A roadmap to space the wrong way

The Planetary Society formally released its roadmap for US space policy yesterday:
/-- Beyond the Moon: Roadmap to Space - The Planetary Society
/-- Roadmap (pdf)

With respect to human spaceflight, the headline recommendations involve the delay of lunar landings in favor of missions to near earth asteroids and the setting of Mars as the primary long term goal. Unfortunately, they also recommend that NASA "continue development of the Ares/Orion system", which is like laying out a series of lengthy and difficult road trips and recommending that they be driven in brand new Duesenbergs. (And, of course, each of these hyper-expensive antiques gets thrown away after its trip.)

There is only a brief reference to commercial development of space transport : "Delay in the onset of a new human lunar program will allow time for the lunar exploration plans of other nations to mature, and for the development of true international partnerships for exploration of the Moon and beyond. It will also allow time for nascent commercial launch options and lunar initiatives to reach fruition." (p.14) As always with Friedman et al, the suggestion that space transportation could ever be significantly lower in cost is not taken seriously.

Some other space blogosphere response to the roadmap:
/-- TPS exploration roadmap defers the Moon - Space Politics
/-- Deferring The Moon? - Transterrestrial Musings - Nov.13.08
/-- Almost No NewSpace In The Planetary Society's New Space Exploration Roadmap - jeffkrukin.com - Nov.13.08

[Update: This post from Rand Simberg explains why roadmaps are beside the point:

A Vision, Not A Destination - Transterrestrial Musings.]

Posted 11/14/08 | 08:08:39 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Space policy

Comments

> Unfortunately, they also recommend that NASA "continue development of the Ares/Orion system", which is like laying out a series of lengthy and difficult road trips and recommending that they be driven in brand new Duesenbergs.

Wasn't it Mike Griffin's Planetary Society paper that got us the Ares design in the first place? I have no idea how much the Planetary Society had endorsed that design, though.

Posted by Neil H. at 11/14/08 17:49:13

It'd be easier to establish a permanent presence on the Moon than it would Mars. Lets build up some permanent bases on the Moon first and learn valuable engineering lessons before flying off to Mars. The Moon also has a lot to offer such as being an excellent platform for astronomy on the far side.

Posted by AKU954 at 11/14/08 18:55:31

Hi Neil,
Yes, the basic Ares I/V/Orion architecture was laid out in the study here:
http://www.planetary.org/pr...

Of course, a lot of the shuttle technology overlap, which was a major selling point, has been cast aside.

After he became administrator, Griffin and his assistants claim they compared thousands of variations of LV architectures and Ares/Orion came out on top. I'm highly skeptical that it was simply the brilliance of Griffin and his PS group that the architecture that survived this culling just happened to match closely to what they had recommended.

I don't think there was ever a formal position taken by the PS management on the study but I'm sure they were comfortable with the basic approach.

- Clark

Posted by TopSpacer at 11/14/08 19:10:07

Planet Space is very left leaning robotic oriented. That is why I stopped supporting it, opt'd out years ago. I pay little attention to Planet Space vision... other than casual interest. They push world space cooperationand robotics at the expense of US manned ambitions.

Posted by Doug at 11/15/08 10:47:30

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