We should be cautious about asserting either a innate uniquely human desire to "explore,"
What might those be? Tourism is the only one that passes muster.
Chris, this is exactly backwards. What manned space needs are short term goals. No one can predict the long term with any kind of confidence so no long term goal is even remotely convincing or persuasive. We need goals that are profitable within a 10 year window.What might those be? Tourism is the only one that passes muster.
I'm sorry, but if thats your reasoning, then we ought to shut down HSF immediately, for there is not a single useful short-term goal in manned spaceflight.
Obligatory analogies: all the alchemists' efforts for hundreds of years never brought transmutation of the elements any closer to reality.
Quote from: Jim Davis on 11/11/2009 05:09 pmObligatory analogies: all the alchemists' efforts for hundreds of years never brought transmutation of the elements any closer to reality. Couldn't resist this one, sorry True, we still can't transmute lead to gold. But their efforts were certainly not in vain, they did lead to a great many discoveries
what a load of crap... no goal is needed.... "Because it there" is good enough. ...rant off.
As for tourism, no way. If there's one thing I am utterly opposed to it is space tourism in its current form. I see it as the epitome of decadence and capitalist extravagance to pay US$ 30+ million for a few days of floating around in space, mostly by the same people who destroyed the world economy last year. They should be behind bars, not up in orbit (my opinion). And sub-orbital tourism only causes pollution for no appreciable gain.
Ideological or religious (if you differentiate between them). My personal opinion is, if colonization happens, it will be on industrial grounds. The unobtanium miners get shipped out to Saturn by the Great International Unobtanium Mining Cartel, Ltd., and left there. Cue basso profundo: "...16 tonnes, and whadaya get...?" (Some people here will also remember Tennessee Ernie Ford.)
...Colonization will never occur to the point a self-sustaining group of people exists on another planet or moon. The expense will always be too great for any one nation or group of nations to afford.
Bringing resources back to Earth from the Moon or Mars will never happen because it simply is too expensive to be practical. I have read "Return to the Moon" and am familiar with mining Helium 3 but with the current climate of fear regarding anything associated with "nuclear energy", it will never happen until we totally run out of oil. It would be easier and cheaper to mine the bottom of the ocean.
3) Exploration for exploration's sake (the "it's our destiny to explore" argument)This is the only true reason to continue HSF. One thing that has always irked me is the belief we should have either HSF or UMSF, bot not both. UMSF has been very successful, the Mars Rovers as prime examples. Realistically though, all of the terrain they have covered in five years on Mars could have been covered by astronauts in a rover in five days. With brains on scene instead of back at JPL, decisions can be made much faster. Continued UMSF missions are necessary as a precursor to HSF. I believe we need both. To stop HSF altogether means we become that turtle, just waiting to get run over someday.
2) Gaining access to new ressources to sustain human growth on EarthBringing resources back to Earth from the Moon or Mars will never happen because it simply is too expensive to be practical. I have read "Return to the Moon" and am familiar with mining Helium 3 but with the current climate of fear regarding anything associated with "nuclear energy", it will never happen until we totally run out of oil. It would be easier and cheaper to mine the bottom of the ocean.
Quote from: Launchpad911 on 11/11/2009 05:48 pm2) Gaining access to new ressources to sustain human growth on EarthBringing resources back to Earth from the Moon or Mars will never happen because it simply is too expensive to be practical. I have read "Return to the Moon" and am familiar with mining Helium 3 but with the current climate of fear regarding anything associated with "nuclear energy", it will never happen until we totally run out of oil. It would be easier and cheaper to mine the bottom of the ocean.Well to me, this is a short term view. I'm NOT saying it WILL happen, but to say it NEVER WILL, is short sighted. In 100 years time, we may in fact find it economically beneficial to have some sort of off-Earth space endeavor to meet the needs of humanity. Maybe it's energy. Maybe it's to escape pollution. It may be a local notional need (China's population). To rule it out is presumptuous.
Given the lack of a well-defined HSF mission, shouldn't NASA's HSF switch from an operational mode back to a more R&D mode? Do research on less expensive ways to get to LEO, prop depots, standardize components so that trips to space can be segmented, etc. They could use the ISS as a testbed.That way we'd have many tools on-the-shelf, ready for when there's a need for a mission beyond LEO.
Chris, thanks for an interesting topic to discuss. As to your three original premises-1) Expanding human presence across multiple worlds (the "colonization" argument)Colonization will never occur to the point a self-sustaining group of people exists on another planet or moon. The expense will always be too great for any one nation or group of nations to afford. But even if they could afford it, we must begin with a continued HSF program in order to obtain the necessary knowledge and technology to create a colony somewhere.
Quote from: ChrisSpaceCH on 11/11/2009 04:36 pmAs for tourism, no way. If there's one thing I am utterly opposed to it is space tourism in its current form. I see it as the epitome of decadence and capitalist extravagance to pay US$ 30+ million for a few days of floating around in space, mostly by the same people who destroyed the world economy last year. They should be behind bars, not up in orbit (my opinion). And sub-orbital tourism only causes pollution for no appreciable gain.
This is precisely why I don't believe space tourism will succeed or lead to anything greater. If the public gets so upset because execs have private jets, (Never mind the fact that politicians do too. The only difference is the politicians jet is paid for by taxpayers.) imagine how they will react to private spaceships. Personally, I have no objection to executives having private jets.
Quote from: mikegi on 11/11/2009 07:44 pmGiven the lack of a well-defined HSF mission, shouldn't NASA's HSF switch from an operational mode back to a more R&D mode? Do research on less expensive ways to get to LEO, prop depots, standardize components so that trips to space can be segmented, etc. They could use the ISS as a testbed.That way we'd have many tools on-the-shelf, ready for when there's a need for a mission beyond LEO.Well there is definitely a push to more R&D, and even the Augustine Commission sees that as a fundamental necessity before we head to Mars.I think everyone here on NSF can agree that R&D is good for NASA as a whole.But now we are at that crossroads as to costs, lost jobs, lost talent, lost infrastructure (use it or lose it) from where we are now to where we will end up. Where do you find that balance. That is the hotly debated topic, for it ties into the choice of vehicle. Do we abandon all that for a commercial and/or EELV architecture? Do have a combination? The 'rules' say commercial should be utilized to the fullest extent possible for ISS, but that doesn't go for exploration. If we abandon exploration, we essentially abandon the current infrastructure built up from the shuttle and rely on commercial for the near term, or perhaps even the long term. I hope to find a balance: SDLV for exploration, commercial for ISS. In the mean time, use the existing infrastructure to transition to commercial for ISS, since it won't be ready in time once shuttle retires. Hence my vote for Direct.
Quote from: robertross on 11/11/2009 08:37 pmQuote from: mikegi on 11/11/2009 07:44 pmGiven the lack of a well-defined HSF mission, shouldn't NASA's HSF switch from an operational mode back to a more R&D mode? Do research on less expensive ways to get to LEO, prop depots, standardize components so that trips to space can be segmented, etc. They could use the ISS as a testbed.That way we'd have many tools on-the-shelf, ready for when there's a need for a mission beyond LEO.Well there is definitely a push to more R&D, and even the Augustine Commission sees that as a fundamental necessity before we head to Mars.I think everyone here on NSF can agree that R&D is good for NASA as a whole.But now we are at that crossroads as to costs, lost jobs, lost talent, lost infrastructure (use it or lose it) from where we are now to where we will end up. Where do you find that balance. That is the hotly debated topic, for it ties into the choice of vehicle. Do we abandon all that for a commercial and/or EELV architecture? Do have a combination? The 'rules' say commercial should be utilized to the fullest extent possible for ISS, but that doesn't go for exploration. If we abandon exploration, we essentially abandon the current infrastructure built up from the shuttle and rely on commercial for the near term, or perhaps even the long term. I hope to find a balance: SDLV for exploration, commercial for ISS. In the mean time, use the existing infrastructure to transition to commercial for ISS, since it won't be ready in time once shuttle retires. Hence my vote for Direct.I understand what you're saying but it seems to me that we need a new way for the future: segmenting HSF missions into individual legs that can be individually optimized. Right now, it looks to me like the optimization is performed on the entire mission, which is far more difficult and leads us right back to the current HLV mess we're in. For example, is it better to have:1) A large 80-100mT rocket that can launch everything at one time but never gets built because it's too specialized, would cost a fortune to develop and support, and has too low of a planned flight rate -or-2) Several inexpensive, standardized 20-30mT rockets that can be used for several types of missions but would require multiple launches for the rare large-scale missionI'd rather see my tax $$$ go towards #2. It's more flexible and leaves billions of $$$ to develop in-space components, like a depot, etc.
You forgot an option:3) A Directly Shuttle Derived vehicle, which can scale up by adding/removing engines/stages to go from 40mT to 120mT, to enable you to build to-mission using a common core design. This way you are not forced into any one profile, overbuilt or tons of launches, you can build as much launcher as you need for the particular mission, much like you can with the EELV's now but with a larger base core to work from derived from the shuttles stack.