Jeff Greason is CEO of XCOR Aerospace and sits on the US's Augustine Committee, which reviews NASA's plans for human space flight. He spoke at a recent Space Investment Summit in Boston.
What can NASA do to improve?
NASA should have a technology road map: it doesn't have a plan saying, "These are the capabilities we have today, these are the capabilities we want tomorrow, and how are we going to get there from here?"
Which cutting-edge technologies should NASA develop first?
The very first element would be a technology for the handling and storage of propellant in space. If we had such a "gas station" it would significantly change the game in terms of what you could do: it would let you launch a much more capable, bigger mission with the same-size launchers. If you use chemical rockets, you want to be able to manufacture that propellant at your destination. That saves a huge chunk of initial mass because you don't have to take the propellant with you to get you back to Earth. Then there's a whole bunch of ideas for advanced space propulsion. An ion engine
called VASIMR is a perfect example.
What surprised you most in your work with the White House's Augustine Committee?
We hoped to find a way for NASA to do great and wonderful things within their current budget but we really didn't. And it wasn't for lack of trying. Over the long term, if you're not going to make the budget go up, and you want to do something great, you have to lower the fixed costs.
What can NASA do to cut costs?
There was one option which involved relying on expendable launch vehicles - the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets - the cost of which would be shared with the Department of Defense. That does have the potential to change the fixed costs of the human space flight programme.
Is NASA still capable of inspiring achievements like the Apollo moon landings?
It's easy to say, and I've said it myself, that we just don't have the NASA we used to have, so we can't do the things we used to do. But whatever is wrong or right with NASA, the quality of the people isn't a problem. NASA has really good, motivated people. One contributing factor could be that we're not asking them to do the right job. But the bigger question is, do we really want to spend whatever it takes, hundreds of billions of dollars, all so we can race to plant a flag for reasons of national pride?
But you don't think we should discontinue human space exploration?
I think one of the most important findings that we made on the Augustine committee is that there is an underlying reason why we should be doing human space exploration, which is that we ought to extend permanent human civilisation beyond this planet, and that is an incredibly important human endeavour. Stephen Hawking calls for moon and Mars colonies. To my mind, I can't see why we wouldn't do it. It's the only way to create a future in which humans can live somewhere other than Earth. Robots will help, but you don't learn how to live in places by just sending robots.
Read more: Where will NASA send its astronauts next?
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Have your say
Until someone can point us to some farmable real estate and 'gold' mines out there, that is
Actually it will cost 2 billion-billion dollars to dump enough coal into the Martian Atmosphere from orbit to thicken it to the point where runaway greenhouse will warm it to the point where plants can be grown...all taking about 200 years (including colonization of 10 million colonists).
NASA doesnt represent the way forward - the USA is simply using them to interfere in how it shood be done to hold us back in the vain hope the USA can gain a foothold in space and cut off access to the rest of us.
I suggest you just find someone who can see the advantage of running for President who will agree to the use of all US resources in Terraforming and Colonization.
Forget Mars and go for Eros or another asteroid or micro-moon.
And yes, we do need human space flight to these bodies.
MANNED EXPLORATION IS ALIVE
Some of the commenters are dead. If we let people like Hasham make the decisions the future of humanity is short.
The money spent on space is a drop in the bucket compared to the huge waste in other programs US has.
If the money wasted and defrauded from the government by illegal immigrants alone was added to the space program we would have plenty of money.
What the US really has to do is close the immigration doors and use the money saved to start an immigration program to Mars.
Unmanned exploration is vastly cheaper and more productive (imagine leaving people on mars for five years as we have done with the rovers), not to mention that it's useful here on earth. Also, as Hasham has pointed out, we aren't going to farm the moon for a while. Let's wait a few million years and our tech should improve, bringing costs down.
Yes! And robots could build the colonies on mars and the moon or even asteroids if NASA later feels that they must send humans to those places.
actually, if humans had stayed the same 5 years on Mars, the amount of science done would have been beyond anything these robots have achieved. Let's see... pairs of eyes instead of cameras. Logical reasoning on demand, instead of waiting for instruction back and forth from Earth which includes time lags. Plus, a human isn't going to get stuck along a path due to some pebble or silly boulder, it just walks around it or over it. A robot geologist is NO MATCH for a human geologist.
Not to mention a shovel.
And how well do humans deal with working non-stop, in temperatures of -100 degrees, being doused in radiation, doing dull work with no-one else around for years on end.
Don't forget NASA reconnaissance orbiter is a robot geologist too, that discovers the mineral composition of the entire planet, surveys its subsurface with radar and maps the terrain.
A human geologist is good on earth, but dead meat on an un-earthlike planet.
And how well do humans deal with working non-stop, in temperatures of -100 degrees, being doused in radiation, doing dull work with no-one else around for years on end. - Tom.
Welcome to the British nuclear industry!!
If you are interested in advancing science and its benefits to humankind you must vote against human space exploration. At this stage of our technological development Human Space Exploration will do little but to kill more Astronauts. Space is hostile and unforgiving, best suited for robots.
By wasting more billions on manned-spaceflight we are depriving scientist of desperately needed funds for research that would benefit all of humanity.
I'm for advancing humankind, so my vote is for manned missions.
"Human Spaceflight Will Retard Scientific Progress"
I once agreed with this viewpoint, until the Hubble Space Telescope mirror flaw. If there had not been a Space Shuttle crew to carry out repairs, the HST would have become very expensive space junk.
The real issue is to find the right balance. Unless astronauts have a well-defined scientific and engineering role, they are no more than space tourists.
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