Ian Fichtenbaum has an op-ed at Space News describing the need to make space activities like other activities. I agree with it. A few years ago, I sat on a panel at Space Access discussing the need to “impedance match” launch with LEO operations, and decouple the two. This is the future.
[Update a while later]
Yes, I understand the confusion about my use of those seemingly contradictory terms, but I’m not using them literally. By “impedance match” I mean providing an interface between the launch system and orbital transportation systems (and space assembly), rather than having the launch system do the whole job of delivering an assembled satellite. This also decouples the launch system, in terms of schedule, from the orbital activities.
[Update a few minutes later]
Meanwhile, with regard to activity on the Hill, Keith Cowing comments about the state of NASA.
[Friday-morning update]
Another article on how NASA is changing for the 21st century. I’m a little skeptical about this:
In the next decade, a typical mission could go something like this: NASA astronauts board a SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) along with commercial astronauts and a few wealthy tourists. The rocket stops at the new space hotel circling the globe to drop off the visitors and the NASA astronauts spend a few hours there filming an advertisement and lending their endorsement to the privately owned “microgravity resort.”
From there, the commercial astronauts continue on to service the Lockheed-Martin lunar gateway, a space station in orbit around the moon that functions as a sort of truck stop for traffic between Earth and the moon. The NASA astronauts journey on to the lunar surface to continue building the agency’s new outpost there, where both SpaceX and competitor Blue Origin already have permanent landing pads and the latter provides meals prepared by the only off-planet Whole Foods in the galaxy.
I don’t think the Gateway exists in this timeline. And of course, Bill Nye kicks the stuffing out of the usual straw man:
“It is important to keep in mind that all the money spent in space is really spent on Earth,” Bill Nye, celebrity “Science Guy” and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy and outreach group The Planetary Society, said via email.
It’s only important to keep that in mind for idiots who imagine that we are literally shipping currency into space. I’ve never run into such a person. Of course the money is spent on earth. The issue is how effectively it’s spent, and much of NASA’s budget, particularly for human spaceflight, is wasted.
[Bumped]
[Late-morning update]
Then there’s this:
So what happens if BFR beats SLS to launch and also winds up being more economical and practical? Will NASA be forced to discard over a decade’s worth of rocket development to go with the commercial alternative?
“The fact that we’ve got hardware in the factory, to me, says a lot,” said Rob Chambers, director of human spaceflight strategy for Lockheed Martin, which isn’t involved with SLS, but is building the new Orion crew capsule for NASA that would fly atop it and has been involved with practically every robotic NASA mission to Mars.
Yes. It says that we’ve wasted a metric buttload of taxpayer money, and will continue to do so until it’s finally canceled.