NASA

Garver on commercial spaceflight and the agency’s ultimate goal

Despite the blizzard conditions that struck Washington earlier this week, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver made it to the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Crystal City, Virginia, on Thursday. (She was filling in for administrator Bolden, who could not make it back to DC from Texas and Alabama because of the storm.) In front of a friendly, receptive audience, she made the case for greater use by NASA of commercial space capabilities, both orbital and suborbital.

“We plan to transform our relationship with the private sector as part of our nation’s new strategy with the ultimate goal of expanding human presence across the solar system,” she said early in her speech. “So don’t be fooled by those who say we have no goal. That is the goal.” She also noted that NASA’s proposed plan to support the commercial space industry is a natural extension of efforts dating back to the Reagan Administration’s decision to stop using the shuttle for commercial satellite launches—a line in the speech designed, perhaps, to win greater Republican support for the Democratic administration’s plan.

Her speech reviewed the key highlights of the agency’s new plan as released in its FY11 budget proposal last week, filling in a few additional details and expanding on some issues and concerns, such as the effects canceling Constellation will have on the workforce. “In the short term I recognize that there are a lot of people worried about jobs, and we understand,” she said. She noted, though, that the agency’s overall budget is increased, and that translate into jobs, although there will be “displacements” in the near term. “In the long run bolstering the US commercial space industry will help the economy.”

Garver provided some words of support, and praise, for the Constellation workforce. “The wonderful people in our own NASA family and industry who were working on Constellation absolutely did nothing wrong and did not fail,” she said. “Our contractor and NASA workforce is an incredible asset to the nation and we believe it will continue to be that. But they deserve to work on programs that are well thought out, make sense, and have the resources to succeed.”

She also more broadly defended a core aspect of the plan: replacing Ares 1/Orion with commercial alternatives. Doing so, she said, not only would help stimulate the economy but also be a lower risk approach. “We will diversify our risk by funding a portfolio of highly-qualified competitors instead of a high-risk approach in which we fund only one system,” she said. “We’re going to see the most exciting space race that NASA’s seen in a long time, and there’s likely to be more than one winner.”

On a related note, early in her speech she got in a minor jab at those who criticize NASA for dumping Constellation in favor of “untried” commercial systems. She congratulated the agency for the successful launch that morning of the Solar Dynamics Observatory on an Atlas 5—the same vehicle some companies have proposed for use to launch human spacecraft. “So much for those unproven rockets,” she quipped.

Garver also discussed NASA’s role in commercial suborbital spaceflight. “I do anticipate that one day soon that these [suborbital] vehicles will be safe enough that NASA will pay for hundreds of astronauts and scientists and technology developers to fly into space each and every year,” she said. To ensure that these vehicles are safe enough for NASA, she said, the Dryden Flight Research Center would lead the safety assessment of these vehicles, although she didn’t discuss the details of how such assessments would work.

She also briefly touched upon the need for export control reform to help make the US commercial space industry more competitive. The Obama Administration, she said, was aware of these concerns, “and are working hard to find ways to reform the regime.”

After her speech she said that she was not surprised by the strong and often strongly negative, reaction to the agency’s new direction. “I think we fully expected that any change of this magnitude was going to have people concerned. The status quo is tough to move,” she said. She added that the agency was ready to provide more information about the plan during Congressional hearings planned for late this month. “We have a lot of details and we look forward to discussing them.”

162 comments to Garver on commercial spaceflight and the agency’s ultimate goal

  • HotShotX

    FIRST!

    (Enjoy the next ~150+ replies.)

    ~HotShotX

  • NASA Fan

    @ Garver. “We have a lot of details and we look forward to discussing them.”

    Funny, both Garver and Bolden acknowledge the mess they have made in rolling out the Obama plan; including the lack of details. Now we learn of course that there are details, but once again Garver et al are sitting on them.

    If either one of them gave a hoot about losing the NASA workforce (and I mean losing them as leaders losing their followers, or as General might lose his troops) you’d think they would present these ‘look forward to discussing’ details.

    Garver occurs to me as a policy wonk, not a leader.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    What :Lori is not saying is that they are making this new policy up as they go along. They should not have been surprised at the negative reaction to choosing not to go to the Moon. It represents a surrender of the high frontier.

  • I’m glad NASA is starting to take up some of the more reasoned arguments for the program. The odd suggestion that the all-or-nothing constellation approach was somehow a safer bet than multiple commercial launchers was rather absurd.

    And before an avalanche of ‘commercial is unproven’ arguments is posted I’d like to point out, as I have elsewhere, that Lockheed Martin, the company contracted to build Orion, has never built a manned spacecraft. Their role in space shuttle was the external tank. Nearly all of our manned spacecraft thus far have been constructed by Boeing or the companies it eventually absorbed. And the last time NASA advised on a spacecraft was two generations ago. Few of those engineers are still in NASA’s workforce. So in essence constellation is as unproven as any private system. The only launch component with a proven history that was to enter into constellation service was the SRB which was slated to have a different engine, an additional segment, and a redesigned propellant geometry. About the only thing left from the original SRB’s would have been the propellant chemistry and the casing.

    What I find amusing is that a lot of the space states are definitely red states so their representatives are stuck with the unenviable position of trying to defend opposition to privatization while the ‘Big Government” democratic president is the one proposing we scrap the monolithic government program. Space seems to have a long history of very strange and awkward coalitions.

  • Robert G. Oler

    NASA Fan wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 11:51 am ..

    this is how this is done…actually it is how Charlie Bolden has “swept up” every organization he has been a part of.

    It amazes me how people who are commenting on this have not taken the time to look and see how Charlie did at say 3MAW or even the USNA…where he was working without the big congressional problems he has now…but where he enountered dysfunctional organizations and fixed them.

    People like Whittington are simply partisan…and really dont have a grasp on reality…but as I have noted before if I was doing what Bolden is doing I would do it the same exact way.

    Bolden has put a stake through what he needed to kill and now he is simply putting together the “sweetners” to bring everyone (or at least the non Shelby nuts) along.

    The argument shortly is not going to be Constellation vrs this plan…it is going to be the nuances of this plan.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 11:54 am

    They should not have been surprised at the negative reaction to choosing not to go to the Moon. It represents a surrender of the high frontier…

    that we were not even going to think about going to until 2030…gee

    how silly.

    This is actually “taking the high frontier”

    no American frontier has been taken without private industry being a part of the vanguard of the effort. Sorry your person Griffin purposly took the private sector out…and made it a government only effort…so we were stuck with sloth, incompetence, crony capitalism and all the other residues of the last administration which got us into trouble.

    At least in one thing Obama has changed the mix.

    You are a excellent example of why “space” is to important to be left to space advocates. you are always hoping to fight the last war.

    you are the Navy in WW2 expecting Jutland..

    gee Robert G. Oler

  • Donald W. Ernst

    Let’s lay out the facts, let’s go through Garver’s little speech item by item. Transforming relationships and expanding human presence across the solar system are not a goal, that’s policy wonk bullcrap.The program was well thought out but it made no sense in terms of being the right program and neither the Bush or Obama administrations put the resources into it it needed to suceed. The Atlas V is a launch vehicle developed by the U.S. goverment, not a commercially developed vehicle. Why would NASA want to fly manned suborbital missions? Lastly, I can only hope NASA is not allowed anywhere near commericially developed vehicles to do assessments. They would kill those projects just like they killed their own.

  • HotShotX

    “The Atlas V is a launch vehicle developed by the U.S. goverment, not a commercially developed vehicle.”

    The Atlas V is developed by United Launch Alliance (a joint-venture between Boeing and Lockheed, I believe.), just because they are supporting a federal contract today does not mean they cannot compete for a commercial contract tomorrow (or when the federal contract ends).

    ~HotShotX

  • On a related note, early in her speech she got in a minor jab at those who criticize NASA for dumping Constellation in favor of “untried” commercial systems. She congratulated the agency for the successful launch that morning of the Solar Dynamics Observatory on an Atlas 5—the same vehicle some companies have proposed for use to launch human spacecraft. “So much for those unproven rockets,” she quipped.

    Really!?!? That lone, human-rated Atlas V, not human-rated Atlas V 501, or other human-rated variant, but the same vehicle some companies have proposed for use to launch human spacecraft is going to lift a capsule full of astronauts into LEO?

    OMG! Is the Deputy Administrator of NASA really that challenged in her knowledge of launchers? And is the press covering the FAA event equally illiterate?

    The Atlas V that launched the SDO couldn’t get an Apollo, much less an Orion, capsule into LEO. And yes, Oler & Co. will criticize at great length, but not nearly as lengthy as commonsense, this comment–what else is new–but do they know the import, the significance, of why the ideal rocket equation dictates that Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator, was factually and figuratively wrong in her statement? Hint: total impulse. Hint 2: mass-fraction.

    Onward to another 140 comments

  • josh

    hey mark, do you ever get tired of making a fool of yourself? i haven’t read one comment from you, anywhere, that made the least bit of sense. you’re a partisan nutjob, nothing more.

    the plan is sound, constellation is a mess and so is nasa. reform and an end to the status-quo is exactly what’s needed. i couldn’t care less about people being laid off. if there is no work for them, tough luck. and the moon? who cares about the moon? not me and more than 90% of the public don’t care either. that’s why obama’s plan will go through, you’ll see.

  • Nonamouse

    eh, the whole thing about public/private sector is hogwash. NASA doesn’t BUILD stuff. they manage it. they usually subcontract even that out.

    It has ALWAYS been the private sector building, even Apollo.

    So, AtlasV is built by a commercial company? funnily enough, it’s the same company that is building Orion. Huh, kinda odd, that.

    Don’t be fooled by the hiding of the wheels within wheels. What they are saying is that they want LOTS of people to throw money in to the venture, not just the government… But many of those people have already been burned before, by sudden changes of direction.

    They need to lay out sooner, not later, their exact ideas, and not wrapped up in intentions, but plans. The weasel words they have been using so far, aren’t good.

    AND? Waiting a whole year for this? Means they spent a year’s money allowing Const. to go foreward with testing and production rampup. They have been a day late all around. If they intended to change directions, they should have done it sooner, and stronger. This is a small part of the budget, and a small part of the problems confronting the US… but it is one of the most visable things we do. Being so muddled about it is a shame.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Jim Hillhouse wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    that is given the criticism of the commercial efforts by folks like “Doc” Horwitz completely unfair…infact completly off the point.

    The argument by people like “Doc” is that commercial companies are “not ready” period for lift to LEO. Dont take my word for what “Doc” is babbling…go listen to his interview with Miles OB or read his comments in some of the space review articles.

    The basic argument against “commercial lift” to the space station is that commercial companies simply cannot do it without NASA being involved in the program as they are today in Ares or have been in the shuttle. In other words it is that without NASA human spaceflight is on this path that will get people killed…

    It is partially some mysticism about the specific vehicle…Ares; Horwitz in his interview with Miles tosses in the “five times safer” line…but at its core is that without the NASA involvement well danger gathers near our launch pads.

    The problem is that 1) the actual statistics dont agree with that notion and 2) NASA has directly killed 14 astronauts and lost two vehicles (they really get it now)…and 3) the design that they have is now simply unaffordable.

    Clearly Lockmart and Boeing have the “chops” without NASA to design a vehicle that performs reliably. The Atlas and Delta in their current versions were all done without NASA and are quite “reliable”.

    A 737 cannot fly New York to Jeddah nonestop (well most cannot anyway) but the same process that designed the “pig” can design an airplane that can do that and do it safely….and more affordable.

    I dont care if the Atlas used for SDO couldnt life Orion. There are Atlas that can. And there are human versions of capsules/vehicles that Atlas can lift.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 11:54 am
    They should not have been surprised at the negative reaction to choosing not to go to the Moon…

    yeah people all over the nation are tearing their clothes off shouting “we gave up the Moon, curse you Obama”.

    I have restarted some speaking appointments at various “clubs” around the area…and I dont sense a lot of opposition to the change…particularly when the facts are laid out about the various oppurtunities.

    Most people can figure out (sadly you cannot) that we need new middle class jobs…and when one points out that the Russians and Europeans are 1) doing all the commercial launching now and 2) are gearing up to form a partnership to allow them to build large space platforms…well going back to the Moon in 2030 doesnt seem all that important.

    Robert G. Oler

  • mark valah

    @ those commenting on Atlas V: the rocket uses Russian built booster engines. Just as Soyuz will jack-up the cost per seat starting 2012, taking advantage of their access to space monopoly, a similar issue may arise if an Atlas V derived man-rated launcher was developed. But Jim Hillhouse is right, Atlas V performance does not make it suitable for manned deep access to space.

    @josh. you are right, everything is a mess, and it has been accentuated by the administration’s proposal. the industry was expecting a correction to Constellation, not an outright cancellation. NASA people had put hundreds of volunteer hours into designing the Direct architectures which would have guaranteed access to space as soon as 2018, and with cost-effectiveness. about not caring at all about lay offs: did you ever try to do a specialty job with new trainees after having let go of good professionals? try it, and then please post again.

    it will take time to sort out the current mess. even if the best hoped for outcome is to come to fruition, a significant fraction of capability and work-force will be lost by then

  • ZJM

    I am not sure it is accurate to say the choice has been made “not to go to the Moon.” It is more a choice to focus on how to begin a marathon in a way that can be sustained to get to extra-Earth places–which might include the Moon. Knowing where an out-of-reach finish line is does not make running the marathon any easier. Focusing on the necessary training and conditioning does.

  • […] to coverage in Garver on commercial spaceflight and the agency’s ultimate goal, while sitting in for NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden at the FAA’s Commercial Space […]

  • “it will take time to sort out the current mess. even if the best hoped for outcome is to come to fruition, a significant fraction of capability and work-force will be lost by then”

    And what of the jobs lost in the 7 years it would take to launch the first Ares I? Do you think all the NASA sites would keep around a full launch workforce for one test in 2014 and maybe one a few years later? Do you think they’d keep all the folks at Michaud employed for the decade and a half it would take for them to build the first Ares V? Ares I/V would have kept engineers employed, but everyone in the vehicle construction, integration, and launch programs would be cut or temporarily laid off while we waited for the next vehicles to come on line. Granted it’s a rougher reality to be told “your job is out the window next year” as opposed to “sometime in the future we’re just not going to need you”, but I don’t really see much difference here.

    And ultimately if the private market comes to fruition, and I believe it will in at least some form, all of the folks who move to those companies (as many former NASA and Big Aerospace folks already ahve) will have a redundant employment base so we won’t have to talk about losing capability and workforce everytime a rocket family goes offline.

  • @Donald Ernst: “Why would NASA want to fly manned suborbital missions?”

    In case you hadn’t noticed NASA performs many scientific functions including a lot of atmospheric studies as well as microgravity and near-vacuum experiments that could benefit from suborbital study over orbital due to lower costs and faster turnaround.

    Studies are fiarly regularly done in the “Vomit Comet” parabolic flight craft which is nice for experiments that can be performed in a few minute increments. Suborbital craft could offer longer duration and more consistent low-gravity environments to work in.

  • Donald W. Ernst

    To elaborate on matters in regards to the Atlas, it began it’s existance as a ICBM developed for the Air Force. The most recent version is the result of the EELV program set up in the 90’s, this was also Air Force money.ULA is in effect a defense contractor, their not about to in invest their own money.

  • mark valah

    @aremisasling: the private industry is based on profit. there is no profit in the space business, except, perhaps, space tourism. until profit will show up, one way or the other, space is a government business, on government dime. when government loses focus, the industry is dismantled. the hope now is that focus will be regained, the faster the better.

    forget Ares I and V, those configurations were definitely not optimal. hoewver, if the Constellation program had been corrected and preserved, most of the current workforce would have been transfered to the program. you write as if the years until testing and flight do not occupy enough people. are you perhaps speaking from outside the industry? there is a huge amount of work involved, the best stimulus package the administration would have dreamed of, and one that keeps high technology on continous progress. for example the machining of engine cores takes years to completion and involve complexities which forces manufacturing research and development on many suppliers. it seems to me that many people involved in this debate are not familiar with these details.

  • Donald W. Ernst

    In regards to aremisasling’s point about the the use of sub orbital manned flights, I’ll admit he has a point about the duration factor but it seems that a orbital flight would allow for repeating the experiments to verify the results.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Donald W. Ernst wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
    the current Atlas has little in common with the old one Robert G. Oler

  • Storm

    @ mark valah and Mark Whittington

    I’m probably making this point to no avail since it seems that Mark Whittington gets up early every morning on the East Coast and makes a partisan jab at the administration, then goes on with his day.

    But both you Marks keep making arguments that don’t take into account all the facts. The fact is that if you guys get your way the United States will be going “put, put” back to the moon in a classic Pontiac GTO- a program that will not serve to advance our space infrastructure, but only serve to spend lots of federal money that we don’t have, while competitive allies and foes begin to build an advanced space society with all the pieces necessary to allow small rockets to loft large payloads, including human vehicles to deep space.

    And Whittington I hope you’re listening, because I’ll just say this, because it needs to be said more than ever. You are a threat to our national security. And you don’t even believe in what you say – you just say what serves your partisanship. Now I know why George Washington tried to prevent political parties from taking their course – because it would threaten our resolve as a nation to do what is right in the face of highly organized, non partisan competitors like China. Because of your style of politics the United States cannot mount an affective technological development to advance our nation to compete with others. Does this serve your party? Damn right it does. Your aim is to make the administration look so bad that regardless of how right Obama was to recalibrate our space program, he and Democratic Congressmen will lose their pants in the coming elections, at which point the Republican can take the helm and declare Obama’s new space program as their own. However the new program will have lost much of its funding and years to the partisan stranglehold that Republicans have mounted while Democrats were in control. This isn’t love of country – this is an effort to take control at whatever cost. Its “throw the baby out with the bath water”

  • common sense

    “The Atlas V that launched the SDO couldn’t get an Apollo, much less an Orion, capsule into LEO. And yes, Oler & Co. will criticize at great length, but not nearly as lengthy as commonsense, this comment–what else is new–but do they know the import, the significance, of why the ideal rocket equation dictates that Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator, was factually and figuratively wrong in her statement? Hint: total impulse. Hint 2: mass-fraction.”

    Talk about massive nonsense. I can’t even understand what you’re saying. I think you ought to run for the Admin job at least you make clear statements unlike Ms. Garver…

    Oh well…

  • mark valah

    @ storm: okay, let’s wait for Bolden’s presentation before Congress Feb 23 and/or 24, and discuss afterwards. Personally I am apolitical.

  • common sense

    @ aremisasling:

    FWIW, I think you’re essentially right on the mark. Keep at it!

  • Without necessarily defending the Obama administration’s plan — I think that it’s probably a good idea, but I’m genuinely undecided — it follows the Republican “commercial-competition-is-good; government-is-bad” ideology practically to the letter. That so many Republicans are coming out against it says far more about Republicans than it does about the plan. Come on, guys, accept a gift when it is given to you. Or is the reality, in fact, that you really do not believe your own ideology enough to trust it? Is relying on private industry and competition really going to “surrender the High Frontier”? If so, maybe there are other areas where the Democrats are right and the free market has its limits. . . .

    If you can’t say “yes” to proposals that come out of your own song book, what is the point in trying to be “bi-partisan”?

    Frankly, I am disgusted by the political aspects of this whole debate.

    — Donald

  • common sense

    ” I’ll admit he has a point about the duration factor but it seems that a orbital flight would allow for repeating the experiments to verify the results.”

    Hmm. Any idea of the difference in cost between orbital and sub-orbital? Do you think each and every one can afford orbital flight today? Is it all or nothing to you?

  • common sense

    “Means they spent a year’s money allowing Const. to go foreward with testing and production rampup. ”

    Nope. It’s money to close it down so that people just don’t go unemployed tomorrow. You should rejoice because in industry usually it is “pack up and be gonee by noon”.

  • common sense

    “NASA people had put hundreds of volunteer hours into designing the Direct architectures which would have guaranteed access to space as soon as 2018, and with cost-effectiveness. ”

    Please provide proof to this statement. We’re all still waiting and it looks like they were not able to convince either Augustine nor the current NASA leaders.

  • common sense

    BTW, I think it’s great to see DFRC regaining a role in “prototype” flying. I truly hope they can show off their substantial experise in experimental flights that is going to be required for any of the sub-orbital vehicles. If I were a pilot over there I’d feel a terrible itch again! Guys you’re back in the real fun business. I am sure an F-22 or some souped up F-16/F-15 is fun but suborbital??? Chuck Yeager must already be walking to the lockers to get ready ;)

  • Major Tom

    “The Atlas V that launched the SDO couldn’t get an Apollo much less an Orion, capsule into LEO.”

    Of course not. The Atlas that launched SDO was programmed to go to GTO, not LEO. SDO is in a geosynchronous orbit, no LEO.

    Duh…

    “why the ideal rocket equation dictates that Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator, was factually and figuratively wrong in her statement?”

    Garver is right. There are multiple industry papers showing that the Atlas 401 (which SDO launched on) or 402 can put human capsules weighing up to 27,500 lbs. into orbit. For example:

    http://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/publications/HumanRatingAtlasVandDeltaIV.pdf

    “OMG! Is the Deputy Administrator of NASA really that challenged in her knowledge of launchers?”

    Not nearly as challenged as you are.

    “And is the press covering the FAA event equally illiterate?

    Not nearly as illiterate as you are. Reread the first paragraph of your post.

    Lawdy…

  • Major Tom

    “Atlas V performance does not make it suitable for manned deep access to space.”

    Wrong. An Atlas 5H2 can put 25,000 kg into LEO. Orion was well under that limit before it was cancelled. And if you don’t like Atlas, then use a Delta 9250H, which can put 25,800 kg into LEO.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Funny, both Garver and Bolden acknowledge the mess”

    Where did Garver make such an acknowledgement?

    Don’t make things up.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “What :Lori is not saying is that they are making this new policy up as they go along.”

    How do you know? Are you party to the planning group’s weekly videoconferences? Is Bolden conferring with you via email?

    Or are you under the illusion that you can read minds?

    Don’t write things you know nothing about.

    “They should not have been surprised at the negative reaction to choosing not to go to the Moon.”

    Where does the new budget say that a decision has been made “not to go to the Moon”?

    Don’t make things up.

    “It represents a surrender of the high frontier.”

    Two points:

    1) It’s impossible to surrender something that no one else is competing for. No other nation or entity has a program or is developing hardware for human space flight beyond LEO.

    2) If there was a surrender, it was under the old Constellation Program, which at best would have delivered an Ares V HLV in 2028 or later with no transit stage, deep space Orion, or lander to use it.

    Lawdy…

  • Major Tom

    “Transforming relationships and expanding human presence across the solar system are not a goal, that’s policy wonk bullcrap.”

    How is expanding human presence across the solar system not a goal? What are you smoking?

    “The Atlas V is a launch vehicle developed by the U.S. goverment, not a commercially developed vehicle.”

    Totally wrong. LockMart put billions of corporate dollars into Atlas V development.

    “Why would NASA want to fly manned suborbital missions?”

    Microgravity research, astronaut training, etc.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Frankly, I am disgusted by the political aspects of this whole debate.”

    The partisan politics are just stupid and ass backwards.

    It’s the parochial politics that are disgusting.

    FWIW…

  • mark valah

    @ common sense

    Please provide proof to this statement. We’re all still waiting and it looks like they were not able to convince either Augustine nor the current NASA leaders.

    It depends what you call proof. For some, only a successfully flying vehicle is proof, everything else is projection you may or may not want to believe.

    For now, I can only refer you to the original presentation:

    http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/361841main_14%20-%20DIRECT_HSF_Commission.pdf

  • Major Tom

    “BTW, I think it’s great to see DFRC regaining a role in ‘prototype’ flying.”

    Agreed.

    “I truly hope they can show off their substantial experise in experimental flights that is going to be required for any of the sub-orbital vehicles.”

    They had substantial expertise at one time, but the rate of experimental vehicles and test flights has fallen off and been off for years. I hope they havn’t lost too much.

    “If I were a pilot over there I’d feel a terrible itch again!… Chuck Yeager must already be walking to the lockers to get ready”

    Amen.

  • common sense

    Major Tom I don’t know whou you are but I’ll just have a toast to you this weekend! I wish we could have a debate on real issues with as well informed people as you on Space rather than the usual ludicrous rant we have to go through. A debate on space policy and not the high frontier…

    Cheers!

  • sc220

    Touche’, Major Tom. As always your counterpunches are strong and right to the point! (Although I think that some of your opponents aren’t even worthy of receiving your well-crafted blows.)

    And if I can borrow one of your lines, “FWIW…”

  • common sense

    @mark valah:

    I am sorry and please don’t get me wrong, I am not necessarily opposed to a Direct cargo launcher. I am opposed to a Direct crew launcher. And that is what makes me feel bad about the whole thing. It is a nice ppt presentation and believe me I had my share of such ppt. But where is the analysis of the LAS showing you can safely bail out on pad or at low/high altitude. Yes I am mainly concerned with crew. I don’t care, so to speak, if we loose a lunar lander. I care if we loose a crew though. Maybe there are reference(s) you’d care to provide for my enlightenment?

  • @Mark Valah: “forget Ares I and V, those configurations were definitely not optimal. hoewver, if the Constellation program had been corrected and preserved, most of the current workforce would have been transfered to the program.”

    If Ares I/V weren’t optimal, then constellation was dead in the water, which it was. It needed a substantial revamp which would require starting from zero anyway. It may have kept NASA folks employed, but this late in the game it would likely amount to more delays and wasted development.

    “you write as if the years until testing and flight do not occupy enough people.”

    Enough people isn’t the problem. It’s the kind of jobs they’d be employed at. As I said, you don’t need launch crews for a test that won’t happen for four years. And you won’t need the folks from Michaud as all they do is ET-derived stuff, which won’t have funding until the second half of the decade. And while you may need some workers on the engine assembly lines for test articles, it would be far far less than if the vehicle had any kind of regular production rate.

    “are you perhaps speaking from outside the industry?”

    Yes, but I’m interested to see how an insider thinks the above jobs will stay filled while we wait for anything meaningful to hit production lines. I may not be an industry insider but I used to work in a tool and die factory and I have a business degree including process management training. It doesn’t take a rocket engineer to know you don’t need launch command for a rocket that isn’t flying.

    “there is a huge amount of work involved, the best stimulus package the administration would have dreamed of”

    In that it would maintain the same workforce it had before. And again, the workforce wouldn’t be a single unchanging body. As it moved from shuttle production to R&D, engineers would be employed as line workers and launch folks would be laid off. When it came time to start building again, the reverse would happen.

    “and one that keeps high technology on continous progress. for example the machining of engine cores takes years to completion and involve complexities which forces manufacturing research and development on many suppliers. it seems to me that many people involved in this debate are not familiar with these details.”

    R&D is not the same as manufacturing. And a product in development, even if there are machinists involved, has very different workforce needs than a product on the production line. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re talking about.

  • common sense

    “They had substantial expertise at one time, but the rate of experimental vehicles and test flights has fallen off and been off for years. I hope they havn’t lost too much.”

    Yes it is true and I hope they’re up to it or will be soon. At least they had a daring spirit for years. Now, if even DFRC cannot come back from its way to the grave then that is a very, very bad omen for all aeronautics and space done by the government.

  • mark valah

    @ common sense

    There are many more requirements related to a man-rated vehicle than those you mentioned. Direct architectures satisfy all those requirements by default, if you follow the presentation. I don’t understand your statement about crew versus cargo, Direct delivers both. The abort system you mention is pretty much standard no matter the architecture.

  • common sense

    “The abort system you mention is pretty much standard no matter the architecture.”

    Absolutely not true. You ought to get rid of the idea you seem to have that it is a rocket ontop a capsule. It is not. It is a flight veicle, called LAV for Orion. It has to show a lot of aero capabilities and to be able to punch out quickly from an embarassing situation. The AF range ran a quick analysis and showed how Ares/Orion might fail. Do you any such quick and dirty analysis that show your vehicles will work… Direct may deliver cargo but I seriously doubt it can with any LAS be safe. Or get rid of the LAS and then make the statement again, a la Shuttle if you wish.

  • mark valah

    @aremisasling you are wellcome to comment from outside the industry, and we need more people like you, concerned and attempting to sort through the layers of contradiction.

    Without going into much details, a “reformed Constellation” program, with clear goals, can maintain a large workforce employed and making progress towards various technologies. There is a NASA workforce, the main contractor base workforce and a large set of suppliers which provide parts to the industry. Once a new set a vehicles is prepared for lauching, the workforce on that specific division is employed in preparing the new facilities, performing training, dry-runs and maintenance. Two missions per year to the Moon means a very large enterprise and a workforce towards 50k heads empoyed or more, if one counts all ramifications. During Apollo, NASA + Contractors were at more than 70k people employed, not counting the part supplier base, but productivity has increased from 1960’s. I know this numbers will bring more replies, and I apologize for not commenting any further, I believe the point was made…

  • Major Tom

    “Touche’, Major Tom. As always your counterpunches are strong and right to the point! (Although I think that some of your opponents aren’t even worthy of receiving your well-crafted blows.)”

    Thanks, but honestly, they’re not really counterpunches, well-crafted or otherwise. I’m mostly just pointing out the facts as they exist. To say that a launch vehicle can’t lift X kg to Y orbit when it absolutely can is just a blatant lie or stupendous ignorance.

    “I wish we could have a debate on real issues with as well informed people as you on Space rather than the usual ludicrous rant we have to go through.”

    Agreed. Debate should be grounded in logic and reality, not hyperbole and false statements.

    FWIW…

  • Storm

    @mark valah

    I won’t pretend to be apolitical – I’m not, but when George W Bush released his VSE I remember there being a broad backbone of support, part of which came from me. Did I think the plan was lacking? Of course. Louis Friedman voiced many of the concerns about VSE closing down other important science going on at NASA, but he remained cautiously optimistic about human spaceflight. I felt largely the same, but I wanted to support the President’s plan at the time because it would provide a united vision, and many Democrats wanted the same as well. I strongly supported the idea of returning astronauts to the Moon, and this time to stay. I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t be funded by the President, or Congress. I wrote the President requesting a new era when NASA would finally be appreciated for it contribution to long term national security goals (owning the high ground).

    So when the President announced VSE I felt I had to get behind the plan that I had largely spurred from the beginning. I didn’t realize that the cost and lack of support would effectively leave NASA in such a bind, and result in the termination of many valuable programs that already existed, especially NIAC – which I still regret.

    So now I see a new plan that makes a bold effort to spread out the costs of space exploration and provides the infrastructure to provide a new paradigm – allowing smaller rockets to take larger payloads to deep space.

    And I also see the Republican Party whose previous space plan I supported strongly, and all they want to do now is destroy the Obama administration at all costs – even if it means putting down NASA’s new plan, which makes a whole lot more sense in terms of promising a lower cost alternative for deep space access, as well as the promise to get more commercial involvement in deep space missions.

    I’m not surprised by any of this. The Republicans have largely acted in this fashion because their largest political imperative is to give the super rich access to government policy so as to allow the consolidation of wealth at the expense of the nation as a whole. And they use hot-button topics like race and patriotism to cajole the American public to support policies that harm the national interest. For example, not mandating more R&D so executives can pay themselves huge bonuses instead of investing in the competitive products of the future that will help sustain their businesses in the long term. Also not requiring energy companies to invest in new energy technologies while China invests gobs of money through state sponsorship and strong mandates on private industry to create a sea change and gain a competitive advantage in producing such products for the world – enhancing their ability to drive exports so as to provide the heavy machinery to fight and win a protracted war by being able to outproduce other nations like the US did in WWII.

    Major Tom,

    “1) It’s impossible to surrender something that no one else is competing for. No other nation or entity has a program or is developing hardware for human space flight beyond LEO.”

    Thanks so much for you fact checking. They are highly needed in this forum and you are our greatest asset. I believe however, Russia is highly motivated to send humans to deep space and they are currently in the concept state to compete with the Obama plan. They are designing space tugs, nuclear propulsion, GEO platforms and the whole ball of wax.

  • Major Tom

    “They are designing space tugs, nuclear propulsion, GEO platforms”

    The question is not whether Russia (or any other nation) is designing these things. Designs for these capabilities have been around for decades and are revisited on a nearly continuous basis. Same goes for agency-level plans to send humans to the Moon or any other target that show up in the news from time to time.

    The question is whether any of that agency-level planning is translating into government-level policy and well-funded programs and whether those designs are actually being translated into hardware.

    In the case of Russia, I’m unaware of any policy, funding, or program to build the capabilities you referenced. Even if there was a policy or program, I’d be highly skeptical of it producing hardware given the financial constraints of the Russian space program. Russia can’t seem to afford a replacement for their Soyuz capsule without European help. Although they did build a couple nuclear reactor-powered spacecraft during the Cold War (some of which have only recently come to light), I can’t see them building spacecraft with nuclear propulsion (or space tugs or GEO platforms) if they can’t afford to replace Soyuz.

    Nothing against the Russian space program, which is highly capable and saved our asses on ISS after Columbia. But design and agency-level planning are not the same thing, not by a long shot, as government-level policy, billion dollar (ruble?) budgets, and actual hardware.

    My 2 cents… FWIW.

  • “destroy the Obama administration at all costs”

    At almost all costs anyway. The future of the country depends on it.

    I hope we can save NASA. Also, the opposition to this new plan isn’t Republican. It is basically establishment space against the upstarts. Bill Nelson isn’t a Republican. It is really the Republicans that I worry about on this as a supporter of Constellation-lite. They may go for this “commercial space” stuff and go wow that’s free enterprise and that’s what we want.

    The only reason that the opposition might appear partisan at this point is because of the prevailing political complexion of the states in which the major space centers and contractors are located. Remember that they were placed there a long time ago when these area had a lot more Democrats in office.

    “The Republicans have largely acted in this fashion because their largest political imperative is to give the super rich access to government policy so as to allow the consolidation of wealth at the expense of the nation as a whole. And they use hot-button topics like race and patriotism to cajole the American public to support policies that harm the national interest. For example, not mandating more R&D so executives can pay themselves huge bonuses instead of investing in the competitive products of the future that will help sustain their businesses in the long term.”

    That’s just Democrat agitprop. The Republicans aren’t for consolidation wealth in the hands of the super rich. If fact many of the super rich like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, George Soros are Democrats. I would agree that the Republicans are not concerned if the rich get richer. However, in fact in the last election cycle more of the rich supported the Democrats and there was at least parity in the voting pattern of high income people in voting patterns.

    It has been Democrats and the left that have held up nuclear power for years not Republicans. Obama seems to have shifted on this because of the AGW issue. This is a new development which we need to see move forward before it can really be fully trusted.

  • Russia has at one point or another floated a target date of 2024. China has tossed out 2025. Japan has said 2020, though I’ll need to see a manned program of any kind before I believe that. India has said they want to go to the Moon at some point, though, if I recall correctly, it was targeted for after 2030.

    In two of these cases there is either no manned program or a rudimentary one. In the other two, Russia and China, no active development toward a lunar goal has been noted. Granted China keeps a lot of things under wraps and seems to be happy to spend space bucks regardless of the budgetary climate. But China’s Long March 5 is in Ares V (read unfunded blueprint) mode until it’s launchpad is built and their plan calls for four launches in rapid succession all meeting up in space. I’ll be really, really impressed if they get that one done on the first try. In both of the reasonably believable cases (China and Russia) we could still beat them there if Musk’s estimate of 2020 is anything to go off of. That was a shot in the dark, admittedly, but so are Russia and China’s programs.

    What wouldn’t get us there first would be a gargatuan rocket, the largest ever built, not set to fly until 2028 provided the timeline didn’t slip at all.

  • Donald W. Ernst

    The real goal for the United States should have been and still is the reduction of launch cost. A return to the moon or reaching Mars or any other future manned operation is based on this. We needed a replacement for the space shuttle that could be operated in a far economic fashion. That never happened. Instead we are about to lose the only U.S. manned space vehicle we have, the Orion capsule has been canceled and we are down to two expendable rockets nethier manned rated. The american Left has suceeded in it’s goal of ending manned U.S. space flght unless you count riding on Russian capsules.

    I really didn’t think Obama would cancel Orion I thought he had to many problems as it was to worry much about it, Iam talking about the capsule to reach the ISS not the rest of Apollo redux, but I forgot the depth of hatered of the american Left for manned space [that’s why minorties are so poor you know] and for technology in general.

    But Mr. whittington is right, the Democrats will soon get their pants kicked and for alot of good reasons and hopefully Obama will be gone as well after 2012. Will the Republicans restore Orion? I thnik they may as a symbolic effort, as a way of getting U.S. astronauts to the ISS independent of another nation, provided a lighter version of the Orion can be launched on a Atlas V.

    What we need is the development of a fully reuseable shuttle replacement that’s economic to operate and can provide a prototype for the commercial vehicles that will follow. I support the idea of commerical launch vehicles but whats being proposed is far from whats needed, Elon Musk reproducing Von Brauns work 50 years later is not going to provide the cost reductions required to open the moon to colonization. Private industry can not come up with the money needed to build a fully reusable manned logistical vehicle with quick turn around time. NASA would be the wrong agency to oversee such a project by the way. We should have a new agency temporary in nature, well funded and working with new companies excited about suceeding in developing these vehicles, not some worn out defense contractors and the politcal hacks that support them.

  • common sense

    “Designs for these capabilities have been around for decades and are revisited on a nearly continuous basis.”

    I would like to expend here and say that blinded ideology, a la Ares/Orion, is what is preventing our nation to go forward with new technologies. When a program needs to reinvent 1950/1960 technologies and it takes years (AVCOAT for example) how do we expect to ever do anything more ambitious? All the proponents of Ares/Orion and, sorry, Direct, only see an opportunity to repeat an old remarkable feat. Today the old technology should be “given” to the real private sector and see what they can come up with. With $9B how often could a private company fail before they eventually succeed? And please people don’t give me the ignorant rant about the SpaceX newbies. They are not. Go read their website. And beyond SpaceX there are a lot of people with experience that can actually come up with something viable. See CCDev for reference. If we do come up with a low access to LEO, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to come up with a low cost access to space, develop a real infrastructure, including orbiting stations and deep space vehicles, not a darn super duper SRB.

    In the mean time we can all dream of the high frontier and if the current plan fails then guess what y’all keep dreaming about it.

    Oh well…

  • Investigate This...

    Is it coincidence that LORI GARVER’s husband works for one of the companies that just got awarded serveral $50,000,000 contracts in Obama’s new proposal ???

    Oh Lori…The truth will come out about you and your hidden agenda.

  • Investigate This...

    Lori is married to “David Brandt”…I wonder where David Brandt works…Private firms are expected to receive roughly $200 million during the first phase of the program. …

  • Robert G. Oler

    Donald W. Ernst wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    sorry none of that is in my view more then wishful thinking.

    What is going to happen in 2010 is not so much a Dem sweep but is in my view going to be a sweep out of office of a lot of people who are in office…and in my view (and that of a lot of the polls) are doing what they are doing not for the good of The Republic but for politics.

    that is the politics ofit…but this is the meat of where you steer off into space advocacy lala land

    “What we need is the development of a fully reuseable shuttle replacement that’s economic to operate and can provide a prototype for the commercial vehicles that will follow.”

    where have you been for the last 20-30 years? The field of “spacecraft development” is litered with attempts to get government to develop a fully resueable shuttle replacement that’s economic to operate”

    You cannot name me a field where government has developed something that is a model for a commercial vehicle that is economical or makes a profit. Space junkies somehow think that because NASA could go to the Moon; a unique accomplishment; that the skill set is there to develop things that have usefulness in the commercial market…and worse they think it can be done in one giant leap (pardon the pun).

    The CLOSEST thing NASA has done to a commercial type of vehicle that turns a profit…was the Syncom series of communications satellite…and that was only because industry (Hughes) did the heavy lifting in both the design and operation of the “bird”.

    And then the evolution from a hat box sized satellite to the giants that are here today was gradual…

    “I support the idea of commerical launch vehicles but whats being proposed is far from whats needed, Elon Musk reproducing Von Brauns work 50 years later is not going to provide the cost reductions required to open the moon to colonization”

    but you see it is Elon Musk’s money and he is not interested this year or next or for the next five in colonizing the Moon. He is (fasten your seat belt) interesting in developing a product which makes money.

    AND (again hang on) if he does that then maybe in a few years he will be interested in improving that product to keep up with market demand…and then the next vehicle or a series of improvements come….and wow the whole thing is working like in aviation, computers, medicine, you know FREE ENTERPRISE.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Investigate This… wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    yeah it is all a plot…unlike say the “Utah mafia” that involved ATK in “The vision”.

    or Shelby and his foolishness.

    Garver did a lot of work in advocacy so she could kill Constellation and get her other half some government money.

    get a life (and oh my creator I am defending Lori Garver!)

    Robert G. Oler

  • Good work Investigate This!

    See guys told you that the big boys won’t take this sitting down. First we undermine the credibility of Lori Garver. Then Congress goes forward with Ares I/Orion while throwing a little money at the newbies.

  • lkjlkjlkj

    lori garver has been working for the good of spaceflight her whole career and the losers whining on the web at pipe welders at best. get lives and get onboard the new plan or get out of the way you conspiracy theory anti-american fucks.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Investigate This… wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 4:59 pm

    yawn…all that indicates is that Griffin is an idiot. that he thought it was all about engineering not reality and even at that his engineering is flawed…

    is this the best you have yawn

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    “(and oh my creator I am defending Lori Garver!)”

    Robert!!! Are you joining the right side of the force?

  • common sense

    “Good work Investigate This!

    See guys told you that the big boys won’t take this sitting down. First we undermine the credibility of Lori Garver. Then Congress goes forward with Ares I/Orion while throwing a little money at the newbies”

    At least a good laugh before the weekend is good for everyone! Please “Investigate This” provide us with a reference of your claim. Because to me it looks like you’re going to benefit $1M if we keep Ares/Orion going, based on a sure source I have and friends at an agency…

  • “What we need is the development of a fully reuseable shuttle replacement that’s economic to operate and can provide a prototype for the commercial vehicles that will follow.”

    Sounds an awful lot like what people said when they suggested we replace Saturn V with STS. Look where that ended up.

    “I support the idea of commerical launch vehicles but whats being proposed is far from whats needed, Elon Musk reproducing Von Brauns work 50 years later is not going to provide the cost reductions required to open the moon to colonization.”

    Below is a comparison of the vehicles competing with Falcon 9 most closely in $/lb to LEO and a few others for comparison calculated from Astronautix data with SpaceX’s coming from more recent cost data which is higher in $/lb that what Astronautix has to be fair:

    Falcon 9: $2,125
    Atlas V 501: $8,455
    Delta IV Medium: $6,962
    Delta IV Medium+: $5,348/lb
    STS: $4562
    Ariane 5: $5,142

    That looks to me like a significant improvement, even if the price slips upward a little.

    “Private industry can not come up with the money needed to build a fully reusable manned logistical vehicle with quick turn around time.”

    Falcon 9 is a fully reusable capsule in integration stage with a capsule on board. It has gone a long way toward man-rated already, mostly on SpaceX’s dime and was set to complete man-rating before Ares I with or without funding, even with large engineering margins. As for turnaround time, that has yet to be seen, but it’s set to be a whole lot better than STS which was far from reusable.

    “NASA would be the wrong agency to oversee such a project by the way. ”

    NASA’s problem is usually not NASA, it’s outside forces such as congress.

    “We should have a new agency temporary in nature, well funded and working with new companies excited about suceeding in developing these vehicles, not some worn out defense contractors and the politcal hacks that support them.”

    Welcome to the space advocate club. We meet right before the dreams unfulfilled support group. Enjoy your stay.

  • Donald W. Ernst:

    First of all, as a man of the (relative) left myself (as was one John F. Kennedy, and even Richard Nixon by today’s standards), and as a strong supporter of human expansion into space, the politics of space is not any where near as black-and-white as you state. Ask yourself, what is the material difference between the civil space programs of Kennedy and George W. Bush? Al Gore was at least as strong a supporter of space as Mr. Bush, albeit with a far different emphasis.

    The real goal for the United States should have been and still is the reduction of launch cost. A return to the moon or reaching Mars or any other future manned operation is based on this.

    First of all, investment in advanced propulsion is a big part of the new plan being advocated. However, you, like Mr. Obama, have this backward. Recall that we spent billions in the 1970s to 1990s on various more-or-less fruitless attempts to lower the cost of access to orbit, most of which bogged down in financial and technical issues until they were cancelled. Commercial space transportation showed few signs of going anywhere before the Space Station was built as an economic (and political) market to justify it. Just as the transcontinental rail road was not built to an empty interior, nobody with a commercial orientation is going to invest much in reducing the cost to orbit until there is an economic and political market for it already in place. Now there is, and people are investing.

    Thus, the best strategy for, say, lowering the cost of getting to Earth’s moon is to build a lunar base with what you’ve got — one that needs day-in and day-out supply. Once that market exists, relatively low-cost transportation to Earth’s moon becomes an economic and political possibility. Provide a market, and I suspect the technology will more-or-less take care of itself.

    I think the lesson of the last fifty years is that, without a destination providing a reason for it, attempts to lower to cost of space transportation are doomed to failure.

    Fortunately, we have the ISS now, and SpaceX and OSC and Sierra Nevada (and Boeing and Lockheed if they choose to play) have a chance to achieve what has eluded us all these years. This is why I’m so torn about the loss of Constellation. Yes, it was technically compromised and unaffordable, but if it had succeeded in producing a market on the moon for supplies, deep space transportation might have had a reason to exist. I fear that Mr. Obama’s plan — putting the transportation development before its market — will quickly bog down into engineers playing with advanced technolgy that has no market and get nowhere even faster than Constellation.

    On the other hand, since the moon seems beyond our means, investing in Earth orbit and creating markets for Elon, et al, is probably the best way forward at this point.

    — Donald

  • “but you see it is Elon Musk’s money and he is not interested this year or next or for the next five in colonizing the Moon. He is (fasten your seat belt) interesting in developing a product which makes money.”

    Musk is a businessman and SpaceX is a business, but Musk and his team have made no secret about lunar plans. His goals from day 1 of SpaceX have been pretty much a carbon copy of VSE, but private, cheap, and resuable. As to when the market can support that, if ever, that’s a different matter, but Musk is aiming higher than LEO if the money comes to back it up. I think he could reasonably be doing cislunar manned trips by 2020 if manned Dragon is flying in 2013-2014. I’m not so sure about the viability of landing on the surface anytime real soon.

  • Storm

    Yeah, I’m keeping my eye out on Garver. That’s why I’ve sent numerous letters supporting the likes of SpaceX and Orbital in contrast to Lockheed (I think that’s where her husband works). The jury is still out on that one.

    John –

    Nelson is just supporting the jobs in his state, but if you heard his argument about the new plan – its not very strong. He supports some kind change to support the proposed technologies, but he wants to keep Ares funded in a long-drawn out testing phases while making that change. So what he wants is to allow the Democrats to take their plan forward, but to let Ares tag along for the ride. This will be worked out with in congressional debates with Bolden. Ares is a big waste of money if you ask me. It will sap the Administration’s goal of low cost access to space.

    “If fact many of the super rich like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, George Soros are Democrats.”

    Give me a break John – These wealthy individuals are rare contradictions to the rule. And they contradict their own class at their own expense. They largely support policies (rightly so) that will tax themselves more because they aren’t as self-interested for short term gain as the vast majority of the super rich. They have a enlightened view – the knowledge that a prosperous society requires investments in the underprivileged.and investments in R&D. They are the last remaining few that want to build something instead of liquidating, or selling off to foreign entities for a quick profit. They are dedicated to the long term prosperity of our society.

    Major Tom
    Russia might be cash-strapped, but they succeed in the end because they are determined. Look how they are coming out with scramjet cruise missiles for deployment in 2013, and they are coming to an end in their development of a stealth air superiority fighter like the F-22. They accomplish these goals by working with other entities like Europe and India, and no doubt, will continue to do the same. Their liquid HLV technology is incredible, they have already designed nuclear engines for space (as you said), so their TRL is much closer to breakthroughs in deep space propulsion than ours. And if you want details on their funding for these new concepts check out:

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/2010/space-100127-rianovosti01.htm

    It states that Russia has already decided to allocate $17 million to start development of a nuclear spaceship, but it also mentions the growing interest in other concepts such as space tugs. (their answer to the Obama plan) This program has the strong backing of Medvedev, so I beg you not to second-guess Russia. I think it would be a mistake if you do. I’m not saying that Russia is a big threat – I’m just saying that this is an indicator of where the world’s space communities are headed. I’m just saying that Obama has set a precedent for his space proposal and it is threatened to be sapped of its strategic capabilities by the Ares Tag-along-to-keep-NASA-jobs-for-Nelson proposal.

  • “I fear that Mr. Obama’s plan — putting the transportation development before its market — will quickly bog down into engineers playing with advanced technolgy that has no market and get nowhere even faster than Constellation.”

    The one ray of hope is the investment in Bigelow. If Mr. Big is to be believed, plans are in the works for BA-330’s to be modified into modules that can easily be sent to the moon. I have little doubt that if his technology is capable of it, he will accomplish the mission. Even if he falls short, BA-330’s in orbital complexes would offer a steady market for manned LEO operations for a long time after ISS is so much flotsam in the Pacific.

  • common sense

    @Donald:

    You don’t have to be torned. Constellation is/was a mess and irrepairable mess. It is bankrupt and bankrupting the rest of NASA. I don’t want the other branches at NASA to go nuts over budget while a bunch of Ares/Orion groopies have their way. It does not make any financial sense and this whether you’re left or right.

    There will be a destination eventually. May not be today though but the old way would not have worked, not like that.

    Today NASA cannot do it alone. Period. It does not mean that in the future things will change for NASA and heck they may just reverse. Who knows? But for the last 40 years where have we been with HSF programs?

    And if the privates fail then some of them will have lost a fortune of their own cash, not yours nor mine. Not really ;)

  • Doug Lassiter

    “How is expanding human presence across the solar system not a goal? What are you smoking?”

    It is a goal, and that’s encouraging to see. What’s not encouraging is that this goal doesn’t come with a rationale or justification. I mean, expanding human presence into the Sahara Desert is a monumental challenge, but no one seems interested in doing that. There is no rationale or justification for doing so.

    It’s also a bit unclear why expanding human presence across the solar system is an obligation of US taxpayers. I’d feel more comfortable if that goal, which benefits humanity, and not just the US, was more conspicuously multilateral.

  • common sense

    @Donald Ernst:

    “But Mr. whittington is right, the Democrats will soon get their pants kicked and for alot of good reasons and hopefully Obama will be gone as well after 2012. ”

    If this guy is right then there is no hope for anything in this country.

    “Will the Republicans restore Orion? I thnik they may as a symbolic effort, as a way of getting U.S. astronauts to the ISS independent of another nation, provided a lighter version of the Orion can be launched on a Atlas V.”

    Ah! Man! It really is laugh before weekend season! Restore Orion??? I don’t even know where to start…

    Sometimes I look in the mirror and I feel really good about myself: Great sspirit, good looking, smart, the whole package. Am I the only one?

  • common sense

    ” I mean, expanding human presence into the Sahara Desert is a monumental challenge, but no one seems interested in doing that. ”

    Well, unless of course if you live in the Sahara Desert that is. ;) Like those cited here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara

  • ASFalcon13

    “The Atlas V is developed by United Launch Alliance (a joint-venture between Boeing and Lockheed, I believe.)”

    Actually HotShotX, The Atlas V was developed by Lockheed Martin. ULA came later…and, actually, that will be the point of the argument I’m about to make.

    Garver stated:
    “We will diversify our risk by funding a portfolio of highly-qualified competitors instead of a high-risk approach in which we fund only one system,” she said. “We’re going to see the most exciting space race that NASA’s seen in a long time, and there’s likely to be more than one winner.”
    In short, she sees that there will be multiple commercial companies providing crewed launch services. It’s funny she mentioned the Atlas V earlier in her speech, since that rocket actually suggests the opposite of the business model she’s trying to advocate.

    You see, the Air Force already tried the multiple launcher idea with the EELV program. At the same time, Boeing and Lockheed both forecast a healthy commercial market in addition to the military launches, so we got both the Atlas V and the Delta IV. There were supposed to be enough customers, including military, NASA, comsats, and the like, that both companies would be able to stand on their own. Unfortunately, reality struck, the commercial market turned out to be much smaller than anticipated, and both companies eventually combined their efforts into ULA because neither could turn a profit while they were separate and competing. Sure, Boeing also had Sea Launch but, last I checked, they were in the throes of Chapter 11.

    Now we’re talking about multiple providers for crewed spaceflight. Crewed spaceflight is inherently more expensive than uncrewed, and there aren’t enough folks willing to pay for even unmanned spaceflight to keep multiple launch services afloat. What model are Garver and Co. looking at that makes them think the crewed market will be profitible enough to maintain multiple commercial launch services, when not even the uncrewed market can do that right now? Who exactly, apart from NASA (no greater than 6 astronauts to ISS per year) and a few ultrawealty space tourists, are going to be buying these services? Apparantly, Garver doesn’t appear to understand the concept of “market saturation”.

    As a side note, I heard another interesting argument today. If Constellation does get the axe for good, then NASA isn’t exactly proving itself to be a reliable customer. Is it really worth a company’s investment to gamble a boatload of money on vehicle development, when it’s quite possible that your prime customer will dump you the next time there’s a new POTUS in town?

  • lkjlkjlkj

    “Boeing and Lockheed both forecast a healthy commercial market in addition to the military launches, so we got both the Atlas V and the Delta IV. There were supposed to be enough customers, including military, NASA, comsats, and the like, that both companies would be able to stand on their own. Unfortunately, reality struck”

    But not the reality you think.The only thing the formation of ULA proves is that you’re a stupid fuck for bringing it up. There is so much wrong with what you’re saying that it is obvious you’re just another meaningless couch warrior. Enjoy watching the future from the bleachers.

  • Storm

    ASFalcon13 –

    Apparantly, Garver doesn’t appear to understand the concept of “market saturation”.

    If Garver didn’t understand “market saturation” why would she be proposing we spend $6 billion to get them started? Of course there isn’t enough for all of them. Garver isn’t responsible to see to it that they will all enjoy success as private couriers to space hotels, and that isn’t even her job. Her job is to see to it that NASA has a rock solid source for NASA-paid-For launches. If SpaceX isn’t doing it, then Lockheed will. That’s the sad truth of the matter. If SpaceX keeps trying with cargo launches and NASA is willing to flip the bill – that’s also a possibility. But somewhere in the end someone has got to fail in the tourist industry, and it will, of course, be the one that crashes. Musk must be whistling dixie right now.

    NASA isn’t any less reliable than any other company on the Market. I hate the fact that we are wasting our investment in Cx, but at the same time I realize – go back to Cx? No way. There’s no going back. The potential of the breakthroughs that are coming out of R&D are too great to ignore. Have you people been looking at the science new lately? We’re advancing so quickly its not even funny.

  • ASFalcon13

    “But not the reality you think.The only thing the formation of ULA proves is that you’re a stupid fuck for bringing it up. There is so much wrong with what you’re saying that it is obvious you’re just another meaningless couch warrior. Enjoy watching the future from the bleachers.”

    Sadly for you, the couch you think I’m sitting on is actually an office chair. I worked independent flight software V&V for Atlas V on the customer side prior to ULA, have relatives that worked on Atlas V at Lockheed, and another relative at ULA now. My info’s coming straight from the source, buddy.

    But that being said, if I’m such “a stupid fuck”, as you so eloquently put it, why not flesh that argument out with some actual talking points? If there’s so much wrong with what I’m saying, why not tell us all why you think so? As far as I can see, all you’ve got is a weak personal attack.

  • I said: “Falcon 9 is a fully reusable capsule in integration stage with a capsule on board.”

    A capsule on a capsule. That’s a neat trick. I meant rocket, of course.

  • Doug Lassiter

    ” I mean, expanding human presence into the Sahara Desert is a monumental challenge, but no one seems interested in doing that. ”

    “Well, unless of course if you live in the Sahara Desert that is. ;) Like those cited here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara

    Indeed, well said. Though those folks probably don’t want Americans expanding our human presence into their domain!

    That’s what this unilateral business is all about. It’s not about expanding human presence, but about expanding American presence. I guess if you’re carrying red, white, and blue into the cosmos, as well as democracy, english, and capitalism, it’s OK. So let’s get rid of this “expanding humanity” crap, and just start calling it like it is. What we the U.S. wants to expand is us.

    But hey, Lori Garver is saying that “expanding human presence across the solar system” is “our nation’s new strategy”. Whoa. When was that decided?? Do I understand that Lori Garver has just declared our nations new space strategy? Do you suppose the White House and Congress are on board with that? I didn’t think that was up to the NASA Deputy Administrator to declare such things. Goodness, that wasn’t even declared in the FY11 budget documents, where some real strategy might have been welcome.

  • Robert G. Oler

    ASFalcon13 wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    the big question with ULA and Lockmart/Boeing is what is the “real cost” of their vehicle and can it go lower.

    The reason that they are not getting any commercial orders is not that the market isnt there, it is that they are not competitive in the market.

    That is an old song and a lot of American industry is singing it…Boeing builds the Dreamliner (a lot) abroad…but the question is can someone (Musk whoever) compete with the cost that Arrianespace and the Russian liaison with them is going to have?

    The Euroopeans and Russians do it because their cost are in some way subsidized…the question is 1) can American ingenuity develop something that launches satellites reliably and does it at a lower cost then Europe/Russia…and 2) can Boeing Lockmart be part of that competition?

    #1 is a lot of things…it is new “things” and maybe it is a new product in terms of how things are done in orbit…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    lkjlkjlkj wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 6:33 pm

    But not the reality you think.The only thing the formation of ULA proves is that you’re a stupid fuck for bringing it up. ..

    ah the intellectual part of the debate…Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 5:30 pm

    “(and oh my creator I am defending Lori Garver!)”

    Robert!!! Are you joining the right side of the force?..

    I could say that I think “some” are coming around to what I have advocated for a long time. In 1996 I had a piece published in The Weekly STandard which Rich Kolker did a heavy edit on…and Mark W signed onto but had no real role in…which made it quite clear where I stood…and I cannot see a hairs worth of difference between the points advocated and where that policy was going.

    I am one of the rare people who dont care “who” is doing it, just so that it (or something I could compromise on) is being done.

    Look I think that change is imperative for a wide variety of reasons…not the least of which, but actually in terms of the order a tad trivial…is that I suspect that we are only just seeing the start of the transformation of federal spending/government orientation that was going to doom any large scale federal project that was as pittiful as return to the Moon. (again I think that American competitiveness etc is far more important…as some other rhings…but…)

    in my view we are seeing the “end times” of the government structure that started in the Depression was honed in WW2 and served us well until Bush broke it. It is not completly his fault they probably didnt have to many iterations left in them…but we are at this moment where “forming a more perfect union” is going to do a seismic sort of shift.

    neither the right or left is going to like this…it wont be Palinish and Obama has squandered (in my view) the chance to move it seriously left…but the government is going to reinvent itself…and mindless projects like Constellation are going to die.

    The funny thing is that Charlie sees this…Obama does not

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “Is it coincidence that LORI GARVER’s husband works for one of the companies that just got awarded serveral $50,000,000 contracts in Obama’s new proposal???

    Lori is married to “David Brandt”…I wonder where David Brandt works…”

    Brandt works for Lockheed Martin corporate. LockMart has _not_ won a CCDev contract.

    Check your facts and take your meds. Your slander makes you look like an idiot (and could open you up to a lawsuit).

    “Private firms are expected to receive roughly $200 million during the first phase of the program. …”

    What program?

    If you’re referring to the Commercial Crew program, no phases have been defined or funding assigned to them.

    “Lori had it out for Constellation from Day 1…”

    Because she told Griffin she wanted to “look under the hood” of Constellation? How is fact-finding having “it out” for a program?

    “Oh Lori…The truth will come out about you and your hidden agenda.”

    Hidden agenda? Like when Griffin tried to hide Constellation’s problems from Garver? Or when someone makes false statements on the internet about a NASA official’s family to discredit them?

    Oy vey…

  • Curious

    “Investigate This… wrote @ February 12th, 2010 at 4:52 pm”

    Lori is married to “David Brandt”…I wonder where David Brandt works…Private firms are expected to receive roughly $200 million during the first phase of the program. …

    Well surprise surprise and this is not what you expected Investigate This:

    The answer is Lockheed Martin … I bet you didn’t guess that?

    http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=loc&addr=8437+HOLLY+LEAF+DR&zip=22102

    That is unless he has changed jobs.

  • “Brandt works for Lockheed Martin corporate. LockMart has _not_ won a CCDev contract.”

    Not only did they not win a ccdev contract, they stand to lose a lot of business from the cancellation of Constellation. As far as inside deals go, that’s like trading a gold brick for $5 and a cookie.

  • Wow… the business and economic illiteracy in this thread is amazing. Market saturation only happens at a particular price point. Change that price point even a little and markets change. Basic disruptive technology adoption theory.

    As for Mark Whittington, he’s a troll at best. I put him in the same category at Gaetano Marano long ago… He’s definitely not a conservative by any stretch. The man doesn’t appear to have any basic political philosophy other than “go team go”.

  • Storm

    who cares. we’ve kicked this dead horse repeatedly. we might even need lockmart/boeing to pick up the peaces if SpaceX crashes.

  • Vladislaw

    The year is 2020:

    (fade into commercial for Virgin Galatic suborbital space flights and fade out)

    (camera fades in on a SpaceX rocket on the pad at Kennedy and seven people getting ready to get aboard the capsule and fade out)

    (camera moves in on a reporter that covers the commercial space beat)

    Good evening everyone, we are here at kennedy to watch as 3 members of crew for the highly successful reality show “UFO Hunters” gets ready to launch to a Bigelow Aerospace Space Complex. As you may already know UFO Hunters is a spin-off of the successful show “Ghost Hunters”.

    (fade out for a space tourism commercial airing)

    We’re back, A consortium of Las Vegas casinos recently started leasing a BA 330 module and converted into the first orbital hotel and casino and 2 of the members boarding today’s launch, Phil Ivey and Daniel Egranu are the two finalists for the world series of poker and won trips to play the final round of texas holdem in space. It has been rumored broadcast rights for this event are in the 8 figures. This match will take place after the second annual ZGball championship is finished.

    (fade out for commercial about the best new high tech space suit for high altitude jumps from space planes and for EVA’s)

    Joining these on the trip to space will be ‘AstroVixen’ who is returning to space to film the third installment of “AstroVixen versus the space blob” the first entry into zero gravity adult films. Joining astro will be her cameraman.

    (fade in to a commercial about SpaceX for launching into space)

    ————————————

    I can’t wait until reality TV and the ratings game hits space, I can see it now”

    (tv host whispering)

    “We are here at the bigelow station looking out of window BA330-2 and .. WOW WHAT WAS THAT?”

    camera zooms in .. everyone sitting on the edge of their seats as the camera focuses in on …. a floating chunk of frozen pee from the ISS.

    “WHEW that was a close one .. tune in next week as we try and get a picture of those elusive greys and other space life.”

  • Major Tom

    “Not only did they not win a ccdev contract, they stand to lose a lot of business from the cancellation of Constellation.”

    Good point. I’m sure Brandt really wanted his wife to terminate LockMart’s Orion business.

    Lawdy…

  • Doug: So let’s get rid of this “expanding humanity” crap, and just start calling it like it is. What we the U.S. wants to expand is us.

    Speak for yourself. While it is true that I have a certain fondness for the Western culture that made me who I am, I have consistently argued that what matters is for humanity (or, at even a larger scale, terrestrial life) to expand into what appears so far to be a lifeless Solar System and possibly universe. I find China’s government distasteful, but if they are the ones who pull it off, more power to them. While I won’t go into the reasons here and now — beyond saying that our star is one of the oldest of its type and it took almost half the predicted lifespan of our star on the main sequence to get life to cooperate in the first multi-celled organisms — I think there are several lines of circumstantial evidence that we may be among the earliest life forms extant in the galaxy. Until proven otherwise, I think we have a responsibility to do what life does — spread as far and wide as possible. This has little (not nothing, to be fully honest, but little) to do with spreading the American Way and English to the stars.

    (That’s probably impossible, anyway. Any civilization that actually manages it will be changed by the requirements of living in extraordinarily alien environments beyond all recognition. No culture surviving in the larger Solar System will be recognizably American or any other extant terrestrial culture. Which, in the end, is why it really does not matter whether Americans or Chinese or Russians or Indians — or most likely all of the above — begin trading and living in the inner Solar System.)

  • Curious

    Darn it Major T you beat me to it! This Brandt guy must be in for some real ribbing at the office, huh!

    But then the Boeing side must be a little conflicted given that in addition to the involvement in CCDev they also have the second stage of Ares I.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Doug: So let’s get rid of this “expanding humanity” crap, and just start calling it like it is. What we the U.S. wants to expand is us.

    Speak for yourself.”

    I was being facetious. I actually agree with you entirely. In fact, I believe that expansion of the species in the interest of insurance for preservation of it has to be the fundamental rationale for human space flight.

    But our government either won’t agree with that, or refuses to admit it. (Aside from half-way rogue strategy declarations by the Deputy Administrator!)

    In fact, if this country decides that our national mission is to unilaterally preserve humanity, the American public would only look askance at it. (Sorry, but I do not have much faith in the greater wisdom of the American public.) The right way to do it would be to put together an international partnership. That would play well into Obama’s intent to engender international collaboration on human space flight. The only way the American public would buy in to a unilateral approach would be if it’s about preserving just us. So, putting two and two together, a national strategy to preserve humanity, done unilaterally, can only mean that what we’re intending to preserve is ourselves.

  • red

    John: “Also, the opposition to this new plan … is basically establishment space against the upstarts”

    I’d characterize it as establishment space with Constellation contracts that doesn’t think it can compete for new crew transport work or in markets where new technology would come into play, plus their Congresspeople

    vs.

    – establishment space with Constellation contracts that thinks it can compete
    – establishment space without Constellation contracts that therefore just wants things stirred up
    – the upstarts, i.e. NewSpace
    – NASA Aeronautics
    – NASA Planetary science
    – NASA Heliophysics
    – NASA Earth observations
    – NASA Astrophysics
    – NASA and non-NASA International Space Station operators and users
    – NASA Education
    – NASA and partner technology research, development, demonstration
    – NASA HSF precursor robotics
    – NASA Innovative Partnerships
    – U.S. universities
    – commercial space of all sorts (new/old, HSF/comsats, etc) that can take advantage of cheaper rockets, new technology, etc
    – U.S Federal government agencies of all sorts that can take advantage of cheaper rockets, shared fixed costs for existing rockets, new technology, etc (eg: DOD, intelligence agencies, NOAA, etc)

  • Vladislaw

    Washington Times:

    GINGRICH&WALKER: Obama’s brave reboot for NASA

    http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/12/obamas-brave-reboot-for-nasa/

    “By Newt Gingrich and Robert S. Walker

    Despite the shrieks you might have heard from a few special interests, the Obama administration’s budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration deserves strong approval from Republicans. The 2011 spending plan for the space agency does what is obvious to anyone who cares about man’s future in space and what presidential commissions have been recommending for nearly a decade”

  • Good for Dr. Gingrich and Mr. Walker!

    — Donald

  • red

    Donald: “Thus, the best strategy for, say, lowering the cost of getting to Earth’s moon is to build a lunar base with what you’ve got — one that needs day-in and day-out supply. Once that market exists, relatively low-cost transportation to Earth’s moon becomes an economic and political possibility. Provide a market, and I suspect the technology will more-or-less take care of itself. … On the other hand, since the moon seems beyond our means, investing in Earth orbit and creating markets for Elon, et al, is probably the best way forward at this point.”

    Such a market could be provided by the lunar transportation system itself before a lunar base even exists (eg: to supply propellant).

    If the Moon does turn out to be beyond our means for the time being, we could do something more affordable and easily achieved before then (for example, no new rockets should even be considered), which is to set up modest be expandable deep space infrastructure in GEO, E-M Lagrange points, and/or in lunar orbit. A lot could be achieved at these locations (satellite assembly and servicing, lunar observations, telerobotics tests, lunar surface or deep(er) space transportation assembly/servicing preparation, etc). Even if only occasionally crewed, such infrastructure would still need transportation services to create, crew, and supply, and thus would form part of the market you describe.

    Encouraging additional, specialized stations in LEO might be an even higher priority, and would bolster and diversify the Earth-to-LEO space access market.

  • Donald W. Ernst

    In regards to red, I certainly support the projects you mentioned but if we could afford the projects you mentioned we could afford to develop a lower cost launch vehicle. We soon will have no heavy lift or even medium heavy lift. We don’t even have the Titan 4. When they tore down the Titan launch complex I knew it was a mistake. We have the Delta and the Atlas, you can’t build space infastructure with that.

  • Storm

    @Vladislaw

    Wow then Newt and Walker proved me wrong. Maybe some Republicans do have a more vested interest in big ideas – not just a bunch of greedy, shortsighted trolls. That want commercial space too, and they won’t let a brash Democrat such as myself tell them otherwise.

  • Storm

    Mark Whittington,

    How do you feel now that Walker and Newt are on the Obama space ticket?

  • Storm

    Now the Democrats in the House and Senate had better take heed. Now it is up to them to decide the health of US Space. I’ve heard many Democrats including my own Senator stake claim to the idea that under such hard economic times we have to surrender NASA funding increases to other places like jobs. And that kind of thinking is exactly how great powers decline. They get caught up in their dilemma, and give up on the future. Russia never did this. They held on to their incredible capabilities with rockets, scramjets, emerging fighter technology, and rode through one of the worst decades in their history: the breakup of the Soviet Union – and now they’re coming out as an emerging military and space competitor. They should be credited for that.

    Can the Democrats understand they are in so much trouble now that Walker and Newt are on the space ticket – If they don’t support their own President’s policies they will hear it from me from now on.

  • Major Tom

    “We don’t even have the Titan 4. When they tore down the Titan launch complex I knew it was a mistake. We have the Delta and the Atlas, you can’t build space infastructure with that.”

    Why not? Atlas V and Delta IV performance exceeds Titan IV. The heavy versions of the Atlas V and Delta IV can deliver 25,000+ kg to LEO. Titan IV could only put 21-22,000 kg in LEO.

    Why are so many posters in this thread not checking basic facts before making ignorant, stupid statements?

    Geez…

  • On the Newt thing I would like to point out that I felt the real threat to my position could well be the Republican Right. You Democrats get so biased you lose objectivity. Reference my comments from above.

    “Also, the opposition to this new plan isn’t Republican. It is basically establishment space against the upstarts. Bill Nelson isn’t a Republican. It is really the Republicans that I worry about on this as a supporter of Constellation-lite. They may go for this “commercial space” stuff and go wow that’s free enterprise and that’s what we want.”

    I don’t think that Newt has all that much influence anymore. He also came out for AGW and that didn’t change our minds much. He’s become a bit of a gadfly.

  • Storm

    Yea, Newt came from the hayday of the Republicans. Now the Republicans are splintered into a bunch of dispirit groups. To simplify it you can say two groups. The Palins and the Newts. The Palins are the new camp and the Newts and McCains are in the old camp. I like the old camp. The Old camp is the one who is trying to save the Republicans. The new camp doesn’t want to compromise. The Republicans need someone to unify their interests, or they will fail.

  • “Why are so many posters in this thread not checking basic facts before making ignorant, stupid statements?”

    I think a lot of people get used to the rest of the internet blogosphere and comment-sphere (not sure if there’s a term for it) where any point made, no matter how ridiculous, is put on even ground with every other point because nobody does research anymore. Space blogs to some degree, and this blog in particular, tend to have more people willing to go out and do the leg work. And in many cases there are folks who are close enough to the source material they don’t need to.

    Hyperbole and manufactured paranoia are the name of the game these days because people long ago quit putting up a fight against it (if they ever did). What goes on on the ‘net, cable news, and frankly just about anywhere these days wouldn’t clear day 1 of a college logic course. But people eat it up because they think a straw man argument is when you use the Wizard of Oz to defend a point.

    I have to say Space Politics has forced me to get off my lazy butt and actually learn something about the industry. If you can’t back it up around here, you get shot down pretty quickly.

  • Major Tom

    “Good work Investigate This!

    See guys told you that the big boys won’t take this sitting down. First we undermine the credibility of Lori Garver.”

    This is pathetic and disgusting. You can’t win the argument on the merits so you propose slandering a public servant?

    Really?

    “You Democrats get so biased you lose objectivity.”

    You can’t make an argument without slandering entire political parties and painting millions of individuals with the same brush?

    Really?

    Please, take your ugliness elsewhere…

  • “You Democrats get so biased you lose objectivity.”

    I wish it were the case that only one side of the political fence was guilty of objectivity problems, even if that side was my own, which you suggest it is. Unfortunately there are plenty of folks who are blinded by politics around here. Almost every time canceling constellation gets a mention one of the very first posts, here or elsewhere, is someone making the claim that Democrats are hell bent on dismantling the entire American space infrastructure.

    Both sides are guilty of it and I won’t pretend I don’t succumb to it either. The best we can hope for is that a reasoned debate can sneak in around the edges.

    I know Nelson has been very critical of this step. But most of the space state representatives are Republican. That doesn’t make this a Republican issue, but it does put those specific politicians in an awkward position relative to the usual Republican stance. And one of the few things holding the Republicans together of late is a kind of party unity I’ve rarely seen, especially on populist issues like this one. But then they’ve always been good at that. Reminds me of the old Will Rogers quote:

    “I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat”

  • Storm

    I found this quote from Newt on NPR website,

    “There are smart things the government should do. I favor, for example, doubling the size of the National Science Foundation. I think it’s absolutely imperative that we make the investment to remain the world’s leader in science and technology.”

    “http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99546303

  • aremisasling:

    I was just reacting to the idea that the “Constellation Flex Path” view is a Republican thing. I had pointed out that the was a danger the budget cutting/ free market Republicans might will be the decisive voice in this. That just might go the adminstrations way. It was Republicans that were decisive in killing the F-22 for example. A lot of liberal Democrats voted for it.

    Something like the Newt development wasn’t totally unexpected. If the Republicans see this as a government spending issue they will kill the thing but if the see it in national prestige view point they will support it.

    I don’t have a good feeling for Obama as a space supporter. He knows it would be too radical to just say space isn’t worth it. So he lets Lori Garver go forward with her plan (she is sincere) but then after Shuttle and Constellation are gone the support of the alternatives slowly fades way in the years ahead.

  • Storm

    Don’t feel so bad John. Major Tom just gets a little upset by political arguments sometimes. It was partly my fault as well. I have to apologize to Mark Whittington. I shouldn’t have called you a threat to national security. I just feel that partisanship is a threat to any group – in this case the USA.

  • Major Tom

    “Major Tom just gets a little upset by political arguments sometimes.”

    I have no problem with political arguments, e.g., “I read your party’s platform on X and I disagree with point Y for Z reason” or “I think Congress should (or will) vote A on topic B because of reason C”.

    But labeling millions of people with the same negative adjective just because of the political party they belong to (Democrat, Republican, or otherwise) is uselessly hateful speech.

    And slandering a public servant (or anyone else) because of who they’re married to is way, way beyond the pale.

    Discuss substance here, preferably on topics related to space policy. Take the mudslinging elsewhere. There are plenty of other forums for that. There are precious few for space policy.

    Thank you…

  • What are talking about slander Tom? It was a post by “Investigate This” that made a claim which at present appears to be false. All I indicated was this was a strategy that might be used by opponents of the Obama Plan.

    Anyway, you guys need me to bring a little reason to this debate.

  • Donald W. Ernst

    Well Major Tom I stand corrected on the Titan LEO payload figures. I guess I was wrong. We don’t need anymore rocket development. We can just stick Rutan’s little space plane on a Delta or Atlas and send it to Mars. Mabe Elon will can pilot it, he’s so rich we won;t have to even pay him.

  • Rhyolite

    “We don’t even have the Titan 4. When they tore down the Titan launch complex I knew it was a mistake. We have the Delta and the Atlas, you can’t build space infastructure with that.”

    “Why not? Atlas V and Delta IV performance exceeds Titan IV. The heavy versions of the Atlas V and Delta IV can deliver 25,000+ kg to LEO. Titan IV could only put 21-22,000 kg in LEO.”

    Exactly, Major Tom. Not to mention the fact that Delta IV Heavy is considerably cheaper than the Titan IV ($250M versus $450M) and shares an industrial base with the medium launchers. Why on earth would anyone pine the loss of a Frankenstein monstrosity like the Titan IV when we have more capable, purpose built launchers that are less expensive?

  • Jack Burton

    I don’t know who lies more. Garver or Obama.

  • Major Tom,

    The Atlas that launched SDO was programmed to go to GTO, not LEO. SDO is in a geosynchronous orbit, no LEO.

    Yes…SDO is a GTO mission. But, if we read the mission planner’s guide for the Atlas V, we’d learn the 28° inclination and 57° inclination payload mass numbers. In fact, I’ll reference both the Atlas and Delta guides for you:

    Atlas V Mission Planner

    Delta Mission Planner

    Lastly, there is not human-rated spacecraft coming in at the Atlas V 401’s human-rated ISS payload range of 11,180 kg. Unless, that is, you don’t put many people on the Dragon and you don’t fuel it much so that its dry mass of 8,000 kg does not grow too much. But these are pretty silly assumptions.

  • Major Tom

    “What are talking about slander Tom? It was a post by “Investigate This” that made a claim which at present appears to be false. All I indicated was this was a strategy that might be used by opponents of the Obama Plan.”

    You didn’t indicate anything. You endorsed the prior post’s intent to slander and showed that you wanted to participate. Here are your words:

    “Good work Investigate This!… First we undermine the credibility of Lori Garver.”

    Again, take that crap elsewhere.

    “Anyway, you guys need me to bring a little reason to this debate”

    We’re waiting…

  • Major Tom

    “Well Major Tom I stand corrected on the Titan LEO payload figures. I guess I was wrong. We don’t need anymore rocket development.”

    You may have been wrong about Titan IV, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need rocket development, either to reduce costs or enable larger payloads.

    Don’t replace one mistake with another.

    “We can just stick Rutan’s little space plane on a Delta or Atlas and send it to Mars. Mabe Elon will can pilot it, he’s so rich we won;t have to even pay him.”

    Don’t be ridiculous.

    There are plenty of roles for the government and NASA in space exploration, but replicating the capabilities of existing, underutilized commercial and military launch vehicle isn’t one.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Yes…SDO is a GTO mission. But, if we read the mission planner’s guide for the Atlas V, we’d learn the 28° inclination and 57° inclination payload mass numbers. In fact, I’ll reference both the Atlas and Delta guides for you:”

    The Atlas user’s guide doesn’t have figures for an Atlas 401, like SDO used, to 57 degrees.

    Stop making stuff up.

    “Lastly, there is not human-rated spacecraft coming in at the Atlas V 401’s human-rated ISS payload range of 11,180 kg.”

    So what? Industry can’t design one? Or use a different Atlas V?

    For example, Orion-Lite is already using an Atlas 402:

    http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090814-orion-lite.html

    “Unless, that is, you don’t put many people on the Dragon”

    So what?

    Before it was cancelled, Orion had already cut its ISS complement from six to four crew.

    http://blog.al.com/space-news/2009/04/nasa_slashes_orion_crew_explor.html

    Dragon’s normal crew complement is seven, so you could lose three crew and still match Orion performance to ISS.

    FWIW…

  • Curious

    Actually on the Garver issue the fact that she has family ties to Lockheed Martin is interesting. Obviously there are some ethics and recusal issues. It seems that they aren’t considered too serious but this won’t stop conspiracy theorists.

    “Garver, too, may have to answer for her ties to the space industry. After serving as a NASA associate administrator for policy and plans during the Clinton administration, Garver cashed in her NASA and political connections as a senior adviser for space at Avascent Group, a strategy and management consulting firm here. And while Garver does not register as a lobbyist, her consulting work for numerous contractors seeking NASA business could raise questions. In addition, lawmakers could take issue with Garver’s husband, David Brandt, who works for Lockheed Martin Space Exploration, NASA’s biggest contractor. Sources familiar with Brandt’s work say it is limited to education and management activities associated with the company’s Center for Space Exploration, a demonstration and exhibit facility located in Arlington, Va.”

    http://www.space.com/news/090603-bolden-confirmation.html

  • Brad

    I am underwhelmed by the current Bolden/Obama non-plan for Nasa. Consider the reported comments by Garver…

    —————————————–
    “We plan to transform our relationship with the private sector as part of our nation’s new strategy with the ultimate goal of expanding human presence across the solar system,” she said early in her speech. “So don’t be fooled by those who say we have no goal. That is the goal.”
    —————————————–

    Is she kidding? That’s an ‘underpants gnomes’ plan for the future! Let’s see, first step: commercial flight to orbit; second step: ? (a miracle happens); third step: human presence across the solar system!

    I’m no fan of Constellation and am actually pleased with it’s cancellation, but I do support the prior Bush policy of aiming NASA efforts at manned space exploration beyond LEO, the so-called Vision for Space Exploration (VSE).
    And the plain fact is, the Obama non-plan throws out the Vision-for-Space-Exploration baby with the Constellation bath water.

    Obama pretends that manned space exploration beyond LEO is still alive, but the fact is it’s dead for the foreseeable future. Any one who says otherwise is at best blinded by wishful thinking. VSE is dead, killed by Obama, and it’s dumb to pretend otherwise.

  • Jack Burton

    Some of you are starting to wake up to Garver.
    She is all about herself, climbing the ladder, she doesn’t care about NASA or space exploration. She cares about GARVER.
    She is out for herself and will obey her political masters to please them and climb higher. NASA is a booster stage for her own ambitions.

    Nothing more.

    She could care less if humans walk on Mars or stare at our feet for decades as long as she advances herself.

    Yo Brad..

    VSE is NOT dead, Obama just put it in his cross hairs, but congress has the bullets. Obama wants a lot of things he is struggling to get through congress unsucessfully.

    Save Orion, dump this disaster of a preisdent Obama. Get back on course.

  • Jack Vaughn

    Sure, Jack Burton,

    It’s all Obama’s fault. Right.He’s the BAD guy. Good lord! Why do people keep saying these things.

    The new NASA road is much more in line with the VSE and the ideas of admiral Steidl than the unaffordable Constellation plan by mr. Griffin. Constellation is killing the Human Space Program. It’s behind schedule. Crucial parts like Ares V and Aries will not be ready any time soon. No moon landing before 2030. Just two rockets. Something has to be done about this. Congress won’t be giving significantly more funding and I’ll bet you will not want to pay a dime more tax.
    So, Obama and NASA simply have no choice. Set up a different course. Build an infrastructure with multiple options and build upon that. Guess what, end 60’s and early 70’s NASA wanted to build an infrastructure with a spaceshutle and space stations around the earth and moon and reusable vehicles like space tugs. Guess what, lot’s of previous presidents, including Reagan wanted to steer towards a more commercial space program.

    But now you’re saying to skip all that and just build two very expensive new rockets,called Ares I and V, and use those two times a year at most. Do you really care about human space flight?

  • Jack & Brad:

    I certainly agree that Garver has come up with more hot air than a plan. I agree that if this was 2003 I’d be for something other than Constellation. But, saving the Shuttle at this point seems out of the question. If completely cancel Constellation we have nothing hope. SpaceX may well be able to put up back into orbit with Soyuz American-style but they just don’t have the demostrated performance to bet on it.

    I’m for what I’m calling Contellation-lite or Constellation Flex Path. This would focus on the Orion and Ares I. They would use these for ISS support as soon as they are ready. I think that it is possible to get back on track a lot sooner than the critics corner thinks. It most like would require a management shake up but let’s do that.

    The presentation of the new plan has been so poor that I think Congress won’t go with it. Since staying the course does’t require more money they find that to be the politically safe thing to do.

  • I think it’s important in the upcoming hearings to avoid using the false definition of ‘commercial’ space. The definition is so distorted at this point that it has even confused usually on the ball thinkers like Newt Gingrich into putting his support behind the President’s plan.

    The real debate is do we abandon the use of experienced proven ‘commercial’ contractors in favor of inexperienced unproven ‘commercial’ contractors claiming lower cost. NASA federal employee’s level of support will remain at a similar level in all scenarios being debated so the distinction between NASA and ‘commercial’ is also a false choice in the debate.

    So the language being used confuses what is actually being advocated, the complete abandonment of an existing experienced workforce and proven flight qualified hardware in favor of an inexperienced workforce with little to no proven flight qualified hardware.

    Things always look easier and less expensive before you actually do it and the approach of under bidding a competitor to win a federal contract followed by cost overruns once you are past a point of no return is nothing new. New space will not change this dynamic. With the existing industrial base we have solid cost numbers based on decades of experience flying qualified hardware. We have no such guarantees for the alternates. Since they are not using any new technologies their extremely low cost claims are dubious at face value.

    In summary SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed/Martin, USA, ATK etc. are no more or less ‘commercial’ than one another. They are all ‘commercial’ for profit companies that all have access to private capital and markets that can leverage public investments.

    Ironically we have it completely backwards. For existing operations using existing technology we should be using experienced commercial contractors that already know what works and what doesn’t. Cutting edge R&D on the other hand is best done by start-ups using private capital seeded by government money for the cost shifting game changers. Game changers are almost always the product of small risk taking organizations not limited by the current definitions of what can and cannot be done. In summary we need a full spectrum of ‘commercial’ companies of various sizes and stages in their life cycle representing a full range of cultural competencies.

    We have the worst of all worlds under the President’s plan because none of the ‘commercial’ contractors, new or old, big or small, operational or R&D are doing what they are currently good at.

  • “SpaceX may well be able to put up back into orbit with Soyuz American-style but they just don’t have the demostrated performance to bet on it.”

    I’ll say it again as I did earlier in the thread. Lockheed Martin has never in its entire history constructed a manned craft to put men in orbit. Not once. Orion is no more secure based on heritage than Dragon. Their rocket family is no longer flying and hasn’t for 5 years. Right now their only flying contribution to manned space is the number one risk to astronaut safety on the STS system, the ET. And that component doesn’t have a crew cabin or rocket motors. It’s a very large gas tank. Say what you like about SpaceX, but let’s not pretend Lockheed Martin is eminently qualified to build a manned space program, either.

  • Vladislaw

    When the Vision for Space Exploration was announced, I, along with alot of other space junkies, were hearing a lot of what we liked. For me it was the idea of commercial space being put into the pipeline.

    Those ideas were dashed on the rocks when Griffin rolled out the ESAS. I remember commenting on here and being “poo poo’ed” when I was amazed that the solid rockets were going to be used.

    When Griffen had worked on the FLO study, he expressly chose not to use SRB’s but went with liquid instead, even though the SRB;s had already been flying for years at that time.

    I said at the time that the reason they were chosen was because the military didnt want to give up the large rocket motors so whatever design NASA decided on it would have to involve SRBs.

    It looks like the President and Bolden will be facing the issue:

    http://www.spacenews.com/policy/100212-end-constellation-prompts-industrial-base-questions.html

    “Industry advocates are voicing concern with U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s Moon-bound Constellation program and the threat it poses to America’s aerospace work force and U.S. strategic missile arsenals, but Defense Department officials said the two agencies are forging a plan to sustain the nation’s solid-rocket motor industrial base.”

    So it makes me wonder if they will have their say in any new designs for a HLLV and that it will have to be based on SRB’s.

  • Major Tom

    “‘We plan to transform our relationship with the private sector as part of our nation’s new strategy with the ultimate goal of expanding human presence across the solar system,’ she said early in her speech. ‘So don’t be fooled by those who say we have no goal. That is the goal.’

    Is she kidding? That’s an ‘underpants gnomes’ plan for the future! Let’s see, first step: commercial flight to orbit; second step: ? (a miracle happens); third step: human presence across the solar system!”

    If you had bothered to actually read the budget rollout materials and Bolden’s statements, you’d know that the second step consists of a program to develop an operational HLV by the 2020s, a program to fly robotic precursor missions this decade, and a program to develop key exploration technologies like in-orbit propellant transfer and storage, inflatable modules, automated/autonomous rendezvous and docking, closed-loop life support systems, in situ resource utilization, and advanced in-space propulsion. Read the relevant documents before making patently false statements.

    “I do support the prior Bush policy of aiming NASA efforts at manned space exploration beyond LEO, the so-called Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). And the plain fact is, the Obama non-plan throws out the Vision-for-Space-Exploration baby with the Constellation bath water.”

    The VSE was already dead under Constellation. Per Augustine, Ares V wasn’t going to launch until 2028 at the earliest and there wasn’t going to be any human exploration hardware (transit stage, lunar-rated Orion, or Altair lander) to put on her anyway.

    “Obama pretends that manned space exploration beyond LEO is still alive, but the fact is it’s dead for the foreseeable future. Any one who says otherwise is at best blinded by wishful thinking. VSE is dead, killed by Obama, and it’s dumb to pretend otherwise.”

    It’s incredibly ignorant or blatant lying to pretend that the current White House — when it’s spending billions of dollars on an HLV a full decade before Constellation would have, when it’s funding a full line of robotic precursor missions that Constellation overruns ate, and when it’s spending billions of dollars on key human exploration technologies that Constellation never funded — is doing anything other than trying to save what’s left of the VSE.

    Oy vey…

  • Major Tom

    “In summary we need a full spectrum of ‘commercial’ companies of various sizes and stages in their life cycle representing a full range of cultural competencies.”

    Agreed.

    “So the language being used confuses what is actually being advocated, the complete abandonment of an existing experienced workforce and proven flight qualified hardware in favor of an inexperienced workforce with little to no proven flight qualified hardware.”

    ULA and OSC are “inexperience workforces”? The Atlas, Delta, and Taurus lines have “little to no proven flight qualified hardware”?

    Really?

    “We have the worst of all worlds under the President’s plan because none of the ‘commercial’ contractors, new or old, big or small, operational or R&D are doing what they are currently good at.”

    How do you know? No contracts have been awarded under the new budget.

    I agree with the general thesis, but some of your statements are overly broad and false generalizations while others have no basis in fact.

    I’d also be careful about typecasting companies based on size. There are often pockets of innovation in larger companies (e.g., LockMart Skunkworks), and some small companies (e.g., old SpaceHab) do very routine things very well.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “She is all about herself, climbing the ladder, she doesn’t care about NASA or space exploration. She cares about GARVER.
    She is out for herself and will obey her political masters to please them and climb higher.”

    Yeah, I’m sure Garver’s “political masters” at the White House, especially OMB, are real happy about throwing another $6 billion at NASA when other discretionary accounts are being held flat or cut in a time of historic deficits that the Administration is taking a flogging for.

    Take your meds, please.

    Lawdy…

  • Major Tom, I agree with a lot of what you say, but even you are confusing the word ‘commercial’. ULA is definitely part of the ‘commercial’ mix along with its new needed competitor SpaceX. This is why the Ares-1 was strategic mistake from the beginning regardless of its technical challenges.

    Long story short the incremental recurring cost savings of developing a blank sheet of paper RP/LOX HLV + Beyond Earth Orbit Capability decades from now will never be less expensive than leveraging the tens of Billions already spent on proven elements we have now resident in the existing and extensive STS industrial base/workforce experience and the progress already made also at great expense on the PoR. Either we start working on a Jupiter-130/Orion using the elements above now or we can forget about having Beyond Earth Orbit Capability until after the baby boom passes into the great beyond three decades from now. There is no middle ground given the increased pressure on all discretionary spending over the next two decades on all federal spending. The money/political support needed for the Bolden/Garver HLV + BEO spacecraft will never materialize during the period of time they delay it to. They will both be long gone but the damage will be done.

    Ironically, we destroyed a perfectly good HLV three decades ago chasing my Fathers generation new deal, high tech, new paradigm, low cost to orbit rainbow, ie STS. Seems to me that my generation is about to repeat their mistake. Given that the world wide total space industry cost is $250 Billion/yr and launch services is less than $10 Billion/yr, perhaps we should be looking at what drives the other $240/yr Billion for cost savings ideas?

    Here’s a clue it has a lot to do with Mission and Spacecraft cost, which surprise surprise surprise is driven in large part by trying to stuff 10lbs of stuff into a 5lbs boxes.

    Evidence? Spacelab with a HLV took 1 launch, 2 years, and $1 Billion dollars, ISS without HLV took, 50 launches, 20 years and $100 Billion. Ditto MSL and JWST that are now running many times in cost overruns over their respective launch costs due to……you guessed it trying to exceed the accomplishments of past unmanned mission using the same limited volume capabilities. In fact the cost savings alone from MLS and JWST that would have happened with the Jupiter-130 would have paid for half the development cost of the Jupiter-130.

    Either we are serious about being second to none in Space or not. If not than there is little justification for any spending on NASA that wouldn’t be better spent by other R&D organizations. There are perfectly good and less expensive ways to risk human life unnecessarily by climbing Mt Everest for example.

    This brings us back to the lessons some of us but apparently not enough learned from Columbia.

    “Now do we want to go to the Moon or not?”

  • Brad

    Major Tom

    Yep, direct insults and false accusations are a sure method of convincing me — that you are full of yourself. Good grief.

  • Brad

    Just for the heck of it, I took a look at the last 28 posts of “Major Tom” to see what proportion contained personal attacks, insults or vilification of other people who post at this website. By my count 16 did so, or 57%.

    Jeff, I think moderation is in order.

  • Brad

    Whoops! My bad. I should have said the last 23 posts. That increases the percentage to 70%!

  • Martijn Meijering

    “Now do we want to go to the Moon or not?”

    Apparently not. Some people prefer to preserve jobs in Florida and Alabama.

  • Old Engineer

    Spacelab with a HLV took 1 launch, 2 years, and $1 Billion dollars

    I’m pretty sure the name was ‘Skylab’, I clearly remember the day it reentered. In fact I remember the hassles they had salvaging it after launch.

    I’m just guessing offhand you weren’t even alive back then, thus you would have trouble remembering why it was vastly more expensive than STS and was promptly canceled.

  • Martijn, lets look at the facts.

    Fact 1: The STS industrial base/workforce experience + progress on the PoR represent at least a $30 Billion down payment on HLV and Beyond Earth Orbit capability.

    Fact 2: The President’s plan while advocating a Beyond Earth Orbit objective and HLV destroys our existing HLV capability and plans for its reconstruction in different form two decades from now.

    Prediction 1: Two decades from now, the in place infrastructure, discretionary budget and political support base needed to begin construction of any HLV variant will all be less than it is now.

    My first point is either we start building a HLV from the elements of the STS and PoR this year or we abandon it indefinitely.

    The primary debate here is do we need a HLV to achieve Beyond Earth Orbit objectives or not? On that the President agrees with me (at least on paper) that we need an HLV. Our disagreement is on when. I say now he says two decades from now.

    My second point is that we can always decommission the HLV at any point in the future should some true breakthrough occur on the R&D front. Nothing would make me happier than that but as an engineer I have learned not to do project planning based on scheduled breakthroughs. You go to space with the technology you have at the time while providing on ramps for the technology breakthroughs/game changers should they occur (ie commercial supplied orbital propellant depots, Lunar ISRU, plasma rockets etc.) Eventually a combination of breakthroughs like these may obsolete the need for HLV. Great we can save some money and move beyond HLV.

    But as Carl Sagan once said; “The Universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with Human ambition”. We need to be mindful that we may live in Universe where the full extent of our science fiction dreams can never become reality.

  • red

    Stephen Metschan: “… the incremental recurring cost savings of developing a blank sheet of paper RP/LOX HLV + Beyond Earth Orbit Capability decades from now will never be less expensive than leveraging the tens of Billions already spent on proven elements we have now resident in the existing and extensive STS industrial base/workforce experience and the progress already made also at great expense on the PoR.”

    This sounds plausible, but how do you know for sure that the development and operations costs of going the DIRECT route are cheaper than HLV R&D followed by development? How do you know what the R&D will turn up? What if the HLV development phase follows the COTS model; could there be cost savings for the government that way?

    Even if you’re right (and again I find what you said to be plausible), what about other alternatives? For example, what about going to a smaller, Phase I EELV sort of HLV?

    Alternately, what about using existing rockets instead of HLVs, and going the route of using them a lot more to drive down per-launch costs? It seems that the new plan involves a lot more smaller rocket launches for crew transport to ISS, additional cargo for full ISS use and new ISS capabilities, additional cargo for using ISS to 2020+, a new line of robotic HSF precursor missions, more Earth and planetary science missions, and various in-orbit technology demonstrations. Some of this, like commercial crew/cargo and new technologies, could also enable more commercial launches of the same rockets.

    Stephen Metschan: “Either we start working on a Jupiter-130/Orion using the elements above now or we can forget about having Beyond Earth Orbit Capability until after the baby boom passes into the great beyond three decades from now.”

    Why couldn’t we do a pretty good job using existing rockets, especially if we drive their per-launch costs down somewhat by using them a lot more, going commercial, and/or introducing some rocketry R&D&demo results into them? Those should be able to give us access at least to GEO (let me shoot for beyond LEO rather than beyond Earth orbit), Earth-Moon Lagrange points, and lunar orbit. There’s a lot that could be done at these destinations: observatory/satellite assembly and servicing, deep space or lunar mission assembly, refueling, lunar observations, lunar telerobotics, etc. That should keep us busy for a long long time.

    Why couldn’t we do a pretty good job using Phase I EELV HLVs or equivalents (i.e. 40-50MT)? Then go to EELV Phase II (or equivalent) in some later decade if it proves to be necessary.

    Stephen Metschan: “There is no middle ground given the increased pressure on all discretionary spending over the next two decades on all federal spending.”

    Why couldn’t one of the approaches I just mentioned serve as a middle ground?

    Stephen Metschan: “The money/political support needed for the Bolden/Garver HLV + BEO spacecraft will never materialize during the period of time they delay it to. They will both be long gone but the damage will be done.”

    You might be right – I’m not confident their HLV R&D will give adequate low-cost HLV results. However, even if that happens I wouldn’t consider it “damage done” since the current situation with Constellation is so bad and their plan is such an improvement over that even if the HLV R&D totally fails. At most I’d consider it a “missed opportunity”. But … you have to also consider the opportunity costs for funding that DIRECT launcher and the spacecraft.

    Stephen Metschan: “Ironically, we destroyed a perfectly good HLV three decades ago chasing my Fathers generation new deal, high tech, new paradigm, low cost to orbit rainbow, ie STS. Seems to me that my generation is about to repeat their mistake.”

    Could we have afforded the Saturn V?

    It seems the path we’re going on now is not like STS. STS was a government program, and the transports we’re talking about now will be commercial, and not necessarily new deal/high tech. At the same time we’re investing in a lot of R&D and technology demonstrations, but this is a broad effort, not a single launch vehicle development program. I don’t see the similarity with STS.

    Stephen Metschan: “Given that the world wide total space industry cost is $250 Billion/yr and launch services is less than $10 Billion/yr, perhaps we should be looking at what drives the other $240/yr Billion for cost savings ideas?”

    That’s exactly what the plan is. The commercial crew and cargo services aren’t just for rockets, they’re also for spacecraft. The R&D and demonstration efforts aren’t just for launchers, they’re for refueling, sensors, smallsats, inflatable habitats, closed-loop life support, ISRU, materials, in-space propulsion, power systems, communications, robotics, and so on. Part of what the HSF robotic precursors will be doing is looking for resources and demonstrating ISRU.

    Stephen Metschan: “Here’s a clue it has a lot to do with Mission and Spacecraft cost, which surprise surprise surprise is driven in large part by trying to stuff 10lbs of stuff into a 5lbs boxes.”

    That’s true, but there are different ways to solve this.

    You could make a 10lb box (like the Phase I EELVs).

    You could get a really good assembly line going for making 5lb boxes so you have lots of them, use the space you have, and, when needed, put things together after you take them out of the box (i.e. docking, assembly, refueling, separate satellites that work together). This follows the model that we use on Earth, where just about everything fits in ship/truck container boxes. We don’t transport skyscrapers intact from one place to another on Earth.

    You could invest in lots of R&D, and actually increase what you can do within the 5lb box confines.

    You could make a 30lb box like a big HLV, which might really relieve the box-stuffing problem. However, it might also take a long time, cost a lot of money to develop the big box, and cost a lot of money to keep making boxes. Plus, these boxes might be too big for all of the 5lb stuff you’re used to making.

    Stephen Metschan “ISS without HLV took, 50 launches, 20 years and $100 Billion.”

    This isn’t really comparable to, say, using EELVs, since EELVs already exist and will exist whether we try to build something big like ISS or not. On the U.S. side of ISS building, STS is a separate, expensive system. STS also had delays related to astronaut safety. Launchers like Falcons and EELVs wouldn’t have such delays as long as their just launching cargo. Also, STS uses a lot of effort to launch the orbiter that’s returned to Earth, which isn’t needed for an EELV or Falcon cargo launch.

    Stephen Metschan: “Ditto MSL and JWST that are now running many times in cost overruns over their respective launch costs due to……you guessed it trying to exceed the accomplishments of past unmanned mission using the same limited volume capabilities.”

    Maybe they just need better management that doesn’t get overly ambitious right from the beginning, given the volume capabilities that they have. I’m worried that an HLV is just going to encourage them to be even more ambitious and have even bigger cost overruns, rather than using the HLV mass/volume responsibly to lower mission costs.

    Stephen Metschan: “Either we are serious about being second to none in Space or not.”

    Maybe we’ll be second to none in Space with a major technology research and development and demonstration effort, a strong commercial space sector, and a more vigorous NASA robotic mission suite including new HSF precursors.

    DIRECT does strike me as a better approach than Ares I/Ares V, but I don’t think it’s the end if that path isn’t taken. There are a lot of other opportunities.

  • red

    Stephen Metschan: “You go to space with the technology you have at the time while providing on ramps for the technology breakthroughs/game changers should they occur”

    I like this approach. The way I’d interpret it with respect to rockets is to do what we can with existing and very near-term rockets (eg: EELVs, Falcons, Taurus II). That might include re-establishing LEO, and then GEO, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, lunar orbit, and maybe non-traditional LEO orbits with space infrastructure and astronaut access.

    In the meantime, do research, development, technology demonstrations, and robotic precursors. This could include DIRECT, but it could also include lots of other things – as the budget allows.

    Maybe that stage would take a decade or 2.

    The successes and failures of that stage would point the way for the next stage (eg: lunar surface, deep space missions).

  • Old Engineer, yes I meant to say Skylab and yes accessing it required a variant of the Saturn rocket family which was overkill. This is why I’m all for using existing medium lift launch systems for primary LEO access for Crew and cargo. The key mistake of the last four years was that Ares-1 unnecessarily duplicated these existing capabilities at great expense. A true SDHLV would already be in flight test by now.

    My point in bring up Skylab was to show the significant cost advantages of ground integration of spacecraft vs in space integration. HLV can typically save more money on the Spacecraft and Mission side of the cost equation than they increase in fixed launch cost over Medium lift resulting in a net end to end cost and capabilities improvement.

  • Major Tom

    “Major Tom

    Yep, direct insults and false accusations are a sure method of convincing me”

    You stated that it’s “dumb” for anyone not to think that the President hasn’t “killed” the VSE. That an insult directed at many of the posters here and it’s based on a totally false accusation.

    Physician, heal thyself. Pot, kettle, black. Glass houses, stones, and all that.

    “Just for the heck of it, I took a look at the last 28 posts of “Major Tom” to see what proportion contained personal attacks, insults or vilification of other people who post at this website.”

    Where did I personally attack you? Or call you a name? Or villify you?

    I ran through the evidence as its actually printed in the budget documents, and showed that “It’s incredibly ignorant or blatant lying to pretend that the current White House — when it’s spending billions of dollars on an HLV a full decade before Constellation would have, when it’s funding a full line of robotic precursor missions that Constellation overruns ate, and when it’s spending billions of dollars on key human exploration technologies that Constellation never funded — is doing anything other than trying to save what’s left of the VSE.”

    I never personally attacked you, called you a name, or villified you.

    “Jeff, I think moderation is in order… Whoops! My bad. I should have said the last 23 posts. That increases the percentage to 70%!”

    Grow up. If you can only respond to another poster’s arguments with false accusations about personal attacks, namecalling, and villification — instead of facts and logic about the issue at hand — then don’t bother posting. It’s a big waste of your time and other posters’ time.

    Jeez…

  • Major Tom

    “Long story short the incremental recurring cost savings of developing a blank sheet of paper RP/LOX HLV + Beyond Earth Orbit Capability decades from now will never be less expensive than leveraging the tens of Billions already spent on proven elements we have now resident in the existing and extensive STS industrial base/workforce experience and the progress already made also at great expense on the PoR.”

    I think the jury is out on that. If industry can build an HLV that strongly leverages the existing EELV infrastructure, the costs of that HLV will be spread across a larger industrial and customer base than a Shuttle-derived, NASA-unique HLV (DIRECT or otherwise). All other things being equal (and they may not be), that should result in lower recurring costs to NASA. I don’t deny that there’s a logic to leveraging existing hardware, but the costs of the infrastructure and workforce associated with that hardware and how those costs are spread are also important considerations.

    For example, from another industry, the Norfork and Western was the last Class 1 railroad to convert from steam to diesel back in the 1950s. In their own shops, they had actually evolved highly efficient steam locomotives (their Class Y, A, and J locomotives) that competed very well with the early diesel locomotives from that time. The N&W was also a heavy coal hauler and had a strong incentive there to use the products of its primary coal mine customers. But with no other Class 1 railroad still employing steam, the N&W was looking at shouldering the costs of the steam locomotive industry and infrastructure on its own shoulders. That made no financial sense, and N&W converted to diesel despite having a fleet of very new, competitive, and modern steam locomotives. Again, it’s an extreme example from another industry. But if you held a gun to my head today, I would guess that NASA would be better off leveraging the EELV infrastructure rather than trying to preserve the Apollo- and Shuttle-derived infrastructure all by itself within its limited budget.

    Personally, given Saturn V, ALS/NLS, SEI, and now Ares V history, I’m skeptical that any HLV will be affordable within a non-Apollo NASA budget. I’d rather NASA push that decision to the future and pursue potetially lower-cost and less infrastructure-intensive means of putting lots of propellant on orbit first. But that’s just me.

    FWIW…

  • Brad

    “Major Tom” reminds me of the sort who I have seen banned from another space discussion board. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if “Major Tom” is in fact one of those people.

  • common sense

    “My first point is either we start building a HLV from the elements of the STS and PoR this year or we abandon it indefinitely.”

    Then we should cancel the HLV if these are the only two way you can think of building one.

  • Old Engineer

    “Major Tom” reminds me of the sort who I have seen banned from another space discussion board.

    There are grades of credibility and respect commensurate with position.

    You simply aren’t respected as a rocket engineer if you haven’t blown one up on the pad. You certainly aren’t respected are a space advocate if you haven’t been banned from any (or even better – all) space boards and forums during the Bush – VSE – Constellation years, which now thankfully are now over due in large part to space advocates brave enough and vocal enough to confront an emperor without clothes, running an empire without a clue. Still supporting VSE and Constellation after all of these years is just plain laughable. Sorry. We are laughing at you, not with you.

  • Brad

    Old engineer

    Let me clarify some things for you. First off I am not nor have ever been a supporter of Constellation, quite the opposite in fact.

    Secondly when I referred to banned people, the ones I were speaking of were banned because of ill temper and continued refusal to abide by board posting policies. In other words, the banned people were blowhard a**holes and hardly better than trolls. Not because they were some lone champion of truth and light. Good grief.

    Third, how nice of you to acknowledge that the Obama policy has killed VSE, and that in fact NASA manned deep space exploration is dead. How else should I take “Still supporting VSE and Constellation after all of these years is just plain laughable.”

    As for “Sorry. We are laughing at you, not with you.” Nice. I see you aspire to follow in Tommy boy’s footsteps. What a shame.

  • Tommy Boy

    blowhard a**holes

    US ‘blowhard a$$holes blew a hole right through the center of your beloved incompetently (non) executed, unaffordable and indeed delusional classical Vision for Space Exploration, with a couple piquent comment postings and a few perfectly placed rocket science papers. Chew on that for a while gringo.

    I got everything I wanted, and more. Four years and ten billion dollars too late, but who’s counting any more. What exactly did you get out of the deal?

  • Major Tom

    ““Major Tom” reminds me of the sort who I have seen banned from another space discussion board. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if “Major Tom” is in fact one of those people.”

    Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not. I almost exclusively post here.

    Again, if you want to debate the issues, hopefully based on the facts as they exist and with some modicum of logic, you’re more then welcome here.

    But if you’re just going to continue some imagined personal vendetta against me or anyone else with no reference to actual space policy topics, then you’re just wasting your time and mine.

    “Third, how nice of you to acknowledge that the Obama policy has killed VSE”

    That’s not what “Old Engineer” wrote.

    “…blowhard a**holes… I see you aspire to follow in Tommy boy’s footsteps.”

    Why the continued namecalling, insults, and swearing, long after you falsely accused me of the same?

    What is your problem?

    Oy vey…

  • Brad

    Tommy boy

    “gringo”? Hmm…

    I didn’t even realize that someone who goes by “Tommy boy” posted here, and it seems I offended you in my reply to Old engineer. Sorry about that. You see when I wrote Tommy boy in that post I was referring to “Major Tom” with the respect he is due, I intended no offense to you.

    As for Constellation and VSE, I thought I had made myself clear. I am not and have never been a fan of project Constellation. But Constellation is not the same as VSE, not at all.

    Obama, by canceling project Constellation did the nation a service. But Obama failed to replace it with an adequate substitute program. He replaced a bad plan with a plan to do nothing. There is no reason to expect any NASA manned mission beyond LEO before 2030 under the ‘new’ plan; which in the realm of politics is as good as saying never.

  • Major Tom

    “I didn’t even realize that someone who goes by “Tommy boy” posted here, and it seems I offended you in my reply to Old engineer.”

    It’s likely Thomas Elifritz, who goes by random names and insults other posters at every turn. He’s a troll and best ignored.

    “He replaced a bad plan with a plan to do nothing.”

    Why do you insist on maintaining this ignorant lie? Have you still not bothered to read the budget documents? Again, the plan is to develop an operational HLV by the 2020s, fly robotic precursor missions this decade, and develop key exploration technologies like in-orbit propellant transfer and storage, inflatable modules, automated/autonomous rendezvous and docking, closed-loop life support systems, in situ resource utilization, and advanced in-space propulsion. And to put in place at least two commercial providers of ETO crew transport. That is a plan to do many things, not “nothing”.

    I have no love lost for many Obama Administration decisions. But to pretend that they have no human space flight plan or that their plan does nothing is a total distortion of reality.

    If there’s something specific that you don’t like about the new plan, then debate those specifics. But don’t make things up just so you can bash your favorite political punching bag. There’s plenty of other sites for that. There’s too few for serious space policy discussions.

    “There is no reason to expect any NASA manned mission beyond LEO before 2030 under the ‘new’ plan”

    Why not? There will be an operational HLV in the 2020s under the new plan. There will have been numerous robotic precursor missions to identify and prioritize targets. And key enabling and enhancing exploration technologies will have been demonstrated. If the new plan goes forward, what would keep a future Administration from mounting a crewed mission beyond LEO in the 2020s?

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom, on STS vs. EELV based HLV I would agree with you ‘if’ it was simple matter of clustering a few more Common Core Boosters together. The problem is that we cannot get the volume to even come close to matching the lift capacity increase. The net result is the payload density goes way off scale for spacecraft. For high density payloads to LEO, like LOX to a propellant depot, this is no bid deal though. Given that 65% of the mass needed in LEO is LOX this is viable way to cut down on the number of dockings at the depot and allow us to drive a lot of mass demand towards whoever builds the better LEO mousetrap, all good.

    This is why I pushed so hard on the propellant depot because it’s a key performance and organizational game changer. Unfortunately, it seems that the knowledge of spacecraft design cost drivers continues to be ignored. This not launch cost to LEO is what drives the cost of Space and high volume and mass margins are the key to getting this cost down.

    So we need to increase the core diameter and if we don’t want ATK SRB this means a new RP/LOX engine development for the first stage as well. While the Russian engines used on Atlas could work for a bridge solution I think we would eventually want a domestic source at some point, perhaps a modern day F-1. So let’s see we have brand new HLV with a unique engine, core, launch infrastructure, transport infrastructure, workforce etc. Doesn’t sound like an off the shelf EELV to me an more.

    So while it may theoretical still be cheaper from a fixed and variable cost perspective over a true SDHLV you still need to run those savings past the new capital development cost vs. just using the tens of billions of capital and experience already in place we are throwing away under the President’s plan.

    Even if the life cycle cost favors this over SDHLV I still think the primary danger under the President’s approach is assuming that budget realties two decades from now are going to support any HLV development based on any system.

    We have an operational HLV right now, why not use it? It would likely be built by the same coalition of ‘commercial’ contractors involved in ULA so in my mind I don’t understand why it makes that much difference. I would rather find ways to hybridize the EELV and SDHLV over time. For example the EDS/Upperstage could be designed to utilize a shared factory. A regen RS-68 + TAN could also be the long term main engine development shared by Jupiter, Atlas, and Delta. Talk about advanced technology, that capability would blow the socks off of anything out their now. The first rocket engine with a gear shift.

    Bottom-line: I’m nervous enough depending on politicians today let alone two decades from now. You must remember that under this R&D focused plan we will have thousand of fiefdoms spread throughout the country to deal with. We will need to find a way to carve out the development dollars needed for this decades in the future HLV within this death by thousand cuts entitlement funding environment. I just see endless R&D rainbows, piles of PhD papers, no flight hardware and no funded beyond Earth Orbit missions for decades and decades. That is until someone asks us what the heck we are doing all this theoretical R&D for as the 100th anniversary of the Moon landing comes and goes with little in terms of demonstrated progress to show for it.

    BTW its nice to have someone reasonable to converse with on this board.

  • Martijn Meijering

    I agree with your two facts and your prediction 1. I also agree with the following:

    My first point is either we start building a HLV from the elements of the STS and PoR this year or we abandon it indefinitely.

    While I agree with this, I probably do so for different reasons than you do. I contend HLV isn’t needed for exploration. Not even propellant transfer is necessary as Chinese plans and Jon Goff’s recent proposal show. The only reason HLV is now under consideration is politics. Once the shuttle stack goes away, that reason will evaporate along with it.

    And since I want freely competing commercial launchers doing propellant launches as soon as possible I don’t even want to see an HLV any time soon. We will need an EDS however. The 5m DCUS is good enough if you can either refuel it in orbit or launch it fully fueled, as a payload. J-130 or J-120 with RS-68A would obviously be good enough for this and this is something I used to advocate energetically. But if you are going to make major changes to DCUS, you might as well combine it with Centaur and finally develop a common ACES upper stage for Atlas and Delta. This means EELV Phase 1.

    The interesting thing is that this allows you to launch the EDS fully fueled if necessary. It is also a step on the way to cryogenic depots and it gives you an HLV. To make it even better it would be an HLV that doesn’t require a separate infrastructure and workforce and one that scales down to commercial payload levels. It is truly a sweet spot.

    This gives you far more than you need, even for robust Mars exploration. It also preserves the possibility of Phases 2 and 3, should that be necessary. Jeff Greason thinks there might be applications for which Phase 2 would be strongly desired, not because it would be strictly necessary, but because not having it might lead to marginal solutions. I think that is incredibly unlikely. Even with just the lift capacity of current EELVs and upper stages I think that is highly unlikely, provided you have cryogenic propellant transfer. The only real drawback I see with current EELVs is yearly launch volume compared to what you might need for Mars missions. With EELV Phase 1 even that would not be a problem.

    My second point is that we can always decommission the HLV at any point in the future should some true breakthrough occur on the R&D front.

    I disagree with this for two reasons. Firstly, it will be very difficult politically to get rid of an HLV once developed. Secondly, no breakthrough is needed for R&D. As I said above, no propellant transfer is needed at all. And as I have energetically stated elsewhere hypergolic propellant transfer, restricted to the lander and probably combined with EELV Phase 1 is good enough for large scale exploration. Combined with other existing technology (small propellant tugs) and the same new technologies an HLV would need (ISRU, surface nuclear power, perhaps NTR) you could even do Mars exploration this way. I would advocate doing cryogenic propellant transfer and probably NTR first, but it is not strictly necessary.

  • red

    Stephen Metschan: ” I just see endless R&D rainbows, piles of PhD papers, no flight hardware”

    A lot of the new technology focus is for demonstrations rather than research. I take that to mean flight hardware, probably usually in space. For example, from the budget documents:

    “Flagship demonstration program: …
    Demonstrates critical technologies such as in-orbit propellant transfer and storage, inflatable modules, automated/autonomous rendezvous and docking, closed-loop life support systems, and other next-generation capabilities.”

    “NASA will implement and manage a broad test program of next-generation technologies in multiple flight demonstrations over the next decade.”

    “In-space advanced engine technology development and demonstrations”

    There is also flight hardware for robotic HSF precursor missions. Possible missions include:

    “Landing on the Moon with a robot that can be tele-operated from Earth and can transmit near-live video.
    Demonstrating a factory to process lunar or asteroid materials for use for various purposes.”

    There’s also new ISS hardware for flight:

    “Increase Station capabilities through upgrades to both ground support and onboard systems”

    “New capabilities could include a centrifuge to support research into human physiology, inflatable space habitats, and a program to continuously upgrade Space Station capabilities.”

    The ISS will not just be used for R&D, but also for technology demonstrations:

    “The goal will be to fully utilize the Station’s R&D capabilities to conduct scientific research, improve our capabilities for operating in space, and demonstrate new technologies developed through NASA’s other programs.”

  • Red, all good stuff that just gets better with a modest SDHLV like the Jupiter-130.

    Martijn, perhaps the description of ‘Heavy’ Launch Vehicle is getting in the way. The key attribute of the Jupiter-130 is its Volume not its lift capacity.

    Mass staging in orbit is not the issue since most mass is propellant. The key problem with an ‘all’ EELV approach is volume staging in orbit. The one example we have of constructing a spacecraft in orbit using 5m chunks (ie the ISS) cost $100 billion dollars and took 50 launches over 2 decades. Doesn’t sound all that cost effective to me vs using an HLV to launch a ground integrated unit in one launch (ie Skylab).

  • Martijn Meijering

    Volume can be solved in many ways. There are at least half a dozen ways of making lunar landers and Mars landers fit. Transhabs and stations are best done with inflatables, and those can be launched on existing EELVs with existing fairings. Even bigger habs could be fit inside 6.5m fairing on current EELVs, let alone 6.5m fairings on EELV Phase 1. Large heat shields can be avoided by fully propulsive EDL. It is not obvious they are more efficient than propellant prepositioned with SEP. Volume requires a little bit more ingenuity than mass, since EELV architectures are more constrained by volume than by mass. Nothing insurmountable or even marginal however.

  • New Engineer

    all good stuff that just gets better with a modest SDHLV like the Jupiter-130.

    That’s all and good but you need to look at the basic facts :

    0) SSME expendables – ain’t gonna happen.

    1) J-130 is still 75% of the scale of the so called stretched four engine NLS variant, and 60% of the scale of some of the numerous Ares V designs.

    2) 8.4 meters is a HUGE engineering effort.

    3) There are no near term payloads.

    The best you can hope for now is to put together a proposal to use the remaining SSMEs on five meter cores for flight testing reusability concepts because tossing away flight worthy SSMEs is ludicrous to the public.

    You need to stop beating a dead horse – even Mr’ Musk’s business plan is contingent upon creative and innovative recovery concepts, and evolutionary upgrades into the heavy lift environments, something he knows he can do without selling the farm or stifling his competition.

  • New Engineer,

    Zero- The SSME will definitely be expendable by virtue of the design, but I don’t think that is the point you were making. Actual improvements to lower the cost of key SSME elements were actually in work and scheduled for implementation until Columbia happened. We have direct confirmation from P&W that they these engines will be significantly lower in cost under a Jupiter paradigm, not to be confused with the current STS paradigm everyone like Dr Crawley uses incorrectly. The combined affects of lower cost production and higher quantity amortizations of the fixed cost significantly lowers the cost per engine. In addition we don’t need to carry the fixed cost of engine refurbishment any more. Plus we have almost 19 engines in the inventory so we have six launches were the engines are free. Ares-1 was even so kind as to build a brand new launch tower that we can use. Free is very good price wouldn’t you admit? Or are we to believe that the low cost 101 principles above of, use what you have, expendability, and price discounts for volume ‘only’ apply EELV and SpaceX?

    One- Yes, but it’s the scale difference that makes all the difference. Unlike the PoR’s Ares-V the Jupiter-130 uses the existing flight proven man-rated main engines/solid rocket motors, tooling, launch infrastructure, transportation equipment, and the most important of all workforce. In chasing the bigger is better rainbow the Program of Record did none of the above. Hence why the Augustine Commission drew a clear distinction between Ares and SDHLV. Something that you are glossing over.

    Two- Jupiter-130 using the existing 8.4m core tooling can be on the pad with flight qualified engines, boosters in 36 months. The only new components are an aft thrust structure, payload fairing, and flight boxes. The final flight boxes are the tent pole so the test flight will be using the Shuttle systems with the CG moved to dead center of the stack. An adjustment feature the flight software uses on every STS mission. The tent pole for a full-up Beyond LEO capability is Orion not the Jupiter.

    Three – Well this is bit of Catch-22 don’t you think? Actually from the DOD side there are definitely game changing missions directly applicable to improve our ability to fight the new kind of war we are in that would be uniquely enabled by the Jupiter-130. So much so that I’m sure once other nations found out what we were doing they will build their own HLV just for this purpose alone.

    So in summary you advocate the destruction of $50 Billion dollars of in place tax payer funded flight hardware, tool, infrastructure and workforce experience. Just who is destroying what again? America’s second HLV is very much alive and kicking in fact there is a man-rated spacecraft in orbit right now because of it.

    No, the dead horse is attempting to sell everyone that we can somehow use the same technology to generate a radical shift in the cost of doing business. SpaceX primary national role is to provide competition to ULA. Nothing more nothing less.

    Back to the matter at hand, at least when we destroyed America’s first HLV and Beyond Earth Orbit capability we had truly new technology in work that gave us some hope that a significant shift in launch cost was possible (ie RLV vs ELV).

    So now that I have answered some of your question maybe you could answer a few of mine?

    Why are we foolishly destroying yet another multi-billion dollar capability?

    How is it that launch services, which represents less than 5% of the world wide total cost of Space exploration and development, is what is holding us back?

  • Martijn Meijering

    How is it that launch services, which represents less than 5% of the world wide total cost of Space exploration and development, is what is holding us back?

    It’s holding back commercial development of space, which is what I care about. Your mileage may differ. You don’t have to choose between exploration and commercial development of space, but you probably do have to choose between commercial development of space and SDLV. I’d go for commercial development and exploration, you would go for exploration and SDLV. People’s mileage may differ.

  • Martijn, a SDHLV is just as ‘commercializable’ in terms of development and operations as the smaller systems that may or may not currently exist. I agree with Mike Griffin that what everyone is calling commercialization is better described as contracting.

    True commercialization of Space will only happen once the dominate use of Space is by commercial companies primarily selling products and services to other businesses and consumers.

    If the government really wanted a quick and simple way to lower launch costs and foster a significant expansion in the commercial development of space they would just cover the fixed cost of the launch systems. An argument can be made that space access is a strategic imperative for the United States so one way or the other the fixed cost will be borne with or without commercial utilization. If true why not try to foster the commercial development of space at the same time we are meeting our strategic objectives?

    This would get the launch cost instantly down to $1-2K/kg to orbit based on the actual recurring cost of each launch paid for by all users private and government. We don’t need to wait for some science fiction breakthrough, or follow the cult like belief that the same technology in different hands will produce a radically different cost. A stroke of the policy pen on a piece of paper will do just fine. Ironically the cost to the government is virtually the same under this business model as it is today given how dominate the government use of the launch services is vs. commercial applications.

    Hopefully based on the significantly lower cost to orbit new commercial markets will emerge and ultimately grow to the point where the new tax revenue would offset the government’s fixed cost coverage investment. At which point we could then shift to a zero g zero tax policy and do away with any government fixed cost support for the launch systems. Eventually this commercial market would dwarf the government’s consumption rate of launch services and generate enough profit on its own to develop second generation launch systems that are even lower in cost than the SDHLV or EELV/SpaceX initially used to jump start this new industry.

    Look I get where you coming from. It just doesn’t make sense to me to destroy $50 Billion on hardware, tooling, infrastructure and workforce investments to once again chase some low cost rainbow dependent on science fiction technology breakthroughs or personality cults using the same technology we have today. Not when government supported economic development 101 may do the trick using what we already know works is paid for and available.

    If you are right than a significantly changing in the cost of 5% of the market should generate a many fold increase in the other 95%. The good news is we can find out if you are right very easily by just change the rules of the game.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Stephen, of course the shuttle stack could be run in the same way as EELV, provided fixed costs are taken care of with an ELC-like contract. The trouble with such a large launch vehicle is that there really aren’t any payloads for it except exploration and even those could be done on EELVs or similar vehicles. Once you have such a launch vehicle, sure you could launch the occasional huge telescope on it, but that doesn’t even come close to justifying it. And if you launch smaller payloads, you lose all advantages of lower cost/kg. It might be possible to do something like launching 4 geo sats at a time, but you’re not going to find 16 geo sats to launch each year. It also doesn’t make much sense as a crew launcher, unless you wanted to launch 30 people at a time on a yet to be developed large spaceplane.

    If you want to subsidise commercial development of space, sure you could pay for fixed costs. Unless you want to crowd out private investment, you’d have to have multiple firms compete for such an ELC-like contract. It seems unlikely the shuttle stack could win such a bid, given its high fixed costs.

    If true why not try to foster the commercial development of space at the same time we are meeting our strategic objectives?

    That is exactly what I’m proposing. The trouble with going for your proposed lower launch costs in the short term (apart from the fact that I’m skeptical about your numbers, especially compared to EELV Phase 1) is that it ensures R&D into things that will lower launch costs by one or two orders of magnitude will remain unprofitable. For comparison, I’d be much less opposed to NASA developing a small RLV, although I don’t think it would be any more likely to succeed this time round than it did with SLI and VentureStar.

    Look I get where you coming from. It just doesn’t make sense to me to destroy $50 Billion on hardware, tooling, infrastructure and workforce investments to once again chase some low cost rainbow dependent on science fiction technology breakthroughs or personality cults using the same technology we have today.

    Those are sunk costs. Future shuttle stack fixed costs have not yet been sunk and can still be saved. And EELVs are just as available. The shuttle stack just isn’t needed. I can understand why people would not want to lose a capability they have (8.4m core, SSME). I used to feel the same way and I’ve tried very hard to find schemes that would accommodate both SDLV and commercial development of space. It’s the payload volume of propellant for exploration I’m after, not crew launches. One way to save both would be to use the throw weight of an SDLV to do single launch crew launches to L1/L2 or some other high energy orbit. In this way you put a smaller amount of mass through a larger delta-v without taking away payloads from commercial launchers. Your friends wanted nothing to do with it. They kept coming up with technical objections that could be dismissed, which led me to the sad, belated and very reluctant conclusion they just weren’t being honest with me. I’ve given up all hope NASA would ever agree to such a scheme, the interests of the shuttle stack just seem diametrically opposed to those of commercial development of space. The concept of an HLV is nice, but I think SDLV is just too expensive and HLV won’t be needed for another fifty years or more.

    Your the remark about rainbows and science fiction is just posturing. EELVs are mature technology and ULA is better at developing launch vehicles than today’s MSFC which is no longer Wernher von Braun’s shop. Market forces are able to do more with the same technology than government bureaucracies, which is why the USA won the Space Race and the Cold War. They are also better at developing new technologies. This has little to do with the individuals in the organisation, competitive processes just tend to work better.

    All the arguments you make for proven technology, large payloads, subsidising fixed costs apply even more strongly to EELV Phase 1.

    Neither of us is likely to change their mind of course, which is why I’ve largely given up on debating Team DIRECT. What can I say?

  • Martijn, I think we are closer in viewpoint than you think. Again, given that launch services is a small portion of the overall space market why not cover the fixed cost across a range of vehicles and see what the ‘commercial’ for profit market chooses to utilize all things considered? Remember the current ‘commercial’ fostering focus is on the launch services right now not the other 95% of the industry. By doing this change we effectively remove the launch services cost constraint opening up growth of the other 95%. If this happens its hard to see how the fixed cost support won’t be paid back with growth in the other 95%.

    Also, if I’m wrong and volume is not critically important to lowering overall cost and improving mission capabilities then fine the government can remove its fixed cost support effectively shutting it down. We have finally found the answer to Jeff Greason’s question of what is the smallest biggest piece. This won’t be the first government attempt to foster a new commercial tax base and positive trade generator that failed nor the last. You win some you lose some.

    What do you say to the fact that the cost overruns (driven in large part by having to stuff 10lbs into a 5lbs box) of just two unmanned programs JWST and MSL would have paid the half the development cost of the Jupiter? It seems to me if we are willing to pay for the cost overruns why not the solution?

    What about the significant military and scientific breakthrough uses enabled by the high volume capability of the Jupiter-130? While these missions would be infrequent (because of the high cost of the spacecraft and mission not the launch cost under this plan) they would also be much more note worthy than send yet another small probe to somewhere in the solar system. As I see it even unmanned exploration problems is finding it harder to out do past missions based on current capabilities. That is without blowing their budgets by pushing the spacecraft packing density beyond where it cost optimally should be.

  • danwithaplan

    SSME is an expensive engine to manufacture/machine. Period. The SSME will be dumped. In the post Shuttle era SSME makes no sense.

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