Is NASA's direction being reviewed for the future of space science?

[Al68]

Don't forget about private ventures. A LOT was learned from the first X-prize alone. Just as one example, they figured out how to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at supersonic speed with no heat shielding, and a (relatively) tiny budget.

 

[D H]

Don't forget about private ventures. A LOT was learned from the first X-prize alone. Just as one example, they figured out how to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at supersonic speed with no heat shielding, and a (relatively) tiny budget.

Not really. They were going Mach 3. That isn't reentry. Reentry is Mach 25. There is a huge difference in energy between a suborbital vehicle going at Mach 3 versus a re-entering spacecraft hitting the atmosphere at Mach 25.

 

[Al68]

Not really. They were going Mach 3. That isn't reentry. Reentry is Mach 25. There is a huge difference in energy between a suborbital vehicle going at Mach 3 versus a re-entering spacecraft hitting the atmosphere at Mach 25.

Well, of course there's a big difference, but what was learned by their innovations is still very valuable.

 

[D H]

Well, of course there's a big difference, but what was learned by their innovations is still very valuable.

I agree with that. Where I disagreed was with your statement about heat shields. SpaceShipOne didn't experience much thermal loading on its re-entry, but that was largely due to its low speed.

 

[Al68]

I agree with that. Where I disagreed was with your statement about heat shields. SpaceShipOne didn't experience much thermal loading on its re-entry, but that was largely due to its low speed.

My understanding was that their design purposely increased drag and used it as an advantage to keep it cool. I could be wrong, but the implication was that their re-entry speed was more than enough to overheat the ship were it not for that innovation, although obviously easier to deal with than much faster speeds.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm not sure what you mean by that - the Drake equation's design purpose is to predict the number of civilizations we can communicate with.

Drake is limited to the galaxy. I was talking about the Universe. Even a nominal Drake result implies a very large result for all galaxies.

I also think we can use inductive reasoning. Since it appears that there is nothing unique about our sun, and since we are now finding extrasolar planets almost daily - suggesting that planets are relatively common - and given that we fully expect that life arose through natural [not supernatural] processes, and since there is no reason to think those processes are unique to our planet, it is reasonable to expect that the universe is full of life. We can safely say that if we are unique in the universe, then we are a 1:10²⁴ event, or so, which makes our existence so unlikely that in that event I reject Descarte's conclusions and conclude instead that we don't exist.

 

[Coin]

Now MSNBC is reporting that someone named "Charlie Bolden" is to be appointed NASA administrator.

 

[russ_watters]

Drake is limited to the galaxy. I was talking about the Universe.

I didn't differentiate because it is easy to add a term to include the universe and I figured that that is what you meant.

Even a nominal Drake result implies a very large result for all galaxies.

Yeah, that's what I thought you meant. And it is wrong for the reasons I stated. We don't have enough information to project a range that predicts more than one "to all but a mathematical certainty" because we know of only one. We know that the odds are at least one in a universe, but that is it. We don't know if the odds are above that.

I also think we can use inductive reasoning.

Maybe we can, but that's not what you claimed in the post I objected to. You said "all but a mathematical certainty", which means a proper mathematical prediction of the Drake equation.

Since it appears that there is nothing unique about our sun, and since we are now finding extrasolar planets almost daily - suggesting that planets are relatively common - and given that we fully expect that life arose through natural [not supernatural] processes, and since there is no reason to think those processes are unique to our planet, it is reasonable to expect that the universe is full of life.

Agreed, but there is a big difference between that and "all but a mathematical certainty". This question is big enough, we should not hyperbolize about it.

 

[mgb_phys]

"Charlie Bolden" is to be appointed NASA administrator.[/url]

Ex-military, ex-astronaut - so along with the cancellation of all the science missions recently, does this mean Nasa is going back to just being the USAFs PR dept?

 

[D H]

It's official: Obama has nominated Charlie Bolden to be NASA's new administrator, with Lori Garver to serve as his deputy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Agreed, but there is a big difference between that and "all but a mathematical certainty". This question is big enough, we should not hyperbolize about it.

I think it is all but a certainty when we consider that there is no reason to think our solar system or planet are unique.

If I am walking along a beach and find a black grain of sand among the white grains, do we assume that there is only one black grain of sand, or is it all but certain that there are others?

I would also suggest that you look up the definition of hyperbole.

 

[Sarpedon]

It doesn't seem really clear what NASA's current goal is. They had the Apollo, went to the moon for political reasons and that was that. They got rid of basically everything.

Then they decided to build the space shuttle. And now they are going to retire it with no replacement. Again loss of knowledge and talent.

Now they have a project to make space travel much cheaper and safer. That's the goal. But all with old technology. The Constellation project it quite conservative. It doesn't have the flexibility of the space shuttle.

Then they want to go to Mars with a manned mission, which is costly enough to question why to do it.To me there seem to be two rought ways to go about. Either NASA does projects with the direct goal to advance science. Or NASA spearheads the development for technology to access space for the private sector.

Apollo and the space shuttle didn't have the space shuttle in their wake. In that case what is the point in accessing space? If we can't use exploit space then why go there? Just for tourism and romanticism? Or do we have to do all this so we can literally live on another planet, in 5000 years or who knows how long that will take, to ensure survival of mankind?

To me it seems science, exploration, etc is the only reason to be in space right now. There is talks about a base on the moon. If that's the cheapest way to build satellites to explore extrasolar planets in the far future, then that's worth the price. But that seems unlikely. In terms of pure science it seems quite stupid to just go to Mars "because it's hard". Sure, we want to know if there could have been life there. But it will be way more efficient to use robotics even for tasks that seem only possible by humans right now. Repairing Hubble was amazing, sure. But in the end it's just much cheaper to just build a new telescope and launch it rather than have a shuttle program specificially for this.

As for technology rerived from space programs. It's great and benefitial. But you can develop the technology we got from Apollo and the space shuttle without actually sending anything into orbit, which is much much more efficient.There seems to be no clear long term vision and longterm set budget. I heard that it's possible that the ISS can just be disgarded when the budget runs out. Apollo was basically a dead end. So is the space shuttle. And the same fate awaits ISS and the missions to moon and Mars. Space shuttle will soon be gone and we will just basically redo Apollo. And then ISS is no longer worth the money compared to the science output. Then redoing space shuttle seems pointless and a manned mission to Mars is again purely political. That will be a sad affair.

 

[mgb_phys]

It doesn't seem really clear what NASA's current goal is.

It's goal, like any other government agency, is to increase it's budget.

They had the Apollo, went to the moon for political reasons and that was that.

It was to demonstrate American technical superiority - or 'our Germans are better than their Germans'

Then they decided to build the space shuttle. And now they are going to retire it with no replacement. Again loss of knowledge and talent.

I've never been sure at what point they realized the shuttle wasn't going to do this and would be an enormous white elephant. But is was obviously between the airforce cancelling the shuttle pads at Edwards and the shuttle's first flight.

Repairing Hubble was amazing, sure. But in the end it's just much cheaper to just build a new telescope and launch it rather than have a shuttle program specificially for this.

Estimates are that Hubble cost 3x as much to build because of the shuttle launch. A combination of having to be manned flight certified and the storage costs of it sitting for 4 years after challenger. It is also in a highly sub-optimal science orbit in order to be shuttle reachable.

There seems to be no clear long term vision and longterm set budget. I heard that it's possible that the ISS can just be disgarded when the budget runs out. Apollo was basically a dead end. So is the space shuttle. And the same fate awaits ISS and the missions to moon and Mars. Space shuttle will soon be gone and we will just basically redo Apollo. And then ISS is no longer worth the money compared to the science output. Then redoing space shuttle seems pointless and a manned mission to Mars is again purely political. That will be a sad affair.

The purpose of the ISS was to fund aerospace companies (largely Boeing) in the wake of defence cuts following the end of the cold war , expect defence spending went up.
It's interesting that the Russians are planning to detach their modules when ISS is abandoned and use them as the basis of their next space station,

 

[Coin]

Estimates are that Hubble cost 3x as much to build because of the shuttle launch. A combination of having to be manned flight certified and the storage costs of it sitting for 4 years after challenger. It is also in a highly sub-optimal science orbit in order to be shuttle reachable.

The obvious inconvenience of shuttle deployment aside, hasn't being in a shuttle reachable orbit turned out to be useful since this means it can be repaired?

I mean imagine if we'd had no shuttle and just sent the thing up on a rocket, maybe it would have cost 1/3 as much but it still would have had the initial mirror problem.

 

[Sarpedon]

The space shuttle itself also costs money.

The only reason to have it repaired the way it was is to develop the technologies and skills to do so. And now that they have it, they just discard it.

 

[D H]

Estimates are that Hubble cost 3x as much to build because of the shuttle launch.

The purpose of the ISS was to fund aerospace companies (largely Boeing) in the wake of defence cuts following the end of the cold war

Oh, please. NASA's entire budget at the time was a paltry 0.5% of the total federal budget, much much smaller than the DoD's budget.

 

[D H]

There seems to be no clear long term vision and longterm set budget.

Federal agencies are not supposed to set their own long term goals. Setting long-term goals and budgets is the business of the legislative and administrative branches. Look at it this way: Do you want our federal agencies running amok? The lack of a stable budget is problematic for any agency that has programs that necessarily run longer than four years. The alternative is agencies running amok.

 

[mgb_phys]

The 'at launch' cost of Hubble was around $1.2Bn not including the cost of the shuttle launch. With operations and repair it was $3Bn by 1999, $6Bn and estimate to reach $10Bn by end of life.
These don't include the cost of shuttle repair missions, Nasa doesn't price shuttle launches anymore since they don't carry commercial payloads but were $500M for the last commercial launches and are now estimated at $1Bn/launch now.
The Planck mission cost $2.2Bn (2009$) including launch.

I worked with the people that build the ESA faint object camera. Some of the problems with HST+Nasa are discussed in the "The Hubble Wars"
There was a Nasa policy that the HST was a manned mission because it had to be astronaut serviced, some of these rules made sense - such as not allowing chemical propellents that might be a risk to astronauts working on it. But others included bans on using certain microprocessors inside an instrument because they weren't manned mission rated - so the processor wasn't tested and certified reliable enough to run the shuttle also meant it couldn't be used in anything the shuttle carried!

There were also lots of political problems (this was still the cold war) where everything technical about HST and the Shuttle were regarded as military secrets and dealing with Nasa was almost impossible for foreigners, remember HST was a joint project with the European Space Agency. I don't know how it's changed but when I last worked with them, 10 years ago, non-US astronomers weren't allowed into JPL, I could only go to meetings held at Caltech.

 

[mgb_phys]

There are some amazing engineers and scientists working for Nasa but it needs a reason to exist.
At the moment it's busy flying historical basketballs into orbit while it waits for the money to have a few square-jawed crew-cut (although this time probably more racially diverse) heroes to plant flags on bits of rock - this isn't a future.


Imagine if the west had been settled by Nasa
http://www.spacefuture.com/vehicles/how_the_west_wasnt_won_nafa.shtml

 

[D H]

If your vision of the future includes space science, that is the only future. Of all of the spacefaring nations, one decided that those square-jawed crew cut heroes are not a future. That nation did this thanks to persistent lobbying by that nation's pointy-headed space scientists. That nation, Great Britain, has no square-jawed crew cut heroes -- and hardly any pointy-headed space scientists, either. Their total budget for civilian space research is an embarrassingly small 0.04% of their total national budget, and almost all of that is shipped abroad to the European Space Agency.

Amongst the viable spacefaring nations, a key motivating factor for allocating monies to space research is that humans will follow. Take away that motivating factor and space science has to compete on its own merits. Compared to most other sciences, space science is very expensive. It ranks right up there with particle physics. The difference between the two is that politicians can see benefit coming out of particle physics research. They don't see the same bang for the buck with space science.