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Future of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Looks Bleak
coondoggie writes "Things don't look good for NASA when the report outlining its future begins: 'The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. [NASA] is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations.' Today the Augustine Commission handed to the White House the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report, after months of expert review and testimony. Many observers expected a bleak report, but ultimately the future of US manned space flight will hinge on how the report's conclusions are interpreted. Keep in mind too that NASA has spent almost $8 billion of a planned $40 billion to develop systems for a return to the Moon."
I think he means worship of the almighty dollar.
Carrying any significant amount of raw materials from NEOs to an LP requires a lot more than "trivial" amounts of fuel.
The only way to practically move an NEO is by utilizing the mass of the NEO as fuel. The typical suggestion is to do this with mass drivers (you can't use ion engines because you need high thrust). If you're moving icy NEOs you can "just" make rocket fuel and propel it with traditional thrusters.
All of this is way beyond our technology level, and requires mass in orbit that we're unable to get from Earth.. so you need to mine the Moon for it in any case.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Ok, not to be whiny, but I didn't like this particular summary, as it mentions the panel's conclusion that NASA's current path is unworkable, but doesn't make any mention of the alternative paths forwarded presented by the Committee (and discussed in the article). Here's an alternative summary, with some links to the actual report summary (which I suspect none of the commenters so far have actually read):
A summary of the Augustine Committee's upcoming report on the future of US spaceflight has been submitted to the White House and NASA, and made available to the public. The committee's analysis found that NASA's current plans for a human lunar return by 2020 are unworkable, with NASA's status quo not likely to place them on the moon 'until well into the 2030s, if ever'. Raising NASA's budget by $3B/year opens two primary options: 'Moon First' with a lunar return and possible base-building starting in the mid-2020s, or 'Flexible Path,' which would initially focus on building an in-space architecture for supporting progressive exploration, starting with Lagrange points and Near-Earth Objects (asteroids and comets) in the early 2020s, and exploring the moons of Mars or Earth in the mid-2020s. Options for a heavy-lift launcher were also outlined: NASA's current plans for an Ares V, a less costly 'directly Shuttle-derived' vehicle, or the least costly (but politically most difficult) 'new way of doing business' of purchasing launches on an upgraded EELV. Other key findings are that the ISS should be extended to 2020, that developing in-space refueling would benefit all of NASA's options, that NASA should make use of commercial crew transportation, that NASA should revive its space technology development program (which had largely stagnated in past decades), and that while Mars should be the ultimate destination for human exploration, it is not the best first destination. The White House and NASA will review the report and announce NASA's forward path in early October.
Wherever humans end up going outside LEO, we're going to need good radiation shielding. The ISS is protected by Earth's magnetic field. Moon and the Lagrange points aren't.
There's also the problem of bone loss. ISS was originally supposed to have CAM, the centrifuge accomodation module. This would have been a dedicated lab that could spin to simulate lunar or martian gravity. Current medical science can only guess as to how 1/6th or 1/3rd gravity will affect bone mass. If it's as bad as zero gravity, human spaceflight is going to be even more challenging, but bottom line is we just don't know yet. With CAM on ISS, we could have at least collected some data points.
Urban legend. http://tafkac.org/science/saturn_v_blueprints.html
They're on microfilm at the Marshall Space Flight Center
Do you know anything about the process that led to the space shuttle? Yes NASA solicited design bids--many design bids. Not just from the usual suspects (Boeing, Rockwell, Lockheed, North American, etc., etc.) but also from surprising sources such as Chrysler (they had a neat SSTO design). NASA, contrary to your suppositions, does not do everything in house. In fact, even the launches are technically operated by ULA, a joint effort by Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Well yes, NASA collected a large number of competitive design proposals for the space shuttle, many of them quite innovative. It then tossed them out and picked a contractor which would build the design the folks at NASA Marshall had in mind:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuttle.htm
Following the usual charade of competitive bidding, NASA picked the same prime contractor as for X-15 and Apollo, who could be trusted to build precisely the vehicle NASA had in mind. North American Rockwell was selected to build the orbiter, with its Rocketdyne Division making the main engines. Thiokol was selected on political grounds for the solid rocket boosters. Martin Marietta would build the External Tank, but at the government Saturn IC factory at Michoud.
It's worth noting that pretty much the exact same thing happened with the current (like to soon be past) architecture. NASA spent about a year soliciting innovative competitive proposals from a number of companies, such as t/Space, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, and then selected the most promising proposals for further study. Then the new administrator Michael Griffin came in, threw out all the competing studies, ran his own 2-month study which (surprise!) said that Griffin's own design from a couple years prior was the best one, and then essentially made NASA the prime contractor for what's now known as the Ares I rocket.