10. DIRECT

DIRECT is NASA’s last chance to retain its own crew launch system in the wake of Space Shuttle retirement. It’s a derivative of the Space Shuttle External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters, combined with the Orion space capsule. Given how many pieces of this rocket are flying today, it seems possible to get this operational relatively quickly. Unfortunately, the DIRECT team made some strategic blunders while trying to get their idea accepted, and then came off as paranoid when they presented their plan to the Augustine Committee. Then NASA came up with their sidemount HLV, which is conceptually similar but totally inadequate for launching astronauts. The committee was forced, for lack of time and resources, to bin them together, losing the crew capability in the process. Nice job, everyone.

9. Polywell fusion

Wishful thinking, or our best shot at getting off this planet? We can pursue cheap rockets, reusable rockets, and extraterrestrial resources all we want, but we’re always restrained by the limited amount of energy contained in our chemical propellants and converted by our solar panels. If we want to start talking about moving thousands of people permanently into space, we need something better. Nuclear fission has proved too difficult and dangerous for the amount of extra energy available. The best candidate on the drawing boards is being pursued by the U.S. Navy as a power source for their ships. It’s small, produces unbelievable amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel, and generates no dangerous radiation. The late inventor, Dr. Robert Bussard, also known for the Bussard ramjet, intended it to power spaceships. The team recently received another $8 million in funding and says we’ll know in a few years if their theories pan out. If they do, expect to visit the Moon in your lifetime.

8. X-Prizes

Nothing gets people excited about space like competition involving lots of fire. It’s what made Apollo work, after all. The first big space prize was the Ansari X-Prize, which was won by Burt Rutan in 2004 when he built his own plane that was flown into space by Mike Melville and Brian Binnie. More recently, Armadillo Aerospace took first prizes in both level 1 and 2 of the Lunar Lander Competition. These, and the teams they are competing against, are making important progress in space technology, in exchange for a rather small amount of public and private money. Next up is the Google Lunar X-Prize, where stuff actually lands on the Moon.

7. Moving asteroids

It seems impossible, but physically it can be done with current technology. Specifically Near Earth Objects (NEOs) in the 500 meter range, the kind that might not kill you if it hit the Earth but would certainly make your life miserable. If there’s one thing the government must do in outer space, it’s this. What makes it possible is that with precise tracking and a lot of warning time, we don’t have to move the rock very far at all to prevent a disaster. Asteroid 99942 Apophis will likely be tagged with a beacon in the near future.

6. Inflatable space stations

It seems silly, but balloons are a useful construction method in outer space, as long as they are made out of a material that can withstand the extreme environment. Dr. Werner von Braun first suggested this for his wheel space station back in the 1950s, but he didn’t have the technology to make it work. More recently NASA investigated building an inflatable module for the ISS, but cancelled it as being too risky. Hotel chain owner Robert Bigelow licensed the technology from NASA to use to build his own space stations, and has launched two prototypes. Now NASA wants to buy space station modules from him.

5. COTS

A new concept in space systems development. Instead of paying someone extra money if they take longer to build something, you just pay them when they deliver the thing you want. The former is called cost-plus contracts, and it’s the reason everything involving outer space in the United States costs so much money. Want to know why NASA struggles to explain exactly what you got out of all the money you sent them last year? This is why. Luckily someone came up with a system that makes sense, and it’s working marvelously in a program called COTS, which purchases cargo transportation to ISS.

4. VASIMR

Two types of rocket engines power today’s spacecraft. One is the chemical rocket, which produces a lot of thrust but uses a lot of fuel in the process, so much that its tanks are usually empty after firing for 10 minutes. The other is the ion drive, which produces a tiny amount of thrust but uses fuel much more efficiently. It can run for months or years. Both have their uses, but what we really need is an engine that can produce a lot of thrust but use less fuel. VASIMR, under development, is that engine. One may be installed on the ISS in the next decade to help maintain its orbit.

3. Flexible Path

This one came out of the Augustine Committee that I’ve been following the past couple of months. Their Flexible Path architecture for human spaceflight involves bypassing the surfaces of the Moon and Mars, and instead takes off across the Solar System in space capsules. The surfaces of many objects would still be accessible, like the asteroids and the moons of Mars. Landing on Mars isn’t so difficult, it’s the getting off that’s nearly impossible. You’d need a small colony in place just to operate the launch site, and that’s not going to happen any time soon. Taking the Flexible Path is like picking the low-hanging fruit, and staying out of gravity wells will be a primary goal of our spacefaring descendants anyway.

2. Space tourism

We saw a sea change in the last decade in human spaceflight. Private citizens flew into outer space, before a realm occupied solely by government employees. Suddenly seats going into orbit had a price tag on them. This created a market, and healthy markets breed efficiency. This is the market: tens of passengers per year at $10 million per seat, hundreds at $1 million per seat, and so on. We can make it to the thousands per year, and space tourism got the ball rolling.

1. Propellant depots

Something was missing from the Apollo missions, and it was this: when astronauts went the Moon, they found nothing to help them along the way. The thing space explorers need more than anything else is rocket fuel. When we send humans into the Solar System again, we can pre-place caches of rocket fuel at strategic points, called Lagrange points. We might even leave a space capsule at the depot, so we don’t have to carry it all the way to the Moon or Mars. Developing this ability might even mean we can make it back to the Moon without developing a new super-heavy rocket booster like the Saturn V, and that would really move up the schedule for Solar System exploration.

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll like the next one even better: Ten Worst New Space Ideas.

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• The Program of Record
• ISS Focused (Constrained Budget)
• ISS Focused (Increased Budget)
• ISS/Shuttle Extension
• Deep Space (Ares V “Light”)
• Deep Space (Commercial HLV)
• Deep Space (Shuttle Derived)

We have an opportunity here to directly affect the future course of humans in outer space. The committee has provided the President with a discrete set of options, backed by ten very well regarded people and the best available data and budget projections. Not only that, these architectures are the most honest assessment of NASA’s ability to conduct manned space exploration to date. Most previous studies of this scale had been conducted behind closed doors, and many made the incorrect assumption that NASA could make do with any level of funding, or projected wildly optimistic funding levels. I found their honest assessment rather troubling. In the best case, NASA will be stuck in LEO for at least another decade. Astronauts won’t walk on the surface of another planet for 15 years or more. Given that none of the presented options are a slam-dunk for human expansion into the Solar System, which of them should we support? Does one of them merit a focused push for Presidential support? Right here, I am going to try to answer that question.

Ground rules and assumptions

Let me start by saying that I believe the point of manned space exploration is the expansion of human civilization into space. If you’re in it for science or national prestige, then this essay is not for you. As I argued in my letter to the Augustine Committee, civilization follows commerce, and commerce requires some sort of profit-making engine. Two potentially profitable enterprises beyond low-Earth orbit are energy production and resource extraction. Both of these can be done on the Moon or among the asteroids. Asteroids are much easier to reach and return from because of their low gravity. Because of this, I think the they should be our near-term destination, with the Moon a close second. Another aspect of civilization is that it is made of a diverse group of individually motivated people. A team of NASA astronauts following orders from mission control does not constitute civilization.

I will be making a few assumptions about the future of politics and of NASA. One is that the future never pans out the way we planned. Funding gets cut or diverted to pet programs, technical problems come up, people aren’t as competent as they say they are, and paper rockets always look better than real rockets. This becomes more of a problem the further into the future you go. For this reason, I will be ignoring completely any projections beyond 2030, heavily discounting projections beyond 2025, and taking anything past 2020 with a large grain of salt. The really important parts will happen in the next five years. I am also going to assume that NASA has designed its last HLV, the Space Shuttle. NASA has not been able to demonstrate the successful launch of a new orbital system in over twenty years. Along the way, many of its attempts have failed, and this has strained their credibility to a breaking point. Their most recent project, the Ares I, was an essential step toward regaining their credibility, and they failed, not because of funding, but because they made fundamental design mistakes and forgot to account for operations costs. If NASA can’t develop a medium lift launch vehicle, how are they going to build a heavy lifter from the ground up? They can’t, at least not without excessive amounts of money and the latitude to fail a few times before getting it right. They have two ways out of this. One is that they can outsource the rocket development to teams with more experience. Another is that they can adapt what they have into a new system. Both of these approaches have risks of their own, of course.

I’ll say a few words about Mars before moving on. Many people whose opinions I respect think that Mars should be the goal of human spaceflight. There are some good reasons for this. Mars offers the most benign environment off the Earth that we know of. Mars settlements may also provide some protection from Earth-wide catastrophies. However, Mars is unattainable at this time, for the reasons given by the committee. It’s also at the bottom of a deep gravity well that cuts it off from any space-based economy and makes a return to Earth risky at best. Mars will play into our future in space, but I think the committee rightly discarded the Mars First option as unworkable. Of the alternative architectures, the Deep Space options do the most to prepare us for eventual expeditions to the surface of Mars, and I will keep that in mind in my analysis.

Strategy

Given that the important milestones for all these alternative architectures lie beyond the horizon of predictability, how can we assess them? I do think we should support an architecture that directs us along the path of human expansion into the Solar System, even if it certainly will not pan out the way we want. However, we should consider above other factors NASA’s activities over the next five years.

Some big questions remain about public commitment to space exploration, funding availability, and NASA’s attitude toward American industry. The answer to these questions will have an affect on our strategy, so we will have to be flexible, adapting to new information as it comes along. For example, if an extra $3 billion per year for manned exploration is impossible, we should not throw our weight behind an architecture that requires it. If NASA is going to take that $3 billion and use it to crush its competition, then we should not support the extra funding. If NASA is going to take the extra money and use it to encourage the space industry, then we should ask for it. Probably the only information we will have in a timely fashion is an assessment of public support. If public opinion seems to gravitate towards an architecture that serves the interest of human expansion into space, we should change our strategy to take advantage of it. Another big question is how the President, Congress, and the public will react to the idea of massive layoffs and facilities closures at NASA. It’ll happen sooner or later, the question is if we have the stomach to do it all right now.

Putting all that together, I’ll be looking for an architecture that front-loads the milestones, supports the space industry to the maximum extent possible, does not require the development of an all-new HLV, and puts NASA on a path to human expeditions to the Moon and asteroids. Let’s see what we’ve got.

The options

The Program of Record

This plan essentially makes no changes to the current architecture. NASA continues on with Ares I, finishes it after the ISS is retired, and then starts on Ares V. If they continue to support Ares I after Ares V becomes operational, their entire exploration budget will be devoted to supporting these two launch vehicles, with nothing left over for expeditions beyond LEO. On the plus side, it fits within the budget and it gives NASA an opportunity to prove itself with Ares I. On the down side, investment in technology and support for private industry is minimal, there’s no chance of expeditions beyond LEO, and its launch systems will compete with private launchers. This architecture is pointless and counterproductive.

ISS Focused (constrained funding)

This plan supports an extension of ISS, a commercial crew service to LEO, and a technology development program. It also cancels Ares I and all beyond-LEO exploration systems. NASA will continue on with Ares V, which they will fail to deliver. It fits within the projected budget and it supports private industry. Its technology development program may make future exploration architectures easier. Private space transportation may support private space stations and the beginnings of a service economy in LEO. Even though it is presented by the committee only as a point of reference, I think this might be a viable alternative to the current architecture if additional funding for NASA seems unlikely.

ISS Focused (increased funding)

This plan supports an extension of ISS, a commercial crew service to LEO, a technology development program, and an exploration program that looks a lot like the current architecture. Ares I is cancelled. NASA will continue on with Ares V, which they will fail to deliver. It supports private industry, though not to the maximum extent possible. Its technology development program may make future exploration missions easier. Private space transportation may support private space stations and the beginnings of a service economy in LEO. It’s a lot of money to spend for no additional benefit. If extra funding is available, I think we have better options.

ISS/Shuttle Extension

This plan supports an extension of ISS, a commercial crew service to LEO, and a technology development program. It removes the requirement to purchase Soyuz flights and contains exploration elements similar to the current architecture. Ares I is cancelled. NASA will begin development of a Shuttle-derived HLV (SDLV), which it may be able to deliver. It supports private industry, though not to the maximum extent possible. It may potentially lead to lunar expeditions. This plan has a lot in common with Deep Space (Shuttle Derived), but it trades the asteroid missions for less reliance on Soyuz space capsules. I think that’s a dangerous trade at a 2% risk of loss of crew per Shuttle flight. Also, asteroid missions are worth the effort.

Deep Space (Ares V “light”)

There’s almost nothing to like about this architecture. All the exploration milestones come too late to be meaningful, it requires additional funding, and it requires the development of a new HLV. We’re better off spending less for ISS Focused, but it’s better than the Program of Record.

Deep Space (commercial HLV)

This is an interesting but risky alternative. It supports an ISS extension, commercial crew to LEO, technology development, commercial HLV, propellant depots, and human exploration beyond LEO. If that all sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Private industry doesn’t have a need right now for the kind of heavy lift this would require, and it does need extra funding. Also, it requires massive layoffs and facilities closures at NASA, which would happen over the next five years. I’ll wait and see on this one. If they can make it fit the budget and we see some momentum for a new way of doing business at NASA, then it might be worth supporting. Otherwise I don’t see it going far.

Deep Space (Shuttle derived)

This architecture supports an ISS extension, commercial crew to LEO, technology development, and human exploration beyond LEO. NASA may be able to deliver a SDLV, which would enable missions to the Moon and asteroids in a disappointing but reasonable timeframe. Of the options that require an additional investment, this provides the biggest return at a low risk. If $3 billion a year seems possible, this is the option we should support.

Conclusions and next steps

Of the alternative architectures proposed, three stand out as attractive options: ISS Focused (constrained funding), Deep Space (commercial HLV), and Deep Space (SDLV). With the final report in hand and more information about the political climate, these can be whittled down to one best option. If more funding is available, Deep Space with SDLV is the way to go. If Deep Space with commercial HLV fits the budget and the climate is right, it might be the best option. Otherwise, I’ll be supporting ISS Focused and waiting for private industry to take over for NASA.

I’m planning to send a message to President Obama urging him to follow the committee’s recommendations. That includes $3 billion more per year for NASA, not to be used to compete with private industry. It also includes commercial crew transportation to ISS and the technology development that we need from NASA to take the next steps in space. Supporting all the recommended architectures is much easier than supporting three, because political staffers in general have little patience for the technical detail that separates the different architectures, and the administration is likely to pick and choose pieces of the recommended architectures anyway. I’ll also be sending an email to the Office of Science and Technology Policy at info@ostp.gov, expressing my support for the committee’s findings. If your representative is a Democrat, now would be a good time to request that they send a letter to President Obama in support of the alternate architectures.

After I get more information about which option is the most supportable, I’ll be ready to focus on one architecture. I will also be keeping an eye out for the Next Step in Space Coalition or another group to organize a trip to Washington to present these arguments in person.

All in all, I think the committee did a really fantastic job with the constraints they were given. Christopher Chyba, Sally Ride, Jeff Greason, and Ed Crawley in particular made this committee a landmark achievement in human spaceflight by exposing the tendency of NASA to over-promise and under-fund, and pointing a new way forward. We will do well to carry on their work as far as we can.

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