No one seems to know, even though it’s been pretty well defined by NASA. If we are to believe this web page (and it seems consistent with what I’ve always understood it to be) it is the set of hardware elements that are to get us back to the moon, and eventually to provide the basis for missions “beyond,” whether Mars or other objects in the inner system. These include the Ares I and Ares V launchers, the Orion capsule, and the Altair lunar lander (it also of necessity includes the Earth Departure Stage, though it’s not mentioned at the top level, and remains unnamed, as far as I know).
But apparently people, and people who should know better, don’t read that web page. One of them is Andy Pasztor of the Journal, who I had to correct the other day (I sent him an email — he never responded).
Someone else who should know better is Glenn Smith (who I’ve known for a couple decades, though we haven’t had any interactions since the early nineties), who wrote an editorial last week that implies (well, OK, actually states) that Constellation is a moon base:
It is time to reconsider whether we want to go ahead with the Constellation program to place a base on the moon. Many of us in the space community would be eager to recreate the thrill of Apollo. However, from the public’s standpoint, going back to the moon in 2020 would not invoke the same sense of awe and inspiration it did 51 years earlier when it was a seemingly impossible task.
The Constellation program is not to place a base on the moon. The Constellation program is to develop the capabilities to get humans back to the moon (and perhaps beyond it). To actually build a base would require much more than Constellation, at least as currently defined. There is in fact no funding in the budget plans that I know of for a lunar base (there’s not really enough to even do Constellation in the manner in which NASA has insanely and duplicitously and disingenuously defined it).
At this point, arguing about whether or not we should do a moon base is utterly beside the point, because there are no concrete plans as to what NASA is going to do once it has the trivial capability to get a handful of astronauts to the moon once or twice a year, at a cost of billions per flight, which is all that Constellation in its current incarnation provides.
And notice the last two sentences. They don’t seem to jibe with the first one. “Going back to the moon” is not the same thing as building a moon base. After all, we went to the moon once, and Mike Griffin advertised this plan as doing that “on steroids,” and there may have been a base implied, but there may also not have. Unfortunately, the VSE wasn’t sufficiently specific about what we were supposed to do after we got back to the moon, other than as to use it as a basis for going on to the other places, but there are lots of ways to do that.
Now, I’m not necessarily opposed to lack of specificity, because I don’t believe in socialistic/fascistic five- and ten- and twenty-year plans. I was happy with the president’s general goal that man was going out into the cosmos, and I wasn’t unhappy with the idea that we’d get back to where we were forty years ago and use that as a basis for going beyond.
What I am unhappy with is the cargo-cult mentality on the part of NASA that, because we got to the moon forty years ago on a humungous launch system with a crew capsule and service module and expendable lander, that this is the way to do a reset of history and reestablish a forty-year-old baseline.
In my mind, what Constellation should be is the development of an infrastructure that allows us to go anywhere we want in the inner (if not outer) solar system, and then let the national priorities determine what we’ll do with it once it’s in place.
But it must do so in an affordable and sustainable (and, I would add, scalable) way, which means you can’t throw the hardware away. In repeating Apollo, we are doing exactly the opposite. We have to develop a system that has low marginal costs, which means reusable hardware, which means in-space refueling, and depots from which to do so scattered (at first) in cis-lunar space. Until I see NASA plans to do so, I won’t take their multi-decade plans seriously.
[Tuesday morning update]
Paul Spudis (who was on the Aldridge Commission) says that NASA has managed to subvert the intent of the VSE:
The Vision was never intended to be a repeat of Apollo – the idea was to use the Moon to create new spacefaring capabilities. This is a task that’s never even been attempted in space, let alone accomplished. It is the antithesis of “been there, done that.”
The administration may have thought that the issue was settled after the VSE announcement and the Aldridge Commission, but it wasn’t, and there continue to be warring factions within the agency. It was pretty clear (and one can even recall quotes from Doug Stanley to that effect) that some saw the lunar mission as nothing more than an excuse to develop Mars hardware (a heavy lifter, that just happens to be named “Ares”), which is ironic, because the Ares V will not perform a Mars mission in a single launch, and it’s impractical (short of something like Sea Dragon) to build a launcher that will. And yet they avoid the technologies (in-space assembly and fueling) that are enabling for Mars, though this would make the moon more practical and sustainable as well.
This is quite literally lunacy.
Even if Constellation is firmly defined (and frankly how firmly defined can an ever changing government project be?), one can always suborn that meaning in order to slide in a favored project. The purpose of Constellation isn’t written in stone and hence, for that reason alone, one can hope and dream with some chance of success.
But it must do so in an affordable and sustainable (and, I would add, scalable) way, which means you can’t throw the hardware away.
History has proven otherwise. All partially/reusable space launch vehicles designed so far are *more* expensive than expendables, rather than less. True, there is a small sample of reusables to go around (one could claim in fact there are no 100% reusable vehicles), but facts are facts.
To develop such a vehicle alone would require an extensive R&D investment in the order of tens of billions and some 20 years. No existing engines or structures are up to the task.
“To develop such a vehicle alone would require an extensive R&D investment in the order of tens of billions and some 20 years. No existing engines or structures are up to the task.”
Tens of billions and 20 years … that sounds like Constellation (for high values of “tens”).
Actually, I don’t see why such vehicles and spacecraft would need to cost so much or take so long to develop. Rand didn’t mention a very difficult goal like an SSTO vehicle that can carry a huge payload. A reusable lunar lander, a reusable space tug, a reusable propellant depot, and a TSTO RLV (perhaps at first only partly reusable, if it made economic and development sense) sound challenging but achievable, and probably a lot more generally useful than Ares I and V, to me.
If these infrastructure elements can be designed in such a way that they’re suitable not just for the NASA human spaceflight goals, but also for other private and government jobs, they might be appropriate for a COTS-like effort. Given the current funding levels for the existing COTS program (Ares/Orion funding on the order of 100x NASA’s contribution to *BOTH* COTS efforts), I’d imagine NASA could do all of these and have plenty of money left over. If NASA did that with a realistic level of funding, I for one wouldn’t even mind if it used the remaining “Moon and Beyond” funds for government rocket-building.
History has proven otherwise.
That is absolute and complete horseshit. If you believe that, make an actual case for it, rather than a sound bite.
To develop such a vehicle alone would require an extensive R&D investment in the order of tens of billions and some 20 years. No existing engines or structures are up to the task.
Let’s ignore the earth-to-orbit issue for the moment. I was referring to in-space vehicles. How many examples of that do we have to work with? And what does at least the theory show?
I’d like to see someone try a Henry Ford approach to launch one day. Make a factory that rolls rockets capable of putting 1 ton into LEO off the line at 10x/day and launches just as many each day.
Rand,
Reading Comprehension Failure Alert from the typical source.
~Jon
ugh. Hell is freezing today. I agree with Rand.
NASA will interpret affordable as the most expensive solution that will fit within existing budgets. If it helps develop truly affordable technologies and infrastructure, it will help establish commercial manned spaceflight, which would be a competitor to NASA.
Hence a huge Orion (though they shot themselves in the foot with that, since it is too big for Ares I but not too big for EELV despite their best efforts), no depots, no gateway stations, no COTS-D (with a recent glimmer of hope). And that’s no doubt also why they want to scuttle the ISS as soon as possible. And abandon the moon as soon as possible and go on to Mars, where there won’t be commercial competition for decades, especially since NASA chooses not to help with that. This would preserve their cosy monopoly for decades.
Wouldn’t it be an embarrassment if fifty years from now there is still a NASA, with only “a litter of ritual monuments scattered across the planets and their moons” to show for it? The more I read and think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that NASA is rotten to the core and cannot be reformed. It should probably be disbanded.
Why should spaceflight be considered a valid government activity anyway (very little is)? I wouldn’t be surprised if it were actually unconstitutional. Not that constitutions are always right of course (think of the original US constitution and slavery).
All partially/reusable space launch vehicles designed so far are *more* expensive than expendables, rather than less. True, there is a small sample of reusables to go around (one could claim in fact there are no 100% reusable vehicles), but facts are facts.
By the way, thank you for pointing out the logical absurdity of your first sentence with your second one.
Let’s ignore the earth-to-orbit issue for the moment. I was referring to in-space vehicles. How many examples of that do we have to work with? And what does at least the theory show?
I never said I was against space-tugs. In fact I think it would be very interesting do develop solar-thermal or nuclear thermal propulsion space tugs. What I fail to see is how RLVs would help with our current predicament. Let there be a supply contract renewable every 5 years, or something like that, for launching a specific payload to a specific orbit and let someone else try to build their damn RLV. Provide DARPA like funding for propulsion if need be.
I am just tired of these efforts to build the next great thing (Shuttle, Ares V) which turns out to be not so great, while we delay everything else for it. The space infrastructure should not be depended on a single component (even less on a component which hasn’t even been manufactured yet!).
I am just tired of these efforts to build the next great thing (Shuttle, Ares V) which turns out to be not so great, while we delay everything else for it.
I didn’t propose that we delay anything for anything. NASA’s focus should have been on the in-space components for the past five years, instead of wasting its money on unneeded new launch systems.
This article has been added to the Astronomy Link List.
I think everyone misses the big point. Basic space and planetary science aside, there has to be a big financial return to justify spending the money in outer space. Robotic exploration works well and returns 95% of the good science. The manned space program has no real endgoal other than living the dreams of scifi fans, which is why its budget sits at less than what we spend in 3 weeks in Iraq. There is a real need to find and develop extraplanetary resources though which should be the focus of the non-science part of the program. He3 for fusion development from the moon and gas planets, platinum, gold and other heavy metals from the asteroids. RIght now we are hitting Peak Oil and unless we find new resources, we will just be staring at the stars, not traveling to them.
Great review.I know a little about what NASA is doing, since i work for NASA and have been intimately involved in Constellation activities. What this points out is the very real need for some entity OUTSIDE of NASA to set strategic focus and priority for NASA, along with objectives.