Eric Berger has gotten a copy of the plan.
It only looks ambitious in comparison to previous plans, not to serious plans. At best, it’s Apollo on steroids. And as he notes, there is no budget, either stated or actual.
22 thoughts on “Artemis”
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Did he get a copy of the plan or just that one chart?
On the plus side, it shows lots of commercial launches of commercial robotics missions. The downside, it shows SLS getting new engines.
Bonus good news, lunar nuclear power.
While the costs are not mentioned, they are probably impossible to accurately state. All of those robotics missions need to be fleshed out and that will also dictate the number of people making the data useful on Earth. Developing nuclear power will also drive up costs.
The talk of having to cut some other government program in order to fund it when we still have deficits nearing a trillion dollars is funny. This is the one single government program that can’t be debt financed and must be paid for by going after some sacred cow.
The chart doesn’t say what international partners would do but there are plenty of possibilities. It also didn’t say what method of procurement would be used for the ascent/descent vehicles or surface infrastructure for the humanned portion of the plan. Would it be a commercial competition or would it be more cost plus? How many different companies would be making the modules?
We are basing a lunar infrastructure plan on an agency that can’t get to space without Russian help, and a rocket made of used parts that still can’t fly. Any optimism for this plan amazes me.
Wasn’t there a spacecraft proposal back in the early 90s named Artemis? I’m thinking of the spacecraft that would drop fuel tanks off on the way to the Moon. The fuel tanks would be replaced once the spacecraft got back. But after typing this, I thought of the Artemis Society. They were going to send three people to the Moon, and back for $1.5 billion. And make their money back by selling the broadcast rights to the landing, and product licensing.
I’m not sure what NASA’s proposed return to the Moon back in the early 90s was called. Back in the 80s, there was the proposal to build an Orbital Transfer Vehicle. Along with the Freedom Space Station.
I would expect a couple of high schoolers, that procrastinated a few months on their final senior design project, to come up with a better plan. What is obvious is that NASA has fully succumbed to SJW thinking. The real answer to them is the bottom line, “Sustainable Lunar Surface Exploration” (SLSe). You know, sustainable, without humans!
If I were the President, and that’s the response I received; I’d quietly ask my Administrator to find out the departments involved with developing that plan, and reassign the leadership to remote NASA test facilities with few personnel and limited budget.
I’m not saying the SLS flights repeatedly shown in the NASA launch schedule remind me of the movie poster for “Weekend at Bernie’s”. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just thinking it.
What would you do?
Politically and institutionally, there’s not much they can do except try to do the best they can to get the SLS flying as soon and as frequently as possible. Cancelling it would free up funds, but perhaps not for a year or two depending on contract details and lots of other accounting details regarding employees, etc. Cancellation would also cause a whole lot of chaos and may not usefully speed up alternative approaches in the short term.
But every SLS they don’t launch might represent $1.5 to $2.5 billion they’ll be able to spend on other launchers or on vehicles, so slipping some of the planned SLS missions back a year or two might allow them to slip a whole lot more commercial launches in to replace them.
I suspect there’s a whole lot of flexibility hiding in the leaked plan, which is, after all, a bit more of a list of goals and aspirations. It’s not yet an elaborate timeline with thousands of critical delivery dates, milestones, and penalty clauses.
A month or so ago I suggested an alternative path for NASA and new space that I thought might be far superior to the status quo.
Elon wants to obsolete Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy and move to using Starship, which he feels will obsolete his earlier launch vehicles. He might be right, or he might not, but NASA definitely has a continuing need for his rockets to keep supporting the ISS. NASA could also greatly benefit from having an in-house, low-cost, re-usable heavy launch vehicle like Falcon Heavy. Elon has a bunch of Falcon tooling and equipment that may just end up as wasted factory space if he really switches over to Starship. NASA really needs to ditch the SLS as unsustainable, but it also needs to keep Michoud and its current workforce fully engaged.
So have Elon sign over the Falcon production to NASA, with accompanying non-compete and other business and legal details laid out. NASA could then have an in-house re-usable launch system with tremendous grow potential from adding more booster sections to the heavy and new cryogenic upper stages.
It could be a win-win, though it might not be likely.
A side-by-side comparison of a NASA-built Falcon 9 and a SpaceX-built Falcon 9 would be interesting to see.
I can actually imagine how Elon might react to seeing the NASA-Falcon-9 in person; I’m picturing the scene in Armageddon where Bruce Willis sees the Armadillo drill machine for the first time…
I like it. NASA could increase their flight cadence to three or possibly even four flights a year.
What is stopping them now?
—So have Elon sign over the Falcon production to NASA, with accompanying non-compete and other business and legal details laid out. NASA could then have an in-house re-usable launch system with tremendous grow potential from adding more booster sections to the heavy and new cryogenic upper stages.
It could be a win-win, though it might not be likely.—
So a reverse privatization.
Interesting. Not sure if ever done before.
One thing about it, NASA might learn [from such experience] how to privatize things- because they fail miserably when they try to do it. And learning that, could worth a lot of money.
“So a reverse privatization.
Interesting. Not sure if ever done before.”
Actually it’s been done countless times in the last 100 years. It’s called “Nationalization of Industry” and it always fails.
Space-x is hungry and has to make a profit to survive so efficiency is sought after.
Once you turn the job over to the government – with all those employees who can no longer be fired – efficiency is the first casualty. Success is the second casualty
Gregg
It’s not a bail out and or robbing, it is buying part of the business of a business. Or taking over a spin off of a business.
Maybe it has been done, not aware of the history of New York Port Authority.
Wiki says:
“The Port of New York and New Jersey comprised the main point of embarkation for U.S. troops and supplies sent to Europe during World War I, via the New York Port of Embarkation. The congestion at the port led experts to realize the need for a port authority to supervise the extremely complex system of bridges, highways, subways, and port facilities in the New York-New Jersey area. The solution was the 1921 creation of the Port Authority under the supervision of the governors of the two states. By issuing its own bonds, it was financially independent of either state; the bonds were paid off from tolls and fees, not from taxes. It became one of the major agencies of the metropolitan area for large-scale projects.”
I’m not certain that NASA would get to keep SLS money if SLS went away but throwing away money on SLS shows congress is willing to fund expensive projects, so there is a high likelihood that they would fund something else, even if SLS is still around.
The Falcon rockets are best kept with SpaceX. I am sure they will keep flying them if they have customers. I am not sure they would fare well under NASA.
The Super Heavy and Spaceship make a lot of things obsolete, so let’s hope their development goes well.
In a good decision, you need alternatives. I don’t see NASA looking for alternatives outside the bubble that has lead them to decades delay and a SLS that isn’t suited for exploration. The only extra put here was something not requested, lots of unmanned exploration vehicles. Why include this extra that doesn’t address the request made by the Executive or your own previously stated goals?
Also look at the picture, those SLSe are just clones of Spirit and Opportunity. If NASA thinks that’s the goal; why aren’t they already on the Moon?
I would not provide solutions that spend money on efforts that don’t meet the goal. That such a solution is provided suggest a lack of seriousness. Either NASA doesn’t take the Executive seriously, or NASA shouldn’t be taken seriously.
I suspect both deserve blame, as 4 years is unreasonable for a mega project. Then again, NASA has already spent several years on plans to get us to other planets, but none of those previous solutions are brought here. Well none of the manned solutions were brought forward. Why not at least dust off Altair, which was cancelled in 2010? Knowing what work was done in the past, and that nothing (more than just Altair) of it was even shown… that tells me NASA isn’t being serious.
Requested by who?
It looks to me as the robotic prospecting is the alternative. It is like a lunar COTS that builds up industry capabilities.
What is the goal? I think everyone has different goals in mind.
Did you miss VP Pence announce the goal to return astronauts to the moon?
You might be taking that too literal. Does returning astronauts to the Moon mean putting them in some rinky dink just barely making it there by the skin of their teeth vehicle or do we look at the other things said about going there to stay?
There are ways we can get back very quickly but that isn’t as important as what we do there and how what we do now sets us up for the future.
Oh noes! NASA secret moon plans even leaked to The UK Sun!
They just did a book report on the Ars piece. If there really was a leak of a report, does anyone have a link to it? The big criticism of cost is still a concern but absent the full report, who knows what is included? It’s not like a single chart will have all the information that everyone wants on it.
I think NASA should finance work on upper stages and actual lunar exploration payloads.
This isn’t a delusion? They actually think that they’ll get 10 billion a year? From the next three administrations? Last I heard, they didn’t have the money to rebuild the launch gantry for the first manned flight.