Slashdot Mirror

This fascination for their past (Apollo) is not a good sign. They are so stuck in their old ways that at some point it might be best to turn NASA into a museum and build a new space agency.

If you want some light reading, try the paper available here. It offers some illustrations of the inertia of the agency and of the damages it causes.

• http://www.planetary.org/home/ The Planetary Society
  
• http://www.marssociety.org/ The Mars Society
  
• http://www.nss.org/ The National Space Society
  
• http://www.seds.org/ Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
  
• http://www.space-frontier.org/ Space Frontier Foundation
  

• The Artemis Project - The project is a private venture to establish a permanent, self-supporting community on the Moon. Brief overview of the Artemis project.
• The Mars Society - To further the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
• The Moon Society - An international nonprofit educational and scientific foundation formed to further the creation of communities on the Moon involving large-scale industrialization and private enterprise.
• National Space Society - grassroots organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. Magazine.
• Stanford on the Moon (by 2015?) And yes, Stanford as in the university.
• Space Frontier Foundation - seems to have projects for space colonization, missions to the Earth's moon, and so on. Looks like a large scale organization.
• The Space Settlement Initiative
• Space Access Society - activism for getting out of the NASA-only paradigm/reality.
• Students for the Exploration and Development of Space - `... is dedicated to expanding the role of human exploration and development of space. We also seek to educate the public in such a way as to attain this goal. `
• Space Studies Institute - `SSI's stated mission is: Opening the energy and material resources of space for human benefit by completing the missing technological links to make possible the productive use of the abundant resources in space.`
• International Space University - `The International Space University provides graduate-level training to the future leaders of the emerging global space community at its Central Campus in Strasbourg, France, and at locations around the world. ` (mentions 'systems engineering' on the About page)
• Space Settlement Institute - `The Space Settlement Institute is a non-profit association founded to help promote the human colonization and settlement of outer space. `
• Cygo's Space Initiative - plan and conduct exploration missions to minor planets, build and mass produce (while in space) a multi-purpose interconnectable module, and to offer products and services using space and the materials therefrom.
• Freeluna - `Freeluna.com is dedicated to the proposition that the colonization of outer space is critical for the long term survival of the human species, and that colonization of the moon and the exploitation of the moon's natural resources is one of the very best first steps in that incredible journey off planet.` ... and when I first visited this page, I was visitor #3371. Yikes. Contact: Bill Clawson, wclawson@freeluna.com
• Island One Society - associated with the Artemis society, seems to be mostly a resource-help site.
• The Living Universe Foundation - `The Living Universe Foundation seeks to bring the galaxy alive with life from Earth, while healing the damage that humanity has already inflicted upon the Earth. We believe that expansion into space in the immediate future is a step towards accomplishing this aim.` turmith@yahoo.com --- This organization was inspired by the publication of a certain book. This is heavily related to Project Atlantis or Oceania (artifical floatin

Isn't this backwards? It seems that NASA should try to make use of private industry whenever possible, and only when private industry is unable to provide what they need should they build their own system from scratch. Otherwise NASA's government monopoly ends up trying to compete with private industry, which generally isn't a good thing. In fact, even NASA's charter says that they should use commercial resources to the "maximum extent possible."

This snippet from a recent release by the Space Frontier Foundation phrases it nicely:

http://www.space-frontier.org/PressReleases/2007/2 0070205nasabudget.html

"We applaud the House Democratic leadership for being responsible stewards of taxpayer funds by applying the FY 2007 NASA budget cuts to the unaffordable aspects of Dr. Griffin's Moon-Mars plans. The Democratic Party appears to understand that the taxpayers of this nation just aren't interested in supporting what they see as business as usual at NASA. We are hoping that the Republicans join them soon," said Werb. "This should be a wake-up call for Dr. Griffin that his plans, to pour billions of dollars into massive new launch systems that nobody else wants or needs, are going nowhere. It is time for the agency to re-think how it puts people and payloads into space. It is time for the agency to trust the power of free enterprise."

The Foundation has long held that government designed and operated systems are wasteful, self-defeating dead-ends that will keep the cost of going into space so high that no long-term human exploration or settlement program will be possible. The Foundation believes that the CEV and its launcher are essentially repeats of the shuttle and space station programs, which have consumed hundreds of billions of dollars yet completely failed to meet their promised goals.

"NASA needs to stop competing with the private sector. Sending the CEV to the ISS is not only bad policy, undercutting private sector efforts to raise financing for the same purpose, but the rush to do so requires huge increases in federal funding for the CEV that is just not politically viable" said Rick Tumlinson of the Foundation. "We urge NASA to stick to its real job of exploring the far frontier, of supporting science and discovery, and hand over ISS transportation to American entrepreneurs."

Tumlinson concluded "It is important for NASA to understand this is not a fight they are going to win, even if they restore some of the funding this year. The trend in Congress is going the other way towards balanced budgets, and a better return on investment to the American people. If America really wants to open space to the people, then we cannot dump hundreds of billions into government-based technologies. It simply will not work. We must try something new."

The Foundation's White Paper, Unaffordable and Unsustainable? Signs of Failure in NASA's Earth-to-Orbit Space Transportation Strategy, is at: http://www.space-frontier.org/Presentations/unaffo rdable.html

Isn't this backwards? It seems that NASA should try to make use of private industry whenever possible, and only when private industry is unable to provide what they need should they build their own system from scratch. Otherwise NASA's government monopoly ends up trying to compete with private industry, which generally isn't a good thing. In fact, even NASA's charter says that they should use commercial resources to the "maximum extent possible."

This snippet from a recent release by the Space Frontier Foundation phrases it nicely:

http://www.space-frontier.org/PressReleases/2007/2 0070205nasabudget.html

"We applaud the House Democratic leadership for being responsible stewards of taxpayer funds by applying the FY 2007 NASA budget cuts to the unaffordable aspects of Dr. Griffin's Moon-Mars plans. The Democratic Party appears to understand that the taxpayers of this nation just aren't interested in supporting what they see as business as usual at NASA. We are hoping that the Republicans join them soon," said Werb. "This should be a wake-up call for Dr. Griffin that his plans, to pour billions of dollars into massive new launch systems that nobody else wants or needs, are going nowhere. It is time for the agency to re-think how it puts people and payloads into space. It is time for the agency to trust the power of free enterprise."

The Foundation has long held that government designed and operated systems are wasteful, self-defeating dead-ends that will keep the cost of going into space so high that no long-term human exploration or settlement program will be possible. The Foundation believes that the CEV and its launcher are essentially repeats of the shuttle and space station programs, which have consumed hundreds of billions of dollars yet completely failed to meet their promised goals.

"NASA needs to stop competing with the private sector. Sending the CEV to the ISS is not only bad policy, undercutting private sector efforts to raise financing for the same purpose, but the rush to do so requires huge increases in federal funding for the CEV that is just not politically viable" said Rick Tumlinson of the Foundation. "We urge NASA to stick to its real job of exploring the far frontier, of supporting science and discovery, and hand over ISS transportation to American entrepreneurs."

Tumlinson concluded "It is important for NASA to understand this is not a fight they are going to win, even if they restore some of the funding this year. The trend in Congress is going the other way towards balanced budgets, and a better return on investment to the American people. If America really wants to open space to the people, then we cannot dump hundreds of billions into government-based technologies. It simply will not work. We must try something new."

The Foundation's White Paper, Unaffordable and Unsustainable? Signs of Failure in NASA's Earth-to-Orbit Space Transportation Strategy, is at: http://www.space-frontier.org/Presentations/unaffo rdable.html

They say it would be a good thing if NASA bought launch services on the open market--they'd have more funds to spend on the important things, like Mars missions, Lunar missions, robotic probes, etc.

NASA has a very poor record of achieving low cost transportation to orbit. Why not see what the free market can do?

Link to Space Frontier Foundation statement:

http://www.space-frontier.org/PressReleases/2007/2 0070205nasabudget.html

in The High Frontier, as well as in Heinlein's TMIAHM, the flinger is set up on the moon. In TMIAHM, the flinger is used for returning grain to earth (until the lunatics turn it into a WMD) but in Gerard O'Neill's book the flinger sits on the moon and lauches moon rocks into lunar orbit where they get scooped up by a refining plant, as well as putting a lot of dust in lunar orbit where it means lots of in-warranty windshield replacements for all the various and sundry near-moon spacecrafts.

I guy who lives down the street from me, Ky Michaelson, has already done this. In 2004 he launched a home-made rocket to 100 km. He was the first amateur to do it, but it's nice to see these kids getting into the act as well.

Before we intend to go to the moon there have to be a certain number of LEO flights to shake-down the system. It would be irresponsible to not include ISS capability during this phase.

Having ISS capability is nice, as long as it does not interfere with the main goal, namely operations beyond Earth orbit in a long-term program. Yet that is precisely what is happening. Did you read the mentioned whitepaper? NASA is pushing for CEV block 1 to be the Shuttle's replacement for personnel transportation to the ISS, and seeks to "minimize the gap" between Shuttle retirement and CEV qualification. This leads to short-term decisions, such as deleting methane-LOX engines (much better in the long term but too far off for ISS) or requiring the capability to use older-style docking equipment (because the ISS does not have a newer-style docking port).

NASA intends to purchase the "best value" for crew and cargo transportation services. If COTS comes through and is competitve then CEV flights will not be used for ISS resupply (at least not substantially).

This is the agency that killed the EELV-based CEV schemes. Remember, its predecessor, the OSP, was supposed to be light enough to be launched by heavy versions (or maybe even medium versions) of the Delta 4 and the Atlas 5. When it was clear that the Shuttle would be retired, they switched to a heavier CEV which needed a Shuttle-derived heavier launcher. This looks like a jobs program to me.

There also is the argument that man-rating the EELVs would be more difficult than starting from scratch. Yet, first, NASA did not make clear what would be required for man-rating a launcher; second, the Shuttle itself is not man-rated and less reliable than the Atlas family; third, the Ares I and V turn out not to be Shuttle-derived after all: new SRBs (5-segment), new ET (10-meter tank, incompatible with current tooling), new engines (RS-68 not man-rated, after all, and the J-2 has not been used for decades).

Seeing all this, it's an easy step to believe that even if COTS delivered, NASA would find an excuse to use its own products instead...

The title of this story is wrong -- Lockheed Martin just won the contract for the Orion Crew & Service Module (CSM). The CSM is the party which will transport astronauts around in space, and land them back on Earth. The actual lunar lander, the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), hasn't had its contract awarded yet, to say nothing of a "Mars Lander."

Of course, all this is rather confusing. I follow space news more closely than most, and I often get confused myself. Fortunately, Wikipedia's article on Project Constellation (the overall architecture) has a nice overview of what all the pieces are and how they fit together.

That said, I really wish that NASA would spend this money on the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program instead, accomplishing the same objectives in a more cost-effective manner. With COTS, companies only get paid if they succeed. NASA will instead be spending $3.9 billion (assuming there aren't cost overruns) just to get a capsule, while giving a total of $500 million (split between 2 companies) to COTS in order to get both rockets and capsules. To top it off, the COTS vehicles are scheduled to be completed years before the Lockheed Martin capsule is ready.

The Space Frontier Foundation has an interesting whitepaper arguing for why COTS should get they money instead of the Orion program.

When Bush announced manned spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, Slashdotters broadly supported it (perhaps someone can find the original post). But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else, namely science.

Yes and no. NASA seemed to think it could implement Bush's Vision for Space Exploration with only moderate budget increases, by redirecting funds from the Shuttle infrastructure. This turned out not to be the case, so they're cutting science.

Now, the Space Frontier Foundation believes that NASA is not implementing the VSE: it specified that NASA should focus on going back beyond the ISS and low Earth orbit, leaving exploitation of the latter to private enterprise and buying services as needed. (Some might say that private enterprise is not there yet, thinking Scaled Composites or Armadillo, but I'm sure Boeing and Lockheed are quite capable of developing something. Just make sure competitors can bid every few years...) Yet NASA is spending most of its energy developing the CEV block 1, which it says is urgent because it must replace the Shuttle as soon as practical. And this urgency justifies poor design decisions which will hamper it if it is to be used beyond LEO as well (CEV block 2).

So the SFF's recommandation is:

• explicitly forbid NASA to develop a new vehicle not destined to go beyond LEO, and reassign CEV block 1 funding e.g. to the science programs which were cut;
• since replacing the Shuttle wouldn't be directly NASA's role any longer, urgency vanishes, and CEV block 2 design can be reconsidered, as well as the decision not go with new Shuttle-derived launchers which at this point don't have much in common with the Shuttle any more.

When Bush announced manned spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, Slashdotters broadly supported it (perhaps someone can find the original post). But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else, namely science.

Yes and no. NASA seemed to think it could implement Bush's Vision for Space Exploration with only moderate budget increases, by redirecting funds from the Shuttle infrastructure. This turned out not to be the case, so they're cutting science.

Now, the Space Frontier Foundation believes that NASA is not implementing the VSE: it specified that NASA should focus on going back beyond the ISS and low Earth orbit, leaving exploitation of the latter to private enterprise and buying services as needed. (Some might say that private enterprise is not there yet, thinking Scaled Composites or Armadillo, but I'm sure Boeing and Lockheed are quite capable of developing something. Just make sure competitors can bid every few years...) Yet NASA is spending most of its energy developing the CEV block 1, which it says is urgent because it must replace the Shuttle as soon as practical. And this urgency justifies poor design decisions which will hamper it if it is to be used beyond LEO as well (CEV block 2).

So the SFF's recommandation is:

• explicitly forbid NASA to develop a new vehicle not destined to go beyond LEO, and reassign CEV block 1 funding e.g. to the science programs which were cut;
• since replacing the Shuttle wouldn't be directly NASA's role any longer, urgency vanishes, and CEV block 2 design can be reconsidered, as well as the decision not go with new Shuttle-derived launchers which at this point don't have much in common with the Shuttle any more.

This is the basis for the argument for CATs (Cheap Access to Space) and
http://www.space-frontier.org/Projects/CatsPrize/
various legislative pushes and at least a couple of billionaires (including Jeff Bezos of
Amazon.com) putting a lot of money into this (perhaps as businesses, but
essentially still billionaire hobbies). While I wish them well, I think
this approach towards space settlement is misguided. Let's work the
numbers.

The USA has about two million millionaires. There are many more elsewhere.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/07 11_030711_money.html
"In total, there are an estimated 7.3 million people in the world whose
assets--excluding their home--amount to U.S. $1 million or more. Behind
Europe, North America has the second highest concentration of
millionaires at 2.2 million. The Asia Pacific region accounts for 1.8
million. Latin America and the Middle East account for 300,000 each, and
Africa accounts for 100,000."

At current launch costs of $10000 per pound, to put a 150 pound adult
(me on a starvation diet for a couple months!) would be about
$1,500,000, or $6,000,000 for a family of four. Now that amount of money
being paid is well within the reach of hundreds of thousands of people
if they liquidate all their assets -- homes, stocks, retirement
accounts, and so forth. Now if you could guarantee that they and their
children would have a better life living in cities in space, then some
percentage of them might well do that. The problem as I see it is, we
can't guarantee that right now. The other problem is of course, there is
no place to live right now for hundreds of thousands of people showing
up in their underwear and starving with no shelter or clothes or food or
air or water or other goods for them.

One solution is to pursue the 1980s NASA vision
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM5A.html#5a
of first putting
automated factories on the moon (or at asteroids) and using robotics
(and teleoperation) make space settlements complete with food, water,
clothes, etc. for when these people show up. It would in theory only
take one Apollo-type launch to the Moon or an asteroid
with the seed of an automated
factory instead of a LEM to start the process rolling, and that would
have an up front cost of a few billion dollars or so -- far less than
the total launch costs for all the people. The factory could also carry
out putting up mass drivers etc. to realize Gerry O'Neill's or
J.D. Bernal's vision of building
near earth habitats from lunar or asteroidal resources.

So, as I see it, launch costs are not a bottleneck.
So while lowering launch costs may be useful, by itself
it ultimately has no value without someplace to live in space.
And all the innovative studies on space settlement say that space colonies will not be
built from materials launched from earth, but rather will be built mainly from
materials found in space.

So, what is a bottleneck
is that we do not know how to make that seed self-replicating factory,
or have plans for what it should create once it is landed on the moon or
on a near-earth asteroid. We don't have (to use Bucky Fuller's terminology)
a Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science
http://www.bfi.org/node/387
that lets us make sense of all the various manufacturing knowledge
which is woven throughout our complex economy (and in practice,
despite patents, is essentially horded and hidden and made proprietary whenever possible)
in order to synthesize it to build elegant and flexible infrastructure
for sustaining human life in style in s

...are vapour already.

I vote that we build two real bang-bangs and put a real station into a real orbit with one, and a real mine and a real slingshot onto the Moon with the other. Far less polluting and far safer than the hundreds of missions they would replace, and they'd shave, oh -- I don't know -- maybe 50 years off the space program?

Well, on Soyuz. On a man-rated Soyuz, which hasn't had an accident in a long time.

Yes, and was developed a long time ago too, and flies often because it has a lot in common with the unmanned Molniya.

Cynically, a rocket developed in a non-commercially oriented socialist environment beats them all on market these days.

Actually, NASA has been called the most socialist agency in the US government (see e.g. here, here, or here).

One could say that a socialist centrally-planned development plan is more efficient in the short run (and NASA's goal was to beat the Russians fast) but much worse on the long run (and NASA is struggling to do as well as in the 1960s, while the Russian space agency has become much more aggressive, capitalist-like, and operates on a shoestring budget...)

This debate me of something I saw over on SciScoop some time ago:

(pasted below)

I recently heard Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation speak on a couple of related issues, and he gave us a very interesting perspective on all this - to paraphrase as best as I can remember:

"There are three distinct philosophies on doing things in space, which we can identify with three individuals: Carl Sagan, Wernher von Braun, and Gerard O'Neill. To the Sagans of the world, space is wondrous, grand, amazing, spectacular, and we should be learning all we can about it - but 'don't touch'! To the von Brauns, space is a proving ground for national grandeur, a place where we show how our engineers are the best, where we build the biggest rockets, the best space stations, and parade our astronaut heros to the world. To the O'Neills, however, space is the new American West: a place of hope and economic opportunity for all people."

Both the Sagans and the von Brauns have strong and traditional representations at NASA - the scientific and robotic missions follow that Sagan philosophy of "explore, but don't touch". Apollo was of course the quintessential von Braunian project, and the manned programs at NASA have attempted to follow in that mode ever since. But the O'Neill vision of space as a place for all people, as a location with resources bringing economic opportunity for the world, has had very little say in NASA up to this point.

Back to the current discussion, on the topic of terraforming Saganites seem to be against it quite often, as they're afraid of humans disturbing the sanctity of space. There's also bioconservatives who tend to see humanity as a virus which they want to keep quarantined to Earth, if not eradicated completely.

Many von Braunians are in favor of terraforming, while O'Neillians are very much in favor of both terraforming and orbital settlements. I personally think of myself as a Saganite that's recently "converted" to being an O'Neillian. There are few things I want to see more than see humanity become a multi-planet, spacefaring species.

Hasn't the space shuttle program done enough damage to the pioneering heritage of the US already?

First, NASA delivers a space transportation system with a cost per lb to leo that is an order of magnitude higher than it promised.

Then, NASA stomps out private investment in launch service companies because it would dilute the monopoly value of the bad technology NASA produced.

Then when grassroots space enthusiasts try to get NASA to stop stomping out privately financed space transportation companies, and passed legislation requiring NASA to follow the Reagan policy of purchasing commercial launch services whenever possible, NASA thumbs its nose at the taxpayers most interested in space and launches the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite via the Shuttle.

Then when grassroots space enthusiasts, totally fed up with NASA's lawlessness and detemination to destroy the pioneering spirit of the US, start offering their own launch technology prizes, NASA waits until one of them embarrasses it before providing even lip-service to the prize award concept.

Finally, a private entrepreneur is offering $50 million of his own money as an incentive for other private investors to create a de facto replacement for the Space Shuttle* and NASA responds by trying to pump taxpayer money into the same good old boy network that has so effectively destroyed hope among pioneering peoples that they can embark on a new age of exploration to escape the burgeoning bureaucracies that proclaim themselves the hope of mankind while destroying its spirit.

Kill NASA before it kills the human spirit.

*An exploding myth.

The correct way to spend such money is demonstrated by the Ansari X-Prize, the Bowery/CATS prize and the fusion prize legislation submitted by Robert W. Bussard to Congress. All of these set forth operational technical criteria for the award before it is known who will win the prize. It make it far harder for politicians posing as scientists and technologists to steal the credit and money due others.

Gerard O'Neill, who was the major proponent (and designer) of space settlements:

http://www.space-frontier.org/HighFrontier/gkobio. html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0962237906/ 104-9298540-5520764
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Kitchen_O'Neil l

It would be a shame to award the prize to some old technology that doesn't build on the inherent economies of the reusable first stages being developed by the Ansari X-Prize contenstants.

As Robert Truax told me, people keep studying what the optimal number of stages for an orbital launch vehicle should be and they keep discovering the answer is "2". The first stage is always lower exhaust velocity and cheap per kg. The second stage is always higher exhaust velocity and more expensive per kg.

The ideal first stage derived from the Ansari X-Prize entrants would be one that is cheap to:

1. scale up
2. refuel
3. relaunch

Rutan's technology doesn't really fill the bill here because fabricating hybrid rockeet motors is expensive compared to refueling. Also its unlikely his aerodynamic body scales up as cheaply as does simple tankage with vertical takeoff.

As it turns out, John Carmack just reported his team has reached probably the most critical milestone for such a first stage by demonstrating a scaled up version of their methanol/H2O2(50%) mixed monoprop engine.

This could be the really big deal -- not just for manned spaceflight but for cheap access to space generally.

Space is pretty big, as you correctly point out, and pretty much none of what we've seen of it so far makes for a good destination for any settlers. I posted a link to this elsewhere in this thread, so I apologize for repeating myself, but orbital colonies offer one such destination... we just have to build them. The technology to do so isn't anything that we don't already have. You might want to consider reading Gerrard O'Neill's The High Frontier. It's a solution that has some issues - mainly, the startup cost of his particular vision is enormous - but a more staged approach starting a lot smaller seems quite possible, once the cost of access to space gets down to something people can afford.

True, there isn't such a place, so we'd have to build one. It could all be done with existing technology - although currently at a very high price - if we really wanted to do it.

Need I say more?
Hm, maybe... Support Spacegeeks Worldwide at these (and many more) organizations:
Mars Society
Mars Frontier
Planetary Society
Space Frontier

they're nowhere near completing assembly of their full-size rocket

On the contrary

IMO, they are quite far along, i'd expect a hover test in a week or two ( if not for the _damn_ holidays )
BTW, as you probably know, official X-Prize flight attempt has to be announced at least two months in advance, so everybody still has a chance, as Rutan hasnt made such announcement yet.

I did read the article and it basically is working on the idea of maintaining a manned presence on Mars.

It will produce enough power for future Russian missions to the planet to be fully self-contained and will not need more than six engineers to maintain.

I propose the following.

1. learn to survive extreme levels of radiation (underground bases?)
2. build construction facilities on moon
3. serve moon as launching platform (1/6 (16%) the gravity)
4. THEN go to mars
5. ...
6. build lunar whore motels
7. PROFIT!!

I read this op-ed piece and thought much the same as others have stated here - the author is pretty much right-on, and I hope NASA gets the message. There has been far to much "science uber alles" at NASA the last couple of decades, when in reality the reason for humans in space in the small numbers we have done up to now is so we can prepare for humans in space in much larger numbers in the future.

Two recent statements I think are relevant to this discussion NASA must adopt an economic development mindset at SpaceDaily, and a new Space Transportation Policy from the Space Frontier Foundation. It's past time to shake some things up in the US space program...

From some discussions I've been following on the Space Policy boards and at the Space Frontier Foundation (specifically, the proposal for a Space Flight Initiative) the major problems we seem to have with lowering the cost of human space-flight is the lack of (1) a real market, (2) investment capital, and (3) research dollars focused on the most likely ways to reduce costs, rather than exploring exciting new engineering technology.

Now NASA spends $2-3 billion a year on human spaceflight via the shuttle. If just 10% of that were redirected (or added on) to provide competitive grants to small companies that seem to have promising approaches to real low-cost human spaceflight (Armadillo, XCOR, JP Aero, etc.) - grants that provide the money without micro-managing, but repeat grants only awarded for significant progress (or even profitability) that would make a huge difference. Additional money in the form of prizes beyond the X prize (eg. first reusable orbital spacecraft with short turn-around) would also give these entrepreneurial approaches a huge boost.

What we need is a diverse human space launch environment that supports frequent (daily!) launch and brings the cost down to near-affordable for the adventurous tourist and real commercial applications. There are a lot of small companies that seem to be making progress to that goal - if it were really adopted by a government program (and perhaps it should be in a different department than NASA - Transportation, perhaps?) it could bring that day a lot closer.

But the way NASA has funded these things in the past, as the parent comment indicates, is never going to work...

Following up on a recent story (Carmack Needs Rocket Fuel), John an interesting post to the CATS board, which I'll reproduce here to save Slashdotting:

Something a little weird happened on friday -- out of the blue, the local FAA guy that had been running us around about low altitude flight testing at my property outside Dallas, just called up and said that we can do flight tests to 3,500' if we call them on Wednesday, then again on Saturday before we fly. Someone must have prodded him.

A couple of the OSIDA folks visited with us on Saturday. I was complaining about our current peroxide supply problems with FMC, and they asked if it would be helpful to have a governor or senator call someone. Yes indeed, I think that would be helpful!

I'm not too worried about things getting worse on the clearance side. Especially in our case, where we really don't overfly anything -- we just go straght up, then straight down. We expect to come down pretty fast on the parachutes, so we shouldn't even drift very far.

John Carmack

So perhaps things are moving forward after all! All you "chem majors" can now stop e-mailing him. :)

I don't have a problem with this. Even if I did, the solution is simple. Once we get people there, we adapt them to the environment.

A far more realistic plan is to create a life that can live there. I imagine "big clanking replicators" : a huge factory with fairly familar machinery, all of it automated and only requiring human supervision to perform repairs. Mining machines, robotic rock haulers, nuclear power plants, smelters, presses, lathes, ect...most of the robotic tech similar to what you would find in a general motors plant. This facility would be built on the moon, remotely operated by people on earth. It would be capable of constructing the parts to build another facility (and so on). While expensive, it would be a fraction of the cost of human missions, and after enough replications be able to produce useful products.

I like this scenario (as have many people since the late 70's). Going to the Moon makes a lot more sense if you've already made the homes that people will live in. Manufacturing on the Moon is also extremely useful (and probably required) for assembly of space craft and other major projects in Earth orbit.

I understand why noone will listen to me : there's an incredible glamour about blasting off our heroes into orbit, sending a man out in space to get the job done. Hell, I want to go too. But the truth is, without all the overhead associated with minimizing the risks to said heroes a lot more could be accomplished with the same money. In addition, the new tech and perhaps even real products from space would eventually provide a real return on investment, enriching us on the ground.

I guess that depends on what you want to accomplish. As for me, my space goal is for people (and Earth-based biospheres) to live self-sufficiently in space. Even to that task, I can see the use for a large unmanned program. Discontinuing manned space exploration isn't a negotiable though that doesn't imply that NASA should itself have a manned space program.

Let me describe my thinking here. Instead of NASA holding a monopoly on manned space, use that money to fund awards for various manned and unmanned accomplishments in space. Eg, in the vein of XPRIZE. Actually, there's nothing preventing people from awarding their own prizes for these accomplishments! For example, the Bowery Award for Amateur Rocketry which preceded the CATS prize (and aside from award amounts is identical).

For starters, I'd like to see the X-33/VentureStar program get back on track. The Aerospike engine was a phenomenal success, IIRC, and the only problem they had was that of the composite fuel tanks. (If they go with standard aluminum tanks, they lose like 90% of their payload.) I'd like to see that program reactivated and the composite fuel tank problem solved.

Also, a "from orbit" escape system wouldn't be a bad idea. Set up a "mini" space station that orbits in the same general area as the new shuttle system. Said mini station would merely be a truss (similar to what they've been putting on the ISS), with two Apollo-style capsules attached, a solar panel system to keep the capsule systems warm and the batteries charged, and a small set of OMS thrusters to automatically maintain the station's orbit. This way, if an orbiter is ever damaged on the way up again, and it's uncertain whether or not it will survive re-entry, it can dock with this, the crew can return to Earth in capsules, and a later servicing flight can come up to repair the orbiter and replace the capsules.

I'm not sure we can cease shuttle flights altogether, and I also think it's important to remember that Columbia was the oldest in the fleet and on the verge of being retired. I think we have to keep flying Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour for the time being. Along those same lines, I'm also an advocate of "Big Can" construction projects in orbit. It's a clever hack.

I also think it would be dangerously stupid to build just a reusable launch system again. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) are extraordinarily powerful and extremely reliable, and we're in need of a good heavy-lift booster system...especially if we're going to do what NASA needs to do in the near future -- the Moon and Mars. A system similar to what Robert Zubrin proposed in A Case for Mars would be great: basically, a space shuttle launch stack without the space shuttle, and the primary tank fueling four SSMEs. I believe this would allow you to throw ~200 tons into LEO, but I don't have the book in front of me.

Once a new reusable launch system and heavy-launch system are in place, I'd give the last three shuttles a final flight into orbit, with return capsules for the crews. Once in orbit, they ought to be stripped down and overhauled for use as orbital "tugboats"...

And lastly, start going somewhere again...first the Moon, then Mars and the asteroids...then...who knows? :-)

What about that wax-based propulsion system that is supposedly very cheap? /. posted the story a few days back here.

Could this announcement also be in response to this statement by the Space Frontier Foundation to ensure public support?

From their statement:

Our definition of a "frontier enabling" technology or policy is one which has as its effect the acceleration of the creation of low cost access to the space frontier for private citizens and companies, enables or accelerates our use of space resources, and/or accelerates the rate at which wealth can be generated in space. In other words, is the project or policy going to provide a return on the national investment, if we define "return" to be the economically sustainable human habitation of space?

Policies of the Space Frontier Foundation

The X-Prize is a $10 million prize to get 3 people to 100km twice within 2 weeks.

-- Bob

I think the story subitted is incorrect. This will be the third space tourist. The first space tourist was way back in October 29 1998 The second was on 30 April 2001 So this should definately be the thrid right?

Technically, one could claim that the first commercial or private lunar mission was the Asiasat-3 flyby (although it is pushing it a bit, since there was no science involved)
The story is that the rocket launching the communication satellite had a problem, and left the payload in a lower, usless orbit. But, by using the satellite's own, limited fuel reserves the ground controllers were able to swing it around the moon and back into a semi-useful orbit.
Some more details are here and here

There have been a few misguided statements here, so hey-

Astronauts, regardless of NASA's instructions, should have no need to babysit Mr. Tito. Tito was a spaceflight engineer during the salad days of the sixties before turning to business, and has undergone nine months of Russian training. It is possible, of course, that this is insufficient. But NASA's current stand appears to be that no set of qualifications to board the station, other than being a 'professional', exists- a haphazard and arrogant approach that won't serve for an international station. So three years from now, the Italians want to fly a scientist who NASA thinks is underqualified- are we back in the same debacle? Standards would be quite easy to determine.

NASA doesn't have unilateral authority to control who goes on the station. We don't have sole ownership, you see. The rather poorly defined treaty structure and the act of including a cash-strapped, aging Russian space program on the critical path to the station were probably bad ideas- but at any rate, we made the deals; they read 'do such and such, you get so many crew members for so much time.' If we wanted dictatorial control over the thing, we should have build it ourselves. Congress wasn't prepared to pay for that and various parts of the government wanted to make the station a tool of international diplomacy. That's fine- but then you don't get everything you want.

The Russians are giving up a substantial chance to do science and engineering research; the operation of the station isn't expected to be delayed despite being a crewman short, as it were, for months... Doesn't this suggest something? The one objection NASA hasn't been able to raise is that the station is being put to much waste, because the station has so little utility in the first place!

The sad truth is that the station is a debacle, a plan first drafted in the early 1980's that has gotten progressively less and less useful ever since. We've built an enormous, expensive platform to conduct rather vaguely defined research that could have been accomplished much more easily in any number of ways- because the goal, really, that NASA set themselves was to build a station, regardless of what use it was. To my mind, low-earth-orbit station building and tourist launches are essentially ready to be a commercial enterprise; but the entire space industry is tied up in a NASA-oriented mindset, and alternative ventures can't find the capital to get off the ground, as it were. NASA's role for the US isn't control-of-all-activities-in-space; it's groundbreaking research to enable the use of space by others.

One might add that space flights have been sold to civilians previously, by both NASA and the Soviets, John Glenn being only the most recent example; up until Sharon Christa McAuliffe and Challenger, it was an almost common practice. [And understand, I mean to cast no aspersions whatsoever on her memory.] It's just that they were sold for political influence or publicity or other such prices, and so could be semi-concealed.

Enough rant already. For more along these lines, visit the Space Frontier Foundation. I don't always agree with the SFF- I think they have too much faith in the virtues of capitalism- but they understand very well which businesses NASA should and shouldn't be in.

I have a few interesting links to private projects, that might just show the path to commerce in space, such as tourism, mining and research.

Artemis Project - A private venture to establish a permanent self supporting community on the moon.
Space Frontier Foundation - Want to open up the new frontier for everyone.
Space Island Group - Among other things, they wish to creat low earth orbit commercial space stations.
The X Prize - A prize dedicated to boost the development of private space crafts.

Ok, this was probably off topic, but I guess that my point is, governments will probably not be able to finance all the space projects. There are not enough money. The private sector can do this. Competition is always good, and I think that it will some day make it possible for anyone to go into space.

I can see a possible future where a team of scientists at a university will send a mission to Pluto, mining companies establishing mines on the moon, you will go to the low earth orbit space hotel for your vacation. Ok, this is far in the future, but I think it will happen one day.

So costly that NASA literally couldn't build a spare, so this is only a one shot deal.

<rant>

It is not particularly uncommon in this program. Was there a backup to the Service module which delayed the program two years? (The ICM could have been, sort-of, but was never built.) This led to the first two modules, Zarya and Unity, exceeding their 500-day lifetime in orbit; what would have happened if they had failed?

And what about the space shuttle? More than thirty shuttle flights are required to build the station; at a 1/450 estimated failure rate, according to the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, there is a 7-odd percent chance of another Challenger before it is completed - and the tight schedule surely is not going to help. If that happens, how does the program survive, with the Russians almost too broke to produce enough Soyuz even for the normal operation of the ISS?

That said, who won't be happy to learn that, according to NASA Watch, the Destiny lab's software wasn't even validated before launch? Or that there is a catch-22 with its avionics (computers and stuff need cooling to operate, but they need to be up to start the cooler systems)...

There is another issue: the project also depends on hundreds of hours of EVA (spacewalking), which the US lacks experience at. I don't have a reference handy, but IIRC one of the proposals to replace the space station Freedom program had been dismissed as too risky because it required way too much EVA time, and that was still less than what the ISS needs.

There is always the argument that the space program is indeed risky, but the prize is worth the game. I would agree with this, if the prize was space colonization, or at least common access to space. But this is not what NASA is after; see the jaundiced view they have about the Tito flight to ISS (set up by MirCorp and the Russians). According to the Space Frontier Foundation, " NASA is clueless about how to efficiently and fairly run this facility. They're not interested in anything but their own budget, people and programs." Space science, then? A manned facility is not really adapted to that (life support systems, people bouncing around, degrade the quality of microgravity) except for studying the effect of weightlessness on the astronauts themselves, which has already been done well enough on Mir.

There is an article from the Economist about the "waste of space" the ISS is.

</rant>

And yet, I crave for more coverage of the ISS operation, more pictures of the beautiful thing they are building up there... I was at my window a few minutes ago as the ISS was passing overhead (cloudy sky, didn't see anything but I tried), and I'm following the EVA thanks to the Spaceflight now live coverage. I can't help dreaming about that 2001 double wheel giant station, and what moved me most in recent years was reading old newspapers from around july20th, 1969. Go figure...

it's the huge slingshot needed to get it into space that is a bugger to design.

That's what the previously mentioned CATS prize was all about. Too bad it failed. Maybe next round, or better yet, the X prize!

-Derek

That's why we need to do it privately. Avoid all the politicians and bureaucracy and budget cuts and do it with a private company. A company with dedicated individuals of any and all nations who all work toward a common goal.

As mentioned, The Mars Society, as well as the Space Frontier Foundation, the Artemis Project, and the X-Prize are all great examples of stimulating private space exploration and development. Click here for another site with some good links.

That's why we need to do it privately. Avoid all the politicians and bureaucracy and budget cuts and do it with a private company. A company with dedicated individuals of any and all nations who all work toward a common goal.

As mentioned, The Mars Society, as well as the Space Frontier Foundation, the Artemis Project, and the X-Prize are all great examples of stimulating private space exploration and development. Click here for another site with some good links.

BTW -- anyone can get into the act.

I haven't attended any SFF conferences (such as the one wrapping up today in Los Angeles) but from what I hear from people who have, the organization is mostly individuals, who may be space activists, aerospace engineers, entrepreneurs, amaeteur rocketry enthusiasts (including competitors for SFF's CATS Prize), and just about anyone else who wants to push beyond today's status quo. Of aerospace companies represented, startups trying to develop new ideas seem to be much bigger SFF participants than the big military-industrial-complex companies.

Most of my contact with people who participate with SFF is from my participation in an amateur rocketry project which is competing for SFF's CATS Prize.

To me it seems both a surprise and a good sign that NASA's Goldin even agreed to speak at the SFF conference.

I haven't attended any SFF conferences (such as the one wrapping up today in Los Angeles) but from what I hear from people who have, the organization is mostly individuals, who may be space activists, aerospace engineers, entrepreneurs, amaeteur rocketry enthusiasts (including competitors for SFF's CATS Prize), and just about anyone else who wants to push beyond today's status quo. Of aerospace companies represented, startups trying to develop new ideas seem to be much bigger SFF participants than the big military-industrial-complex companies.

Most of my contact with people who participate with SFF is from my participation in an amateur rocketry project which is competing for SFF's CATS Prize.

To me it seems both a surprise and a good sign that NASA's Goldin even agreed to speak at the SFF conference.

Artemis is not the only effort devoted to going to the Moon and making money, although their plan is arguably the boldest. Some other companies with lunar projects:

• LunaCorp has been working for several years on developing rovers to traverse the lunar surface, which could be controlled on Earth (by paying customers, of course). Originally they were planning a long journey across the Moon, visiting several Apollo and other landing sites, but their focus is now on a mission to the lunar poles to look for water ice believed to exist there. (LunaCorp's server appears to be offline at the present time, unfortunately.)
• Applied Space Resources (ASR) is working on a spacecraft mission to go to the Moon and return several kilograms of rock and soil samples to be sold on the open market. They believe they can accomplish their initial mission for a cost on the order of NASA's Lunar Prospector mission ($60-70 million).
• TransOrbital, which seems at least loosely affiliated with Artemis, is planning a spacecraft mission to go into lunar orbit and return high-resolution images and video to be sold.

These and some other commercial lunar projects were discussed at the first Commercial Lunar Base Symposium in Houston in July. This article has some more details about the conference. Those in the Los Angeles area might want to check out the Space Frontier Conference, Sept. 23-26, where commercial lunar efforts will be one of the topics.

Artemis is not the only effort devoted to going to the Moon and making money, although their plan is arguably the boldest. Some other companies with lunar projects:

• LunaCorp has been working for several years on developing rovers to traverse the lunar surface, which could be controlled on Earth (by paying customers, of course). Originally they were planning a long journey across the Moon, visiting several Apollo and other landing sites, but their focus is now on a mission to the lunar poles to look for water ice believed to exist there. (LunaCorp's server appears to be offline at the present time, unfortunately.)
• Applied Space Resources (ASR) is working on a spacecraft mission to go to the Moon and return several kilograms of rock and soil samples to be sold on the open market. They believe they can accomplish their initial mission for a cost on the order of NASA's Lunar Prospector mission ($60-70 million).
• TransOrbital, which seems at least loosely affiliated with Artemis, is planning a spacecraft mission to go into lunar orbit and return high-resolution images and video to be sold.

These and some other commercial lunar projects were discussed at the first Commercial Lunar Base Symposium in Houston in July. This article has some more details about the conference. Those in the Los Angeles area might want to check out the Space Frontier Conference, Sept. 23-26, where commercial lunar efforts will be one of the topics.

He got as far as building prototypes before NASA announced the advent of the Space Transportation System, aka the space shuttle. It would make space flight so cheap and easy that all other launchers would be obsolete, they claimed. They told the giants of aerospace to stop building rockets that wouldn't be needed. The space shuttle would take care of all our launch needs.

Garys investors pulled out. His contracts disappeared. He learned the folly of trying to compete with the U S Gov't. They have the money, they control the industry.

As it turned out, the space shuttle was a huge failure. Instead of costing $100 per pound to orbit, it cost $10,000 per pound. Far from being the least expensive launcher, it was the most expensive ever. Once again, the STS proved that bureaucracy and efficiency do not mix. How often do you hear someone exclaim how clever and efficient a government agency is?

And, tragically, not the safest either. After Challenger, the shuttle was grounded, for a long, long time. The US launch industry was crippled. The Aerospace giants hurried to restart production of their more traditional launchers. The innovative start-ups had long since gone away.

Eventually, people started to think innovatively about cheap space flight again. Gary started a new company. Others, such as Mitchell Burnside Clapp and Walt Kistler did likewise. Lots of new companies started springing up, each determined to lower the cost of space launch; to make it cheaper, or safer, or both.

What would the world be like today if NASA hadn't crushed the entrepreneurs of yesteryear? Would one of them have succeeded? Might we have commercial launches at reasonable prices?

And now, NASA will do it again. Would you invest in a start-up company if you knew that it's competitor was subsidized by the government, or that it's closest competitor was a large government agency with a 10+ G$ budget?

I am not, as you see, a big believer in monopolies. Especially government monopolies. I believe that competition breeds innovation, and that people who work hard and take risks deserved the fruits of their labor.

I'm not knocking NASA. There are certain research areas that are so fundamental that they aren't commercializable in the near term. There are some areas too speculative for investor money. I don't think it's unreasonable for the government to spend my tax dollars persuing these areas, and NASA and the NSF serve these roles. Heck, even the once-and-current ARPA does the same.

But it is not the government's place to compete with industry! Again, how often do you hear someone exclaim how clever and efficient a government agency is?

Another story: A man named Rand Simberg also had a dream. If he couldn't bring spaceflight to the masses, well, he could simulate it for 30 seconds at a time. He bought a jet, outfitted it for zero-g flight, and started the only company in the US devoted to selling zero-g experiences. He called it Interglobal Space Lines, Inc.

When Ron Howard was making the film Apollo 13, Rand knew that this could be a big break. Howard wanted the film to be as realistic as possible, and planned to shoot many of the sequences in actual weightless conditions. This would be a big boost for Interglobal, since they were the only company poised to offer this service.

But before a deal was struck, NASA offered to let Howard use their KC-135 "Vomit Comet" gratis. Think about this a minute. Why? For what justification was my tax dollars (duly allocated for research by Congress) spent to subsidize Universal Pictures? Why was Simberg, who staked his whole life out trying to provide a unique service, shafted by his own government?

I'll tell you: because bureacracies like NASA are unthinking, inefficient and, well, bureaucratic! Far from fostering innovation, commercializing NASA will only serve to stifle it! Let NASA focus on research, on science, not on the operation of launch services.

I wonder if man will walk on the moon in my lifetime.

Expect delays. Unless NASA cuts off the funding, don't lose hope that they'll get X-33 off the ground eventually and learn something from it. But also don't forget there are other reusable launcher developments in the industry...

• Rotary Rocket Company
• Kelly Space & Technology
• Kistler Aerospace
• Pioneer Rocketplane

• CATS (Cheap Access to Space) Prize
• Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society (Silicon Valley)
• JP Aerospace (Sacramento)