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.

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

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.

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.

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…

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…

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.

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.

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.