Vision Restoration

Space Bartering

2012-01-14T09:01:00.001-05:00

Aviation Week and Space Technology reports that ESA and NASA are considering using ATV technology for the Orion spacecraft's service module in a barter agreement involving ISS services. One could imagine such a barter agreement being extended in the future, as perhaps ESA astronauts get rides on Orion launched by SLS in exchange for additional service modules. Theoretically, such an arrangement could lower the astounding cost of Orion to the U.S. or shorten the development schedule (as the SM is currently given lower priority than the capsule). However, given that Orion is many years into its development, design changes caused by a new SM could affect the whole spacecraft, and that the international barter arrangement would introduce a whole new level of managerial complexity, it's not immediately clear that significant savings would really be forthcoming, especially during the rather long development phase. That is exactly what NASA and ESA are trying to find out.

Could a different NASA-ESA barter arrangement be made that includes the following characteristics?

includes ESA in NASA's exploration plans
doesn't upset an applecart that has been designed for many years
adds value to NASA's plans
involves distinct elements to reduce managerial and political complexity
uses ESA's strengths
does not damage U.S. interests, such as subsidizing European competition with U.S. commercial space
involves work that ESA would want to do (fitting their long-term goals, using their industry, etc)

During the negotiations between the White House and Congress on NASA's exploration plans, a lot of important work was dropped to fund SLS and Orion. For example, even under Constellation, we developed the robotic precursor missions LRO and LCROSS. The Administration's proposal revived the robotic precursor line to include numerous robotic precursor missions to the Moon, NEOs, Mars, and its moons. Congress was not interested in robotic precursor missions, and the robotic precursor line was gone before it really started. Would NASA be interested in bartering for an ESA robotic precursor mission, or a series of such missions? Such missions could be ESA-only, or they could perhaps host some U.S. instruments and experiments if funding can be found for those. NASA might get rides for its instruments and experiments in the barter arrangement, and would at least get essential data from the deal.

If we are planning to return to the Moon, robotic precursor missions could assess lunar resources, do ISRU experiments, and so on. Missions might be similar to the roving Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer, a static lander with experiments and a Mars Pathfinder sized lunar rover to assess resources as considered by NASA's robotic precursor team, or the Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return mission (which is also a high priority on NASA's Planetary Science side).

If we are planning to go to NEOs during some of the steps on the Flexible Path to Mars, robotic precursor missions could broadly search for suitable candidate NEOs using instruments like NEOCAM, do NEO flyby missions to assess basic characteristics of multiple NEOs, or go to a particularly interesting NEO candidate to do detailed resource investigations, ISRU experiments, and search for hazards (such as small satellite asteroids).

Some robotic precursor missions might involve NASA-ESA collaboration in a single spacecraft just as suggested with the Orion barter deal with an ESA SM. Planetary Science has a lot of successful experience with this sort of collaboration, where instruments or even entire landers are hosted on a spacecraft from another country. (This is not to suggest that the Orion barter arrangement would not work or international collaboration hasn't happened on non-Planetary missions - e.g. ISS and Orbital's Antares/Cygnus).

Similarly, exploration technology development is getting limited funding. The earlier Administration proposal to demonstrate highly capable solar electric propulsion, propellant depots, AR&D tugs, inflatable modules, closed-loop life support, and aerocapture during the start of a series of well-funded exploration technology demonstration missions while also funding technology development in numerous areas like ISRU, landing, telerobotics, fission power systems, and even more capable electric propulsion have been scaled back almost beyond recognition. Could ESA contribute to implementing some of these or similar exploration technology demonstration missions in a way that would give NASA the data that it needs, and perhaps even give NASA a ride to demonstrate some of the exploration technologies that NASA can afford to develop even now? For example, could ESA do an aerocapture demonstration mission at Mars, or even at Earth, giving NASA access to the data? Could ESA collaborate with NASA and U.S. commercial space to demonstrate an inflatable habitat module where ESA provides some of the internal and external components of the system, or would such an arrangement have similar potential disadvantages to the Orion/ESA SM barter? The long-term interest for ESA might be in participation by ESA or European industry when such modules are used as habitats in exploration missions, or when they are used commercial space habitats.

The point I'm trying to make is that there are a number of important exploration jobs that currently aren't being done that could be more productive subjects of NASA-ESA barter arrangements than the Orion SM. Suggestions on what those might be are welcome.

A Vital Cislunar Space Application: Satellite Servicing

2011-12-22T00:43:00.002-05:00

In my discussion of the Flexible Path to the Moon, I emphasized the importance of cislunar space. My view is that developing infrastructure and capabilities in cislunar space is crucial to sustainable and affordable astronaut exploration to more distant destinations like the lunar surface, NEAs, and Mars, and is also vital to enabling exploration efforts to deliver near-term benefits to the taxpayer. A number of articles have recently appeared that highlight the promise of cislunar space, such as Accelerating the future: human achievements beyond LEO within a decade (The Space Review), Exploration Gateway Platform hosting Reusable Lunar Lander proposed (NASAspaceflight.com), and Phase II of “Asteroid Next” missions: Proving Grounds for future crewed Mars missions (also NASAspaceflight.com). These have generated considerable interest and discussion, and it would be fun to add my voice to those discussions.

But I'm not going to do that.

Instead, I'd like to focus on a part of the Conference Report for H.R. 2112, the bill that funds NASA for the next fiscal year. The following excerpt is from the report's Space Technology section:

Satellite servicing.—The conference agreement provides no less than $25,000,000 for satellite servicing activities. This funding will contribute to the planned competitive satellite servicing demonstration mission and shall be managed by the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate.

This $25M (at least) is part of the $575M for Space Technology.

The following excerpt is from the report's Space Operations section:

Satellite servicing.—The conference agreement includes $50,000,000 from Space Operations to continue satellite servicing activities. These funds are in addition to $25,000,000 for satellite servicing in the Space Technology account. The HEO Mission Directorate shall continue to be responsible for the overall direction and management of all agency satellite servicing activities, which are undertaken as a joint project of the HEO, Space Technology and Science mission directorates. Satellite servicing activities shall include mission architecture design, robotic system development, autonomous rendezvous and capture sensor testing, fluid transfer demonstrations and spacecraft design.

Funds are to be used to continue work on a competitive project to develop, in collaboration with a U.S. commercial partner, a satellite servicing mission capable of operating in geosynchronous Earth orbit. The goal for such a mission is to achieve an on-orbit servicing of an observatory-class government satellite by 2016. Any U.S. commercial partner should be willing to invest its own resources in this mission, as it is intended to foster the creation of an ongoing commercial capability that could meet the needs of NASA, other Federal agencies, the commercial satellite sector and the scientific community.

The funds are for a satellite servicing mission involving NASA and a commercial partner with skin in the game operating in geosynchronous orbit. Demonstration of such a commercial capability could be an important step in opening new robotic commercial satellite servicing markets in cislunar space, and could even lead later to development of human satellite servicing markets there. Creation of such self-sustaining economic capabilities represents an important milestone in the development of cislunar space, and could be an important step in enabling sustainable exploration and development of more difficult destinations like the lunar surface and NEAs.

The most immediate activity of the NASA Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office is the Robotic Refueling Mission on the International Space Station. This mission demonstrates robotic technologies to refuel, repair, and otherwise service satellites using various tools. The office is also investigating a Robotic Servicing Mission. This would be a robotic mission to demonstrate actual servicing for one or more GEO satellites.

NASA has released an RFI for development of an on-orbit robotic servicing capability for spacecraft. In this RFI, NASA shows its interest in a public-private partnership where it uses its satellite servicing capabilities and experience with a commercial partner:

NASA does not intend to establish a Government operated on-orbit satellite servicing capacity but rather to foster the creation of a domestic capability which may meet both future Government and non-government needs. Satellite servicing capabilities may include satellite recovery, repair, relocation, refueling, inspection, subsystem or component replacement, or other services that extend the life or capabilities of on-orbit assets.

The detailed RFI (PDF) gives several examples of the types of partnerships that NASA might be interested in pursuing with private industry. The RFI makes it clear that the envisioned mission is a robotic one to GEO (as opposed, for example, to a mission where GEO satellites are delivered to and from servicing robots and/or astronauts in LEO), even though Congress's direction is that NASA's HEO Mission Directorate will be in charge of NASA's overall satellite servicing effort. The RFI lists several contributions that NASA might make to the effort, such as satellite servicing patents, tools for repair, refueling, and other servicing jobs, autonomous rendezvous capability, sensors, test labs, operations support, computer resources, and more.

The RFI suggests several potential types of public-private partnerships. In one partnership model, the commercial partner owns and is responsible for the servicing hardware while the government provides some of the contributions just described as well as an initial satellite to service. In another model, the government pays a fixed price for commercial services, with both partners contributing hardware and support. The commercial partner could rent the servicing vehicle for additional servicing missions beyond the government satellites. In a third model, the commercial partner would be responsible for the entire system, and NASA would not identify a government satellite to service, but could provide intellectual property to the commercial partner. Other models can be considered.

Several questions and responses (PDF) related to the RFI have also been published. Some of these deal with foreign participation. This is not surprising, since MDA is interested in and concerned about the NASA satellite servicing mission.

Meanwhile, the First Community Workshop on Assessing Capabilities for Human Operations in Cis-Lunar Space: What's Possible Now? includes a presentation on a Manned GEO Servicing Study (PDF) involving NASA and DARPA. Different satellite servicing missions by astronauts in GEO that would be useful in and of themselves while preparing NASA for future, more distant exploration missions are presented. Missions could include habitat nodes and tugs to move satellites.

DARPA has also presented the PHOENIX workshops on a potential satellite servicing program:

The goal of the Phoenix program is to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO ...

There are multiple components in the Phoenix architecture. Nanosatellites would be launched as secondary payloads. A satellite servicing component would robotically attach the nanosatellites to an antenna of a dead satellite, enabling the large antenna to be reused. The nanosatellites are delivered in a new PODS nanosatellite delivery module. This PODS delivery mechanism meets with the satellite servicing component which can then use the nanosatellites and tools in the PODS as a sort of tool chest.

Like robotic precursor missions to the Moon, NEAs, or Mars, a commercial GEO robotic satellite servicing mission can help set the stage for more ambitious future astronaut servicing missions in the same type of location. A commercial robotic satellite servicing mission done in partnership with NASA can also strengthen the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry, much like NASA's current approach to send cargo and later crew to the ISS using commercial services. A commercial robotic satellite servicing mission can demonstrate some of the technologies and capabilities needed by NASA to productively and safely send astronauts to more distant destinations like Lagrange points, the lunar surface, NEAs, and Mars and its moons. This is especially true of missions that leverage robotic capabilities like telerobotics. Finally, a commercial GEO robotic satellite servicing mission that involves satellite refueling can develop new markets for fuel that could later come from locations like the lunar surface, thus creating an opportunity for the type of exploration and development using ISRU that can create a strong space economy.

For more information:

On-Orbit Satellite Servicing Study - Project Report - comprehensive 2010 NASA satellite servicing workshop report, including a history of satellite servicing and several potential servicing missions from basic robotic satellite servicing to astronaut assembly and maintenance of large observatories

SSCO - NASA Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office

NASA_SatServ - Twitter account for the NASA Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office

The Future of On-Orbit Satellite Servicing - SpaceRef Forum (article from the September 2011 Space Quarterly (PDF)) - This gives a good overview of the history and recent state of satellite servicing.

Robot Surgeon Tech Aims to Fix NASA Satellites - Space.com

Medical Robotics Experts Help Advance NASA’s ‘Satellite Surgery’ Project - Johns Hopkins University

Frank Cepollina, Deputy Associate Director, Space Servicing Capabilities Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Space News - This covers the Robotic Refueling Mission, a satellite servicing test on Earth, and the potential servicing mission in GEO.

NASA Selects First Payloads For Upcoming Reduced-Gravity Flights - NASA - This includes a Zero-G flight for the Autonomous Robotic Capture payload, similar to the Approach, Rendezvous and Capture Demonstration Cepollina mentioned in the previous article.

A Puzzle to Distract Us From HEFTy Price Tags

2011-01-13T22:26:00.001-05:00

With all of the news about the Human Space Exploration Framework Summary and Preliminary Report Regarding NASA’s Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, I thought I'd write a few pages about them. Then, I changed my mind and decided to ignore them. I wanted to have some fun instead, and there is nothing fun about unaffordable HEFT reference missions and unneeded rockets designed by a handful of well-placed members of Congress.

I like puzzles, so I made a word search puzzle at puzzle-maker.com to take my mind off the doom and gloom.

I'm not sure, but I may not have completely succeeded in taking my mind off of the train wreck, though:

C V N S A S E E A L O B L C T H N H I W L S U E C M R R A O K F E P O W T K A T L C Q S E R A T T V C O S T L Y E R I M G A U Q

ares	late
bloat	mpcv
cancel	orion
costly	quagmire
esas	sls
heft	waste
HLV

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: What Comes After the Top Five?

2011-01-07T09:48:00.003-05:00

This completes a series of posts inspired by a similar set of posts at Future Planetary Exploration blog selecting the 5 most compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey list. This presents my point of view of the type of planetary science accomplishments possible through the next Decade's work beyond what I found to be the 5 most compelling missions from the Decadal Survey list.

First, let's review the missions I selected, and their estimated FY15 costs with reserves:

Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer - long-range rover with drill - $1,132M
Enceladus Orbiter - Saturn tour followed by Enceladus orbit - $1,613M
Mars Polar Climate Mission (2 selections from Decadal Survey options) - climate and weather orbiter and polar subsurface sampler lander - $613M + $860M = 1,473M
Mars Geophysical Network - 2 geophysical landers - $1,015M
Lunar Geophysical Network - 4 geophysical landers - $903M

This selection is consistent with this blog's theme of restoring the Vision for Space Exploration that was, with some exceptions like LRO and LCROSS, lost in 2005 with the onset of Constellation. It covers the "Moon, Mars, and beyond" idea almost a bit too literally, since (in my view) Planetary Science should "lean a bit" in this direction while still being driven by science priorities, while a well-funded Robotic Precursor line on the astronaut exploration side should be the main robotic support line for the VSE's robotic needs. The Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer is a particularly important mission in support of the VSE goals, whether funded through Planetary Science or Robotic Precursors. The Enceladus orbiter doesn't quite fit the specific outer planet wording from the Outer Planets section of the VSE, which emphasizes Jupiter's moons and then Titan, but I think it could be justified in the context of the VSE given knowledge gained by Cassini since the VSE was developed.

The total estimated cost in FY15 dollars of these 5 missions (including 8 landers and 2 orbiters) is in the ballpark of $6B. I could assume the cost would be less, since the missions include significant reserves, and some have substantial heritage. I could also assume partnerships lower the cost to NASA Planetary Science (e.g.: partnerships with international space agencies, synergy with NASA robotic precursor or technology development lines, commercial participation), but I'll instead assume that such partnerships tend to add capabilities rather than lower cost. The budget for the Enceladus Orbiter includes operations spending that happens far past the timeframe of the Decadal Survey, so I might be able to overlook some of the budget needs of that mission. However, I'm more comfortable leaving the estimate for the 5 missions at $6B.

I don't know what the NASA Planetary Science new mission budget will be for the next decade, but let's suppose it's $11.5B in FY15 dollars. That would leave some money for other areas like Planetary Science technology development, instruments, research, operating long-duration missions, data systems, and so on. I'll ignore issues like missions whose funding spans multiple Survey decades. With those simplifying assumptions, with $6B or so for the top 5 missions, we'd still have a healthy $5.5B for other missions.

It would have been easy to have chosen 5 missions that together cost far more than $6B, since the Decadal Survey list concentrates on New Frontiers and Flagship missions (i.e. ambitious but expensive ones). For example, here are the listed FY15 costs for 3 particularly capable, long-sought-after, and undeniably compelling missions that very well might be emphasized by the Decadal Survey:

Jupiter Europa Orbiter - $3,897M ($1,200M of this is reserves)
Mars 2018 MAX-C Caching Rover - $2,196M (and this requires 2 more large missions before the biggest reward - Mars sample return - happens)
Titan Saturn System Mission - $3,456M

As you can see, if we go with those 3 missions, and assume a total Planetary Science budget of $11.5B for missions, we aren't left with much else for the other 2 of the top-5 missions, let alone other missions. The Mars 2018 MAX-C mission assumes an earlier ESA/NASA ExoMars mission for telecommunications, so we have even less room for flexibility if we select these 3 missions. Those would be 3 great missions, but I don't think I'd want Planetary Science to be limited almost entirely to these 3. I'd also consider the impact to Planetary Science if any of these 3 suffered serious cost overruns or a major technical failure, considering how many eggs would be in so few baskets.

Since I happen to have picked some of the less-expensive missions from the Survey list, though, I now have a chance to provide some depth to what would be, if left to stand by itself, a fairly unbalanced set of missions in my top 5. I seem to have emphasized Mars, the Moon, and geophysical networks at the cost of sample return, Venus, small bodies, and other priorities. Can that be fixed? What should we do with the "leftover" mission funding?

The first thing I'd do with that extra $5.5B is establish a funding block (for the sake of discussion, let's say $1B over the decade) for "frequent, very low cost missions". This would be in addition to existing areas like flights of opportunity for instruments on non-NASA missions. This might sound like the Discovery line of missions, but for various reasons, the Discovery line is getting a bit expensive. The FY10 Discovery mission limit used in the Survey studies is $580M for FY2010; it's assumed to be $666M in FY2015. That includes $155M (FY10) or $178M (FY15) for an assumed Atlas V 401 launch. The new mission line that I'm proposing would be for lower cost Planetary Science missions than that. You might think of some of the early Discovery missions, the new "Venture Class" Earth observation missions, or astrophysics and heliophysics Explorer, MIDEX, and SMEX missions. This line would seek to take advantage of opportunities like

potential lower-cost launchers, such as the Falcon 1e, Falcon 9, and Taurus II
potential increased availability of secondary payload slots on launchers
commercial data purchases, similar to NASA's Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data contracts, but for planetary science data rather than engineering data
other cooperative arrangements with non-NASA partners such as commercial vendors
cooperative missions with other NASA areas like Space Technology, Exploration Technology Development and Demonstration, and Robotic Precursors, or even entire small space missions whose main purpose is to demonstrate products of the Planetary Science technology development budget
focused, low-cost mission approaches (for example, penetrators like the Deep Space 2 Mars technology demonstrators)
favorable trends in the small satellite field

Such missions would probably tend to go to some of the Planetary Science destinations that are easier to reach quickly, such as the Moon, Venus, Mars, comets, and NEOs. If that happens, they could fill in some of the gaps of my original 5 mission list (Venus, NEOs, comets) while strengthening the Moon and Mars focus of that list.

If we used $1B for that, we would have $4.5B left. I think we should have at least 3 Discovery missions (4 if you count the Mars Scout-like Mars Climate Orbiter I selected in the most compelling missions as a Discovery mission). There are a lot of gaps left in my mission choices that these Discovery missions could fill in. For example, even with my predisposition to favor missions with "astronaut robotic precursor" potential, I didn't select a single Near Earth object mission, even though Near Earth objects are often discussed as the first beyond-LEO destination in NASA's new Flexible Path plan for astronaut missions. (Actually the first beyond-LEO mission destination in that plan is cislunar space - possibly lunar orbit or an Earth-Moon Lagrange point - but those early beyond-LEO missions are often overlooked when the new plans are discussed).

Why didn't I select any Near-Earth asteroid planetary science missions? Well, for one thing, there weren't any on the Decadal Survey list. I didn't allow the current batch of New Frontiers missions, including the Near-Earth asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REX, in my selection. The Decadal Survey studies include an analysis of "Near Earth Asteroid Trajectory Opportunities", but I didn't consider that to be an actual mission. The list also includes an affordable "Trojan Tour Concept", but Trojan asteroids are by definition the "cloud" estimated to include hundreds of thousands of objects (if we only count those greater than 1 km in diameter) around the L4 and L5 Jupiter-Sun Lagrange points. Those are not candidates for early astronaut exploration missions, and in fact, it could be a couple of decades before the Trojan Tour robotic mission would get there if it was selected - with 1 decade for the actual trip. Nevertheless, the Trojan Tour is affordable and would cover a set of bodies that has never been visited before, so it is certainly worth consideration. There is also an affordable Chiron Orbiter mission in the Decadal Survey list, but this would take even longer to launch and to reach its destination.

So, with the most compelling missions I've selected, we probably have a coverage gap in the area of Near Earth objects, or at least primitive bodies in general. One or two Discovery missions to fill that gap might be in order. We also have coverage gaps at Venus and Jupiter. So, if we add 3 Discovery missions, we might be able to let the Discovery mission selection process fill some of the gaps I left with my top 5 selections.

If we assume the Discovery missions cost $700M each, that leaves us with $2.4B. What should we do with that? There are a number of interesting possibilities:

Upgrade the Enceladus Orbiter to a full-blown Titan Saturn System mission, or switch it to the Jupiter Europa Orbiter after all. This would make a lot of the planetary science community and international partners happy, although I would still worry about mission cost until data starts coming in (upon which time I would undoubtably forget cost).
Fly the Mars 2018 MAX-C Rover after all. This would make a different, but also big, part of the planetary science community and international partners happy. With $2.4B available and a mission estimate of about $2.2B, there would be a little bit of slack to also cover NASA's contributions to the earlier Mars Trace Gas mission (e.g.: the rocket, instrumentation, telecommunications), but one of the Discovery missions might need to be traded or postponed to fully cover that. Because of the amount of planning and interconnected missions involved, this selection might make a great deal of sense, in spite of my serious worries about mission cost.
Fly a variant of the Venus Climate Mission (which barely missed my 6th-place spot). The basic mission should allow room for anther Discovery mission, which is the approach I would tend to take. Alternately, the Venus Climate Mission could fill up the $2.4B by taking on some of the capabilities of the more ambitious Venus Climate Flagship reference mission.
Assuming the current New Frontiers selection picks one out of MoonRise (lunar sample return), SAGE (Venus lander), and OSIRIS-Rex (Near-Earth asteroid sample return), we should be able to afford to fly the other 2 with the leftover $2.4B. I find this to be a particularly attractive option, since these missions should be in a more well-developed state than some of the others in the Decadal Survey list, since they address sample return (which I've completely skipped in my selections), since they have significant "robotic precursor" and "exploration technology demonstration cooperation" potential, and since they partially address some of the content that I lost by letting the Venus Climate Mission slip into 6th place on my list.
Fly 3 more Discovery missions, giving a total of 6 - a good decade for this class of missions. I tend to think of Discovery missions as the "meat and potatoes" of Planetary Science, so I'd seriously consider this option. One of those Discovery missions (or a mission with similar cost but selected and managed differently) might be a second Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer, just like the first one but at another lunar location (e.g.: the other pole).
All sorts of other possibilities.

We can't do everything, but picking one of these would at least fill in some of the gaps that I've left with my original 5 selections.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Showdown Between Lunar Geophysical Network and Venus Climate Orbiter

2011-01-02T22:22:00.001-05:00

This continues a series of posts inspired by a similar set of posts at Future Planetary Exploration blog selecting the 5 most compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey list. This presents my personal selection for the 5th and last most compelling mission from the list.

I'd like to select a mission that fits well with one of the Mars missions I selected as my 3rd and 4th most compelling mission: a 2-part Mars Climate mission and a Mars Geophysical Network. The obvious choices to me were the Venus Climate Mission and the Lunar Geophysical Network. First, let me described these 2 contenders for the 5th spot as presented by the Decadal Survey mission concept studies.

The Lunar Geophysical Network includes 4 similar landers that would arrive at different locations on the Moon. These landers would have goals that are not very different from those of the Mars Geophysical Network. They would be expected to determine information about the lunar crust, mantle layers, and core (e.g.: size, state, composition, temperature), assess lunar heat flow, and measure moonquakes. Each lander would include a seismometer, magnetometers, electric field sensors, a Langmuir probe, retroreflectors, and a heat flow sensor. As with the Mars Geophysical Network seismometers, the 4 seismometers on 4 landers in the lunar network concept would work together simultaneously to produce results that are much more useful than measurements from a single seismometer. The heat flow sensor would be deployed under the regolith up to 3 meters, possibly delivered by a "mole". The retroreflectors are targets for Earth-based lasers that precisely measure the distance from the laser to the retroreflector.

The lunar day/night cycle encourages use of ASRGs, which in turn encourages use of an Atlas V variant for launch. The Falcon 9 is not certified for launch of ASRGs, but a less capable mission variant is depicted using Falcon 9 to launch 2 solar-powered landers. There is a tradeoff between expensive ASRGs (and related certification) and heavy, less capable solar power and batteries. My mission selection for the top 4 most compelling missions is already ASRG-heavy, so the ASRG option might be problematic in that context.

Clive Neal presents more justification for a mission like this one in The Rationale for Deployment of a Long-Lived Geophysical Network on the Moon.

One of the nice things about this proposal is that it can start to produce results quickly. The mission could launch and begin to return data in FY16. Compare that to my second most compelling mission choice, the Enceladus Orbiter, which might launch in the mid-2020's and arrive at Saturn in the 2030's.

Another attraction compared to many other missions in the Decadal Survey list is the estimated cost, $903M in FY15 dollars with reserves included.

On the other hand, if I were selecting a lunar mission, I would put some thought into selecting a second Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer rover (which I suspect would be quite affordable assuming the first is built) sent to another region (perhaps the other lunar pole), or a lunar sample return mission like MoonRise, before this geophysical mission. However, I bent my own rules enough by choosing 2 of the Decadal Survey's Mars Climate Orbiter concepts. I didn't include carbon copies of earlier choices or current New Frontiers mission contenders as possible choices in the first place - I only want to select unique missions from the Decadal Survey's mission list.

Now let's take a look at the ambitious Venus Climate Mission. This mission is intended to study the origin, variability, suspected major ancient climate change, and interaction with the surface of the mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus. One angle of this study is to learn about potential climate change on Earth by comparison, and to test terrestrial General Circulation Models using Venus as a model test scenario. The mission includes several distinct pieces of Venus hardware.

There is a Venus orbiter spacecraft that serves as a carrier and telecommunications rely for the other components. The orbiter also includes a "Venus Monitoring" camera that gives context for the measurements from the elements of the mission that reach Venus itself.

There is a balloon that itself serves as a carrier and deployer for other mission elements. The balloon is intended to last at least 3 weeks, floating 55km in the Venusian atmosphere and going around Venus up to 5 times during its journey. The balloon has instruments that sample the atmosphere and clouds of the planet. For example, it includes a Neutral Mass Spectrometer that can carefully measure noble gas isotopes. A Tunable Laser Spectrometer measures trace gases. The NMS and TLS should give even better results together than they would do individually. A Nephelometer studies cloud particles. Clues on atmospheric circulation are revealed by tracking the balloon as the atmosphere moves it about the planet.

At 2 different times during the balloon mission, it deploys is a pair of small Drop Sondes. These measure pressure, temperature, acceleration, and wind speed as they fall from the balloon to the surface over the course of 45 minutes using "Atmospheric Structure Instrumentation". The balloon and Mini-Probe (which I will describe momentarily) also include similar instrumentation. The Drop Sondes also include a Net Flux Radiometer to measure solar and Venus-based radiation. Again, the balloon and Mini-Probe host similar instruments. The Drop Sondes are tracked by the balloon to gain more data about winds at the various levels the Drop Sondes fall through.

The other element of the mission is a Mini-Probe that is larger and more capable than the 2 Drop Sondes. It is released by the entry system at the same time as the balloon system, and falls for 45 minutes. In addition to instruments like those the Drop Sondes carry, like the balloon system, it carries a Neutral Mass Spectrometer to measure aspects of Venus's atmospheric chemistry. In this case the profile is taken vertically (i.e. the probe falls through the atmosphere as it takes measurements), whereas the balloon profile is generally horizontal.

The Venus Flagship Reference Mission has some commonalities with the Venus Climate Mission, but it's even more ambitious. It includes 2 landers that last for several hours on the surface, 2 balloons, and a much more capable orbiter able to map Venus at a much higher resolution than Magellan did. That mission is also much more expensive, and was not one of the ones on the Decadal Survey list, so I'm not considering it.

The Venus Mobile Explorer, another concept on the Decadal Survey list, also includes a Neutral Mass Spectrometer, Tunable Laser Spectrometer, and pressure/temperature/wind sensors for analysis of the atmosphere at different altitudes. It's able to land and later float to one other location on the surface. It has fewer climate/atmosphere capabilities than the Venus Climate Mission and may cost a bit more, but it gains surface capabilities and imaging.

The Venus Intrepid Tessera Lander, another mission studied by the Decadal Survey, includes similar atmosphere instrumentation on a lander mission, but at a projected cost ($1.3B in FY15 dollars with reserves) that is lower than either the Venus Mobile Explorer or the Venus Climate Mission.

When finding a partner for the Mars Climate Mission, the Venus Climate Mission comes to mind first, but these other missions should also be considered, since they have some climate capabilities mixed in with surface analysis.

As with the lunar geophysical mission, I would consider the SAGE (Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer) Venus mission in the current New Frontiers competition as a strong alternative to the Venus Climate Mission. SAGE consists of a lander that would survive for at least 3 hours on a Venus volcano. It can dig and analyze samples, and also includes a number of instruments to study the climate and atmosphere of Venus (including the Atmospheric Structure Investigation, Tunable Laser Spectrometer, and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, which I assume are similar to the ones of the climate mission). However, SAGE is not on the Decadal Survey list, so I'm not including it as a possible choice. Allowing the 3 current New Frontiers competitors could have taken a lot of the fun out of this survey of Decadal Survey options since I could very well have given 3 of the top 5 spots to them.

The combination of a Venus Climate mission, various climate studies of Earth (including those based on satellite data), and surface and orbiter Mars Climate missions (as I already selected for the 3rd most compelling mission) should give us a lot of practical data to allow us to compare climate at these planets. Of course learning about implications for Earth from the other 2 planets is the immediately practical aspect, and it's a compelling one. However, I'm concerned about the cost of the Venus Climate mission, estimated at $1.577B in FY15 dollars with reserves. I already selected the Enceladus Orbiter as a Flagship class mission, and I'm inclined to limit the number of flagship missions to allow a greater number of less costly (but, it should be admitted, less capable) missions to fly. As a result, even though in one sense I consider the Venus Climate mission to be the more compelling of the 2 missions by a hair, when factoring in cost, the Lunar Geophyiscal Network wins. I select LGN as the 5th and last of my "top 5 most compelling missions" from the Decadal Survey. The LGN folks shouldn't rest easy, though, because if an international partner picks up the costs for one or two of the significant components of the Venus Climate mission, thereby lowering the cost of the mission to NASA (which I think could be done given the several distinct parts of the mission), the Venus mission would probably bump LGN off the list and into spot #6.

Now that I've selected my personal top 5 selections from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, in the next post I'll take a look at some ideas for the rest of NASA's Planetary Science mission budget. I've come up with a top 5 list that only gets to 3 destinations, so it would nice to see where else we can go. I may also discuss how my 5 most compelling selections fit with the theme of this blog.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Mars Geophysical Network and Mars Polar Climate Missions

2010-12-22T19:06:00.000-05:00

This continues a series of posts inspired by a similar set of posts at Future Planetary Exploration blog selecting the 5 most compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey list. This follows 3 reviews of potential Mars missions. Here I make my personal selection from that list.

After some consideration, I decided not to include the MAX-C rover in my list of most compelling Planetary Science missions from the Decadal Survey list. The mission science is compelling, the raw idea of a rover exploring and selecting Martian samples for return to the Earth is right, the mission is in a reasonably advanced state of development, and it has international cooperation and multi-mission implications. Thus, it is not to be set aside lightly, and as you'll eventually see I'm not setting it aside lightly. However, the estimated mission cost is just too much for me, and I'm worried about the new rover delivery mechanism. Demonstration of the Sky Crane at Mars, combined with validation that a Network Pathfinder could be added to the mission with minimal risk and cost, might be enough to squeeze MAX-C into my top 5 most compelling missions, but those things haven't happened yet.

It's all about opportunity cost and risk.

This is easy for me to do because I haven't been waiting for those Mars samples for half a career. I suspect that if I had been, I'd have made a different choice.

Having dealt with MAX-C, the question now becomes which Mars mission will I choose for my "most compelling" list - Mars Geophysical Network or Mars Polar Climate Mission?

The answer: All 3 of them. Or all 4 of them.

I think I'd better explain.

In the last couple posts, I described a number of potential Mars Polar Climate and Mars Geophysical Network mission options. Some key options include:

2 Mars Geophysical Network powered landers - $1,015M (New Frontiers)
1 Mars Geophysical Network powered lander - $720M (Discovery)
Mars Polar Climate Orbiter - Climate and Weather - $613M (Discovery)
Mars Polar Climate Orbiter - Energy Balance and Composition - $629M (Discovery)
Mars Polar Climate Orbiter - Polar Science - $866M (New Frontiers)
Mars Phoenix Class Lander - Sightseer - $751M (Discovery)
Mars Phoenix Class Lander - Subsurface Sampler - $860M (New Frontiers)
MER Class Rover - $1,049 (New Frontiers)

My selection for the 3rd most compelling mission from the Decadal Survey list is a combined Mars Polar Climate mission consisting of an orbiter and a lander. Thus 2 of the Mars Polar Climate options above would be selected. These should be mutually supportive with remote sensing and ground truth in-situ observations of the same physical entities. The orbiter can also help the lander through its telecommunications capability (which would be supplied by NASA to the mission as standard procedure for Mars orbiters).

I selected the Mars Polar Climate mission for a variety of reasons. It addresses science questions about climate that are relevant to our situation on Earth. Mars offers another extreme environment and history to compare to Earth, just as Venus does as explained in the Future Planetary Exploration blog's choice of a Venus Climate mission as the second compelling mission. In addition, the mission has potential as an astronaut scout sort of operation (i.e. a science substitute for a robotic precursor mission). The missions could be a good fit for collaboration with any funding that may appear in NASA's Exploration Technology Demonstration or Robotic Precursor efforts. With additional mass budgets, they offer plenty of opportunity for super-charging with instruments from non-NASA space agencies, too. Of course the missions go after big Planetary Science questions about Mars, too. The missions follow up on technology and science demonstrated and advanced in earlier Mars missions, so the risk of cost overruns, mission failure, or unimportant science is lower than it otherwise might be. Also, assuming no cost overruns, the missions are affordable. For example, if we select the "Climate and Weather" orbiter as a revival of the "Mars Scout" line, and also select the subsurface sampler as our New Frontiers mission (since these Decadal Survey selections are supposed to be for New Frontiers and Flagship missions), we are only (if I may use that word when talking about huge amounts) at $613M + $860M = $1,473M.

My selection for the 4th most compelling mission is the Mars Geophysical Network Mission. Since the science value of this mission goes up considerably with 2 landers rather than 1 lander (as, for example, the seismometers will return much more valuable data with simultaneous, time-synchronized data collections at different locations than the mere location of 2 landers at 2 distinct geographical locations would suggest), I'll select the $1,015M New Frontiers powered landing option with 2 landers. Still the 3 missions combined are $2,488M, which isn't much more than the estimated MAX-C cost. Had I selected the single Geophysical Network lander delivered on a Falcon 9 rocket (i.e. the Discovery class version), the 3 missions would cost less than MAX-C. Like the Mars Polar Climate missions, the Mars Geophysical Network Mission addresses fundamental Mars science, gives lots of opportunities for international collaboration and thus more capable missions, and presents interesting possibilities for collaboration with potential NASA Exploration Technology Demonstration and Robotic Precursor efforts.

I've picked particular variants from the selections above, but I think the basic idea would work with other choices. For example, we could switch the polar deposit Subsurface Sampler to the Mars Polar Climate rover (exchanging instrument mass for mobility). This might be justified on grounds of mission science return or keeping our ability to develop Mars rover missions. We could switch back and forth between Discovery and New Frontiers levels as funding allows and external participation (or lack thereof) encourages. Call it the Flexible Path at Mars.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Mars Background, Part 3 (Mars Polar Climate Mission)

2010-12-21T20:10:00.000-05:00

This continues a series of posts inspired by a similar set of posts at Future Planetary Exploration blog selecting the 5 most compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey list. This is the 3rd of 3 reviews of potential Mars missions, building up to a selection from that list (and I've already revealed that Mars will not be skipped in my overall selection of 5 compelling missions).

The Mars Polar Climate Mission Concepts report doesn't focus on a single mission, but instead gives a broad overview of the types of missions that could study the Martian polar deposits to reveal information about the planet's climate. Six potential missions, covering Discovery and New Frontiers classes, are investigated: 3 orbiters roughly similar to Mars Odyssey or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, 2 landers roughly similar to Mars Phoenix, and 1 MER-class rover.

Clearly the MAX-C rover is a more well-developed plan than these conceptual missions, but that may be balanced somewhat by the argument that these missions are simpler and use a great deal of heritage hardware.

These missions would all study the Martian climate through its polar layers, but they would do that in quite different ways. Science questions include the age, energy budget, and mass of the polar deposits, volatile movement between the polar layers and other regions, historical Mars climate change as reflected in the polar layer records, and how the layers might be affected by influences like erosion, dust and carbon dioxide cycles, and liquid run-off. Orbiters tend to be better at measuring large-scale processes like water and dust transport in and out of the polar regions. Landers would be better at measuring composition of the layers, isotope ratios, and other characteristics that require sample handling or close observation. Quite a few measurements could be made by either orbiters or landers.

Two Discovery class orbiter missions are described. One mission selects instruments that emphasize current weather, climate, and polar change over the course of a season. The other mission emphasizes current movement of water and dust into and out of the polar layers, comparing this information to polar layers that record the history of similar movements. The single New Frontiers class orbiter addresses both of these areas. The estimated FY15 costs with reserves for the orbiter missions are $613M, $629M, and $866M, respectively.

The body of 2 static landers described in the report would be similar to the Phoenix lander. One Discovery class static lander is described. This would land next to a polar layer region and observe the layers from below using a high resolution multispectral imager. It would also include a meteorology instrument suite. The New Frontiers class static lander would land on one of the polar layered deposits and sample the deposit using melting or drilling, laser, camera, microscopic imager, meteorological suite, and spectrometer. Rough FY15 mission cost estimates with reserves are $751M and $860M, respectively. Based on the power and mass capabilities of the Phoenix landing platform and the limits placed on the instrument suites by the expected Discovery and New Frontiers cost limits, considerable additional capabilities (drills, robotic arms, sensors, etc) could be added to the landers if funded by external sources. For example, the mass of the strawman instrument suite for the Discovery mission is 11.3 kg, and the mass of the instrument suite for the New Frontiers mission is 31.2 kg, but the Phoenix platform allowed 65.0 kg.

The New Frontiers class rover, costed at $1,049M, would bring a rock corer like the one planned for the MAX-C rover, a mass spectrometer, imagers, and a meteorological package, all with heritage from other Mars rover missions. The rover itself would be based closely on the MER rovers. The mission would be expected to last at most 90 sols if based on solar power because of the encroachment of the polar cap and lack of sunlight near the pole as winter approaches. The value of the rover is that it would be able to directly access multiple polar deposit layers.

The next post in this series will include my selection of the most compelling mission from among the MAX-C rover, Mars Geophysical Network, and Mar Polar Climate missions.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Mars Background, Part 2 (Mars Geophysical Network)

2010-12-20T22:06:00.000-05:00

This continues a series of posts inspired by a similar set of posts at Future Planetary Exploration blog selecting the 5 most compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey list. This is the 2nd of 3 reviews of potential Mars missions, building up to a selection from that list (and I've already revealed that Mars will not be skipped in my selection of 5 compelling missions).

The Mars Geophysical Network Options Decadal Survey study presents a number of options beyond the Network Pathfinder described in the previous post to study the interior of Mars. The science to be addressed by these mission options includes seismology, precision tracking to measure Mars rotation rate, precession, nutation, and polar motion, meteorology to determine atmospheric effects to the seismology instrumentation, subsurface heat flow analysis, and electromagnetic sounding. Science goals including measuring the structure, composition, and size of the crust, mantle, and core, and measuring heat flow through the crust. For simplicity, only the key seismology and (telecommunications-based) precision tracking capabilities are considered in cost comparisons, although there is ample room for more instrumentation in the landing mass allowances. Because multiple simultaneous seismology measurements increase the value of these measurements considerably, from 1 to 3 distributed landers are considered in the options (hence the Geophysical Network). Other variations beyond the number of landers include landing method (airbag or powered), mission "class" (New Frontiers, Discovery, or Mission of Opportunity hitching a ride), and method to get to Mars (shared vehicle, free flyer, or secondary payload)

Interestingly, the basic "Mission of Opportunity" scenario estimated costs ranged from $522M to $627M, far higher than the Sky Crane Network Pathfinder option described in the previous post. New Frontiers class scenarios with 2-3 landers ranged from $1,015M to $1,347M; only the scenario with only 2 powered landers fit the New Frontiers cost limit. For the Discovery mission class options which all had only 1 lander, only the Falcon 9 launch and powered landing approached (but, at $720M, still exceeded) the anticipated FY15 Discovery mission cost limit. It is noted that for these missions with high heritage from systems already used on Mars (e.g.: Mars Phoenix, Mars Exploration Rovers, and Mars Pathfinder), the Decadal Survey's required development phase reserves (50%) might be more than is needed for these mission options with little technology to develop. Also, costs were made based on all U.S. development, but it's expected that the main instrument, the seismometer, would be contributed by a European agency. It's possible that additional instruments would use funding sources from outside NASA Planetary Science, too.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Mars Background, Part 1 (MAX-C Rover)

2010-12-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

This continues a series of posts inspired by a similar set of posts at Future Planetary Exploration blog selecting the 5 most compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey list.

As should be no surprise, Mars is well represented in the Planetary Science Decadal Survey Mission and Technology Studies. My personal selection of the most compelling Planetary Science missions probably goes against the prevailing preference of the Planetary Science community, so I'm certainly not going to be so rash as to skip favored Mars in my list of compelling missions. The question then becomes which Mars mission should I select from the Decadal Survey's list?

The Survey includes 7 papers on Mars missions, but the choice isn't going to be as hard as that makes it sound. Two of the papers are on the same general topic - a Mars Geophysical Network mission. Three are on a 3-part series of missions to return Mars samples to Earth, and I'm simply going to rule out selection of the 2nd and 3rd of these missions in case the 1st fails or does not find samples that are interesting enough to deserve 2 additional missions to return. There is a study on Sky Crane capabilities for the 2018 Mars opportunity which really boils down to a potential augmentation of the first of the Mars sample return missions. Finally, there is an investigation on a variety Mars Polar Climate missions. In other words, there are 3 basic missions to choose from, possibly followed by additional choices on the details of the selected mission.

Out of the 3 basic mission choices, the first of 3 Mars Sample Return missions surely has the most backing within the Mars science community. That community has hungered for Mars Sample Return since, well, the Noachian period, it seems. Not only that, but the 2018 MAX-C Caching Rover, which is to perform this first phase of the sample return sequence, is part of a multi-component international collaboration between NASA and ESA. In 2016, NASA and ESA plan to launch the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and an ESA Mars landing technology demonstration. The Mars Trace Gas Orbiter is intended to investigate methane and other trace gases on Mars. This will help select interesting destinations for the 2018 mission. The orbiter will also serve as a telecommunications relay for the 2018 lander elements.

The 2018 NASA-ESA collaboration uses the Sky Crane landing method of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory. However, instead of one larger rover, this time the payload is 2 smaller rovers. ESA will contribute the ExoMars Rover, which will be able to drill 2 meters and collect soil samples. The rover includes a variety of instruments to analyze the samples, drilled hole, and region around the rover.

NASA's 2018 contributions include the rocket, Sky Crane, and Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher Rover. This rover would be able to rove 20 km over 500 sols, retrieve 19 ten-gram rock core samples, and store them in a cache that is easily fetched by the next phase of the sample return (with a backup cache that also holds 19 samples). The proposed rover instruments include a Panorama camera like the MER and Phoenix lander cameras to identify good sample sites and to give sample context, a NIR spectrometer for mineralogical mapping, an arm-mounted microscopic imager like the MER one, an Alpha-Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) similar to the MER and MSL ones to show what elements make up rocks the instrument is placed on, a Raman/fluorescence instrument to assess organics in rocks, and a sample caching system using an arm, drill, and caches.

All of this in-situ science and sample return preparation is compelling, but the decision becomes more difficult when costs are considered. The estimated FY15 cost (with the usual reserves) for NASA's contributions to the 2018 mission is about $2.2B. That's quite a lot. Now to be fair, the mission doesn't just do top quality in-situ science and take a big step towards the Mars sample return holy grail. It also delivers an entirely separate and capable rover from ESA that can do work that MAX-C can't, which probably makes the 2 rovers more valuable as a team than they would be as rovers at separate locations.

Still. $2.2B ...

The Sky Crane study raises an interesting possibility. Apparently, even with 2 rovers, there is plenty of room for additional payload for the mission. For an additional $150M, a basic geophysical Network Pathfinder could be delivered to the Martian surface with the 2 rovers. Mass delivery margin would be 29%, which is less than the 30% that is required, but this is close enough that a more detailed investigation might find ways to fit the additional payload comfortably within the mass margin like merging the Network Lander and landing pallet. The Network Pathfinder would include a seismometer and meteorological sensors. (More ambitious Network Pathfinder scenarios are also presented should the ESA rover not be assigned to the mission).

Still, it might be nice to see that Sky Crane actually work on Mars for MSL before developing the MAX-C plan.

The bottom line is that this is a compelling mission, but it's expensive. Is it compelling enough to be worth the expense (and therefore missed opportunities)? Will I let my emotional annoyance at the fact that the mission uses a whole new rover design after all the trouble we went to design and build MSL and the MER rovers before that, and even uses the Sky Crane in a different way (2 rovers instead of 1) get the best of me? Find out as I take a look at the Mars Geophysical Network and Mars Polar Climate mission concepts in the next 2 posts.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Enceladus Orbiter

2010-12-14T23:11:00.003-05:00

For my first choice of compelling missions from the Planetary Science Decadal Survey Mission List, I picked the Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer mission to send a rover to the Moon to assess the volatiles there. This mission has great science and "astronaut scouting" potential. However, in my first post in the series, I said that

Planetary Science should not have to be warped beyond recognition into a substitute Robotic Precursor program just because Congress isn't wise enough to adequately fund Robotic Precursors.

While robotic "astronaut scouting" has a great deal of value, we should let Planetary Science be Planetary Science, and the Jupiter and Saturn systems (if I may group them together) are certainly top-tier Planetary Science subjects. As a result, it's just a matter of choosing one of the Jupiter and Saturn missions from the Decadal Survey list for the second-place spot.

The front-runner for a Jupiter or Saturn mission is probably the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO). There are a number of reasons to pick this one as my second most compelling mission:

The Vision for Space Exploration that this blog takes its name from specifically identifies robotic missions to Jupiter's moons (in that case the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JIMO):

Conduct robotic exploration across the solar system for scientific purposes and to support human exploration. In particular, explore Jupiter’s moons, asteroids and other bodies to search for evidence of life, to understand the history of the solar system, and to search for resources;

However, the VSE also mentions missions to Saturn to follow Cassini, such as a Titan balloon. I'd suggest that the VSE would have also considered Enceladus had it been written long enough after Cassini's work at Saturn started.

A Europa orbiter has been studied in detail for many years. Such a mission has been a high priority for the Planetary Science community for years, too. JEO also has the potential for mutual observations with ESA's Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter if that mission is selected. JEO would not only study Europa from orbit with instruments like a laser altimeter, ice-penetrating radar, and many others to find out about Europa's likely subsurface ocean, deep interior, ice shell, and surface, but it would also conduct numerous flybys of Ganymede, Callisto, and Io, and would be able to study the entire Jupiter system during its long tour towards Europa orbit. It would also be able to conduct its mission years before an Enceladus orbiter. In addition, researchers have had many years to consider the Galileo results, whereas Cassini is still in operation and could still change our perspective on just how an Enceladus mission should be conducted.

Now that I've made the case for JEO, I'm going to select an Enceladus orbiter as my second most compelling mission instead. Enceladus wins me over for 2 reasons: the JEO price tag is a bit scary (even the Enceladus orbiter is not cheap), and Enceladus has those plumes! The Titan Saturn System Mission would also study the plumes of Enceladus, to say nothing of also conducting a staggeringly ambitious investigation of Titan and the entire Saturn system with a spacecraft bristling with instruments and carrying a Titan lake lander and a balloon, but again the estimated cost is too high ($3.248B for the floor mission, not counting partner costs) for my faster-better-cheaper instincts.

The Decadal Survey looked into a number of Enceladus missions, including flybys, landers, and orbiters (see "Enceladus Flyby and Sample Return Concept Studies" on the Planetary Science Decadal Survey Mission & Technology Studies page). The conclusion was that Enceladus landers would be better done after an orbiter mission, and orbiter missions would return more science than sample return missions of similar cost. The "Enceladus Orbiter Concept Study" available on the same page gives more details about orbiter mission options.

Like JEO, an Enceladus Orbiter would conduct a tour of its destination planetary system before intense study of its destination moon. The tour presented includes 40 flybys of Titan, Rhea, Dione, and Tethys, and 20 flybys of Enceladus itself, before the Enceladus orbit phase. The main goals of the orbiter would be to study the source of the plumes, the composition, rate, and dynamics of the plumes themselves, the geology of Enceladus, the internal makeup of Enceladus including the subsurface ocean, scouting for future landers, and studies of other moons it would fly by. Instruments would include a camera designed for the tiger stripe region of Enceladus, a thermal imaging radiometer, a mass spectrometer to measure the makeup of the plumes while the orbiter goes through them, a dust analyzer, and a magnetometer to study the moon's magnetic field for clues about the subsurface ocean as Galileo did for Jupiter's icy moons.

Little technology development would be needed for the mission. The baseline mission cost in FY15 dollars is projected to be $1.613B, including a significant amount for post-launch work like conducting the journey to Saturn and the science phase over many years.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions: Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer

2010-12-12T17:58:00.002-05:00

See Part 1: Compelling Planetary Science Missions in this series of posts.

My first selection for the most compelling planetary science mission on the Decadal Survey list is the Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer (LPVE). From the Executive Summary:

The Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer concept involves placing a lander and rover (with an instrument payload) in a permanently sun-shadowed lunar polar crater. The rover will carry a suite of science instruments to investigate the location, composition, and state of volatiles. While previous orbital missions have provided data that support the possibility of water ice deposits existing in the polar region, this LPVE concept seeks to understand the nature of those volatiles by direct in-situ measurement. A prospecting strategy is employed to enable lateral and vertical sampling only where higher hydrogen concentrations are detected, thus eliminating the criticality of statistically significant numbers and distributions of samples required by stochastic approaches.

As with most or all of the Decadal Survey mission concepts, there are more and less capable variants of this mission. For example, some instruments that are in more capable variants could be dropped for a more affordable but less capable mission, and the rover power system could be based on batteries or ASRGs.

Lunar volatiles are of scientific interest

because they record not only those released from the interior of the Moon during its geologic evolution, but also species derived from the solar wind, cosmic dust, and comets. Thus, the volatiles in the cold traps provide a record of the evolution of the Moon, the history of the sun, and the nature of comets that have entered the inner solar system over the last several billion years.

They are also of interest as potential resources for later exploration missions or even lunar and cis-lunar space infrastructure development.

The LPVE mission seeks to answer questions about the distribution, chemical and isotopic composition, physical form, and deposition rate of the volatiles. We don't know the distribution of the volatiles, so we need a mobile explorer so we can test multiple locations. That's where the rover comes in. A neutron spectrometer on the rover is used to identify locations in the regolith with hydrogen. The rover positions itself at the locations. It's able to drill 2 meters into the regolith. Instruments like another neutron spectrometer and an imager can be put in the drill hole to assess any volatiles there. This allows the rover to identify the best sample locations within the hole. The rover is able to retrieve samples from the drill hole and bring them to a gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer that heats them for analysis.

In addition to these "core" capabilities, "priority 2" instruments include X-Ray diffraction to measure the mineralogy of the retrieved samples, ground-penetrating radar and surface imaging for geological context, and a mass spectrometer to measure the lunar exosphere.

The fully-capable mission variant with an ASRG would be expected to last over a year and to be able to travel nearly 200 km. It would be able to take 460 samples. Battery variants would last a few days, be able to travel a few km, and be able to take about 20 samples. Since this is my most compelling mission pick, I would be inclined to go for the full instrument suite and ASRG power supply in this case. The difference in mission cost (at least in the estimates presented in the report) is minor, and the increased capability is significant. The fully capable mission cost is estimated to be $1.132B in FY15 dollars; the battery mission cost is estimated to be $0.972B. That's a lot of money in either case, but all of the missions in the Decadal Survey list are in the more expensive New Frontiers or Flagship mission classes. If any funds are available from the Robotic Precursor line in upcoming years, one might imagine that funding line contributing an instrument or 2, making it easier for Planetary Science to run a fully capable LPVE mission.

In addition to the science, "astronaut scouting", and resource potential of this mission, I find the idea of a capable rover moving across hundreds of kilometers while drilling into the dirt to be compelling at a more basic level. It seems that this sort of mission speaks to the handyman or "Dirty Jobs" part of our nature. It just looks like a lot of fun.

Compelling Planetary Science Missions

2010-12-12T16:13:00.000-05:00

The blog Future Planetary Exploration has a series of posts that present one view of the 5 most compelling planetary science missions from the list that the Planetary Science Decadal Survey is considering. The posts describe missions that would most fundamentally advance our understanding of the solar system. Using this measure, they do a good job of justifying the selection of the 4 missions described so far:

Thoughts on the Most Compelling Proposed Planetary Mission - This initial post in the series gives some background, and proposes the first of 3 missions for Mars Sample Return, the 2018 MAX-C rover, as the most compelling mission. In spite of some skepticism about technical difficulty and cost, the opportunity to take advantage of the favorable 2018 Mars launch window, the Mars Surface Laboratory team's capabilities that would otherwise be dispersed, and the ability to work with Europe's ExoMars with subsurface sample capabilities is too tempting to pass up.

Compelling Missions - Part 2 - The Venus Climate Flagship, a scaled-down version of an ambitious Venus Flagship mission concept, is presented as the second most compelling mission. This was posted a bit before the Decadal Survey list was released, so my interpretation is that it isn't so much a selection of the specific Venus Climate mission that's on the Survey's list, but rather that NASA would at least make some significant contribution to Venus studies, perhaps as part of a multinational Venus mission.

Compelling Missions 3 and 4: Icy Ocean Worlds - Missions to explore the icy Jovian moons and Saturn's Titan and Enceladus are next on the list. The preference is for the Europa Jupiter System Flagship mission and one of the Enceladus orbiter missions with significant Titan capability, but

this combination would cost almost $6B. Combine that with a $3-4B investment in Mars missions (which I predict will be the Decadal Survey's top priority) and a couple of Discovery missions, and that's pretty much the entire budget for missions next decade. I also think that the Flagship missions may face have a couple of programmatic challenges. First, NASA's last two choices for Flagship-scale missions, the Mars Science Laboratory and the James Webb Space Telescope, both experienced large cost overruns. ...

Several later posts look at lower-cost options to achieve some of the goals at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

While waiting for the last compelling mission, I decided to make my own series of "most compelling mission" posts with a different perspective. These are supposed to be Planetary Science missions, so science return is an appropriate measure to use to compare the various missions. However, I'd like to bring other factors into play, too.

I'd like to consider the Planetary Science missions in the context of our overall exploration and development of space. A mission that helps NASA's human spaceflight program (whether Vision for Space Exploration, Flexible Path to Mars, or other approach) and/or traditional and new commercial space efforts will have an edge in my evaluation. On the other hand, we are talking about Planetary Science, not Robotic Precursor missions. Therefore, I will stick to the Decadal Survey list, which is full of missions with high-priority science content. Planetary Science should not have to be warped beyond recognition into a substitute Robotic Precursor program just because Congress isn't wise enough to adequately fund Robotic Precursors.

For a fair comparison, I won't even consider the current 3 New Frontiers finalists (SAGE, a Venus lander mission, MoonRise, for sample return from the lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin, and OSIRIS-REx, for sample return from the asteroid 1999 RQ36), although I would otherwise be inclined to put them near or at the top of my list.

Decadal Survey: The Candy Store Posted - In order to play this game, you have to know what the proposed missions are. This Future Planetary Exploration post gives the links and information needed to find out about the missions the Decadal Survey is evaluating. The Decadal Survey reports are here. The post also includes a handy table that summarizes the missions, their anticipated launch, arrival, and end dates, and a cost estimate or cost range for each mission. Certain missions' cost estimates can be considered to be more reliable than others for various reasons (heritage, maturity of the particular mission proposal, etc), but I'll just take them as presented here.

Twitter Account

2010-12-11T14:10:00.000-05:00

I have a new twitter account: VisionRestore.

Also, I have some ideas for posts that have been simmering for quite a while, waiting for a chance to be written down. I won't make any promises on when I'll finish, but I've finally started.

That Would Have Saved Me a Lot of Time

2010-08-31T19:32:00.037-04:00

Summoning the Future By Remembering the Past - SpaceRef - Dennis Wingo's statement describes what I've intended, in a rather long-winded way, to say on this blog:

When the Obama administration's FY 2010 budget was introduced it was a breath of fresh air. The unsustainable Constellation program was cancelled and commercial spaceflight was embraced to support the ISS, and technology game changing missions funded that would lower the cost and provide a flexible path for exploration. However, the abandonment of a destination coupled with no real rational for what to do in Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) exploration erased the vision (i.e. sense of purpose) part of the exploration plan.

...

The economic development of the solar system was the core value that made George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration exciting and worthwhile to the nation. The implementation was horribly done in the most wrong way possible. The Obama plan is the right implementation, but without the core value of economic development starting at the Moon, it is bereft of a moral underpinning.

The Obama administration's implementation is the right one, and the one that was intended with Bush's Vision for Space Exploration: make heavy use of robotic precursor missions, enable strong participation by commercial space and international partners, ensure that the effort is affordable over the long term, make steady progress, and encourage practical technology innovation.

The Flexible Path idea of performing easier deep space missions on the way to the surface of rocky worlds also makes sense. However, as distances increase, these deep space missions tend to become more difficult themselves, and to become less immediately useful in an economic sense. A hybrid of missions to the earlier, easier, and more immediately practical Flexible Path destinations done often enough to develop space infrastructure and commercial capabilities at those destinations, followed by a strong lunar surface push enabled by that infrastructure as planned in the Vision for Space Exploration, would keep the best parts of both approaches, while in the long run making the more distant deep space destinations on the Flexible Path more reachable.

The Administration's plan looks particularly strong in the area of technology - perhaps too strong for some - but this appearance could be changed simply by renaming some of the Flagship Technology Demonstrations to be simply "Missions", "Modules", and "Spacecraft". For the initial set we'd have the Space Tug spacecraft, the Inflatable Habitat ISS module, the Advanced Solar Electric Propulsion mission, and the Aerocapture mission ... and we'd still have a couple "Flagship Technology Demonstrations" as well.

Switching the Heavy Lift and Propulsion Technology effort to an affordable, modest increase in EELV or similar capabilities (e.g.: to 40-50mT to LEO) with development starting fairly soon would also give the Administration's proposal more of an operational flavor, while still leaving NASA with a strong technology portfolio.

The Not-So-Great Compromise: Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle

2010-08-28T18:09:00.094-04:00

In the previous posts in this series (see the tag below for the whole bunch), I speculated on what might be accomplished with a compromise between the Senate and the Administration in the Exploration areas of NASA's FY2011-FY2015 budget. My hypothetical scenario took the Senate Authorization bill as a baseline, since that bill gives some idea what would happen over several years. In particular, that bill a good idea what the Senate has in mind after the Shuttle is retired. In the other posts, I showed areas that could be made much better by shifting funds from the Senate's Heavy Lift rocket and Orion budget lines (or the Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, as they are called in the bill). In this post, I'll look at what might happen to the HLV and astronaut spacecraft.

First, let's look at the funding that's available for the HLV and spacecraft in the Senate bill. Figures are in millions of dollars.

FY....MPCV........SLS.........Launch/Infrastructure
2011..1120........1631........428.6
2012..1400........2650........500
2013..1400........2640........400

The Launch Support and Infrastructure Modernization program is

a program the primary purpose of which is to prepare infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center that is needed to enable processing and launch of the Space Launch System.

We are therefore justified in lumping this funding with the other SLS/MPCV budget lines.

If we project the trend here through FY2015, we have an SLS/MPCV program that would cost $21B or so over that period. That's after $10B or so invested in Constellation.

Ouch.

Now we know how the Commercial Crew, Exploration Technology Development and Demonstration, Robotic Precursor, Space Technology, and commercially-oriented KSC upgrade budgets all but vanished.

Our hypothetical example compromise reduced the SLS/MPCV budget by $1B/year, or $5B total. That still leaves about $16B dedicated to the SLS and MPCV over this period. It would still be a huge NASA effort. The question is, would cutting their budgets by this amount do the same thing to SLS/MPCV that SLS/MPCV did to Commercial Crew, Exploration Technology, Robotic Precursor, Space Technology, and the rest in the Senate budgets? I don't think so. I think we could still have a viable HLV and spacecraft program with $16B over this time period, perhaps building on some of the work already done for Constellation.

First let's take a look at some of the provisions in the bill:

Requirements in new launch and crew systems authorized in this Act should be scaled to the minimum necessary to meet the core national mission capability needed to conduct cis-lunar missions. These initial missions, along with the development of new technologies and in-space capabilities can form the foundation for missions to other destinations. These initial missions also should provide operational experience prior to the further human expansion into space. ...
It is the policy of the United States that NASA develop a Space Launch System as a follow-on to the Space Shuttle that can access cis-lunar space and the regions of space beyond low-Earth orbit in order to enable the United States to participate in global efforts to access and develop this increasingly strategic region.

In addition, the MPCV should have the

capability to conduct regular in-space operations, such as rendezvous, docking, and extra-vehicular activities, in conjunction with payloads delivered by the Space Launch System developed pursuant to section 302, or other vehicles, in preparation for missions beyond low-Earth orbit or servicing of assets described in section 804, or other assets in cis-lunar space.

This is exactly the sort of capability that I argue for in what I call "step 2", the centerpiece, of the Flexible Path to the Moon. The ability to usefully access destinations like GEO, lunar orbit, and Earth-Moon Lagrange points is crucial. Having a vehicle that allows EVAs, rendezvous and docking, servicing of space assets, and other jobs in cislunar space is a key enabler of future exploration, commerce, science, and security applications. I'm pleased the Senate focuses so much on this sort of capability, rather than Constellation which focused mainly on Ares I/Orion ISS access, causing the next step, straight to the lunar surface in decades-long slow motion, to be a leap too far. Lunar access needs to happen in a more incremental fashion, building on self-sustaining cislunar space capabilities.

I am concerned with the development cost of the SLS and MPCV and its effect on other priorities, and I am also concerned with the eventual operations costs of these systems. However, at least they are focused on appropriate goals, even if those goals might better be achieved with commercially-derived launchers such as the ideas based on EELVs. However, in the spirit of compromise, let's see if we can make this Shuttle and Orion-derived cislunar space capability work with $16B through FY2015.

The Senate bill requires

The initial capability of the core elements, without an upper stage, of lifting payloads weighing between 70 tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit in preparation for transit for missions beyond low-Earth orbit. ... The capability to carry an integrated upper Earth departure stage bringing the total lift capability of the Space Launch System to 130 tons or more. ... Developmental work and testing of the core elements and the upper stage should proceed in parallel subject to appropriations. Priority should be placed on the core elements with the goal for operational capability for the core elements not later than December 31, 2016.

This brings up a number of areas where the Senate could relax requirements, and thereby increase the ultimate chance of success for the SLS while allowing other programs like Robotic Precursors and Exploration Technology to function. First, the Senate could relax the December 2016 date. I don't think there's anything urgent planned that day, so why not push it back a year or 2? The same goes for the MPCV, which has similar schedule requirements.

Another item that could be postponed is the upper stage. Do we really need to work on the upper stage in parallel with the core elements? Relaxing that requirement will allow the program to concentrate on the core elements, and thus increase the chance of success in that area, while at the same time allowing other programs (potential SLS payloads in some cases?) to survive, thus removing several sources of political opposition to the SLS. The core elements should keep us busy for quite a while. The upper stage could be considered much later.

The SLS also has a requirement to launch the MPCV. The Senate could change that requirement so the SLS doesn't have to go through the expense of crew rating. The MPCV could be morphed into an in-space only vehicle, with crew space access enabled by commercial crew services.

The MPCV could be scaled back to a CRV as the Administration suggested this Spring. This could be a temporary move to allow funding for other areas, and the MPCV could later reach full functionality (as an Orion-like vehicle or an in-space only - perhaps even reusable - vehicle).

The 70 and 130 ton requirements also present a potential difficulty. They seem to lead NASA to an inline SDHLV, since the sidemount options can't reach 130 ton capability with reasonable upgrade paths. However, NASA's sidemount and inline development cost estimates (PDF; see slide page 7) are $11B and $15B, respectively, if Shuttle is cancelled. The same charts show sidemount being delivered 2 years earlier than inline, and being a low-risk development compared to what they assess to be the high risk of inline options. In addition, the sidemount has an early Block I variant that could be performing missions even earlier, and that variant could be developed for much less than the combined Block I and Block II, perhaps allowing much of the Block II development work to be done after our years of concern FY2011-FY2015. A chart from the NASASpaceflight.com article Completed SD HLV assessment highlights low-cost post-shuttle solution shows the Block I development costs as $2.5B, although there would be other costs such as KSC infrastructure work.

In the universe of Shuttle-derived HLVs, inline options have their own advantages over sidemount variants (perhaps including growth options as well as safety if crew launch is to be supported), but if we put a premium on lower development costs because we want a compromise between the Senate and Administration plans, and thus want to have more funding for Exploration Technology Demonstration and Development, Robotic Precursors, Commercial Crew, or other Administration proposals, sidemount may be preferable overall, and good enough to meet the goals of the Senate.

In short, there are many ways the Senate can relax SLS and/or MPCV requirements, including schedule, performance, and functional capabilities. Depending on which of these options are taken, doing so could leave enough funding to bring other NASA budget lines from the Senate's non-viable condition to adequate, if limited, health. Even with such a compromise, the SLS and MPCV would still have every chance to succeed and contribute to NASA's work, and in fact they may be even healthier because they might gain payloads and spacecraft technology, as well as political support, from the other budget lines.

On the other hand, a stubborn line-in-the-sand approach would likely leave the SLS and MPCV with no technology and robotic precursor payloads, no exploration technology infusion into the MPCV, numerous political enemies, impossible schedules, difficult performance requirements, and expected functionality that will have to be dropped during development.

The Not-So-Great Compromise: Commercial Crew

2010-08-25T22:37:00.026-04:00

If you've been reading this series of posts from the beginning, by now you will have noticed a pattern. In the areas of the NASA budget where there is some disagreement, the Senate bills cut funding for the Administration proposals so much that those areas cannot accomplish what they are intended to accomplish. I don't intend to discuss all of them. Commercial crew is one example that deserves some discussion, though. Here's how commercial crew fares in the Administration and Senate Authorization proposals (the Senate Appropriations Committee was less favorable to Commercial Crew in the year it covered, FY2011):

FY----Administration----Senate
2011..500...............312
2012..1400..............500
2013..1400..............500
2014..1300
2015..1200

If we extrapolate the Senate's post-Shuttle, post-COTS figures, over FY2011-FY2015, Commercial Crew gets $2.3B from the Senate, and $5.8B from the Administration. That's a dramatic cut by the Senate, especially considering the concern that some members of the Senate say they have for astronaut safety. Some members of the Senate are also critical of one commercial space company in particular, but it seems that if the Senate has a Commercial Crew line but drastically underfunds it, only companies like that one with a focus of low cost will be able to compete for the money in the commercial crew line!

It should be noted that Senator Nelson has stated that the Senate's Commercial Crew funding would be stretched to FY2016, and would include the full amount requested by the Administration by then. That's a bit hard to believe. Look how far behind the Senate is by FY2013 already. Then consider that a sharp increase in Commercial Crew funding would have to come at the expense of some other program. What budget will be cut for this far-future promised Commercial Crew increase? Will it come from the SLS? Orion? I doubt it. Will the SLS or Orion suddenly need far less funding in FY2014? I doubt it. Quite the opposite is more likely. Those programs will either hit the usual schedule delays and cost overruns, or they will need to start thinking about big end-of-development costs for major tests, followed by high operations costs. The promised future Commercial Crew funds sound like Dr. Griffin's promise of commercial markets on the Moon based on government lunar infrastructure needs. That's a good idea, but when it's obvious that your particular transportation architecture isn't going to lead to government lunar infrastructure in the first place, the promise has a particularly hollow ring.

In my hypothetical improvement to the Senate's Not-So-Great "Compromise", half of the $1B/year shifted from SLS/Orion in favor of robotic precursor missions, exploration technology development and demonstrations, and commercial crew would go to the Commercial Crew line. Over 5 years this would increase the Commercial Crew amount from the Senate's $2.3B to $4.8B, which approaches the Administration's amount. If we continue Commercial Crew development funding for an additional year as suggested by Senator Nelson, and use the same funding rate, we get to $5.8B, which is the amount the Administration proposed.

Suddenly the Senate's Commercial Crew plan that is scaled to almost ensure a risky corner-cutting effort is changed to one that can support a healthy competition with both traditional and new competitors and their differing approaches. It won't be quite as fast as the Administration's original plan, and it won't have nearly as much KSC support, since in the Senate Appropriations report the 21st Century Launch Complex line must give NASA vehicles like the SLS priority, but it should enable multiple independent crew solutions that have enough funding to provide the safety and reliability features we need.

So, to sum up the last few posts, with a $1B/year shift from SLS/Orion to robotic precursors, commercial crew, and exploration technology, we should be able to turn those funding lines from completely non-viable shadows of their intended capabilities to functional, if quite limited, focused, and lean, versions of the original plan. At the same time this compromise can leave SLS/Orion in functional shape, too, as I'll discuss in the next post. Of course there is nothing magical about the $1B/year figure - others could work, too.

Does the plan give the Administration everything they want? No - it still limits and delays funds for robotic precursors, commercial crew, and exploration technology. It leaves the Space Technology line as it is now in the Senate bills. It leave Human Research as it is now in the Senate bills. It eliminates the Administration's Heavy Lift and Propulsion research and development line. It changes the purpose of the 21st Century Launch Complex line. It does all of this, but it gives the Administration some of what it wants by making some of its proposals viable. Unlike the current Senate bills, that would represent a real compromise.

The Not-So-Great Compromise: Exploration Technology Demonstrations and Development

2010-08-24T20:32:00.000-04:00

Like the Robotic Precursor missions, NASA's proposed Exploration Technology and Demonstrations program includes 2 main categories of work. In this case, the 2 categories are Flagship Technology Demonstrations and Enabling Technology Development and Demonstration.

The Flagship Technology Demonstrations are major demonstrations of exploration technologies. These missions are expected to cost from $400M to $1B each. The Enabling Technology Development and Demonstration efforts are smaller (typically under $100M), and could include lab work, field tests, and even demonstrations in space.

NASA's initial FY2011 Enabling Technology Development and Demonstration (ETDD) Point of Departure Plans (PDF) included the following:

Lunar Volatiles Characterization - Demonstrate ISRU technology in a thermal vacuum chamber followed by testing on the Moon as part of a robotic precursor mission.
High Power Electric Propulsion - Demonstrate a prototype > 100 kW solar electric propulsion system in a thermal vacuum chamber with the intent to eventually demonstrating the technology in space under the Flagship Technology Demonstrations program.
Autonomous Precision Landing - demonstrate an autonomous landing and hazard avoidance system on Earth, perhaps using a VTVL landing vehicle as a carrying platform. This would eventually lead to a test on a body like the Moon.
Human Exploration Telerobotics - Demonstrate telerobotics to and from the ISS to simulate telerobotics for NEOs or Mars.
Fission Power Systems Technology - Demonstrate components of a 40 kW fission power system.

NASA's ambitious Flagship Technology Demonstrations Point of Departure (POD) Plans (PDF) includes an initial set of 4 missions to demonstrate 6 exploration technologies. The initial set of Flagship exploration technologies is:

Advanced Solar Electric Propulsion - including advanced solar arrays
In-Orbit Propellant Storage and Transfer
Lightweight/Inflatable Modules
Automated/Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D)
Closed-Loop Life Support - demonstrated in the new module on the ISS
Aerocapture and/or Entry, Descent and Precision Landing

These initial technologies would be demonstrated on 4 missions:

FTD 1 - Advanced In-Space Propulsion Demonstration, possibly using the NEXT propulsion system, FAST solar array technology, and a new space tug that would deliver the in-space propulsion payload and test some AR&D capabilities. The COMPASS Final Report envisions the propulsion demonstration delivering a payload to Mars and its moons, but because NASA plans for astronauts to first explore a NEO, and because the Senate bill funds robotic precursors so weakly, one might consider a NEO mission for this technology demonstration
FTD 2 - In-Space Propellant Transfer and Storage Demonstration, including more demonstrations of the space tug's capabilities
FTD 3 - Inflatable ISS Mission Module Demonstration, including use of the space tug to deliver the inflatable module to the ISS, and use of the inflatable module as the main test home on the ISS for various closed loop life support demonstrations that would be gradually phased into the module
FTD 4 - Aerocapture and Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Demonstration that perhaps delivers a payload to Mars

Like the Robotic Precursor line, the Senate drastically underfunds NASA's Exploration Technology Development and Demonstration line compared to the Administration's plan. Let's compare the Administration and Senate Authorization proposals for this account. Figures are in millions of dollars:

FY----Administration----Senate
2011..652...............250
2012..1262..............437.3
2013..1808..............449
2014..2013
2015..2087

If we extend the Authorization Committee's post-Shuttle pattern to FY2015, we see that there is a about a 4-fold difference: about $7.8B in the Administration budget compared to about $2.0B in the Senate budget.

Let's see how much we can accomplish with the 2 budgets. This will require making some assumptions. Let's assume NASA doesn't scale its technology efforts to brush against the upper limits on the Flagship and Enabling programs (i.e. $1B and $100M, respectively), but when faced with the typical setbacks and delays in aerospace work, the projects wind up costing about those amounts anyway. In that case, how much can we get done with the 2 approaches?

I've described NASA's initial set of technology efforts. However, these are only the initial set. Even if we assume the 4 Flagship missions cost $1B each, and the 5 Enabling Technology efforts cost $100M each, we are still only at $4.5B of the planned $7.8B in the Administration budget. There is room for quite a few more Flagship Demonstration missions and Enabling Technology developments in that budget. Not only that, but for the later missions, the AR&D space tug vehicle will have completed a diverse set of demonstrations, so we could expect later Flagship missions that use the space tug to be cheaper or to demonstrate even more "payload" capabilities, since they likely would not have to fund development of new AR&D vehicle capabilities.

In contrast, the Senate doesn't allow us to accomplish much with this line. We could fund the initial 5 Enabling Technology efforts for $500M. We would have trouble taking successes from these efforts to the next level, though, in cases where the intent is to move the technology to a Robotic Precursor or a Flagship Technology Demonstration, since those 2 lines are drastically underfunded in the Senate bills. We could find ourselves with a number of technologies successfully demonstrated on Earth that wind up dying on the vine.

In addition to the 5 smaller ETDD efforts, we could also fund the first Flagship Technology Demonstration mission, and start funding the 2nd one. At that point, with the cost assumptions I made, we will have exhausted our funds. The first Flagship Technology Demonstration mission will have demonstrated limited autonomous rendezvous and docking capabilities, an advanced solar array system like DARPA's FAST array, and a 30 kW solar electric propulsion system. That would be the end through FY2015.

In other words, of the 6 initial technologies proposed for the Flagship line, with the Senate we will have demonstrated 1 instead of what we could expect with the Administration budget: all 6 and several more.

The advanced solar array and solar electric propulsion system should find many practical uses in commercial, military, and civil applications, unlike, say, a NASA heavy lift rocket where NASA has to maintain an expensive infrastructure whether or not it uses it. Thus, completing only FTD-1 is not a complete loss. In fact, it is the potential for such practical uses, and the associated motivation non-NASA (commercial, government, or academic) partners (in this case probably including DARPA) have to demonstrate these technologies so they are available for production use, that will provide the additional focus (and perhaps funding) that will help these missions to succeed.

However, as practical as it is, by itself, even a successful demonstrate of the solar electric propulsion and advanced solar array technology on FTD-1 will not be enough to enable cost-effective, productive, and safe BEO astronaut work. It will have nice side benefits, but by itself it will not make much difference to exploration, its main purpose.

Essentially the Senate bill as it stands would cause the exploration technology effort to fail. With that bill, we will do what we can with existing technology, and that will be the end of it.

Is there a compromise between the Senate and Administration proposals that would allow the exploration technology effort to succeed, even though the ambitions of the effort would be more limited than those that NASA originally proposed? I think there is.

Earlier, I used an example $1B/year increase in robotic precursors, commercial crew, and exploration technology over the Senate proposal at the expense of the HLV, Orion, and Shuttle budgets as a sample compromise between the Senate and Administration proposals (i.e. this would fall much closer to the Senate proposal than the Administration proposal). In this rough example, Exploration Technology received an additional $250M/year, on average, compared to the Senate bill. That leaves it with about $3B from FY2011-2015 instead of the Senate's $2B or the Administration's $7.8B. In terms of money, we aren't going far from the Senate proposal here. What can we do with $3B given the above assumptions?

With $3B instead of $2B from FY2011-FY2015, with the assumptions I made, NASA should be able to implement the 5 initial Enabling Developments for $500M, and the first 2 Flagship Technology Demonstrations, which include solar electric propulsion, advanced solar arrays, and autonomous rendezvous and docking work in the first mission, and propellant depot technology as well as additional autonomous rendezvous and docking (space tug) work in the second mission. That achieves 2 of the 6 initial Flagship technologies, and most of the 3rd (AR&D vehicle/space tug). It's starting to get better.

The remaining funds from the $3B, $500M, should be able to achieve much of the work of the 3rd Flagship mission, which includes and inflatable habitat demonstration, closed-loop life support demonstrations, and the rest of the AR&D vehicle work. Perhaps with $500M the Exploration Technology line could fund the rest of the AR&D work, finishing the 3rd Flagship objective and getting the inflatable habitat to the ISS. Is it possible to build the inflatable habitat in the FY2011-FY2015 timeframe in the first place if that's where the technology money runs out?

The FY2011-FY2015 budget outlook includes a $2B boost to the ISS budget

to fully utilize the Station’s R&D capabilities to conduct scientific research, improve our capabilities for operating in space, and demonstrate new technologies

It seems to me that the inflatable habitat demonstration on the ISS, as well as the closed-loop life support demonstrations that would take place mainly on this addition to the ISS, could be moved within this enhanced ISS budget line. All of this work adds to the Station's capabilities, uses the Station's existing R&D capabilities, and demonstrates new technologies. If this effort is a little bit too big for the enhanced ISS budget to fund, the ECLSS demonstration, which includes numerous smaller technologies, could be scaled back a bit, pieces of it could be introduced more gradually than in the original plan, or some funding could come from the rest of the exploration technology line, if any money remains there (e.g.: if the AR&D work for FTD-3 doesn't use up the $500M). A commercial inflatable habitat partner might also pitch in some funding, for example, if they were allowed some control over the inflatable habitat for non-NASA commercial revenue purposes.

If this can be arranged, we will have achieved 5 of the 6 original Flagship technology goal, perhaps with only partial credit on ECLSS. Only aerocapture remains from the initial set of Flagship technologies. I consider aerocapture to be a lower priority, since it seems to have less immediate non-NASA (i.e. commercial, DoD, etc) applicability, and thus does not help as much to build the space industry, which seems as important as developing the specific technologies themselves for exploration purposes. Also, if we are using SLS/Orion, I don't see aerocapture at Earth as the most immediate priority. Mars aerocapture may be important some day, but astronaut Mars surface missions will be very far in the future indeed if we're spending lots of money on SLS/Orion, so again aerocapture is not a near-term (i.e. next couple decades) concern.

Aerocapture could come in handy for near-term robotic science missions, so I'd suggest taking the remaining Exploration Technology funds (hopefully $100M or $200M, depending on the details of the 3rd Flagship mission funding), and encouraging a science mission to demonstrate smaller-scale aerocapture as a first step. The NASA robotic science DISCOVERY 2010 Announcement of Opportunity already includes a $10M increase on the lander mission cost cap if such a Discovery mission uses aerocapture, and a $20M increase in the cost cap on an orbiter mission if such a Discovery mission uses aerocapture. A comparatively large supplement from the Exploration Technology line could perhaps be enough to get an initial demonstration of aerocapture on a robotic science mission. This would allow us to achieve all of the initial objectives of the Flagship line, with the caveat that some ECLSS demonstrations could be delayed or forgone, and aerocapture could be demonstrated on a smaller scale than originally planned, simply by increasing the Exploration Technology budget a little bit closer to the Administration's proposal, and by using some ISS funds for work that's appropriate for it.

Of course this is still not nearly as ambitious as the original Administration plan, which included several additional, if less well-defined, technology demonstrations that would follow the first set (for example, more ambitious aerocapture and high-performance propulsion demonstrations). On the other hand, it does allow significant progress on technologies that can enable more ambitious and cost-effective astronaut missions, more ambitious and cost-effective support of astronaut missions via cargo deliveries, and a more successful space industry as NASA's commercial and government partners make use of the demonstrated exploration technologies with multiple uses. The ability to make steady progress on the original 6 Flagship missions would also give some reason to hope that those Enabling Technology developments that need a new Flagship Technology Demonstration mission to reach operational status would eventually find such a mission.

The current Senate "compromise" allows the Senate to achieve its objectives through the SLS HLV, Orion, Shuttle, and SLS-oriented KSC upgrades, but it doesn't allow the Administration to achieve its exploration technology development objectives. A modest shift from the pure Senate plan towards the Administration plan, while still keeping most of the SLS, Orion, Shuttle, and KSC upgrade funding in place as the Senate proposed, would allow much of the Administration plan to be achieved, too. Such a compromise would be advantageous for both sides, since the new exploration technologies could support the SLS and Orion while the SLS and Orion provide another reason to develop the new technologies. In addition, funding the new exploration technologies enough to make progress on them would take away a considerable amount of objection to the SLS/Orion approach from various communities (i.e. Science, Commercial Space, grass roots, etc). In other words, it's even in the interest of the SLS/Orion advocates to fund exploration technology development enough so those developments can succeed.

The Not-So-Great Compromise: Robotic Precursor Missions

2010-08-20T21:08:00.111-04:00

In spite of the view held in some circles that "all we need is a good map", robotic precursor missions are essential if we are going to rocky destinations like the Moon, NEOs, Mars moons, or Mars, especially if we want to do so in an affordable, safe, and productive manner. We certainly do need a good map, and in fact we need many kinds of good maps. We also need much more than maps from robotic precursor missions. Example jobs for robotic precursor missions include assessing hazards to astronauts, measuring local resources, practicing use of those resources, performing various other technology demonstration tests, and evaluating potential locations for astronauts.

Let's compare the Administration and Senate Authorization proposals in terms of robotic precursor missions. Figures are in millions of dollars:

FY----Administration----Senate
2011..125...............100
2012..506...............100
2013..699...............100
2014..797
2015..923

If we extend the Authorization Committee's pattern to FY2015, we see that there is a 6-fold difference: about $3,000M in the Administration budget compared to $500M in the Senate budget.

Ouch.

NASA presented some early ideas on what they would like to do with a well-funded robotic precursor mission line. In May, during an exploration workshop, the FY 2011 Exploration Precursor Robotic Missions (xPRM) Point of Departure Plans (PDF) included:

a series of main robotic precursor missions ($500M - $800M each)
a series of small "Scout" missions ($100M - $200M each)
development of instruments to be flown on science missions
data systems, research, analysis, and sensor technology development

The initial set of proposed missions included:

FY----Large Mission----Scout----Hosted Instrument
2014..NEO Rendezvous...yes......yes
2015..Lunar Lander..............yes
2016..Mars Orbiter.....yes......yes
2017............................yes
2018..Mars Lander......yes......yes
2019..NEO Rendezvous............yes

This would have strained the available $3B budget from 2011-2015, but if some funding from later years is counted, perhaps it could be done. Probably the most serious flaw in this series of missions is that it emphasizes Mars too much, considering that Mars is such a distant goal in NASA's exploration schedule. NASA needs to focus much more on nearer-term destinations if it wants to succeed in the earlier steps on the way to Mars. We need multiple robotic precursor missions for our next rocky destination, whether that destination is the lunar surface as described in the Flexible Path to the Moon, or NEOs as described in the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars.

A more recent presentation shows that NASA's evolving robotic precursor plans are addressing both the funding and the focus problems I just mentioned. In the Explore NEOs Objectives Workshop (Explore NOW), the robotic precursor plans presented in the updated version of Exploration Precursor Robotic Missions (xPRM) Point of Departure Plans (PDF) include:

FY----Large Mission----Scout----Hosted Instrument
2014..NEO..............NEO......yes
2015..Lunar Lander.....yes......yes
2016............................yes 2017..NEO..............yes......yes
2018..Mars.............yes......yes

One of the large Mars missions has been replaced by a NEO Scout. This makes funding the line more achievable (although still a stretch) with $3B, especially if we can count some funds in later years. In addition, the NEO missions are done sooner, allowing the results from these missions to inform astronaut NEO missions. Finally, with 3 NEO missions instead of 2 (1 of which was late in the original plan), there is a serious enough focus on NEOs to really be able to help the astronaut missions to NEOs succeed. On the Flexible Path to Mars, later robotic precursor missions could focus on the Moon or Mars and its moons, depending on what branch of that path is taken.

Ideas for the 2 main NEO missions include a NEO Telescopic Survey to identify a better selection of NEOs reachable on early deep space astronaut missions, or a NEO Rendezvous mission that could focus on a single NEO or give more high-level information about multiple NEOs using multiple small spacecraft. The 2 larger NEO missions are anticipated to cost in the $640M-$840M range through their complete life cycle.

Now let's go back to the Senate budget. Assuming their FY2011-2013 trend is kept, that budget gives $500M through FY2015. Another Senate committee's version of the budget only gives $44M in FY2011, so it would only have $444M through FY2015.

There is not enough money to run a single robotic precursor mission in the $640M-$840M class NASA envisions with the Senate budget even if that budget is projected through FY2015.

The Senate limits the robotic precursor line to 1 or 2 very small missions, 1 or 2 instruments, and supporting work like research and data systems. It acknowledges this limitation by giving the funding line the title "Robotic Precursor Instruments and Low-Cost Missions". I frequently find myself in favor of a strong emphasis on small missions, but there really needs to be a healthy mixture of smaller and larger missions.

Based on the lack of robotic precursor mission funding, my conclusion is that the Senate bills for all intents and purposes rule out any aspirations NASA might have for astronauts reaching rocky world destinations like the Moon, NEOs, Mars moons, and Mars.

Now we come to the question of compromise. Is there a viable compromise between the Administration and Senate proposals that achieves important objectives? I think there is if the Senate gives some ground on Heavy Lift rocket and Orion funding. Over the next few posts, I'll use an example of shifting a billion dollars or so per year from these lines to robotic precursors, exploration technology, and commercial crew. This would still give the Senate what it wants: funding on a massive scale for a Shuttle-derived rocket and Orion spacecraft, eventually flying astronaut missions beyond LEO. It would also allow efforts like the robotic precursor line to function, even if not as spectacularly as planned in the original FY2011 budget proposal. In my examples, I'll make a crude breakdown (ignoring details like funding profiles to match realistic project work levels over time) for the hypothetical shifted $1B/year by dividing it as follows:

25% ($250M/year on average) for Robotic Precursor Missions
25% ($250M/year on average) for Exploration Technology Development and Demonstrations
50% ($500M/year on average) for Commercial Crew

In my examples, these amounts would be added to the original Senate plans for these 3 funding lines, thus representing a compromise between the Senate and Administration budgets.

With this budget compromise, Robotic Precursor Missions would see a dramatic increase from $500M to $1,750M from FY2011-FY2015. That doesn't come close to the Administration proposal, but it's a compromise. Can the Robotic Precursor Mission line do useful work with this amount of money? I think so. Unfortunately, that level of funding would probably require NASA to eliminate most or all robotic precursor missions to all destinations beyond their first expected destination for astronauts. If the first destination is NEOs, the plan might be cut back to something like this:

FY----Large Mission----Scout----Hosted Instrument
2014..NEO..............NEO.........
2015...............................
2016............................yes
2017..NEO..............yes.........
2018............................yes

A similar view might hold for lunar robotic precursor missions if we choose to go to the lunar surface as the first rocky destination instead of NEOs.

With missions with life cycle costs from $640M-$840M, we could squeeze a couple large missions and a couple Scouts, as long as we stay much closer to the $640M side than the $840M side for the main missions. We might have to trim some capabilities off of those missions to make sure that happens, or we might have to turn one of the bigger missions into a Scout or 2. Either way, we go from the Senate's completely non-functional Robotic Precursor plan to one that is limited, but that can help chart the course for astronaut missions.

Would this be enough for safe, cost-effective, and productive astronaut missions? I suspect it would require additional help from NASA's Planetary Science community. If NEOs are the first destination, SMD might need to set up a NEO-specific funding line similar to the existing Lunar and Mars ones. With cooperation with NASA SMD, commercial space, non-profits, and international missions, we might even be able to form a quite capable, if focused, Robotic Precursor line.

The Not-So-Great Compromise: Introduction

2010-08-20T21:05:00.004-04:00

It's an interesting time in the NASA exploration battle that has been raging since 2005 and the introduction of the Ares rockets that eliminated most of the Vision for Space Exploration, and made the rest of that vision unattainable. The Obama Administration's proposal to emphasize technology development, commercial participation, and robotic precursor missions, all essential parts of the Vision for Space Exploration, but to do so using a Flexible Path to Mars sequence, has met with counter-proposals from the House and Senate. Most supporters of the technology/commercial/precursor approach seem to favor the Senate's proposal over the House proposal, even though the House fully funds the Administration's ambitious Space Technology line. This is probably because the House proposal essentially wipes out robotic precursors, exploration-specific technology development and demonstrations, and commercial crew transportation, while continuing the troubled Ares rockets. I won't discuss the House proposal in any more detail, since there seems to be considerable opposition to it in Congress and industry, since most of its supporters in industry seem to have no preference for it over the Senate budget, since NASA and the Administration haven't favored it, and since I personally don't find it to be credible. It has some isolated interesting ideas that may see the light of day, but as a total package it utterly fails.

Does this mean that the Senate proposals are good? I don't think so. The Senate Authorization and Appropriations bills and reports have serious flaws. The Senate bills have been described as great compromises, but as they stand they merely compromise NASA's ability to explore and encourage the development of space. However, if blended with some of the Administration proposals, the Senate bills do, perhaps, put us within reach of a NASA that can achieve important objectives on a realistic budget. Somewhere between the Senate and Administration proposals is a real compromise that is better than either extreme.

One point of view holds that both House and Senate bills are valid compromises because they give the Administration exactly what it asked for in many areas, such as keeping and vigorously using the ISS, increasing Earth Observation funding, adding Aeronautics programs to fund things like green aviation, restarting Pu-238 production, and boosting NEO search funding. However, I wouldn't characterize these agreements as compromises. Senator Hutchison, a key player in the Senate discussions, will be just as supportive of ISS funding and JSC ISS work as the Administration. The Democratic House and Senate are going to be just as inclined as the Administration to support environment-friendly programs. The other changes are small in budgetary terms. No, any compromise should be viewed strictly through the lens of the areas where there is disagreement, like technology funding, robotic precursor missions, commercial space, and government-owned heavy lift rockets. In these areas of dispute, the Senate's cuts to Administration proposals are so drastic that, in their current form, they can't be seen as compromises at all.

They can, however, be useful as starting points for a real compromise.

In the next few days I plan to discuss some of the budgetary lines in more detail so we can get an idea what a real compromise might look like. Since the Senate Authorization bill covers 3 years compared to the 1 year Senate Appropriations bill, I will focus mainly on the Authorization bill. That bill gives a better picture of where we might go over the course of years with the Senate's approach, and the 2 Senate bills are not all that different from each other anyway.

Flexible Path to the Moon: Science, Commerce, and Security at Beyond-LEO Earth Orbits

2010-05-17T23:01:00.002-04:00

The following lists illustrate some of the science, commerce, and security activities that can take place at, or that can be enabled by capabilities at, Geosyncronous orbit and other beyond-LEO satellite orbits.

Science

Deploy, assemble, inspect, and/or service GEO science missions (for example, certain NASA and NOAA satellites observing Earth from GEO)

Inspect GEO satellites. This could include taking samples of old satellites to assess micrometeorite damage, for example. This type of analysis can also be useful for economic and security purposes.

Commerce

Deploy, assemble, inspect, and/or service GEO commercial missions (for example, communications satellites)

Enable commercial providers of satellite assembly or servicing capabilities
Space tourism - history or engineering tour of current or historical GEO satellites (no touching the exhibits, please)
jump-start capabilities that can be useful for commercial missions for other destinations (for example: fuel depots, satellite deployment, assembly, inspection, and/or servicing nodes, low-cost space access, etc)

Security

Deploy, assemble, inspect, and/or service GEO security missions (for example, military satellites)

Observe other nations' satellites

Jump-start capabilities that can be generally useful for security missions (for example: fuel depots, satellite deployment, assembly, inspection, and/or servicing nodes, low-cost space access, etc)

Flexible Path to the Moon: Science, Commerce, and Security at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points

2010-05-17T22:56:00.000-04:00

The following lists illustrate some of the science, commerce, and security activities that can take place at, or that can be enabled by capabilities at, Earth-Moon Lagrange points.

Science

Deploy, assemble, inspect, or service Lagrange Point science missions (for example, Astrophysics or Heliophysics observatories). These could include Earth-Sun Lagrange Point science observatories assembled or serviced at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points, with the ability to transfer between assembly/servicing and operational Lagrange Points

Measure solar wind

Prepare for later science or exploration missions to the lunar surface or deep space (perhaps using exploration assembly or servicing nodes)

Compare ISS science results to results at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points (for example, considering Earth's magnetosphere)

Commerce

Encourage development of commercial services that can deploy, assemble, inspect, or service Lagrange Point science missions (for example, Astrophysics or Heliophysics observatories). These could include Earth-Sun Lagrange Point science observatories assembled or serviced at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points, with the ability to transfer between assembly/servicing and operational Lagrange Points. The capabilities developed here could be applied to commercial customers, possibly at other locations

Encourage the development of commercial services that can assemble exploration missions for the government

Encourage the development of commercial nodes at Earth-Moon Lagrange Points with the government as a customer

Security

Jump-start capabilities that can be useful for security missions for other destinations (for example: fuel depots, satellite deployment, assembly, inspection, and/or servicing nodes, low-cost space access, etc)

Flexible Path to the Moon: Science, Commerce, and Security in Lunar Orbit

2010-05-17T22:45:00.000-04:00

The following lists illustrate some of the science, commerce, and security activities that can take place in, or that can be enabled by capabilities in, lunar orbit.

Science

Deploy, assemble, inspect, and/or service robotic lunar science missions

Contribute to lunar sample return missions

Deploy, assemble, inspect, and/or service robotic Earth observation missions for "full Earth" measurements

Use telerobotics for missions at the lunar surface. This can be done from Earth, but lunar orbit may provide some advantages depending on mission details: shorter communications delay (including communications relays), less requirements for communications infrastructure, more direct communications paths at times, simulation of Mars or Venus telerobotics from orbit.

remote sensing observations from the astronauts' spacecraft

test missions for operations at more distance locations (for example, Mars or Venus telerobotics, direct remote sensing, sample return, or deploying, assembling, inspecting, or servicing robotic spacecraft)

jump-start capabilities that can be useful for science missions for other destinations (for example: fuel depots, satellite deployment, assembly, inspection, and/or servicing nodes, low-cost space access, etc)

prepare for later lunar surface astronaut science missions (for example: exploration mission assembly or servicing infrastructure in lunar orbit)

Commerce

jump-start capabilities that can be useful for commercial missions for other destinations (for example: fuel depots, satellite deployment, assembly, inspection, and/or servicing nodes, low-cost space access, etc).

Space tourism at lunar orbit (for example, for lunar views)

Support of commercial robotics at the lunar surface

Prepare for later commercial lunar surface missions (for example, exploration assembly/servicing node in lunar orbit)

Security

jump-start capabilities that can be useful for security missions for other destinations (for example: fuel depots, satellite deployment, assembly, inspection, and/or servicing nodes, low-cost space access, etc)

Flexible Path to the Moon: Cislunar Space

2010-05-17T22:41:00.000-04:00

This post continues yesterday's discussion on NASA's cislunar space plans on the Flexible Path to Mars by comparing those plans with those of the Flexible Path to the Moon at the same destinations.

The Flexible Path to the Moon includes three phases:

establishing a solid foothold in LEO with commercial and international participation as well as technology development while robotic precursors blaze an exploration trail
moving beyond LEO to cislunar space destinations like GEO, lunar orbit, and Earth-Moon Lagrange points
returning to the surface of the Moon

Each phase is intended to be self-sustaining, to produce useful economic, science, and security benefits, to develop reusable space infrastructure, and to enable more ambitious steps.

It's natural to concentrate either on the first or the last of the three steps on the Flexible Path to the Moon. The first step, establishing a foothold in LEO while robotic scouts move ahead, is our most immediate concern. In the context of the 2011 NASA budget, the NASA human spaceflight exploration work for the next several years will be entirely devoted to this step, although with a view towards the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars. Most of our near-term decisions center around this first step, so it's no surprise it's of great interest.

It's also natural to emphasize the activity that will take place on the lunar surface. The Moon is an entire world waiting to be explored and developed. Although the activities to be done on the Moon's surface would be quite different from the ones performed during the Apollo missions, Apollo gives us a conceptual framework that allows us to easily imagine what might be done there. Fiction and our experience on Earth fill in the gaps that Apollo leaves out. Not only that, but reaching the Moon is the central destination and ultimate goal of the Flexible Path to the Moon. Right?

Wrong.

In the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars, it is probably fair to say that Mars is the ultimate, central destination. The Flexible Path to Mars is about exploring new places to learn about them while getting closer to exploring and learning about Mars.

In the Flexible Path to the Moon, the Moon is actually not the ultimate, central destination, in spite of the name. The Flexible Path to the Moon is intensely focused on the Earth. It is about exploring and developing LEO, cislunar space, and the Moon for the benefit of people on Earth. This can be illustrated by considering the second step on the path, developing cislunar space.

Apollo 8's lunar flyby wasn't our goal in the 1960's. The Ares rockets weren't intended to allow astronauts to linger at cislunar space destinations or to develop infrastructure there. Even in the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars, the cislunar space destinations are treated as mere stepping stones on the way to adventuresome excursions to more distant destinations like asteroids and Mars moons.

In contrast to the Apollo, Constellation, and Flexible Path to Mars approaches that minimize beyond-LEO cislunar space destinations, the Flexible Path to the Moon treats the work that can be done and the benefits that can be gained at GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit as the heart of the Flexible Path to the Moon. All of the steps on this path can produce benefits for the taxpayers on Earth, but it is the intense focus on deriving economic, security, science, and other benefits from the cislunar space destinations where the Flexible Path to the Moon contrasts the most with Apollo, Constellation, and the Flexible Path to Mars.

In the Flexible Path to the Moon, cislunar space destinations "between" LEO and the lunar surface are not like the empty airspace between your departure and arrival locations on a plane trip, even though there are no rocky bodies there. These destinations are like unpopulated versions of the American West that the new nation on the Eastern seaboard (LEO in our analogy) looked forward to exploring and developing on the way towards the future great cities on the Pacific ocean (the Moon in our analogy).

In other words, cislunar space is not just a "middle-man" between LEO and the lunar surface. We don't want to skip past this step as quickly as possible on the way to the Moon, because this step not only makes the lunar surface more accessible in the long run, but it also serves the same sort of purpose that the Moon itself serves.

Here are a few observations about the activities that can be done at the cislunar space destinations:

Reaching these destinations is easier than reaching more distant destinations like NEOs or Mars moons. We can get there affordably and safely with considerably less capability (low-cost commercial operations, new technology, propellant depots, heavy lift, etc) than these more difficult destinations. We can also be more confident that a development effort to reach these destinations will succeed.
Reaching these destinations helps enable later exploration at the lunar surface.
Reaching these destinations and spending the considerable time and effort to make the most of these destinations before venturing beyond them helps make later exploration and development at the lunar surface more affordable, achievable, and sustainable, even though it may delay the beginning of these missions.
Reaching these destinations helps enable later exploration at more distant Flexible Path to Mars destinations (for example, NEOs and Mars orbit), as implied by the Augustine Committee report.
Reaching these destinations and spending the considerable time and effort to make the most of these destinations before venturing beyond them helps make later exploration at more distant Flexible Path to Mars destinations more affordable, achievable, and sustainable, even though it may delay the beginning of these missions.
Making the most of these destinations enables a wide variety of commercial space activity. This activity in turn should strengthen the space industrial base, add jobs, and enable more useful services that can be enjoyed by the taxpayer.
These destinations offer benefits across the spectrum of space science fields: Earth science (assembly/servicing, full-Earth data collection), Heliophysics (observatory assembly/servicing), Astrophysics (observatory assembly/servicing), Planetary Science (lunar telerobotics, lunar sample return, lunar remote sensing from astronaut spacecraft, lunar orbiting satellite assembly/servicing, preparation for astronauts at the lunar surface, test and setup for later planetary science at more distant destinations), and various ISS sciences (similar activities outside LEO).
The capabilities enabled and encouraged by these destinations (satellite assembly/servicing/inspection, fuel depots, reusable space infrastructure, reusable in-space transportation, etc) are highly useful for national security purposes.
Many of the activities at these destinations require some sort of space infrastructure like satellite servicing or exploration spacecraft assembly nodes. This may bring visions of multi-decade development efforts to build facilities like the ISS, followed by difficult logistics requirements. This need not be the case. These nodes can be considerably smaller than the ISS, and could be focused on specific tasks. Also, these nodes do not need to be permanently occupied (and given radiation considerations may very well not be), so the logistics requirements could be much easier than those of the ISS.
These destinations provide an interesting variation on space stations. They are harder to reach than LEO, but they have advantages, too. These destinations don't present a requirement for reboost because of atmospheric drag as the ISS orbit does. They don't have the same sort of space debris problem. Microgravity work would not have to suffer from perturbations due to Earth's imperfectly symmetrical gravity field. Instruments and materials would not suffer the same sort of weathering.

These benefits the cislunar space step are important, but what about the Moon? Even if our reach falls short and we don't get to the lunar surface sustainably during this effort, we will have accomplished much if we develop cislunar space. If we do establish ourselves on the Moon in a long-term sense, our initial efforts will still be centered on the cislunar space destinations, and thus on benefits to the people on Earth. Our mission at the lunar surface is not to do lunar surface science, although we may do some of that. It is not to set up a permanent lunar colony, although our work in this phase may bring us closer to such a colony. Our purpose on the lunar surface is to use the Moon as a force multiplier to increase our productivity at the cislunar space destinations.

This will be done in part through the demands that the lunar surface will place on the cislunar space destinations. Our capabilities and infrastructure at these destinations will need to grow to satisfy the demands of the lunar surface work.

It will also be done through the use of lunar resources. Lunar resources can help make lunar surface work affordable, but they will eventually be needed in cislunar space destinations, too. The initial cislunar assembly, servicing, and depot capabilities will be greatly enhanced through the use of these lunar resources.

The work on the lunar surface benefits the taxpayer on Earth mainly through the improvements this work enables in cislunar space. The lunar surface and cislunar space destinations become mutually supporting in a virtuous circle of sustainable and even expanding commercial, industrial, and science capabilities and infrastructure.

In the long run we may ultimately use lunar resources to make closer (i.e. LEO) or more distant (i.e. NEO, Mars moon, etc.) activities more affordable. The development of these resources may even result in a strong permanent presence on the Moon that ultimately develops its own reasons for being. However, with the Flexible Path to the Moon, this process will start by using lunar resources to address needs in cislunar space, which in turn address needs on Earth.

Flexible Path to the Moon: NASA's Cislunar Space Plans

2010-05-16T20:57:00.002-04:00

I'd like to discuss cislunar space destinations like lunar orbit, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and GEO in the context of the Flexible Path to the Moon. Before doing this, however, it's useful to set the stage by considering NASA's plans for these destinations. NASA's current plans are similar to those in the Flexible Path to the Moon in many respects: a focus on commercial and international participation, strong technology development efforts, many robotic precursors, synergy with NASA's science missions and ISS, an initial focusing phase in LEO, and more. However, although both plans include missions to cislunar space, NASA's plans there are quite different from those of the Flexible Path to the Moon.

The Augustine Committee Final Report (PDF) describes the Flexible Path to Mars. This sequence of missions starts with easier beyond-LEO missions like a lunar fly-by, a lunar orbit mission, and/or an Earth-Moon Lagrange point mission. The report gives the impression that these missions are simply stepping stones towards voyages to more distant destinations with a few productive activities thrown in while we're there. The report does not give a sense of the build-up of space infrastructure or repeated visits there.

Ed Crawley from the Augustine Committee and David Mindell recently released a white paper U.S. Human Spaceflight: The FY11 Budget and the Flexible Path (PDF). This white paper confirms the impression that the Flexible Path to Mars does not have a strong cislunar space emphasis. For example, it notes:

The Augustine report envisioned initial test flights within the Earth-Moon system and then operational flights that include visits to "near earth objects" (NEOs, asteroids and spent comets), Mars flybys, Mars orbital flights and eventually exploration of the lunar and Mars surface.

The cislunar space missions are merely test flights, not operational flights. It also states:

Destinations in the Flexible Path have a logical progression. The Augustine report suggested that astronauts might first test the new systems in Earth–Moon space by traveling to lunar orbit and to the Earth-Moon Lagrange points (where the Earth and Moon’s gravity balance each other). Astronauts will then visit Earth-Sun Lagrange points, NEOs, Mars orbit and that of its moons, demonstrating new capabilities for servicing, repair, and construction along the way. These destinations and their value propositions are outlined in Figure 3.5.2-1 of the Augustine report. Additional destinations possible on the Flexible Path are geosynchronous Earth orbit (another place to demonstrate servicing) and eventually asteroids in the belt or Venus orbit.

Clearly the cislunar space destinations not seen as first-class productive and interesting destinations in their own right.

In the Remarks by the President on Space Exploration in the 21st Century, President Obama said:

Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we’ll start -- we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.

This statement gives the impression that even though we will be going to beyond-LEO destinations like lunar orbit and/or Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and in all likelihood (one or two of) the even more distant Earth-Sun Lagrange points, we won't really be starting until we send astronauts to an asteroid.

In his prepared statements to the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, NASA Administrator Bolden described the planned series of steps:

Fundamentally, the exploration of space will be a sequence of deep-space destinations for human missions matched to growing capabilities, progressing step-by-step, beginning with crewed flight tests – perhaps a circumlunar mission -- early next decade of vehicles capable of supporting exploration beyond LEO, a human mission to an asteroid by 2025, and a human mission to orbit Mars and return safely to Earth by the 2030s.

NASA clearly considers the cislunar space destinations to be useful for testing deep space exploration capabilities, which of course they are. However, NASA's cislunar space plans don't go beyond these tests. NASA's focus will be on more distant deep space exploration.

Next we will take a very different look at cislunar space in the Flexible Path to the Moon.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: An Option to Start Beyond LEO Missions

2010-04-02T22:07:00.005-04:00

The 2011 NASA budget changes I've described so far simply focus some of the budget categories more on destinations along the Flexible Path to the Moon. This allows us send robotic missions to those destinations to prepare for astronauts. It allows us to do in-space demonstrations of technologies to make astronaut missions to those destinations more affordable and capable. It allows us to place assets like serviceable satellites beyond LEO, where later they will be incentives to develop beyond-LEO astronaut capabilities. Meanwhile, the commercial LEO transport and use of the ISS continue as described in the 2011 budget.

Although this allows us to set the stage for later beyond-LEO missions as intended in step 1 of the Flexible Path to the Moon, it doesn't start us on steps 2 or 3. It leaves us without specific plans for astronaut missions to Lunar orbit, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, GEO, and the lunar surface. This causes controversy with the current NASA plan, and the approach I've outlined is similar in this respect, even though these plans replace a program that wouldn't get astronauts beyond LEO for decades.

We need to wait for results of robotic precursors, technology development and demonstrations, commercial partnerships, and international partnerships to fully achieve exploration and development of cislunar space and the lunar surface. These results will allow us to make the right decisions to complete these steps affordably. For this reason, I'm not alarmed by the postponement of exploration missions in the current plan.

However, we don't need robotic precursors to implement basic first-generation "foot-in-the-door" transport of astronauts or cargo from LEO to cislunar space destinations. We have experience with this sort of technology from Apollo, ISS, Shuttle, and numerous satellites. We don't need technology demonstrations to implement basic hardware like sensors, satellite servicing modules, pre-positioned supplies, or infrastructure letting astronauts accomplish a first set of important objectives at these destinations. We have experience with this sort of technology from the ISS, Hubble servicing, remote sensing satellites, and other missions. Budget allowing, we could start to develop some basic systems to reach and use lunar orbit, GEO, and Earth-Moon Lagrange points in the near term, and gradually bring in additional capabilities as the budget, partnerships, and demonstrated technologies allow. Thus, the 2011 NASA budget could optionally be modified to enable a first set of beyond-LEO missions.

If a commercial approach is taken, acknowledging potential beyond-LEO markets like space tourism and satellite servicing, a small initial funding line comparable to the CCDEV commercial crew effort could start the process. When the transition to the new NASA approach is well under way (i.e. we have gotten over the "Constellation Transition" and "Shuttle Slip Contingency" humps in the budget), we will have funds available to begin to develop some initial operational beyond-LEO systems. If the budget isn't increased, this might come from a moderate (perhaps 10 or 20%) cut to some of the other new budget lines. The result would still be several times larger than the $500M COTS commercial cargo incentive.

A mutually advantageous form of international participation could enable additional beyond-LEO capabilities. There could be a mixture of NASA, commercial, and international contributions.

Later, after a set of enabling technologies is developed and demonstrated, the technology lines can be scaled back to a modest long-term level to allow larger-scale operations along the Flexible Path to the Moon.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Adjusting the Space Technology Budget

2010-04-01T22:28:00.017-04:00

... while at the Same Time Supporting the Earth Science, Heliophysics, Astrophysics, and Planetary Science Budgets

It's interesting to consider NASA's new Space Technology budget in the context of the Flexible Path to the Moon. The Space Technology budget is meant to be "crosscutting". It's not meant to serve the needs of NASA Exploration, or NASA Science, or the space industry, or other government agencies. Instead, it's meant to serve the needs of all of these U.S. space interests. NASA technology development that isn't specific to one area and its missions falls in the general Space Technology budget.

Satellite and observatory assembly and servicing includes a broad array of crosscutting technologies. These capabilities are applicable to exploration, as they provide one type of justification for astronauts reaching achievable exploration destinations like Lagrange points, GEO, and lunar orbit, all likely locations for this type of servicing and assembly. They are also applicable to all major NASA science areas. Earth observation satellites, Heliophysics observatories, Astrophysics observatories, and remote sensing Planetary Science (e.g.: lunar orbit) probes, for example, could all potentially benefit from astronaut assembly and servicing. Robotic servicing, possibly combined with astronaut servicing, is another variant of this capability. The ISS can benefit from new servicing and assembly capabilities, and can also serve as a platform for demonstrating or even operating new servicing and assembly capabilities. Satellite servicing also has the potential to benefit other U.S. space agencies, commercial space vendors with space assets to service or with the ability to offer satellite servicing, and international partners. This sort of servicing and assembly work is "crosscutting" in many ways, and thus should be featured prominently in NASA's new Space Technology budget. If the Flexible Path to the Moon is taken, satellite and observatory assembly and servicing will take an even more prominent role, since this is one of the main drivers and benefits of reaching early Flexible Path to the Moon destinations like lunar orbit, GEO, and Earth-Moon Lagrange points.

The 2011 budget features special budget lines set aside for "Small Satellite Subsystem Technologies" and "Edison Small Satellite Demonstration Missions". Satellite and observatory assembly and servicing are similar to small satellite technologies in that they are crosscutting, multifaceted, and potentially highly practical technologies that also deserve a significant slice of the Space Technology budget pie, especially if the Flexible Path to the Moon is taken. It might make sense to create special budget lines within Space Technology for satellite servicing and assembly technologies and demonstration missions.

Some satellite servicing capabilities are well understood, and just need to be transferred to new missions on the serviced and servicing sides. It might make sense to use some of the satellite servicing "demonstration" funds to augment mainstream satellite or observatory missions by adding fairly well-understood features that make the satellites easy to service as technology demonstrations. This could benefit relatively near-term NASA Earth science, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, or Planetary Science missions, missions of other U.S. government agencies, or commercial missions like communications satellites. Demonstrations on the servicing side could take place in the near term only if the satellites are in (or can be moved to) orbits that are reachable before operational beyond-LEO missions are ready. More advanced serviceability and servicing capabilities would be handled like any other pre-demonstration Space Technology work.

Another possible way for the Space Technology budget to support the Flexible Path to the Moon is to fund space exploration technology work through the Centennial Challenges prize program. Prizes could be offered for work at destinations on the Flexible Path to the Moon. We already have the private Google Lunar X PRIZE competition as a model for this sort of opportunity. Centennial Challenge prizes that take advantage of, or that dovetail with, the work being done for that private competition might make sense. This could include variations on lunar surface work, lunar orbit work, and many other possibilities that function within the private competition's limitations on government funding for the prize-winning missions. Using services of future winners of the private competition to deploy various Space Technology products should also be considered. (There are also many similar opportunities within the new HSF Robotic Precursor budget line, especially for "Scout" missions). The Space Technology budget has a good opportunity to support crosscutting needs of NASA Exploration along the Flexible Path to the Moon and commercial and other private space organizations.

There are many other ways that the Space Technology budget can support exploration along the Flexible Path to the Moon and support other U.S. space organizations at the same time. One of the benefits of the Flexible Path to the Moon is that its exploration concentrates on destinations that have many "crosscutting" overlapping needs and benefits with other space organizations focused on science, commerce, and operational needs of the government. The Flexible Path to the Moon specifically concentrates a great deal on destinations like GEO that are mainstays of traditional space work, unlike the Flexible Path to Mars, which doesn't mention GEO and which could be interpreted to skip past other near-term destinations as quickly as possible. This attribute of the Flexible Path to the Moon allows for many crosscutting technologies in the Space Technology budget to be applied to exploration along that path while at the same time benefiting other non-exploration space organizations that use the same destinations.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Adjusting the Heavy Lift and Propulsion Technology Budget

2010-03-31T22:07:00.005-04:00

We have already seen several examples of how the 2011 NASA budget can be adjusted to support the Flexible Path to the Moon by emphasizing near-term space destinations like lunar orbit and Earth-Moon Lagrange points (the same early destinations that start the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars) as well as longer-term destinations on the lunar surface. We simply focus most of our efforts on the reachable destinations along this path rather than difficult destinations like the Martian surface. The 2011 NASA budget for Heavy Lift and Propulsion is no exception.

Early Flexible Path to the Moon destinations don't need heavy lift, and if we can lower launch costs through something closer to mass production of launchers, and at the same time we can demonstrate technologies like autonomous rendezvous and docking, propellant depots, in-space assembly, ISRU, reusable space-only vehicles, and/or reusable lunar landers, we won't need heavy lift for the lunar surface, either. We shouldn't expect success with all of these technologies, but success with a few should be good enough. Leveraging commercial and international participation should also help us develop affordable and sustainable lunar surface access and development without having to develop an unaffordable heavy lift vehicle like Ares V or its close relatives.

It may make sense to advance some sort of heavy lift capability to add to our bag of tricks, but only if it can be done in a way that is both useful and affordable. We don't need heavy lift, but we can surely benefit from useful and affordable heavy lift. Fortunately, the 2011 NASA budget already takes a useful and affordable approach. It develops an RD-180 class engine made in the U.S. that can be used on a future heavy lift vehicle. Such an engine doesn't require a heavy lift vehicle for its justification; it can be used in other rockets (the Atlas V uses the Russian RD-180). Thus, the budget's heavy lift development approach is inherently useful beyond the HLV. The budget's approach also appears to be affordable, leveraging the existing EELV infrastructure and expertise that will exist and need to be paid for whether or not NASA explores or develops an HLV.

The Flexible Path to the Moon would benefit from propulsion capabilities like the following:

reusable propulsion for astronaut vehicles to go back and forth between LEO and beyond-LEO cislunar space destinations
highly efficient (and possibly reusable) propulsion to get cargo from LEO to beyond-LEO cislunar space destinations
propulsion for (possibly reusable) vehicles to get cargo and/or astronauts to and from the lunar surface

If the Flexible Path to the Moon is taken, propulsion research and demonstrations should concentrate on these crucial areas as a higher priority over propulsion to shorten long deep space missions or propulsion for heavy lift.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Adjusting the Technology Demonstration Budget

2010-03-31T21:23:00.003-04:00

The new exploration technology demonstration budget includes a number of in-space demonstrations of new technologies to allow those technologies to be comfortably introduced into later operational missions. Like the robotic precursor missions, these are categorized into a set of larger "flagship" missions and smaller missions. Example technologies identified in the budget include in-orbit propellant transfer and storage, lightweight or inflatable space modules, automated rendezvous and docking, landing technologies, closed-loop life support, ISRU, in-space propulsion, EVAs and servicing, and others. These missions can be done in partnership with commercial or other government agencies.

There are a number of reasons that the next few years are a particularly good time to perform technology demonstrations. The obvious driver is that the Ares-based form of Constellation has failed and is being shut down and the Shuttle has been on a path for retirement for several years, requiring a focus on establishing a foothold in LEO again. Technology demonstrations allow us to make considerably more progress towards exploration than Ares-based Constellation would have made in the same years while much of our attention is necessarily focused on the immediate LEO access problem. Now is also a good time for technology demonstrations because a number of factors give us more opportunities for success with these demonstrations:

a focused driver and motivator for selecting and prioritizing technology demonstration choices - The Flexible Path to the Moon can provide this focus and motivation.
a backlog of technologies ready for demonstration
the near-term availability of the completed, funded, and fully staffed ISS as an in-space technology demonstration platform
the growing capabilities of the low-cost and responsive small satellite industrial base
the potential near-term availability of commercial reusable suborbital rockets as technology demonstration platforms
the near-term availability of robotic HSF precursor missions in the 2011 NASA budget that can serve as technology demonstration platforms
the potential for near-term incremental improvements in launch vehicle cost, availability, and responsiveness presented by new entries in the space access market, the NASA COTS program, and shared space access industrial base costs enabled in part by NASA's switch to rockets that can be used by multiple users like the EELVs
the potential near-term availability of commercial space lab platforms like the DragonLab that can serve as technology demonstration platforms
the availability of commercial space businesses that will likely be interested in partnering with NASA on certain technology demonstrations (e.g.: Bigelow Aerospace and others for inflatable modules, ULA and others for orbital propellant depots) and that will therefore likely be willing to contribute funding and focus to these efforts if they can benefit from the demonstrated technologies
the potential availability of early Flexible Path to the Moon destinations as technology demonstration locations - if we can squeeze a basic capability to reach these destinations into the 2011 budget

The approach that should be taken with the technology demonstration missions to enable the Flexible Path to the Moon is to focus most of those missions on technologies that are relevant to cislunar space and the lunar surface. This is just a shift in focus; there should still be room to explore technologies relevant to more futuristic missions. Here are a few examples:

Entry, Descent, and Landing Technologies; Autonomous Precision Landing - Focus should be put on demonstrating landing technologies relevant to the Flexible Path to the Moon (precision landing and hazard avoidance on the Moon, landing on Earth following Flexible Path to the Moon missions) rather than on, for example, landing on Mars.

Advanced In-Space Propulsion - Focus should be put on demonstrating in-space propulsion technologies relevant to the Flexible Path to the Moon (lunar lander propulsion, efficient and possibly reusable propulsion for cislunar space transportation) rather than on, for example, propulsion for quickly reaching distant deep space destinations like NEOs and Mars.

Human-Robotic Interactive Systems Demonstrations - Focus should be put on demonstrations relevant to the Flexible Path to the Moon, like cooperative human and robotic satellite servicing or observatory assembly in cislunar space, or telerobotics for robots on the lunar surface.

Extravehicular Activity Demonstrations - Focus should be put on EVA demonstrations relevant to the Flexible Path to the Moon, such as spacesuits usable on the lunar surface, and suits that enable servicing, assembly, and similar work in cislunar space.

You begin to get the idea. If the Flexible Path to the Moon is taken, each type of technology demonstration should be focused mainly on enabling or improving the cislunar and lunar surface destinations along the Flexible Path to the Moon.

The successes and failures of these technology demonstrations will help drive the operational missions on the Flexible Path to the Moon. At the same time, they will still break ground for more distant destinations, since there is room for some deep space technology demonstration work, and since many of the demonstrated technologies have applicability both on and beyond the Flexible Path to the Moon.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Adjusting the Robotic Precursor Mission Budget

2010-03-30T20:47:00.004-04:00

NASA's 2011 budget proposal includes a strong line of HSF robotic precursor missions to follow the model of LRO and LCROSS. These precursor missions are intended to blaze a trail for astronauts at various potential HSF destinations like the lunar surface, NEOs, Mars moons, Lagrange points, and Mars. Unlike robotic science missions, these HSF precursor missions will concentrate on identifying hazards and resources of concern to astronauts. Collaboration with NASA Science and non-NASA missions, such has hosting instruments, can also take place.

The budget includes $3B over 5 years for these missions. Two classes of missions are planned: the traditional missions which are expected to cost less than $800M each (typically substantially less), and Scout missions that are expected to cost from $100M to $200M each. It doesn't take much math to realize that in order to do the many jobs required to chart a course for the Flexible Path to the Moon, such as resource assessment, various types of ISRU demonstrations, astronaut site selection, hazard assessment, astronaut site preparation, and others, we will need to concentrate most of these missions on the destinations in the Flexible Path to the Moon. The Moon itself needs to be the primary subject of this series of missions if we're to succeed on the Flexible Path to the Moon. It's worthwhile to spend some effort on later destinations like NEOs, Mars Moons, and Mars, but a "concentration of forces" is needed at the Moon. The same may eventually well be the case at more distant destinations as we begin to accomplish the goals of the Flexible Path to the Moon and turn our gaze to more distant destinations. Indeed, if NASA actually implements the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars as many expect, it should concentrate its precursor missions on the more achievable destinations along that path.

The 2011 NASA robotic precursor budget actually gives the Moon a lot of attention, considering that the Flexible Path to Mars seems to be in favor. The budget starts 2 precursor missions in 2011. One will probably be a lunar surface mission to assess resources and demonstrate telerobotics at the Moon. A second mission could be centered on lunar or asteroid ISRU or NEO/Mars moon landing, so there is a chance that the second mission could go to the Moon, too. Mission starts would continue in later years. The new line of robotic precursor "Scouts" seem to be perfect for small commercial missions like those planned by Google Lunar X PRIZE teams. The Moon would naturally be an appropriate destination for such teams.

Nevertheless, if the Flexible Path to the Moon is taken, an even greater concentration of lunar precursor missions would be needed than is suggested in the 2011 NASA budget. This is just a matter of shifting the distribution of mission destinations within the precursor budget. Even with this shift, the limited funding for precursor robotics and the significant exploration and development ambitions of the Flexible Path to the Moon demand that this line leverages as much as is possible those opportunities offered by commercial space, international partners, and other parts of NASA like Science missions and new technology demonstrations. It is really here in the robotic HSF precursor missions where the Flexible Path to the Moon succeeds or falls short.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Adjusting the Planetary Science Budget

2010-03-30T07:25:00.005-04:00

The proposed Planetary Science budget from 2011 to 2015 includes a number of lunar science missions. The Lunar Quest Program funds LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) and the ILN (International Lunar Network). It also funds Lunar Research and Analysis. The LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) now orbiting the Moon is scheduled to be handed over to the Lunar Quest Program later this year. The ILN is currently under review by the Decadal Survey process because of cost reasons. According to Future Planetary Exploration blog, the Decadal Survey is also considering a Lunar Polar Volatiles Lander.

The Discovery Program is managing GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), and one of the 3 finalists for the next New Frontiers mission is MoonRise, a lunar sample return mission.

The Lunar Quest Program has a relatively small budget - not much over $100M per year. That makes sense because this program is focused on small, affordable missions and research. Considering GRAIL, and assuming Moonrise wins New Frontiers and ILN or some mission to replace it is funded, an appropriately strong lunar science program to set the stage for the Flexible Path to the Moon would exist. However, there is no guarantee that this will happen.

Noting that the Mars Exploration science budget is about $500M per year, if the Flexible Path to the Moon is to be implemented, it seems appropriate to considerably increase the Lunar Quest Program budget to allow more small lunar science missions, or to start a separate line of larger lunar science missions. This would ensure a steady series of lunar science missions appropriate for the Flexible Path to the Moon. In the near term, this might come at the expense of other planetary science missions, but the capabilities developed along the Flexible Path to the Moon should in the long run build a strong foundation for more cost-effective and ambitious science missions across the solar system. The short-term effect on other planetary science missions might not be great anyway; GRAIL is already funded and it's possible that MoonRise will be funded too. This change simply ensures that a steady series of lunar science missions is funded to help pave the Flexible Path to the Moon, and to set the stage for more detailed lunar science and development when astronauts eventually reach the lunar surface.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Introduction to Adjusting the Budget

2010-03-30T07:17:00.003-04:00

This post begins to consider how to implement the Flexible Path to the Moon largely, but not entirely, within the constraints of the 2011 NASA budget. First, let's consider the first of the 3 steps in the Flexible Path to the Moon. From the original post, the first step is:

Establish a Foothold - The first phase includes developing commercial and international partnerships for the full Flexible Path to the Moon, beginning a long-term program to maintain and fully use the ISS through at least 2020, developing U.S. commercial crew and cargo services to support the ISS, establishing a vigorous technology development program, and starting an ambitious robotic lunar precursor effort for science, resource scouting, engineering tests, and more with NASA, commercial, and international participation. This phase could also include robotic precursors to destinations that are beyond the scope of the Flexible Path to the Moon, like Near Earth Objects and Mars Moons. Given the fairly large number of robotic missions envisioned here in support of the Flexible Path to the Moon, it is likely that there would be fewer outer planets robot missions.

As it turns out, the 2011 NASA budget proposal includes the ISS, commercial crew and cargo, technology development, and robotic precursor elements. In other words, it's a good start for step 1 of the Flexible Path to the Moon. My guess is that the Flexible Path to Mars rather than the Flexible Path to the Moon will be selected, so the focus of the commercial and international partnerships, technology development, and robotic precursors may include more emphasis than the Flexible Path to the Moon would warrant on destinations that come after that path such as NEOs and Mars, but in its general form the 2011 budget matches this first step.

Future posts will look more closely at some of the prominent items in the 2011 NASA budget proposal to see how they could be shaped to better lay the foundation for the Flexible Path to the Moon. These posts will cover Planetary Science, the other NASA Science directorates considered collectively (Earth Science, Heliophysics, and Astrophysics), Space Technology, Technology Demonstration, Heavy Lift and Propulsion Technology, and Robotic Precursor Missions. Finally, I'll present some thoughts on actually starting beyond-LEO missions.

Flexible Path to the Moon and the 2011 NASA Budget: Background

2010-03-28T08:45:00.003-04:00

I recently coined the phrase Flexible Path to the Moon for an approach to exploration and development of space by astronauts and robots intended to reach the Moon using gradual, incremental steps that are useful and sustainable. This phrase is based on the Augustine Committee's "Flexible Path to Mars". In fact the Flexible Path to the Moon uses the early destinations of the Augustine Flexible Path to Mars: Earth-Moon Lagrange points and lunar orbit. It also uses various Earth orbits used by satellites will be accessible if these other destinations are accessible. However, the Flexible Path to the Moon takes more time to build infrastructure, establish commerce, gather science data, and develop various operational capabilities at these initial beyond-LEO destinations. As implied by the Augustine Committee, such steps can and ultimately should be a solid foundation for additional exploration at more distant deep space destinations like Earth-Sun Lagrange points, asteroids, and eventually Mars. However, the intent of the Flexible Path to the Moon is to first use that foundation to explore and develop the lunar surface for science, commerce, and security, while at the same time making more distant exploration more achievable through the use of lunar resources.

There are three steps in the Flexible Path to the Moon, with potential overlap between steps. Each step might take a considerable number of years, depending on the available budget. The steps are to establish a foothold in low-Earth orbit that leads to the next steps, to go to beyond low-Earth orbit to lunar orbit, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and beyond-LEO satellite orbits for immediate practical benefits and to enable later exploration, and finally to reach, explore, and develop the lunar surface.

With the recently-announced 2011 NASA budget proposal, It may be useful to consider how the Flexible Path to the Moon might fit in that proposal. The 2011 NASA budget contains many changes. Very briefly, it cancels the Constellation program intended to support the space station and eventually reach the Moon's surface. It replaces Constellation with human spaceflight precursor robotic missions, a general space technology program, an exploration technology demonstration program, a heavy lift and propulsion effort, a more fully used International Space Station that will be maintained longer and expanded, additional funding for the existing COTS commercial cargo program to account for the more intensely used space station, a program to encourage commercial crew services to the space station, and a considerably expanded Earth observation program.

Although there is some confusion about what the physical destinations will be for the astronaut exploration component of NASA, all indications are that something like the Flexible Path to Mars is planned. Like the Flexible Path to the Moon, this path might include visits to nearby destinations in space as well as the lunar surface. However, it probably would not develop as much infrastructure and capability at these destinations as would the Flexible Path to the Moon. Instead, it would reach more distant deep space destinations before the lunar surface, and would move as quickly as possible to Mars. There is little information yet about what we would do at various destinations. Would the missions be focused on science? Resources? Exploration? No specific exploration hardware or missions have been spelled out. Some details may come soon, and others may have to wait years for results from robotic precursor and technology demonstration missions.

I would argue that the Flexible Path to the Moon is more achievable and affordable than the Flexible Path to Mars, and is also more rewarding. Even though it seems likely that the Flexible Path to the Moon will not be taken, it could be taken, given the decision to do so. The 2011 NASA budget could, with some minor changes in emphasis, begin to implement the Flexible Path to the Moon. That opportunity will be the subject of later posts.

Consellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Health and Medicine

2010-02-18T05:11:00.001-05:00

I haven't been able to determine any returns on taxpayer investment related to health and medicine with the Constellation approach.

The new NASA budget gives the following health and medicine benefits:

Full Utilization of the ISS - One of the suggested plans for the ISS is to deploy a centrifuge for human physiology research. In general, we can expect full use of the ISS to involve more pharmaceutical research and other research related to health and medicine.

Critical Technology Demonstrations - Closed loop life support systems is one of the technologies cited for demonstration in this portfolio. That is likely to involve some aspects of biotechnology and human factors.

Robotic Precursors - One of the jobs of the robotic precursors will be to assess hazards to human health at exploration destinations.

Commercial Crew and Cargo - Jump-starting a commercial crew industry and a stronger commercial cargo industry makes it more likely that a commercial space station or uncrewed space lab industry will develop. Related technology demonstrations also help make this more likely. These platforms are likely to be useful for health and medicine work.

Space Technology - It is possible that some of the work on low-cost space access in this portfolio will encourage the new reusable suborbital rocket industry. The services this industry seeks to offer could be used for various purposes related to health and medicine, such as aerospace medicine tests and qualifying pharmaceutical experiments destined for deployment in orbit.

With its destruction of the ISS in 2015 or 2016, Constellation has little to offer in the way of health and medicine payoffs to the taxpayer. The 2011 budget wins in this category since its competition, Constellation, doesn't even show up in this case.

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Commerce

2010-02-17T19:26:00.000-05:00

Both Constellation and the new NASA budget generate economic activity, at the expense of taxes that tend to inhibit economic activity. No matter what approach NASA uses, when it spends a certain amount of dollars, it's going to set off a certain "baseline" amount of economic activity as it pays for contractors, who in turn pay for employee salaries, pencils, hardware, computers, and so on. To some extend these events in turn result in more economic activity. What I'm interested in is identifying "value added" or "growth-oriented" economic activity beyond this baseline. First I'll take a look at Constellation.

Constellation is centered on building NASA rockets and spacecraft. This hardware isn't available for use beyond NASA's programs. Thus, the "value added" economic activity generated by Constellation is hidden in the matrix of suppliers for small parts and services. Since NASA's 2011 budget will have similar "value added" cases where suppliers are enabled to generate additional business, I'll consider this type of business as equivalent for Constellation and the 2011 budget.

Lunar Business - The major economic benefit promised by Constellation is the beginning of lunar space business. The theory is that once Constellation starts serious astronaut activity on the lunar surface, NASA will have a need for commercial partnerships to deliver supplies, mine resources, and contribute robotic helpers. These services would in turn be applied to other customers.

There are several problems with this promise. One major problem is the great risk that Constellation will never reach this stage. Another problem is that, since Constellation is not expected to be able to reach the lunar surface until year 2035 or so, economic activity is deferred so long that it's hardly worth considering today. Yet another problem with the theory is that there is no way to ensure that NASA will suddenly decide to use commercial services at that point, rather than using the Ares rockets and other NASA work more. Finally, there is nothing preventing NASA from shifting away from the Moon to some other destination once it's done a few astronaut sorties on the Moon. Thus, Constellation's promise of lunar business is quite weak.

The 2011 budget includes the following "value-added" economic activity.

Space Technology - Participation in this portfolio includes commercial partnerships, such as SBIR and STTR arrangements. The technologies chosen are meant to make commercial (and other) space activities more affordable and capable. Example technologies include sensors, smallsats, robots, materials science, communications, propulsion, and affordable space access. It's easy to see, for example, how improvements in these technologies would be useful in the commercial communications satellite industry. This portfolio includes prizes, which often include small business competitors that develop their businesses while competing.

Heavy lift and Propulsion research and development - The projects within this category can include commercial partnerships, and thus may enable "value-added" business if the commercial partners are interested in the technology as a business driver rather than as a source of profit.

Critical Technology Demonstrations - The projects within this portfolio can involve commercial partnerships, and thus may enable "value-added" business if the commercial partners are interested in the technology as a business driver rather than as a source of profit. In-orbit propellant transfer has the potential to be a driver not just for commercial businesses to supply fuel depots, but also for commercial businesses to supply fuel from Earth and perhaps even derived from space resources. ISRU is also one of the technologies cited here, and that could result in commercial businesses for fuel (as just mentioned) or other goods. Other technology demonstrations may have similar commercial potential.

Commercial Crew and Cargo - Naturally commercial crew and cargo services encourage commercial activity for the ISS. The overall level of economic activity is increased if a COTS-like approach is used, since the development funds include not just NASA money, but also commercial investments to implement the services. In other words, NASA "matches" commercial investments that otherwise would not happen.

There are many facets of this commercial crew and cargo transportation beyond just the ISS. The rockets may be used for all sorts of non-NASA business. The same is true of the spacecraft. For example, new rockets or existing rockets with more shared costs can address commercial and government satellite launches, commercial crew launches to non-NASA destinations, and "DragonLab" sorts of science missions. The crew and cargo capabilities could enable a whole new commercial space station industry with numerous additional business possibilities.

Earth and Climate Science - The additional traditional Earth observation satellites funded by the 2011 budget should at a minimum encourage new technology and satellite industry support that can be applied to NOAA, military, commercial, and intelligence Earth observation satellite missions. There is the potential for "hosted payload" or "data purchase" type of business in this category, too, although that is purely speculative. The small new Venture class missions may help enable commercial smallsats, reusable suborbital rockets, and other small aviation and space businesses with potential beyond the NASA market. Some of the additional funding may be applied to the computer market for data analysis, and that market has plenty of commercial potential.

Planetary Science - The additional funding here can be enabling for similar commercial businesses, such as spacecraft launch, satellites, and robotics.

Robotic Precursor Missions - This new line of missions can be enabling for similar commercial businesses, such as spacecraft launch, satellites, and robotics.

Full Utilization of the ISS - The ISS can be used to encourage new commercial rocket and spacecraft businesses to supply the station. The station can also be used for technology demonstrations with commercial potential, such as inflatable structures and refueling. Some of the research performed on the ISS may be for commercial interests, such as pharmaceutical companies.

21st Century Launch Complex - The overhaul of KSC may open up many new "value-added" business opportunities like cost-effective launch services.

Aeronautics and Green Aviation - The new programs for fuel efficient aviation, national airspace safety, and UAVs in the national airspace all have the potential to enable commercial business.

Much has been made of the new commercial crew opportunities in the 2011 budget. This alone might be enough for the 2011 budget to surpass Constellation in "value-added" economic potential. When all of the other opportunities to promote business growth are considered, the 2011 budget clearly has much more potential than Constellation in the economic category.

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Education

2010-02-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

Constellation is a single program that offers relatively few ways for students and academic organizations to participate. It is hoped that having a program to return astronauts to the lunar surface will inspire students to be interested in STEM fields as happened during the Sputnik and Apollo eras. However, it's difficult to see how this can happen when the Vision for Space Exploration's approach has been discarded by Constellation, and an "Apollo on Steriods" approach is used instead. An 8 year old third grader in 2005, when ESAS essentially replaced the Vision for Space Exploration, would have to be inspired by a program that may return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2035 or so, when they're 38 years old ... and since there's little commercial participation, international participation, or technology innovation of the sort envisioned in the VSE, at best ESAS will be able to do little more than Apollo did long ago. It's unlikely many students will be inspired by that prospect.

In contrast, the approach used in the 2011 budget encourages STEM and educational participation in a number of ways:

NASA Education - This includes educational activities like the new "Summer of Innovation". The overall budget also includes participatory exploration activities across various programs. Participatory exploration will encourage interest in STEM.

Space Technology - Participation in this portfolio includes academic partnerships. There should be many opportunities for universities and their students to get involved in the diverse efforts to develop improvements for sensors, smallsats, robots, materials science, propulsion, affordable space access, and other space technologies. Prizes, one of the methods used in this category, often include university teams and educational outreach.

Heavy lift and Propulsion research and development - The projects within this category can include academic partnerships, and thus participation by academic researchers and their students.

Critical Technology Demonstrations - The "enabling technology development program" within this portfolio can involve academic partnerships, and thus participation by academic researchers and their students.

Commercial Crew and Cargo - The commercial transportation services may result in lower-cost launch that makes space more accessible to education interests like universities.

Earth and Climate Science - The funding increase for Earth science missions should give opportunities for educational participation and outreach. For example, students should have access to mission science data, and the missions should include an outreach component. It would not be unusual for university researchers and students to supply missions with components like science instruments. The small new Venture class missions should be even more accessible to university researchers and their students.

Planetary Science - As with the Earth science budget, the Planetary science funding increase should give opportunities for educational outreach, student access to science data, and university participation in the missions themselves.

Robotic Precursor Missions - It's probably safe to speculate that the robotic precursor missions will include educational outreach activities, student data access, and university involvement in mission formulation like other NASA robotic missions.

Full Utilization of the ISS - One of the goals for the increased use of the ISS is to make ISS facilities "available to educators and new researchers".

The new NASA budget provides many opportunities to make an "Open NASA" that gives students and universities on-ramps to participate in and learn from NASA work. The best way to inspire students in space isn't to show them they may see astronauts on TV again when they're much older if all goes well, it's to allow them to contribute to real space activities.

Consellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Science

2010-02-15T20:52:00.000-05:00

Constellation gives the following science benefits:

Ares V heavy lift - Science returns from payloads such as space probes launched by Ares V could be quite impressive. However, it's not clear that such expensive heavy lift rockets or their payloads are affordable by NASA science disciplines or other science organizations. Also, heavy lift would not be available until about the year 2028.

Science Hitchhikers - One proposal included hitchhiker packages in Orion launches. These packages could add bonus science value to Orion missions.

Lunar Surface Science - One of the goals of the lunar surface visits planned by Constellation is to do science there. This could include lunar science, astrophysics, heliophysics, and even Earth observations. However, these lunar visits would not be expected to occur until the mid 2030's, if then. That is so far in the future that it becomes difficult to expect that the program would survive after so many years. However, if it occurs, and NASA is able to deliver a large payload per mission and to afford a steady pace of missions, the science results at the lunar surface can be expected to be significant.

The 2011 budget includes many new missions that can return science results and many new technologies that can enable science.

Space Technology - Many, if not most, of the advances sought in this category would benefit science, especially science conducted by space missions (such as NASA planetary science, Earth science, heliophysics, and astrophysics, NOAA Earth science operations, etc). Examples identified in NASA's budget documents include sensors, robotics, materials, propulsion, low-cost access to space, small satellites, and rapid prototyping.

Heavy lift and Propulsion research and development - If heavy lift is to be useful to science, it needs to be affordable. This research and development effort seeks to make heavy lift affordable. Even if it's not successful in that goal, some of the results may lead to improvements in smaller launch vehicles that would benefit science payloads. The same is true for general propulsion research in this category.

Critical Technology Demonstrations - The exploration technology demonstrations in this line would, if successful, lead to improved human space exploration that can contribute science results. Some of the technologies are also useful for purely robotic science missions. Examples include in-orbit propellant storage and transfter, automated rendezvous and docking, closed-loop life support, power generation and storage, telerobotics, ISRU, advanced in-space propulsion, and inflatable structures. It is possible that some of the technology demonstrations themselves will return science data, just as past technology demonstrator missions like DS-1 and EO-1 did.

Commercial Crew and Cargo - This effort is expected to result in more options to support the ISS, enabling science experiments and technology demonstrations that can lead to later science improvements there. It may also help enable commercial space stations and other services (eg: the SpaceX DragonLab) that can be used for science. It can also be expected to lead to lower-cost rockets to replace the role of the Delta II, as well as shared launch costs for science missions that use EELVs.

Earth and Climate Science - The budget includes a large increase in NASA Earth science mission funding, which should result in several more science satellite missions identified by the National Academies being flown this decade. In addition, it expands funding for smaller Venture-class science missions (also identified by the National Academies).

Planetary Science - The budget include a significant increase in NASA Planetary science mission funding. It increases funding for Near Earth Object searches, starts Plutonium-238 production for deep space missions, and continues the pipeline of planetary science missions.

Robotic Precursor Missions - These robotic missions are designed specifically to scout destinations for human spaceflight for resources and hazards rather than for science. However, it's a safe bet that scientifically useful data will be returned by these missions in the process, and that technologies useful to science will be introduced or supported by these missions.

Full Utilization of the ISS - The full use of the ISS for research and development considerably improves the expected science results from this facility, as do the intended support for the ISS through 2020 or beyond and a new program to continuously upgrade ISS capabilities.

Space Shuttle - The additional funding for the Space Shuttle ensures that it completes its missions to the ISS, and thus helps enable the science work that can be done there.

21st Century Launch Complex - This includes improvements in the Kennedy Space Center range and payload processing capacity that could be useful to science missions launched there.

In terms of science returns, the taxpayer wins in dramatic fashion with the 2011 budget. Constellation's large potential science return from lunar surface work is greatly offset by the expectation that it would happen so far in the future, if at all. There is a substantial risk that, with Constellation's high cost, long schedule, and all-or-nothing approach, it would never achieve its objectives.

The 2011 budget's broad push on multiple science missions and science-enabling technology fronts ensures that, even though there will be individual failures, a considerable amount of new science data and an increase in science mission capabilities per dollar spent will be achieved. Whether that science data and increase in capabilities succeeds in establishing the foundations for later beyond-LEO astronaut successes in science and other fields remains to be seen.

Consellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Energy and Environment

2010-02-14T17:32:00.000-05:00

Constellation gives the following energy/environmental benefit:

Ares V heavy lift - Heavy lift could be used to launch major environment monitoring satellites. However, it's not clear that such expensive heavy lift rockets or their payloads are affordable by environment or energy agencies, or that alternate strategies like dry launch and in-orbit fueling, docking, and in-space assembly wouldn't work better even if such payloads can be afforded in the first place. Also, Ares V heavy lift would not be available until about the year 2028.

The new NASA budget gives the following energy and environment benefits:

Critical Technology Demonstrations - This portfolio includes technologies useful for environmental stewardship on Earth like closed-loop life support systems (i.e. recycling). It also includes technologies that ultimately should allow us to better maintain and service environment monitoring satellites, such as in-situ resource utilization and in-orbit propellant transfer and storage. This effort also includes power generation and storage technologies that could have use on Earth.

Space Technology - This effort in general space technology includes many technologies that can benefit Earth observation satellites that can monitor the environment, help transportation systems on Earth run more efficiently, and assess energy resources on Earth. Examples presented in the budget documents include communications, sensor, materials, small satellites, and low-cost access to space.

Full Utilization of the ISS - Remarks by NASA management in the budget rollout indicate that one of the uses of the ISS would be to fly Earth Science payloads. Use of commercial crew for ISS transportation and demonstrations of inflatable structures on the ISS could help bring about commercial space stations that could be used for the same purpose.

21st Century Launch Complex - The upgrades to the Kennedy Space Center include enhanced environmental cleanup.

Earth and Climate Science - NASA's Earth Sciences portfolio gets a large increase, which is directly applicable to monitoring the environment. This includes accelerating the development of several new environment monitoring satellites. It also includes expanding and speeding up the new Venture-class Earth science missions, which are small Earth science investigations appropriate for suborbital rockets, small satellites, and other low-cost platforms.

Aeronautics and Green Aviation - The increases for Aeronautics include environmentally responsible aviation work.

It's pretty clear that the new budget is a win from the energy/environment perspective.

Consellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Security

2010-02-13T17:29:00.007-05:00

I will define national security fairly broadly, and include the military, intelligence agencies, homeland security, disaster warning, and disaster response.

Constellation gives the following national security benefits:

Ares V heavy lift - Impressive security payloads could be launched by Ares V. However, it's not clear that such expensive heavy lift rockets or their payloads are affordable by security agencies. Also, heavy lift would not be available until about the year 2028.

Partial common hardware with EELVs - This commonality encourages lower cost to security agencies for some EELV components. However, this benefit pales in comparison with the alternative, which is actually using EELVs. Also, significant benefits don't begin until Ares I operations in 2017-2019, and they are still quite minor due to low Ares I flight rates. Only when Ares V becomes operational would this benefit be felt.

Solid rocket support - This advantage seems to be quite indirect and diluted compared to the more straightforward security benefits that come with the new budget.

The new NASA budget gives the following national security benefits:

Space Technology - Many of the investments in this portfolio, such as sensors, robotics, propulsion, materials, small satellites, low-cost access to space, rapid prototyping, and communications, can be expected to benefit the military, intelligence agencies, disaster warning and response, and homeland security. Some of this work will also share launch infrastructure costs with security agencies.

Heavy lift and Propulsion research and development - Research and development into cost-effective heavy lift may provide benefits to the various security interests. If heavy lift is ever to benefit such organizations, it is going to have to become affordable, so investments in affordable heavy lift now seem more useful than starting to build an unaffordable heavy lifter after Ares I is operational. In addition, even if affordable heavy lift doesn't pan out, such R&D results might be applied to other classes of rockets. General propulsion research and in-space engine technology development should also benefit security organizations.

Critical Technology Demonstrations - Some of these demonstrations will be very useful for security agencies. For example, in-orbit propellant transfer would be useful for providing a market for EELVs and new low-cost rockets, lowering their per-unit price. Such technology could also be used to maintain security satellites. The applicability of various demonstrations to security will depend on the individual technology, but many can be expected to be helpful. Some of this work will also share launch infrastructure costs with security agencies.

Commercial Crew and Cargo - The additional cargo funding could bring Falcon 9 and Taurus II rockets online faster, making these rockets available to security agencies. The commercial crew effort would bring more flights to EELV or new low-cost rockets, presenting security agencies savings by sharing infrastructure costs or by availability of new low-cost rockets (or both). This effect could be greater if additional markets for crew transportation are established. In addition, our dependence on the Russian Soyuz for crew rescue since the beginning of the ISS and for crew transportation has been cited as a security liability. The Augustine Committee estimates that Ares I would be ready by 2017-2019, whereas commercial crew would be ready by 2016 at the latest.

Earth and Climate Science - The new missions in this portfolio will allow more cost-sharing with national security rockets. In addition, the satellites and their sensors will allow shared industry support with national security satellites, especially those that observe the Earth (spy satellites, missile warning satellites, natural disaster warning satellites such as NOAA's weather satellites, etc). The new funding for Venture-class Earth science missions may encourage the reusable suborbital rocket and smallsat industries, which will present new opportunities for Operationally Responsive Space and other security functions.

Robotic Precursor Missions - These missions will also share industry support with security agencies for launch vehicles, satellites, and robots.

Aeronautics and Green Aviation - New funding for unmanned vehicles in the national airspace may help broaden this technology used for security.

Full Utilization of the ISS - Closer ties with ISS partners helps certain international relationships which may be advantageous from a security standpoint.

Planetary Science - The new budget restarts plutonium-238 production in support of deep space exploration. Our current dependence on Russia for plutonium-238 has been cited as a weakness, and this budget would begin the long process to remove that weakness. In addition, the Near Earth Object survey is strengthened, delivering a certain sort of security to the Earth.

The security benefits of the new NASA budget seem more numerous, direct, timely, widely applicable, likely to actually happen, and of larger magnitude than their Constellation counterparts.

Consellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Overview

2010-02-13T16:26:00.024-05:00

Now that the 2011 NASA budget proposal has been released, we know that many dramatic changes may be in store for the space agency. These changes include, among other things

a modest budget increase (in a difficult budgetary environment)

a large new exploration technology development and demonstration program for ISRU, in-orbit refueling, inflatable modules, and more

a new research and development program for exploration propulsion and heavy lift

a general space technology program that includes existing programs, but with a considerably larger budget

a robotic human spaceflight precursor program with a budget that is considerably larger than the historical budget for such missions

a larger budget for space station use, with the intent to continue the ISS until 2020 or beyond

a major new program for U.S. commercial crew transport to the ISS, and new incentives for the existing commercial cargo effort

additional funding for the Space Shuttle to ensure it completes the ISS

major upgrades to the Kennedy Space Center

a big increase in the NASA Earth sciences budget

an increase in the planetary science budget, with continuing work on missions to potential HSF destinations (GRAIL, MSL, LADEE, MAVEN, Mars 2016) and other destinations, more NEO search funding, and plutonium-238 production start

an increase for Aeronautics

The budget also cancels the whole ESAS-derived Constellation plan to build a NASA system to transport astronauts to the space station and later to the Moon. It does not replace Constellation with another beyond-LEO astronaut program; the nature, schedule, and destinations for any such program are still being evaluated. This cancellation has prompted a considerable amount of debate and commentary in the media and various space interests.

Even though there was a budget increase, the planned increase over several years is smaller than that envisioned by the Augustine Committee, so we may see something that more closely resembles the Augustine "ISS Focused" option than any of the others, but with stronger technology development and commercial transportation efforts than we might have expected.

In light of all of the controversy over the 2011 budget proposal, including calls that "NASA is cancelled," and "U.S. human spaceflight is cancelled," I'd like to compare the budget with the Constellation program of record using a number of measures based on what I'll call "national benefits". The comparisons will be qualitative, but I think it's useful to look at the budget proposal from these different perspectives to get a better overall picture of what the changes are. Although the views are individually narrow, I hope that in combination we get a good overall view of the changes, what they can deliver for the taxpayer, and how they compare to NASA under Constellation.

I don't intend to compare the new budget to other proposals, including the Flexible Path to the Moon that I prefer over the new budget since it attempts to do achievable exploration and development in the near term using existing rockets while retaining most of the strong research and technology development, ISS use, and commercial participation seen in the 2011 budget. Instead of comparing the 2011 budget to this or that idea for NASA, my focus is simply to compare the new budget to the status quo Constellation-based program of record to see if the changes are an improvement. I will refrain from giving the new budget plan credit for exploration results that may occur in later years, since we don't know what the detailed exploration plan is.

The national benefits I've selected as measures for this evaluation are security, environment and energy, economy, science, health and medicine, and education. These are areas where there are national-level problems and opportunities, where taxpayers have historically been willing to invest tax money in, and where space can have a role to play.

I could compare the current budget and Constellation using many other criteria, such as ability to make reasonable progress given a changing budget (i.e. sustainability), international partnerships, commercial participation, robotic (non-science) HSF precursors, ISS and general space station use, technology development, and affordable space access, but I think it's pretty obvious that the new budget is better than the Constellation version of NASA in all of those areas.

I could also attempt to compare the current budget and Constellation in terms of destinations and specific exploration plans, but the current budget's exploration plans are not available yet and are likely to depend on results of robotic precursors and technology developments. In addition, Constellation's small chance of being able to do "Apollo on Steroids" in the mid 2030's strikes me as falling far short of what is needed for a space exploration and development program worth the cost. As far as beyond-LEO astronaut exploration is concerned, I simply have to consider both plans as "incomplete."

The following will show links to the various comparisons as they are completed.

Consellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Security

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Energy and Environment

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Health and Medicine

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Science

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Commerce

Constellation vs. NASA's Bold New Space Initiative: Education

Flexible Path to the Moon

2010-01-20T19:37:00.044-05:00

The Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee Final Report presents two main viable exploration plans based on destination. The first is called "Moon First". This plan focuses on missions to the lunar surface. In contrast, the "Flexible Path to Mars" features a variety of more and more ambitious destinations, such as lunar orbit, Lagrange points, Near Earth Objects, Mars orbit, and Mars Moons (with the possibility of lunar surface visits some time after NEOs are reached). These missions are intended to eventually lead to the Martian surface, possibly after both are achieved.

A number of different approaches are described to reach the Moon First and Flexible Path to Mars destinations. However, all of these approaches require a trend to a roughly $3B/year increase in the NASA Human Spaceflight budget. Such a large increase may be difficult to reach, and even more difficult to maintain over many years. Given this difficulty, I would suggest a third series of destinations, the "Flexible Path to the Moon".

The Flexible Path to the Moon is just a new name, not a new idea. The concept can be found in different forms in some of the documents linked here.

Let's suppose we cannot find the budget needed to implement either one of the Augustine Committee approaches on anything like a timely schedule without unacceptable sacrifices in other NASA areas. Instead of ignoring this problem and plowing ahead anyway on one of the two Augustine paths with an expensive heavy lift development effort that cannot be afforded while developing payloads for the vehicle, using the ISS to its fullest, doing needed technology development, and other important jobs, the Flexible Path to the Moon removes or at least postpones the heavy lift development and its expenses. It also delays or sacrifices the more ambitious Flexible Path destinations, such as NEOs and Mars orbit. These destinations can be addressed at a later time when the Flexible Path to the Moon has developed sufficiently that they are in reach. In compensation, the Flexible Path to the Moon focuses on easier and more near-term destinations like LEO, GEO, lunar orbit, and Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lingers longer at these destinations to make the most of them. These destinations are used for a variety of purposes. Among other things, infrastructure at these destinations is developed to ultimately allow a cost-effective lunar surface astronaut program.

The Flexible Path to the Moon consists of three phases:

Establish a Foothold - The first phase includes developing commercial and international partnerships for the full Flexible Path to the Moon, beginning a long-term program to maintain and fully use the ISS through at least 2020, developing U.S. commercial crew and cargo services to support the ISS, establishing a vigorous technology development program, and starting an ambitious robotic lunar precursor effort for science, resource scouting, engineering tests, and more with NASA, commercial, and international participation. This phase could also include robotic precursors to destinations that are beyond the scope of the Flexible Path to the Moon, like Near Earth Objects and Mars Moons. Given the fairly large number of robotic missions envisioned here in support of the Flexible Path to the Moon, it is likely that there would be fewer outer planets robot missions.

Go Beyond LEO - The second phase builds on the first, which would largely continue in an operational mode while the second phase begins development. This phase includes astronaut missions to GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit using the same class of rockets used in the first phase. Astrophysics, Earth Observation, and Heliophysics observatories could be assembled by astronauts and perhaps robotic helpers in appropriate locations as described in this NASA Spaceflight article, but, given cost constraints, the observatories would most likely be considerably smaller than the ones described there. Satellite servicing capabilities, such as satellite refueling, instrument upgrades, and component replacement could be demonstrated at various locations. Lunar orbit could be used for lunar observations and telerobotics, perhaps to demonstrate telerobotics capabilities for mission beyond the scope of the Flexible Path to the Moon. Space transportation from LEO to and from the more distant destinations would be designed to be affordable and most likely reusable. Reusable space infrastructure would be developed to support these efforts, such as satellite assembly and servicing nodes, lunar orbit space stations, and fuel depots. Spacecraft refueling would become operational. Space infrastructure in LEO, such as commercial LEO space stations to team with the ISS efforts, would be encouraged. It should be noted that the destinations described here are similar to those in the early "Flexible Path to Mars". However, in the Flexible Path to the Moon, we are spending much more time at these destinations. Phase 2 could involve many missions over many years. If the budget does not allow all of this to be done at once, it is possible that there would be multiple sub-phases within Phase 2.

Return to the Moon - This phase builds on, and maintains, the infrastructure and capabilities developed in the earlier phases. Using commercial access to space, refueling, reusable spacecraft, and space infrastructure nodes in lunar orbit and/or at Earth-Moon Lagrange points, astronauts would already be close to reaching the lunar surface. Lunar robotics would have prepared the way for productive work at the surface. As the budget allows, this phase adds a lunar lander that could be reusable. It also incrementally adds lunar surface capabilities as needed. These capabilities might include surface mobility, a base, or ISRU facilities, depending on the results of the many earlier lunar robotics efforts.

This Flexible Path to the Moon allows us to achieve great synergy between human missions beyond LEO and NASA science, including ISS Science, Earth Observation, Heliophysics, Astrophysics, and Planetary Science. It provides many opportunities for commercial and international participation. Given that most of our existing science, security, and commercial satellite infrastructure is in the locations described here, this approach provides many ways to achieve the original Vision for Space Exploration goals of science, security, and economic benefits.

I would suggest that the Flexible Path to the Moon is more affordable that either the Moon First or Flexible Path to Mars scenarios envisioned by the Augustine Committee. If one is skeptical that the sort of reusable infrastructure not launched by HLVs described here is cheaper than the HLV-based Moon-First approach, then simply discard or postpone phase 3 above. At least you will still be able to accomplish some useful work with the first 2 phases described above, and still get closer to the Moon and Mars, than if an HLV-based Moon-First or Flexible Path to Mars approach is used without the budget to make them possible.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 10

2009-11-27T12:35:00.013-05:00

What is the appropriate amount and nature of complementary robotic activities needed to make human space flight activities most productive and affordable over the long term?

A similar question appears in the Augustine Committee charter, but the report doesn't go into much detail to answer it. There are references to robotic activities throughout the report, such as deploying probes, servicing Lagrange point observatories, use of commercial lunar robotics capabilities in human lunar systems, and telerobotics in the Flexible Path. Section 9.6, "Managing the Balance of Human and Robotic Spaceflight", briefly discusses NASA's scientific robotics and budgetary protection for these science missions. However, the closest it comes to clarifying the role for robotics in support of human spaceflight is the following passage:

Needless to say, robotic spaceflight should play an important role in the human spaceflight program itself, reconnoitering scientifically important destinations, surveying future landing sites, providing logistical support and more. Correspondingly, humans can play an important role in science missions, particularly in field geology, exploration, and the maintenance and enhancement of robotic systems in space. (See Figure 9.6-1.) It is in the interest of both science and human spaceflight that a credible and well-rationalized strategy of coordination between the two types of pursuit be developed—without forcing unwarranted intermingling in areas where each would better proceed on its own.

This leaves many questions unanswered:

What budget is needed for robotics related to HSF in the report's various options?
For each option, what are the required robotic missions, data sets, and capabilities, and what is their schedule?
What are the enhancing robotic missions for each option?
In cases where robotic science and human spaceflight intermingle (probes doing science and HSF resource searches, scientific telerobotics, etc), how should the budget be handled?
To what extent should NASA's robotic science missions be directed to support human spaceflight with the report's various options? The answer could be quite different for the Moon First and Flexible Path options.
What are the opportunities for commercial and international robotic participation?
Is there a valid role for heavy lift with robotics, or would it just absorb robotic mission funding and make robotic missions more expensive and rare?

If, as the report suggests, we can't start astronaut exploration for over a decade, we should pay close attention to exploration we can actually accomplish now: robotic missions. More insight into this critical area would have been useful.

Let's imagine NASA's HSF budget is increased, but not by $3B/year. Some of the difference is made up by commercial and international participation and other cost-saving measures, but there's still a shortfall. We need, but can't afford, certain robotic missions, so the budgetary gaze turns to NASA planetary science. Should planetary science sacrifice missions unrelated to HSF? For example, NASA plans a Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO - PDF) that may cost 3 billion dollars or so; this is in conjunction with an ESA Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO - PDF). Would JEO be replaced with a less costly outer planets contribution, such as instruments or other participation in JGO, or a low-cost Europa mission like Europa Ice Clipper, with the savings devoted to HSF-supporting Moon, NEO, or Mars robotic science? This would not be a case where HSF raids the robotic science budget; a robotic planetary science destination aligned with HSF missions would raid another with top-tier science value but low HSF value. It would be good if the report suggested an approach to deal with or avoid such potential conflicts.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 9

2009-11-21T15:13:00.011-05:00

Should we reach the end of the Flexible Path as quickly as possible, or should we make the most of each step along that path?

The Augustine report describes the Flexible Path as an incrementally more ambitious and difficult series of deep space missions. The wording of the Flexible Path description seems to indicate that, while exploration capabilities increase gradually on this path, there is little infrastructure built up from mission to mission, and little long-term use of the various deep space destinations. In a sense the deep space missions could be considered "one-offs" that eventually allow us to reach the surface of Mars. For example, the report says

In every flight, the Flexible Path voyages would visit places where humans have never been before, with each mission extending farther than the previous one ...

Clearly, if each mission extends farther than the previous one, we are not lingering at the various destinations.

The report describes several missions to near-Earth objects, but each near-Earth object is a unique destination. The other destinations don't seem to imply or require repeated visits. It is suggested that the Earth-Moon L1 point destination might involve a fuel depot, but no other space infrastructure is implied in the Flexible Path.

I would suggest that the Flexible Path be modified to potentially revisit earlier destinations as appropriate for

building space infrastructure such as small habitats or stations, depots, servicing nodes, and assembly areas to enable exploration and resource use

additional science benefits such as improved data gathering following analysis of data from earlier Flexible Path missions

incremental improvement of engineering and science capabilities at each destination, such as additional observatory servicing capabilities, additional telerobotics missions, and improved science instruments

making later exploration steps safer, easier, and more productive through carefully repeated testing of exploration systems at each Flexible Path step and build-up of exploration-enabling space infrastructure

more thorough extraction of resources at NEOs if the early NEO ISRU demos show promise

enabling commerce and purchasing commercial services at the various destinations

The Flexible Path should specifically spell out options for gradually passing over responsibility for earlier destinations to commercial space without having the space agency completely losing interest in those earlier destinations.

In a limited budget, the adjustment I've described would come at a price. Our journey along the Flexible Path would be slower. That's not a trivial price. However, a slower journey is probably justified if it results in getting more benefits out of each step.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 8

2009-11-21T08:49:00.023-05:00

Should the relative risks and rewards of Ares 1 and commercial alternatives be evaluated?

The Augustine Committee report notes that

If we craft a space architecture to provide opportunities to industry, creating an assured initial market, there is the potential—not without risk—that the eventual costs to the government could be reduced substantially.

and

While there are many potential benefits of commercial services that transport crew to low-Earth orbit, there are simply too many risks at the present time not to have a viable fallback option for risk mitigation.

These are just examples; the report repeatedly describes commercial transportation services in terms of risk. It goes into some detail on those risks in section 5.3.3, "Commercial Services to Transport Crew to Low-Earth Orbit".

It is undeniably true that there is risk in using the commercial space industry for basic space transportation. However, there is also risk in using the traditional NASA cost-plus contract or in-house development approaches. Is one type of risk greater than the other? If so, which one? Let's use the Ares 1 program as an example. Ares 1 clearly demonstrates that NASA's traditional procurement approach can come with significant, and perhaps overwhelming, budgetary, schedule, political, and management risk. Other similar NASA rocket and human spaceflight programs have also shown that this type of risk is often quite high. The real question is not whether Ares 1 or commercial transportation involve risk, it's how the 2 approaches compare in their level of risk, and how the 2 approaches compare in their level of potential benefits.

One factor to consider when comparing Ares 1 and commercial transport risk is that a commercial approach like the current COTS cargo procurement can include multiple vendors, eliminating the risk of a single point design during development. Of course having multiple independent systems also reduces risk during operation. Consider the multiple years NASA was grounded following the Shuttle accidents, and the long delays during various other Shuttle investigations. Multiple Ares 1 class systems are presumably unaffordable, so Ares 1 by itself presents serious development and operation risk simply due to its being 1 system. The Augustine report imagines 3 commercial vendors, with one falling by the wayside during development. The report accounts for this level of competition in its budget estimates.

Another factor is that the COTS approach shields NASA from much of the budget risk, since NASA only has to pay when milestones are actually met, and since the commercial operators would take responsibility for some of the funding in such an approach. The commercial operators would be willing to take that responsibility in part because their services could be used in other markets beyond LEO crew transport for NASA, giving them an extra incentive to succeed that is not available to Ares 1 contractors.

We should also consider that commercial vendors are already used in areas with much higher stakes than human spaceflight. One example in the space industry is the use of EELV launchers for national security payloads. The issue is not one of government vs. private industry, since NASA already uses private contractors for Ares. As the report describes in detail, NASA would still have a strong safety oversight role when using the services of commercial vendors. The issue is how the government should purchase services from private industry, and how it should form contracts with private industry, in this particular market where technologies have been used for many decades and commercial vendors are eager to develop markets.

Another factor that shouldn't be overlooked is that the commercial vendors would only need to address the challenges of an LEO "taxi" service, and would not need to develop more difficult systems that are also capable of exploration missions.

Given the budget and schedule that we face, all options include risk. Which risk is greater, and is the greater risk worth taking because of greater potential benefits? The report should compare the options side by side.

If there are too many risks with commercial transportation for NASA to not have a viable fallback option for risk mitigation, why would there not be too many risks with Ares 1 transportation for NASA to not have a viable fallback option for risk mitigation? It seems that if a fully independent transportation system or fallback plan for such a system is needed for the commercial approach, such a fallback is also be needed for the Ares 1 approach, unless we come to the conclusion that Ares 1 is much less risky than multiple commercial services. This would truly be an astonishing conclusion, given what we already know about Ares 1 and the history of similar NASA development programs.

If a fallback for Ares 1 is needed, then the costs of Ares 1 have been considerably understated by the Augustine Committee. If the commercial options are to be burdened with an independent non-commercial fallback, all Augustine options using Ares 1 need to add the funding and schedule required for a fully independent crew transportation fallback in case Ares 1 fails.

A human-rated Ares V does not qualify as an independent fallback for Ares 1.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 7

2009-11-20T16:46:00.035-05:00

Should the relative risks and rewards of Heavy lift and refueling be evaluated?

The Augustine Committee report states:

"Using a launch system with more than three critical launches begins to cause unacceptably low mission launch reliability. Therefore a prudent strategy would be to use launch vehicles that allow the completion of a lunar mission with no more than three launches without refueling. This would imply a launch mass to low-Earth orbit of at least 65 to 70 mt based on current NASA lunar plans. Vehicles in the range up to about 100 mt will require in-space refueling for more demanding missions. Vehicle above this launch capability will be enhanced by in-space refueling, but will not require it. When in-space refueling is developed, any of these launchers will become more capable."

Calling this a "prudent strategy" implies that developing in-space refueling is more risky than developing a large heavy lift vehicle. The idea is that with the HLV, we can at least do lunar missions, and more ambitious missions will be the bonus we get if refueling is developed. If we have a really big HLV, maybe we don't need refueling at all. Under inevitable budget pressures, such an outlook will likely result in refueling funds ultimately being diverted to the "critical path" HLV.

Why not look at this the other way around? What type of missions can we accomplish with existing rockets plus refueling? Could we have 3 "layers" of missions: easy missions that only require existing rockets, baseline exploration missions where we need refueling, and a "bonus" set of missions where we need both refueling and heavy lift? Then refueling will be on the critical path, but heavy lift won't. Even without refueling or heavy lift we will still accomplish something.
Of course it wouldn't be prudent to take this approach if refueling is riskier than HLV. However, is this the case?

We already know the Saturn rockets were ended after only a few flights. We already know Ares V development is so expensive that it causes havoc to even a less-constrained budget. Ares V development also causes extreme delays for any exploration that relies on it. This form of heavy lift obviously comes with serious budget and schedule risk, and there is some degree of technical risk as well. Developing, demonstrating, and operating refueling is not without risk, but is it really more risky than heavy lift development and operation? Perhaps the answer is complex, depending on the specific HLV and refueling technologies used.

Let's turn the tables and at least consider a prudent strategy baselining refueling in our exploration plans, while allowing heavy lift to give us greater exploration capabilities should that risky technology arrive.

Risk is not the only factor when deciding whether we should put heavy lift or refueling on the critical path. Potential benefits are also important, and can justify greater risk. For example, if the military has an important security satellite that is needed to defend the nation ready to launch that requires heavy lift, then developing heavy lift would be beneficial because it allows this national security mission to occur. At the moment, I don't see evidence that such benefits are really there for heavy lift, but that could change if some organization other than NASA exploration steps forward with plans and money to use heavy lift. I mentioned some benefits of refueling here; suffice it to say that they appear to be quite compelling both for exploration and for general benefits to the nation.

As an aside, I'm not sure why lunar missions sized by NASA's current plans are used as the baseline in this case. Considering that the exploration budget is a huge issue, why not use some easier destination, such as Earth orbit, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit, as the baseline, and consider more difficult destinations like lunar surface missions as "bonuses" if refueling and other approaches like reusable landers and reusable spacecraft don't work out? This seems like a more prudent strategy in the case where very ambitious versions of heavy lift appear likely to use far too much of the available budget and schedule. Such as strategy looks even better if we use a smaller HLV that can later be upgraded if needed.

Interestingly, the 65 to 70 mt to LEO threshold discussed above contradicts more modest HLV capabilities described elsewhere in the report as the minimum needed for exploration.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 6

2009-11-17T22:07:00.003-05:00

What are the implications of astronaut servicing of Lagrange point observatories?

The Committee outlines “Flexible Path” Lagrange point destinations where one objective is to service deep space observatories. It may make sense, if we actually do go to the trouble to develop astronaut satellite servicing and repair capabilities again, to do so on a larger scale, rather than to go to such trouble just for 1 or 2 Lagrange point satellites. In fact, if such servicing is productive for Lagrange point satellites, it may very well be more productive for Earth-orbiting satellites of comparable value. Earth-orbiting satellites can be easier to reach, and specific servicing procedures could be applied to lines of identical satellites in Earth orbit.

If satellite servicing capabilities are developed for exploration, will they only be used for exploration, or will they be used for Earth-orbiting satellites, too? Is there a role for NASA to encourage widespread commercial satellite servicing by providing an initial market for this type of service, developing standards, or developing technology? These seem to be important questions. Satellite servicing in the context of NASA exploration could be a way for exploration to deliver major benefits to the nation if it results in widespread use of servicing, upgrade, and repair capabilities on nationally-important satellites, and if it results in a thriving commercial space industry developing the serviceable satellites and performing the servicing.

All of this, of course, depends on satellite servicing and repair capabilities being justifiable in an economic sense. Can we improve upon heritage satellite servicing costs enough to make them commercially viable? Some possible improvements might come through:

lower-cost launch
lower-cost in-space operations
servicing multiple satellites per mission
performing other useful work during satellite servicing missions
using common servicing techniques on multiple identical satellites
using permanent "servicing nodes" rather than repeatedly launching and retrieving the same servicing hardware

I don't know if these or other approaches are enough to make satellite servicing worthwhile, but if we do engage in Lagrange point servicing, it would make sense to consider the capability in a broader light.

Can we do satellite servicing safely enough to apply it to dozens of satellites?

There are many variations on how Lagrange point observatory servicing could be done.

The mindset driving servicing may vary:

The servicing could be done as a "box to check" in an exploration path that seeks to go farther from Earth. This mindset places a high value on ground-breaking exploration for its own sake.
The servicing could be done with the intention to repeatedly service a number of Lagrange point observatories. This mindset places a high value on the satellite servicing capability and/or the satellites being serviced.

Different servicing concepts could result from the two approaches. For example, a more permanent servicing capability may justify long-duration servicing node(s) that may only be occupied occasionally.

The plan for responsibility for the capability can vary:

Servicing may be seen as a strictly government responsibility.
Servicing may be seen as a government responsibility that is transferred to commercial space to allow government to explore more.
Servicing could include commercial participation from the beginning.

The scope of servicing can vary greatly:

Servicing could be limited to Lagrange point satellites.
Servicing could be developed for Lagrange point satellites as part of an exploration plan, and then these capabilities could be applied to Earth-orbiting satellites.
Servicing could be applied to Earth-orbiting satellites with an eye towards later applying it to Lagrange point satellites as part of the exploration plan.

Serviced Earth-orbiting satellites might be owned by NASA, other government agencies, or private industry.

The specific type of servicing and repair could also vary:

Servicing could be limited to satellite inspection.
Servicing could include refueling.
Servicing could include replacement or upgrade of major components such as instruments.
Servicing could be done by robots, astronauts, or combinations of robots and astronauts.

The destinations for the astronauts performing Lagrange point servicing can vary:

Astronauts could go to Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and service Earth-Sun Lagrange point satellites there (requiring the satellites to move themselves between Lagrange points, or tugs to move them).
Astronauts could go to Earth-Sun Lagrange points to service satellites there.

The diversity of destinations for astronauts would become even richer if the capability is applied to the satellites in various Earth orbits.

If it is done in the first place, a great deal of thought should go into how to develop Lagrange point servicing in such a way that similar capabilities become useful in Earth orbit:

If tugs are designed to move Earth-Sun Lagrange point observatories to and from Earth-Moon Lagrange points, would this architecture work well if applied in Earth orbit to move satellites to astronauts in LEO?
Would an architecture where the observatories and satellites move themselves work well in Earth orbit?
Could a Lagrange point servicing node be duplicated in a useful way in Earth orbit for servicing satellites there?
Is there any synergy with the exploration refueling capability described by the Augustine Comittee report and the ability to refuel satellites? If so, is there any synergy with the propellant ISRU capability described by the report and refueled satellites?
Could commercial satellite servicing in Earth orbit have any synergy with the ISS commercial crew transport services in most of the report's options?
Could exploration vehicles or depots be serviced in a similar manner to satellites?

Many similar questions need to be considered.

It is beyond the scope of the Augustine Committee to fully delve into all of the possibilities and decisions surrounding satellite servicing, but it would be useful for the report to point in a direction that helps start the conversation. We may not be able to get astronauts to Lagrange points any time soon, but we should be able to get them to LEO where they could do servicing sooner. We need to think well in advance of actual servicing missions about making observatories serviceable, too.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 5

2009-11-14T20:33:00.014-05:00

What is the real goal of human space exploration?

The Augustine Committee's report states the following:

A human landing followed by an extended human presence on Mars stands prominently above all other opportunities for exploration. Mars is unquestionably the most scientifically interesting destination in the inner solar system, with a planetary history much like Earth’s. It possesses resources that can be used for life support and propellants. If humans are ever to live for long periods on another planetary surface, it is likely to be on Mars.

However, the Committee also notes that we are far from being able to visit the surface of Mars now. If that's the case, does it make sense to consider Mars to be the "ultimate destination for human exploration"? Does it make sense to make any particular physical location or orbit such an overriding goal or "ultimate destination", and thus perhaps mask more near-term goals that are both important and achievable?

I would argue that the exploration program should not be driven by specific destinations. Independence from preconceived destinations could be an advantage of the Flexible Path if that path weren't chosen mainly as a progression towards the Martian surface. However, the Flexible Path is Mars-centric; in the report it's called a "flexible path to Mars".

Instead of defining an exploration effort by a physical location, it should be defined by goals that address national needs, solve national problems, and delivering national benefits. In fact the report itself includes the following passage centered on national benefits rather than physical locations:

How will we explore to deliver the greatest benefit to the nation? Planning for a human spaceflight program should begin with a choice about its goals—rather than a choice of possible destinations. Destinations should derive from goals, and alternative architectures may be weighed against those goals. There is now a strong consensus in the United States that the next step in human spaceflight is to travel beyond low-Earth orbit. This should carry important benefits to society, including: driving technological innovation; developing commercial industries and important national capabilities; and contributing to our expertise in further exploration. Human exploration can contribute appropriately to the expansion of scientific knowledge, particularly in areas such as field geology, and it is in the interest of both science and human spaceflight that a credible and well-rationalized strategy of coordination between them be developed. Crucially, human spaceflight objectives should broadly align with key national objectives.

If destinations should derive from nationally-important goals, then let's not get ahead of ourselves and pick a specific destination like the surface of Mars as the "ultimate destination for exploration". Let Mars and all of the other destinations fend for themselves in terms of the national benefits we can expect from getting there, and factor in the national costs and risks we can expect in getting there. Maybe Mars will still stand out in such an analysis - but let's do the analysis.

If reaching the surface of Mars is out of reach given the available exploration budget, let's find an exploration path that still delivers national benefits even if it isn't up to the task of reaching Mars. With the Flexible Path, for example, that might mean choosing an affordable approach that is not able to reach even Mars orbit, but that can deliver benefits beyond LEO but closer to Earth through commercial incentives, science, space infrastructure development, and space resource extraction.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 4

2009-11-14T13:37:00.017-05:00

Should Venus orbit be included in the Flexible Path?

Another potential Flexible Path (deep space) destination that was not listed in the Committee's report is Venus orbit. One could argue that Mars orbit is more compelling than Venus orbit because of the Mars moons, unassisted views of the Martian surface from orbit, and greater potential for later astronaut work on that surface. Such an argument could be quite convincing. However, if Mars orbit is reached, it seems that the option to reach Venus orbit could then be considered, at least as a Flexible Path "off-ramp".

Venus orbit allows teleoperation of surface robots just as Mars orbit does. The heat at Venus's surface may make teleoperations even more useful because heat-producing and heat-sensitive electronics on surface robots can be replaced with telecommands. As with Mars, teleoperation may be useful in Venus's atmosphere with robotic planes or balloons. Venus surface or atmosphere sample return may be an option just as it is on Mars. Remote sensing of Venus could take place from orbit. Solar observations are another possibility. At the risk of straying too far into fiction territory, perhaps an astronaut mission in the upper Venusian atmosphere could even be achieved. Venus may also be a compelling destination given the insight it might give on climate processes.

The Flexible Path already has "off-ramps". Why not include Venus orbit as another potential future "off-ramp" - one that at the moment we don't plan to travel?

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 3

2009-11-14T13:19:00.002-05:00

Should Earth orbit be included in the Flexible Path?

The Committee outlines a number of Flexible Path (deep space) destinations. However, it does not list Earth orbit. The Committee's charter is framed so that exploration is viewed as activity beyond low-Earth orbit. However, there are Earth orbits beyond LEO that could be useful for satellite servicing, remote sensing, and other purposes. If the subject at hand wasn't beyond-LEO exploration, we could also consider non-traditional orbits for astronauts in LEO, such as sun-synchronous polar orbits for satellite servicing.

Should these Earth orbit destinations be considered in the Flexible Path? Perhaps they could be considered Flexible Path commercial "off-ramps", based on whether or not the commercial space industry is interested in taking over satellite servicing capabilities NASA develops for Flexible Path Lagrange point observatories and applying those capabilities to Earth-orbiting satellites?

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 2

2009-11-13T20:59:00.009-05:00

Why wasn't a Phase I EELV HLV or similar HLV included in any options?

Is an affordable heavy lift vehicle possible? The Augustine Committee report’s cheapest heavy lift option is the Phase II EELV HLV, which delivers 75MT to LEO. Since by name this HLV variant is a "Phase II", obviously there is a Phase I. Phase I is a smaller EELV that delivers 40-50MT to LEO, depending on the specific EELV used.

The Committee's final report says

… the EELV-heritage super heavy is still larger than the Committee’s estimated smallest possible launcher to support exploration, which is in the range of 40 to 60 mt.

Thus a 40-50MT Phase I EELV HLV fits within the Committee's estimated smallest possible launcher range to support exploration. Why not simply implement Phase I then, and base exploration plans, or at least initial exploration plans, on that rocket for the larger exploration launches? Surely this would be cheaper and faster to develop than any of the report’s menu of heavy lift vehicles. Phase I is only a portion of Phase II, the cheapest HLV presented by the Committee in its options that don't fit the budget and enable beyond-LEO exploration at the same time.

There are advantages to the Phase I EELV HLV. Phase I would still allow a considerable amount of exploration, especially if combined with refueling, assembly, and docking in space. Although the most difficult and mass-intensive exploration missions may from one perspective be the most interesting and exotic ones, from another perspective the easier missions have a great deal of appeal in terms of economic potential. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if the Phase I EELV HLV causes us to dwell a bit longer at those destinations, developing their potential to the fullest.

It also wouldn't be bad if a smaller HLV encourages us to perfect our skills at refueling, ISRU, reusable space-only craft, frequent low-cost launch, docking, and assembly. All of these skills may find productive use outside NASA exploration. Enabling such capabilities may prove to be more important than NASA's actual exploration itself.

Phase I would also be more compatible with existing EELV production lines and infrastructure, and would be sized to have a greater chance than the larger HLVs to address realistic national security, commercial, and science needs outside NASA human spaceflight. I don't see national security, commercial, or science interests rushing to the head of the line with payloads in tow, eagerly waiting for a spot on a 75MT or greater HLV, and willing to pitch in some funding to make sure it happens.

Finally, if some day our exploration ambitions grow beyond Phase I, we could always continue to Phase II.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Question 1

2009-11-13T20:19:00.011-05:00

Are beyond-LEO exploration and fitting the budget really incompatible?

Two of the goals in the Committee's charter were to fit the budget and to enable beyond-LEO exploration. However, only two of the options presented by the Committee fit the budget, and neither of these options enable beyond-LEO exploration in a meaningful time frame. I will ignore the first of these two options, the budget-constrained Program of Record, since it doesn't keep the ISS, encourage commercial space, or include international participation, violating many of the Committee's goals. It also completes Ares 1 after the ISS is deorbited, leaving it nowhere to go. Finally, it starts lunar exploration far, far in the future.

As the Committee states, the Program of Record "offers little or no apparent value".

The Committee's Option 2 fits the constrained budget while allowing technology development, a longer ISS lifespan, and commercial support of the ISS. It removes Ares 1, but delivers an "Ares V Lite" in the late 2020's, with actual use of the Ares V Lite happening much later. Essentially beyond-LEO exploration is not viable under this plan, either, although some useful non-exploration activity can be expected with Option 2.

Given that this option attempts to fit the constrained budget while enabling beyond-LEO exploration, why was it encumbered with the high development cost and long schedule of Ares V Lite? Why was it required to reach the lunar surface, when the Deep Space (Flexible Path) options depicted elsewhere in the report involve a lower cost of entry? The report states:

In the process of developing these options, the Committee conducted a sensitivity analysis to determine whether any reasonable exploration program (e.g., with different heavylift vehicles, or a different exploration destination) would fit within the FY 2010 budget guidance. The Committee could find none. In addition, the Committee tried to develop a variant of the Flexible Path that fit within the FY 2010 budget, and such a variant looked no more promising than Option 2, with the first missions beyond low-Earth orbit in the late 2020s.

This analysis led the Committee to its finding that human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit is not viable under the FY 2010 budget guideline. It would be possible to continue the ISS and a program of human activity in low-Earth orbit within this budget guidance, and to develop the technology for future exploration, but the budget limitation would delay meaningful exploration well into the 2020s or beyond.

It would be good to see the analysis behind these conclusions. What if only the early Flexible Path destinations such as lunar orbit and Lagrange points were considered? What if, to match these easier destinations, an easier heavy lift option such as the Phase I EELV HLV, or no HLV at all (just refueling and/or assembly) were used? The tradeoffs in terms of reduced cost and shortened schedule versus losing or postponing more difficult destinations should be spelled out.

Such information would be valuable for an Administration that might be considering no budget increase, or perhaps only a modest budget increase, for exploration.

Ten Questions for HSF Committee - Introduction

2009-11-13T19:45:00.005-05:00

A while ago I discussed 10 questions I thought the Human Space Flight Plans Committee members should ask their presenters. Now that the Committee's final report (PDF) is in, I'd like to discuss 10 questions I might ask the Committee itself, were I in a policy position where I needed to do so.

Before I start the questions, I'd like to emphasize that I think the Committee's work is important and useful. In some cases my questions are really just that. In other cases I have opinions that contradict parts of the report, which will probably be evident from the questions themselves. However, I agree with most of the report. Just to make it clear that I think it's a good report, since we're dealing in 10's, here are 10 important ways I think the report has it right:

The Program of Record is unsustainable, and needs major revisions or total replacement.
A strong technology program is vital.
Firewalls are needed to protect areas like NASA robotic missions.
Abandoning the ISS shortly after it is finished is not viable politically, and there is a lot of useful science and engineering work that can and should be done there for many years. The NASA exploration plan needs to take this into account.
Major commercial participation is not only important in its own right, but enables NASA's exploration mission.
Major international participation is also a crucial enabler of NASA exploration.
Refueling and ISRU are technologies with great potential not only for NASA exploration, but for our entire space industry.
Long-range NASA budget plans should factor in likely cost growth.
Although a Moon-first approach is viable and in some ways quite attractive if done the right way, a deep space focused exploration plan should be considered.
Gap-ending alternatives to Ares can be expected to be ready before Ares 1 could be, although we should treat optimistic schedules for those alternatives with some skepticism just as we do with the Ares 1 schedule.

As with the Vision for Space Exploration and the Aldridge Commission recommendations, the trick will be to turn these results from a report to actual implementation. This will have to be done in the face of political and contractor interests that like the money flowing where and how it is now, regardless of whether or not that is in the broader national interest.

Now, let's get on to the questions. I plan to post these gradually, using the tag below for all of them.

Thwarting Augustine

2009-10-04T15:49:00.026-04:00

A recent Space News article, White House Seeks to Restore Human Spaceflight Funding, includes some thoughts on how NASA should react to the final options of the Human Space Flight Review Plans Committee:

Doug Stanley, the Georgia Institute of Technology engineer who led NASA’s 2005 Exploration Systems Architecture Study that picked Ares 1 and the heavy-lift Ares 5 designs over competing approaches that relied on U.S. Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles, said that while the Augustine panel’s analysis provides useful budget and policy assessments of options for the future of manned spaceflight, the rapid pace of the review did not allow for a thorough analysis of cost, risk and schedule implications associated with those options.

I'd say the Augustine committee analysis of cost, risk, and schedule is a lot more credible than that of the ESAS. The Augustine committee and ESAS had a similar amount of time to do their work. Unlike ESAS, the Augustine committee is open about its deliberations, allowing independent parties to critique and evaluate its conclusions. Unlike ESAS, it is independent of NASA, and thus is able to make fair evaluations. The Augustine committee members are experienced and diverse, protecting the committee from taking the side of one of the various camps in the space industry, and protecting it from producing uninformed results. Finally, the Augustine committee has shown itself to be responsive to its charter, whereas ESAS completely discarded the most important parts of the Vision for Space Exploration.

I really think we need to do a fairly detailed architecture study as a follow-on to what [the Augustine panel] has done,” Stanley said during a Sept. 28 seminar on the Augustine report at the George Washington University Space Policy Institute here. “The purpose was not to do a detailed architecture study, it was to lay out and look at budget issues and policy issues we’d have to define.

Do we really need another NASA architecture study of the ESAS sort? ESAS ignored the important parts of the Vision for Space Exploration and the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission. Why would we expect a new NASA architecture study to do anything but dismantle the central results of the Augustine Committee, and replace them with something more or less like the current Ares plan? If that happens we should not be surprised if we wind up exactly where we are now, with a new human spaceflight review committee showing us that once again we're in a human spaceflight quagmire.

Such a NASA human spaceflight transportation architecture study isn't needed, since we don't need a NASA human exploration space flight architecture. There is nothing for the study to study. It's clear from the initial summary of the Augustine options that the things we need to do over the next few years are the following, and we won't be able to afford much else:

finish the ISS

extend the ISS

encourage commercial space to develop and operate a crew transportation capability to support the ISS

as currently planned, encourage commercial space to develop and operate a cargo transportation capability to support the ISS

rebuild NASA's research and development capabilities related to human spaceflight

negotiate mutually-beneficial roles for international partners

start an ambitious robotic precursor program to prepare for human exploration (in part to demonstrate significant early progress, since the Augustine options show human exploration missions only happening in the distant future)

Notice the absence of a new operational NASA human spaceflight transportation system. There may be a single new NASA human spaceflight transportation component in the mix, such as something like Orion, but we cannot afford a multi-system NASA transportation architecture.

I will also go a little beyond the Augustine committee analysis, and assume we will not be ramping up NASA's human spaceflight budget to the tune of $3 billion per year. Perhaps NASA will get $1 billion more per year; perhaps NASA will get cut. A major increase does not seem likely given the overall Federal budget situation and current political trends. NASA's performance on Constellation also doesn't make new NASA human spaceflight development efforts particularly attractive to fund. That implies that the expensive heavy lift options presented by the Augustine committee in all of its options are not affordable. Thus we are left with a couple more jobs to start over the next few years:

develop and demonstrate refueling capability

possibly begin developing relatively modest commercial heavy lift capability - but if this is done, keep the risky HLV development off the critical path until it is built

With those ingredients, perhaps we will be ready for a NASA exploration transportation architecture study ... several years from now, when some of the points I've just listed have produced results.

Stanley said before the White and NASA can select a new space transportation architecture, they need to decide whether the shuttle will keep flying beyond 2010, whether the international space station will remain in orbit through 2020, where the United States wants to send its astronauts in the decades ahead, and define a general policy toward commercial and international transport of astronauts.

In other words, one of the Augustine options needs to be selected. That's true.

However, as I described above, we need to do a lot more than that before NASA selects a new space transportation architecture, or we will have the same problem with the Augustine analysis that we had with the Vision for Space Exploration and the Aldridge Commission. Without strong management, which we cannot count on with so many other big issues related to science and technology the Administration is focused on, the NASA space transportation architecture study will, if history is any guide, discard the earlier policies and results and come up with something more suitable to parochial NASA interests.

If any space transportation architecture study is done, such a study needs to be independent of NASA political and management pressure.

Once the White House embraces a direction for U.S. human spaceflight, Stanley said NASA should then be allowed to conduct a thorough architecture study to include apples-to-apples comparisons of the cost, safety and risk of the Augustine panel’s options, as well as alternative scenarios the panel might not have considered.

May I use my cynical filter to translate?

Once the White House embraces one of the Augustine committee options, NASA human spaceflight management should then be allowed to do an "apples-to-apples" comparison of the Augustine committee options, as well as alternative options the panel might not have considered that happen to serve NASA interests really well. They should then be allowed to discard the selected Augustine option, and pick one that benefits certain portions of NASA rather than the people of the United States.

In addition, Stanley urged that NASA be allowed to determine the true cost and risk of commercial crew transport in low Earth orbit.

In other words, NASA should be allowed to ignore the potential of commercial crew transport in low Earth orbit, and instead continue to buy crew transport services from Russia while NASA spends decades and tens of billions of dollars to build a government-designed and government-operated crew transport "business" to compete with U.S. commercial space business, but that does nothing to address national needs like security and commerce.

There is no need for a NASA evaluation of "the true cost and risk of commercial crew transport in low Earth orbit". We already know that such a generic NASA evaluation of "commercial crew transport" is sure to conclude that a NASA-designed and NASA-operated crew transportation system is by far safer, simpler, sooner, better, faster, and cheaper than any imaginable commercial crew transportation. Why even bother with the evaluation when you know its conclusion in advance?

If NASA arranges a crew transportation competition similar to the cargo portion of the original COTS program, NASA will have an opportunity to evaluate the development and operational cost, as well as the risk, of each proposed transport service. The only thing that needs to be done is to select the best ones.

The independent Augustine committee has already reached the same results that the Aldridge Commission and original Vision for Space Exploration did: commercial crew transportation in LEO is essential to human space exploration and the U.S. national interest.

“There is a lot of work that needs to be done,” he said.

Indeed.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 11 of 11

2009-09-13T22:58:00.004-04:00

11) Finally, the Commission did not do that which would have been most valuable - rendering a clear-eyed, independent assessment of the progress and status of Constellation with respect to its ability to meet goals which have been established in two successive NASA Authorization Acts ...

Griffin seems to be confused about goals. The Augustine committee doesn't need to concern itself with "goals" that people like Senator Shelby and Griffin himself pushed through a past Congress. The committee needs to concern itself with the goals it was given in its charter: encouraging commercial space, fitting the budget, getting U.S. ISS support online faster than the program of record, getting beyond LEO, balancing operations with R&D as well as precursor and helper robotics, bringing international participation into the picture, and evaluating a longer ISS lifespan. That's what the committee was told to do, and that's what it did. Clearly the program of record fails in every one of these areas except perhaps for getting beyond LEO, so what is there to assess?

If we want to take a step back and assess how the program of record is meeting its goals, look to the Vision for Space Exploration document, which clearly specifies what the goals are for the VSE: exploration designed to deliver economic, security, and science benefits in the context of commercial and international participation. It's spelled out very plainly at the beginning of the document. The program of record just as plainly is failing to do these things, with the exception of some bright spots like LRO/LCROSS (and others). This isn't controversial - the program of record isn't even trying to do these things.

Griffin might assume that the HSF committee would disregard their charter and do something more to their (or his) tastes. Fortunately they did their job.

... followed by an assessment of what would be required to get and keep that program on track. Instead, the Commission sought to formulate new options for new programs...

Again, the Augustine committee charter is to formulate options - and since that's plural and the program of record is only one option, by definition that means at least some of the options will be "new programs". It's in their charter, so it's what they did. If Griffin wants to take issue with the Augustine committee's charter, he should take it up with OSTP, not the Augustine committee. However, I suspect he will have a hard time convincing OSTP that the elements of the charter are inappropriate.

Finally, it's not as if the Augustine committee ignored the program of record. They spent quite a lot of time on it, and it does appear as a baseline reference in their suite of options.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 11 o...
Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 10 o...
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Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 10 of 11

2009-09-13T22:39:00.008-04:00

10) The use of "fuel depots" as recommended in the Summary appears to be a solution in search of a problem.

Fuel depots are a solution to the following problems:

providing an on-ramp for commercial space participation (a key VSE goal)

providing an on-ramp for international participation (a key VSE goal)

providing an incentive to develop low-cost space access (an important secondary VSE goal)

through low-cost space access, helping to achieve security, science, and economic benefits (the 3 central VSE goals) by making launch of security, science, and commercial space missions affordable

providing a market for lunar ISRU of propellants (an important secondary VSE goal)

demonstrating a capability (refueling) that would be useful for military, commercial, and science satellites (again addressing the 3 central VSE goals)

allowing the development of a heavy-lift vehicle to be avoided, or a much smaller heavy lift vehicle to be sufficient, making the VSE development more affordable and sustainable (criteria mentioned numerous times in the VSE)

allowing in-space vehicles to be refueled, and thus reused

In fact, heavy lift appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Who needs heavy lift? Apparently not NASA science, the communications satellite industry, DOD, intelligence agencies, NOAA, etc. It seems that the main reason NASA would develop heavy lift is to avoid addressing the real goals of the VSE (science, security, and economic benefits in the context of commercial and international participation).

It is difficult to understand how such an approach can offer an economically favorable alternative. The Ares-5 offers the lowest cost-per-pound for payload to orbit of any presently known heavy-lift launch vehicle design. The mass-specific cost of payload to orbit nearly always improves with increasing launch vehicle scale.

Griffin is saying Ares-5 is the cheapest because it's the biggest. That's an absurd law - why not build a rocket 1,000 times bigger at 10,000 times the cost then? The per-kg cost will be miniscule! I think Griffin's law of scale is easily violated when you consider the possibility of smaller, mass-produced rockets. Exploration, with its serious payload mass requirements, could provide the market for such mass-produced rockets.

Griffin's scale rule of thumb also ignores development costs. After all, it will be a long time before those tens of billions of dollars of Ares-5 (and related Ares-1) development efforts are amortized, at a maximum flight rate of 2 per year. We already have the EELVs and are already building Falcon 9 and Taurus 2 anyway, so their development cost for a job like fuel launch for exploration is $0. When you consider Ares-5 costs, you also have to consider the possibility that the development effort will fail, and all development costs will be wasted ... or the development effort will succeed, but the operations will be so expensive that they are canceled as happened with Apollo, and again the development costs will be wasted.

The recommendation in favor of an architectural approach based upon the use of many smaller vehicles to resupply a fuel depot ignores this fact, as well as the fact that a fuel depot requires a presently non-existent technology - the ability to provide closed-cycle refrigeration to maintain cryogenic fuels in the necessary thermodynamic state in space.

That's why we fund NASA research and development, technology demonstration missions like the New Millennium series, and innovation prizes. Well, we used to fund these things before Dr. Griffin diverted those funds to Ares.

This technology is a holy grail of deep-space exploration, because it is necessary for both chemical- and nuclear-powered upper stages.

Ok, let's get to work and develop it then!

To establish an architecture based upon a non-existent technology at the very beginning of beyond-LEO operations is unwise.

Ares-5 is also non-existent technology. No Ares-5 has ever been launched, and none will be for decades at best.

At any rate, why would be need a fully-developed depot technology now to include it in our long-range plans? There is so much for astronauts to do in LEO, GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit - as well as with robotic precursors at the more difficult destinations for HSF - before we even need to consider using either depots or HLV. We don't need to define *any* specific architecture for jobs like Mars landings at this point. Let's just take some affordable, achievable, and useful steps in the right direction for now. One of those steps is developing and demonstrating refueling technologies so that when we are at the point where we need to decide what the details of the next exploration phase will be, the important and enabling refueling capability will be available.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 9 of 11

2009-09-13T22:08:00.004-04:00

9) The recommendation in favor of the dual-launch "Ares-5 Lite" approach as the baseline for lunar missions is difficult to understand. ... Because of the economies of scale inherent to the design of launch vehicles, such a vehicle should be designed to lift as large a payload as possible within the constraints of the facilities and infrastructure available to build and transport it. This provides the greatest marginal improvement in capability at the lowest marginal cost.

I don't have much to say about Ares 5 vs Ares 5 Lite. Neither option looks good to me. I can understand why the committee would look into Ares 5 Lite rather than Ares 5, simply because a single vehicle smaller than the larger of the Ares 1/Ares 5 pair is liable to be faster, easier and cheaper to develop. Let's face it - like it or not, development cost, schedule, and risk are the make-it-or-break-it issues at hand, not getting the greatest marginal improvement in capability at the lowest marginal cost during operation.

Griffin's approach of designing the biggest launcher possible ignores the tremendous cost and time penalty of doing the development. Simply put, Ares 5 may be too expensive to build, even if it is cheaper than Ares 5 Lite on a pound per pound basis. It also ignores the costs to maintain separate infrastructure for both Ares 1 and Ares 5.

Griffin's approach does not consider the benefits of a steady pace of frequent launches to lower marginal cost by spreading fixed costs over more launches, and by encouraging rocket construction that more closely resembles assembly line operations, and perhaps rocket operations that more closely resemble airline operations. Ares 5 would only launch a couple times per year, so it would certainly not benefit from these economic forces. A 2-launch Ares 5 Lite would benefit a bit more from the steady pace of launching the same rocket, but other alternatives could benefit from this force even more.

The real problem with Ares 5 is that it does not contribute to the real goal, which is not to deliver as much mass as possible to the lunar surface per year, per launch, or per dollar, but rather to lower the cost of U.S. launchers in the classes relevant to commercial space, security, and robotic science missions. Such an achievement can be the contribution of the VSE's launch component to the specific, fundamental VSE goal of "security, economic, and science" benefits. If serious commercial, security, and/or science interests step forward with requirements for Ares 5 or Ares 5 Lite launch, then of course we would be justified in taking another look at these rockets. As it is, Ares 5 and Ares 5 Lite don't contribute to the real goal of the VSE.

... All parties agree that a heavy-lift launcher is needed for any human space program beyond LEO. ...

The Augustine committee may support one sort of heavy-lift launcher or another, but I don't agree with them (or Griffin) in this case. First of all, most human space program architectures I've seen that seek to establish infrastructure and do work in GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit don't include a heavy-lift launcher at all. Typically they involve 1-3 launches of EELV-class payloads to establish some sort of space infrastructure (a servicing node, small space station, depot, etc), and 1-2 launches of EELV-class payloads to get astronauts to LEO and then to the destination (perhaps on an in-space only vehicle). It should be clear that these destinations - GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit - are all "human space programs beyond LEO". It should also be clear that there is plenty of useful work to do there, such as satellite servicing in GEO, satellite servicing at Earth-Moon Lagrange points (perhaps of Earth-Sun Lagrange point observatories that move themselves or are tugged between these points and the Earth-Moon points), lunar observations from lunar orbit, lunar telerobotics, and build-up of space infrastructure in these orbits and regions to enable greater exploration later.

None of this needs to involve either heavy lift or refueling.

Note that these missions are the type that are most likely to be achievable in anything like the near term, so these are the ones we should be planning for the most, and spending most of our attention on. Surface missions to Mars using 6 or 7 Ares 5 launches and an Ares 1 launch (as presented by NASA to the Augustine Committee) are so distant in time, and so absurd in their per-mission cost using available technology and infrastructure, that we shouldn't be concerned with developing a specific architecture or launch vehicle for them at all yet.

So, I disagree with the statement "a heavy-lift launcher is needed for any human space program beyond LEO."

By the time NASA has become proficient in GEO, lunar orbit, and Earth-Moon Lagrange missions, and it ready to pass these missions on the commercial space, refueling technology could have been demonstrated. With this capability, more destinations are within reach. Still no heavy-lift launcher is needed.

If refueling is not to your taste, add a much milder heavy-lift upgrade, such as a "Phase 1" EELV upgrade to the 40-50MT class, or a similar-sized giant SpaceX Falcon. This is considerably less powerful than the Augustine committee's smallest HLV, the "Phase 2" EELV 75MT class launcher. The development cost and risk should be correspondingly smaller. This class of "mini-HLV" is all that we should need by the time we achieve what we can in GEO, lunar orbit, and Earth-Moon Lagrange points, which will be a long time from now. The "Phase 1" EELV HLV in combination with the appropriate reusable space infrastructure and space assembly would allow us to achieve plenty.

There could come a time after this when a larger HLV is desired - but that time is so far off that we needn't concern ourselves with it. By then, the HLV question should be in the hands of the commercial space market anyway.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 8 of 11

2009-09-13T21:58:00.006-04:00

8) "Technical problems" with Ares-1 are cited several times, without any acknowledgement that (a) knowledgeable observers in NASA would disagree strongly as to the severity of such problems, and (b) Constellation's "technical problems" are on display because actual work is being accomplished, whereas other options have no problems because no work is being done.

Ares 1 certainly has technical problems. Maybe NASA could fix the problems, maybe not. The fixes may come at the cost of schedule, cost, capability, or safety. They may force another go-around with Orion and Ares 1 design changes affecting each other in a viscous circle. Or ... we may discover in a few years that the fixes turned out to not be so bad. I'll let the Augustine committee take on these issues with input from NASA and the Aerospace Corporation. It's good to have an independent, arms-length assessment outside of NASA, since a NASA presentation of its own problems is by definition not objective. This is why we have auditors and similar independent assessments all the time throughout government and industry.

If Griffin is upset that the Augustine committee is skeptical about Ares 1 technical, schedule, and budget issues, he should take comfort that they are equally skeptical about the schedules presented by United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, and advocates of certain non-Ares HLV ideas.

I would also note that some NASA Constellation employees have quit, and spoken out against Ares. There is also the Direct team, which its public spokespeople claim includes NASA Constellation employees, to at least consider.

At any rate, the severity of Ares 1 technical problems is a bit besides the point. The real issues go back to the Augustine Committee charter, as well as the goals of the VSE. How do we help encourage commercial space? Certainly not with the non-commercial Ares 1. How do we fit the budget? Certainly not with Ares 1, which is expensive to develop and will be expensive to operate. How do we get ISS support online sooner than the program of record? Certainly not with Ares 1, which started with a goal of 2012 operational capability, and 4 years later has in effect slipped ~6 years to 2017-2019 according to the Augustine committee.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 7 of 11

2009-09-13T21:50:00.005-04:00

7) The Commission is disingenuous when it claims that safety "is not discussed in extensive detail because any concepts falling short in human safety have simply been eliminated from consideration." Similarly, the Commission was "unconvinced that enough is known about any of the potential high-reliability launcher-plus-capsule systems to distinguish their levels of safety in a meaningful way." For the Commission to dismiss out of hand the extensive analytical work that has been done to assure that Constellation systems represent the safest reasonable approach in comparison to all other presently known systems is simply unacceptable. ...

From "A Commercially Based Lunar Architecture" - Zegler, Kutter, and Barr (United Launch Alliance):

Despite the best engineering design and analysis activities it is amply clear that even highly vetted designs such as the Space Shuttle can fail catastrophically. Probabilistic analyses are spectacularly flawed in that they make sweeping assumptions about failure modes and the means to prevent them. Nature relentlessly renders these complex analyses moot when we find another hidden failure mode via flight experience. Ground testing can assure a baseline level of confidence but only extensive flight experience can truly generate a safe vehicle with high confidence in its overall reliability. Aircraft flight testing relies implicitly on this principle.

Extensive flight experience will be hard to come by with Ares 1, which only has the job of launching astronauts for NASA. Commercial rockets like Delta IV, Atlas V, and Falcon 9 have many other jobs, so they can demonstrate their safety and reliability over many launches - or fail to demonstrate that safety and reliability without astronauts on board.

Some critics point out that even if Ares 1 itself is safer than some other rocket, it may make the overall mission more dangerous (for example by causing redundancy to be removed from Orion).

Considering that safety isn't just about launch, the Augustine committee has an interesting idea with the "Deep Space"/"Flexible Path" options. These options postpone Moon and Mars surface exploration, allowing us to postpone the safety issues of landing astronauts on the surface, surface operations, and surface departure. This allows us to grapple with a perhaps more manageable safety problem, that of deep-space operations, for the time being. When we have gotten good at that, we may find the isolated problems related to surface missions to be more manageable, too. Incremental development in hardware and operations may lead to safer missions.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 6 of 11

2009-09-13T14:45:00.013-04:00

6) The preference for "commercial" options for cargo and, worse, crew delivery to low Earth orbit appears throughout the Summary, together with the statement that "it is an appropriate time to consider turning this transport service over to the commercial sector." What commercial sector? At present, the only clearly available "commercial" option is Ariane 5.

This is false. Dr. Griffin must be aware that there is a huge commercial space sector in the communication satellite field, among others. He must know of the Atlas V rocket. He must have heard of the Delta IV rocket. These rockets already exist. The government support for these rockets is irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is using commercial rockets in the sense that they are run and operated by private businesses, and thus are available to address other markets at the same time they address NASA's needs.

Griffin must also know of the Falcon 9 and Taurus II rockets that will be used in the COTS cargo program that Griffin, to his credit, supported. These rockets have not been proven yet, but they are far ahead of Ares I and Ares V.

Launching a redesigned Orion crew vehicle is a valid choice in the context of an international program if - and only if - the U.S. is willing to give up independent access to low Earth orbit, a decision imbued with enormous future consequences.

The U.S. already gave up independent access to low Earth orbit, a decision that was imbued with enormous future consequences that we are now facing. This happened when Dr. Griffin chose the Ares I plan, and didn't fund a commercial crew transportation effort to go along with it. This loss of independent access to low Earth orbit is expected to last until 2017 to 2019 if Ares I is the only approach used.

Anyway, even setting that point aside, we could, but don't have to, launch a crew vehicle on a foreign rocket. Why does Griffin suggest that's what we'd have to do if we used commercial transportation services?

... a domestic commercial space transportation sector ... does not presently exist and will not exist in the near future; i.e., substantially prior to the likely completion dates for Ares-1/Orion, if they were properly funded.

It is interesting that Dr. Griffin can predict this with such confidence. I suppose it's possible he will turn out to be right, at least for orbital crew transportation (he is already wrong for other commercial space services), if NASA doesn't properly fund a commercial crew effort.

... If no USG option to deliver cargo and crew to LEO is to be developed following the retirement of the Space Shuttle, the U.S. risks the failure to sustain and utilize a unique facility with a sunk cost of $55 billion on the U.S. side, and nearly $20 billion of international partner investment in addition.

Why is Dr. Griffin so concerned about the ISS when he got rid of most of the ISS science and non-assembly engineering?

Why is he so concerned about the ISS when his exploration plan requires the ISS to be abandoned in 2016? If the commercial COTS cargo services do not get built, Griffin's plan already leaves us with no ability to get cargo and crew to the ISS until 2017-2019, after the ISS is abandoned! Even if the ISS is kept until 2020, and funding appears out of the blue to both support ISS and develop Ares I/Orion at a "brisk" pace, having Ares I/Orion in, say, 2018 does not make that much a difference. Plus, let's be clear: keeping that schedule is highly unlikely given the funding needs of the ISS.

The Russian Soyuz and Progress systems, even if we are willing to pay whatever is required to use them in the interim, simply do not provide sufficient capability to utilize ISS as was intended, and in any case represent a single point failure in regard to such utilization. To hold the support and utilization of the ISS hostage to the emergence of a commercial space sector is not "risky", it is irresponsible.

What is Dr. Griffin's point? We already have this single point of failure in Griffin's current plan, since Ares I/Orion arrive so late!

Also, what is his "hostage" concern? Why does he use loaded words and phrases like "hostage" and the committee "failed to"? Why does he put quotes around words like independent, commercial, fuel depots, and technical problems?

The plan isn't for NASA to stand back and hope a commercial space sector emerges. It's to sufficiently fund commercial crew transportation, at perhaps $2.5B for development from NASA, and more from the vendors, to make sure the commercial space sector emerges. With the commercial vendors pitching in their own money, why would this approach be less likely to succeed than NASA giving contractors money to build Ares I/Orion? The commercial vendors won't want to waste their money, so they'll be even more motivated to succeed. Also, there will be more than 1 commercial competitor if the COTS cargo model is used, so we will no longer have a single point of failure at all.

The Augustine Committee's independent judgment is that commercial vendors will in fact bring ISS crew transportation services to the ISS before Ares I/Orion could, even though Ares I/Orion have had a 4-year head start. This is presumably because of the potential use of existing rockets and other hardware, commercial skin in the game, commercial focus on the ISS transportation job (instead of that and the Moon and Mars), and possible use of near-term COTS cargo hardware.

Also note that the Augustine committee recommends addition money for COTS cargo to make extra sure that effort comes in on schedule.

Also note that in Dr. Griffin's plan, if COTS cargo didn't pan out, and Ares 1/Orion did pan out, and Ares 1/Orion somehow became operational much earlier than they are now expected to, they would use just about all of their funding to supply the ISS. There would be no beyond-LEO exploration even in this scenario that is supremely optimistic for government systems and supremely pessimistic for commercial systems.

If Dr. Griffin really wanted to have both Ares 1/Orion and a secure ISS, he should have funded a COTS crew transportation effort alongside Ares 1/Orion when he had a chance.

As a side issue, I will also note that when Dr. Griffin paints the stark picture of the ISS supplied only by Soyuz and Progress, he is ignoring the European ATV that was already demonstrated and the Japanese HTV that was just launched. We have numerous cargo options, so it seems to make sense to fund a COTS crew effort if we're doing that for COTS cargo.

The Augustine Committee has the job of identifying ways to stimulate the commercial space sector. It isn't surprising that they endorse commercial crew and cargo transportation services, since those also help address other concerns in their charter at the same time (expediting ISS support, fitting the budget, and enabling exploration). However, there are many other legitimate services and ways for NASA to encourage commercial space: data purchases, innovation prizes, more ISS cargo services, lunar surface vehicles, suborbital RLVs, hosted payloads, fuel delivery, and many more. My personal preference would have been to focus NASA's initial use of commercial services on non-crewed areas: lunar robots, cargo delivery, fuel delivery, data purchases and various other satellite services, uncrewed suborbital RLVs, etc. Only later would I have carefully ventured into crew transportation services. However, Dr. Griffin's plan has boxed us into a corner so we really don't have a choice in the matter -- or rather the choice we are faced with is either commercial crew transportation, or no crew transportation.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 5 of 11

2009-09-13T14:41:00.003-04:00

5) "Independent" cost estimates for Constellation systems are cited. There is no acknowledgement that these are low-fidelity estimates developed over a matter of weeks, yet are offered as corrections to NASA's cost estimates, which have years of effort behind them. ...

I'm not sure why Dr. Griffin surrounds the word Independent with quotes. The Aerospace Corporation is independent of NASA. Therefore, its cost estimates aren't as subject to optimistic thinking or internal pressure and censorship as NASA estimates of its own costs. Note that other independent sources (for example, see The Budgetary Implications of NASA’s Current Plans for Space Exploration by the Congressional Budget Office) have also been skeptical of NASA-only cost estimates. This skepticism is based on a long history of budget overruns on NASA programs. Here's a recent quote in the Kansas City Star on the NASA Science side of the house:

As for the scientific missions, "We're really blowing it on our cost estimates," said Marc Allen, a planning manager in the space agency's Science Mission Directorate. "Everybody's motivated to paint a rosy picture."

Could this be the case within Constellation too? Let's have an independent assessment to find out.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 4 of 11

2009-09-13T14:38:00.002-04:00

4) Numerous options are presented which are not linked by common goals or a strategy to reach such goals. Instead, differing options are presented to reach differing goals, rendering it impossible to develop meaningful cost/schedule/performance/risk comparisons across them. These options possess vastly differing levels of maturity, yet are offered as if all were on an equally mature footing in regard to their level of technical, cost, schedule, and risk assessment. This is not the case.

It is the Augustine Committee's job to provide a number of options. These options are linked by common goals - the objectives outlined in the committee's charter. The physical destinations are not the goals. In spite of what Dr. Griffin says, it is possible to compare the various options, even though it's true (as the Augustine Committee did point out in their deliberations) that they have varying levels of detail.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 3 of 11

2009-09-13T14:34:00.005-04:00

3) ... While it is certainly true that Bush Administration budgets did not show any funding for ISS past 2015, it was always quite clear that the decision to cancel or fund the ISS in 2016 and beyond was never within the purview of the Bush Administration to make. ... The fact that some $3+ billion per year will be required to sustain ISS operations past 2015 is, and has always been, a glaring omission in future budget projections. ...

This lack of funding for ISS budget projections past 2015 is a real issue. This is a real concern for the international partners and potential U.S. ISS users, suppliers, and so on. The Augustine Committee had to address this issue because it's in their charter. In fact, they did include extending ISS to 2020 in all of their serious options, as Griffin suggests they do, so I'm not sure why he's objecting.

The problem is that Griffin's exploration plan falls apart after 2016 if that money is shifted to support the ISS. Why didn't he structure an exploration program that could handle this? If he couldn't, why didn't he raise an alarm? It is an amazing and irresponsible thing to develop an exploration plan that assumes that the ISS will be deorbited in 2016, when you expect that won't happen. Where did Griffin think the $3+ billion per year was going to magically come from? Why would a future administration not just cancel the then 10 year old Constellation program, given the discretionary nature of that program, when presented with this discontinuity?

In spite of what Griffin suggests, this is not just a strawman. If the Augustine Committee exposes this issue and gets it resolved one way or another, so there is no doubt in anyone's mind about what the ISS plan is, it will have done a great service.

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 2 of 11

2009-09-13T14:25:00.002-04:00

2) Since NASA's budget as outlined in 2005 was hardly one of rampant growth (only a slight increase above inflation was projected even then), and since the Commission did not report any evidence of substandard execution of the Program of Record - Constellation - one wonders why the Commission failed to recommend as its favored option that of simply restoring the funding necessary to do the job that has, since 2005, been codified in two strongly bi-partisan Congressional Authorization Acts. ...

I imagine that the Augustine Committee failed to recommend (or succeeded in not recommending) keeping Constellation as-is with a funding boost because the committee's charter includes the following objectives:

expediting a new U.S. capability to support utilization of the International Space Station (ISS) - Constellation does not do this.
stimulating commercial space flight capability - Constellation does not do this.
fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities - Constellation does not do this.
appropriate amount of research and development and complementary robotic activities needed to make human space flight activities most productive and affordable over the long term - Constellation does not have this.
appropriate opportunities for international collaboration - Constellation does not have this.
options for extending ISS operations beyond 2016 - Constellation does not allow this.

How could the Augustine Committee possibly prefer the program of record when the POR does almost none of the things the committee is for?

What does this have to do with the rate of growth of NASA's 2005 budget? Nothing. That budget is now history.

What does this have to do with the level of substandard execution of the POR? Nothing.

No matter what the rate of growth in NASA's 2005 budget, and no matter how good or bad the execution of the POR is, if Constellation doesn't address the items on the Augustine Committee charter (and it doesn't), how could the committee recommend the program of record as its favored option?

Dr. Griffin on the Augustine Committee - Part 1 of 11

2009-09-13T14:06:00.005-04:00

As should come as no surprise, former NASA Administrator Griffin has some issues with the preliminary report issued by the Human Space Flight Plans Committee (the new Augustine Committee). In the spirit of Spinal Tap, he has decided to "take it over the cliff" to 11. He has sent out 11 comments on the Augustine Committee's work. I think Dr. Griffin did some good work as NASA Administrator (for example, getting the Shuttle safely back to work, COTS cargo, etc), so I don't want to make it seem like I disagree with everything he did or does. However, I do have some things to say about his 11 comments, so here's part 1 of an 11-part series. Dr. Griffin's comments are the numbered ones in itallics.

1) It is clarifying to see a formal recognition by the Commission that, based upon budgetary considerations, "the human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory". Given that the Constellation program was designed in accordance with the budget profile specified in 2005, yet has since suffered some $30 billion of reductions to the amount allocated to human lunar return (including almost $12 billion in just the last five fiscal years) this is an unsurprising conclusion, but one which provides the necessary grounding for all subsequent discussions.

When the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) was formulated, it was known that there would be budgetary ups and downs (with an emphasis on the downs, for anyone trying to be realistic and prudent) during the many years of development for this vision. That's why the VSE was intended to be a "pay-as-you-go" effort. That's why the words "sustainable" and "affordable" appear so many times in the VSE document. The current NASA effort based on the Ares rockets is not sustainable, as the Augustine Committee makes clear.

Dr. Griffin should wonder why Constellation isn't getting such a lofty budget. Could it be that the "Apollo on Steroids" approach isn't attractive to the public or to the space industry? Could it be that the cost and schedule overruns made the Bush and Obama administrations wary of Constellation promises? Could it be that numerous other parts of NASA had their budgets cut during the Griffin years, and now priorities have changed and they are getting back some of the money that went to Constellation? Could it be that Constellation doesn't address the purpose of the VSE? The purpose is not "human lunar return", but rather "to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program" in the context of "international and commercial participation". Constellation isn't doing any of that, so why give it a lot of funding?

Also, be careful when adding up the Constellation budget cuts. The human spaceflight budget is just a place marker while the direction of this effort is evaluated. In addition, look at changes in what is considered "Cross-Agency Support" compared to the original VSE budget.

Finally, if Griffin agrees that Constellation is on an unsustainable trajectory, why didn't he do anything about it? This didn't just start in the last few months. Why didn't he set up a program that could adjust to budget realities, or change the program when budget realities could not longer be fantasized away? If he couldn't fix the problem, why didn't he raise an alarm?

Griffin Statement to Human Spaceflight Commission

2009-07-30T09:48:00.079-04:00

Recently, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin sent a statement to the Human Space Flight Plans Committee (see Statement by Michael Griffin to The Augustine Committee). Rather than try to help the committee achieve its objectives, Dr. Griffin chose to defend the status quo of the Constellation program. Since the committee's objectives concern improvements over the status quo, Dr. Griffin's comments thus completely miss the point.

Did Dr. Griffin give advice that attempts to expedite a new U.S. capability to support use of the ISS? No, he chose to defend the current Constellation situation. By definition, the current situation cannot deliver a capability faster than itself. In fact, he attacked an approach that might achieve this HSF objective. Did he give advice on fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration? No, he actually asked for more money. Did he suggest ways to stimulate commercial spaceflight? In fact he launched an attach on one promising area of commercial spaceflight. Did he suggest ways to make human spaceflight activities more productive through robotic activities or research and development? No. Did he give insight into how to extend ISS support beyond 2016? No. Did he describe a role for a mutually beneficial sort of international participation in exploration? No. Did he have a plan that is more safe, innovative, sustainable, and affordable than the current one? No.

In fact, the only HSF objective that Dr. Griffin addressed is "missions to the Moon and beyond". Recent suggestions that the Constellation approach will cost incredible amounts of money to develop, incredible amounts of money per mission to operate, and perhaps will not be ready for lunar missions until 2028 or 2035 do not make the Constellation approach without modifications seem attractive even for that particular objective.

Having described some of what Dr. Griffin did not write, it seems fair to evaluate some of what he did write:

As I write this, NASA and the Constellation Program are the targets of broad but shallow criticism.

This is an interesting use of language. The word "shallow" could be taken 2 ways - as an addition to "broad" in describing the structure of the criticism, or suggesting that the criticisms are not "deep" or substantial. It would be best to address the criticisms themselves rather than paint them with such a big brush.

At any rate, one wonders why the Constellation program is the subject of such broad criticism. Griffin would probably suggest that the criticism comes from "parochial interests". In fact the interests are no more, and are perhaps less, parochial than Constellation interests. ISS science, commercial space, aeronautics, Earth observation, robotic space science, grass-roots space activism of various sorts, NASA research and development, various national-level interests such those related to defense, security, energy, environment, education, and economics that could potentially benefit from different exploration approaches, and various others all oppose Constellation.

This is because the consensus reached within the last administration and by two prior Congresses as to what the broad objectives of the nation's civil space program should be, is not fully embraced by all members of the space community.

It is true that a consensus was reached about the broad objectives of the nation's civil space program. That consensus was represented by the Vision for Space Exploration and the related Aldridge Commission recommendations. However, as I have noted before, the current Constellation approach is completely different from the Vision for Space Exploration. It is also completely different from the Aldridge Commission recommendations. Supporters of the Vision for Space Exploration and Aldridge Commission recommendations are often opposed to the current Constellation approach for this reason.

Despite what some have said, Constellation is a carefully designed architecture put forth in response to a statement of broad civil space policy objectives by the last administration, which objectives were strongly supported in a hard-won consensus by two successive Congresses.

Again, Constellation in its current form does not address the broad civil space policy objectives defined by the last administration in the Vision for Space Exploration document. Follow the above links and read the Vision for Space Exploration and Aldridge Commission documents yourself. You will find that I only identified some of the points where Constellation doesn't follow this vision in the posts linked above.

How much this former administration policy matters now, with a new administration, remains to be seen.

I, and those at NASA who are responsible for its initial design, subsequent refinement, and present day execution, consider Constellation to be the most expeditiously attainable, broadly capable, lowest risk, and lowest life cycle cost design of which we know to meet those policy objectives, from among the many, many options we considered.

Once again, just read the original documents, and make your own assessment how well Constellation meets the policy objectives described there.

Taken at the rawest level, the Vision for Space Exploration's objectives are to implement an exploration program that supports the nation's economic, security, and science interests. How well does Constellation do that?

I would also note that many of the NASA managers that Dr. Griffin mentions were actually put in place by Dr. Griffin, and took part in Constellation's implementation so far. It's no surprise if they support Constellation. The NASA managers implementing the Vision for Space Exploration before Dr. Griffin became Administrator may have quite a different perspective on Constellation.

If the goals and objectives of our nation's civil space policy should change, or if the detailed engineering analysis which leads to the conclusions I offered above is found to be incorrect or incomplete, then of course Constellation can, and possibly should, be changed. But one must be cautious in such assessments. As I recently offered in another venue, your viewgraphs will always look better than my hardware.

There is no Ares I or Ares V rocket flying. There are alternate rockets, such as the EELVs, with a history of actual launches. Pointing out the contrast between viewgraphs and hardware does Constellation no favors.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that if NASA were receiving today the budgetary allocation that was stipulated when the Vision for Exploration was announced in January, 2004, this Commission would not exist.

It's impossible to prove this one way or the other, but I would make a case against it. Consider what the objectives of the Human Space Flight Plans Committee are. They are to bring an ISS support capability on board sooner, stimulate commercial space, make an exploration plan to the Moon and beyond, fit within the current exploration budget, and consider additional changes such as international participation, complimentary robotics, R&D, and longer ISS support. Suppose that Constellation got the originally expected funding, and then suppose that funding brought Ares 1/Orion ISS capability a bit closer in time. That wouldn't change most of the objectives of the committee one way or the other. Perhaps the ISS support objective would not be as critical as it now is, but consider that Ares I/Orion ISS support is now possibly delayed to 2017 or later. Even if it were 2016 or 2015, it would be too late.

Also consider that most of the Ares I/Orion budget problems are attributed to cost overruns, not budget shortfalls, real as those budget shortfalls are.

Finally, consider the political opposition if Constellation got this hypothetical funding at the expense of other NASA areas.

At any rate, the Vision for Space Exploration was supposed to work on a "pay as you go" basis. It was not supposed to crumble given budget changes, which any manager should have expected over the course of such a long-term program. The components of the Constellation approach are too interdependent. A budget shortfall or technical problem in 1 area has too many ripple effects in the rest of the program.

Present budgets are adequate to allow us to continue human spaceflight operations in low Earth orbit (LEO), but not much more. If policymakers do not wish to spend more, then we should stop talking about larger goals. As I write this, the most recent presidential budget request contains language supporting human lunar return by 2020, but that goal is unattainable with the funding allocated in the request.

Human lunar return by 2020 is unattainable given the current budget and Constellation, but that doesn't mean that 2020 is unattainable by any means. Of course we may have essentially lost 4 years, so 2020 will now be much more difficult.

Consider how difficult the Constellation approach has made it to achieve human lunar return by 2020. Constellation to a large extent fails to include U.S. commercial space as a partner in the main transportation effort. It doesn't include international participation. It doesn't include existing rockets. It doesn't include new, innovative approaches enabled by research and development. It increases political opposition from the science community and the public by delivering only a limited lunar robotic precursor program, and leaves questions related to long-term human lunar stays unanswered the same way. In its original form it required 6 ISS crew capability to the ISS per mission, and 4 to the Moon, when 3 and 2 would have been much easier to achieve. With such difficulties deliberately taken on, it is no surprise that Constellation cannot reach the Moon by 2020 without an unrealistic amount of funding.

It is my considered judgment that the capability for independent and assured human access to space is strategic for the United States. ... With that said, it follows that it cannot be left solely to the discretion and ability of private entities, whose interests can never, and should never, be wholly aligned with those of government, to provide such capability.

This is an amazing statement by Dr. Griffin. Let's first consider whether or not human access to space is strategic. ICBMs are strategic. Robotic military and intelligence satellites, delivering Earth observations, communications, and GPS services to military and intelligence services, are strategic assets. To the extent that they compliment and support the technologies and industries of these military and intelligence capabilities, similar NASA robotic capabilities could be considered to be somewhat strategic. The same goes for similar commercial space satellites. EELV launchers could be considered to be strategically important. Space capabilities that protect the country from natural disasters, or that enable the economy, could be considered to be strategic.

However, it is difficult to imagine how NASA human access to space, as currently done, could be considered to be strategic. NASA human access to space using Constellation hardware, with its high costs, would be no more strategic. It would be too expensive to mount military missions, develop a strong space economy, make operationally responsive space a reality, or to bring about similar changes using Constellation that could transform NASA human spaceflight to the strategic category.

Yet it is possible for commercial space to make human spaceflight strategically useful. A well-developed commercial space infrastructure could deliver strategic benefits. Operationally responsive space is possible with commercial human spaceflight. A lunar economy that delivers important resources could be strategically useful. Commercial suborbital RLVs could cross the strategic threshold. The commercial approach might deliver the cost savings that allow this. With this being a possibility, why does Dr. Griffin rule out commercial human spaceflight?

Let's assume, however, that human spaceflight is in fact already strategically important. Even if this is true, why rule out commercial human spaceflight? Does the military require its own rockets to launch its satellites? No. It supports and uses the EELVs. What makes human spaceflight any different from this? Is NASA human spaceflight as currently done more strategically important than the ability to launch military and intelligence satellites? What about NASA's own COTS program? How is cargo delivery any less strategic than crew transport? For the ISS, without the cargo, there is no crew. There are other examples similar to these where the government relies on commercial capabilities for vital functions.

What about the intelligence agencies? Yes, they use their own assets, but they also support and use DigitalGlobe and GeoEye. The military uses commercial communications satellites on a regular basis. This brings up the hybrid case that Dr. Griffin doesn't mention, where the government human transport capability is pursued, but at the same time the government encourages commercial participants to also meet its needs. The major example in our context is the unfunded COTS-D crew transportation incentive. Why doesn't Dr. Griffin advocate Constellation, but at the same time, make a push for COTS-D or something similar? Why is C0nstellation so much more important than everything else?

Finally, let's grant Dr. Griffin's proposal that human spaceflight, and government human spaceflight in particular, is essential. If that's the case, why did he pick an approach that is so difficult to implement, and that leaves such a long human spaceflight gap? Refer again to the Constellation 6/4 crew requirement, for example.

Interestingly, the Vision for Space Exploration and the Aldridge Commission were much more supportive of commercial space. In fact, they considered thorough commercial space participation to be essential for the success of the Vision for Space Exploration. In particular, the VSE states: NASA does not plan to develop new launch vehicle capabilities except where critical NASA needs—such as heavy lift—are not met by commercial or military systems. ... Pursue commercial opportunities for providing transportation and other services supporting the International Space Station and exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit ... Acquire crew transportation to and from the International Space Station, as required, after the Space Shuttle is retired from service ...

Much of the remainder of Dr. Griffin's statement concerns the first destination of the human spaceflight exploration effort, and in particular switching to a "Mars first" sequence. I don't disagree with Dr. Griffin in this respect, as I consider a "Moon first" sequence to make a lot of sense, as long as it isn't simply "flags and footprints" or "sorties" again. I will note, however, that some of the "Mars-centric" approaches that Dr. Griffin criticizes actually include many earlier and useful steps in space (rather than on planetary or lunar surfaces), and thus are not quite as easily dismissed as he seems to indicate.

One version of this approach the committee is considering is the "Flexible Path"; another is the Planetary Society Roadmap. If done in the spirit of the Vision for Space Exploration (i.e. addressing economics, security, science, and other national priorities, centered around commercial and international participation, including substantial robotic efforts, and driven by research, development, and innovation), this type of approach could fulfill the goals of that vision considerably better than NASA's current Constellation approach, in spite of the different initial destination.

Griffin on NASA's Astronaut Plans

2009-07-13T09:07:00.078-04:00

The Huntsville Times published an interview with former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin on July 12, 2009. This isn't the first time Dr. Griffin publicly discussed NASA since he left that organization; for example, see Griffin: Human Space Flight Review Not Necessary. In the latest interview, Dr. Griffin defends the centerpiece of NASA's current implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration, the architecture he chose to return astronauts to the Moon and beyond:

"The need for the (current space study commission headed by Norman Augustine) is motivated solely by the public controversy over whether NASA got it right, if you will, in the architectural choices being made following the (explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003)"

It is true that the architectural choices under review were made following the Columbia accident. However, it's important to point out that they weren't made immediately after that accident. In fact, NASA made completely different decisions that were overturned by Dr. Griffin in 2005 with ESAS. So, which NASA got it right?

More to the point, though, I would argue that the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee is motivated not by the public controversy over NASA's current centerpiece architecture. Instead, the Committee is there because of problems with that architecture. The Committee, like the public controversy, is a result of these problems, not the cause.

Dr. Griffin repeats his famous "So what?" phrase:

"... if it isn't exactly right and isn't exactly perfect, I would argue, 'So what?' The question is not is it perfect? Is it good enough? Will it work? Is it one of the acceptable choices ... if so, shut up and move on."

These are interesting questions. One wonders why Dr. Griffin didn't think of them in 2005. One might also wonder why he doesn't consider the above response to those questions in 2009 now that he's no longer NASA Administrator, but in fact his continued public commentary is valuable both to clarify his point of view (and to some extent that of some of the NASA management he left behind), and to give an opportunity to discuss that point of view.

I would suggest that the most pressing problems with the current architecture are not of the "Will it work?" variety. There are a number of technical problems with the current architecture, and it remains to be seen whether or not these technical problems will be resolved. These are of concern.

However, the crucial problem with the ESAS-derived approach is that even if it eventually works in the sense of getting astronauts to the Moon, it will not achieve the goals it was supposed to achieve. I have gone into more detail in other posts on the goals of the Vision for Space Exploration that were later emphasized by the Aldridge Commission, and how the current architecture completely misses the point of those goals. However, one only has to read the charter of the HSF Committee to see some of the flaws with the current architecture.

Of course the charter covers the basic capability to get astronauts to the Moon and beyond. However, it also stresses expediting U.S. support for the International Space Station. In this case the charter's term expediting implies from the very start that the current plan is not acceptable, and the ISS support schedule needs to be shortened.

The charter includes fitting within the NASA exploration budget, in particular if ISS is extended beyond 2016. We already know that the current plan does not fit within that budget, even if ISS is not extended. Again, the current plans are not "good enough".

The charter covers encouraging commercial space flight capability. It's plainly obvious that the current NASA lunar transportation plan does not encourage commercial space flight capability, at least in the decades of most interest, since it almost exclusively involves NASA and cost-plus contractor work to build NASA vehicles, not commercial work to meet NASA and market needs.

The charter includes international participation, which again is plainly not present in NASA's current astronaut transportation plans for the Moon and beyond.

Finally, the charter includes robotic activities that complement human space flight, and research and development to make human space flight more productive. As I've discussed in other posts, NASA's current plans do not include the type of research and development or robotic activity needed to make NASA's human space flight missions to the Moon and beyond worthwhile and sustainable. Diverse sources such as the Vision for Space Exploration, Aldridge Commission, and National Academies all favor R&D and complimentary robotic programs much more ambitious than NASA's current plans, so it's likely the HSF Committee will reach similar conclusions.

In short, the current NASA plan is simply not "one of the acceptable choices". It is far, far from "exactly perfect". There are many ways to bring NASA's plans to the "good enough" range, some of which involve completely new technical architectures, and some of which involve only modest but crucial changes. The HSF Committee's job is to provide some options that are "good enough" in the areas described in the HSF Committee charter where the current plans are "not acceptable". In contrast to Dr. Griffin's perspective, I view the HSF Committee's job as absolutely essential to NASA's human spaceflight program.

Griffin sees other worrisome trends, including "the trend of believing we can cut budgets on a yearly basis and make it up later. ... When you cut the amount you're willing to spend compared to what you told managers they could spend originally, they end up making different decisions ... and they always end up being less efficient."

The key point to recognize is that NASA's proposed exploration budget was never realistic. The Vision for Space Exploration was supposed to include an exploration plan that was sustainable, and that worked on a pay-as-you-go basis. It was not supposed to collapse because of budget shortfalls that should have been no surprise.

There are a number of approaches that NASA could have taken, and could still take, to make its exploration budget more sustainable:

Use a flexible approach that involves multiple smaller, incremental achievements useful and sustainable in their own right, such as space infrastructure, instead of a monolithic all-or-nothing architecture.
Incorporate commercial participation, and thus shared costs, allowing NASA to have more finanancial reserves. This would also increase political support, improving the chance that planned budgets will actually be funded.
Incorporate international participation, and thus shared costs, allowing, if done correctly, NASA to have more finanancial reserves. This would also increase political support, improving the chance that planned budgets will actually be funded.
Implement a less ambitious and thus more affordable transportation plan, in the sense of requirements like crew and payload delivered per mission and lunar surface destinations supported. This does not necessarily imply less overall capability, as it may allow more, or sooner, missions.
Include more substantial, earlier lunar robotic ISRU, engineering, and science work, which would increase political support for the mission in the science community and the public. The public would see from the new types of robotics that there is more to the plan than Apollo revisited. The robotic work would also be a "force multiplier" for astronauts, relieving the astronaut transportation system from difficult, expensive requirements.

"We are less willing to take risks of any kind, whether it be financial risk, technical risk or human risk, or the risk of just plain breaking hardware," he said. "Being adverse to risk is not what made this country what it is. I'll just say that. The willingness to take measured risks is what made this country what it is."

Taking measured risk is fine. However, NASA's current plan takes huge financial risks, technical risks, and human risks without the likelihood of corresponding gains. We are asked to develop a transportation system for $105B or more over decades, missing rich opportunities for commercial space development, research and development advances, sustainable space infrastructure, and lunar robotic preparation for astronauts, with an outcome in 2020 or later that each year we will have the opportunity to fly 2 Apollo-style lunar missions for $10B or more. The end result is a type of mission that is too expensive to allow us to afford the big returns on our development investment.

"The reason enrollments are down is we're not, as a society, as a government, putting our funding on projects that would attract those kids to do them. ... We're doing something wrong when it is more exciting for mathematically inclined kids to development computer programs on Wall Street than to come to work building a new rocket."

In this case it seems that Dr. Griffin is out of touch with what inspires today's kids and young adults. Most young people are not interested in repeating Apollo. They are not interested in repeating Apollo but with somewhat longer lunar surface stays per mission, increased surface range, and more crew. They are not inclined to want to work in a big national design bureau. They are more comfortable with computer technology than the Apollo generation. If they are in college, they are much more likely to be in an academic major that has been hurt by the NASA cutbacks of the Griffin era than in a rocket building major. A third grader is not inspired by the prospect of a lunar mission that will start well into their working career.

Here are some ideas for NASA that might inspire kids and young adults to get involved with space more than NASA's current ESAS-derived plans.

Don't cut back other NASA programs like the ISS and Earth observation science efforts to fund NASA rocket-building. Lots of today's kids are interested in technologies that use Earth observation data like Google Earth and similar digital globe/mapping software. Many college students are in majors that use NASA remote sensing data: Oceanography, Geology, Geography, Urban Planning, Agriculture, Real Estate, Forestry, Hydrology, Civil Engineering, Meteorology, GIS and related information systems, Petroleum/Natural Gas, Enviromental Science/Monitoring, Telecommunications, Insurance, Imaging Science, Education, Surveying, Energy Engineering, Planetary Science, Homeland Security, Cartography, Recreation/Parks/Tourism, Atmosheric Science, and many others. Don't alienate these students; bring them on board.
Implement many more robotic precursor missions to the Moon on a timely basis. These would take advantage of today's communication and robotic technologies to show things Apollo never could, allowing today's students to see the lunar mission as a modern one. These would also do things Apollo never did, such as ISRU, robotic site preparation, exploration of new types of lunar terrain, and so on. Again, this would show the Vision for Space Exploration in a completely new light that students could see as something for their generation, not a repeat of Apollo. New space infrastructure and new research and development capabilities would also do this. A somewhat bigger rocket program than Saturn V with slightly better capabilities, and with little or no reusable components, is not enough to show today's generation of students that the program is theirs.
Fund new NASA Centennial Challenges, and also fund more competitions specifically for students. Many student teams can try to win these challenges, and even if they don't win, they learn in the process. Centennial Challenges typically also include related student competitions.
Give students and their teachers from elementary school through PhD many more opportunities to fly, or at least to have their experiments fly. This can be done using commercial reusable suborbital rockets, traditional sounding rockets, high-altitude balloons, parabolic aircraft flights, smallsats, and access to space stations and labs (like ISS, Bigelow stations, or DragonLabs).
Include more "participatory exploration" involving more interaction with space missions. Also include more social media.
Work with universities on more small, affordable space projects.

Today's students and young adults are the ones that will be paying for much of NASA's long-term exploration program. We need to bring them on board. As fascinating as Dr. Griffin and most of us in the space community find them, they are not enough to do this.

How far is the ESAS Architecture from the Aldridge Commission Recommendations? Some Excerpts from the Commission's Report

2009-07-05T13:21:00.146-04:00

As can be seen from its title, this post originally began in the spirit of the first "Restore the Vision" post, How far is the ESAS Architecture from the Vision for Space Exploration? Some Excerpts from the VSE. The idea was simply to take a look at the Report of the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy (PDF) (i.e. the Aldridge Commission report), and point out a few areas where NASA's current plans, and in particular NASA's new launch and crew transportation efforts, diverge from the Aldridge Commission recommendations.

However, it became apparent that this was an even more daunting job than it was for the Vision for Space Exploration analysis, as NASA's transportation plans contrast, if that's possible, even more with the Aldridge Commission's recommendations than they do with the Vision for Space Exploration. That may be hard to believe if you've read the post linked above, but suffice it to say that it's not practical to describe and discuss all of the areas where NASA's plans diverge from the Aldridge Commission document. I can only encourage you to read (or reread) the document itself.

In lieu of that more ambitious analysis, this discussion will be limited to two areas of particular importance to the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (and the original Vision for Space Exploration). These two areas are documented in the HSF committee charter:

"stimulating commercial space flight capability" - This is one of the 4 main objectives outlined in the HSF committee charter.

"the appropriate amount of research and development and complementary robotic activities needed to make human space flight activities most productive and affordable over the long term" - This is one of a very small set of lesser, but still crucial, objectives of the HSF committee.

The Aldridge Commission document makes a very strong case for greatly expanded commercial space activity being a central enabler and benefit of the Vision for Space Exploration. This theme appears again and again in the report. For example:

"The Commission believes that commercialization of space should become a primary focus of the vision, and that the creation of a space-based industry will be one of the principal benefits of this journey."

The report makes it clear what it means by commercial space.

"Although an aerospace industry already exists and provides commercial launch services worldwide, its principal business currently consists mostly of corporate entities that perform contract work for various government agencies. The Commission uses the term space industry to refer to something much broader – a true space industry would consist of a variety of contributors, each vigorously pursuing their own diverse agendas, not tied to or dependent upon government contracts, but not excluding those activities either. Achieving such a state requires the breaking down of barriers to commercial and entrepreneurial activities in space, as well as a cultural shift towards encouraging and incentivizing more private sector business in space. Such a change in both perspective and posture is essential if we are to develop a broad-based, societal change in space business."

The key is that commercial space business satisfies markets beyond NASA. It may have NASA as a customer for its products, but NASA is not the only customer. There are many possible "shades of gray" in this view. A government contractor simply fulfilling its requirements on a cost-plus contract is one extreme. A contractor that fulfills a NASA contract, and then uses the capabilities created during that contract to satisfy another government contract (for example, a launch capability applicable to multiple government agencies) is quite a bit different and probably much more valuable to the nation, though it is still centered on government customers. A commercial business that depends on government contracts that represent, say, 70-90% of its business for a product is, all other things being equal, even more valuable to the nation in growing the space economy. Such a product, even though not viable without government business, still provides value to government and private customers, and the different customers help each other by sharing fixed costs. The ideal case, as described above, is commercial business that doesn't rely on government contracts at all, but that may offer useful services to the government.

The implication is that NASA's implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration should encourage a broad range of space businesses to move closer to the ideal state just described.

It is worth considering at this point how well NASA's current ESAS-based plans satisfy this objective. Some of NASA's efforts, such as the COTS program, may satisfy parts of it, but those efforts are not the subject of this critique. The focus here is on NASA's main transportation architecture, and whether or not it encourages the kind of commercial space activity advocated by the Aldridge Commission.

Although it recognizes that in the near term (for 2004, when the report was published), the Shuttle will be launching crews, the Aldridge Commission is optimistic about the prospects for commercial space transportation in the launch arena:

The Commission believes that the private sector is willing and capable of providing the initial boost into low-Earth orbit for the payloads associated with the vision. To foster the continued development of this emerging market, the Commission believes that NASA should procure all of its low-Earth orbit launch services competitively on the commercial market. Fortunately, many of the laws and statutes to accomplish this are already on the books.

To emphasize the importance of encouraging the commercial space launch industry, the commission recommends that

"NASA recognize and implement a far larger presence of private industry in space operations with the specific goal of allowing private industry to assume the primary role of providing services to NASA, and most immediately in accessing low-Earth orbit. In NASA decisions, the preferred choice for operational activities must be competitively awarded contracts with private and non-profit organizations and NASA’s role must be limited to only those areas where there is irrefutable demonstration that only government can perform the proposed activity"

Do these last 2 excerpts from the report sound like what Constellation is doing? Is it even close? If NASA isn't going to "procure all of its low-Earth orbit launch services competitively on the commercial market", it seems like it should at the very least move more in that direction. Considering the breakdown that NASA is currently using in its launch plans, there are 3 main areas of launch responsibility where introducing commercial services should be considered: ISS crew transportation, lunar (and beyond) crew transportation, and lunar (and beyond) cargo. I'll maintain here that at a minimum NASA should fully hand at least one of these 3 roles over to commercial vendors, and encourage those vendors to step up if the services aren't yet available.

This brings up the subject of encouraging commercial services where they currently don't exist. The Aldridge Commission considers this situation:

"One of the challenges we face is to find commercial rewards and incentives in space. Creating these rewards is an indispensable part of making this partnership work in the right way. It will signal a major change in the way NASA deals with the private sector, and the Commission believes that NASA should do all it can to create, nurture, and sustain this new industry. This should include efforts specifically tailored to small, entrepreneurial firms, as well as established larger firms. Each can do things the other cannot. Both are essential contributors."
How well is NASA's Constellation transportation architecture implementing this recommendation to "find commercial rewards and incentives in space"? Let's set aside the fanciful descriptions of thriving commercial business being started on the Moon some day in the far future after Ares I and Ares V have been used to build a Moon base. Such an event is much too far in the future to be pertinent to this generation's commercial space industry, and there is no reason to think NASA will have money available, or the inclination, to encourage commercial space at that time if it can do no better in that regard now. How well is Constellation finding commercial rewards and incentives now?

The Commission explores one particular way to encourage commercial space activity:

"Given the complexity and challenges of the new vision, the Commission suggests that a more substantial prize might be appropriate to accelerate the development of enabling technologies. As an example of a particularly challenging prize concept, $100 million to $1 billion could be offered to the first organization to place humans on the Moon and sustain them for a fixed period before they return to Earth. The Commission suggests that more substantial prize programs be considered and, if found appropriate, NASA should work with the Congress to develop how the funding for such a prize would be provided."

In fact no new NASA Centennial Challenges prize funding has been made available for several years. The total Centennial Challenges funding for all prizes combined is a small fraction of even the smaller of the amounts contemplated by the Aldridge Commission, and the funding for each individual prize is truly "in the noise" compared to the funding for NASA's government transportation plans.

What would it take for NASA to fulfill the role the Aldridge Commission describes?

"The Commission is convinced that NASA’s business culture must be changed to embrace a significantly different role for itself in our space exploration enterprise. NASA needs a much-improved capability both to learn from and partner with a more robust space industry. The new NASA will be frugal and more nimble. Perhaps most importantly, it will be driven by an overarching imperative to do only those things that are inherently governmental, thus not competing with, but encouraging the entrepreneurs who will build a new and robust space industry to support the vision. This is no modest shift."

Does this describe NASA's ESAS-derived transportation plans? Are these plans "frugal and more nimble"? Are they "driven by an overarching imperative to do only those things that are inherently governmental, thus not competing with, but encouraging the entrepreneurs"? Recognize that even former Administration Griffin did not think the Ares-based transportation system could compete with a commercial system for crew transport to the ISS, and in fact he considered the high operational cost of Ares I to be a benefit because of this. However, he was referring to competition based on price and merit. Ares can and certainly does compete with potential commercial systems through political means. One of the big concerns with the ESAS plan from the beginning was that the Ares I/Orion ISS support phase was likely to cost so much that the later phases would be cancelled, leaving Ares with no mission other than to eliminate, through political means, U.S. commercial servicing of the ISS. Here is a symptom of this problem that the Aldridge Commission statement above warns about: Sen. Shelby Gets His Way (NASA Watch, in reference to Constellation competing with the U.S. commercial space industry through political means).

There are many services that NASA could purchase from the commercial space industry while implementing the various parts of the VSE. Some typical examples include:

additional cargo support for the ISS
ISS crew rescue
ISS crew transport
use of commercial space stations or labs for work related to the VSE
micro reentry vehicle for frequent space station sample return
suborbital RLV use for astronaut training, instrument test, and many other purposes
lunar surface robotics (science, construction, ISRU, etc)
lunar orbit robotics (imagery, positioning, communication, etc)
lunar crew and/or cargo transportation using propellant depots
orbit-to-orbit crew and/or cargo transportation
launch of Orion
mixture of Constellation and commercial components for satellite servicing

To partner with commercial space to the level suggested by the Aldridge Commission, NASA would need to go well beyond current efforts like COTS cargo, the small Centennial Challenges prizes, and a few similar programs, and implement commercial participation at significant scale in several more areas like the ones mentioned above. This would still leave plenty of room for traditional aerospace cost-plus contracts and in-house NASA work, since there certainly are objectives in the VSE that do not lend themselves to commercial space.

Now we turn to the Aldridge Commission's recommendations in the areas of technology development and robotics. The Commission identifies a number of technology areas that enable the diverse VSE human and robotic spaceflight exploration and development objectives:

"At this juncture, we identify the following enabling technologies, which are not yet prioritized:

Affordable heavy lift capability – technologies to allow robust affordable access of cargo, particularly to low-Earth orbit.
Advanced structures – extremely lightweight, multi-function structures with modular interfaces, the building-block technology for advanced spacecraft.
High acceleration, high life cycle, reusable in-space main engine – for the crew exploration vehicle.
Advanced power and propulsion – primarily nuclear thermal and nuclear electric, to enable spacecraft and instrument operation and communications, particularly in the outer solar system, where sunlight can no longer be exploited by solar panels.
Cryogenic fluid management – cooling technologies for precision astronomical sensors and advanced spacecraft, as well as propellant storage and transfer in space.
Large aperture systems – for next-generation astronomical telescopes and detectors.
Formation flying – for free-space interferometric applications and near-surface reconnaissance of planetary bodies.
High bandwidth communications – optical and high-frequency microwave systems to enhance data transmission rates.
Entry, descent, and landing – precision targeting and landing on “high-g” and “low-g” planetary bodies.
Closed-loop life support and habitability – Recycling of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water for long-duration human presence in space.
Extravehicular activity systems – the spacesuit of the future, specifically for productive work on planetary surfaces.
Autonomous systems and robotics – to monitor, maintain, and where possible, repair complex space systems.
Scientific data collection/analysis – lightweight, temperature-tolerant, radiation-hard sensors.
Biomedical risk mitigation – space medicine; remote monitoring, diagnosis and treatment.
Transformational spaceport and range technologies – launch site infrastructure and range capabilities for the crew exploration vehicle and advanced heavy lift vehicles.
Automated rendezvous and docking – for human exploration and robotic sample return missions.
Planetary in situ resource utilization – ultimately enabling us to “cut the cord” with Earth for space logistics."

Like the Vision for Space Exploration itself, the Aldridge Commission recommends a serious, ambitious technology development effort to enable cost-effective implementation of VSE objectives. NASA has pursued some of these technologies vigorously since the ESAS implementation started, but by and large has neglected them. In fact, since ESAS was started, NASA has halted the New Millennium technology demonstration program, has barely supported the Centennial Challenges innovation prize program, has scaled back ISS use, and has removed the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. This follows earlier technology development cuts earlier in Administrator Griffin's term, such as those related to JIMO.

One technology on the list that NASA has pursued is heavy lift. However, this technology is described as "affordable heavy lift capability" in the Aldridge Commission's list. Given the HSF Commission's objective related to the human spaceflight budget, and the numerous NASA programs that have been eliminated in the wake of ESAS, it would be hard to justify calling the current Ares HLV effort "affordable" either to develop or operate, especially considering that the Ares V development plan includes Ares I as a stepping stone.

It should also be noted that one of the Aldridge Commission members, Paul Spudis, is one of the authors of Going Beyond The Status Quo In Space, a recent document that outlines an approach to exploration and development that doesn't use heavy lift. Perhaps our experience with ESAS has show that particular technology to be a dead end, or at least not affordable in a broadly ambitious exploration program.

Although the situation varies on a technology-by-technology basis, it's fair to say that NASA's current technology development plans, viewed broadly, do not live up to the expectations of either the VSE or the Aldridge Commission. This can be largely attributed to NASA's focus on expensive government space transportation systems. The implication is that NASA should reduce its efforts in government space transportation systems, rely more on more cost-effective commercial space transportation systems, and increase technology development and demonstration work, including lunar robotic demonstrations, to allow additional cost savings as efficient technologies are introduced.

The Aldridge Commission recommends a particular approach to managing its technology development efforts:

"... we suggest that the Administration and Congress create within NASA an organization drawing upon lessons learned from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is a highly successful organization that is chartered to fund high-risk/high return basic research in support of national defense priorities. The Commission concludes that such an agency within NASA would be extremely useful in addressing the development challenges regarding numerous technologies associated with the vision. In addition, such an organization can be the incubator of cutting-edge technologies and concepts that may not yet have known applications. The Commission believes that the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts may serve as a nucleus for such an organization."

No NASA version of DARPA has been implemented, and in fact, as mentioned above, the NIAC has been cut. So much for that recommendation.

Clearly NASA's current approach does not address the objectives and recommendations outlined by the Aldridge Commission in the crucial areas of commercial space participation and technology development. It will be up to the HSF Commission to present options that allow NASA to succeed in its commercial engagement and technology development missions. The HSF Commission can find useful advise in the Aldridge Commission report and the VSE itself, but it will be a challenge, to say the least, to overcome the institutional barriers that thwarted the original Vision for Space Exploration and the Aldridge Commission recommendations.

Ten Questions

2009-06-26T17:20:00.004-04:00

It would be interesting if the Human Space Flight Committee panelists asked some of their presenters the following 10 questions. The most interesting subjects for the questions are probably the Constellation management team, but something like these questions would be interesting for other panelists, too. Actually, the questions as written are probably too long for verbal questions, but I've included some background in case clarification is needed or the questions are evaded.

1. The current Constellation transportation architecture seeks to send 4 astronauts to the Moon's surface per mission. However, there is no requirement in the Vision for Exploration or Aldridge Commission documents for this number. Two astronauts would be enough to provide backup in case of injury. Including 4 astronauts instead of 2 per mission has the obvious benefit of larger crew, but it tends to drive up development cost, per-mission operations cost, and development risk. It also tends to reduce mass for equipment and engineering safety margins, and tends to extend development schedules. Increased development and mission costs reduce the funding available for other critical areas of the Vision for Space Exploration, such as technology development, innovation prizes, partnerships with commercial space, and robotic precursor missions to the Moon.

Why was a 4-astronaut mission requirement added?

Keeping in mind the goals of this committee to develop ISS transportation sooner, fit human space flight within the budget, investigate human spaceflight R&D and robotic precursor needs, and extend ISS beyond 2016, how would you adjust the transportation architecture if the per-mission requirement was relaxed to 2 astronauts?

2. One of the goals of the Human Space Flight Review Committee is to expedite a new U.S. capability to support use of the International Space Station. Keeping in mind the other goals of the Committee such as fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration, what are your suggestions for expediting such a capability? In other words, how would you bring such a capability online sooner than the current plan?

3. One of the goals of the Human Space Flight Review Committee is to stimulate commercial space flight capability. This is also a central and pervasive goal and exploration enabler in the Vision for Space Exploration and the Aldridge Commission recommendations. These documents also make it clear that by "commercial space flight", they don't mean large cost-plus aerospace contracts, but rather innovative entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes that offer their space flight services to NASA *and* other markets. Keeping in mind the other goals of the Committee such as fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration, and thus recognizing the likelihood that any new funding would have to come out of existing human space flight programs, what are your suggestions for increasing NASA's encouragement for commercial space flight capabilities?

4. One of the goals of the Human Space Flight Review Committee is to fit NASA's exploration activities within the current budget profile. Do NASA's exploration activities fit within the budget outlined in the Administration's recent budget proposal, and if not, what are your suggestions for making these activities fit the budget? Do you see cost-saving opportunities in using commercial space flight services, using international participation, relaxing mission crew size requirements, relaxing schedule requirements, increasing research and development in low-cost approaches, or changing components of the transportation architecture?

5. Please see question #4. Could you answer those questions again, but this time assume that NASA's involvement in the ISS program is extended from 2016 to 2020?

6. One of the goals of the Human Space Flight Review Committee is to examine the appropriate amount of research and development activities needed to make human space flight more productive and affordable. The Vision for Space Exploration also emphasized research and development in a number of areas, such as in-situ space resource utilization, power systems, advanced computing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, optical communications, networking, robotics, materials, modular systems, pre-positioned propellants, advanced propulsion, and in-space assembly. The document "Launching Science: Science Opportunities Provided by NASA's Constellation System" also emphasizes a number of advanced technologies, such as aerocapture, nuclear electric propulsion, solar electric propulsion, and solar sails to support science, a central goal of the Vision for Space Exploration. The Aldridge Commission also recommended advanced technology development. In contrast, NASA has reduced its technology development efforts, canceled technology programs like New Millennium and NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, failed to fund Centennial Challenges for several years, and broadly reduced research and development. Much of what remains in this area is directed specifically at the Constellation transportation system. Keeping in mind other goals of the Committee such as fitting human space flight efforts within the budget, what do you think is the appropriate amount of research and development activity to make human space flight more productive and affordable? What technologies would you invest in, and at what budget levels? How would you manage new technology development efforts (for example: grants? contracts? innovation prizes? DARPA model? emphasis on basic R&D, or technology demonstrations?)

7. One of the goals of the Human Space Flight Review Committee is to examine the appropriate amount of complementary robotic activities needed to make human space flight activities most productive and affordable over the long term. The Vision for Space Exploration also emphasized complementary robotic missions well beyond LRO:

"NASA will begin its lunar testbed program with a series of robotic missions. The first, an orbiter to confirm and map lunar resources in detail, will launch in 2008. A robotic landing will follow in 2009 to begin demonstrating capabilities for sustainable exploration of the solar system. Additional missions, potentially up to one a year, are planned to demonstrate new capabilities such as robotic networks, reusable planetary landing and launch systems, pre-positioned propellants, and resource extraction."

Keeping in mind other goals of the Committee such as fitting human space flight efforts within the budget, what do you think is the appropriate amount of complementary robotic activity? What are the highest priority missions for such robotic activity to prepare for and complement human exploration? How would you manage such robotic efforts (for example: use of commercial Google Lunar X PRIZE derivative services? Smaller but more missions typical of NASA Ames? Larger but fewer missions?)

8. One of the approaches emphasized by the Aldridge Commission to stimulate commercial space is the use of innovation prizes. Keeping in mind other goals of the Committee such as fitting human space flight efforts within the budget, would you increase the use of innovation prizes in a program like NASA Centennial Challenges to meet exploration goals? If so, what annual level of funding do you suggest for prizes? How many innovation prizes would you fund, and how large would they be? What innovations would be the subject of the prizes?

9. In many instances the use of space infrastructure, such as propellant depots, reusable space tugs, satellite servicing nodes, additional space stations, and other such systems has been suggested to assist with lunar exploration, and also to meet other government and commercial space needs. Keeping in mind other goals of the Committee such as fitting human space flight efforts within the budget, would you allocate NASA human space flight resources towards such space infrastructure, and if so, what types of space infrastructure? How would it fit in the exploration plans? For example, could a propellant depot help NASA achieve its goal of stimulating commercial space activity? Could it provide an on-ramp for international participation in the human exploration effort? Could it help NASA achieve its goal of developing a lunar transportation system?

10. Please consider all of the previous questions as an integrated whole. Also consider all of the objectives of this Committee as a whole. Does the current Constellation plan address the objectives of the Committee? Include all components: ISS gap reduction, reaching the Moon and beyond, fitting the budget, encouraging commercial space, extending ISS, and the optimal allocation, management, and focus of technology R&D and robotic missions. If the current Constellation plan doesn't address all of the objectives, how can we change the current plan to meet those objectives? If we cannot meet all of the objectives even with changes, how can we come closest, assuming the budget is not negotiable?