Twin Space Exploration Vehicles approach an asteroid with the Multi-Person Crew Vehicle docked to a habitat in the background.
Image: NASA
A report this month from the National Research Council (NRC) has called NASA’s overall trajectory into question. It pointed out the national disagreement over the U.S. space agency’s goals and objectives, a disparity detrimental to the organization’s planning and budgeting efforts.
The 12-person blue-ribbon study group observed that the White House should take the lead in forging "a new consensus" on NASA's future in order to more closely align the agency’s budget and objectives and remove restrictions impeding NASA's efficient operations.
For one, the NRC study team took aim at a lofty directive to NASA by President Barack Obama when he spoke at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in April 2010:
"Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. So we’ll start…we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it." [How NASA Will Explore Asteroids (Gallery)]
Dubious destination
While the NRC study team did not undertake a technical assessment of the feasibility of an asteroid mission, it was informed by several briefers and sources that the current planned asteroid mission has significant shortcomings.
"A current stated interim goal of NASA's human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025," said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the NRC committee that wrote the report.
"However, we've seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA's own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community. The lack of national consensus on NASA’s most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency's ability to guide program planning and allocate funding." [NASA's 2013 Budget: What Will It Buy? (Video)]
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15 Comments
Add CommentI remember the "Space Race" of the 60's. While Pres. Kennedy's speech no doubt played a role in its success, I believe the largest factor was fear - the perceived "Missile Gap." We were afraid of being vulnerable (as evidenced by the "Duck and Cover" drills in school). The goal was as much space exploration as it was gaining the ability to launch ICBM's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as I can tell, we have no such motivation today. In order to make NASA's funding a priority, some threat must be identified that justifies the spending.
China!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to immediately start focusing on a cold war scenario with aliens. It doesn't actually matter if they exist. We weren't actually sure if Russia was ever a real threat either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Grey's are massing at the edge of our solar system. We need to defend our country and its values from the high tech alien socialist mono-mind. They are way ahead of us in FTL transport technology and femto-tech manufacturing. Their Weak Nuclear Force suppression bombs could wipe out the entire Earth in a flash, let us prepare drills to get our children under their beds in case they launch against us. We must rally our scientists to come up with a way of protecting ourselves.
I hate to say it, but conflict does drive innovation. Maybe we need a made up enemy for our own good.
(this content was created tongue in cheek - the point wasn't)
"If we want a permanent American presence in space, we need to learn to live off the land," Sykes said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMuch of the justification for NASA, "space exploration", etc. is taken for granted, not subject to public ends-means analysis. "Live off the land", he said. Whatever for?
Newt's idea ... a permanent Moonbase by 2020...was at least in the ballpark of public ends-means analysis. It would exist to mine He3 to fuel Earthside fusion reactors (that do not exist, by the way, and are a far cry from from any prototype Earthside fusion reactors that do exist). Someone's idea of pie in the sky.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk wants wants to send 80,000 people to colonize Mars. Read between the lines: heavylift launch vehicles, domed cities on Mars, living off the land, etc. But why? Who will pay? What benefits might accrue (except to the likes Elon Musk)?
Much ado about an asteroid deflection program to avoid dinosauring the human race. Funny thing though, the fact that so many PHAs are not discovered until a few days before they go whizzing by, near-missing us.
Yes, the crowd is more or less up for this stuff, not many public outcry to see business plans. So it goes for much of what passes for science in this time of endemic institutional waste and dramatically conflicted social priorities.
> "Live off the land", he said. Whatever for?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe same technologies that would allow us to live in space also allow us to live sustainably on Earth, and that is something we definitely. In space you have to live off not much more than rocks and sunlight, because that is all there is. If we are going to sustain a few billion more people this century, at a decent quality of life, we can no longer afford to deplete limited resources. We have to live off what is everywhere, things like rocks and sunlight.
Since a lot more people are here on Earth than will be in space for a long time to come, these technologies should be developed and applied here first. Later, we can use them in space.
It's not NASA's mandate to solve the world's problems, so it may take other agencies to do the technology work, but once they exist, nothing stops NASA from using them. Alternately, NASA's mission could be altered to include the Earth as "another planet to develop" (it is, after all, 3rd of 8 major planets in the Solar System). The benefits to people here must be clear and direct, or they will not support the spending.
Although I am not particularly supportive of 'fear', the appalling condition of the NASA forces me to think the cold war age a desirable one. We went to the moon in the 1969 and it is 2013 and we are no where near the Mars! I think we have lost our guts. It took only 12 years from the first step in space to the first step the moon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's how ta gd'er done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's the what the Chinese and maybe Russians are going to be doing - kicking our stupid Nuclear Denying candy asses right out of outer space.
The Dyson/Jules Verne nuclear gun.
3000 tons to the moon at $10 a lb.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/150-kiloton-nuclear-verne-gun.html
The First Law of Economics should be "Basic Research Always Pays Off." Usually in the short run, sometimes in the long run, but the First Law is immutable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's two words.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr we could change our mindset to not require imminent threat as our primary motivator.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA was created to beat the Russians in the space race. The 1960s space race was not driven by the quest for scientific knowledge but by global politics and the cold war.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA should reinvent itself in the post-cold war era. Manned missions are the stuff of science fiction. I would go for practical science like developing new propulsion system, vastly improved radio scanning for ET intelligence and tracking of near-earth asteroids that might hit earth. Chemical rockets are 1940s technology. There must be a faster way to travel in space.
IMHO the moon should be colonized first, work out the kinks, then move on to Mars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a hard wall obstructing any venture outside the protective shields of the atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field: energetic solar and cosmic radiation. A 3 year roundtrip to Mars or a several month visit to an asteroid without protection will have calculated risks associated with them. Venturing outside our 2 protections during solar minima reduces this risk somewhat, but a sustained presence on Mars will require burying living facilities deeply underground.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect there isn't much to do on an asteroid (like downtown Toronto on a weekend), even one as large as Vesta, except bring back buckets of rocks and soil which can best be done by robots. So, why go? What's the goal?
You make a very good point. Perhaps we should stick to robotic missions and finding protection from solar and cosmic radiation. Then when the robotic missions are common place (relative to the current situation) and we can protect from all that bad radiation then we can look at crewed missions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSykes may be right, but without popular backing, it is all hot air. The taxpayers need to be inspired to insist that congress fund the projects, or it wont fly. The Moon is much more inspiring than an asteroid, so it must be first, and the best way to get the people behind it is the threat of competition. We have to play up the Chinese Lunar program and the possibility of China claiming the Moon for themselves.
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