Pages

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Anatomy of A Mars Rover

http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2016/0725-rover-tds.html

Space-X Spending $300 Million On Red Dragon Project For Mars Landing

http://spacenews.com/spacex-spending-about-300-million-on-red-dragon-mission/

Explore Mars CEO To Discuss Unified Mars Campaign At 2016 Convention

Saturday, July 23, 2016

50 Years Of The Magic Of Star Trek

My dear friends the original Star Trek series premiers on Tuesday September 27, 1966. Its 50-year anniversary is rapidly approaching. I watched the first episode in my sister's room on her small portable television. It was a hot and humid night in Houston. I fell in love and was mesmerized by the show. I have remained that way for 50 years. I'm delighted that it has "grown and prospered" over the years. Yesterday I went to see Star Trek Beyond. It was a pleasant surprise. It was faithful to the original show. It was brilliant and showed how much technical progress had been made in 50 years. Oh heck.. Iloved it!!!

Friday, July 22, 2016

Mars Rover Curiosity Can Now Choose Laser Targets On Its Own

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6575&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20160721-2

Elon Wanta To Build Two more Landing Pads For The Falcon Heavy Rocket

From: ROB ENGLISH <eggosan@yahoo.com>
To: Bill Douglass <bbbdouglass@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2016 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: Elon Want's to Build Two more Landing Pads for Falcon Heavy


YES the return and landing of the Falcon 9 rocket first stage is spectacular. The landing Pad is on the cape not too far from the light house on Cape Canaveral near what was called ICBM road. The tentative landing pads proposed would be on the wildlife refuge towards the mosquito lagoon haul-over canal the environmentalists are trying to block.
The the reason why Elon is doing the landings on the Cape Air Force property is because the Cape Canaveral Port Authority is jacking up the fees to bring his cargo/first stage back into the docking space at the Port. In other words they are charging him the same as they charge the cruise ships to berth at Port Canaveral!

The cool part of the landing is the sonic booms. The the returning Falcon first stages are louder than the shuttle! Also the timing: the landing occurs almost the same time as the payload release into orbit - multitasking at it's finest. Go Space X.

On Thursday, July 21, 2016 3:33 AM, Bill Douglass <bbbdouglass@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Rob
Assume you have seen the Falcon 9 first stages come back and land on the Cape? Pretty spectacular? Where is the existing pad located and where will the two new ones be located?

Am still waiting for the first launch of the Falcon Heavy - maybe early 2017?

Great that Dream Chaser folks got one of the contracts to lift supplies up to the space station and bring the experiment results back and land them on your runway there. Sad though that that the XCOR people have stopped work on the Lynx. Looks like Bezos will beat Branson taking paying customers above 100 km so they can be astronauts.

.....Bill....

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Monday, July 18, 2016

To Mars! | Robert Zubrin | TEDxMoscow

Stories Of Circum lunar Suspense

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3027/1

The Space Review: Stories of cislunar suspense: Literary adventure on the near frontier (part 1)

The Space Review: Stories of cislunar suspense: Literary adventure on the near frontier (part 1)

Space-X Sends Human Docking Port To ISS And Recovers Falcon-9 Booster on Land

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/18/12208560/spacex-falcon-9-ground-landing-success

Mars Society President Speaks At Tedx Moscow

MARS SOCIETY ANNOUNCEMENT
View this email in your browser
Mars Society's Robert Zubrin Speaks at TEDx Moscow (Video)

Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin spoke at a TEDx Moscow event on May 28th during a trip to Russia, detailing the potential for the human exploration and settlement of the planet Mars.

To watch the full TEDx video with Dr. Zubrin, please 
click here.

Dr. Zubrin will also be speaking about human Mars planning at 
the 19th Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled forSeptember 22-25 at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. 

Saturday, July 16, 2016

The Mars Movie Guide

http://marsmovieguide.com/#IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

NASA's Next Mars Rover Progresses Toward 2020 Launch





Computer-Design Drawing for NASA's 2020 Mars Rover

Mars 2020's MOXIE Laboratory and Principal Investigator
This 2016 image comes from computer-assisted-design work on NASA's 2020 Mars rover. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Full image and caption
After an extensive review process and passing a major development milestone, NASA is ready to proceed with final design and construction of its next Mars rover, currently targeted to launch in summer of 2020 and arrive on the Red Planet in February 2021.
The Mars 2020 rover will investigate a region of Mars where the ancient environment may have been favorable for microbial life, probing the Martian rocks for evidence of past life. Throughout its investigation, it will collect samples of soil and rock, and cache them on the surface for potential return to Earth by a future mission.
"The Mars 2020 rover is the first step in a potential multi-mission campaign to return carefully selected and sealed samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth," said Geoffrey Yoder, acting associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "This mission marks a significant milestone in NASA's Journey to Mars -- to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and to advance our goal of sending humans to the Red Planet."
To reduce risk and provide cost savings, the 2020 rover will look much like its six-wheeled, one-ton predecessor, Curiosity, but with an array of new science instruments and enhancements to explore Mars as never before. For example, the rover will conduct the first investigation into the usability and availability of Martian resources, including oxygen, in preparation for human missions.
Mars 2020 will carry an entirely new subsystem to collect and prepare Martian rocks and soil samples that includes a coring drill on its arm and a rack of sample tubes. About 30 of these sample tubes will be deposited at select locations for return on a potential future sample-retrieval mission. In laboratories on Earth, specimens from Mars could be analyzed for evidence of past life on Mars and possible health hazards for future human missions.
Two science instruments mounted on the rover's robotic arm will be used to search for signs of past life and determine where to collect samples by analyzing the chemical, mineral, physical and organic characteristics of Martian rocks. On the rover's mast, two science instruments will provide high-resolution imaging and three types of spectroscopy for characterizing rocks and soil from a distance, also helping to determine which rock targets to explore up close.
A suite of sensors on the mast and deck will monitor weather conditions and the dust environment, and a ground-penetrating radar will assess sub-surface geologic structure.
The Mars 2020 rover will use the same sky crane landing system as Curiosity, but will have the ability to land in more challenging terrain with two enhancements, making more rugged sites eligible as safe landing candidates.
"By adding what's known as range trigger, we can specify where we want the parachute to open, not just at what velocity we want it to open," said Allen Chen, Mars 2020 entry, descent and landing lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "That shrinks our landing area by nearly half."
Terrain-relative navigation on the new rover will use onboard analysis of downward-looking images taken during descent, matching them to a map that indicates zones designated unsafe for landing.
"As it is descending, the spacecraft can tell whether it is headed for one of the unsafe zones and divert to safe ground nearby," said Chen. "With this capability, we can now consider landing areas with unsafe zones that previously would have disqualified the whole area. Also, we can land closer to a specific science destination, for less driving after landing."
There will be a suite of cameras and a microphone that will capture the never-before-seen or heard imagery and sounds of the entry, descent and landing sequence. Information from the descent cameras and microphone will provide valuable data to assist in planning future Mars landings, and make for thrilling video.
"Nobody has ever seen what a parachute looks like as it is opening in the Martian atmosphere," said JPL's David Gruel, assistant flight system manager for the Mars 2020 mission. "So this will provide valuable engineering information."
Microphones have flown on previous missions to Mars, including NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008, but never have actually been used on the surface of the Red Planet.
"This will be a great opportunity for the public to hear the sounds of Mars for the first time, and it could also provide useful engineering information," said Mars 2020 Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace of JPL.
Once a mission receives preliminary approval, it must go through four rigorous technical and programmatic reviews - known as Key Decision Points (KDP) - to proceed through the phases of development prior to launch. Phase A involves concept and requirements definition, Phase B is preliminary design and technology development, Phase C is final design and fabrication, and Phase D is system assembly, testing and launch. Mars 2020 has just passed its KDP-C milestone.
"Since Mars 2020 is leveraging the design and some spare hardware from Curiosity, a significant amount of the mission's heritage components have already been built during Phases A and B," said George Tahu, Mars 2020 program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "With the KDP to enter Phase C completed, the project is proceeding with final design and construction of the new systems, as well as the rest of the heritage elements for the mission."
The Mars 2020 mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. Driven by scientific discovery, the program currently includes two active rovers and three NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. NASA also plans to launch a stationary Mars lander in 2018, InSight, to study the deep interior of Mars.
JPL manages the Mars 2020 project and the Mars Exploration Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Caltech in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about Mars 2020, visit:

News Media Contact
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.w.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

2016-187

You Might Also Like

Thursday, July 14, 2016

NASA To Discuss Its Next Mars Rover On Facebook

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6570&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20160714-1

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Juno Reaches Jupiter

http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2016/0711-juno-joi.html

Two SLS's To Jupiter-The Europa Mission


Europa Clipper
A NASA mission to make repeated flybys of Europa would likely be the precursor for a lander mission, with both planned to launch on the SLS as directed by Congress. (credit: NASA/JPL)

Two SLS to Jupiter

The motivations and ramifications of the Europa mission’s launch vehicle mandate

Comments (16)
Bookmark and Share
Europa, the icy Jovian moon with a subsurface liquid water ocean heated by tidal forces, presents a tremendous opportunity for scientific exploration and offers tantalizing possibilities for the search for extraterrestrial life. Despite the stark warning issued in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two to “attempt no landing there,” NASA has been working on a dedicated mission to Europa, which now involves a lander, for more than three years.
This mission’s profile has undergone considerable evolution since Congress first allocated money in 2013 to finance it, including a policy mandate to utilize the heavy-lift Space Launch System for launch.

The SLS mandate

Early Europa plans called for an orbiter which would conduct surveys while making multiple flybys of the moon. Project officials were exploring potential options for launch aboard a variety of rockets. Then, the 2016 Consolidated Appropriation Act, the omnibus spending bill that funded the federal government for the current fiscal year, specified that the mission must “include an orbiter with a lander that will include competitively selected instruments.” Moreover, the act stated that NASA must “use the Space Launch System as the launch vehicle for the Jupiter Europa mission.”
Following this mandate, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed concern that NASA, directed to include a lander in the mission, did not have the resources to meet its target 2022 launch date.
The possibility that two SLS launches will take place to support the Europa mission now appears likely.
In response, the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice, and science spending bill for fiscal year 2017 splits the mission through two launches: the orbiter in 2022 and the lander in 2024. According to the bill’s draft report, NASA will need to “ensure that future funding requests are consistent with achieving a Europa Orbiter launch no later than 2022 and a Europa Lander launch no later than 2024, pending final mission configuration.” NASA will also need to “submit long-term plans for maximizing the use of the SLS. NASA shall include the Europa Orbiter and Lander missions in this plan.”
Though significant changes to this policy could occur as the fiscal year 2017 appropriations process continues, the possibility that two SLS launches will take place to support the Europa mission now appears likely.
This mission is unique in being one of the very few NASA science missions, if not the only, to have a launch vehicle selected through Congressional mandate. What factor—scientific, technical, and political—influenced this policy decision? What are some potential financial and programmatic ramifications of this launch mandate?

Scientific and technical motivations

Though political motivations surely influence policymakers to find missions for the Space Launch System, scientific and technical considerations have been among the leading justifications issued for its use in the Europa mission.
John Grunsfeld, who recently retired as NASA’s associate administrator for science, said in a 2014 NASA SLS article that “the potential use of SLS for science will further enhance the synergy between scientific exploration and human exploration… SLS has the promise of enabling transformational science in our exploration of the solar system and cosmos.” Steve Creech, the Assistant Program Manager for Strategy and Partnerships for SLS, argued that “for missions to the outer planets… SLS could make it possible to do things that are currently impossible, such as sending larger scientific spacecraft with more instruments to far off destinations with reduced transit times.” NASA Advanced Concepts Office Manager Reggie Alexander mirrored that view, saying that “the Space Launch System could be really game-changing for space science. For some missions, it makes it much easier and quicker to carry them out.”
A Boeing study, presented at the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in 2015, concluded that “SLS performance enables larger payloads and faster travel times with reduced operational complexity when compared to original concept studies.” With regard to the Europa mission in particular, the SLS provides “sufficient launch mass margin allowing for increased radiation shielding mass as well as expansion of the science payload.”
According to the study, use of the SLS instead of an Atlas V would allow for a direct ballistic approach instead of a Venus-Earth-Earth gravity assist, shortening transit time to Jupiter by more than four years.
There is benefit in an increased mass margin and shortened transit time to Jupiter. It makes possible a larger scientific payload aboard the mission’s spacecraft. The possibility for increased radiation shielding is also attractive; the harsh radiation environment around Jupiter is challenging for scientists working on the instruments that must survive it, and has been listed as among the mission’s top risks.
A shortened transit time more readily satisfies basic human nature: scientists, policymakers, space enthusiasts, and the general public would like to see discoveries and results sooner rather than later.
Shortened transit time reduces the costs, however marginal they may be, of funding and sustaining the mission’s science and support teams as well as support infrastructure during flight enroute to Jupiter. To that,Grunsfeld has said that “this is one of those rare cases where time really is money… in that extra cruise time, we have to maintain an engineering team and a science team and a spacecraft while it's in cruise, even if we hibernate.”
Eliminating the need for gravity assist reduces flight risk and the mission’s complexity—and, accordingly, the effort and resources necessary for planning and executing such maneuvers. Finally, a shortened transit time more readily satisfies basic human nature: scientists, policymakers, space enthusiasts, and the general public would like to see discoveries and results sooner rather than later. The earlier the Europa mission can return valuable data, the sooner scientists can analyze and draw conclusions from it. NASA, mission planners, and Congress can develop follow-on missions sooner, and the public will feel they’ve gained a return on investment into their civil space program.

Political motivations

Yet, while these scientific and technical justifications would’ve undoubtedly come into consideration had the choice of launch vehicle been NASA’s to make, the decision to use SLS was congressional. The SLS launch mandate is an inherently political decision.
Indeed, the Europa effort as a whole has been stimulated primarily by political pressure. While NASA has only tepidly sought funds for the mission, requesting $45 million in Europa funding between fiscal years 2013 and 2016, Congress has significantly increased funding for it, appropriating $395 million through those years. The draft fiscal year 2017 appropriations bill in the House proposes $260 million for Europa mission planning and development, though NASA’s request was only $49.6 million.
This Congressional pressure is due largely to the efforts of Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice, and science (CJS) subcommittee and a staunch advocate of a Europa mission. Culberson, a vocal supporter of NASA’s planetary science effort and associated search for extraterrestrial life, believes that “the first place we will discover life on another world is Europa. It will be discovered in the oceans of Europa.” Europa, in his view, “had no advocate, until now,” and with him at the helm of the CJS appropriations subcommittee, Congress has allocated additional funding directed at a dedicated mission. Culberson believes such an effort “needs to be a flagship mission. The biggest and best we’ve ever flown.”
Notably, Culberson has said that “we will need the heavy lift capability of the [Space Launch System] rocket for all of those [outer planet] missions.”
The Space Launch System’s development was mandated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010, which states that it is “policy of the United States that NASA develop a Space Launch System as a follow-on to the Space Shuttle that can access cis-lunar space and the regions of space beyond Low-Earth orbit.”
Assuming that EM-2 flies in 2021 or 2023, the 2022 and 2024 Europa mission launches would satisfy the “necessary requirement” of one SLS flight per year.
The rocket is a centerpiece of NASA’s strategy for a campaign of crewed Mars missions, advertised as the“Journey to Mars.” This campaign has political buy-in, with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 declaring that a “long term objective for human exploration of space should be the eventual international exploration of Mars,” and the National Space Policy of 2010 calling for NASA to “begin crewed missions beyond the moon, including sending humans to an asteroid” and “by the mid-2030s, send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth.”
While NASA has made considerable progress on SLS since 2010, significant concerns still abound regarding the vehicle’s launch cadence. According to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, the SLS will need to “launch at least once per year, as a ‘necessary’ requirement.” Dr. Steve Squyres, former chair of the NASA Advisory Council, suggested in a 2014 NAC meeting that a Mars campaign would fall apart if the “flight cadence becomes alarmingly slow.” A 2014 National Academies Press report concluded that SLS “flight rates that are too far below historic norms will not be sustainable over the course of an exploration pathway that spans decades.”
The first SLS launch—EM-1, which will lob an uncrewed Orion capsule to orbit around the Moon—is on track to occur in 2018. The following mission – the crewed EM-2 flight – has a “no later than 2023” launch date assigned to it, with the expectation that it will launch in the 2021–2023 timeframe. This leaves a gap of three to five years between the first and second SLS flights, a far cry from the “necessary requirement” of a SLS launch at least once a year.
In light of these converging factors—NASA’s inability to meet a 2022 launch date for a combined Europa orbiter and lander, reasonable scientific and technical arguments for launch aboard the SLS, and unsettled concerns about the SLS’s short-term launch cadence—Congress is contemplating splitting the mission into two launches. Assuming that EM-2 flies in 2021 or 2023, the 2022 and 2024 Europa mission launches would satisfy the “necessary requirement” of one SLS flight per year.
If such is the case, SLS’s backers in the political arena could find reason to sustain their support for and financing of the program, NASA could answer critics’ concerns about the rocket’s launch cadence, and the “Journey to Mars” could have one of its architecture uncertainties crossed off the list, at least for the short term.
Hence, the unorthodox decision to congressionally mandate a particular launch vehicle for a NASA science mission.
SLS launch illustration
Launching two Europa spacecraft could help fill gaps in the SLS manifest of crewed exploration missions, but at what cost to NASA? (credit: NASA)

Ramifications

The SLS mandate and the potential for two launches are not insignificant, with multiple programmatic and financial ramifications emerging as a result.
To meet the targeted 2022 and 2024 launch dates, the Europa mission might crowd out funding for other planetary and Earth science programs.
These could complicate the mission planning effort, risking schedule slippage and possible cost overruns, as launch vehicle compatibility influences and impacts spacecraft design. In March 2018, when the Europa project holds its planned preliminary design review—the point when projects tend to select a launch vehicle—the SLS will still be in development. NASA officials “have said they would be willing to delay launch vehicle selection and maintain spacecraft compatibility with both launch vehicle options [SLS and Atlas V] for 8 months until the SLS’s committed launch readiness date of November 2018.”
At the time the 2016 Consolidated Appropriation Act’s became law, the Europa mission team had made significant progress in developing the orbiter’s mission profile and had selected nine scientific instruments for the spacecraft. According to the aforementioned GAO report, the addition of a lander and the SLS launch mandate requires NASA to revise those plans. Project officials have stated that a lander will increase the mission’s costs and development schedule. The effect of this addition will soon be known, as the project plans to enter the preliminary design and technology completion phase—at which point a range of expected costs and schedule will be established—this month.
As previously mentioned, launch aboard the SLS, especially aboard two SLS vehicles, presents possibilities for mission planners. The SLS’s greater capability compared to an Atlas V allows for increased radiation shielding aboard both the orbiter and the lander, something that, at the time of the GAO report, NASA was considering. With room on each SLS for additional payload mass, project officials can consider extending the scientific scope and scale of the mission. Of course, an expanded scientific payload is contingent upon mission funding.
This issue of funding, especially in light of the SLS mandate, is crucial. The likely cost of the mission, not including launch, has been estimated by various sources in the range of $2–3 billion. The GAO suggested the mission could cost upwards of $3–4 billion. The draft CJS 2017 appropriations bill specifies that NASA’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal provide a five-year funding profile to support the mission and its two launches.
To meet the targeted 2022 and 2024 launch dates, the Europa mission might crowd out funding for other planetary and Earth science programs. Such concerns were raised during the drafting of the 2016 spending bill, with Shaun Donovan, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, writing that “while directing an impractical level of funding toward the Jupiter Europa mission, the bill cuts important NASA Science programs by more than $200 million compared to the President’s Budget.” (See “What price Europa?”, The Space Review, June 1, 2015)
NASA’s fiscal year 2017 budget request included similar concerns. It featured a funding profile supporting a 2022 launch that would require spending $194 million in 2017, increasing to $678 million a year by 2020. Still, the request stated that “acceleration of the launch to 2022 is not recommended, given potential impacts to the rest of the Science portfolio.” And, as David Radzanowski, NASA’s chief financial officer, noted, that funding profile didn’t include a lander since its cost is still being evaluated.
Meeting the targeted launch dates while satisfying that congressional mandate will require Congress to substantially increase the planetary science budget over the coming years, lest NASA’s broader mission portfolio be jeopardized. This will depend, though, on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) accepting the new plan and allowing NASA to sign multi-year contracts with its vendors. So far, OMB has been hesitant to prioritize the planetary science budget so as to accommodate the Europa mission.
Then comes the issue of financing the SLS launch. Each SLS launch will cost, as a conservative estimate, between $500 million and $1 billion, if not more, on top of the mission’s other costs.
The choice of SLS for launch should, like every other science mission launched, be NASA’s to make, following a careful internal consideration of the agency’s broad portfolio, priorities, and need for resource distribution.
Either Congress will substantially increase NASA’s budget to finance the construction and launch of these SLS vehicles, or the launches will require NASA to reallocate significant funds from other parts of its budget. To assume the former is, considering the precedent of historical and contemporary funding levels, misguided optimism, while the later presents a troubling situation where NASA must decide to either scale back its science efforts or prolong development of the “Journey to Mars” even further. Considering that the first half of the 2020s is when much of the technological development for a Mars campaign—deep space habitats, solar electric propulsion, in-situ resource utilization capability—will be at least in their early stages and this require significant funding, this is a troubling possibility indeed.

A lingering concern

There exists a further, if perhaps unsubstantiated, concern about the SLS launch mandate. Many within the space policy community have a lingering, if not often spoken, suspicion that the SLS program may not survive in current form and scale after the next administration takes office.
If, for reasons of funding, broad programmatic or policy change, or some other set of circumstances, there is a sizable delay in the SLS’s capacity or capability to fly, will the Europa project be able to switch launch vehicles? If so, this would likely force a redesign of the mission, additional costs, and delays which run risk of missing the mandated launch date.
This concern may well prove inconsequential, yet is among the questions that emerge from mandating a flight aboard a vehicle which has not yet flown.

The author’s perspective

As with Rep. Culberson, the author believes a research mission to Europa presents a tremendously exciting opportunity for our exploration of the universe. As he said in one interview, Culberson “make sure you and I are here to see those first tube worms and lobsters on Europa,” or, if the movie Europa Report is to be believed, man-eating octopi. Regardless of the form of life to be found in Europa, if any is to be found at all, a flagship mission to the moon represents what NASA does best: pioneering exploration efforts to places which offer tantalizing possibilities for discovery.
However, Culberson has also stated that “one of the biggest problems NASA’s got is political interference, whether it be from presidents or from Congress. We have an obligation to ensure that our hard-earned tax dollars are spent wisely and intelligently and frugally;” that “the agency should be driven by scientists, engineers and astronauts rather than politicians.”
A policy directive to launch the Europa mission aboard the SLS is antithetical to the obligations he lays out. Directing NASA to utilize a specific vehicle is, in effect, Congress playing engineer. Considering the costs associated with one SLS launch, let alone two, hard-earned tax dollars will be spent far less wisely and frugally than they would if other readily available options, such as an Atlas V, or options bound to come online before the mission’s preliminary design review, such as a Falcon Heavy, were utilized.
This is not to say that the SLS can’t be the optimal launch vehicle for the Europa mission. It may well be that, at the end of the day, the benefits borne from SLS’s capabilities, as laid out by NASA leadership, outweigh the costs associated with its launch; and that Congress allocates adequate finances to support the project as mandated without jeopardizing other parts of NASA’s mission.
Yet the choice of SLS for launch should, like every other science mission launched, be NASA’s to make, following a careful internal consideration of the agency’s broad portfolio, priorities, and need for resource distribution. If the historical and contemporary precedent of agency funding levels and policy instability counts for much, anything otherwise is a risky proposition.
Culberson’s advocacy for and passion about a Europa mission is highly commendable; the exploration of outer space indeed needs more staunch advocates. Yet, with the SLS launch mandate, Congress is playing politics with planetary science, risking other opportunities for groundbreaking discovery by forcing launch aboard another politically-motivated, highly expensive program with no guarantee of the increased funding needed to support it.
The Congressman is right. This is one of the biggest problems NASA’s got.

Comments (16)

+6
Dwayne Day's avatar
Dwayne Day· 18 hours ago