Naturally, all anyone has been talking about at work this week is the President’s new space plan. And after the initial novelty and excitement wore off, we remembered that this is the real world, NASA is involved, and that we shouldn’t expect too much.
A couple of us ended up swapping predictions of what we thought the worst-case plan might contain:
- International Involvement I: the Russians will be again placed in the critical path, such that the missions will not succeed without their involvement. Not just permitted to bid in open competitions or as team members, but with a guarantee of some important role.
- International Involvement II: India will be asked in as a partner, which would actually be novel and interesting…if they are able to perform better than the Russians did on ISS. Even so, guaranteeing any role to any country precludes open competition among interested parties (be they national space programs, private businesses, or academic institutions) and pretty well guarantees that the results will not be as good, as affordable, or as timely as they might otherwise have been.
- Saturn Chain-Saw Redux: the heavy lift capability inherent in the Shuttle stack will not be utilized after the orbiters are retired. Instead, the tooling and facilities for ETs and SRBs will be shuttered and eventually scrapped. On-orbit assembly of smaller, EELV-launchable elements will be employed in lieu of heavy lift, and this will be rationalized as making use of the space construction techniques developed for ISS. While such an approach may make sense, if done with the intention of developing a private launch industry, the plan will instead be arranged such that only EELVs will win the bids, even if SpaceX or one of the other small launch companies comes up with a cheaper EELV-class launcher — the real motive being to subsidize LM and Boeing to keep the EELVs in production.
- The Big Maybe I: there will be contorted avoidance of specific plans regarding Mars. The Moon effort will be noncommittally described as prelude to possible manned expedition to Mars…maybe….someday. It will echo the rationalizations used with ISS: we’re learning the skills necessary for future missions to somewhere, someday, which we can’t plan for until we know everything there is to know about getting there safely (wherever “there” is).
- The Big Maybe II: there will be an explicit avoidance of specific plans regarding the return to the Moon itself. The plan will tout the Moon as a goal, while giving only a vague outline of what the return will involve and when it will happen. It’ll be along the lines of “directing NASA, academia, and industry to put together ideas for how to get there, when we might go, how much it might cost”, etc….in other words, more Powerpoint planning for a fantasy dream vacation that will never happen.
- Disabling Technologies: the plan, particularly the Mars portion, will be hitched to some as-yet-undeveloped exotic technology which is not needed and will inevitably be a showstopper. Nuclear power sources a la Prometheus will be needed; VASIMR and space elevators and L1 bases and TSTO will not. The bureaucratic potlatching may not be as blatant this time as it was with the 90 Day Report, but there will be some ill-conceived, high-risk, gee-whiz “requirement” in the plan that will sooner or later lead to serious trouble and expense.
- Business as Usual: the plan may pay lip service to private enterprise, but there will be no firm requirement for NASA to involve it, or if there is it will not be enforced. NASA will be sending its own orbiters and landers to scout out a landing site, and will turn to the usual suspects to launch them.
- Reduced Expectations: the plan will be far more modest than what the advocacy community has imagined from the rumors preceding the announcement. The plan will be seen as a huge letdown.
- [update] Wissenschaft Über Alles: the plan will contain the boilerplate reassurances to the “international community” that the U.S. does not plan to claim territory on the Moon or Mars, and will treat these bodies in perpetuity as scientific outposts, the “common heritage of mankind”, ad nauseam.
We shall soon see if any of these prognostications come true. The plan will be announced Wednesday at 3pm EST (watch it here on webcast).
One thing many people are worried about is the money. Here is a method to counter that worry. Get 2,200 pennies. Let each penny represent $1 Billion Dollars. Take 16 pennies out and cut one in half. Those 15.5 pennies represent the current NASA budget. Add the 1/2 penny back and put 4 more into the NASA stack, and say that this represents the amount NASA’s budget would need to grow to. It will look very small compared to the 2,180 pennies representing the rest of the Federal Budget. Then Take 5 pennies from the NASA stack and say that “this is what we need each year to get to Mars/The Moon in 10 years. Even more than we need if the best plan is used. If we use the current Shuttle launch stack, these 5 pennies a year for 10 years will get us to The Moon and then to Mars and maybe beyond.”
This comparison would work very well on TV if anyone here gets there.
BWS
#4 came true. Looks like we’ll have to wait for more details on the others.
The way to counter the financial and saftey worries is to get SpaceX to build a fleet of SHLLV’s each with a payload capability greater than that of any launcher that has ever existed!!! They can build one for not more than $1 billion and would allow the lunar spacecraft to be built on the ground which eliminates the risks associated with building in LEO.
EELV’s in their heavy versions should not be used because they have strap on boosters and lack any kind of engine out capability. SpaceX’s SHLLV’s if built will have full engine out capability which is essential for human spaceflight.
NASA needs to put it’s funds into SpaceX and let them do all the work!!!