The Soyuz capsules are very good and very reliable vehicles. Despite the most recent incidents the crews made it back ALIVE each time. Never forget it.

“We need better”

First we need a mission. Then “better” might come. But for the same mission “better” will be very difficult to do.

All of these programs were/are related to the Cold War, ISS being the last more peaceful installment of it all. This is over and we do need to go beyond this reasoning or HSF will disappear.

“We have to learn from the past, from ESAS and mistakes there, as well as by observing the current environment demanding change.”

You would hope so and I guess we’ll know next when we hear what the policy of this WH will be. Not the Augustine report which only is a “tiny” input towards possibly renewing the policy to make it relevant to the times we live in.

Yes I agree hence my comment about it’d be difficult for her to talk about it. Yet we need a far reaching, encompassing strategy here. It cannot be NIAC for example as a stand alone. NIAC’s mission MUST be thought in a broader sense than just technological. For example, what technologies related to aeronautics and space need NASA to develop that would serve not only NASA’s mission but the national interests? In my mind NASC would serve policy and NIAC would serve NASC/NASA, all under one (two?) roofs, not in all the different offices (re: your comment below).

“This is an aside, but we space cadets tend to put a lot of weight on resurrecting NASC (or the National Space Council from Bush I), thinking that it will provide a inside voice on space issues at the White House. But that’s not what the NASC or NSC did. And even if that is what the NASC or NSC did, the President isn’t going to listen to such a voice unless he’s interested.

Where a NASC or NSC could prove crucial is making better use of resources across departments and agencies. NASA use of DOD EELVs would be a prime example. But even here, it’s not clear that a NASC or NSC would provide a function to the President, White House, NASA, or DOD that the existing National Security Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Office of Management and Budget don’t already provide. (For example, the Augustine Committee originated with OSTP — it didn’t require the creation of a NASC or NSC.)”

In my mind the NASC would be there precisley to help harmonize the policy to satisfy the national interests through the different organizations and how they relate to NASA. And it seems to me it was the intent back then (http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html). I would submit that, and this is total speculation, that back then the idea might have been to see what the different orgs would provide to NASA while nowadays I think it would have to be the other way around. Indeed, national priorities have changed and for example DoE might take a more important role as well as Commerce than DoD say. I can see the relationship NASA might want to keep with DoD BUT NASA’s mission has evolved quite a bit away from national security alone (the old cold war argument is over). So we need to revamp the whole thing, NASA cannot survive on the premises of the cold war as we all can see.

“As long as large budget increases are not involved (e.g., SEI), Congress usually follows the White House’s lead on major changes in NASA budget priorities. Even when work between NASA’s field centers gets shifted around as a result of such changes, the winners and losers in Congress effectively cancel each other out and the White House gets its way. Because it’s NASA decisionmakers represent many, competing, parochial fiefdoms, Congress is effectively paralyzed when it comes to having a major influence on large changes in NASA’s direction. They can earmark or cancel at the margins, but as long as non-NASA priorities aren’t threatened, NASA’s supporters in Congress can do little but rubber stamp the bulk of the White House’s plans for NASA or risk losing whatever work and jobs the White House’s plans provide to the NASA field centers they represent.”

How abot having key member(s) of Congress in the new NASC?

FWIW

No one even keeps track of the humble ‘primitive’ ‘middle class’ *non* ‘man-rated’ R7’s derivatives nowdays, they just get assembled, rolled out, and launched to keep a 400+ tonne outpost in LEO going….

we should all be impressed with what the Russians/Soviets have done with the Soyuz/Progress/R7 derivatives.

Having said that…I would not be overwhelmed by it.

The Closest thing that the US has to the “R7″ is in my view the B-52. (OK space/aviation but follow me here).

Both vehicles have done some modest evolution, but actually not all that much (I would reengine Buffy if I were SecDef)…why? The mission has not changed all that much.

With some “enhancements” both vehicles do more or less today what they did in the 1960’s…in Soyuz/Progress case they carry people and supplies…but on the other hand they were no where near taking those vehicles to the Moon and had they tried to build ISS while they might have come up with some functional equivelent using their launch vehicles…they could not have either put together ISS or even Option C.

US space policy (and its vehicles) has suffered from two sorts of problems…the first is no constant direction in policy and the second is every launch vehicle effort NASA has done has tried to accomplish task which are to far of a leap in terms of capability.

Soyuz/ the chinese version of it/if India makes a version of it…are all impressive and as long as the drill is a government run space program sending people somewhere to orbit …they will do fine.

We need better

Robert G. Oler

Garver and I have had our differences but she is fairly good politician (she is where she is) and it is clear that she is playing that game pretty well now.

She is clearly ploughing the ground for some major changes that are going to occur. The sweetner i n the article is the linkage of the changes to “down payments” on various projects…but it is clear that 1) all the “save our pork” plans have not moved the administration all that much and 2)several major projects seem on their way either out the door or to a massive “reorg”.

who knows what the future holds but so far for not saying a lot…Bolden seems to be moving in a fairly unique manner.

Robert G. Oler

For example, when hearing about “savings” in a recent article one should ask how, under what initiative, and at what expected output? “Savings” are often a misnomer in NASA for (1) a promised cost by a contractor that never materializes once the award is let and the work is underway and (2) a budget cut to an assortment of civil servant areas that results in buy-outs, hiring freezes for years, fewer support contracts, and transfers from peter to pay paul that usually leave peter telling other programs “…sorry, I don’t have the people to go any faster supporting you…”

When hearing about “costing” an Ares V lite, yet a meeting focus being about “why”, before how, it’s a quick follow-up question to ask if this is consistent?

NASA Human Space Flight has explored the Moon, developed a Shuttle, and then an Outpost, the ISS, all in political, fiscal and tactical environments that are extremely different from this next step we are in. For one, information flow on “costing” will be an affair more rigorously scrutinized than ever before, and in certain ways disruptively different in it’s sharing, visibility and transparency across all stakeholders.

I’d propose that budgeting is an input, with variability, given the unpredictable decade (or more?) ahead. This calls for a strategic exercise that gets away from performance as an input, something clearly visible in singling out Ares V lite, or debates about design.

Given an assortment of budget scenarios, an assortment of factors – such as COTS/crew funding levels, years, etc, success, failure, continuity or not on low-cost initiatives, a larger picture of HSF, such as amounts to restore for R&D, and still further ranges on variables such as when Shuttle resources become available to any new development – what develops quickly is a picture where a “heavy” is a set of actions or reactions (not decisions) near and far. Mindful of any gap, this becomes a burn-rate driven decision yielding some time to completion in balance with some performance. More of a “good enuf” system defined principally for adaptability to programmatic factors in years ahead (which will be mostly about funds availability).

So ultimately “costing” will have to do Ares V, Side-mount, Direct, etc on balance to gap, amidst “budget scenarios”. Sensitivities, trending and margin analysis will be part of the costing, yielding a preferred direction, albeit within the uncertainties involved. Optimizing either the architecture (“I want this performance, what’s best”) or the assumptions (“I assume this budget, it’s been promised”) will both be counter productive.

So when seeing “costing” and “savings” think – “show me”.

We have to learn from the past, from ESAS and mistakes there, as well as by observing the current environment demanding change.

No one even keeps track of the humble ‘primitive’ ‘middle class’ *non* ‘man-rated’ R7’s derivatives nowdays, they just get assembled, rolled out, and launched to keep a 400+ tonne outpost in LEO going.

What does the context that some in this thread ask for matter in such case? The quoted string standing on its own is silly in *any* context.

He basically brought up 2 made-up issues that NASA used in the past to avoid being responsible with tax dollars – the man-rating crap and the ‘need for heavy lift’ folly (a loose notion that NASA can’t define itself – hence Ares5 “lite”)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/6668434.html

FWIW…