STS Ending With New Goals Too Distant

I sit here in my room, watching the space shuttle Atlantis roll so gracefully slowly towards the great Launch pad 39A (the Launch pad that took Humans to the moon in 1969), for her 32^nd and final flight to space, and I get a feeling of sadness running though me. This sadness has a mix of feelings in it. It is sad to see such a great program end. Six months ago, this sadness would have been bitter sweet because I knew that the space program was headed to bigger and better things. While it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Constellation was underfunded and over budget, we knew the destination: The Moon. We knew how we were going to achieve it: Ares V and EDS with an Altair Lunar Lander. We knew what was going to happen after that: Armstrong Lunar Outpost by 2024. With current funding, we all knew that Constellation would not meet the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020.

Then in February, Constellation was proposed to be cancelled. My bitter sweet emotion towards shuttle retirement turned mostly bitter. What was going to replace constellation? What about the Moon? What about learning how to live on another world for extended periods of time? If we weren’t going to go beyond LEO, what was the point of killing such an amazing reusable space plane?

I loved the proposal to fund NewSpace companies. I think the COTS program was one of the best uses of 500 million dollars that the government has probably ever spent. Using the same process, we can get a few different options of manned space capsules to LEO. SpaceX is clearly the frontrunner in this “race.” I did not, however, like the idea that the budget didn’t give any destinations with timelines.

After a lot of confusion and outrage, President Obama spoke to a gathering of his supporters that didn’t really have any NASA employees there (from what I here), and set a loose goal of designing a Heavy lift by 2015, going to an asteroid by 2025, and then Mars by the mid to late 30’s. We got destinations with Simi-deadlines.

I think we can do a lot better than that. Why do we have to wait till 2015 before we even begin to build and test an HLV when we have a perfectly good basic design with the Ares V. We have already begun testing of various pieces of that vehicle, most notably that five segment SRB. Why just scrap it? If you want to modify little things, change it to a side mount, or what not, fine, but why not use it? It retains a number of space shuttle jobs, with SRB use, and ET production. We can probably modify the now vacant Ares 1 Mobile Launch Platform with its launch tower to use for the Ares V. If cost is your overall issue, that’s fine. Why not use it for our future exploration beyond LEO, and once Private industry proves itself in LEO, say by the late decade, then make another COTS like competition for a low cost reusable HLV?

In my last blog post, I talked about a phased Apollo era type mission to Mars. Our modern Mercury program being the ISS, a new Gemini program would be a NEO program, and then the grand program of Mars Exploration would begin.

So, I say, instead of 2015 to “finalize a design,” we make 2015 the deadline to FLY a design! In the meantime, NASA can use the ISS to develop technologies such as VASIMR or advanced life support systems to fly to further destinations.

Once the HLV is finished, use it to test the new technologies developed at ISS. Fly a mission using VASIMR to the Earth-Moon L2 point, or Earth-Sun L2 before attempting flying beyond to an asteroid, maybe Apophis. These missions could be conducted between 2015 and 2018, seven to ten years before the President’s deadline.

Planning missions this close together keeps the public interested as well. When Kennedy made his announcement to put humans on the moon by 1969, NASA had a lot of work to do, and did a mission nearly every few months. This kept the public excited. If a long term program, like a Mars, or Asteroid program is ever going to succeed, this needs to happen, and it is easier than ever in today’s world of social media sites, like twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

While we are practicing manned deep space missions in the mid to late part of this decade, JPL can be given funding to ramp up its Mars exploration program. Send the Curiosity rover to mars in 2011, and send a couple more in 2013 and 2015 to explore more of mars. Then pick a place to send a sample return in 2018. This sample return would not be about the samples as much as it would be to test landing a multi-ton spacecraft on the surface of mars. Then, using In-situ Resource Utilization we can test and prove that a spacecraft can land with empty tanks on Mars, and use the atmosphere to refill them to go home. In 2020 or 2022 we can send an unmanned Earth Return Vehicle to Mars to wait for a crew to use it. In 2022 or 2024, people, using the HLV design used for the asteroid missions, would go to Mars for the first time, over TEN years before the Presidents deadline.

We can then spend the next ten years expanding the base on Mars to support six to twelve international representatives. Once NewSpace becomes experienced via the ISS COTS program, and a program for NewSpace to develop an HLV is successful, then NASA can begin outsourcing cargo and crew transfers from Earth to Mars to the private industry in the 30’s.

This would be worth spending a hundred or more billion dollars on manned spaceflight over the next 10 years. Anything less than something this aggressive, in my opinion, would be a waste of tax payer dollars. NASA’s job is to explore space, and if it’s possible for private industry to step in, NASA should stand down, and move on to another destination. There will come a time when NASA is no longer needed, that day may come sooner, rather than later. I can see a time in 50 to 100 years, when NASA is just another unnecessary government bureaucracy, but right now, they are still an integral part of humanities quest to expand into the solar system, and they should be doing that, expanding our boundaries.

We are so close to leaving LEO, yet, because of the lack of the political will to fund a bold program during a politicians short term, we have shortsightedness, delays and diversions. Once given the Go-funding, NASA should design, build, and test fly an HLV by 2015 to replace the space shuttle (in a heavy lift sense), or they will face yet another directional change delaying even longer a return to beyond LEO exploration.

VASIMR and Mars by 2020?

Obama is supposed to be part of a “space conference” in Florida on April 15^th to discuss his new space plan. The White House new release stated that “the conference will focus on the goals and strategies in this new vision, the next steps, and the new technologies, new jobs, and new industries it will create.”

I really hope that the president clarifies this nonvision (as I called it in my previous post) and gives it a destination with a timeline. I would love for the President to be bold and commit us to Mars by 2020. It’s completely possible; we can do it with today’s technology (via the Mars Direct plan). I do agree though, that it would be nice to have a faster and more efficient form of propulsion, most notably, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR. I like the idea of getting to Mars in 40 days, spending 100 days or, so on, the surface, and 40 days back. Some people don’t think that VASIMR could be developed in time, for it would also require development, for a Mars mission anyways, a nuclear reactor in space (we have done that before, in 1965, but on a much smaller scale required for Mars), but there is a company that is only a year or two so away from testing their very own VASIMR engine on the ISS. They are called the Ad Astra Rocket Company (http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/). It’s quite amazing what they have done so far.

Here’s what I think. This also goes back to how I think NASA should conduct its business (as described in the previous post). What If Obama were to announce Humans to Mars by 2020 and do it like we did Apollo. By like Apollo, I mean we started with the already functioning Mercury, then Gemini programs before we started going to the Moon.

Our Mercury Program of today would be the ISS program. Use it as a test bed in the next 3-5 years for the new propulsion, life support and other new technologies required to go to Mars. We would also use this time to fund commercial rockets to get us to ISS. We could contract Ad Astra for the VASIMR test program too.

Our Modern Gemini Program would be a NEO program, say 2015-2018. After the basic technology was developed, we could test it at Lagrange points and NEO Asteroids. This would test our deep space activities, life support, etc. The Lagrange points of the Earth-Moon system seem to me like a reasonable first step, since it’s close to home, and we could have a chemical backup in case something went wrong. After that we would move beyond the Earth-Moon System.

All of this would be done while the Bigger Mars Program was being developed. Just like the Apollo days, the Saturn V, LM, CSM, etc., were being developed and tested, even while Mercury and Gemini were being flown. It would be the same here. Once our NEO program wrapped up, we could then do the bold thing of going to the Mars system. We would not land the first time. We could use our skills already developed to explore the Martian moons. Then after doing that we would test (unmanned) the reentry of a large object into the Martian atmosphere, it could be a prototype of an In-situ resource Utilization module, testing the transformation of the Martian Atmosphere into fuel for launch back to Orbit, and Oxygen and Water for the crew.

After all of these things are completed and tested with proficiency, then we could begin the first manned mission to Mars. We would do it similar to the Mars Direct path. The first mission in 2018 or 2020 would be unmanned and only be the Mars Ascent Vehicle. In 2020 or 2022 (depending on when the mission was started), we would send the crew in their Habitat Module using a VASIMR Rocket.

This to me seems like a great way to turn the current nonvision into a Bold Kennedy-esk vision. All we need is Leadership, and the will. While the world is focusing on LEO and the Moon, the United States (and partners) can focus on the Planet that has been literally staring us in the face for the past 30 years.

A United Space Community

On February 1st, I like many other people in the space community, was extremely disappointed, if not angry at the FY2011 budget proposal. I was furious to the point that I really wasn’t thinking my best. The thought that our moon program was going to be cancelled disappointed me to the point of causing a depression funk that lasted for about a week. But after cooling down and bringing my mood back up, I admitted, the basics of the new “vision” that the Obama Administration was proposing made at least a little bit of sense. I liked the idea of spending a lot more money on NewSpace companies such as SpaceX so NASA could focus on R&D on things to help improve space travel in the future.

I still have a few problems with the “vision.” First, it did not have any real destination or timeline. If you don’t have a destination or a timeline, you get stuck circling the earth for 30 years and accomplish nothing. We have tried that path already with the Space Shuttle Program and the ISS program; they had no real timelines, so it took forever to come to fruition, costing hundreds of billions of dollars.

I was reading another blog, called “Leading Space.” One of his blogs, titled “It’s a Matter of Vision,” talked about how this new “vision” is not really a vision at all, because visions are directional, rewarding, inspiring, vivid, and eventual. This new vision has none of these characteristics. Also, a vision must have goals and objectives. Goals and objectives, real goals and objectives, must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Again, Obama’s vision has none of these things. The Vision for Space Exploration had all of these characteristics. NASA just did a bad job at the public relation side of it.

What is Obama’s nonvision? There are a couple main points of the vision. First NASA would use a new paradigm for spaceflight. NASA has never built a spacecraft. They always contracted it out to a private company. NASA was involved in the design and building process nearly 100 percent of the time, costing a lot of money in red tape and bureaucracy. After the product was complete, NASA would essentially buy the spacecraft. This new nonvision would use the COTS approach. NASA would say what they want, and then allow the private NewSpace company to go at it, designing and building a spacecraft, with NASA only setting safety standards and helping them when needed, but it’s all essentially the company that does the work. NASA would then reward them whenever they passed certain milestones with a little cash to keep going. Once the product is complete, NASA would not buy the spacecraft, they would use the service. This would theoretically free up NASA’s budget for advanced R&D work to help drive costs down in the future. That’s it. No timelines, not goals, no destination.

It’s very likely that Constellation will get cancelled whether congress wants it to or not, but we must remember, Constellation was not the VSE, it was the architecture. So, nobody, yet, is cancelling the VSE. Why couldn’t we mold the nonvision with the VSE? First we need to know what the goals and objectives were for the VSE.

They are as follows:

• Retire the Space Shuttle and complete the ISS by 2010

• Create a “Crew Exploration Vehicle” by 2014

• Go to the moon by 2020

• Go to mars afterwards.

We are going to accomplish objective number one on time. Retire the Space Shuttle and complete the ISS by 2010. The next goal is to create a “crew exploration vehicle” by 2014. We started to do that with Orion. Now, if Constellation is cancelled, taking Orion with it, what are we left with? The VSE did not say that NASA had to build the ship. We could use COTS-D to create the access to ISS and the moon. We are already going to do that with SpaceX. If the funding is given a go, SpaceX could have a human rated Dragon capsule on its way to the ISS by 2013 or 2014 at the latest. With a COTS like competition, we could have a number of different vehicles going to not only the ISS by 2014, but to a newly completed Bigelow Space Station by around then too!

Now comes the Moon, Mars and Beyond part of the VSE. How do we do that without Constellation, Direct, or some other form of Government program? The answer is the same way we are doing cargo and probably soon crew to ISS. We make a competition for certain pieces of hardware. We can have a competition for the Earth Departure Stage, a competition for a Lunar Lander, a competition for the lunar base, etc. We could conceivably have SpaceX launch the crew and EDS to the moon where an Armadillo Aerospace Lunar Lander is waiting in Low Lunar Orbit to take the Astronauts to a Bigelow Aerospace Surface Outpost! And NASA doesn’t have to be the only customer for these companies! Russia, China, Japan, even millionaires! All of this only comes about if, and only if, you have destinations and timetables. We could tell these companies that they need to have their particular lunar hardware up and running between 2020 and 2022. Once that’s done, we could do the same thing for Near Earth Objects and Mars! Where NASA will go, they will create a Market. Once NASA leaves, the Market stays!

How can we make this happen? How do we stop another Congress or President from redirecting NASA again? We, the Space Community as a whole, must unit together.

Politics aside, Reagan in the 80’s united the various sectors (libertarians, conservatives, constitutionalists, and moderates) of the Republican Party. That’s how he was able to not only win, but win big and hold his popularity. What if we could use that same basic model for the Space Community? What if we could come up with a few basic space “principles” that we all agree on? All of us have one individual tiny voice, but if we were to all speak together, it would be louder than the Saturn V and Space Shuttle put together! We all want to see the Human species become a true spacefaring species in our lifetime (In my opinion, that involves establishing a trade triangle in space, much like the triangle that helped the early Americas develop in the 16 and 1700’s. That space trade triangle would be the Earth-Moon, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt/NEO’s.). I would be willing to bet that there are millions of space enthusiasts around the country and many more internationally.

Here’s what I think most people in the Space Community would agree on that NASA should do/establish. There are five main points.

Destinations with Timelines

Destinations with timelines would be something simple, say Moon by 2020, Lunar Base by 2025, NEO mission by 2025, Mars by 2030. NEO and Mars should have a date to them even if they are decades off. There is something special about seeing a date on paper. It may even give people time to start funding and building companies for these missions.

Robotic Precursors

Robotic precursors we are kind of already doing, but we should do it in a more “assembly line” fashion. After reading Douglas Mallette’s book, “Turning Point,” I thought his idea of mass producing spirit and opportunities to send all over the solar system was a brilliant idea. Send variants of these vehicles all over the inner solar system.

Investment in commercial NewSpace companies

I already outlined what commercial investments would be like earlier.

Advanced R&D for propulsion and other areas

Advanced R&D would be things like VASIMR, advanced Ion propulsion, Nuclear Propulsion, different ways of getting into orbit, etc.

Inspire (better than NASA currently does) Generations

We need to do a much better job at showing the general public how the exploration and development of space benefits them. People want to know what’s in it for them. In one of the post shows for spacevidcast, the speaker and hosts were discussing an ad blitz on TV. These NewSpace companies would be able to do this, since it benefits them in the end.

These five points are, of course, what I think most people in the Space Community would agree on. What do you think? We need to get a discussion going and we need to figure out, as a large voting block, how to all agree and unite! Our species future is at stake. We can choose to unite now, and become a true spacefaring species in our lifetimes, or pass the buck, yet again, to another generation to expand humanity’s boundaries.

The New Vision for NASA: Nothing

***Update***

My worst fears have come true…Constellation, including Orion, Ares and more, are proposed to be cancelled. It is now up to all of those who believe in really exploring the solar system in the near term, not some distant generation, to fight this. This blog post gives my thoughts of what NASA should do. I updated it a bit to reflect the new events of the release of the FY2011 budget.

NASA’s new vision is to create new technologies that will help us explore the solar system whenever we have a destination and a president and congress bold enough to allow us to go there. AKA,  technology driven NASA.

***end update***

The Orlando Sentinel wrote a story (http://tinyurl.com/moon-dead) that claims that insiders in the white house are saying that Obama wants to “ax the moon mission.” This really angered me today. I was on a rant that I usually don’t go on. Now that my emotions are in check now, and all the facts are slowly trickling in, it seems that when the Budget is unveiled on February 1, NASA will not have any funding for its moon program. As for Orion and Ares I, it’s likely that they are dead too with this budget. No word on the Heavy Lift Vehicle yet either. It sounds like NASA will instead be directed to continue research on the ISS, likely through 2020. In the meantime, we will send Astronauts via Soyuz for 50+ million a seat.

What will the extra 2-3 billion be used for when the Space Shuttle retires though? Well,  a big commercial funding campaign. NASA may be directed to do COTS like programs to help fuel private companies to design, and build a manned capsule for NASA to pay to fly on. Space Exploration Technologies is already doing that. All they will need is 300 million over three years, and they can have their Dragon capsule ready for humans. SpaceX already plans on using it for sending cargo to the station later this year. This is a good thing, for the most part (the commercial spending). But it is not all that should be done.

The new vision for NASA is not a bold step forward, its a Giant leap back.

NASA should still build a Heavy Lift Vehicle (or have a private company such as SpaceX design and build one) for future missions beyond LEO be it the Moon, or a NEO, or even Mars. I personally think NASA should have its own “Exploration Class” Vehicle to travel beyond LEO. I am not sure how well SpaceX’s heat shield design would do during a Lunar return (it might do alright; I just do not have the information). NASA should also build its own Lunar Lander (or NEO, or Mars Lander) as a trailblazer.

NASA should be pushing the frontier of space. LEO is no longer a frontier. It is part of our economy now. Our economy extends all the way up to Geostationary Orbit. If anything big happens below GEO, it will affect our economy. NASA’s job should be to pave the way to expand our economy beyond that. That means Moon, NEO and Mars in the NEAR term, not LONG term. I am tired of waiting. We have had the technology for DECADES to do these things, but we haven’t, because of Politics. NASA should pave the way to these new destinations while bringing NewSpace Companies along to help. NASA, and other Government run space programs, are the customer out there! NASA should be destination driven, not a technology driven jobs program.

I feel that it is time for the entire Space Community out there to unite together against the short sightedness of today’s politicians! It’s time to save our Manned Space Program. We need a destination! So long as we just have the ISS, that’s as far out as NewSpace companies can go in the short term. If we build a Lunar Outpost in the 20’s, that can and will be the next destination for these NewSpace companies. Imagine NASA paying a private contractor to ferry astronauts or cargo to the future Armstrong Lunar Outpost! That’s when NASA will move beyond to Mars. Build something there, and then let the private industry follow. NASA should be a trailblazer! This is how we can become a true spacefaring species in THIS century, not the 22^nd or later!

This will create jobs on earth, and boost the world economy the likes that has never been seen in history. The high paying jobs required to do these things would number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and those with the high paying jobs would then go and buy things like 3D TV’s, houses, eat out, start families, donate to charities, by the newest computers, travel, and so much more.

It’s not enough to just talk about what is wrong, we must engage what is wrong and fix it head on. Go out and campaign for people you believe in, advocate conservative principles to your friends. Talk to your friends, family and congressmen about space exploration and development and how it can bring back our economy from the brink and beyond. “It if is to be, it’s up to me,” should be how every one of us thinks. With that mindset, we can fix this country, and create a brighter, freer, and more expansive future for not only America, but all of Humanity.

Obama’s SOTU and the SS Titanocrat

Today has been quite a day, ranging from my emotional upset because of a story from the Orlando Sentinel, to watching Obama’s whining at the State of the Union address. All of the negative events going on right now, in regards to the exploration of space, has inspired me to push harder for space advocacy. Too few people know about the true benefits of space and how it’s necessary for us as a species to survive. I’ll go into that later. First, I want to address some of the points that Obama went into for the State of the Union.

It seems that Obama cannot drop the national healthcare bill. The people don’t want it. Polls after polls show that. Some polls say that they liked HillaryCare (from the early 90’s) better than this new Obamacare bill, and HillaryCare was a reason for the Conservative Revolution in 1994. So if the president thinks that he can push this through, he has another thing coming. It sounded like he was talking down to American’s during some of the speech, but that could have just been my emotions looking for that. As I stated on Twitter, we need to fix the problems in our healthcare system, not create a whole new system. That’s what republicans what to do, they want to fix the pieces that are broken in our system, bit by bit. It’s a transparent, cheaper, and quicker way to fix healthcare.

The next major issue was his energy proposals. Amazingly, for most of it I agree. It sounds like he has adopted an “all of the above” position for energy independence. I am so glad that he said that he wants to start building more nuclear power plants. I just hope that that was not just another political ploy. Time will tell.

Obama also mentioned that he wanted to give a 10,000 dollar tax credit (presumably over 4 years) to parents that are sending their kids to college. That sounds like a great idea, but then reality sets in. What that will do is cause the colleges raise tuition. A big reason why tuition prices are going up is because the government keeps trying to subsidize the loans. If you give every kid a loan, then it effectively inflates prices. Another thing Obama said that shocked me was that he said that in regards to paying back student loans that it should never be more than 10 percent of the students income, and would be forgiven after 20 years (10 years for people who go into public service). Again, this sounds like a wonderful, caring idea…BUT then reality sets in. This could cause the private loan industry to go bankrupt potentially. I can see interest rate being increased because of this too. If the loan can never go above 10 percent of the student’s income, what if the kid flunks out of school and has a janitor job for the next twenty years? Ten percent of that low income means that the loan never gets repaid and the loaner loses money. The only way it could “stay afloat” is by government subsidies and potently Nationalization. What ever happened to responsibility for students? As a student I am responsible for paying back my loans, whether it takes three years or thirty. Whether its two percent of my income or fifty. That’s my responsibility to get a job to do that. There are just so many problems with this proposal.

I did like that Obama is proposing a freeze in Capital Gain taxes for new investments. That can spur some growth in this economy, it’s not enough, in my opinion, but at least it’s a start.

Also, another side note, it seemed like this whole speech was about Obama, the Man Child (As Rush Limbaugh calls him), whining. He blamed bush a few times without directly referencing him, and he criticized the republicans for getting in his way, etc.

In all, Obama’s first State of the Union address was a typical election year speech, even though he told the rest of congress to stop campaigning and get things done (which is ironic because all his administration has done the last year was campaign). Obama is at the wheel a sinking Democrat ship, the S.S. Titanocrat, and he is probably going to go down with the ship. There are democrats already jumping ship, escaping into lifeboats to try to head off the coming political bloodbath in November. The American people gave Obama’s hope and change a try, and they don’t like it. Obama probably already realizes he very likely may be a one term president. I wonder if Hillary thinks that too. Wouldn’t that be kind of funny if she campaigned against him in the 2012 democrat primaries?

Vlog Teaser Trailer

Here is a teaser trailer to the weekly video that this blog will have starting in January!

Don’t Listen to the Critics

I have learned something these past few months. If you have a dream, you have to pursue it no matter what anybody says. If you are going to make a difference, you have to be different. But, by doing so, by definition, you are going against the direction of the natural current that average people are traveling. You will run into resistance. People will tell you, “You’re going the wrong way!” or, “It can’t be done,” or, “You’ll fail, and you’ll be nowhere in life in three years because of it,” ect. It’s not that these people want you to fail, in fact, most of these people probably think they are giving you great advice and are trying to save you from what they think is a horrible path. You have to learn to tune these people out. Tune the negative out. You don’t put sand in your car purposely, so you shouldn’t put negative inputs in your brain. Its your brain, protect it. You have to do what you feel is right. If you have a big enough dream, then it doesn’t matter how tough the resistance is. Its Dream, Struggle, Victory. The bigger the Dream, the bigger the Struggle. That is a fact of life.

If you have Dream, the best way to accomplish that dream or goal is to look for somebody that has done what you want, or something similar to what you want to accomplish, and mimic them. They have the answers and solutions. The people who tell you what you are doing is wrong, probably don’t have what you want in life. You shouldn’t just drop them from existence in your life (though sometimes you have to), just don’t take their advice. You have a life, therefore, you have choices. Choose to follow your dreams. Make a difference.