The Deep Space Gateway Does Everything For Everyone
As you listen to Bowersox, Gerst & #NASA talk about Deep Space Gateway it starts to sound like one of those expensive Swiss Army Knives that no one ever uses – but it can do lots of things that no one really needs in the first place – when a simple knife would suffice. #NAC pic.twitter.com/6n3p0DZmp5
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 8, 2017
Keith, just curious, and I imagine this will be deleted once you see it, but….I have been reading your stuff now for nearly 10 years. Did you have some falling out with NASA? I read these things with the hope of gaining some insight into the future of my job, and often there is some informative stuff, but for the most part your comments are laden with hate and discontent. Just interferes with the good stuff you are trying to offer.
I used to work at NASA. Then I left to run a large biomedical peer review project on breast cancer. As for the tone of NASAWatch, gosh, that’s how NASAWatch has been run for 21 years and readership/traffic continue to grow. So I must be doing something wrong if more people read it every day. The folks down at MSFC where you work are among my most devoted readers.
Or do you just want me to post happy stuff about rainbows and unicorns and how cool SLS looks? Let me know.
As I said, I enjoy a lot of your stuff, but every once in a while a positive thrown into the mix wouldn’t be unappreciated.
I guess you missed this. Note who the co-editor and co-organizer was. I donated an immense amount of time to this. https://history.nasa.gov/SP… But why do any research before you dump on people, eh?
I guess you missed these items (still on the main page of NASAWatch) “Brooke Owens Fellowship Program “http://nasawatch.com/archiv… and “Looking For Extraterrestrial Life In West Virginia” http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
Keith, not everybody reading this site agrees with you 100% on everything. If you want persuade people, don’t just insult them and point to your readership stats when they disagree with you. Even below when you actually try to make a proper case for yourself, you can’t stop taking shots at this guy who is trying to offer respectful criticism.
If you do not like NASAWatch then stop reading it. You will feel better – I promise.
If you’re here to get “official” NASA news, you’re in the wrong place. For example, NASA keeps putting out stories and press releases about how awesome SLS/Orion will be while downplaying the delays and cost overruns. Personally I find NASA watch a heck of a lot closer to reality than the rosy stories other “news” sites publish about NASA programs.
Unicorns! Yes, please 🙂
NASA Watch started as NASA RIF Watch. When NASA employees were terrified that they would be part of a “reduction in force” it was a source of information independent of NASA.
Story on the history of the site:
http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
So, it never did what many NASA “news” sites do which is to simply regurgitate the stories and press releases issued as official NASA statements. If that’s what you want, you can go to other sites that paint rosy pictures of everything NASA does.
All IMHO, of course. I don’t work for NASA Watch, or NASA.
Most importantly, it will keep the pork flowing after ISS is sunk into the ocean.
I think that’s also the reason why they went with the solid fuel rocket boosters on this one (and it cross-subsidizes solid fuel rocket production for other uses too).
That’s a good analogy, and brutally honest description of a multi-utility knife like that. The situations where you’d need the knife but couldn’t just bring along a small tool pack instead are rare.
I suppose the station needs to be everything to everyone, in order to justify spending what remains of NASA’s crewed space program funding after SLS on it.
You could just replace the multi-purpose NASA DSG with the bigger SpaceX version.
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Commonly called the BFS.
It’s easy to be snarky about this— I would know, having been plenty snarky myself.
But NASA is a victim of its own, necessarily plodding nature. NASA- speaking generally, and from the POV of an outside observer- NASA is a place where things move very slowly.
NASA is humbled by a stunning multiplicity of ‘stakeholders’, as they are called. This group is so diverse that, once a high-level course of action is determined, change becomes impossible. The result? NASA adopts a defensive posture.
Meanwhile, though, the march of technology continues. Calculating an advancing rate of change becomes differential calculus.
And that’s what’s happened with SLS and SX. Years passed as policies were debated (heavy lift or not, side mount, Constellation, many more). Finally SLS was adopted as a course of action.
But meanwhile the assumptions and arguing points that were part of the discussion? They shifted, and in a huge way. We now have a technological base of stunningly capable vehicles that can move from gravity well to gravity well, obviating ‘deep space stations’, or shuttles, or many other hardware requirements. No splashing required, either.
NASA, though, remains wed, in the way the governmental agencies are, to policies determined through long, hard negotiation. None of the ‘stakeholders’ want to budge.
In short, NASA ain’t nimble.
This is why any sort of recently-derived ‘plan’ for HSF beyond LEO is, in a word, laughable. And sad, at the same time.
NASA can be nimble when they pass off simple requirements with goal based payments in contracts to multiple bidders. Having multiple commercial providers working against each other prevents the “single winner” from dragging their feet, because they can.
Point taken. Again I’ve sacrificed accuracy in favor of brevity.
It’s a complex question Is n appeal to the magic of freedom enterprise more fruitful. Presumably ou know more than I do.
What I DO observe, though, is that there are thousands of very high quality people at NASA and at the companies working for NASA, and that these people would benefit from an improvement in leadership at every level.
NASA is not really in control of it’s destiny. It is hobbled by the Congressional micro-managements and edicts (pork barreling).
As usual I should hav been clearer, as you were. What I meant is that NASA is just one of the stakeholders (does anyone else find that word irritating?).
Yes, mostly because “stakeholder” implies everyone else has no stake in the matter. (Yes, I know what the definition is, but this is management jargon which uses a word to imply something without technically meaning it.) That’s a bit at odds with the recently reported survey about NASA having such a high “employee engagement score.”
“uses a word to imply something without technically meaning it”
What a waste of time.
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“Stakeholder” bothers me at least in part because while purporting inclusion the word is actually condescending.
Yes, DSG does everything for everybody but there really is no need for anything it does. Another jobs program that takes us no where in space and at the rate these have been coming together for Orion and SLS, DSG is something out in the 2030s at the earliest.
The other day at the Space Comm Conference I think Frank Culbertson expressed it best; ISS established a long term foothold in space. It could be permanent except that NASA is already talking of dumping it in 2024, 6 years from now. We are there, we are operating, now there seems to be a bit of interest as commercial companies try to develop a business case and ROI but if they shut ISS down in another 6 years, then most likely that will end human space flight. People will lose interest entirely -since Shuttle shut down, people have already lost considerable interest – then we will forget how to do the job, and some future generation will get stuck trying to reinvent the capability. I think the current ISS already threw away much of what we had already learned to do; now, nearly 20 years after the first element launch, they are trying to figure out how to operate effectively. They have not figured it out yet.
The problem has been a lot of NASA managers who claim they have done a wonderful job and are doing a wonderful job. I think NW does a good job of pointing out the problems and issues instead of hearing all the false positive news from NASA managers, who while its a wonderful place to work, turns out they have no idea where they are going or how they will get there. DSG is a prime example.
I think a lot of people, particularly stakeholders, pay attention to the dialogue in NW. I can imagine regular meetings by NASA managers discussing and arguing different sides of points raised in NW. I think in that way NW is a force for good. It allows the populace and the little guy, whose opinions otherwise would never be heard, to express their opinions, and I think those opinions are heard through NW. That kind of dialogue does not happen elsewhere.
ARM was proposed because the Orion’s maximum range was lunar orbit but it could not land on the Moon. When ARM began to look untenable another mission to cislunar space so as to require SLS and Orion but without a Lunar landing was needed. I agree it makes no sense to abandon ISS just because it will take some effort to figure out how to use it productively.
Yes, the alternative would be to develop a lunar lander and Base on the Moon. But NASA has been to the Moon, so no need to return and there is no “firsts” to claim if they do.
So after ARM you get DSG. Next they will probably find some other crazy way to avoid a Lunar return so as to accomplosh another first.
I’d be happy to see a base on the Moon, but the money would have to come from somewhere. The question is not whether there is a “first” to claim, but whether the mission will produce practical benefits worth the cost.
They would need a lot of money to come from somewhere only if NASA does business the way they have been. NASA has been a poor and ineffective resource manager. Most space hardware is not that sophisticated, especially once it is designed and certified. It should not be that expensive. It isn’t when internationals do the job. It isn’t when ‘commercial’ suppliers do the job. It is only when NASA gets too involved that prices skyrocket.
Which is why the selection of Arizona Treasurer DeWitt who has experience with controlling costs to be NASA’s new CFO is significant.
How is an Arizona cowboy qualified to assess Alternate A over Alternate B?
He will be in thrall to whomever writes the reports.
NASA did wonderful work, and it was expressed well at SpaceCom in the “astronaut panel” but – that was then. The future of ISS is probably to be extended and extended, but within a year (hopefully!!) we will have commercial operators flying people into space from the U.S. Hopefully we will have a Bigelow station now that a Bigelow module has demonstrated that it does work, on the ISS. The ISS will be remembered as an important step, as we remember Skylab. We just need to keep it limping along until it is replaced. NASA may never fly people into space again, if the SLS keeps tottering along it will be cancelled when we see the commercial flights running routinely.
With a bit of luck, people will not lose interest – as more people will be able to fly into space themselves. As the astronaut panel concluded – we need to let more people fly into space. That day is on the way.
Now will they ever fly to Deep Space Gateway? Probably not, no more than we will send people on the Asteroid Retrieval Mission.
Long duration space travel in proper environment.
ISS ‘provides’ 1/2 GCR, ug, travels in circles, avoiding the proper environment and the long’ travel. 3 Day trips ‘mooning’ through the belts won’t cut it. Get the point?
So you propose sending more people to *where* in space and for how long? Deep Space Voyager (s) is the better name–each does not need to be an Swiss Knife.
Asteroids will enable an exciting Exploration program for the next 2-3 generations iff no moore sls.
ISS will be remembered the same way that $300 hammers are remembered.
The dissolution of ISS is PR problem that, if the past is predictive, NASA will fumble. The potential failure of ISS decommissioning compromises many years’ agency-wide funding.
You had to mention potential failure of decommissioning after he wrote, “ISS will be remembered… as we remember Skylab.” Let’s try not to land souvenirs in Western Australis this time.