Future NASA Projects
An interesting set of polls came out today on Twitter (See this post if you haven’t joined the Twitter bandwagon yet). Beth Beck, Space Operations Outreach Manager at NASA HQ, created a poll entitled “What NASA project would you most like to see accomplished?” with 8 options ranging from building an outpost on the moon to conducting missions beyond the solar system. Shortly after that poll was posted Michael Mealling, fellow twitterer and VP of Business Development at Masten Space Systems, posted a similar *but Non-NASA Sanctioned* poll with 3 additional options with a commercial space bent. I took the 2 polls here and here and thought the disparity between the results was quite interesting! At the writing of this post, 25 had taken Beth’s poll and picked “Establish a colony on the moon” as the #1 choice. However, given other options, the overwhelming majority on Michael’s poll chose either “Provide and/or purchase basic in-space infrastructure to enable private sector development of space” or “Figure out how to obsolete itself by creating a spacefaring society where everyone is capable of being their own NASA.” Granted, only 9 have taken Michael’s poll as of right now… so we’re not talking about scientific results. What’s your opinion? Maybe by the end of the day we’ll have more accurate results with a larger sample size. Take the poll and if you’re on Twitter, RT! (retweet)
What projects would YOU like to see NASA take on in the next 20 to 50 years?
20 Responses to “Future NASA Projects”
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Michael Mealling on January 8th, 2009
To be fair to Beth her survey came from a previous effort. But what really struck me was that OMB actually made up the list of options and that ANY survey of the public required OMB’s approval. THAT seems like something that the Participation policy discussion needs to address.
Jessy on January 8th, 2009
well, and to be even fair-er, IMHO the option “Figure out how to obsolete itself by creating a spacefaring society where everyone is capable of being their own NASA” pretty much implies success in a good deal of the “NASA” options
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Natalie on January 8th, 2009
I don’t know… I don’t think NASA has it in its strategic goals to obsolete itself…
Michael Mealling on January 8th, 2009
Jessy,
It might to you but many at NASA and elsewhere assume it will always be NASA or some combination of other national space agencies. The assumption behind my question is priorities and mission goals. IMHO the mission of NASA should be building a self sustaining industry, not doing the mission themselves.
Michael Mealling on January 8th, 2009
Natalie,
That was my point with the different survey. I and many others think that should be NASA’s primary mission. Wouldn’t it be nice if that were the yardstick we measured all government agencies by?
Jessy on January 8th, 2009
heh, true
i suppose i might have misinterpreted what you mean by “create” and/or “spacefaring”. a pre-requisite for creating a spacefaring society seems, to me, to be many of the things on the NASA option list! so if it’s NASA doing the succeeding (succeeding in obsoleting itself) then my logical brain assumes we want NASA to do the work to get us there.
in any case, i think it’s a semantic argument not an ideological one
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Natalie on January 8th, 2009
Michael,
I think if you’re always pushing the envelope then there’s no need to become obsolete. But if the agency is no longer breaking new ground then it becomes stagnant, old, crusty, and archaic. Boldly go!
I think NASA should *start* the lunar missions / mars mission but should not establish the outposts or run the outposts indefinitely. Once we get there and it starts to become routine, NASA should transition its projects to private industry so that the benefits of space travel can be greatly expanded. It’s hard to be innovative when you are working on the same project for 2 to 3 decades.
Michael Mealling on January 8th, 2009
Jessy,
Well, I think it does go to priorities. If we want an industry instead of a program then why have NASA build it’s own vehicles or spacecraft? Buy mission goals on the open market and if the capability isn’t available then look at things like COTS as a general model. I.e instead of building ISS NASA could have contracted for x amount of livable lab space in orbit from Bigelow or someone else. Yes, NASA is working with Bigelow to a small degree but, IMHO, NASA’s success as an agency should be defined more by how successful Bob is, not what kind of rocket NASA wants to build.
InfiniteFrontier on January 9th, 2009
“What projects would YOU like to see NASA take on in the next 20 to 50 years?”
In order:
1) Moon colony
2) Space Solar Power
3) Mars colony
4) Continued research on new and better ways to get into space, i.e. Reusable vehicles, cheaper rockets, Space Elevators, Improved Thermal protection systems, etc. (At the same time as all of the above)
Michael Mealling on January 9th, 2009
Interesting results so far. On the sanctioned poll, with 51 responses, the winner by far is a lunar base at 43%, followed by a Mars base at 19%. That comes to slightly less than 2/3rds wanting some kind of permanent base off planet.
On mine the total is 31 with “enabling the private sector” and “obsoleting itself” at 59%, followed again by lunar base and mars base. Interestingly basic aerospace engineering and space science research is only at 3% (i.e. 1 vote).
Still, no where near any kind of useful sample size. This ’seems’ to look more like a rough read of the two communities Beth and I run in rather than anything significantly useful. But I do find it interesting that based scientific research is so extremely low on both polls. I’m curious what that means since the “science” part of NASA seems to have grown so much over the past few administrations (even with the Constellation related cuts to NASA’s science budget its still much larger than in the past). Just thinking out loud.
rquintanilla on January 10th, 2009
Michael,
I don’t know if the “science” has grown, but I think more funds show go into the engineering portion. Engineering efforts like the Space Station give scientist more infrastructure to do science. Hence, more engineering ==> more science.
…….
I was thinking that it would be cool if NASA sponsored a 1 billion dollar “X prize” type award for the first privately funded group that sends a human to the moon and successfully returns them to earth.
A billion dollar sticker might be enough of an incentive for the private industry to start its own space race. Meanwhile, NASA goes ahead and completes its moon mission. It is unlikely that an industry driven space race will beat NASA to the moon, but if the prize is started now they might be right behind us.
RQ
Nella on January 10th, 2009
I agree that NASA needs to develop an infrastructure to create a sustainable space industry through entreprenuership. I have long argued that NASA needs to focus on cheaper LEO access. But of late, I have changed my mind. The COTS program for ISS has made me rethink the proposition. NASA is on the right track with the Constellation program. ARES 5 if develop would enable NASA to launch several more manned satellites in a single mission around Earth orbit and develop fuel depots at Langrange points. Then by turning these satellites and fuel depots over to private companies and providing clawback subsidies and incentives should spur these companies to develop cheaper LEO access.
Keith Cowing on January 11th, 2009
MDRS has crews in it right now. Its overtly “participatory exploration” (even if their Internet connection is down). Yet no mention of these crews here. Curious. Looks like a game of favorites is being played.
Justin on January 11th, 2009
When I was in the intel business, I learned the truth behind the adage that one shouldn’t attribute to malice what one can to ignorance.
It’s not a matter of playing favorites, but of speaking to what one knows. The only person in the Next Gen group that I know of that’s participated in something remotely similar to MDRS is Chris Gerty, who was in the NEEMO project.
So, instead of throwing rocks at OpenNASA for overlooking MDRS, perhaps we should instead be discussing how to get people from this cohort more engaged in such activities.
For example, how did you get involved, Keith? What does it take to be selected for a crew? What opportunities, if any, exist for younger professionals to participate?
Vladislaw on January 12th, 2009
I have did over 50 space polls and collected over 3000 votes in the last couple months. Those numbers are not quite what I am getting.
An international Fuel & supply station and IN space based ships for the creation of a “gas n’ go” commercial space economy tends to lead mine.
Michael Mealling on January 12th, 2009
Is anyone else seeing oddness with comment ordering and comments from other posts leaking into this one? It looks like an article ID got corrupted somewhere.
Jessy on January 12th, 2009
test
Vladislaw on January 12th, 2009
It looks in order on mine for dates. Some of the comments are not about polls though. I thought it was just general conversation.
BD on January 20th, 2009
A crewed mission to an asteroid would be a good thing, and it could be done with Ares/Orion, Altair not required.
Michael Mealling on February 9th, 2009
BTW, Steven Gonzalez at the JSC Advanced Planning Office Blog has an article up referencing these to polls:
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/.....46708.html