"I can't put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is the other piece is, at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we don’t have the surface systems available for Mars," said NASA's William H. Gerstenmaier, responding to a question about when NASA will send humans to the surface of Mars. "And that entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars."
In the Apollo era, it was really neat because we didnt think we were so smart. So the requirement was to put human to the moon and return them safely. It didnt talk about stable orbit rendezvous, it didnt talk about the propulsion systems to be used, it didnt talk about all the other pieces. And in today’s world, sometimes our requirements generators think they know all these wonderful things. So they give us all these top level requirements and specified details that are maybe more problematic than helpful. So my guidance is to those that give me requirements: think simply and ask what you want us to really do. Dont give us the details about all the other things that need to be accomplished and are interesting but not necessarily contribute to what you really want us to do. And then let us trade through flexibility all thous other things you are going for.
Not really a surprise to this forum, but it seems NASA is going public with the lack of funding for a human Mars mission.Ars technica link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/nasa-finally-admits-it-doesnt-have-the-funding-to-land-humans-on-mars/They quote Gerstenmaier:Quote"I can't put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is the other piece is, at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we don’t have the surface systems available for Mars," said NASA's William H. Gerstenmaier, responding to a question about when NASA will send humans to the surface of Mars. "And that entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars."Link to the video given in the article: https://livestream.com/AIAAvideo/PropEnergy2017/videos/159704854(I had no time to view that)
Quote from: Semmel on 07/14/2017 09:35 amNot really a surprise to this forum, but it seems NASA is going public with the lack of funding for a human Mars mission.Ars technica link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/nasa-finally-admits-it-doesnt-have-the-funding-to-land-humans-on-mars/They quote Gerstenmaier:Quote"I can't put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is the other piece is, at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we don’t have the surface systems available for Mars," said NASA's William H. Gerstenmaier, responding to a question about when NASA will send humans to the surface of Mars. "And that entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars."Link to the video given in the article: https://livestream.com/AIAAvideo/PropEnergy2017/videos/159704854(I had no time to view that)Going public with it? Who did they think didn't know?
The real reason this is "news" is that outlets are running this as another opportunity attack on SLS/Orion while pushing for commercial to take over most everything... again. Gotta push that narrative-trying to kill programs with half-truthful PR.
Quote from: okan170 on 07/14/2017 06:22 pmThe real reason this is "news" is that outlets are running this as another opportunity attack on SLS/Orion while pushing for commercial to take over most everything... again. Gotta push that narrative-trying to kill programs with half-truthful PR. At least the half-truthers are launching full rockets. I know it is an easy jab, but if this program was being run as a normal program (let´s say a new smartphone development) inside a private company, SLS option would have been discarded long ago.
Not really a surprise to this forum, but it seems NASA is going public with the lack of funding for a human Mars mission.
Quote from: okan170 on 07/14/2017 06:22 pmThe real reason this is "news" is that outlets are running this as another opportunity attack on SLS/Orion while pushing for commercial to take over most everything... again. Gotta push that narrative-trying to kill programs with half-truthful PR. I don't think most news outiets have attacking SLS/Orion as an explicit agenda item, much less pushing commercial[1] They just want eyeballs. And this is a way to get them.1 - with some exceptions, such as reason.com for example...
I don't think most news outiets have attacking SLS/Orion as an explicit agenda item, much less pushing commercial[1] They just want eyeballs. And this is a way to get them.1 - with some exceptions, such as reason.com for example...
This could really cause a lot of ulcers. My first thought was, selling the "Gateway" just became a lot harder.
“I can’t name the date of landing a man on Mars, and the reason for this is, in fact, is at the level of the budget. Now the launch, descent and landing on Mars is a huge problem for us. NASA have only 40 percent of the required budget,” said William Gerstenmaier.
Sad to see this, but not really a surprise. We've all known SLS kept growing its budget problems, largely due to political impetus.
All of this talk about SLS/Orion being 'affordable' was just refuted by the head of NASA's human spaceflight program. Hard to say he is an SLS/Orion hater with an agenda to give it all to commercial -- AFAIK, anyway.
From where I sit, it looks like SpaceX's ITS project does have a reasonable chance of still reaching Mars by 2033 - maybe even a lot sooner than that.
NASA's usual suppliers have definitely had their fair chance. If, after the many billions of public treasure that they have already spent, it is now clear that they cannot reach Mars with SLS/Orion,
I personally think it is time start channeling a lot more of NASA's money in the other direction, to those new companies who do still believe they can achieve these ambitious goals. The only question now (and it is the most important one) is "how to align the politics?"
You can be absolutely sure SpaceX won't progress past satellite launches at any pace without NASA. In fact, they might not even be doing that without NASA. Don't trust me, trust Elon and Gwynne on that. They make a point about NASA in nearly every presser.So the "kill NASA and give it all to SpaceX" crowd are incredibly misinformed. Sure, some of it is lobbyists with personal and professional agendas under the "fiscal responsibility" banner where they think they will be able to clear national debt by killing an agency that gets 0.4 percent of the budget yet generates everything you get from NASA, which is vast, yet don't say boo to a goose when many more billions gets wasted on FAR LESS worthy projects.If anything the problem is NASA is so useful it has been utilized into working on too many things, meaning the funding is stretched. It needs focus on what it's best known at achieving and gained the public imagination - and that's space exploration. The article points out how that doesn't have the focus it requires and the problem that creates.