Going Nowhere Why President Obama Must Give NASA a Destination

A Survey of Technology and Society

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.

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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

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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.

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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. So stall- century. Spending a king’s ransom to ing a Mars program while waiting for raise that total to three hundred twen- such magic-based capabilities to mate- ty hardly seems worthwhile. Under rialize is a prescription for having the the Obama proposal, we may develop human spaceflight program continue to some new technologies, but without a mark time without accomplishment. mission plan to guide their selection, The potential utility of orbital pro- they won’t be the right technologies, pellant depots—basically gas stations they won’t be realized as actual flight

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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. A Survey of Technology and Society systems, they won’t fit together, and one esoteric example of a far vaster they won’t take us anywhere. and more interesting tapestry of pos- Some fiscal hawks might think that sibilities. Moreover, Mars is the clos- giving NASA a mission with a real des- est world that truly has the resources tination will be too costly. But it must needed for human settlement. For our be remembered that NASA’s average generation and those that will follow, annual budget from 1961 to 1973, dur- Mars is the New World. We should ing the years when the agency flew all not shun its challenge. the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab But regardless of what destination missions, as well as scores of lunar and we choose, what is essential is that interplanetary probes, was about $19.7 there be a destination, which defines a billion (converted to today’s dollars). mission plan, which defines a hardware That figure is very close to NASA’s set, which then defines what tech- current budget, and is in fact almost nologies should be developed and what identical to the average NASA budget hardware elements will be procured. If that President Obama has proposed for matters are approached this way, there the next five fiscal years—except, of are many methods of procurement course, the space agency won’t be put- of flight systems that can be used, ting a man on the Moon. In essence, by including conventional and entrepre- cutting Constellation while increasing neurial approaches, but they need to NASA’s budget, the president is giving be employed coherently to achieve a the agency more money while asking it defined objective. to accomplish nothing. If this is not done, then ten years The American people want and from now, after spending another $100 deserve a human spaceflight program billion on human spaceflight, we will be that really is going somewhere—and no closer to sending astronauts to the not just anywhere, but to a destination Moon or Mars than we are today. To really worth going to. That destina- put it another way, President Kennedy tion is Mars. For the past four decades famously said that humans would go since the end of the Apollo era, Mars to the Moon and return safely to has been the challenge staring the Earth “before this decade is out”— American space program in the face. but President Obama has proposed in A world with varied resources and a essence that “this decade our plan is to past history that includes oceans of accomplish nothing in space.” liquid water, Mars is the Rosetta Stone The Obama administration claims that will tell us whether the develop- that its proposed space policy enables ment of life from chemistry is a gen- a “flexible path.” In reality, it is a eral phenomenon in the universe, and prescription for yet another wasteful whether life as we know it on Earth random walk. Four decades of stagna- is the pattern for all life everywhere, tion in space is enough. If any prog- or alternatively that we are simply ress is to be made, a course must be

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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. State of the Art set. Leadership is required. President —Robert Zubrin, a New Atlantis con- Obama should reject the timid pro- tributing editor, is an aerospace engineer, posal his administration floated in the president of Pioneer Astronautics, and February, which would mark the end of the president of the Mars Society. He is the American human spaceflight pro- the author of a number of books, including gram, and should instead take the side The Case for Mars, an updated edition of audacity and hope—by committing of which will be published by the Free NASA to reach for Mars in our time. Press in spring 2011.

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