I wonder if NASA is ignoring the Advisory Board’s Roadmap. There are issues regarding lunar dust that anyone designing a moon base should consider as well.

“It sounds straight out of Dilbert.”

I find Dilbert funny because its so true. Realy Realy. PHB are everywhere. I stoped reading the quote as soon as i got to “leverage”.

I agree totaly with you. I’m not a great fan of maned missions because of there ROI (hehe). People cost a lot to put in space and when they die, we seem incabalble of doing anything for several years incase someone else mite die. The arguments for manned missions is thin at best. I mean how many mars rovers can we launch per shuttle flight? And lets not forget the money hole that is the ISS.

But once we are good at space then i want to go. So don’t think my anti manned missions means I don’t want any. Just not the expensive worthless crap we get at this point.

“It sounds straight out of Dilbert.”

Don’t mock the results of the free market. This language is straight from the meeting halls of the Fortune 500.

http://adactio.com/journal/538/ has a good example.

Questions:

1. Is very long baseline interferometry with antennae on the moon and the earth a feasible and a useful thing?

2. Is there useful astronomy in the area of the spectrum that we use for communications? If so, would not the far side of the moon be an excellent shielded spot for observatories?

3. Are there any advantages to instruments anchored to the moon over instruments in earth orbit?

“But once we are good at space then i want to go. So don’t think my anti manned missions means I don’t want any. Just not the expensive worthless crap we get at this point.”

Space is difficult. Just like any difficult endeavor, from motorcycle racing to cosmology, you have to constantly work at it in order to improve or even maintain. If you do nothing, waiting until you think all of the required tools are sufficiently perfected before you make a go at it, then you won’t start accumulating real world experience until then, meaning that all your tools have been developed without the benefit of real world experience. That’s not a good way to create complex systems.

Now, I am not saying that I think NASA’s new manned exploration program is a good thing, I don’t know enough about it to form a solid opinion. What I do know about it has me feeling pretty much as Sean has expressed above. But I do feel that we need a manned space program that progressively, and constantly, pushes the limits of what we are capable of so that we are constantly gaining experience and evolving our capabilities. Within reason of course, which is open to limitless debate. I don’t think unmanned science missions should, or need to, suffer either. There is always competition for resources but I think it is possible to balance the two so that reasonable proponets on both sides are satisfied. Both sides will benefit from the improved capabilites of the other side. For example, HST would not be the success it is today if it were not for manned servicing missions. Future space based observatories are sure to benefit, if not require, manned servicing missions, and some of them won’t be in earth orbit.

Arun asks: Is very long baseline interferometry with antennae on the moon and the earth a feasible and a useful thing?

Possibly feasible, but for gravitational wave detection (the prime use for VLBI) you need an additional moon, because you need two legs in an interferometer. Two celestial bodies make up at most one leg. Of course, if we do put an observatory on the moon, we need the ability to go there and repair it (remember the initial trouble with the Hubble Space Telescope), even though a moon base does not need gyroscopes.

Another comment: if you hear NASA officials say that we can use the resources on the Moon such as WATER for our lunar bases, then don’t believe it. Few planetary scientists believe that there is water on the Moon to use (and it is significant that no subsequent missions have confirmed Clementine’s findings).

Many years ago I attended a class on project management. One of seemingly turgid topics was “How to Write a Mission Statement”. What made the topic interesting was the example chosen to illustrate the principles of “specific and measureable” — John F. Kennedy’s famous pledge to reach the moon:

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

Sorta puts Ms. Dale’s “statement” in its proper context.

My father was one of the principal design engineers, and project manager of the first stage, of the Saturn V launch vehicle and the three types of engines used in that system, and i am intimately aware of the J2, as well as the solid rocket booster assembly. It will be interesting to see how the Ares is going to be thoroughly tested prior to its use. As recent history has shown, NASA would rather launch and then discover problems, than actually put systems through complete R&D testing; something about money and expenses. One miscalculation (has that happened?) and the entire program goes up in a fireball over Florida.

Just a word about the idea that science and exploration should be funded separately: nothing is funded separately, really, no matter what they might be pretending at any specific moment. At the end of the day, Congress makes a budget, and there are a bunch of reconcilliation committees that sit down to do the difficult balancing between the ideas of the House, Senate, and OMB, not to mention individual agencies and countless lobbyists. And everything is on the table. Not even just NASA — the NSF budget, for example, has been held back by OMB types saying “Sorry, we need that money for Moon/Mars.” As long as this ungainly beast needs to be fed, science money will be hard to come by.

http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/COSPAR02/02489/COSPAR02-A-02489.pdf

Abstract of the Moon as a VLBI platform.

A bit off topic (but related): maybe the simplest way to make sure that the linear collider is built in the US is to make sure that the goverment of China expresses intersest in building it there…

Sean, if you were to help start a campaign to remove space science from NASA and give it to a new or existing agency (perhaps a new NSF) you will find much support. The space science agency will conceive, design and direct all space science projects with a mandate and a budget separate from that of NASA, who will return to its original mandate of aeronautics and human space exploration. Development, launch and operations may be contract out to the best parties. It should not be difficult to build a compelling case to Congress. But first there must be great consensus from the scientific community.

I find it amusing that people are suggesting the creation of an entire new bureaucracy to do things that NASA already does. This would necessarily mean a fair amount of duplication, since one of the things that NASA does is figure out how to get things into space and keep them operating there (and communicate with them and so forth), something both astronauts and research satellites need. This hypothetical new agency would have to duplicate (or recreate) much of the expertise currently within NASA.

Japan used to have three separate aerospace agencies: the National Space Development Agency (in charge of heavy-lift rockets, satellite and ISS development, and training astronauts), the Institute for Space and Astronautical Science (mostly space science research, including X-ray astronomy satellites), and the National Aerospace Laboratory. In 2003, they were merged into a single agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, at least partly in the hopes of achieving greater efficiency. Perhaps this will turn out not to be a good idea, but it indicates that at least one country that had experience with multiple, separate civilian space programs decided it wasn’t such a good idea.

As Sean points out (#20), none of the NASA-related budgetary work takes place in a vacuum. In addition to the sort of thinking that might go on within OMB, the decisions on funding both NASA and NSF in the House take place in an appropriations subcommittee that considers NASA, NSF, EPA, Housing and Urban Development, and the Veterans Administration.

Let us never forget the “space race”: USA vs. USSR.

The times we are in now have more than two space capable nations. Shared technology would lower the cost of a lunar base. The Apollo Program ended with the US & USSR on the same mission.

2024 is almost 2 decades away. The balance of World Power will shift by 2024. Apollo was a fast track program. This newest lunar mission program is a slow track plan. The American people are not going to buy into this slow plan. Moreover, it is the American taxpayer, after all, who foots the bill for new foot prints on the lunar surface.

Pete, it would indeed be more than amusing if the creation of a bureaucracy is all there is. It would be dumb. The question is not expertise/personnel – these will be allocated/transfered to whatever agency doing the job. The purpose is to create a different mandate for space science not subservient to the broad and sometimes conflicting mandate of NASA, which has too many balls to juggle and controlled by too many accountant-managers who thought going to the Moon is another business Powerpoint case study. (See: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06361_ESMD_Lunar_Architecture.html)

The leadership of a separate administrator should bring the budget fight for space science at the level of Congress, under a separate mandate. The politics in DC is such that only this way could deliver a better priority and funds allocation irrespective of NASA big-ticket woes or successes. There should not be an increase in bureaucracy – the same bunch of people will be working under a different mandate and budget more finely tuned to science.

For example, NASA recently pushed back launch date of the James Webb Telescope for 2 years as a result of struggling with the costs of the Moon exploration program. Under a separate agency and mandate, this telescope will be designed and constructed under a different priority, budget, with the flexibility to select launch contractor and launch date.

Alex Petrov says
“A bit off topic (but related): maybe the simplest way to make sure that the linear collider is built in the US is to make sure that the goverment of China expresses intersest in building it there…”

I assume he meant it as a joke, and I took it as such, but then I read this on Peter Woit’s blog
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The New York Times today in its Science Times section has a very interesting article by Dennis Overbye entitled China Pursues Major Role in Particle Physics. It tells some of the history of particle physics in China, describes the BEPC accelerator in Beijing which has just had a luminosity upgrade, and discusses the role China may play in future accelerator projects, especially the ILC. A US physicist who sometimes works at BEPC, Frederick Harris, is quoted as saying “The rate China is growing, this is something they could contemplate hosting in 10 years.” Perhaps the future of high-energy frontier accelerator projects really will be in China.
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