NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: "Get Over It"

mknewman (557587) writes "For years, critics have been taking shots at NASA's plans to corral a near-Earth asteroid before moving on to Mars — and now NASA's chief has a message for those critics: 'Get over it, to be blunt.' NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended the space agency's 20-year timeline for sending astronauts to the Red Planet on Tuesday, during the opening session of this year's Humans 2 Mars Summit at George Washington University in the nation's capital."

Comments

How the west wasn't won

[terjeber]

This is a good analysis of NASA. It's a good oldie, but it should be read more often.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[rioki]

I think the example of SpaceX begs to differ. How can SpaceX operate so much cheaper for the same payloads? Even cheaper than the Chinese? Granted some of the technology developed by SpaceX is based on NASA research, but why can't NASA come even close to SpaceX's operating costs?

Re:How the west wasn't won

[cyber-vandal]

And yet without governments there would be no space technology.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[MickLinux]

Not to overly criticrise your analogy, but I prefer nonfiction to fiction in my decision-making process.

This is a good analysis of NASA. It's a good oldie, but people should read it more often.

I would note that it was valid then, when it was written, it was valid when Columbia fell apart, and it is valid now.

And it is an EXCELLENT reason why Nasa shouldn't be messing with asteroid capture. Fortunately, it is more likely that our country will be glowing embers, than that NASA will see this accomplished. And I view that glowing embers bit as a negative, brought about by similar egos by similar wackos in OTHER government offices (including Putin's Russia).

But yes, I am very glad that other problems are likely to make this problem a moot point.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wanted a better fictional story about why it was a bad idea, I might pose the story of a day when intelligent dinosaurs were living in Pangea, and a space agency went to 'get' an asteroid. whether through malfunction or deliberation doesn't matter, because the asteroid crashed into the southern part, and punched obliquely into the mantle right where there was a collection of Uranium-calcium georeactors. It pushed one to the center, causing a massive explosion that blew out the Scotia plate (below) and the Karoo (above), and like a bullet through glass also produced a 950-mile radius ring of Kimberlite dikes in one of the most spectacular explosions ever seen.

Meanwhile, a third of the way around the globe, under what would later become the New England Plume, the shock waves triggered another such explosion, blowing out the Hudson Bay (above) and the Carribean plate (below), and making it's own 850-mi radius ring of kimberlite explosion. (kimberlite explosions are violent enough to launch material into orbit, and bring diamonds up from below).

And on the line between the two explosions, the supercontinent split in two, with the break cutting over just where the two shatter rings intersected. 90% of the sea life died, the ground around both explosions was contaminated with extreme nuclear radioactivity... and the dinosaur civilization died as well.

Of course, that's just fiction. If it weren't there'd be evidence in the georecord. Indeed, our geologists would know to look for diamonds in an 850-mile ring around the Hudson, or on the west coast of Greenland...

Re:How the west wasn't won

[TwoUtes]

Of the multitude of reasons SpaceX can operate more cheaply I can think of, the biggies are: -NASA is a Government agency, beholden to the congress and the congress loves its pork, so only certain big-name contractors get NASA contracts. -SpaceX is not a federal agency and doesn't have to play by the same onerous, costly sets of rules as a federal agency (i.e purchasing requirements, safety requirements, etc.) -SpaceX has negotiated some sweet deals to use existing government facilities already paid for by NASA (taxpayers). -SpaceX has received a lot of seed money from NASA. There's more, but you get the idea. I'm not here to take away from what SpaceX are trying to accomplish, but they certainly have an advantage over a bloated government bureaucracy.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[taiwanjohn]

You can watch the speech on YouTube. It's 29 minutes with Q&A. The "blunt" remark comes around 25:40.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[terjeber]

Moron.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[geekoid]

Because NASA did all the heavy lifting.
SpaceX build on what NASA did.
SpaceX does 1 thing.
SpaceX still doesn't have a viable way to make a profit.
SpaceX is still at least a decade from getting someone to ISS.

It's like asking why Ford doesn't have the same operating costs as a mechanic shop.

Re:How the west wasn't won

[geekoid]

Absolutely we know that.

There was no driving factor for private interest.

NASA never lost it's way. NASA lost it's budget. IN spite of budget reductions, NASA has done amazing things, just without humans sitting in a flight deck.

On, to Mars!

[JWSmythe]

I have one thing to say. Hurry the fuck up.

When I was a kid, there was so much "by the year 2000". Space stations. Moon bases. Mars colonies. Mining asteroids. Deep space missions. Fleets of spacecraft. Hypersonic travel around the earth.

The only thing resembling a real space ship has been retired. 1960s tech is back as the best thing anyone can come up with, and it's totally owned by the Russians.

I am impressed by probes. They are cool toys. But they can't replace a person standing there, making decisions. Asking "what if..." We learn from being and doing. The rover we have on Mars now has a mostly busted wheel. A wheel that a human could have riveted a patch over in a few minutes. Or maybe some duct tape. You know, what the Apollo astronauts did, because they were there. Where humans can improvise, and grab a roll of tape.

If we hadn't given up on the space race, maybe we'd have most of those things. So we slacked for 20 years, lets get back on track.

Re:On, to Mars!

[kamapuaa]

On a similar note, I saw Star Wars and I'm really disappointed that we still don't have hyperdrives or laser guns or even translator droids! It's been all of 35 years!

Re:On, to Mars!

[Sarius64]

Every single one of the dollars we don't charge billionaire sports team owners. How about that?

Re:On, to Mars!

[bradley13]

Orbital launch cost is a red herring; it's expensive, and this isn't going to change. We live in a whopping big gravity well.

The goal has to be building an infrastructure. Get mining and production infrastructure up there. That's going to be a huge investment, but once it's in place you can produce ever more of what you need directly, without having to haul it out of the well.

Re:On, to Mars!

[MacTO]

Mildly off topic:

Until we can make vast improvements in launcher reliability, perhaps we should stick to 1960's technology for that aspect of space exploration. Getting off of and back onto Earth's surface is an extraordinarily difficult task and it will remain so for the decades to come.

Rather, in my opinion, we should be focusing upon building infrastructure in and beyond Earth orbit so that we can get people into space for longer durations. The infrastructure that we do develop needs to be fully repairable and upgradable in space, rather than retired after a relatively short duration. Simply put, it is too expensive (in terms of energy and dollars) to transport materials into orbit only to dump those materials back into Earth's atmosphere a decade or two later.

Once we get the foundations in place, developing reusable launchers will be necessary. Hopefully they will also be much more viable by that point in time.

Re:On, to Mars!

[geekoid]

Nerd smack down!
BEGIN!

We have laser guns, but more importantly they didn't use LASER guns in Star Wars.

I sit next to a person who LITERALLY has a droid in his pocket that can act as a translator.
I have one, but it's nexus and not a droid. So it would only figuratively be one.

END!

Re:On, to Mars!

[geekoid]

are you high? try 55+ million per launch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Re:On, to Mars!

[JWSmythe]

You're totally right. People complain about the NASA budget, but they don't realize how insignificant it is compared to other things. We've spent (and continue to spend) far more on killing people (or the
threat of) in other countries.

NASA's budget is less than 0.4% of the federal budget. The bank bailout was more than has ever been spent on NASA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:On, to Mars!

[JWSmythe]

Well, lets look at the federal budget, so we can judge on "extra tax dollars".

The 2015 spending budget is $6,293.7 billion.
NASA gets $16.6 billion, or 0.26%, or $52.13 per person.
Defense gets $820.2 billion or 13.1%, $2,575.37 per person.

The F-35 has $875 billion allocated to the project.

Our defense budget isn't just high. Our spending is 36% of the world's defense spending. The US spends about as much as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, India, and South Korea *combined*. If we reduced our military spending to the level of the country that spends the most (China), we could trim 452 billion from military spending, NASA could be paid 27 times over.

GE was paid about 10% of the NASA budget for avoiding paying taxes. The taxes they don't pay count for more than the entire NASA budget. GE makes most of it's money from the US government.

You know, I wouldn't mind 1% being dropped from killing people in other countries, or threatening to do it. I wouldn't mind if companies like GE weren't allowed to skip paying taxes, to reduce our tax burden, and double NASA's budget. I wouldn't mind if they skipped trying to build the F-35 fighter, and doubled NASA's budget.

So, which do you want? An airplane that we don't need? Wars that serve no good purposes? Paying corporations for avoiding taxes? Or to advance the knowledge and reach of the human species?

US and Science

[Spiked_Three]

Look a few articles down, and you will see one about FIRST robotics. Robotics is absolutely a requirement of any future space program.

Yet, slashdot, a web site for geeks, has a comment post count of 6.

This by itself is hugely important - there is little to no interest in a fundamental technology of the future.

Couple that with the US's current anti-science sentiment, and NASA being a science department of a funding challenged government, and the US days of space exploration is done for a while. Close NASA, sell the assets to the Chinese, let someone else take their rightful place as leaders.

Radiation...

[jklappenbach]

If I were planning a trip to Mars, solar and cosmic radiation would be one of my main concerns. And to date, I have not seen designs for a delivery system that would adequately protect crew members from what could be a catastrophic situation. We do not want to lose the first expedition to something like this. However, the shielding required dramatically alters the economics of the mission (lead's not cheap to shoot into orbit, let alone Mars). And that's just getting there. If we want to enjoy any duration of exploration or colonization, we should be looking for caves. Without a magnetosphere, it's going to be tough.

Radiation Rules Exploration

Re:Radiation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollowing out asteroids was/is one proposed way to solve the shielding problem – no need to launch all mass up. Of course, we're far from being able to do that, but the asteroid redirection mission is a first step in that direction.

Re:Radiation...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were planning a trip to Mars, solar and cosmic radiation would be one of my main concerns.

Cosmic radiation is only a problem if you aim for zero tolerance.
The data given by Curiosity show that a Mars mission only increases your risk of cancer by 5%. That means that there are plenty of other hurdles far more dangerous when it comes to takeoff and landing.
To put that in perspective 5.5% of former smokers and 15.9% of active smokers get lung cancer. (24.4% for those who smoke more than 5 cigarettes a day.)

Unless you intend to set up a permanent base or have a mission where the astronauts stay more than two years on the surface the radiation can be handled by informing the astronaut of the danger and have them sign a paper.
If people should be allowed to smoke then I think people should be allowed to risk cancer with a Mars-trip too.

Re:Radiation...

[bored]

A high energy electromagnetic field will do just fine. Works on earth... it will work in space.

You just need a fusion reactor.

I don't think electromagnetic shielding is that far fetched anymore. http://physicsworld.com/cws/ar...

Seat of the pants calculation says, its probably smaller than an MRI machine and could be powered with with a similarly sized fission reactor.

Not small by any standard, but completely doable with today's technology.

Bravo!

[negablade]

Bravo, Mr Bolden! NASA does exceptional work. Sometimes the armchair critics should just STFU and let NASA get on with the fun stuff.

Re:What a monstrosity posing as a webpage

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, dumbass!

Browser settings. On your computer. Not his.

Hey, dickhead!

I like to allow people to post code samples in monospace format. Arker abuses this function on this site by choosing the "code" option when he should not. There's no discriminator option in the browser for "Fix only Arker's jackass choice of posting format while leaving responsible users' posts alone".

I would settle for simply having his comment threads excised from the entire forum, but that's not an option in Slashcode.

It doesn't take much

[bradley13]

Provide incentives for private industry, and get the fsck out of the way.

Promise $5 billion to the first company to send the same spaceship to orbit 10 times and return. $10 billion to the first company to send the same spaceship to geo-sync orbit 3 times. $20 billion to the first company to bring an asteroid above size X to a lagrange point. $50 billion to the first company to have people live on the moon for two weeks. Change the goals and figures to suit. Total cost will be a fraction of having the bloated NASA bureaucracy do the same things.

Then get rid of all possible regulations, and eliminate most liability. Space is hazardous - let's assume participants are adults who know what they are getting into.

Then get out of the way.

Re:It doesn't take much

[AmiMoJo]

The problem with "winner takes all" competitions like that is that unless you are fairly certain of winning there isn't much incentive to spend billions trying. The NASA model of creating a spec and then asking for tenders to do it is better, assuming you can resist cancelling or downsizing everything year to year.

Re:It doesn't take much

[Required Snark]

"Provide incentives for private industry". Really? I've never visited that universe.

Over here in the real world, "private industry" acts like the United Launch Alliance: an intrenched monopoly with zero incentive to bring down launch costs. The same for the other long time players, like ArianeSpace and the Russians.

The only disruption to this cozy international cartel is SpaceX and the like. Note that these are all privately funded by technocrats who made huge fortunes in software. No one had to go out and raise money for these ventures. The investors are the founders, and they have very deep pockets.

It is impossible to raise money for this kind of business in capital markets because it's easier and more profitable to make money the old fashioned way: steal it.

Just look at the example of the FCC deciding to squash net neutrality. Hire regulators via the revolving door, pay out some bribe/campaign contributions, get legislation that you wrote passed as laws: instant profit!!! Why waste time and money on something as iffy as outer space?

So real innovation and risk taking is not the product of "private industry", it's a hobby of a few individuals who succeeded in the past. They could have as easily bought a major league sports franchise like Mark Cuban.

Is it likely that the next generation of successful entrepreneurs will have the space bug? Because if they don't then the only way we'll get to Mars, or make use of space resources is through governments. Any near term profit in space comes from satellites at synchronous orbit or below. No profit or incentive for long term capital investment any further out.

The only other reason to go is nationalism. That's why the Chinese are going to the moon. The US will opt out because none of the entrenched "private industry" players see sufficient guaranteed profit in their pig trough. It's so much easier to raise prices for Netflicks.

Re:It doesn't take much

[T.E.D.]

Provide incentives for private industry, and get the fsck out of the way.

That actually makes a lot of sense for things that actually hold some promise of being a profitable business in the near future, like near-earth orbit launch vehicles.

However, it makes no sense whatsoever for things with no possible commercial market at the forseable end of them, like pure space exploration. Since there will (most likely) be no commercial pot of gold at the end of these tasks, any "incentive" offered would have to cover the entire cost of the endeavor, plus some extra for profit. If taxpayers are going to be footing the entire bill, we might as well have (I'd say damn well ought to have) a big say in how the money is spent and things are run. If not, these so called "private companies" will have all the negative incentives of a government bureaucracy, but none of the positive incentives to keep them in line.

If we're paying the entire bill, we ought to have the ability to fire the "CEO". Otherwise its just corporate Welfare.

Re:It doesn't take much

[geekoid]

not no it's dangerously hot. as in put you in the hospital for a week hot.

Seriously if you order a coffee would it be a reason expectation that it would be so hot that if yo dropped it in your lap you would be in the hospital for a week(may have been 10 days)

Ironically, you posting that is more of an example of what you are trying to show.

comparison is out of whack

[aepervius]

Those comparison human ability versus rover crack me up. The problem is that they are comparing one single rover against one human. What they should compare is the energy and material resource expanded to 1) launch a human 2) make sure it arrives alive 3) stay alive long enough to do stuff 4) we are not even considering it coming back alive 5) we are not even considering the horrendous cost of setting up a colony (when we aren't even a step nearer to do one on moon) 6) and we will also ignore that rover are expandable I.O.W. if the first rover crash and burn, resend another one. If you DO the comparison, then it is much cheaper to make a serie of automated vehicule which can gather stuff analyze it, and if you see you are missing info or one break, send another one.

Human on mars is only a question of fulfilling a dream, a dream which is completely cut off from the reality of cost. it is nice for you to have a dream, but some of us prefer practical solutions.

Re:comparison is out of whack

[JWSmythe]

That's funny that you express that there's no reason to put people on Mars, but you quote Carl Sagan in your tagline.

I ran across this a few days ago.

http://io9.com/5932534/carl-sa...

Maybe you're there because we've recognized we have to carefully move small asteroids around to avert the possibility of one impacting the Earth with catastrophic consequences, and, while we're up in near-Earth space, it's only a hop, skip and a jump to Mars. Or, maybe we're on Mars because we recognize that if there are human communities on many worlds, the chances of us being rendered extinct by some catastrophe on one world is much less. Or maybe we're on Mars because of the magnificent science that can be done there - the gates of the wonder world are opening in our time. Maybe we're on Mars because we have to be, because there's a deep nomadic impulse built into us by the evolutionary process, we come after all, from hunter gatherers, and for 99.9% of our tenure on Earth we've been wanderers. And, the next place to wander to, is Mars. But whatever the reason you're on Mars is, I'm glad you're there. And I wish I was with you.

Re:comparison is out of whack

[rk]

I have an anecdote related to this.

In my last life, I worked at a lab involved in the MER missions. After the 90 day nominal mission, somebody asked my boss, a highly respected planetary geologist, how long it would take for a human to accomplish the gathering of scientific data that the rover had accomplished thus far. His answer was "it would be about a solid afternoon of work."

So if anyone old there thinks "100s of robots" is an exaggeration, it's not.

Re:What a monstrosity posing as a webpage

[Flentil]

Who the hell uses the tt tag?

Arker does, every time he posts. He likes his posts to look different from everyone else, then he tries to convince people it's their browser settings that make his posts look strange and not his deliberate intent. He gets a lot of attention for it. He's getting it right now, again. It's tiresome. It's trolling.

Re:Proposal.

[Trepidity]

The claim that "he" rather than "they" is the correct gender-neutral singular personal pronoun is mainly an innovation of 19th-century grammarians, not traditional English usage. Prior to the 19th century, both constructions were in use, depending on the preference of the author. Nowadays, they are again both in use, after a brief interlude in which "singular they" suffered a decline in usage.

Re:Proposal.

[asylumx]

Yeah, but it ain't gender neutral in English. Ya know - the language you are using..

Actually, it technically is the gender neutral preposition. It is not, apparently, politically correct but it *is* grammatically correct.

Wikipedia Reference
Also, "Man" and "Mankind" still refer to all humans, not just male humans.

Re:Proposal.

[Trepidity]

Yeah, same people generally. There was a period in English prescriptivist grammar when people authors of grammar books would attempt to "rationalize" the language, often using Latin as a model (other times just using rules of their own invention).

Re:Just say no to NASA

[morgauxo]

>>NASA, these days, is nothing but an organization designed to enrich top managers and engineers. It's a jobs program designed to pay out huge >>paychecks and accrue great retirement benefits.

So what? It's not like funding rocket science for the benefit of exploration ever got us anywhere.

When people first started dreaming of traveling to space using rockets all the action was in little private rocket clubs. They did some groundbreaking work and deserve to be remembered for that but they had no chance of ever acruing the resources to build actual spacecraft.

Do you know how scientists with an interest in spaceflight finally got the resources to build something that might actually make it to space? By piggybacking on the ambitions of the Nazis. A team of some of the brightest German scientists had the Nazis pay the bill for building some of the first rockets that could just about make it to space. The catch of course being that they carried explosives and for the most part 'landed' on England.

After WWII the US and Russians nabbed as many of those scientists as they could. That's how the first two human space flight programs started. Now the scientists were getting funded because the two sides of the cold war were afraid that if they didn't develop space the other would. That got us pretty much everything mankind ever did in space up until very recently when the Chinese managed to launch a few people. Keep in mind of course that the Chinese based their work on the Russians.

So with the cold war over (or is it...) I'm glad to see any funding go towards spaceflight, even if it is mostly the product of politicians sending money to their friends.

Re:The real problem is rockets.

[MozeeToby]

The only "realistic" (and I use the term loosely) options other than rockets are:
Space Elevator: We just don't have the materials technology to do this yet, and even if we did the costs would be astronomical.
Launch Loop (or other kinetic energy structure): Might be possible with today's technology, but it would be fragile, error prone, delicate, etc. And if something goes wrong, you're not out a rocket, you're out your entire launch system.
Space Gun: Acceleration forces are too high for manned flight.
Space Plane: Probably doable, but the total lift capacity would be a fraction what a rocket can deliver.
Skyhook: Maybe possible today but there's a lot of unknowns. Not to mention a single skyhook wouldn't be enough to replace our rocket capacity, you'd need several, possibly as many as a dozen.
Laser propulsion: A ways off, and you'll have a lot of people concerned about you building a multi-megawatt laser installation. By definition if it can launch a rocket it can vaporize large amounts of metal in a mater of seconds.
Orbital airship: Actually merits a chuckle to me but someone somewhere thinks is a possibility. No word on how you're going to stabilize and maintain pressure on a kilometer long hypersonic blimp.
Orion Drive: Ok, I'm in. Just don't tell the environmentalists.

For the record, I agree with you. I'd like to see every one of these concepts receive real funding. But in the end rockets are always going to be part of the equation, at least for the next 100 years.

There are two NASA's: 1) Pork 2) Science

[Squidlips]

There are two NASA's: 1) There is the pork-laded manned mission NASA out of Houston with power friends on Capital Hill. Their mission is to keep the pork flowing for things like the ISS and the Space Launch System. Bolden is a Houston guy 2) Science: This is the Science Directorate which is JPL out of Pasadena. They are the guys who actually do scientifically meaningful missions such as the rovers on Mars or the Cassini orbiter around Saturn or the probes reaching Pluto and Ceres next year. They are politically weak and constantly have to fight Houston to restore their funding which is always being poached for pork. Carl Sagan started the Planetary Society to stop the poaching but it is stronger than ever.

Re:Just say no to NASA

[OneAhead]

Not for me. It's still a far leap from the picture painted in that book to "an organization designed to enrich top managers and engineers" and "a jobs program designed to pay out huge paychecks and accrue great retirement benefits". There are shades of gray; the fact that an organization has significant issues doesn't automatically imply it's good for nothing.

Re:Just say no to NASA

[geekoid]

NO, it's not true at all. I'm sorry, but I know too any poeple working at NASA.

You got problems with NASA, talk to congress about getting them proper funding to accomplish what ever big goal you have in mind.

NASA generates a ton of revenue for the country. If they got all the tax dollar from industries the created, we would have outpost all through out the solar system ad probably be 2 decades ahead in technology.

Re:Just say no to NASA

[Grishnakh]

It appears this way, but it's not by design. It's a necessary by-product of the way NASA is funded and run. Anything that NASA does has to be doable within just a few years, which is why it's done such great work with various rovers and probes; it's not that hard to build a small probe in a few years. Any project which is much larger in scope, budget, and time requirements is basically impossible, because things are going to change in 4 or 8 years when a new President is elected and a new Administration established, plus with Congress holding the purse-strings, and changing substantially every 2 years, their funding for any big project will be threatened before long.

There's nothing that can be done to change this as long as the government is set up the way it currently is. Space exploration needs to be left to countries which have governments with much longer-term visions, and that basically rules out democratic governments.

Re:Just say no to NASA

[Kremmy]

End of year financials? You mean the ever growing deficit? Tell me when they start being profitable again.

So where is JPL in all this?

[Squidlips]

I see no mention of the highly successful missions by NASA / JPL such as the Mars rovers and the Pluto & Ceres missions. All Bolden cares about is the manned pork missions that accomplish nothing scientifically. Of course, since is an ex-astronaut....

Re:Just say no to NASA

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Do you know how scientists with an interest in spaceflight finally got the resources to build something that might actually make it to space? By piggybacking on the ambitions of the Nazis. A team of some of the brightest German scientists had the Nazis pay the bill for building some of the first rockets that could just about make it to space. The catch of course being that they carried explosives and for the most part 'landed' on England.

Which from my point of view is absolutely awesome, because these scientists killed two birds with one stone: 1) they developed significant expertise in designing, manufacturing, and operating advanced (for the time) liquid-fueled guided rockets, which came in handy later for peace-time projects, and in doing so, 2) they diverted an equivalent of 150% of the whole Manhattan project budget from the German war-time economy to something absolutely useless for advancing the German war objectives.