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#20 by JohnFornaro on 06 Jun, 2013 13:38
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The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.
I quite understand your completely justified insistence that not only can there not be any *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna today, there could never be any of that there *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna ever.
It's simply not there. That's why nobody's "desperate" to get their hands on it. -
#21 by spectre9 on 06 Jun, 2013 20:20
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The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.
I quite understand your completely justified insistence that not only can there not be any *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna today, there could never be any of that there *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna ever.
It's simply not there. That's why nobody's "desperate" to get their hands on it.
I never said anything of the sort.
There's plenty of science to be done on Luna. The far side and poles haven't been explored. The Lunar surface has been neglected even by unmanned missions. Can I interest you in another orbiter?
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#22 by gbaikie on 06 Jun, 2013 21:12
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The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.
I quite understand your completely justified insistence that not only can there not be any *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna today, there could never be any of that there *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna ever.
It's simply not there. That's why nobody's "desperate" to get their hands on it.
I never said anything of the sort.
There's plenty of science to be done on Luna. The far side and poles haven't been explored. The Lunar surface has been neglected even by unmanned missions. Can I interest you in another orbiter?
I think LRO doing excellent work.
Unless there needs to be another orbiter that could support some kind rover operation on the surface, I am not sure what kind orbiter would be needed.
Though maybe some kind of follow up on Grail type mission:
http://science.time.com/2013/05/30/revealed-the-awesome-explanation-for-the-moons-extra-gravity/
I think if some kind of orbiter could find underground cave structures this would quite useful for the Moon and elsewhere. But I don't know if or how this could be done. -
#23 by Todd Martin on 07 Jun, 2013 23:42
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"It's still not NASA's job. Their job is science and human spaceflight that does science.
The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at."
There's the crux of so many critics on asteroid retrieval. The Planetary Society, for example, won't lobby for the mission out of fear the science budget could get harmed. Moon first, Mars first, etc all think there's a zero sum game of dollars and "the heist" is the enemy.
If NASA wants to succeed in convincing these partisans to support asteroid retrieval, then the paradigm needs to shift. I believe a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with private industry is essential to political success. Let Planetary Resources or Deep Space Industries add some private money to the table. They can contribute to identifying and characterizing target rocks, add demo mining equipment, and get to pick which type of rock to retrieve.
NASA is about more than science. NASA is also about technology development and opening new frontiers for the economic gain of the United States of America. The NASA budget will grow again if the American people and their Representatives see a return on investment. -
#24 by spectre9 on 08 Jun, 2013 00:31
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There is no economic gain in returning space minerals to the Earth.
At least not for many generations to come.
I think it's too much too early.
Solve the problems talked about in the paper first before the ambitious ARM mission.
Look at NEAs closely, return samples with unmanned capsules.
Get huge dedicated detection telescopes in orbits away from the Earth like L1/L2 or Earth-trailing.
Do the research into spin rate and composition and fill those gaps in our knowledge to reduce the risk. -
#25 by QuantumG on 08 Jun, 2013 00:48
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There is no economic gain in returning space minerals to the Earth.
There is no economic gain in not returning space minerals to the Earth. -
#26 by Avron on 08 Jun, 2013 01:07
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There is no economic gain in returning space minerals to the Earth.
There is no economic gain in not returning space minerals to the Earth.
would that be a loss ??.. love the "free range" .. thinking chickens.. must be hungry -
#27 by spectre9 on 08 Jun, 2013 01:30
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There is no economic gain in returning space minerals to the Earth.
There is no economic gain in not returning space minerals to the Earth.
Space minerals should be for space colonies.
Currently there is only one space outpost. It's a science station and it's easily catered for from Earth based expendable cargo vehicles*
First build the space colonies. This should be done by private money.
No? Why not? Plenty of land left here on Earth.
If people can settle Antarctica they'll do that first. It would be helpful to the colonization of space if that was prevented from happening
*Don't go telling me Dragon is reusable
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#28 by QuantumG on 08 Jun, 2013 01:36
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Space minerals should be for space colonies.
Who made you space czar?QuoteCurrently there is only one space outpost. It's a science station and it's easily catered for from Earth based expendable cargo vehicles*
If by "easily" you mean, at great difficulty and expense and with almost no room for expansion, then yes.QuoteIf people can settle Antarctica they'll do that first. It would be helpful to the colonization of space if that was prevented from happening
We've been over this a dozen times.. the governments of the world actively prevent people from settling Antarctica. -
#29 by JohnFornaro on 08 Jun, 2013 14:49
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There's plenty of science to be done on Luna. The far side and poles haven't been explored. The Lunar surface has been neglected even by unmanned missions.
I have a knee jerk reaction when people say that "real" science can only be done at their favorite destination.
Perhaps some avatar here can offer the unwashed a good definition about the difference between "real" science and "unreal" science. -
#30 by JohnFornaro on 08 Jun, 2013 15:20
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1) There's the crux of so many critics on asteroid retrieval. The Planetary Society, for example, won't lobby for the mission out of fear the science budget could get harmed. Moon first, Mars first, etc all think there's a zero sum game of dollars and "the heist" is the enemy.
2) If NASA wants to succeed in convincing these partisans to support asteroid retrieval, then the paradigm needs to shift. ...
3) ... The NASA budget will grow again if the American people and their Representatives see a return on investment.
1) In some ways, I think the various partisan groups are suffering from "live by the sword, die by the sword". They all talk about how the funding pie is finite and how adding a dollar to this slice would remove a dollar from that slice. Whenever they get a chance to write this paradigm into law, they do so. When their political constituency is waxing, they wax on about how important their work is, which is why it got funding. When waning, they whine about how can it be that their work, so important, should not be funded.
2) They keep on presenting intentionally scrubbed budgets in order to maintain funding. Over the decades, it's gotten so messy, that the disinterested observer can only conclude that profit trumps accomplishment. The heist constinues the budgetary scrubbing paradism. Worse, the heist presentation gives no indication whatsoever that they will even need to achieve their ostensible goal. This is the statement by Mr. Gerstenmaier which galls me to the core: That even if they don't grab a rock, the mission is already deemed a success, by virtue, presumably, of the number of PhD's referenced in the paper presentations so far. In fact, by my *cough* analysis *cough*, they propose to bag it when they should be lassoing it.
So yeah, the paradigm will have to change.
3) No question but that with an actual decades old lunar base, now being renovated to add hotel rooms, while the martian base itself is being added to, the budget conversation would be substantially different.
[delete]
(Probably the very first LGBT, left-handed, red-haired, Americo-caucasoid-asio-africo handicapped Jewish/Pagan astronaut would have wheeled into the Mars base by now, demonstrating that we are still a great nation. At least as regards the number of squares on our census forms, more than any other nation on Earth. But I digress.)
[/delete]
Alas.
But instead we have an underutilized decade old space station which can't even do a plant experiment and which we can't even get to for the time being. We have a telescope which, while on the ground, can *cough* actually *cough* see farther into space than mankind has ever seen before. We have managed an unmanned sub-orbital flight, with way, way, way more instrumentation than Mercury, using the most technically advanced rocket e-ver. Soon, in merely a decade or so, we will repeat an Apollo mission, demonstrating our leadership to all.
So yeah. ROI. -
#31 by spectre9 on 09 Jun, 2013 07:56
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The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.
Real science lol
I can't justify why I wrote that, it's all real science.
Maybe "new science" is a more apt description.
Thanks John. I'm going to stop using that term.
Nobody wants to repeat Apollo. That's aiming too high. -
#32 by JohnFornaro on 09 Jun, 2013 23:22
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The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.
Real science lol
I can't justify why I wrote that, it's all real science.
Maybe "new science" is a more apt description.
Thanks John. I'm going to stop using that term. ...
No prob. The whole "real science" meme is a distraction from any valuation of any science. It does not serve to inform, but to divide partisans. -
#33 by Vultur on 10 Jun, 2013 02:06
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Quote
If people can settle Antarctica they'll do that first. It would be helpful to the colonization of space if that was prevented from happening
We've been over this a dozen times.. the governments of the world actively prevent people from settling Antarctica.
Exactly... this is the problem with the analogy (most economic activities are also prohibited there).
All other landmasses of the Earth are already settled, interest in getting fossil fuels out of the Arctic Ocean is growing... Antarctica is unique because of the regulatory environment.
(Which is why stuff like the Outer Space Treaty was a bad idea... nations should be allowed to claim celestial bodies, IMO.) -
#34 by JohnFornaro on 10 Jun, 2013 02:39
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Quote
If people can settle Antarctica they'll do that first. It would be helpful to the colonization of space if that was prevented from happening
We've been over this a dozen times.. the governments of the world actively prevent people from settling Antarctica.
Exactly... this is the problem with the analogy (most economic activities are also prohibited there).
All other landmasses of the Earth are already settled, interest in getting fossil fuels out of the Arctic Ocean is growing... Antarctica is unique because of the regulatory environment.
(Which is why stuff like the Outer Space Treaty was a bad idea... nations should be allowed to claim celestial bodies, IMO.)
As always, you are"free enough" to go to space "any time". This has been true at least from the times of Ralph and Alice Cramden. -
#35 by ClaytonBirchenough on 27 Jun, 2013 01:53
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SEP spacecraft is to be sized for Atlas 551 (17995kg).
12000kg of Xenon.
Yikes, tight margins? Not sure, but 12000kg of Xenon plus the solar arrays, engines, and structure is going to be hard to fit on an Atlas 551 no? -
#36 by kch on 27 Jun, 2013 02:19
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SEP spacecraft is to be sized for Atlas 551 (17995kg).
12000kg of Xenon.
Yikes, tight margins? Not sure, but 12000kg of Xenon plus the solar arrays, engines, and structure is going to be hard to fit on an Atlas 551 no?
Looks like they originally estimated the solar arrays, engines, and structure at 5000 kg ... when they realized they had another 995 kg available from the Atlas, they decided to use it. Sounds reasonable to me.
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#37 by ChileVerde on 30 Jun, 2013 15:56
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I don't see this happening before 2025, by which time we may already have done em-2 thru em-5.
And speaking of that, I just noticed the following:Quotehttp://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2013/06/21/Minutes-NAC_Science_April_18-19-130620b-SIGNED.pdf
NASA Advisory Council Science Committee Meeting, April 18-19, 2013
<much snippage>
Mr. Gerstenmaier reviewed the interplanetary trajectory of the planned mission; 12 metric tons of xenon (Hall thruster) will be used to test its capability in terms of duration and impulse. Reaching the object will take 1.84 years and the traverse back to Earth 2.99 years.
<snip>
Responding to a suggestion to use a 2021 cruise mission for the mission, Mr. Gerstenmaier commented that the object cannot be obtained any sooner than 2024. However, HEOMD should be ready to launch to it by 2021. There is a calendar disconnect - this is a feasibility study only, not a mission design.
<much more snippage>
Now, these notes are distressingly gnomic, but I'd tentatively interpret them to mean that the Orion-asteroid rendezvous won't happen until 2024 at the earliest. As the present SLS launch schedule has EM-2 in 2021, EM-3 in 2023 and EM-4 in 2025, it would appear that EM-2, even though "ready" to go to the asteroid, won't have an asteroid to go to. Possibly the same for EM-3, though it might be delayed if an asteroid were indeed on the way.
So what are EM-2 and possibly EM-3 to do? I'd guess trips to DRO to practice for an actual asteroid rendezvous.
P.S.: Another implication is that the SEP asteroid-grabber probably won't launch before 2020, which seems reasonable. -
#38 by Robotbeat on 30 Jun, 2013 17:03
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They are looking at two objects. The problem is that it takes a finite amount of time to build a spacecraft and launch it, and Congress seems intent to be inept, so they are having to look at a later and later launch date because the House is trying to cut all funding.
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#39 by sdsds on 30 Jun, 2013 22:15
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the House is trying to cut all funding.
There is no extant funding for this which they could "cut." Some in the House are trying to prevent the creation of any funding.
