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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: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 08 2017, @09:14PM (4 children)
I've been saying for a long time that going straight to Mars was a dumb idea, and that we should focus on building some infrastructure on the Moon first and start figuring out how to build stuff in space, to mine asteroids and the Moon, etc. Now we've found what looks like a giant lava tube on the Moon, which would be perfect for building a lunar colony inside. Going straight to Mars just doesn't make any sense when we haven't even sent humans past LEO in 40 years.
Yeah, not sending humans to Mars for a few decades seems disappointing, but too bad: we should have been doing this other stuff decades ago so we could be ready for a Mars mission now.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday November 08 2017, @09:34PM (3 children)
I have no problem with kicking the can on Mars. SLS is a pile of crap though. It was crap a year ago, and today, after SpaceX has made reusable rocket landings routine and boring, it is ultra crap. Falcon Heavy will pretty much fulfill what SLS Block 1 can do, and SpaceX may even pump out a Falcon Heavy successor before SLS can be ramped up to lift its heaviest payloads.
Falcon Heavy could just barely launch this year. Musk has hedged on the chances of a successful first test - that could be manipulation on his part. After we see how the maiden flight goes we can speculate a bit more on the future of the SLS.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:06PM (2 children)
One of the problems with SLS is not so much a technical problem. It is simply TOO EXPENSIVE to fly. If NASA can only afford one flight per year -- or less -- then you don't get to do very many missions. And the ones you do are very expensive.
SLS is a pile of crap. And that is not intended as a slight to who I am sure are many fine people working on the technology of SLS. It is congress that has ruined SLS.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NewNic on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:58PM
I am quite sure that SLS is very effective at its primary mission.
The problem is that its primary mission is distributing pork to the states of various politicians.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:49PM
Agreed, just because you work on a pork project does not make you a bad person, it's economic reality: pork is all that's on the menu for lots of NASA contractors.
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