by Andrew Lawler
NASA should consider extending space shuttle launches into 2011 rather than ending the program next fall, flying the international space station at least until 2020, and boosting spending on its flagging technology programs. That’s the verdict of a blue-ribbon panel which today released its full report on the future of the U.S. human space flight effort.
The panel, chaired by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, released its summary conclusions 7 September, but the full detail backing up that document is now available.
At a 1p.m. press briefing at Washington, D.C.’s National Press Club, panel members suggested that NASA’s replacement for the space shuttle may be the wrong ship going to the wrong destination. Instead of moving ahead with a government-built Ares-1 rocket with a capsule on top called the Orion, Augustine and Edward Crawley, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer and panel member, said that NASA instead might rope in private industry for a joint effort to build a less ambitious vehicle that could be ready by 2016—rather than 2017 or later than Ares is likely to fly. That cheaper rocket could take astronauts to the space station well before its demise, which now is slated for 2016.
And the two panel members in addition expressed their interest in bypassing a landing on the moon—the destination set by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2004—in favor of a lunar flyby or rendezvous with an asteroid or Martian moon.
Now it is up to the White House to decide which path to take. “Too soon to say,” is all that one Administration official would offer. Health care and other bigger fish may put the future of space on the backburner until closer to the release of the 2011 budget request early next year. But Congress is chomping at the bit to lay out a clear direction. “Let’s get on with it and cease contemplating our collective navels,” says Gabrielle Giffords (D–AZ), who chairs the House of Representatives space and aeronautics panel of the house science and technology committee.
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said:
The President has on numerous occasions confirmed his commitment to human space exploration, and the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous andsustainable path to achieving our boldest aspirations in space. Against a backdrop of serious challenges with the existing program, the Augustine Committee has offered several key findings and a range ofoptions for how the nation might improve its future human space flightactivities. We will be reviewing the Committee's analysis, and then ultimately the President will be making the final decisions.
To Gaetano:
A flyby / orbit are technology demonstrators. The goal is to land. A flyby or orbit are intermediate stages before landing. They demonstrate several of the technologies needed for the actual landing. Btw, this is the way the Apollo missions were done.
The ability to land on an asteroid is not really a subset of going to the moon. Nor is it a superset. A moon landing requires going into a deep gravitational well and getting back out. An asteroid landing requires a long duration mission. In any case, both capabilities are necessary for the ultimate goal of a mars landing, so it is sensible to do both as part of the plan to go to mars.
The "Flexible Path", more than likely, would still involve a moon landing before a mars landing. It's just that the moon is de-emphasized and instead the technologies you develop are more directly related to a mars landing. In addition, you get to accomplish more milestones (psychological and scientific) along the way.
My personal goal is a mars landing (actually, a mars colony). I think that the "Flexible Path" would get us there sooner.
To Gaetano:
A flyby / orbit are technology demonstrators. The goal is to land. A flyby or orbit are intermediate stages before landing. They demonstrate several of the technologies needed for the actual landing. Btw, this is the way the Apollo missions were done.
The ability to land on an asteroid is not really a subset of going to the moon. Nor is it a superset. A moon landing requires going into a deep gravitational well and getting back out. An asteroid landing requires a long duration mission. In any case, both capabilities are necessary for the ultimate goal of a mars landing, so it is sensible to do both as part of the plan to go to mars.
The "Flexible Path", more than likely, would still involve a moon landing before a mars landing. It's just that the moon is de-emphasized and instead the technologies you develop are more directly related to a mars landing. In addition, you get to accomplish more milestones (psychological and scientific) along the way.
My personal goal is a mars landing (actually, a mars colony). I think that the "Flexible Path" would get us there sooner.
I've been working on lunar base engineering issues for a few years. Most people have no idea how much actual engineering work it takes to pull these missions off. That's not to mention the amount of research that has been done on lunar dust, radiation shielding, vibration environments from Moon quakes (most people haven't even heard of Moon quakes), lighting studies for power and thermal design, etc, etc).
All that work would be thrown away if they change to some nebulous destination. Once the destination is chosen, much of that work has to start again. And once there is a small body chosen, I have to agree with gaetano marano, the public would (correctly) ask "why can't we scout these new destinations with robots?".
The end result? US astronauts will be going to and from ISS until it's splashed, and then there won't be anywhere else for them to go. The US aero engineering community will shrink and the US public will wonder why people from other countries are setting up outposts on the Moon.
I have hope that Obama will listen to the most important finding from the Augustine Commission: the previous admin's hallucination for unfunded space exploration has to end, and bigger bucks need to be spent (although they are a tiny drop compared to bailout bucks).
The moon would serve as a launch base for missions to Mars and beyond, a self sustaining base that would be required to produce its own fuel. Obama is not interested in true exploration for the human race.
I can't imagine what value a lunar flyby has for exploration or science. Flyby (or orbital assay) of any body is better and more inexpensively served by robot craft. Human presence is most needed on the ground of the object in question and for that robots are a pale substitute (though quite useful and cost-effective, but who knows what they miss?). Furthermore the ability to land on an asteroid is mostly a subset of technology developed to explore the moon and will not a program make.
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my first impressions about the Augustine Commission report
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HSF Committee Report: "treatment" much worse than "disease"
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http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/056hsfreport.html
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