Pardon me if I found the President’s new space policy initiative underwhelming.
No mention of private industry. Indeed, the reference to NASA sending robotic spacecraft to the Moon to scout out landing sites implies that they will be, well, NASA robots. So much for that avenue of commercialization. (And I second Rand’s observation that the “entrepreneurs” comment w/r/t the astronauts in the audience was just bizarre.)
The hookup with Mike Foale on ISS fell flat, at least for me. It came across as forced and phony, as did much of Bush’s delivery. There was none of the oratorical fire of Kennedy’s famous Apollo speeches…there was no life in his presentation at all.
Much of the speech was the usual Science Über Alles and Amazing Space Spinoffs boilerplate. It almost sounded like a Chamber of Commerce speech extolling the local economic virtues of Moonville. I suppose that is to be expected, as it was a speech ultimately aimed at a general (non-space) audience, to whom he was trying to sell the policy. At least he didn’t mention Tang.
As predicted (admittedly, this is the only one of my cynical predictions to have come true in the speech), the policy talks about Mars in a noncommittal way.
With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.
In other words, we’ll think about maybe going to Mars after we’re done building Moon Base Dubya in 2020 (or later).
I watched the speech at work, and there was a shocked murmur when he announced (rather pointedly) that the Shuttle would be retired in 2010. This was the only point in the new policy about which he seemed to be firmly committed and completely serious. When it was over, the general tone was disappointment and a feeling that we had just been fooled into wasting 45 minutes of time better spent elsewhere — aside from Shuttle being axed, nothing else looks likely to come of this.
What a disappointment.
Thomas, you might have found O’Keefe’s briefing aftwards a bit more heartening. You touched on the notion of commerical entrepeneurial solutions to certain aspects of the initiative.
I think you should sit down and take a few deep breaths. The President got up and did some President stuff. He could have ignored space completely. He didn’t give us all that we wanted? Well, he’s not a “true believer.” There are very few of those and one shouldn’t expect him to be. It would be like winning the lottery.
The previous President Bush founded the Mars society in a round about sort of way. If he hadn’t called on the Space Exploration Initiative, Dr. Zubrin wouldn’t have worked on Mars Direct. A President called for action and the old guard blindsided him. But a new paradigm was created.
Another President calls for a half hearted effort, but he’s in the game. It’s up to us to play it to our fullest. Dr. Zubrin redefined the Mars exploration scenario. What can we do now to recreate the effort?
We know how the game is played, we’re ahead of the learning curve. No time for whining, it’s time to be brilliant. Aldridge will be running his commission. It’s up to us to mold it’s conclusions. We will need something as brilliant as Mars direct within the next year.
Maybe lightning does strike twice. Time to roll up our sleeves.
Like Mars Redirect ? As the “to the moon” is the announced direction ( even though im pretty sure nobody in the administration has even seriously considered actually getting there ), what if we work out a best plan that would get us to the mars quickest, with taking fullest advantage of moon ?
Like, full steam on efforts to mine and refine bulk materials on luna, actually test in-situ produced propulsion devices ( aluminium solid rockets, anyone ? ), solar arrays, radiation shielding materials etc.
DEvelop machines for the moon that can produce useful materials _many times_ their own weight.
Develop a “resource rich”, robust lunar-launched plan for Mars mission, derive the core necessary technologies to be ironed out, and then pester appropriate people for undertaking such developments.
Lunar Prospector is a successful example of what the activism groups _can_ actually pull off, so perhaps its the right time ?
Well, it *was* disappointing at the time, but in hindsight it was because my expectations were raised by the material in Keith Cowing’s initial article. I had an idea of what I might see, and even though I had become somewhat cynical about that actually happening *before* the speech, I still found it a bit of a letdown.
Looking again at the speech, it really is just the usual Presidential speech stuff, a sort of “policy appetizer” — schmoozing with the crowd, a little flash and dazzle with the ISS linkup, a recitation of the results of other programs, and, oh by the way, a taste of what will be in the policy. I was expecting more details, but I should have considered that the purpose of the address was just a kickoff. In the follow-up materials I’ve seen so far, the new policy seems more interesting than it did on Wednesday.
I’m out of town at the moment, but I’ll be posting a less dreary look at it sometime next week.
Can Delta IVH carry some of the ISS components using Soyuz to transport the astronauts needed for assembly?
Stand down the shuttle NOW and use the savings to deploy shuttle B/C or Ares (saving jobs long term at Michoud) and use shuttle B/C or Ares to get back to the Moon sooner than the Bush plan and keep America in the heavy lift business.
Thoughts?
Scrap ALL of the Shuttle hardware in 2010 and get SpaceX to build an all new SHLLV with TRUE engine out capability and with a payload capability of over 70t DIRECT to the Moon or Mars!!! SpaceX will need to have it ready by 2011.
The shuttle hardware has potentially very dangerous SRB’s which where responsible for the Challenger Shuttle disaster in 1986. Lets not risk repeating this by using Shuttle hardware for launching manned Moon missions. To provide a massive reduction in the risk factor of manned Moon and Mars missions, the spacecraft for them need to be assembled on the ground and launched on SHLLV’s that have true engine out capability.
NASA must put SAFETY above everything else and must under no circumstances whatsoever use EELV’s for launching sections of spacecraft into LEO for final assembly there. Launching spacecraft on Shuttle derived HLLV’s is only slightly less risky.
Launching manned Moon and Mars missions using SpaceX’s SHLLV’s will actually cost MUCH LESS in the long term than using EELV’s!!! Assuming a maximum cost of $1 billion for SpaceX to develop an all new SHLLV and a launch cost not exceeding $100 million each, the development cost will be more than repaid after just three manned Moon missions. In contrast, the Delta IV heavy costs around $170 million per launch. At least four Delta IV heavys would be needed for each lunar trip. This would cost $680 million in launch costs to get the components into LEO alone. There would be additional costs in launching astronauts to do the final assembly in LEO. Also construction costs are very much likely to be higher in LEO than on the ground.
It is time for NASA to stop wasting money trying to develop it’s own launch vehicles. NASA needs to change it’s role to that of funding private space companies such as SpaceX and let them drive the new era in manned spaceflight!
Dominic, your enthusiasm for SpaceX is understandable, but please cut back on it here. You’ve made your points many times over…please bring it down a notch.
Please forward all of my comments on SpaceX directly to NASA! NASA is simply too short minded and has forgotten the real safety advantages of true engine out capability.