Congress, NASA

Hearing reminders

In the unlikely event you’ve forgotten, the House Science and Technology Committee is holding a hearing about the Augustine committee’s report today at 2 pm. The hearing will be webcast by the committee and will also be broadcast by NASA TV.

To get a hint as to the tone of the hearing, take a look at the hearing charter document. It would appear the House committee is ready to defend the current Constellation architecture, or at least sharply question why Augustine’s group reached the conclusions it published in last week’s summary report. A couple of examples:

Since the Constellation program is the program for which funds have been
authorized and appropriated over the last four years and for which design, development, and test activities have been underway over that same period, did the review committee attempt to develop an option that would maintain the Constellation program development path but that would fit into the enhanced funding envelope proposed by the committee by rephasing of milestones, initial exploration destinations, etc.? If so, why was it not included in the final set of options contained in the summary report?

The same historical cost risk factor [1.51] appears to have been applied by the review committee to all of the options regardless of their level of technical and programmatic maturity. Does it make sense to apply the same risk factor to a program that has completed design reviews and hardware testing activities that is applied to options for which no comparable milestones have yet been achieved and for which the fidelity of the original cost estimate is correspondingly low?

How high should the threshold be for a decision to scrap the existing Constellation program that has been under development for four-plus years? What circumstances would justify abandoning the program at this point in its development?

In addition, the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee will have its own hearing about the Augustine report Wednesday at 2:30 pm, again webcast and on NASA TV. Unlike the House hearing, currently the only witness listed for the Senate hearing is Norm Augustine.

68 comments to Hearing reminders

  • sc220

    How high should the threshold be for a decision to scrap the existing Constellation program that has been under development for four-plus years? What circumstances would justify abandoning the program at this point in its development?

    One threshold/trigger should be when a program changes horses in midstream. This happened with Ares I. The original project was for a 4-segment Shuttle SRB first stage and an SSME derivative-powered upper stage with in-line tanks. Going to a 5-segment first stage and more complex upper stage (new engine and conformal tanks) should have sent up the red flags.

  • I don’t know where to draw the bright line, but I think that when costs more than double, and schedule slips several years, it’s well across it.

  • OpsGuy

    When the Program’s own recurring production and operations cost estimates exceed the entire budget for human space flight

  • Norm Hartnett

    Well reading the entire charter shows that the committee is asking a lot of tough questions. Questions that would be better asked after reading the full Augustine Report since many of the answers to those questions will, no doubt, be in the report. Certainly what I saw to be the most interesting was the section on the past budget and it’s relation to the current budget. By these historic numbers, which do not include the Apollo era, NASA should be funded at about $25.8 billion to $27.5 billion for FY2010. I don’t think Congress and the Administration are going to do it but they should.

  • Major Tom

    The committee wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t ask hard questions, and the charter contains questions that are as critical of the Constellation Program as they are of Augustine’s summary report. For example:

    “What was the review committee’s assessment of the technical maturity, program management, and cost control of the Constellation program? Did if find it to be a well executed program within the resources available or a flawed program?”

    FWIW…

  • donnie

    > What circumstances would justify abandoning the program at this point in its development?

    When a better direction is found. The new direction means smaller government and more new businesses.

  • Robert Oler

    “How high should the threshold be for a decision to scrap the existing Constellation program that has been under development for four-plus years?”

    This of course is the billion dollar question no matter if it is Whittington’s “cut and run” (after 8 years) from Afland” or it is shutting down the super collider…ie when are we throwing good money after bad.

    The problem in The Republic right now is that throwing good money after bad is now standard fare, because the issue is now pork no longer what the program actually accomplishes.

    By all performance criteria Rand Simberg has once again (in my view) nailed it…”when costs more than double, and schedule slips several years” then someone in their right mind (or the Adults as Whittington is often saying) need to sit down and say at least “why is this happening” and then next “is it likely to continue happening”.

    My reasoning (other then I disagree with the entire program) for saying it should stop is that I dont think that NASA has a clue as to the answer to the first question and hence the answer to the second question is “yes”.

    NASA’s history with launch vehicle development AFTER Apollo has been that the cost get out of hand quickly and never quite get in hand…and eventually the project under performs or just flounders (NLS, Advanced Solid Rocket Motor…Venturestar etc).

    There is no hint that things are not just going to continue getting worse.

    NASA has become a poster child for our times…spending lots of money and not much to show for it. The shuttle era needs to simply end.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Whatever one thinks of the current Constellation architecture, all three of the questions Jeff quoted are excellent, and the Committee should be able to answer them. It seems to me that someone in the Congressional staff is doing their job.

    As to the budget decision, this country cannot do everything. In the last Administration, we chose to combine tax cuts with a failure to address the growth of entitlements, and an invasion of Iraq. In the current Administration, it looks like getting everyone medical insurance, continuing the war in Afghanistan, and no large tax increases are the name of the game. If we are going to make choices like these, something has to give, and, for better or worse, it looks like human spaceflight is going to be among the “payers.”

    — Donald

  • Robert Oler

    Ferris Valyn has in the last thread I think made a cruicial point. If we do not get rid of the shuttle system AND the mentality at NASA that goes with it…then nothing really will change.

    For better or worse in A LOT of things, perhaps our entire national life; we are at a point in The Republics history where what once worked no longer does.

    NASA and human spaceflight are one part of that equation…It is a program/agency rooted in the cold war mentality and we no longer have a cold war for it to function in.

    Sometimes I think that The Republic has in the last 10 years or so gotten into a sort of its own version of the Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon” We are doing things just to do them and they have no real relevance to the conditions of our time they are just solutions out of the past that once worked and now we are surprised that they no longer work and thinking anew is impossible because the people on Vindacar (ops sorry slipped into the show) cannot think anew.

    I agree the questions Jeff quoted are excellent…they have obvious answers.

    Call the people on Vindacar (sorry did it again) and think…dont just act, think.

    Robert G. Oler

  • I wasted an hour watching the hearing & the unified approach from both sides of the aisle was to oppose to the death anything that would change the last 40 years of crapped NASA doings. Bashing of the Augustine Committee for the purposes of posturing was liberal from all sides, even as Augustine pointed out that their mandate did not include what the Members are complaining that they did not give.

    Really, what’s needed is that everyone should watch and tell congress and the Administration about this video on what are the REAL paper rockets:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hVDui-AxI

  • I’ve been watching the hearings off and on for the past few hours and I am completely and utterly depressed. We just lost our national space program. Maybe President Obama can amaze me and pull this one out if the crapper but I can’t really see how.

    If you want to see America lead an expansion into space then the private sector is your only hope…

  • Rocket Stuff

    Giffords is quite the bimbo, no?

    Bought and paid for by ATK as well it appears.

  • If you missed the hearings, I did a pretty extensive liveblog, which is available over at Wired Science: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/live-blog-congress-on-the-future-of-nasa/

    One thing I’ll say is that I thought the number of viewpoints represented at the meeting was very limited (and limiting).

  • Robert Oler

    Alexis Madrigal We busied ourselves with putting a new roof on the barn…thanks for the live blog, a nice service.

    The Chinese are coming…approach. Weak

    Ares is cooked.

    Robert G. Oler

  • GoSpace

    @Robert,

    Yeah, this is just more Chinese propaganda.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090914/ap_on_sc/as_china_space
    China breaks ground on space launch center

    “Officials say plans call for an unmanned moon landing around 2012, a mission to return samples in 2015, and possibly a manned lunar mission by 2017 — three years ahead of an initial U.S. target date for returning to the moon.”

    Imagine sending humans to the Moon within a decade. Impossible…

  • red

    It looks like the Science House and Technology Committee is in complete denial. For example, from the Wired report:

    “Good public policy would tell us that there needs to be a compelling reason to scrap what we’ve invested our time and money in over the years,” said the chairman of the House committee, Bart Gordon, in opening the hearing.

    Take a look at the HSF Committee summary report, page 9, Table 4-1 (summary of integrated program options). Notice that the 2 options with Ares I both involve dumping the ISS in 2015. In other words, even with the highly unlikely extra $3B/year, Option 3 still can’t afford the ISS if Ares I and Ares V are built. That’s because Ares is so expensive. So … either way you’re scrapping something you’ve invested time and money in over the years.

    If we don’t get rid of Ares, NASA HSF is doomed.

  • The Augustine Committee pretty much refused to make a fair economic and timeline comparison amongst the various options: Constellation, Sidemount-HLV, DIRECT, and EELV. They actually fused totally different rocket concepts (Sidemount-HLV and DIRECT) together. And if they’re going to eliminate the shuttle in one scenario then they should have done that for all of the rocket concepts so that we could have had a fair comparison of the cost and timelines for each. And then the committe invented their own half-baked rocket ideas: Ares-lite and the fantasy about just turning over human access to orbit to commercial enterprises that currently do not exist!

    And the Augustine commission’s notion that these various rocket concepts pretty much cost the same is utter nonsense! Give us the hard numbers and the timelines– for each individual concept– Mr. Augustine! They did a very poor job, IMO.

    I now trust the two NASA conceived and evaluated options (Ares 1 and Ares V and the Sidemount-HLV) a lot more than the Augustine evaluated options mainly because the Augustine commission did such a poor job properly and fairly comparing all of the options.

  • Anonymous

    One thing I’ve had just about enough of is all this nonsense about commercial launch alternatives not existing.

    Far as I seem to recall, the Delta IV Heavy is an actual flying vehicle, no?

    Oh yeah, and weren’t there a couple others? Umm… Atlas, Ariane, something like that.

    I’m pretty certain it wasn’t Ares, because I know that’s never flown.

  • Doug Lassiter

    One can argue with the Augustine effort, or one can argue with the House Science response to that effort, but the big problem here is that they’re not on the same rail. In defense of Norm and his team, they did exactly what the administration asked them to do. The authorizers are desperately, and understandably, trying to avoid looking like they’ve been misled. They don’t want to look like they’re just blowing with the wind and flip-flopping. What I’m seeing here is an unfortunate rift shaping up between the authorizers and the WH, which is something we haven’t seen for a while. Over the last half-decade, the authorizers have lined up diligently behind the WH and Griffin’s implementation plan.

    If the WH takes the Augustine options seriously, and can’t get on the same rail as Congress, that’s just going to add delay in getting anywhere, and sets up the prospect of the worst of all possible worlds, which is just plodding along in the same unsustainable way. That’s because until there is some consensus about what to do (e.g. new direction, or increase in funding on the baseline), nothing will change. The Constellation mafia on appropriations would probably be quite happy with that.

  • Robert Oler

    GoSpace

    ““Officials say plans call for an unmanned moon landing around 2012, a mission to return samples in 2015, and possibly a manned lunar mission by 2017 — three years ahead of an initial U.S. target date for returning to the moon.””

    LOL

    “possibly”…sure and by 2017 pigs might fly.

    The Chinese are doing nothing in human spaceflight to get to the Moon. They are at best sitting at Gemini IV levels (or maybe slightly higher), if you look at their last flight they dont even have a good hand on prox ops…

    If their program DOUBLES its present pace by 2017 they might have gotten to 14 day or so spaceflights…

    That of course begs the question as to “so what” if they went to the Moon…what would they do there that is some threat to the US?

    The “Chinese are going” crowd are the least imaginative people that I know. They are the last of the cold warriors trying desperatly to relive those halcyon days of the 60’s.

    As for a sample return…how many you think we could have had for what Ares has spent so far?

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Oler

    Doug Lassiter if I were having to bet, it would be that the WH will get its way (whatever that is) on this. Other then the “space groupies” (ie the ones with NASA in their districts) there is really no ground swell of support in the Congress for anything that smells of the last administration OR that requires more money and isnt a health care issue. There isnt much support for spending more money in the country period.

    This WH has a unique way (all of them do) of ploughing the ground for course changes…and so far (look at Afland/healthcare etc) it has been to let some group do the initial work, then come in on its own plan with something that kind of resembles that effort…that way it is already the program de jure.

    In all WH panels like Norm’s operate with some “hidden hand guidance” ie “this is the outlines of what we want” and the commission worked hard to come up with the “Jim Oberg” option …and I’ll bet money that is somewhere near where the Administration is going to come down.

    Soon there will be some speeches about “a new direction” one designed to “restore NASA to its glory” blah blah and then everyone else will fall in line.

    Oh there will be some quackers from the GOP people who use to be deficit hawks but now are spend spend spend…but in the end whatever the Administration makes look nice, is what will happen.

    Robert G. Oler

  • omi

    sigh this is depressing are we doomed to spending the next century on a single planet still :(. Will I see a mars mission in my lifetime? (I’m 30):((. Going robotics only is a step backwords in human progression in my depressed opinion whish people who are anti human space flight would see that.

  • William

    Charles L – “Bashing of the Augustine Committee for the purposes of posturing was liberal from all sides, even as Augustine pointed out that their mandate did not include what the Members are complaining that they did not give.”

    I think this is a telling point. Why did their mandate note include these things the Committee was complaining about, ie. an options where the program of record could be compared with the benefit of the same budget increase the other options are afforded? Sounds like a stacked deck, no? Do you think the committees comments were REALLY aimed at the Committee or through the committee at another implicit target?

  • Doug Lassiter

    “If I were having to bet, it would be that the WH will get its way (whatever that is) on this.”

    I too think that is likely, but it means that the WH will have to exercise a lot of political leadership in order to get the committee to diligently line up behind them. It isn’t as if the committee is throwing open the door to a new direction. Now, this particular committee is stacked with people who have major goals in science and technology that the WH is pushing strongly. They can’t afford to alienate him. So the long term runout looks promising. But political leadership can take time. He’s putting together an FY11 budget right now. Is he confident that he can make major changes to the program in that budget without getting damaging grief from the authorizers? Perhaps not as confident as he had hoped. Looks to me that dumping Constellation will get Bolden on the hot seat when he shows up at Gifford’s Space Subcommittee hearing next spring. That’s not a recipe for NASA moving forward.

    If the report was influenced by a “hidden hand guidance” from the WH, then the WH sure didn’t do enough legwork with the committee. That kind of political incompetence is unlike this WH. So I suspect that aside from who was selected to be on the committee, such guidance didn’t actually happen.

    Political wisdom suggests that the authorizing committee could have supportively expressed surprise and regret about the Augustine findings. But they also said things that are going to come back and haunt them when changes are in the wind. “I’m pretty angry” Giffords said about the report. That’s just picking a fight.

  • Rocket Stuff

    Giffords is a scientifically illiterate bimbo – a democratic Sarah Palin.

  • Robert Oler

    Doug Lassiter hmm…

    Replying to your well thought out post.

    Freally dont think that it will be that hard for the WH nor that it will require a lot of political leadership. I suspect it will take a “speech” but thats about it. Where the commission drove a stake through the current program is to make sure that everyone understood that it was unaffordable and that it would require ISS to be deorbited.

    That was the “line in the sand” that the committee is going to have a hard time rallying support behind. If the commission had said “we could stretch it out and accomplish the same task” that is federal governmentese for “lets keep going”.

    The folks on the committee have to make a stand for the home team…even when they know it is a losing one…the committee couldnt just roll over, they had to be percieved as “making a stand”.

    and then they will need the cover of “what comes next”.

    The more this goes on, and the more I look back at how General Bolden was enticed up to Canoe U (the USNA) to help cure the problems there sometime ago…I am growing more and more convinced that ending “the vision” was a necessary step for getting Bolden to come on board.

    As for this White House…their style is different then the last one, so far the jury is out on how effective it is going to be. I am trying very hard to stay on space policy (grin).;

    Robert G. Oler

  • William —

    the Augustine Committee *did* compare the program of record with $3 billion extra against the other options. That is the Option 3 that Norm kept referencing yesterday.

    The problem is: that option doesn’t extend ISS, or fund ISS research, or fund any exploration technology, which dooms us to an expensive paradigm for exploration forever.

    As for what the Committee was asked to do, they were asked to look at human exploration broadly and come back with options, including the current program, for what could be done. They did that. It was not their job to be a red team for Constellation. White Houses don’t appoint programmatic review groups… agency heads or associate administrators do.

    It’s too bad Chairwoman Giffords either didn’t bother to read — or simply was in denial about — the assignment given the Committee. But that’s a fight between her and the President. She shouldn’t attack Augustine.

  • The House Committee missed a key point Norm was trying to make. Not all options achieve the same policy objectives at the same funding level. Option 3 , basically the Program of Record (PoR), requires us to de-orbit the ISS in 2016, generates a gap in America’s access to space of over seven years and decimates our launch operations workforce. If that is not bad enough we need to give over a billion dollars to the same organization helping to improve the range of Iran ballistic missiles in order to access the ISS all while laying off Americans. I don’t know about you but all the above doesn’t sound all that good even if we can come up with an extra $3billion/year.

    The next option, 4A (Ares-Lite), scales back the Ares so that it’s ‘only’ 30% larger than the Saturn V plus eliminates Ares-1. In exchange we get to extend the operational life of the ISS to 2020 and provide a market for Commercial access to LEO for crew and cargo. Again if you had to pick between the Ares-1 vs ISS extension + Commercial Access what makes the most sense?

    The next option, 4B (STS extension with a SDHLV), we not only get all the benefits of 4A above but will also have no gap in American based access to space, improve the utilization of the ISS, retain a significant portion of the launch operations workforce and get a Saturn class heavy-lift high volume launch system out of the bargain. What we ‘lose’ in exchange for these additional existing approved policy aligned benefits is Ares-Lite. Again sounds like a good trade all things considered.

    Maybe the Senate will do a better job today at discussing the black and white logic in the Augustine options above today and which option best aligns with the approved policy.

    A policy I might add that was approved by the same House Committee railing against any other option save the PoR which now officially violates nearly every requirement of that policy. So in addition to coming up with an extra +3Billion dollars per year this House Committee needs to change the approved policy to better reflect what they are in fact advocating.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Giffords is a scientifically illiterate bimbo”

    I’ve seen no real evidence of that in her time on the committee, though one has to absorb the fact that with regard to human space flight she is somewhat conflicted. I do not know her record in detail, and she is certainly somewhat green, but she is by no means incompetent. What have I missed?

    She’s certainly not any more scientifically illiterate than others on the committee, though I guess one would have to say that gender-wise she’s more of a bimbo than most of the others on the committee (not saying much).

  • Derrick

    Anyone understand just what the heck Rohrabacher was trying to get at? He wasn’t even really posing a question to Augustine…seemed kinda bizarre (but considering a Glenn Beck video is on the front page of his website he’s probably a bizarre guy all around). While I think we need to continue with Constellation, I thought Giffords and Rohrabacher’s criticism of the Augustine committee sounded like it was coming from two people who hadn’t done their homework. If they wanted a committee to look into improving constellation they should have put one together. Was Rohrabacher being serious when he said Augustine should have come to him with plans on where the money should come from? I agree with what he said about 150 billion going to AIG and not being able to fund the space program, but dude, WTF. That’s not what the committee was asked to do!

    Rocket Stuff–LOL.

  • I’m interested in something that the House committee came back to over and over, namely, that there was no mismanagement of the Constellation program. I feel like I’ve heard rumors about just that sort of problem right here in this blog’s comment section. Did mismanagement occur or not? If you’re a space insider and you want to talk about this, please feel free to email me alexis.madrigal[at]gmail.com.

  • The Augustine commission did a terrible job of cost comparisons and timelines. They lumped NASA’s Sidemount-HLV in with DIRECT. They’re totally different concepts with different cost and different timelines of development. Then they financially burdened both concepts with a 5 year shuttle extension which they didn’t place on the Ares 1 and Ares V scenario. And then they ignored the capability of the Sidemount and DIRECT to place humans into LEO and allied them with a commercial manned option which does not currently exist. Why?

    If the Augustine commission really didn’t want to review the Sidemount and DIRECT concepts, they just just should have said so!

  • Marcel, it comes down to fighting one war at a time. If a SDHLV is ultimately chosen based on the big picture policy decision, then obviously NASA will need to conduct a study on which SDHLV approach makes the most sense. My guess is that the Inline camp at MSFC will prevail over the side-mount camp out of JSC. Though there are number of closet inline supporters at JSC as well.

    I think the originally strategy for those who were in charge at NASA HQ was to muddy the waters with regards to the whole SDHLV concept. Though interestingly enough the whole side-mount proposal ended up supporting a number of our points not the least of which is that a SDHLV is significantly less expensive than the PoR.

    Which is why only option 4B enables all the policy advantages it does for the same price as the PoR.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Marcel & Stephen,

    You guys think you have it bad? Augustine still assumes you need a heavy lift. We’ve never needed a heavy lift, and we certainly don’t need one now.

  • I hope you guys are watching the Senate testimony on NASA for the Augustine at:

    http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

  • Robert G. Oler

    Marcel F. Williams how do you do Direct without the shuttle workforce and management?

    taking a break from putting a new roof on the barn

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris, find out what the average density of the Spacecraft we have ever launched into space is. Next determine how much Spacecraft mass you think we need to perform a Beyond Earth Orbit human missions to Moon, NEO and Mars. Divided that mass by the average density number, and then get back to me on how you plan to stuff that much volume into 5 meter cans.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Stephen – I don’t have to. ULA did that already did that.

  • Robert- I’m not saying that I’m against continuing flying the space shuttles– if they are properly refurbished for continued safe flight. But you don’t need to continue to launch space shuttles in order to develop the Sidemount-HLV or Direct.

  • The Senate hearing was very different from the House affair — and in fascinating ways. Rockefeller called into question the value of human spaceflight, an elephant in the room. The science and space subcommittee was much kinder to Augustine. Nelson said he thought Obama would come up with a Kennedy-like bold announcement.

    All interesting stuff.

  • Doug Lassiter

    That comment from Rockefeller (I didn’t hear it, did you blog the hearing?) is indeed the elephant in the room. As long as one admits that human space flight isn’t about science, you have to come up with another reason. The policy-digestible reason has to be a national need that it serves. The US taxpayer largely isn’t head over heels in love with human space flight because it doesn’t appear to serve any real national need.

    For Apollo, the national need was clear. We had to show our stuff, and beat the Russians. But these days it’s all about technology development, the “spirit of exploration” and “inspiration”. With all due respect, those needs are served well in many other ways. Bringing the solar system into our economic sphere is not a recognized national need, and colonizing other planets really isn’t either. That the Augustine panel did not consider this is defensible. They weren’t asked to do that. But I’ll bet they were wondering …

  • Ferris, I’ll make this even easier for you since I’m pretty sure you aren’t an Engineer. Pull out the Atlas, Delta, and SpaceX payload guides and then divide that number by the payload volume.

    I have already done it, I just want to make sure you know how to do it before we proceed to the next step.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Doug,.,,,

    “The US taxpayer largely isn’t head over heels in love with human space flight because it doesn’t appear to serve any real national need.”

    this was the failure of the “vision”….there was no reason given for it…other then Columbia just went bang and Bush had to have something different…and they reached back into their bag of cold war ideas and bingo…lets go to the Moon.

    The odd thing is that had Griffin thought about it a tad more and come up with a program that was semi affordable it might have worked. but alas…

    as it now NASA is just the latest federal government agency that is (to quote Buzz Aldrin) “reentering”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris Valyn

    Stephen,
    I suspect I know where you are going (and if I am wrong, you are free to correct me) – and that is to the issue of volume – yes, I am quite aware that we can’t place Altair on top of existing EELVs. I remember your presentation from Augustine.

    The simple fact is, we aren’t going to go on Altair (at least, not as NASA has envisioned it) – we haven’t funded that, and are quite a ways from funding it, and the hardware is quite a ways from even approaching PDR. The only hardware we are currently limited with (which frankly, I think is time to be reconsidered, and rescoped) is Orion.

    And, as I said, ULA has already offered up a competent way to distribute the volume, and the mass, just fine

  • If NASA cancels the Ares 1 and Congress increases the NASA budget by $3 billion annually then that should give NASA an additional $4 billion dollars in annual funding. The Orion is going to require only an additional $400 million in development funding on average for then next 5 or 6 years.

    The Sidemount-HLV plus EDS stage is probably going to cost less than $1.6 billion annually over the next 5 or 6 years.

    Program integration and operations is probably going to add an addition $1 billion annually to the cost of development.

    So that only leaves about $1 billion a year for Altair development starting in 2010. I assume the Altair will cost less than $12 billion to develop.

    But Altair development will probably depend on the Space Shuttle. Once the space shuttle is retired, $3 billion dollars in annual funds will be available. So if the Shuttle is retired in 2010, full Altair funding can begin by 2011. If the Shuttle is retired in 2014, then full Altair funding can begin in 2015 after 4 years of significant funding ($4 billion in expenditures). So it seems likely that the Altair will be ready for missions to the Moon before 2020 if the Sidemount-HLV is chosen.

    If the Shuttle is retired in 2010 or 2011, or if the annual NASA budget is raised by $4 billion instead of $3billion annually, then full funding could have the Altair ready for missions to the Moon by 2016 or 2017.

    More funds could be available, if Obama decided to have the military space program (which is larger than NASA’s) share in the development cost of the Orion and the Sidemount so that the military could launch manned and unmanned heavy lift vehicles out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and out of Florida.

  • mike shupp

    Marcel —

    You’re neglecting about 4 billion of COTS funding — 1/2 billion in the next year or so, as mandated, and another 3.5 billion recommended by Augustine, which will probably be spent between 2010-2015. This is going to wipe out much of the money you want for Altair for four or five years, at least. OTOH, it seems a safe bet shuttle will be gone by 2011 (fiscal 2012). On the gripping hand, it seems unlikely that NASA is going to get that extra 3 billion/yr your’re hoping for.

    Things are going to progress very slowly indeed for a while. We will liklely be able to replay this conversation with very litle change in ten years.

  • Ferris, this is not one of the options being discussed because it has a very limited lunar capability and limited extensibility for Mars due to the limited spacecraft volumes. All options being considered have some level of heavy-lift high volume capability. The only debate is how much we need. Obviously as I said, once a launch system can place a spacecraft in orbit in one piece it’s big enough. Fixed costs tend to track with overall launcher size and having a higher rate helps amortizes that fixed cost over more flights.

    Cocoa Beach, FL – Video 3d (7:30-11:39)

    MR GREASON: “We still do face the problem that you have to launch what we’re calling the biggest smallest piece in one piece. This small launcher idea, there’s a threshold past in which it gets silly and we aren’t sure quite where that threshold is yet. What we are pretty sure is that 75 metric ton vehicles are above that threshold. We’re not at all sure yet and again this is Nixon goes to China, I came in absolutely convinced that 25 metric ton vehicles were big enough to launch all the pieces. I am by no means convinced of that today. However, the majority of mass launched in any architecture that we see is propellant, and that can be launched in any sized launcher and it is not a high value payload. We have spare oxygen.”

    I agree with Mr Greason on all the points he made. Ironically the Jupiter sits between the two extremes of those who believe what we have today is fine and those who think we need a launch system 50% larger than the Saturn V. In fact the entry level Jupiter-130 with about 75mT, 10m payload diameter, consisting of existing engines, boosters, tooling, infrastructure and workforce may be good enough. The best approach may be to launch the ULA proposed EDS dry via an EELV and then tank that up in orbit by other EELV’s. The key cost component though is not the launch system but the spacecraft and mission cost and that is why we need the Jupiter.

    The cost to develop and construct spacecraft grows geometrically with packing density. The cost for JWST and MSL ballooned due in large part to this well known relationship. In fact the cost for these two programs has ballooned many times over their respective launch costs. So even if the 5 meter diameter rocket was free it clearly doesn’t pay to shoehorn these systems into the limited volume. On the other hand, had the Jupiter-130 been available both of these programs overall cost would have been much lower even with a more expensive launch cost. The lesson here is either de-scope what you are trying to achieve or get a bigger rocket because you can’t avoid the packing density issue. De-scoping is not an option if you want to do more than the last mission did so that leaves getting a bigger rocket.

    Again I’m certainly no fan of the Ares-V. Ironically Ares was known to the Greeks as the god of unnecessary war, a fitting name indeed. At the same time I agree with Augustine Commissions recommendation that we need high volume heavy lift. The debate now is over how much and derived from which existing infrastructure.

    I like the ULA proposal and they have number of good ideas most of which have been carried over from the studies done when Sean was running the show at NASA. It’s just that these good ideas get even better with the Jupiter while making the Ares-V unnecessary.

  • Rocket Stuff

    You’re neglecting about 4 billion of COTS funding — 1/2 billion in the next year or so, as mandated, and another 3.5 billion recommended by Augustine, which will probably be spent between 2010-2015.

    The original COTS money was something like $500 million that is already being dispersed over time to two COTS SSA awards to SpaceX and Orbital.

    There is no other COTS money, there is only $3.5 Billion in Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts to SpaceX and Orbital, and $50 million dollars of CCDev Recovery Act stimulus funds to be awarded as SSAs for Commercial Crew. What Augustine suggested is just that, a suggestion.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Stephen

    You missed a point in that comment from Jeff – the implication from what he said is that the number is somewhere between 75 and 25 – that is a huge spread. And they HADN’T ruled out it. And part of that is dependent upon Orion staying as is. Right now, we insist on an architecture where the main spacecraft is launched time and time again. What I’d like to know is, why the hell are we doing it that way? If there are good reasons to separate the propellant launch from the spacecraft, maybe its time to reconsider our spacecraft plans. Let me offer up a distinctly different alternative, one that I believe would be quite capable of being done utilizing existing vehicles (or vehicles with only a slight increase, as opposed to the Jump to 75 mT)

    Why not treat the spacecraft as more like a space station, and have it be different from our earth to LEO transport. Why not launch a Mir style station module, or even better a Bigelow style module, that is designed to be resupplied when it gets back in earth orbit, where it stays after the end of each mission? And design the EDS to dock with such a module, which is refueled at a prop depot? And then have the crew be transported to AND FROM the spacecraft by commercial crew?

    In essence, lets do a spacecraft that is designed for deep space operations, and doesn’t actually land on any planets, including earth. We’ve done this just fine with station, why not replicate it in deep space?

    Yes, craming a single vehicle that can go to and from the earth, and into deep space, and back to earth, is difficult. If you separate that, though, you can do some very interesting things. And, yes, inflatables give you even more internal volume, when you begin operations.

    In short, lets do deep space operations with crafts designed purely for deep space operations, because that lends itself to much greater re-usability, which means you can amortize its costs over a longer period for operations, you extend the markets available, and create new markets, it gets NASA working on beyond LEO manned operations

    As for needing a bigger rocket – if you can’t make a system like that work utilizing current rockets (and I submit that the work T/Space did suggest it very much might be possible) then lets be a little more gradual in our growth, and see if 30 mT is enough, or 50, before we race to the 75 mT.

    Finally, if 75 mT is ABSOLUTELY required, then lets go with an EELV derivative. We can’t afford the Shuttle workforce – I know you, and DIRECT, suggests that, because of politics, it’ll be very hard, or even impossible, to drastically change the shuttle workforce.

    I submit that, until that changes, we will never get to a place where we are really moving forward towards becoming spacefaring. NASA needs to be always operating on the edge, and launching big rockets is NOT on the edge.

    I know we really aren’t going to convince each other of this – you have done extensive work on Direct, and I’ve been a long advocate of pure deep spacecraft (although I’ve limited how much I speak about it publicly), but anyway, those are my answers and thoughts.


  • Given the funding originally expected, the Constellation Program was a reasonable architecture for human exploration. However, even when it was announced, its budget depended on funds becoming available from the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 and the decommissioning of ISS in early 2016. Since then, as a result of technical and budgetary issues, the development schedules of Ares I and Orion have slipped, and work on Ares V and Altair has been delayed.

    Most major vehicle-development programs face technical challenges as a normal part of the process, and Constellation is no exception. While significant, these are engineering problems, and the Committee expects that they can be solved. But these solutions may add to the program’s cost
    and/or delay its schedule.

    The quote above comes from Section 1.3 The Constellation Program of the summary report. Curiously, a number of critics seem to ignore this section since the import directly rebuts their criticisims of the Constellation program and Mike Griffin for selecting the program. But this statement clearly links the delays in the Constellation program to the lack of funding as promised by the Bush administration and Congress when the Vision for Space Exploration initiative was enacted and the later NASA authorization act of 2005.

    The whole gist of the report summary is not a criticism of the current program of record, rather an indictment on the federal government for not providing the financial resources to NASA to successfully complete that program. One way to look at the ‘options’ provided in the summary is not individually per se, but as 2 separate sets. The first set under the ‘constrained’ budget with no hope of spending increase and the second set under ‘less constrained’ budget with some kind of spending increase. In both sets of options the program of record – Constellation Ares I and V – is included. In both sets the ‘Ares V Lite’ is included, the Lite version is also included in both option 4 and 5 variants. The EELV variant is included only in the last option of second set under flexible path designation which should say a lot about the panel’s view of EELV capabilities.

    The Augustine panel made it abundantly clear that the if the US is interested in human exploration beyond LEO, the first set of options was no practical for that kind of exploration. The committee endorsed the goal of human exploration beyond LEO several times within the summary. The Constellation program Ares I is the only program option listed that is currently in hardware development and is proceeding along with success despite what critics like to claim.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Gary

    Go watch the deliberations – the order has nothing to do with the committee’s views about the capabilities – there is a ranking system that goes with it, which they came to agreement during the deliberations (see the last meeting, in DC).

    As for the idea that the Program of record is the only one with hardware being developed – Gary, I say this with all the love in the word, because I do consider you a friend, but please remove your head from your rectum.

    The committee has decided the following things, at least it appears they have from the various deliberations.
    1. Heavy lift is needed, and right now, NO heavy lift exists, and we haven’t really put a lot of money into developing whatever heavy lift we choose (Ares V is a ways from PDR, by a long shot). This means that switching from Ares V, to any of the other options is not that big of a switch
    2. Some form of earth to LEO transport is needed – And the amount of money needed to make Ares I viable in some sort of timeframe for it to play a role in earth to LEO transport isn’t likely to happen, and we ALREADY have vehicles that can do earth to LEO transport
    3. Altair isn’t happening. We haven’t done almost anything on it. And the artist conceptions from NASA are frankly a joke.
    4. Orion seems likely to survive, but it can go to LEO on a number vehicles, including the heavy lift.

    The POR should be dumped, and its clear that the Committee very much agrees.

  • Rocket Stuff

    The Constellation program Ares I is the only program option listed that is currently in hardware development and is proceeding along with success despite what critics like to claim.

    Dream on. Anyone with any sense of scientific, engineering or technological reality can see the utter foolishness of Ares I’s inline SRB concept in any way shape or form, and the total ridiculousness of expendable heavy lift, to say nothing of the entire expendable in space architecture of Constellation.

    It’s crap, and everybody knows it. Throwing away invaluable, almost irreplaceable hardware after spending the money, time, resources and energy of transporting it all the way to space, is not only idiotic, it’s just plain insane. The Augustine Committee was obligated to defend the status quo, and that is the only reason the Program of Record was mentioned.

  • Major Tom

    “But this statement clearly links the delays in the Constellation program to the lack of funding…”

    No, it doesn’t. Reread what you posted. Here’s the relevant excerpt…

    “… as a result of TECHNICAL [emphasis added] and budgetary issues, the development schedules of Ares I and Orion have slipped, and work on Ares V and Altair has been delayed… solutions [to these technical issues] may add to the program’s cost and/or delay its schedule.”

    The summary report clearly links Constellation’s schedule slips to both technical and budget problems, with technical issues coming first. Read, comprehend, and think about you write before you hit “Submit” next time.

    Moreover, Augustine himself stated during this week’s Senate hearing that, although other Constellation, ESMD, and NASA programs have suffered budgetarily, Ares I and Orion have actually received all the funding they were promised. This is consistent with the FY 2004-2009 ESMD budget record in NASA’s annual budget requests to Congress. Actually, if you compare the numbers, Ares I and Orion have received $1.5 billion to $3 billion more than they were promised in either the FY 2004 or FY 2005 budgets.

    “The Constellation program Ares I is the only program option listed that is currently in hardware development”

    Ares I is not in hardware development. It’s still in design and testing. The upper stage still hasn’t passed its delta PDR to my knowledge, and the five-segment first stage just finally completed its first ground test last week. No actual, operational Ares I flight hardware is under development and won’t be for years. We’ve still got Ares I-X, I-Y and other test flights in non-operational configurations still to go.

    Moreover, the Augustine Committee included commercial LEO transport in all of its options except the PoR. That includes Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 — three launch vehicles that are either operational or sitting on the launch pad in their operational configuration.

    It’s either a bald-faced lie or an extreme demonstration of ignorance to claim that Ares I is in development, nevertheless to claim that its the only option from the summary report that is in (or past) development.

    “and is proceeding along with success despite what critics like to claim.”

    The Augustine Committee’s Summary Report made it clear that Ares I and Orion won’t be operational until 2017 at the earliest, and during the Committee’s hearings, Aerospace identified 2019 as the most likely start for Ares I/Orion operations. Even if ISS is extended (which it can’t be even with the Committee’s recommended $3 billion per year budget increase if NASA still has to carry the costs of Ares I development) that makes Ares I and Orion nearly useless to the ISS and totally counterproductive to reducing the U.S. civil human space flight gap. Ares I is a launch vehicle that is so hard and takes so long to develop, that its purpose for being will have ceased to exist by the time it’s flying operationally. The summary report and Augustine himself have made this point repeatedly.

    And this assumes that the Augustine Committee is right that Ares I and Orion’s technical problems can actually be overcome with additional budget and cost. Personally, given the very small amount of trade space that these vehicles have left, even with billions more taxpayer dollars and years of additional schedule, I would not bet that these designs can overcome their thrust oscillation, flight control, structural stability, low redundancy, and margin issues and still close. It’s just my opinion, but I don’t think there’s enough left to work with. Augustine & Co. were either overly generous or just plain wrong on this point.

    FWIW…

  • @Ferris Valyn

    I was not ranking the options here. Or referencing the order in which they were provided. The references to options numbers is to identify where they were located at in the chart just as if I were to reference the page number where a specific quote was located in a book. I am more than aware that the options are not ranked by priority.

    Insofar as heavy lift is concerned, I think Stephen Metschan has already provided much of the basis for heavy lift in this thread and I have to agree with him. In this stage of space development, heavy lift is crucial. Trying to launch a multiple rockets to assemble a lunar spacecraft or fuel depot in orbit would not only limit the capacity but also drive up costs considerably. The EELV currently existing are not commercially viable, they are essentially government launch vehicles developed on cost plus contracts with no human rating. Admiral Joe Dyer said as much in his Congressional testimony.

    @Rocket Stuff

    For someone who is given over to insulting people like Rep. Gabriella Giffords for questioning Norman Augustine in hearings, your comment has little meaning to me. Apparently large number of Reps, Senators, rocket engineers, and scientists feel that the Constellation Ares I is worthwhile. Do you really think that the committee members of the HSFR panel would put their reputations and careers on the line by endorsing a vehicle that was complete crap? In fact, if you look beyond these blogs where the naysayers like to posts, you will begin to see that a fairly large number of people support continuing the Constellation program with Ares I and V.

  • @ Major Tom

    When you quote a quote that I posted try putting the whole damn thing up and not just half of it. Here is the other half:

    Most major vehicle-development programs face technical challenges as a normal part of the process, and Constellation is no exception. While significant, these are engineering problems, and the Committee expects that they can be solved. But these solutions may add to the program’s cost and/or delay its schedule.

    Yes that is right any launch development program is going to have technical issues. But as the above quote shows, Augustine believes that those technical issues are solvable with the Ares I. Here is testimony from Admiral Joe Dyer that is even more relevant to this discussion:

    We note that the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report compares current plans for the Constellation program with a number of conceptual alternatives. Here, we offer a word of caution — PowerPoint presentations addressing future programs will always out shine current programs of record. Why is that the case? It is because current programs have garnered the professional peer and public review during the accomplishment of real work. Technical challenges will have been discovered, cost stress will have been revealed, and the reality of conducting high risk business in an unforgiving environment will have been highlighted and publicized. Future concepts do not yet have the benefit of this reality testing. This experience led to one of the ASAP’s prime recommendations presented to the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. Specifically, the ASAP believes that if Constellation is not the optimum answer, then any other new design must be substantially superior to justify starting over.

    Furthermore, I think you are confused about what hardware development means. Ares I is past preliminary design, it is in its hardware development and testing phase. The Ares 1-X is currently standing in VAB awaiting launch. That is hardware. The 5 segment Ares I booster was just tested. That is hardware. That is called hardware development and testing, not design. More hardware is currently being built at the Michoud facility for Ares I. Perhaps you are thinking of actual production. As for as what Norman Augustine said in the Senate hearing I am going back over that, but I did not hear that nor was that reflected in his opening statement and that would seem to contradict the summary report as well. But you know, I am going to take the words of people who actually work in the space industry and are knowledgeable about technical problems over your opinion.

  • I apologize for the HTML error. I wished there was a preview button or opportunity to edit comment.

  • Major Tom

    “But as the above quote shows, Augustine believes that those technical issues are solvable with the Ares I.”

    Stop ignoring the negative language in the summary report. In the very passage you originally quoted, the Augustine Committee wrote that the technical issues were likely solvable only with more money and time. Again, stop, read, comprehend, and think before you post.

    Moreover, the report’s discussion of the Ares I schedule clearly shows that there’s not enough time left for that vehicle to be remain relevant to ISS or the gap, and the committee’s options clearly show that there’s not enough money left to pursue Ares I and a human exploration effort beyond LEO. In fact, Ares I appears in only two of the committee’s eight options, one of which is the program of record and the other of which can’t afford much in the way of exploration systems before the mid-2020s besides a heavy lifter. Again, stop, read, comprehend, and think before you post.

    And stop changing your argument. You argued that Augustine & Co. had found that Constellation’s delays were due to funding, when in fact the report actually did identify technical issues as being a source of the schedule slippage. Instead of trying to change the argument to whether those technical issues are solvable, admit that your original argument was wrong.

    Sheesh…

    “Furthermore, I think you are confused about what hardware development means.”

    No, I’m not the one that’s confused. Your original post referenced development hardware, as in the development of the first set of actual, operational, flight hardware, which doesn’t start until after design is complete (at CDR) and testing is done (ground, flight, and otherwise). If you’ve never bothered to learn the phases of a typical aerospace development program, then don’t post about such. You’re wasting your time and mine.

    “Ares I is past preliminary design…”

    No, Ares I has not passed its PDR. Last summer’s PDR required a delta-PDR for the upper stage that, to my knowledge, has not occurred yet. If you have evidence to the contrary, please post it. Otherwise, don’t post unsubstantiated claims.

    “The Ares 1-X is currently standing in VAB awaiting launch. That is hardware.”

    Ares I-X is flight test hardware. (So is Ares I-Y and any other flight tests.) By definition, that is not development hardware.

    (And I won’t even bother repeating all the ways in which the 4-segment lower stage/dummy upper stage Ares I-X test configuration is almost totally non-relevant to the actual, 5-segment SRB lower stage/J-2X upper stage Ares I design.)

    “The 5 segment Ares I booster was just tested.”

    I wrote that in my immediate prior post. Again, stop, read, comprehend, and think before you post. Repeating what others have written is a waste of your time and mine.

    “That is hardware.”

    It was the first horizontal ground test of the five-segment SRB. A ground test of anything is test hardware. By definition, that is not development hardware.

    “Perhaps you are thinking of actual production.”

    No, production would be for the second, third, fourth, etc. operational flights. Again, if you’ve never bothered to learn the phases of a typical aerospace hardware development program, then don’t post about such. You’re wasting your time and mine.

    And, to be brutally honest, this whole argument about whether Ares I is still in design/testing or development totally misses the point. Even if Ares I eventually works, why are we spending billions of dollars and a decade and a half on design/testing/development of a new, mid-lift launch vehicle when we have two such operational vehicles in the U.S. launch stable today (Atlas V and Delta IV) and another in the stable that’s almost operational (Falcon 9)? Especially when this new vehicle, even with billions more dollars, can’t deliver in a timeframe that’s useful to the ISS program it’s suppossed to serve?

    Goofy, stupid, and wasteful…

    “As for as what Norman Augustine said in the Senate hearing I am going back over that, but I did not hear that nor was that reflected in his opening statement and that would seem to contradict the summary report as well.”

    You have to be kidding me… sigh…

    Page six of the summary report states:

    “The original 2005 schedule showed Ares I and Orion available to support ISS in 2012, only two years after scheduled Shuttle retirement. The current schedule now shows that date as 2015. An independent assessment of the technical, budgetary and schedule risk to the Constellation Program performed for the Committee indicates that an additional delay of at least two years is likely. This means that Ares I and Orion will not reach ISS before the Station’s currently planned termination, and the length of the gap in U.S. ability to launch astronauts into space will be no less
    than seven years.”

    Augustine makes this point repeatedly in the congressional hearings, for example, at 1:41 in the Senate hearing here:

    http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.LiveStream&Hearing_id=29eead2d-8fee-417f-9ef5-21992265f281

    Augustine’s oral testimony is consistent with the summary report.

    “But you know, I am going to take the words of people who actually work in the space industry and are knowledgeable about technical problems”

    Why take someone’s word, no matter what their pedigree is, when the facts and common sense prove them wrong?

    In point of fact, several folks posting on this forum do have technical backgrounds and work in the space sector (myself included).

    But it shouldn’t matter. Facts and logic determine whether an argument is correct or not — not academic degrees or work experience. Someone could be the village idiot, but if they’re right, they’re right.

    Appeals to authority are useless. Authorities can be, and often are, wrong.

    “over your opinion.”

    Aside from the last paragraph in my prior post, I never offered an opinion. Nearly all of what I’ve written in this post and my prior one is corrections of your erroneous and false statements. It’s a fact whether a report says X or Y. It’s a fact whether a program is at stage X or stage Y. Etc., etc. These are facts, not opinions.

    FWIW…

  • @Major Tom

    Moreover, Augustine himself stated during this week’s Senate hearing that, although other Constellation, ESMD, and NASA programs have suffered budgetarily, Ares I and Orion have actually received all the funding they were promised. This is consistent with the FY 2004-2009 ESMD budget record in NASA’s annual budget requests to Congress.

    I just rewatched the entire Norman Augustine testimony from the Senate hearing this week and nowhere did he say any such thing. You pulled that out of your ass.

    Moreover, the Augustine Committee included commercial LEO transport in all of its options except the PoR. That includes Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 — three launch vehicles that are either operational or sitting on the launch pad in their operational configuration.

    Last I checked ULA is currently not developing any human rated EELV which would include the Atlas V and Delta IV. All they have done to date is pull some preliminary numbers and designs together and put it in a powerpoint presentation. ULA certainly have not expended any money on design and development of their concept. As much as I like Falcon 9 and SpaceX, the current Falcon 9 design is for cargo supply to ISS. Though some of the components of Falcon 9 is being human rated, Elon Musk has admitted himself that SpaceX has primarily spent most of its resources on the cargo resupply Falcon 9 development. He is waiting to see if Congress will be forthcoming with COTS D or the new CCDev program for crew development flights. So yeah, Ares I is the only human crew exploration vehicle under hardware development at this point in the United States. In his testimony, Norman Augustine agreed with Sen Bill Nelson that aerospace companies could conceivably develop a crew launch vehicle within 7 years if given funding like COTS D, but that did not mean that NASA needed to abandon Ares I.

  • Why are man-rating the Delta or Atlas not on the table? All we have to do is get ULA to sign the contact. Stop ask NASA what they think how much it will cost and how long it will take. I think it is criminal they haven’t been able to produce a bid.

    Also, why is the concept of a government contact not on the table? Augustine doesn’t like NASA inhouse design effort, not body like Space Act Agreement only as our only way to get to station. I am total baffled by this “oversite” by a committee full of people that do government contracts almost daily. Maybe there was a problem with past contracts that don’t need to be highlighted.

  • @Major Tom

    Your assumption that Ares Iand Orion were being built to service ISS is flat out wrong. The Constellation program was not started to service the ISS. The Constellation was intended to reestablish human presence on the Moon and then develop objectives to launch a mission to Mars. To fly a crew to the ISS was only a secondary capability as far as the Ares 1 is concerned. Michael Griffin stated this a number of times in several speeches.

    Again I have listened to the whole testimoney and nowhere does Augustine say that the Ares 1 and Orion got all the funding it was promised. Not only that but if you listen to the end of the testimony approximately 138 min in you will hear Sen Nelson ask Augustine why the committee would choose to abandon Ares 1 and Augustine response was that the committee was not abandoning Ares I and that it is included in 2 of the 5 options (yes notice Augustine says 5 just as all the committee members say 5 and yet you keep saying 8, hmm the variations keep getting you). He also stated that if the President were to choose to abandon Ares I then the reasons would need to be exceptional. That changing space programs every few years is extremely detrimental to development.

    The Atlas V is not available for human rating since it utilizes RD-180 engines from a Russian company Energomash. More than a few space industry authorities have said that Atlas V is not practical for crew vehicle launcher development for this reason.

    You keep trying to turn the Augustine summary into a negative for Ares 1 out of your own personal bias. Yet you cannot escape notice that the summary said that the Constellation program was reasonable architiecture and Ares I technical issues are solvable. The other conclusion reached by the panel was that heavy lift was critical to human space exploration as Ferris Valyn was kind enough to point even though he disagrees with it.

  • Rocket Stuff

    For someone who is given over to insulting people like Rep. Gabriella Giffords for questioning Norman Augustine in hearings, your comment has little meaning to me.

    I personally am gravely insulted by having to invest four years of my life witnessing the fall of United States leadership in rocketry with Ares I, doing the work to try and salvage it, and then have some bimbo Astronaut wife who is wholly incompetent to chair a science and technology committee, who is demonstrably ignorant of the issue of the program and the review committee charged with investigating it, and defend complete failure and then ridicule the people trying to repair the almost irreparable damage to United State reputation it has caused. EPIC AMERICAN FAIL, dude.

  • Major Tom

    “I just rewatched the entire Norman Augustine testimony from the Senate hearing this week”

    No you didn’t. There wasn’t enough time between your two posts to watch all the testimony, nevertheless write your second post.

    Stop trolling and making stuff up.

    “You pulled that out of your ass.”

    Out of my ass? How old are you? 13?

    Grow up.

    Look, kid, I’m not going to rewatch for the third time almost two and a half hours of snoozefest testimony just to point you to the right time indicator. But I will copy budget figures from earlier threads that confirm what Augustine stated.

    From FY 2004 to FY 2009, NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate budget, which is dominated by (~85% comprised of) the Ares I and Orion projects, received $2.5 billion MORE than what was promised in the original FY 2004 VSE budget runout.

    Here’s what was promised in the FY 2004 budget runout:

    FY 2004 $1,646.0M
    FY 2005 $1,782.0M
    FY 2006 $2,579.0M
    FY 2007 $2,941.0M
    FY 2008 $2,809.0M
    FY 2009 $3,313.0M

    Total $15,070.0M

    And here’s what ESMD actually received in each fiscal year:

    FY 2004 $2684.5M
    FY 2005 $2209.3M
    FY 2006 $3050.1M
    FY 2007 $2869.8M
    FY 2008 $3299.4M
    FY 2009 $3505.5M

    Total $17,618.6M

    The total difference is $2,458.6 million. So, although the total NASA budget didn’t meet VSE expectations, the Bush II Administration and prior Congresses provided almost $2.5 billion more for ESMD, Ares I, and Orion than what the Bush II Administration promised. This doesn’t include the $400 million that ESMD received in the Recovery Act (passed after the Bush II Administration), which would increase the total difference to nearly $3 billion.

    Although almost every other part of NASA suffered when the Bush II White House and Congress failed to meet their VSE budget commitments, Ares I and Orion did not. In fact, these two projects received billions more than what was promised. And despite their lavish budget treatment, Ares I and Orion remain tens of billions of dollars over budget, years behind schedule, and crippled by multiple major technical issues.

    “Last I checked ULA is currently not developing any human rated EELV which would include the Atlas V and Delta IV. All they have done to date is pull some preliminary numbers and designs together and put it in a powerpoint presentation. ULA certainly have not expended any money on design and development of their concept.”

    This is ridiculously wrong. See:

    http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/09/ula-claim-gap-reducing-solution-via-eelv-exploration-master-plan/

    and

    http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2006/09/lockheed-and-bigelow-human-rated-eelv-deal/

    Try to get at least one fact right before you post next time.

    “the current Falcon 9 design is for cargo supply to ISS.”

    The same Falcon 9 design is used for both cargo and crew transpot and is designed from the get-go to be human rated. See:

    http://www.system-safety.org/~issc2009/Speakers/briefings/Bowersox_Final.pdf

    Again, try to get at least one fact right before you post next time.

    “So yeah, Ares I is the only human crew”

    “Human crew”? What other kind of crew would it be? Alien?

    Please, please think before you write.

    “exploration vehicle”

    Ares I is not the “crew exploration vehicle” or CEV. That’s Orion.

    Ares I is a launch vehicle. It’s not an exploration vehicle, crewed or otherwise.

    Please do not post on this topic again until you at least understand the basic terminology for the Constellation Program. It is a huge waste of other posters’ time to correct the massive number of repeated errors in your posts.

    “under hardware development at this point in the United States.”

    Ares I (or any other aerospace project) does not pass from design and testing and into development until after the design passes CDR (Critical Design Review). Ares I hasn’t even passed PDR (Preliminary Design Review).

    All the current hardware (Ares I-X, 5-segment SRB ground firings, etc.) is test hardware. It’s not development hardware that will be used in the first, operational, Ares I flight.

    Again, please do not post on this subject until you’ve learned the stages of a typical aerospace development program.

    “aerospace companies could conceivably develop a crew launch vehicle within 7 years”

    Your point? That’s still one to three years faster than Ares I.

    Lawdy…

  • Major Tom

    “The Constellation was”

    It’s “the Constellation Program”, not “the Constellation”.

    Is English not your native language? Is that what’s causing you so much trouble with reading comprehension and fact-checking?

    “intended to reestablish human presence on the Moon and then develop objectives to launch a mission to Mars. To fly a crew to the ISS was only a secondary capability as far as the Ares 1 is concerned.”

    Again, this is ridiculously wrong. The ESAS study that defined Constellation, Ares I, and Orion had as its first task (before lunar or other objectives) “to provide crew transport to the ISS and to accelerate the development of the CEV and crew launch system to reduce the gap”.

    Moreover, Ares I can’t send Orion or anything else to the Moon or anywhere beyond LEO. That requires a Earth departure stage delivered to LEO by another vehicle (e.g., Ares V).

    Again, try to get at least one fact right before you post next time.

    “Ares I and that it is included in 2 of the 5 options”

    Seriously, you can’t figure where the eight options come from? Let me do it for you:

    Option 1: Program of Record — That’s #1.
    Option 2: ISS and Lunar — That’s #2.
    Option 3: Baseline Program of Record — That’s #3
    Option 4A: Moon First, Ares Lite — That’s #4
    Option 4B: Moon First, Extend Shuttle — That’s #5.
    Option 5A: Flexible Path, Ares Lite — That’s #6.
    Option 5B: Flexible Path, EELV Heritage — That’s #7
    Option 5C: Flexible Path, Shuttle Derived — That’s #8

    See, kid, there are eight… eight options.

    Please do not post here again until you can count to ten. This is a space policy forum, not Sesame Street.

    “He also stated that if the President were to choose to abandon Ares I then the reasons would need to be exceptional.”

    Yeah, I think we have a few of those.

    Like the fact that Ares I won’t be operational until 2017 at the earliest. See:

    http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/GAP072809.xml&headline=U.S.%20Spaceflight%20Gap%20Wider%20Than%20Thought

    Like the fact that Ares I costs have spiralled out of control, jumping from $28 billion to $40 billion. See:

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009180675_nasa06.html

    Like the fact that multiple USAF and NASA studies show that Ares I deflagration will likely destroy Orion and kill the crew in the event of a launch failure or termination. See:

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-ares-rocket-not-safe-091409,0,5934002.story

    Need I go on?

    “That changing space programs every few years is extremely detrimental to development.”

    Oh, really? Gosh, those who work in the space sector had no idea.
    Thanks for letting us know.

    Know what’s more disruptive? Wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, millions of valuable man-hours, rare political opportunities, and voter trust on technically crippled, over budget, and behind schedule programs that should have been put out of their misery years ago.

    “The Atlas V is not available for human rating since it utilizes RD-180 engines from a Russian company”

    What the heck does foreign production have to do with human rating? We launch astronauts on Soyuz launch vehicles that are entirely foreign made.

    Again, please think before you post next time.

    “You keep trying to turn the Augustine summary into a negative for Ares 1 out of your own personal bias.”

    It’s not bias. It’s a fact that Ares I is running so far behind that it’s no longer relevant to the gap and can’t support ISS. It’s also a fact that Ares I is so over budget that it can’t be afforded and thus only appears in the program of record and baseline options, neither of which are viable options. These points are made over and over again in the Summary Report. It’s bias, or just plain lack of reading comprehension, to ignore these critical points.

    Please, please try to comprehend what you read before you post next time.

    “Yet you cannot escape notice that the summary said that the Constellation program was reasonable architiecture”

    Only under a much bigger budget, which doesn’t exist, per the Summary Report.

    “and Ares I technical issues are solvable.”

    Only with additional time and money, which the program no longer has, again per the Summary Report.

    “The other conclusion reached by the panel was that heavy lift was critical to human space exploration”

    What the heck does this have to do with any of the preceding discussion? Ares I is an intermediate lift launch vehicle, not a heavy lift launch vehicle.

    If you’re trying to defend Constellation, then the Summary Report identifies multiple alternatives to the current Ares V heavy lift launch vehicle, again rendering Ares V to the non-viable program of record and baseline options.

    Please, just try to concentrate and focus the next time you post.

    Ugh…

  • @Major Tom

    What does logic dictate to you? That 10 people on the Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee put their names and reputation on the line for a report that states that the Constellation program was reasonable and its technical problems are resolvable? That thousands of engineers across the country who have directly worked on the Constellation program and many who have not have endorsed the program wholeheartedly. That apparently a majority of the members of Congress believed enough in the Constellation program to be willing to fund it with billions of dollars. That former and current astronauts many of whom do not work for ATK or Lockheed Martin have endorsed the Constellation program. One was Steve Hawley, a professor of physics at KU and former space shuttle astronaut of 5 missions involving deployment of the HST and Chandra X-Ray Observatory. He was willing to put his name and reputation on the line. John Jurist, a biophysicist whose primary field is aerospace medicine, recently wrote on The Space Review an oped criticizing that Air Force “study” leaked to the press concerning Ares 1-X calling the study so poorly conducted and written that it would have never made publication any peer reviewed journal. These are the people I listen to. People with real space experience who put their real names on the byline. Not people who hide behind a blog name claiming they can’t use their own names because they work in the industry. That is logic. If you want to be taken seriously then you have to be willing to use your real name.

    Your last post is so ridiculous and laughable. You pick on my language. For instance, even though I used ‘Constellation program’ frequently throughout my comments, the one or two times I exclude ‘program’ from the comment, well that just makes me ‘ignorant’ apparently. Or even though I refer to the Ares 1 as a launcher several times in my comments, the one time a refer to it as a ‘crew exploration vehicle’, well that is time for the shit to hit the fan. You defend your use of ‘8 options’ then comically list those options showing technically and numerically only 5 with the last 2 having some alphabet variations. Apparently, you do not handle sarcasm well. But that is all besides point, you attack on my diction simply to ridicule me and to avoid having a real discussion.

    You insist that I must not have really watched Senate hearing and Norman Augustine testimony even though I have stated that I have watched it twice. And still nowhere can I find where Norman Augustine says that Ares I and Orion got all the funding it was promised. You exasperatedly say that you are not going to watch it all over again so you can give me the video feed timeline. But what is even more telling here is that if Norman Augustine provided testimony directly contradicting Dr. Michael Griffin that should have been major news. Yet, no media outlet have published that story or makes that claim. Even Keith Cowing over at NASA Watch has not posted anything to that effect. And he absolutely despises Dr. Griffin as you well know. If you could provide me some links to media sources please do so. BTW, this does not change the fact that Augustine also testified that Ares 1 technical problems are solvable, that the Constellation program is executable and viable program given appropriate funding. This testimony directly contradict your assertions that Constellation program is not viable or technically feasible. Given Mr. Augustine reputation and you non-reputation, whoever you really are, logic would dictate that I should listen to Mr. Augustine.

    You keep citing this Air Force studies on the launch abort failures scenario, however, as I have shown above many scientists and engineers have criticized the AF analysis as being shoddy. John Jurist was just the latest and I am fairly certain you have read his oped.

    Orion has just passed its CDR which is based on the Ares 1 launch plaform. And here is a link to guess what one of the solutions for those thrust oscillation in the 4 segment booster:

    http://www.spacenews.com/civil/fix-for-ares-vibration-issue.html

    Although the preliminary data results from the 5 segment SRM static firing test conducted at Promontory recently suggest that the thrust oscillations will not be as much of an issue with the 5 segment SRM.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Gary,

    Stop talking about the congressional testimony – the real answers to resolve the points you raise are found, not in Norm’s testimony, but in both the executive summary, AND the meetings themselves. That is what you should be looking at, when it comes to what Norm & the rest of the committee is saying. For example, concerning your “points” about the viability of human rating an Atlas V – thats directly talked about during one of the meetings (and in fact, referenced more than once)

    As far as commercial viability of Atlas V – Given that Bigelow is strongly contemplating an Atlas V based launcher for its transport, and would prefer that over a Soyuz vehicle, I’d put much more faith in the idea that it is commercially viable, then when NASA is saying its not commercially viable, and fighting tooth and nail against using commercial style aquisition.

  • That former and current astronauts many of whom do not work for ATK or Lockheed Martin have endorsed the Constellation program. One was Steve Hawley, a professor of physics at KU and former space shuttle astronaut of 5 missions involving deployment of the HST and Chandra X-Ray Observatory. He was willing to put his name and reputation on the line. John Jurist, a biophysicist whose primary field is aerospace medicine, recently wrote on The Space Review an oped criticizing that Air Force “study” leaked to the press concerning Ares 1-X calling the study so poorly conducted and written that it would have never made publication any peer reviewed journal. These are the people I listen to.

    Why? Neither of them have any demonstrated expertise in launch system development.

  • @Ferris Valyn

    The Congressional hearings are what is relevant. The reactions of the Reps and Senators to the Augustine report is what determines the future of NASA and the human space program. I have simply pointed out that to say that there are 8 options or that Ares I and Orion is included in only 2 of 8 is misleading and uninformative. Because when you look at the executive summary and the chart provided, a completely different picture emerges of the options. Norman Augustine was careful to emphasize that there were 5 options in his testimony. The report emphasized that the first two options would not lead to human exploration beyond LEO due to the lack of funding. He and a number of other panelists agreed that the last three options would lead to viable space programs that would return humans to the Moon and develop an infrastructure given the appropriate amount of funding. Norman Augustine also emphasized in his testimony that any combination of those three options could be implemented if Congress wanted to provide additional funding. But the executive summary of the report was met with fairly strong hostility from both sides of the aisle in common agreement at any suggestion of cancelling the current Constellation program.

    Taylor Dinerman points out this reaction in his oped piece this week in The Space Review. I would also emphasize that President Obama is more of a collaborator than a decider. He leads by consensus. The process in selecting the new NASA administrator Charles Bolden is an excellent example of that leadership style. Florida, Ohio, and California are crucial to President Obam’s reelection, so he is not likely going to make waves or rock the boat in terms of changing NASA’s programs.

    As far as Bigelow is concern, the discussions that I read and heard concerned launching unmanned versions of the company’s habitation modules into LEO using Atlas V. Bigelow has discussed with Lockheed Martin developing a Orion-like CEV to launch ontop of an Atlas V that LM claims it could have ready in 2013. If that is the case, more power to them. What does this have to do with NASA? If Bigelow wants to fund that development of a private CEV and a human rated Atlas V, then great he should do it. As to whether the CEV would be ready by 2013 is another matter. Even companies like SpaceX and Scaled Composites have had schedule slips of several years. Remember SpaceX was originally planning to launch Falcon 9 prototype this summer, but now that launch may not occur until early next year. Companies can make al the promises in the world, but when it comes time to deliver is when reality gets in the way.

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