“It sounds like a much better plan to reduce the gap than what we have now…

— allow multiple paths for international participation (without the disadvantages of the ISS form of cooperation) in the near term… contributing U.S. cargo/crew launches to international missions”

There’s a similar concept in an Air & Space article here (add http://www):

.airspacemag.com/issues/2008/december-january/bigelow.php

where Bigelow indicates that he’s going to invest in a single capsule that could fly on multiple launch vehicles to service his inflatable stations. Here’s the relevant quote:

“So, rather than wait around for the launch industry to deliver, Bigelow is reluctantly entering the arena as a player. “I didn’t want to fight a two-front war,” he says. But, by the time this article is published, he expects to have announced his investment in a new space capsule. “We’re making a capital investment in the creation of a capsule for crew and cargo, one that will have a common interface that can be placed on a [Russian] Proton rocket, a human-rated Atlas, or possibly Musk’s Falcon 9,” he says. It will be a seven-person capsule, big enough to carry people to the large BA 330 stations. “We won’t be designing the capsule, but we’ll be very active investors,” he says.”

FWIW…

Fortunately, those fears aren’t that critical, as the American Soyuz is well on its way, and should be flying well before 2012. What most of US working in the field of launch vehicle architecture are worried about is the rather large gap in the launch vehicle spectrum, between the ISS and Ares, and our vision of a credible and sustainable space development and colonization strategy embodied by the commercial space flight paradigm – COTS.

As laid out in my COTS proposal, we expect that any credible architecture conceived to fill that rapidly expanding gap between our ultra high end assets and the mid-range systems currently existent or under commercial development, will literally drag the low end of suborbital and nascent COTS competitors up into the mid-range, which is the purpose of the exercise.

There are bad parallels here to the Nazi era. I just finished reading a history of that period. It’s scary. U.S.-Russians could really take a major turn for the worse in the years ahead. It worries that we’ll could be dependent upon them for space access.

Thanks, Ray. Keep up the good work at spaceprizes.blogspot.com.

“Not only should it be able to reduce the gap better than that plan”

I should mention that because Shuttle is terminated in 2008, the gap cannot be closed completely in that scenario. But what gap is left would be accelerated forward in time, rather than being pushed out and extended in time. Moreover, going back to the Florida Today editorial and Mr. Foust’s original post, there’s a high likelihood that, between the conservative EELV bets and the multiple COTS bets, that at least one U.S. system would be flying by 2012, when NASA will no longer be able to purchase Ruskie Soyuz/Progress flights (unless new legislation is passed).

That is not a terribly original thought, as Mr. Muncy, you, and others have made similar arguments on this forum in the past. But this scenario puts some basic budget numbers and Shuttle/Ares offsets on the table to illustrate the tradeoffs.

“- go even farther than it sounds with the $2.5B for EELV man-rating and the $2.5 additional for COTS, because COTS proposals could take advantage of man-rated EELVs,”

Good point about the COTS/EELV synergy. I was mainly making bets on both so that there was a conservative investment (EELV with Orion or other CEV) to back up the aggressive investment (COTS). But they could benefit each other, too.

“and the commercial investment side could also look forward to awards/business from Bigelow (starting with the 700M+ proposed incentives from Bigelow/Space Florida).”

Also a good point about the potential synergy with Bigelow. It’s probably asking too much of NASA’s human space flight safety culture, but ideally NASA would completely rewrite its human rating requirements with Bigelow, FAA, USAF, etc. inputs, in addition to industry inputs. As the latest entry at rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com notes, the new list of Orion requirements — all 22,000 of them — is astoundingly complex for a vehicle that needs to operate simply and safely. (And the decisions on the big safety swingers still have to be made.) NASA desperately needs to start over on its approach astronaut safety.

“- allow multiple paths for international participation (without the disadvantages of the ISS form of cooperation) in the near term (eg: the RLEP missions, potentially the “new big manned program” depending on the details of that, contributing U.S. cargo/crew launches to international missions, etc)”

The key to early international participation is to open up all possible systems — at the industry-to-industry level — to foreign components and contributions. Unfortunately, this is something that Griffin ruled out until U.S. astronauts are landing on the Moon.

Thanks again.

Any confusion is your own. You would have to be a pretty incompetent administrator not to be able to make LEO, space solar power and the Earth and Space sciences work out extremely well, with 17 billion dollars a year, after cutting VSE and ESAS out of the picture completely, and just restoring what once was, given the assets we have at our disposal. You completely underestimate the magnitude of the problems fabricated out of complete nothingness, which this administration has inflicted upon our scientific institutions, by an order of magnitude at least. VSE and ESAS are dead.

I am not kidding you. You are not helping matters here at all.

It’s that serious. You just can’t see it, can you.

It sounds like a much better plan to reduce the gap than what we have now (or the extra $2B and probably more Administrator Griffin is asking for to reduce the gap). Not only should it be able to reduce the gap better than that plan, but it would:

– give a better chance for COTS to produce ISS crew and cargo transportation capabilities (the current plan risks this by underfunding COTS, potentially leaving Ares I/Orion, even if finished on time, too busy resupplying ISS to do anything else). This is a huge advantage for NASA and ISS, but also for commercial space in general (eg: Bigelow, anyone needing a launcher).

– go even farther than it sounds with the $2.5B for EELV man-rating and the $2.5 additional for COTS, because COTS proposals could take advantage of man-rated EELVs, and the commercial investment side could also look forward to awards/business from Bigelow (starting with the 700M+ proposed incentives from Bigelow/Space Florida).

– allow more near-term robotic science/engineering missions (eg: the RLEP) to bring the science side of NASA back in the program, to return science/engineering results earlier, and to bring near-term business to launchers and satellite vendors

– allow NASA to really start the Moon program (or some other big project) ASAP

– orient the NASA workforce that’s at risk from Constellation cancellation (by the next President for other priorities, by endless delays causing political frustrations, by technical showstoppers, or by another accident) to a much more resiliant set of programs with no single point of failure (multiple launchers, multiple space vehicles, and multiple government and commercial sources of new business)

– allow multiple paths for international participation (without the disadvantages of the ISS form of cooperation) in the near term (eg: the RLEP missions, potentially the “new big manned program” depending on the details of that, contributing U.S. cargo/crew launches to international missions, etc)

>>> plan snipped

Here’s your original post:

“That’s funny, Nero fiddles with NASA’s budget, while Rome burns.

Your ignorance of the big picture is, well, let’s just say I’m astonished, again.

Astonishment is an everyday occurrence in America now, and I mean that in the most unkind way.”

How can anyone — well-informed American or not — get national debt out of the obtuse cliches and and personal insults in this post?

“The national debt and impending US bankruptcy is indeed a frightening problem.”

While I might quibble about projections of “bankruptcy” (e.g., the deficit is actually going down again), I agree that the national debt poses real threats to U.S. going forward.

But if you want to discuss that topic, a blog about space policy is not the right forum.

And regardless of where you discuss it, starting off by throwing personal insults at other posters, trolling with posts that don’t identify your intended topic, and making incoherent posts that confuse election dates and that conflate the identity of posters with some unidentified national figure is not the way to do it.

“I can understand completely why you are unable to rationally address this problem. You certainly haven’t disappointed me there.

I won’t try to correct your misunderstandings out of respect for the forum.”

Ugh… either grow up or go away.

Free free to reply but I’m tuning out of this conversation.

If that’s the point you wanted to make, why didn’t you make it in your first post?

I guess I just assumed it was self evident to the well informed American.

To do what? Find your meds?

A couple hints for delusional and uninformed…

You take your meds?

crazed ramblings

Who hid this nutcase’s meds again?

The national debt and impending US bankruptcy is indeed a frightening problem. I can understand completely why you are unable to rationally address this problem. You certainly haven’t disappointed me there.

I won’t try to correct your misunderstandings out of respect for the forum.

If that’s the point you wanted to make, why didn’t you make it in your first post?

Or are you just trolling?

“Unless you think you can print money forever”

I hate to disappoint you, but I can’t print money at all without going to jail.

“or that the rest of the world will continue to prop up a totally failed regime forever”

If you’re referring to Bush II, obviously the world is not going to prop up the current Administraiton “forever”. G.W. Bush’s term comes to an end in January 2009. Duh…

“I give you two years at most.”

To do what? Find your meds?

“This next election will seal your fate.”

Who the heck do you think I am? Cheney?

“It will be all over by 2012″

A couple hints for delusional and uninformed…

1) The “next election” will be held a year from now, not two or four years from now.

2) Bush II cann’t be on the ticket, anyway.

“unless …”

You take your meds?

“That won’t involve fiddling with NASA’s paltry numbers”

Which, unlike crazed ramblings about the U.S. debt and mis-dated references to the upcoming election, is actually a relevant topic for this forum.

[rolls eyes]

Who hid this nutcase’s meds again?

Ugh…