Lack of Vision
NASA's failure of vision
By Matthew B. Koss | August 2, 2005
WITH THE LAUNCH of Discovery, NASA has shown that it will not repeat the proximate mistake that doomed the Columbia. The enhanced video has done its job and shown that the improved external tank foam insulation is not good enough. New in-situ inspection procedures indicate that Discovery should be able to return home safely. NASA can both ground the fleet again to review and rethink what to do and claim a measure of success for the test flight identifying further challenges to solve.
Unfortunately, this scenario also shows that we as a space-faring nation have not learned enough from the Columbia accident. Whether NASA can further reduce foam debris or merely list it as an acceptable risk to fly is irrelevant. We spend too much time discussing the risks of human spaceflight and not enough time on the potential rewards or the opportunity costs.
As a scientist, I participated in research experiments that flew on three shuttle flights. After the Columbia accident, I assumed a collateral responsibility for the accident. My culpability stemmed from not being forthright about a conceit that many NASA scientists have long acknowledged privately but did not express publicly. That is, the vast majority of science experiments conducted in orbit do not require onboard human intervention or assistance, and the cost of using astronauts to perform science experiments in space is too high in dollars and lives. In penance for my mistake of omission, I cannot remain quiet about NASA's failure of vision.
In October 2003, I gave testimony (on a panel with future NASA administrator Mike Griffin) to the House Committee on Science at a hearing on the future of human spaceflight. The charter for that hearing wisely identified five planks on which NASA should build a vision for the future.
The vision must be a consensus arrived at jointly by NASA, the White House, and Congress. Human spaceflight is not the only NASA responsibility -- or even the most important of its responsibilities. There must be an agreement to pay for the vision even though NASA will not have an unlimited budget. We need to be open and honest about the purposes and challenges of human spaceflight, and we must be cognizant of and informed by the mistakes we have made over the past 30 years.
Sad to say, very little of this is apparent in NASA's current plans or recent acts. NASA remains too focused on human spaceflight to the detriment of science.
For far too long, NASA has used the images of humans in space to sell the space program at the expense of more productive and less expensive autonomous-remote missions. Over the last two years, while refoaming the shuttle to flight, NASA achieved tremendous successes with the Opportunity and Spirit rovers on Mars, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, and the Deep Impact encounter with the comet Tempel-1. These missions were terrifically complicated, greatly successful, wildly popular, and profoundly inspirational. If Queen Isabella or Thomas Jefferson had access to remotely controlled rovers or probes, they would have used them, and Columbus and Lewis & Clark would have happily explored from home for a time.
Nevertheless, to afford a rapid and aggressive program of human spaceflight, NASA continues to debate the worth of a human-enabled repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, one of this nation's most productive science facilities. NASA has also eliminated its basic research portfolio in biological and physical science. This is a waste of human capital and infrastructure that NASA spent over 30 years building; it was producing normative science and was listed as a key reason to build a space station.
The American Astronomical Society calls NASA cuts to science funding a threat to our preeminence in space. The American Geophysical Union says that vital national interests are threatened, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences sees the nation's long-term commercial and scientific edge at risk, and the American Physical Society declares that very important science opportunities could be lost or delayed seriously, all because of shifting NASA priorities toward moon-Mars.
About a month ago, Representative Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Committee on Science, asked NASA administrator Griffin when it would have a report on ''the intended purpose of lunar missions and the architecture of those missions." Griffin replied, ''Later this summer."
Griffin is a capable engineer and manager and has the right stuff to prepare thoughtful reports, determine what to do about the foam problem, and improve NASA's performance. Griffin has said he will protect NASA's science programs from the demands of human spaceflight. However, on this challenge, he is failing.
The great shame with all the hoopla surrounding the ''return to flight" and the inherent risk is that much science has already been canceled in favor of far riskier moon-Mars missions, whose intent and rewards are not sufficiently articulated or envisioned.
Matthew B. Koss is associate professor of physics at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.
By Matthew B. Koss | August 2, 2005
WITH THE LAUNCH of Discovery, NASA has shown that it will not repeat the proximate mistake that doomed the Columbia. The enhanced video has done its job and shown that the improved external tank foam insulation is not good enough. New in-situ inspection procedures indicate that Discovery should be able to return home safely. NASA can both ground the fleet again to review and rethink what to do and claim a measure of success for the test flight identifying further challenges to solve.
Unfortunately, this scenario also shows that we as a space-faring nation have not learned enough from the Columbia accident. Whether NASA can further reduce foam debris or merely list it as an acceptable risk to fly is irrelevant. We spend too much time discussing the risks of human spaceflight and not enough time on the potential rewards or the opportunity costs.
As a scientist, I participated in research experiments that flew on three shuttle flights. After the Columbia accident, I assumed a collateral responsibility for the accident. My culpability stemmed from not being forthright about a conceit that many NASA scientists have long acknowledged privately but did not express publicly. That is, the vast majority of science experiments conducted in orbit do not require onboard human intervention or assistance, and the cost of using astronauts to perform science experiments in space is too high in dollars and lives. In penance for my mistake of omission, I cannot remain quiet about NASA's failure of vision.
In October 2003, I gave testimony (on a panel with future NASA administrator Mike Griffin) to the House Committee on Science at a hearing on the future of human spaceflight. The charter for that hearing wisely identified five planks on which NASA should build a vision for the future.
The vision must be a consensus arrived at jointly by NASA, the White House, and Congress. Human spaceflight is not the only NASA responsibility -- or even the most important of its responsibilities. There must be an agreement to pay for the vision even though NASA will not have an unlimited budget. We need to be open and honest about the purposes and challenges of human spaceflight, and we must be cognizant of and informed by the mistakes we have made over the past 30 years.
Sad to say, very little of this is apparent in NASA's current plans or recent acts. NASA remains too focused on human spaceflight to the detriment of science.
For far too long, NASA has used the images of humans in space to sell the space program at the expense of more productive and less expensive autonomous-remote missions. Over the last two years, while refoaming the shuttle to flight, NASA achieved tremendous successes with the Opportunity and Spirit rovers on Mars, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, and the Deep Impact encounter with the comet Tempel-1. These missions were terrifically complicated, greatly successful, wildly popular, and profoundly inspirational. If Queen Isabella or Thomas Jefferson had access to remotely controlled rovers or probes, they would have used them, and Columbus and Lewis & Clark would have happily explored from home for a time.
Nevertheless, to afford a rapid and aggressive program of human spaceflight, NASA continues to debate the worth of a human-enabled repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, one of this nation's most productive science facilities. NASA has also eliminated its basic research portfolio in biological and physical science. This is a waste of human capital and infrastructure that NASA spent over 30 years building; it was producing normative science and was listed as a key reason to build a space station.
The American Astronomical Society calls NASA cuts to science funding a threat to our preeminence in space. The American Geophysical Union says that vital national interests are threatened, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences sees the nation's long-term commercial and scientific edge at risk, and the American Physical Society declares that very important science opportunities could be lost or delayed seriously, all because of shifting NASA priorities toward moon-Mars.
About a month ago, Representative Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Committee on Science, asked NASA administrator Griffin when it would have a report on ''the intended purpose of lunar missions and the architecture of those missions." Griffin replied, ''Later this summer."
Griffin is a capable engineer and manager and has the right stuff to prepare thoughtful reports, determine what to do about the foam problem, and improve NASA's performance. Griffin has said he will protect NASA's science programs from the demands of human spaceflight. However, on this challenge, he is failing.
The great shame with all the hoopla surrounding the ''return to flight" and the inherent risk is that much science has already been canceled in favor of far riskier moon-Mars missions, whose intent and rewards are not sufficiently articulated or envisioned.
Matthew B. Koss is associate professor of physics at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.
posted by Bum at 21:14
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