activity list

> Behalf Of *Arthur Smith
>
> Meetings are a big part of it - regular conference calls (I've had
> the chance to argue with Bob Zubrin over the phone on some policy
> issues...)
>
> Hmmm... anything you'd care to discuss here?
>
Well, I'm going to paraphrase here of course. If I get something wrong,
apologies in advance!

Zubrin's very strongly advocated for "heavy lift" - obviously a Mars
mission requires pretty significant mass to orbit. At one point it
looked like NASA was giving up on shuttle-derived and other heavy lift
options for the near term, going with existing medium-lift vehicles
(EELV's etc) for the new lunar program. The NSS policy committee had a
pretty intense discussion about this with people on both sides, on
whether we should make any sort of statement on the issue. I've had
people calling me at home saying I have to be for one side or the other
on it because of this or that (space solar power, for instance - doesn't
that "require" heavy lift!?)

On the medium-lift side, it's clear that increasing launch rates for a
given vehicle brings launch costs down, which is something we really
want. And government investment in heavy lift is the sort of thing that
would likely discourage private investors in non-traditional launch
companies. Zubrin argued that the cost of in-flight assembly is so
excessive that completely negates the lower launch costs, and he may
have a point, though if we want to do anything extensive in space (like
space solar power) we need to learn how to assemble large things in
orbit. He also argued strongly that the greater number of flights
increased risk of delays and mission failure, which is certainly a good
point with the current climate of
stand-down-until-the-last-problem-is-eliminated; I would have thought it
would be less of a problem in a commercial marketplace with two or more
contenders, but anyway.

I was a bit mystified by the intensity of the battle - after all a
factor of 4 or so in launch mass doesn't seem that big a deal to get
worked up about. Zubrin's most specific complaint seemed to be payload
faring - the Mars hab designs he's worked out require the diameter a
heavy lift vehicle could provide, and which would be hard to make
available for EELV's. But wouldn't inflatables be a good solution there?

So after hearing a lot of back and forth on this, I butted in to a
teleconference with the suggestion that our statement should advocate
for heavy lift, but only as part of a vigorous and well-funded
exploration program, that ensured a large number of yearly heavy-lift
launches and a potentially competitive marketplace for them; if on the
other hand a less vigorous program was planned, that medium-lift
vehicles would be a better approach than investing billions in
technology that would barely be used.

Nobody liked that, and particularly not Zubrin. I still think it's the
only thing that makes sense, but oh well...

Needless to say, NSS still has no official position on the matter,
though we've said in a few places we support NASA's current plans,
whatever they are...

Arthur