The Ares I-X rocket sits atop launch pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday.
(NASA handout/Reuters)Photos (1 of 1)
Augustine report: tough choices ahead on human spaceflight
If NASA's Constellation program is going to take astronauts to the moon or Mars, Obama will have to increase its budget, the Augustine report says.
By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer/ October 23, 2009 edition
President Obama and Congress face a stark choice on the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program: Either scale back ambitious goals first set out in 2005 or pony up more money to match the ambitions.
That’s the implication of options set out in the final report from the Review of US Human Spaceflight Plans committee, unveiled Thursday afternoon.
NASA’s current path, as set by former President George W. Bush, aims to return astronauts to the moon. The political fight will likely be over whether to continue on that path or to shift to a different lineup of rockets and destinations.
“The human spaceflight program that the United States is currently pursuing is … on an unsustainable trajectory,” said panel chairman Normal Augustine in summarizing the 157-page report Thursday afternoon at a press briefing in Washington.
The latest document’s key points appeared in a summary presented to the White House and NASA Sept. 8. After deliberating over the summer, the 10 members – ranging from former astronauts and current and former aerospace executives to academics – settled on three broad paths the US could follow.
One option: building a rocket to nowhere?
One broad class of options involves sticking close to the original program and funding levels. But that would result in NASA building rockets to nowhere, the panel projected. NASA’s replacements for the space shuttle are the Ares 1 and its crew capsule, and a more powerful Ares 5 rocket. Ares 1 is unlikely to be ready before 2017, according to the panel. If NASA shuts down the space station in 2015, Ares 1 would have no destination. If NASA shuts down the station in 2020, Ares 1 would have nowhere to launch to after 2020. Either way, Ares 1 would be a rocket with no clear destination. And NASA wouldn’t have the money to fill out the rest of its lunar agenda.
Second option: more money
The other two broad classes of options assume more money. They envision either going to the moon first or aiming at true “firsts” – sending crews to visit an asteroid or to orbit Mars, for instance. But for these missions, Ares 1 falls by the wayside. Instead, NASA would build a version of Ares 5 and have it do double duty, acting as a taxi while also fulfilling its original purpose as a cargo ship capable of lifting heavy payloads into space.
Key role for commercial rocket companies?
Alternatively, taxi duties could be handed off to commercial rocket companies – either to long-established companies or to a new breed of rocketeers working on launch vehicles. In principle, the agency could even turn over to beefed-up commercial rockets the heavy-cargo duties assigned to the Ares 5, the panel suggested.
But this has raised red flags among some influential lawmakers. During congressional hearings on the panel’s options last month, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona was skeptical that a new generation of commercial-rocket start-ups will be able to pick up taxi duties.
In a statement Thursday, Representative Giffords repeated her objection to having “our astronauts held hostage of purchases of seats of nonexistent commercial providers.”
She noted that the Augustine panel had no complaints about how NASA’s new Constellation program was being run. It found no flaws in the program’s initial budget, set out in 2005 at a time when outlying budget years held no inkling of a global financial collapse. And it was confident that the agency could overcome technical glitches that are inherent to any new rocket design.
“Now that both internal and eternal independent reviews have confirmed that the Constellation program is being well executed, we know what needs to be done,” said Giffords, who chairs the House Science and Technology Committee’s Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee.
Third option: the Apollo creed
But history suggests a potential third path, says Howard McCurdy, a space-policy specialist at American University in Washington.
When the US was desperate to put a human on the moon before the end of the 1960s, it got creative. Previously, NASA’s approach to testing rockets was methodical – reflective of the Teutonic tendencies of the German scientists who created it. They tested one stage of a rocket at a time. During the Apollo years, however, NASA tested all three stages of the Saturn V rocket in a single test flight, shrinking the amount of time needed to get the Apollo program off the ground.
The first test flight for the Ares 1-X is scheduled for next week – and NASA is reverting to the one-stage-at-a-time approach.
Apollo’s same flexibility can be applied to a different challenge today, Mr. McCurdy says: “My question is: What’s the equivalent reform needed to hold the Constellation program to its existing budget?”
He adds: “Maybe the White House comes back and says: We want you to continue with the Vision for Space Exploration, and we want you to be creative in finding ways to do it.”
—-
What’s the buzz on the Orionid meteor shower?
NASA got it about right: 60 meteors per hour.
—–
Follow us on Twitter.
( More stories )
Comments
2. Harold | 10.23.09
Are you really a Christian website? Destroying America’s health care and NASA in one year? How is that a good thing?
3. Luther Browning | 10.24.09
Hi All, No need to worry about the future of manned and unmanned spaceflight. Being an engineer I have combined current technology into a more efficient, lighter, clean, and, I hope, safer launch system. I have written NASA about a proposal to use a horizontal or inclined rail, powered from ground, to accelerate a winged launch vehicle to a speed great enough for air breathing ramjets burning hydrogen to start and lift the vehicle to the limit of the ramjets, speed, and altitude capabilities. At that point the winged air breathing section would separate, and return to the launch site runway to be serviced and reused. The orbiting stages and payload would use hydrogen and oxygen as in current launch vehicles. Return to Earth would be as necessary as required for the mission and our current design capability. By using ground supplied power the launch weight as determined by the fuel and oxidiser required for launch, orbit and return, could be greatly reduced. By using air breathing ramjets no oxidiser is needed during the assent to the limit of the ramjets altitude and speed. That means no tank, plumbing, pumps, controls, and danger from the liquid oxygen. Having a launch stage that returned to the launch site saves at sea retrieval of equipment. What is a ramjet? A simple jet engine that compresses the air entering it’s intake from the force of the speed of the air it is traveling through. It will not start from a standstill. Compression for operation starts at about 250 mph. But as the starting speed increases more efficient designs can be used. If the rail can provide near supersonic or better supersonic launch speed the ram jet can be made far more efficient than most other air breathing machines. For example your car engine at its best might have 35% efficiency, The best coal fired power station about 45%, a turbine powered powered power station using what is called co-generation approaches 60%. A ramjet can achieve 95%, sometimes better at speed. New design ramjets have operated at mach 12 as I have read. Please check this. Because Mach numbers do not correspond to an exact speed I do not know how fast this is. Some where in the 8,000 mph to 9,000 mph range but that is just speculation. Trough design and new materials a manned returnable orbital crew module might be more resistant to damage than the current shuttle. I think the current shuttle could be used in this method of launch. It has all the structural strength needed for a near horizontal launch. With the freedom of some weight restrictions the tile heat resistant system might be replaced with something more robust. There are new ceramic materials that are strong not very brittle and can operate at much higher temperatures than the 2500 deg F of reentry. If ice hit that material on launch there would be no damage. A rocket engine produces tremendous vibration and sound on launch to dislodge such ice. A maglev rail launch and then ramjet would be airliner smooth. The rocket ignition would occur at the edge of space where the atmospheric drag on the ice would be much less. Our current approach has built the space station over such a long time period it is almost worn out before it has started it’s mission, engineering, science and basic science in outer space with a free fall environment.
I hope this leads to a better way.
Luther Browning
4. AMP | 10.25.09
Obama has shown more interest in science and technology than his predecessor. In fact, he is more aware than a lot of previous Presidents, who only believed in the use of science and technology to further advance America’s defense system. The problem is, can NASA sustain itself with its current rate of spending, unreliability and shortsightedness?
Maybe NASA should consider having commercial goals to fund part of its innovation - and congress should match whatever money is made from the commercial sector. In that way, the bluntness of the for-profit decision making can in a way lead to lower costs of production, and faster innovation.
5. Jeff | 10.26.09
America used to dream big, and do big things. Now we are in our declining years, content to stay at home by the TV and complain about our health while other nations take up the challenges that we fear. China, Korea and India are the new world players. Giving up on NASA to appease the accountants is how we are signaling our retirement from the game.
6. Nelson Thompson | 10.27.09
I have been an engineer working on NASA programs at the Johnson Space Center for 30 years. I’m afraid Luther’s imaginative solution for extending our reach in space will not work: too many new technologies, too expensive. The Ares-1 and Ares-5 were designed backwards, not with a vision in mind, but with the intention of keeping the makers of the solid rocket boosters (SRB), and the Shuttle External Tank (ET) in business for another decade. It saved some money, but it has led to rockets with serious flaws.
Our salvation will eventually be the small armada of private companies who are trying to design and build reliable, inexpensive rocket systems. Space-X is one of them. Whichever one manages to accomplish the first successful launch with a fully paid-for commercial payload, will probably turn out to be our “white knight”. If the government allows them to do so. NASA has never really liked competition.
Our salvation will also depend on a new generation of leaders and bureaucrats in NASA. The ones we have right now are mostly the elderly survivors of the Shuttle era. They were good once, but they have run out of creativity.
Our future in space depends not on religion or some purported tie to “freedom”, or even to lots more money. It depends upon giving the task to a new, young generation of engineers and leaders who are willing to take risks and draw their visions upon new sheets of paper.
7. TAN | 10.28.09
Luther, have you published a paper discussing your idea? if so, i was wondering what sort of feedback did you get?
8. WPauli | 11.20.09
Question: What is the scientific cost/benefit ratio for human “space” flight?Undefined, since it’s a division of a very large number by ZERO. Good riddance, human spaceflight. Let’s do science and NOT give our money to military contractors so that a couple of people can experience the sensation of throwing up while being weightless. In a couple of hundred years we may have the technological ability to safely send humans out to space. Right now doing so is playing Russian roulette.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. Harold | 10.23.09
The moon would serve as a launch base for missions to Mars and beyond, a self sustaining base that would be required to produce its own fuel. Obama is not interested in true exploration for the human race. That would entail freedom.