28 thoughts on “Great Space Policy News”

1. An impressive job of political engineering by Isaacman. Better, I think, than anything Bridenstine managed on his watch and he was no slouch.

   Anent Bridenstine, one has to give him credit for zealous representation of his lobbying client, ULA. He’s right up there with Mob lawyers on that score. But the timing could hardly have been worse. Trying to get a bigger carve-out of the NASA launch budget for his client would likely have fared at least modestly better had his client not just screwed the pooch again in a fashion that will ground its newest rocket for an indefinite period. No point trying to mandate that launches be handed to one’s client if one’s client lacks the ability to actually launch anything for who knows how long. No great surprise the Committee shot that trial balloon down.

   Returning to Isaacman’s accomplishments here, one of the larger ones appears to be throwing a tarp over the entire Gateway project after having removed it from the Artemis critical path. Maybe it will be quietly buried now or maybe it will just be demoted to a low-priority project that can be pursued, asynchronously anent the rest of Artemis, at whatever pace NASA chooses. The lunar surface will now be the unambiguous Big Top and Gateway – if it survives at all – will be, at best, a sideshow.

   1. I would be happy to see Gateway revived for the only purpose for which it would make sense: as a fuel depot. Absent that role, agreed: we’re better off without it.

      1. A fuel depot is mostly tanks, solar panels, docking/fill port interfaces, GNC and thermal management equipment.

         Gateway is more of a line shack, a safe haven and a low-rent proto-deep space craft.

         1. Line shack is a good analogy and one I’ve used myself. But it has quite a limited maximum length of stay for even an Orion-sized crew. It comes up short as a safe haven. That same limitation makes it unsuitable for any actual use as a deep space craft.

      2. SpaceX will be making purpose-built propellant depot ships soon enough. Parking one or more in any lunar orbit would be straightforward. Gateway, as currently planned, is entirely unsuited to this use case.

      3. Right now, unfortunately, its more likely role may be, chiefly, to serve as the most expensive communications relay in human history.

         1. Could be, though it is hardly ideally suited for that role either.

   2. I never could get past the name. I called him the Frank of Bridenstine.

      1. <:-)

   3. Wonder if any of the parts of Gateway could be salvaged to create the beginnings of an Aldrin cycler?

      Doesn’t really fit in with the Starship-direct concept tho…

      1. I don’t think Aldrin cyclers are practical for Moon missions. Mars might be quite a different story.

         1. Mars was what I was thinking of…

            1. An Aldrin cycler of any practical use would have to be at least two orders of magnitude bigger than Gateway. If you intend to build a real dump truck, you don’t start with a Tonka and add on to it.

         2. It’s also too big of a stretch to assume that the Gateway was designed with any kind of modularity to it making it easier to expand. You’d probably be better off building a cycler from Vast Space modules.

            Sunk costs mean exactly that…

            Maybe NASA can gift it to the Smithsonian as a display piece…

            1. ‘splain to me this Gateway. Is it a mission architecture? A spacecraft? A rectilinear halo orbit? You put your left solar panel in, you put your left solar panel out, you put your left solar panel in and turn it all about. That’s what it’s all about?

            2. A line shack because Orion can’t get all the way to LLO and back (within reasonable margins), because the US Senate doesn’t understand orbital mechanics and delta-v requirements.

               Nor does old space apparently… As you get older you get institutionally forgetful as your key employees retire and die off… Same applies to academia… Retiring soon? Tuition payees would like to know…

      2. The Aldrin cycler assumes a relatively short period of loading near Earth (both position and velocity), a long period of travel (when the heavy shielding on the cycler is useful), then a short period of unloading near Mars. Or the reverse.

         I think an Earth-Luna cycler would have too much time spent loading and unloading relative to the trip time to make it worth the bother. And you’ll likely need that shielding during your stay at Luna anyway.

2. A few days ago Lori was accusing Jared of engaging in magical thinking. Now it looks like he can be a visiting professor at Hogwarts after he leads NASA.

   1. LoL

   2. Perhaps Jared secretly flew Lori up on his F-5 yesterday, working his dark magic on her at Mach 1.6.

      1. That is very droll.

         1. Droll would be: “She went to Jared’s”

3. I think the extension of ISS to 2032 is to allow Axiom a better shot at getting its house in order. I also wonder if PPE+HALO will become a USG/ESA contribution to Axiom as a next ISS of sorts (and including at least a couple of already contributed ISS modules such as the Japanese external platform and the Multipurpose Module). Those of us who live long enough will see. I’ll be 82 in 2032.

4. I think that all Isaacson did was to reassure congress that he would continue to launch the remaining SLS outrageously expensive behemoths – thereby reassuring the congresscritters that that grift will continue.

   So then they said “Well ok sure so long as my pockets continue to get lined with SLS Folly-Dollars we don’t really care what you do to actually get to the moon.”

   It was never the race; it was the grift.

5. Perhaps criticism of SpaceX regarding HLS helped pave the way for this shift in architecture. Can’t be too upset when he holds new space and old space to account.

   Isaacman is phenomenal and I think his tenure will extend beyond the current administration regardless of who wins the next election.

   Apparently Brian Rommele knew Isaacman as a teenager and has had business dealings with him since then. Good follow on X.

   1. Isaacman is phenomenal and I think his tenure will extend beyond the current administration regardless of who wins the next election.
      They way politics works these days and how deep the TDS goes, I wouldn’t count on it. I wish we could…

      1. It’s worse than that, David. Virginia starts “early voting” today on a referendum to allow redistricting of the state prior to the midterm elections. Democrats have taken over the Virginia government, and their stated intent is to redistrict such that the current 6 Democrat, 5 Republican Representatives in an evenly divided state are switched to 11 Democrats. That will flip the House, and end Trump’s power completely, regardless of the outcome of the rest of the country’s midterms. The Republican Party is doing very little to oppose this. If it happens, that, in my opinion, will signal the beginning of the complete end of the Republic.

         1. Well Trump could offer amnesty/refuge/path-to-citizenship to all Iranians that sign a loyalty oath to Trump the USA and then bring them into the country as refugees and relocate them to Virginia’s sanctuary cities at 3am by plane and bus. Also their welcome package would include instructions on how to apply for Virginia Driver’s Licenses.

            All I can tell you is that my small state is also roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans in terms of permanent residents. And it shows in state and local election results. However, because of a large college student population distribution, we have zero Republican members of Congress. Since we eliminated the draft, maybe we should raise the voting age back to 21?

            As I get older, I wish I could sign up at my Town Hall as a registered ‘No’ voter on any and all ballot questions. Save me unnecessary trips to our elementary school on voting day.

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