UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions

In sci.space.policy Kaido Kert wrote:

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message
...
In sci.space.policy Joe Strout wrote:
In article ,
Sander Vesik wrote:

No more Galileos or Cassinis or Pluto probes or Space Telescopes?
What if this means "No more galileos, cassinis and space telescopes
UNTIL"
those can be launched from lunar surface ?

But this is essentialy the same as never, as things stand or are even
projected.

You must have a very limited definition of "never". We could be
launching craft from the lunar surface in 20 years easily. If in a
hurry, then 10-15 years. Not what I would call "never."

Just as you cannot call ISS a "earth orbit manufacturing base" it is
extremely unlikely that anything NASA will create on moon would in some
way help launching satellites. *Even* if there was actual manufacturing
base, to actually *make* a staellite starting with raw materials you
hundreds of people to be there. And there is no way that is going
to happen in the next 20 years. It would not even happen if you could
pour as much money as you wanted into it.
Um .. you are confusing a port with a shipyard, or a garage with automotive
assemly line.

There is basicly no benefit to launching a satellite from Earth and then
adding to it a booster that was lifted up from Moon. If you spent even a
fraction of what going to be wasted in this PR excercise on Moon on
developing better propulsion you would get radicaly better results.


-kert



--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Precicely what how did you imagine going from "ore comes out of mine" to
"and here is a satellite ready to be sent to Jupiter" ?

Oh, I don't know.... Maybe the same way we do it here?

Only without the mammoth levels of ineptitude and government bloat.
Hopefully, at least.


This just means you have no idea what "making things" (never mind making
something complex) means.

Why don't you tell me? Better yet, why don't you tell me how NASA is going
to do anything more than futz around with dead end projects without some
sort of assistance? Without some sort of corporate interest in space
exploration, we're not going anywhere.We're just going to continue lobbing
money at NASA in exchange for a few "Gee Whiz"-probes and some nifty
pictures of places we're never going to go.

Doc

OK, ready to throw in my $0.02 now. In the absence of any official word, I
will assume that everything in this article is actually in the plan.

wrote in
m:

To pay for the new effort -- which would require a new generation of
spacecraft but use Europe's Ariane rockets and Russia's Soyuz capsules
in the interim -- NASA's space shuttle fleet would be retired as soon
as construction of the International Space Station is completed,
senior administration sources told United Press International.

More on this later.

Sources said Bush's impending announcement climaxes an unprecedented
review of NASA and of America's civilian space goals -- manned and
robotic. The review has been proceeding for nearly a year, involving
closed-door meetings under the supervision of Vice President Dick
Cheney, sources said.

Not the way I would have proceeded with the review, but closed-door is
nothing new: note that JFK did no open-door reviews of Apollo prior to his
announcement on May 25, 1961. At least the Bush administration took its
time.

To begin the initiative, the president will ask Congress for a down
payment of $800 million for fiscal year 2005, most of which will go to
develop new robotic space vehicles and begin work on advanced human
exploration systems. Bush also plans to ask Congress to boost NASA's
budget by 5 percent annually over at least the next five years, with
all of the increase supporting space exploration.

This is not an unreasonable increase, especially compared to what Apollo
required, or what SEI would have required. Assuming NASA's budget remains
flat after the five-year period, and including the savings from shuttle
retirement starting in 2010, the total program cost would be around $48
billion through 2013, or about half the cost of Apollo in today's dollars.
It is reasonable to ask whether NASA can accomplish the program on this
budget.

Along with retiring the shuttle fleet, the new plan calls for NASA to
convert a planned follow-on spacecraft -- called the orbital space
plane -- into versions of a new spaceship called the crew exploration
vehicle.

Classical "mission creep." NASA originally intended X-38 as the prototype
for a station CRV, then that got replaced by OSP which would have provided
station crew transport capability as well. Now that is being replaced with
a CEV with lunar-asteroid-Mars capability. And each time a new capability
is added, the operational date slips later, and the cost goes up...

NASA would end substantial involvement in the space station
project about the same time the moon landings would begin -- beginning
in 2013, according to an administration timetable shown to UPI.

No detail on whether NASA would extend ISS capability beyond "International
Core Complete" (i.e. 6-7 crew). I assume not, since a comparable level of
detail was used in other areas of the article. This also assumes that ESA,
CSA, JAXA, and RSA continue ISS afterward. Russia's economy would have to
improve somewhat in order for them to be able to do this long-term.

The first test flights of unmanned prototypes of the CEV could occur
as soon as 2007. An orbital version would replace the shuttle to
transport astronauts to and from the space station. However, sources
said, the current timetable leaves a period several years when NASA
would lack manned space capability -- hence the need to use Soyuz
vehicles for flights to the station.

Building in such a gap period, and then announcing a sole-source supplier
(Soyuz) to fill the gap, is not terribly smart. The Russians could
essentially name any price they choose - NASA would definitely not be
offered the $15-20 million per seat rate that Tito and Shuttleworth got.
I'd prefer the gap between shuttle and CEV be closed, but if that's not
possible financially, I'd prefer to re-start Alternate Access and encourage
US commercial suppliers to close the gap.

Given the situation in Iran, any plan to pay for Soyuz would be inviting
some tough questions (much of it from within the president's own party)
with respect to the Iran Nonproliferation Act, unless there's a regime
change in Iran between now and then.

Ariane rockets also might be used
to launch lunar missions.

Useful, I suppose, to keep Boeing and LockMart honest, but in what
capacity? Partner (ESA pays its own way, and gets to contribute part of the
crew), or contractor (NASA pays ESA, and NASA gets all the crew slots)?

During the remainder of its participation in space station activities,
NASA's research would be redirected to sustaining humans in space.
Other research programs not involving humans would be terminated or
curtailed.

A larger ISS crew would help here, but again, no detail on whether the plan
includes this.

The various models of the CEV would be 21st century versions of the
1960s Apollo spacecraft. When they become operational, they would be
able to conduct various missions in Earth orbit, travel to and land on
the moon, send astronauts to rendezvous with nearby asteroids, and
eventually serve as part of a series of manned missions to Mars.

Under the current plan, sources said, the first lunar landings would
carry only enough resources to test advanced equipment that would be
employed on voyages beyond the moon. Because the early moon missions
would use existing rockets, they could deliver only small equipment
packages. So the initial, return-to-the-moon missions essentially
would begin where the Apollo landings left off -- a few days at a
time, growing gradually longer. The human landings could be both
preceded and accompanied by robotic vehicles.

The first manned Mars expeditions would attempt to orbit the red
planet in advance of landings -- much as Apollo 8 and 10 orbited the
moon but did not land. The orbital flights would conduct photo
reconnaissance of the Martian surface before sending landing craft,
said sources familiar with the plan's details.

If all this is really in the administration's plan, it's an over-
specification. It would be like JFK specifying in his 1961 speech that
Apollo would use EOR or direct ascent.

Along with new spacecraft, NASA would develop other equipment needed
to allow humans to explore other worlds, including advanced
spacesuits, roving vehicles and life support equipment.

Makes sense.

As part of its new space package, sources said, the administration
will convene an unusual presidential commission to review NASA's plans
as they unfold. The group would consider such factors as the design of
the spacecraft; the procedure for assembly, either in Earth orbit or
lunar orbit; the individual elements the new craft should contain,
such as capsules, supply modules, landing vehicles and propellant
stages, and the duration and number of missions and size of crews.

This is... strange. If I were NASA administrator, I probably wouldn't be
able to stand this kind of second-guessing for long before asking the
president for a job swap with the chairman of this commission, so I could
second-guess him for a while.

Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing
programs that do not support the new effort.

This is vague. Does it mean all other human spaceflight programs, or all
programs in general? If the latter, what does it portend for JIMO, PKE,
JWST, etc?

Further details about the
plan and the space agency's revised budget will be announced in NASA
briefings next week and when the president delivers his FY 2005 budget
to Congress.

I look forward to it.

--
JRF

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It's Evolution, baby."


Pearl Jam "Do the Evolution"
"Jon Berndt" wrote in message
...
"john doe" wrote in message

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote:
Remember, just to develop the industrial base on the Moon to make this
possible you're going to have to have cheap launch from here on Earth.

And more importantly, have a way to return to earth the ore that you
have
mined on the Moon, and all of this should be cheaper than the ore that
is
mined on earth.

I'm not sure that is the point. My question is: is it cheaper to mine and
process materials on the moon, and use them there in finished products,
than
it is to fly finished products there? Or, are there materials on the moon
that cannot be gotten on earth?

Jon

I remember reading something about titanium being up there in appreciable
quantities, but that might have been wrong. And mining effeciency depends a
great deal on the quantity mined. Let's say you send up a crew with supplies
to mine a ton of titanium on the moon. This wouldn't really pay off that
well. Now let's say you send up a crew with supplies to mine 500 tons of
titanium on the moon.

See the picture yet?

An industrial base on the moon would probably take the better part of this
century to establish. There's no denying that. And it'll be harder than hell
to persuade the corporate types to do it. And I'm quite sure that a great
many business ventures on the moon will fail miserably. In fact, most of
them will. But some will prosper. And those that prosper will be what takes
us to the stars, not NASA. NASA is great for blazing trails and testing
materials and techniques that only a governmental agency could get away with
wasting money on. But I'll guarantee you that the first permanent,
self-sustaining base on the moon will not belong to NASA. It'll belong to a
corporation.

If I had to find a terrestrial analogy for the moon, I'd pick Alaska.
Remember that for years the territory of Alaska was considered a business
screwup par none. Nothing but endless expanses of dense forest and frozen
tundra. And when Alaska was purchased it was worthless. Sure, timber was
valuable, but there was nobody there to exploit it. The infrastructure to
use this natural resource simply did not exist. Flash forward a hundred and
fifty years and Alaska is booming. Alaskan timber is shipped all over the
Pacific rim. Not to mention petrochemical resources which have been tapped
by virtually every oil company in the US.

There are incredibly valuable resources out in the solar system just waiting
to be accessed. There's metal in the belt. The moon would be a much easier
launch platform than Earth, not to mention a much better location for heavy
industry. In vacuum, air pollution is an oxymoron.

Doc

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message
...
There is basicly no benefit to launching a satellite from Earth and then
adding to it a booster that was lifted up from Moon. If you spent even a
fraction of what going to be wasted in this PR excercise on Moon on
developing better propulsion you would get radicaly better results.
You said "there is no benefit ... " hm.. so you already know what the purely
theorethical launch from lunar surface will cost ? You already know how much
lunar-produced solar panels will cost ? You already know how capable
theorethical lunar version of deep-space network will be ?
You already know that "this" is a PR excercise ?
You are making quite bold assertions here...

As there is no pressing need or particular hurry to get those close-up
photos of Plutos surface, deferring such "missions" say .. a couple of
decades should be a no-brainer, if this money is needed for somewhat more
practical developments closer to current frontier.

-kert

On 10 Jan 2004 22:19:46 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

No detail on whether NASA would extend ISS capability beyond "International
Core Complete" (i.e. 6-7 crew). I assume not, since a comparable level of
detail was used in other areas of the article. This also assumes that ESA,
CSA, JAXA, and RSA continue ISS afterward. Russia's economy would have to
improve somewhat in order for them to be able to do this long-term.

It also raises the possibility of the revival of Transhab. We've gone
from "nothing at all to do with Mars on ISS, please" to "the only ISS
stuff we'll support will be things for moon/Mars."

Brian

"Kees van Reeuwijk" wrote in message
elft.nl...
chimera wrote:

The second thing that is lacking is--a reason. Back in the '60s,
as we all know, it was reason enough that the Soviets might take
command of space away from the U.S. But today the reason to spend
all this money is . . . ? There is nothing so critical, so
pressing, that the money won't be siphoned to other more pressing
concerns first.

I look at things like this as sporting events, and I for one would be
willing to pay a few extra euros tax each year to see *Europe* get there
first. That's mainly just rooting for the home team, but I expect that
such an accomplishment would have benificial side-effects as well.

If the USA joins this race, I'm sure there will be quite a number of
people rooting for *that* team :-).


Go Europe.

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:45:03 +0100, "Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote:

The Project Prometheus nuclear powered engine seems to have a key role
in the Bush deep space proposals. If we get nuclear engines, the time
scales drop radically.

AFAIK Prometheus isn't usable for human space missions, only for deep space
probes. Like I already said: NASA shouldn't fall into the trap of using the
newest a greatest unobtanium technology to accomplish the goals set out by
the President, or the whole program will simply get cancelled due to cost
overrurns.


http://www.space.com/news/bush_update_040109.html

"Another existing NASA program, Project Prometheus, would continue to
be focused on developing nuclear propulsion for interplanetary
spacecraft and new long-lasting power sources for future bases."

Brian

"Kaido Kert" wrote in
:

As there is no pressing need or particular hurry to get those close-up
photos of Plutos surface, deferring such "missions" say .. a couple of
decades should be a no-brainer, if this money is needed for somewhat
more practical developments closer to current frontier.

It's not the pictures of the surface that are important. Pluto is moving
away from perihelion and its atmosphere will soon freeze out. Deferring
this mission a couple of decades means we won't get measurements of Pluto's
atmosphere until the next perihelion, which is over 200 years away.


--
JRF

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check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
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Brian Thorn wrote in
:

On 10 Jan 2004 22:19:46 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

No detail on whether NASA would extend ISS capability beyond
"International Core Complete" (i.e. 6-7 crew). I assume not, since a
comparable level of detail was used in other areas of the article.
This also assumes that ESA, CSA, JAXA, and RSA continue ISS afterward.
Russia's economy would have to improve somewhat in order for them to
be able to do this long-term.

It also raises the possibility of the revival of Transhab. We've gone
from "nothing at all to do with Mars on ISS, please" to "the only ISS
stuff we'll support will be things for moon/Mars."

That makes logical sense, but it was not in the initial leak, while other
aspects of the proposal at the same or higher level of detail were present.
That makes me doubt that Transhab is part of the proposal.

But again, we are dealing with a leak here, and not the proposal itself.


--
JRF

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check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
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