NASA, Roscosmos Sign Joint Statement on Researching, Exploring Deep SpaceBuilding a strategic capability for advancing and sustaining human space exploration in the vicinity of the Moon will require the best from NASA, interested international partners, and U.S. industry. As NASA continues formulating the deep space gateway concept, the agency signed a joint statement with the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, on Wednesday, Sept. 27 at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.This joint statement reflects the common vision for human exploration that NASA and Roscosmos share. Both agencies, as well as other International Space Station partners, see the gateway as a strategic component of human space exploration architecture that warrants additional study. NASA has already engaged industry partners in gateway concept studies. Roscosmos and other space station partner agencies are preparing to do the same."While the deep space gateway is still in concept formulation, NASA is pleased to see growing international interest in moving into cislunar space as the next step for advancing human space exploration," said Robert Lightfoot, NASA's acting administrator at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Statements such as this one signed with Roscosmos show the gateway concept as an enabler to the kind of exploration architecture that is affordable and sustainable."NASA plans to expand human presence into the solar system starting in the vicinity of the Moon using its new deep space exploration transportation systems, the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. This plan challenges our current capabilities in human spaceflight and will benefit from engagement by multiple countries and U.S. industry.Studies of the gateway concept will provide technical information to inform future decisions about potential collaborations. These domestic and international studies are being used to shape the capabilities and partnering options for implementing the deep space gateway.The space station partners are working to identify common exploration objectives and possible missions for the 2020s, including the gateway concept. A key element of their study is to ensure that future deep space exploration missions take full advantage of technology development and demonstration enabled by the International Space Station, as well as lessons learned from its assembly and operations.During the same time period and in parallel, NASA has been engaging U.S. industry to evaluate habitation concepts for the gateway and for the deep space transport that would be needed for Mars exploration. NASA has competitively awarded a series of study and risk reduction contracts under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) Broad Agency Announcement to advance habitation concepts, technologies, and prototypes of the required capabilities needed for deep space missions. The most recent awards included six U.S. companies; Bigelow Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and Nanoracks. Five of the six firms were selected to develop full-sized ground-based engineering prototypes of habitation systems, expected to be complete in 2018. NASA has also solicited industry proposals for studies on concept development of a power and propulsion element, which would be the first piece of a gateway architecture.[/size]
"We’ve agreed to jointly participate in the project for creating a new international lunar station Deep Space Gateway. In the first phase we will create the orbital component with a view to eventually use well-tested technologies on the surface of the Moon and, in the longer term, Mars. The first modules may be put in space in 2024-2026," Komarov said.So far the participating countries have held a preliminary discussion on their likely contributions."We may provide one to three modules and the standards for a unified docking mechanism for all spacecraft that would be approaching the station. Also, Russia offers to use its future super-heavy space rocket, currently in the development phase, for taking parts and components to the Moon’s orbit," Komarov said. Roscosmos’s manned programs director, Sergey Krikalyov, said that alongside the airlock unit Russia might provide a residential module for a future station.Komarov said individual countries’ technological contribution and the financial aspect of a future project would be the subject matter of the next phase of the talks."For now we’ve signed a joint statement on the intention to work on a lunar space station project and to eventually work on missions on the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. A future treaty will require fundamental research and examination at the inter-state level," Komarov said.Participation in a project of the BRICS member-countries was approved."Our initiative was taken into account of expanding the number of countries that might take part in discussing this project. It was decided that China, India and other BRICS countries would be involved in the joint work on the lunar station," Komarov said.
Is this likely to remain purely NASA-Roskosmos all the way, or will others be invited, as with the International Space Station? If others, then which others? In what important ways will this DSG differ from the ISS?What missions will it enable? Will all of those missions likewise be multi-national, or could it enable some private ones, too?
Our initiative was taken into account of expanding the number of countries that might take part in discussing this project. It was decided that China, India and other BRICS countries would be involved in the joint work on the lunar station
ADELAIDE, Australia — NASA and its Russian counterpart signed a joint statement Sept. 27 supporting research that could lead to a cislunar habitat, but the two are far from a final agreement to cooperate on developing it.
Lightfoot, in an interview at the conference Sept. 28, confirmed that there is no final deal with Roscosmos to cooperate on the gateway. “What we really said in our discussion is, as we move out from ISS, we want to take advantage of that with all our partners, and whatever we do, we do it in a global way,” he said. “There’s no commitment of resources or commitment to a program. It’s all conceptual at this point.”
All nations in the ISS MCB are part of DSG. Foreign nations outside of the must pay/barter NASA for an SLS launch or use their own rockets and delivery tugs to directly dock with DSG or loiter a safe distance and wait for Orion to fetch it.
Investigators wrote the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report, which revealed some serious cultural flaws at the agency. An axiom that came out of that difficult time was the need to “separate crew from cargo.”NASA is choosing to abandon this safety dictum and launch its astronauts on the heaviest rocket ever, SLS, which will simultaneously be carrying payloads. I will use the adjective “unwise” to describe this new plan. It is dangerous and violates the basic post-Columbia accident principle. It is also expensive, as each SLS launch will cost on the order of $2 billion. And finally, the massive Orion capsule eats up about 25 tons of capacity that could otherwise be occupied with payloads such as habitation modules or landers.
So, with every major ISS partner now on board the DSG (and the potential to add newcomers as well), will we be eventually be calling this station ISS 2?
{snip}But the thing that bugs me most is how the goalposts have been moved. I invite the people who are now saying that DSG is a great idea to ask themselves why they weren't advocating years ago. While I'm at it, let me just mention a few other people who did not advocate a crewed cis-lunar station as a gateway to the moon or beyond: Wernher von Braun, Sergey Korolev, Mike Griffin and Elon Musk*.Did all of these very intelligent people miss something? Have the facts changed in some fundamental way, so that a DSG now makes sense, when it didn't in the past?{snip}
Quote from: Proponent on 09/29/2017 09:31 pm{snip}But the thing that bugs me most is how the goalposts have been moved. I invite the people who are now saying that DSG is a great idea to ask themselves why they weren't advocating years ago. While I'm at it, let me just mention a few other people who did not advocate a crewed cis-lunar station as a gateway to the moon or beyond: Wernher von Braun, Sergey Korolev, Mike Griffin and Elon Musk*.Did all of these very intelligent people miss something? Have the facts changed in some fundamental way, so that a DSG now makes sense, when it didn't in the past?{snip}The lunar lander in '2001 A Space odyssey' was nuclear powered and commuted between the lunar surface and the big wheel spacestation in LEO orbit. None of our proposed landers use high thrust nuclear propulsion so they need lower ISP chemical propellants. To increase the payload, by reducing the lander's delta-V, the staging has to occur nearer the Moon.One of the DSG jobs is acting as the return point for a solar electric propulsion Mars transfer vehicle. A high Earth orbit staging removes the need for the vehicle to have a heat shield and the months required to slow down to LEO velocity.
I suspect the brains trust did not expect to get the money for a cis-lunar spacestation so designed it out. This may have changed.
Quote from: allhumanbeings07 on 09/29/2017 07:53 amSo, with every major ISS partner now on board the DSG (and the potential to add newcomers as well), will we be eventually be calling this station ISS 2?Indeed, it seems to me that DSG fulfills the needs of the world's space agencies very nicely. It gives NASA something to do with Orion/SLS that might be affordable, and it gives other agencies something to do beyond LEO that they may be able to afford (the International Moon Village that ESA's been talking about is something straight out of budgetary fantasy land).That's not all bad. It might provide some opportunities for expanding the commercial sphere through arrangements along the lines of the commercial cargo and crew programs for iSS. But it has plenty of drawbacks, as our former-astronaut friend has pointed out. For one thing, it will be expensive to maintain, especially since Orion and SLS at $3+ billion annually will, of political necessity, be part of it. That means less money for actually going to the moon, Mars or an asteroid. If it happens, it will take on a life of its own and will probably anchor NASA to cis-lunar (excluding the moon's surface) for decades.But the thing that bugs me most is how the goalposts have been moved. I invite the people who are now saying that DSG is a great idea to ask themselves why they weren't advocating years ago. While I'm at it, let me just mention a few other people who did not advocate a crewed cis-lunar station as a gateway to the moon or beyond: Wernher von Braun, Sergey Korolev, Mike Griffin and Elon Musk*.Did all of these very intelligent people miss something? Have the facts changed in some fundamental way, so that a DSG now makes sense, when it didn't in the past?* I omit NASA's technical leadership during the 1960's space race from this list, because that was a rare moment when time was more valuable than money: there may have been other reasons for avoiding a cis-lunar gateway at that time.
It seems that some in favour of a more commercialised space sector always seek to frame this discussion in terms of running down the public sector or empathising the negative. After all it’s very easy to have hindsight and say well why didn’t this happen then, or why didn’t they think of this. But generally this is both unhelpful and nonconstructive. Especially when it comes to politics, it’s better to just say it is what it is and move on. Political short termism is a well known and accepted state of affairs by now and is anything ever gained by restating it at this point. Mr Musk one of the smart people mentioned here knows it isn’t a zero sum game, you don’t get anywhere by pursuing this course as we saw in his most recent speech.
Quote from: Star One on 09/30/2017 11:18 amIt seems that some in favour of a more commercialised space sector always seek to frame this discussion in terms of running down the public sector or empathising the negative. After all it’s very easy to have hindsight and say well why didn’t this happen then, or why didn’t they think of this. But generally this is both unhelpful and nonconstructive. Especially when it comes to politics, it’s better to just say it is what it is and move on. Political short termism is a well known and accepted state of affairs by now and is anything ever gained by restating it at this point. Mr Musk one of the smart people mentioned here knows it isn’t a zero sum game, you don’t get anywhere by pursuing this course as we saw in his most recent speech.I presume I'm being regarded as one of those "in favour of a more commercialised space sector." While I am excited about what the commercial sector is doing, I would like to see healthy government efforts too. But when it comes to DSG, the principal benefit, it seems to me, is that it may stimulate commercial efforts. I don't that it contributes much to government BEO efforts, and in that I seem to be in the company of von Braun, Korolev, Griffin and Musk. So, in noting the DSG's potential as a stimulus for commercial efforts, I'm trying to look at the bright side.