Book Review: Blogging the Moon

I've had the pleasure of listening to Paul Spudis talk about his future vision for the moon several times, most recently at Marshall Space Flight Center, and this book--a collection of entries from his Air & Space Magazine blog--provides fleshed-out versions of arguments he makes in his standard stump speech. The short version of Spudis's take on the human future in space is simply to build capabilities for living and working in space, starting with the Moon as a base. Spudis makes the case that the Moon is the best place to start human expansion into the solar system because it's close, it's (scientifically) interesting, and it's useful. That's the short version. The longer version, addressed in various ways in this book, covers a variety of issues related to this cause, and it ranks with The Case for Mars, Mining the Sky, and The High Frontier as one of the major "visions" to be found in the space advocacy community.

As I noted in my earlier blog, there are several things I like about Spudis's vision for space development:

• He keeps his development program affordable by keeping the process incremental, using a combination of robotic and human activities to get the various jobs done.
• He concentrates on building technological capabilities and infrastructure that, while tested on the Moon, might be used at other destinations, such as asteroids or Mars.
• He focuses on a target that we know how to reach and that has become a lot more interesting in the last 40 years (more on that momentarily)
• He doesn't depend on hype or that overused word, "inspiration" to get the general public to support space--as he points out more than once, the general public really doesn't care about space unless there's something dramatic going on, and even then it's a 50/50 coin toss on whether they support what we're doing up there.
• He ties his program to realistic policy concerns that are ongoing, not flavor-of-the-year: national security, science, and economic development--and the Moon can support all three.

What was curious to me was how much the blog entries in this book felt like "deja vu all over again." Writing at the height of the debate over and subsequent cancellation of the Constellation Program, Spudis's blogs covered a particularly painful time in my life, as I faced several personal stresses resulting from the fact that my professional life was in a bit of doubt. Aside from reading about events and arguments that I'd forgotten--purposely or otherwise--what was curious to me was how many of the issues, discussions, and arguments Spudis addressed about Constellation have reared their ugly heads today as I support the Space Launch System. Does our space program have a mission? Is a heavy-lift launch vehicle necessary to accomplish said mission? Where are we going to go next? The arguments haven't changed, and neither has some of the "attitude" involved. What makes today different from 2009-2010 is that we know that Constellation ended--so what now?

Spudis's answers to the the first three questions are no, not necessarily, and, not surprisingly, the Moon. He is not shy about his dislike of the dismantling of the Vision for Space Exploration, which he differentiates from the Constellation Program. He saw the VSE as a strategic direction, designed to establish a permanent human presence in space, while he sees Constellation as a vehicle program that didn't necessarily follow the intent of the Vision. It might not make some NASA strategists happy--like Robert Zubrin, he's not shy about criticizing the government space agency--but it is well worth reading as an informed opinion on the topic of space.

This book is more timely now, perhaps, than the original entries that were published in them because they were written as several lunar missions were just beginning to collect new information about that battered sphere in our sky, including Chandrayaan, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), and others. The data that has come in from these missions--some of which is summarized in the video presentation included in the DVD at the back of the book--have made a solid case for water ice on the Moon. And water, as Spudis points out, is just about the most useful substance humans could find there, as it can be used for air, water itself, insulation material for habitats, and most importantly, rocket fuel. Spudis seems torn somewhere between frustrated in these entries, as he considers the current state of affairs unlikely to produce the vision he lays out, which is a permanent human presence throughout the solar system. Still, one never knows what will come next, or how the current program might be used to advance Spudis's vision.

If there is one disadvantage to the blog format of this book as opposed to the other big space-vision books I mentioned earlier, it is that the vision is not organized systematically. Often reacting to the events of the day, Spudis does not have the opportunity in a weekly blog to lay out a step-by-step argument for his vision. Still, his vision is there, and he makes his primary points again and again over the course of several years. If you want a more complete description of his approach to space development, you can always check out his website. I'd heard one person call Spudis a "one-trick pony," which is hardly fair, as his architecture is hardly simple. I might call his work principled or consistent, and he consistently concerned about our nation's future in space, as we all should be.

The School of "If Only"

Dr. Paul Spudis, most recently from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, paid a visit to Marshall Space Flight Center yesterday and gave a lunch-and-learn presentation entitled "Using the Resources of the Moon to Create a Permanent Cislunar Transportation System." This was the sort of talk that one normally hears at an International Space Development Conference or other space advocacy event. It contained everything a space advocate could hope to hear: technical feasibility, visionary ambition, and a sense of political realism. It's been awhile since I've heard such talks--I was working during most of my ISDC--and it was a pleasure to hear Dr. Spudis's speech. Nevertheless, I had a few reservations, which I'll share after I summarize the talk.

Spudis began his talk by providing some background on the space industry, specifically its three "ages," the "Space Race" age (1957-1972), the "What now?" age (1972-Present), the "Beyond LEO" age (hopefully, from now into the future). He made the case early in his talk that if we lack an overarching beat-the-other-guys reason for space exploration, we need to find more pragmatic reasons, including national security, economic, and scientific, all of which space justifies in spades.

He next went on to discuss the operational challenges space efforts have faced, including a long habit of building customized, one-time-use platforms, which are then abandoned after one use. Spudis argues for a new template for human space activities, one involving incremental, extensible building-block components and systems that can be reused. He also argued (as his title suggested) for the use of space resources--but not for use here on Earth, but rather in space.

Another template or paradigm Spudis asked the audience to consider was a shift from an "Space Air Force" model, where there are small vehicles and small-scale, temporary visits to destinations to a "Space Navy" model where you see a large-scale, permanent presence in space and at destinations. It's sort of like the difference between The Right Stuff and Star Trek. However, instead of Star Trek, Spudis pointed to Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future.

It didn't surprise the audience that Spudis, a lunar scientist, advocated for using the moon as a base of operations and resources. As his PowerPoint bullets put it, the moon is "close, interesting, and useful." He got a little incensed by President Obama dismissing the moon with "been there, done that." Citing recent discoveries by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), Spudis emphasized the usefulness of lunar resources, including local metals and most importantly water ice. For those unschooled in the matter, scientists have determined that under the rims of craters near the moon's north and south poles there are permanently shadowed areas where volatile materials such as water would not be able to boil off. This water, in the form of ice, comprises as much as 10 percent of lunar soil in these regions.

Water, as Spudis points out, is just about the most useful material available for human space exploration, as it can be used to drink, it can be split into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel, it can be used to provide oxygen for breathing, and it can be used as an insulating material for surface habitats. In short, water matters, and where we once thought the moon was bone-dry, we now know that there's enough water ice there to meet the needs of human settlements there for hundreds of years.

Having set the stage for "why the moon," Spudis next moved on to his architecture, which was developed in cooperation with Marshall Space Flight Center project manager Tony Lavoie. This incremental set of hardware includes (in order) communication and navigation satellites, polar prospecting rovers, in situ resource utilization (ISRU) demonstrator, digger/hauler rovers, water tankers, electrolysis units (for transforming water into hydrogen and oxygen), supporting equipment, and space-based assets, such as fuel depots in lunar and Earth orbit. Total price tag, about $5.5 billion per year for 16 years. That's an easier figure for Congress to swallow than the total pricetag, $88 billion, but it's MUCH easier than the $450 billion estimated for the Space Exploration Initiative, proposed by President George H. W. Bush in 1989.

The Spudis/Lavoie approach has several advantages:

• It is "vehicle neutral," meaning it is not dependent on any new or existing rockets to get its equipment into space (they start with the existing Delta IV as their baseline, but any existing rocket would do.
• Because the early missions--heck, the first 16--are robotically based, they can be developed more quickly, on shorter timelines than human missions. Multiple, short-term milestones and accomplishments are important because Congress runs its budgets one year to the next and is impatient with programs that they feel are not accomplishing anything.
• It allows transportation to be customized by function, much as Robert A. Heinlein envisioned it: Earth to LEO handled by one type of vehicle, LEO to the moon with another type of vehicle, and a reusable vehicle of another type to handle the lunar orbit to Moon run.
• It can identify an economic "break-even" point. In the case of water resources, any surplus above 150 metric tons of water extracted from the moon  would be sufficient for a lunar settlement to start paying for itself.

One question Spudis asked toward the end of his talk was, "Can NASA change the way they do things? That's one thing I just don't know." This sort of begs the question: what does need to change if NASA is to execute this vision?

And I should point out that this is very much a NASA type of vision, with the agency leading the activities. Why? Spudis's thoughts are much like mine on this: there is very little business justification for exploring the moon or building infrastructure. Basically, if this vision/architecture were left to the private sector, "it wouldn't happen." So another advantage of Spudis's architecture is that it concentrates government on activities that are unlikely to generate much initial commercial interest.

*

It sounds like a cool, ingenious plan. But then so do a lot of the plans I've heard from the space advocacy community over the past 15 years. My comment (one seconded by Michael Doornbos when I mentioned the talk on Facebook) was, "All they need is an affordable launch vehicle." Other plans are equally ingenious, but they always have some missing unobtainium that hasn't been developed yet. All our problems would be solved if only we had...

• An affordable launch vehicle
• A reusable launch vehicle
• An ultra-light alloy that would make a reusable launch vehicle possible
• A new, high-energy propellant
• A new, high-strength material capable of building a space elevator
• A space station orbiting at the L5 Lagrange point
• A base on Mars
• Access to a nickel-iron asteroid with a trillion dollars' worth of platinum-group metals
• A Helium-3 reactor
• The political will to do [X]
• A heavy-lift launch vehicle
• A robust, low-cost commercial space industry

The U.S. is in the process of developing those last two, anyway. I wish Spudis well. It's a clever vision he has, and one of the more realistic visions I've heard articulated in recent years. Will it hold up? I guess it all depends on how many people stand up and start advocating for it. Being a lunar-centric guy myself, I suppose you could count me among them. What happens next is anybody's guess. If only.

Potpourri CVI

I got this extended note from the Moon Society, which deserves reading. While Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin might be a little overexposed, he's a very smart man, and his thoughts on space exploration deserve some attention.

Group: The Moon Society
Subject: Moon Society Endorses Aldrin's Proposal for a Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation
Buzz Aldrin published a proposal for a public/private/international plan to open the Moon for exploration and development in the Huffington Post

http://digg.com/d3176tD

Below are key excerpts:

• “I propose instead America call the world to the Moon. In a new global effort to use the Moon to establish a global space consortium with a lunar surface facility as its epicenter, “
• “... competition, in an Apollo-style race back to the Moon, would be a fruitless exercise in national hubris whose rewards, if we “won”again, would prove fleeting”
• “I am proposing a different way back to the Moon: international collaboration. “
• “... the goal of creating a new public-private partnership todevelop the Moon. I call it the Lunar Infrastructure DevelopmentCorporation (LIDC). The purpose of the LIDC would be to enable thenations of the Earth to join together and return to the Moon as an international cooperative venture. The LIDC will pool the financial,technical and human resources of its member nations to build the lunar communication, navigation and transportation systems needed for human exploration of the Moon. It would be a public/private global partnership to make the Moon accessible to all humanity. The LIDC will build the communication and navigation satellites needed by future lunar travelers, develop fuel depots using lunar LOX – perhaps derived from the recently discovered lunar water-and construct habitats that will shelter space travelers while on the surface. It will enable a sustainable human presence on the Moon that will be accessible to all the nations on Earth."
• “Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), which is governed by complex treaties, the LIDC will have the same flexibility as an NGO in working with different nations and private entities to finance build and operate the facilities and equipment needed for lunar exploration. “
• “To do so [i.e., honoring the astronauts of the Apollo Era Missions] doesn’t require rerunning a long-ago Cold War race in which America plays the role of a space-going Colonial power.

Moon Society Officers and Directors, who collectively make up the Management Committee gave the Moon Society's official endorsement. The email vote was unanimous.

As Ben Nault, Director from Tucson, put it: “Probably the main reason the ISS is still "alive" and supported by Congress is that it is part of a number of international agreements. Backing out of these agreement would have financial, political and diplomatic repercussions on the US. Therefore, having an international component helps large complex programs survive the transition to different administrations and different congressional moods. The international angle gives long-term "sustainability" to the Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation.

“In asking for Committee member support, we pointed out significant similarities with our own proposal, also strongly endorsed byCommittee members, for an International Lunar Research Park. Bothproposals are for public/private/international collaboration. There are, of course, those who would prefer a NASA-stand alone effort, and those who would prefer a purely private enterprise approach. But a reality check shows that the public/private/international approach will be much more robust, and stand a much greater chance of becoming a permanent beachhead on the Moon. It is also much more likely to lead to the first civilian industrial settlement.And that is precisely the Vision of the Moon Society. The Moon Society urges other pro-space organizations, the public, and the media to support Buzz Aldrin's proposal.

For more on the Moon Society International Lunar Research Park proposal, see: http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/beyond_nasa.html

Thank you for your support

http://www.moonsociety.org/

*

New from Hu:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average has finally hit 10,000, a number it hasn't reached in a year. That's still not the high it reached during the Bush administration. Still waiting to hear when this becomes "Obama's economy."
• CNN/Money ran a business profile piece on Huntsville, Alabama.
• The Airborne Tactical Laser (ATL) has hit a moving target from the air. Sha-ZAAAAM!!

The Constellation Program has a pretty cool 12-minute video explaining some of the roles flight testing have in making a better space program.

Your useful piece of trivia for today: 62 years ago today, Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager broke the sound barrier--750 miles per hour in level flight over the high desert of California--in the Bell X-1. Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, the book or the movie, is still the best portrayal of the seminal moment in aviation history. Saaaa-lute!

There's a web site out there that depicts every space mission ever sent to other worlds of the solar system. Very cool!

NASA is again looking at technology development for reusable launch vehicles. Good! Actually, a meeting I was in today gave every indication that the Obama administration is interested in spending more money on science and technology development research. About bloody time.

From my AIAA news feed:
Some Astronauts Annoyed At SpaceX's Dragon
The Orlando Sentinel (10/14, Block) reports, "Asked what bugs them most about NASA outsourcing the job of flying crew to the International Space Station, some astronauts roll their eyes and say: 'Dragon,'" the manned capsule being built by SpaceX, because of the fear of being "little more than human cargo" since the ship is fully automated. "SpaceX has hired its own former astronaut, Ken Bowersox, to make Dragon more astronaut-friendly," a move the article describes as a "clear example of how serious it is about leading a new commercial era in American space exploration." The article, positively describing SpaceX's efforts, notes the "biggest concern" of "astronauts, NASA officials and some members of Congress" is that "SpaceX ships are rivals to Ares and Orion, a view SpaceX dismisses." Bowersox describes the ships as "enablers" for NASA to conduct exploration.

From the Wall Street Journal:

• God vs. Science isn’t the issue…
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704429304574467320574576460.html
• Sudden Change, Big Effect http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574469473830302630.html

From Lin: Sheriff Arpaio, the tough-guy from Arizona, vows to continue sweeps to capture illegal immigrants while the Obama administration would prefer that he not.

*

Some late-breaking news from the Drudge Report: Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from a group bidding to purchase the St. Louis Rams. The sole reason for this is his political views, however tactfully or tackily expressed, and the negative publicity they generated. The campaign run against him and the restraint of trade that this campaign has now created sets a very ugly precedent: the NFL has just announced that Limbaugh's cash is good only at the ticket gate or the bar, it won't be accepted in the front office. I wonder what would happen if another conservative ever decided to invest in a football team. Heck, I wonder what would happen if I ever decided to. It will be interesting to see what the fallout is from all this. Limbaugh won't take it lying down: of that I am reasonably certain.

Potpourri CV

This has been in my inbox for awhile. Veronique Koken and her partner Howard Chipman, a doctor with his own Czech L-39 jet fighter, have opened an astronaut training center called Aurora Aerospace in the Tampa Bay (Oldsmar) area. The training, a la carte or all together, is not cheap ($8,000 for the whole thing), but sounds like quite an adventure. The full package includes, per the brochure:

• L-39 flight
• Zero-G flight
• Spacecraft/L-39 simulator
• "MAD" machine
• High altitude hypoxia training
• Ground school
• Flight suit, leather jacket, L-39 model, t-shirt, cap, and more

This is a two-day experience that operates out of a local airport in Oldsmar, and it includes a medical screening to ensure that your body can handle all this stuff. I was just flipping through the brochure and noted that the L-39 has ejection seats if needed. Well, jump in as you see fit. I've already made my choice: Earth is my home. For those of you so inclined, I'll add the link to my permanent rotation.

*

Yesterday's Lunar Crater Reconnaissance and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a little disappointing from a visual point of view. To be blunt, I saw nothing--no flash, no plume of stuff thrown into the air--nada. I admit to having a little fun with this. I posted Marvin the Martian as my user image on Facebook and asked, "Where's the kaboom? There's supposed to be a moon-shattering kaboom!" Part of that was to express my shared disappointment that the NASA simulation graphics were more dramatic than the actual event; part of it was to poke fun at the people I griped about on Thursday who thought the mission was going to somehow damage the Moon. Now, of course, the mission is being pummeled in the press. If there weren't any fireworks, the press assumed, the mission was a failure. The truth is, until they sort through the data, we won't know what they've got. But the only real reason that LCROSS matters is, if we find water ice on the Moon, we can build long-term bases and permanent settlements there. NASA can't say that because the administration isn't talking about it. However, in my off-duty hours as a National Space Society person, I think that's exactly what they should be talking about. If you agree, join NSS today, and start the campaign to get that started. I want my hotel (not home) with a view of the Earth!

Oh yeah: our president--the guy who was elected nine months ago--has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Let's consider what some previous winners have done:

• Mediated between countries at war (Theodore Roosevelt, Ralph Bunche)
• Ministered to the needs of the poor and suffering (Mother Teresa, UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross)
• Negotiated a peace treaty (Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Henry Kissinger)
• Fought for the rights of prisoners (Amnesty International)
• Fought for freedom of conscience (Andrei Sakharov)
• Fought for equality under the law (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
• Designed a plan to help rebuild countries destroyed by war (George C. Marshall)

President Obama has done none of these things. Now I commend Obama and his speech writers for acknowledging that he's done nothing (yet?) to earn the award, but jeez, if you know you've done nothing, why accept it? So what has Obama done? The Nobel organization notes on its web site that the nomination process ends in February. I leave it to the reader to review WhiteHouse.gov to look for themselves:

• Presidential actions and proclamations
• Speeches given
• Weekly addresses given
• Nominations and appointments made
• Statments and releases made
• Press briefings given

I still think someone in the international community is setting this guy up. He's very sensitive to public and press opinion, here and abroad. If he's turned down for the Olympics, it affects his attitude toward the press, as does his surprise award for the Nobel Peace Prize. I believe he's also very susceptible to flattery. Why would the Nobel Foundation give such a prize to someone who, 12 days into his presidency, had yet to make any substantial contribution to world peace? As Obama saw it,

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build -- a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action -- a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

Again, I appreciate his humility and candor. But you've got to wonder, don't you, why you're being given an (arguably) important award before you've done anything? Could it be a message that "We're awarding you up front so you do things in a way that will make us happy in the future"? Is this some sort of message that "We want you to remain a man of peace, and by a man of peace, we mean undoing everything George W. Bush has done"? (Sure, give Iraq back to the Baathists and Afghanistan back to the Taliban--that'll make everyone happy and safe!)

I'm very much a merit-minded person. If I've earned something specific, I take that as a matter of course. If I'm rewarded for extra effort, I'm appreciative. If I'm awarded for doing little to nothing (as I see it), I feel uneasy and try to deflect attention elsewhere. But no, our president is going to accept the award as an incentive to go forth and do things. Interesting take on things, but a little disingenuous. And if someone gave me a big prize without me having done anything, I'd wonder what game was afoot. I'm probably overly suspicious that way, but really...

*

I got this item from Lin: the Democrats are looking at a "second stimulus," as the economy shows little sign of improving (unemployment now at 9.8 percent--is it still Bush's fault?).

There are two approaches to governing in the U.S. One side tries to do what it can for the individual citizens to make it on their own with as little government charity as possible. The other side says that government needs to make sure that the goods of society are distributed as equally as possible, usually through taxation and wealth transfers. Conservatives overlook the fact that everyone isn't equipped to do things on their own; liberals overlook the fact that if you make people dependent on someone else, they'll never learn to do things for themselves. The conservative approach to governance empowers more individuals, but results in inequality of outcomes among those individuals due to differences in ability, willingness to work, and starting position. The liberal approach empowers government by giving the political class the power and (assumed) right to decide who gets what--ostensibly to raise up the poor, but more often to punish the rich.

It's been 30 years since the nation went through one of these exercises. Perhaps it will take another "Carter presidency" to hammer the lesson home. Alas, we must await the next swing of the pendulum.

*

Got this from my company yesterday: an FBI press release on a Jordanian who was looking to bomb a building in Dallas, Texas. This wasn't an old release from just after 9/11, but a fresh one, from September of this year. Our peace-loving president would do well to remember that he's supposed to maintain peace and security in his own back yard, not just in the court of world opinion. Safe bet: if he takes actions that protect Americans--you know, the folks who voted for him--he'll be regarded as an outlaw and a cowboy, just like Bush. That might do him some good and earn him a second term. As it stands right now, I don't see that happening.

That's about it for now.

Potpourri LXI

A plethora of potpourri from the space biz today, so let's get rolling.

Courtesy of Martin, a Seth Borenstein story in USA Today on the return of "Shuttle-C," a cargo version of the Space Shuttle that goes back at least to the late 1980s.

The Augustine panel will be having a public meeting in Huntsville July 28. Another opportunity to let your voice be heard on the American human space flight program.

Uranium on the Moon? Maybe, says I...

Technology Review is repeating the Orlando Sentinel's story that Ares I-X is doomed. Sigh. It must be true, I saw it in a newspaper!

If you want to be depressed about the state of the world, you can check out this site (ref: Greg).

From R2D2, on location from a relaxing vacation in Michigan, a recommendation on a Bloody Mary recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup tomato juice
1/4 teaspoon OLD BAY® Seasoning
1/8 teaspoon lemon juice
your favorite vodka
(optional)

Directions
In a glass, mix tomato juice, OLD BAY and lemon juice over ice. Add vodka and imbibe.

Yum!

An update on the Kansas City Space Pirates, competitors I observed at the 2006 X Prize Cup.

An article on the young man who won the NASA/NSS Space Settlement competition. Nice kid, but he talked very fast. Those of you who have met me will appreciate what that means. I'm not exactly Mr. Mellow.

A Paul Spudis presentation on why we should go to the Moon.

A blog from Air & Space Magazine that more or less agrees with my notion that we ought to focus on the mission first, and then worry about the rocket horse race.

There are reports of Michael Jackson fans committing suicide. The Down-Under Defense Expert (DUDE) suggests that this might be a fine example of what I'd call Darwinian selection...but only if they didn't reproduce first.

From Lin: An invitation from "Thomas Paine" to send tea bags to your elected officials.

Potpourri LX

The Ballad of Bill Arcenaux? As Dr. OZMG would put it, "Furreal."

The Supreme Court reversed a ruling by Sonia Sotomayor and the 2nd Circuit Court, which ruled that a group of white firefighters were denied promotions because they passed a firefighter test while minority candidates did not. This won't affect her future career on the high court, but it is interesting to note for future reference.

Father Dan pointed this out to me, though he cited the original Orlando Sentinel story. Another hatchet job by the Sentinel. Is it possible to sell newspapers without sensationalism? Apparently not.

One thing I wish NASA pushed harder was what they (and by extension we, the American taxpayers) plan to do on the Moon. Here are some thoughts by Dennis Wingo and others. I don't always agree with Dennis, particularly on the Constellation architecture, but he has some interesting thoughts regarding the Moon.

The International Space University and Singularity University's opening ceremonies will be on Ustream.com this evening. I presume they'll save the stream after the live feed.

The New Nine: NASA has selected this year's class of nine astronauts. They don't say if those astronauts are to fly for the Constellation Program or Shuttle, just "future space exploration." Frustrating.

A Swiss team is unveiling a solar-powered airplane. Cool! Kinda hard to fly at night, though...

Science Fiction Movie Trailer

Science fiction is rare at the Sundance Film Festival, from what I've seen. This trailer makes me hope that the movie gets into regular theaters soon!

Book Review: Stages to Saturn

Roger Bilstein's Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo-Saturn Launch Vehicles has been around awhile (first published in 1979), but it is one of the standard textbooks found around Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. And for good reason: this is one of THE definitive histories of the development of the Saturn rockets that took human beings to the Moon, and it is a paean to the Huntsville team, and especially the work of Wernher von Braun and his team.

I read this book over the course of a weekend, despite its hefty size (450+ pages), but I won't lie to you--there's a reason it's a big hit at MSFC but isn't necessarily as popular as Chaikin's A Man on the Moon or some of the other Apollo histories--it is as advertised: a technological history. You have to have a real interest in the program background, the design history, the testing problems, and management and logistical processes that went into making America's (so far) largest rockets. If you are interested in the Apollo Command and Service Module, the Lunar Module, or the astronauts, this is not the book for you. This is a book about building very large rocket stages and engines.

I happened to have a need for this book: my job requires me to know both what's going on with the Ares Project, how rockets work in general, and also have some historical notion of how we did things the first time. In this, Stages to Saturn was very instructive. What was interesting to me, in fact, was how much the book reflects my daily life: in Huntsville, the work there is all about the launch vehicle. There are passing references to other things, like the payload (CSM, LM, astronauts), but that isn't the focus of MSFC. That's fine, as long as you're aware of the fact; but if you want to get a broader experience of what it was like to build the U.S. space program in the 1960s, you'll need to pick up a few more books, like the aforementioned A Man on the Moon, Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon, Chariots for Apollo, and several others in the field.

So what does Bilstein offer us? Despite discussing technical issues and narrating some of the bureaucratic in-fighting that occurred in the build-up to Apollo, the author is careful not to give the reader a LOT of details that matter--for instance, the Russians and the Chinese, while they might find this book somewhat interesting, could not reverse-engineer Saturn based on its contents. Instead, Bilstein offers the reader rather general information about what sorts of thinking went into the design process, why some engines and propellants were chosen over others, what sorts of problems the engineers had during ground and flight testing, and some insight into how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration organized itself and its contractors to build, deliver, and launch the rockets.

Some of the more interesting parts for me included the remarkable similarities between Apollo and Ares, even given the 40-to-50-year time difference. Up through around 1963, for instance, the massive, 12-million-pounds-thrust Nova rocket, capable of direct launch to the Moon, was still "in play." There was also work being done on researching in-space nuclear rockets (Orion, NERVA, etc.) as possible backups to the Saturn vehicle that was eventually selected. Another area Bilstein covers well is the intellectual and design history of the powerplants, specifically the massive F-1 main engines that powered Saturn V's S-IC stage and the J-2 and RL-10 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engines. One thing he makes clear--and this is something the Constellation doubters would do well to keep in mind--is that every serious rocket engine development program usually takes five to seven years to build. Even when the engine is derived from previously known technologies, like the F-1, the process of scaling up a known engine can create problems of its own.

And let there be no doubt: Saturn had problems. There's this halo effect around Apollo now, thanks to Apollo 8, Apollo 11, and the rest. We honor the memories of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, but those of us born after Apollo might not know of all the problems that the Saturn V program had before it finally launched for the first time in 1967. The Douglas Aircraft Company (later McDonnell-Douglas, later part of Boeing) had an S-IV third stage rupture on them. North American Aviation (later Rockwell North American, later Rockwell International, later part of Boeing) lost two S-II second stages before the von Braun team sent out a team led by General Phillips from the Air Force to investigate NAA's problems. The Phillips Report is mentioned briefly in From the Earth to the Moon as an exhibit Senator Walter Mondale used as proof that NASA wanted to replace NAA. NASA did not want to replace North American, but they made it quite clear that NAA needed to clean up its act, up to and including changing management structure and personnel.

One thing that will probably irk libertarians about Stages to Saturn is its uncritical view of government (especially MSFC's) interference in contractor operations and decision making. At one point Bilstein quotes a contractor complaining that NASA "wanted to be in your pants all the time." However, despite one or two references like this, Bilstein quickly backs off from any criticism of the von Braun team. He is quick to admire MSFC's desire to maintain control over its contractors as well as maintain its in-house knowledge.

This is a process Ares is repeating by going back to the "arsenal model" of management, where the government does most of the design and development work in-house and contractors are used to build only what the arsenal cannot. Von Braun's preference for maintaining in-house knowledge is not surprising, given his wartime experiences and later work with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). It is obviously a workable model--Saturn's success speaks for itself--but it is not a model preferred by contractors, which had assumed more and more authority in the Shuttle program. Given the current friction between NASA and some folks in the private sector, it will be interesting to see which management model comes out on top.

In any case, Stages to Saturn is well worth reading. When you consider the fact that the Saturn guys were performing research and development in the midst of building a massive infrastructure and trying to meet a nine-year time line, you cannot help but think: given that NASA is building on much that they learned 45 years ago, we've got it easy. Bilstein's book makes that very clear.