Irene Klotz says that the moon and Mars are out of reach for NASA. The way they want to do it, yeah, and it always will be. It’s not the sixties any more. I’ll probably have some thoughts at Pajamas Media tomorrow.
3 thoughts on “A Planet Too Far”
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I actually think that this is a positive sign. Of course both are out of reach using 50 year old technology.
We have a space station now to aggregate payloads and vehicles.
We have the ion propulsion and solar technology for large tugs.
We have multiple vendors of launch vehicles to use for tandem boosts to lunar orbit.
We understand ISRU much better now based upon the data from the Moon, to make this work.
With these factors, we can build a sustainable lunar architecture and get to Mars far quicker than using a 50 year old approach.
Technology isn’t the problem here.
The operative question is “Can NASA get anywhere and can they do it in a reasonable amount of time?” The answer to the first part is probably yes if we give them tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. Then when “they” not “we” get there, will we be happy with watching a few people look around, turn over a few rocks, plant a few pieces of memorabilia, and then leave? Not me. In answer to the time frame that NASA would need, I would most certainly say no.
The problems that hound NASA these days are institutional. Much like with the prospects of any large government program we must ask ourselves “What did we miss by not taking the other road?
Those surfaces may be out of reach for NASA, but not out of reach for non-NASA.
My heuristic:
1. The aggregate cost of designing an aerospace system of a given capability is dropping at an average “X”% per year (better predictive capacity in software, lower cost per CPU, precision manufacturing, etc.).
2. The risk capital available for designing such a system increases at an average of “Y”% per year. This capital has some sort of identifiable non-uniform distribution.
End result: A rapid increase in the number of potential design / build / operate teams that can provide a given capability of aerospace vehicle. This increase is greater than “X+Y”%, because capital available has a non-linear distribution.
This is not to say that that these systems will just “happen”. Merely that a State-funded centralized bureau is not necessary to make it happen.