RSS Feed MenuIn recent months, the Obama administration has scrapped the Bush administration’s plan to get NASA back into manned exploration of the moon, and instead has focused on helping the private sector develop the ability to send cargo and, in due course, people into low orbit around the Earth.
That shift sparked a division among conservative space observers, between those who lamented the scaling-back of national ambition and those who welcomed the relatively free-market approach to orbit (and the refreshing contrast with the administration’s policies on Earth). There has been speculation that Obama may not really care about space policy — and perhaps better so than having him focus on it.
Obama’s effort to commercialize orbital services is laudable, whether or not he knows or cares what he’s doing. Lately, this push has encountered some resistance in Congress, though, and there is a danger that an overly NASA-centric approach to low-Earth orbit will prevail. It is only if commercial companies are allowed a major role that there will be a reliable capacity to not only get astronauts to the International Space Station but also to bring paying tourists into orbit in significant numbers as well.
What’s no less worrisome, however, is that a large, important celestial object has been eclipsed in current policymaking and political debate: the moon. Perhaps as a means of distancing itself as far as possible from the Bush approach, the Obama White House has discarded Earth’s natural satellite as a target for human exploration and development.
Consider these goals stated in the National Space Policy document, released in June: “By 2025, begin crewed missions beyond the moon, including sending humans to an asteroid. By the mid-2030s, send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth.” That “beyond the moon” is actually the only mention of the moon in the 14-page document.
During an April appearance with astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Obama gave the moon the presidential brush-off: “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there. There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do.”
That statement is painfully ignorant, for two reasons: One, the moon emphatically has not been thoroughly explored just because a dozen astronauts (only one of them, Harrison Schmitt, a professional scientist) briefly visited a handful of landing sites there decades ago. As it happens, there’s a vast storehouse of scientific knowledge still waiting to be discovered on the moon, including data about the early solar system (preserved deep in the impact craters on the geologically inactive world). Also, any telescope placed on the moon’s far side would be uniquely positioned to peer into the universe.
Two, the moon offers not only a scientific payoff but a far broader economic and societal one. Consider some of the things that might be done there in the coming decades. Tourist ships might land on the moon’s surface or settle into lunar orbit (and earlier, remote-controlled rovers operated by paying customers on Earth could be a profitable business). Clean energy could be another lunar industry, with helium-3 fueling nuclear-fusion reactors, or solar arrays built from lunar material transmitting to Earth.
We don’t know what all the possibilities are. How might ceramics, say, develop in a low-gravity environment? What better place to store fragile or precious items than in an airless lunar cave?
What should the government be doing about such futuristic possibilities now? I suggest three things:
First, restore the moon as a target for civil space exploration. Let proposed lunar exploration missions compete, on grounds of scientific merit, with alternative proposals for asteroid exploration and such.
Second, extend the Obama emphasis on commercializing low-Earth orbit to the moon as well. NASA just took a small step in this direction by announcing a program to buy data from future private-sector lunar probes. Such incentives could also be part of future human exploration of the moon (and asteroids).
Third, develop a framework for eventual property rights on the moon. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits claims of national sovereignty on celestial bodies, but does not ban private claims. One can imagine a system whereby governments would multilaterally recognize such claims (by entities that have, say, explored a lunar parcel to a specified degree of precision) without asserting sovereignty.
In short, we need a new space policy that doesn’t forget about the moon.
Bill White // Aug 11, 2010 at 2:04 pm
I largely agree with the comments made by Dr. Paul Spudis above however I would supplement his comments with my own assertion that the deployment of a network of fuel depots both in Earth orbit (LEO) and more importantly at the Earth Moon LaGrange points (EML-1 & EML-2) would greatly facilitate access to the lunar surface as well as exploration beyond the Earth-Moon system.
A link to a Wikipedia primer on LaGrange Points:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
And, a link to a table of cis-lunar delta v requirements (that being the “geography” of space)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Earth.E2.80.93Moon_space
EML-1 & EML-2 are massively favored as transportation hubs by virtue of the interactions of gravity from the Earth, Moon and Sun.
Robert Heinlein famously said/wrote that LEO was halfway to anywhere. Well okay, but EML-1 & EML-2 are 80% of the way to anywhere.
Carney // Aug 11, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Empty space is not a destination. Other worlds are.
Bill White // Aug 11, 2010 at 2:53 pm
@ Carney
Departing from an EML point will get you to Mars with lower overall delta v, even without any lunar ISRU fuel. Assemble the Mars vessel at EML-1 or EML-2 using highly efficient trajectories to travel from LEO to EML-2. See for example this paper by Jeffrey Parker.
http://ccar.colorado.edu/nag/papers/AAS%2006-132.pdf
Add lunar ISRU fuel and the savings are enormous.
I know Dr. Robert Zubrin believes we can go to Mars without on-orbit assembly of the mission but a great many people disagree with him and Ares V class HLVs do not appear to be politically viable.
An EML-1 depot would also facilitate access to Mars, the Moon and the NEOs all of which are valid destinations.
medinnus // Aug 11, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Sinz’ analogy of us to aliens like the Europeans and the Indians is correct, but only if you position us as the Indians…
Carney // Aug 11, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Bill White, who, specifically, says it is impossible to go to Mars without on-orbit assembly (OOA)? What laws of physics does a simple, direct mission violate? I would note that this is the only way anyone has ever done any successful interplanetary mission, manned or unmanned.
NASA itself agreed with Zubrin by adapting Mars Direct into its Design Reference Mission, which is most notable for the purpose of our exchange in its total excising of OOA, having only an Apollo-style rendezvous for the return journey.
As for the political non-viability of an HLV, it is in fact the Obama policy of deliberately destroying our heavy lift capability for zero total budget savings that is ferociously controversial, and the Democratic-controlled Senate recently passed, ***by unanimous consent***, NASA reauthorization with a provision MANDATING the retention of HLV, in a direct face-slap to the Administration.
It’s below cretinous to claim any fuel savings, or any merit whatsoever, in OAA.
Multiplying per-mission launches drastically increases per-mission risk. Any launch failure in the string of necessary launches means the entire mission fails. In fact, even a delay in one of the launches, a not unlikely prospect due to weather and other factors, means the entire mission fails, as the orbiting fuel boils away and other consumables decline.
Also, you have to launch MANY many more missions total to make and get to the lunar ISRU fuel, or set up LEO or deep space stations, fuel depots, factories, and the whole rest of the pointless paraphernalia. The result is a gigantic net loss in fuel, to zero gain.
Oldskool // Aug 11, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I think people are plenty happy seeing pics from the surface of other planets and moons as opposed to the drama of seeing people put their lives in danger. After all, is there any kind of science that requires people to be on site? That’s not rhetorical. The Mars rovers had a huge payoff but if people were to do the same thing the cost would multiply by a factor of what, 100? 1000? And the Mars orbiter still sends back data such as big areas of methane from an unknown source.
We could go there in person but the question is why should we. Same for the moon. Lets send rovers back there and to new places like Europa which may have rust colored biology on it’s surface.
Carney // Aug 11, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Oldskool, the Mars rovers inch along at pathetically slow speeds. Put this another way: a human rockhound can cover far more ground in a day or so than they’ve been able to do in their entire multiple year stay there. Human eyes scan the ground many times per second at higher than HD resolution, and a trained human can easily pick out and pick up an interesting rock, flake it with a tool, and pop it in a bag for detailed research back at camp. That’s what they do in the Rockies all the time, and humans in simulated missions in space suits do very well also. But you could parachute huge numbers of rovers into this fossil-rich area and they would not find a single fossil until the next Ice Age, when they would be crushed by glaciers they are unable to outrun. Of course, that’s not counting their dying much sooner than that from their solar panels being covered in dust they are unable to brush off.
Oldskool // Aug 11, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Yeah, humans could do lots of things but the cost is prohibitive, imo. Just the other day I saw a large mechanical dog one lab or another has invented which moves just like one with excellent balance. Probably for military use but we’ve come along way since the Mars rovers were on the drawing board. I don’t think there’s much support for spending money to send people past earth orbit but people love fancy new gadgets. Especially when they’re cheap.
Turns out it’s not that new.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Carney // Aug 11, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Oldskool, the cost is NOT prohibitive. Mars Direct calls for a robust program of Mars exploration, formally costed at only $55 billion over ten years, well within NASA’s $18 billion annual budget (and accounting for the usual massive government cost overruns). In other words, we don’t need to spend any more money to do this.
And you are exactly wrong in saying there is no support for spending money to send people past Earth orbit. Nothing captures the imagination like doing that. Support for it is so strong that the Shuttle and Station were both sold and justified primarily as ways to help do that in the long run.
To the extent that people think about space, the sense of puzzlement, letdown, squandered opportunity, wasted decades, and even frustration post-Apollo is palpable, and when presented with Mars Direct, turns to outright anger that we haven’t already done this decades ago.
The worst part is, the Bush Administration essentially accepted Mars Direct (its post disaster Administrator was Mike Griffin, a former board member of the Mars Society), but kicked the can down the road by piddling along too long with the useless Shuttle and Station. By eschewing a JFK style short timeline, it ensured that not enough progress was made by the time its term ran out, enabling the next Administration to kill it.
mjones // Aug 11, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Quite amazing that in Silber’s post there is not a single dollar figure. And the comments barely make reference to costs.
Let’s face it – Bush’s “plans” for returning to the moon did not include adequate budget requests for NASA, as the Augustine Commission pointed out. It was, and is, a complete fantasy. Bush had 4 budget cycles to request such funding and never did.
Some of Silber’s suggestions for profitable lunar development are just giggle inducing:
• helium-3 fueling of nuclear fusion reactors — since controlled nuclear fusion is always 20 years away, we still have plenty of time.
• storing precious items in an airless lunar cave — rental storage units on the moon . . . a true sign of human development being the vanguard of life in the universe.
Oldskool // Aug 11, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Well, I’d like to see it happen before I croak. And no doubt we will one day but it’s hard to fathom with all the problems we face here. I expect they’ll find skeletons since Mars had water and an atmosphere long enough for something like fish to evolve.
anniemargret // Aug 11, 2010 at 5:13 pm
oldskool: I think it’s because of the ‘all the problems we face here’ that we need to reach for the moon/Mars for options. I have absolutely no faith that humanity is mature enough to acknowledge potential problems before it slaps us in the face.
Look at the situation now unfolding in the Gulf. BP admits that didn’t have an adequate plan for a deep water oil spill, but went ahead anyway. Careless and irresponsible. We still have the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world cackling about global warming/climate change. We still have people in denial about evolution in our own human history.
Then there’s warfare. We can’t even trust our own leaders to make sensible and rational decisions. Neocons are still pushing for war at every turn, as if calming the planet at the end of a gun will work indefinitely. We still have Americans at each other’s throats because of religious superiority or because of ethnic superiority. We still have people in our own country who still harbor suspicions that minorities with different color skin or sexual orientation are not fully human and should not have full equal rights. There’s ‘freedom for all’ for ya.
Somehow the idea that we as a nation can come together to face our own extinction, be it from an asteroid hit, an advanced alien attack, or from our own violent stupidity is moot.
We need to embrace possibilities for space exploration for our own good, or before the hawks of the world use the moon (or Mars) for a base for space weaponry or ’star wars.’
Carney // Aug 11, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Despite my earlier crack about dating craters, Silber is right that the far side is ideal for astronomy. And no, robots won’t cut it. Right now no robot on Earth can walk into your house and change a light bulb.
Still, Mars is by far the preferable destination, and should be the main focus of oun manned program. And on no accound should it be a vague, distant, maybe someday mission decades hence, after unnecessary lunar or other precursors. That is death to the program; political momentum peters out too fast. Do it within a decade, JFK-style.
Oldskool // Aug 11, 2010 at 5:24 pm
“Right now no robot on Earth can walk into your house and change a light bulb.”
They’re way past light bulbs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzjkBwZtxp4&feature=related
forgetn // Aug 11, 2010 at 5:41 pm
America will never again set foot on the moon, nor will it go to Mars, in a few years the ISS will be closed after more than $160 billion in expenditure and no real practical applications (few new things have been learned that were not already known). The reality of the American space dream is over. The Chinese (money) and the Russians (workhorse spacecraft) will be the one going to space, they have the resources and the will when America has… bills.
Science was never the objective of the moon shoot, politics was the core objective. Proof in the fact that most of the rock the astronauts brought back to earth still remains unexamined (80%). America has lost its taste for science a long time ago, today it is religion and social battles that excites the nation. America is facing a shortage of trained engineers to replace its crumbling infrastructure system, space is a project for which America is neither interested or willing to pay.
Obama ended the “charade” that was the Bush mission to the moon, a piece of political legerdemain to leave NASA alive but without a real mission — the moon in 2050! nearly half the Republicans in Congress don’t believe in evolution, if the initial premise of our existence is based on a religious text how can science (that after is what space is about) become a core topic of interest.
The age of America the bold (although even when we were rich many opposed Kennedy’s plan) is over, healthcare, social security and defense of the nation are all our politicians care about today. The electoral cycle is so short today (24 months) that any multi-billion Moon/Mars project is doomed to fail in appropriation.
Sorry about that!
anniemargret // Aug 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm
carney: Do it within a decade, JFK-style.
Agree. But we all know the only reason JFK got the country mobilized is because Yuri Gugarin and Russia was going to get there first. It was political and our nation was not going to allow the Russians to get the upper hand in the ’space race.’
We need the same thing to mobilize us. I can understand the argument “forgetn” makes above, or others here who say we have too many problems here on earth to seek funding for manned space flights.
But the issue should be couched in a political framework. That is the only thing that both Republicans and Democrats could compromise on. After 9/11, this country swelled in patriotism and cooperation. Never before had so many red-staters and blue-staters smile at each other. We had a common unity, if only it had been a tragic one.
The idea that either Russia, China, or another nation could/would get ahead of us in manned flight should make Americans nervous – the nation that conquers space first, wins .
On the other hand, as ‘forgetn’ and ‘oldskool’ pointed out (rightly), we have so much dissension on such simple issues that advanced science exploration be it on earth or Mars makes most Americans yawn.
Obama failed in this instance. Bush43 failed as well. We need a leader with a robust plan for America to lead (or get out of the way) in scientific advancement, technological and energy advancement, and space exploration.
anniemargret // Aug 11, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Or we can just hope that Reagan speaking at the U.N. was correct when he said the only thing that would unite the world would be an alien attack!
Hop // Aug 12, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Carney: “Even if cans of rocket fuel were lying around on the Moon, free for anyone to come by and use (and they aren’t) and even if a fully functional and manned spaceport were there waiting for us to use it (and there isn’t), it STILL wouldn’t make sense to use the Moon as a “jumping off point” to anywhere else.”
Ummm…. No one’s advocating stopping at the moon to leave for Mars.
You are employing the Tucson to Omaha by way of Houston straw man:
http://clowder.net/hop/TMI/TucsonToOmaha.jpg
Just as you don’t have to drive to Houston to use Texas gas, you wouldn’t have to land on the moon to use lunar propellent at EML1 or LEO.
Carney: “…that article is a complete farce.”
Your straw man is a complete farce.
Carney // Aug 12, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Actually, Hop, quite a few people, including those in important positions and who for whatever reason are taken seriously in space and/or public policy, are advocating using the Moon as a “jumping off point” for Mars. President Bush himself did so, unfortunately.
You think you’re making an important and relevant point that the “plan” you support involves a Mars flight using lunar-extracted propellant retrieved in LEO, EML1, etc., rather than touching down on the Moon. What you carefully or obtusely ignore is that multiple touchdowns by other prior missions are necessary to make that happen, completely erasing the distinction you seek to make.
Furthermore, such touchdowns, and such activity overall, are UNNECESSARY. A heavy lift booster can lift a suitable payload into LEO and then use an upper stage to throw it on a Mars trajectory.
Hop // Aug 12, 2010 at 7:00 pm
You seem to be arguing with Bill White and myself. Cite Bush if you like, but your Tucson to Omaha by way of Houston straw man remains a straw man.
Why lunar infrastructure?
Mars Direct calls for disposable mega rockets: http://clowder.net/hop/TMI/Stages.jpg
A non sustainable architecture. Best case: extremely expensive flags and foot prints. More likely the disposable mega rockets get canceled deader than Ares V before ever hauling humans past LEO.
More propellent sources breaks delta V budgets into shorter hops. This makes reusable vehicles plausible. Lunar propellent depots could enable smaller, reusable vehicles that travel to deep space destinations. This could enable sustained development of NEOs, Phobos, Deimos as well as Mars.
Furthermore, the moon is an interesting destination in it’s own right. The gradual accumulation of layers in the lunar poles could be to planetary science what the fossil record is to biology. A lot of interesting science there. More frequent launch windows and shorter trip times makes lunar development more doable.
Why would we spend 200 billion to send men to Mars with disposable mega rockets? To look for Martian bacteria? Mars Direct is an unnecessary and horrible waste of taxpayer money.
Carney // Aug 17, 2010 at 2:37 pm
I’d be willing to spend $200 billion for a robust Mars program, but Mars Direct is costed at only $55 billion, already accounting for the inevitable cost overruns.
Who cares if the mega rockets are “disposable”? Who cares about reusability?
What MATTERS is making humanity a multi-planet species, not fetishizing irrelevancies. Rather than “flags and footprints” (in themselves valuable, BTW), Mars Direct will result in a chain of REUSABLE habitation modules on the surface. Once subsurface water is found, habs can be landed there to link up and form a base of permanent or long term residents.
And your interest in Moon dirt rather than LIFE existing on other worlds is, shall we say, unusual.
Hop // Feb 24, 2011 at 7:57 pm
@ Carney
“And your interest in Moon dirt rather than LIFE existing on other worlds is, shall we say, unusual.”
When you show me the Martian life, I’ll take you more seriously.
“By comparison the Moon is a poor, bleak world, with nearly no carbon or nitrogen, very little water, and a paucity of other crucial substances, many of which are only available through energy intensive techniques such as rock-melting, or sifting billions of parts of soil.”
As already pointed out, this is flat out wrong. Chandrayaan 1’s mini SAR radar has detected what seem to be thick sheets of ice at the lunar poles. A fair amount of nitrogen was detected in the LCROSS ejecta. The evidence is that there’s abundant CHON at the lunar poles.
Yet you willfully ignore the evidence and portray the moon to Mars as Greenland to the Americas. It’s more like England to the Americas. You would have had the Europeans forego settling nearby landmasses such as England, Sicily, or Ireland and devote all their efforts for settling America. To use your words, this is below cretinous.