How I learned to stop worrying and love the big $60B NASA rocket

MICHOUD, La.—Dating back to before the United States gained its independence, a succession of Royal French soldiers, merchants, and eclectic art dealers struggled to squeeze money from plantations covering the steamy swamplands of southern Louisiana. Some grew sugar. Others trapped muskrat.

Mobilization came during World War II, when the US military eyed the open land and easy access to the Gulf of Mexico. With no use for muskrat, the Department of Defense built a massive factory to produce C-46 cargo planes and military tank engines. After the war, as America sought to assert its superiority in space, NASA took control of the Michoud Assembly Facility and its cavernous interior to manufacture the mighty Saturn rockets that would deliver a dozen Americans to the Moon. NASA famously built its space shuttle external tanks here—more than 130 of them.

Today, NASA still builds in Michoud, assembling the core stage of its massive Space Launch System rocket. But unlike the Cold War-era race to the Moon or the space shuttle heyday, Michoud no longer has exclusive domain over US rocketry. Private competitors are building them faster and cheaper in places like Decatur, Alabama; Hawthorne, California; and Kent, Washington.

NASA still boasts that it has the biggest rocket, the SLS, and the biggest facility, Michoud. But is bigger better in 2016? When I visited Michoud in mid-August, this was one of the questions on my mind. Yet, as we drove toward the facility’s 43-acre main building, another question loomed over all others, one that has gnawed at me for the last half-decade: even if the SLS can fly, should it?

#JourneyToMars

Though the Sun had barely crested the horizon, the day was already hot when a bus dropped off a handful of reporters at the eastern end of the main building. We arrived early for an event billed as “Mars Day,” during which NASA sought to tie together the disparate elements of its Journey to Mars. NASA wanted to show the world (and next president) that it has a coherent plan to use the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to put humans on Mars by the end of the 2030s.

Such events, however, are no longer staged just for journalists. To promote “Mars Day” the agency invited about 100 social media “participants” along for the show. In return for their admission, these space aficionados were expected to Tweet, Facebook, Instagram, and otherwise socially share the wonders of NASA’s #JourneyToMars.

The day began with a pep talk. Speaking in front of a large hydrogen fuel tank assembly area, warmup duties fell to Todd May, the director of Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, which manages SLS development and oversees Michoud. “I come down here fairly often, and every time I feel like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, and I’ve got my golden ticket,” he told the crowd. It cheered.

NASA scientist Richard Davis, who is helping the agency to identify a suitable site to land astronauts on Mars, implored the crowd to share its experiences with friends and followers on social media. “We need help getting the word out to enable Mars exploration,” Davis said. “NASA can’t do it by itself, I’m convinced. We need new ideas pouring it, new ways of thinking.”

NASA’s full court press on its exploration plans is understandable with a new president assuming office next year. Regardless of who moves into the White House, new advisers will initiate a review of NASA’s human exploration program. Their review may raise concerns about where the agency is, in fact, headed. While Congress has been eager to fund development of the rocket (preserving hundreds of jobs in places like southern Louisiana) and spacecraft, it has been less concerned about NASA’s ability to actually use these expensive new tools.

If Congress was really serious about going to Mars, it would fund work needed to enable humans to live for long periods of time in deep space. As just one example, scientists have almost no data on whether the Mars gravity well is enough to sustain human health and performance, and little money has been set aside to develop an artificial gravity system to test the effect of 0.38g on human abilities. After six or nine months of microgravity during transit, what happens if an abort-level emergency occurs soon after the crew’s arrival on the surface of Mars? The answers weren’t going to be found at Mars Day.