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In recent months, the executive secretary of the National Space Council, Scott Pace, has worked assiduously behind the scenes to develop a formal space policy for the Trump administration. In a rare interview, published Monday in Scientific American, Pace elaborated on some of the policy decisions he has been helping to make.
In the interview, Pace explained why the Trump administration has chosen to focus on the Moon first for human exploration while relegating Mars to becoming a "horizon goal," effectively putting human missions to the Red Planet decades into the future. Mars was too ambitious, Pace said, and such a goal would have precluded meaningful involvement from the burgeoning US commercial sector as well as international partners. Specific plans for how NASA will return to the Moon should become more concrete within the next year, he added.
In response to a question about privately developed, heavy-lift boosters, the executive secretary also reiterated his skepticism that such "commercial" rockets developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX could compete with the government's Space Launch System rocket, which is likely to make its maiden flight in 2020. "Heavy-lift rockets are strategic national assets, like aircraft carriers," Pace said. "There are some people who have talked about buying heavy-lift as a service as opposed to owning and operating, in which case the government would, of course, have to continue to own the intellectual properties so it wasn't hostage to any one contractor. One could imagine this but, in general, building a heavy-lift rocket is no more 'commercial' than building an aircraft carrier with private contractors would be."
I thought flying non-reusable pork rockets was about the money, not strategy. SpaceX is set to launch Falcon Heavy for the first time no earlier than December 29. It will have over 90% of the low Earth orbit capacity as the initial version of the SLS (63.8 metric tons vs. 70).
Previously: Maiden Flight of the Space Launch System Delayed to 2019
First SLS Mission Will be Unmanned
Commercial Space Companies Want More Money From NASA
U.S. Air Force Will Eventually Launch Using SpaceX's Reused Rockets
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @09:52PM (8 children)
If heavy-lift rockets are such strategic national assets, then how have we been doing without them for decades? And now all of a sudden we need full government control? The claim is at the level of stupidity you'd expect from Team Trump.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:00PM (5 children)
This stupidity isn't unique to Trump. Obama had a lot of stupidity too; after all, his administration is the one that pushed pork-barrel SLS and Mars-first. Every administration in modern history has been pretty stupid about how space exploration should be conducted. At least this administration is putting the brakes on this dumb Mars-first idea and pushing for Moon missions. Once we figure out how to have people living on the Moon, *then* we can start thinking about sending them to Mars. You have to walk before you can run.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:06PM (3 children)
We did go to the Moon first. In 1969.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:09PM (2 children)
We never stayed overnight. If you can't even do that, you have no business going to Mars.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:20PM (1 child)
They were scheduled to sleep twice while on the moon, and 21.5 hours is pretty close to 24...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:44PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 09 2017, @01:13AM
This stupidity isn't unique to Trump. Obama had a lot of stupidity too; /i
Yes.
You can't change a space agency's mission every 8 (or 4) years and expect anything to actually get done. All presidents seem to do it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:32PM
It should give us pause to wonder why NASA, an organization which has failed to come up with a replacement for the Shuttle over the past 30 years (the SLS is at least the fourth failed system to come out of NASA attempts at replacing the Shuttle) and which already has access to a variety of useful and reliable commercially launched vehicles at a low fraction of the price, should be tasked with developing the SLS?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:45AM
You may have noticed that the Russians pretty well OWN the ISS by default. We've been buying launch slots from them.
That's what you do when you export your space program.
When SLS was started, there was no reason to believe that Musk or Bezos would continue their programs, each of those companies were one disaster in a populated area from disappearing forever.
And ULA was just another version of the Russians - buying Russian engines, even while holding a license (but no expertise) to build them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.