perfidy

The cover story of the recent issue of the Economist completely agrees with my scheme for reworking NASA - that it should focus on exploration and research, and that private industry should take over Earth to orbit transportation. Money quote:

"Indeed, if private enterprise can create astronauts with only millions of dollars, what might it achieve with a fraction of NASA's wasted billions? The Space Station is a mere 240 miles above the Earth. That is about four times further than any of today's private suborbital craft are trying to reach. But, if NASA were a customer, and not a competitor, in the business of building spacecraft, companies might have the incentive to extend their craft all the way into orbit.

...Meanwhile, the existence of the shuttle doubtless inhibits the development of a private space industry and the new private companies face regulatory restrictions that do not apply to the shuttle. Remove some of those barriers, scuttle the shuttle, and a private industry may bloom... And NASA could explore the real frontier."

You heard it here first. In related news, Slashdot has a roundup of links discussing the business case for reusable launch vehicles. There are a lot of interesting tidbits there, but I have been thinking that there may be some value in going back, at least for a little while, to usable rocket launchers.

While rockets are expensive, the shuttle is ridiculous. It is reusable in only the most restricted sense. If we really needed to get stuff into space, disposable launchers - maunfactured in quantity - could be substantially cheaper than operating the shuttle. The shuttle requires immense sums of money to launch, and more to be reconditioned for the next flight. Depending on disposables would eliminate at least one whole category of shuttle expenses.

The two current disposables in our inventory - the Atlas and the Delta, were both at one time man-rated. They could be again. And if we were making lots of them, they would cost less. We could put a two man glider like the Dyna-Soar (yes, aerospace engineers can have a sense of humor) we designed in the sixties on top of it. I'd be curious to know what their ground crew needs are. And we can always use the disposable shuttle pieces as a cargo lifter, as I have mentioned before.

With a little money and design work, the demise of the shuttle would not put us out of the space game, and could in fact increase our capabilities. Disposable launchers do not have the long turn around times of the shuttle - just order a new one and launch it. Cheap two man orbiters would not be the technological nightmare that the shuttle is, and not a single point of failure. The shuttle-based cargo lifter would have more cargo capacity than anything since the Saturn.

AND NONE OF IT REQUIRES A SINGLE DAMNED NEW PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY. All it takes is a little money, and a couple free weekends for the engineers at Boeing and Lockheed.

Actually, the likelihood of an impact is only one in 909,000. More information can be found here and here.

Go here for a really cool java animation of the the object's, and earth's, orbit.

This article about John Carmack (developer of Doom and Castle Wolfenstein) and his efforts to get into space hits at one of the key problems we've had in space development over the last forty years:

Testing is key for Carmack, who doesn't want to work for months only to find out a rocket doesn't work. He believes the more testing done, the faster the crew can work out any kinks.

"Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth," he says. "If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we'd never get anything done. But that's the mode of aerospace."

Only one space program since the end of Apollo has used a rapid development process, and that was the DCX. Typical NASA programs involve millions of dollars and years of testing before there is even an attempt to cut tin and actually construct a prototype. Aerospace engineering is not so cut and dried that we can make a perfect design on the computer, build it, and expect that it will fly.

Cost overruns, failed expectations and cancelled programs are the result of this design centric philosophy. The key to success is to build early, test early. Lessons are learned quicker, and applied easier through a regime of rapid prototyping and testing. Just like in software development. In a matter of months, the DCX team went from a standing start to a 1/3 scale flying prototype. And spent a fraction of the money that was ultimately spent on the X-33 which replaced it, and which never once flew.

The growing provate space industry is largely funded, if not actually run by successful software magnates. They seem to be applying the lessons they learned in developing other technologies to the problems of space. They are expending effort where it does the most good - gaining experience in building spacecraft. Even if the first, second, third attempts fail, at the end they will have a wealth of experience that NASA has lost in the days since Apollo. NASA has not designed a new working vehicle in almost thirty years. They have forgotten how it was done in the golden age, for what was the sequence of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo but a series of prototypes and testbeds to gain the practical engineering skills to reach the moon? Test early, test often.

What would have happened if NASA had spent the period between the launch of Yuri Gagarin and Apollo 8 designing, redesigning - on paper - the perfect launch vehicle? A giant explosion, most likely. And that is why I am certain that of the twenty teams now competing for the X-Prize, at least several will have successful flights by the end of next year.

The Columbia report is justly critical of NASA. Here are some interesting quotes from the report.

"The measure of NASA's success became how much costs were reduced and how efficiently the schedule was met. But the space shuttle is not now, nor has it ever been, an operational vehicle. We cannot explore space on a fixed-cost basis."

NASA's most remarkable achievement is not the moon mission, or the construction of the space station. It is the transformation of something as remarkable and romantic as exploration in space into something as boring as a discovery channel documentary on public transportation. The shuttle was never a space truck. It was not that mature a technology. In aviation terms, it was more like the Wright Flyer. Only when we have actually built, tested and flown regularly many types of advanced reusable launch vehicles will we be in a position to operate in space as we do in the air. The shuttle never was and still isn't more than an awkwardly designed experimental vehicle.

"The organizational causes of this accident are rooted in the space shuttle program's history and culture, including the original compromises that were required to gain approval for the shuttle, subsequent years of resource constraints, fluctuating priorities, schedule pressures, mischaracterization of the shuttle as operational rather than developmental, and lack of agreed national vision for human space flight."

I talked a lot about mission and goals in my last shuttle post. But we should know better than to expect operational efficiency from a government program. (Not that it's impossible... just rare.)

"Perhaps most striking is the fact that management . . . displayed no interest in understanding a problem and its implications.

Sheesh.

"It is tempting to conclude that replacing them will solve NASA's problems... However, solving NASA's problems are not quite so easily achieved. People's actions are influenced by the organizations in which they work, shaping their choices in directions that even they may not realize."

Which is why we should kill NASA. The scapegoat is not the managers, but the system. It's like the old joke about the Federal Reserve - if Jesus and the Twelve Apostles were appointed to the Board of the Fed - and not allowed to change the rules - it would still be an abomination.

"We believe another vehicle, whether to complement or replace the shuttle, is very, very high priority. We criticize the U.S. for finding ourselves in the position we are in now where we don't even have a design on the drawing board."

Thanks to indecisive lawmakers and unpredictable funding. And NASA leaders who don't seem to appreciate the need for something to replace the shuttle - which has never been as cheap to fly as promised, let alone as cheap as they claim it is now. Too much ego is invested in the shuttle, "the most sophisticated and complex artifact ever designed by man." Would you fly an airliner that had been described that way?

On these longer term recommendations, the report sounds a sobering note: "Based on NASA's history of ignoring external recommendations, or making improvements that atrophy with time, the Board has no confidence that the Space Shuttle can be safely operated for more than a few years based solely on renewed post-accident vigilance."

And even if the board's recommendations are adopted, we will likely have another catastrophic failure if we continue to use the shuttle for another ten years. Accidents will be more, not less likely as the shuttles age.

Despite the condemnation of the institutional culture at NASA, the commission nevertheless said that the shuttle could be kept in operation for ten or more years. While I wouldn't rule out the possibility altogether, this seems a bit on the optimistic side.

The commission recommended a series of changes necessary for the shuttle to resume flights in the near term. Many of these changes involve serious changes in how the agency operates. NASA will, as the commission predicts, resist these changes. It is in the nature of bureaucracy to resist changes.

I think we need to kill NASA. We do not need a space agency. We need a space program. Once these two things were the same - during the Apollo days, but not now. A space program, to my mind, is a plan that results in achievements in space. We do not have anything remotely resembling that now.

Look at the spread of activities that NASA is engaged in now. There is much research conducted at the various NASA research centers. We have the shuttle. We have the ISS. We have a number of deep space probes. But does this add up to anything? Not that I can see.

It has been more than thirty years since the last time we walked on the moon. We have a space station that is much less useful for basic research than originally promised. At the moment, we have no capability to put a man in orbit. Our two new disposable launch vehicles are lineal descendants of ICBMs designed in the fifties. Every program that might have led to a new manned launch vehicle has been cancelled. There has been talk of Mars missions, but no timetable has been established, no vehicles built. We are not doing anything in space. Unless research on how bean sprouts grow in zero-g counts as something.

So we need a space program. But we don't need a rebirth of the Cold War space program. We need a program that establishes goals, and incentives for achieving them, and then gets the hell out of the way.

The first step, and a statement of seriousness, should be the destruction of NASA. NASA, for all its past glory, is the single greatest obstacle to real space development. The NIMBY syndrome is alive and well at NASA, and NASA has actively opposed private space development on several occasions.

But we shouldn't just fire everyone. The NASA research centers should be renamed National Laboratories, like Livermore or Brookhaven. They should continue at their current funding. Hell, give 'em more money. But they should be out of the reach of NASA administrators. NASA programs currently run by the centers would become their sole responsibility.

The space launch functions of NASA would be dissolved. The shuttles would be sold outright to private industry. Licenses for manufacture of shuttle components would be offered as well, so that cargo versions of the STS could be built and launched. Anytime that any civilian government agency wished to launch a satellite, they would be required to use a private launch company. The ISS would be privatised as much as possible given the constraints of obligations to the other nations involved in the project.

The deep space exploration functions of NASA should be formed into a new, scaled down agency. Its mandate would be exploration of space beyond the Moon's orbit. It would have two goals: 1) put a team of American astronauts on Mars, and 2) to send long duration orbiters and landers to every body in the solar system. (This agency would also operate currently existing observatory satellites like COBE and Hubble, and could launch more if it so desired.) Written into the charter of this agency should be a requirement that all Earth to orbit transport be contracted to private launch companies.

For the second goal, the new agency should be granted sufficient funding to design, build, launch and operate deep space probes, and to operate a network of ground stations and mission control centers to run the missions. This funding should stay constant, and separate from funding for the manned programs, so that these missions would not be affected by fluctuations in spending for Mars or other missions.

For the Mars mission, the mini-NASA would be allowed to retain an astronaut corps and training facilities. A plan would be developed for developing the capabilities necessary for long term space missions. For each requirement, NASA should publish general specifications, and accept bids from private industry. NASA should not be doing all the research. Any solution that meets the specifications should be acceptable, regardless of whether it was designed by NASA. The manned spaceflight division have only one goal - Mars. They should not be concerned with how they get themselves or their equipment into orbit.

Once NASA is off the scene, the way would be open for private development of space transportation technologies. There are several things that the government could do to speed the process, and help the private sector develop new space vehicles.

First and most important would be to change the laws to reduce or eliminate the current obstacles to space development. New laws could require the FAA to streamline the certification process for space vehicles, and so on. Lack of bureaucratic obstructionism and a clear commitment to space development would encourage both designers and investors.

The second would be to offer to the first company that successfully tests a working Single Stage to Orbit launch vehicle that fulfills a basic set of requirements (cargo capacity, passengers, reliability, etc.) a contract to buy ten vehicles. (The military could find some use for them, I'm sure.) Once there is a guaranteed market for space vehicles, conventional finance is far more likely to support investment in space technology. In the early days of aviation, airmail contracts had a similar positive effect on airplane development.

And third, aerospace research conducted at the former NASA research centers should be made available to the public, so that they can use it to develop innovative new launch platforms. NASA's predecessor, NACA, did something similar back in the 30s. Aviation companies could go to investors and point at NACA research and say, "See, it's possible!" This smoothed the way to planes like the DC3 and the era of large scale air transport.

If our new space agency were freed from the requirement to operate its own launch system, more resources would be available for the real goal. NASA does not need to run the shipping companies that deliver materials, or the car manufacturers that allow its employees to drive to work. These functions can be better left to private industry.

If we have many solutions, our space transportation system will be far more robust - if there is a problem with Mack trucks, the entire shipping industry does not grind to a sudden halt. If private space companies are assured of a market, they will build launchers - and likely they will become more specialized, and more efficient than the one size fits all (poorly) space shuttle. Cost per pound to orbit will drop which will allow the space agency to get more Mars mission for its taxpayer dollar.

We don't need a soviet style, top down, every problem has the same solution space program. Let us take advantage of the inventiveness of our free market system. Let a hundred systems bloom.

Independent investigators have released their report assessing the causes of the crash of the shuttle Columbia earlier this year. First among the findings is that NASA's own culture led to laziness, non-redundancy, bloat, and system breakdowns which ultimately resulted in the conditions that killed seven astronauts.

The Boston Globe coverage is pretty good; I suggest you read it.

Finally, I would like to point out a key phrase that I hope becomes very, very important within NASA in the next few months: "Given the current design of the orbiter, there was no possibility for the crew to survive." Now, what's the best way to fix THAT problem, one wonders?
 

According to spacedaily.com, the Chinese could become the third nation with a manned space program as early as October 10th of this year. The Shenzhou-5 could carry two, but more likely one Chinkonaut into orbit. The mission could be as long as a week, which would be far longer than the first orbital missions of the USSR and America, each of which lasted only hours.

Maybe, maybe, this will light a fire under someone's ass. 
 

The coming close approach with Mars (closest in 50,000 years) has focused attention on Mars exploration. There are two American space probes, spirit and opportunity, en route; as well as a British Beagle-2 probe carried by the ESA's Mars Express and the troubled Japanese Nozumi orbiter. While the NASA probes were launched early this summer with little hassle, the American Space Agency is in deep trouble. The Columbia disaster has grounded the space shuttle fleet, and there seems little doubt that the Columbia Accident Investigation Board will say that the shuttle cannot be flown for much longer. Optimistic NASA estimates that the Shuttle could be flown into the 2030's now seem fantastical.

While more scientific missions to Mars will bring a welcome increase in our scientific knowledge, they do not in any way advance our presence in space. Launched on disposable vehicles whose design histories reach back before the dawn of the space age, the American Mars probes are holdovers from the past. The future of space exploration, if there is to be one, lies with two developments. Truly reusable launch vehicles and heavy lift launchers. I have talked about reusable launch vehicles before here, and they would be crucial in any effort to develop a permanent foothold in Earth orbit, or on the moon. They would be the SUVs of space; reliable, capable of hauling people and small amounts of cargo, and basically travelling back and forth between the Earth and orbital facilities. They would allow us to get people into and back from space cheaply and safely. As such, they should be at the very top of NASA's list for things to do. (That they are not, is criminal.)

[Update] The Russians are designing a nuclear power station for Mars. They apparently have all the design work completed, but trouble looms on the horizon:

"The only stumbling block is how to deliver ready-made building blocks to a construction site 300 million kilometres (186.4 million miles) away from Earth."

That does present a problem, don't it? The solution to this problem is in the rest of this article:

But they are not all that we need. The primary justification for building the shuttle can be seen in the name of the vehicle itself - shuttle. The Space Shuttle was intended as a space bus to allow astronauts to go to a space station and back to earth. Of course, the first space station died before the shuttle started flying, and it took another twenty years to build the second one using the shuttle. Just as the shuttle was not the ideal vehicle for space construction (the size of the shuttle cargo bay imposed numerous constraints on the design of the ISS), a reusable launch vehicle like the DC-X would not be well suited for creating an orbital infrastructure.

To build in space, we don't need a bus, we need a big honking dump truck. Happily, we have most of the pieces already designed and tested. While it might be a good idea to stop flying the shuttle, there is no reason to dispose of the rest of the shuttle system. When you think about it a little, it becomes obvious. The solid rocket boosters, external tank and shuttle orbiter comprise the what NASA calls the Space Transportation System. The STS can put over twenty five tons of cargo into low earth orbit. All well and good. But - the whole shuttle orbiter goes up in orbit as well. Properly considered, the entire orbiter is payload. So, why not get rid of the orbiter?

The shuttle orbiter weighs about 175,000 lbs. Add in the orbiter's payload capacity of 55,000 lbs, and you get 230,000 lbs, or 115 tons. That's a lot of mass. There are two ways to go about disposing of the orbiter in order to create a heavy lift system. The simplest would be to create a dummy orbiter. In a dummy orbiter, the three main engines at the bottom, and all the pumping arrangements to get the fuel from the external tank would be identical to the systems in the orbiter. But the rest of the vehicle would be a light weight shell designed to hold and protect the payload during liftoff. The major advantage of this idea is that it would require no redesign or modification of the other parts of the system.

The dummy orbiter could be designed by a few guys from Lockheed over a long weekend, if we gave them enough pizza and mountain dew. If we wanted to be clever about it, we would design the cargo shell so that it could be immediately transformed into habitable living space - make it airtight, include conduits, airlocks and what have you. Once in orbit, you move the payload out, and then retrofit the space for whatever you need it for.

A more ambitious scheme would involve heavily modifying the external tank. Rather than having the shuttle orbiter with its three main engines, the engines would be moved to the bottom of the external tank, more like a conventional rocket. Atop the external tank would be the cargo module, just like with a ordinary disposable rocket. The real advantage of this change would be that you could easily allow for more solid rocket boosters. Each pair of boosters would increase the thrust of the STS stack by six and a half million pounds of thrust. This would allow truly large amounts of cargo to be lifted into orbit.

(And, while you're redesigning the ET, you can make it easiily convertible to hab space as well. Seeing as the ET is 150 feet long and 30 across, that's a lot of space for free, everytime you launch. Of course, we should have been doing that for the last twenty years. Aargh.)

What it boils down to is that for very little money, and very little time, we can have a heavy lift system that can launch as much into orbit as the old Saturn could. We just need to ditch the orbiter. With that kind of lift capacity, we could easily launch the material needed for a human crewed Mars mission, a lunar base, large orbital telescopes, or an expanded space station.

There are already assembly lines for the external tanks, and for the SRBs. While the shuttle engines would not be reusable in this configuration (unless they were somehow brought back to earth, for example by returning shuttles) they could be reused in space for other purposes, such as earth to moon shuttles, or even for lunar landers. The possibilities are endless, once you have the capability to rapidly move large quantities of mass into orbit

Buckethead, budget cuts are only half the picture, and the cuts could always have been vetoed by Jeb if he so desired. Furthermore, Pres. Rice in her one term, for all her talk of interstellar security, seemed more than willing to extend the already thin Fleet beyond its capabilities with police actions on every podunk world this side of the Coal Sack. If they weren't already committed in so many systems, it might have been easier NOT to get involved in rearguard actions against local enemies. I think THAT is the very nexus of the problem.

Need I remind you that since Pres. Clinton (shudder) took office, more than twenty new ships of the line have been sent toward the Coal Sack? Need I remind you that it would not now be too late, that those ships would not be all but lost, if it had not been for Bush/Rice's neo-interventionist, Imperial, very hands-on domestic policy (sending our own troops against New Scotland!! Seriously, now!!) sapping the once-mighty strength of the Murcheson Fleet.

There might be hundreds of people I would rather have in charge than our current President, but not even Washington, Jackson, or Grant could do anything more than delay the day our skies blacken with the shapes of the filthy, three-armed menace that will so soon erase us from the face of the Universe.

[moreover] "A Mote In God's Eye" might be pretty good, but Dan Simmon's "Hyperion" and its sequels beats it all to hell on all fronts.

Despite the pleas of the Bush/Rice administration, the budgets for the Murcheson fleet were reduced by the house budget committee (chaired by Clinton? Daschle lacky Rep. McAuliffe) to fund hive rat studies on Makassar. Just like them to underfund the fleet they are so willing to send on peacekeeping missions all over local space, instead of protecting us from the deadliest threat we know of.

It's bad enough being outnumbered by aliens who are stupid. But when you're massively outnumbered by aliens much smarter than you, it's a bad day.

[moreover] I mentioned this novel in my top five science fiction books list back in May. You should have read it by now! Lazy slackers.

Buckethead, the Moties never would have made it more than a thousand kilometers from their initial Murcheson Point if the boneheaded, pollyanna interstellar policy of the Bush III administration had not cut the budget of the Murcheson Fleet to the quick. What, Alderson Drives just build themselves? Clinton/Daschle, as awful as they may be, are merely trying to hold back the tide with a teaspoon. A Bush-III-mandated teaspoon.

Kiss your human butt goodbye, two-arms.

[moreover] For those of you who think we're insane, I give you this classic science fiction novel.

Some people are waking up to two things: that the Chinese are serious in their space aims, and that the private drive for space is stronger than it has ever been. Within a year, we will almost certainly see the Chinese become the third nation to send a man into space, and also a winner of the x-prize for the first civilian team to fly twice above the atmosphere in the same vehicle in a week's time. 

The Washington Times has a new report on Chinese space activities. Some time ago, the Chinese announced their plan to set up a Lunar outpost within a decade. As the article relates, the Chinese are moving steadily towards their goal. EVA Training and dependable, simple Russian space technology indicate that they are intending more than simple orbital publicity stunts. In response, India has also announced a Lunar program, and the Japanese may follow. Remarkably, the Japanese source believes that the Chinese will be on the moon within three or four years.

So far, the Chinese have successfully launched four test vehicles. The last, in November of 2002, was considered to be a full on test run that will lead directly to the first Chinese manned flight, probably before the end of the year. Once in space, very few missions could prepare a lunar mission. The United States did its moon missions all in one shot. However, a more cautious Chinese strategy might be to assemble a lunar vehicle in Earth orbit from two or three launches. A lunar shuttle could fly repeatedly between Earth and Lunar orbit, requiring only refueling. It would never need to land on Earth. A lunar shuttle could travel between the Lunar surface and orbit - again requiring only refueling. This strategy would give the Chinese a permanent capability to travel back and forth to the moon. 

A Chinese presence in space, let alone on the Moon, would drastically alter the global strategic situation. Capabilities, rather than intentions are the key factor in military planning - and a space capable Chinese nation is an enormous threat to the United States that depends on space resources for military dominance here on Earth. 

The flip side of this equation is the increasing investment in private space programs in the United States. Many computer industry billionaires are funding private space companies - including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, John Carmack of Id software (of Doom and Quake fame) and the inventor of Paypal, Elon Musk. As I have reported here, Burt Rutan has already flight tested an x-prize competitor, and hopes to take the prize on the centennial of the Wright brother's flight. Rumor is that he has deep pocketed computer industry funding as well, to the tune of over $20 million. 

If we just stand back from this burgeoning industry, and not let NASA or the FAA interfere, we will have an answer for any Chinese strategic challenge. There is no way that the Chinese government effort could compete with an unleashed American civilian effort. Once the door is kicked open - and the X-Prize will go a long way toward achieving that - it could explode; much like the computer industry did.

Burt Rutan, founder of Scaled Composites and designer of many a cool aircraft, has made the first test flight of the SpaceShipOne, their entry into the X-Prize Contest. Apparently, they are shooting for a suborbital flight by Dec 17, the centenary of the Wright Brother's first powered flight. That would be very, very cool.
 

Some of the things that NASA has resisted in the past forty years: 

Orion and NERVA 

Nucklear propulsion technologies that had successfully reached scale model tests for Orion, and static testing of a prototype for NERVA before being cancelled by NASA. The prototype NERVA (Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Applications) prototype was twice as efficient as the most advanced chemical rocket ever built, the SSME, or Space Shuttle Main Engine. With a little practice, this could have been improved. (BTW, my dad in his role as Air and Space Museum curator helped save the prototype, nicknamed kiwi.) 
Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory  

A small (mobile home-sized) space station that could have been launched in the mid sixties, and would have had a crew of two.

DynaSoar  

Short for dynamic soaring, the X-20 was the result of a different evolutionary line than the Apollo moon rockets. It evolved from the German Sanger-Bredt Silverbird intercontinental skip-glide rocket bomber from WWII, and was the first space vehicle ever actually constructed - back in the fifties. NASA cancelled it eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a manned flight in '64. This spaceplane, launched atop a Titan II or other disposable rocket, would have led to a series of more advanced follow on vehicles. 

Skylab  

The Skylab program was cancelled by the ingenious expedient of having the space station fall from orbit on 11 July 1979. Although there were several proposals that might have saved America's first space station, the freeze on non shuttle launches left NASA with no means of getting there. 

NASP  

The National Aerospace Plane, a space plane that would take off and land horizontally, was unceremoniously cancelled in the early nineties. Granted, there were doubts whether the vehicle was feasible, and some research continues. 

DCX 

I've talked about this one before, on this site, though that week doesn't seem to be in the archive. 

NASA has also consistently resisted additional alternative methods of propulsion like solar sails and tethers, any use of Shuttle External Tanks other than throwing them into the Indian Ocean, going back to the moon for any reason, and any means of going to Mars that doesn't take fifteen years and sending Pittsburgh into orbit to supply the mission.

In response to the comments on my NASA post of yesterday, here are some extended thoughts on the situation. I do not think that the formula for success in NASA lies in control of spending. NASA wastes money, and this is a concern. It is also a concern that NASA has no real means for even determining how much money it spends, and on what. But this is the least of their problems. Overspending was the third and last problem that I mentioned, and in the interest of brevity I didn't explain what I meant by that. The overspending that I had in mind is a NASA-specific kind of waste. NASA wastes billions of dollars on designing, planning, redesigning and yet more redesigning. The ISS was redesigned, what, five times in the twenty years before it was built? NASA seems to have a distinct aversion to actually building things.

But this is really only a small part of the total problem that is NASA. There is nothing really that can be done to fix it, because NASA is a government bureaucracy and therefore largely immune to change. Further, even if the Public, the President and Congress gave NASA an inspiring, all-consuming mission, and a butload of cash to achieve it; they still would have all the same problems. Lack of vision is inherent in bureaucracy. Lack of innovation and NIMBYism is par for the course. People go on and on about what a stupendous success Apollo was, usually so they can set up a stunning indictment of the current NASA. But the history of Apollo was one of political motives, awkward technical and mission compromises, and general rhetorical grandstanding. (It was also a stupendous achievement, but all of the seeds of NASA's current problems began in the sixties.)

In the early days of aviation, NACA (The National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics) was a government body that published basic and practical research on aeronautics, and on aviation. Private firms hoping to get funding from banks and venture capitalists could point to a NACA study and say, "See, the government says it can be done, it's practical." Then they'd get their cash, and build an airplane or whatever. NASA needs to do this for all the companies that would dearly love to get into space transportation, rather than jealously guarding its space monopoly with the connivance of the FAA and the DOD.

NASA could quite successfully send out robotic probes, do solar and deep space astronomy, and publish bleeding edge research on aerospace science and engineering. Especially if they weren't saddled with the economic, budgetary and political albatross of running the space shuttle program. The only way to get around the deeply ingrained institutional problems of NASA is to, well, go around them.

Put the founder of the Mars Society at the helm of NASA, and give him two weeks worth of the Social Security budget, and we'll be on Mars in a few years, tops. Very smart guy. He has developed plans for getting to Mars far cheaper than the typical NASA baseline mission profile. Not only cheaper, but smarter. 

Even better, put Charles Pellegrino in charge, give him a month's worth of the SS budget, and he and his Brookhaven Lab physicist compatriots will have us on our way to Alpha Centauri in anti-matter powered Valkyrie starships in a decade or two. If you're gonna think, think big. Screw Mars, I want the stars. 
 

While I know little about the two men mentioned (do feminists insist on being womyntioned?) in the Globe article, promoting from within is rarely a good sign at NASA. It will probably lead to more bureaucratic inertia, lack of creative solutions, and overspending. I could be wrong. On a more positive note, But Rutan and the aerodynamic geniuses at Scaled Composites have unveiled their new spaceship.

As the space.com article mentions, Rutan is going for the X-prize. This ten million dollar award goes to the first group that takes passengers into space, returns safely, and then does it again with the same vehicle inside a week. The prize is consciously modeled after the prizes offered in the early days of aviation, which played a significant role in the development of the industry. It gives me some hope that Rutan is pursueing this vision - unlike most of the pie-in-the-sky "competitors", Rutan has a proven record of not merely designing; but building, flying and selling experimental aircraft.

Rutan designed Voyager, the plane that made the first unrefueled, non-stop, round the world flight. If anyone can do it, Burt can. And if someone can get into space without metric tons of government funding, it will be a wonderful thing. (And if Rutan wins the X Prize, he can get serious venture capital.)

Many sources are reporting that Ron Dittemore is stepping down as head of NASA's Shuttle Program. It seems he was in the process of resigning when the most recent accident happened, and stayed on to deal with the aftermath. So, this isn't a drumming-out, or at least not a recent one.

Buckethead, what can you tell me about the people the Boston Globe report may take over-- "William Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight, and his deputy, Michael Kostelnik"?

Here's hoping for a new direction in NASA space vehicle thinking. Rotsa ruck.

I see nothing wrong with space exploration. It seems to be a natural consequence of human technological evolution. I get the sense from the previous posts, however, that it would be quite expensive for the government, maybe too much so, and also private investors. 

So here's a possible solution. Perhaps if the government did not go to war every couple of years while simultaneously cutting taxes, it would have more money for space exploration. What if the government did away with capitalism altogether? Then money would be no object. Of course they'd have to convince all the other countries to get rid of capitalism as well. 
 

British fishermen had been working the Grand Banks off Newfoundland since the late middle ages. British explorers discovered the coast of North America in the early sixteenth century. The first successful colonies were planted in the seventeenth century. Only in the eighteenth century did those colonies become large, prosperous and self sufficient. Is this the kind of time frame that awaits us in space? Granted, things do move faster in this day than in centuries past. But when the only government on the planet that has the capacity to pursue a bold program of space development has no desire to do so, things seem rather grim. The British government similarly held back colonization of the Americas for over a century. 

There is a growing number of small companies eager to break into the space transportation industry. They have a limited amount of financing from venture capitalists, typically geeky software billionaires. One major aerospace company, Boeing, has an independent venture that is outside the typical close relationship with NASA and the DoD. Sea Launch is a company that has already successfully launched several satellites from its mobile launch pad, using a rocket derived from Russian designs. It promises to lower launch costs by as much as half, by avoiding the waste inherent in many government run launch programs.

But these efforts are nowhere close to actually moving mankind into space. Currently, the amount of money required to develop space technology is completely beyond the reach of any private group. There is no possibility that any latter day Puritans could gather the resources to establish a New Jerusalem on the Moon, or anywhere else in the Solar System. 

Yet, there is hope. Three things may bring about a new golden age to space exploration. First is technology. The incredible advances in computer, manufacturing and materials technology over the forty years since the Space Shuttle first took shape on a draftsman's table may soon make it possible for a well funded independent company to design and build a working rocket. And not merely a rocket like those that have gone before, disposable and wasteful, but a true rocket like those envisioned in the pulp science fiction novels of the fifties - a space ship that can take off, fly into space and return in one piece. Computer aided design, advanced composite materials and automated manufacturing could conceivably bring this within reach, by sharply lowering the cost of development and construction. 

Once the first Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) space ship flies, the door will open, at least somewhat. The cost per pound to orbit flying on an SSTO would be orders of magnitude less than on a traditional disposable roman candle. The company that builds it would be able to launch from simple space fields, with ground crews more like an airline's than NASA's. They would make a lot of money launching the world's backlog of satellites, and make affordable the launching of satellites for other purposes - those that didn't couldn't justify the vast expense of a current launch. 

Also, a working SSTO is also, by default, the fastest means of point to point travel on earth. No more than forty five minutes to anywhere on the planet. FedEx could certainly find a use for something like that, and likely Virgin Airlines as well. By creating a market for one SSTO, other companies will get in the game, and one would hope that the result would be something like the modern aircraft and airline industry after a little while. 

The second hope is that some other nation will launch an ambitious program of space exploration and colonization, prodding the American Government to get off its collective fundament and begin some exploring and settling of its own. The current world situation is not altogether favorable, what with Europe's economy on permanent hold, and Russia's in a death spiral. The only other potential is China, which is due to launch its first manned mission later this year, and has promised that they will go to the moon by the end of the decade. If the Chinese can pull this off, sheer embarrassment may force the U.S. into action. 

The third hope, and the most unlikely, is that strong leadership from the highest levels of government would create a drive to either go to Mars, or to privatize the space program. The first is extremely unlikely, but the second could happen if it turns out that the space shuttle is not safe to fly again. A decree that promises a large government purchase order to the company that first demonstrates a working SSTO would light a very large and hot fire under the aerospace industry, and thousands of dreamers on shoestring budgets as well. Remember that much of the development of the early aviation industry was motivated by government mail contracts and prize awards. Charles Lindbergh, the dark horse competitor for the Ortieg Prize, won $25,000 for crossing the Atlantic solo, non stop in 1927. But he beat several other competitors who were much better funded. 

People came to the America seeking gold and quick fortunes. In the process of not finding it, they created something as unlikely and wonderful as the United States. If, tomorrow, through some improbable convergence of events we find ourselves in possession of a working SSTO that can deliver cargo to orbit for a thousandth the cost of current launch vehicles; then the whole cornucopia of wonders promised by the space geeks might come true. But the invention of the caravel at the same time that Europe became politically capable of world wide exploration was unlikely, too. If we do go into space, the results will likely be stranger than we can imagine now.