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.
Sounds pretty good and realistic to me!