Going Nowhere Why President Obama Must Give NASA a Destination
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A Survey of Technology and Society Going Nowhere Why President Obama Must Give NASA a Destination aint Augustine famously wrote President Obama in early 2009 to in his Confessions that, as a young head a committee revisiting the plans Sman, he had prayed, “Lord make for NASA developed in the wake of the me chaste, but not yet.” Some sixteen 2003 Columbia accident. Those plans centuries later, another Augustine— involved the retirement of the space Norm Augustine, the head of a commit- shuttle by 2010 and its replacement tee deciding NASA’s future—may have with a new architecture for sending taken inspiration from his namesake astronauts to orbit, the Moon, and ulti- when he announced that he wants the mately Mars. Dubbed Constellation, United States to have a bold manned this new architecture would include space exploration program, but not yet. new rockets and spacecraft, both of Augustine, the former CEO of which NASA spent several years and Lockheed Martin, was selected by billions of dollars designing. Spring 2010 ~ 109 Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. State of the Art In its final report, published in Obama approach. For instance, Burt October 2009, the Augustine committee Rutan, the respected engineer whose called for cancelling the Constellation SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X-Prize program’s drive to return to the Moon in 2004, has suggested that the Obama by 2020. Augustine and his colleagues proposal amounts to “a surrender of further noted that while “Mars is the our preeminence in human space- ultimate destination for human explo- flight.” While Rutan has criticized the ration of the inner solar system,” a so- existing Constellation plan, he wrote called “flexible path” plan—one that in an open letter in February that he might enable NASA to send humans does “not think that NASA should to a range of “inner solar system loca- ‘give up’ on manned spaceflight,” and tions” and perhaps eventually on to that the startup space companies won’t Mars in some distant future—would be “taking Americans to Mars or to the be more feasible for budgetary and moons of Saturn within my lifetime.” technical reasons. The Obama administration’s plan is Working from the Augustine com- not yet set in stone. Almost no mem- mittee report, the Obama administra- bers of Congress, who control the tion in February 2010 proposed a new purse strings, have come out in sup- space policy comprising three key deci- port of the plan, while several members sions. First, the Constellation program have voiced strong opposition, includ- would be cancelled. Second, NASA ing Democratic Senator Bill Nelson would subsidize the development of from Florida—a politically important private space-launch systems for deliv- state with a large NASA constituency. ering astronauts to the International Apparently surprised by the congres- Space Station. And third, the agency sional opposition, President Obama would take up the Augustine commit- scheduled a “space summit” for April tee’s “flexible path” option, abandoning 15, 2010 in Florida. Presumably, he the concept of setting a specific mission will use the occasion to either defend goal for its human spaceflight program and elaborate upon his proposal, or to in favor of an approach that would fund backtrack away from it. technology research for the purported President Obama should do the lat- purpose of better enabling some unstat- ter. The February 2 proposal is funda- ed mission that might be selected later. mentally flawed, as a review of its three The response to the Obama plan key decisions makes clear. The first has so far been mixed. By and large, decision, to cancel the Constellation the space policy community is wary, program, is very harmful to America’s and although many of the hopeful long-term interests in space—unless startups involved in the private space something better were to be proposed industry are excited by the prospect in its place. of competing for NASA projects, even The second decision, to support new they are not unified in support of the launch companies, is a good idea, and 110 ~ The New Atlantis Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. A Survey of Technology and Society long overdue, but not terribly impor- superior to the Shuttle Mode. During tant for the overall future of the space the Apollo era, dozens of groundbreak- program, since NASA has been buying ing new technologies were developed launches from private space firms for and were flown in missions of historic the past half century. importance, including the manned But the third decision, to adopt a lunar landings. The shuttle-era record “flexible path” plan, is a horrible mis- is far less impressive; it resulted in no take that would guarantee that the U.S. new technologies of importance and human spaceflight program accom- reached no new destinations—despite plishes nothing for the foreseeable the fact that the agency’s budget for future. the past twenty years has been approx- As I have argued before in the pages imately the same, in inflation-adjusted of this journal, NASA has over its his- dollars, as that which it enjoyed during tory employed two distinct modes of the Apollo period. In the Apollo Mode, operation which, for shorthand, we NASA’s efforts are focused and direct- can call the “Apollo Mode” and the ed; in the Shuttle Mode, the space “Shuttle Mode.” The Apollo Mode, agency’s efforts are random and entro- which prevailed in the human space- pic, shuffling along without a purpose, flight program during the period from always buffeted by political winds. 1961 to 1973, involved first choosing Perhaps the only area in which the a mission goal, then developing a plan achievements of the current NASA to achieve that goal, and then design- compare with those of the agency’s ing and developing the hardware and Apollo period is robotic explora- technologies needed to implement the tion—the rovers exploring Mars and plan. The hardware set is then built, the various probes sent around the after which the mission is flown. solar system. But this is the exception The Shuttle Mode, which has pre- that proves the rule: these projects vailed within the U.S. manned space- have been successful precisely because flight effort since 1974, during the they continue to use an Apollo-style period when the space shuttle was approach in which missions are select- being developed and flown, is almost ed first, designs are then drawn up, the reverse: The technologies and and technology is developed to realize hardware elements are selected first, those designs. If, instead of adopt- based on the wishes of various techni- ing a mission-driven approach, the Jet cal communities. These projects are Propulsion Laboratory (which pro- then justified by arguments that they duced the Mars rovers) instead chose might conceivably prove useful some to spend its funds developing random distant day when grand spaceflight technologies and then designed its mis- projects are finally initiated. sions around the purpose of employing The historical record makes clear those toys to justify their existence, its the ways that the Apollo Mode is productivity would fall to nil as well. Spring 2010 ~ 111 Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. State of the Art Which brings us to the open-ended in space—as a way to enable manned Obama proposal to take a “flexible missions to the Moon, near-Earth path” to space. It is squarely in the asteroids, or Mars has never been Shuttle Mode. established. To the contrary, none of Consider the following: At the same NASA’s recent designs for Moon or time that the Obama administration Mars missions has involved refuel- announced its new policy, NASA gave ing spacecraft from orbital propellant notice that the three key supposedly stations. To insist that future mission “game-changing” inventions it would architects adopt such a strategy is to seek to develop as part of the effort force them to swallow a suboptimal would be the Variable Specific Impulse system design based on an arbitrary Magnetoplasma Rocket (VaSIMR) decision to favor one technology. propulsion drive, orbital space depots, Finally, it is simply not the case that and heavy-lift technology. we need new technologies to create But the VaSIMR thruster, while heavy-lift launch systems. We flew energetically advocated by its inventor our first heavy-lifter, the Saturn V, as supposedly necessary for sending in 1967. What is needed to give us a humans to Mars, offers no clear mission functioning heavy-lift booster now is a benefits over existing ion-drive electric decision to build it—which will never propulsion systems—and both remain come unless there is first a mission to useless as tools for supporting human employ it. exploration missions without the prior Thus, without the guidance supplied development of huge multi-megawatt by a driving mission, under the new space nuclear reactors to power them, Obama space policy, another ten years which is not part of the program. and more than a hundred billion dol- Furthermore, even if such huge space lars will be spent by NASA’s human nuclear-power systems were created, the spaceflight program without achieving claim that VaSIMR (or any other elec- anything significant. We may take part tric thruster) would then enable transit in another twenty flights to low-Earth to Mars with much shorter flight times orbit, but there is no new world there than existing chemical propulsion sys- to explore. Together with the Russians, tems, or even equal flight times to those we have already flown there some available from existing rockets, simply three hundred times over the past half- has no basis in technical reality.