[FPSPACE] Fear and loathing on the launchpad

[Geert Sassen]

Good day David,

I'm not saying we should give up on piloted spaceflight, what I do say is
that the way we are 'selling' it is wrong.

A) Presently 'scientific research' is mostly quoted as reason for piloted
missions, together with nationalistic goals ('planting our flag on ...'),
however both reasons will never provide enough money for a real consistent
piloted spaceflight program. During Apollo days it worked for a very short
while to get enough budget to fly to the moon, but even then it was 'close'
and very quickly the program had to be cut due to its costs. Apollo was a
weird twist of history, only possible due to a combination of many different
events which all together sparked enough interest to make this huge spending
possible. I am quite sure it won't happen again any time soon.
As to science, Steven Squyres has once remarked that one trained geologist
on Mars would be able to do more research in one day then a MER rover could
do in a whole year, and I am sure that's true, however putting a geologist
on Mars for one day is hundreds or maybe thousands of times more expensive
then putting a MER rover on Mars for a whole year... No matter how much we
would like to have people on Mars, I don't think from a scientific point of
view it will ever be "cost effective". Technology has advanced so far that
almost anything can be done more efficient (NOT faster, but cheaper) using
robots and it's very, very difficult to defend a piloted spacemission in
terms of science. With continuously advancing robot-technology this argument
will only grow in strength. There should be a big change in the whole
concept and 'sales-technique' of piloted spaceflight and that's a long and
difficult step but in the end it might lead to a concept which is
sustainable and 'cost-efficient'. Betting on scientific research as 'reason
d'etre' of piloted spaceflight is betting on the wrong horse!

B) In my opinion NASA is primarily a technological research institute. It's
mission is developing advanced technological concepts which will enable
further spaceflights. However, once these concepts have been developed, it
is up to the industry to use them further. The present day comsats and
remote sensing satellites would never have been possible without
technologies developed by NASA in its early days, but the commercial
operation of these satellites nowadays is done by private industries, and
that's how it should be. NASA should concentrate on developing new
technologies, solar sails, more advanced ion engines, laser technology,
whatever. Technological research which is too expensive and complicated to
be done by private industrie, but which will in the end be beneficial to
this private industry. Similarly NASA can develop the technologie to place
certain scientific instruments in space, similar to how JPL operates.
Developing and testing some advanced spaceplane concept would be within the
scope of NASA, however developing the Ares rockets is not. Similarly
designing and constructing ISS is within the scope of NASA, but once it is
completed daily operation, maintenance, and transport to/from ISS is no
longer necessarily a task for NASA, once the technology is developed it
should be made to 'pay for itself'.

C) Historically piloted spaceflight is still bound to two basic pillars: on
the one side the Apollo concept of 'one big rocket which carries everything
in one go' and on the other side the Colliers-series of von Braun and
others, who envisaged a whole flottiela of spaceplanes, space stations,
space tugs, reusable landers, etc, etc. The Shuttle and ISS were based on
the Colliers-concept, and Orion is back to the Apollo line of thought. Each
concept has its draw-backs, the Colliers-concept is way to complicated but
in the end makes for a long term sustainable program, while the Apollo
concept results in a 'quick and dirty' mission which is not sustainable in
the longer term. Neither concept is optimal, and there has been remarkable
little discussion on these 'fundaments' of piloted spaceflight. After
designing Shuttle and ISS it is 'back to Apollo' as if there is no other
choice possible, while I think it is time to take a break and see if we can
re-design and re-unite those basic sacret pillars with our present
experience.

Still, I'm realist enough to know that the real world isn't perfect, we
probably will have to make do with Orion and Ares I for the time being, and
find a way to make the best of it, just like you say. Also, I'm still an
optimist in the sense that I expect that in the very end 'everything will
work out fine', history shows us that it usually does, errors might endure
for a short while but in the end the laws of Darwin can be applied to
spaceflight just as to anything else. You could fill a complete book with
all the weird aeroplane designs and concepts developed over the years, but
we ended up with a 747 instead of the concord simply becourse that's the
most economical design under the present circumstances. The same will happen
with piloted spaceflight.

Regards,

Geert.
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