All of this discussion assumes that space exploration is, of itself, a valuable goal.  As I see it, the only real deliverable of space exploration is that it keeps that VERY SMALL percentage of the population not content with beer and football entertained.

I would argue that the only demonstrated net social value from space has come from defense and communication and for that, “going round in circles” is fine.

While space exploration is something that I find personally very fascinating, I’m definitely a member of the “not content with beer and football” crowd. I know that a lot of unmanned space exploration sorts like talking about how “you can get so much more science for the buck with robots”, but at the end of the day, even unmanned exploration is just a form of edutainment for most people. Sure, there are occasional side benefits that come up from these programs, but at the end of the day, it leaves you wondering why space exploration for exploration’s sake really deserves so much more government support than say exploration of oceans, or other National Geographic-like expeditions.

Now, I think that exploration could be done in a way that it was more meaningful to society than just another, rather expensive form of edutainment. Which was the point that Marburger made a few years ago:

If we are serious about this, then our objective must be more than a disconnected series of missions, each conducted at huge expense and risk, and none building a lasting infrastructure to reduce the expense and risk of future operations. If we are serious, we will build capability, not just on the ground but in space. And our objective must be to make the use of space for human purposes a routine function.

Exploration that is not in support of something else strikes me as somehow selfish and unsatisfying, and not consistent with the fact that we are using public funds for this enterprise, no matter how small a fraction of the total budget they may be.

If the architecture of the exploration phase is not crafted with sustainability in mind, we will look back on a century or more of huge expenditures with nothing more to show for them than a litter of ritual monuments scattered across the planets and their moons.

I just bring this up, because I’ve seen time and time again a lot of the wasteful decisions NASA makes is due to being myopically overfocused on maximizing the specific mission they are trying to carry out, without putting any thought into the big picture of how to make this relevant to the rest of us. In many ways this ties back to my first real blog post on this blog–your focus really does determine your path.

If your aim is to help humanity incorporate more and more of the solar system into its economic sphere, and to make space beyond communications, GPS, and weather satellites meaningful beyond mere edutainment, you’ll make decisions differently than if your only goal is to optimize some narrowly defined mission.

What was the general response to these claims? Most in industry other than the fanboys treated their claims with healthy skepticism.

Eight years later, even after that company successfully nails a picture-perfect launch and reentry, people are still skeptical that in the end their prices are going to end up much cheaper than anyone else. Heck, even I’m still wondering if they’ll be able to keep the prices they’ve been claiming once they’re really into routine and reliable operations–and I’m about as close as you can get to a koolaid drinkin fanboy without having spittle in the corner of my mouth.

Then there’s this other rocket group. Like the first one, they haven’t actually demonstrated the ability to successfully design and build new rocket vehicles. At least not within my lifetime. They also start making claims about how by implementing some key industry suggestions (this time those found on “Page 38″ of last month’s HEFT report) they can deliver a new vehicle for far less than past experience dictates. Unlike the first team though, this team does have a track record. But it is a track record of 30 years of consistently overrunning budgets and getting major projects canceled.

“But it will be different this time” they say. “If we use the suggestions on ‘Page 38′, we can dramatically improve on the affordability of developing new rocket vehicles.”

Now, it’s not that the suggestions on Page 38 are bad. They’re not. They’re actually pretty good. Just like “using the best practices from Silicon Valley” sounds good too. I’ll admit that I’m kind of curious how on a $20B project they’re going to “Model, test and fly early and often” or “Use small lean projects with highly competent empowered personnel”, or how a project that is more or less designed by Congressional committee is somehow going to “Push decision authority to the lowest level. Trust them to implement and don’t second guess (over-manage)” [Aside: if Congress really intended to allow NASA to do that last one, they wouldn't be specifying the size of the rocket, what hardware it can use, and which contractors they have to maintain contracts for]. I’m also somewhat curious of how many of the items on that list CxP managers would claim they were already doing…

…but leaving all of those specific details aside, I just don’t get why this second group of people gets all offended when the net result from industry is once again healthy skepticism. Especially given their past track record. When you’re trying to get people to entrust you with a multi-billion dollar project that all past experience and your management claim is unlikely to fit within budget or timeline, is it really that offensive when people have a hard time swallowing that somehow one powerpoint slide is going to change everything?

I mean, it is totally possible that like SpaceX, this new team is going to surprise us, and totally knock this SLS project out of the park. Heck, maybe they’ll even come in far enough under budget that Shelby, out of the kindness of his generous soul, will decide to put the savings into commercial crew or propellant depot development. It’s totally possible.

But is it really rude to be skeptical about this outcome?

I find it amusing that so many of the opponents of Obama’s proposed space plan are so happy with this, when it doesn’t actually resolve most of the things they said were wrong with his policy. To whit:

1. There are no details, plans, or near-term destinations.  Just an unfocused non-plan to build an HLV without really having a plan on how it will be used or when.  So unfocused spending and lack of a plan or near-term destination wasn’t the issue?
2. Even the Moon isn’t outright dismissed, it’s pretty clear the plan is a modified version of flexible path.  Ie this isn’t going to give people that moonbase they craved so soon.  So actually going back to the Moon anytime in the forseeable future wasn’t the issue?
3. Without the shuttle extended, and with commercial crew being delayed (let’s get real folks, moving most of the funding to the out years is a cheap way of defunding a project without actually having to have the huevos to do it honestly), it is now guaranteed that the ISS is going to be accessible only via Russia for most of the rest of this decade.  There will be no way of launching those critical spares that were the reason Jeff Bingham was always giving for a shuttle extension.  So apparently the gap isn’t an issue?
4. The KSC portion of the Shuttle team is going to get decimated next year still, this time with no commercial crew projects ramping up to help soften the blow.  So apparently workforce retention wasn’t really an issue?

As far as I can tell, the only issue Congress really cared about was protecting jobs in Huntsville and Houston and making sure we get a big HLV as soon as possible, even though we won’t have anything to do with it once we get it.

The good news is that the “dot-product” of NASA’s direction and sanity is a fair deal of money, and it grew quite a bit compared to last year.  At least some elements of useful things survived.  Instead of being 99% orthogonal to the actual development of space, it’s now only 95% orthogonal.  It’s just so frustrating and disgusting when we actually had a chance for something so much better.

Here’s to hoping that now that JSC and MSFC got their rattle back, the creative and useful parts of NASA can be moved to locales better-matched to small development programs.  Even the pittance they’re being given compared to feeding the HLV albatross can go a long way if managed by the right group.

[Note (7/1/11): I realized that at least some of what I said was pretty offensive, so I edited out the most mean-spirited part.]

I’m going to dignify this silliness with an attempt at a rebuttal.

First off, where are the Chinese and Russian space programs today, compared with ours?

China:

• Has barely started flying its first manned spacecraft in the past five years
• Flies only occasionally, with some years having no flights
• Is five years off from even having the same lift capacity as our EELVs
• Is thinking about launching a small space station sometime this decade
• Is at least semi-competitive on the international launch market, but still not a big player
• Does occasional robotic science missions beyond LEO

Russia:

• Has a good, fairly reliable human launcher they’ve been running for decades
• But can’t afford to fly that vehicle very much except when NASA is footing the bill
• Is operating a portion of a space station that is dependent on NASA for its continued survival
• Is doing fairly well on the international commercial satellite launch market
• Does occasional robotic science missions beyond LEO

USA

• Runs most of the ISS
• Will be funding multiple commercial launch providers, creating an actual manned spaceflight industry
• May see commercial orbital stations in the near future developed by domestic entrepreneurs like Bigelow
• Is investing in technologies and infrastructure like propellant depots that can greatly simplify BEO exploration and even commercial BEO transportation

I could go on.  I just have a hard time seeing how the country that’s actually trying to build up commercial manned spaceflight, and break new ground with technologies like propellant depots is somehow going to get overtaken in space by countries like Russia and China.

If it fails, commercial space people will switch back to “it was only a test” mode while to Ares-huggers, it will prove, prove, prove that all commercial vehicles (including those with existing proven track records) are all death traps. After all, imagine the national security risk of flying our astronauts on private launch vehicles! I mean, if we’re going to turn LEO crew transportation over to the private sector, we might as well all start learning Chinese and reading the little Red Book, cause them Commies are going to come and sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.