Robotic and Human Exploraiton - At Odds With Each Other?

Abstract

[Abstract] The Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) called for a robust robotic and human space exploration program. Over the past year, NASA conducted the Lunar Architecture Team (LAT) study and developed a global strategy for exploration with international involvement. Despite the need for robotic precursor missions to evolve an architecture for the return to and a sustained presence on the Moon, the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program at NASA has all but disappeared in favor of a “human-only” exploration program. In September 2005, NASA selected a team led by the Marshall Space Flight Center to study the breath of robotic lander mission classes and ascertain the “sweet spot” for lander development. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory was responsible for the lander element of the mission. The conclusion reached was to develop a medium-class lunar lander (<$500 million) to follow-up the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launch in 2008 with a launch and landing on the Moon in 2011. Unfortunately, this project was cut in March 2007, as a “not essential” victim of NASA budget shortfalls. Thus, the series of robotic missions intended by the Administration’s VSE and LAT architecture has been reduced to a single robotic mission, LRO. Is it true that robotic precursors are “not essential,” technically and/or programmatically? This paper challenges that position and discusses how robotic precursors should be well-integrated with the Constellation program and executed within a combined program plan to provide for a successful human flight program, both technically and programmatically. The VSE was to be an incremental “Pay as You Go” but also a “Know as You Go” program, and we examine this through the framework of the formerly planned initial lunar surface precursor robotic mission.