It has no political value for Washington to fight over (other than relatively small budget items.) What they should have is strong property rights (no eminent domain, no property taxes) self enforced solid contract law among themselves and an assumption of liberty (both in entirety and individually) and local control. Yes, we need to provide them supplies to get started and they should be oversupplied. We should do this not for near term profit but for the long term benefits to humanity.
Obama has publicly stated his ignorance of exceptionalism. With mars we have the opportunity for a form of exceptionalism that even America has never known. It’s a completely new world and a fresh start for humanity (exactly because it is so unimportant in many ways.)
There are many paths forward and this certainly isn’t the only way. But it could be something great that puts a lie to many of the assumptions people hold. It could demonstrate true freedom in alignment with economic laws, to show us all another way. Best of all, it could do this regardless of any other ideology that puts other colonists on mars.