That’s NASA’s estimate of how much additional funding it would take to get back to the moon by 2024 (doing it The NASA Way, of course). Eric Berger has the story.
[Thursday-afternoon update]
Bob Zimmerman writes that Trump’s moon effort exposes the power-hungry DC bureaucracy.
[Bumped]
“[Gerstenmeier] views a lunar space station as a less-risky goal that would allow for more international partnerships and build on NASA’s experience with the International Space Station.”
Yes, I suppose it’s less risky. But if he wants to really retire risk, he could just stop flying astronauts altogether.
Because the problem is that there is *nothing* that can be accomplished on a lunar orbit space station that can justify any risk that crewed Orion flights there will entail, no matter how well designed and built it ends up being. What will they do there? Act as guinea pigs for deep space radiation exposure? Because that’s all I can come up with. Teleoperation of rovers is utterly *pointless* for a world 1.3 light seconds away from Earth.
At this point I would favor abandoning the whole lunar landing effort, and strip the Gateway down to just a power module with perhaps a bus for instrument platforms. Cut Orion flights down to once every 24 months and push the mission dates as far out as possible, and shift funding to robotic prospector missions and ISRU and orbital refueling research. This will make killing the entire Program of Record easier when commercial capabilities reach the point where the very existence of SLS, Orion, and Mini-Gateway becomes utterly absurd.
I think he’s referring to program risk (probability that the program won’t happen) rather than crew safety.
Oh, I think that’s definitely part of what he’s thinking about.
But I have the sense from things I have heard that actual mission safety is heavily on his mind as well – and not just his mind.
People always do an opportunity cost looking backward. A woulda coulda shoulda whingeing about what could have been. This is the time for an opportunity cost analysis, looking forward and weighing the alternatives with proposed funding levels.
It would be nice to see some real alternatives rather than the enthusiastic, but janky Zubrin, style plans. And anything that doesn’t plan for the arrival of SH/SS will soon be obsolete.
Didn’t Musk say something about being open to a payment-on-delivery contract for a lunar program?
I wonder what kind of price tag he’d put on that. My guess is it’d be less than two years of current SLS/Orion funding. (looks to be about 4 billion in direct costs, 2018, no idea on indirect costs). So, would Musk do it for 8 billion with Starship? My guess is he’d do it for 4 or less, but by my calculations, even 8 billion is still less than 40 billion, plus you’d have a vastly more capable and sustainable architecture.
The flip side is, what if Starship/SH is a flop, and does not work? That’s a risk. Likewise, SLS might go kaboom the first few flights, same kind of risk.
“NASA has informed the White House that it will need as much as $8 billion a year, for the next five years, to speed development of the Space Launch System rocket, a Lunar Gateway, a lunar lander, new spacesuits, and related hardware for a 2024 landing”
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SLS and Lunar gateway are money pits.
Spacesuits costing a billion dollars would be insane. Spacesuits are needed but a minor part of budget increase.
Anyhow accelerating SLS and/or Gateway is bad idea.
I have been saying a lunar program cost of 40 billion and being finished within 10 years [and part of it would include SLS costs- but not accelerating it. and after lunar program was finished SLS costs would also part of Mars program cost, which I think should cost 50 billion per decade].
BUT one has idea of putting crew on the Moon by 2024. And that would something like a stunt.
Or I start with intensive robotic program and finish lunar program with crew landings and lunar samples being returned to Earth.
But crew on Moon by 2024 seems like, not much money spent on robotic exploration of the Moon. Or focus shifts to advancing the Manned program [at the cost of a intensive robotic program].
One can get to the Moon quickly with crew, but it seems one do more exploration by having robotic mission occurring before the Manned Mission.
Or guess one could say the robotic missions could retire explorational risks whereas focusing on crew mission sooner is more about rolling the dice.
Another aspect of 10 years and 40 billion, is in beginning a major focus would developing a robotic LOX depot in LEO.
And “the gateway” could be seen as substitute for LOX depot in LEO. If going to do gateway, I would focus on it starting as robotic gateway space station which could have manned module or docking station for Manned craft.
But gateway seems to favor a longer program [and is more related to Mars exploration. Or doesn’t fit with sending crew to lunar surface by 2024.
“SLS and Lunar gateway are money pits.”
Given NASA’s estimate to GHWB about going back to the moon (have I got the right President? Wasn’t it him they quoted $300B or something insane?) it’s rather…trusting…of Arse Technica to take that “extra $8B a year” at face value, which is an ongoing example of the main reason I don’t take AT very seriously any more.
That was for Mars. President Bush was torpedoed on that as the price was inflated and leaked to congress… it made it a non starter ..
“That was for Mars.”
Ok, thanks, I couldn’t remember.
” President Bush was torpedoed on that as the price was inflated and leaked to congress… it made it a non starter ..”
The way I’d always heard it, and I did a bad job of saying that in my first comment, was that NASA deliberately inflated the price and leaked it deliberately, to sabotage the plan.
Just today Trump, Pelosi, and Schumer had a meeting and Trump said their $2 trillion for infrastructure spending was a good starting point. I’m doubt he was clear about which planetary body would get the infrastructure, so perhaps some fancy budgeting tricks can solve the problem.
If I had a big pot of money to spend on infrastructure, including monuments, I would build a large black granite memorial to everybody’s deceased pets, similar to the Vietnam War Memorial, but with names like “Spot” and “Bubbles the Goldfish”. It would be thirty feet high and run the length of the US Mexico border.
$40 billion over 5 years to return to the moon? Not likely. NASA would blow half or more of that on briefings, design studies, and conferences without cutting the first piece of metal. Given their dismal track record of managing large projects, $100 billion is more like it.
The SLS (as I understand it) is a core stage with two attached solid rocket boosters. The SRBs are from the Shuttle program. What development was or is needed, then, for them? Did they plan to redesign the joints? (No.)
The engines on the core stage are SSMEs. What development is needed for them?
The core stage itself is only a Shuttle external tank that is lengthened. What development is needed for that?
I can see having to spend a few millions on integrating these elements, but multiple billions of dollars?!?!
What in the name of Ghu is the problem here?!?!!!
The SRB’s had to go from 4 segments to 5 segments. They tested that with Ares 1, which looked like the world’s largest corn dog.
But it turns out that the Space Shuttle external tank just wasn’t a happy engineering fit with thrust from four engines coming from underneath. And they decided to build it with stir friction welding.
And one thing led to another and here we are.
But heck, I think they spent about a billion dollars redesigning the launch tower to accommodate the SLS, and it has since developed a lean so they’ll probably only use it once, since they’d have to modify it between Block I and Block II anyway.
They had the launch tower for constellation built before the end of shuttle. I remember seeing it beside the VAB and wondering why the cart was put before the horse. We’ve had a tower to nowhere for almost a decade now.
Don’t they also need a new crawler dealy to transport the SLS to the pad?
Bridenstine is now saying the ARS number is grossly in error and the actual number is far less than 8BN per annum.
Gateway is such a small and simple thing that it doesn’t make sense that it would cost more than several billion dollars. Skipping it and landing an equivalent structure on the lunar surface shouldn’t cost much more either.
I replied to you at Bob Zimmerman’s blog, saying:
Wodun, this morning I thought of an entirely new purpose for going to the moon.
The bottom of Shackleton crater at the south lunar pole is about 88 degrees Kelvin, only slightly warmer than liquid nitrogen. Some are focused on exploring there to find recoverable water from comets, but I have a different idea.
Sell burial plots.
Not only will you be interred in sacred lunar soil with a black monolith headstone, but your loved ones and descendants will forever be able to look up at you, comforted that you rest peacefully on the moon as it shines down upon them. And you’ll be resting there at 88 degrees Kelvin, so we might bring you back later, even centuries later, and without the weirdness and yearly expense of being stored in a cryogenic freezer in some warehouse behind a strip mall.
All we need is a vehicle capable of lunar landings, a robot digger, and some pallbearers in space suits. The pallbearers will of course being paying a lot of money for the lunar adventure that goes along with the solemn burial services, along with any family members who want to take the trip, probably arranged by the deceased as part of his legacy to his loved ones.
Perhaps get some Apollo astronauts to sign up, and then wait for the flood gates to open.
***
I’ll add that the actual burial probably isn’t required at all, in case digging a grave is difficult or problematic. Heck, add a guidance system and descent stage to an aluminum space casket the size of a photon torpedo casing. At 88 Kelvin with no sunlight, it could even have a window looking up into the heavens, though that might spook any future astronauts who wander through. Sure, it may take some trial and error and debugging, but nobody will get killed, although there might be a rapid, unplanned cremation (RUC) if the descent system fails.
Sure, it might be a rather morbid revenue stream, but it would be a revenue stream, and potentially a very popular one.
That is actually a good idea. There is already a market for launching ashes into space and also for cryogenic storage. The cryo people have lots of money too!
They do indeed!
To get a very rough idea of the potential market I looked at a few numbers. The estate tax as a $5 million exemption and a 40% top rate, and raises about $20 billion a year, which would indicate the inheritances being taxed are around $50 billion a year. Just 20% of that would fund a pretty extensive lunar development program, and an even smaller percentage would still make a pretty lucrative side business. And of course those inheritances are just the ones that didn’t avoid the tax via a variety of complex instruments.
History provides many archaeological examples of civilizations where the upper class elites spent enormous sums on insuring a good afterlife. The proclivity is bound to still exist, although perhaps somewhat diminished because funeral spending and extravagant monuments aren’t currently tax deductible.
Someone could also work it into a good script for a horror movie. Far in the future someone visits the moon to pay their respects at their grandfather’s grave (or whatever we’d call the space caskets in Shackleton crater). The startled lunar official says they can’t.
“Why not?” the relative asks.
So the official says “You know, the South China Sea War when missiles were getting hurled all over the place? Lunar supply deliveries got cut off for two years.”
“But what’s that got to do with grandpa?”
“Well, we got pretty desperate. Your grandfather was a great many things, but also a bit dry and stringy. Sauce helped.”
“You ate him?! But why just him?!”
“Oh, not just him. We ate them all. But we left the heads, so they can still be brought back!”
I figure act 2 would reveal that some of the lunar natives think the newly arrived space recruits and visiting family members are just fresher meat.
Add silent screams, chases across the lunar surface and through dimly lit supply depots. It’s got everything needed for a good slasher pic. Maybe Act 3 has one of the reanimated heads installed on a robot body killing the cannibals and rescuing his grand daughter. Or maybe the cannibals win. (cue sequel).