Bridenstine Weighs in Favor of Lunar Development
Rep. Jim Bridenstine
In a Dec. 29 blog post titled, Why the Moon Matters, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) calls for the United States to focus on the economic and strategic benefits of the moon.
Bridenstine is reported to be a leading candidate for the position of NASA administrator in the Trump Administration. The space agency is focused on sending astronauts to Mars in the 2030’s. However, the new administration might refocus NASA on returning astronauts to the moon.
Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.
Utilizing propellant and materials on the Moon is also the first step for manned missions deeper into our solar system. A permanent human presence on other celestial bodies requires in situ resource utilization. The Moon, with its three-day emergency journey back to Earth, represents the best place to learn, train, and develop the necessary technologies and techniques for in situ resource utilization and an eventual long term human presence on Mars. Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion are close to being developed and will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well…this time, to stay.
There are other economic benefits to a permanent presence on the moon. We should pioneer the utilization of lunar oxides for in situ additive manufacturing (3-D printing) to sustain and develop lunar operations. If economical, we should pioneer the extraction of highly valuable platinum group metals and the ability to transport them back to earth. The United States government should play a part in retiring risk for these endeavors with the intent to privatize and empower commercial companies to sustain the cis-lunar economy. This could fundamentally alter the economic balance of power on Earth.
As the cis-lunar economy develops, competition for locations on the Moon (the poles) and lunar resources is inevitable. The Chinese currently have landers and rovers on the Moon. The United States does not. Very soon, the Chinese will be the first of humanity to explore the far side of the Moon and place robots at the poles. As my friend Congressman Bill Posey says, “They are not going there to collect rocks.”
[….]
The first launch of the Space Launch System is less than two years away. In 2021, we will use the Orion capsule to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since the 1970s. Commercial launch vehicles are maturing and commercial deep space habitats are currently in development. A renewed focus on utilizing the Moon can help further these advancements. The choices we make now can forever make America the preeminent spacefaring nation.
Bridenstine also wrote a blog post on Nov. 7 titled, This is Our Sputnik Moment, that covered a lot of the same material. It is worth a look as well.
53 responses to “Bridenstine Weighs in Favor of Lunar Development”
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The fastest, safest, and cheapest way to get to Mars is to use lunar water, oxygen and hydrogen resources in order to do so.
Marcel
No, it’s not. Not even close. A whole infrastructure must be built up.
With that said, I’m a fan of hitting the moon first, but I will not buy into the bs that fuel from the moon will lower costs.
Not the fastest, certainly not the cheapest and safety is still undefined.
Exactly right, Vlad, successful extraction of materials, like “water”, from the shadows of craters located at the Lunar poles, will take an engineering “tour de force” effort, even at the “proof of concept” level. Regards, Paul.
Expect the Mars advocates to go into gear to block him. Imagine, returning to someplace we have already been…
so maybe a COTS program for a private lunar lander? SLS will probably still be around and have a balance between NASA and the private sector. The Moon is the best choice if we want to go anywhere.
No. The SLS will be facing at least 2 cheaper competitors in the short term with more in the longer term. A decision will have to be make about the end of 2018 to fund the development of the SLS block 2 or go commercial. Not both. Never mind the separate new line item of a COTS Lunar lander in the NASA annual budget.
The U.S. commercial entries in the heavy launch competition are the SpaceX Falcon Heavy, the ULA Vulcan ACES & the Blue New Glenn. The SpaceX ITS family and the Blue New Armstrong will followed. Maybe with something from Orbital-ATK and Dynetics.
The closest thing to a robust Lunar lander currently under development is the SpaceX ITS Tanker. That does not required initial infrastructure on the Lunar surface. The SpaceX ITS Tanker also could be deployed as LEO and Lunar orbital propellant depots. SpaceX already started testing the liquid Oxygen tank prototype last year for the ITS Space Ship/Tanker.
If Falcon Heavy had flown in 2013, as first promised, then it would’ve been a serious contender to the SLS. But 4 years delay and counting, and reduced capabilities from abandoning cross feed, is certainly a motive for having an alternative launcher available. Falcon 9 is cheaper than Atlas V, but Atlas V has still not been abandoned. Good so, since SpaceX has been down 50% of the time last couple of years after losing two payloads. There’s demand for the second cheapest too.
With 40 tons to LEO each, four FH launches are required to match an SLS Block II payload to the Moon. That would cost $500 million a shot. Not far from the operating cost of the SLS.
“reduced capabilities from abandoning cross feed”
Merlin thrust improvements have resulted in a slight performance improvement despite abandoning cross-feed.
“With 40 tons to LEO…”
When you say “tons”, do you mean “tonnes”?. Anyhow, SpaceX claim 54.4 tonnes to LEO – at around $150M.
SLS Block 1 – 2018 – 70 tonnes ? @ $1 billion per launch
SLS Block 1A/B – 2022? – 105 tonnes @ $1 billion per launch
SLS Block 2 – 2030? – 130 tonnes @ $1 billion per launch
Not sure where you’re getting the $500 million being close to SLS operating cost. FH will be putting 150 tonnes to LEO (3 launches @ $450 million or less), 10 years before SLS can put 130 tonnes and at less than half the cost. Can’t imagine New Glenn will be much more expensive than FH. Basically, SpaceX, BO and everyone else has 5 years to demonstrate a viable “competitor” to SLS, even before SLS launches on its second mission.
I’m a child of the French revolution. There’s only one kind of “ton”.
Two FH + one F9 with the crew? That’s just a bit short of a moon rocket, given loss of mass to fuel and docking equipment in LEO. Or qualify Falcon Heavy for crewed launches and make it with 3xFH. If they still claim 54.4 tons to LEO.
Falcon Heavy could preplace assets at the landing site in advance. Maybe even an ascent stage to reach the return-to-Earth stage in Lunar orbit. But the extra operating costs (now that the immense developing costs are mostly sunk) of the SLS over doing it with FH only I think does have some arguments going for it. To begin with, a difference of a few hundred millions in launch cost per human mission to the Moon is still a small part of the total mission cost.
SpaceX is, today, competing for cheaper commercial launches. When launching humans to the Moon or e.g. the $8bn SpaceWeb telescope, you just pick the by track record safest launcher and don’t care much about the decimals on the bottom line. SLS looks safe with its proven components.
“you just pick the by track record safest launcher and don’t care much about the decimals on the bottom line. SLS looks safe with its proven components”
So the heavily modified and reconfigured Shuttle hardware is supposed to just be assumed to be safer? The RS-25E’a are undergoing substantial redesign and they are in a completely new location on the vehicle (namely in close proximity to the hot SRB exhaust), same with the SRB’s and should be receiving a new, never before flown composite casing before manned lunar missions, with an additional segment added never flown on shuttle, the core stage tank is stretched and the support structure is redesigned, the core stage has never had mass stacked above it so new supports will be needed for those loads and the staging sequence has been completely changed for the Block II
Honestly the only heritage that transferred from the Shuttle are the contractors and the left over engines that will be exhausted long before the first manned lunar mission
The problem is that it’s a little hard to verify a safety record for a launcher that will have only one test launch under its belt before its first crewed mission in 2022-23.
Even the Saturn V had more of a track record than that. And NASA at least had the excuse of being on a very tight deadline.
And after the first two test flights and first two operational flights they will run out of RS-25Ds and be switching to the heavily modified RS-25Es. Which is essentially a new engine
An excellent point.
OK, how about we settle on 1000 kg then.
“SLS looks safe with its proven components.”
Not sure how you could possibly have confidence above other launchers, which should be well flight proven by the mid 2020s. And what proven components – presumably the engines – but are they exactly the same spec as shuttle use?, not sure they are. As for F9 (and by extension FH), what has failed: a strut and a helium COPV, hardly the extent of component risk that SLS will be facing for its first few flights….and after that, they’ll start changing the upper stage.
Not really arguing for FH as such, more arguing against the economic and technological sink-hole that is SLS.
“Not sure where you’re getting the $500 million being close to SLS operating cost. “
Somewhere NASA put out some documents that recurring “hardware costs” for SLS was estimated to be $450M. And that was claimed to be the launch cost but it ignores the launch support, integration, GSE, Orion, etc. NASA also more recently released estimates that projected $1-1.25B, and admitted that was optimistic
Yep, that was pretty much my understanding, except I recall the lower number was some sort of early optimism, concocted costs had been fully calculated. I think $450M was the late project cost of shuttle mission.
When NASA is admitting launch costs of upwards of $1B, then we can be fairly confident to take that as a minimum.
Think you are low balling the operating cost of the SLS. Even the SLS flying the EM-1 & EM-2 missions will be over $2B per flight if you include the Orion.
“reduced capabilities from abandoning cross feed, “
That’s funny, since 2013 the FH projected design has not only increased lift performance but also allowed for sufficient propellant margins to perform boostback for the side cores and barge landings for the center
“But 4 years delay and counting”
And what of SLS’s 3 years of delays and counting?
“With 40 tons to LEO each, four FH launches are required to match an SLS Block II payload to the Moon.”
And the Block II is how far along? How bout Block Ib? Or even Block I? All of this is a paper to paper comparison (at least today, FH hardware has been showing up). So let’s wait for serious funding commitments for Block II before we start touting how much better it is than someone else’s paper rocket
That’s funny, because since 2013 the FH, launching 3-4 times per year, has already lifted about 12×40 tons to LEO! Unfortunately it has not. Although it is basically just bunching three of one and the same established launcher together. Seems to be difficult, or SpaceX is for some reason not very interested in giving it any priority.
Maybe SPX is relatively uninterested because FH doesn’t fit the LEO/GEO market very well today. Nor is it a Moon rocket. Maybe its specifications aren’t optimized for its mission, but a matter of capability maximization built upon whatever stuff happened to be available. (Recognize that from the SLS without a mission debate anyone?) Maybe FH is just three F9s first stages put together, and its capability is just a stuck-in-the-middle consequence of that. Like the SLS is a shuttle without the shuttle, but at least a Saturn V+.
“SpaceX is for some reason not very interested in giving it any priority”
Hindsight is 20/20 but here’s my take on the events as of today.
SpaceX was awarded the CRS contracts to lift X amount of payload to ISS on Y number of missions. The F9 v1.0 was vastly underperforming for the mission requirements and couldn’t meet its performance targets. In response to satisfy their largest customer they embarked on a heavy development/improvement program for the Merlin engines to meet their original mission targets and still be able to incorporate the reusability aspects at the core of their company mission. As a result they extended the tankage, incorporated a new propellant configuration and made incredible increases to the performance of the Merlins. Which brings us to today
The FH was originally intended to launch GTO satellites in a reusable manner. With the frequent engine and structure upgrades it would have been a financial headshot to design and implement the FH only to redesign and retool the entire system every time an upgrade was completed and fielded. So they made a smart business move and held FH development until the F9/Merlin designs were frozen.
As it turns out the F9 is actually nearly capable of performing the original FH mission in a much smaller and cheaper package. This also ignores the other dozen major programs requiring the attention of SpaceX time.
So who cares that the FH has been long promised and delayed? Mostly SpaceX detractors, they cite it as the chief evidence of the companies failing capabilities and conveniently ignore the major progress made on every other front. As it is currently designed the need for the FH mission has not materialized and therefore would be a poor investment for SpaceX to field the capability.
Unless they want to modify the S2 for direct to GEO insertions or there is a sudden major clamoring for 8mt to mars I don’t see why SpaceX needs it for anything other than their Red Dragon missions
There’s my glass half full rant on the subject, remember it’s worth exactly what you paid for
Makes sense. Of course it is speculative until Musk writes his memoirs or something, which will feed even more speculations. So making sense of it is the best one can do.
I would think that there’s a GTO market for Falcon Heavy. Communication satellites cost several times more than the launch. If one could build them twice as heavy one could build them with cheaper materials, less marginal engineering and with greater tolerances and redundancies. There’s a kind of chicken and egg problem to get started, but couldn’t there be a great ketchup effect in the future, with a new satellite standard that outcompetes the smaller established launcher classes?
“If one could build them twice as heavy”
Probably not the best plan for GTO, the rocket equation doesn’t act favorably towards heavy satellites performing GEO insertion burns with hypers. You’d end up with something kinda like Cassini where half the launch mass is propellant. Of course on orbit refueling and servicing could easily negate either of these downsides
“build them with cheaper materials, less marginal engineering and with greater tolerances and redundancies.”
Definitely possible but I think you’d need to have the lift capability in place before anyone actually considered building one of these hefty beasts.
I still think big GEO comm sats will benefit from direct GEO insertion from FH and on orbit servicing more than from bigger cheaper builds. But the market will decide which is more useful
I wonder if it isn’t better to replace the electronics in communication satellites rather than refueling them. Solar electric propulsion and solar sails might make refueling satellites irrelevant. An instrument upgrade requires less mass launched and it results in a satellite with the latest technological capabilities, rather than just prolonging an outdated 5 years old one. Almost as good as launching an entire new satellite. The first and heavy launch just establishes the “real estate” in terms of having an infrastructure platform in geostationary orbit.
John wrote: “Unless they want to modify the S2 for direct to GEO insertions or there is a sudden major clamoring for 8mt to mars I don’t see why SpaceX needs it for anything other than their Red Dragon missions”
SpaceX Gets an Air Force Funding Infusion for Raptor Engine
“Under the contract, SpaceX’s will develop a Raptor prototype for use as an upper stage on the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles.
SpaceX is contributing $67.3 million under the jointly funded $100 million program. The Air Force could contribute a total $61.4 million if it exercises additional options. SpaceX’s total contribution would be $122.8 million if the government exercises all its options. Total contributions by both parties could total $184.2 million.”
http://www.parabolicarc.com…
I believe Air Force wants that Second stage beefed up for the Falcon Heavy. The AF could then launch two of their biggest at a time for peanuts compared to Boeing and the Delta Heavy?
That’s an interesting topic, obviously I would agree the AF would love to have a replacement for the D-IVH with a launch cost at about 25-30% of the Delta heavy. But can the raptor perform that role?
It’s thrust is about 3x greater than the MVac, which is great because the MVac is considerably underpowered for those size payloads. Can SpaceX get enough methalox propellant in a ~5m diameter tank without extending the length too much?
I do not believe they can stretch it .. the thinness ratio is like almost 20:1 .. They would get more performance but they would have to consider a wider S2. Wonder if they could goto 6 meters if they made the factory in florida so they would have have to deal with road or rail?
I agree, they might be able to scrap the partial pressure support on the new S2 and go with a full structural support to allow for more stretching of the S2, shouldn’t affect the beefed up core or beefed up interstage.
Building these expendable S2s on the west coast would mean barge shipment to KSC or vice versa for East coast facility so you’re limiting yourself there. But the larger diameter would be awesome for expanded payload fairings!
“Like the SLS is a shuttle without the shuttle, but at least a Saturn V+.”
It’s certainly not a Saturn V+ all its payload specs for even the Block 2 are below or equivalent to what the Saturn V was capable of. Only in a much larger and equally expensive package
“Maybe SPX is relatively uninterested because FH doesn’t fit the LEO/GEO market very well today. Nor is it a Moon rocket.”
See the end of my big post below it had a purpose but that had since been covered for the most part. It is not a moon rocket in the traditional sense of a single launch Apollo architecture. It is a moon rocket that exploits the capabilities of low cost multi launch on orbit assembly before departing for the moon. Which is a much more sustainable architecture
I think that the right customer for the Falcon Heavy should be NASA specifically for the objective of establishing a cost-effective, sustainable cis-lunar transportation system. As such, it is NASA that would benefit from crossfeed since crossfeed is probably overkill for what the market needs and it would be nice if FH could get towards 100 tonnes as a Moon rocket. Previously, FH with crossfeed was at 53,000 kg which was 4x the 13,150 kg of the F9. Then, F9 went from 13,150 kg to 22,800 after stretching and Merlin upgrades. If we multiply the new F9 by 4.0 then we get 91,894 kg to LEO for a crossfed, upgraded FH. For the Moon, that would be real handy.
NASA could definitely make a good use for FH (and NG for that matter). Problem with that kind of payload increase comes when reusability is implemented. With the FH (core stage mostly) your MECO velocity is capped at whatever your stage design limits are set at. Increasing your MECO velocity cause a rapid increase in aerodynamic heating during EDL to the barge (or landing pad).
The second issue arises when you look at the current S2, it’s very underpowered for the FH payload capacities and has a slightly negative effect on the payload. Similar to SLS with the ICPS stage, there you have a rocket that is 10% bigger than the Saturn V but only half the payload capacity.
Every analysis I’ve seen and done myself limits the payload capacity to about 50mT unless you start looking into a Raptor powered S2. The FH has a huge excess in S1 thrust capacity and if you max out that excess you can probably squeeze it up to 60mt, maybe 70my depending on your level of optimism and the street price of rice in lower china. Not too shabby though, 2 launches to match the Saturn V payload capacity on a rocket that costs about 10% of the Saturn V launch costs. Of course cross feed really complicates any analysis so it’s hard for me to say where it’s payload would end up at
Fortunately, Falcon Heavy is not the only heavy launcher in development. The more competition, the better.
The only thing we can be sure of is that SLS will be by far the most expensive.
I thought that the Block II with the high energy second stage and liquid boosters have not been considered for funding for another decade at least?
I think it’s high energy upper stage (EUS) and composite casings. Last I heard liquid boosters were on the back burner with no real consideration to implement them.
The tri-core Falcon 9 Heavy design from 2010 with the Falcon ver 1.0 cores is much less capable. According to a 2010 SpaceX sales brochure the Falcon 9 Heavy can lift about 32 metric tons to LEO. The Falcon 9 Heavy was needed to loft large comsats to GTO orbits, since the Falcon 9 ver 1.0 can only loft 4500 kg to GTO in expendable mode (never demonstrated). The more powerful Falcon 9 Block 5 debuting later in 2017 will be lofting about 6000 kg to GTO in reusable mode.
Using cross-feed with the Falcon Heavy is still an option according Gwynne Shotwell. If there is a future payload requiring it. The Falcon Heavy can fulfill all currently planned mission requirements without cross-feed.
The RD-180 engines for the Atlas V is subject to geo-politics and the US Congress have mandated a finite number of them for US government usage. The Atlas V’s days are numbered. Determined by how soon the Blue BE-4 come online.
I have my doubts if there ever will be a SLS block 2. Since that will required an increase in the annual NASA budget.
Yes, so a set of LunarCOTS.com public-private partnerships would include a Commercial Cis-lunar Transportation System (CCTS) which would, similar to COTS for launchers, fund the development of reusable, cryogenic lunar landers. ULA and Masten’s concepts for modifying Centaur stages into their ACES-DTAL and Xeus landers, respectively would be an obvious example of this. Given that the Centaurs are long ago developed and well proven, modifying them to be landers would probably cost something like $200 M.
In this thread: how many marsonauts can dance on the head of the mythical heavy lift launcher that just never materializes.
NASA needs another facility located at a Earth Moon Lagrange point first. The lunar lander should be reusable and carry enough fuel for a return flight to the Station and get refueled. There should be a Facility on Luna also.
A NASA Lunar researcher or a researcher from National Geographic should be able to get domestic commercial passenger services from the surface of earth to Luna and return. This should be open to civilians also so it is dual use and NASA’s costs are reduced.
The moon by and of itself, does nothing to help. In fact building up to get resources is a complete lunacy. where it makes sense is that many nations and companies want to go to the moon and will pay for it.
Basically, the moon becomes an economic step for new space because many flights will be needed and it will be constant.
I thought you did not believe in mussing in other nations politics. …. I’m not saying you should have no voice … at least in my world view, I welcome your wacky opinions to the fray . But in your world view, you know the one where America clears out of Europe to make room for Russian imperialism, in your world view should not we all respect the borders and politics of our respective nations and not interfere? In your world view should you not only express opinions on German space policy? Seems to me you might actually buy into some form of internationalism after all? And it seems like you might actually consider the American space program a vanguard of sorts for humanity? Don’t worry, if you think that, you won’t be in danger of becoming Dwight Eisenhower or anything …. Just poking.
Using fuel and material from the Moon anywhere else than on the Moon seems to require quite a large interplanetary space program in order to motivate fixed investment costs. Let’s say that 100 tons of fuel is delivered from the Moon to each crewed mission to Mars every 26 months (I think 100 tons is more than required). That would cost about $150 million a year to launch to LEO with Falcon Heavy. So developing, building and operating a Lunar fuel factory better be very cheap. It certainly has to be completely robotic, since any human visit to the fuel factory would cost billions and then it would never ever break even compared to fuel launched from Earth.
Lunar fuel to Mars is for a later stage of space development. First it would be useful for launches from the Moon (back to Earth). Maybe for Lunar hoppers to quickly move crew and equipment over long Lunar distances, multiplying their exploration value.
It could be made considerably cheaper, though, by heavier use of commercial partners and vehicles, as Charles Miller detailed in his NextGen lunar exploration study commissioned by NASA last year.
100 tons of fuel to LEO for 150 million? I believe your back of the napkin math is off a tad. 53 metric tons is what the falcon heavy is billed at. How much of that would be the fuel cargo carrier? 10 tons? It would more than likely take at least 3 flights at 90 million each or 270 million. PLUS the cost of the fuel, PLUS all transportation costs, PLUS all integration costs.
More than likely about 350 million to get that 100 tons of fuel on a space vehicle?
“53 metric tons is what the falcon heavy is billed at.”
Is that the billed reusable launch mass? I thought I remember reading that 45mT was the reusable configuration
Either way my math says $350-400M for the lot of FH launches to match Block 2 mass
that is why I am interested in finding out about Merlins’s last config. That will impact what FH can take up.
10% thrust increase for F9 Block 5, which I think is 200klb thrust so call it 600klb for FH. I imagine FH is likely going to be payload limited by boostback and core stage barge recovery speeds but that is just my idle speculation
I thought Musk said he wanted to sell payloads from full reusable 1st stage to tossing it all in the drink for maximum lift … IF the customer wanted to pay for it. If you did a full burn with the FH and drowned all the stages I thought I read 64 tons (not tonnes which would be 58.18) without the cross feed or recovery?
Is that with final Merlin’s?
Yes and the Falcon Heavy would also have the Raptor upper stage option.
Oh wait.. this was about 4+ months ago .. I do not know the specs both ..
It’s been a while but you might be right I do remember reading 60mt somewhere long ago. Maybe that 45mt is three RTLS stages and the 53mt is two RTLS and one barge
– If Falcon Heavy is successful and powerful, then a fuel factory on the Moon launching fuel to Earth orbit gets more feasible.
+ But then, again if FH is successful, it could instead launch fuel DIRECTLY from Earth!
= The idea that cheaper (reusable heavy) launchers from Earth would promote Lunar fuel export is self-contradictory. Not immediately fundamentally, but in two-steps of logic, it’s its own worse competitor for the Lunar fuel market.
So, FH is built for big or many Earth orbiting satellites, or for sending interesting robots to Mars. It’s not made for the Moon. Nor were the components of the SLS made to go to the Moon. They too have been awkwardly squeezed to do that instead of carrying a shuttle to LEO. I don’t want to see any of those projects getting axed before they get their chance, now that both have good basis to stand on and are much more than power point presentations. At least SLS would put a ceiling on what any private provider could charge. Until private-private competition has been established, I understand keeping the SLS. (Although I think that Orion might be exchanged for a private alternative with Lunar orbital capacity, not far off today’s LEO-ISS requirements for them).
So to go back to the topic.
I think that the Moon should be explored for its own value. Not for its fuel exports potential. It’s not a new Middle East.
This is why NASA hasn´t gone and isn´t going anywhere any time soon. If every administration keeps tacking on an important objective such as what to “colonize” next, there´s no room for the long term planning and implementation required to make such endeavor a reality.