Jon Goff writes about technologies necessary to a spacefaring civilization that NASA is avoiding developing, instead pouring most of its resources into new and expensive (and probably ultimately unaffordable) launch systems.

[Afternoon update]

Clark Lindsey notes an omission. I agree, tugs are important as well. And NASA's not working on one of those, either.

Whats notable is that NONE of the technologies mentioned there are actively developed by NASA

Kert,
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. NASA is doing some things to promote on-orbit propellant storage through one of the Centennial Challenges they are putting together. And I'm sure that on the SBIR level they're putting a little money into some of those. Just nowhere near as much as they are on the Shaft and the Continual Employment Vehicle.
~Jon

Come now kert, keep it honest:

Aerobraking is being used at Mars by the MRO. ISS is a product of On-Orbit Assembly. And In-Situ Resource Utilization IS being studied right now.

Maybe im not entirely fair, i know that there are small study projects funded through NASA
And aerobraking, yes, thats basically inevitable part of every mars mission.

But ISS was in active design phase how long time ago ? You could say that its in active debugging phase but even that has been on hiatus since Columbia ..

ISRU has been continously studied since before Apollo, but how of it has gotten into hardware stage ? Right on par with reusable earth-to-orbit transportation ..

We cannot be spacefaring so long as all the bills are being paid with taxpayer sourced funds. Someone needs to figure out how to make money without slurping up federal tax revenue. Finding better ways to spread tax dollars among the private players is altogether good and should be encouraged. However, unless non-NASA taxpayer financed dollars enter the picture, in the long run what NASA does is irrelevant. And if non-NASA sourced dollars enter the picture, in the long run what NASA does is irrelevant.

= = =

Even if NASA swapped Atlas V for the Stick how much more money would actually become available for these other uses? And how would you fend off the robotic space science people from that money?

Other than using EELVs how else should NASA redirect its funding?

Cecil, if anything, ISS set us back in orbital assembly, in that it convinced NASA that they should avoid it at all costs. This is one of the false lessons from the past decades.

Rand: I tend to see most of ISS' problems as more or less direct consequences of the decision to build it with Shuttle-specific modules. IOW, any multi-hundred-ton project predicated on a robust "space truck" we didn't really have was bound to be late and over budget.

I can see NASA as regretting that; I can see them as feeling that ISS, like STS, has become a tarbaby in terms of budget demands. But is that the same as turning against on-orbit assembly per se? Or are you inferring that from their ESAS choices?

I tend to see most of ISS' problems as more or less direct consequences of the decision to build it with Shuttle-specific modules. IOW, any multi-hundred-ton project predicated on a robust "space truck" we didn't really have was bound to be late and over budget.

So do I. The powers-that-be at NASA apparently don't see it that way, though.

...is that the same as turning against on-orbit assembly per se? Or are you inferring that from their ESAS choices?

I don't know how to infer anything else from their ESAS choices. I also know, based on extensive discussions, that this is the conventional wisdom within the industry. Orbital assembly (and in fact anything resembling space station) is politically non-viable. At least in their minds. I think they're mistaken.

Posted by kert
ISRU has been continuously studied since before Apollo, but how (much) of it has gotten into hardware stage ? Right on par with reusable earth-to-orbit transportation ..

The answer is quite a bit. CO2 to CO to CH4 hardware has been built and demonstrated. Lunar regolith to O2 experimental hardware has been built. Regolith to building materials has been demonstrated in several forms. H20 to H2 +O2 of course is done all the time.

ESAS is about Mars:

[Mars Society lobbyists] brought talking points that expressed support for the Vision for Space Exportation (VSE), but we also requested that VSE proceed as efficiently as possible by 1) using common hardware for the Moon and Mars (when possible), 2) accelerating the VSE schedule, 3) using in situ resource utilization on the moon and Mars (when possible). We also requested that NASA conduct a repair mission on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dry launch, on orbit assembly, all of that will be premised on Ares V sized chunks rather than EELV sized chunks. Only Robert Zubrin thinks a single Ares V (pure original Mars Direct) is big enough. Otherwise think Ares V sized on orbit assembly and refueling.

I know it annoys the EELV people and the Moon now, Mars someday far away but Griffin is a Moon AND Mars with common hardware guy. Hence ESAS.

Rand: "Cecil, if anything, ISS set us back in orbital assembly.."

True, but all I claimed was that NASA did indeed study the process. I didn't claim they gained the right lessons from doing so. But then I also believe that most at NASA realize that on orbit assembly isn’t inherently “too tough to do” just that it is too tough to do if your primary tool in doing it is the problematic (to say the least) Space Shuttle.

I also believe that most at NASA realize that on orbit assembly isn’t inherently “too tough to do” just that it is too tough to do if your primary tool in doing it is the problematic (to say the least) Space Shuttle.

That may be true, but there's little empirical evidence for it. The agency (regardless of what some individuals within it may believe) is acting as though orbital assembly is in itself intrinsically impossible, or at least more costly than developing endlessly larger launchers.

A possible threaded discussion, here