On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:08:47 +0000 (UTC), Yama
wrote:

Augustine Commission pretty much recommends in its report what it calls
"Flexible Path" - wide array of potential targets to be visited by manned
spacecraft as a precursor to manned Mars mission. These include Near Earth Asteroids,
moons of Mars, Lagrange points etc. It has got blogosphere all excited.

I call it the "Build the Infrastructure Now, Decide Where To Go Later"
approach. Basically, the AC saw that the current "Back to the Moon, On
To Mars" plan simply doesn't fit the available budget (because NASA
chose or was forced by Congress to choose a hopelessly expensive
infrastructure). Even "Flexible Path" requires a budget increase (just
not as great an increase.) So the AC gave Pres. Obama an option that
keeps exploration on the table without 50% budget increases.

Is there something I'm not getting there? Because quite frankly, that sounds like
biggest idiocy I've heard for long long time.

You must not be listening to the Public Health Care debate and the
idiocy coming out of both sides of that debate. :-)

I mean, what there is in Lagrange points
for humans to do?

Service telescopes, in theory. Build a staging area/propellant depot
for lunar or deep space missions.

They are just empty space. Manned mission to NEO sounds like one of
big cost for limited return. And why would anyone want a mission where astronauts go through
all the trouble and tedous transit to Mars, only not land there?

Remote operation of rovers with only a second or two time delay.

Another thing: Augustine Commission supports orbital refueling to get around launch
vehicle limitations. Is this really practical?

Progress has been performing orbital refueling for 30 years now, at
the Salyuts, Mir and ISS.

90% or more of any deep space mission is propellant. Propellant is
cheap (compared to hardware). If we can use cheap, modestly reliable
rockets (90% reliablity instead of 99.5%... if we lose one now and
then, who cares? its mostly just LOX) to deliver propellant to a
depot, we should be able to cut the costs of the missions and probably
defer development of the hugely expensive Ares V megarocket. The depot
could potentially grow to become a way station for payloads bound for
geosynchronous orbit, enabling even bigger comsats. The fuel delivery
market could finally foster development of true Reusable Launch
Vehicles, which could radically reduce cost-to-orbit over the long
run.

We should at least try.

Brian