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President Donald Trump renewed its enthusiasm for NASA and its human space exploration program with its plan to put Americans back to the moon by 2024, but this ambitious timetable seems increasingly problematic .
First, the development of the monster rocket was to achieve this, the "Space Launch System" (SLS) has lagged far behind schedule, exceeds its budget and is almost not in sight. The development of the new crew capsule, "Orion", has also fallen behind schedule. There is no Moon or Lunar "Gateway" base plan yet.
Ground systems – Florida's share of all this – have also lagged behind, though, paradoxically, NASA estimates that delays in other systems give the Kennedy Space Center systems the opportunity to catch up. And the development of seemingly simple things, like new spatial combinations, seems to be on the verge of the probability of being ready on time.
Last week, at a congressional hearing, the US Republican representative. Bill Posey from Rockledge in a hurry Kenneth Bowersox, NASA Acting Associate Administrator for Exploration and Human Operations, for a clear answer on the chances that America will reach the 2024 target. The official gave an unconvincing answer.
"I would not bet my eldest son's birthday present or anything like it," Bowersox told the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics last Wednesday after some pessimistic details had emerged from him and two other witnesses.
The ramifications for Florida could be limited to potential delays in returning to the level of excitement generated by human launches on the moon. On the political front, however, confidence may be eroded in NASA's new lunar mission, which should be America's first step on a mission to Mars in the 2030s.
Members of the space subcommittee, including Posey, the US Democratic representative. Charlie Crist of St. Petersburg and American Republican Michael Waltz from St. Augustine Beach, appeared Wednesday to be a strong supporter of the Moon program, but increasingly nervous about what he was hearing.
Waltz expressed his frustration that NASA seems to have so much trouble doing what it did 50 years ago: sending people to the moon.
"I think that all members of this committee, and all those who are interested in space exploration, will continue to argue their case, and have continued to argue the point of view not of the why is it worth it to be funded, but why does it hold. so much time and effort, so many delays and so much money, frankly, to get back to where we are, "said Waltz.
This is NASA, which once put men on the moon barely eight years after a time when she did not even have a rocket safe to put people in orbit. But it's not your father's NASA, which Bowersox and others conceded at the hearing trying to explain why.
Originally, the SLS was supposed to be ready for its first test launch in early 2018. This projection was postponed several times and NASA abandoned its last goal, mid-2020, without announcing new firm goal. Bowersox told the committee that NASA was unofficially hoping to be at the end of 2020, but conceded that this could be ambitious.
According to the US General Accounting Office, it may not be possible to launch an SLS launch test until the middle of 2021. There are many steps between this test and the shipping of the SLS. 39, astronauts on the moon.
At the same time, the cost of developing the SLS has increased by 29% to more than $ 8 billion, GAO reported in June. And this figure will continue to increase with each delay, said Cristina Chapelain, GAO Director of Procurement and National Security.
Bowersox defended the goal of landing on the moon in 2024, believing that it may be unrealistic today, a good incentive to keep the space agency in an urgent and targeted mode so that the program of the the moon is operational as soon as possible. There is no valid reason to reach the next lunar landing by 2024, if not the political possibility that it is important for Trump, who, if re-elected, will be removed from office early in the year. 2025.
Still, NASA could be framed by a schedule that seems to lead the space agency to cut costs and develop plans that are riskier, more expensive and less capable than they would otherwise be, said the Subcommittee's witness. spatial. Doug Cooke, former NASA Associate Administrator and now a private contractor.
Cooke is particularly concerned about the astronauts' fate of an Orion crew capsule in lunar orbit to the surface of the moon, and vice versa. In the Apollo program, this was done with the legendary lunar excursion module, the LEM.
Something like that will be needed this time, but it will be a new design, which has still not been resolved. NASA is expecting $ 1.5 billion that it has asked Congress to begin this planning.
When available, the LG would be delivered early on the lunar orbit and parked on site, waiting for astronauts to show up and use it.
The problem is that NASA does not seem to believe that the SLS will be available to deliver a lander on time. The agency therefore plans to recruit commercial rocket companies such as SpaceX or Blue origin ship the lander into the orbit of the moon.
But the large rockets proposed by private companies would still not be big enough to handle a large, wide and stable LG that an SLS could carry. NASA is therefore reducing its vision and planning a smaller landing gear that should be cut in pieces, on several launches and assembled in space before it can be used.
Questioned by the committee, Bowersox acknowledged that it was now the official plan.
"That makes no sense to me," said Cooke, adding that this involved much more risky maneuvers, a smaller and less secure undercarriage, and a lower ability to carry other materials on the lunar surface, including components of the lunar base of Gateway.
Cooke also claimed that NASA's current moon plans had become dangerously complex. Projects to send people to the Moon require so many different launches and maneuvers that if NASA's probability of success of 98% for each task is accurate, then the probability of success of the mission will be only 51% he accused.
He also claimed that the administration wishing to support commercial rocket companies could be at stake in the decision to use them instead of the SLS for key mission objectives.
"I think the pressure to reach commercial capabilities and achieve that goal forces us to do things that are more risky. And, if we base ourselves on many developments, starting now, trying to get to the 2024 missions, the probabilities are that, "Cooke said about his probability of success calculation of 51%. "It's an illustration of the complexity we have subscribed to, with a more simplified approach."
"Nobody drives us," Bowersox said, responding to Cooke's claim that NASA's decision was motivated by outside pressure on the agency. "We arrived at these conclusions ourselves. And an important factor is flexibility. We want to have several options. "
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