NASA Exploration Roadmaps

cIclops · 2007-03-08 05:37:22

Inside the recent document: NASA Transition: Shuttle to Constellation (2MB PDF) - 2 Mar 2007 there's a very detailed (and hard to read) project milestone chart.

This is a list of the Constellation plan review milestones and planned flights:

2007
Q1 Orion SRR (complete)
Q1 Ares I Upper Stage System Requirements Review (SRR)
Q2 Orion System Design Review (SDR)
Q2 Ares I Upper Stage SDR
Q2 J-2X Preliminary Design Review (PDR)
Q4 Constellation Initial Capability Level 1 SDR
Q4 Ares I First stage PDR

2008
Q1 Ares I Upper Stage PDR
Q2 Constellation Initial Capability Level 1 SDR
Q2 Orion PDR
Q2 Ares I PDR
Q2 J-2X Critical Design Review (CDR)

2009
Q1 LSAM Project SRR
Q2 Ares I Upper Stage CDR
Q2 Ares I-1 (First stage demo flight, suborbital unmanned)
Q3 Ares I CDR
Q3 Orion CDR

2010
Q1 Initial Capability Level 1 CDR
Q3 Ares I Upper Stage CDR
Q4 Lunar Capability Level 1 SRR
Q4 Ares V Project SRR
Q4 LSAM project PDR

2011
Q4 Initial Capability Level 1 SAR
Q4 Orion SAR
Q4 Ares I Design Certification Review (DCR)
Q4 Ares I First/Upper Stage DCR
Q4 J-2X DCR
Q4 Lunar Capability Level 1 PDR
Q4 Ares V Project PDR

2012
Q2 Ares I-2 (First / Upper stage demo flight, orbital unmanned)
Q4 Ares I First Stage DDCR
Q4 Lunar Capability Level 1 CDR
Q1 LSAM Project CDR

2013
Q3 Orion 3 (Ares I/Orion flight - unmanned)
Q4 Ares V Project CDR

2014
Q1 Orion 4 (Ares I/Orion flight with crew)

Notes:
"Initial Capability Level 1" seems to mean ISS crew services
LSAM project beginning in early 2009 before Ares V in late 2010
SAR = Safety Analysis Review?
DDCR = Detailed Design Certification Review (after 1st demo flight)?
Recent statements by NASA indicate Orion 4 may slip to 2014 Q4

cIclops · 2007-03-12 11:56:42

The Vision at Three Years and Counting

By Brian Berger
Space News Staff Writer
When U.S. President George W. Bush stepped to the podium at NASA headquarters here Jan. 19, 2004, to call for returning humans to the Moon by 2020, cynics could be forgiven for giving the Vision for Space Exploration little chance of succeeding.
Many watching the president’s speech that day also had been watching 15 years earlier when the first President Bush delivered a speech on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum calling for sending humans back to the Moon in preparation for eventual missions to Mars.
The Space Exploration Initiative, or SEI, never progressed beyond viewgraphs, its growth stunted by an unsupportive Congress, infighting between the White House and NASA, and a hastily calculated price tag that gave the nation sticker shock. By its third anniversary, the SEI was little more than an inadequately funded Office for Exploration run by then-associate administrator Mike Griffin.
Today Griffin runs all of NASA, wielding a $16 billion budget more than a fifth of which is dedicated to building a space shuttle replacement capable of launching astronauts on trips to the Moon.
For Griffin, there is no comparison between what has been accomplished under the Vision for Space Exploration in the first three years and how far SEI got in the same amount of time.
“The Vision for Space Exploration was enacted as the law of the land,” Griffin said in a recent interview, referring to the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 endorsing building new vehicles to replace the space shuttle and carry astronauts to the Moon by 2020.
Congress also has shown its support with money, providing $9 billion for exploration since Bush rolled out the vision. While a substantial amount of that funding initially went towards now-defunct legacy projects rolled into the exploration program—notably the proposed multibillion dollar Prometheus space nuclear systems initiative—NASA has received sufficient budget to go well beyond the viewgraph stage. Scott Horowitz, the former NASA astronaut hired away from ATK Thiokol in late 2005 to run the U.S. space agency’s $3.4-billion-a-year-and-growing Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, said the vision has progressed in its first three years from a statement of goals and objectives to a bona fide program that has signed contracts and started building hardware.
“[W]e are already cutting metal and testing components for Ares I and Orion,” Horowitz said. “By year four, we will have all major elements under contract to provide the new capabilities to replace the space shuttle after it retires in 2010.”
Griffin echoed those comments in a recent interview.
“We have vehicles in procurement right now and others yet to come,” Griffin said. “We’re grappling with the real world of program management in the Washington environment, the SEI was shut down frankly when President Clinton came to power. We’re in an entirely different world.”
That world, however, is far from perfect. NASA has not been given the budget increases the White House initially promised, forcing the agency to make unpopular cuts to science and aeronautics to keep its human spaceflight programs adequately funded. And a decision by the new Democratic Congress to fund most federal agencies this year at last year’s levels has left NASA’s exploration planners struggling with a $500 million shortfall that Griffin recently announced would delay the introduction of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its Ares I rocket to 2015.
While NASA still hopes to shoot for the Moon by 2020, agency officials readily concede the next four years or so are all about completing the International Space Station, retiring the shuttle, and building and testing Ares and Orion. Work on the heavy-lift rocket, lunar lander and other hardware needed to send astronauts to the Moon is not due to really get started before the shuttle is done flying. Even the series of robotic precursor missions Bush called for in his landmark 2004 address now appears likely to be scaled back to a lone Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and a piggy-back payload NASA added to the mission because it had room on the rocket.
No less a hardcore human space exploration proponent that Griffin recently acknowledged that — at least for now — the vision is primarily a space shuttle replacement effort.
“Many folks have said, ‘I’m not worried about the Moon right now.’ I would say to them, ‘I’m not worried about the Moon right now either.’ I’m worried about replacing the shuttle,” Griffin told the Senate Commerce space and aeronautics subcommittee during a Feb. 28 NASA budget hearing.
Of the more than $16 billion NASA plans to spend between now and 2010 on exploration systems, roughly 80 percent is designated Orion and Ares, with the rest budgeted for lunar robotics programs, space station-based research, and other advanced technology development efforts.
By 2011, the first year NASA expects to be out from under the $3 billion to $4 billion a year it spends on shuttle, exploration systems is expected to consume nearly half of NASA’s total budget, with upwards of 90 percent of exploration funding going toward completing Ares and Orion and getting started on the Ares 5 heavy-lift rocket and other Moon-bound hardware.
Whether NASA gets to hold on to the money freed up by retiring the shuttle and use it to shift its space exploration plans into a higher gear remains to be seen.
John Logsdon, a NASA advisor and George Washington University space policy expert, said whoever wins the White House in 2008 will have no choice but to see Orion through to completion if he or she wants the United States to have its own means of launching humans into space. Continuing to fly the shuttle will not be an option, he said, because—as NASA’s human spaceflight chief William Gerstenmaier put it recently—the agency is already nearly “past the point of no return” on retiring the shuttle.
But the next president will get to decide, Logsdon said, whether to stop with fielding a new capsule capable of going to the space station or push on with the necessary investment to send humans to the Moon. That decision, he said, will happen in 2010 when the White House and NASA prepare their first post-shuttle budget.
“That’s the budget in which the decision on how to use the resources freed up by ending shuttle flights will be made,” Logsdon said. “That’s when we make the decision [about whether we] are we going to take Ares V, the lunar lander and Earth departure stage into development or not … We could just decide to go on with the utilization of the station and fly Orion [there] for a decade or more.”
How much progress NASA is able to make on Orion and Ares by the time there is a new president in the White House depends on much more near-term political decisions, starting with this year’s budget.
Griffin recently warned that giving NASA anything less than its full request for 2008 would inflict “grave and lasting damage to the program.”
To NASA’s advantage, the agency has some key lawmakers out looking for more money for the agency, including Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that drafts NASA’s budget; Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the chairman of the Senate Commerce space and aeronautics subcommittee, and his Republican counterpart Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
In the House of Representatives, however, there are fewer strong NASA supporters in key positions.
House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said in a recent interview that he supports the Moon-Mars initiative, but does not think his views are widely shared among his House colleagues. “There’s not much of an understanding of it,” he said, a political reality he blames on the president’s failure to promote the vision the way he does other policy priorities. “So it’s not a matter so much of not supporting it, but supporting other NASA interests more. That’s the dilemma we have.”

cIclops · 2007-03-15 05:04:41

Human Space Exploration: The Next 50 Years - Mar 2007

This is a long piece written by Mike Griffin detailing his view of NASA's past and future in space exploration. Lots of historic numbers and future estimates.

About going to Mars:

By the 2020’s we will be well positioned to begin the Mars effort in earnest. The lunar campaign will have stabilized; a human-tended outpost will be well established; we will have extensive long-duration space experience in both zero- and low-gravity conditions, and it will be time to bundle these lessons and move on to Mars – which does not imply that we will bring lunar activities to an end. Quite the contrary; my prediction is that the Moon will prove to be far more interesting, and far more relevant to human affairs, than many today are prepared to believe. But by the early 2020s, it will be time to assign a stable level of support for lunar activities, and set out for Mars.
The development of the Orion/Ares I/Ares V transportation system is being done in a way that provides a substantial capability for subsequent Mars expeditions. In particular, we expect the Orion crew vehicle (or a modest upgrade of it) to provide the primary transportation from Earth to whatever transportation node is used for the assembly of the Mars ship, and to be the reentry vehicle in which the crew returns home at the end of the voyage. The Ares V cargo vehicle will provide, with no more than a half-dozen launches, the 500 metric tons or so which is thought to be necessary for a Mars mission, based on present-day studies. As a perspective on scale, this mass is about 25% greater than that of the completed ISS.
It is difficult to estimate the non-recurring cost of developing a Mars mission that is initiated some 20 or more years in the future, and especially so when a specific mission architecture has not yet been formulated. But reasoned estimates can be made. A small group co-chaired by Skylab and Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott and me made an attempt to do so in a study conducted for The Planetary Society in 2004. While necessarily omitting many important details, a reasonable approach based on mission mass, consistent with modern cost estimation algorithms, was outlined. It was concluded that, following a decadal hardware development cycle, nine Mars missions could be conducted over a 20-year period for a total cost of approximately $120 billion in Fiscal 2000 dollars, or $6 billion/year, significantly less than we are spending on Shuttle/ISS today. (If this seems low, it should be noted that the development cost of the heavy-lift transportation system is allocated to the earlier lunar program. The Mars program would pay only the marginal cost of transportation.)
Allocating an across-the-board 30% reserve at this stage puts the cost of a 30-year Mars exploration program at $156 billion in Fiscal 2000 dollars. Of this, approximately $70 billion consists of development cost, with reserve. If $4.8 billion/year is available in the human spaceflight account, then the Mars mission development cycle will require about 15 years. Thus, if we begin development work in 2021, we will be able to touch down on the Martian surface in about 2037, with follow-on missions every 26 months thereafter for the next two decades.

GCNRevenger · 2007-03-15 07:02:23

Note the beautiful, magical word that has been anathema for so long: "reserve." Griffin is the right man for the job.

cIclops · 2007-03-15 07:22:38

Yes Griffin has shown us that setting foot on Mars can be done by using highly conservative assumptions. This is a great baseline from which rational discussion can begin. 2037 is disappointingly late, but now all we have to do is work to make that date sooner, later won't matter to most of us

cIclops · 2007-04-16 12:41:36

NASA aims to finish manned Mars mission study by August

DATE:16/04/07
SOURCE:Flightglobal.com
By Rob Coppinger
NASA will have a basic architecture for a manned Mars mission in late July, says NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration systems Doug Cooke.
The Mars work began in January and will build on previous design reference missions produced by NASA. What differs with this study is that the performance specifications of the Ares I crew launch vehicle and Ares V heavy lift vehicle will play a large part in the analysis.
“It won’t be as detailed as the [2005] Exploration Systems Architecture Study [that dealt with the Moon],” says Cooke.
However it will draw conclusions about whether NASA wants to carry out long or short stay missions to Mars, what surface power supply would be used, and what propulsion is required. At the moment NASA envisages a Marsship that is as large as the International Space Station and uses either nuclear or solar electric propulsion systems.
Cooke added that NASA’s aeronautics centers were interested in working on the dynamics of Mars atmospheric entry. Last year NASA administrator Michael Griffin announced that Mars mission studies would be undertaken this year.

SpaceNut · 2007-04-17 19:22:24

Good that another study of going to mars will be completed but what did it cost?

cIclops · 2007-04-18 05:16:33

Good that another study of going to mars will be completed but what did it cost?

Compared with ongoing missions, very very little. Studies are very cheap compared with development and operations.

It's surprising that this forum hasn't reacted more positively to this news, after all this is the critical first step towards starting the human Mars project. Wake up everybody!

GCNRevenger · 2007-04-18 10:44:43

Call me a little wary... the baseline DRM-III I liked, but I am worried that they will "get off on a tangent" and make some solar-ion or smaller-than-it-should-be arrangement.

Marsman · 2007-04-20 01:59:28

I think the coming design is a good thing, if only to push forward some official NASA plans for Mars into 2007 terms but it is still a long way from being a serious plan even according to Griffin. Sometimes I think these Mars mission plans come out every few years just to shut Mars advocates up and it is still NOT a rock solid committment to actually sending humans there and from other words of Griffin it may be the late 2030's or longer if NASA do reach Mars.

Remember though, many administrations will come and go between now and when they go back to the Moon and it is not really something to rely upon when you look back at NASA history. Going to Mars can be started at any time and from what I know it doesn't look good on when NASA might get there. For many years they said that a Mars mission was 20 years away and now that VSE has started they (or at least Griffin) are saying 2037 or beyond, maybe. From 20 years to 30 years, what's next? One prediction by Donald Rapp was that NASA wouldn't reach mars until at least 2080 and with everything going on I believe it. A new mission design is never a bad thing but because there is still no definite committment by NASA on Mars, this plan could be yet another DRM. It might help NASA commit to a manned Mars mission (we hope) but will it? Who gives NASA the go ahead to go to Mars?

Looking at those details though, it sounds alot like Battlestar Galactica 2.

SpaceNut · 2007-04-20 06:17:47

Battlestar Galactica 2 is because we can not loft 500 mT plus into orbit in one shot. I do not believe that we should try to either since the rockets cost and need for larger launch platform. The 131 mT of Ares V seems to be adequate, we will just need to work hard to make sure we are not wasting its capability with things we do not need.

cIclops · 2007-04-20 07:32:30

I think the coming design is a good thing, if only to push forward some official NASA plans for Mars into 2007 terms but it is still a long way from being a serious plan even according to Griffin. Sometimes I think these Mars mission plans come out every few years just to shut Mars advocates up and it is still NOT a rock solid committment to actually sending humans there and from other words of Griffin it may be the late 2030's or longer if NASA do reach Mars.

Advocates inside NASA have been pushing for a plan for a long time, the furthest it's got has been DRM 3.0. It didn't get any further not because people were "shut up", but because there was no more funding.

There is a big difference with the new study. Griffin has pushed NASA to build the critical components for a Mars mission so that now it is actually possible to create a viable architecture. Ares I will develop almost everything needed for Ares V, and together with Orion these are the key pieces of the architecture. NASA has taken a lot of criticism for Ares I (too expensive) and Orion (too heavy) but Ares I delivers the booster and the Upper stage engine and avionics for Ares V, and Orion has the capability to transit and reenter from Mars as well as the the Moon. This is the difference from earlier plans, this is a serious workable plan, this is a rock solid commitment, real metal is being shaped.

Marsman · 2007-04-20 10:30:49

It didn't get any further not because people were "shut up", but because there was no more funding.

So the question is- Why was there no funding? I would contend that the lack of funding for most space programs and ideas at NASA comes down to a shortfall among space advocates and Mars advocates. A numbers shortfall. Both inside NASA and outside. For example, I read a thread over at NASA spaceflight forums on the DIRECT launcher proposal and the official NASA guy (Dr Stanley) who came in to debate and answer questions made some interesting statements.

Normally he said NASA does not respond to alternative ideas but the reason this was different was that it had gained substantial qualitative and quantitative support within NASA and as a result needed to be addressed in some way. So when you say that advocates within NASA have been pushing for a new Mars mission plan I have to say that clearly not enough people within NASA having been pushing for it. That is the first problem.

The second problem is the people who do push Mars related ideas within NASA are dealing with a subject that is not much of a priority within NASA yet and Griffin has made that known anyway. The Moon is where they are focused now and for the next 15 or 20 years. So pushing too hard on Mars from those within NASA would actually be counter productive in the current agenda so it will never gain the kind of support that the DIRECT launcher did for example. Not until the Moon is behind them again and that excuse is removed. Griffin himself is a Mars advocate but not even he can disobey his superiors in congress. I think this plan is a good thing and largely pushed through by Griffin's Mars advocacy view and we should be thankful for that at least.

The real problem is NASA take their lead from congress and the President and they take their lead from their constituents and Mars advocates don't seem to understand or accept these basic facts. If very few of the public care about Mars (and they don't) then government leaders will continue to do whatever they want as long as the voice of Mars advocates is silent. Mars is never going to be much of a priority until the wider public make it so. Hoping that a few people within NASA can do it all for getting humans to Mars is not even something Griffin agrees with. NASA have repeatedly stated over the last three years that they do want international and commercial partners to "augment" the VSE, especially in the bigger elements like Mars missions and so far on the Mars side of things I have not seen Mars advocates respond to this very well.

The reason funding for Mars mission plans and missions is never or rarely there is because it lacks support on all fronts. Space advocates are divided about where they want NASA to go, Mars advocates seem to ignore opportunity after opportunity when it comes to raising public support levels and that needs to stop. Mars is the most frequently visited planet in the solar system and every time a new probe visits Mars the general public across the world tune in. Yet during those peak periods of public interest the Mars community seems to ignore these periods of opportunity and it rarely results in an increase in our numbers or lobbying strength. One of the big reasons for this is that from what I see many Mars advocates don't much like the public and don't relate very well to them.

For example, for many years now the position of many Mars advocates has been to hope on NASA and push them to achieve our dreams and when we deal with the public we tend to give them that same message. The problem with that is we are basically telling the U.S tax payer that we want more of their taxes spent on something they don't think is important at all. In short, Mars advocates are out of touch with the wider public and no amount of well thought out "reasons to go" will convince the public otherwise. Plus many Mars advocates just don't believe that we can succeed in raising public support so why bother? I hear it all the time. "It's too hard, too unrealistic, the public are fickle, etc etc". We are shooting ourselves in the foot with our own negativity.

With wide scale public support (not just passing interest) political leaders and business leaders do take notice. But with such small numbers as we have now within and outside of NASA in the Mars community we will have to continue to rely on "hopes" and other such bones tossed our way. There are three forms of funding for space programs as I see it. Government, the private sector and the foundation of both of these- the public- John Q Citizen, the tax payer, the consumer. If the foundation of funding is ultimately from the public then shouldn't we be focusing on them instead of less stable foundations like space friendly politicians or wealthy investors (rare as they are)? I don't know about you but I don't know of any space advocates that are 100% satisfied with the pace of space exploration and settlement efforts. But that slow pace will continue while we continue to rely upon the even more fickle fates of politics or business fads. The public, the people many space advocates think are brain dead morons ulimately pay for our dreams. Maybe it's time we started focusing on them a bit more and stopped being so scared and negative?

This current plan will come out and no doubt will be some kind of Battlestar Galactica type of thing and in the end it will not be too far removed from the original 90 Day Report. So after all Robert Zubrin and The Mars Society's efforts to achieve near term and streamlined Mars missions it seems that as expected, NASA will have the final say. I understand that Mars Direct had its flaws and NASA even came up with their own $55 Billion version of it but after this new study it will be worlds away from any of that. The point of Mars Direct was to create a cheaper alternative to a mega project like the 90 Day Report and to make it near term but it seems to have failed on both of these counts. The point of Mars Direct was to show that we could get to Mars without spending mega billions and that prospect excited people, especially the public. But in 2007 the reality is quite different. The wider public will never get excited about this coming plan, especially if they have to foot the bill. I know some here hate the idea of private Mars missions and laugh at even current private launch attempts like SpaceX Falcon 1 etc but private companies (with government partnership, public investment and support) could get us to Mars. Even NASA would like to see greater private involvement in human Mars missions according to Griffin. When the 90 Day Report and Zubrin's Mars Direct came out they created vastly different responses from space advocates and the public alike. What will this new plan do?

From the lack of response here and the lack of interest even within space advocate circles it doesn't look good. One or two people ranting in a forum is not qualified as a " good level of interest" either. You call it a "rock solid" committment but has George Bush announced a timeframe for it yet? Has NASA? How many administrations will come and go over the next 20 to 30 years, and do you really think they will all just "go with the flow"? What would stop the Moon from becoming another shuttle style 20 or 30 year side track? (the Lunar Siren as Zubrin put it). The reality is very few of us will live to see man land on Mars if we keep following the "only government can do it" way.

cIclops · 2007-04-21 04:19:53

That was quite a response Marsman!

So the question is- Why was there no funding? I would contend that the lack of funding for most space programs and ideas at NASA comes down to a shortfall among space advocates and Mars advocates.

Yes, however it's also the competition for the limited funds from other groups. $17 billion a year is a LOT of funding - it's more than NSF and NOAA get combined and just think of how many other advocates there are who also want that funding.

The second problem is the people who do push Mars related ideas within NASA are dealing with a subject that is not much of a priority within NASA yet and Griffin has made that known anyway. The Moon is where they are focused now and for the next 15 or 20 years.

Yes, within NASA there are many groups competing for its budget, not only those who want to return to the Moon (RTTM) - Heliophysics, Earth science, Outer planets and Astrophysics, not to mention the ISS and STS. However RTTM is the next step and it's been clearly defined as preparation for Mars as well as exploration.

With full funding by 2013 Ares I and Orion should be operational, soon after Ares V and LSAM should be nearing completion (the original VSE date for the next lunar landing was 2015), and of course STS will be retired and ISS complete. With these major projects out of development, funds will be available for work on the Mars vehicles to begin.

The real problem is NASA take their lead from congress and the President and they take their lead from their constituents and Mars advocates don't seem to understand or accept these basic facts.

Yep and without Congressional and Presidential leadership there would be no NASA at all and missions to Mars would still be SF.

NASA have repeatedly stated over the last three years that they do want international and commercial partners to "augment" the VSE, especially in the bigger elements like Mars missions and so far on the Mars side of things I have not seen Mars advocates respond to this very well.

Griffin has made it clear that he wants the US to own the lunar transportation infrastructure. He has also made it very clear that NASA wants partners for the Lunar Outpost. On the Mars mission he has said nothing, maybe he will indicate where partners can work with NASA when the study is released.

You call it a "rock solid" committment but has George Bush announced a timeframe for it yet? Has NASA? How many administrations will come and go over the next 20 to 30 years, and do you really think they will all just "go with the flow"?

The contract for building Orion and the Ares first stage has been awarded, the contract for the Ares I upper stage is being bid right now, that's rocksolid.

VSE clearly said that NASA's mission is to go to Mars and beyond (!) - yes no timetable has been set yet, it's not surprising given how much has to happen before a Mars mission can start. Hopefully firmer dates will emerge from the study.

How many administrations came and went during Shuttle, ISS, Cassini or (tongue in cheek) Voyager? Griffin has made amazing changes at NASA by canceling STS and getting Constellation started and establishing the Lunar Outpost in the timeline. As to the results of the new study, we have to wait and see. Hang on, it's going to happen!

Marsman · 2007-04-21 09:32:14

Yes, however it's also the competition for the limited funds from other groups.

Competition for limited funds. Competition for funds would not exist if NASA were fully funded and that is the fault of many within and outside of the space community. Currently they get around 0.7% allocated to them and while you say it is a LOT of funding it is still way below Apollo era funding and way below many other priorities in the budget. Space advocates over the last 30 years have completely failed to get that budget substantially increased despite all the protests. Some of the reasons for that failure is our small numbers and our unprofessional approach to government lobbying. Certainly commerical contractors for NASA do their best in that field, but they are not what I would call true space advocates. Commercial interests are about maintaining and increasing profits. It is obvious then that it is in their interests to lobby the government for continued funding of the space program.

But the space advocates I'm talking about are the ones with all the grand visions of space settlements, space tourism, star travel, space cities, Mars colonization etc. They are clustered in groups like The Planetary Society, National Space Society, Mars Society and others like them. They are also workers within NASA (perhaps just trying to protect their careers) and bloggers online and general space enthusiasts all over the world. Yet in over 30 years of space advocacy these groups have failed to impact the funding of NASA in any significant way.

Competition for limited funds is not a reason for why there is no funding for Mars mission plans, it is a symptom of a larger problem. Beyond commercial space advocates the non profit variety fail miserably when it comes to influencing government policy on NASA funding (or anything else space related for that matter).

For example, Bigelow, Branson, Musk and other new space pioneers have had to deal with the government themselves on issues like ITAR and have had a hard fight much of the way due to the failure of space advocates to help create new laws and a more pro space political environment. Space advocates claim loudly that they want to see a future for humanity in space, colonies on the Moon and Mars and more, but what do they do about it beyond debating in forums, writing some papers, organizing conferences and working on badly underfunded projects that go nowhere? Laws need changing, funds for NASA do need increasing and the private space sector does need special support in this early stage of their formation and the only ones who express any concern are the current crop of space advocates.

Yet those same advocates can't agree on anything much and lack severely in presenting a united and loud voice to political leaders. Nothing much will change in the direction of space programs and ideas until the people that advocate all this step up and do something beyond just talking.

I understand that NASA are going forward with VSE and if all is well they will land people on the Moon and Mars over the next 30 years but NASA are not about colonization of space or commercialization of space. They are about trailblazing exploration and science and they will continue to do those things.

But who will mine the asteroids, who will colonize Mars, who will build cities on the Moon or send people to other stars? NASA may lead the way, but they won't be doing all the next step things. And after all, why were groups like The Mars Society formed? Was it to be another cheerleading squad for NASA or do they really want to follow through with their ideals as laid out in their charter? I know NASA will eventually get to Mars, but the VSE is not the whole picture. It is only the beginning.

The Purpose of the Mars Society:
To further the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet. This will be done by:
1. Broad public outreach to instill the vision of pioneering Mars.
2. Support of ever more aggressive government funded Mars exploration programs around the world.
3. Conducting Mars exploration on a private basis.
Starting small, with hitchhiker payloads on government funded missions, we intend to use the credibility that such activity will engender to mobilize larger resources that will enable stand-alone private robotic missions and ultimately human exploration.

It's great that NASA are going ahead with VSE but is basic exploration of the solar system by humans really the reason space advocates are so passionate about their cause? Go to any group and see what they are talking about and what they are interested in. They all talk of grand visions like colonies on the Moon and Mars or asteroid mining and trips to the stars. Even NASA has such dreamers. But thinking that landing a few people on another world or running some science outposts on Mars is the fulfillment of any space advocate's dreams is clearly only part of the picture. Those are the first steps and yes we do need NASA and others with the resources to take those steps but don't for one minute think that those missions will translate into colonies and the fulfillment of space advocate dreams.

NASA will not fund colonial expeditions to Mars or anywhere else. That is not their mandate and never was. So let's say we do sit around and wait for them to get to Mars by 2037 and as Griffin postulated there could be another 9 or so missions for about 20 years after that. That takes us to 2057. Maybe by then there might be colonial private efforts on the Moon or Mars but those efforts will not come about because we just sat around and did nothing for 50 years. If colonial expeditions(for average citizens) begin it will be the result of many years of struggles by true space advocates working within the commercial and public sectors. Of course none of this will happen if we spend the next 50 years talking about it from our armchairs.

The point of Mars Direct I thought was to bring forward a human Mars mission and colonial programs from the private sector (hence the reference by MS to "private missions"). It seems to have failed on almost all counts. To me 30 or 50 years is not "near term". VSE may go ahead but it is not the fulfillment of any space or Mars advocate's goals, only the beginning. The next steps are by no means a certainty and may well fade away as another 50 years of boring (to the public) science missions take their toll. We are already in crisis mode. The younger generations do not at all like VSE or NASA or much of anything in space. In time (the next 10 to 20 years) they will be voting for, running governments and space agencies. If we continue to bore this generation and future ones I can't see a bright future for humanity in space, not at all(except perhaps from other nations than the U.S). VSE is but one small part of a much larger picture and the sooner we focus on that fact the better.

cIclops · 2007-04-21 22:42:16

Your first point:

Competition for limited funds. Competition for funds would not exist if NASA were fully funded and that is the fault of many within and outside of the space community. Currently they get around 0.7% allocated to them and while you say it is a LOT of funding it is still way below Apollo era funding and way below many other priorities in the budget. Space advocates over the last 30 years have completely failed to get that budget substantially increased despite all the protests. Some of the reasons for that failure is our small numbers and our unprofessional approach to government lobbying. Certainly commerical contractors for NASA do their best in that field, but they are not what I would call true space advocates. Commercial interests are about maintaining and increasing profits. It is obvious then that it is in their interests to lobby the government for continued funding of the space program.

There is no such thing as "full funding" in the sense that it stops competition for funds, there is rarely if ever enough money to satisfy everyone even inside an organization let alone those outside. NASA's budget is over half of NIH ($28B) - and almost everyone advocates medical research, but that's all the government funding NIH gets. Check out NASA's budget 1959-2008 - it has stayed fairly constant for many years and although less than the peak in 1966 it is not that much lower than the average of the Apollo era. Support for space has kept NASA's budget high even though the geopolitical and military reasons disappeared. It's surprising that NASA does get so much and shows how effective space advocacy has been. So yes getting NASA's budget increased will be a tough job, people outside the space community have to be convinced.

SpaceNut · 2007-04-23 20:45:06

Here is another road map that I am sure will be of interest. Surface Manufacturing with In Situ Resources Element: ISRU Capability Roadmap Progress Review
As I was looking though lots of demo target items were destined for use on the ISS.

noosfractal · 2007-04-23 21:47:40

Here is another road map that I am sure will be of interest. Surface Manufacturing with In Situ Resources Element: ISRU Capability Roadmap Progress Review

Very fun. I've never seen one document so comprehensive. Good to see planning for automated manufacture of a solar cell power grid.

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