Fred is right – the EELV are a Air Force program – because they have no other customers other than the Air Force and the Air Force pays for all of the costs of the program. Also, the EELV companies where allowed to write off their investments on their taxes – so really they paid nothing.

NASA looked at man rating the EELVs many times (Orbital Spaceplane for example) and always came to the same conclusion – too expensive. Now the EELVs are being low balled priced – again – as an option to Ares 1. Fact is both are bad choices.

The COTS vehicles are not low cost vehicles either. Because of the low lift capability they are actually very expensive, expecially the OSC vehicle.

Maybe its time for the Air Force, NASA and others to sit down and come up with a plan – not a political plan – but a financial plan that works. Good luck with that.

A truly stupid requirement. If it added reliability, the launch insurance industry would insist on it for satellite launches.

I won’t try to confirm or dispute the rumors, but it’s important to point out that human-rating changes don’t have to (and probably shouldn’t) be incorporated in every Delta IV or Atlas V that leaves Decatur. ULA can develop and produce a modified, variant EELV for NASA crew launches, while still using the same workforce and facilities to produce unmodified EELVs for USAF, NRO, NASA unmanned, and commercial customers. It would largely be the same assembly sequence, but for crewed variants, the sequence would fork at a couple points for redundant avionics and engine diagnostics. Unmodified EELVs should remain at the same price (or lower — see below), while NASA pays some modest premium for its modified EELV variants for crew launch.

And in terms of costs, there’s no reason for the USAF to pay for those modifications or for an extra EELV pad at the Cape for NASA crewed launch needs. And even if national security users did share in some of those costs (say, because greater engine reliability will benefit high-value NRO payloads), they’d quickly recoup their investment by spreading the costs of the EELV industrial base over a substantially larger customer base. If anything, unmodified EELVs should go down in price somewhat if NASA crew launches are added to the EELV customer base.

As an aside, the cost of unmodified EELVs will go way down if NASA goes the in-space propellant provisioning route and uses EELV to supply propellant on orbit. See how much EELV demand grows on page 4 of this presentation if such moves were made:

http://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/publications/PropellantDepotJPC2009.pdf

“And if MSFC gets the job of approving the Delta and it’s man rating – that will be REALLY EXPENSIVE!… They have to justify their workforce and will find LOTS of problems that should or could be fixed.” [Charles]

The key is to give the bulk of NASA human space flight workforce something else to do. This was one of the major flaws of ESAS — instead of redirecting NASA’s human space flight workforce to exploration activities per the VSE, it got them wrapped around the axle of another mid-range LEO launcher. NASA should do what industry isn’t doing, can’t do, or won’t do, and mid-range launch to LEO is something that industry has been doing well for years. Between heavy lift, in-space propellant provisioning, in-space transit, landers, etc., there’s plenty other things for the NASA human space flight workforce to do.

FWIW…

I agree national security trumps the needs of the civil space program, but that doesn’t mean the issue cannot be discussed openly. I don’t see why national security would be harmed if the DoD were to say “we don’t want those clowns from MSFC messing around with our launchers”. Also, this only applies to the CLV, there is no reason to rule out EELVs as propellant launchers or for launching Altair. This would actually help with establishing reliability, and the same thing could be done with Falcon.

Keeping these considerations secret also undermines the whole FACA process. I imagine this would actually be illegal, unless the president signs some kind of finding and this is somehow communicated to the appropriate oversight bodies in Congress. And legal considerations aside, I cannot believe the White House would tolerate any of this happening without their consent. I wonder how the order was passed down the chain of command and whether General Jones’ review of launch systems had anything to do with it.

And if MSFC gets the job of approving the Delta and it’s man rating – that will be REALLY EXPENSIVE! Mainly since MSFC will have great motivation to prove that they are needed to sign off on every nit. They have to justify their workforce and will find LOTS of problems that should or could be fixed.

The AF will not want to allow NASA to determine if their launcher is safe to fly, from painful experience.

To be fair there was, as usual, much political interference which lead to this mess.

They made their bed, now they and the human space program have to sleep in it.