Bob Zubrin’s take on the stagnation in NASA human spaceflight.
As I’ve often said, if we don’t know why we’re doing something, it’s not possible to come up with a sensible way to do it.
11 thoughts on “A Purpose-Driven Space Program”
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A purpose driven space program? Where are the jobs in that?
Why would there be fewer jobs in a purpose-driven program? I think the problem is that the jobs would be different: many fewer at Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman, and more elsewhere.
Jobs are the biggest purpose of the space program. That and kickbacks in the form of PAC money and campaign contributions.
As for NASA, I don’t know if even a generational change can save it. My company is working on the design of a major space system. The NASA managers are insisting on doing things the old paper documents way instead of model based systems engineering. “We ran the Shuttle for 35 years using paper documents. That’s all we need.” If there’s anyone who believes NASA is going to land people on the moon in 2024, I know of some dandy bridges for sale.
I dunno about Zubrin’s views.
I think the problems with NASA and the big aerospace firms that they rely on to build things are far worse than he thinks: You could pour infinite money with step-by-step complete design instructions for a mars or moon mission into these organizations and get *nothing* done. These organizations are made up almost entirely of chiefs with no indians (when what we need are neither chiefs nor indians, but empowered *engineers* who *build shit*.)
We need engineers who know how to build aerospace vehicles because they are at the culmination of a career of building aerospace vehicles and learning all the way. Those guys all retired in the 90s or earlier. They’re being hauled out of retirement to help NASA with basic plumbing because paper pushers are too terrified to make trivial decisions because none of them have any experience about what those decisions mean.
Its a more general problem: Science suffers from it as well. All our turn-of-the-20th-century knowledge has rotted in this way: Without being able to make a career (a good, non-prole-ized, *well-paying* career!) out of learning and growing with the technology that you eventually become a master of, you can’t get the kind of experience required to run an aerospace project. School doesn’t cut it. Knowledge doesn’t live in books and test reports moldering in a file cabinet.
People expect people to spend a million years in school doing abstract textbook learning and then run these programs as if they know what they’re doing. I spent some amount of time working on a space project trying to track down anyone who I could learn anything from about the systems we were supposed to be supervising. The rubber didn’t meet the road anywhere! The knowledge didn’t exist!
We’re going to have to find a way to allow people to reinvent the 20th century. That means people have to be able to have careers rediscovering what prior generations of scientists and engineers learned. The discovery is important – the fact that it is ‘reinventing the wheel’ doesn’t matter – no one who knows how to build those wheels is still working.
what we need are neither chiefs nor indians, but empowered *engineers* who *build shit*.
I think those places still exist, but they’re now found at companies like SpaceX (most obviously), Masten, RocketLab, Astrobotic, and Firefly. The results speak for themselves as in, they actually *have* results.
It’s worth noting that all of these companies are privately held.
what we need are neither chiefs nor indians, but empowered *engineers* who *build shit*
See, my first thought was that at Boeing, at least, we’ve got an absolute surplus of “engineers” capable of building “shit,” along with plenty of Chiefs to approve it. (See StarLiner et al)
The problem is Zubrin is talking about government funded space flight. As long as we are dealing with using the public’s money, we are going to be dealing with the public’s representatives. As long as that is true, the choices made by NASA will be bound by political concerns. Since those concerns tend to change every 4 to 8 years, it’s impossible to get any real work done.
Public money also makes for a self-limiting development effort, much as we see in Antartica. The ArpaNet had no commercial potential because it was a government endeavor, but once freed it blossomed. But unlike communications, the NASA style program isn’t ever going to get swamped by Mars settlers clamoring to get free of government restraint because NASA is never going to have any Mars settlers to begin with. That would be too much like achieving a private-sector goal.
“Moreover, while there may be some interesting science and exploration that astronauts could do on the Moon — we could perhaps add to our knowledge about the Moon’s origins and about the past of the solar system — there is another obvious destination that holds much greater promise for science: Mars.
Consider the biggest scientific question we could study on Mars: the question of the origins of life. This is one of the greatest mysteries of modern science.”
Not too interested in the biggest scientific question, and NASA led around by science questions, seems to a current problem with NASA.
And this particular “biggest scientific question” could be solved/resolved by exploring Earth.
One could argue the biggest scientific question is related to global climate. Yup, the science is not “settled” regarding global climate.
Anyhow it’s a big question because lots of wealth is wasted because we are dead stupid about global climate.
And it’s so poorly understand that some people can say, we will dead in 12 year {if we don’t do “something”} And it seems to me that “The Green New Deal” is threat to global human civilization.
But this does not have much to do with what NASA should do, but would comfortable say there are much greater scientific questions not related to finding life on Mars.
Understanding viruses so millions don’t die from global pandemics would be good area of science.
Detecting space rocks which might destroy Earth might also be a good thing to do- and that could be related to something NASA could do in the future.
But it seems the safest thing to do, if find life on Mars, is perhaps to quarantine Mars. I think NASA should look for life on Mars, but if found, it possible that in near term, Mars would appear to not be viable place for human settlements. And not pressing place to put science bases in order to fully understand this possible alien life.
Sounds expensive, and not needed by American public- and perhaps as wasteful as the Iraq war {or could make these adventures seem quite cheap}.
So if life on Mars, perhaps we should explore Mercury. Perhaps, Mercury is good place for human settlements.
Zubrin’s articles has some good point. But he still lives in a dream world and still relies on NASA.
His 5 points are, I believe, necessary but not sufficient.
1) You can meet all 5 and you are still faced with allocating tax money to the project. I daresay that a lot of the congresscritters voting for the money are NOT – repeat NOT – as excited about space travel as Zubrin. So if they vote the money at all they are doing it for “other” reasons. Those other reasons may exist today – but may not exist tomorrow.
Those congress-critters may not exist in congress tomorrow:
Culberson was really interested in a lander attached to Europa Clipper. As a congressman he championed the idea.
He’s gone. Lander is not part of Europa Clipper.
2) Deadlines.
I agree that creating a deadline is helpful. But the deadline has to have meaning. It can’t just be selected out of thin air. The Moon Landing deadline was an aggressive deadline and was selected because we were in a race. We were behind in manned space flight and were in a cold war with the Soviet Union. Those facts gave the deadline meaning.
3) If, as Zubrin points out, NASA tries to do things in the worst way possible (e.g. Gateway) What makes him think that will change? NASA now has fiefdoms and those fiefdoms protect their rice bowls…as do the congress-critters. Who is going to “drain that swamp”? Swamp draining is hard.
4) As to item #4 – enough has been written in this blog and others about the folly of cost-plus contracts. Enough said.
5) Estes Rocket Syndrome (ERS).
When I was a kid, and Estes rocketry hit the stores I was all in. Loved it. Until one day I got tired of just shooting off rockets. It was nice but I needed to DO SOMETHING with them. I had the capability….but no goal. No use. No function. So I dropped them. Lost interest.
In 1961 we had only the barest beginnings of a space program. To meet the goal it was possible for thoughtful engineers and scientists to create a list of things we had to learn how to do in order to get to the moon. The list would be altered/updated but it was probably a good list. It was, as far as space travel is concerned, rudimentary stuff – orbits, rendezvous, living in space for 2 weeks, tracking, telemetry etc.
All that’s been done. We can do all of that now.
We have a capability. People are looking for a goal.
The Moon, Mars have been listed as goals for decades. Didn’t matter.
In general, no one cares. Or, I should say, very few people care. If no one (or very few) cares, and it takes a lot to get there, no one goes.
Zubrin keeps thinking NASA is the way. There’s far too much swamp, viscosity, direct push back, and sclerosis in the 70 year old agency.
He hasn’t yet noticed what Space-X has done, and how it did it.
As Rand Simberg said, Space is not important.
But of course the global satellite market is important, but in terms NASA and Space, it’s not important.
Apollo was part of a Cold War effort. The Cold War was important.
But having a war on Drugs or the Poor, doesn’t make it important.
Though it does cause a lot mayhem/train wrecks.
Or you have wars because it’s somehow important, but It does not make things important by starting war over it.
What is important is Markets.
NASA should focus on things which could start markets in Space.
And that is why NASA should explore the Moon and then Explore Mars.
It does help to narrow the selection to Moon or Mars.
I would argue it’s better, to do them in a sequence, Moon and then Mars. I would say the Moon is a near term market and Mars is perhaps a bigger but in any case, a market further into the future.
And it seems to me, you can’t have Mars settlement and not be doing something on the Moon- or I should say, can not have markets on the Moon. Nor can have markets on the Moon and not have Mars as a market.
And I also think you can not have Mars settlements without being very close to have Space Power Satellites.
NASA goal could be to cause Earth to have SPS.
And it get to that point by exploring the Moon and exploring Mars, and if exploring both or either doesn’t “work” {the Moon has no mineable water and Mars is inhabitable} then NASA needs to explore elsewhere in order to get Earth’s SPS.
If Earth getting say 1/2 it’s global electricity from Space, that is pretty important.
And having an civilization on Mars is also seems important.