Igniting A New Vision For NASA

lunar baee An illustration of a proposed lunar base, the centerpiece of the NASA Ignition event. (credit: NASA) Igniting a new vision for NASA by Jeff Foust Monday, March 30, 2026 On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush spoke in the auditorium at NASA Headquarters to discuss what became known as the Vision for Space Exploration. It was one of the biggest space policy announcements of the post-Apollo era: retiring the Space Shuttle in 2010 after completing the International Space Station, with a human return to the Moon no later than 2020 (see “Looking beyond vision”, The Space Review, January 19, 2004.) “The difference between success and failure will be measured in months, not years,” Isaacman said. Last week, in the same auditorium, was one of the biggest announcements since then. Rather than a brief presidential speech, NASA leadership spent a full day going through a major revamp of its exploration, science, and space technology plans. Some of the announcements at the “Ignition” event were surprising, while others were widely anticipated. The combination, though, represented the effort by NASA’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, to quickly put his stamp on the agency just months after being sworn in, with the backing of the White House. He opened the event with discussing the competition with a “real geopolitical rival”—China—to land the next humans to the Moon. “The difference between success and failure will be measured in months, not years. They may be early, and recent history suggests we might be late,” he warned. “This is why it is imperative we leave an event like Ignition with complete alignment on the national imperative that is our collective vision,” he told an audience of industry executives and representatives of national space agencies. Replacing Gateway with a moon base One major element of NASA’s plans at Ignition was also one of the least surprising. NASA confirmed it would not continue development of the lunar Gateway, electing instead to develop a lunar base. The Gateway had already been targeted for cancellation in last year’s budget and, despite funding in last year’s budget reconciliation bill, was notably absent in the sneak preview of NASA’s exploration plans announced a month earlier (see “Accelerating Artemis”, The Space Review, March 2, 2026.) “While that is still relevant for future exploration goals, it is not required to accomplish our primary objectives,” said Carlos Garcia-Galan, who previously had been a top manager of the Gateway. “As a result, we are announcing today that NASA is pivoting from the Gateway architecture to focus on building the Moon base.” Garcia-Galan’s new title is program executive for what NASA simply calls “Moon Base”; Isaacman, at a press conference at the end of the day, dubbed him the “lunar viceroy.” In his talk, Garcia-Galan outlined the plans NASA has quickly developed to create a moon base. “Starting today, we’re building humanity’s first deep space outpost,” he said. That plan involves three phases from now through the mid-2030s. Phase 1, from 2026 to 2028, “is all about getting to the Moon reliably,” he said, increasing the cadence, but also the reliability, of robotic lunar landers. It will also focus on developing enabling technologies and getting “ground truth” for potential base locations at the lunar south pole. Phase 2, from 2028 through 2031, would start building the base, using larger cargo landers and twice-yearly crewed missions. The infrastructure there would include communications, power, navigation, and other systems needed to support a human presence there. Phase 3, starting in 2032, will enable “long distance and long duration human exploraiton” on the moon, he said, with routine logistics missions to the Moon and uncrewed cargo return missions from the Moon. “Starting today, we’re building humanity’s first deep space outpost,” Garcia-Galan said. It would be by far the most ambitious lunar exploration effort yet, with dozens of missions to orbit and land on the Moon. He estimated Phases 1 and 2 would cost $10 billion each while Phase 3 would cost at least $10 billion, one of the few cost estimates provided throughout the day. Besides redirecting Gateway, the lunar base plan would affect other programs. Last year, three companies—Astrolab, Intuitive Machines, and Lunar Outpost—submitted proposals to NASA for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) program, where NASA would support commercial development of unpressurized rovers for future Artemis missions. The companies had expected NASA to announce its selection late last year, but months passed with no updates from the agency. At Ignition, Garcia-Galan said NASA was pivoting on the LTV program. Instead of selecting one of the proposals, it asked the companies to revise their proposals to offer a smaller, simpler rover that could be ready earlier. There will be plenty of other procurements and requests for information, some of which were released last week. “I hope this is a signal that we want to work with you,” he said. “We’re going back to Moon. We’re going to stay there.” SR-1 SR-1 Freedom would demonstrate nuclear electric propulsion on a mission to Mars launching in late 2028. (credit: NASA) Propelling nuclear Later in the day, NASA outlined a new nuclear propulsion initiative. The effort replaced a program that started last fall to develop a fission reactor for the lunar surface, for which NASA issued a couple of draft solicitations but never a final version to industry. That approach involved a partnership with industry that the agency later concluded was too ambitious. “We realized that when we went out and said, ‘Industry, you do it all,’ that was a big ask,” said Steve Sinacore, program executive for NASA’s Fission Surface Power program. The challenges, he said in an interview, went beyond technology to financial and regulatory issues, like indemnification. “This really is a NASA near-impossible thing. Let’s trailblaze, let’s be the pathfinder, and then hand off to them,” he said. That resulted in what NASA announced at Ignition: Space Reactor 1 (SR-1) Freedom, a spacecraft that will demonstrate nuclear electric propulsion. The spacecraft will feature a 20-kilowatt fission reactor generating power for the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), a spacecraft originally built for the Gateway, using solar power for its electric thrusters, but was being repurposed for this mission. “PPE gives us a huge leg up. That’s the only thing that makes this achievable,” he said. “That’s a very capable spacecraft bus that is going to be adaptable.” “This really is a NASA near-impossible thing. Let’s trailblaze, let’s be the pathfinder, and then hand off to them,” Sinacore said. One of the challenges for making it achievable is the schedule. NASA wants to launch SR-1 Freedom to Mars in the launch opportunity in late 2028. As proposed, it will spend a year going to Mars, and upon arrival drop off three small helicopters modeled on Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter that accompanied the Perseverance rover, to scout a future landing site. SR-1 Freedom is designed to kickstart space nuclear power at NASA. Sinacore, in his presentation, noted the billions of dollars spent on past efforts, blaming their failures on several managerial and technical factors like those identified in a report last year (see “From advice to action on space nuclear power”, The Space Review, September 22, 2026). “SR-1 Freedom is designed to break every one of those patterns,” he said. NASA would lead development of the reactor, rather than industry, with the agency giving those technical plans the agency develops to companies for future reactors, including one for the lunar surface. Commercial space station redirect Ignition was focused on more than Moon and Mars exploration. The agency, in a more controversial move, said it wanted to reconsider how it supported the development of commercial space stations. NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations, or CLD, program was working with several companies on initial designs of stations. The agency has planned to issue a solicitation last fall for the next phase of the program, backing one or more companies on development and demonstration of those stations with the goal of having them ready by the time the International Space Station is retired in 2030. NASA revealed at the event it had doubts that was the right approach. “Though we have seen investor interest, there’s no independently verifiable market research indicating the economic viability of a commercial station that is only partially funded by NASA,” said Dana Weigel, NASA ISS program manager. The agency was also concerned about the ability of companies to handle what associate administrator Amit Kshatriya called the “incredibly complicated” logistics and operations of a space station. “Right now, the current industry that we have that’s proposing to build destinations does not have direct experience with that, or the resources.” NASA said it was considering an alternative approach. The agency would procure a “core module” that would be installed on the ISS. Additional commercial modules developed by space station companies could be docked to it, giving them access to power, life support, and other resources. That could then become the basis of a commercial space station that separates from the ISS. “A NASA-procured core would serve as a hub for commercial module expansion, allowing for maturation of industry and continued demand growth after the station detaches from ISS,” Weigel said. It was a return to concepts first presented a decade ago where NASA offered to make a docking port on the ISS available for a commercial module. The agency selected Axiom Space in 2020 to access that port, to which Axiom originally planned to attach a series of modules that would later become a commercial station. More recently, Axiom planned to use the ISS only briefly, testing a core module there before separating to dock with other modules for its station. NASA issued an RFI seeking feedback on the concept, but it was clear that industry was opposed to this change in the CLD program. “Yesterday, NASA announced it is considering yet another major change to the Commercial LEO Destination program, sowing concern and, really, sowing confusion among the commercial space companies I represent,” Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Space Federation, said at a House Science Committee hearing on CLDs the next day but scheduled in advance of the Ignition event. He argued there was strong demand for commercial space stations, based on investment Axiom and Vast recently raised and Starlab Space’s announcement that it had fully booked commercial payload space on its proposed station. “The commercial market is there. We’ve been building it,” he said. “NASA’s stated rationales for changes to the program are flawed and, ultimately, not addressed by their proposal yesterday.” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s acting associate administrator for space operations, also testified at the hearing and defended the alternative approach. “NASA’s stated rationales for changes to the program are flawed and, ultimately, not addressed by their proposal yesterday,” said Cavossa. “We expected a launch market that was going to take off. We expected tourism to take off. We expected the ability to do research and technology development on the International Space Station, bring it back to Earth and mass produce it,” he said. “We’re not seeing any of those three things.” One member of the committee, Rep. George Whitesides (D-CA), also was concerned about NASA’s potential change of plans. “Based on the old plan, several companies raised probably in excess of $2 billion in private capital and did so on the expectation that NASA would follow through,” he said. “My concern is that if NASA is not a reliable partner for private investors, we’re not going to get that money and we’re not going to then save money by being able to cost-share with the private sector,” he warned. Montalbano said that NASA wants to move quickly on any changes to its CLD plans. Responses to its RFI are due April 8, and he said NASA would follow up with a “final RFI” in late April and potentially a request for proposals in June. Isaacman NASA administrator Jared Isaacman discusses the agency’s proposed new programs to an audience of industry and international officals and legislators. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingals) Reaction The Ignition event features more announcements that, had they been made on their own, would have captured headlines. Lori Glaze, NASA acting associate administrator for exploration, hinted at potential changes in Artemis beyond Artemis 5, which might include replacing the SLS with commercial vehicles. (Notably, there was little news about how Blue Origin and SpaceX are accelerating work on their human lunar landers to be ready for a landing as soon as early 2028.) Nicky Fox, the associate administrator for science, talked about two new Earth science mission concepts that would leverage commercial capabilities and sensor technologies that could also be used for future Moon and Mars missions. There was a lot to digest at the event. Some companies, speaking privately, said they were overwhelmed by the announcements, including the many RFIs NASA issued along with them. They said they would have to pick and choose which ones they had the time and resources to respond to. International partners had a muted reaction. For major partners like the Canadian Space Agency, ESA, and JAXA, tearing up the Gateway means uncertainty about their investments in Artemis and future roles; many elements designed for the Gateway may not be easily repurposed for a lunar base. However, the UAE, which planned to develop an airlock module for the Gateway, expressed its support for the new approach. “Following NASA's recent announcements on establishing a sustained lunar presence, MBRSC reaffirms that its engagement with the Artemis program and partnership with NASA continue, as it advances its own lunar capabilities with a clear sense of purpose,” the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre said in a statement. “NASA does not have a topline problem,” or the size of its overall budget, Isaacman said. “This is just where we choose to concentrate our resources.” There is also the need to win over stakeholders on Capitol Hill. “We try to have a ‘no surprises’ policy,” Isaacman said, which include conversations with members of Congress as well as White House and industry in advance of the announcement. “Everybody understands what’s at stake right now, meeting the moment.” Despite his “no surprises” comment, some in industry as well as among foreign agencies said privately that they had been taken by surprise by some of the announcements at Ignition that will affect their plans. The announcements come just days before the White House is expected to release its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal. The 2026 budget proposal sought major cuts to science and space technology, along with a nearly 25% overall budget cut for NASA, which Congress largely rejected. Some fear the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will make similar proposed cuts in 2027. Beyond the estimates for the lunar base, NASA said little about the costs of the initiatives it rolled out at Ignition. “NASA does not have a topline problem,” or the size of its overall budget, Isaacman said. “This is just where we choose to concentrate our resources.” He suggested that budget, whatever its topline size, will focus on the priorities rolled out in Ignition. “You’re basically looking across the various mission directorates and making sure that, if you have a component and resources, they contribute to one of the major objectives in the president’s national space policy, like the moon base,” he said. He also made clear he wants to move quickly, making his mark before the end of the Trump administration and thus likely his tenure as NASA administrator. That contrasted with past plans, like those offered by President Bush on the same stage 22 years ago, that deferred the milestones well beyond his time in office. “This is what it takes if we’re going to get the job done, to go to Moon, do so before our rivals, build the base, and do the other things,” he said. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

The NRO and Space Shuttle In 1976

Vandenberg Significant money and effort was spent by the Air Force in the early 1980s to develop a shuttle launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Many National Reconnaissance Office satellites required this launch site. (credit: USAF) A little more light in the shadows: the NRO and the Space Shuttle in 1976 by Dwayne A. Day Monday, March 30, 2026 There are few gaping holes in American space history, subjects that have not received the coverage they deserve. But an important and still neglected history subject is the National Reconnaissance Office’s role in the Space Shuttle program. Much of that history remains classified, but bit by bit, the NRO, which manages and operates the United States’ fleet of intelligence satellites, is releasing more information about the office’s two-decade involvement in the Space Shuttle program. It was an often-rocky relationship. What we are now learning is what the NRO considered doing with the shuttle in the years before it flew, when they were essentially throwing ideas at the wall, evaluating what new capabilities shuttle might provide beyond simply replacing the NRO’s existing fleet of expendable launch vehicles. In early March, the NRO declassified several significant documents as part of the annual government-wide “Sunshine Week.” NRO policy has been to declassify documents from 50 years ago, and the NRO is now releasing documents from the mid-1970s. This was an important transitional period for the NRO in many ways. It was a time when the super-secretive organization finally had to submit itself to regular budget review and scrutiny by Congress after mostly avoiding that for over a decade. This was also a period when “national” level satellite reconnaissance systems were beginning to be made available to tactical-level military forces. And it was a time when the NRO was preparing to start using the Space Shuttle, and NRO officials were asking what the shuttle could do and how it could benefit the satellite intelligence effort. Whoever chose the documents to declassify smartly provided a great insight into a key transitional period for the intelligence space program. By 1976, NRO payloads constituted 30–35% of the total Department of Defense payloads designated for the shuttle. But in some ways the NRO had even more influence than the rest of the DoD, because they were considered so vital to national security and understanding what the Soviet Union was doing. They also carried a mystique due to their highly secretive activities. The Space Shuttle entered service in 1981 and was declared “operational” a year later. It served until 2011, with notable gaps following the 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia accidents. During the shuttle’s lifetime, seven classified NRO shuttle missions flew—all within the first 11 years of shuttle operations—and little has been revealed about them. What we are now learning is what the NRO considered doing with the shuttle in the years before it flew, when they were essentially throwing ideas at the wall, evaluating what new capabilities shuttle might provide beyond simply replacing the NRO’s existing fleet of expendable launch vehicles. NRO officials did this with significant skepticism. Vandenberg Launch of a Titan-IIID rocket in the late 1970s carrying a classified payload. The Titan was then the most capable rocket in the American inventory. Shuttle offered more payload mass and volume, but it was controlled by NASA. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection) Before the change According to a July 1976 NRO report to the Committee on Foreign Intelligence, an early idea proposed for the shuttle was to fly “covert piggyback reconnaissance packages with might be carried routinely on shuttle flights.” There is no indication what they would be, but the most likely candidate would be an electronic intelligence sensor to determine if the shuttle was being tracked by radar during its flight. Similar sensors had been regularly mounted on NRO satellites since the early 1960s. However, mounting a classified sensor to an unclassified vehicle that would presumably be maintained by NASA personnel and contractors without security clearances, and would also carry non-American astronauts, would have been risky, and there is no evidence that the NRO ever pursued this concept. The NRO was also studying “the potential benefits of the Spacelab capability” to support its activities. The report stated that the NRO’s policy on the shuttle was “to accomplish the Shuttle transition as early as is practical without degrading mission accomplishment, while maintaining the security of the NRP and considering the overall cost-effective operation of the programs.” (NRP stood for National Reconnaissance Program.) But this was not easy “because of continuing changes to the vehicle design and deployment strategies of NRO spacecraft systems.” The shuttle did provide new capabilities: more lift capability than the Titan III rocket and a wider payload bay than existing Titan III fairings. Other documents refer to the shuttle’s large payload bay and its ability to carry satellites with large diameter optics, presumably larger than the 2.4-meter-diameter mirror of the KENNEN reconnaissance satellite then entering operation. The shuttle’s payload bay was 4.6 meters wide, meaning that it could have handled a spacecraft with optics up to approximately four meters. Earlier in the decade, NASA had abandoned plans for a space telescope with a three-meter-diameter mirror apparently because the 2.4-meter diameter mirror for the KENNEN was already in development, and it would make it easier for NASA to build what became the Hubble Space Telescope. Now the NRO was considering larger optics. The shuttle’s large payload bay, according to one document, could also be used to carry large antennas, larger than those already carried by the NRO’s existing Titan III rocket. There are some indications that the NRO ultimately did this for a pair of satellites launched in the 1980s. The newly declassified documents occasionally imply a certain reticence about using the shuttle but couched in bureaucratic language. In congressional testimony in 1976, Director of Central Intelligence George H.W. Bush stated that all NRO payloads would be transitioned to the shuttle by the early 1980s and predicted that the NRO costs would be around $250 million (see “The spooks and the turkey – Intelligence Community involvement in the decision to build the space shuttle,” The Space Review, November 20, 2006; and “The NRO and the Space Shuttle,” The Space Review, January 31, 2022.) But those costs were increasing, and highly dependent upon what assumptions were used about the transition. A November 1977 top secret report by the House Appropriations Committee noted that the NRO’s transition to the shuttle would have “extremely high costs.” There were multiple reasons for this, including the NRO’s insistence on maintaining a backup launch capability until the shuttle had demonstrated a high confidence level, and “that stringent security requirements be maintained.” The NRO had projected that its 1975–1982 transition costs were $467.1 million, of which $266.9 million was for expendable launch vehicles to back up the shuttle. This was more money than the development costs of an entirely new satellite program. The report noted that “some knowledgeable officials have expressed reservations concerning the feasibility of optimizing intelligence payloads for the STS. The concept of recovering, refurbishing, and reusing intelligence satellites was viewed as most questionable.” NRO officials believed that their satellites were too complex, and intelligence requirements were constantly evolving, making this impractical. The mid-1970s documents do not discuss the shuttle’s ability to service satellites in orbit like NASA later did with the Hubble. However, in 1973, the NRO commissioned a study about using the shuttle with the HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite and that study evaluated multiple options, including servicing a HEXAGON satellite that had been specially modified to have its consumables, including film for its cameras, replaced in orbit. But there were people in the NRO who were wary of such proposals, especially for satellites carrying film, which had to be carefully threaded through a complex path inside the camera. Doing this on the ground would have been extremely difficult; on orbit it would have been nearly impossible (see “Black ops and the shuttle (part 1), On-orbit servicing and recovery of the HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite,“ The Space Review, February 13, 2017.) The newly declassified documents occasionally imply a certain reticence about using the shuttle but couched in bureaucratic language. NRO officials did not enthusiastically embrace the shuttle throughout much of the 1970s. This reluctance is probably the most fascinating, important, and difficult historical aspect of the NRO’s relationship with the shuttle. To date, we have few declassified interviews with NRO officials from this era about their views on shuttle. Vandenberg Two DSCS-III satellites were carried into space on a classified shuttle mission. This was not an NRO mission, but is the only declassified shuttle mission. (credit: USAF) The big push In January 1977, Charles Cook, the deputy NRO director, updated NRO’s guidance for use of the shuttle. He identified 12 planning objectives, including having sufficient control over operations involving NRO payloads as well as designing no payloads as shuttle-only. Cook stated: “No NRP [National Reconnaissance Program] spacecraft will be designed in a space shuttle-only configuration prior to the demonstrated capability and reliable operation of the STS,” a reiteration of the “fly-before-buy” policy. Cook also indicated that the DoD should maintain an expendable launcher capability. This was also necessary in case using a shuttle on a mission during heightened world tensions was undesirable, or if a shuttle was, in his words, “neutralized.” Later on, as plans for launching shuttles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California were formalized, one of the requirements was to store multiple external tanks near the launch site, in case enemy action closed the Panama Canal and prevented them from being shipped to the West Coast. “I was very anxious to get the military involved in the shuttle because it was in fact the most capable launch vehicle that we were building at the time,” Mark explained in a 1997 interview. Cook also wanted the NRO to be able to take advantage of the shuttle’s capabilities in a stepping-stone fashion. All new NRO spacecraft or major block changes to existing systems entering design subsequent to fiscal year 1976 “will be designed in a modular configuration (provided the additional weight capability of the Space Shuttle would be advantageous to mission accomplishment) so that when the Space Shuttle has demonstrated its reliability, improvement modules can be added to the NRP spacecraft. This will allow us to take maximum advantage of the increased Space Shuttle capability.” This period from mid-1976 to mid-1977 was when the anti-shuttle holdouts at the NRO were starting to lose the battle. In summer 1977, Hans Mark became director of the NRO, serving from August 3, 1977, to October 7, 1979, and then becoming Secretary of the Air Force. Mark heavily pushed the NRO to use the shuttle. In a 1987 book, without mentioning the still-classified National Reconnaissance Office, Mark wrote: During my service in the Pentagon from 1977 to 1981, I tried to modify the policies of the Air Force toward the Space Shuttle. One thing I tried to do was to urge people to design their spacecraft in such a way that full advantage would be taken of the capability of the Space Shuttle. I was partially successful in doing this, and certain spacecraft were designed to take full advantage of the payload capacity of the shuttle and of the volume of the payload bay. (It is interesting that seven years earlier the design of the shuttle was, of course, developed in such a way that just these things could be done.) In addition, I also succeeded in getting some of the people in the Air Force to think about the possibility of building their spacecraft in such a way that they could be retrieved and then refurbished and used again. There was even the possibility of repairing, replenishing, and maintaining spacecraft on orbit by using the ability of the shuttle crews to go out and perform extravehicular activities. Ten years later, Mark provided more of his rationale. “I was very anxious to get the military involved in the shuttle because it was in fact the most capable launch vehicle that we were building at the time,” Mark explained in a 1997 interview. “I was very anxious to have the military take advantage of the human capability in orbit to check out satellites before you dump them” in orbit, Mark explained, “then later on to repair them on orbit. We were going to launch satellites out of the West Coast so that you could repair and fix polar orbiting birds too.” Mark Hans Mark was Director of the National Reconnaissance Office from summer 1977 to fall 1979 and pushed for increased NRO use of the Space Shuttle. (credit: USAF) The newly declassified documents indicate that the shuttle’s larger payload bay could carry larger antennas. Mark pushed for a large signals intelligence satellite that could only use the shuttle, arguing that it was vital for arms control. The shuttle eventually launched two of these during the 1980s. Many details remain classified, although it is also known that Mark was the primary advocate for the Wide Area Surveillance Payload studies about using the shuttle to host a camera that could image large portions of the Earth. This later transformed into a system named DAMON to fly a converted HEXAGON satellite reconnaissance camera in the shuttle bay, essentially using the shuttle like an SR-71 spy plane. This would have required two or three dedicated reconnaissance missions per year. (DAMON was “Nomad” spelled backwards, a name apparently chosen by some NRO Star Trek fans in reference to an episode of the original series.) DAMON was later canceled by Congress after Mark left the NRO (see “Top Secret DAMON: the classified reconnaissance payload planned for the fourth space shuttle mission,” The Space Review, July 1, 2019.) To his credit, in his 1987 book, Mark admitted that the NRO’s shuttle critics probably had a point: On balance, I believe that the conservative attitude of the Air Force toward the Space Shuttle at the time was probably justified. We were to encounter delays and problems in the Space Shuttle program that would indeed call for a cautious approach. Perhaps the most articulate exponent of the Air Force position at that time was Mr. Jimmie D. Hill, who was then a member of the undersecretary’s staff and who would later become the deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space systems. Hill had an encyclopedic knowledge of Air Force space systems as well as a first-class intelligence that he applied to the problems at hand. By taking positions that were generally opposed to mine, we usually arrived at workable compromises that could be implemented. Slowly, ever so slowly, we are getting closer to a time when NRO will begin revealing one of the important remaining eras of American space history, when the intelligence community reluctantly climbed on board the Space Shuttle. Dwayne Day is always researching the NRO’s interest in using the space shuttle. He can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net Dwayne Day is always researching the NRO’s interest in using the space shuttle. He can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

Corvair's Manned Astronomical Research Station

MARS Figure 1: Astronaut with MARS, March 20, 1961. [1] Convair’s Manned Astronomical Research Station (MARS) by Hans Dolfing Monday, March 30, 2026 In 1960, Convair in San Diego was an independent division of General Dynamics/Astronautics (GD/A) and employed experienced engineers such Krafft A. Ehricke and Karel J. Bossart under the directorship of James R. Dempsey.[10] Work from 1959 to 1961 resulted in a mockup space station to evaluate many aspects of confined life in space. Many documented 1960s space stations were only paper concepts but this project “bent metal” and hardware was built for a full mockup space station. The name of this space station was the Manned Astronomical Research Station (MARS).[1-4] A series of more than 100 Convair GD/A archival photos plus a movie shed new light on this early American military and civilian episode to prepare man for life in space stations.[1,2] No paper reports were located but photos show these existed.[1,3,21] The US Air Force, with its military space efforts, was already heavily engaged in the transition from aviation medicine to space medicine, and project Mercury would be the first American space laboratory where humans could be evaluated in weightlessness, severe g-forces, and radiation tolerance. Bioastronautics would apply equally in the military and civilian domains and NASA was quite willing to make maximum use of the USAF superior biomedical research resources.[19] Many documented 1960s space stations were only paper concepts but this project “bent metal” and hardware was built for a full mockup space station to evaluate on the ground as shown in Figures 1 to 6. MARS Figure 2: Overview of Convair GD/A San Diego with MARS at building 28, February 1961. [1,4] MARS Figure 3: MARS construction, January 19, 1961. [1] All the construction images in Figure 3 are labeled with the same date, which indicates a MARS construction period between late 1960 and early 1961. MARS Figure 4: MARS placement outside Building 28, February 7, 1961. [1] As shown in Figure 2 and 4, MARS was placed outside of Building 28, the Astronautics space research building. At first glance, it might look like a water tower or large boiler but this was a full-scale mockup for a multi-man space station. MARS was planned to be made available to other companies to study and encourage life support system research in the private industry. The station had a diameter of ten feet (three meters) and was about 14 feet (4.3 meters) tall. The inverted cone beneath the station is not an engine but a mockup for a Mercury-style re-entry capsule. Overall, the mockup was 28 feet (8.6 meters) tall as shown in Figure 5.[2-4] MARS Figure 5: MARS February 27, 1961. On the left (L-R) W. Kudenov, F. D’Vincent, J. Tearnen. [1] MARS had two floors. The upper floor was a working compartment and the lower floor was used for housekeeping, cooking, and sanitary facilities. Figure 6 shows a glimpse of the interior. Sleeping was planned in the reentry module. Obviously, the mockup station was not a zero-G facility, but it allowed testing of oxygen supply systems, contaminant monitoring, water regeneration, and similar systems. A vacuum chamber was nearby for additional testing. [2-4] MARS Figure 6: MARS interior, April 12, 1961 with (L-R) W. Kudenov, Tiernon, R.C. Armstrong. [1] MARS was closely related to earlier Convair concepts. Krafft Ehricke at Convair worked on the multi-man “Outpost” space station during 1958 and 1959. [15-17]. Immediately after that in 1959 and 1960, Convair designed the Three Man Space System Experimental Laboratory (TASSEL), shown in Figure 7. TASSEL was designed by Krafft Ehricke and Freeman Vincent as a three-man laboratory to be placed in a 200-nautical-mile (530-kilometer) orbit. As an early but post-Mercury space station, it would be launched by Atlas Centaur and conduct two- to three-week missions. The customer was ambiguous: civilian or military or both. The station allowed for research with artificial gravity. The report was submitted in July 1960 based on work earlier in the year.[11-14] MARS Figure 7: TASSEL Laboratory [11] To demonstrate the close relation between MARS and TASSEL, note the photos in Figure 8 of the MARS laboratory. These are undated, but probably are from late 1960. While still under construction, there was a TASSEL poster next to the MARS hardware. The TASSEL poster is in the left part of Figure 8 to the bottom left of the mockup, to the left of the engineer at the base. The right part of the Figure 8 is just an enlarged version to demonstrate it is the same picture as in Figure 7.[1,11,12] MARS Figure 8: TASSEL, example for MARS. [1] By April 1961 MARS was part of the Convair GD/A Life Science section headed by R.C. Armstrong who, since 1956, served as Convairs’ flight surgeon [3,4] MARS was coordinated with the human factors section under W. E. Woodson and the Convair life support section under John O. Tearnen. One objective was to design the instruments for effective human-machine interfacing under all circumstances. MARS Figure 9: Bio-astronautical instrumentation. [1] Figure 9 shows one example of the type of physiological tests conducted at MARS. Later in 1962, crews were evaluated inside MARS for up to 30 hours.[2] Figure 10 demonstrates some of the MARS command module mockups.[1,2] MARS Figure 10: MARS Command Module June 15, 1961. [1,2] On February 1, 1961, McDonnell Aircraft proposed the civilian “One-man Space Station” as the flip side of the military one-man MTSS, an example of how companies designed multipurpose space stations.[9] Did the Convair GD/A MARS have mostly civilian customers at NASA or also military customers in the Air Force? There are two pieces of evidence that clearly show that MARS had a military customer. First, there was a presentation by Col. Lowell B. Smith on December 10, 1963, at NASA Ames Research Center on the topic of the Military Test Space Station (MTSS) study, SR-17527, which was extensively discussed in an earlier article.[6-8] MARS Figure 11: Quote from MTSS presentation. [6] The quote in Figure 11 clearly demonstrates that Convair GD/A submitted the MARS concept and laboratory to the US Air Force as their entry for the Phase-1, pre-1965 MTSS. [6] The 1200-cubic-foot (34-cubic-meter) volume fits very well with the earlier given MARS size of 10-foot diameter and about 14-foot height. The MARS mockup built in early 1961 is also a good fit for the MTSS timeline. The presentation by Col. Smith has no image of this MARS submission but the quote with “crew of 3” matches the TASSEL crew size of three. In addition, the description of artificial gravity in the quote matches exactly what TASSEL proposed to do including a tether stability study. [2,11,12] Did the Convair GD/A MARS have mostly civilian customers at NASA or also military customers in the Air Force? To recap the MTSS history, the USAF SR-17527 MTSS study was started January 1960, followed by an RFP in April 1960, the selection of five contractors in August 1960, and a final report on the six month study “Phase 1 MTSS - Early capability” in February 1961. “Phase 2” Advanced MTSS reports were due in July 1961 after another roughly six months. [8] The thinking of Convair GD/A might have been that many of the 27 planned MTSS biomedical tests could be prototyped in the MARS mockup on the ground. Simple checks like oxygen consumption or “does it fit” could be done on the ground. [7,8] The second piece of evidence is that most of the MARS photos are annotated by the San Diego Air and Space Museum (SDASM) with “MTSS/MARS” in their detailed descriptions. [1] Why MTSS was added to MARS is never explained but, from the evidence, it seems clear that this was the Convair GD/A submission to the MTSS study. The Convair GD/A MTSS hardware was hiding in plain sight, which is very exciting as the technical reports by Convair GD/A are still not released.[1,5,8] MARS was offered to the private industry for space station evaluation in 1961.[3] How this Convair shared space station mockup and training related to other bio-astronautical work in the USAF is an open question. In 1963, there were at least eight studies titled “The Centralized Space Training Facility Study”.[20] That work was done in 1963 at the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WP-AFB), Ohio. Part III was titled “Training for the Military Test Space Station”.[20.iii] This is a tantalizing connection to the Convair GD/A MARS work but a better understanding will have to wait till more reports are declassified. The foresight by Convair GD/A to record their work with photos and a movie as historical records is appreciated just like the work by SDASM to publish these records from NARA.[18] In conclusion, the Convair GD/A MARS space station mockup was derived from TASSEL and largely overlapped with their MTSS concept offered to the USAF in August 1960. Photos from the station construction, the interior, command console and other details show in color that this was a high-fidelity mockup for both civilian and military space stations. To have the mockup must have been a big advantage in Convair GD/A space proposals. The photos also show in color the first interior details of any of the five MTSS contractor studies. References “Manned Astronomical Research Station (MARS)” photos from Convair General Dynamics/ Astronautics, Atlas Negative Collection, published by SDASM via NARA. “Convair Space Station Development Program 10/17/62 HACL Film 00188”, San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives, 1962. “Astronautics Life Science Center Will Serve All Convair Divisions”, Convairiety, San Diego Edition, page 8, April 12, 1961. “Space Station Mockup Will Include Kitchen”, Convairiety, San Diego Edition, page 4, March 1, 1961. General Dynamics/Astronautics (GD/A), San Diego, Calif., Contr. AF 33(600)-42457, Rept. no. AE 61-0570, ASD TR 61-208, Dated: 15 Jul 1961. SR-17527, “MILITARY TEST SPACE STATION. VOLUME I. SUMMARY (U)”, AD 328 351L, AE61-0570-Vol-1, vol. 1, 75 pages. SR-17527, “MILITARY TEST SPACE STATION. VOLUME II, PART I, PRE-1965 SPACE STATION (u)”, AD 328 352L, AE61-0570-Vol-2-Pt-1, vol. 2, part 1, 166 pages. SR-17527, “MILITARY TEST SPACE STATION. VOLUME II, PART I, PRE-1965 SPACE STATION (U)”, AD 328 353L, AE61-0570-Vol-2-Pt-2, vol. 2, part 2. SR-17527, “MILITARY TEST SPACE STATION. VOLUME III. ADVANCED SPACE STATIONS (U)”, AD 328 354L, AE61-0570-Vol-3, vol. 3, illus. tbl. refs. “Presentation on MTSS SR 17527 by Col. Lowell B. Smith”, “Presentation on SLOMAR SR-79814 by Maj. Jack W. Hunter”, 10 Dec 1963, 19 pages, RG 255.4.1, NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center, Series 24, Box 3, Central Files - research correspondence, 1943-1965, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Pacific Region (San Francisco), San Bruno, California. “MTSS experiments”, RG 255, NACA Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory and NASA Langley Research Center Records, A200-4 Manned Space Stations, Series II: Subject Correspondence Files, 1918-1978, Box 421, 422, Sep. 1963 - Nov. 1964, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Philadelphia. Dolfing, H., “The Military Test Space Station (MTSS)”, August 2024./li> Dolfing, H., “McDonnell’s Military Test Station (MTSS)”, March 2026. Dolfing.H, “Satellite bombs, gliders, or ICBMs? Krafft Ehricke and early thinking on long-range strategic weapons”, December 2022. Ehricke, K.A., Vincent, F., “TASSEL - Space Laboratory (Three Astronaut Space System Experimental Laboratory)”, Convair Astronautics, GD/A, San Diego, CA, AE-600228, 91 pages, AD0851662, NASA NTRS 19690091102, July 1960. Pengelley, C.D., “Preliminary survey of dynamic stability of a ‘tassel concept’ space station”, General Dynamics/Convair, San Diego, CA, AE63-0125, NASA NTRS 19650082879, March 1963. “Proposed Three-man station”, Missiles and rockets, July 3, page 41, 1961. Shayler, D.J., Godwin, R., “Outpost in Orbit”, page 26, ISBN 9781-989044-03-2, 2018. “Convair plans Four-man Space Station”, Aviation Week, pp 26-28, April 28, 1958. Ehricke, K.A, “Hearings before the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration”, Eight-Fifth Congress, 2nd Session H.R. 11881, pp. 613-646, April-May 1958. Ehricke, K.A., Accession 2003-0025, National Air and Space Museum (NASM), Smithsonian Institution, Box 6, Folder 1, “Space Station for Development and Orbital Flight Training”, KE59-2, Convair GD/A, San Diego, CA, 25 pages, May 12, 1959. RH 50173-15, “To support a project to process approximately 165,000 images from the Convair/General Dynamics collection of the Atlas rocket program from its inception in the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Approximately 50,000 images will be digitized and available online”. Berger, C., “The Air Force in Space. Fiscal Year 1962”, USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, ADA 606606, 1966. “The Centralized Space Training Facility”, Reports, 6570th Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WP-AFB), Ohio, March 1963, “Part I. Summary, Conclusion, and Recommendations”, P-30-I, AD 339 342L, “Part II. Training for the Global Surveillance System”, P-30-II, SR-178, “Part III. Training for the Military Test Space Station”, P-30-III, SR-17527, AD 339 343L “Part IV, Training for Space Logistics, Maintenance, and Rescue System”, P-30-IV, SR-79814 SLOMAR, AD 339 571L, “Part V. Training for the Earth Satellite Weapon System”, P-30-V, SR-79821 ESWS, AD 341 367, “Part VI. Training for Space Plane Recoverable Booster”, P-30-VI, SR-89774, AD 339 645L, “Part VII, Training for Lunar Systems”, P-30-VII, “Part VIII, CSTF Training Concepts”, P-30-VIII. “Convair II-6 Instrumentation Design Laboratory”, piction ID: 45174753, catalog ID: 14_016812, March 1961. Hans Dolfing is an independent computer scientist with a passion for spaceflight, software, and history and can be contacted at beta_albireo@protonmail.com.

Project Hail Mary And The Risks And Benefits Of Human Spaceflight

Project Hail Mary Project Hail Mary is showing one aspect of human spaceflight at the same time Artemis 2 prepared to go around the Moon. (credit: Amazon/MGM Studios) Artemis 2, Project Hail Mary, and the risks and benefits of human spaceflight by Scott Solomon Monday, March 30, 2026 The Conversation The central premise of the blockbuster film Project Hail Mary is a long-shot mission with a familiar goal: Save humanity from extinction. While the details of the threat facing humanity are new to this story, moviegoers are used to bingeing on popcorn while watching a heroic quest to save the Earth from certain doom. And like so many popular movies of this genre, from Armageddon to Interstellar, the hero’s journey involves a seemingly impossible mission into space. Given the moment, it’s worth reflecting on what those investing billions in human space exploration, whether tax dollars or private funds, are trying to accomplish. The film’s release is well timed for the new era of space exploration. NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, scheduled to launch in early April, will send four astronauts around the Moon on a path that may take them deeper into space than any humans have ever traveled. The flyby mission is primarily about testing equipment for a lunar landing in 2028. But the broader plan was outlined in detail in March by NASA officials: to establish a permanent base on the Moon. NASA is not alone in its lunar ambitions. Private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing next-generation spacecraft, rovers, and drones to facilitate the American Moon base. And other nations, notably China, are working toward their own lunar outposts. These nations and corporations see the Moon as a stepping stone toward more ambitious goals: a major human migration into deep space, including Mars. Given the moment, it’s worth reflecting on what those investing billions in human space exploration, whether tax dollars or private funds, are trying to accomplish. As a biologist, I recognize the limitations of humans as space explorers. As I explain in my book, Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds, while biologists have learned a lot about how the conditions of space affect the human body and mind, sending people on longer missions deeper into space will expose people to unknown health risks. Boldly going Plans to send people to the Moon and beyond are accelerating. NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, has argued that beating China to the Moon is a matter of national security, calling the Moon “the ultimate high ground.” He has also promoted the economic benefits of establishing a space economy that includes mining and manufacturing on the Moon. Subcommittees in both the House and Senate have advanced bills to codify these initiatives into law, making the goal of creating a permanent base on the Moon official US policy. They appear to have bipartisan support, and votes in both houses of Congress are expected soon. The United States and China are targeting landing humans on Mars in the 2030s, with the intention of building infrastructure that enables long-term habitation. In March, NASA also announced that the agency intends to test nuclear propulsion during an uncrewed flight to Mars in 2028. Nuclear-powered rockets have the potential to substantially reduce the time it takes to reach Mars, which would make crewed flight to the Red Planet more feasible. Humans or robots? But why do people need to go to Mars? As with the Moon, the purported motivations for both the US and China establishing a human presence on Mars are scientific, economic, and geopolitical. Yet these are distinct objectives that are often conflated. If having people on the Moon and Mars is indeed necessary to achieve these objectives, let’s be clear about the risks that the people undertaking these missions will be assuming. In terms of science, NASA has had dramatic success with its Mars rovers, including the discovery last year of a potential biosignature that could be the best evidence yet that the planet was once home to microbial life. Robotic missions also have a lower price tag and a higher acceptable risk margin than human missions. While Isaacman remains publicly committed to the Artemis program and its human spaceflight goals, the agency’s plan also includes a suite of robotic missions to the Moon’s surface it hopes to develop in partnership with companies, universities, and international partners. Likewise, some economic objectives, such as establishing mining and manufacturing facilities, could be accomplished using AI-equipped robots, such as those Tesla is developing. Robots are a long way from being able to accomplish the full range of tasks that a human can do, but prioritizing robotic activities could lower the exposure that people have to the hazards of space. If having people on the Moon and Mars is indeed necessary to achieve these objectives, let’s be clear about the risks that the people undertaking these missions will be assuming. Space and the human body While scientists have learned a lot about how space affects the body during the six decades of human spaceflight, there are still significant blind spots. Among them are the effects of deep-space radiation. The 24 Apollo astronauts who traveled to the Moon are the only people who have ever been past the Van Allen radiation belts, an area of space surrounding our planet formed by Earth’s magnetic field. By trapping radiation from the Sun and from deep space, our planet’s magnetic field is part of what makes Earth habitable for us and other life forms. The Moon and Mars lack magnetic fields, so radiation levels on their surfaces are substantial. NASA researchers are now conducting experiments on rodents using simulated galactic cosmic rays, which are largely blocked by Earth’s magnetic fields. Preliminary results suggest that this type of radiation may impair cognitive abilities, but the actual effects on people are unknown. Similarly, while medical researchers know that floating in a zero-g environment causes muscle atrophy and bone density loss during long stays on the International Space Station, they know relatively little about how partial gravity affects muscles and bones. The Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, and Mars has a little over one-third. Pilots on Earth can simulate partial gravity for up to 30 seconds at a time during parabolic flights, but only the 12 Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon have ever experienced it for longer than that. The longest they stayed was about three days. Scientists can only speculate about whether prolonged exposure to the partial gravity of the Moon or Mars would have consequential health effects. Human interest Sending robots to space avoids having to deal with risks to human health. But there are downsides. Not only do robotic space missions have fewer capabilities than crewed missions, they often fail to capture interest and imagination and demonstrate national prestige in the same way that human missions can. The four members of the Artemis crew will captivate people worldwide watching their daring mission around the Moon, much like moviegoers root for Ryan Gosling’s character in Project Hail Mary as he boldly seeks to save humanity from certain doom on the big screen. That human interest is the common link that ties together public and private space ambitions worldwide. While robotic missions are more practical and cost effective, they simply don’t inspire the masses the way a human crew can. Beyond achieving any economic, political or scientific goals, space exploration is ultimately about people doing difficult things. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Scott Solomon is a Teaching Professor of BioSciences at Rice University and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Dr. Solomon’s research examines the ecology and evolution of insects, microbes, and humans on Earth and beyond. As a science communicator, Dr. Solomon regularly speaks and writes about science for the public.