Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

My Initial Project Status

25 Comments

For those not backers, but interested in what’s happening, I did a project update this morning:

I’m starting to spool up on the project (I expect to actually be funded this week — there’s a two-week delay after the close). Leonard David has a report today that the “Affordable Mars Strategy” report has been published and is available for free download [note: I haven’t actually been able to find the download — all I could find at Leonard’s link was Scott Hubbard’s op-ed — but I think I have the report]. I’ve also been in communication with the authors (specifically, John Baker and Nathan Strange at JPL), and received a lot of material from them last week (some of which may be redundant with the report). I’m planning a trip to Denver next week to (among other things) talk to folks at ULA about integrated vehicle fluids and propellant depots.

The JPL work will provide a foundation for my own analysis, and I’ll probably be discussing it with them. While I think they have a good solution for what they perceive to be their problem, I have fundamentally different top-level requirements.

I would characterize their approach as “Apollo to Mars”: A destination, a date, civil-servant boots on the ground, with a giant government-owned-and-operated rocket, except (unlike Apollo) it is budget constrained. I don’t think that will be any more economically and politically sustainable than Apollo was. I also think, bluntly, as a taxpayer and space enthusiast, that it would not be worth the money.

My approach is to get NASA completely out of the earth-to-orbit business, and to take the savings to develop the technology needed to build a scalable in-space reusable, resilient, affordable transportation architecture, that will enable not simply NASA, but anyone else who wants to, to go to the Red Planet.

And not just to Mars.

25 thoughts on “My Initial Project Status”

  1. develop the technology needed to build a scalable in-space reusable, resilient, affordable transportation architecture, that will enable not simply NASA, but anyone else who wants to, to go to the Red Planet.

    And the that’s the major flaw. You continue to believe “affordable to NASA” and “affordable to anyone else who wants to go” are equivalent values. They’re not.

    The idea that NASA tech will allow the general public to travel in space is a cornerstone the “New Space” philosophy, but there’s nothing new about it. From the very beginning, people thought NASA technology would eventually allow ordinary people to fly in space.

    It isn’t even confined to the space movement. People thought that military techology like the B-17, the B-52, the B-58, the XB-70, the F-106 would be adapted into successful commercial aircraft. Even the Soviets tried to do it with the MiG-25.

    Of course, that never worked. As Harry Stine said, successful commercial systems must be designed to commercial specs, not government specs. But Harry was “old space,” so the cool kids won’t listen.

    2. You continue to believe “affordable to NASA” and “affordable to anyone else who wants to go” are equivalent values.

      No, I don’t. Thanks for playing, though.

    3. The Boeing 307 was developed from the B-17.

      …but, then again, you did say *successful* commercial aircraft. 🙂

    4. I think you are underestimating the power of the Dark Side.

      I’ll give you some examples. The B-1 turbofan engine (GE F101) was used as the basis for the highly successful CFM56 engine used in lots of commercial airliners (Airbus A320/A340, Boeing 737). The engine they used in the Concorde (Rolls Royce Olympus) was originally designed for the Avro Vulcan bomber and improved for the BAC TSR-2 strike aircraft. Then there is the Russian Soloviev D-30 engine. Which was designed for the MiG-31 interceptor and used, without the afterburner, on the Illyushin Il-62M and Tupolev Tu-154M airliners.

      Sure the fuselage they used in a passenger aircraft is different. But so what.

      1. I think we have different definitions of what constitutes a successful airliner. The Concorde was “successful” in the same sense that the Space Shuttle was successful and ISS is successful — all of which operated for years, but a tremendous financial loss.

        It’s one thing to expect NASA to build a rocket that can get to Mars. It’s another to expect them to build a rocket that ordinary people can afford.

  3. There was some talk a couple of years back from ULA about using the ACES upper stage to make a propellant depot so you could ask them about that.

      1. I would be very interested in any ideas Robert Bigelow has about using expandables as propellant storage.

  4. I think it’s worth mentioning an alternative viewpoint regarding Mars; that it isn’t worthwhile going there at all with our current almost total lack of space infrastructure. There is nothing on Mars worth taking away from there, which wouldn’t be easier and cheaper to get from the Moon and/or asteroids.

    Making Mars a place to live would require terraforming, which requires a very major space presence indeed.

    1. “Making Mars a place to live would require terraforming, which requires a very major space presence indeed.”

      We live in the Arctic and at the South Pole without terraforming (no matter what the warmists claim). What makes Mars so special that we can’t live in habitats and large domed cities/structures without terraforming the whole planet?

    2. There is nothing on Mars worth taking away from there

      My disappointment is this always seems the end of reason when it should be the beginning. Why can’t we just start with the assumption that no mass can prosperously be transported to earth and see if any positive expectation is still available? Doing that you will find there is, avoiding all sorts of blind alleys (and worthless reasoning.)

      1. “Doing that you will find there is”

        Maybe, we really don’t know what we will find on Mars but it is certainly correct to say we will never know if we don’t go.

      2. Ken, what makes Mars unique in your settlement plan? Could it not be applied to other bodies, such as Phobos or the Moon?

    3. I think it’s worth mentioning an alternative viewpoint regarding Mars; that it isn’t worthwhile going there at all with our current almost total lack of space infrastructure. There is nothing on Mars worth taking away from there, which wouldn’t be easier and cheaper to get from the Moon and/or asteroids.

      There’s always knowledge. In addition to being able to study the surface of another world with relatively modest effort, Mars is probably the best place in the Solar System for studying the asteroid belt which we tend to agree should be a high priority target. Due to the thin, chemically inert atmosphere, meteorites have a better chance of surviving impact and there would be a billion years or more of such well-preserved objects to study.

      Also, I don’t think it’d be that hard to set up permanent residence on Mars. There’s something to be said for creating a permanent, self-sustaining destination even if it’s hard to see what they would be trading from this far in advance.

      1. Mars is probably the best place in the Solar System for studying the asteroid belt which we tend to agree should be a high priority target.

        I probably shouldn’t ask, but wouldn’t the asteroid belt be a better place to study the asteroid belt?

  5. Rand – JSC’s Safety and Mission Assurance group did a study on propellant depots a few years ago. I saw a copy of their presentation on it, and it wasn’t marked SBU, so it should be available somewhere.

    They were very positive about them enhancing mission success.

      1. I looked. NASA has apparently taken down all the interesting web pages the individual divisions and directorates had at the centers. I guess they are behind the firewall and only on the intranet. I might have a hardcopy in a box in storage. I will be there next week and will look for it. I know it was featured at a “Technology Day” they had in 2012 or 2013.

        The TL;DR of the report was:
        – a propellant depot can boost mission success.
        – the depot needs to be somewhat larger than is needed for the deep space mission.
        – have a scheme where you have multiple suppliers that are paid on delivery to the depot. Failures are not paid for.
        – contracts are set up to pay for a few tanker missions more than is needed for the deep space mission. That allows for delays in the deep space mission launch.
        – the deep space mission is launched without crew and with just enough fuel to get to the depot. (Lowers launch cost. Could also use multiple launches to get the entire mission equipment there. Trades would need to be done.)
        – after the deep space stage is ready to go, send the crew up.

        Since the tanker missions have no crew, cheap rockets with lower reliability might be used. If you need n missions with probability of success m, n and m can be chosen to meet a probability of success that is higher than a single launch. Using multiple suppliers covers you in case one is grounded.

Comments are closed.