Congress

Martinez: shorten the gap, but retire the shuttle

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) said Tuesday that he wanted to shorten the gap between the shuttle and Constellation, but not by extending the life of the shuttle. Speaking at a luncheon on the Space Coast on Tuesday, Martinez said he wanted to minimize that gap so the US won’t have to “rely on Vladimir Putin to put a man or woman in space”. However, “at some point I think it becomes very difficult” to keep flying the shuttle. Or, as he put it in a brief video posted by Florida Today, “I would like to see the new vehicle be available earlier rather than I would prefer to extend the life of the shuttle.”

Martinez has previously said that he wants to reduce the gap, although his statements yesterday set him apart from Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), who wants to extend the shuttle past 2010 to address the gap. Martinez said Thursday that state officials should work together with officials from other regions with a strong NASA presence to win support. However, he admitted he was stumped on how to raise awareness about space policy among the presidential candidates: “I don’t know exactly how you get the presidential candidates talking about this.”

12 comments to Martinez: shorten the gap, but retire the shuttle

  • Charles in Houston

    Sigh –

    Another conflict between reality and political thinking.

    Currently, the Orion/Constellation is advertised as having a 65 percent chance of meeting the existing schedule. That means flying in about 2015 – assuming the budget increased and increases according to the “sand chart”. The budget must grow to stay on or near schedule.

    BTW normal programs assume an eighty percent chance of meeting the schedule.

    The budget has actually been reduced (by hurricane recovery, etc) so far.

    So how does the Representative from Florida propose to shorten the gap? You can’t just go out and create lots of experienced people, you can’t just conjure up facilities. This is not a problem that you can just throw money at. And any money they do get will be increased deficit spending.

    Unfortunately, we are preparing for an extended period when America cannot put people in space, and cannot send people to the Space Station that we have spent billions on. By the time we wake up, the politicians that put us in this spot will be comfortably retired. Vladimir Putin and his team will have a nice Space Station – that we are keeping running from our control center with our people.

    His proposal to “shorten the gap” leads to American being the “Portugal” of space. China once had a fleet of exploration ships and they decided to leave them at the dock – it looks like America may accept that plan as well.

    Sigh.

    Charles

  • Charles in Houston

    Is it ok to change your mind on this site? And follow up your own post?

    When I wrote my earlier comment, I decided to NOT address relative costs of flying the Shuttle longer vs accelerating the Orion. Unfortunately, this will certainly be a topic that many people bring up in other, certainly well considered, comments.

    So maybe I’ll add one thought. Certainly flying the Shuttle longer would not be “free”. We have the option of either spending additional money on Orion/Constellation or Shuttle.

    But we can very accurately forecast what money spent on Shuttle will get us. We can be certain that we can fly three or maybe four times per year.

    Money spent on Orion/Constellation will increase, from 65 percent to maybe 80 percent, the chance that we can fly in 2015 or a year later. It assures that we will NOT fly any manned vehicles in 2011, 2012, etc.

    And when the Shuttle is retired, the calculation may change. What will prevent our colleagues the Russians (with a monopoly on sending people into space) from raising the price of a seat? Will additional money be spent on Orion/Constellation – or to the Russians for occaisional seats to the Space Station that we have spent billions on?

    Charles
    sorry about the length of the comment

  • We have the option of either spending additional money on Orion/Constellation or Shuttle.

    Charles, those most certianly are not our only options. The options available to us through Commerical space should not be so quickly cast aside – indeed, I’d rather Nasa take a budget cut, lose the shuttle, and end CEV/Ares I if the remaining money was redirected at things like Dragon, Dreamchaser, Arctus, and many of the other commerical spacecrafts being pursued. We are much likelier to see them fly, more often and at a reduced price, than shuttle or CEV.

    I stand by that statement.

  • Charles in Houston

    Fellow Readers –

    Ferris correctly points out:

    Charles said: “We have the option of either spending additional money on Orion/Constellation or Shuttle.”

    Ferris said: “Charles, those most certianly are not our only options. The options available to us through Commercial space should not be so quickly cast aside – ”

    And I do agree with Ferris – the commercial option (flying some derivative of Delta or Atlas or a newish vehicle) would be much better than either of the two options that I discussed. However I did not want to extend an already long comment; I was attempting to analyze the shallow conclusion of the Senator from Florida.

    Charles

  • Charles – I appreciate the effort to keep the comment short. However, the simple fact is, most of the Congresspeople and Senators from Florida are focus on CEV or Shuttle (or some variation).

    Both ideas are crap, and we need to do everything we can to encourage them to get over the idea that space vehicles must be own by Nasa to be serious. In fact, I’d argue we’d be much better off if Nasa didn’t own the vehicles at all.

    Point being – don’t argue for CEV or shuttle – argue for something better.

  • Vladislaw

    If NASA canceled the space shuttle in 2010 and canceled the ares1 and orion today, how much could be put towards Ares V right away? Personally I think whoever comes in after the next election will cancel Ares V. I believe it is more important to get going on a HLLV and let the commerical sector handle LEO.
    If NASA said “we will pay 12 million a seat and will buy 100 seats a year on the open market like an airline ticket” Could/Would the commerical sector handle it by 2012?

  • Maybe I’m alone on this one, but it seems only logical to me that NASA should focus on developing Orion/Ares for the Moon-Mars-Beyond and leave Earth orbit stuff to private industry.

    Why does it always seem to degenerate into an either-or question? We need both.

  • The problem with getting legislation off the ground like this sometimes is that even when it becomes a proposed bill, supporters have a hard time tracking it through the house and senate and knowing when to squeeze their legislators. Thats one of the reasons that I created actionforspace.com

    With a website dedicated to enabling would be space activists to move on their representatives, rather than paying membership dues to some organization and hoping that they do it for them, We can get more pressure on the representatives to know and do what we want them to do.

    http://www.actionforspace.com

  • reader

    NASA should focus on developing Orion/Ares for the Moon-Mars-Beyond and leave Earth orbit stuff to private industry.
    No, NASA should focus on developing lunar hardware and leave the launching to existing solutions. CEV ? Fine, there is no commercial option on the offer right now, so build it, but make it fit on and launch it using existing launchers on market.
    And for chrissake, start working on the actual lunar hardware.

  • Al Fansome

    J.B. NASA should focus on developing Orion/Ares for the Moon-Mars-Beyond and leave Earth orbit stuff to private industry.

    READER: No, NASA should focus on developing lunar hardware and leave the launching to existing solutions. CEV ? Fine, there is no commercial option on the offer right now, so build it, but make it fit on and launch it using existing launchers on market.

    And for chrissake, start working on the actual lunar hardware.

    I think this is where the real space policy debate should be focused. It would be wonderful if this was the core debate.

    NASA should be focused Beyond Earth orbit, and should hand off LEO immediately (e.g. COTS and ISS crew/cargo services), on hand-off other space transportation needs as much as absolutely possible.

    I think the Aldridge Commission was saying this.

    – Al

  • And then there’s the political part of the equation: jobs. How does the various alternatives commercial or not satisfy this part?

    I don’t know how many of you have actually read the Direct v2.0 AIAA pdf* but it seems to me it’s the alternative that retains most jobs. It also retains contracts for the same companies that have gotten contracts for the ESAS/Constellation approach. I.e. Direct v2.0 introduces a minimum of political and contractual noise while supplying an approach that is much more practical and feasible than the present ESAS/Constellation implementation.

    The EELV and/or COTS alternatives do not retain most of the workforce however the Direct v2.0 seems likely to be so much cheaper that it frees up more than necessary resources to utilize either or both of those for LEO missions/ISS and then in addition have enough left over to take the pressure off the rest of NASA and the rest of the VSE.

    Does anyone know whether the Representatives have been thoroughly briefed on this solution? Someone should also brief them on the current laudable efforts of John Benac & co at http://www.actionforspace.com (linked in John’s comment further up).

    * Click my name to go to the Direct website and it’s available in both high and low resolution right there on the front page.

  • […] gap. Giuliani believes it’s a ‘money issue’; Martinez wants to extend the working life of the space shuttle. But, 2013, at the minimum, is a long time to fly […]

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