NASA is planning to send astronauts on moon's orbit in late 2020s...

[IllyrianTheGreat]

"A group of astronauts may spend a year in orbit around the moon in the late 2020s as part of NASA's plan..." - great news for space exploration

http://www.space.com/36781-nasa-yearlong-crew-moon-mission-ahead-of-mars.html

[mikegarrison]

Yeah, yeah. And when I was a kid, NASA was going to fly a mission to Mars with a NERVA rocket by the end of the 1970s.

[peadar1987]

And when I was about three years younger than I am now, NASA was going to recover an asteroid to study.

Boo lack of funding!

[TheEpicSquared]

Meanwhile at SpaceX's mars base...

"NASA is an amateur"  

[tater]

And people wonder why SpaceX (or BO) have "fanboys" who talk them up over "real" space programs. NASA goals are typically like this, too conservative (i.e.: realistic). They take so long that when they slip, no one notices, because no one is paying attention any more.

I try to be realistic about timelines, and I tend to knock down overly aggressive claims, like that SpaceX will be on Mars by then, etc, because the real universe is outside of reality distortion fields, but I have to say I really like the aggressive, aspirational goals, and "New Space" has now become the principle reason to pay attention, since even if the chances of them doing what they want to do are small---there is a >0% chance they'll actually do something while I am still alive. Being a space geek for decades beats all the enthusiasm out of you, I'm happy to have a new infusion of it, but sadly NASA is no longer responsible for any of it in me.

Edited May 10, 2017 by tater

[kerbiloid]

Exactly for anniversary 60 of Apollo-8.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Exactly for anniversary 60 of Apollo-8.

SpaceX lunar free return with private astronauts? Yeah, if they manage it. 

[Green Baron]

Usually i am the one pulling the brakes, but i actually find this a good idea to study the effects of interplanetary space on the human body in a long term stay. And a logical step. Though ten years from now seem sporty to build a habitat around the moon ?

Concerning SpaceX i have my doubts that things will work out as envisioned. Next step fh, then the tourist mission, ... we'll see :-)

 

[Nightside]

A fair portion of that article details NASA's struggle to name it.

Quote

"Inside NASA, the yearlong mission was being casually referred to as a "shakedown cruise," which is a term used in the Navy to describe a trip intended to test the performance of a new ship, Williams said. But the team decided to change the terminology because, "if you have a Sicilian mafia background, ['shakedown'] has a different connotation," he said, referring to the illegal practice of extorting money from small businesses, generating laughter from the audience. "So we're still wrestling with how we want to describe this thing." "

Why is naming stuff so hard for NASA these days?  Its not like they've run out of giant mythical creatures to name things after, yet we end up with the boring SLS, instead of something awe inspiring like... Fezzik.

Maybe NASA needs to hire some writers and poets to name these missions.

[tater]

DSG is actually a fine concept, but 10 years is so slow as to make realizing the project incredibly unlikely. Honestly, much of the tech exists, it's all evolutionary from ISS.

[MaxL_1023]

It would not be that hard to put something like the ISS in lunar orbit, especially if NASA was willing to use solar-powered Ion engines and wait a couple years. The hard part is getting the mass to LEO - orbital assembly of modules and long-term life support is mature enough already. 

I wonder if SpaceX has considered sticking an Ion engine on a Dragon capsule? It could use low-energy transfers to send non-perishable supplies to the Moon, probably within the launch capabilities of a reusable falcon 9. Save the heavy chemical rockets for sending humans back and forth. 

[IllyrianTheGreat]

3 hours ago, tater said:

And people wonder why SpaceX (or BO) have "fanboys" who talk them up over "real" space programs. NASA goals are typically like this, too conservative (i.e.: realistic). They take so long that when they slip, no one notices, because no one is paying attention any more.

But NASA's behaviour is very well thought... they make plans longer than single government can last, they take large amount of money for plans and calculations and then new government doesn't want to finish old plans, because there is no glory in that.

New government wants NASA to make NEW better plans that will make people say wow about this new government and about NASA. It is win-win for both sides

 

[benzman]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Being a space geek for decades beats all the enthusiasm out of you, 

I know exactly what you mean.  I was thirteen years old when I saw Sputnik fly over,  The space age had so much exiting promise in its early days, but after Apollo eleven it all seemed to fade away.

 

 

[kerbiloid]

Computers took the space romantics away, but without them KSP would be impossible.

[Frozen_Heart]

16 hours ago, tater said:

And people wonder why SpaceX (or BO) have "fanboys" who talk them up over "real" space programs. NASA goals are typically like this, too conservative (i.e.: realistic). They take so long that when they slip, no one notices, because no one is paying attention any more.

I try to be realistic about timelines, and I tend to knock down overly aggressive claims, like that SpaceX will be on Mars by then, etc, because the real universe is outside of reality distortion fields, but I have to say I really like the aggressive, aspirational goals, and "New Space" has now become the principle reason to pay attention, since even if the chances of them doing what they want to do are small---there is a >0% chance they'll actually do something while I am still alive. Being a space geek for decades beats all the enthusiasm out of you, I'm happy to have a new infusion of it, but sadly NASA is no longer responsible for any of it in me.

The reason people have lost interest in NASA is nothing to do with them being 'realistic'. It is because that every new government that comes in kills off the old programs and starts their own meaning they are back at square one. In 2024 the ISS will come down and with the capability to build shuttle engines lost the SLS has a few flights max before no more can be built either.

There is a massive chance that the government after Trump will axe it completely looking at past governments and then everything will be moved back another 20 years in their schedule. "NASA going to moon in 2040, Mars in 2055"

 

This isn't realism. It's bureaucracy and the inability to control its own funding and missions.

[Joseph Kerman]

Honestly, if I can (I can't), I will run for president to support NASA in space exploration.

[peadar1987]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Computers took the space romantics away, but without them KSP would be impossible.

Ah now, there's still plenty of great moments in spaceflight. Cassini... Rosetta... New Horizons... Curiosity... I wasn't around for the golden era of manned spaceflight, but there's still a load of incredibly cool and engaging unmanned stuff going on, even if the ISS isn't your cup of tea.

[tater]

@Frozen_Heart, it's certainly true that moving priorities every 4-8 years is a problem, but it's a problem I internalized a long, long time ago. That's as much of a reality as the Earth-Mars synod, you work around it, or you don't go.

2 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

Ah now, there's still plenty of great moments in spaceflight. Cassini... Rosetta... New Horizons... Curiosity... I wasn't around for the golden era of manned spaceflight, but there's still a load of incredibly cool and engaging unmanned stuff going on, even if the ISS isn't your cup of tea.

Yeah, we've absolutely had very exciting probes sent out into he solar system. It's funny, I'm all about the fact that all the science is better done by unmanned vehicles, and in fact I say in this forum that human spaceflight is a stunt, but it's an exciting stunt, and is particularly engaging in a way probes will never be---at least not to me. IMO the goal of human spaceflight is primarily for the vicarious adventure.

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, Joseph Kerman said:

Honestly, if I can (I can't), I will run for president to support NASA in space exploration.

Good luck with that. In the last presidential elections here in France, one of the candidates ran with a big item in his platform being space exploration. He got ridiculed for it and scored 0.18%

Space simply isn't a serious issue for most voters.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Nibb31

[tater]

Jeff Bezos is planning on sending Jeff Bezos to the moon in the late 2020s, too. I think that that is the more likely scenario, frankly.

 

[mikegarrison]

9 hours ago, Frozen_Heart said:

The reason people have lost interest in NASA is nothing to do with them being 'realistic'. It is because that every new government that comes in kills off the old programs and starts their own meaning they are back at square one. In 2024 the ISS will come down and with the capability to build shuttle engines lost the SLS has a few flights max before no more can be built either.

There is a massive chance that the government after Trump will axe it completely looking at past governments and then everything will be moved back another 20 years in their schedule. "NASA going to moon in 2040, Mars in 2055"

 

This isn't realism. It's bureaucracy and the inability to control its own funding and missions.

Exactly. The point is that "roadmaps" and project plans are cheap. Rockets and space stations are expensive. And budgets are only as firm as the political will behind them.

 

[tater]

It's not even about budgets, actually. It's that the budgets come with strings attached---project X, because it's in district X, etc (<cough>SLS<cough>).

Of course if the purpose is space exploration, then NASA should stay away from crew vehicles entirely.

 

[YNM]

The pressure for the usual famed manned exploration is already long lost. The "new hype" is burried underneath similar dreamy hypes. In reverse, you can store computers for years and it will still be a computer. Even a small trickle of pressure is enough to keep them going. Hence why most "big" mission nowadays is unmanned. (relative big - any manned one is always waay bigger than the largest unmanned ones)

Now I wonder what sort of pressure would build up. I guess now is just not the right time to have them in any form yet again.

 

Also, remember that SpaceX is still nagging off NASA. They're as dreamy as most NASA engineers making leaflets and proposals must be. There's no pressure building up behind to launch them far forward than what's up front already.

Edited May 11, 2017 by YNM

[mikegarrison]

I do believe Blue Origin is more likely than SpaceX to send someone on a trip to the moon, if for no other reason than that Bezos has a lot more money than Musk does.

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

The point is that "roadmaps" and project plans are cheap. Rockets and space stations are expensive. And budgets are only as firm as the political will behind them.

Ergo, Lunar and Martian saga will really begin when the flights get as cheap as plans.

I.e. when delta-V gets much lesser than ISP.

But that also means that this will make flight to any planet equally possible.
So, the primary target will absolutely not necessary be Moon or Mars.
(Which both will be well studied with unmanned probes to that time.)

Edited May 12, 2017 by kerbiloid