It’s not surprising at all that it would see it as a potential area to reduce the deficit (see page 74). The entire NASA budget is an option for that, in fact, as is the entire federal budget, really. But it points out how completely out to sea we are on why we’re doing it. Note the underlying assumption.
This option would terminate NASA’s human space exploration and space operations programs, except for those necessary to meet space communications needs (such as communication with the Hubble Space Telescope). The agency’s science and aeronautics programs and robotic space missions would continue. Eliminating those human space programs would save $73 billion between 2015 and 2023, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
The main argument for this option is that increased capabilities in electronics and information technology have
generally reduced the need for humans to fly space missions. The scientific instruments used to gather knowledge in space rely much less (or not at all) on nearby humans to operate them. NASA and other federal agencies have increasingly adopted that approach in their activities on Earth, using robots to perform missions
without putting humans in harm’s way. For example, NASA has been using remotely piloted vehicles to track
hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean at much longer distances than those for which tracking aircraft are conventionally piloted.Eliminating humans from spaceflights would avoid risk to human life and would decrease the cost of space exploration by reducing the weight and complexity of the vehicles needed for the missions. (Unlike instruments, humans need water, air, food, space to move around in, and rest.) In addition, by replacing people with instruments, the missions could be made one way—return would be necessary only when the mission required it, such as to collect samples for further analysis—thus eliminating the cost, weight, and complexity of return and reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
A major argument against this option is that eliminating human spaceflight from the orbits near Earth would end
the technical progress necessary to prepare for human missions to Mars (even though those missions are at least
decades away). Moreover, if, in the future, robotic missions proved too limiting, then human space efforts
would have to be restarted. Another argument against this option is that there may be some scientific advantage
to having humans at the International Space Station to conduct experiments in microgravity that could not be
carried out in other, less costly, ways. (However, the International Space Station is currently scheduled to be
retired in 2020, postponed from an earlier decommissioning in 2015.) [Emphasis added]
There are multiple flawed assumptions in this analysis. First that the only purpose of sending humans into space is about science. Second, that it is about exploration. Third, that Mars is the goal.
If we aren’t going to develop and settle space, there is no point in sending people there, or hazarding their lives. But we never have that discussion.
[Evening update]
Seemed to be a link problem. Hope it’s fixed now, sorry.
“A major argument against this option is that eliminating human spaceflight from the orbits near Earth would end the technical progress necessary to prepare for human missions to Mars (even though those missions are at least decades away)”
This reminds me of the argument used a decade ago that missile defense systems were not worth the cost because Iran was at least ten years away from putting a nuke on a missile and it would take us a decade to get a workable missile defense system. It seems to me that we would have had missile defense capabilities right about the same time Iran had nuke capabilities but the anti-science left couldn’t see that or didn’t care.
Also, this goes back to the problem of developing technologies in series instead of parallel.
This is also the same dumb arguments Democrats have been making: we don’t need to allow offshore drilling or allow permits for new refineries or whatever it was because it would take 20 years for there to be an effect.
And now 20 years later we can look back and say “if you weren’t such Luddites we’d have the capacity now, instead of hearing you STILL say it’s 20 years away!”
It’s not about science or exploration. It’s about expanding the economic sphere.
Mars isn’t the goal but it is one goal. If we prioritize our goals it’s very near the top.
Priority should be given to those activities that expand our potentials. The single biggest thing that shuts down our potentials is making space a government park that nobody owns.
Individual ownership is the single most important issue that makes all others nothing. The log jam does not burst if ownership is not a priority.
I got “page not found” link ok?
this link works: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44715
What amazes me about the “robots can do it better” group is how they miss the point that killing a robot only program is actually easier (politically speaking) than killing the human space flight program. So the budget cutting won’t really stop with the human part of this. In a few years, questions will be asked about the cost of the robot program as well, and since there won’t be any public emotional connection with the program, it’ll be gone.
Looks like they were updating the document and it was offline for a short period of time. It also looks like their link to the summary table is still out of whack. This jives with what I’ve been presenting at talks recently. All the talk about exploration and learning to go farther into space boils down to “Space exploration is cool” which doesn’t hold a lot of water when serious budget cuts are afoot. Non-defence government space (other than communications) needs to become part of our economy or it will go the way of the dodo.
Future generations may well view the retirement of the Space Shuttle as the beginning of the end for NASA. The only thing keeping HSF going is ISS, when it goes so will NASA.