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The Fundamental Problem

Jeff Foust and Charles Miller talk about the real issue with space--the fact that we still can't afford to get there on any useful scale.

On a related note (though it's not obvious that they're related, other than the fact that both pieces appear in today's issue of The Space Review), Greg Zsidisin wonders whether we are going to repeat the Apollo debacle.

Well, that depends on what you think "the Apollo debacle" is.

If I read him correctly, Greg seems to think that it was abandoning the Apollo hardware and its capabilities and replacing it with the flawed concept of the Shuttle:

It's déjà vu all over again, of course. Shortly after Apollo 11, NASA triumphantly presented its funding list of "next logical steps". These included human Mars exploration, Moon bases, and a large space station in Earth orbit serviced by a reusable "space shuttle". At the time, the US was engaged in the costly, divisive Vietnam War, while the economy was beginning a big slide that would result in double-digit inflation in the early '70s.

With the race against the Russians having been won, and a decidedly anti-technology attitude settling in, Congress and President Nixon readily pulled the plug on everything but the shuttle, which nevertheless struggled for funding and support. The vehicle that emerged was a highly compromised version of what had been envisioned, and sure enough did not bring the vastly cheaper and more routine space access promised.

The Apollo infrastructure, meanwhile, was almost entirely discarded. We lost the Saturn launch vehicles, their engines, most of their directly associated manufacturing and launch capability. This, despite the huge cost and effort it took to create them.

The problem is that "the next logical steps" weren't necessarily all that logical, but they did fulfill the von Braunian vision (which is what it was based on). In a sense, the Shuttle was the "next logical step," but only in the sense that it was an attempt to make space affordable--something that Saturn never would have done, had we continued it, as so many now nostalgic for that era would prefer. In fact, such misplaced nostalgia for large expendable rockets is at the heart of the cargo-cultish approach of ESAS--it is an attempt to return to the glory days, when we went to the moon, and the whole world watched.

The mistake of Shuttle was not in seeking CRATS (Cheap Reliable Access To Space, which is essential, as Foust and Miller point out). It was in the approach taken to do it. And in that, I don't mean a reusable system. It was in thinking that it was a task for a major government, Manhattan-Project-style initiative on the scale (or even on a smaller scale) of Apollo, in which the government would develop, build and operate a fleet of vehicles (of a single design) to handle all of the nation's (and hopefully, much of the world's) space transportation needs.

No, it was no mistake to set as a goal the dramatic reduction of costs, and increase in routine access to space, which was in fact the original goal of the Shuttle program, and why, despite its many successful flights with useful accomplishments, it was an utter failure programmatically. It should still be the goal, but we have to take a different approach, and not just technically, (again) as Foust and Miller point out:

Any new initiative to achieve CRATS must address the repeated national failures (Shuttle, NASP, X-33, X-34) to achieve CRATS. Instead of trying the same old thing over again, and expecting different results, a new initiative would address the core reasons for the failure, and provide some ideas on a new approach.

Unfortunately, the core reasons for the failure lie at heart in our overall approach to, and thinking about spaceflight. I've often noted that we got off on the wrong track half a century ago, when space technology (at least for human spaceflight) became an expression of technical ability in a race between two Cold Warriors, rather than a utilitarian development for commerce and national security. In so doing, it created a mindset on the subject from which it is difficult for most policy analysts, let alone the general public, to escape. It also created a politically potent iron triangle between NASA, the contractor community, and the Congress that makes it difficult to implement new or innovative policy solutions, because the success of those rent seekers is not contingent on actual progress in space. As long as the contracts continue, and the jobs remain in place, and the lobbyists make their political donations, it doesn't really matter that much whether or not the human space program is expanding humanity into space, or making us a spacefaring nation, because those goals are not nationally important.

The good news is that there is pressure from outside that system to force change. One, as is noted in the Foust/Miller piece, is the growing awareness in the military of the vulnerability of our space assets, and that the only real solution to this is responsive space, not just in terms of access, but also in terms of replacement systems. One of the several ways in which NASA has completely flouted the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission is to propose an architecture that contributes almost nothing to national security. Another way, equally if not more important, is that it contributes almost nothing to nurturing private space enterprise.

Even ignoring all of the technical problems with it, these two factors are probably what will doom it. When the budget crunch comes, unlike the Shuttle, NASA will be unable to call on the Pentagon to come to bat for it. And while private space companies will continue to support the Vision for Space Exploration in the abstract, none of them have any motivation to support ESAS itself. Particularly when there are much more lucrative, and less fickle markets, as they start to satisfy private desires to go, and ignore NASA's continued emphasis on a voyeuristic program that allows us to watch a few civil servants go to the moon while we foot the bill.

I have long said that NASA's approach is essentially socialist, but I realize now that I've been wrong in that assessment. Since reading Jonah Goldberg's book, I've slowly come to realize, over the past few months, that a much more accurate phrase for it is fascist (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Chair Force Engineer recently came to the same conclusion:

In order to justify the enormous expense of the space shuttle borne by the American taxpayers, and to get the flight rate up to levels which would make the vehicle economical, the shuttle was used to launch commercial payloads during its early years. The thought of a government-funded, government-operated vehicle launching commercial payloads should be anathema to freedom-loving Americans. But the shuttle served its need as "the moral equivalent of war." After all, the Russian efforts to duplicate the shuttle capabilities with Energia-Buran helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union. And the shuttle & space station continue to serve as symbols of national pride, promoting the religion of the state.

Exactly. We are supposed to contribute to the glorious State's Space Program, and be content to watch the chosen Representatives of the State, our Celestial Gladiators, go out into the cosmos for us. That is the von Braunian vision (hey, anyone remember where he got his start?), and Mike Griffin (who I'm pretty sure sees himself as von Braun's successor) is eager to continue it. And it doesn't help that neither he, nor any of his other OSC compadres--Tony Elias, Bill Claybaugh, Doug Stanley, et al--even believe that CRATS is achievable. It's a convenient belief, of course, if one wants to build big rockets at taxpayer expense. But we shouldn't fool ourselves that it has anything to do with classically liberal American values. Or becoming a truly spacefaring nation.

Fortunately, we are reaching a point at which we will no longer be able to afford such grand visions of "One NASA" (Ein NASA, Ein Volk, Ein Administrator), and will instead be focused on actual mission needs by the military, and commercial desires of people who actually want to do stuff in space, with their own money. At that point, perhaps, the Cold War will finally be over for the one agency that, like a few Japanese soldiers on remote islands, who hadn't gotten the word, even into the sixties, continued to fight on well past its end.

[Update about noon eastern]

OK, maybe Mike Griffin isn't von Braun's heir:

Werner Von Braun's body was found in China this week after making the trip from D.C. No, he wasn't exhumed, he just churned in his grave until he augured all the way through after an unidentified visitor paying respects whispered to him graveside about the latest hare-brained scheme to make ARES 1 lift off and fly right.

OK, so it's not simple or soon. But as noted at the link, if it never flies, at least it will be safe.

[Late Monday evening update]

Based on his comments, Mark Whittington apparently hasn't read Jonah's book, despite the fact that he attempted to review it.

From the first edition, pages 210-211 (my annotations are in square brackets, and red), "Even Kennedy's nondefense policies were sold as the moral analogue of war...His intimidation of the steel industry was a rip-off of Truman's similar effort during the Korean War, itself a maneuver from the playbooks of FDR and Wilson. Likewise, the Peace Corps and its various domestic equivalents were throwbacks to FDR's martial CCC. Even Kennedy's most ambitious idea, putting a man on the moon, was sold to the public as a response to the fact that the Soviet Union was overtaking America in science..."

"What made [Kennedy's administration] so popular? What made it so effective? What has given it its lasting appeal? On almost every front, the answers are those elements that fit the fascist playbook: the creation of crises [We're losing the race to the Soviets! We can't go to sleep by a Russian moon!], national appeals to unity [They are our astronauts! Our nation shall beat the Soviets to the moon!], the celebration of martial values [The astronauts were all military, the best of the best], the blurring of lines between public and private sectors [SETA contracts, anyone? Cost plus? Our version of Soviet design bureaus?], the utilization of the mass media to glamorize the state and its programs [No Life Magazine deal for chronicling a bowdlerized version of the astronauts' lives? Really?], invocation of a "post-partisan" spirit that places the important decisions in the hands of experts and intellectual supermen, and a cult of personality for the national leader [von Braun? "Rocket scientists"? Not just Kennedy Space Center, but (briefly) Cape Kennedy?]."

Bold type mine (in addition to red annotations).

Nope, no fascism here. Nothing to see here, folks.

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32 Comments

mz wrote:

A good post, I agree with almost everything. The iron triangle, the political things, the big rockets, the "nothing else is possible" mindset.

Almost everything.

Calling NASA a fascist space agency is thick. But as with the current fashion of labeling everything government as fascist, it of course makes sense.

Oh, and I don't think von Braun started up rocketry as a nazi or with nazis, that was one phase along the way. He himself remarked how people were spoilt by Apollo.

I'd simply say NASA is an inefficient use of resources if humanity wants to become spacefaring. Is suborbital tourism more efficient? Even it could be... It's of course a false dichotomy, but just offered as an estimate measure.

May 5, 2008 8:46 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

...the current fashion of labeling everything government as fascist...

I must have missed that fashion. But then, I'm not into fashion.

May 5, 2008 8:58 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

I don't think von Braun started up rocketry as a nazi or with nazis, that was one phase along the way.

No, but that is where he achieved his first great successes.

Note, I didn't say that NASA (or even von Braun) were Nazis. I just said that they are/were fascists.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. So were Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.

May 5, 2008 9:02 AM

mz wrote:

Hmm, it's probably hard to see the fashion from the inside, but that recent book you refer to quite often kinda makes Godwin's law redundant over here at transterrestrial...

But I'm not in the mood for word games on what you meant when you said something that most would interpret the opposite.

It would be a lot more fruitful to discuss about space policy than fascism.

May 5, 2008 9:31 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

Godwin's Law is about Nazism, not fascism. All Nazis were fascists, but not all fascists (in fact only a small minority of fascists) are/were Nazis.

Just reclaiming the language. And if we can see space policy for what it really is, it makes it easier to figure out how to fix it.

May 5, 2008 9:38 AM

mz wrote:

And Jonah's book cover doesn't have anything to do with nazism?

May 5, 2008 10:03 AM

Mark R. Whittington wrote:

Rand's (and others) misuse of the word "fascist" brings to mind this quote from Goldberg's book:

"There is no word in the English language that gets thrown around more freely by people who don't know what it means than "fascism." Indeed the more someone uses the word "fascist" in everyday conversation, the less likely he is to know what he's talking about."

Indeed.

May 5, 2008 10:11 AM

Raoul Ortega wrote:

What I don't understand is why so many people object when you dare attempt to accurately describe a collusive business/government arrangement by a simple, accurate term.

I guess calling NASA "socialist" is okay, because we still haven't reached the point where that word has taken its rightful place next to its bastard cousin "fascist". Which is why you still see the fashionable wearing Che t-shirts and Mao posters and flaunting Cuban flags, and thinking that socialism is acceptible in polite society.

May 5, 2008 10:24 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

Hate to break it to you, Mark, but "the less likely to know" doesn't mean "doesn't know." You claim to have read the book, and yet you remain blind to the very point that Jonah was making.

MZ, there's an old saying about judging books by their covers. If you haven't read the book, then you have no idea what I'm talking about.

I see that you want to cling to the old leftist myth about fascism = Nazism, and fascism = "evil."

May 5, 2008 10:26 AM

Mark R. Whittington wrote:

Actually, Rand, I submit that it is you who have not read Goldberg's book properly. Under his definition of "fascist", for something to be that it has to be totalitarian. That means that for NASA to be fascist it could not admit to the legitimancy of any outside organization or individual, public or private, doing space flight or anything at all in space. No private comsats, no private launch companies, no anything.

I should hope that even you would admit that this is not nor has ever been the case.

May 5, 2008 10:44 AM

Rand Simberg wrote:

Under his definition of "fascist", for something to be that it has to be totalitarian.

Nope.

That means that for NASA to be fascist it could not admit to the legitimancy of any outside organization or individual, public or private, doing space flight or anything at all in space.

Not that it's a requirement, but in terms of human spaceflight, that pretty much is NASA's functional viewpoint, despite lip service otherwise.

May 5, 2008 10:52 AM

Edward Wright wrote:

If I read him correctly, Greg seems to think that it was abandoning the Apollo hardware

What is it about the Apollo worshippers?

Even if you believe we ought to give up trying to do anything new and go back to using capsules, Apollo was not the best capsule.

Apollo was a second-generation capsule, the follow-on to Mercury. Gemini was a third-generation capsule. Its development started after Apollo (although it flew first, being an early example of a "faster better cheaper" program) and incorporated lessons learned from both Mercury and Apollo. It was the astronauts' favorite capsule. Apollo was considered a lemon in comparison.

Gemini was originally intended to go to the Moon. Designer Jim Chamberlin had that goal in mind from the start. It was Gemini that invented the lunar "bug" and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. Gemini would have reached the Moon first, if the Apollo managers had let it. The Apollo managers never would have reached the Moon at all, if they hadn't abandoned their own Direct Ascent plan and adapted Gemini's LOR.

To shield the astronauts from cosmic radiation, the Apollo designers made the entire capsule thick and heavy. Lunar Gemini simply had the astronauts don radiation blankets (much like those used in a dentist's office), so the capsule structure could be much lighter.

Granted, Gemini was pretty cramped compared to Apollo and did not allow astronauts to get out of their seats but for a three-day flight from the Earth to the Moon, there are actually advantages to staying in your seat. Because they couldn't leave their seats, none of the Gemini astronauts got spacesick.

The Gemini program also had concepts for larger versions carrying 7-to-9 astronauts, rescue versions, cargo versions, etc.

So, why do the capsulehuggers always glom onto Apollo rather than Gemini?

May 5, 2008 11:09 AM

Edward Wright wrote:

I didn't say that NASA (or even von Braun) were Nazis. I just said that they are/were fascists.

Rand, if you read Michael Neufeld's book, "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War," you'll see that Von Braun worried that private industry would try to exploit and profit from space, even before Hitler came to power and Von Braun went to work for the Nazis. Such attitudes are not unexpected from someone who grew up in a Prussian Noble family. (Most people forget that Von Braun was a titled Baron.)

May 5, 2008 11:19 AM

kert wrote:

Gemini also demonstrated one of the fundamentals : yes yo u can dock manned stages on orbit with propulsion stages, the ATV. I.e. staging a big stack with small launchers on orbit is doable.

May 5, 2008 11:35 AM

Transterrestrial Reader wrote:

Perhaps it would be clearer if we remember that the Nazis were actually National Socialists

May 5, 2008 1:05 PM

PHILLIP wrote:

Pleease people are acting like little children here--taking a sentence/word out of context. Please look at the bigger picture---NASA's Ares program is not the way to get the US anything escept for a large bill to repeat Apollo. We have done Apollo and it is time to move.

How we move on is the question! I am in my 40's and I missed the moon landings. Ares I is not going to cut it, so what do we do to replace it. As people have pointed out---The DOD will not want to help NASA finish Ares--what does it give them? Nothing! How does it help US economically---not by a whole lot. Ares will though in the short-term cost jobs. So what are proposing to replace it. People see there is a problem with Ares---but do'nt go far enough to look for a solution. I do not want to wait till 2016 and have spent $14B for Ares. is it Direct--I do not know. But I know it better be something better than what is offered now or it will be cancelled. The public wants to see the US pushing the boundaries of spaceflight. The west was not won without taking any risks. NASA needs to take some more risks--maybe Direct and/or COTS or have a space prize and just be the customer. if NASA feels sending 4 trips to the ISS will get people thrilled about NASA--NASA is in for shock! At least the Direct team is thinking about things that we open up the public's imagination--a trip to an asteros, early moon fly by, offering 1 seat per year to the best engineering student,teacher etc. All these things will get NASA back in the public thoughts about where we want to go and how we achieve it.

May 5, 2008 3:03 PM

Edward Wright wrote:

At least the Direct team is thinking about things that we open up the public's imagination--a trip to an asteros, early moon fly by, offering 1 seat per year to the best engineering student,teacher etc.

In other words, the same things the ESAS team wants. Another great big rocket, another four decades of virtual nonactivity. NASA flew one ex-teacher on the Shuttle last year and is planning to fly two this year. How will flying one on DIRECT instead of three on the Shuttle inspire people?

Phil, you're making new chum's favorite mistake: believing that policy problems will go away if NASA just makes their hardware look like your favorite viewgraph. You correctly identify the problem -- NASA is not trying to do anything except repeat Apollo -- but then you jump on the DIRECT bandwagon that just wants to repeat Apollo using slightly different hardware.

The problem with Apollo on Steroids did not begin with Griffin's choice of viewgraph. It's more fundamental than that. The problem is that the basic goal -- sending a few NASA employees to walk around on some other body while the American people watch on teevee -- isn't worth spending hundreds of billions of dollars.

What NASA needs isn't a new rocket, it's a new goal.

May 5, 2008 3:52 PM

Anonymous wrote:

NASA is a federal government agency.

NASA is not a private company that is expected to execute with efficiency.

Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Bigelow, Armadillo, Boeing, Lockheed, ULA, and many other companies that do not exist today, will easily have the technical and financial resources to beat NASA to the Moon and Mars over the next decade. The global financial markets fund over $10 Billion worth of rockets and spacecraft each year. It will cost well under $10 Billion to finance a Falcon 9 Heavy or Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle, with Dragon manned capsules and Armadillo lunar landers, to do commercially financed moon missions using orbital rendezvous techniques. Mike Griffin, the head of NASA, has already said multiple times that the Chinese will probably beat NASA to the moon with a similiar architecture using Long March 5 rockets and Shenzhou capsules that will have similar capability and cost to SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy rockets and Dragon capsules.

NASA will never do a Moon Program for under $10 Billion, because NASA's annual budget is over $16 Billion, and NASA's goal is to spend that $160 Billion worth of budget over 10 years.

Most space advocates search for federal government solutions, because the federal government is their employer.

It is logical to put NASA in charge of funding technological development to keep the United States in the lead of everything "space" and "aeronautic", because this fits within NASA's budget. Putting NASA in charge of the details of creating new RLVs or a Moon base would probably lead to continued dramatic waste and operational failure.

May 5, 2008 4:17 PM

Vladislaw wrote:

14 POINTS OF FASCISM

[snip]

Post deleted, because it's a nonsensical post that has been (or attempted to be) posted here many times before. Once was enough. In fact, given it's nonsensicality, and ambiguity, more than enough.

May 5, 2008 5:50 PM

Ed Minchau wrote:

Rand, I think you forgot to close a RED tag.

Ed Wright: NASA had a new goal. They chose to ignore it - ESAS bears no resemblance to the Aldridge commision recommendations.

NASA is an army in all but name. They fought their war against the Russians, and won. And then, instead of "winning the peace", they continued to fight the war for another three and a half decades. They passed their best-before date when I was still in diapers (I'm 39, and before someone snarks, I was potty-trained before my second birthday). If the US wants to have a Space Ranger corps, then fine, do that, disband NASA and form the Space Rangers and follow the normal hardware procurement process that all other branches of the military must follow. If not, then simply disband NASA and get the hell out of the way.

May 5, 2008 7:51 PM

Edward Wright wrote:

Ed Wright: NASA had a new goal. They chose to ignore it -

I wouldn't call a goal created 50 years ago by Von Braun and Kennedy "new."

Unless you think the Edsel is new.

ESAS bears no resemblance to the Aldridge commision recommendations.

The Aldridge Commission made no fundamental policy recommendations. Aldridge decreed that, unlike previous Presidential space commissions, this one would not be *allowed* to consider alternative policy goals. Instead, members could only consider alternative ways of achieving the Bush (Kennedy) goal.

The ESAS hardware may look a bit different from what was once envisioned, but ESAS is being built largely by Aldridge's company (Lockheed). Since he hasn't resigned in protest, it doesn't seem he's too displeased.

In fact, things seem to have worked out pretty much the way John McCain predicted when he called on Aldridge to resign from the Commission.

May 6, 2008 12:51 PM

memomachine wrote:

Hmmmmm.

I know I'm going to get spanked for this but ...

1. I don't see the point of manned missions at all. What precisely are we getting for all this money? Footy prints again? No thanks.

IMO the rational way, until science and technology offers a better method that allows manned missions, is to use remotely operated robotics. And none of this wander around and take pictures crap. I want robotic missions that actually accomplish commercially viable missions. Something that'll help kick-start the exploitation of space.

2. The ISS is, to me at least, a total waste of money. Maybe it'll prove itself or perhaps I'm not aware of the benefits. But so far it seems that we've spent over $100 billion for the opportunity to have Russians to make a few million in tourism.

3. I realize I've fallen behind the times since I was space-crazy as a kid. But why can't we build a rotating space station that'll provide some pseudo-gravity and actually, maybe, be useful?

May 6, 2008 6:02 PM

Ed Minchau wrote:

Well, memomachine, I'll take a stab at #1.

You state that you want (robotic) missions that actually accomplish something commercially viable. That's a good start; if space is commercially viable then taxpayer money is not required to keep it going. Instead, profits accrue and it is those profits that keep the venture going (and incidentally increase government tax revenues at the same time).

The thing is, if it is commercially viable then it doesn't matter if it is men or machines or come combination doing it. The Why becomes: to make money. So, you've basically answered your own question.

Let me turn that around on you, though: why do any space missions (of any sort) that don't turn a profit? If anyone can come up with a good answer for that, then they have come up with a reason for the continued existence of NASA.

May 6, 2008 8:15 PM

Ed Minchau wrote:

Edward, I don't think that one can reasonably equate the VSE with the Kennedy/von Braun plan. Kennedy set a goal of sending men to the moon and bringing them back alive. For the time it was a pretty ambitious goal, but it was a goal with a clear focus and clearly defined end state. The Bush goal is much more open ended, and far more ambitious - and instead Griffin has chosen to do "Apollo on steroids". As memomachine so aptly put it, "footy prints again", oh yippee. It's like recreating the Wright Flyer, but this time with racing stripes.

May 6, 2008 8:23 PM

Edward Wright wrote:

Kennedy set a goal of sending men to the moon and bringing them back alive. For the time it was a pretty ambitious goal, but it was a goal with a clear focus and clearly defined end state. The Bush goal is much more open ended, and far more ambitious -

Kennedy told NASA to send men to the Moon within a decade. Bush told NASA to send men to the Moon in a decade and a half. That is not more ambitious.

And if you're going to do the Zubrin bit and starting chanting "Mars! Mars! Mars!" -- don't. Sending NASA astronauts to Mars just to send NASA astronauts to Mars is just as pointless as sending them to the Moon simply to send them to the Moon.

I think we're talking past each other. When I say "goal," I don't mean a destination -- Bush gave them that. What he didn't give them was a *reason* for going, a purpose, a mission.

and instead Griffin has chosen to do "Apollo on steroids".

"Instead"? Griffin did just what Bush asked for. If you ask NASA to solve the same problem they solved before -- "send astronauts to the Moon" -- they're likely to come up with a similar solution. Is that surprising?

In reality, the solution isn't much different from what Elon Musk and Frank Sietzen pitched to Sean O'Keefe back in 2003 -- a series of Moon shots and Mars shots using space capsules and giant rockets. They thought NASA would buy Dragon capsules and Elon's BFR instead of Orion capsules and Ares rockets, but hardware details aside, not much has changed, and it was never realistic to expect NASA would pick SpaceX as the contractor.

It's like recreating the Wright Flyer, but this time with racing stripes.

I must be tired. Obviously, that's some sort of personal crack but I don't get it.

May 7, 2008 12:00 AM

Ed Minchau wrote:

Not a personal crack, Edward - you just happen to share a surname with Orville and Wilbur. That was a crack at NASA, though.

I think you're missing something in the Bush plan: "and beyond". And there is more than a destination, there is a reason that was articulated better by Marburger. Quoting Goff quoting Marburger: "I guess the question boils down to what Marburger said: do we intend to extend humanity's economic sphere of influence to include the rest of the Solar System?"

May 7, 2008 6:52 AM

memomachine wrote:

Hmmmm

@ Ed Minchau

"Let me turn that around on you, though: why do any space missions (of any sort) that don't turn a profit? If anyone can come up with a good answer for that, then they have come up with a reason for the continued existence of NASA."

Aside from raw research, i.e. research done for the sake of data or knowledge gathering, then there really isn't any reason to do any space missions that aren't directly tied to commercial uses. And even then it would probably work better to source the actual mission to commercial ventures rather than do it in-house within NASA.

A situation somewhat equivalent to the civilian-sourcing done by the US military.

May 7, 2008 9:56 AM

memomachine wrote:

Hmmmm

"I guess the question boils down to what Marburger said: do we intend to extend humanity's economic sphere of influence to include the rest of the Solar System?"

*shrug* I personally don't see the point of sending a few tourists to Mars when we can't even conquer LEO. To me it's a total and colossal waste of money and time to even contemplate going to Mars at all right now.

If we have solid colonies on the Moon and in Earth orbit and space habitats at L5, then ok I can get behind a mission to Mars.

Otherwise it's just another Apollo and I don't have patience for that sort of grandstanding nonsense anymore.

May 7, 2008 10:13 AM

Michael Mealling wrote:

memomachine,
What in Marbuger's statement makes you think its about going to Mars first? "rest of the Solar System" means anything beyond the surface of the earth that's economically viable.

May 7, 2008 12:04 PM

Edward Wright wrote:

I think you're missing something in the Bush plan: "and beyond".

"Beyond" was never more than a rhetorical flourish, except for one time when O'Keefe mentioned maybe sending a Constellation capsule to one of Jupiter's Moons.

I doubt he was serious, but even if he was, the goal remains the same: sending astronauts to Planet X just to send astronauts to Planet X.

And there is more than a destination, there is a reason that was articulated better by Marburger. Quoting Goff quoting Marburger: "I guess the question boils down to what Marburger said: do we intend to extend humanity's economic sphere of influence to include the rest of the Solar System?"

Well, I was there when Marburger told an AST official that the Federal government had a duty to prevent American citizens from taking "unwarranted" risks with their own lives.

I don't know how Marburger proposes to "extend humanity's economic sphere of influence to include the rest of the Solar System" without any risk to human life. Maybe he's talking about robots or something.

In any case, Von Braun made the same sort of handwaving claims about Apollo. Politicians often make exagerrated claims about the great benefits their programs will bring.

To refresh your memory, here's the original White House statement on the Vision of Space Exploration (or Renewed Spirit of Discovery, as it was known then):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/space/renewed_spirit.html

The core of Apollo on Steroids was right in that original document, including Orion (then known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle) and separating crew from cargo transportation.

May 7, 2008 12:07 PM

Ed Minchau wrote:

Thanks for that link, Edward.

May 7, 2008 2:17 PM

memomachine wrote:

Hmmmmm.

@ Michael Mealling

"What in Marbuger's statement makes you think its about going to Mars first? "rest of the Solar System" means anything beyond the surface of the earth that's economically viable."

Because the mission being talked about the most is a manned mission to Mars. If there's a planned robotic manufacturing mission to the Moon then I haven't heard about it.

Just because someone mentions something vague and generic doesn't mean they don't have a specific purpose in mind at the time.

May 8, 2008 10:58 AM

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The Fundamental Problem

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