The blue-ribbon panel tasked by the White House with reviewing NASA's current strategic plans for human space flight, and exploring other options, wraps up deliberations this week. They've been at it just 2 months, and this Friday Norman Augustine, the panel's chair, briefs new NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and WH science and technology advisor John Holdren. The final report is expected at the end of the month. I thought I'd weigh in.
I've been dwelling on an exchange that took place at a meeting last month between panel members Edward Crawley of MIT and Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace. It went to the heart of what I've been feeling for years. It addressed the fundamental driver for human space flight.
Crawley: Our ultimate objective should be viewed as the exploration and eventual extension of human civilization of the solar system.Greason: I know this sounds terribly ambitious and dramatic, but if that is not the point of human space flight ... then what the hell are we doing?
Yes! Something as challenging and expensive as a U.S. national human space flight program needs a strategic objective that derives from who we are as a species of explorers, not the destination flavor of the month (or administration.) If we are to be bold, then let our boldness reflect the need for journey written in our genes. We are born to learn, driven to explore, and this drive takes the form of simple questions like, "What might I find if I go in that direction far from home?", or, "I wonder what's under that rock?" Isn't this the essence of a child's curiosity? Isn't this fundamentally who we are?
Note that the child after lifting one rock and finding a brave new world beneath it, will then run to every rock in sight and lift them all. That's what is written in our genes, not the need to lift a specific rock over there.
In terms of human space flight, we've done a terrible job of lifting lots of rocks. Since the end of the Apollo era, we've concentrated on this one lone rock really close to us out of convenience, and then hit it with everything we had. As a grad student in astrophysics in the late 1980s, I remember attending a meeting of the Planetary Sciences Division of the American Astronomical Society, where we had an official briefing on plans for the International Space Station (then called Space Station Freedom). The planetary community saw no benefits from ISS. The briefer clearly knew this in advance. His approach to the community? "You're going to get the space station whether you like it or not so you might as well figure out what you're going to do with it." Back then it sounded like strategic planning from some alternate universe, and now the current perception that NASA has helped create is let's get the damn thing built quick, give it a few years, and then let it burn over the ocean. It's strategic planning in the absurd, and Americans should be downright angry that this is what transpired after the monumental national achievements of the Apollo era.
While the great debate in human space flight has raged for decades, and still rages on, America's' robotic exploration of the Solar System has been magnificent, lifting one rock after another. Right now you can eavesdrop on Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars, and Cassini in orbit around Saturn more than 750 million miles (1.2 billion km) away. Go to their web sites and see the 'rocks' they've been lifting. We've visited planets with dozens of flyby spacecraft, orbiters, landers and rovers; slammed a spacecraft into a comet just to see what happened (we learned a great deal); and even orbited then landed on an asteroid. Four spacecraft are now beyond Pluto with greetings from Earth aboard. New Horizons is speeding toward a rendezvous with Pluto in 2015. MESSENGER encounters Mercury for a third time this Fall (September 29), and goes into orbit in 2011. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter entered lunar orbit on June 23, and on October 9, the LCROSS spacecraft will explore whether a rocket impact at the Moon's south pole will reveal the presence of water.
Gosh, we've been living the adventure on the robotic side for decades. It has been a space odyssey so very true to our genes, and as Americans we should be terribly proud.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am passionate about human space flight. I believe the idea of extending a human presence beyond Earth is the stuff that inspires a generation in ways that robotic exploration cannot. Look at Apollo. But I absolutely agree with Crawley and Greason. It is high time that we lay down a fundamental, bedrock, strategic plan for human space flight that captures what we humans are truly about. We need to venture ... out there, and in concert with our robots lift some rocks with human hands. And if you want practical, from a science and engineering vantage point humans add enormous capability to the tasks at hand. Cornell's Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, said it best when asked about the benefits of humans. He feels humans could do in a minute what his rovers can do in a day.
I truly hope the panel puts forth strategic options that are built on Crawley's and Greason's views. But after yesterday's public deliberations, the current budget constraints appear to rule out any option -- including the current NASA strategic trajectory.
It now appears that the Obama Administration will be handed a fundamental question -- will America re-affirm a commitment to a strong human space flight program, requiring a significant increase in budget regardless of option? I believe that it must. I also believe that the program must fundamentally embrace Crawley's and Greason's views -- an approach that doesn't put all our budgetary eggs in one destination basket, and that doesn't relegate successful missions to a future so distant that our children will be middle-aged before they see it happen.
This is cross-posted at Blog on the Universe where there are links to other resources on human space flight and the nature of exploration.
Follow Jeff Goldstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/doctorjeff
This is the second part of my interview with Jose Antonio Vargas, the former Washington Post politics and technology writer who is now an editor at the Huffington Post.
Jose Antonio Vargas: Technology Is Anthropology -- Covering an Evolving Solar System
Again, the focus is on the people, not the gear. Because here at HuffPostTech, we -- yep, you and I -- are chroniclers of technology's evolving solar system.
Levi Novey: How Extremophiles Might Help Us Save the World
Living and thriving in the most inhospitable conditions on Earth, tiny bacteria-like microbes known as extremophiles might soon have an over-sized effect on our human world.
Imagine a world where everyone has light -- and no one needs to burn carbon to have it.
Part 1
If people didn't have such a shortsighted and narrow approach to human activity we would all be better off. Visiting space can only be defined in terms of quality of life and human purpose on earth. If we can't define good reasons and sensible time frames to explore space, then poor ideas will dominate. Currently space is like all human endeavors , maximum results and payoffs in a short period of time with little grasp of long term human purpose. Should we explore space if we have not solved the nuclear deterrent issue? The nuclear waste issue? What about displacement brought by weather change, man made or natural? We don't understand why we sleep. Or dream. We don't even know all the plants and animals that currently occupy the earth, or occupied the earth. We've barely scratched the surface here. Now there can be value for knowledge of things outside our atmosphere, however, the crazy-assed frontier land grab mentality of human spaceflight is a waste of limited resources and are merely spectacular stunts, similar to the next daredevil attempting to jump the most buses on a motorcycle.
Why does none of the discussion of spaceflight focus on the need to master near space and create alternative ways to place material in earth orbit? As long as we are fixated by the engineering porn of massive space vehicles, space will be beyond our grasp except for the few stunts that will be labeled human space travel. Has anyone heard about the space elevator? It and several other alternative launch scenarios would make an excellent engineering project over the course of the next century that all nations could contribute to and cooperate on. Too communistic? Here's news for you. We don't even have the engineering capacity to create a "space station" capable of lasting more than a dozen or so years. The "space station" is due to come to an end in 2015-2016, not for capricious reasons, but because the station integrity will be lacking due to all the stresses and cracks caused station movement, docking operations, the suns visible rays and cosmic rays. There is no way possible for private launch capacity using giant rockets at current dollar-per-pound launch costs to keep pace with replacement needs in the space environment, even if we threw tremendous amounts of money at the problem. And those costs will go down very little no matter how much competition there is in that private sector. The only way we are going to make space our own is to dramatically cut the cost of moving materials from earth's surface.
One last thing about space. We haven't learned our lessons about polluting the environment on earth and we bring exactly the same sensibility to space. Currently there are tons of space debris circling the planet, and no effort to clean it up or even to not continually add to the problem. If we get unlucky and the debris starts colliding and dispersing into a spherical cloud above the earth, then travel, either by craft or elevator, from the surface of the earth to any other destination will become impossible or a real long shot. Ironic? Like those invisible fences for dogs, we will be able to see from one side to the other, but won't be able to pass qithout pain. There are indications that some collisions have already taken place. A debris field of dispersed 1-2 mm material would eventually make space travel a dicey proposition, a self created gauntlet run to the stars, perhaps forcing us to take care of our earth better because there will be nothing else we can do.
So I say, plan for space wisely, go slow and master near space first. Anything else would be like trying to build a skyscraper based on a foundation of sponge. Stop trying to artificially fire up imagination based on some testosterone-fueled sci-fi storyboards, because in the end the results will be unproductive and doomed to fail.
Why does none of the discussion of spaceflight focus on the need to master near space and create alternative ways to place material in earth orbit? As long as we are fixated by the engineering porn of massive space vehicles, space will be beyond our grasp except for a few stunts that will be labeled human space travel. Has anyone heard about the space elevator? It and several other alternative launch scenarios would make an excellent engineering project over the course of the next century that all nations could contribute to and cooperate on. Too communistic? I have news for you. We don't even have the engineering capacity to create a "space station" capable of lasting more than a dozen or so years. The "space station" is due to come to an end in 2015-2016, not for capricious reasons, but because the station integrity will be lacking due to all the stresses and cracks caused station movement, docking operations, the suns visible rays and cosmic rays. There is no way possible for private launch capacity using giant rockets at current dollar-per-pound launch costs to keep pace with replacement needs in the space environment, even if we threw tremendous amounts of money at the problem. And those costs will go down little no matter how much competition there is in that private sector. The only way we are going to make space our own is to dramatically cut the cost of moving materials from earth's surface.
Now, while all the great thinkers are out there debating space policy -
NASA workers here on earth are in desperate need of some leadership and organizational changes, or whatever path the committee chooses will also fail.
Apparently the new administrator has a 6 mos. waiting period mandated by congress before making personnel/organizational changes.
For anybody interested in more info, the best summary of the internal NASA probs is here:
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/08/congressional_p_1.html
and a little more insight in here:
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/08/ifpte_letter_to.html
As for human space flight, I'm not going to make it to the mars launch, which will likely be 2040-2050+ at the earliest. I would rather we built the terrestrial planet finder and sent up more scopes and probes. These will answer many question I care about within in my lifetime. No offense but I dont care what you find out after Im dead.
I'm torn though. We need to keep manned space alive until it makes sense, but there is little I will learn from HSF. A TPF type scope could image the light from an extra-solar world and tell us about the atmosphere. With ozone and oxygen there is a decent chance for life (to make the o2). And we could image hundreds of worlds looking for it. The light already made the trip, we just need to scoop it up.
Mars is just one place and I wont live to see it anyway.
despite the fact that they'd probably rather get to the moon BEFORE
we can do it again, then by all means, put it on our tab! Because it's
just damn important that we put some people up there, on the Moon
or Mars, to show that We Can Do It!
I have fond memories of reading Rocketship Galileo as a kid, and
discovering that an ingenious engineer & a bunch of teenagers
could assemble a spaceship from an 'Army surplus nuclear pile'
and fly off to the moon. That would still be the way to do it!
Would I like to see colonies on the Moon and Mars and beyond? I sure would. But I'd much focus on actual goals we can achieve in my lifetime: learning about other solar systems and dark matter and those wonderful photos we see from Hubble. Probes being sent into the sun and the farthest reaches of space.
As much as I would love to live in a John Varley novel, I understand our constraints and would prefer to get the maximum possible bang for my buck. Right now, that is robotic probes and generally unmanned space flight. Let's figure out how to walk before we start to run, and focus our limited resources on what will best prepare our grandchildren for their time to explore.