Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Mike Griffin

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…continues to defend the indefensible. Clark Lindsey has a response. Others have commented on this particularly bit of misleading the uninformed:

Griffin also suggested that the plan didn’t put much thought into the decision to defer a human return to the Moon in favor of a mission to a near Earth asteroid by 2025. The made that choice, he suggested, “apparently without realizing that the delta-V to get to almost all asteroids is higher than the delta-V to get to Mars” with similarly long travel times and limited launch windows. “In a number of ways reaching asteroids can be harder than reaching Mars.”

While I agree that it’s unlikely that much thought was put into the 2025 asteroid mission, this is disingenuous. No one said that we’re going to visit “almost all asteroids,” or even one in the main belt, so the velocity needed to get to “almost all asteroids” is irrelevant. All that really matters is the delta-V to get to the one that we choose, and there are many earth crossers with very low requirements.

On the subject of his comments about new technologies, I would expand on Clark’s critique. Mike says:

He was skeptical of the plan’s emphasis on “gamechanging” technologies to enable human space exploration. “Any time I develop a new technology I potentially change someone’s game,” he said. “Without a plan, I don’t know what game, I don’t know if it’s the game I ought to be changing, or if it’s a high-value game or a low-value game, but I’m going to change something, so it’s pretty easy to promise that I’ll do gamechanging technologies.”

He added that such technology development programs can be prime targets for future budget cuts, either by the Office of Management and Budget or in Congress. “The Congress surgically removes those programs and spreads the money to goals that they have in mind,” he claimed. “No congressman or senator ever gets credit for a technology program. Congressmen and senators get credit for projects.”

The first statement is simply gobbledygook (to be kind). It’s real simple, Mike. The plan is to explore the solar system with human beings. The current “game,” which you reinforced with Apollo on Steroids, deliberately eschewing the use of any new technology, is unaffordable and unsustainable, the complete opposite of what the Aldridge Commission recommended that the VSE must be. Any technology that dramatically reduces the development or operational cost, or increases the amount of activity that can be performed for a given cost, is a “game changer” and a high-value one. Deferring for now the development of heavy lifters and replacing them with propellant depots (as the Augustine panel members cited as a “game changer”) would be one example.

As for what congressmen or senators get “credit” for,” all he’s really saying is that unless it’s a big jobs program, it’s not politically sustainable. That is all the more reason to get the commercial people in the game as soon as possible, so that they can rely on things other than porcine motivations for continued space activity. And as the events of the past few months show, it’s clear that when the price per pound is astronomical, even pork can’t survive forever, even if it was accomplishing useful things toward the goal of opening up space, as Constellation was not. So given the choice between politically unsustainable hyperexpensive launchers and politically unsustainable useful new technologies, give me the technologies.

14 thoughts on “Mike Griffin”

  1. Of course pork can’t survive forever, but it can survive for decades and yield offspring.

    ESAS was a stinker and dumped a load on VSE. Fine, got it. But Griffin has a point, or weren’t we all just groaning about the FY2011 clusterf#@&? For all the talk about Flexible Path, looks like Congress can’t even imagine going substantially beyond what she used to invest in COTS. If Utah wants solid rockets and no one in Congress sees fit to say no, and if you don’t have an equally or better tasting carrot for the delegation to bring home to their constituents, then what the hell do you think NASA’s options are?

  3. If Utah wants solid rockets and no one in Congress sees fit to say no, and if you don’t have an equally or better tasting carrot for the delegation to bring home to their constituents, then what the hell do you think NASA’s options are?

    “I’m sorry, Senator, but an SRM-based rocket simply isn’t feasible.”

    NASA still has the authority edge. And maybe the US government finds it can’t buy other ATK products as frequently as they used to.

  4. How much edge in authority can an organization that’s neck deep in its own supply chain have? It’s not like Congresscritters can’t figure how to whip up “independent” panelists–and a few famous ex-astronauts–to hand out tongue lashings like candy to whatever government flack shows up.

  5. …This is the sort of pushback…

    On one hand it’s amazing how easy the lies flow off the lips of Shelby et al, but at the same time the article starts to weasel and duck about halfway through. As if the writer really doesn’t believe the rhetoric, and is already making excuses for why the “promise” may not come true.

    What a slimy bunch we’ve sent to Washington, eh?

  6. Yea, when Mike Griffin was told about ion propulsion efforts at NASA when he became administrator, his response was “there is not enough Xenon in the world to support ion propulsion”.

    Newsflash MIke, there is 400 million tons in the atmosphere and it is a byproduct of liquid oxygen production. Many new automobiles have xenon gas headlights.

  7. “Yea, when Mike Griffin was told about ion propulsion efforts at NASA when he became administrator, his response was “there is not enough Xenon in the world to support ion propulsion”.”

    Are you calling Griffin a xenophobe?

    Actually, he was probably thinking in terms of the Dawn spacecraft, which contains 427 kg of Xenon. A friend of mine who worked on the spacecraft mentioned that it used up an entire year’s supply for the whole world. He wasn’t far from the mark. According to this

    http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/Xe.html

    the world’s annual production of xenon is 600 kg.

    That doesn’t mean production can’t be increased, of course…

  8. My (admittedly limited: http://www.spacewhatnow.com/id37.html) analysis showed that low-delta-v asteroids were rare, and the reason they had low delta-vs was because their synodic period (time between close approaches) was quite long combined with a low inclination. In the end, I realized that high delta-vs to get to asteroids would be a good thing, because greater delta-v capability is a good thing.

    Has anyone seen a more recent survey of asteroids making close, low-relative-speed approaches?

  9. Daily production of oxygen from air separation is around 1.5 million tonnes worldwide, I believe. Air contains about 500,000 times more oxygen than xenon (by mass), so that would be about 3 tonnes of Xe per day if absolutely all coproduction could occur.

    I don’t know how much the price of Xe would have to increase to induce a large increase in capacity.

  11. So, if the air products site is correct (and I haven’t dropped a decimal point somewhere), annual production of Xenon is between 50 and 60 tonnes. 600 kg is off by two orders of magnitude…

  13. @Dennis

    Obviously a credible source. Now, 10 million liters which would be 59,840 kg, 100 times more than the other source says. It may be the source I linked made the error.

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