On Wednesday, former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, 73, spoke respectfully but determinedly before a House subcommittee during a hearing on NASA’s Artemis mission to return humans to the moon. did.
“I’m going to be up front,” Griffin said. “In my judgment, the Artemis program is overly complex, unrealistically priced, jeopardizes crew safety, poses a very high risk of mission completion, and, if completed, will be completed in a timely manner.” Very unlikely. Success.”
Essentially, Griffin told the House Aerospace Subcommittee that NASA cannot afford to tinker with a complex and partially commercial plan to return humans to the moon with an eye toward long-term settlement. Ta. Instead, he said, government agencies need to get back to basics and get to the moon as quickly as possible. China, which has a competing lunar program, must not be allowed to defeat NASA and its allies to return to the moon. He said the space agency needs to “restart” its moon program and eliminate all commercial space nonsense.
griffin plan
The members of Congress in attendance did not ask Mr. Griffin for details of the plan, but here is a summary of it: his written testimony. This is an enlightening read for anyone who wants to know what direction traditional space apologists would take the U.S. space program if they had their way. This may not be entirely theoretical, as Griffin could be eyeing a return as NASA administrator if Donald Trump is elected president.
In Griffin’s case, it would return the country to the cozy confines of 2008, when he was at the height of his power just before the dawn of the commercial space era and before he was fired as NASA administrator. Griffin’s plan for accelerating lunar missions calls for, in a nutshell:
- Two Space Launch System Block II rocket launches
- Centaur III upper row
- Orion’s spaceship
- Two-stage retractable propellant lunar lander
The architecture can support a crew of four on the moon for seven days, Griffin said. “With bold action by Congress, rapid decision-making by NASA, and firm direction from contractors, the simple approach outlined here could allow U.S.-led exploration of the moon to begin in 2029,” he said. “There is,” he concluded.
The plan essentially returns NASA to the Constellation program, which Griffin helped create in 2005 and 2006. The same goes for the spacecraft (Orion) and the rocket (SLS Block II, not Ares V). The proposed lunar module bears some resemblance to the Altair lunar module. He’s trying to reassemble the band, relying on Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to get astronauts back to the moon quickly and efficiently.
The problem with Griffin’s plan is that it failed miserably 15 years ago. In 2009 he independent Augustine Commission, which investigated NASA’s human spaceflight program, found that:[t]The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be heading in an unsustainable direction. It perpetuates the dangerous practice of pursuing goals that are inconsistent with allocated resources. ”And perhaps that’s being polite.
There are some big lies in Griffin’s plan. One is that his two SLS Block II rockets are scheduled to launch in 2029. Recall that the development of the Block I version of the rocket took him 12 years and $ 30 billion. NASA expects the earliest preliminary version, Block 1B, to be completed in 2028. But magically, NASA will allow him to have his two builds of more advanced Block II rockets (with more powerful side-mounted boosters) ready by 2029.
Next is the lunar module. Not designed. No funding provided. And if built through the cost-plus acquisition strategy outlined by Mr. Griffin, it would undoubtedly cost $10 billion to $20 billion and take 10 years, based on past performance. A reasonable estimate for Griffin’s plan, based on the track record of Orion (in development since 2005) and SLS rocket contractors, is that if NASA’s budget roughly doubles, humans will land on the moon by the late 2030s. There is a possibility that it will.