Okay, we’ve heard Bush’s plan, and everyone has their take on if it will work or not, so if you were going to create your own initiative, what would it be? You’ve got a budget of $20 billion a year (though, you’ll be allowed some “fudge” with that [you can get other Federal agencies to help pick up the tap, provided that it’s being paid for by an agency which can actually use some variation of the item in question]), and you’re limited to either current technology or technology that can be reasonably be assumed to be developed in the near future (this means no warp drives).
Here’s mine:
First, a “No Dumping” policy. Right now, when the space shuttle dumps it’s external tank (or will whenever they get them flying again), they’re allowed to fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. This is a waste of materials. The shuttle can, quite easily, place the tank in orbit, where it can be retrieved for later use. While it’s unlikely that the tank could ever be used again as a tank, each tank contains a wealth of materials that could be cannibalized for use in space. It is possible (I haven’t researched this, so I don’t know) that this could be done with other components from unmanned launches as well. If so, all items would be either placed into orbit around the Earth or (and more preferable, I might add) be sent on a collision course with the Moon. (So that they can be cannibalized by future residents of the Moon.) Cost: Zero.
Second, rename the ISS the Challenger International Space Research Station. This honors the astronauts who died aboard the Challenger shuttle, it also informs the rubes out there exactly what the heck the purpose of the space station is. Cost: Zero.
Third, develop a “Big Dumb Booster” (BDB) rocket, which has the lift capabilities of a Saturn V (or better) and can be used to put items in Earth orbit. Cost: $1 billion to develop, $475 million per year to launch nearly 400 rockets.
Fourth, design and build, four space elevators. Two of these would be on marine based platforms. Whilst they are intended for use by civilians, they’d be controlled by the US military, so that in times of war, they’d be readily available if needed by the military. The other two would be land based. One in the Western Hemisphere, and one in the Eastern Hemisphere. The US would work out a Panama Canal style arrangement with whatever equatorial nation that agreed to allow the US to build the elevators there. Additionally, the land based units would have larger solar arrays attached to them. These would generate more electricity than that needed to operate the space elevator, and the excess electricity would be sold (at a discount) to the nations that agreed to allow the elevator to be built within their borders. Not only does the world benefit by having a cheap method of getting into space, but since equatorial nations tend to be rather poor, the host nations will benefit from the cheap electricity, increased tourism, plus become major trading centers. Cost: $30 billion to develop and build over a fifteen year period, for an annual cost of $2 billion a year. (I’m not going to estimate the amount of money NASA could make from the sale of electricity or from lifting cargo into space. That could be used to pay for other ventures NASA’s interested in.)
Fifth, the development of an inexpensive Modular Housing Unit (MHU) that can be used in space, on the Moon, on Earth, and on Mars. This is not as crazy, or as expensive, as it first sounds. NASA has already done R&D on what it calls the Transhab module. To my eye, this looks suspiciously similar to Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House which would have cost about $1/per square ft, in the late 1940s and would probably be slightly more expensive today. However, the cost of the units could be driven down significantly by requiring the military, HUD, and FEMA to purchase the units for use on Earth. Admittedly, the units might not meet all current zoning laws (this doesn’t mean that they’d be unsafe), but these could be changed by simply blackmailing the various municipalities by withholding Federal funds. (Not a new practice, the Feds did it to get the speed limit dropped to 55 MPH and the drinking age raised.) The development costs for this can be split up amongst NASA, HUD, and the DoD. Cost: $1 billion (NASA’s portion) to develop, $1 million per unit (again, NASA’s cost, the Earth bound units would go for $40K a pop).
Sixth, the construction of the Columbia Space Manufacturing Facility. This is named to honor the astronauts who died aboard the Columbia and would concentrate solely on manufacturing things in space. It would be composed of the modular housing units described above. Of course, many people will ask why not simply add on to the CISRS? The answer is that the CSMF will always be growing, and that to add it to the CISRS would cause an engineering nightmare, since the CSMF will have more ships docking with it (these will be various types of cargo vessels, taking items from the CSMF to Earth or the Moon, and bringing supplies to the CSMF from the Earth, Moon, and elsewhere in the solar system). Cost: $1 billion/yr. Note that this is simply NASA’s cost to build and operate it’s portion of the station. As the superiority of items manufactured in space became apparent, corporations would seek to buy NASA’s portion or add facilities to the station.
Seventh, the development of an Orbital Space Plane (OSP). This would be the shuttle replacement (and launched on the BDB mentioned earlier), but would have limited cargo carrying capacity in the form used by NASA. The development costs could be underwritten by the military as well since they’re interested in developing an aircraft that can be deployed in the manner of an ICBM (i.e. kept at a few central locations in the US but can reach anywhere in the world in a relatively short period of time). This could be based on the Dynasoar design to save money and with the military procurement of the units as well, costs could be as low as $500 million a unit. (NASA’s unit would need to be able to operate in the atmosphere of Mars as well, so that might drive their costs up.) Cost: $10 billion to develop (NASA’s portion) over a 5 year period of time, for an annual cost of $2 billion a year. (Five years may sound short, but by basing it on the Dynasoar, NASA’ll save a lot of R&D time and money.) Once the OSP is developed, NASA’ll continue to spend $2 billion/yr purchasing and operating them.
Eighth, the construction of the Chaffee Lunar Mining Facility ( or CLMF named in honor of the Apollo 1 astronaut) . This will be built using the MHU and will focus on mining Helium 3 (for use in fusion reactors [to be called CFRs {Controlled Fusion Reactors} in NASA press releases to avoid panic amongst the rubes who think anything with “nuclear” or “reactor” is bad].) It’ll also mine anything else valuable on the Moon. Cost: $1 billion (operating costs will be paid for by the sale of H3, and the development of H3 reactors will be paid for by the Department of Energy). Construction not slated to begin until after the development of the BDB is completed.
Ninth, construction of the White Lunar Observatory (named in honor of the Apollo 1 astronaut). This would be located on the far side of the Moon, where it would be shielded from radio noise from the Earth. This could be an entirely unmanned facility, or operated by a skeleton crew. Cost: $1 billion. (I’ve no idea of how much a decent radio telescope costs to build, but even with locating one on the far side of the Moon, $1 billion ought to buy you one heck of a nice 'scope!) Again, construction of this wouldn’t begin until after the completion of the BDB.
Tenth, construction of the Grissom Colony (again, named in honor of the Apollo 1 astronaut). This is where folks who want to live on the Moon will go. It can be attached to the CLMF, and the miners, along with anyone else, will stay there. Cost: $1 billion to start. It will be constructed using the MHU to help control costs, and residents will either have to pay rent, or purchase the module that they live in.
Eleventh, two Orion-type ship for Mars exploration and colonization missions. The US would unilaterally dispose of it’s nuclear weapons and reallocate them for use by space craft for travel to Mars. (Hey, not only do we get to go to Mars, but we also get to reduce the threat of nuclear war, if that ain’t a win-win type situation, I don’t know what is!) The craft would be built using the MHUs, and use OSPs for the initial landings on Mars, until a space elevator could be built. This project wouldn’t begin construction until after the completion of space elevators on Earth (that way no one has to worry about what happens to the nukes if the BDB goes crazy during launch. Cost: $5 billion. This isn’t as insanely low as it sounds. The nukes would be free (since the military paid for them a long time ago), the ships themselves would be made up of a central spar, with the MHUs attached to it, along with an OSP. The central spar’s cost is difficult to estimate, since it’s little more than a long tube, some shock absorbers, and a giant plate. However, since the cost of a supertanker (which would be roughly the same size and weight of the spar) ranges from $58 million to $85 million, a $100 million price tag (each) for the spars doesn’tseem unreasonable to me. The first ship would be a bit of a Mayflower, in that it would arrive at Mars, and be dismantled by the crew for use on the surface of Mars. The second ship would provide a way home for anyone wishing to return to Earth, as well as carrying more colonists and supplies. It would remain in active service until replaced by something else.
Twelfth, the creation a lunar cycler. This would be in perpetual orbit between the Earth and the Moon and provide economical transportation from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit. Cost: $200 million dollars. I’m basing this price, again, on the supertanker costs, and assuming that we’ll want two of them.
Thirteenth, construction of Lunar Orbit Vehicles (LOV). These would simply be reusable spacecraft which go from the surface of the Moon, to Lunar orbit (where they’d link up with the cyclers) and back to the Moon’s surface. They’d be mostly cargo carriers, but they’d also carry humans as well. Cost: $1 billion for ten. Again, I’m basing the price on these on the cost of a supertanker, and I don’t think that it’s an absurdly low figure for them. Since they’d never go farther than lunar orbit, they wouldn’t need to be as nearly as sophisticated as the space shuttle or the OSP. They’d be little more than giant, reusable versions of the Apollo lunar landers.
Fourteenth, a Mars elevator. This would enable people and cargo to get from Mars to space and back again cheaper than a rocket. Cost: $7 billion. I realize that’s the same price that an Earth-based space elevator costs, and it’s possible that a Martian elevator would be cheaper (since it wouldn’t need to be as high as Earthly one). However, if the unit is going to be solar powered (or provide solar power for Martian colonists), then the solar arrays will need to be larger than those on an Earthly unit, which will eat up any cost savings of having a shorter elevator. Also, you’ll notice that I’m only allocating funds for one Martian space elevator. This is because I doubt if the demand for the elevator’s capacity will be great enough (at least in the beginning) to warrant construction of another one. I also figure that the design will be robust enough that there’ll be no need for a redundant elevator.
Fifthteenth, a fleet of Mars cyclers. These would haul cargo, colonists, and tourists from Earth orbit to Mars orbit, where they’d take the nearest space elevator to go down to the planet. Cost: $400 million for a fleet of four. These would have to be only slightly more complicated than the lunar cyclers, and by basing them on the same frame as the lunar cyclers, NASA could reap cost savings that should enable these to come out as cheaply as the lunar cyclers.
Grand total for a (roughly) 20 year initiative: $128.1 billion total, for an average cost of $6.405 billion a year. Granted, I’ve not taken into account all the operating expenses, but I don’t think that’s really necessary. First of all, you’ve got several items (such as the space elevators and the LOVs) which will have a high development cost, but once they’re developed, will either generate revenue for NASA, or will operate at a cost lower than what it took to develop them.
Now, to put this into comparison, for folks who think that we’d better off ditching space altogether and concentrating on improving things on the Earth, the World Bank estimates that it?d take $55 billion to rebuild Iraq. Granted, Iraq has just been through a devastating war, but when you consider that out of the nearly 200 recognized nations on Earth, only about 20 or so, are what could be termed “fully developed.” This means that roughly 180 nations would need aid to raise themselves up to parity with the developed world. If we assume that the cost of reconstructing Iraq is an average cost per nation for this effort, then the price tag is $9.9 trillion, for an average cost of $495 billion a year for twenty years. Ignoring (for the moment) the question of where the heck is all this money going to come from, the larger question is: How would we do this? A number of nations out there are ran by corrupt regimes, so dumping billions of dollars into those countries is only going to enrich the tyrants and not improve life for the general population. Clearly, those regimes will have to be deposed (most likely by force), this will take an incredible toll on human life and on the environment. Of course, one has to pay for this effort, and given the reluctance of the American taxpayer (I’ve no idea how non-US taxpayers feel, but I can imagine that their attitude would be much the same as their ‘Merkin counterparts) to support foreign aid efforts, telling them that they’ve got to cough up a huge chunk o’ change every year, just so that someone in some country they?ve never heard of can enjoy the same things that they do, isn?t going to sit too well with them, I’d imagine.
So, anyone else have any ideas?
