…in this article about which asteroids are good prospects for human visits. It should just jump right out to regular readers. I’ll reveal over the fold: Continue reading Find The False Assumption
Category Archives: Space
Clarifying
I talked to Elon for half an hour or so last night, to make sure that I was getting the story straight on an article I’m writing for Popular Mechanics, but he didn’t really tell me anything that changed the relevant aspects of my story. It does, however, change the spin on the story that AvLeak did a few days ago, and they’ve provided a correction, based apparently on a similar conversation with him. It’s always possible to read too much into technical papers presented at professional conferences (not to mention retirement aspirations), and that seems to be what occurred here. SpaceX would like to build a heavy lifter, but they don’t see the market for it absent NASA interest, which sort of makes the point that I’ve always made — that it’s not affordable, or even necessarily the best way to do the exploration job. I am sure, though, that if NASA really needs a heavy lifter, funding SpaceX to build it is the most affordable option.
The Bermuda Triangle
Oceanographic surveyors of the sea floor in the area of the Bermuda Triangle and the North Sea region between continental Europe and Great Britain have discovered significant quantities of methane hydrates and older eruption sites.
Because of the correlations and existing data, the two envisioned what would happen when gigantic methane bubbles explode from natural fissures on the seafloor.
Makes sense to me. There would be no warning, and nothing you could do. You might be able to set up a warning system for aircraft, though, perhaps with satellite monitoring. I don’t think that ships would have the ability to escape. Too slow and unmaneuverable. Better to avoid the area, or perhaps to better map the deposits, and put them on the charts like other hazards.
[Via Geekpress]
Retiring On Mars
A long story about Elon Musk.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And here’s a video interview with him.
Amusing Suggestion
Facebook keeps suggesting that I add Michael D. Griffin as a friend.
Sean O’Keefe
This AP story doesn’t say who’s aboard, but I’m hearing other reports that he was aboard the plane that crashed in Alaska.
He’s a former administrator, so it will have no effect on policy, obviously, but condolences to his friends and family if he and/or his son didn’t survive.
[Update a while later]
More over at NASA Watch.
Happy First Month
Declaration Entertainment has been going for a month now. Look forward to more details on a private mission to Jupiter.
Mike Griffin
…continues to defend the indefensible. Clark Lindsey has a response. Others have commented on this particularly bit of misleading the uninformed:
Griffin also suggested that the plan didn’t put much thought into the decision to defer a human return to the Moon in favor of a mission to a near Earth asteroid by 2025. The made that choice, he suggested, “apparently without realizing that the delta-V to get to almost all asteroids is higher than the delta-V to get to Mars” with similarly long travel times and limited launch windows. “In a number of ways reaching asteroids can be harder than reaching Mars.”
While I agree that it’s unlikely that much thought was put into the 2025 asteroid mission, this is disingenuous. No one said that we’re going to visit “almost all asteroids,” or even one in the main belt, so the velocity needed to get to “almost all asteroids” is irrelevant. All that really matters is the delta-V to get to the one that we choose, and there are many earth crossers with very low requirements.
On the subject of his comments about new technologies, I would expand on Clark’s critique. Mike says:
He was skeptical of the plan’s emphasis on “gamechanging” technologies to enable human space exploration. “Any time I develop a new technology I potentially change someone’s game,” he said. “Without a plan, I don’t know what game, I don’t know if it’s the game I ought to be changing, or if it’s a high-value game or a low-value game, but I’m going to change something, so it’s pretty easy to promise that I’ll do gamechanging technologies.”
He added that such technology development programs can be prime targets for future budget cuts, either by the Office of Management and Budget or in Congress. “The Congress surgically removes those programs and spreads the money to goals that they have in mind,” he claimed. “No congressman or senator ever gets credit for a technology program. Congressmen and senators get credit for projects.”
The first statement is simply gobbledygook (to be kind). It’s real simple, Mike. The plan is to explore the solar system with human beings. The current “game,” which you reinforced with Apollo on Steroids, deliberately eschewing the use of any new technology, is unaffordable and unsustainable, the complete opposite of what the Aldridge Commission recommended that the VSE must be. Any technology that dramatically reduces the development or operational cost, or increases the amount of activity that can be performed for a given cost, is a “game changer” and a high-value one. Deferring for now the development of heavy lifters and replacing them with propellant depots (as the Augustine panel members cited as a “game changer”) would be one example.
As for what congressmen or senators get “credit” for,” all he’s really saying is that unless it’s a big jobs program, it’s not politically sustainable. That is all the more reason to get the commercial people in the game as soon as possible, so that they can rely on things other than porcine motivations for continued space activity. And as the events of the past few months show, it’s clear that when the price per pound is astronomical, even pork can’t survive forever, even if it was accomplishing useful things toward the goal of opening up space, as Constellation was not. So given the choice between politically unsustainable hyperexpensive launchers and politically unsustainable useful new technologies, give me the technologies.
SpaceX
OK, several people have asked, in off-topic comments and email, about this announcement by SpaceX from last week, and wondering why I haven’t noted it.
Two reasons: first, a lot of it is in a piece I wrote for Popular Mechanics last week, and expected to run last week, and I didn’t want to step on the story here. Second, I didn’t think it was that big a piece of news. There’s little here that hasn’t been known for years to people who have been following the company and Elon’s plans. All it does is flesh out numbers on the thrust of the Merlin 2 and payload for the BFR.
As for whether I think that it is a challenge to my ongoing jihad against heavy lift, well, maybe. As I told Max Vozoff at lunch the other week, I’m not opposed to heavy lift in principle — I just think that it is unnecessary at the present time, and that it will be ghastly expensive if done using NASA legacy hardware and work force (and perhaps even ULA-legacy hardware, too, though that will be somewhat more affordable). If Elon can make it work economically, then more power to him, but I expect him to do it on a fixed-price contract that has to fairly compete with solutions not requiring it. For instance, if he wants to bid for propellant delivery, and thinks that he can beat the price at the depot of other bidders, go for it. I just don’t want the taxpayer to subsidize the development of what I consider an unneeded vehicle.
Still Not Quite Getting It
The WaPo has an editorial today on space policy, that points out some of the flaws in the Congressional rocket design, but misses the mark in many ways, as others have point out:
Last year, the Augustine commission found that without an additional $3 billion in funding over the next several years, the Bush administration’s Constellation program for manned spaceflight and a return to the moon would be impossible.
I’m not sure what they mean by this, but it would seem to imply that it’s only three billion over several years (perhaps half a billion per year) when in fact it is an additional three billion per year. That is how much bigger Mike Griffin’s rocket appetite was than his budget.
It goes on:
…the new plan added a manned mission to asteroids and even a visit to Mars by 2025 without allocating more funds for that. This makes little sense.
Yes, it would make little sense if that was actually the plan, but contra the editors, there is no date associated with a Mars mission. It is simply the “eventual goal.”
Referring to the White House, Senate and House plans, they note:
All three plans for space have in common an unwillingness either to abandon the dream of human spaceflight or to confront the budget reality. But with the funding for NASA set around $19 billion and not likely to change, bold plans for humans in space are simply not feasible. Something must give. If the administration and Congress truly want human spaceflight, they need to fund it adequately. Piecemeal funding that dooms programs to failure is a waste of money — especially when so many truly vital space functions, from the satellites that supply maps and communications to the telescopes that allow us to glimpse distant worlds, could benefit from such support.
That’s true of both congressional plans, but not the White House plan. It may not have been articulated very well to date, but the administration plan is the only one that is responsive to the grim choices laid out by the Augustine panel last fall. Congress seems to ignore them completely, continuing to prefer pork over progress, and potemkin human spaceflight programs over real ones. There is, of course, nothing magic about $19B — certainly the Congress could increase it if it wants, it light of the explosion of budget in all other areas (NASA used to be almost one percent of the federal budget — this year, it’s about half of that, not because its budget was cut, but because the federal budget essentially doubled in the past year). But there is no need for more money, and if it were forthcoming, reviving Constellation in anything resembling its previous form would be a ghastly waste of it. Unfortunately, actual accomplishments in space remain unimportant to those who decide the funding for it.