Matt Wronkiewicz's Weblog

I’m really looking forward to hearing the final public meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee tomorrow. My hope is that the committee will come up with a set of options that lead us along the way to becoming a truly spacefaring society rather than distracting us away from it. Reading the summary of Dr. John Marburger’s testimony last week here really sharpened my view of what we are doing and space and where we need to go from here. What are we doing in space? Not enough.

The greatest achievement of the 20th century, in my mind, was the Apollo moon landings. We demonstrated the capability to extend human life out into the Solar System, and that was a monumental event. It almost doesn’t matter that we then “burned the ships”, because the methods used to land men on the Moon were not sustainable over the long term. NASA, created to respond to a specific threat, had served its purpose. After its purpose was served, however, it became a creature all its own. Still holding the flag of American space progress, it did nothing but shed talent while trying to maintain its significance, not as a historical artifact, but as an operating government agency. This has continued for almost 40 years. Maintaining its significance has required it to engage in practices that have hindered, rather than furthered human expansion into space. Many of these have only become clear in hindsight. The most innocuous method was the NASA Space Center organization. The lucrative work that these centers are involved in has resulted in a symbiotic relationship with Congress that causes politics, rather than good planning or financial accountability, to determine their funding. Less innocuous is NASA’s insistence on a space-launch monopoly. No single event has more damaged our ability to reach Earth orbit than the stand-down of all orbital rockets in the 1980s in deference to the Space Shuttle. In that decade, for that reason, the United States lost its leadership position in space. The third method is the occasional hostage-taking by NASA in the course of securing more funding. A recent example of this is the threat to shut down the ISS in 2016. Another is the “gap”. The gap forces Congress to continue to fund NASA’s Constellation program at the highest level possible, because the alternative is to depend on Russia for access to space, a strategic disaster. Beyond the damage these methods have done, NASA’s core mission is counter-productive. This mission was revealed in NASA’s response to the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), as documented by Dr. Marburger. Its mission is to re-live the glory days of Apollo.

I would love to see humans walk on the Moon again. What I don’t want to see is NASA astronauts walking on the moon in the place of my children. I don’t want my money being spent on a mission to show that today’s NASA is just as good as our parents’ NASA. The space frontier belongs to those of us with the courage to venture outward, to make a new life for ourselves, among the unimaginable riches of the Solar System. The best possible implementation of NASA’s current architecture will do little to open up that frontier for the rest of us. Meanwhile, it will have eaten through hundreds of billions of dollars, money that could have gotten us closer to that goal. We heard a more responsible assessment of NASA’s progress from the Aerospace Corporation a few weeks ago, again in front of the Augustine Committee. Ares I won’t fly for 10 years. Given that time scale, Ares V has no chance of being built. The ISS will probably go the way of Skylab. NASA will continue along, replacing real rockets with with virtual ones, “lying more vigorously than usual”.

In the midst of all this doom and gloom lies the possibility of real change in the way we pursue spaceflight. The committee has some very bright and open-minded people, who have been saying some very reasonable things. The Exploration Beyond LEO subcommittee in particular made some stunning pronouncements. One, that human spaceflight is about extending human civilization into space. Two, that we can get there without building super-heavy launchers. Three, that free space itself offers a wealth of opportunities for exploration, without the penalty of sending men and equipment down into yet another gravity well. These were unfortunately watered down somewhat by the time they made it into their alternative architecture, called Deep Space. However, the members of the committee have the right mindset and all the tools they need to present a compelling architecture that gets us back on the path to extending life beyond Earth.

As exciting as I find the committee’s direction, their final report will only be the beginning. Many people have to carry the ball without dropping it after they are done. The President has to choose a good alternative to the current architecture. Congress has to permit a transformation of NASA into an organization that can support human spaceflight rather than twist it into a political tool. Congress also has to fund the necessary programs to implement the alternative architecture, particularly COTS-D. They have to have the courage to cancel some major NASA programs. NASA has to take off the Apollo-colored glasses and devote themselves to supporting human expansion into the Solar System. American companies, particularly SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Bigelow Aerospace, Blue Origin, and ULA have to deliver on their promises. Space advocates have a hard road ahead of them explaining how all this will benefit ordinary people on the ground, but they’ll have a much easier time than they had explaining why today’s NASA is still relevant.

That’s a lot of pieces to fit together. If they do, we can win big. In a few generations resource scarcity will be a thing of the past. The poorest populations of the Earth will have an opportunity to head out and make new lives for themselves. America will have a new gold rush and a new frontier. Any person who today could afford a plane ticket could take a trip into space, to see the Earth as a planet, and to see the stars without the sky clouding their view. If the pieces don’t fit together, we can still take the hard road of fighting against NASA and gravity at the same time. We’ll probably still make it off the Earth, but it’ll take more time. Hopefully not too much. If we deplete the resources of the Earth’s crust or we suffer some environmental catastrophe, we might be stuck here for good.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: american space, apollo moon landings, earth orbit, greatest achievement, human expansion, human space flight, john marburger, men on the moon, monumental event, nasa space center, space launch