The NASA ARM mission is DEAD

[tater]

Yeah, there are usually large ticket items that Congress micromanages from a budget standpoint. The current PBR also lumps some NASA spending into the Programmatic budget, which is bizarre (personally, I think that that part of the budget (over 2/3 of all Federal spending) should all become discretionary, except debt service).

[fredinno]

33 minutes ago, tater said:

The current PBR also lumps some NASA spending into the Programmatic budget,

Why, and what parts? If it's servicing faculties, than yeah, makes sense.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

On 6/2/2016 at 1:41 PM, fredinno said:

Nope, the focus has sifted to the Moon, apparently, according to the article

oh no not again

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

oh no not again

Granted, that was what the system was originally designed for.

[DDE]

Without integration of some sort of ISRU proof-of-concept, this mission would have merely been an overly elaborate Fobos-Grunt op.

Edited June 5, 2016 by DDE

[insert_name]

15 minutes ago, DDE said:

Without integration of some sort of ISRU proof-of-concept, this mission would have merely been a simplified Fobos-Grunt op.

you mean more complex right, because a reentry capsule is a lot simpler than going on a manned mission and then going eva to grab samples

[okan170]

On June 2, 2016 at 10:51 AM, fredinno said:

Truth be told, there are more manifested SLS missions- the SLS originally had 2 missions- ARM and EM-1. Now, there are 3 test missions for SLS, and 1 operational mission to send Europa Clipper to Jupiter.

Unless you're ULA, LockMart or Boeing. Then, you're worse than the Kraken.

Actually ARM was never an SLS mission except in some initial concepts.  ARM was/is to be launched on either Delta IV Heavy, Altas V 551 or Falcon Heavy. The SLS human mission component was un-funded by congress, originally was to be EM-2 but moved to about EM-5 when EM-2 became funded as a test mission.  One of the main criticisms of the SLS for a bit was that it wasn't even necessary for the ARM mission at that point except as a launcher for Orion and that congress hadn't even mandated that SLS launch by funding a mission beyond EM-2.

[fredinno]

3 hours ago, okan170 said:

Actually ARM was never an SLS mission except in some initial concepts.  ARM was/is to be launched on either Delta IV Heavy, Altas V 551 or Falcon Heavy. The SLS human mission component was un-funded by congress, originally was to be EM-2 but moved to about EM-5 when EM-2 became funded as a test mission.  One of the main criticisms of the SLS for a bit was that it wasn't even necessary for the ARM mission at that point except as a launcher for Orion and that congress hadn't even mandated that SLS launch by funding a mission beyond EM-2.

ARM was also considered to be launched by SLS Block I to speed up the mission, along with a Mars Sample Return Mission- but launching ether on SLS was probably canned due to cost.

And human component was delayed, not canned. The EM-2 goal was already over-optimistic, and NASA was intending to move to Block IB for all flights to save costs, thus meaning there needed to be even more test missions.

This would mean that SLS has more net flights (now 3-4 instead of 2), but now has no mission at all, even the pathetic excuse it had (ARM).

7 hours ago, insert_name said:

you mean more complex right, because a reentry capsule is a lot simpler than going on a manned mission and then going eva to grab samples

Granted, it would have brought more samples than any non-human sample return mission (or even all of them combined), but it still wasn't worth the over;y elaborate mission- it may have been if you hollowed out Orion and fit 1T of rocks into it.

[vger]

On 6/1/2016 at 3:58 PM, Panel said:

This does not surprise me at all. 

I'm glad that they are pushing for the moon again. I could not find a single thing that asteroid missions would help with reaching Mars. 

I thought it was also to learn about the practicalities of preventing an asteroid from hitting us.

[Panel]

1 hour ago, vger said:

I thought it was also to learn about the practicalities of preventing an asteroid from hitting us.

The mission had shrunk to the point that it would be simply putting a small boulder from an asteroid and putting it into lunar orbit. There was nothing the capture spacecraft could do to actually redirect an asteroid, so no testing how to avoid collisions.

[fredinno]

14 hours ago, Panel said:

The mission had shrunk to the point that it would be simply putting a small boulder from an asteroid and putting it into lunar orbit. There was nothing the capture spacecraft could do to actually redirect an asteroid, so no testing how to avoid collisions.

Actually, there was a "gravity tractor" experiment, but it was basically testing how 2 large objects would interact gravitationally in a zero-G environment. However, that's basic physics, so

[Robotengineer]

Evidently Congress would rather go to the moon than straight to Mars. http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/seeing-the-end-of-obamas-space-doctrine-a-bipartisan-congress-moves-in/

[fredinno]

http://spacenews.com/op-ed-saving-nasas-arm-and-the-journey-to-mars/

22 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

Evidently Congress would rather go to the moon than straight to Mars. http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/seeing-the-end-of-obamas-space-doctrine-a-bipartisan-congress-moves-in/

Finally, we may actually see a ACTUAL GOAL FOR SLS/ORION! HOLY-

Edited June 7, 2016 by fredinno

[vger]

2 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

Evidently Congress would rather go to the moon than straight to Mars. http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/seeing-the-end-of-obamas-space-doctrine-a-bipartisan-congress-moves-in/

I'm personally not comfortable with sending people to Mars without going back to the Moon first. While hypothetically we'll be as prepared for Mars as we possibly can be, we're still 50 years out of practice, and probably won't have even one tenth of the equivalent budget that Apollo had.

Edited June 8, 2016 by vger

[Guest]

Welp, there goes the KSP 0.23.5 update.

In all seriousness, though, the current situation of space exploration is somewhat saddening.

Humankind's most important advances are being halted by politicians who care more about being re-elected all over the world.

It's like the middle ages again, the only thing that changed is that it's not the church that's impeding stuff, it's the government.

And that we have airstrikes now.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Guest

[fredinno]

14 hours ago, Aperture Science said:

Welp, there goes the KSP 0.23.5 update.

In all seriousness, though, the current situation of space exploration is somewhat saddening.

Humankind's most important advances are being halted by politicians who care more about being re-elected all over the world.

It's like the middle ages again, the only thing that changed is that it's not the church that's impeding stuff, it's the government.

And that we have airstrikes now.

You pretty much described government in a nutshell.

[Columbia]

It's being replaced for Moon missions? 

What scientific value will be gained from it? As Apollo's demise showed, the public wouldnt be interested either. I don't know what's the point of another manned moon mission -- They might as well start construction on a Moon base of some sort or Mars.

I'm not too informed about this, but I don't see the point in a glorified Apollo rehearsal.

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Columbia said:

It's being replaced for Moon missions? 

What scientific value will be gained from it? As Apollo's demise showed, the public wouldnt be interested either. I don't know what's the point of another manned moon mission -- They might as well start construction on a Moon base of some sort or Mars.

I'm not too informed about this, but I don't see the point in a glorified Apollo rehearsal.

The Moon is what Orion/SLS were designed for and pretty much the only place they can reasonably go. The next administration is going to either have to deal with those facts or cancel them both.

There's still a lot of stuff to be done on Moon.

[kerbiloid]

Before actually going to Mars, a marsoship would make a 1.5-year flight around the Moon as if it were Mars. With landings,

Because it's much easier to clear off from the Moon than from Mars if something goes wrong.

Edited June 9, 2016 by kerbiloid