Over at The Space Review today, Dan Lester says we won’t make any progress unless we end our Apollo-driven focus on destinations, and pay more attention to capabilities (as I’ve been preaching for years). I found this interesting:
…how do we get taxpayers to buy into that grand goal of being able to leave, which is a truly unarguable and completely unique justification for human spaceflight? It’s not a matter of just telling NASA to do it. The Space Act that defines the agency says nothing about species preservation, and actually doesn’t even say anything about human spaceflight!
I’m working on a book, and this is an excerpt from the first chapter, a history of the early years:
When it was first formed in 1958, nothing in the NASA charter required that the new agency do more [than the NACA], except to extend the process to space technology development.
And in fact, in light of that, it’s interesting to do something that few (including space enthusiasts) have ever done – to go back and read it. Note that it actually bears little resemblance to the agency that was suddenly morphed into the manned-space behemoth that it became in the wake of the decision to race the Soviets to the moon:
(a) The Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.
(b) The Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that adequate provision be made for aeronautical and space activities.
The Congress further declares that such activities shall be the responsibility of, and shall be directed by, a civilian agency exercising control over aeronautical and space activities sponsored by the United States, except that activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems, military operations, or the defense of the United States (including the research and development necessary to make effective provision for the defense of the United States) shall be the responsibility of, and shall be directed by, the Department of Defense; and that determination as to which such agency has responsibility for and direction of any such activity shall be made by the President in conformity with section 2471(e).
(c)The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (as established by title II of this Act) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.
(d) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;
(3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;
(4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;
(5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;
(6) The making available to agencies directly concerned with national defense of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;
(7) Cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the results thereof;
(8) The most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of the United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, facilities, and equipment; and
(9) The preservation of the United States preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development related to associated manufacturing processes.The emphases are mine. Note that nothing whatsoever about Apollo either sought or encouraged to even a minimum extent, let alone the maximum one possible, commercial use of space.
Note also that while (d)(3) authorized the agency to “develop and operate” vehicles carrying “living organisms” (including humans) through space, it says nothing about how they get there. The development of the giant Saturn V was not driven by the NASA charter – it was driven by the need to kick up lunar dust before the Russians did. And take away that clause, and there is little difference between NASA’s charter and what its predecessor, the NACA, did, other than the addition of “space” to aeronautics. The 1961 Apollo decision, in a very profound way, perverted the original intent of the founding of the agency two years earlier. And it’s interesting to point out that the controversial policy change of the Obama administration in early 2010 – to have astronauts delivered to low earth orbit (LEO) on commercial launchers while NASA focused its resources on the “development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space” is nothing more than returning the agency to its original charter of half a century before (and prior to the wrong turn taken with Apollo).
It could have continued on in the NACA model, with private industry developing space vehicles to provide services, for government or commercial markets, and the new agency providing it with the key basic technologies to make it successful. But that approach, while more in keeping with our nation’s successful history of affordable technology development, wouldn’t have achieved the president’s stated objective, or at least couldn’t be relied upon for it.
So with the new rush to get humans to the moon and back, decision makers relied on their own recent experience from the war, in which there had been a massive crash government effort funded by the taxpayer to achieve a critical national goal: the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. Given the perceived urgency of the space race in an existential Cold War, it seemed appropriate to set up a similar centralized command structure to achieve this new stretch technological objective. As a result, in essence, we established our own state socialist enterprise to compete with that of the Soviets.
We need to break out of that trap in which we’ve been stuck for the past half century.
“The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles…”
Boy, that’s another element that NASA seems to have fallen down on. Or, at least, only pays attention to AFTER something horrible has happened.
it seemed appropriate to set up a similar centralized command structure to achieve this new stretch technological objective. As a result, in essence, we established our own state socialist enterprise to compete with that of the Soviets.
MacDougall made this point in his book “The Heavens and the Earth”.
In developing a sustainable space economy destinations and capabilities are inextricable intertwined. For example, GEO orbit provides a destination that drives the design of GEO communications spacecraft and drives them toward a broadcast function. Same thing with weather satellites, therefore you develop your capabilities to take advantage of that destination. Same thing for LEO and MEO.
In terms of economic development beyond GEO, the Moon defines the first location whereby there exists the possibility of the economic development of off planet resources. The capabilities needed to exploit these resources are fundamentally different in most respects from doing the same thing on a NEO or on Mars. The resource base itself defines what capabilities are needed to exploit the resources in situ.
This is where the new Obama plan falls down. By developing a generic set of capabilities, there is little in the way of a means to exploit any particular location unless you develop such a wide range of capabilities that would allow you to exploit all of the locations, something that does not seem to be funded in the current effort.
I would propose that the new exploration plan have two facets.
1. Ubiquitous operations any where within the gravitational confines of the Earth with human spaceflight. You might extend that to a C3 of 5km/sec round trip delta V above the C3 of 0.
2. Exploitation of the Resources of the Moon to enable a sustainable move to a C3 of 50 km/sec beyond a C3 of 0 for human exploration/exploitation.
3. Development of an industrial base to allow the construction of human and robotic spacecraft outside the confines of a C3 of -4 km/sec (LEO).
Using energy as the definition and or boundaries of operation frees us from this ignorant limitation of talking about the Moon vs Mars and the exploitation of lunar resources allows us to build human spacecraft that are as far removed from today’s spam in a can as the 747 is removed from Kitty Hawk.
Dan Lester wrote:
Incorrect. The Act makes multiple references to “aeronautical and space vehicles” and Section 103 of the Act provides this definition:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#DEFINITIONS
(emphasis mine)
Rand Simberg wrote:
That language was not in the original Act:
http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html
It was added as an amendment long after Apollo (I believe by the first Commercial Space Act in the 1980s).
That language was not in the original Act…
I didn’t say it was.
Dennis Wingo Said: June 21st, 2010 at 9:28 am
“This is where the new Obama plan falls down. By developing a generic set of capabilities, there is little in the way of a means to exploit any particular location unless you develop such a wide range of capabilities that would allow you to exploit all of the locations, something that does not seem to be funded in the current effort.”
One of the problems I had with Constellation was that it tried to do everything itself – it didn’t leverage existing capabilities. Griffin had already acknowledged that the Atlas/Delta launchers could be man-rated, but instead he chose to build an entirely new launcher (Ares I). He could have put the mission requirements out to the space industry and pick the best proposals, but instead he went with an in-house design that had no substantial industry input, and did not utilize any existing assets. This to me was the downfall of Constellation, and the reason why it would have been an evolutionary deadend (i.e. when it ended, nothing would happen until another “program” was funded).
The current plan does spend a lot of effort on generic technologies, but once those are in place, the next program that is approved to go to X (the Moon, NEO, wherever) does not need to create those assets. Need crew to LEO? ULA offers to send your Orion up for $300M/launch, or they can go in a commercial capsule for $130M/launch, or through SpaceX for $20M/seat. Same with cargo. All anyone would need to design is the LEO & beyond elements, and some of those could even use existing hardware (see the ULA study called “Affordable Exploration Architecture 2009”). Instead of a 10-15 year horizon before the 1st boots hit the ground, now it’s more like 4-10 years. Over time it will take even less time, until leaving the Earth is a simple as buying your ticket online for your lunar orbit cruise.
Rand Simberg wrote:
You very strongly implied it in the first couple of paragraphs you quoted from your book, which started with “When it was first formed in 1958, nothing in the NASA charter…” and segued to “go back and read it”, then quoted the current Act with no mention that it had been extensively amended.
I didn’t intend to quote the current act. I thought I was quoting the original one. If I was mistaken, thanks. If I didn’t quote the original, can you provide a reliable source to it?
Rand, here is what you are looking for.
http://history.nasa.gov/45thann/html/docs.htm
How big does a rock have to be to constitute a target for “exploration”?
Let’s find out. Suppose we pass an international law and everybody agrees that anybody planting a flag on a rock gets title and owns it in every respect? Countries exempted, rocks can only be claimed by the individual planting the flag.
Rand Simberg wrote:
I already did, but here it is again:
http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html
It should be pointed out that there was a perceived (if not actual) threat that the first country to get into space and develop space-based resources would also end up “ruling the skies” and dominate militarily the whole of the Earth. Having fought World War II and seeing how “air superiority” really did make a huge difference in the outcome of military conflicts (both on land and at sea), it seemed that occupying an even higher position would give all that more the advantage for future conflicts.
There is some truth in that too, which is why it becomes an even larger issue, but it also explains why the crash program was started. This was pushed to an even higher level when the Soviet Salyut and the American MOL programs were started with extensive theoretical work on what a military mission in space would actually entail.
It is important to note here that this was perceived as not just a public relations issue but a real national threat, particularly by major policy makers in both the Soviet Union and the USA. If there is a perception now that this was done merely for public relations and to “open another front in the Cold War”, that is revisionistic history done after the fact and not what was going through the heads of leaders at the time.
What was the real clincher in terms of scaling back military activities in space came from “high-altitude” nuclear bomb tests, where it became increasingly apparent that military activities in space tended to be mostly “shooting yourself in the foot”, causing more problems for a country trying to get itself involved in space rather than for the countries who aren’t there at all. If you want to do some interesting research dig up the newspaper articles, accounts written at the time those those bombs were detonated in the ionosphere, and then you get a pretty good idea why the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (also known as the Partial Test Ban Treaty) was negotiated and rather quickly ratified.
Interestingly enough, it was after this military purpose for space was found to be lacking that most of the funding for the rest of space exploration (at least manned exploration) eventually was halted. Apollo was already well underway when this happened, and mostly coasted on “auto-pilot” after the funding was starting to be cut. Yes, I realize that the MOL was designed and astronauts were being trained after the Test Ban Treaty, but I don’t think that it was unrelated events that caused the termination of the MOL and Apollo projects at roughly the same period of time. There is also much more going on here than pure “partisian politics” and a changing of the political winds.
I’m not saying that we need to start a war on Mars in order to get the national treasury committed to significant manned spaceflight, but that was one of the major issues that certainly impacted early decisions with the formation of NASA. Even more interesting is that while some in Congress are of the old school thinking (or those who are 60+ citizens remembering the Cold War and the mad dash to the Moon), raising the issue now that if we don’t get back to the Moon, the Russians/Chinese/Indians/North Koreans will get there first to claim the Moon for themselves, this doesn’t pass the laugh test and certainly isn’t something that would pass muster for a vast majority of the American public. It was something that was seriously discussed under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, but by the time the Nixon administration came around there wasn’t any real perceived need at all.
The last gasp for militarization of space happened with the construction of the Vandenberg AFB Space Shuttle launch pad. It should speak volumes about a launch pad that was completed for such a major project never actually got used except for some publicity photos (like this one) I’m using this example because it both explains some of the compromises in the development of the Space Shuttle, and is an excellent example of another major human spaceflight program that had substantial investment (at least $4 billion in 1990’s dollars) and no actual flight of hardware. Its death certainly wasn’t done quietly either with substantial in-fighting to keep the program going. Sound familiar?