All posts by Rand Simberg

Space

‘…Headed Into The Cosmos”

The new space policy expected since the loss of Columbia almost a year ago was finally announced by President Bush today.

In his speech, the president correctly pointed out that in over three decades since astronaut Eugene Cernan was the last one to kick up lunar regolith, no American, or indeed human, has been farther from the earth’s surface than four hundred miles or so. In response to this tragic statistic, in stirring words, the president pronounced that “humans are headed into the cosmos.” After years of watching science fiction movies, like 2001, and television shows like Star Trek, it’s a message that we have grown to absorb culturally for decades, but now, for perhaps the first time, it’s formal federal policy.

Whether or not it will actually result in achieving the goals that Mr. Bush laid out remains, of course, to be seen. Only the most minimal one, of starting preparatory robotic exploration of the moon in 2008, will occur within his term of office, and that only if he wins reelection this year. The rest of the objectives–completing the station and phasing out the space shuttle in 2010, manned visit to the moon in 2015, lunar base in 2020–will all occur, if at all, after he has left office.

The speech was broad brush, with details and specific architectures to be left for later, which is appropriate. Some of the few details that were revealed are a little troubling.

It’s apparently the end of the Orbital Space Plane project, which is a good thing–it will probably transform itself into the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, which is apparently intended to become a modern version of the old Apollo capsule. But if I heard the speech correctly, that vehicle isn’t to be ready for a decade, in 2014, while the Shuttle is scheduled to be taken out of service upon planned station completion in 2010. This implies that there will be a four-year gap during which we have no ability to get people into space, at least on a government-funded American vehicle. I suspect that this, and other issues, will be fleshed out over the next few days.

It should be noted that on that schedule, it will take us over a decade to get back to the moon, whereas we did it much faster the last time, when we knew much less about how to do it. Of course, the last time, funding was no object–a circumstance that no longer holds. It should also be noted that if the station is completed in 2010, it will be over a quarter of a century after the program was initiated–results from the new initiatives will have to be more timely to keep to the stated schedule.

Many have pointed out that the goals are not new–they’re the same ones that Vice-President Spiro Agnew presented as a follow-on to Apollo during the Nixon administration, and that the president’s father laid out on the Washington Mall on July 20, 1989. In both cases, they fell flat, and were eviscerated by the press and the Congress. Indeed, in the latter case, NASA itself played a role in subverting them by coming up with an outrageous cost estimate of half a trillion dollars, thus removing this potential distraction from its desired focus on the space station.

The challenge of the administration will be to prevent this initiative from similarly faltering, at least during its term. From this standpoint, the proposed schedule and funding profile is convenient, because the majority of new expenditures for this will occur, like the milestones, after the president is out of office. Most of the initial funding will come from a reallocation of already planned NASA resources, with very few new funds to be requested.

The other strategy will be to have an independent commission come up with the implementation approaches that were absent from the speech, and the president announced he was doing exactly that, to be headed by Pete Aldridge, a veteran aerospace executive. It’s not a choice that I find particularly inspiring–I’m afraid that Mr. Aldridge is too deeply steeped in space industry business-as-usual, but there will be others on the commission, and I hope that there is an outreach program to seek fresh ideas and approaches.

While I’m glad that the president has stated a national goal of finally getting humans beyond earth orbit, I’m disappointed that those humans are apparently to continue to be NASA employees, who the rest of us watch, voyeuristically, on television. NASA was not just given the lead–it was apparently given sole responsibility. There was no mention of private enterprise, or of any activities in space beyond “exploration” and “science.” It was encouraging to hear a president talk about the utilization of extraterrestrial resources, but only in the context of how to get to the next milestone.

This is the part of the policy that should be most vigorously debated in the coming months–not whether or not humans, and American humans, are heading into the cosmos, but how we get humans doing that who aren’t only civil servants, and whether or not there are roles for other agencies, and sectors of society. Given NASA’s track record, and in the interests of competition, the administration should in fact consider setting up a separate organization to manage this initiative, and put out portions of it to bid, whether from NASA, DARPA, other agencies, or the private sector.

Most of all, I hope that the administration can break out of the apparent NASA-centric mindset demonstrated in the president’s speech today, and come up with a broader vision, rather than a destination, and help create a space program for, as Apple Computer used to say, the “rest of us.”

Space

‘…Headed Into The Cosmos”

The new space policy expected since the loss of Columbia almost a year ago was finally announced by President Bush today.

In his speech, the president correctly pointed out that in over three decades since astronaut Eugene Cernan was the last one to kick up lunar regolith, no American, or indeed human, has been farther from the earth’s surface than four hundred miles or so. In response to this tragic statistic, in stirring words, the president pronounced that “humans are headed into the cosmos.” After years of watching science fiction movies, like 2001, and television shows like Star Trek, it’s a message that we have grown to absorb culturally for decades, but now, for perhaps the first time, it’s formal federal policy.

Whether or not it will actually result in achieving the goals that Mr. Bush laid out remains, of course, to be seen. Only the most minimal one, of starting preparatory robotic exploration of the moon in 2008, will occur within his term of office, and that only if he wins reelection this year. The rest of the objectives–completing the station and phasing out the space shuttle in 2010, manned visit to the moon in 2015, lunar base in 2020–will all occur, if at all, after he has left office.

The speech was broad brush, with details and specific architectures to be left for later, which is appropriate. Some of the few details that were revealed are a little troubling.

It’s apparently the end of the Orbital Space Plane project, which is a good thing–it will probably transform itself into the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, which is apparently intended to become a modern version of the old Apollo capsule. But if I heard the speech correctly, that vehicle isn’t to be ready for a decade, in 2014, while the Shuttle is scheduled to be taken out of service upon planned station completion in 2010. This implies that there will be a four-year gap during which we have no ability to get people into space, at least on a government-funded American vehicle. I suspect that this, and other issues, will be fleshed out over the next few days.

It should be noted that on that schedule, it will take us over a decade to get back to the moon, whereas we did it much faster the last time, when we knew much less about how to do it. Of course, the last time, funding was no object–a circumstance that no longer holds. It should also be noted that if the station is completed in 2010, it will be over a quarter of a century after the program was initiated–results from the new initiatives will have to be more timely to keep to the stated schedule.

Many have pointed out that the goals are not new–they’re the same ones that Vice-President Spiro Agnew presented as a follow-on to Apollo during the Nixon administration, and that the president’s father laid out on the Washington Mall on July 20, 1989. In both cases, they fell flat, and were eviscerated by the press and the Congress. Indeed, in the latter case, NASA itself played a role in subverting them by coming up with an outrageous cost estimate of half a trillion dollars, thus removing this potential distraction from its desired focus on the space station.

The challenge of the administration will be to prevent this initiative from similarly faltering, at least during its term. From this standpoint, the proposed schedule and funding profile is convenient, because the majority of new expenditures for this will occur, like the milestones, after the president is out of office. Most of the initial funding will come from a reallocation of already planned NASA resources, with very few new funds to be requested.

The other strategy will be to have an independent commission come up with the implementation approaches that were absent from the speech, and the president announced he was doing exactly that, to be headed by Pete Aldridge, a veteran aerospace executive. It’s not a choice that I find particularly inspiring–I’m afraid that Mr. Aldridge is too deeply steeped in space industry business-as-usual, but there will be others on the commission, and I hope that there is an outreach program to seek fresh ideas and approaches.

While I’m glad that the president has stated a national goal of finally getting humans beyond earth orbit, I’m disappointed that those humans are apparently to continue to be NASA employees, who the rest of us watch, voyeuristically, on television. NASA was not just given the lead–it was apparently given sole responsibility. There was no mention of private enterprise, or of any activities in space beyond “exploration” and “science.” It was encouraging to hear a president talk about the utilization of extraterrestrial resources, but only in the context of how to get to the next milestone.

This is the part of the policy that should be most vigorously debated in the coming months–not whether or not humans, and American humans, are heading into the cosmos, but how we get humans doing that who aren’t only civil servants, and whether or not there are roles for other agencies, and sectors of society. Given NASA’s track record, and in the interests of competition, the administration should in fact consider setting up a separate organization to manage this initiative, and put out portions of it to bid, whether from NASA, DARPA, other agencies, or the private sector.

Most of all, I hope that the administration can break out of the apparent NASA-centric mindset demonstrated in the president’s speech today, and come up with a broader vision, rather than a destination, and help create a space program for, as Apple Computer used to say, the “rest of us.”

Space

‘…Headed Into The Cosmos”

The new space policy expected since the loss of Columbia almost a year ago was finally announced by President Bush today.

In his speech, the president correctly pointed out that in over three decades since astronaut Eugene Cernan was the last one to kick up lunar regolith, no American, or indeed human, has been farther from the earth’s surface than four hundred miles or so. In response to this tragic statistic, in stirring words, the president pronounced that “humans are headed into the cosmos.” After years of watching science fiction movies, like 2001, and television shows like Star Trek, it’s a message that we have grown to absorb culturally for decades, but now, for perhaps the first time, it’s formal federal policy.

Whether or not it will actually result in achieving the goals that Mr. Bush laid out remains, of course, to be seen. Only the most minimal one, of starting preparatory robotic exploration of the moon in 2008, will occur within his term of office, and that only if he wins reelection this year. The rest of the objectives–completing the station and phasing out the space shuttle in 2010, manned visit to the moon in 2015, lunar base in 2020–will all occur, if at all, after he has left office.

The speech was broad brush, with details and specific architectures to be left for later, which is appropriate. Some of the few details that were revealed are a little troubling.

It’s apparently the end of the Orbital Space Plane project, which is a good thing–it will probably transform itself into the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, which is apparently intended to become a modern version of the old Apollo capsule. But if I heard the speech correctly, that vehicle isn’t to be ready for a decade, in 2014, while the Shuttle is scheduled to be taken out of service upon planned station completion in 2010. This implies that there will be a four-year gap during which we have no ability to get people into space, at least on a government-funded American vehicle. I suspect that this, and other issues, will be fleshed out over the next few days.

It should be noted that on that schedule, it will take us over a decade to get back to the moon, whereas we did it much faster the last time, when we knew much less about how to do it. Of course, the last time, funding was no object–a circumstance that no longer holds. It should also be noted that if the station is completed in 2010, it will be over a quarter of a century after the program was initiated–results from the new initiatives will have to be more timely to keep to the stated schedule.

Many have pointed out that the goals are not new–they’re the same ones that Vice-President Spiro Agnew presented as a follow-on to Apollo during the Nixon administration, and that the president’s father laid out on the Washington Mall on July 20, 1989. In both cases, they fell flat, and were eviscerated by the press and the Congress. Indeed, in the latter case, NASA itself played a role in subverting them by coming up with an outrageous cost estimate of half a trillion dollars, thus removing this potential distraction from its desired focus on the space station.

The challenge of the administration will be to prevent this initiative from similarly faltering, at least during its term. From this standpoint, the proposed schedule and funding profile is convenient, because the majority of new expenditures for this will occur, like the milestones, after the president is out of office. Most of the initial funding will come from a reallocation of already planned NASA resources, with very few new funds to be requested.

The other strategy will be to have an independent commission come up with the implementation approaches that were absent from the speech, and the president announced he was doing exactly that, to be headed by Pete Aldridge, a veteran aerospace executive. It’s not a choice that I find particularly inspiring–I’m afraid that Mr. Aldridge is too deeply steeped in space industry business-as-usual, but there will be others on the commission, and I hope that there is an outreach program to seek fresh ideas and approaches.

While I’m glad that the president has stated a national goal of finally getting humans beyond earth orbit, I’m disappointed that those humans are apparently to continue to be NASA employees, who the rest of us watch, voyeuristically, on television. NASA was not just given the lead–it was apparently given sole responsibility. There was no mention of private enterprise, or of any activities in space beyond “exploration” and “science.” It was encouraging to hear a president talk about the utilization of extraterrestrial resources, but only in the context of how to get to the next milestone.

This is the part of the policy that should be most vigorously debated in the coming months–not whether or not humans, and American humans, are heading into the cosmos, but how we get humans doing that who aren’t only civil servants, and whether or not there are roles for other agencies, and sectors of society. Given NASA’s track record, and in the interests of competition, the administration should in fact consider setting up a separate organization to manage this initiative, and put out portions of it to bid, whether from NASA, DARPA, other agencies, or the private sector.

Most of all, I hope that the administration can break out of the apparent NASA-centric mindset demonstrated in the president’s speech today, and come up with a broader vision, rather than a destination, and help create a space program for, as Apple Computer used to say, the “rest of us.”

Space

Real-Time Speech Blog

Starts with obligatory paen to the dedicated people at NASA. Some of it is nonsense, of course–“bold,” and “risk takers” hasn’t described NASA personnel for many years, but it’s obligatory nonetheless.

Now he’s using the Lewis and Clark analogy. Not too bad Going through the litany of benefits from space exploration, including weather, GPS, communications, imaging processing, etc.

Hyping Shuttle and station, talking about space telescopes and probes, and finding water on other planets, and current searches for life beyond earth with robots. Pointing out that we haven’t been further than four hundred miles from earth in thirty years.

“expand a human presence across our solar system.”

Finish space station by 2010, and use it to focus on long-term effects of space on humans. Return Shuttle to flight ASAP. It will be used to complete ISS assembly, and then retired in 2010.

Develop new spacecraft, CEV–first mission by 2014. That means a gap of four years when we don’t have a government vehicle for manned spaceflight.

Return to the moon by 2020, with initial robotic missions in 2008. Now he’s saying 2015 for manned mission, so maybe the 2020 date is for a lunar base.

Talking about moon as base for deep space missions, including lunar resources for propellants. It will be used as a learning experience for Mars missions. We need to send people to really explore the planets.

“Human beings are headed into the cosmos.”

“…a great and unifying mission for NASA…”

Commission of private and public-sector experts to figure out how to implement it. Pete Aldridge to head it. Lousy choice–we need someone who’s less steeped in government programs.

“We choose to explore space…”

[Speech over]

OK, no big surprises, other than fleshing out dates. Nice speech, but it really is picking up where Apollo left off in terms of goals. In fact, it’s exactly the same goals laid out by Spiro Agnew during the Nixon administration, which was promptly shot down in the press and Congress. It’s also the same goals that his father laid out on July 20, 1989. It’s not at all clear to me what’s going to be different this time.

Listening to it, NASA was clearly given not only the lead, but the sole responsibility for this–there was no mention of private activities in space, or how they might play a role, if for nothing else, getting stuff into LEO. My disappointment of last week is confirmed–there’s little hint of new thinking in the administration how to approach space policy.

However, for as long as it lasts, it is nice to have as national policy that “humans beings are headed into the cosmos.” It may at least provide a rudder for activities across the federal government, not just at NASA, but at the FAA and other places. I continue to believe that ultimately this program will not get humans into the cosmos, at least not in any large way. If the schedule laid out by the president holds, I won’t be at all surprised to see the first NASA expedition to the moon in 2015 greeted by the concierge at the Club Med Luna.

[one more point]

Jay Manifold has already laid out a “triple-constraint” program summary.

[Update]

I’ve gathered some more-coherent thoughts in the next post.

Uncategorized

A “Libertarian Spacehound”?

Stanley Kurtz has responded to my response to his column.

I want to clarify. This happens often, and it’s forgivable in his case, because he’s probably read very little of my writing and is working from a small sample, but I don’t advocate a “libertarian” approach to space, if by that one means no government funding or involvement. (Other people have less of an excuse for continual oversimplification and misstatement of my positions.)

I would consider such an approach preferable to the current one, but certainly not optimal in terms of opening that frontier. History indicates that governments working intelligently (and often unintelligently) with private interests have always opened new frontiers, and space will be no different in that regard. My position is that the balance of our current approach, which is more socialistic and state-enterprise than even the Soviet Union was (they had more competition among their design bureaus than we do among our overconsolidated aerospace contractors) has to be amended, not that government has no role.

I’m simultaneously thrilled to see so much public discussion of space issues, and (again, not to single out Stanley, or even include him in this group) so much ignorance of the fundamentals, and repetition of flawed and failed arguments about it, which is why I’ll continue to blog on the subject as events develop and I have time.

But once more, the issue isn’t space activities versus none, or NASA versus private industry or no one, or robots versus people, or moon versus Mars–we have to frame this discussion in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that goes beyond “science,” “exploration,” and “missions.” Until we’ve done so (and hopefully reached some sort of national consensus on that–something that hasn’t occurred since the early sixties), the prospects for useful discussion, or fruitful policy output, remain bleak.

Uncategorized

A “Libertarian Spacehound”?

Stanley Kurtz has responded to my response to his column.

I want to clarify. This happens often, and it’s forgivable in his case, because he’s probably read very little of my writing and is working from a small sample, but I don’t advocate a “libertarian” approach to space, if by that one means no government funding or involvement. (Other people have less of an excuse for continual oversimplification and misstatement of my positions.)

I would consider such an approach preferable to the current one, but certainly not optimal in terms of opening that frontier. History indicates that governments working intelligently (and often unintelligently) with private interests have always opened new frontiers, and space will be no different in that regard. My position is that the balance of our current approach, which is more socialistic and state-enterprise than even the Soviet Union was (they had more competition among their design bureaus than we do among our overconsolidated aerospace contractors) has to be amended, not that government has no role.

I’m simultaneously thrilled to see so much public discussion of space issues, and (again, not to single out Stanley, or even include him in this group) so much ignorance of the fundamentals, and repetition of flawed and failed arguments about it, which is why I’ll continue to blog on the subject as events develop and I have time.

But once more, the issue isn’t space activities versus none, or NASA versus private industry or no one, or robots versus people, or moon versus Mars–we have to frame this discussion in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that goes beyond “science,” “exploration,” and “missions.” Until we’ve done so (and hopefully reached some sort of national consensus on that–something that hasn’t occurred since the early sixties), the prospects for useful discussion, or fruitful policy output, remain bleak.

Uncategorized

A “Libertarian Spacehound”?

Stanley Kurtz has responded to my response to his column.

I want to clarify. This happens often, and it’s forgivable in his case, because he’s probably read very little of my writing and is working from a small sample, but I don’t advocate a “libertarian” approach to space, if by that one means no government funding or involvement. (Other people have less of an excuse for continual oversimplification and misstatement of my positions.)

I would consider such an approach preferable to the current one, but certainly not optimal in terms of opening that frontier. History indicates that governments working intelligently (and often unintelligently) with private interests have always opened new frontiers, and space will be no different in that regard. My position is that the balance of our current approach, which is more socialistic and state-enterprise than even the Soviet Union was (they had more competition among their design bureaus than we do among our overconsolidated aerospace contractors) has to be amended, not that government has no role.

I’m simultaneously thrilled to see so much public discussion of space issues, and (again, not to single out Stanley, or even include him in this group) so much ignorance of the fundamentals, and repetition of flawed and failed arguments about it, which is why I’ll continue to blog on the subject as events develop and I have time.

But once more, the issue isn’t space activities versus none, or NASA versus private industry or no one, or robots versus people, or moon versus Mars–we have to frame this discussion in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish, and that goes beyond “science,” “exploration,” and “missions.” Until we’ve done so (and hopefully reached some sort of national consensus on that–something that hasn’t occurred since the early sixties), the prospects for useful discussion, or fruitful policy output, remain bleak.