Main Engine Cut Off - T+84: The End of NASA Exploration Exclusivity

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

Last week, China opened up their future space station to other nations, and Blue Origin laid some hints about their lunar ambitions. Both of these stories are indicative of what I think the next era of exploration will look like, and it has interesting implications for NASA. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Barbara, Stan, Mike, David, Mints, and seven anonymous—and 166 other supporters on Patreon. Off-Nominal Studios East - Main Engine Cut Off Why China is opening its space station to international partners Bezos outlines vision of Blue Origin’s lunar future - SpaceNews.com NASA Selects US Companies to Advance Space Resource Collection | NASA Email your thoughts and comments to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff. I am Anthony Colangelo here in my new studio. You may have noticed it's been a little crazy lately. I've been a little quiet on the podcast and on the blog, but all that is over. I've moved into a new house, new studio. I posted a photo of that over on the blog the other day if you want to see what my new setup looks like. It's pretty minimalist, but hope it sounds good to you out there. A couple of interesting things this week happened that aren't full-blown news yet, but I think are indicative of a trend that is coming in the near future, which is what I particularly like focusing on. And the two things there are that China has opened its Chinese space station, the CSS, as it's being called. They've opened it

through the UN to other nations in at least a limited sense at first. And the other story there is Blue Origin and their continual look outward towards the moon and some things we learned there. So let's talk about each and then I'll bring it together with my grand unifying theory of these two stories. China has reached out through the UN, as I said. They've opened two UN member states. They've opened their upcoming space station to experiments to be flown on board it by other UN member states. This isn't opening it up as much as something like the International Space Station is,

which is the way that it was portrayed out in media land quite a bit this week is that, oh, it's rivaling the International Space Station. I don't necessarily think that's true because as of yet, they are not open to somebody adding a module onto their space station or flying astronauts. Though, you know, I think we can pretty safely assume that there will be other astronauts flying on board the space station in the future. ESA has had a lot of contact with China in the last couple of years, flying astronauts out to China to train with them, to learn Chinese, to start to get familiar with the program the way that NASA astronauts do with Roscosmos and learn Russian and that kind of thing.

So we can safely assume that sometime in the 2020s, we'll probably see at least an ESA astronaut head up to the Chinese space station. But for now, they've opened it up to UN member states to fly experiments on board it. And that is a big step for China, who is a very closed off nation, especially when it comes to space. is a big step for China, who's a very closed-off nation, especially when it comes to space. They don't even announce launches sometimes, and they're very secretive. So this is a notable step. And I think, you know, it comes at an interesting time when the future of the International Space Station, as far as NASA's involvement, is still up in the air. It's been a political hot button issue here. You know,

how long are we going to run the ISS? How much funding are we going to put towards the ISS? What does the future look like beyond 2024? It's still not resolved yet. It's looking more and more like, we'll punt to 2028. But nonetheless, it's, if nothing else, it's an interesting time politically to make this announcement, because you do see some hesitation on the NASA side about the future of the International Space Station and China stepping up and say, hey, well, we have a platform that you could come use. that are typically working with NASA or other international partners on space, or if it's countries that as of yet don't have much of a space presence, but would like to and are in China's area of the world and want to stay close to them, that sort of thing. We might see some political tensions rise like that. But either way, I think it is a notable event. And over on the Blue Origin side of things, they have started to talk about plans a little more openly. Bezos had a talk with Alan Boyle a week or two ago in which he talked about the way that he sees Blue Origin's future progressing.

And there was another person within the company that maybe said a little too much ted mcfarland who's the commercial director for blue origin uh was talking at a conference and said um conference in australia that is and said that he would love australia to take part in an announcement with that jezos will be announcing at IAC in Bremen this year. He said, we would love to have Australia come join us on stage in Bremen, Germany with Jeff in September at the International Aeronautical Congress and be part of a group announcement. We're going back to the moon and we're going to stay. And that last line was something that Bezos reiterated in his talk

with Alan Boyle. So, you know, maybe McFarlane's comment was a little too open and something that maybe Blue Origin's not too happy about overall with that being out there, the idea being floated that, you know, maybe there's some sort of announcement coming with Blue Origin and ESA or, you know, the whole Moon Village idea that ESA has been pushing for a while where all these different countries can contribute to a lunar base co-located together. So, you know, we can gather from that and some of the things that Bezos said, which I'll get into in a minute, that they are very, very seriously pursuing this lunar base idea. Bezos was talking about, you know, we're

going back to the moon, we're going to stay this time. And he was talking about, they will do whatever it takes to see that vision come to life. They will do it faster if they have a partnership with NASA. They will build things that they wouldn't otherwise need to if NASA stepped in, but they will only build those if they have to. You know, they don't want to have to build rovers for the lunar surface, but they will if they need to. They don't want to have to provide other parts of the architecture, but they will if they need to. It'll just take longer, but they will do it. And to that end, Blue Origin did just win a one-year study award from NASA to investigate in-situ resource utilization. They're doing a one-year study

to see how it would take place in an architecture, what it would do to their lunar architecture, you know, with it, without it, that whole kind of thing. That's the general sense we get from the NASA press release is that it's a study about how it fits into an architecture, not necessarily work right off the bat. So we're getting a sense from all these comments, from the things that they're winning through NASA, that Blue Origin is making progress on this lunar base idea and is taking various serious steps towards it. And it might even be the case that they're drawing other nations onto their vision and they're going to do it in partnership with somebody else other than NASA, if NASA doesn't say yes. If ESA really wants to do it, or at least some contingent within

ESA wants to do it, Blue Origin will partner with them. You know, the scale of funding there are vastly different, but Blue Origin is willing to work with whoever they want to work with, whoever wants to work with them, whoever's going where they're going. And I think that's an interesting trend that mirrors some of the stuff that we're seeing from China, where China says, we're going to Leo. If you want to fly experiments with us, you know, let us know. And Blue Origin saying, well, we're going to the lunar base. We're going to the lunar surface. If anyone's going there, let us know.

We would love to work with you. Now, I think these two things are notable because of what it means for the future. And that's what I want to get into next. But before I do that, I want to say a huge thank you to all of you supporting Main Engine Cutoff over at patreon.com slash Miko. There are 202 of you supporting this show month in, month out. 36 executive producers produced this episode of Main Engine Cutoff. Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jameson, Nadeem, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Barbara, Stan, Mike, David, Mintz, and seven anonymous executive producers. They made this episode

possible along with everyone else over at patreon.com slash Miko. Don't forget, $3 a month or more on Patreon. You get a special RSS link to drop into your podcast player. And every Friday, I send out a show reading through the headlines of the week, the big stories, the little stories, everything that happens in the space world. It's a great way to stay up on space news. So head over there if you want to check that out. And thank you so much for your support. All right, so the grand unifying theory here. These two things are very indicative of what I think is the next era on the exploration front. China and Blue Origin are making good progress in both of these areas. You know, China's looking to LEO and their Chinese space station,

but they're also looking out towards the lunar surface. And right now, as I speak, there is a Chinese communications relay flying to Earth-Moon L2. And as I said, Blue Origin just won an ISRU study award from NASA. These are not simple things that they're working on. These are both complex parts of these architectures that they're looking forward to. So they are taking this very seriously, and they're doing very, very good things on both of their paths. And I think the way that I see it being a projection of the future is that we're entering a time period in which the NASA exclusivity of exploration is coming to an end. You know, for so long, for decades, NASA has been the default kind of coordinator when it comes to exploration. You know, whatever NASA's working on, you can bet there's another country or two or coalition of countries

that will work with them on that because they're just the default. They're the only ones that are there as this kind of coordinator element with the most financial funding and the most momentum in a lot of these regards. It was shuttle for decades and then ISS for decades. And now they're kind of hitting this state where there's a lot of, you know, I don't like to use the word floundering, but there's a lot of floundering with where they're headed next. We don't exactly know what kind of architecture will be. For years, NASA was saying that Mars is the next step, Mars is the next step. And nobody else internationally went with them on that. They all were kind of still looking towards the moon. And now we see NASA turning back towards the moon

and other ears are perking up. JAXA is looking towards them again. Russia is talking about it. Even China is talking about it. So even there, you know, in the absence of these Chinese and Blue Origin situations, you saw that the NASA exclusivity was kind of on the fritz there, you saw that the NASA exclusivity was kind of on the fritz there, where people didn't really buy into the Mars is the next step and it's attainable in the timeline that we say it is, you know, rhetoric that we heard from NASA. They waited for NASA to turn back towards the moon. And I think it's really interesting that these other countries out there are now starting to see alternatives with who to partner with in space. You know, if they really are focused on LEO and the NASA future in LEO is kind of weird, maybe they do start looking at what China has to offer. And if they're really serious about

going to the lunar surface and NASA can't quite figure out what they want to do, maybe they do start looking towards Blue Origin and seeing what they're doing. We're hitting a point at which NASA is no longer going to be the default assumption about who you want to work with and where you want to go. And that might sound like a bad thing initially, but I think it's actually one of the best things that could happen to NASA. You know, anything can get stagnant over time and needs to be shaken up. And I think that's what a lot of us have been feeling with NASA and the kind of confused policy that it's been the last decade or so. Maybe even longer than that if you really go back to it.

And we were hoping that somebody could come along, a leader or some sort of politician, and shake things up in the right way. And we're looking towards people like Brian Stein, who's a little outside of what NASA has typically had running it and saying, maybe he's the one that could shake it up. Or you're looking at new commercial companies that come up and say, well, they're changing the industry so much, maybe that will shake NASA up. really, I think what we're seeing is that these other external stimuli might be the thing that is needed to shake NASA up in that way. Nothing gets you going and changing and moving again, like a little fire under your butt with somebody else hot on your heels and saying, well, you know, we're doing our own thing in space, so you can come along with us if you want. And we're hitting a point at which it looks like that's happening in two different realms, public and private. You know, a country that we're not super friendly with, in fact, banned,

we are currently banned from working with them in space in any official capacity, and a private company that has massive amounts of funding. You know, they have governmental amounts of funding in Blue Origin. So this could be a very clarifying moment for NASA when they see, you know, if it is true what this, Nick Farland, you know, kind of leaked about Blue Origin here, if it is true that they're going to have this announcement

about going to the lunar surface in partnership with some other country, and if some interesting country turns towards China and says, we want to fly on that space station with you, if those things happen, and all of a sudden, it really is a reality that somebody has chosen an alternative other than whatever NASA is working on next, that is a really clarifying moment for NASA, because they have to say, what do we want to be? Do we want to be what we've always been? Do we want to change how we're working in this new environment? Or do we want to kind of, you know, just go with the status quo? So I think this could be a really good moment

for NASA to have these other alternatives come about, to have a little competition in the way of vision and momentum and partnerships. I think this is really what we need to see that shakeup that we've kind of been hoping for with NASA policy for so long, specifically on the human exploration side of things. So we'll see if anyone does jump at these opportunities. We'll see what Bezos announced at the IC in September. But I do think this is a really good thing for NASA that's coming. And it's going to be something that is really going to hurt in the short term, I think, maybe even the medium term. But long term, this is the kind of thing that I think NASA needs. They

need someone else out there to provide a little external stimulus to shake up their thinking on things instead of just being, you know, the stagnant default that they've been the last couple of years. So I'm curious what you think about this, if this is something that is kind of crazy sounding, or if you do see what I'm saying here, and that these alternatives could provide a compelling moment for NASA to change and to morph into something new that fits this current era of the space community, industry, whatever word you want to use for where we're at in space development. I'm really curious what you think about that. So if you've got any thoughts on it, email as always anthony at managingcutoff.com or on

Twitter at wehavemiko. That is it for this week. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you next week.