Administrator Isaacman?

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

More likely this article, but on Mars.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html?callback=in&code=NMQ1ZMQXZTUTMMJKMS0ZZJFHLTK0MJETZJFKN2I0NTKWZWU1&state=d808ea2f1cb44a56871d0a6f722e228a

Darn tenuous speculation and widely-spaced dot connecting there which few would find persuasive to any degree and fewer would find relevant to these forums.  Trail of tears?  Seriously?  You offend the Cherokee

[SunlitZelkova]

I don't find the term "manifest destiny" to have particularly negative connotation, 60s Apollo presentation materials sometimes compared it to Columbus' voyage, with the LM to the rowboats and the CSM to the Santa Maria and my first reaction on seeing these was not "the poor Lunites!" As much as the original use of word caused a lot of harm, a lot of progress resulted from it too; it's neutral through and through IMO.

I think there is a lot of thinking about how a society is structured that would need to happen before a successful Mars colony is built but parsing language is not going to contribute to that.

Back to Isaacman himself...

If the second Polaris mission happens while Isaacman is administrator, that'd be pretty wild. No active NASA administrator has ever flown in space. Alternatively I'm sure he has trusted acquaintances who he could appoint to replace him as commander for that mission. Although, it kinda seems like the point of Polaris is for Isaacman to be commander on every flight?

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

Darn tenuous speculation and widely-spaced dot connecting there which few would find persuasive to any degree and fewer would find relevant to these forums.  Trail of tears?  Seriously?  You offend the Cherokee

Its a joke dude. Manifest Destiny? Really? It’s a bit odd to consider the systemic ethnic cleansing of North America “Inspiring”.

Edited January 21 by Pthigrivi

[farmerben]

As wasteful as Dubai is right now.  Suppose we had cheap, clean fusion energy.  In that case why not build 100 Dubais.  There is plenty of desert wasteland that could be turned into golf courses and ski resorts.  We should probably be more intelligent about the salt brine and not discharge all of it back into the sea especially in gulfs and bays.  Instead we need to massive drying pools and pyramids of salt in the desert.  While we are at it we can artificially thicken the Antarctic ice sheet to manage sea level.

[tater]

3 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Its a joke dude. Manifest Destiny? Really? It’s a bit odd to consider the systemic ethnic cleansing of North America “Inspiring”.

Save the Americas for living heart removal to affect the weather (or whatever they ripped hearts out of people for)!

All human history is humans knocking their neighbors over the head and taking their stuff. The people here in the Americas did the same themselves, and I'm sure each group considered their own conquests "inspiring." (even the ones who used the conquered peoples for a supply of beating hearts to rip out)

Anyone who lives here in the Americas who has a problem with this who is not 100% native has a simple expedient—write the title to any real property you own over to the first native American you run into (GIVE IT, don't SELL it!), and move back to Europe. I guess you have to work back to wherever your people first came from when Europe was uninhabited. Luckily you get a pass cause we bumped off the Neanderthals. But it's more complex in recorded history given all the back and forth in Europe before the Romans conquered/killed/enslaved everyone (thinking of my Celtic ancestors here, the Romans were pretty rough on them).

 

Meanwhile in the modern iteration of one of the civilizations than managed to come up with metallurgy in the time since we figured out stone tools in East Africa—we're apparently going to Mars now. Not sure how the timeline works here, the window is Q4 2026, then Q4 2028. Not really ideal for Isaacman to actually get this done.

Edited January 21 by tater

[Pthigrivi]

43 minutes ago, tater said:

Save the Americas for living heart removal to affect the weather (or whatever they ripped hearts out of people for)!

All human history is humans knocking their neighbors over the head and taking their stuff. The people here in the Americas did the same themselves, and I'm sure each group considered their own conquests "inspiring." (even the ones who used the conquered peoples for a supply of beating hearts to rip out)

Anyone who lives here in the Americas who has a problem with this who is not 100% native has a simple expedient—write the title to any real property you own over to the first native American you run into (GIVE IT, don't SELL it!), and move back to Europe. I guess you have to work back to wherever your people first came from when Europe was uninhabited. Luckily you get a pass cause we bumped off the Neanderthals. But it's more complex in recorded history given all the back and forth in Europe before the Romans conquered/killed/enslaved everyone (thinking of my Celtic ancestors here, the Romans were pretty rough on them).

 

Meanwhile in the modern iteration of one of the civilizations than managed to come up with metallurgy in the time since we figured out stone tools in East Africa—we're apparently going to Mars now. Not sure how the timeline works here, the window is Q4 2026, then Q4 2028. Not really ideal for Isaacman to actually get this done.

For sure. History is complicated. I don't think there's a way for me to respond without fully hopping over the fine line of on-topic, non-political chat. I think we just have a difference of opinion on appropriate ways to approach this kind of thing. I don't actually think Isaacman lauds the massacre of native peoples. I don't think he thought very much about it. I was just poking fun at him for sucking up. 

Edited January 21 by Pthigrivi

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

I don't think he thought very much about it. I was just poking fun at him for sucking up. 

Just my humble opinion but I think you could better apply your intellect than attributing their actions to your inferred psychology.

If you, instead of Isaacman, had been appointed NASA head, how would you have responded to the stated goal?  Would you have quibbled about the possible internal psychological states of various other people or would you simply have used common sense and seized the day?  It isn’t sucking up.  It is being humble enough to be all in on something that was a result of a consensus instead of merely one’s own druthers.  Isaacman basically sacrificed his dreams of flying on future Polaris missions by accepting the appointment.  Life is a negotiation.  The more involved who have the greater good in mind the better even if they disagree on details.  There must be a good faith common ground without irrational personal hate

[Pthigrivi]

47 minutes ago, darthgently said:

If you, instead of Isaacman, had been appointed NASA head, how would you have responded to the stated goal?  

I mean I wouldn't accept the appointment from this administration for reasons you could probably guess, but imagining I was somehow stuck with it I just would not respond to a post phrased this way because it's a deeply weird comparison. Like if someone said "Our exploration of space will be our Great Leap Forward" or "We will annex Mars like the Sudetenland" you would expect some raised eyebrows. There are less awkward ways to communicate to the public on this stuff. 

On the overall goal I personally think the exploration and eventual settlement of Mars is really interesting, at least from a scientific standpoint. I'd suggest we get our feet wet on the moon first with testbed habitation and long duration missions on extraplanetary surfaces, but a scientific mission to Mars in the next 6 years would be incredible. My reference to Dubai is somewhat satirical. Mars is fascinating from a scientific standpoint but it doesn't really have a strong economic case. It's not like it has economically exportable resources. The only value it presents to corporate investment is that it's a legal, political, and moral tabula rasa. It's jurisdictionless. I think humanity is likely to bring all of its current baggage with it, and without a core democratic structure the people who fund it initially will have complete power over the people who live and work there. For lower level laborers there will be no escape and no recourse for abuse. I think Dubai is probably a decent comparison for how this might actually become lucrative for a few, a utopian mirage masking a the ruthless exploitation needed to make it economically viable. I poke fun because in a way this is also kind of analogous to the subjugation of the American west,--the ruthless exploitation of labor and a lawless approach to land and governance on behalf of a privileged class of settlers, plantation owners, and robber barons. Manifest Destiny stands as one of the two great crimes of our short, bloody history. Id prefer not to replicate that as we explore other planets. 

And again I don't think Isaacman took the time to unpack all that. Maybe we should though? 
 

[darthgently]

18 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

And again I don't think Isaacman took the time to unpack all that. Maybe we should though?

Nope.  We are not the ones that history has primarily tasked with this.  Our input is not as important as some would like to think.  I think there are plenty of armchair quarterbacks and not a single one contributes as much as they think.

Many are merely jeerleaders with negative contributions that do not have the best interest of the long term continuation of the only planetary life we know of in mind.

 

[tater]

As far as Manifest Destiny is concerned, it has exactly nothing to do with Martians, except for the people who someday decide to stay (if that is ever a thing). The history of the words? I'm utterly unconcerned, and I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of people hearing them hear them with no baggage whatsoever. I understand the history of the US decently well, and of the phrase—and I don't see it as negative (my US history is from sources other than those aligned with the garbage history of Zinn and his fellow travelers (I use that last phrase very intentionally)).

As someone who owns 2 pieces of real property in the western US, if I thought otherwise I would have to give them away or be a hypocrite. Anyone with a problem with the colonization of the Americas who lives here can put up, or shut up. Give away your property to a native, or stop with the phony virtue signalling. Anyone in this position can easy demonstrate real commitment this way, so what if you lose your house, think of the natives that were displaced 200 years ago! If the west (I can see a chunk of it about the size of Connecticut out my living room window) was subjugated—perhaps they should have developed metallurgy. When the Europeans arrived the Americas were a stone age culture, so they lost. Applying modern cushy norms to hundreds of years ago is silly. The Europeans did exactly what the Mexica, Inca, or even the Chacoans here in NM would have done with disparate technology (minus the human sacrifice, anyway). Humans are humans, and once of sufficient size, we've formed empires—even in the pre-colonial Americas. In the race to get modern tech, the Americas lost, so their fate was sealed—heck, had Europeans come and not conquered at all, just come in peace to trade then leave, the Americas would have been doomed by diseases they had no exposure to.

Infantilizing the natives also bugs me. The history of the Mayflower and the Plymouth colony is fascinating to me not for the Pilgrim stuff, but for the history of the natives. The Wampanoag saw the Europeans as a tool to be used against their enemies the Narragansett, who for some reason managed to not die off from the plagues that interactions with Europeans had spread down the coast. Their machinations were very human and understandable by anyone who reads history. I recall thinking it reminded me of WW1 Germany sending Lenin to Russia—"He'll destabilize our enemy, then we can clean up his rabble later!" They were, "These guys have guns, we can increase our power, deal with the Narragansett, then we deal with the handful of Europeans—the dummies can't even farm well!"

 

Edited January 21 by tater

[Vanamonde]

Let's turn the discussion back to space stuff, please. 

[tater]

1 minute ago, Vanamonde said:

Let's turn the discussion back to space stuff, please. 

 

I have a feeling Isaacman has no sunk cost fallacy issues on SLS. Wonder if they keep Orion?

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, tater said:

I have a feeling Isaacman has no sunk cost fallacy issues on SLS. Wonder if they keep Orion?

On the list of things I think we agree on SLS really should be scrapped. Is there a way Starship or New Glenn could deliver Orion in a fairing? Is there a reason? 

[AckSed]

There's no perfect solution available now, only maybes.

Wikipedia tells me that Block 1b has the capability of 105t to LEO and 46t to TLI. New Glenn might be the closest architecture with its hydrolox GS-2, yet it's optimised for thrust over specific impulse, and its TLI is a tiny 7t.

Not insurmountable - a tank-stretch and/or deliberate under-running of the engines could give the endurance it needs - but we're choosing an untried rocket over what is seen by the Senate and the contractors as proven technology.

Plonking ULA's Vulcan Centaur upper stage on SLS and skipping the EUS is a better deal and more palatable to the military side of the Senate, as it's closer to the EUS in performance. If you only wanted to launch Orion a single VC could probably do it, with 12t to TLI.

Expending a Falcon Heavy is probably the best option. Even that will require adaptation.

Then there's the monster truck in the room, Starship. If all the 'ifs' work out - docking & refuelling in orbit with a depot, reuse - then it's tempting to say that Orion can be docked with either the lander in LEO after refuelling and shuttled to the lunar orbit, or a dedicated transfer shuttle could take it and the LL would take them down.

[tater]

Orion can be delivered with LAS to Earth orbit (MEO?) with NG, assuming the 45t claim is accurate (I'm less sure given the very low TWR with no payload, but maybe they were not running at actual full thrust). I think that it without a doubt will get to that point, and Bezos has said all BO rockets will be crew rated.

Orion CSM is ~26.5t wet, and the LAS is ~6.1t.

Useless for Mars, though. The heatshield has problems with direct entry from the Moon, so the Mars DRA/M images of Orion as the crew return vehicle—leaving the returning Mars transfer vehicle, then doing a direct entry—seem far-fetched to me as it stands (also it then needs to sit around for a couple years and to be ready to roll).

Course Starship to Mars with people seems pretty far-fetched to me, I'll believe it is plausible after an uncrewed landing.

[darthgently]

23 hours ago, tater said:

Orion can be delivered with LAS to Earth orbit (MEO?) with NG, assuming the 45t claim is accurate (I'm less sure given the very low TWR with no payload, but maybe they were not running at actual full thrust). I think that it without a doubt will get to that point, and Bezos has said all BO rockets will be crew rated.

Orion CSM is ~26.5t wet, and the LAS is ~6.1t.

Useless for Mars, though. The heatshield has problems with direct entry from the Moon, so the Mars DRA/M images of Orion as the crew return vehicle—leaving the returning Mars transfer vehicle, then doing a direct entry—seem far-fetched to me as it stands (also it then needs to sit around for a couple years and to be ready to roll).

Course Starship to Mars with people seems pretty far-fetched to me, I'll believe it is plausible after an uncrewed landing.

What if a layered, modular heat shield design were used where additional layers are LEGO-blocked on a required without having to fab a custom heat shield.  So the current lunar return shield would have another shield attached below it that would either ablate away or be explosively detached after it’s used up or something.  Or just a Mars flavor of Orion with a beefier shield.

Or maybe we significantly slow the Mars return vehicle to lunar return speeds prior to entering the atmosphere using a series of aerogel discs inline with the return trajectory

[AckSed]

'Modular blocks' was tried and bits started popping off when Orion reentered in its skip trajectory. You'd need to go back to the drawing board.

A large inflatable heat-shield might be better, though I am not sure about the TRL after LOFTID. Hang on. *checks* With a successful demonstration from orbit... Hovering around TRL 6 or 7. Doable, but further back in development than the modular blocks as far as I know.

[Superpluto126]

My honest take on this given some concern I've seen on other sites:

Jared is probably honestly one of the best picks possible, politics non withstanding. 

A lot of the concern I see stems from his connection to SpaceX and Starlink, which I believe he has some sort of connection too. However, I don't believe this is a reason to call Doomsday.

For One, his connection to SpaceX is mostly through the Polaris Program, which is a Gemini-Ambition level set of missions. This is paid for with Isaacmans own money, and doesn't affect his Role at NASA. The Only way I see the Polaris Program affecting his role at NASA is one of 2 ways. Either he uses this to clear the Hubble Mission, which was already planned. If that happens, we will see a Repair Mission to Hubble which was already planned and increased Cooperation between the Polaris and NASA Teams. This will be a Polaris undertaking, not a NASA one, if it even does happen. As for Starlink, that is purely a private undertaking that brings internet to more rural communities, NASA has nothing to do with it and this does not affect Isaacmans tenure at NASA.

The Other concern I see mostly online is that Isaacman will favor SpaceX.  I don't believe he will really 'Favor' SpaceX any more than any other NASA Lead. SpaceX, at the moment, operates in bulk the cheapest launch system for a Wide Market as well as Falcon Heavy and potentially an Expendable SHLV (Starship). NASA should invest in other companies as well (BO, Stokespace) that show promise but for the moment Falcon 9 and Heavy are the best options on the market and NASA should make use of this. Isaacman himself has shown some Enthusiasm for BO, and also seems like the kind of Guy to greatly support planetary science projects.

I greatly look forward to his Tenure at NASA

Edited Friday at 10:28 PM by Superpluto126
Added a part I forgot to put in

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, Superpluto126 said:

The Other concern I see mostly online is that Isaacman will favor SpaceX.  I don't believe he will really 'Favor' SpaceX any more than any other NASA Lead. SpaceX, at the moment, operates in bulk the cheapest launch system for a Wide Market as well as Falcon Heavy and potentially an Expendable SHLV (Starship). NASA should invest in other companies as well (BO, Stokespace) that show promise but for the moment Falcon 9 and Heavy are the best options on the market and NASA should make use of this. Isaacman himself has shown some Enthusiasm for BO, and also seems like the kind of Guy to greatly support planetary science projects.

This is my hope. I don’t particularly buy into the Big Man theory of history and that cuts both ways.  Institutions—corporate, government or otherwise are made of thousands of individual people and their fates are, under the best of circumstances, structural. Under the worst of circumstances, that is when top-down idiosyncrasies rather than deliberate, organic decision making takes hold, you end up with stupid, ego-driven ideas overriding the process. As a top level manager Isaacman has the choice to be an honest, deliberate seeker and interpreter of the available data. He has the chance to advise the executive and legislative branches honestly, courageously, and without bias. That would put him a cut above his predecessors. My worry, not listed by you, is that he will be an ethically agnostic yes-man. But I don’t know the man, maybe he’ll surprise me. I only know the process by which he was chosen and it doesn’t lend me to optimism.