Aug 7, 2010

Posted by in NASA, current, private

For Bill Nye: Clarifying problems with new space plan

On the blog Space News, Bill Nye (the science guy, I believe) describes his confusion as to why smart people—like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn—might not be excited about the administration’s new space plan.

Rushing to build a new HLV: Where's it going, again?

First of all, Bill, don’t feel bad about disagreeing with Neil and John—because so does Buzz Aldrin. This is an issue where smart people can and do disagree.

You’ve got a pretty good case for the new plan. As I understand it, here’s the key points:

  1. Constellation was struggling and not going anywhere soon.
  2. The new plan puts money into research and private space companies—two sensible and promising areas to put your money.
  3. Under the new plan, we’ll be going to an asteroid and beyond—which sound like a pretty exciting mission, if you think about it.

So, with all these promising and exciting elements in the Obama plan, why isn’t everyone as excited as you?!

As Bill understands it, opponents of the plan don’t want to give up on the shuttle. They don’t like not having a manned spacecraft. Bill points out that, whatever we do, we were going to have a period with no American manned spacecraft. So, it’s not a flaw of the new space plan.

Maybe some are mostly concerned about the shuttle. Not me. Here’s MY problems with the new plan.

  1. It’s not specific. Where are we going and when? The plan talks about possibly sending people to an asteroid, but with no specifics (which asteroid? by when?), I don’t see us going anywhere.
  2. Constellation isn’t fatally flawed. Mostly, it’s been underfunded. Insufficient funding will kill ANY space plan. As for the technical problems, the first Apollo spacecraft caught fire and killed the crew. On its unmanned test, the Saturn V shook so violently it would have killed any human occupants. Those problems were solved and we got to the moon. Engineers can solve Constellation’s problems, too.

I would heartily support the new plan IF the goals and deadlines were made specific and if there was a commitment—at the highest levels—to stick with it. I don’t see why we’re rushing to get a new HLV (hey, wasn’t the Ares V an HLV?), without a specific mission for it.

Let’s secure some multi-year funding, get down to brass tacks—with the old plan or the new one—and start going places!

  • Volker

    As usual, I agree with you, Ray. Just want to add something:
    I don’t know why our administration doesn’t specify the “Going to an asteroid” plan. But I am pretty sure they have specific targets in mind:

    (89959) 2002 NT7 will be close to earth on February 1, 2019. It has been given a one-in-a-million probability of an actual impact, so I assume it will get pretty close. We won’t have reliable data about how close it will get until 2012/13.

    (99942) Apophis will pass Earth at a distance of about 37,000 km on Friday 13 April 2029.

    89959 would be the more interesting target since it is a lot larger (2 kilometer diameter) than 99942, which only has a diameter of 270 meter.

    Anyway, for a moment in the near future, either one of these asteroids will be much closer to earth than the moon. I think that is the idea behind the whole plan (and the reason why they are so quiet about it). The plan sounds exiting, like we are going to the asteroid belt when in fact we don’t even have to leave Earth’s orbit. Our geostationary satellites circle the earth at an altitude of 35.8 kilometers (22.2 miles) – about the passing distance of asteroid Apophis in 2029.

  • Volker

    Woops, I made a mistake again. The passing distance of Apophis is not 37 km but 37,000 km, a lot further than a geostationary orbit – but still closer than the moon.
    Sorry about that.

Stop SOPA