Where is NASA Going?

Fairthought

Junior Member
Here is an article by a really big name in NASA:

Robert Zubrin
Space News, September 26, 2005

On September 19, 2005, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin revealed the agency’s new plan for implementing the President’s Vision for Space Exploration.
The plan has significant positive and negative features.
On the positive side, it recognizes the need for the development of a true heavy lift launch vehicle (HLV), and takes concrete steps the preserve the Shuttle industrial infrastructure necessary to produce such a vehicle by initiating development of a medium lift launch vehicle using Shuttle technology. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. An HLV is absolutely necessary to enable human exploration of the Moon or Mars, and it was a measure of former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's unfitness for his position that he was willing to promote a clearly unworkable quadruple launch/quadruple rendezvous lunar architecture for the purpose of justifying the abandonment of that capability. Dr. Griffin has reversed that position, and backed his policy with action, and that is excellent.
Another strong feature of the plan is its decision to develop and employ methane/oxygen rocket engine for Lunar ascent. Methane/oxygen is far more storable propellant combination than hydrogen/oxygen and offers much better performance than conventional hypergols, making it a much better choice than either for lunar ascent and return propulsion. More importantly, however, methane/oxygen is the easiest propellant combination to synthesize out of the Martian atmosphere, and some could be made out of lunar base waste products as well. The choice of this propellant therefore shows good system engineering sense, with thoughtful consideration of how to select Lunar mission technologies that will be most useful in enabling human exploration of Mars as well.
On the more problematic side is the decision to develop such a large Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). While a large CEV certainly enables larger crews and greater comfort, it will cost more to develop, produce, and launch than a smaller capsule. Furthermore, because of its excessive mass, the large CEV makes direct return lunar missions impossible, thus mandating a lunar orbit rendezvous mission architecture. This, in turn, will require the costly development and production of lunar excursion modules, and impose return rendezvous phasing complications that could hamstring the operations of a lunar base, especially if surface stays greater than two weeks are desired.
Another cause for concern is the decision to launch the CEV after the HLV that delivers the rest of the mission components to orbit. The HLV’s cargo will include stages employing cryogenic liquid hydrogen/oxygen propellant, and this propellant will start to boil away immediately after launch. Thus for the mission to succeed, the CEV must be launched on time, within a few weeks at most of the prior flight, without fail. Otherwise, the billion dollar class HLV launch and cargo will have to be written off. This situation will put great pressure on managers to launch despite warnings, thereby putting crews at risk. Moreover, NASA’s record of achieving on-time crewed launch to date is very poor. Unless it is radically improved, this aspect of the plan will have to be abandoned.
That said, the plan is an enormous improvement over its predecessors. One has only to compare it to the psychedelic NASA mission architecture of 2002, which called for supporting Lunar exploration from a LaGrange point space station supplied by giant cycling nuclear electric spaceships, or the nonsensical O’Keefe quadruple-launch/quadruple rendezvous lunar mission plan of 2004, is order to breathe a huge sigh of relief. The previous NASA plans were pure bullshit. This one is real engineering. Finally, we have a plan that could actually work.
There is, however, a deeper problem with the plan than the engineering concerns noted above. That is, that while preserving the HLV infrastructure, the plan relegates the development of an HLV to a subsequent administration. In consequence, for the next 13 years, NASA will continue to send crew after crew up and down to low Earth orbit, at a cost of some $70 billion, for no justifiable purpose whatsoever.
Both Admiral Gehman and Dr. Griffin have made the point that if we are to accept the costs and risks of human spaceflight, we should be undertaking missions that are worthy of those costs and risks. But for the next 13 years, we will continue not do so.
To paraphrase St. Augustine, NASA is now saying “Lord, make me a destination-driven space agency, but not yet.”
In saying this, NASA is, in fact, acting in accord with the Bush “Vision for Space Exploration,” as enunciated in January 2004. That policy however, was formulated by a White House which lacked a competent NASA administrator to advise it. Now, however, that we have a qualified NASA administrator, this policy needs to be revisited and reformulated.
Let us review the consequences of blindly following the mediocre “Vision” scriptural document of January 2004. That document was a compromise between those who wanted a destination driven space program, and those who did not. Therefore, in accord with the bargain reached, NASA would be allowed to continue to fly Shuttle missions for the rest of the decade, after which the destination driven program could begin.
But does this make any sense? The only really time-critical Shuttle mission is Hubble repair. This is indeed a truly important mission, and it should be flown with dispatch, as it is without question worthy of the 2% risk to crew that any Shuttle mission must entail. But the rest of the Shuttle manifest is devoted to Space Station construction, and these cargos could be delivered much more expeditiously by the HLV NASA needs to develop to reach the Moon anyway.
Griffin’s HLV design will be able to deliver 125 metric tons to low Earth orbit. The Shuttle can only deliver 20 tons. With a single launch then, the HLV will be able to deliver as much payload as the Shuttle program can during a year. That’s during a good year. Compared to current Shuttle launch rates, which will have managed only one flight between February 2003 and February 2006, (at a cost of $15 billion), the HLV will be able to launch in an afternoon everything the Shuttle program would be able to launch for the next 18 years.
Operating the Shuttle program for the next five or six years to deliver a few space station payloads early will cost us $30 billion. All that money could be saved simply by shutting the Shuttle down after Hubble repair, and shifting the Shuttle program funds over to immediate development of the HLV and the other Lunar exploration hardware elements. We could then use the HLV to complete the space station and reach the Moon by 2012 instead of 2018.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the financial burdens it will impose on the nation, gratuitously wasting $30 billion of the taxpayers’ money in order to dogmatically fulfill an old scriptural document is unacceptable. The new NASA architecture is a good plan for implementing a flawed policy. We need a good policy. We have real talent at NASA now, and we should make use of it to revise the policy itself.

Dr. Robert Zubrin, an astronautical engineer, is president of the Mars Society (
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, and author of The Case for Mars (Simon and Schuster, 1996), Entering Space (Tarcher Putnam, 1999), and Mars on Earth (Tarcher Penguin, 2005).
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The nice thing about this is the frankness about the flawed policies of Plan Bush. But where it gets interesting is in the budget: NASA's budget for 2007 is slated for a whopping 1% increase in funding. That's not even keeping pace with inflation. At that rate, NASA will never get to Mars. Furthermore, despite a shuttle operation cost of $5 billion a year, NASA just announced another space shuttle (Atlantis) will be decommisioned in 2008 to be used for 'spare parts'.

NASA is starting to sound like the budget-plagued Russian Navy.

Personally, I would scrap the shuttle program immediately. Not just to save cost, but a 2% risk to crew is unacceptable.
 
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walter

Junior Member
Zubrin does make some valid points, but I can't help but get the impression he left out a few important considerations that wouldn't fit well with his views. Most notably, he states the only shuttle mission worthy of flying is the Hubble revamp mission, while the ISS missions can be written off until the HLV is ready.

This is just nonsense (let's not forget he has an agenda: get to Mars as quickly as possible = get rid of shuttle as quickly as possible).

First, the ISS is just that, international, and the partner nations working with the US expect the US to live up to its obligation of constructing the ISS. There is major hardware sitting on the ground (ESA Columbus Module, Japan science laboratory module, many other things), and this hardware has already been built and was built to shuttle payload bay specifications.

Waiting on the HLV to be done is not an option for a couple of reasons:

1) HLV design and manufacture can surely not happen in less than 10 years, we are talking about the largest rocket design since Saturn V, and the US has an obligation to its international ISS partners to deliver their hardware to the ISS in a timely fashion. Remember, the majority of ISS hardware has already been built and much of it was supposed to be a part of the ISS by now. It costs money to maintain the equipment while it sits around waiting for a ride to LEO.

2) As already mentioned, one of the driving design factors of all ISS hardware is they must all fit in the shuttle payload bay. While the shuttle can only deliver 20 tons at a time, Zubrin should think again if he envisions 4 or 5 ISS components beeing delivered in one launch by the HLV. The ISS hardware would have to be redesigned, no doubt about it, and that would cost a big chunck of money. It's just is not practical at all to expect multiple ISS hardware components to be launched by the HLV.

3) ISS components were also designed to be assembled by shuttle crews operating the shuttle's robotic arm. How would assembly be completed if the HLV was used to get the hardware to space, but doesn't have a robotic arm. And no, the HLV will most likely not have a robotic arm.

4) HLV, as it does not exist, would be an unproven design when it finally is available in 10 or 15 years. It would argueably be higher risk to launch any ISS components with it vs. with the shuttle, and launching 3 or 4 modules at a time poses a very, very big risk. Easily over $1 billion down the drain if something goes wrong. While the shuttle is far from perfect, I really believe NASA will get 18 or 19 more successful launches from it before retiring it, without mishap. NASA has been working with the shuttle and its systems for decades and will leave nothing to chance for the remaining shuttle missions.

Apart from the shuttle vs. HLV for finishing up the ISS, I also don't agree with Zubrin about Hubble. In fact, Hubble is hardly worth servicing considering that ISS has priority and shuttle retirement after that will allow for NASAs fully concentration on the CEV, CLV and HLV designs for return to the moon. More importantly, servicing hubble would just eat up funds that could go to the next generation space based telescopes currently being developed. Besides that, while hubble does deliver some of the best images ever due to a lack of atmosphere between it and objects in space, the largest ground based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics easily rival hubble's images in quality.


Here's where I agree with Zubrin:

1) NASA budget should increase more than it is projected to
2) Shoot for Mars BUT don't screw over ISS partners in doing so.
 

Fairthought

Junior Member
Well its true that Zubrin has an agenda, NASA needs an agenda. Without direction, NASA drifts aimlessly and accomplishes nothing.

But let's review why the US has to build the ISS:

It made a promise to the other 15 member nations involved in the project.

That's it. Nothing else. The ISS is otherwise regarded as a huge waste of money and the plan is for the US to abandon all involvement with the ISS as soon as the US fulfills its obligations.

Well, given that George Bush has already set the precedent of unilaterally abandoning a signed multinational treaty (ahem, ABM) because it was an obstacle to national interests, then why not abandon the ISS also? Rather than spend another $30 billion on a station the US doesn't even want.

If the other nations involved in the project want the ISS so badly, let them have it. And let them pay for it. This is a huge waste of taxpayers money. Everyone knows these other countries won't shoulder the burden of paying for the ISS on their own.

Currently, these other countries were freeriding on American tax dollars to pay most of the ISS bill.
 

walter

Junior Member
well, the thing is, NASA will want to work with many of these very same nations and space organizations when it comes time for a manned Mars mission, especially ESA. If the US proves itself an unworthy partner now with the ISS, these groups will think twice before undertaking another massive space endeavor with NASA. Even though it is costly, I think the US must show good faith when working with these partners, otherwise NASA's big future plans will suffer. (And I think "freeriding" is not quite accurate. ESA has built its Columbus module, Japan has built a module, Russia has many, the Canadians built a robotic arm for constructing the ISS. Also, Russia provides the rides, exclusively for the past couple years, we know why. I just think it is wrong to not deliver their payloads as agreed upon)

I seriously doubt the US is willing to fund the entire return to the moon and then on to mars missions all by itself--they will be looking for risk sharing, finace burdening partners, mostly in Europe, but also Japan and who knows, mabey India, Cananda and elsewhere. Since the current administration and many in Congress from both parties see China as a competitor, I think China as a partner on any of future endeavors is for the time being ruled out. Similarly, Russia has already positioned itself as an alternitive partner for moon and mars missions for the ESA nations and Japan, so I doubt the Russian Space Agency would work with NASA if and when it comes to full fledged manned missions beyond LEO.

Just to clear something up, I know the shuttle is a failure in that it was concieved as a safe, relatively cheap, reliable and reusable means of delivering payload to and from LEO. And yes, the ISS is 10's of billions over budget, but I am not so sure the US isn't interested in using the ISS after its completion. It will be an important stepping stone towards the moon and mars for its value in researching the ways humans can live for very lengthy periods of time in space.

History has shown that every major space endeavor undertaken by the US has run way over budget and many times fallen short of original goals, will it be much different this time around? People will call for an end to the return to the moon when they see how expensive it is, just like there have alsways been critics of the shuttle and the ISS.

Also, NASA's agenda is almost the same as Zubrin's. Ultimately, the plan is to get men to mars, which is what Zubrin wants, but first the ISS obligation must be met, the shuttle retired, and the US must gain valuable experience with manned outposts on another world: the moon. Maybe it would be nice to go straight to mars, but the risk would be huge--it is big enough in any manned space mission. The moon is much closer alowing NASA and its partners to test their new systems close to home. NASA does plan to ultimately have a permanent manned outpost on the moon. That is a long term goal, a vision.

The main problem facing NASA (there are many) is a lack of continuity when administrations and congress changes every 4 or 6 years. NASA gets a mandate from one administration to undertake something worthwhile, but then the next administration comes along and cuts funding or cancels the big project altogether. China does not have this problem--good for them.
 
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vincelee

Junior Member
do you want to know why the shuttle was such a screw up? Because the management (it's always the management) changed a few decimals in the figure given by the risk analysis team. Cheap pickup truck to space my ass. If anything, the Russian shuttle was a superior design, too bad they ran out of money.
 

walter

Junior Member
The shuttle also had to live up to US politicians' and military leaders' whims--a solid, well thought out engineering solution never stood at the forefront. That's not to say NASA engineers and their subcontractors weren't brilliant, but they were continuously burdened with changing requirements and funding, in the end we got the shuttle. :mad:

I just hope it gets through the decade as planned so NASA can move on. :)
 

Fairthought

Junior Member
Let's face it, for better or for worse, NASA's future plans are pretty much set in stone. Ignoring political commentary for now, we can see what NASA is going to do in the next 16 years.

NASA will maintain, at extremely high cost to America, its commitment to finish construction of the ISS. This is expected to be completed around 2010 (barring any more tragedies).

The space shuttle will be retired immediately after that, though some congressmen are pushing for it to remain in service another two years (until 2012). This is because the CEV is not expected to have its first flight until 2013 and these congressmen don't want to have to rely on the Russians for a ride in these two years.

These congressmen will most likely get their way, despite the fact that the US doesn't want anything to do with the ISS after it's constructed. Plan Bush intends to lobby hard for the ISS to be junked by the international community by 2016, just like they lobbied Russia to junk Mir.

Orbital rendezvous will be needed for the mission back to the moon and on to Mars. But orbital rendezvous does not require a space station. This was demonstrated repeatedly during the Gemini program of the 1960's, as well as the Soyuz and Apollo programs.

The goal is to have a Heavy lift vehicle and a crew exploration vehicle readied for a return moon landing by 2018. The plan is to return to the moon no later than 2020. This gives NASA a two year leeway.

All of this I am confident of NASA accomplishing, though I expect delays.

It is after this that I predict the plan to go haywire.

From here on I present my predictions on what will happen after 2020:


The whole mission to Mars, the ultimate end goal of Plan Bush as lauded in 2004, will be abandoned as too expensive. The whole plan was concocted as an excuse to go back to the moon for He3 mining to replace our dependency on fossil fuels.

Permanent bases will be set up on the moon, and great mining consortiums (led primarily by today's biggest energy companies) will stake their claims to vast tracks of Lunar mares. Lunar regolith will be upturned across many thousands (perhaps millions) of square miles.

The major space faring nations will compete aggressively for this new energy monopoly. The exact opposite of international cooperation will occur. Instead each space faring nation will work alone for the intended purpose of giving He3 mining rights exclusively to their own national energy corporations.

Mining rights will be determined by who can get there first and physically delimit its territory.

Russia will give lunar mining rights exclusively to their state monopoly of Rosneft and Gazprom.

America will give lunar mining rights exclusively to powerful American corporations: Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, GE, Bechtel, Chevron, Amoco, etc.

China will give lunar mining rights exclusively to their own state owned SinOpec, CNPC, and CNOOC.

The Europeans (ESA) will suffer paralysis. Divisions within Europe will see Britain energy major, BP, defect to the American side. America's special relationship with Britain will allow her to be the only exception to the 'america only' space mining policy. Shell, which is jointly owned by Britain and the Queen of the Netherlands

India's space program will arrive too late, most of the more profitable lunar stakes will have already been claimed.

The big energy corporations representing the third world, OPEC, will be left out in the cold. This new energy cartel will have no room for the old. With no way to develop its own space faring technology, Saudi Arabia's ARAMCO will be earthbound and forced to compete with cheap nuclear energy with their own ever-dwindling fossil fuel reserves.

With major energy corporations establishing permanent bases on the moon, no one will care about Mars. Mars' atmosphere shielded that planet from collecting He3 from the Sun like the moon, so Mars has little economic value.

Space mining corporations will rather expand into the asteriod belts, where large deposits of Gold, Platinum, and other metals await prospectors.

Energia, Boeing, Lockheed, and EADS will be competing for contracts for space mining transport vehicles. NASA will be left with exploratory missions -and to find more sources of He3.
 

walter

Junior Member
Fairthought said:
Let's face it, for better or for worse, NASA's future plans are pretty much set in stone. Ignoring political commentary for now, we can see what NASA is going to do in the next 16 years.

NASA will maintain, at extremely high cost to America, its commitment to finish construction of the ISS. This is expected to be completed around 2010 (barring any more tragedies).

The space shuttle will be retired immediately after that, though some congressmen are pushing for it to remain in service another two years (until 2012). This is because the CEV is not expected to have its first flight until 2013 and these congressmen don't want to have to rely on the Russians for a ride in these two years.

These congressmen will most likely get their way, despite the fact that the US doesn't want anything to do with the ISS after it's constructed. Plan Bush intends to lobby hard for the ISS to be junked by the international community by 2016, just like they lobbied Russia to junk Mir.

Orbital rendezvous will be needed for the mission back to the moon and on to Mars. But orbital rendezvous does not require a space station. This was demonstrated repeatedly during the Gemini program of the 1960's, as well as the Soyuz and Apollo programs.

The goal is to have a Heavy lift vehicle and a crew exploration vehicle readied for a return moon landing by 2018. The plan is to return to the moon no later than 2020. This gives NASA a two year leeway.

All of this I am confident of NASA accomplishing, though I expect delays.

It is after this that I predict the plan to go haywire.

From here on I present my predictions on what will happen after 2020:


The whole mission to Mars, the ultimate end goal of Plan Bush as lauded in 2004, will be abandoned as too expensive. The whole plan was concocted as an excuse to go back to the moon for He3 mining to replace our dependency on fossil fuels.

I agree mostly with you here, but there is the possibilty of a 'race to Mars' for national pride reasons--probably unlikely. At any rate, I think Mars could easily be relegated back to 'maybe someday, but not now' status. Who knows, so much can happen in 20 years. One thing that will definitely happen in the next 20 years is the US population aging, social security failing, medical costs spiralling out of control--try selling a space adventure to that public!


Permanent bases will be set up on the moon, and great mining consortiums (led primarily by today's biggest energy companies) will stake their claims to vast tracks of Lunar mares. Lunar regolith will be upturned across many thousands (perhaps millions) of square miles.

The major space faring nations will compete aggressively for this new energy monopoly. The exact opposite of international cooperation will occur. Instead each space faring nation will work alone for the intended purpose of giving He3 mining rights exclusively to their own national energy corporations.

Mining rights will be determined by who can get there first and physically delimit its territory.

Russia will give lunar mining rights exclusively to their state monopoly of Rosneft and Gazprom.

America will give lunar mining rights exclusively to powerful American corporations: Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, GE, Bechtel, Chevron, Amoco, etc.

China will give lunar mining rights exclusively to their own state owned SinOpec, CNPC, and CNOOC.

The Europeans (ESA) will suffer paralysis. Divisions within Europe will see Britain energy major, BP, defect to the American side. America's special relationship with Britain will allow her to be the only exception to the 'america only' space mining policy. Shell, which is jointly owned by Britain and the Queen of the Netherlands

India's space program will arrive too late, most of the more profitable lunar stakes will have already been claimed.

The big energy corporations representing the third world, OPEC, will be left out in the cold. This new energy cartel will have no room for the old. With no way to develop its own space faring technology, Saudi Arabia's ARAMCO will be earthbound and forced to compete with cheap nuclear energy with their own ever-dwindling fossil fuel reserves.

With major energy corporations establishing permanent bases on the moon, no one will care about Mars. Mars' atmosphere shielded that planet from collecting He3 from the Sun like the moon, so Mars has little economic value.

Space mining corporations will rather expand into the asteriod belts, where large deposits of Gold, Platinum, and other metals await prospectors.

Energia, Boeing, Lockheed, and EADS will be competing for contracts for space mining transport vehicles. NASA will be left with exploratory missions -and to find more sources of He3.

Honestly, I like the sound of this scenario, just hope it doesn't start moon wars. If He3 was the plan all along, so be it. Better than fossil fuels or nuclear fission. Still, the whole scenario couldn't unfold in less than 50 years.

Has potential for a comination scifi/political/world economy thriller novel :)
 
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