384. More news from NASA
Save This Post as PDFFirst, it seems that Orion will generally (that is, not just on missions to the Moon) carry 4 astronauts instead of 6, as was initially planned. This is fantastic news for the Russian Space Agency, since NASA will have to use Soyuz spacecrafts as an escape module for ISS – the number of crew members is going back to 6 starting next year.
The explanation that Jeff Hanley gave sounds also somewhat surprising to me – does NASA really save the budget that much by cancelling 6-crew option?
Second, it seems that NASA is going to abandon plans for permanent base on the Moon altogether. This option is costly indeed, but WTF is the physical meaning to have another flyby/short landing of the Moon 40 years after the last one??
And according to New Scientist, Scolese’s
… comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.
Yeah, sure, I’ll tell you this: if they cancelled lunar base, they will cancel lunar missions as well, and the only thing that will be eventually done (hopefully, before 2020) is designing and launching 4-crew Orions. Let me kindly remind you that ISS will have to go out of the orbit on 2015. Taking into account how much was the ISS budget overextended, one would seriously doubt that the agreement on the next generation space station will be ever achieved.
What is really going on with Constellation, I wonder?
Mood: severely disappointed.
Update: Here is a related episode from spacevidcast –
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I’d almost prefer if NASA quit spending a ton of money on implementing half ass strategies that are more PR efforts than anything else and instead went back to full R/D on rocket technology for the foreseeable future. Some of the work they were doing for the Mars mission is the first tangible progress i’ve seen out of them in 20 years.
Nothings going to change without a major breakthrough in figuring how to get stuff up and back without breaking the bank. You could fill the moon with platinum and it still wouldn’t be cost effective to send humans up there to retrieve it. Until that changes, no business model in the world is going to work and humans in space will remain the subject of science fiction moreso than reality.. They just have to get us over the hump.
Dear Haelfix,
you surprise me for the second time
First time you surprised me when you said that you are afraid of deflation. From my point of view, a general employed tax payer does not have to be afraid of deflation, since personally for him deflation just means decrease of prices in the local shop, nothing else. Of course, you should be afraid of deflation, if you work on WS, somewhere near the top of the food chain. Since I don’t really know you, then maybe you do – otherwise I don’t understand your particular interest in defending position of WS tops.
Now – regarding the NASA issue – you talk more like a tax payer rather than a scientist. I believe that there is a generic conflict of interests between scientists and tax payers, the former naturally want to get more funding from the government, while the latter want to minimize their taxes. Again – which position reflects your interest more – are you more a scientist or a tax payer?
I believe, space research is not that meaningless. Part of those money invested into space research is really invested in lots and lots of not-so-ambitious microprojects, like, say, development of composite materials. These smaller not-so-ambitious microprojects do lead in turn to short term return of investment. Without space research we would not invest into those microprojects at all, we would not have corresponding technologies (or would have them 50 years later).
As it seems, to push the development of technology into ballistic regime (from the diffusive
random walk type regime 
), one does need to introduce an overly ambitious superproject. We were lucky to introduce two such projects in late 40s-yearly 50s: Manhattan project (and military superpower project in general) and space research. My impression is that it is because of these two superprojects we are where we are now.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Dmitry.
Hi Dmitry, I think you misunderstand my positions. With regards to deflation, its really a little more complicated than that. A deflationary trap (wiki it) is a pretty severe blow to the economy and for everyone involved, including the little guy. Moderate deflation is much worse than moderate inflation in a fiat money system, at least under neoclassical economics. I think that much is uncontroversial.
As for NASA, im speaking as a scientist — I am a physicist! I’d love for there to be unlimited funds for that sort of thing, but then I also believe in capitalism more than I do central planning. Ultimately the best possible thing for space exploration is if we could find a way to make it profitable so that politics is no longer part of the equation– And lets be honest, politics is whats killed NASA funding for the past 30 years or so.
The only way for that to happen in my opinion is for government to fund research (into propulsion and composites as you say) to the point where it does become profitable. Things like the international space station haven’t really advanced us that much, and it looks like we wont see another one in the near future. In short, its just a big piece of metal floating around in orbit and failed to serve as an impetus to further space travel (which I think is very sad). Rather than waste billions on projects that are ultimately selfdefeating, all im saying is that perhaps another strategy is more worthwhile.
Regards,
Dear Haelfix,
Wikiing:
further (bold is mine):
Well, honestly, I don’t question the logic of deflationary trap (just want to bug you a bit), what I question (a bit) is the general physicist’s approach to economics – i.e., postulating that economics features objective laws.
From my point of view economics is vastly different from physics in the following respect: while in physics we can fearlessly use our instruments to study objective reality, in economics the very object of study is strongly affected by the detector and affects the detector itself
In other no-so-poetical words, I think, when you hear a statement from an economist, it is always useful to understand his particular interest – why he wants to make it. For example, when Bernarke says that the issue of deflation can be easily resolved by printing more cash out, I understand his interest very well.
Regarding NASA, I agree with many points you made. However, from my point of view the major problem with competitiveness logic is that NASA superprojects are way too costly to support many of them. In a sense, competitiveness is what has killed the USSR lunar program, when it was decided that the Government will finance Chelomei and Mikoyan projects together with Korolev’s N-1.
Basically, with superprojects like the Moon race, you have to pick the winner in the very beginning and pump all the cash you have into it. Certainly, it is exponentially hard to make the right decision early in the game.
Regarding ISS, again, I happen to agree with you. but… then again I think that what ultimately kills ISS is the absence of long term strategy. Russians had a clear strantegy with Salyuts, Mir and Mir-2: with every new project the system became more and more self-sustained. In Mir, they were able to generate 90% of oxygen for example using just station’s machinery. What for? The space station program (Almaz etc.) was initiated back in 60s with the ultimate goal in mind to prepare for the Mars mission.
In this respect, ISS is not the next step compared to Mir: oxygen is delivered from Earth, as well as water and food.
Cheers,
Dmitry.
By the way, regarding inflation – ask a simple question: do we have historical examples featuring deflationary trap?
US has already seen deflation during the years of Great Depression, but have deflationary trap been realized?
Nasa can get people to Mars, but their budget is always losing out to bailouts of shoddy businesses and expeditionary wars. The amount of technology to come out of an adequately budgeted space program would be far more valuable to future generations than throwing away trillions of dollars on funding failed insurance corporations and motor vehicle manufacturers.
Dear Qubalex,
thanks for the comment, I share your view, and would actually formulate my reply to Haelfix in the same terms, would I possess your language abilities
Still…
are you sure this rhetoric will convince a general tax payer to open his pocket and give his hard earned money to NASA (like it happened in the end of 60s)?
Probably, it would be easier having some numbers at hand. I wonder, is it possible to take, say, Apollo program, count all technologies that came out of it and calculate the total price of patents or, even better, an overall ROI for the program (even if it’s possible)? Have anybody had done that? (I am pretty much sure somebody should have.)
Cheers,
Dmitry.
In addition to the tangible technology benefits, an adventurous space program can inspire a generation of children to take up study in engineering and scientific fields. This has benefits far beyond the space program. It excites and inspires people to work towards something incredible.
“You Americans have a better standard of living than we have. But the American loves his car, his refrigerator, and his house. He does not, as the Russians do, love his country”. – Leonid Sedov after the launch of Sputnik.
Apparently, in a democracy ridiculously expensive projects have to be justified to an increasingly skeptical public and Congress. Honesty is definitely the worst policy when it comes to selling projects. If someone from Congress ever asks you about defense applications do not give the reply “It’s what makes our country worth defending”. This will get your project cancelled and assure that all future physics discoveries are made by the Europeans. Note to CERN: Please have your press releases come from France and not Switzerland. Nothing will spur scientific funding in the U.S. more than to learn that we’re getting beaten by the French. The evangelicals would also love to see the newspaper headlines read “France Discovers God Particle”. It would be even better to put “Particle” below the fold.
And make no mistake, NASA is definitely in the business of selling these days. I’ve heard serious adults say that the future of humanity depends on colonizing the universe. And if that isn’t enough of a sell, we should all be worried about killer asteroids and comets. Here’s one of my proposals: Launch a secret mission to find a killer asteroid and paint it with the flags of North Korea and Iran. It could be christened the “Asteroid of Evil” and could only be destroyed with a moon and Mars based laser system. Mention something vague about constructive interference. Everyone gets funded and we have new enemies!
I’ve read that the decision to cut back from six to four people was based on trying to satisfy weight constraints while taking into account possible parachute malfunction. Dr. Lovelace floated the idea many years ago of using female astronauts for the express purpose of saving weight. He had the terrible misfortune of living in the U.S. where he was completely ignored. He should have proposed female parachutists. Never mind, Russia did that a full twenty years before we bothered to send a woman up. Instead of four 170 pound males you could use six 115 pound women, although I’m convinced that those women couldn’t be recruited from the midwest. In addition to loving our cars and houses, we also love fried foods and reality television.
Unfortunately, we’ll probably only have an insignificant presence on the moon and no prospect of ever getting to Mars. The very same baby boomers at NASA who are trying to sell the project seem to have completely forgotten that it is their upcoming health care bills that completely swamp the federal budget for the foreseeable future.
The future of human spaceflight belongs to companies like Scaled Composites.
P.S. The people of Washington, D.C. would like to thank you for sending us five Russian hockey players. Which reminds me of another NASA fundraising proposal: Keep sending us hockey players and we’ll sign them to 100 million dollar contracts as there seems to be unlimited funds for athletes and endorsement deals. We’ll raise the tax rate on the rich and get back to the moon all while basking in the collective enjoyment of beating the Canadians at their own game. Everyone wins!
Dear Geoff,
the issue makes me extremely sad as it is, and your comment makes it even sadder.
For example,
I guess, you are well aware that those years have passed long ago, and most Russians have interests really close to the ones Sedov was so fast to prescribe to Americans (I also really doubt that those words came from his heart).
By the way, I believe, NASA also had a woman-in-space program back in 60s…
Cheers,
Dmitry.
It makes me sad, too.
Here’s a link you may enjoy, especially the video about Russian space stations (video 24):
http://www.nsschapters.org/dc/
Thanks for the link, the site is great!
Konstantin Feoktistov -
“People should not work on this subject just now. There is nothing interesting at the ISS or in space. There is no serious research. We and the Americans have spent so much time and effort on manned flights and space stations, but the attainment of the main goal is not linked to these projects. However, the Hubble telescope has offered a great amount of new information. People should work in the areas where results can be obtained. The future belongs to automated stations. Manned cosmonauts lacks any practical sense and it will not have any meaning, not now, not in future times”.
Hopefully Monday will go well.
Well, sure, Mankind as a whole is a disaster. Even cockroaches are more fit for survival under somewhat stressful conditions than humans (take just simple, plain Nuclear Winter for example). And of course it is true that automates are so much more suitable for missions in space than us (it’s too bad Feoktistov have flown himself, but he is still alive – we can charge him the price of Voskhod vehicle that carried him to space). When we will teach machines how to think, the Mankind is doomed (see the forthcoming Terminator: Salvation).