One of the burning questions that many folks have had since Trump's landslide win, depending as it apparently did on Elon Musk's part in the campaign, is what NASA and the major programs will look like in the Trump administration. All of it is speculation at this point; because the critical decision points in NASA and the rest of the government are all unfilled. Eric Berger at Ars Technica had an interesting take on it last Friday with an article focusing on a couple of things Musk said that are critical of NASA's approach.
During the last 10 days, Musk has begun airing some of these private thoughts publicly. On Christmas Day, for example, Musk wrote on X, "The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed."
Then, on Thursday evening, he added this: "No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction."
If you look at that second Tweet, he added the rather realistic, "Mass to orbit is the key metric, thereafter mass to Mars surface. The former needs to be in the megaton to orbit per year range to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars." Repeat that part about a "megaton to orbit per year" to yourself for a while.
If it's not obvious from everything I've written about Artemis and the SLS, I'm completely behind Musk's observation that it's "a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program" and it's hard to think of it as being successful in any way other than creating jobs for a select few contractors. Still, it's not likely to be cancelled. I don't know how President Trump feels about that now, but Artemis was started in his first term as president. "I call on NASA to adopt new policies and embrace a new mindset," then-Vice President Mike Pence said in May 2019. "If our current contractors can't meet this objective, then we'll find ones that will."
NASA pretty much ignored that call from VP Pence and the administration, instead keeping its core group of major contractors, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, in place, and transferring billions of taxpayer dollars to them.
But this time, the push for change is likely to be more concerted, especially with key elements of NASA's architecture, including the Space Launch System rocket, being bypassed by privately developed rockets such as SpaceX's Starship vehicle and Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
It's hard to say there's a buzz about this in the open and I hear next to nothing about NASA Administrator nominee, Jared Isaacman who will be a key in deciding this. He hasn't publicly addressed Musk's comments but when he was nominated made a statement that sounds like he'd agree with Musk to some degree.
I was born after the Moon landings; my children were born after the final space shuttle launch. With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place. We will inspire children, yours and mine, to look up and dream of what is possible. Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth.
I can think of this decision being related to the Artemis accords; you've probably heard that Nelson and other NASA "higher ups" have been gathering other nations around the world in signing onto the Artemis accords. That appears to be trying to build a consensus to not let China claim the moon, and that's now tied to Artemis.
NASA has pretty much outlined a "moon first, then Mars" plan. Artemis gets us back to the moon by the end of this decade and then we work toward Mars. Berger thinks what this is going to lead to is both.
In short, NASA is likely to adopt a two-lane strategy of reaching for both the Moon and Mars. Whether the space agency is successful with either one will be a major question asked of the new administration.
SpaceX first released this artist's conception of a settlement on Mars some years ago. It shows a domed city surrounded by photovoltaic farms and four Starships. Image credit: SpaceX
Sadly it matters not what the President and the Head of the Space Council (being the Vice President) want and do. Congress is the one that controls the bids and the money and the graft and corruption, and non-elected NASA administrators are right in there in subverting and downright ignoring any will of the people and of the elected president.
ReplyDeleteKill SLS? Kill the horrid lawfare conducted by Blue Origin that's slowed the whole HLS system down? Kill the transfers of government officials to contractors and vice versa? Kill the corruption? Kill the entrenched bureaucratic juggernaut that stops any real development?
That's what Trump et al need to do. They need to first kill the Leviathan, then they can happily build whatever the nation really needs.
What do we need? We need to be able to land on the Moon. We need to be able to land on Mars. We need to be able to land on Mars' moons. Do that, and we can land on every other hard-surface planet or planetoid or moon or asteroid minus Venus and Mercury that exist in and around our star system.
Yes, HLS for the Moon. A real HLS, one that can carry some serious weight and volume, not that crappy overly expensive POS that Blue Origins sued to get accepted.
Once we have HLS for the Moon, we can adapt that to smaller planetary bodies like Mars' moons or large asteroids.
A Mars landable Starship will be perfect for Mars, duh, but probably also potentially usable on larger asteroids.
Or HLS to get us to the Moon, use it as the testbed for habitability and living designs, and then see if Mars Lander can be used for everything from Mars to the asteroids and all the moons including the Moon.
But Goal 1 is to break the current system. Break it so hard that it would take a generation to 'recover.' Break it so that quick advancements and quick decisions can be made.
I mean, functioning aspects of NASA like JPL, sure, keep, but upgrade. But the jobs-program aspect of NASA is where most of the money for NASA goes. How much better would NASA be if all of that money was going to actually do something rather than generating 5 year studies on 10 year studies on why we can't do diddly-squat, all full of really nice graphics that will never go anywhere.
Results. That is what is required - period. I don't think that SpaceX can do it all by itself, but I think that they've got the best track record since Apollo.
ReplyDeleteKind of looks to me, over time from a number of actions, because it is the act that counts, there is an agenda buried inside SpaceX which is set up in such a way its truly a guiding force, thiugh not a lot beyond their public PR puff, its execution runs around any road blocks get in the way. They are like the pig: committed. Of special note is that critical timeline of setting up a self sustaining Mars base.
ReplyDeleteCant help but wonder what it is, they seem to never mention.
Maybe its reading too much into things, but the whole thing is a gargantuan effort, and even with all the cost savings created, what are the real money numbers behind it all? And who or what is it behind that.
Elon has stated over and over that he wants an active and productive Mars colony before he dies. A colony, not an outpost. Growing their own food, producing their own fuel for launching Starships. Contributing with minerals and such for Earth manufacture, and manufacturing things we don't want manufactured here.
DeleteHe's very specific. Wouldn't be surprised if he wants to die on Mars.
And that's what makes him really unique amongst all the other billionaires in this world. He's willing to spend his cash and use his companies in order to fulfill his dream. Unselfishly selfish, or selfishly unselfish, or something.
Crazy. He's sold all his houses, his cars, watched his marriages and relationships fall apart, all because he's got this "Mars or Bust" vision, with a big arsed side order that "Capitalism is the Best Way." As in, he really doesn't want to let the ChiComs or the Globalist NeoFeudalists take over space, because it's really the High Ground.
"He's very specific. Wouldn't be surprised if he wants to die on Mars." I think it was a short video clip I saw where Elon says he wants to die on Mars, just not while landing.
Deleteseems a decent off the cuff analysis, i find it in this day and age he is the singular driving force, there are too much hurdles of every kind. nobody is free like that to do what they want, the special interests control just about all things, the question comes down to who else is involved here, like for instance, how was it possible to organize such an alternative space operation? i mean the aerospace industry, (worked within it on rocket engines for 14 years at the largest sub contract for tube assemblies in the world, was sent to Pratt Florida at Cape Kennedy for shuttle and RL-10 as the companies weld tech rep, worked on a 6 month project to "bootleg" the RL-10 to increase its efficiency, fabricating and metal joining test parts), and experienced the institutional lets say, feet of clay, i just find it extraodinary how one single guy made an end run aroundv
DeleteMusk can do what he does because he has 'Copulate Thyself' money. And his belief is 'make it then submit it' rather than the traditional government method of a 5 year study for a 10 year study for a part to be built 10 years after that.
DeleteOnce you have the cash, you can push through and get it done with minimal organizational meetings.
It's what's killed Boeing. Meetings to talk about meetings to determine the agenda for meetings. When will actual work happen? Don't know, we need to have a meeting to determine what to talk about in a meeting.
What is amazing to me is that after Musk and SpaceX proved that you can do aerospace rapidly and safely, that the big aerospace companies haven't said, "Curious, I wonder if we could do that" and do it.
Lockheed used to be able to do this with their Skunkworks. Boeing used to be able to do this with their Phantomworks. But somewhere after 1970 the bureaucracy got entrenched and nothing has happened since.
What's really horrid about Boeing is that they have a functioning and effective reusable space vehicle that has shown the ability to do everything the Starliner can't or won't. That would be the X-37B.
I wish someone would ask Elon what he expects a Mars colonist to do. Where's the business plan?
ReplyDeleteElon and Jared seem to be great guys, but they spend too much time on showmanship.
He's said that the colonists will do what colonists do. Build, farm, mine, explorer. Build habitats, build farms, build mines, build manufacturing, build a colony. Same thing that the Colonies here, both French and English, were designed to do.
DeleteMost colonies are not a financial success right away. They suck money. And about the time they start returning the money, they start wanting a piece of the action, if not outright independence once they've actually become mostly self-sufficient.
Elon's said this before. He wants independent or stand-alone colonies as a backup just in case something happens to this planet. Which is possible.
And, of course, if you have big, huge, powerful spaceships flying around everywhere, you can actually do something about potential colliding objects that are a potential threat to this planet.
It was stupid for England to throw money at Colonial America. Same with France and Canada. But...
It's not the same at all. English colonists could survive on their own or go home, and they were immediately shipping valuable products back home and everyone made piles of money.
DeleteMars colonists are none of those things.
every young boy (yes! 99.999% were young males) born just pre-war (and immediately post-war - that's WWII) had this Latin phrase engraved upon his heart:
ReplyDelete"Ad astra per aspera"; even those who had to wear thick-lensed glasses.
As long as we are dependent on chemical rockets where only about 10% of the rocket is cargo we will never be able to effectively colonize the solar system. We MUST learn to control and manipulate gravity, specifically to nullify Earth's gravity to allow us to put large masses and volumes into orbit and beyond. That's assuming such a thing is even possible. It may not be. Gravity is by far the biggest obstacle we face in space exploration/exploitation.
ReplyDelete