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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: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday November 08 2017, @09:56PM (1 child)
We live in a Post-Dignity world. A Musky sex cult colony would be a great way to populate Mars. #DieOnMars.
From what I can tell, NASA has not committed to landing on Mars in the 2030s [soylentnews.org]. A Martian space station in the 2030s: possible but not certain yet. Boots on the ground? Not unless the plans change, which they could if China tries to take the lead (Russia's space program has had some failures lately and China has more money to blow and lots of superpower ambition).
So when you have Musky talking about a 2020s landing (sure, the date will slip, but whatever), and advertising payload-to-Mars on its site [spacex.com], it's looking like he could succeed and beat NASA to Mars. The reusable rockets alone are going to do so much for SpaceX. Can they make a human-rated craft and a successor to Falcon Heavy before 2030? We'll see. The next couple of years should give us a better picture of the company's chances; SpaceX will be launching Falcon Heavy, and has promised to send two human customers on a Moon orbit (REAL SPACE TOURISM).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday November 09 2017, @12:11AM
I miss Musky Troll.