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Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 9 2007, 02:39 AM

Science 1 June 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5829, p. 1269

News of the Week
SPACE SCIENCE:
Stern Looks for Way Out of NASA's Budget Squeeze
Andrew Lawler
His $5.4 billion budget is stretched thin, but rather than cancel space projects nearing launch or ask for more money, NASA's new science chief Alan Stern says he intends to beef up lunar science, champion smaller and less complex spacecraft, and insist on hard-nosed cost estimates before larger missions can win approval.

Full article: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5829/1269a

I especially liked this line: "I don't have to kill any missions," he insists. But he said NASA will consider firing those principal investigators in charge of missions that spiral out of control.

Posted by: nprev Jun 9 2007, 02:55 AM

I don't envy him this. Budget control is damn near an impossible task on some projects, especially when you're pushing the edge of technology and facing hard launch windows. Still, if anyone can do it, it's the guy that built New Horizons against all odds...good luck, Alan!

Posted by: ngunn Jun 9 2007, 09:37 PM

Well said, nprev.
When your job is to explore the universe one of the things that can happen is that you stumble on something unexpectedly interesting, or an unforseen opportunity to learn more. I believe that in a prehistoric context being able to rise to such occasions is what gave homo sapiens the edge. Budget controls create a level playing field - they dumb our species down to the level of the rest - being able to deal only with what was planned for.

I echo that good luck wish. I hope you manage to beat the odds, buck the system, or whatever.

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 10 2007, 04:19 AM

There's a difference between research and engineering. The engineering part shouldn't have the kind of uncertainties we've seen so often. If one project has significant engineering risks and another doesn't, then we should fund the second. Arguably, we should fund some research aimed at addressing the risks from project #1, but it makes no sense to just do it and see what happens.

When project managers lie about the risks -- or make committments without really understanding them -- I don't see that as evidence of creativity. What made New Horizons successful (in my opinion, anyway) is that it used off-the-shelf technologies as much as possible. I'm sure there were technical challenges, but (as far as I know) the science at Pluto is the only real unknown.

Contast that with Gravity Probe-B. Every part of it was something new and challenging, and despite being decades late and orders of magnitude over budget, it appears to have failed completely.

We really need someone to make sure there isn't ever another Gravity Probe B. If they were all like NH, we'd probably get 2x to 3x the science we do now.

--Greg (Okay, maybe not THAT much) :-)

Posted by: nprev Jun 10 2007, 04:36 AM

Good observations, Greg.

I'd say that it really all depends upon defining the mission objectives as clearly as possible as early as possible; in UMSF particularly, function must dictate form. The caveat here is that exploring truly unknown worlds often leaves function and therefore form vulnerable to uncertainty and late-breaking discoveries, which can translate into budget creep.

Posted by: djellison Jun 10 2007, 10:06 AM

I know just how Alan feels - I had £5000 to do a complete IT overhaul at work - nightmare!



Doug

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 10 2007, 02:38 PM

Using new technologies for the first time -- especially if you are the first to ever use them -- adds risk. Doing *anything* for the first time adds uncertainty. If at all possible, you hire someone who's done it before.

Sometimes you can't avoid it; in those cases, you're upfront about it, you try to load those risky items to the very front of the schedule, and you include a milestone to revise schedule and budget, depending on the outcome. From that point, schedule and budget both should be pretty solid. Again, it appears to me that this is more or less what NH did.

Alexander Pope had the right idea:
"Be not the first by whom the new are tried,"
"Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

Of course, all progress would stop if EVERYONE did this, but there's scant chance of that. :-)

--Greg

Posted by: MaxSt Jun 10 2007, 10:51 PM

Excuse my ignorance, but what's wrong with Gravity Probe B?

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 11 2007, 03:25 AM

Folks who know the math better than I do tell me noise in the data means they're unlikely to measure the frame-dragging effect, which was the whole point of the mission.

Look at the last update to their web page and you'll see lots of talk about things like how many Ph.D.'s came out of the program and some words about measuring the geodetic effect (already done more cheaply), but nothing about the failure to perform the central task of the mission. Somewhere they did mention that they needed more time to finish the analysis (to somehow remove that noise) but people whose opinion I respect tell me it's probably hopeless. (Only reason for doubt is that the GPB folks hadn't released all the data last I checked, so it's vaguely possible someone else might salvage something from it.)

It was always a long shot -- so many new things had to work for them to pull this off -- and it's clear they worked really hard to try to make it happen, but it's also pretty clear that they didn't manage it. With a mission intended to produce a single result, that amounts to total failure. Given the fabulous cost of the thing, that's particularly sad.

Unfortunately, there's limited money for unmanned space probes, so what there is needs to go to the most promising missions first. Dollar for dollar, Gravity Probe B was a really bad bet. I'm hoping Alan can see to it that there are no more like it.

--Greg

Posted by: djellison Jun 11 2007, 06:59 AM

Sounds like your advocating a progam of only very safe missions, or you want to somehow ban the unexpected. From time to time you have to try something extraordinary or you don't progress anywhere.

The GPB team didn't know there would be terrible noise before they started, the Genesis team didn't know the capsule would crash, the DI team didn't know the ejecta would obscure the crater so badly, etc etc etc. I agree that where possible, misions should use tried and tested technology - but someone still has to go and try the new technology (DS1 w.r.t. Dawn especially) - and in the case of some missions - like GPB - there isn't going to be any way to test the new technology without just getting on with it and doing it. You do the studies, you look at the engineering, you get the best brains in the world onto the problem and they come out and say "This should work - let's do it" - and in that respect, GPB is perhaps no different to, say, Stardust. Something comes along that we didn't forsee for one mission but not another and suddenly ones a complete and utter failure and ones a astonishing science result.

Short of predicting the future, I'm not sure how you can avoid that. You can make sure that all those studies are done to the Nth degree, every option studies, every engineering challenge investigated, but there will be things that you can not predict or could not forsee in every mission. It's a pity that GPB is an expensive case in point - but no one went out to spend that money with the intention of producing noisy data that would be no good.

Doug

Posted by: mchan Jun 11 2007, 08:40 AM

Yes, but what bothered more than a few people was that they took such a long time (over umpteen years missing many schedule deadlines and launch dates) and kept going over budget. Even some folks who support GPB agree that NASA would probably never fund anything like it again or would cancel it way before launch.

On second thought, there's the JWST.

Posted by: cndwrld Jun 11 2007, 10:53 AM

People have been doing space science for a long time now. On most missions, there are only a few things that are truly new or untried. Ion engines, deployable air bags for landings, rover enhancements have been recent ones. Not all went real well. No one is horribly surprised when such things surprise us. What generally seems to drive things over the budget cliff are not engineering uncertainty, but the way that missions get funded. It is one of those open secrets in industry that you get picked in large part by providing the lowest price. Not necessarily the price that you know it is going to cost. And then you get picked by the project office, when they often know it, too. Project offices pare down margins. Experience tells them they'll need it. But to get the cost down to what they are ordered to use, they cut it. People know how many people it will take to operate something, sometimes for years, but the Project Office can make assumptions about operations that aren't workable, and bury it because review boards typically don't look into things like software development costs, operating assumptions, or in-flight checkouts along the way. And all along the funding process, everyone assumes the schedule will never slip, efficiency is 100%, complex software always works. And by doing all this, you get a project approved for the amount of money that has been provided, when many people knew it wasn't enough for what you were trying to do. And everyone counts on the money being found later on, because once you get started on it, it won't get killed.

I think there's room for improvement, if the process is adjusted so that self-preservation in people all along the chain makes it necessary. I'm in the business because of the romantic side of it. But its also about big bucks, which doesn't always bring out the best in everyone. You can dream your dreams, but every dream has to be paid for if it is to be achieved. And we're paying for it with other people's money. For their sake, I think a bit more efficiency is not too much to ask.

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 11 2007, 02:16 PM

You take the risks you have to, but it's my perception (and I'm not alone) that NASA has taken foolish risks. Remember Alan's proposal to send a copy of NH to Uranus? That'd have been a very low-risk mission with an excellent promise of returning new information, but it didn't seem they took it very seriously. In fact, it often seems that NASA is risk-seeking, not risk-avoiding. The Space Shuttle is one obvious example of this.

I've heard a lot of complaints about the dishonest budgeting process too. Someone told me once that the largest reason for the failure of the Space Shuttle program to achieve its goal (of cheaper space flight using a reusable vehicle) was that in order to meet the budget requirements, they consistently traded off immediate costs for future maintenence costs. As a result, it costs 3x as much (even correcting for inflation) for the shuttle to put the same mass in orbit as an Apollo-era rocket did, and the fuel is only a tiny part of the cost; most of it is salaries.

There have been spectacular successes too -- don't get me wrong. The Mars Rovers, Cassini, Voyager . . . it's a long list. But when we look at how few interesting unmanned flights are planned over the next few decades, the importance of doing them right and getting the most bang for the buck seems higher than ever.

That's why I'm happy to see NASA put someone in charge who has actually done one right. It makes me more hopeful about the future.

--Greg

Posted by: helvick Jun 11 2007, 02:23 PM

I'll have some news on the JWST over on the main JWST thread later but for now the headline points to refute the implication that JWST and GPB are comparable - JWST is a long term multi instrument observatory that will provide 10-1000x the sensitivity of current observing instruments for a 10 year operational period. Comparing that to a one off mission with one experiment is not fair. It has overrun its budget badly but in today's dollars it's about 2x its original budget and that includes a decade of operations - if that remains true then it will come in at 50% of the LTD cost of Hubble. _And_ $300million of that overrun was caused by foot dragging outside of the project over the decision to use the Ariane-5 launcher. The recent schedule re-formulation exercise seems to indicate they are pretty serious about keeping things tight now that they know how to do this thing.

Posted by: stevesliva Jun 11 2007, 02:51 PM

There's an interesting interplay between conservative design, "Let's build with proven technology only," interchangeable parts, "Let's build with what is commercially available," and the march of progress. The dangers of trying to go backward along the technological axis are as fraught with danger as going forward, but certainly any system architect should focus on success and not technological development unless advancement is the goal itself. If the goal of the shuttle was re-usability it was a partial success, but it it was to lower costs it was certainly a failure... the irony being that the two goals are not necessarily compatible.

But I work in the semiconductor industry, and it is amazing to see how you cannot work in a vacuum. (no pun intended). We'd all love to work on an old technology, where all the dangers are known and all the tools are familiar, right up until the time when the factory lets us know they've forgotten how to make the stuff from a decade ago, and when the IT guys tell us that the computers that run the old tools aren't around any longer. (Not to mention you won't make too much profit, but that's off the table here) You take on risk just by stepping forward, but it is so hard to go back. We can talk to old satellites, but can we still build them?

Posted by: nprev Jun 12 2007, 03:37 AM

Hmm. Very good points, Steve, and they seem to harken back to the central concept of sustainability.

The arguably sporadic nature of UMSF does not lend itself well to sustainability; most missions are either unique in nature or rapidly overcome by technological advances to the satisfaction of no one. I personally think that if we could maintain a steady-state launch schedule (yep...big pipe dream there, I know) then we could realize many economies of scale, not the least of which being stable infrastructures that could be well understood and subsequently improved using lessons learned. Complete new starts, which are the rule rather than the exception damn near every time (since planetary missions usually have to hit the ground running merely to survive) are both costly and risky; gotta stop this.

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jun 12 2007, 03:38 AM

Helvick: I agree competely about the JWST.

Steve: So why didn't you guys switch to Gallium Arsenide when that was hot? You take careful, measured steps, and you count the cost. I'm all for responsible risk taking. I just don't think NASA has been as responsible as I'd like lately.

--Greg

Posted by: stevesliva Jun 12 2007, 05:08 AM

I work for IBM, and we've got SiGe Sticking with silicon has its advantages. Certainly there are many "rumors-of-my-demise-are-greatly-exaggerated" moments in the industry. CMOS keeps standing up and declaring, "I'm not dead yet!"

I'm all for proven technologies, myself. I wish we had some more RTGs kicking around, but there aren't, and you just know when more are manufactured there's going to be some sort of technological leap forward. That's just the way it is. Change for change's sake.

I definitely agree that there's got to be something that can be re-used, but it may well only be within a pretty narrow mission description... messenger, dawn, new horizons, MRO... they're so different! The first step would be limited-instrument mars orbiters sharing the same vehicle over several launches, and I'd love to see several outer planets missions sharing the same design, but it just doesn't seem to work that way. It seems the the incremental costs of new development and risk are worthwhile compared to the costs of doing the same thing several times. This could be because the PIs are underestimating development expense, but it's also because missions are required to carry new instruments to new places to guarantee truly new discoveries rather than just more sharper photos. It's got to be harder to pitch "let's just go and take more photos of Europa!" versus, "Let's go take more photos, AND bring radar, AND bring penetrators, AND..." How much more would we learn if we just launched another Galileo? And yet no one is proposing that... it's not just RISK that is being pushed, but the requirement that something's got to be NEW on each mission.

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 12 2007, 05:01 PM

Unfortunately, the tendency towards "there must be something NEW each mission" is driven, not always by science, but by "sexiness" and an attempt to sell a project. MARSIS and SHARAD, for example, are good ideas, but the data that comes from them are incredibly hard to interpret. Just as with the Lunar Sounder flown on Apollo 17, these radar "glimpses" into subsurface structures provide data that requires you to know more than we *do* know about subsurface conditions in order to get valid interpretations.

I remember during Apollo, there was such a push to do something new on every subsequent landing, without having any time to analyze the results of the last two landings, that some of the experiments made little sense, or were rushed so much that they had technical or design failures. This was especially true on Apollo 17, where everyone's pet experiment was going to be flown or *never* be flown. So you got such time-consuming and otherwise marginally useful experiments as the Surface Electrical Properties experiment, the Lunar Sounder, and the Lunar Surface Gravimeter. The data returned from the first two was marginal at best, and the speed with which the last one was assembled led to a mistake in the balancing of its central measuring device, a free-floating beam structure, which rendered it useless.

Thankfully, at least for outer planet probes, we have enough time between the last one and the next one that the choice of sensors we fly in the future is at least strongly influenced by the results we've seen from earlier probes. And with lead times in the tens of years between probes to given outer planets, you would naturally expect a lot of improvements in technology from one probe to the next.

You need to have a rapid-fire series of missions to take advantage of volume efficiencies, and it's just not reasonable to send out a probe every six months to a year, as we did during the Golden Age of the 1960s. Back then, if you wanted to send a probe to Venus, well, just borrow a Ranger spacecraft body, adjust its instrumentation, and send it on its way. Build a dozen octagonal spacecraft busses and then outfit them for the mission at hand, a la Mariners 3 through 9. But when it will be 10 years or more between outer planet missions, it makes no sense to standardize your bus -- the technology will advance enough between missions it makes more sense to build new each time. It may be more expensive, but it makes more sense.

-the other Doug

Posted by: nprev Jun 13 2007, 01:32 AM

True words, DV; definitely food for thought.

The idea of economy of scale would only make sense if it was also designed around an integrated science campaign for a particular target using Discovery-class missions rather than Flagships. Using Titan as an example, it might make sense to build a dedicated radar mapping orbiter, followed shortly by an atmospheric investigation platform, followed later by a lander/balloon. The two orbiters could probably use similar if not identical busses rated for outer-system operations; this infrastructure then could be used for similar missions to the other gas giants.

Again, though, this only makes sense if the general idea is to accomplish very specific goals with limited instrumentation for each mission rather than to attempt to answer an entire suite of science questions using a single platform.

Posted by: mchan Jun 13 2007, 10:41 AM

My comment about JWST was a bit unfair in comparing it to GPB. I do support its broad science objectives. That it is a such a mega-project makes it a target the comes up first when massive budget overruns and schedule delays are discussed.

Don Merritt (cndwrld) described well the underestimating that goes on in project proposals. I hope the Dawn experience give future project hopefuls some caution to include more detailed analysis of development and operational costs in their estimate of how much money the project requires for mission success.

One other recent lesson was in the descoping of NH and Dawn. Both lost their magnetometers to try to stay under cost caps. The tactic of adding an instrument to gain wider support with the knowledge that it could be dropped if total project costs start going over budget should be done with integrity. If an instrument is really required for mission success, then that instrument cannot be dropped without risking cancellation of the whole project. One possibility here is for inclusion of an aspirational category. It gets a line in the budget. The instrument team knows the risk when they sign on. Depending on interteam dynamics, it could be an incentive for all teams to work harder to stay within costs so everybody makes it to the gate.

Posted by: Littlebit Jun 13 2007, 02:39 PM

An even broader upscaling of cost is the distribution of workload amoung congressional districts to bring on congressional support. Frankly, I think this is acceptable, but everyone needs to understand that the cost of space missions is driven by the need for broad congressional support - the situation is not unlike the requirements the ESA runs into to integrate components from many nations.

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 13 2007, 06:07 PM

You point out a key factor in understanding how these things happen, Littlebit. People who don't care to evaluate the relative desirability of various funding programs refer to the process simply as "pork" -- money distributed amongst various congressional districts in order to gain broad support for the funding.

In reality, you're often talking about pumping millions, if not billions, of dollars into the private sector to build, fly and manage these spacecraft. It makes sense to distribute that money as widely around the country as possible, to avoid giving all of the economic benefits to a small segment of the population. A majority of the dollars spent on a spacecraft generally goes into labor costs, and that money gets spent in the communities where the workforce lives. So, even though you're always going to be giving the money to the same types of workers -- engineers, scientists, factory workers, etc. -- if you gave all of the contracts to a few companies in southern California, that money wouldn't circulate as widely, and provide economic support for as many communities, as if you spread it around to contractors all over the country.

That's one reason why the Shuttle is so expensive to fly -- it serves not only as a space transportation system, but also as a mechanism for distributing federal funds into the private sector via an overly-large (for the task) workforce. While this does nothing to reduce the costs of getting into LEO, it does provide jobs and pump money into the communities where Shuttle processing and management facilities are located.

So, while this type of funding process is looked down upon by purists who believe that "pork" is always a bad thing, it actually has some sound economic reasoning behind it.

Oh, and BTW -- there are other factors involved, too, not the least of which are the inter-Center rivalries and jockeying for new project funding amongst all of the NASA Centers. APL winning the management of New Horizons was a major coup, since most every other planetary probe flown by the U.S. has been managed out of JPL. It's a good precedent, encouraging each Center to work lean and mean and out-bid the other Centers for new projects.

-the other Doug

Posted by: nprev Jun 14 2007, 01:30 AM

Well said, Doug. I think that competition to fly Discovery-class missions is indeed healthy, and fosters innovative mission concepts as well as cost conservation. Perhaps it would be wise for NASA to increase Discovery program funding and thereby get more missions flown by more people.

Posted by: Littlebit Jun 14 2007, 02:05 PM

There are other downsides: The instability in aerospace, combined with the earning potential in other areas has driven many potential engineers into other fields. In the US, while other professions have shattered the 100K$ salary ceiling; space-related engineering salaries have doddled. The best and brightest have more income potential and job stability in urban planning, accounting and pharmacology than space engineering. Factor in the inflated CEO skim, and it is difficult to woo enough capable engineers into industry centers featuring short term projects. The lose of NASA's glitter only makes matters worse: It is going to take serious money to keep exploring space.

Posted by: dvandorn Jun 14 2007, 02:21 PM

You make some truly excellent points, Littlebit. It seems that the one area in which aerospace holds a greater appeal than other, more highly compensated and stable engineering disciplines is in its intrinsic appeal to sense of wonder. It's "cool" and "sexy" to work on spacecraft systems. For some engineers, this is enough to lure them into aerospace engineering. For others, it just doesn't outweigh the disparities in compensation and job security.

Y'all have to remember that in the late 1950s through the late 1960s, America so highly encouraged its best and brightest to specialize in aerospace engineering that we created a crop of people who were literally able to put men on the Moon. And then we thanked them, gave a few of them some medals, took most of their jobs away, and said "We don't need what you do anymore -- go find something worthwhile to do."

The engineering community hasn't forgotten the massive layoffs of the late 1960s into the early 1970s, and I can't blame them.

So -- what do we do to make aerospace engineering a well-compensated and nationally critical discipline once again? As much as people don't want to hear it, I think the first step is that more money needs to be spent on aerospace projects, and those projects need to have enough committment from the people and the government to make the discipline seem worthwhile to those who are making their career decisions today.

How do we accomplish that? I wish I knew.

-the other Doug

Posted by: gndonald Jun 14 2007, 03:40 PM

Slightly off topic...

In the post-Apollo period some consideration was given to taking the hardware developed for Viking and modifying it for lunar use, a sound, low risk concept, which would probably have had some major scientific payoffs. For example the Viking landers were fully the equivalent of the Block II Surveyors. But for whatever reason, probably a case of "we've already photographed it/sampled it, so why do it again", the idea does not seem to have been carried beyond the proposal stage.

I still think that NASA missed a wonderful opportunity when they elected not to replicate the Pathfinder mission to Mars, just think of the science return we could have had from a series of simple landers sent to Mars at every launch opportunity in addition to the high complexity probes such as the MRO...

It's interesting to note that the latest http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/MSO_SAG2_Report_MEPAG_29may.pdf report is recommending a Viking style Orbiter/Lander mission for the 2013 launch opportunity.

Hopefully, Alan Stern will find a way to send two such probes.

Posted by: Littlebit Jun 14 2007, 03:55 PM

While I am on a role, there are two more major cultural impacts:

1) End of the cold war.

2) Video Games and Big trucks.

In the sixties and seventies, there was a very real war mentality in space techology: We had to catch up to, and then surge ahead of the Soviets before they quite literally conquered us on earth as well as in space. We were frightened, and would work all kinds of ungodly shifts and hours in the committment to be first to the moon. (I have heard war stories about parts being smuggled out of Detroit in campers shells during a Chicago trucking strike.)

It was much easier for a manager to ask an engineering team to put in extended shifts, and easier for spouses to tolerate it, when the fate of the world was at stake.

Which is oddly, just as true today as it was then, it is only the urgency that is less.

It was also true that a computer nerd only had access to computers at work. I have a nephew who plays computer games for a living - providing online hints for game addicts. (My first experience with computer games was a lunar lander game, written in Fortran and programmed into a $150,000 first-generation FTIR.) I loved to get stuck late into the night, just waiting for a sample...

Posted by: monitorlizard Jun 14 2007, 07:33 PM

Maybe space science could benefit from the Air Force example, where constant technology upgrading is required, but they can't afford to design a new aircraft every couple of years. So they use block upgrades,
where nearly every system is modular and new technology is introduced by more-or-less plug-in modules that fit in the same volume as what they replace. Then you only need a new aircraft design every twenty or thirty years. A few different aircraft for different missions (fighters, bombers, intelligence gathering)--a few different spacecraft designs for different missions (orbiters, landers, rovers).

I know NASA is doing some of this (AFL rover in 2016 should be very similar to MSL in all but payload), but I think it could do more standardizing of designs, and block upgrades.

As an aside, I heard once that up to 25% of the Apollo program work was done by people donating overtime with no pay, such was the patriotism/nationalism/Cold Warism of the 1960's. When I worked as an intern at the USGS Astrogeology Branch in 1980, all new employees were told at the orientation meeting that it was illegal to work overtime without pay. All of the secretaries scratched their heads, saying "why would anybody do that?", while all the scientists were laughing their heads off, like "go ahead, try to stop me." Still, it's not something you can depend on to keep costs down, but I think a lot of you know what I mean.

Posted by: nprev Jun 18 2007, 02:46 PM

Yeah...love what you do, do what you love...that's saved more projects then I think we really want to know...

Definitely not something that can be depended upon, though, especially nowadays. The Baby Boomer retirement crunch is upon us, and up to 50% of the current S&T workforce (at least in the US government) will probably be gone by 2012. GenXers and later cohorts have a different orientation with respect to work; it's a means, not an end, and this is an artifact of not growing up in economically difficult times when a job was something to achieve and keep.

There will be exceptions, of course, and a certain amount of heroism is always needed to make projects succeed. In order to get that, though, there will have to be good leadership and management combined with inherently interesting problems to solve. Things are changing; heads up, and be adaptive.

Posted by: Littlebit Jun 18 2007, 07:42 PM

This makes much to much sense to be implimented.

There are still snags - Venus Express, for example, is based upon a Mar's orbiter design, and is having a miserable time in the heat.

The other big problem is skilled labor: To an extent, a complany like Boeing can move engineers and such to and from military and civilian projects, and different types of craft. Without a completely cohesive plan to retain skilled positions, you cannot shelf all rocket/space mission designs and expect the person who put them on the shelf to still be around five to twenty years later: The small market necessitates retention of skills, ballooning costs.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Jun 18 2007, 08:11 PM

Why do you say that? The combined flight rate of all interplanetary spacecraft (even in the go-go years of the 1990s and early part of this century) doesn't even come close to making that economically feasible.

Posted by: stevesliva Jun 18 2007, 09:42 PM

Agreed.

It'd be an interesting concept to grossly oversimplify the spacecraft... few instruments, far less redundancy, and send a swarm rather than one. But some of the same things that cause catastrophe for one probe can cause catastrophe for a swarm.

Posted by: Littlebit Jun 19 2007, 03:13 PM

There is no reason common bus systems could not be implimented across board for manned, unmanned, military flight, missile and satellite systems: They are all driven by the same environmental constraints: weight, radiation, vibration, pressure and thermal extremes. Everyone has to worry about whether a plastic will sweat, contaminate, and turn brittle. Everyone needs to know if the seal will rot, if the computer will drop a critical byte during an interrupt, or if gamma rays from any source will invade and destroy.

The most useful function I can see for the space lab is an "underwriters laboratory" for new hardware and software designed for used not only in space, but also in military planes and other assets. All of the hardware we are turning loose in space, we could subject it to real space extremes in or near the shuttle, then recovering it and evaluate the aging effects. Yes, these would be expensive tests - but the laboratory is already there looking for something useful to do.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Aug 24 2007, 03:59 PM

Check out Alan Stern's comments in the latest online edition of the "Planetary
Exploration Newsletter." I think that we have a person in NASA's SMD
who is trying to wring as much Space Science as he can out of the funds
given him. He deserves our praise and thanks.

I do have a question for Alan, however - What is the status of the
New Millenium Program? Recently, it appeared that future NMP missions,
such as ST-9, were being pushed into the indefinite future, i.e., they were being
effectively cancelled. Will Mr. Stern try to revive NMP? Are its missions
being re-evaluted for effectiveness and relevance to future Space Science missions?


Another Phil

Posted by: nprev Aug 25 2007, 12:35 AM

That's a damn good idea, LB! Hopefully Alan or other NASA officials who perhaps may lurk here will take note. Given the ever-increasing commercial utilization of space, it's even conceivable that funding for ISS activities of this sort would be readily available from the private sector.

Posted by: stevesliva Aug 25 2007, 01:38 AM

ITAR. (Four-letter word)

The US government has made it extremely difficult to commingle commercial and military hardware. They either make everything too secretive, or just wrap it in red tape.

Not only to I not think that NASA and NOAA can afford what the military throws money at, but I don't think the laws allow that technology to spin-off into the civilian realm very easily.

It would certainly be nice if it were easier, though...

How did Clementine work out in the spin-off department?

Posted by: Jim from NSF.com Aug 27 2007, 01:05 PM

There are many reasons why it can't be done. The environment is different, depending on the orbit/mission. Sun synchronous, LEO, GSO, interplanetary spacecraft have different design constraints. Same goes for the mission, A commsat is much different than a earth observing spacecraft. Military vs commercial had different design requirements, Commercial is driven by cost. Manned vs unmanned is another cost trade, there is no reason for the extra work on an unmanned component . Same goes for launch vehicle vs spacecraft components. launch vehicle components have relatively short lives vs a spacecraft.

It was tried for Mars Observer and it was found not to be a viable idea

Missiile are very different from launch vehicles


Also, It is not even done on aircraft. F-15 parts don't fly on B-747

Posted by: Jim from NSF.com Aug 27 2007, 01:08 PM

This already exists. there are many testing labs among the contractors and gov't org's and they share the info.
Especially, material research is shared.
it doesn't have to be in space. The environment can be simulated in thermal vacuum chambers

Posted by: nprev Aug 27 2007, 01:28 PM

I agree with respect to temp & vacuum, Jim, but how about overall (full-spectrum) radiation exposure (including solar flares and other random high-energy events), microgravity, and the erosive effects of atomic oxygen?

I know that, for example, rad testing is also conducted on the ground, but simulation has its limits; nothing like "ground truth" when it comes to testing, esp. if interactive/synergestic effects between all factors are possible.

The ISS is a perfect platform for such tests; the question is whether it's cost-effective to use it as such. I suspect that it just might be for things like new basic materials or small devices like actuators or solar cells; the sample size can be pretty small, and after a couple of years of exposure it can go back during a crew change...sort of an LDEF-light concept.

Posted by: Jim from NSF.com Aug 27 2007, 02:54 PM

microgravity doesn't need to be simulated for spacecraft testing

atomic oxygen effects very few spacecraft (only the ones in LEO)

overall (full-spectrum) radiation exposure (including solar flares and other random high-energy events). The ISS isn't going help with testing for Jovian radiation nor Van Allen either

However, I agree with you on using the ISS as an LDEF

Posted by: remcook Aug 27 2007, 03:53 PM

"microgravity doesn't need to be simulated for spacecraft testing"

I thought that would be quite important for things like solar panel deployment and I have seen that they use big balloons for that..

Posted by: djellison Aug 27 2007, 05:07 PM

Indeed - the ISS is being used as an LDEF platform - the MISSE experiments.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/MISSE-3-and-4.html

It's the managerial lessons, the processes, that I think need to be learnt by future PI's in smaller scale projects - not how to build spacecraft (something they don't do anyway)

Doug

Posted by: nprev Aug 27 2007, 11:14 PM

Thanks, Doug!

Well, the wheel doubtlessly had to be invented several times before it really caught on...

Posted by: JRehling Sep 5 2007, 03:23 PM

Why miserable? Venus Express has been operationally smoother than Mars Express. It's got one important instrument malfunctioning, but that demonstrably had nothing to do with heat: the problem first manifested itself shortly after launch.

Posted by: Rakhir Sep 5 2007, 03:42 PM

From last http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMNOCMPQ5F_index_0.html

In spite of experiencing a challenging environment, Venus Express is in an excellent condition. It receives four times the amount of solar radiation as its sister spacecraft, Mars Express, but modifications to the spacecraft design have worked just as intended and operation has been very stable.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Sep 19 2007, 05:06 PM

NASA has convened the NOSSE committee to review future Space Science
options, including how to shape the next AO for New Frontiers. A recent letter
from Beta Reebe and Warren Buck, who are on the committee, discussed some
of the issues concerning future New Frontiers missions. Here is a link to that
letter -
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/nosse_letter.pdf

You will notice toward the end of the letter that they ask whether mid-size Mars
missions should be allowed to be offered for New Frontiers projects. My firm
reply would be NO! Please do not allow Mars missions to engulf any more of the
Space Science budget.
As Alan Stern recently pointed out, Mars exploration already consumes almost
HALF of NASA's Space Science funds. The other half is devoted to ALL of the rest
of the Solar system! I'm sure that anyone of us could think of 10 interesting missions
to places besides Mars.
Don't get me wrong - I like Mars as much as anyone. However, I also believe that
it should not account for any more of NASA's unmanned exploration effort than it already
does. In fact, if there is a need for more robotic probes to Mars than is now planned,
I propose that it come from the Constellation budget. I'm sure that there will be a need
for precursor missions for manned landings, and these could serve double duty as
science missions.

Another Phil

Posted by: JRehling Sep 19 2007, 05:27 PM

The link doesn't work, but this small modification worked for me:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/nosse_letter.pdf

I agree wholeheartedly on the Mars issue, although I think we need an even more detailed policy principle than to say that Mars should perpetually consume 50%, or 40%, or 25%, etc., of the budget. I think we should see the Mars emphasis that somewhat goes back to the failed Mars Explorer and continues to the present day as what is probably a temporary (if decades-long) bump in Mars emphasis in order to address specific science goals that are of particular interest and that have therefore garnered extra attention to Mars. But the point is to seek answers to those questions, not to emphasize Mars above all others until we can emphasize it no more. We could launch 100 more missions to Mars this century and still know it far less well than we know Arizona. But what is the goal? In science, we can always say that knowing more about Mars is better (true), but the opportunity cost needs to be addressed.

I believe that if you never give someone a budget or a deadline, at least an implicit one, you never get results. The Mars program has no incentive to answer the questions, and there is even programmatic incentive for investigators to dally around the big questions, keeping Mars the top funding draw into perpetuity.

I'd like to see a Mars program that identifies its goals, identifies a proposed, if tentative exploration architecture for meeting those goals, and a firm expectation that when that architecture has run its course, the gravy train for Mars will no longer be assured (unless new or ongoing conditions further increase the interest in Mars relative to the rest of the solar system).

Posted by: djellison Sep 19 2007, 05:38 PM

http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/

Doug

Posted by: dvandorn Sep 19 2007, 05:55 PM

Ah, but this assumes that the bureaucracy can agree on an exploration strategy (i.e., a set of goals) upon which to design an architecture.

Are we trying to find signs of extant life on Mars? Are we looking for signs of extinct life (paleofossils, etc.)? Are we trying to gather all of the information needed to support a manned landing? A colony? Do we require the knowledge needed to manufacture consumables and fuels from indigenous sources?

Or do we just want to better constrain our theories of the origin and history of Mars?

I think you'll all agree, the amount of money needed to achieve the goals associated with the various broad-brush strategies I mentioned above vary just as wildly as the strategies.

Anyone care to guess how long it will take for the American government (or any government, for that matter) to agree on, and commit to, any of these strategies? Or how long any government will remain committed to any of them?

Until that happens, scientists and engineers have to keep playing the best games available to get *any* missions designed, developed, built and flown. I can't fault anyone for seeking out any and every means possible to get that done.

When NASA, or ESA, or JAXA, or anyone else can show that they can not only agree on a strategy but stick to such a strategy for more than two or three years at a time, I'll agree with you two. Until then, I suppose we'll just continue along doing things the old-fashioned, chaotic way.

-the other Doug

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Sep 24 2007, 08:41 PM

I applaud Stern's efforts to get the most out of NASA's Space Science budget.
His recent move to reverse the cancelation of the NuStar Explorer was an
encouraging decision. It shows that a well-run SMD can fly more missions on
a given budget.
As for future decisions by Stern, I would urge the removal of a mission to
collect samples from the Moon's South Pole-Aitken Basin from the candidate
list for the next New Frontiers AO. In my opinion, there are other locations in
the Solar System that have higher priority for the limited slots available in
the New Frontiers program. It seems that only 2 or 3 NF missions will be flown
in any decade. Some other higher-priority destinations, for that limited number
of slots, would be Centaur asteroids, the Ring System of Saturn, the surface of Venus,
the surface of Mercury, the atmosphere of Saturn, the surface of Vesta,
the Trojan asteroids of the Jupiter system and the near-Sun environment (Solar Probe).

Another Phil

Posted by: AscendingNode Sep 24 2007, 09:09 PM

I would love to see NASA fund studies to design missions to all of these. I sure would be nice to have a nice library of mission concepts that can be pulled from to see if we can reach target X at cost Y and so on. And to keep things honest, establish a procedure by which people can propose to do studies revising a 'library' design.

As the library is built up, the community can then weigh science value of targets vs. practicality and rough cost when they establish a road-map type plans. Also, if a whole bevy of missions require Technology Z, then that technology development can be moved to higher priority.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Oct 5 2007, 05:00 PM

A recent white paper by Paul Spudis, titled "Sampling the SPA Basin" adds
to my argument against a New Frontiers lunar sampling mission.

It can be found at -

https://www.infonetic.com/tis/lea/papers/Spudis.Spudis%20white%20paper%20SPA.pdf

On page 2, there are the following remarks by Spudis -

"Can a New frontiers robotic sample return mission solve SPA problems?
I doubt it."
"Complicated sites offer less chance that the correct sample will be obtained
or recognized."
"A single scoop of regolith contains more complexity than even the most
complicated terrestrial field sites."

As Spudis highlights, an NF lunar sample return has very little chance of finding
and returning the Correct rock samples that are needed to understand the age
and history of the SPA basin on the Moon. Why spend 3/4 of a Billion dollars
on a mission that may return ambiguous or incorrect science? Do we want
another fiasco like Gravity Probe B?
I believe that New Frontiers funds would be better spent on destinations
beyond the Moon, such as missions to the Rings of Saturn
or to the Surface of Venus.

Another Phil

Posted by: dvandorn Oct 5 2007, 05:25 PM

Note how o'Phil neglects to mention that Spudis' comments come from the point of view that it's a much better idea to send humans to SPA who can intelligently gather samples and who can collect more samples than a robotic sample return mission.

We still have a LOT to learn from the Moon. We need to go back.



-the other Doug

Posted by: PhilCo126 Oct 5 2007, 06:01 PM

Let's be realistic and hope to see a slight increase in NASA's budget over the coming decade or so...

Posted by: nprev Oct 6 2007, 02:28 AM

A bit of potential light in this regard: the Senate http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/senate-wants-1-.html to add another $1 billion to NASA's 2008 budget to redress some of the diversion of science funding to Shuttle safety upgrades. Not a done deal by any means, but at least a hopeful sign.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Feb 26 2008, 10:53 PM

Alan Stern continues to do an excellent job at NASA Space Science, despite
a number of challenges. A few points on recent news -

1. I like the idea of funding proposal studies for future Astronomy missions, to the
tune of a few $100,000, up to $1 million, as Alan has just done. A wise investment
to see what is feasible. My favorite study is the one for the New Worlds Observer (NWO)
terrestrial planet finder.

2. Also, applause for Alan's competition to find a name for GLAST. Would it be
possible to hold a name competition for MSL?

3. It looks like MSL is still a budget mess. I imagine that it was a mess when Alan inherited
it, and I think that Mr. Stern is the one person who can find a way out of this mess.
This reminds me of the budget mess regarding the GLORY Earth-observing instrument,
that was recently in the news. Alan also inherited that situation and has been trying to
straighten it out.

4. It has been gratifying to watch as Mr. Stern has found ways to start, or re-start, several
Space Science missions just in the 1 year that he has been at the helm. I am thinking of
Nu-Star, SOFIA, Outer Planets Flagship, GRAIL, Solar Probe, SIM-Planet Hunter.

Alan, your efforts are very much appreciated.


Another Phil

Posted by: nprev Feb 27 2008, 01:38 AM

All I can say is hats off to Alan. I've had to deal with Federal budgets peripherally in my job, and they give me a major headache even from distant contact. If he can put the beans where they need to be without losing science or provoking major <clink>storms, then he's a wizard indeed!

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Mar 25 2008, 01:54 AM

I hope that a budget issue regarding future New Frontiers missions can be cleared up.
I noticed in the "Mars Mythbusters" presentation, from Alan Stern, that the NF#3 mission may
have been counted twice when future Planetary missions are listed on p.3. On that page,
NF#3 is listed at the top, as well as a NF2016 mission, listed at the end. However, if you skip
to the last page, you will notice that there are only three NF missions in the schedule -
New Horizons, Juno and NF2016.

Here is the link to that pdf presentation -

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/solar_system/Mars_Program_Mythbusters.pdf


If NF#3 has been counted twice, then there are only 8 Planetary missions in Preparation, not 9.


Another Phil

Posted by: mps Mar 25 2008, 12:04 PM

In the same presentation is noted that Juno will cost $950M and GRAIL $425M. I thought that the official cost is $700M and $375M respectively. Where comes the difference from? Different FY $-s?

Posted by: Mariner9 Mar 26 2008, 06:06 AM

That's a darn good question, and your guess is a reasonable one.

I also recall that during the last Discovery round (and possibly before) NASA explicitly noted that launch vehicle costs could unexpectedly rise over the course of the mission developement, and that this kind of rise would not be counted against the mission. In other words, if the Delta II disappears, and the only relplacement available is an Atlas V at twice the price, that extra money is outside the mission budget, and not consdered an overrun (or a screwup by the PI and rest of the team).

So I'm thinking that possibly some of the extra dollars in those estimates represent rise in launch vehicle costs.

Posted by: Stephen Mar 27 2008, 05:58 AM

Not sure whether this has been mentioned yet but Andrew Lawler (who wrote the Science magazine article mentioned at the start of this thread back last June) has another and rather longer article at the Science journal website (dated 29 February 2008) on NASA's budget problems (appropriately titled "War of the Worlds?") with a particular focus on the Mars program and Alan Stern's push for a Mars sample return:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5867/1174

There's a timeline of Mars exploration for the next decade depicted in it shows rather dramatically and soberingly how the Mars sample return missions are going to dominate that next decade. If the Astrobiological Field Lab rover vanishes (which, on one view, it may well do: "Stern, meanwhile, has slapped an $800 million cost cap on the 2016 mission, which he acknowledges would rule out the complex astrobiology field lab"; in addition: "Several scientists say that cap might also eliminate the [two mid-sized(?)] rovers") what NASA would have accomplished would be to put nearly all its Mars "eggs" for that decade in one very large basket.

======
Stephen

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Mar 31 2008, 04:07 AM

As Alan Stern leaves NASA, I find myself sad. In just 1 year, Dr. Stern was able to completely
re-vamp NASA's Space Science program. SMD was a mess when Alan arrived, and he worked
miracles to make it a balanced program that did more with less.

I want to say to Dr. Stern -

Thank you for reviving NuStar.
Thank you for reviving SOFIA.
Thank you for reviving Space Science's R&A funds.
Thank you for finally getting the Solar Probe mission started.
Thank you for keeping the SIM-Planet Hunter alive.
Thank you for finally getting an Outer Planets Flagship mission started.
Thank you for funding studies for alternative OP Flagship missions.
Thank you for reviving Lunar Science at NASA.
Thank you for initiating an International Lunar Network plan.
Thank you for re-starting the planning for MSR.
Thank you for initiating planning for small science Lunar Orbiters.
Thank you for initiating yearly Missions of Opportunity.
Thank you for planning a firm schedule for future Discovery and New Frontiers missions.
Thank you for trying to get the most Science out of SMD's budget.
Thank you for trying to bring a proper funding balance amongst the programs to
explore Mars and Everything Else in the Solar system.

Alan, I don't know your reasons for leaving NASA, especially after submitting your first budget for SMD,
but I do hope that you return. I also hope that the future administrators of the SMD carry-on with
Dr. Stern's initiatives. Alan, you will be missed.

Another Phil