Transterrestrial Musings

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This is why NewSpace needs to locate revenue sources that do not first pass through Uncle Sugar's digestive system. Sure, NASA and Congress could do better but if a duck had wheels it would be a truck.

Bigelow (I hope) is close to announcing a privately financed project and if LM can man-rate Atlas V (not to NASA standards but to insurance industry standards) and sell rides at private sector prices then there is short term hope.

As for those Space Act provisions, wasn't it a GOP controlled Congress that either put them there or permitted those paragraphs to remain?

Obviously I agree that alternate energy cars do not belong within the NASA mission and BOTH political parties are to blame for the Space Act.

Thus my call to avoid financing that first passes through Uncle Sugar.

Posted by Bill White at February 21, 2007 11:02 AM

> Noble goals, to be sure. But again, why NASA?

I don't know about biotech, but the part about doing automotive research was added to please Robert Frosch, NASA Administrator under the Carter Administration. Frosch really wanted to be Secretary of Transportation but was willing to accept the NASA job as long as NASA got to work on something interesting, not just boring space stuff.

Posted by Edward Wright at February 21, 2007 12:27 PM

> This is why NewSpace needs to locate revenue sources that do not first
> pass through Uncle Sugar's digestive system.

Such statements would be more credible if you were not asking us to hand over our wallets to pay for Ares and Orion.

According to the Bush Vision of Space Exploration, which you say we must support, "The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be responsible for the plans, programs, and activities required to implement this vision."

Not much room for the private sector there.

So, which is it, Bill? Should NASA be responsible for all space exploration plans, programs, and activities -- as the White House says? Or should the private sector have a role?

> As for those Space Act provisions, wasn't it a GOP controlled Congress
> that either put them there or permitted those paragraphs to remain?

No, Bill. Tip O'Neill was a Democrat.

Posted by Edward Wright at February 21, 2007 12:42 PM

Whether the goals are noble or not, they're unconstitutional. James Madison disposed of the anti-federalist argument that the "general welfare" clause was a grant of power to the federal government in the last 4 paragraphs of Federalist #41. Perhaps the most compelling argument used by Madison was that the language in the Constitution was taken from the Articles of Confederation. If such were a grant of power then the Articles would have already given Congress vast power.

Needless to say, the New Deal SC buckled under pressure and interpreted the "general welfare" clause to be a grant of power instead of a preamble to the following enumeration in Art I, Sec 8, so that future generations could enjoy the massive Ponzi scheme known as Social Security.

Thus endeth today's lesson...

Posted by Paul Hager at February 21, 2007 12:52 PM

Rand writes, "Or even, heaven forbid, Ames."

OK, what's the backstory here?

Posted by Greg at February 21, 2007 04:29 PM

OK, what's the backstory here?

The back story is that Ames is the red-headed step-child of NASA, and has zero clout compared to the other centers, because the California delegation doesn't give a damn, having other, bigger (non-space) fish to fry.

Posted by Rand Simberg at February 21, 2007 04:38 PM

This comment and $1 will get you a cup of coffee, but what popped into my head when I read "why NASA?" was the line from Network -- "because you're on television, dummy." NASA is, literally, visible in a way that many Federal agencies are not. This may result in even more mission creep than is usual for bureaucracies.

Posted by Jay Manifold at February 21, 2007 05:33 PM

Edward, let me remind you of my favored position on US space policy. A quote from April 2006 right here at this site:

Link -- its in the comments.

Bill White writes:

US lunar space policy (IMO) should be to test and deploy lunar LOX production and a re-useable LSAM as soon as possible to meet those NewSpace vehicles halfway and forge a robust link to/from the moon. Getting to LEO is "halfway to anywhere" but as ISS proves, merely being halfway is pretty useless and boring.
Doing this with Russian stuff would be "cheaper" than with either EELV or ESAS stick but either way to work in both directions in parallel would seem advisable:

(1) Develop NewSpace to LEO then EML-1;

(2) Simultaneously develop lunar LOX & a re-useable LSAM for the Luna to EML-1 leg; and

(3) Have a "Golden Spike" moment at EML-1 as a robust Earth to Luna transport system is forged.

And there is this quote:

The Boeing lunar architecture - - PDF file here - - appeals to me in many ways, especially the proposal for extensive use of EML-1. That said, a NASA facility at EML-1 fills a niche I would prefer filled by a privately owned facility. If Boeing chooses to fund their own EML-1 facility NOT managed by NASA or DoD I would cheer, loudly.
Thus, I deny being anti-Boeing in general. I just don't like Delta IV for the CLV.

Atlas V? Politically there is no way Atlas V beats Delta IV in a head-to-head contest to be selected as CLV. Why? Russian engines. Boeing lobbies Congress about using Russian engines to fly US astronauts and its game over for Lockheed.

Given that Delta IV is not commercially viable for non-government launches why are NewSpace people so much in love with it? When did any Delta (II or IV) last launch a non-governmental payload?

= = =

As for money, unless private sector money is found to add to NASA's budget there will not be enough money no matter what architecture we use.

Throwing money at space planes will also be a boondoggle UNLESS private markets and revenues are developed and proven.

As before, I am willing to consider supporting RLV funding IF someone can answer point #2 with more than hand waving and shouting:

1. Fire Dr. Griffin.

2. ???????

3. Enjoy our fancy new spaceplanes.

Posted by Bill White at February 21, 2007 06:31 PM

"Why should it be NASA's job to study the earth? I thought that was what NOAA was for?"

There are actually a bunch of reasons:

1-Mission focus
2-Expertise
3-Policy
4-Bureaucratic organization/politics
5-History

In order:

1-Mission focus: you are experiencing the traditional confusion over what the two agencies do. NASA does science. NOAA does forecasting. The missions are different in many ways, including time horizons. Although NOAA does do science and theory, they are fundamentally centered upon improving short-term forecasting. Climate/Earth scientists and meteorologists are different disciplines. Earth science is, as its name suggests, a science, and that is why NASA, a science agency, has responsibility for it.

2-Expertise: closely related to #1, the resident expertise in these areas rests at different agencies. If you were going to move the mission to NOAA, then you would also have to move all the expertise. But they would still represent two distinct cultures, and there is no reason to believe that such an arrangement would be any better than it is now, and many reasons to believe that it would be worse.

3-Policy: the federal government tends to treat these agencies in different ways. It expects NASA to look at bigger picture issues, such as understanding fundamental interactions in the Earth system.

4-Bureaucratic organization/politics: it might be worthwhile to compare the budgets of Earth sciences at NASA and the relevant portions of the NOAA budget. If you moved the NASA functions into NOAA, it would fundamentally change the nature of NOAA as far as budget is concerned. But would that automatically change NOAA's management and policy? It seems more likely that once NOAA obtained that money, it would raid those accounts to pay for things that NOAA has done for decades.

5-History: NASA has done Earth sciences research virtually from its beginning. In fact, the agency has essentially created the field of Earth systems science. Congress, the White House, and the science community believe that the mission belongs with the agency that originated it and has developed it for decades. Any argument to change this situation has to be better than "NOAA has weather satellites."

Posted by Donald Zelnik at February 21, 2007 07:03 PM

"Yeah, I know, they don't have the internal R&D capability to do build and launch satellites, but there's no reason they couldn't develop it"

And what happens in the interim while they try to develop it? How many years should we wait to rebuild capability that already exists now?

"For that matter, this seems like a great application for data purchase. Stipulate what kind of data you want, how much coverage in what lighting conditions, in what spectra, and then purchase it on the market."

This is not how science is conducted. You cannot simply specify data to be collected because often you do not understand what kind of data is relevant until you have entered the process. It is iterative.

"The fewer things that NASA has on its plate, the more effective it might be in actually executing them... For that matter, I suspect that both space and aviation would be better off if a separate agency were set up for the latter."

Why stop there? Why not turn rocket launches over to the Department of Transportation, space communications, tracking and control to the military, astronomy and astrophysics and heliophysics, to the National Science Foundation, and planetary exploration over to the US Geological Survey? And while we're at it, why is "space exploration" a NASA activity? The NSF has traditionally funded polar and undersea exploration. So has the US Navy. So why not put the human space exploration program in one of those agencies instead?

The reason is because these things--including Earth sciences--have more in common with each other than they do with the missions of other agencies.

You seem to start from the premise that NASA is a lousy agency full of nitwits. Have you looked at other government agencies however? How well is the Coast Guard doing at managing its Deepwater contract? How well is the US Army doing at occupying Iraq? How well has the USAF managed the F-22 and F-35 programs?

NASA is not as bad as you think it is.

Posted by Donald Zelnik at February 21, 2007 07:22 PM

> Simultaneously develop lunar LOX & a re-useable LSAM

Developing lunar LOX is pointless unless you can do it economically, Bill.

It makes no sense to spend $100 billion to land a plant that produces a few hundred pounds of LOX, just to say you've done it.

And once again, LSAM is not reusable. That's a misconception you just hang onto, despite all attempts to inform you.

> as ISS proves, merely being halfway is pretty useless and boring.

So you say, Bill. Everyone who's actually been to LEO disagrees. They talk about how much fun it is. Sounds like you have a serious case of sour grapes.

> As for money, unless private sector money is found to add to NASA's budget there will not be
> enough money no matter what architecture we use.

There's more than enough money right now, if costs are reduced. There is no law of nature that prevents that.

> As before, I am willing to consider supporting RLV funding IF someone can answer point #2 with
> more than hand waving and shouting:

We've answered that question over and over again. If you want to mischaracterize the answers as "hand waving and shouting," that's your privilege.

So, what happens if the Chinese develop military spaceplanes, giving them absolute control of outer space, while the US is playing with Apollo capsules? Or the Indians? Or the Russians?

I'm not willing to risk the security of the United States for the sake of bread and circuses.

Posted by Edward Wright at February 21, 2007 11:56 PM

Since when has NASA had an internal capability to design, build and launch satellites?

So, what happens if the Chinese develop military spaceplanes, giving them absolute control of outer space

Well, now they have a worthless 50 billion dollar spaceplane boondoggle stealing resources which could be used for actual science.

I'm not sure exactly how useful a spaceplane is for military purposes when you can shoot it down with a $5m munition launched from an F-15.

Posted by Adrasteia at February 22, 2007 04:21 AM

And once again, LSAM is not reusable. That's a misconception you just hang onto, despite all attempts to inform you.

Well, the current NASA LSAM viewgraph isn't reusable. There's no reason why this couldn't or shouldn't change, we aren't even going to begin bending metal for another half decade.

Posted by Adrasteia at February 22, 2007 04:25 AM

Since when has NASA had an internal capability to design, build and launch satellites?

Since its inception. It no longer launches them, but it could, on the Shuttle.

Well, now they have a worthless 50 billion dollar spaceplane boondoggle stealing resources which could be used for actual science.

Who was talking about science? Space is about much more than science, and always has been, despite the popular mythology.

Posted by Rand Simberg at February 22, 2007 04:58 AM

That's one of those proposals that sounds good in theory but would probably be a disaster in practice. It's a common belief that agencies are always looking to expand their duties; in fact, most of them are struggling to do what they were mandated to do with the funding and personnel they have.

The recent NAS study (which you don't reference here, for some reason) shows how much strain NOAA is under (as well as how bad off NASA's program's are in this area). The NAS is not just a "bunch of scientists" but a highly respected group. Adding more duties to NOAA, much less asking them to build up the capability to achieve them, would likely create a train wreck. Especially if it was done under Bush, who's proven himself adept at creating bureacratic messes (Homeland Security, CPA, etc.).

Not that it would bother a lot of the people who advocate this. It's little wonder that you hear these ideas floated by people like Dana Rohrbacher. He's opening accused NASA of wasting billions trying to find a non-existent global warming threat. He's be happy to transfer NASA's responsibilities on this to NOAA, where the programs would have lower priorities. Then these programs would wither away due to bureaucratic chaos, reduced funding, insufficient capability, and NOAA's focus on its primary mission.

Finally, it's difficult to see how having NASA do these programs has created so many problems in other areas. Look at the roots of NASA's problems in, say, finishing ISS, doing the VSE affordably, or losing 40 percent of its shuttle fleet. Are these problems due to the fact that part of NASA is focused on Earth sciences? Or do they relate (as various investigative reports have made extremely clear) to deeper management problems within the agency's human spaceflight program? You could transfer these programs out of NASA and still end up with the same problems.

Posted by D. Messier at February 22, 2007 09:09 AM

Robert,

Give me total national health care for 17BN per Annum and I will sign on.

Posted by Mike Puckett at February 22, 2007 10:03 AM

Please indulge me.

Can someone offer a succinct easily understood description of Step 2 of this sequence. A review and summation of prior work to date:

1. Fire Dr. Michael Griffin and burn plaster images of the Ares rockets as an exorcism.

2. ???????

3. Enjoy our marvelous new spaceplanes that loft cagrio at $10s or $100s of dollrs per pound.

Pretend I am a total newbie to space advocacy, or the aide to a newly elected Congress-critter.

What is the plan for step 2?

Posted by Bill White at February 22, 2007 10:32 AM

Can someone offer a succinct easily understood description of Step 2 of this sequence.

Why should we be responsible for filling in the gaps of your bizarre fantasies, Bill?

Posted by Rand Simberg at February 22, 2007 10:41 AM

>> So, what happens if the Chinese develop military spaceplanes,
>> giving them absolute control of outer space

> Well, now they have a worthless 50 billion dollar spaceplane boondoggle
> stealing resources which could be used for actual science.

A spaceplane does not have to cost $50 billion. You need to do a little research.

The Chinese probably care more about warfighting capabilities than studying the effects of weightlessness on frog embryos. Whether they do or not, we ought to.

> I'm not sure exactly how useful a spaceplane is for military purposes when
> you can shoot it down with a $5m munition launched from an F-15.

An F-15 cannot shoot down a spaceplane.

Posted by Edward Wright at February 22, 2007 12:03 PM

>> And once again, LSAM is not reusable. That's a misconception you just hang
>> onto, despite all attempts to inform you.

> Well, the current NASA LSAM viewgraph isn't reusable.

That's the only LSAM there is.

> There's no reason why this couldn't or shouldn't change, we
> aren't even going to begin bending metal for another half decade.

Yes, there is. NASA management doesn't want it to change. That's all the reason that's necessary.

Posted by Edward Wright at February 22, 2007 12:08 PM

Tee! Hee!

Rand, do you advocate a new direction for NASA yet refuse to explain what it is?

B:Can someone offer a succinct easily understood description of Step 2 of this sequence.
R: Why should we be responsible for filling in the gaps of your bizarre fantasies, Bill?

Rand, how will you persuade anyone (Congress?) to follow your suggestions if you cannot explain what they actually?

Posted by Bill White at February 22, 2007 12:55 PM

> Rand, do you advocate a new direction for NASA yet refuse to explain what it is?

No, Rand has explained numerous times.

You, on the other hand, refuse to read.

Do you want Rand to come to your house and read to you?

Posted by at February 22, 2007 01:31 PM

Rand, do you advocate a new direction for NASA yet refuse to explain what it is?

Actually, I've done that many times over the years, Bill, but I continue to have no idea what this question has to do with your fantasy "sequence." You're the only person who has proposed it, so I still don't know why you expect us to fill in the blanks.

Are you sure you're a lawyer?

Posted by Rand Simberg at February 22, 2007 02:19 PM

Do you want Rand to come to your house and read to you?

Not at all necessary. ;-)

A simple three paragraph essay to summarize Rand's current February 2007 approach on how we can achieve genuine spaceplanes (and lift priced in the $100s per pound) in the near future is all I ask.

As a fall back, Edward Wright can offer his version of how we get there.

Posted by Bill White at February 22, 2007 03:33 PM

> A simple three paragraph essay to summarize Rand's current February 2007
> approach on how we can achieve genuine spaceplanes (and lift priced
> in the $100s per pound) in the near future is all I ask.

Why do you assume he revises his approach on a monthly basis? If you're really interested, why don't you go back and read what he posted in January, December, November, October, September...?

> As a fall back, Edward Wright can offer his version of how we get there.

You mean like the one I gave you two days ago? Which you also refuse to read? Or at least refuse to acknowledge reading?

Short of coming over to your law office and reading to you, what else can we do? A podcast? Books on tape? Direct injection of the words into your neural pathways?

Posted by Edward Wright at February 22, 2007 04:06 PM

"Not that it would bother a lot of the people who advocate this. It's little wonder that you hear these ideas floated by people like Dana Rohrbacher. He's opening accused NASA of wasting billions trying to find a non-existent global warming threat. He's be happy to transfer NASA's responsibilities on this to NOAA, where the programs would have lower priorities."

Yes. When people ask "why isn't space astronomy done by NSF" or "why isn't Earth science done by NOAA" what they are really saying is "I don't think this is really worth doing, so I would rather see a non-NASA agency do it, and I do not care if that other agency does a lousy job."

But it's not really a viable opinion. There is ZERO interest in any of the agencies (NOAA, NSF, NASA), the White House (OSTP, OMB) or Congress in moving these missions. The question only serves to highlight how little the person asking it understands or cares about the subject.

Posted by Donald Zelnik at February 22, 2007 08:55 PM

Posted by Mike Puckett at February 22, 2007 10:03 AM

for 17 bills...sure...what part of the country you want covered...lol

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at February 22, 2007 10:12 PM

When people ask "why isn't space astronomy done by NSF" or "why isn't Earth science done by NOAA" what they are really saying is "I don't think this is really worth doing, so I would rather see a non-NASA agency do it, and I do not care if that other agency does a lousy job."

Ummmm...No. That's not what "I'm really saying."

Posted by Rand Simberg at February 23, 2007 05:24 AM

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