For the same reason you have a spare tire in your car.
Quotes from The Science of Discworld, by Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett
Lest anyone think that I’m some sort of anti-space guy or an irredeemable cynic, I’d like to add my own thoughts to the practicality of a return to the moon and/or a trip to Mars. I’ve certainly devoted enough thought to it ever since I was a Mars-eyed twenty-year old.
If the S.E.I. taught us anything, it is that the reliability and power (both electrical and thrust) of a nuclear rocket is likely going to be necessary to carry out any manned mission to Mars.
People don’t like the idea of anything nuclear being launched into space, and they particularly don’t like the idea of a nuclear reactor puttering about in low earth orbit so that it can someday pull a Skylab on us.
A manned mission to Mars quite naturally requires rigorous testing and rehearsal as well.
There’s a simple solution to both problems, one which justifies the presence of man in space and one which actually has the potential to supply genuine scientific rewards.
Build another space station–nuclear powered space station–in lunar orbit.
We can launch the reactor in pieces, with the truly sensitive and/or radioactive parts encased in its own heat shielding in case the launch fails. We can very temporarily place the pieces in parking orbit so that we can use cheaper chemical/ion hybrid systems to place them in lunar orbit, perhaps even utilizing that turd of a space station we have now.
We can use a manned team to chaperon the parts into lunar orbit–manned in order to supervise the construction and ramp-up of the reactor. That heat shielding? We use it in lunar orbit to shield the crew from solar radiation.
Once we’ve established a rudimentary construction platform in lunar orbit, lavishly powered by a fat nuclear reactor, we can start adding modules to it in an orbit which is less prone to decay and less likely to meet with man-made space debris.
One module has facilities for a construction crew for the lunar landers and the Mars vehicle. One module is for training of the crew, which can practice its Martian maneuvers on the Moon itself while yielding valuable hands-on lunar science. One module might support a tourism industry–say perhaps a space hotel? And one module houses a bevy of academics, astronomers and technicians to maintain the astronomy array which will occasionally have a sun-and-earth-free view of the universe and a stable lunar observation platform (and which might shut up some of the grouchy unmanned space guys by offering them the promise of an occasional visit).
Build the nuclear rocket(s) out there and test them where they are guaranteed to not harm the earth. Test out the possibility of gathering available resources from the Moon–such as titanium for the spacecraft itself and lunar dust for reaction mass–instead of shipping it all the way from home. Look into tether systems for materials transfer between Luna and Earth.
Then go to Mars. But by the time we do, we will have actually built an infrastructure which gets humans 99% of the way to effing Saturn, reaction-mass wise, returns valuable science and technology benefits, and doesn’t scare the tree-huggers and flat-earthers so much.
Fund it in part by sucking up a one-time expense of creating a $100 billion interest-bearing trust fund which will at least help defray operations and maintenance costs for the decades-long project. Oh, and split the manned space effort off completely from the robot boys so that if they want to horn in on our funds and technology, they have to support the idea of a human presence in space.
There. That’s my idea. Unless I see the President offer something as comprehensive as that, I’m convinced it’s just bullshit election posturing.
You’re missing a launch vehicle but say we open up LEO to competition and place a NASA ion engine tug to ferry cargo between LEO and your lunar lab and we’ve almost got a plan!
One key factor in all of this is the problem that the Bush administration is trying to solve: you have to have a goal.
The problem with the space program is that it has no long-term goals. And as any engineer will tell you, if you try to design something that can do many, many things (like the shuttle) you wind up with a big, bloated, inefficient system.
Look at the ISS - built ostensibly for scientific research, some say its real purpose was to provide work for the shuttle, because there weren’t enough non-ISS missions to employ all the shuttles with enough missions to keep the per-mission cost down. Then the ISS funding was cut, and now there’s a crew on it only big enough to keep the station itself maintained and operational - not enough people to do real science.
So what’s that space station for? Can anyone tell me what the benefit of it is?
Another motivation we should avoid is to do something in space just for the sake of ‘international cooperation’. This was the justification for Apollo-Soyuz, and partially the justification for the ISS. This may have made sense in the cold war when there was real value to humanity of bringing the Russians and Americans together. But today? Having ‘international cooperation’ as a goal rather than as a tool to meet a goal is a prescription for design-by-committee, and sub-optimal designs whose purpose is simply to keep the right proportions of commitment between the various cooperating nations.
The Apollo program was spectacularly successful because it was highly focused on one objective. If someone wanted to put a robot arm on Apollo, or install some piece of equipment they were particularly fond of, the first question asked would be, “How does that device help us get to the moon and back?” If the answer is, “Well, it doesn’t, but…” then it wasn’t put on the ship. Period.
You need that kind of focus. You need some design parameters to work from. Feature creep has to be avoided at all costs - especially feature creep that has as its purpose to funnel money to some congressman’s home district. Without a fixed goal with rigid requirements, it’s impossible to avoid that stuff.
The U.S. has been flailing around for some time now, with no direction. It’s time to fish or cut bait. Either come up with a practical goal that will advance the frontier, or stop spending money on boondoggles and re-invest it in research on the ground until you’re ready to go.
Buzz Aldrin thinks the next step is to build a space station at L1, one of the Earth-moon Lagrange points. He wants that to become a ‘jumping off point’ or transition station between the earth and various celestial targets. This makes some sense - with a station at L1, you can build a transfer vehicle between there and the moon surface, and it doesn’t need heat shields, wings, or any other extra mass required to land on Earth. You could also build a transfer vehicle to go from the ISS to the Lagrange station if that made sense. Then you can use real heavy lifters, specialized for just putting up cargo and people, to do the Earth-ISS run. Scrap the shuttle, and build big dumb payload containers to ride the existing shuttle tank and solid fuel boosters. When you get the tanks to orbit, you can boost them out to L1 and park them there for future use.
It’s an intriguing idea. I don’t know if it’s the right idea, but I think it’s great that a lot of people are spending time working out a new course for the space program.
You think we went to the moon in the first place out of nothing more than a pure, noble desire to expand mankind’s frontiers? Ever heard of Sputnik?
Sam:
---- So what’s that space station for? Can anyone tell me what the benefit of it is?
It was widely suspected to be a pointless endeavor from the time of its conception.
Then the Soviet Union fell, and US strategists figured that it would provide a good way to keep Russian rocket scientists busy, as an alternative to, say, building missiles for Libya. That’s why Clinton didn’t scuttle the project.
Does anybody know when (or whether) this justification ceased to be as pressing?
Just to throw a little more of Robert Park’s views in here (since they seemed to make such a big splash last time…NOT), he points outs how the whole Biosphere project was far from a huge success. Here is some of the ongoing soap opera.
Now, I don’t know how a good experiment the Biosphere was…But, it sure doesn’t give one great cause for hope.
Hell if we can’t create a self-sustaining ecosphere. We do it just like those who foolishly pioneered into uninhabitable territory have always done–pack it in, and then figure out how to get back when we’ve gone too far.
That is, if some guy twelve years in microgravity with chronic diarhrreah and osteoporosis actually wants to return to Earth.
Obviously, we would have to fund the pharmaceutical companies for research into potential remedies. I’m sure they’d hate that, because spinoffs are a myth, we’re now told.
The beautiful thing about a reactor-powered spacecraft is that it gives the travellers oodles of shit to waste, by comparison to a chemical power source or that solar bullshit. So you take a lot of shit.
Really, shit. The waste created by the humans themselves. If you start collecting it and storing it well before you leave, and use your enormous power source to creatively use electrolysis, you can take it with you and cook the hydrocarbons back into oxygen, hydrogen, water, nitrogen, et cetera and finally reaction mass that can be diahreaaly splattered behind you or used in less scatological ways. Even the damned tourists start to pay off if you do it that way.
(I don’t know jack about that chemistry stuff because I practically failed out as a chemistry major. I’m just pitching an idea, here.)
It’s not an ecosphere. It’s a predator system, out to sustain its own survival. Maybe we’ll need to snag a comet or two while we’re at it, but once you have all that potential lined up in a lunar orbit (I like the Lagrange angle, but it doesn’t attract the back-o-the-moon-boys) you have the ability to drop down into the Venus trough and slug your way anywhere with minimal delta vee.
Need a point? The point is to get there and get back with the rights to whatever you’ve found, which should give the lawyers a shot at the game, too. Like maritime law, it’ll take 'em a couple hundred years to sort it out.
Soon, everyone is involved. It’s an esoteric part of the economy, like motorcycle racing, perhaps. One day, the portable reactor with a wireless microwave link to your weed-eater may be a necessity, rather than a commodity.
No, I’m fully aware that the space program started out of a desire to Beat The Russkies To Da Moon. I just wish we could have moved beyond that and into the Pure Noble Desire to Expand Mankind’s Frontiers – you know, sorta like the difference between watching your kid say “please” just because he really wants the toy, and saying “please” because it’s the polite thing to do.
What’s upsetting me, I suppose, is that this whole thing demonstrates that the only way to get politicians motivated for space exploration is to put a nationalistic spin on it.
Another vote for reading the comments of Dr. Bob Park, here, as jshore has also recommended. You can search the archives of his prior columns here. In one of his columns, he referred to the ISS as “flagpole sitting.” Dead on target.
Jeez, Sam, shouldn’t you at least properly attribute “your” ideas ?
Wow. I didn’t know Pournelle was advocating the same thing. Honestly. That web site is news to me. But I’m glad to see Jerry agrees with me, even if our amounts are quite a bit off (I trust his more - I was just winging it).
So, the question is: What’s wrong with this idea? Zero risk to the government, and it takes full advantage of the entrepreneurial strengths of capitalism. I have a hard time seeing a downside - if no one can do it for those amounts, nothing lost. The prize will sit there unclaimed until it expires, and it didn’t cost us a nickel.
Oh, and Squeegee: Accusing someone of plagairism without evidence is kind of a lousy thing to do. I would like an apology.
Well, some of the wording was almost exactly the same as yours; I’d wondered if you’d seen it and forgot you’d seen it. I don’t think it was completely intentional. I think Jerry’s been advocating this idea for quite some time, this was just the latest writeup I’d seen from him. Hell, maybe he stole the idea from someone as well.
In Sam’s defense, I’ve seen several variations of this idea of an X-prize in various form…even on this board. I seriously doubt he plagerized it, though I’m sure that the idea came from various sources.
I think its a great idea…that will never happen. Thats why I was advocating a combined international effort.
-XT
Well, in fairness, I should have tempered that comment then. My apologies, Sam.
Robert Zubrin of The Case for Mars argues the prize route as the way to go for martian exploration. One of Zubrin’s big supporters is Newt Gingrich.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684835509/qid=1070754180/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-1875885-3252846?v=glance&s=books
Squeegee: No prob. Actually, I’ve been advocating the ‘prizes for space’ approach for years and years. Coming from an aviation background, I’ve always been keenly aware just how successful prizes can be to spur technology. For example, the Gossamer Albatross’s flight across the channel was to win the Kremer prize, and the Supermarine Spitfire owes its existence to the Supermarine racing planes built to win the Schneider trophy.
But the best thing about the prize idea right now is that the government doesn’t have to put out a nickel. Given the budget situation, this seems like the only realistic way to get major R&D in space science done right now.
Hey, Sam Stone, since you’re here . . . allow me to ask whatever happened to your Nuclear Mars Rocket
Yeah. Sucks, doesn’t it? That mutated in the Prometheus program, I believe, which IS being funded today.