Jim Meigs has a long essay at the Manhattan Institute that quotes Yours Truly several times.
[Friday-morning update]
Bob Zimmerman writes that we don’t need no stinkin’ government program to get to the Moon.
Not sure I agree. The race to the poles was all about prestige, and America didn’t need it, but the race to the Moon is about resources, and we don’t want China to be making claims. But I agree that the best policy would be that which encourages private actors, and Isaacman is the ideal NASA administrator to do that.
“In other words, despite being absurdly expensive, the SLS/Orion project is moving at a glacial pace, already technologically outmoded and incapable of fulfilling the grand Artemis goals.”
But other than that, it’s great! /s
Par for NASA. Just what we’ve come to expect from decades of government funding
I still don’t think Meigs has it quite right. What does it mean to have a mission directorate (planning and management) for a moon base? Worse for a Mars base where communication latency (two-way) can at best take about 6 minutes to nearly 45 minutes depending upon orbital positions. Mars folks are going to be far more on their own than anything seen in the past. Making the idea of “Mission Control” about as obsolete as a buggy whip. “Mission Support” might be a better phrase.
Well, we have Air Traffic Controllers – and the only people controlling the air traffic sit in the front of the airplane
As the old saying goes “what is the difference between pilots and controllers?
“When pilots make a mistake, pilots die. When controllers make a mistake, pilots die.”
I have long thought the job title should be ” Air traffic separation assistance technician”
Agreed. Their job title should emphasis they have control over nothing
But still the communications are instantaneous.
There is an ATC term for this situation: NORDO.
More like YOYO
Yep. You will be.
I was thinking more along the lines of Oh Sh*t.
Call the tower and have them get out the hand light.
Given today’s technology, “full self-flying” and put the ATC in the cockpit. He could monitor the IFF/terrain display and operate rudimentary controls when and if. The “Land Immediately” button would have to trigger software somewhat more sophisticated than the one on Crew Dragon.
You aren’t working with ATC if you have no radio. And you aren’t landing at controlled airports (unless you did have a radio and it conked out).
So unless you lose your radio, NORDO is irrelevant to the discussion. And even then, the tower will communicate with you via lights.
You make a good point about the weakness of the traditional Mission Control concept for Mars missions. Every uncrewed Mars mission operates itself for mission critical operations such as orbital capture, atmospheric entry, and landing. Even routine operations are limited by propagation delays and periods when the Sun is blocking the line of propagation for weeks. About the only way to avoid that would be to position communications satellites in orbit around the Sun ahead of and/or behind the Earth’s position. Lacking that, a crew on Mars will be completely on their own.
George O Smith had the Earth Mars communications covered in 1959. Look up “ Venus Equilateral” Classic hard SF.
So much good stuff came out of the late 40’s and 50’s. I miss that era of “fiction”.
The big problem with the era was, nobody anticipated the computers we have today. Heinlein has a character named “Slipstick Libby.” Forty years ago, I wrote sample chapters and outline for a book that portrayed the world of 2020 that was fairly accurate with what did happen, but no one would publish it. “Universal com units in everyone’s pocket using low-latency satellite signals? Idiot. That will never happen!” It was to be called “Mechanics of the Mind,” and featured a piezoelectric super-computer that could interpret your brain signals.
“That would never happen, idiot” is a great title for a story.
I’d go for the line: “That will never happen kid”.
Heinlein has a character named “Slipstick Libby.”
…and you’d have to be pre-Boomer or a Boomer to appreciate that moniker. My first one was circular.
Oh for the days of Mars with canals and Venus with jungles!
Given today’s tech there is no need for enroute ATC at all. Moving maps with terrain for ground avoidance with other traffic around you superimposed on the map and computer alerts for impending conflicts.
I disagree. Firstly I rely on Flight Following for any XC flight I make. They will notice if something happens to me. Yes, they do it on an as-able basis but I’ve never been denied and I’ve flown from Texas to Massachusetts, back and forth from Massachusetts to Syracuse and Massachusetts to South Carolina so I’ve covered a good chunk of the airspace.
And then not everyone has ADS-B out. Lots of people don’t land at airports that require it. So you don’t see those on the display. You need to keep your eyeballs outside.
Lastly most of ATC’s separation work is with the airspace of the airport – keeping airplanes in, or entering the pattern, spaced apart. A very busy place at times and as the pilot I don’t have time to stare at the display to see the other airplanes and figure out the spacing etc. I have to manage the plane in the pattern and keep my eyeballs outside. So I’m happy ATC is there.
I thought about contacting Elon about me coming out of retirement to help with the whole space regulatory regime mess, but given the way things went during the first Trump presidency – and my experience in the Federal bureaucracy as a whole – I considered it pissing away what few years of life I have left. Pretty much the same as the waste of the last years of my career were at AST, with a lower probability of having the kind of influence I had hoped to have back then. But once in a while I read something like this (excellent) article, and feel a new drive…
May we live in interesting times…
“But they should worry about driving away the mainstream Democrats—not to mention Republicans from space-industry-heavy states—who supported Artemis and other space-policy innovations during Trump’s first term. ”
This is an impossible task because once Democrats pick someone to demonize, all rational thought goes out the window. It doesn’t matter what Trump or Musk do, the strategy is demonization and it can’t be stopped by changing behavior because behavior isn’t what caused it.
It isn’t something that Trump or Musk did that “drove them away” other than existing outside of the Democrat party.
There should always be churn on the commercial side. Not everything can be success. It might be nitpicking but fix isn’t the right word. There should be cycles of expansion, consolidation, orientation, expansion, etc.
The last part is interesting. NASA needs an identity. However, it isn’t up to them to create it. Congress has to lay it out. We don’t need a government program to get to the Moon but absent effort of government, we rely on some individual or group of people wanting to do it on their own. The reality is, government will be a part of it, so the best option is to shape what that looks like.
The US Army Corps of Engineers built a series of forts across the frontier to support settlement.
“More specifically, the Artemis plan calls first for a series of robotic explorations of the moon’s South Pole area. That region has deep craters that scientists believe contain pockets of water ice (valuable for life support and for making oxygen and fuel) and high points that enjoy continuous exposure to sunlight (unlike most of the moon, which experiences alternating 14-day periods of sunlight and frigid darkness)—which together make the area promising for long-term inhabitation. ”
I think the polar regions of Mars are similar, but I would add the short distance to different time zones is critical aspect in terms of using solar power. The lunar polar region get far more useful solar energy than Earth, but Mars polar regions get better solar energy as compared to anywhere on Earth.
The race to the poles was also about resources, but government got in there.
As a result, Antarctica is now supposedly off limits for all resource extraction.
Since it’s supposed to be shared with all countries, no one wants to publicly do the work to open e.g. a mine.