Bush's pragmatic step-by-step guide to space

NEIL Armstrong's first footsteps on the moon in 1969 inspired universal wonder and excitement. In that moment, it seemed the unimaginable had become reality, and a course for an enterprise in space in which anything was possible was established.

Today we know much more about the difficulties of space exploration by humans or machines, and our thinking about space has evolved with our growing awareness of its costs and hazards. Remarkably, those first footsteps continue to inspire. President Bush's remarks on the Columbia tragedy capture a widespread sentiment: "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on."

Now the president has given shape to this quest through a plan for space exploration that is at once visionary and pragmatic. Described by the president as "a journey, not a race," this plan differs profoundly from the Apollo paradigm of a single massive project requiring a large budget spike and a demanding schedule. In this new vision, milestones are established to guide planning on a series of discrete and mutually reinforcing projects, whose aim at each step is to reduce the cost and risk of all subsequent missions.

A long history of imaginative space literature has blurred some basic facts that strongly constrain interplanetary exploration, and the president's vision takes these facts into account.

Above all is the need to propel spacecraft with rockets, whose size must accommodate enormous amounts of fuel. To reach Earth's escape velocity entails a huge ratio of fuel to payload. The Mars rover Spirit was utterly dwarfed by the rocket mass at launch. Bringing Spirit home would have required sending along another great mass of fuel to escape Mars. If that fuel, or any other of the material needed for the mission, were shipped from outside Earth, the rocket size and hence cost would be dramatically less, but only if its source were also outside Earth.

The closest source of mass outside Earth is the moon, which explains its attractiveness as a base. The next closest source is Mars — 200 to 1,000 times farther away from Earth — so far that a round trip radio signal takes from eight to 40 minutes, depending on planetary alignment. Because Earth orbits nearly twice as fast as Mars, closest approaches are separated by two years, which more or less determines the duration of a single Mars mission.

This can't be rushed because spacecraft drift through space on well defined "transfer orbits." Any method of speeding the journey would once again require large amounts of fuel, regardless of the means of propulsion. During the long flight, interplanetary craft are bombarded with cosmic radiation at hundreds of times the intensity on Earth, which makes the journey hazardous, even for robots. These are facts of life of deep space exploration, and they must be faced and overcome.

The president's new paradigm takes these facts seriously, balances robotic and human roles in dealing with them, and mandates a step-by-step approach to address the risks and costs within a steady and realistic flow of resources.

With respect to human exploration, it implies a fundamental change in ground rules. The idea is to "explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system ... (making) steady progress one mission, one voyage, one landing at a time." The emphasis is on sustained exploration and discovery through all appropriate means, at a pace we can afford in terms of risk as well as cost.

NASA's capabilities are compatible with this new paradigm. The International Space Station provides an important laboratory for understanding the effects of weightlessness, as well as opportunities for exploiting physical phenomena in the weightless environment.

The president's first goal is to complete it, and that requires returning the shuttle fleet to service, which in turn entails effective responses to the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, or CAIB. The president's 2010 deadline to complete the station and retire the shuttle fleet acknowledges the CAIB conclusion that the orbiters should not be used beyond that date without recertification.

The second presidential goal ensures a means of human transport beyond low Earth orbit. The idea is not simply to repeat the Apollo exercises, but to ensure a human presence to establish and oversee what must eventually become complex operations at the lunar base, the third goal. This is not a question of "colonization" but of enabling the development of serious and sophisticated infrastructure in a hostile environment in order to support subsequent exploration to Mars and elsewhere.

For more than 30 years, we have witnessed an astounding series of revelations about our space environment, in pursuit of which we developed new technologies with immense and unexpected benefits to society. We know there are fascinating places within our solar system that bear close and detailed scrutiny, and whose exploration will continue to enrich our lives. President Bush has provided a practical framework to bring these goals within our reach.

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Marburger is science adviser to the president and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President.

China Military Space Power Advancing, Pentagon Reports***Major Chinese space breakthroughs in 2003, as flagged by DoD, include:

Launching and recovering of its first piloted space mission; Launching a new type of a geosynchronous orbit military communication satellite; Orbiting of a new type of film-based imagery satellite; Launching a prototype low Earth orbit communications satellite, a key step in China's development of mini-satellites; and Continuing efforts to investigate various means of tracking and defeating the space systems of potential opponents Anti-satellite to be fielded***

I want us to get serious about space exploration so badly I can taste it. When I was a kid, growing up with the X-15, Gemini, and Apollo programs in the background, I never doubted that we would build space stations, colonize the Moon, and light out for Mars.

Now, I sit on the downside of life, and wonder if my teenage neices will have a chance at the Moon, or will we delay even more so it's their children who get a shot at it.

NASA has morphed into a timid, money-eating beauracracy that can't get out of its own way... I surely wish private industry could be more involved, and perhaps one day it will be.

Biggest full moon of the year, June 2. Only 222,000 miles away.

Can't look at the disk without picking out the landing sites, thinking about those bleached out American flags, most not blown over by the upper stage LM lift off.

I've lobbied for so very long for precisely the kind of well-thought, methodical vision for the Program mapped out by the administration.

And, the remarkable leaps being made by private industry - wing launched, equatorial ship lauches, hobby sound rockets, the X prize contestants...

Things are looking up.

This is the first article I've heard of in a long time that gives serious, useful thought to the moon mars and beyond plan. Thank goodness Bush understands this stuff. I think NASA and Bush are making all the right choices right now. Retire Hubble, finish ISS, shuttle replacement, etc.

Man, I saw a NASA television thing last week about a discussion between JPL people and a cali senator and congressman, and they were all like "Wah, wah, I don't wanna lose my funding, I don't wanna lose Hubble", I was really surprised they didn't get behind the plan. They'd rather look at the stars than go to them.

Man, I saw a NASA television thing last week about a discussion between JPL people and a cali senator and congressman, and they were all like "Wah, wah, I don't wanna lose my funding, I don't wanna lose Hubble", I was really surprised they didn't get behind the plan. They'd rather look at the stars than go to them.

You have that right but when the $$$$ is targeted to going to the Moon (but spent here on Earth), so will their loyalties.

Utter blathering nonsense.

We are not returning humans to the moon, much less Mars.

In your lifetime, mine, or Bush's.

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Apollo cost $27 billion in 1969 dollars. Since then, Nixon devalued the dollar so that every dollar you own is worth about a dime. Most of the "greybeard" experts are dead; the infrastructure gone. Yes, the technology is (slightly) better. It still costs $10K per pound to lift mass to orbit. So a there-and-back stunt to the Moon would cost (in my conservative estimate) only $250 billion in 2004 dollars. To put a colony on the Moon, call it $500 billion. A there-and-back stunt to Mars: maybe $750 billion, and a bare-bones colony on Mars at least a trillion.

NASA's budget has not been increased more than a few hundred million--and it won't be until we defeat the Islamics.

Bottom line: if anybody lands on the Moon, he/she won't be Americans.

I say this from 29 years experience in the aerospace business.

Period.

--Boris

29 years experience in the aerospace business

The aerospace business isn't what it was. When I left aerospace 35 years ago things were still possible although it was obvious things weren't going to happen for a long time to come. Too bad. We could have done all these things by now. The time to do these things has passed, and it looks like we will never get off this planet.

We are not returning humans to the moon, much less Mars.

In your lifetime, mine, or Bush's.

I tend to agree. If the space race had not been a proxy war that formed part of WWIII (the so-called "Cold War", to historians who fail to see it as I do), we would have never been there.

Your point about the Islamics is well taken, being as they will never make any use of space, even near Earth orbit, we're not going back there because of fighting them. Our mastery of satellite technology allows us to crush their 7th Century way of life. All we need is the will to do it. I say this from 29 years experience in the aerospace business.

Opinion enlighted by experience is always welcomed by me when I read posts here at FR. Thanks for sharing yours.

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