…wonders why NASA is considering crewing the first flight of SLS/Orion:
In a statement at the beginning of the Feb. 23 meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), chairwoman Patricia Sanders said that if NASA decides to put a crew on the first SLS/Orion launch, Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1), it must demonstrate that there is a good reason to accept the higher risks associated with doing so.
“We strongly advise that NASA carefully and cautiously weigh the value proposition for flying crew on EM-1,” she said. “NASA should provide a compelling rationale in terms of benefits gained for accepting additional risk, and fully and transparently acknowledge the tradeoffs being made before deviating from the approach for certifying the Orion/SLS vehicle for manned spaceflight.”
“If the benefits warrant the assumption of additional risk,” she added, “we expect NASA to clearly and openly articulate their decision-making process and rationale.”
The point of my book was not that NASA should simply be more accepting of risk, or be reckless, but balance the risk against the reward. In my opinion, accelerating commercial crew would be worth the risk, to end our dependence on Russia, and increase the productivity of the ISS. Redoing Apollo 8 half a century after the original as a political stunt would not.
[Update a little before 1 PM EST]
NASA is about to have a news conference, probably in response.
[Update post conference]
It was the Bills Gerstenmaier and Hill. Gerst is always deadpan, but one had the impression that he’s not enthusiastic. They’re doing a feasibility study because the White House asked, and won’t be making any recommendations, just describing would it would take in terms of changes in schedule and budget. They just want to see “if they can fly crew sooner.” They expect to have some answers in a month or so (presumably as part of the input for FY2018 budget request). I wish the White House would ask them if they could fly crew sooner on Dragon and Starliner. That would be worth doing.
I can’t believe I just typed the words “FY 2018 budget request.” Makes me feel old.
[Update a few minutes later]
So based on expenditures to date, over ten billion per astronaut. https://t.co/rjHhji2Ats
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) February 24, 2017
[Update a few minutes later]
Here‘s Keith Cowing’s story.
[Early afternoon update]
And here‘s Eric Berger’s take.
[Update a while later]
And Joel Achenbach’s.
I’d note that the reason they would only have two crew is probably a) to reduce the number of losses if it doesn’t go well and b) more margin in the (primitive?) life support.
[Saturday-afternoon update]
Amy Shira Teitel (like me) thinks that this makes no sense.
What’s a few astronauts lives when you’ve got pork to protect?
So did this come from the White House? If so the only logical reason I can think of is to force NASA’s hand, for them to lay out in detail the problems with SLS and why it’s a bad idea, and then to take that to Congress to cancel SLS altogether. Jujitsu.
You don’t think it might not be that the Trump administration wants a politburo-style space spectacular during its first term?
Yeah, let’s fly a high-risk mission that could literally blow up in our faces, as a political stunt. It makes perfect sense.
Back in the real world, it makes a lot more sense to get NASA to admit SLS is not much use so the money can be put into more useful things. Particularly when Musk is now one of Trump’s buddies.
You all know how ‘the big lie’ works, right? NASA has one going that really irritates me… “it doesn’t have the money of the Apollo era!”
Invariable the budget, then and now, is compared to percent of GDP rather than actual dollars. GDP is much bigger today so the same amount of money has to be a lower percentage.
NASA has more money than it needs which is why they waste it. Wasting it is the time honored method to keep from losing it in govt. budgeting.
NASA does what Congress tells it to do. They don’t get to decide whether SLS is a waste of time and money. They get no say, unless the President asks them to come up with a report.
That’s why I say it’s political jujitsu. If it isn’t, then Ken Lundermann’s right.
NASA can’t decide, but NASA could tell Congress that it is being forced to waste money.
I’d like to meet the govt. employee that says, “Congress is forcing us to spend money. I can’t take it anymore!”
Instead what I hear is, “Yes, we can’t get the ten things we asked for but that’s how you get the two things you really want.”
What happens when more than those two things are approved? “Well we have to take the money or we’ll lose it next year.”
It could just be an exercise in looking at various opportunity costs without being an actual intended course of action.
Assume there was no deficit but NASA’s budget was the same, what is the percentage then? Seems silly to compare NASA’s numbers to a budget that is wildly out of control.
The vintage space lady would rather we waste money on a flags and brags mission to Titan while we also don’t have any of the things necessary for that mission right now either. She seems to be falling into the same method of thinking as many others, that we need a big government program to serve the narrow interests of one space cadet constituency.
She also makes the mistake of thinking that any return to cislunar space will be in the form of Apollo, the topic of this post aside.
She isn’t really arguing against the Apollo mindset but rather that mindset should be applied to other destinations. Just because we went to the Moon before, doesn’t mean there is nothing more to learn or that the activities conducted there will be the same. That is the Apollo mindset sneaking in.
What is the overarching strategy and architecture for SLS/Orion in any context? There hasn’t been one and there isn’t one. Doing a flagship mission to Titan or Europa doesn’t support any overarching strategy or architecture either. They are one off missions.
She does bring up the general freak out could be misplaced because NASA does all kinds of studies. And she could be right that wasting money and SLS’s on something like Titan could be a better way to waste money but isn’t the study about looking at getting the most with that first launch than just sending an SLS out empty?
The study should be about getting the most out of that one launch regardless of whether that means people on it or something else.