Back to the future...

[jay]

I'm dubious of the latest plan... abandoning the shuttle in a couple of years, reverting to a capsule architecture to go back to the Moon by 2013. But at least they have the rationale for the Moon (correctly, IMO) being to prepare to go to Mars by 2020. Otherwise, the Moon itself is close enough that we can easily explore it with telerobotics at much lower cost. Mars, on the other hand, needs humans there because of the transmission lags to Earth.

Now, for the details... what I've heard of the plan thus far sounds like it was written by the JSC old-guard.

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I've seen none of these details. Do they plan to use the STS (SRBs, SSMEs, tank) in a heavy lift version for space stations and lunar shots? Getting large amounts of mass into LEO will very much be needed, and the shuttle as is carries too much dead weight at the moment.

Of course, as its been observed elsewhere, this is all being proposed to win votes, and would still have to get through congress. With the deficit balooning already, I can't see it happening unless there are significant cuts elsewhere in the budget (military, homeland security?) or tax rises. Neither of those seem to be likely Bush policies, so this is probably all just so much hot air, like Daddy's Mars project.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

The space station is probably abandoned after 2013. The shuttle is retired in 2006, replaced by an Apollo-like capsule in 2009. During the interim, the US would buy Soyuz capsules from the Russians and would employ either Ariane or a new heavy launcher for large masses.

NASA would cut all programs not related to the moon-return effort, and would also see a 5% real budget increase over each of the next 5 years...

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

NASA would cut all programs not related to the moon-return effort

You mean no science programme beyond preparations for Mars? No JWST, no involvement in Herschel/Planck, Constellation X, SNAP etc etc etc.? That's intellectual suicide for the rest of NASA!

Maybe I'm over-reacting here a bit.

I'm surprised that this plan envisages making NASA dependent on Russia or ESA for heavy lft. I can't see that going down well with aerospace contractors or congress...

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

The dependency would supposedly be just as a stop-gap until a new series of US-built capsules and launchers became available in 2010. In the meantime, the aerospace contractors are getting contracts to design and build them, over 2005-09. Something like that...

I think that in space science... anything targeted beyond earth orbit is probably safe.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

But all of the astronomy missions are (more or less) in earth orbit. The ones I work on, Planck and Herschel, will go to L2, which isn't orbit, but I doubt many bean counters will notice the difference.

This seems far too much like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If NASA science is to become lunar and martian science only, I don't see any way the programme can be supported. I also don't see any way that international partners will support it since they're going to have other joint screwed over by this. It too a long time for ESA to trust NASA again after the whole CRAF/Cassini debacle. This could be that again multiplied several fold.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Astronomy... is probably safe. Earth observing probably isn't. That's as much as I've heard, no specifics. Keep in mind that the White House isn't going to differentiate much between astrophysics, deep structures, and lunar/martian science... to them, it's all "out there", just as on one of those logarithmically-compressed novelty maps.

And one interesting thing with international partners is... how would ESA, NASDA and the Russians divide the space station up after 2013?

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

If Mars and cosmology both count as 'out there' then I'd expect the currently funded missions to be safe - good for me on Planck and Herschel. However, I'd expect that funding for future missions would be much more tightly focussed on the Mars landings. There wasn't much space astronomy in the Apollo era, as I recall. This is bad for the future of astronomy in the UWS since its the large NASA missions that keep a lot of it funded.

Using Mars as an excuse to cancel Earth Observation is, frankly, criminal, but is entirely in keeping with the Bush mob's attitude towards the environment. Indeed, this may be the reason behind the whole Mars hoopla (excepting, of course, the electoral boost he hopes it will bring). I could quite easily see NASA rejiggng their budgets to eliminate Earth Observation missions and transfer this money into Mars, and then Congress balks at the cost of the Mars programme and cancels the lot. Space astronomy might continue in this scheme, but the slimmer NASA that would result would have no environmental programme, and precious little else apart from the 'out there' stuff that wasn't Mars.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

a) Brian, may I link to this entry? I've had people ask me why I've got reservations about the proposal, and this goes a long way toward explaining.

b) That includes all the aeronautic stuff, like FAA related projects, yes?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

a) OK, but I'm hardly an authoritative source, just repeating in-house rumors. I think spacewatch.com has something up... we've been hearing various versions of this for a couple of months.

b) Unclear whether it redirects everything within human spaceflight towards the lunar return, or *everything* towards it. Things like on-orbit microgravity research are likely doomed. I'd expect Earth Observing to take huge cuts, if only because if provides data on environmental degradation which is politically uncomfortable to friends of the current administration. One scenario has most aeronautics either cut-outright or transferred to the FAA (one reason for not announcing it on the Wright Brothers' anniversary ;).

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Would you be more comfortable if I took your thoughts and incorporated them into mine? I'm aware that it might be...not so great for you if it looked like you were taking an "official stance".

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

I don't mind LJ links, per se, since that's to an obviously non-NASA site. But I wouldn't want to be quoted or attributed in an official capacity. Only as my little old private self ;-).

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[rosefox]

While you're being opinionated about such things *) any commentary on this?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

The messed-up color calibration? The German fellow appears to be correct WRT those images. I don't know if this is just sloppiness while getting public images released, or if some PR person advised them to skew the calibration to the red for publicly-released photos, probably figuring that some sector of the mainstream public audience wouldn't believe that it came from Mars otherwise.

Anyone using those images for research is going to take the targets and do their own calibrations, anyway.