The budget cut is regrettable but I probably inevitable. Although NASA’s budget is tiny compared to Defence and Social Security, if the agency were spared, you can be sure people would point and insist that it bear pain before their favoured social engineering projects do instead.

My greatest concern is that Ares-I/Orion has now become an all-overriding corporate objective for NASA in itself, instead of the mission it is supposed to carry out. It is possible that the agency will literally consume itself, destroying its aeronautical and robot science sections in an attempt to get Ares-I/Orion operational as if nothing else mattered. When it finally reaches service (possibly a decade after STS retirement), it will have no role and probably will be cancelled fairly quickly and nothing else of NASA will remain.

That is the precise reason why NASA should use its power annd cash to work on top end technology, working towards breakthrough and not on steroids!

“It’s probably safe to assume that the amount of fuel required for it to make a controlled descent and landing would have made the vehicle far too heavy to be an SSTO.”

Hmm. Possibly but here again unclear. I can see other problems associated with the reentry of something like that. For example if you take the engines back with you your CG will be way aft of where it needs to be. Shuttle has the same problem which requires ballast. Ballast is dead mass and therefore very expensive.

“It may have been possible to create a reusable first stage or perhaps second stage based on it though.”

Now indeed, assume a TSTO of some sort where you find a way to recover the first stage. The second stage may still have problems or you may still have to dump the engines before reentry but it might work. You’d probably look at something like the RPK concept. So, some hybrid between DC-X and RPK? Maybe…

“IMO the X-33 should have been allowed to fly as a technology demonstrator. There were enough new technologies (new TPS panels, Aerospike engine, etc) to, I think, justify flying it.”

Yes absolutely. Then again there is a conspiracy theory claiming the thing is actually flying somewhere…

“As for launch costs”

Almost comical a subject, especially when the current and most earlier plans were to retain the Shuttle workforce…

One of the biggest problems with politics in general anymore is that a lot of left and right wing PIHs don’t actually realize that’s what they are…

exactly correct. I prowl both left and right wing sites…and for the very same position on right wing sites I am called a liberal and on left wing sites a conservative.

It is well entertaining.

Robert G. Oler

I agree with much of your comments on DCX and Venturestar.

We are I think some distance..from SSTO. We are a really long way from an SSTO that is reusable. Those are two different things

The DC program sort of proved that to me. I am not a “rocket scientist” by nature or degree (EE and Math are the technical ends,) but I got to “hang out” with a lot of folks who were and Martin Bayer and James Chestek of the old Compuserve space forum went a long way toward nurturing my education on that.

What I liked about DC X and the follow on program is that the focus was as much on “recurring cost” as it was vehicle performance. I never saw that in the Lockmart Venturestar thing. I could easily see the VS eventually winding up with the entire shuttle workforce and inspection program grinding into it.

I really never see any NASA project do that…X-38 might have…I agree with Wayne Hale that it should have been given a shot at flying.

As an aside, where I always saw DCX going was in two directions. The first was as I noted a “people reducer” and the second was in some sort of direction as a reusable lower stage…

one of the thought experiments that got me into was the concept of “spinners”…Like the kind Oberg talked about in his MSNBC piece that Mark W blew up about.

anyway the result of this is that I suspect we are going to toss first stages into the ocean…for a bit

Robert G. Oler

Personally I would take your difinition of “right wing” and apply it to “partisan ideological hacks” (PIH for short). That way it covers both ends of the political spectrum.

One of the biggest problems with politics in general anymore is that a lot of left and right wing PIHs don’t actually realize that’s what they are. I’ve observed that many PIHs only associate with like minded people (leftists tend to stick to sites like DailyKos, right wingers tend to stick to sites like American Spectator). Because of this neither “sub-species” of PIH actually realize how truly out of touch with reality they are. They all believe that their chosen ideology is actually “mainstream” or “moderate” and can’t seem to wrap their minds around the fact that they’re not mainstream at all.

In some regards they’re not unlike cult members who will fight and argue to their last breath that they’re right and anyone else is wrong, or stupid, or whatever.

As interesting a concept as the DC-X was, I’m personally not sold that it ever could have been developed into an SSTO launcher as some of its supporters seem to think. It’s probably safe to assume that the amount of fuel required for it to make a controlled descent and landing would have made the vehicle far too heavy to be an SSTO. It may have been possible to create a reusable first stage or perhaps second stage based on it though.

As for X-33/ Venturestar, where to begin? First there were the composite tanks, which were an unmitigated disaster. Not only was it nearly imposible to create tanks in the required shape, but it turns out carbon fiber has a nasty habit of delaminating when exposed to cryogenic temperatures. Then there was the fact that they actually weighed more than Al-Li alloy tanks would have. LM actually went ahead with building the metal tanks before the porject was terminated and they were in fact lighter. Also, the aerospike engine was far heavier than they initially thought.

IMO the X-33 should have been allowed to fly as a technology demonstrator. There were enough new technologies (new TPS panels, Aerospike engine, etc) to, I think, justify flying it. As for the full scale Venturestar, maybe, maybe not. Like the DC-X much of the technology of the X-33 didn’t scale very well and probably could not have been developed into an SSTO vehicle. It could have been an SSTAO (Single Stage To Almost Orbit) vehicle, which could have then been paired with an upper stage of some sort to launch assets (be it people or other).

As for launch costs, a lot of people were spouting ridiculous numbers like “$1000/ lb” which would not have been any more achievable than a shuttle launch rate of 50/ year. Too much unique infrastructure and too many support personel would have been required to ever reach that low a price. It probably wouldn’t have been much less expensive, if any, than shuttle.

Thank you for confirming (as though it wasn’t obvious from all your other posts) that you are a political moron.

Dont worry I spent a few moments at your place as well. The stuff you post concerning space policy is read very closely. While I do not agree with everything you post, it is generally thoughtful and entertaining. The political stuff? Well easy answers are the opium for the extremes of both parties. And then of course there is the diatribes that you and Whittington carry on mostly on space policy. Those are always worth a good chuckle “(name) has jumped his chain”. Dont worry Whittington’s are entertaining as well. I enjoy when the “converted” engage each other!

as for

“Does “right wing” just mean “anyone who disagrees with the great Robert Oler”?” The wife prefers “Robert Oler The Great”…but really the Great Robert Oler is my Great Grandfather.

As for what the “right wing means”. It is people who 1) are easily lured by ideology, 2) usually jump to the worst case example to make their point (I loved the post you had where trying KSM in federal court was the start of Martial law…LOL) and 3) generally prefer easy answers to hard facts.

Of course the slant, left or right is the product of the ideology…but the left and right share all those things in common.

A hoot today is watching the beloved on Palin’s page gush over her interivew with Hannity…the one where she confused Iraq with Iran and then even pardoning that got a bunch of things wrong…

back to space policy

Robert G. Oler