From: pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering")
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: New Moon race (was Re: NASA town meetings)
Date: 12 Dec 92 18:14:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.Bz5s3I.G03.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

In talk.politics.space you write:


>You missed the point, or ignored the question. Unless you think
>we have unlimited resources to do everything we'd like to do
>(and we don't), we have to prioritize, doing some things now and
>some later.  If you think returning to the moon is the thing
>to do NOW, fine. Present a convincing argument for it.  I'd like
>to see us return to the moon.  But NASA nad the space community
>has never done a convincing job of telling me why we should spend
>several billion on that instead of on a number of other alternatives.

You're missing the point. A 50 million dollar lunar probe won't
be the mission that killed DC-X and DC-Y; NASA is likely
to try to kill those programs, though, in order to feed
another year of designing the space station and flying the
space shuttle.

Look at the cost figures for :



1) Doing DC-X, DC-Y...

2) Flying the lunar resource probe

3) One year's worth of shuttle operations,

4) The Space Station's budget overruns, which are basically caused
   by the shuttle's shrinking capabilities...

The main obstacle to developing a cheap launcher is the conception
that the launcher needs to be expensive, i.e. cost billions upon
billions of dollars, to begin with.

>The US made a mistake in the 60s. We should have developed a better
>space infrastructure (shuttle, station) before going to the moon.
>Then going to the moon wouldn't have been such a one-shot thing.
>We'd have placed ourselves permanently in space, and not so subject 
>to every Congressional budget whim.

Go over and read sci.space and the ongoing discussion of new launcher
technology. Please.

I'm cross-posting this to sci.space. I think it needs to be done,
since 1) I can't post to talk.politics.space, and 2) So many people
_can't_ get talk.pol.space that I'm beginning to think the group
creation was just done to stifle dissent.

>I do to. I'd like to see us on the moon and Mars and farther before
>I die.  But that alone is not a good enough reason to justify 
>doing it now and not in 10 or 20 years.  I'd like to see NASA 
>make a case for going to the moon soon.  But if they can't convince
>me (and I'm an easy sell, since I want to see this happen) how
>are they going to convince the person in the street (who is 
>paying the bill) that it's a good idea to do now. (Note that I
>don't question that, medium and long term, that it is a very good
>idea. I've just yet to be convinced that we should take resources
>away from the space station and launcer improvements at this
>time.)

Putting the money towards a lunar program would probably be
the only way to _get_ launcher improvements because otherwise
it's just going to go to Scuttle operations...

>The mission is to make use of near-Earth space. We have a good
>consensus in the country now that this is a good idea. NASA
>should use this support to improve how well we can get into
>near-Earth space, as well as improve the ways human beings can
>work in near-Earth space.  Then, when this is such an integral 
>part of our lives that Congress, on a whim, can't pull the plug,
>we can start moving outward.

There is no real consensus of that sort in this country.
Other than materials science and MTPE, leo is only good as
a staging area. And some of us see MTPE as killing the space
program rather than helping it, and materials science as being
much more cheaply done than the way NASA wants to do it.

>Then it's up to NASA to make a case for them. Among other things, 
>I think space station work should justify some of this.  I also
>think once a station is built, it will justify better ways to
>get to it, and bigger launch systems to make it easier to add
>bigger expansion sections to it.

The station isn't that expandable, and is so expensive that
1) it isn't going to create a launch market and 2) When cheaper
launchers come along, it'll be cheaper for people who need a
station to build their own small ones from scratch.


>I think it's some of both. I also think I'm defining infrastructure
>more broadly than you are. I don't think we have a good enough
>infra-structure yet.  We, maybe, now have the equivalent of paved
>roads, but we need the equivalent of interstates, at least into
>orbit.  Or, to use another analogy, when the Europeans settled
>North America, they start in New York and settle California. Bit
>by bit, the developed a system of roads, cities, and outposts
>that helped them farther and farther along the way.  Wagon trains
>for California left from Kansas City and St. Louis, not from 
>New York and Boston.  Similarly, I think we have to return to
>the moon and beyond in such steps. We need our St. Louis in
>space: a good, permanent space station, from which we can take
>the next step.

These aren't roads. Here's a different analogy, since paving
space would be very hard:

We have Langley's aerodrome. We need Wright flyers.

>Jim Mann            
>Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com