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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 08 2017, @09:07PM   Printer-friendly

Trump space adviser: Blue Origin and SpaceX rockets aren't really commercial: Scott Pace likens heavy-lift rockets to aircraft carriers.

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


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @12:31AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @12:31AM (#594319)

    I'd like the Human Race's first visit to Mars be a peaceful, dignified, safe, scientific exploration mission, not a crazy one-way suicide "colonisation" mission as envisaged by the Great Profit Musk.

    Then we're never going to get there.

    The simple, unfortunate fact of the matter is that space is basically an infinite ocean of certain death for squishy critters such as ourselves, evolved only to a relatively constrained environment. Short of filling it with some sort of acid or antimatter or outright setting it on fire (however one could manage that), it's hard to think of an environment better suited to killing us. Plus, the long-term health problems that current astronauts often have, even in our well-developed, relatively safe ships, illustrate just how little we know about how this whole thing works, in terms of not only space, but our bodies and even our equipment and technology. The radiation alone is a terrible risk, and many other physiological systems suffer, e.g. the heart and eyes. All of that is in low-Earth orbit where people can be evacuated back if there is an emergency, on the assumption that we know enough to do anything to help them in the first place (and considering the aforementioned health problems popping up, I don't think we're anywhere near there yet).

    And we as a society are hyper-sensitive to space related deaths. To chart the planet people went on voyages that lasted multiple years and a large part of the crew was almost expected to die of simple problems, assuming the ship was ever heard from again. In the 1980s, 7 people got blown to bits and we stopped all manned space exploration for years, with a repeat performance in the 2000s. And most, if not all, of those people knew full well that every time they heard that countdown reach zero that their demise might be coming in seconds. These were people who fought and studied and clawed tooth and nail for one of those seats on what they fully well knew could well be the world's most expensive coffin. One could say that this was something of an exception for Challenger, at least in some cases, given how deluded the PR was as to how "safe" the space shuttle was, but considering one of the four abort modes developed for the shuttle was basically considered Russian Roulette with all loaded chambers, and John Young himself refused to fly that abort mode to test it out, that should give you an indication of how dangerous they all knew it to be.

    If we are going to get anywhere with space exploration, people are going to die. A lot of people. And if we don't get over this grim, but inescapable, fact, then we're going to go extinct long before we make it to another planet, let alone another star. Vaguely gesturing towards our "vast technological progress," as some might want to rely on (which is actually grimly reminiscent of the hallucinations that Mars One relies on, when you think about it) only brings to mind such projects as the Titanic, purported to be an unsinkable ship.

    It is possible that one day space travel will be as clean, quick, and safe as in many works of science fiction. That day is not today and will almost certainly not be within any of our lifetimes. But that day will be never if we are so afraid to take risks that we turn away droves of volunteers. And space exploration by robots, while still capable of some practical tasks (e.g. mining), is of far less value when trying to determine how to survive long-term in this relatively hostile universe. The Earth won't remain inhabitable forever, even if humans manage to continue to survive and maintain technology on Earth for many thousands of years to come.

    As a final note, while I am advocating taking risks in space, I think that it's probably best to work more on the Moon than Mars at this point. Considering the horrid technical problems there are with setting up a long-term manned presence on the Moon, and it's only a few days away, Mars really would be a suicide trip at this point, and AFAIK there have been quite a few high-level engineers that are quite pessimistic of an attempt with our current technology. While we need to accept that there are going to be a lot of casualties in space exploration, considering just how grim the situation is with current technology, it's foolhardy to try at this point. Realistic acceptance of high, even extreme, levels of risk is different than actually throwing lives and billions upon billions of dollars into the toilet.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday November 09 2017, @01:07AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday November 09 2017, @01:07AM (#594330) Journal

    Some points:

    1. Drugs and exercise can mitigate some of the effects of microgravity. Sure, staying 1 year or more in microgravity sucks, but the individual isn't crippled for life on return to Earth. As for the radiation risks, IIRC NASA is looking to not exceed something like +3% cancer risk for a journey to and from Mars. Their acceptable risk levels are conservative, our ships could be built with better shielding, and the radiation risks are just overblown.
    2. Government has dominated space travel since the beginning of the Space Age. As space funding rapidly died down after the Moon landing/end of the First Space Race, NASA's failures and deaths hit the agency much harder, making it much more risk-averse. Musk on the other hand has stated the same harsh [theregister.co.uk] truth [theverge.com] as you have: people will need to be prepared to die to make space colonization successful. Obviously, Musk and Bezos have to show that they are at least not rushing human-rated rockets, but people will certainly die en route or on Mars if many thousands of colonists are being sent. Anyway, the commercial pioneers are indicating that they will tell people to expect death on Mars, and it is not hard to find people who will accept this (at least while they are still excited).
    3. Robots are an obvious choice to do some of the heavy lifting in advance. They can be sent on cheaper, slower rockets/ships and don't require life support or much radiation shielding. If we want to live on Mars or the Moon, we should aim for colonies with no need for resupply. That will involve digging, processing icy rock into water, growing plants, and beginning simple manufacturing of useful stuff like plastics, or at least building materials like lunar/Martian "concrete". Having buildings and greenhouses prepared in advance would make colonization that much easier.
    4. The Moon is clearly a better destination than Mars. It has less than half the gravity of Mars, but the short travel time should more than compensate for that and the 0.1654g should be a lot healthier than microgravity. Solar power is more efficient on the Moon than the Earth (I believe it is +27% [popsci.com]) and much better than on Mars [pveducation.org] (although Jupiter and beyond are the real losers). If you have a medical emergency on the Moon and you can stabilize the afflicted person, getting them back to Earth is very easy. With Mars, you might as well not even try. The Moon can act as training wheels for space colonization.
    --
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    • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:33AM

      by dry (223) on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:33AM (#594453) Journal

      A couple of points,

      If we want to live on Mars or the Moon, we should aim for colonies with no need for resupply. That will involve digging, processing icy rock into water, growing plants, and beginning simple manufacturing of useful stuff like plastics, or at least building materials like lunar/Martian "concrete". Having buildings and greenhouses prepared in advance would make colonization that much easier.

      My understanding is that the Moon is missing some vital elements needed for life and therefore colonies with no need for resupply are basically impossible. Looking quickly, I see that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Moon#Elemental_composition [wikipedia.org] mentions that carbon and nitrogen are almost non-existant with only deposits from the solar wind. Be pretty hard to have a self supporting colony without carbon and nitrogen. Pretty sure there are other elements that we need that are in short supply on the Moon.

      Solar power is more efficient on the Moon than the Earth (I believe it is +27% [popsci.com]) and much better than on Mars [pveducation.org]

      Don't forget the long nights, something like 330 hours of dark. Possibly the poles could be a workaround but the poles look very rugged. I'd assume that flat areas will be needed for space ports. The need for large fairly flat areas for landing multiple space craft will also be an issue with all colonies including on Mars. Those lava tubes may not be in the most accessible locations.

  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:23PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:23PM (#594844) Journal

    If we are going to get anywhere with space exploration, people are going to die. A lot of people.

    Not necessarily.

    considering just how grim the situation is with current technology, it's foolhardy to try at this point.

    Correct. We need to gradually improve our technology, and the way to do that is to use it for real missions. Automation is pretty advanced these days. There's no reason to put people in harm's way before the major problems have been ironed out. What is important is to start testing with human-rated gear from the outset, not as an afterthought in 30 years time...