[FPSPACE] Which way for NASA? A step-by-step path -- 'Flexible Path' concept may work out better than

[David Portree]

Keith:

 

Exactly. The custom for really big-ticket manned projects since Apollo has been to get a presidential declaration and assume that it amounted to a fait accompli. A dictatorial mode, one might say. In fact, that has always been naive at best. Some of the communications I've had over the years with people at all levels within NASA have been downright touching ("but the President said we will go"). 

 

That worked for Apollo, but Apollo is the exception that proves the rule. It was originally meant to culminate in JFK's second term; after JFK was killed, it came under the leadership of LBJ, the guy who had pitched the goal to JFK in the first place; it came under strain as other political concerns took center stage during LBJ's second term; and it rapidly ended when Nixon took over.

 

Presidents can rapidly end big space programs, but they can't rapidly carry them through to culmination. Of course, ending programs carries political risks, though only if one doesn't create a replacement to keep the jobs in place. Hence, Nixon and Shuttle, Clinton and ISS.

 

DPT advocated something like a robotic mode. That is, no big presidential speech, identify a scientific need (seek life on Mars, for example), not an engineering objective (go to Mars, for example), proceed from there incrementally. Of course, robotic missions tend to cost much less than piloted ones, so that changes the equation; no scientific need is likely to be enough by itself to justify the greater cost of a manned mission (particularly if robots can do the job more or less effectively and cheaper). DPT hoped that spreading the cost over years and decades would avoid that pitfall. Maybe it would work; people have come to support humans in space even when they don't know what those humans are doing, as long as the financial cost stays relatively low.

 

David S. F. Portree

dsfportree at hotmail.com
dportree at usgs.gov

 

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/
 
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/DavidPortree/
 



 
> Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:40:48 +0200
> From: kgottschalk at uwc.ac.za
> To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
> Subject: [FPSPACE] Which way for NASA? A step-by-step path -- 'Flexible Path' concept may work out better than
> 
> >>> David Portree <dsfportree at hotmail.com> 09/13/09 4:03 PM >
> 
> >>say that it had no destinations in mind, but it bore in mind also that the political foundation upon which it was based was going to change (perhaps repeatedly) before it bore fruit. 
> 
> In any democracy, typical projects, like the Pluto new horizons fly-by, need to survive at least four general elections from first budget until last download of radio link. The US system of mid-term elections brings that up to eight possible changes of govt. Clearly, there is no substitute for bipartisan support or at least acquiescence. And political like personal relationships must be constantly worked on, not taken for granted. - Keith
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