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NASA Rejoins Space Race With Manned Deep Space Craft
Laura K. Cowan writes "NASA is back in the future-tech space race with a new manned deep space craft called the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, which aims to take astronauts on longer missions to deep space, eventually to planets such as Mars where only unmanned crafts have previously traveled. The MPCV holds 4 astronauts, is currently capable of 3-week missions, and not only could take mankind to new frontiers but is billed as being '10 times safer... than the current space shuttle.' Maybe there is hope for space travel outside the X Prize."
This is simply a rebranded Orion capsule. I worked on Constellation (from inside NASA) for years and helped the program get started. There is no rocket to launch the capsule. There is no mission for it. Nothing on the books, nothing remotely near ready for approval. Just how "deep" into space will it go with a mission time of 21 days? Hint: The Moon is not "deep space". Mars is deep space. Mars is at least 6 months away - one direction. Finally, how many times (altogether now) have we heard "advanced avionics"? That means they are up to Web 0.42 now, maybe. Bottom line: This is pure pork for Lockheed-Martin (Lockheed HQ is in Maryland; Dem. Senator Mikulski is on the Appropriation Committee). It is a multiple billion dollar gift. It will never fly. Ever. I'll bet a fair share of the related jobs go to Houston and to Huntsville, AL (Rep. Sen. Shelby, also on the Appropriations committee).
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann
So here is the story: inside NASA, "Deep Space" used to mean (prior to 2003) anything beyond the orbit of the Moon. This was intended to be the domain of work for science and telecommunications ops of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an FFRDC operated by Caltech as a NASA center. Inside the Moon's orbit was the domain of scientific work for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This included Earth observing science and telecom as well as astrophysics spacecraft. During the Constellation program, when simply returning to the Moon was not enough justification for the program and seeking a way to justify control of the design of deep space telecom for manned spaceflight, the Constellation Program Office at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) and NASA GSFC sought to redefine deep space as anything beyond HEO. This was also an attempt by GSFC to put JPL's Deep Space Interplanetary Network (aka "DSN) on the sideline of the design process for Constellation deep space telecom. (Furthermore, GSFC at the time was lobbying to get new Earth orbiting telecom spacecraft launched and needed additional justification, ergo "they are good for Constellation"). I don't think the issue was every resolved one way or another as far as "official" definitions go and in the end, not much changed before Constellation was cancelled. The lesson is this: Words like "deep space" can mean a lot when government research centers are fighting to protect their charters and business base. I'm glad I'm out of that biz!
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann
Not a chance, really. You're seriously underestimating the production volume of precious metals on Earth, if you think any conceivable spacecraft could bring enough of it in to make a dent in the prices. You're also vastly underestimating the effort it would take to mine an asteroid. Just developing and building the energy infrastructure required for refining ore in space is going to be a multi-decade endeavor if it ever happens. It could potentially be useful for something exceedingly rare, like some rare earth elements and platinum group metals, but generally if the element occurs naturally on Earth it will never be economically viable to bring it back from the outside.
Asteroid mining will most likely only be viable for in-space uses, such as building spacecraft and infrastructure in zero-g. Iron is particularly plentiful in asteroids, useful for building robust space stations and moon bases, and heinously expensive to launch from Earth but could be shipped cheaply if slowly across the solar system along "free-transfer" paths.
There's an outfit called SpaceX. They build a booster called the Falcon 9. They build a BMF version of it, called the Falcon 9 Heavy.
NASA recently took all the data on the Falcon 9, and shoveled it into their cost model system. Done as a NASA project, Falcon 9 estimates out at something like 7 billion dollars. Done as a Commercial project, with NASA supervision, it still costs out at 1.5 billion. The problem with those estimates is that SpaceX did the whole shebang for about 300 million.
When your cost model system says it will cost five times as much as it actually did, either your cost model system is utter bullstuff, or you've shoveled in a HUGE amount of gold-plating and featherbedding. Probably both.
It was OK, except it still ended up in the same obscenely expensive cost model for development that has plagued almost everything that involves continuing to work with the current batch of contractors -- Lockheed Martin and ATK (formerly Morton-Thiokol).
Another downside was the use of SSMEs -- an throwing them away every flight. Yes, there were proposals to replace them with modified RS-68 engines, but the redesign and NASA requirements for human-rating them (said requirements can be argued about, but that's another topic) would have raised the cost yet more.