So how do you claim the infrastructure is being built for a Mars trip? You should know very well that it will entail a whole lot of new designs iIncluding Mars EDL and departure vehicles. Orion may not even be able to come back from Mars and enter Earth’s atmosphere just as it is. In any case there is no evideence so far that Orion was designed as part of a Mars architecture. A few years ago if memory serves Congress even banned NASA.

“It’s acedemic to discuss mars at this point when they don’t want to go beyond Leo except in some far off future time, as if the problems that exist at this point won’t exist then.”

No one said they don’t want to go. Just not right away. Furthermore Constellation would never have gone within a reasonable budget and timeframe and that is that. And the focus was on ISS. Period. And I am sure you know it. Don’t claim a design can do something when there is no, absolutely no, evidence it can. Credibility is important and it was not credible.

Sadly Constellation might have worked but the imposed designs ruined everything. This was the most shortsighted vision ever.

So how do you claim the infrastructure is being built for a Mars trip? You should knoww very well that it will entail a whole lot of new design. Including Mars EDL and departure vehicles. Orion may not even be able to come back from Mars and enter Earth’s atmosphere just as it is. In any case there is no evideence so far that Orion was designed as part of a Mars architecture. A few years ago if memory serves Congress even banned it from NASA.

I know for Kistler. Such is life but still the premises of COTS are good. But Kistler lost and OSC and SpaceX won, so?

Of course not I am not forgetting their early cars but look now… And compare with Chevy…

We all know there is planning and R&D BUT Constellation was supposed to live within its means and it did not, period. Planning, technical and financial, was just plain wrong.

No Constellation IS NOT being designed nor planned for both Moon and Mars. Show a transfer stage to Mars, and EDL vehicle for Mars and an ascent stage from Mars, etc. There is no such infrastructure that would support both Moon and Mars when the focus is i) ISS ii) Moon and iii) Mars. People do claim though it can do all without any analysis whatsoever or any supporting document. Please prove me wrong and send me a link and I’ll profusely apologize.

We’ll see how SpaceX and the others do, so far so good. They did win CRS.

Also? The point I was making on RpK was how contracts get pulled if you can’t make things happen. They weren’t bidding on Constellation, rather on cots2…AND it was supposed to be a public/private venture… and they could never get the private money together. Nobody thought it would be profitable, and they were right.

You talk hyundai, but are you forgetting that their early cars were garbage? They have had years to get it all right, and a LOT of growing pains. I see a lot of that strange mindset in the arguments surrounding this issue. “You spent 9B, but you have nothing to show for it…” Like there is no R&D and planning involved with making anything. All of that other stuff costs money up front, BEFORE you build anything. And that is for ALL of Constellation, not any subsystem.

To your point on the moon/mars architecture… actually it IS being designed for both, depending on the what external modules are hooked to it. But, I would point out, that almost ALL of that work was to be done in out years. Even for moon only you would be hooking up to a lander in orbit before heading to the moon. It would be similar with mars. Like a truck with various campers depending on where you are going. That is why a program has such a long cycle. It is priced to do things stepwise. If you did everything at once it would cost all of that in a year. Nobody wants to fund at this level, how would they pay for 10x at the same time…

SpaceX is doing cool stuff, but they can do things different because they are planning themselves and building themselves, NOT for anyone else. If they were to win a bid, they would have to correspond with the same rules as everyone else, and that is where your cost driver is. A lot of money is spent just making sure that rules are followed.

Yep if they wanted to re-do Apollo then they knew what to do. They did not because they wanted it tto be different. What with all the nonsense of sending the Navy to retrieve the capsule??? What with the airbags? The retro-rockets? No can’t do that it’s too russian… What with the ever eluding reusability nonsense? Soyuz is reusable? What is the cost of Soyuz vs. Orion again?

“how do you think it will work when you use a technology that is totally unproven?”

The new plan will creat new technologies that do not require a specific destination, e.g. the Moon. We know that the hardware required to go to the Moon will not be that to go to Mars. It should be obvious to anyone! Day trip vs. month trip. Come on! We need new propulsion system for human exploration. Save for a few nutcases, who wants to stay 6 month in a can to Mars??? And then another 6 months back…

“Using established methods ain’t cheap either, naturally.”

It can be made cheaper very easily. Most of the technologies Constellation could have been passed to the private sector and some have. In esssence SpaceX is doing its own mini Constellation, at what price again? LVs and RV both. NASA cannot do it cheap because it requires an army of people, including the contractors. These contractors btw being on cost-plus contract are more like another branch of the government than any commercial entity. I hope you can see why.

“Going to space ain’t like building a chevy… But we sure treat it like one.”

No we don’t treat it like one and I’d rather refer to Honda or even better Hyunday. This is where we need to go to save money.

“The first time the govt. pulls a contract for non-completion from a smaller company it has dire cinsequence. Ask Rocketplane Kistler.”

Very much so but what was the cost of Kistler vs that of Constellation? How often can you restart Kistler with the money wasted on Constellation? That is the problem NASA is facing today and has faced for some time.

about that new budget and how we will be finding new technologies etc… etc… etc… um. It’s a cipher in my opinion. If people sqwak about the price of something using established tech, how do you think it will work when you use a technology that is totally unproven? Go look up various X-planes and when you get into the 30’s you’ll start noticing where everything gets scaled back or cancelled because they couldn’t stay on budget, because they were inventing new stuff. It isn’t cheap, certainly NOT cheaper than using what you already have. Using established methods ain’t cheap either, naturally. Going to space ain’t like building a chevy… But we sure treat it like one.

Funny thing about doing all this commercial, is? Who do you think builds it now? NASA isn’t a manufacturer, they are a management group, and scientists. The first time the govt. pulls a contract for non-completion from a smaller company it has dire cinsequence. Ask Rocketplane Kistler.

Wrong. Among other references:

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-04-02/news/constellation02_1_constellation-program-nasa-rocket

FWIW…