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An artist's conception shows astronauts walking up to an early lunar habitat. Five years ago, NASA was considering the deployment of such a habitat in the 2020s.
GOP hopeful Mitt Romney says that he’d fire anyone who suggested spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build a moon colony — but what about tens of billions of dollars? A former NASA adviser says he and others at the space agency drew up an approach that could put astronauts on the moon for $40 billion, as a “Plan B” for future exploration.
"We figured out at NASA how to do it in about 10 years for $40 billion," said Charles Miller, who recently left his position as NASA Headquarters' senior adviser for commercial space and is now president of NextGen Space. "The question is, would Mitt Romney fire me for a proposal to return to the moon for $40 billion?"
For a few years, NASA was following a plan to return to the moon by 2020 for $104 billion, through the Constellation program set up under President George W. Bush. But Constellation was canceled by President Barack Obama, and the space agency currently is gearing up for an effort to put astronauts on a near-Earth asteroid by the mid-2020s.
Last week, Romney's chief rival for the GOP nomination, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, pledged to put an all-American settlement on the moon by 2020 if he was elected president. But Gingrich's initiative runs into the same problem that killed Constellation: federal budgets that are too tight to match lunar ambitions. Obama had to scale back what was once envisioned as an "inspiring" space program due to the economic downturn, as described by The New Yorker in an insider report last week.
The moon-shot cancellation was in line with an independent panel's conclusion that the plan was "not viable," considering the realities of the federal budget. But that panel was working under the assumption that a whole new deep-space infrastructure would have to be developed, including a heavy-lift vehicle then known as the Ares 5. That assumption was carried over into the post-Constellation plan, in the form of a heavy-lift Space Launch System that would cost $35 billion over the next decade or so. Billions more would have to be spent preparing for trips beyond Earth orbit — to an asteroid, to the moon, to Mars or other destinations.
Plan B for outer space
Miller and his colleagues on a NASA task force drew up an alternative plan, which they said would provide a less expensive and faster path to deep-space exploration. Rather than building an entirely new type of heavy-lift rocket, NASA would use a series of tried-and-true rockets — perhaps including the U.S. commercial Atlas, Delta and Falcon rockets as well as Europe's Ariane, Japan's H2 and Russia's Soyuz and Zenit rockets — to deliver propellant to an orbiting fuel depot.
After a series of low-cost fuel delivery flights, the high-value components for trips to the moon would be sent up and assembled in orbit. Once the lunar transfer vehicle was ready to go, the astronauts would climb aboard, head out of orbit for the moon, conduct their mission and return.
NASA would still have to develop a lunar lander, as well as the Orion deep-space capsule it's currently working on, and perhaps a habitat module as well. But it wouldn't have to build the heavy-lifter.
A preliminary version of the plan was leaked to the SpaceRef website last October, amid calls from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., for the report's release. At the time, the report suggested that missions to the moon could begin in 2024, but Miller told me that he challenged his team to optimize their cost and timeframe estimates. "They went from landing on the moon in 2024 to 2021," he said, at an average cost of $4 billion per year for 10 years. Such funding levels would be in line with NASA's current budget, with adjustments for inflation in the latter five years, he said.
NBC News space analyst James Oberg talks about whether Newt Gingrich's vision of a colony on the moon contains any benefits, and what the price tag might look like.
Miller said the plan could conceivably be revised to reduce the time frame even further, from 10 to eight years. "It's ready when our national leadership decides it wants something more affordable," he told me. "I consider it to be Plan B."
NASA has not released the current version of the plan, but the agency's top executives have not been as bullish as Miller is about Plan B. During a congressional hearing last summer, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the alternatives to building a heavy-lift rocket were "not as economical, nor as reliable."
Miller contends that the plan didn't get a proper "apples-to-apples" comparison from NASA's top executives or from the Human Exploration Framework Team, which drew up NASA's Plan A.
Reality check
It may well be technically possible to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020 — but even if NASA successfully implemented the Plan B outlined by Miller, there wouldn't be a full-fledged moon colony by that time. Then there's the bigger question of whether it's worth spending tens of billions of dollars to put astronauts back on the moon, even if the experts agree it's possible to do it within a $40 billion budget.
"That's what you hire presidents to decide," Miller said.
Obama decided years ago that it would be better to go to a new destination in deep space, such as a near-Earth asteroid or the moons of Mars, rather than returning to the moon. "We've been there before," Obama said when he announced his space goals in 2009.
It's possible that Gingrich's pledge to build a moon base by 2020 has hurt him in the polls — even in Florida, where the aerospace industry has suffered a heavy blow due to last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet. On the eve of Florida's primary, surveys suggest that Gingrich is lagging by double digits behind Romney, who has been far less specific about his space aspirations. In effect, Romney wants to conduct another round of soul-searching about NASA's vision, retracing the process that Obama and his aides went through three years ago.
For now, NASA's big-ticket priorities in human spaceflight are to continue developing the Space Launch System and the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle, while commercializing operations to send supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station. The Space Launch System in particular has strong support in Congress — so much so that critics have dubbed it the "Senate Launch System." Any effort to change course at this point would probably run into significant opposition — unless the SLS project became totally unworkable and/or unaffordable.
In that case, Plan B ... or Plan C, or D ... might well get another look, regardless of who's in the White House.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why the Newt Gingrich vision for space is too grand of an idea.
Cosmic Log's Alan Boyle, Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait and other space commentators discuss moon-base politics during the Weekly Space Hangout on Jan. 26.
Update for 7:50 p.m. ET: Over the past week, there's been a lot of debate over Gingrich's moon-base pledge, and over the justification for spending anything at all on space exploration. I've tried to step around the questions surrounding the rationales for spaceflight in this item — but Wayne Hale, who used to head up NASA's space shuttle program, provides a provocative perspective today in a posting to his blog, titled "What Would Rick and Gus and Dick Want?" The title is a reference to the anniversaries of the Columbia tragedy (helmed by Rick Husband), the Apollo 1 fire (with Gus Grissom as commander) and the Challenger explosion (commanded by Dick Scobee). Here's some of what Hale says:
"It is impossible to build a business plan on exploration of the unknown; some decisions aren’t amenable to the quarterly profit and loss statement. Seward’s folly, Jefferson’s gamble, Teddy’s canal – they were all the butt of jokes and sarcasm. Yet, America, the land of opportunity, was not built by skeptics. America was built by people who were willing to risk everything on a dimly perceived future. Facing the unknown frontier changed Americans and made us what we are. We would be a lesser people if our great-grandparents had not chosen those challenges. The cost was high and many did not live to see the results of their gamble. But as a nation we continued on and became great.
"Now where is our frontier? Making corporate profits on Wall Street by moving money around? Now what will inspire our children? Playing video games that are made in overseas sweatshops?
"You know better than that. Without the challenge of a frontier, stagnation, mediocrity and decline is our guaranteed future."
So what would Rick and Gus and Dick want? Read the full posting for Hale's conjecture.
More moon-base blasts from the past:
- Russia calls for international moon base
- Will China take over the moon?
- Billionaire shoots for the moon
- Wanted: Home-builders for the moon
I discussed moon-base politics and much, much more with Dr. David Livingston on "The Space Show" today. If you missed the program, check the "Space Show" home page for the archived audio. Science and politics will also be on the agenda for my "Virtually Speaking Science" chat with Shawn Otto at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday. Otto is one of the organizers of Science Debate 2012 and the author of "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America." I hope you'll join us, either on BlogTalkRadio or in Second Life.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
I'll send in $10 to help if we can send Newt Gingrich one way on the first flight.
YES! Let's get some white dirt for a change. Very useful. Also we can get gold and alot of the purest oil EVER from the moon. It's only 1 inch under the white dirt and hidden gold. No need to drill. Just dig it up! You didn't know that? Well now you do! It could be the moon is made up of cocaine and the government isn't saying. If it is we will be rich! What do you think??? Let's make some moola!
Alan,
Could we get an update on alternative launch vehicles? By 'alternative', I do not mean SLS or other chemical rockets, but others such as nuclear thermal, etc. We need to launch payloads into orbit in a significantly less costly manner, else future missions with the term 'manned' in them are likely to be limited and spread out over many years. I am disappointed in NASA dumping billions into developing marginally better techonology (e.g., SLS and Orion) and not pushing the envelope in areas we need significant improvement on to prepare us to get to Mars (e.g., a more cost-effective launch vehicle that sends payloads into orbit for $3-5,000 per pound, instead of $10-20K; developing better, lighter radiation shielding--perhaps the new metamaterials Duke University has developed could be helpful; developing an in-space hab unit of sufficient size to house plenty of supplies for a Mars trip, with a rotating cabin simulating 1.0G, obviating bone loss and muscle atrophy; developing better recycling systems for water and oxygen to minimize supplies; developing in-space greenhouse capabilities to augment food supplies; develop the Earth-to-Mars-to-Earth shuttle--perhaps a VASIMR...a 200MW version could make the Mars trip in 39 days).
Just a thought...
I'll see what I can do ... thanks, Jay
Thanks, Alan! By the way, your readers probably have never heard of a VASIMR before. I believe NASA is still planning to test a small one (200kW) on the ISS, as an assist motor, in the next couple of years. This might also be worth mentioning in an upcoming article. I have a great deal of respect for Robert Zubrin, a noted skeptic of the VASIMR--I hope he is proved wrong here, however...
To power the VASMIR drive we need powerful nuclear reactor capable of powering it, ideally 500 to 1GW range so as to allow plenty of expansion in capabilities in the future including bigger space crafts and more powerful VASMIR drives.
The Russians are said to be working on Nuclear reactors for space but lack the funds to fully developed the project.
Go to the following link:
http://biotronics.newsvine.com/_news/2012/02/04/10314951-why-newt-gingrichs-moon-base-will-remain-an-impossible-dream
I guess you can say that Gengrich is MOONING the tea party;)
I find it so sad that we don't devote more resources to space exploration and colonisation. The first country to develop a working space elevator will be the next superpower. There's no question about that. While I recognise that manned missions are less important than they were 30 years ago, we should be investing massive dollars into getting a permanent moon base working, we should constantly be sending drones into space, we should be preparing to mine the moon, we should be funding research and development of these technologies rather than wasting so much money on ridiculous and (in the long term) pointless crap. Useless wars, bailouts, pointless political squabbles, pointless arguments and studies to enact pointless laws that are unnecessary. We waste so much on pointless things, why are we holding ourselves back. The future is in space, it's not a question, it's a fact, our future is in space. When we finally get there we will look back and say, why didn't we do this sooner?
This is just plain stupid Rich boys at Nasa want to build a tree fort on the moon so they can go play ! How nice I could see spending 40 billion on feeding hungry children and assisting the less fortunate we have a lot of hungry people in the USA thanks to our bustling economy ( NOT) ! But spending it on building a tree fort on the moon for kicks is just plain inconsiderate and a total waste of Tax payers money$!!!!!!!!
Visions cannot be recycled!
Going to the moon was a vision when JFK set this ambitious goal around which the American nation could rally and look up to as an iconic achievement once accomplished.
Where is the vision in going back and doing what was accomplished almost 50years ago???? I have higher opinions of the American capabilities and would therefore expect a grander idea to this nation to rally around. We have more than enough local (as opposed to space-based) challenges to address that might qualify as suitable targets - pick your preference ranging from eradicating diseases, eliminating starvation, solve historic conflicts etc. If these are not lofty enough for your taste - why have they not been accomplished??
It is a very good Idea to go to the Moon again, But what are we going to do once we get there again? We sorta have a big bill to pay off and just a tad more then in the 60's. When we went there the last time. How do we pay for it and just who will pay for it? and just who will pay for the cost over runs with this project, Is anyone believing there will be none?. this would have to be a World effort and not just a single Country. and right now we have to many problems on earth that need fixing then to debate on going back to the moon. Again it is a nice Idea but some reality need to be seen to make it happen
I did not see my comment here an hour ago. Obviously, MSNBC censored my freedom! I wrote this comment two years ago when Obama dismantled NASA and US government abandoned the future space visionary.
The tragedy of the end of the American civilization and space pioneers.
When I was eleven years old, I watched live coverage of the first Apollo moon landing on the black and white TV. I was brightly optimistic about the future of American space pioneers and colonization in the space.
Today we are deeply pessimistic for the future of our country and the final frontier because US government has a lack of vision in setting priorities for the human space exploration for nearly forty years. This will be the end of American's space supremacy and our species of homo-sapiens will be at stake for our planetary survival.
The golden age for the Soviet Union was at its zenith from 1957 to 1962 when Sputnik (first man-made satellite) and the first man (Yuri Gagarin) sent into space. At the time of the legendary speech of John F. Kennedy, the robust economy with its self-sufficiency and the government with affordable money to push NASA to send men to the moon to gain space supremacy over the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War. The NASA space program was a huge pioneering accomplishment for American civilization. We sent men to the moon and returned them home safely - a remarkable achievement for humanity. Moon landing exploration and vast technological innovations contributed enormously to magnificent scientific achievements, incredible technological success and innumerable job creation. In old glory days in late 1960s and early 1970s were the golden age of American civilization.
Richard Nixon made his fateful decision to focus on the earth-bound space shuttle rather than sending men to the red planet Mars. This was a huge setback for the future of American's space supremacy. Today we do not have the capability to fulfill the vision of the final frontier because of the budget limitations. Spending on two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and maintaining several military bases throughout the world, runaway budget deficits, favoritism of corporate lobby interests with generous government-subsidized funds, high volatility of petroleum prices, and free trade policy especially outsourcing to overseas that drain our economic wealth, and erode our nation's progress in technological innovations for jobs and prosperity. American civilization has deteriorated since the fall of the Vietnam War. The first man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, has stated that we are on a "long downhill slide to mediocrity." America will lose supremacy in space and China will take over our place for the final frontier. Eventually, rising prosperous Communist China will be the first to land on the red planet Mars in the future. The golden age of Communist glory will reign - thanks to President Obama for delaying NASA manned space program for a few decades.
Shrinking availability of raw materials resources (petroleum, metals, forests, water, etc), rapid population growth, huge consumer demands with flourishing free markets, and unpredictable world disasters (from asteroid to biological terrorism) threaten our human and planetary survival. We never solve the world problem because of the complexity of fragments of world governments and various ideological beliefs among the world people. Famous deaf Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - the grandfather of modern astronautics and the Russian Jules Verne quoted that " Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever." Therefore, we cannot live forever on the only human life-support planet Earth.
The space program is truly essential for the survival of American civilization and the world humanity. We must continue to go beyond our fragile life-support planet Earth to explore in outer space in order to preserve our species of homo-sapiens by spreading out and creating human colonies in the vast universe. These require enormous ambitions, both spiritual and fabric rekindling. This was successful in 1960s space aspirations.
"Star Trek" fantasy, especially the dream of human colonies in outer space will never happen because humans, especially all life species are focused on short-insight of survival needs instead of long-term survival of its species. Then scarcity of raw material resources will drastically alter and diminish our advanced civilization, especially our oil-based economy and oil-dependent society. Our species of homo-sapiens cannot survive beyond several hundred years from now. We are likely to be permanently stuck on Earth in secluded. We learn the fate of world humanity by understanding animal survival and its historic extinction in the past. This too will be our true fate.
Why should we wait two or three decades to send men to the planet Mars? Then it will be too little and too late for America to send men on planetary exploration and colonization. The oil depletion and dwindling raw materials with exorbitant penalties will hinder the economic wealth and human survival. Almost everything is made and run by petroleum which we cannot replace. Also, we will not have anything to produce in our country since nearly all domestic manufactures bases have gone overseas so almost everything is made there. Therefore, there will be no Starship Enterprise, no Buck Rogers, and no famous Orange Tang!
However, there will be survivable human-made artifacts beyond the lifespan of our species of homo-sapiens. They are robotic spacecrafts (Pioneer 10, 11, Voyager 1, 2 and New Horizons) now located beyond our solar system flying outward to the stars. Several millions years from today, nearly all human artifacts, records and remnants of Earth will have perished forever by weathering harsh conditions on the earth (earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, etc) as well as solar and space activities (solar flares, comet, asteroid, etc). Survivable human-made satellites will outlast our species of homo-sapiens by several million years and will marooned in space forever unless they disintegrate into the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet or asteroid bodies or even, a star itself. If our human-made satellite survived and could be found by aliens (highly unlikely) from an advanced civilization in a space. Who will recognize and decipher these mysterious humanoid records from the aging robotic spacecraft?!
Remember the movie "Planet of the Apes" (1968) - American Astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) stunned to see the half-buried Statue of Liberty on the sandy beach and he just realized that American civilization was extinguished. Obama certainly blew NASA apart and is destroying our destiny of American civilization and its future space visionary!
Jeffrey Nelson
Arlington, Virginia USA
Yeah it's all Obama's fault. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, I see.
1. Manned space flight needs to be an international investment amongst all space-faring nations, not just the United States.
2. Private venture space flight is in it's infancy. The reason Bush and Obama cancelled the space shuttle and Constellation programs was for private space flight to get going.
Jeffrey -
Your fine Space Program was mortgaged to pay for the Bush wars. This was not Obama's decision.
Do you want America to have a robust space program, or do you want to subsidize rich people with tax breaks? These are your choices, and no you can't have both.
A few very important points, here.
Space exploration is a venture no one nation can carry. It has to be all of the nations that can contribute. It is time to sit down with the Russians and the ESA AND get the private ventures involved.
Building a station on the moon is the first step to launching deep space human exploration. Easier to lift off and maybe the fuel is there.
LEO isn't a waste of time for science, neither is the moon. An orbiting launch station could be used to transport people and materials to the moon and back. Shuttle was the first cargo van in space, let it not be the last. Could carbon fiber hulls be assembled in zero G? Let's find out.
I'm getting a brain full of possible engineering ideas, I have to rest. I just want to make clear that I would go lunar to build hab modules or vehicles tomorrow if I could.
"Space exploration is a venture no one nation can carry. It has to be all of the nations that can contribute."
Nonsense. It's entirely within US capability, if we do it right.
"Building a station on the moon is the first step to launching deep space human exploration. Easier to lift off and maybe the fuel is there."
A station on the Moon is good, but you don't make anything easier by leaving one gravity well to go down into another, and lift off again. Yes, Earth has more gravity than the moon, but fuel is cheap, and fuel resources down here are plentiful. You send it to LEO in multiple separate launches, to fuel deep-space craft that likewise have been assembled there from multiple launches...just as IS was built. (if it's chemically propelled, a case may be made for launching oxygen alone, derived from the Lunar regolith, from the Moon back to LEO...but don't assume you can go to the trouble of creating an entire manufacturing infrastructure on the Moon just to build a handful of spacecraft there, because 'it's easier to leave the Moon')
"LEO isn't a waste of time for science, neither is the moon. An orbiting launch station could be used to transport people and materials to the moon and back."
But yes, you will want plenty of this...and it doesn't require half the world to do it.
"Shuttle was the first cargo van in space, let it not be the last."
The lower the cost from Earth's surface to LEO, the better. We still need a good RLV.
The sooner humans get independent of the Earth the more likely a few will survive.
Leadership, or in romneys case, lack thereof. I liked ron paul up until last week, now I think maybe he oughta just come on out and admit he is just pocketing campaign money, same with roms...professional campaigner...probably does not want the white house, just the money. It will take more than money to get to the moon, it will take brains and leadership...something severely lacking across the entire planet so far this century...no wonder the chinese are tossing their way out of a wet paper bag, no one left at the helm with any common sense anywhere else. Heck maybe Lithuania would like to give it a shot and put a moonbase up....might as well, as long as we got romney, we got nothing.
Extremist Republicans and Christians will go for it if all of their ilk get tax money that could have gone to preventing death and destruction to we of the 99%.
White-Collar Welfare Program:
A program under which employees within a Government agency are hired for their job for no other reason than they are related to a high ranking politician and/or career Government civil servant. These people are characteristically under qualified, over paid, and lacking in contribution to society.
Poor NASA, how the hell can they ever plan anything and actually make it happen if every 4 or 8 years a new president comes along and changes the whole plan? cancel this & that and do this instead, oh no cancel that and do that...
It's not good for america nor for the world. Wise leaders are what is needed and a wise president would stick to the plan of his predecesor and see it through or just tweak it a little. One thing is for sure, is that NASA hasn't been listened to, and no body knows what is their vision and what they theink they can do.
At least Amaerica would see glory in a plan accomplished, but all we see actually is waste of money and no progress.
Very true and it is for this very reason that NASA has elected to take a defensive approach when dealing with Congress. Because they know they have only between 4- 8 years of stability they compensate by proposing big ticket programs, in the billions for each mission. The reason is obvious and it's because they want to lock in the future administrations with the logic that it will take as much money or more to terminate a program than to finish it.
This cat and mouse game has been going on for decades and clearly shows that, structurally, NASA is a failed experiment. It would be much more efficient to transfer the responsibilities to academia and private enterprises.
Of course, like FAA, NRC, EPA, CDC and the other regulatory agencies, there should be an agency to watch over a responsible LEO constitution.
Some plans need to be brought to a hard stop if they're bad. NASA is no different from the Department of Defense or other agencies in this respect. (and in both of those agencies, you can get serious Congressional resistance when it's decided to cancel a project that isn't performing as intended, and/or seriously overrunning its costs)
Do you know how much was spent on Constellation, just to get to that Ares-!X demo that was barely similar to actual Ares-1 hardware? That it still would have not flown humans (only) to LEO until 2017?
Some are merely concerned with keeping a project going as long as possible, keeping money and jobs in the relevant states/districts. Success? That's optional. Economical? But ...but , space is hard!
And SpaceX does what it does on a fraction of this. And the 'Traditional' space companies are finally taking note...
IS The GRASS GREENER ON THE MOON? Or Is there OIL on the MOON? Or GOLD may be?
Or Is it about depopulating the Earth to make way for the ETs..............
Sure, boys and girls, since we are broke, lets go to the moon on our credit card.
What for?????
You sir, are short sighted, and some other "not so nice" things to say....
Where there is no vision, the people perish
That is why too many believed the Bush/Cheney BS and so we perish. NEWT THE NUT is a dangerous man among so many idiots.
Rant and rave about how Obama is spending money wildly, then campain on a 100 billion dollar moon house. Lets keep building and repairing our roads,parks,border security.100 billion would buy alot of houses here.
Give me 1/2 that,even less, give me 10 billion and I'll let you play spaceman in my gravel pit. But pay for it out of the Gigglrich or the Rmoney bank account. Us grown ups would like to get on with our lives and try to get it something like it used to be before the previous rape we got by the gop and friends.
Mars has a better chance of supporting a human colony with it's water... no water on the moon.
There is water on the moon.
http://www.space.com/7530-significant-amount-water-moon.html
Not take your bold font off and educate yourself.
East coast beat me to it.... Educate yourself BEFORE posting... It helps you NOT look so.....
Any project that waste Billions, if not trillions during NASA's space program, is a total farce and should be stopped permanently and the money spent on jobs down here on mother earth.
Total NASA spending since it was created in 1957 does not even come close to one trillion dollars.
And just where do you think the money to develop any of this will be spent? Even the staff of any lunar bases can't do much with their salaries until they come back...
The problem is to not make the jobs more important than the results...
Yet ANOTHER person who's ignorant of the total monies involved......(sigh)
If 51% of the country actually goes crazy and puts Newt in office (assuming 51% of the GOP nominates him first), even with a GOP House AND Senate, he'd only get a handful of votes. He was just trolling for votes in Florida's NASA community.
people dont get along on this planet, now go to the moon cause a little problem and it is over for everyone good luck with this silly idea will never work
The mere fact that they aren't dusting off the Apollo program specs and approaching this as though we've never been to the moon before, makes me think that we never actually did so!