Main Engine Cut Off - T+85: Support and Criticism for the Lunar Gateway

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

ESA has all but given its full support to the (newly renamed) Lunar Gateway, and Terry Virts threw some criticism its way during the third meeting of the National Space Council. I break down what those things mean for the future of Lunar Gateway, and discuss why I’m (gasp!) supportive of the program. 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 174 other supporters on Patreon. A milestone in securing ESA’s future role in the global exploration of space / Exploration / Human Spaceflight / Our Activities / ESA Meeting of the National Space Council - YouTube Op-ed: The Deep Space Gateway would shackle human exploration, not enable it | Ars Technica Former astronaut criticizes lunar gateway plans - SpaceNews.com Off-Nominal 09 - Randomly Throwing Money Out Into the Cosmos Off-Nominal 07 - FLying Around Mars Imaging aNd Geography Observatory Tweet from @We_Martians 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

Welcome to the Main Engine Cutoff, I'm Anthony Colangelo, and this week I'm going to do a little bit of a maybe follow-up to what I talked about on the last show, which was NASA's exclusivity in exploration. But specifically, we're going to frame it around the Lunar Gateway, which is now the new name for the Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway, the worst name in the history of space, which does not have a good history of names in general. But NASA has renamed this the Lunar Gateway. And there's two things that happened in the last week or so

that got me thinking about it again, and maybe putting this in context a little bit with the thoughts that I shared last show about the exclusivity, or lack thereof, of NASA in the future of exploration. So the first thing that happened was something from ESA, the European Space Agency. They had this meeting where ESA and its member states have, you know, worked on what they're going to be focusing on in the future, in the next couple of years, next 10 years or something like that.

It's the future, what is it? It's some crazy name as well. The European Exploration Envelope Program, E3P, which was created in December 2016. This was a continuation of that to determine what their goals are for the future. And most notably out of that, they approved, they say, steps that could see Europe become a major player in the Lunar Gateway. They voted on the idea that the Director General of ESA can start negotiating, here's the direct quote, negotiating agreements covering the elements of potential ESA contributions to the Lunar Gateway, including both transportation and infrastructure. What they mean there is maybe updates to the European service module that flies with Orion,

is maybe updates to the European service module that flies with Orion. And infrastructure, they mean maybe building modules for the actual gateway. Now, this is not unexpected, but it is something to note that ESA is essentially all in on the lunar gateway. That now leaves us with NASA. Roscosmos has been interested in the past. I'm not sure where they're going to get the money from. JAXA has commented on them being interested in this. And ESA was kind of the outstanding member there. They are all in on this Lunar Gateway idea. Again, not surprising. They want to take part in this program because they're building the European service module because it is something for them to build to. But it is not alone. You know, this isn't the only program that they're going to contribute to. So last show, I talked about how they're

going to contribute to a Chinese space station, likely, you know, they've been training with Chinese astronauts that will probably still continue. They will probably also do the Lunar Gateway. So that's the first thing of note that's happened recently. The other was the third meeting of the National Space Council. Now, it started off with Trump talking. He got predictably off script, was talking about Space Force, which we'll probably get into at some point when it's a little more real, a little closer to happening.

So that kind of took all the headlines. But then a large part of the National Space Council was discussing the lunar architecture or the potential lunar architecture with a series of astronauts that came up. But before that, you know, it was the typical National Space Council where they start giving their updates and Wilber Ross is talking about space businesses, and how commerce is doing such good businesses in space, and it's so sleepy, and I started to think, why did I even tune into this? Just another one of those. The thing about Space Council is, all the interesting stuff happens behind closed doors, or in those drinking club

schmooze fests of the parties that happen there where everyone's schmoozing their way to whoever they need to meet. And all of the things that happen in the public setting, if you're somebody who listens to this kind of podcast or reads spacenews.com every day, you probably have heard everything that is going to come out of the public section. That is until Terry Vertz came up. Now, he was one of the members on the second or third panel of three astronauts at a time. I guess it was only the second panel. And he, in more or less words,

said that the Lunar Gateway is going to be a time and money suck, and it's going to distract us from going to the lunar surface. Now, that statement in itself is not news. A lot of people out there are saying it. Terry Virts has even written an op-ed in Ars Technica saying the same thing. So that is not news. That is a thought that people have. But what is news is that this came up in a National Space Council meeting. And it was surfaced directly to the vice president, the administrator of NASA, and everyone else that was there in the meeting. Now, those two people and everyone else in the

meeting has also probably heard these kind of thoughts before. But to have it happen in an official setting like that is notable. And specifically, it's notable because it's not just like Terry Vertz walked up, stumbled into a National Space Council meeting, and they were like, Terry, good to see you here. Why don't you come in and sit and talk to us? You know, this was somebody who was booked for this meeting. And whoever it was that booked the guest, whether it was Scott Pace, who leads the National Space Council, or is the director or whatever, chairman, I don't know what title he's got, but he basically organizes the National Space Council. I don't know if it was him or somebody on his staff, but whoever booked the panelists obviously knew Terry Vert's opinion on the Gateway.

And yet they booked him anyway. And that is telling because, you know, it goes one step further too, right? Who booked it? Who booked him to be there and speaking? And why, what was the motivation for having somebody with those views on that panel? Was it to get these views up and discussed by the council? Or was it

to have them aired out so that they kind of placate the people with that thought about the gateway, and then we can move on with our life? I'm not sure which of the two it was, but either way, it is very notable that this was brought up in a setting such as the National Space Council. Now, obviously, so, you know, he says this and then Mike Pence, Vice President Pence, says, oh, wow, Terry, thank you so much for sharing your unique perspective. Let me ask you a follow up. No, he didn't say any of that. He completely ignored the statement and moved on and nobody else brought it up at all. It was essentially like everybody had amnesia for five seconds while Terry Vertz gave his opinion and they completely forgot about it and didn't ask any follow-up questions. Not surprising, but telling. They

don't want to have that discussion. Now these two stories, IsSA and Terry Vertz at the National Space Council, are both notable, both important. But I think one has a lot more impact than the other. And even in the National Space Council meeting, somebody else brought up, actually, I think it was Terry Vertz himself who brought up the fact that when we have international agreements in place on a program, the program becomes uncancellable. He brought that up himself, which is quite funny put in context here. The fact that ESA is now in on the gateway

makes gateway a much more sure thing than anything else. And I don't think Terry Virts being there and airing his grievances does much to dissuade everything that the Gateway has going for it to move in another direction. Now, this is something stolen a little bit from our friend Jake Robbins, the We Martian podcast. We've talked a lot in the past about the idea of a decadal survey for human spaceflight.

We've got a couple episodes of Off-Nominal that you can listen to, the most recent one we did with Jason Davis of the Planetary Society. We talked about it in there. I would highly recommend checking that out. We also talked about it with Tanya Harrison. So I'm going to link those two in the show notes. If you haven't listened to those shows yet, they are a lot of fun and very interesting. I think we got into some really good topics there. But Jake said something interesting the other day.

You know, just a little more context there. The idea of the Decadal Survey for Human Spaceflight is to give human spaceflight some very specific goals on what we are trying to accomplish with it, because then with those goals in mind, you can build a coherent strategy around those goals to accomplish them. So he tweeted yesterday, he being Jake here, tweeted, you know, in response to Terry Vertz tweeting about talking about the National Space Council. Jake said, the thing about this argument, I guess I should give you the argument first. Terry Vertz said, honored to speak at the National Space Council today about why there are better ways than Gateway to get back to the moon and eventually on to Mars. And Jake said, the thing about this argument is that until you decide what you want to do on the surface of the moon or Mars,

it's impossible to properly debate the best way to do it. The Gateway is a super stellar solution if your mission objectives are to fly some SLS rockets and see what a near rectilinear halo orbit feels like in person. And that is absolutely true, because right now, those are the goals of not only NASA, but the political institution that supports NASA. That means people in Congress that approve the funding for these programs. That means the people that back those members of Congress to get elected in the first place. The entire political machine is motivated to build gateway for reasons that are not necessarily tied to the goals of human spaceflight. And that's because we haven't

really properly defined those. So you have this architecture that is building momentum by way of international collaboration, by way of political support, by way of, you know, sheer organizational momentum. So what are you to do if you're somebody who doesn't necessarily believe that gateway is the best way? This may be rehashing a little bit of what I said before, but that's what I want to get into today with all of this in context. But before I do that, I do need to say a very big thank you to all of you out there who supported Main Engine Cutoff over at patreon.com slash Miko. There are 210 of you supporting the show week in, week out.

Could not be more thankful for your support. This episode of the Main Engine Cutoff was produced by 36 executive producers. Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jameson, Nadeem, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, 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. I keep putting off some better way of doing this, but for now, everybody loves the giant list of producers.

But they made this show possible, so you gotta like hearing their names every single week. If you want to help out and support the show, head over to patreon.com slash Miko and do it there. Don't forget, headline shows every Friday if you are a $3 a month or more supporter on Patreon. What you do if you sign up on Patreon, you get a little link, little RSS link. You drop that in your podcast player of choice and you get a show right into your feed

just like any other show. Special for you every Friday. Go check it out, patreon.com slash Miko, and thank you so much for all your support. All right, so now let's get into what we should do about Gateway if we don't think it's the best, but we want to deal with it somehow. This segment could also be called Why I'm Largely Supportive of the Lunar Gateway. And again, this probably isn't new to some of you out there, but there's new people listening every day, so I want to kind of rehash it. And it's also important to rethink these things as you get more info, as ESA is certainly

going to contribute to the gateway, and as opponents start to come out and be kind of tossed aside by the political arrangement of the U.S. government. It's important to rethink these things and see where you're at and see where you stand. Now, the framing of the goals thing that I just talked about is probably the most important argument here, is that without other goals defined, the Lunar Gateway solves the problems that we present ourselves with. There's political support for NASA to build SLS and Orion. There is political support to use those vehicles somehow. And there's political support to continue the work that is happening with ISS. Meaning the people who have built

modules for the ISS want to continue to build modules somewhere in space. And ideally, you put that somewhere that SLS and Orion can get to. Now, overall, probably not the best plan. But given the political pieces that we have and all these different interests that we have to solve, it does thread the needle in a certain way. that we have to solve, it does thread the needle in a certain way. And if it's going to happen, and you're somebody out there who's looking at it as not that useful of a lunar architecture, but you would like to do something near the moon, your best bet is to take advantage of it however you can and leverage it in a way that furthers your own goals. I always use the example of ISS. You know, ISS, when it was first launched, nobody ever said, the ISS is launched, and from it, we are going to get the lowest cost

provider of launches and the first generation of reusable rockets. But that is effectively what happened, because SpaceX saw an opportunity to use the ISS, to leverage the ISS, to accomplish their own goals of bootstrapping a launch vehicle in the class that they needed and in using those flights to develop reusable boosters. And that's completely aside from whether or not SpaceX believes the ISS was a worthy political goal, a worthy investment for the country, none of that really matters. Because SpaceX saw a way to use that to leverage it to accomplish their own goals. And in my view, I think the same thing is possible with the Lunar Gateway.

You know, maybe if your goal is to land humans on the moon, maybe it's not the most useful thing. is to land humans on the moon, maybe it's not the most useful thing. But it is politically possible. And it is possible with the funding that is allocated to NASA. So if it is going to happen, you have to start thinking of how can I leverage that to do what I need to do to take the next step? And if you're somebody like SpaceX, just use them as an example again it's a destination in cislunar space it's a client out there if you want to learn how to fly BFR to the moon you've got a client there and maybe from there JAXA wants to go down the surface and you can work with them to fly BFR as a lander or if you're blue Origin and you have ambitions to build out architecture involving the

moon, this is a way to have a client for your large-scale lander. And we're already seeing that with smaller-scale landers that are going to be contracted by the end of the year to fly payloads to the moon as part of this overall program. Those companies have an interest in developing landers for the moon. They were doing it before NASA was focused on the moon again. And they're going to leverage this program to accomplish their own goals. So in this way, you know, it doesn't have to be limited to private companies either. If JAXA has their own goals and ESA has their own goals, and they see a way to leverage this,

it does make sense for them to go in on the program. And that further makes it a concrete program that NASA is going to work on because they have all these partners. So you do get to a point where it is the lowest common denominator between all of these interests out there. And it is politically possible for NASA to do. And it does serve the political interests and the funding interests that they have. So it makes sense from all of those other perspectives. And a lot of times the argument is, well, you know, the Gateway would be, you know, much more useful if it was in a low polar lunar orbit. And that's probably true.

But also, the other things that you're going to hook in to the Gateway in that instance, how do you get those? How do you get the funding for those to give more reason to put the Gateway in a low polar lunar orbit? It's just maybe not the most politically realistic to do that. So instead, how can you use what the Gateway is,

what this giant industrial complex of space is going to build, how do you use that to accomplish your own goals? And whether that's merely attaching your horse to that wagon for a little bit and riding along with it, and then going your own goals. And whether that's merely, you know, attaching your horse to that wagon for a little bit and riding along with it, and then going your own way eventually, that's fine. But also, let's put this in context of what I talked about last show. We're getting close to the end of the era where NASA is the exclusive partner for exploration. The Lunar Gateway does not have to be the only thing out at the moon. Just the same way the ISS doesn't have to be the only thing in low Earth orbit. So maybe the Lunar Gateway is

what NASA can support. And it's what NASA can work on. But that doesn't mean it has to be the only project out at the moon. If Blue Origin wants to build a lunar base and use some of this funding from NASA to bootstrap that, they can do it and then they have their own lunar base. Or maybe JAXA wants to do that. They want to build their own lunar base. Or ESA wants to build their moon village. Maybe you can use some funding resources, use it as a client base if you're a private company, use it as a client base if you're a private company whatever but it can play into an architecture in ways that aren't necessarily the primary goal of the gateway and like jake said in the absence of goals you can't really decide what is or is not a good or bad architecture. But if an architecture does have political support and is realistically possible

in the political world that we are today, the funding world that we are today, if it serves all the entrenched interests, it's going to happen. So at some point, you have to stop wasting energy fighting this given program and start figuring out how to use it to better your own cause, to better your own architecture. And I think the best space companies in the last five or ten years and the best ones in the next five or ten years see that and they see how to use that.

see how to use that. And they use it the ways that they can, the ways that it makes sense, and they end up going farther than what NASA asked for in the first place. So that's where I'm at on the gateway. I'm supportive of it because I really believe that we need to build out infrastructure around the Earth, around the moon. We need to build out infrastructure to have a productive space industry. we need to build out infrastructure to have a productive space industry. And if NASA has political support to build this thing out there, and that can be used as a foothold to establish an infrastructure around it, I'm cool with that.

Because having the Lunar Gateway makes it a little more likely that Masten can get funding to build a lunar lander. And having a Lunar Gateway makes it a little more likely that Masten can get funding to build a lunar lander. And having a lunar gateway makes it a little more likely that Blue Origin can build blue moon landings faster. So I'm supportive of it overall because of all the side effects that will happen from it, not necessarily because of the goals of the central program. So that's where I'm at with the gateway. That's where I'm at with the gateway that's where I'm at with the space council I can't wait for space businesses

to spring up around the lunar gateway because I'm Wilbur Ross and I love space businesses that's my contribution to the national space council breakdown this is what you come here for folks that is it for me this week thank you so much for listening

thanks again for all your support over at patreon.com slash Miko. And don't forget, if you got any thoughts, tweet them to me at wehavemiko. Thank you so much. I will talk to you next week.