Not a soul as far as I know. But then again, I don’t see anyone in a position of leadership at NASA promoting a viable space program for NASA whether it be propellant depots or some other approach. So the absence of someone boosting my favorite isn’t particularly disheartening. I figure either NASA will continue to be weakly relevant to space development or real leaders with real direction from above will some day be appointed. In the latter case, the propellant depot will have its say and will stand or fall on its merits.

“Has anyone spoken with Jeff Greason of XCOR on whether the Augustine Commission has considered placing propellant depots on the critical path for lunar return and what are the odds that Greason (or someone else) will fight vigorously for including language within the Augustine Commission report that declares
propellant depots to be an essential technology for lunar return.”

A follow up:

“Other than Jeff Greason, who else on the Augustine Commission can be seen as an ally of the propellant depot approach?”

If Jim Muncy attends the Space Frontier event, I would also seek his opinion / advice concerning how to best persuade Congress about propellant depots and ask his opinion what the odds are of having NASA and Congress place propellant depots on the critical path in the near future.

Is SpaceX likely to pursue a propellant depot approach? Is this a better angle? What could SpaceX reasonably accomplish with a propellant depot?

~Jon

Who at NASA is willing to stick out their necks in support of putting depots on the critical path? Can you name a name of anyone within NASA willing to take such a stance?

Today, Jeff Greason of XCOR could be your only near term hope for putting depots on the critical path back to the Moon. If he stands firm in the manner Karl proposes and makes it clear he will openly dissent from the Augustine Commission report IF depots are not on the critical part then your strategy might work.

But unless someone within NASA (or Greason) is willing to take a strong public stand, those of us out here in blogger-land will merely be ignored. Negotiating strategy is irrelevant if no one will take you seriously in the first place.

There is another point though: the risk (both perceived and real) of propellant depots. If Congress believes depots are riskier than HLVs, then they may not want to go down that road. Of course recent NASA attempts at building even a small launcher have proved to be incredibly risky, so the balance may have shifted.

NASA is in the driver’s seat no matter how powerful Congress is. Somebody needs to fight for feasible, economical development and exploration of space. Congress doesn’t know enough or have this interest at heart. If NASA doesn’t do it, then the task falls to space advocacy groups and space blogs, neither which has anything like the credibility or endurance of NASA.

Personally, I think it’s a poor negotiation tactic to compromise on your greatest needs right from the start. NASA needs the space infrastructure, they don’t need the shiny new HLV. Keep in mind that NASA has held hostage in the recent past it’s shiniest programs (like the alpha magnetic spectrometer module for the ISS or the Hubble telescope) before. That is some viable leverage on Congress. So at the least, they should be able to say “We can’t do Lunar missions without propellant depots” and muscle some funding in that way.

MSR is an immediate problem in need of a solution, and doing MSR affordably will garner a huge support base in planetary science crowd, and hence also some political support.

As stated, current MSR reference desing is baselined for Atlas + Ariane, mission budget anywhere from $4B to $8B ( see the links above ).
Certainly too big for ESA to undertake.

Exactly how are PDs going to help with MSR ?