Congress, NASA

Houston’s delegation optimistic about Constellation

Parker and Houston House reps

On Thursday morning eight members of the House from the greater Houston area held a press conference with Houston mayor Annise Parker (at the podium above, flanked by the House members), who was visiting Washington in part to lobby to project jobs at the Johnson Space Center that might be jeopardized by NASA’s plans to cancel Constellation. While Parker described her concerns about the economic impact to the city and region should those plans go through, the Republican and Democratic members who gathered with her expressed considerable optimism that Congress would move to preserve Constellation in the coming months.

“All of us, from Democrat to Republican, no matter geographically where we’re located in the Gulf Coast area, support the effort to save the Johnson Space Center and Constellation,” said Rep. Gene Green (D), who served as the master of ceremonies for the 40-minute press conference on Capitol Hill. “I happen to be a person that is optimistic,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D). “I see the light at the end of the tunnel.” And Kevin Brady (R): “It is an uphill fight, but I become more optimistic each day, because together I believe we can get this done.”

The arguments they used in support of Constellation covered familiar grounds: concerns about local jobs, about the potential loss of inspiration for students to study science and engineering, and national security and loss of international prestige should Constellation not go forward. While the arguments were familiar, the rhetoric was amped up a bit. “If we do away with the Constellation project, American astronauts are going to have to hitch a ride into space, and that means we going to have to ride with the Russians or the Chinese, or maybe the Iranians,” said Ted Poe (R), referring at the end to a recent sounding rocket launch by Iran carrying several animals briefly into space. Al Green (D) contrasted efforts in Congress to generate new jobs with the potential to lose jobs at JSC under current plans. “We’re talking about shovel-ready jobs that we want to bring online, when we have ‘already’ jobs that we ought to protect… Why lose the already jobs?”

The members, and Mayor Parker, gave mixed messages about one aspect of the new plan, its reliance on commercial providers to transport cargo and crews to low Earth orbit. “This is not an attack on private sector participation in spaceflight,” Parker said. “We believe that the private sector can add innovation and can be a partner, but we believe that the United States needs to be the lead in this effort.”

Some, though, raised various concerns about handing over human access to LEO to the private sector. John Culberson (R) likened it to privatizing the Marine Corps: “It is as inconceivable to me that the president would privatize the Marine Corps and hand over their job to the private sector as it is to imagine the closing down of America’s manned space program.” He later asked, “If the private sector exclusively owns access to space, who owns the technology? They’d have the right to sell it to any nation on the face of the Earth?” (Someone should probably acquaint the congressman with ITAR.)

The members were less specific, though, about how they plan to preserve Constellation. Jackson Lee did discuss some “logistics”, as she put it, including a meeting she had with Rep. John Spratt (D-SC), chair of the House Budget Committee, about this. “He’s asked for language that we can submit to be able to impact the congressional budget resolution,” she said. “That is an action item that is enormously important to get ourselves back in place.” She said she’s also provided White House staff with information about this during a meeting by the Congressional Black Caucus with President Obama.

She added that the she’s introduced legislation “to declare NASA as a national security asset”. This is a reference to H.Res. 1150, a resolution she introduced earlier this month with 16 cosponsors, mostly from Texas. The resolution includes, among other language, the claim that the “elimination of the Constellation program will present Homeland Security implications for cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and the intelligence community of the United States”. She also claimed that “right now the intelligence committee is having a hearing on NASA as an intelligence, or as an asset.” A check of the intelligence committee’s web site doesn’t turn up any hearings in the past week that would featured NASA, as least in their titles.

While the members of Congress exuded confidence that, one way or another, Constellation would be preserved, Parker sounded a little more pragmatic, focused more on preserving jobs and economic activity at JSC. “This is not an attack on the president, this is an appeal to the president and the administration to work with us,” she said. “I have confidence that the administration is considering what to do, whatever the final outcome may be, to make sure that there’s not an abrupt end and everything falls off the table.”

107 comments to Houston’s delegation optimistic about Constellation

  • Robert G. Oler

    meaningless…if Obama gets his health care plan…he gets his space plan…and everything else

    Robert G. Oler

  • NoVotes

    They don’t have the votes for healthcare yet so I hope both his hostile takeovers fail

  • Unfortunately, Obama has no space plan except for a tiny bit of funding for private commercial companies– which I approve of.

    But spending $19 billion a year for a Federal space program that doesn’t build anything or go anywhere is politically unsustainable.

  • googaw

    But spending $19 billion a year for a Federal space program that doesn’t build anything or go anywhere is politically unsustainable.

    Developing space with political rhetoric — what a great way to go.

  • CharlesHouston

    Sigh. Hopefully this will not turn human space flight into what we have all maintained that space is NOT – a jobs program that occupies people on some pointless science fair projects.

    Many of these statements just confirm that the elected leaders do not know what human space flight is for and what it does. Rep Jackson Lee should stick to speaking at funerals – our human space flight program is NOT a national security asset, she just does not know what one of those consists of. Rep Culberson is similarly ill informed, the private sector might supply vehicles but the feds would still control access to space (launch sites, licensing, etc).

    We are all certain that this means a budget that is approved LATE, so we are under the provisions of contracts that require spending on programs that have been cancelled. And the budget will be a series of continuing resolutions – so those contracts will be in effect until the Spring of 2011.

    Then we might have to spend billions on projects that have few known uses, and that could easily be cancelled themselves. So what is the motivation there?

    If we are gonna move to commercial space – take the heat and eliminate the organizations that were running government space. Don’t keep the organizations around, working on flimsy projects, just to say that we saved jobs.

    The saddest end for NASA would be to fade away into meaningless obscurity, trying to pretend that they were still developing something that people wanted.

  • googaw

    Many of these statements just confirm that the elected leaders do not know what human space flight is for and what it does.

    So help us resolve the mystery, what is HSF for and what does it do?

    a jobs program

    Sounds to me like what the Exploration Directorate has been for a very long time.

    Seriously, how can anybody but a rookie in this business be surprised at any of this? This is all very old stuff.

  • googaw

    Oops, I missed this gem:

    The saddest end for NASA would be to fade away into meaningless obscurity, trying to pretend that they were still developing something that people wanted.

    Yes, it has been sad, watching this happen to the Exploration Directorate (and its predecessor divisions of NASA) since Apollo.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler is, as usually, wrong. Whether Obama gets HRC or not, he has shot his bolt. It wull just be a question of whether the American people are enraged that he tried and failed or tried and succeeded.

    As for Obamaspace, it looks like the shape of Plan B is materializing. The commercial package stays, but also something resembling Ares V Lite and Orion. Now to add back in a lander and we’re back to the Moon again.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 1:20 am

    that is another funny post.

    If winning is having “shot ones bolt” then I guess you are correct…

    but winning the premier issue of the day is going to make President Obama nothing but stronger…and is going to kill any effort that he does not endorse.

    There is no plan B…Mark you have predicted almost every space policy turn wrong…remember your predictions about Bush and Griffin…

    the folks who have “shot their bolt” is the GOP

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris Valyn

    Does anyone have some chocolate covered popcorn, so I can enjoy the Oler vs Whittington round XXX?

  • Bennett

    I’d like to submit for debate that our President cares a great deal about HSF, and he knew that if he came right out and endorsed a goal of getting boots on the ground on Mars by 2030 he would have been ridiculed and attacked by the Republican legislators.

    Instead, he forms the Augustine commission, cancels Constellation, funds COTS and NASA science, and waits for the hue and cry by Republicans to reach a point where they can’t back down from their positions that

    A) HSF is vitally important to our country.

    B) NASA jobs are a valuable national resource.

    C) Getting to the Moon or Mars for research and colonization is not “far fetched” or “loony”.

    I think he has shown a great deal of savvy in this approach, one that ensures a robust space program, regardless of the LV, HLV, or “vision”. He will be able to insist that developing an infrastructure that will allow for sustained activity BEO is the most important thing we can do (first and foremost).

    I *hope* he uses the conference in April to lay out a goal of getting to Mars by 2020, using a on-orbit refuled shuttle to orbit Mars and return our astronauts safely to Earth.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler, to paraphrase a previous President, it all depends on what “winning” is.

    There are such things as Phyrric victories in politics. Mr. Clinton himself can reflect on this fact, having passed a tax hike in 1993 only to have that issue (among many others) to cause him to lose Congress.

    The health care reform death march is one of the most fascinating events in political history. Here we have a Congress, knowing that the vast majority of the American people oppose it, is nevertheless trying to pass health care reform anyway. If they try and fail, they are tyrannical and ineffective. If they try and succeed, they are tyrannical and a menace.

    This is part of the reason the President has managed in a little more than a year to get poll numbers that President Bush took eight years to get.

    Succeed or fail, HRC will cripple the Obama Presidency, ensure the loss of the Congress this fall, and possibly make BO a one term President. Whatever political capital BO has left is certainly not going to be used to muscle through a space policy that has run into almost universal opposition. The best BO can get is a compromise, such as the one Bill Nelson is working on, that allows for some of his plan to go forward, but also a bare bones Constellation.

    Then it will be up to the next President, whomever he or she will be, to fix things.

  • Major Tom

    “It wull [sic] just be a question of whether the American people are enraged that he tried and failed or tried and succeeded.”

    I’m no fan of certain aspects of the health care bill, but this is a stupid statement. A majority of voters can’t be angry whether a bill passes or not. They’re thinking humans, not quantum particles.

    “As for Obamaspace,”

    All the major aspects of NASA’s FY 2011 budget request originated with the Augustine Committee, and the budget was negotiated between NASA and various White House offices. It’s highly misleading to claim that it’s the President’s plan alone.

    Don’t make things up.

    “it looks like the shape of Plan B is materializing. The commercial package stays, but also something resembling Ares V Lite and Orion.”

    Materializing where? In your imagination? No one in NASA, the Administration, or Congress has even mentioned Ares V Lite.

    Don’t make things up.

  • GuessWho

    You will have to forgive Oler – he is still suffering BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome).

    Whether Obamacare passes at this point is irrelevant, Dems are toast in the November elections. The reality is they ran both houses with super-majorities and couldn’t pass the healthcare reform because of the infighting within the party. The GOP refusing to participate meant nothing to the bottom line vote count. Dems didn’t need their votes then. Now they can’t afford to allow those votes. The past weeks of trying any trick possible to pass something the majority of the US populace doesn’t want is really a last desperation move to save Obama’s presidency. Hardly he sign of strength that Oler proclaims. Given that 37 states have pending legislation to sue the USG if Obamacare passes (Idaho has already signed this into law), the long-term “health” of this bill is suspect. I guess the states are in the process of forming their own “death panel” for Obamacare. (Sorry, off-topic but Oler continues to bring this issue up as a sign of Presbo’s strength to get his NASA wish. Oler is wrong (remember his ‘all of constellation is dead’ proclamation) and needs to be challenged).

  • Mark R. Whittington

    It looks like “Major Tom” is substituting ranting, raving and abuse for reasoned argument. Typical for an anonymous troll.

    For the opposition to HCR, look at the polls. And the Augustine Committee did not recommend or even present as an option ending all efforts to explore space beyond LEO.

    Either President Obama will agree to a compromise or it will be forced on him by the Congress. Bill Nelson is already working on this.

  • Bennett

    I thought this was a blog about Space Politics, but this:

    “Succeed or fail, HRC will cripple the Obama Presidency, ensure the loss of the Congress this fall, and possibly make BO a one term President.”

    is typical Tea Party ObamaHate BS. And this:

    “did not recommend or even present as an option ending all efforts to explore space beyond LEO.”

    suggests that the new direction for NASA does present that “option”, which is also a load of BS

    .

  • Vladislaw

    “Some, though, raised various concerns about handing over human access to LEO to the private sector. John Culberson (R) likened it to privatizing the Marine Corps: “It is as inconceivable to me that the president would privatize the Marine Corps and hand over their job to the private sector as it is to imagine the closing down of America’s manned space program.” ”

    How will the astronaut corp beable to storm the beaches of Shakleton Crater if we do not have space marines?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 10:46 am

    just like the Chinese taking over the Moon (lol) your analysis is skewed by your ideology.

    There are three issues in terms of health care and human spaceflight.

    The first is what does passing the health care reform (which they will do) say about the political power of the Obama administration? It says a great deal. There were quite a few times along the way where the Administration should or could have left the health care debate or modified it to try and get some more moderate GOP support…as late as the election of Scott Brown the far right was chortling that the entire campaign was over…and yet here we are on the verge of passing it and it is more or less the bill that Obama has been with since the start. (note: I want a single payer system so to me there are things that I DONT Like in this bill).

    There was in this fight a lot of opposition; ignoring the GOP “NO” there was internal Dem opposition but Obama and his administration “stayed the course” and put it together. It seems that the message here for his spaceflight policy is that his administration will do likewise. There are some things around the edges (like Nelson getting his last shuttle mission) but in the end thats it.

    You might not view that as winning but then you think the Chinese are going to take over the Moon.

    Second what does it say about Obama’s ability to control his own party? Stupak is all the folks who are trying to come up with “Plan B’s” for Obama’s space policy. Stupak staked out a claim which he thought would give him some traction (and political cover) in the bill and has tried to turn a very small number of Dems into something…and he has failed.

    Third…the politics of it. The mistake of the GOP in this debate was to listen to much to the Fox spin room. The folks who oppose the bill as a matter of “I wont listen to any alternative explanation” will latch on to almost anything or any rhetoric. You illustrate that in space policy; without any real evidence you are sold on “the Chinese taking over the Moon” theory. The GOP politicians started playing to that group which unfortunately has a upper limit in terms of support.

    You mention the polls. RIGHT NOW almost all polls show support for the HC bill evenly split…and the pro folks rising…as the debate shifts from the process to the actual bill. The GOP should have engaged the cost of the bill (it is high) and what it will do to taxes (they are going up)…but they hung on to trying to pander to the Sarah Palin wing of the party which is old, white, and very angry. They dont look good on TV.

    What the folks like you are hoping is that there is support in The Republic for redoing Apollo chasing the Chinese enemy in some mythic battle of good and evil. The polls show that there is no support for that.

    Those three reasons are why I predict that the HC passage makes it more and more likely that the space policy he proposed will come through more or less as advertised.

    As for the midterms. To state with certainty or even to speculate with assurance “will cripple the Obama Presidency, ensure the loss of the Congress this fall, and possibly make BO a one term President. ” is merely wishful thinking (more WMD from you)

    I can see how 94 replays, but I can also see how this turns out to be another 96 or none of those things. How the election turns out is going to be how the next months play out say until Sept or October. I can see a scenario where what you say comes true, but it is doubtfull. The health CARE LOSS did not cripple Clinton, he lost the Congress but won the two terms of his Presidency. Unlike Bush the last he is considered a success.

    On the other hand I can see where this completely turns around his Presidency and minimizes the traditional midterm losses.

    Have to see how things play out. I am quite comfortable that the odds are very good now BHO gets his space politics. How loud you are shouting otherwise is one indicator.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    GuessWho wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 10:58 am

    You will have to forgive Oler – he is still suffering BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome)…

    Constellation is quite dead and most Americans are suffering from Bush derangement syndrome…he really shafted us.

    I am quite comfortable that like predicting Constellation would go nowhere when it was announced; I have called it correctly here.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    The “Nelson” compromise is going to be one last shuttle flight and a study on HLV’s…thats it

    Robert G. Oler

  • Its not plan B but plan 4B :) Their is nothing lite about Ares-Lite.

    The only political, technical, and budgetary realistic option at this point is to extend the STS until COTS is fully able to support the ISS expanded mission objectives (more utilization + longer life). To do otherwise is to abandon the ISS mission and everyone that knows the issues knows this to be true.

    As pointed out in the Augustine Commission hearings this means that the only HLV that makes sense is a true SDHLV like Jupiter. The capabilities of the inline SDHLV variant (i.e. the Jupiter) also make the beyond LEO capabilities of Orion relevant again which also provides a non-competing NASA back up to the lower cost COTS D option as strongly advocated at the Senate hearing on Thursday. SpaceX option D for Dragon is quoted at a little over $300 million so $800 million in the COTS crew budget line should be more than sufficient to enable a low cost commercial domestic cargo/crew access to ISS. Basically more money every year for four years than SpaceX received over five years under the COTS cargo contract should definitely be sufficient to get them to the finish line as quickly as possible.

    We don’t need ten different ways of accessing LEO, a crew capable Dragon with Orion as a more expensive backup will be more than sufficient. All we need is good low cost commercial support of the ISS mission enabling NASA to redirect its efforts towards beyond LEO missions and advanced technology we need in order to shift the cost curve going forward.

    All the above is wisely contained in Augustine option 4B which also just so happnes to be a very good compromise postion between the President and Congress.

  • Major Tom

    “It looks like “Major Tom” is substituting ranting, raving and abuse”

    Where did I rant, rave, or abuse?

    Don’t make things up.

    “Typical for an anonymous troll.”

    Mr. Foust welcomes anonymous comments.

    And it’s not trolling to point out where an argument is based on false facts or a lack of logic. Calling a spade a spade is not trolling.

    If you don’t like your repeated false statements to be called out as such, then you shouldn’t be posting on blogs.

    Making repeatedly false statements that other posters have to waste their time correcting — and preventing discussion of actual, fact-based issues — that’s trolling.

    “For the opposition to HCR, look at the polls.”

    Your argument is that voters will be angry whether the bill passes or not, not whether voters oppose the bill.

    Think before you post.

    “And the Augustine Committee did not recommend or even present as an option ending all efforts to explore space beyond LEO.”

    First, the nation can’t end a human space exploration effort that doesn’t exist.

    Think before you post.

    Second, the Augustine report does include options that restrict human space flight to LEO through the timeframe considered by the committee.

    Don’t make things up.

    Third, NASA’s FY 2011 budget request accelerates human space exploration over the POR.

    Stop making things up.

    “Either President Obama will agree to a compromise or it will be forced on him by the Congress.”

    Says who? Your imagination?

    Both the draft House and Senate authorization bills already fully fund the President’s FY 2011 budget request for NASA and incorporate all its major human space flight components.

    “Bill Nelson is already working on this.”

    Because he asked one potential CCDev contractor a question about heavy lift during a hearing?

    And when has Nelson mentioned Ares V Lite?

    Stop making things up.

    Lawdy…

  • Myself, I hope there is a compromise, something along the lines of what I think many observers had expected before the administration’s plan came out. I’d like to see Orion, and possibly Ares-V (or something like it), continue to provide active development of a deep space capability and some kind of direction and purpose to the new plan. I’d like to see the technology funding re-oriented to deep space (why on Earth would we waste money developing yet another hydrocarbon engine specifically designed to be no better than those that already exist – repeating all the political and financial mistakes of Ares-1?). And, I’d like to see commercial space to the ISS more-or-less as the administration proposes.

    Something like this should fit reasonably closely into the proposed budget, without wasting everything that was done before and still providing at least the possibility of a near-term deep space capability. Such a compromise should also keep the Texas and Florida interests reasonably happy.

    Thoughts?

    — Donald

  • Vladislaw

    “will cripple the Obama Presidency, ensure the loss of the Congress this fall, and possibly make BO a one term President.”

    The party of no has already filibustered 112 times… almost a 100% increase over the last record. In over 200 years the republic has never seen such partisanship, not over slavery, civil rights, religion or even civil war and he talks how his presidency will be crippled? The party of no has already crippled the congress to the point of only an 18% approval rating.

  • Jonathan Hummer

    In doing research on the industry for some time now, I have yet to see any sort of value prop from NASA, Lockheed-Martin, or any other interested party. The concept of jobs lost and national security is a tired canard; in life and in business, if something does not produce results, you don’t keep throwing money at it. Cut your losses (read: SUNK costs) and move on with a better way to accomplish the goals. I am not sure that it means privatizing the space industry, but it does mean letting Constellation go.

  • Major Tom

    “I’d like to see the technology funding re-oriented to deep space (why on Earth would we waste money developing yet another hydrocarbon engine specifically designed to be no better than those that already exist – repeating all the political and financial mistakes of Ares-1?).”

    The hydrocarbon engine is oriented to deep space. It’s a very high-thrust engine of the type needed for heavy lift unless you’re willing to cluster scores of smaller, existing engines (like the Soviets did on N-1). Unlike Ares I’s duplication of Atlas, Delta, and Falcon, no such engine exists domestically.

    FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Donald F. Robertson wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 12:38 pm ..

    Good thoughts

    I think that there are three “foundations” that are driving the change in space policy.

    1. The current plan is not affordable (nor is it supported by the public)

    2. The launch industry (Boeing and Lockmart and SpaceX and even Orbital) is trying to get some sort of federal policy which will stop and reverse the takeover of the launcher industry by the Europeans/Russians and will enable all of them to complete in the next generation of GEO development…(the real estate that is going to be competitive in the future is not the Moon…but it is what is done in GEO)…

    3. Part of number 2 is development of a “HLV” which is affordable.

    All these things work together.

    Despite the bangings of the DIRECT evangelist no one really (including oddly enough) ATK is supporting an effort to retain a SDV because they recognize that it is simply unaffordable by anyone but government. And even then not really.

    Where I think that heavy lift is going is some sort of evolution of one or more of the Expendables into something “heavy”…

    but the days of a “toss it all” Apollo style exploration program are over. What deep space ships of the future look like..is ISS.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “The only political, technical, and budgetary realistic option at this point is to extend the STS”

    Extending STS is not technically or budgetarily realistic. It can’t be extended — only restarted 2-3 later at a cost of many billions of dollars.

    “As pointed out in the Augustine Commission hearings this means that the only HLV that makes sense is a true SDHLV like Jupiter.”

    Maybe you mean that the DIRECT team made such a claim during the Augustine hearings, but the committee made no such claim, and their report lays out multiple HLV options. In terms of affordability, an EELV-derived solution was favored in the report.

    “SpaceX option D for Dragon is quoted at a little over $300 million so $800 million in the COTS crew budget line should be more than sufficient to enable a low cost commercial domestic cargo/crew access to ISS… All the above is wisely contained in Augustine option 4B”

    Option 4B contains $5 billion for commercial crew, not $800 million.

    Please don’t make things up.

    FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    there are three problems with DIRECT

    first it has no mission. there is no public policy on “exploring”…and even if there were, the days of building “a massive” spaceship and launching it all at once are never coming back. “Orion” (throw it all away as you go) is no way to run a railroad.

    What deep space ships of the future are going to look like are ISS. Assembled in chunks (we can debate the size), tested for crib deaths in LEO and then reused.

    Second…it is to expensive. The numbers are all handwaving “workforce retention” but well maybe only 1/3 of the workforce (with no idea how) and it will do nothing but get more expensive as the hardware gets older

    Third..no commercial capability. The folks who build Delta/Atlas/Falcon will find that the more of those the government buys, the cheaper that they can be sold to private enterprise…and recoup the launcher industry for The Republic

    Its dead Jim

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    I

    As pointed out in the Augustine Commission hearings this means that the only HLV that makes sense is a true SDHLV like Jupiter. ..

    please stop making those ridiculous claims. They might go well in the spin rooms of the DIRECT evangelist but …they are false

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    If you want the outlines of “The Nelson compromise”…just go watch how Stupak is “claiming victory”. he got a fig leap and now he is a yes.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Despite the bangings of the DIRECT evangelist no one really (including oddly enough) ATK is supporting an effort to retain a SDV because they recognize that it is simply unaffordable by anyone but government. And even then not really.

    I wrote that…

    let me insert some language

    “Despite the bangings of the DIRECT evangelist no one really (including oddly enough) ATK is supporting an effort to retain a SDV (except their SDV) because they recognize that it is simply unaffordable by anyone but government. And even then not really.”

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    I’ll pose the simple question again, because I haven’t gotten answer to it.

    How do these folks, the Houston congressional delegation included, argue with the Augustine committee report that the Constellation program, that they so desperately want to continue, is fundamentally unexecutable? That is, what’s their line on that?

    Is it that

    (1) The Augustine committee was wrong/misled?
    (2) The Augustine committee was just a setup by an administration that wanted to cancel the program?
    (3) There would be $3B/year to prop the program up and make it at least fiscally executable?

    It must be one of these three. I’ve never seen these Constellation cheerleaders in Congress address that single simple issue.

    I mean, seriously, what is the political advantage of signing on to a program that has been deemed unexecutable? They have “optimism” that Constellation will continue. Do they have “optimism” that once continued, it will work?

    Their rationale for a strong human spaceflight program is generally reasonable. But to uniquely link that rationale with a specific plan and architecture that is not considered credible by a select committee just comes across as a baldfaced statement that this isn’t about space exploration at all to them, but just about spending. Is there national pride to be found in continuing a program that is unexecutable? Is getting a ride with the Chinese really worse than just pretending you’re going to have your own ride?

    Nothing surprising about this. That’s how members get reelected, by getting money disbursed to their constituents. But the “shovel ready” projects they’re talking about here is shoveling dollars, and not building things.

  • brobof

    Bennett wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 9:41 am
    *BINGO* It must be quite heartening for your President to see your conservative Right manoeuvered into becoming a pro-Big Science lobby!
    “Politics in Chicago is an all-season sport, and it’s not for the fainthearted,” Rahm Emanuel

    Whilst echoing your sentiment, I *hope* he uses the conference in April to commit the USA to a lead role in developing a second ISS! But unlike the last, this “International Space Ship” will (eventually) be mobile! Its construction an excuse for all that BEO R&D and the need for commercial Heavy Lift; as well as a second round of International Partnership. And the chance for a naming competition of global proportions!

    But whilst we are “making things up” I would humbly suggest: Phobos by 2030 is a better time scale with the NEO: 1999 AO10 in 2025/26 as a precursor.
    Interesting times!

  • googaw

    So help us resolve the mystery, what is HSF for and what does it do?

    The mystery remains unsolved.

  • meaningless…if Obama gets his health care plan…he gets his space plan…and everything else

    Nonsense, the space plan and the health care are two seperate things. Obama really is invested in the health bill but the space plan is just something his advisors came up with to satisfy various budget and political interest. What do you want to bet that New Space were gave a lot more money to Obama than McCain.

    But spending $19 billion a year for a Federal space program that doesn’t build anything or go anywhere is politically unsustainable.

    Marcel, this so correct and the real reason the top of the Admistration is going with the plan. It is why I’m opposing it. If Obama was for HSF he’d be for the government doing it and would come up with the $3 billion per year that is needed. He has no problems spending money against the will of the people.

  • Vladislaw

    Vision for Space Exploration Feb. 2004

    http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55584main_vision_space_exploration-hi-res.pdf

    “NASA does not plan to develop new launch vehicle capabilities except where critical NASA needs—such as heavy lift—are not met by commercial or military systems. Depending on future human mission designs, NASA could decide to develop or acquire a heavy lift vehicle later this decade. Such a vehicle could be derived from elements of the Space Shuttle, existing commercial launch vehicles, or new designs.

    In the days of the Apollo program, human exploration systems employed expendable, single-use vehicles requiring large ground crews and careful monitoring. For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews. NASA plans to invest in a number of new approaches to exploration, such as robotic networks, modular systems, pre-positioned propellants, advanced power and propulsion, and in-space assembly, that could enable these kinds of vehicles. These technologies will be demonstrated on the ground, at the Space Station and other locations in Earth orbit,”

    What I find so amazing is that a democratic President, who ran an anti-Bush campaign, is actually going to fight to make President Bush’s Vision come true. By budgeting, almost line by line, everything Bush outlined you would think that republicans would be jumping for joy.

  • Robert G. Oler

    John wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    meaningless…if Obama gets his health care plan…he gets his space plan…and everything else

    Nonsense, the space plan and the health care are two seperate things. ..

    power is power…when you have it everything is easier in Washington…and Obama is going to get it with the health care bill.

    I agree that health care is a national issue…and human spaceflight is not…but that cuts both ways. Congress folks outside of the pork districts will go “with the power” on an issue that they have no deep national feeling on. Shelby noted this when he talked about “critical mass”…if it cannot be found then the “drift” is toward the folks who are strong…and that will be The Administration by this afternoon.

    put it another way. I can assure you that if HC were going down, the folks who support a continuation of Ares/Constellation would be using it as an example of why Obama was going to not get his way on human spaceflight.

    Presidents are “game changing” (I like that term more then “transformal”) when they change the course of the debate. Ronaldus the Great did that in foreign policy, instead of the endless “lets put up with Ivan” his theory was “lets take down Ivan”.

    The changes in HSF that Obama is pushing are “game changing”. they take HSF policy from being one big government program after another…and force it into something that affects the people.

    You might think that is the end of NASA, and it is the end of the Apollo era NASA. to me, that is just fine.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug, that is because both sides are “spinning” the Augustine report to suit their goals. The Augustine report did not in fact say the Constellation program in un-executeable. Rightly or wrongly, they said that the project (or at least Ares-1) seemed well managed and had no obvious technological show-stoppers. They also said that to continue Constellation while also doing the other things on NASA’s plate, the agency’s budget would have to be increased by $3+ billion.

    These politicians most likely want to see the budget increased to enable Constellation to continue, or as a fallback, to see Constellation stretched out to fit within the budget.

    — Donald

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler’s conception of “victory” is sort of like the General who takes that minor bridge or unimportant hill and celebrates, not realizing that his opponent has already turned his flank and is setting fire to his baggage train in the rear. That is the situation BO finds himself in HCR.

    HCR reform also means that there will be no more tough votes from Democrats this year, especially on space policy. They will be too busy either trying to salvage their political careers or else lining up private sector jobs for their post Congressional lives.

    Obama still has a chance to take control of space policy, by hammering out a compromise with Nelson, et al. Otherwise he is likely to be handed a space commercialization program that is underfunded and a space exploration program that is underfunded.

  • google

    Otherwise he is likely to be handed a space commercialization program that is underfunded and a space exploration program that is underfunded.

    This is a feature, not a bug. Efficiency is not learned by rolling in the dough.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    Oler’s conception of “victory” is sort of like the General who takes that minor bridge or unimportant hill and celebrates,..

    really funny.

    using that analogy the only thing dumber then the “General” you mention was the OPFOR General who spent almost all their forces and effort trying to stop that bridge or hill from being taken.

    If your view is correct and Obama winning health care reform is a “minor” victory…then why did the House Minority leader get up in and in a fit of resignation say (pretty close anyway) “this bill will ruin America”? Minor bridge indeed.

    After this vote Nelson will be like Stupak. Said a lot of words gotten a lot of attention but in the end get a fig leaf for his vote. Nelson’s compromise is one additional shuttle flight and a study on an HLV..the later was going to be done anyway.

    With HCR Democrats will have stood up to the GOP attack machine, turned the polls, and formed a solid majority for the most volatile issue of our day…the ones that energized the fox news right wing. To predict that this power now shatters over the victory is absurd.

    But then you think that the Chinese are going to take over the Moon.

    There is a death panel of sorts forming Mark. It is for Constellation and Shuttle…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert, whether the healthcare bill gets passed (and I do support its passage) has no bearing on the FYI2011 NASA budget proposal. NASA plan is about jobs. Somethng even the Republicans recognize are critical in their districts.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Gary Miles wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    Robert, whether the healthcare bill gets passed (and I do support its passage) has no bearing on the FYI2011 NASA budget proposal…

    I disagree. If Obama’s plan had gone down…then EVERY Obama plan that came up with be almost a free for all as party discipline completely collapsed.

    “NASA plan is about jobs. Somethng even the Republicans recognize are critical in their districts.”

    I am not for sure how to take this…but in my view what the GOP is going to be stuck doing is supporting Pork while Obama is going to advance his theories of private sector jobs…I dont think that the GOP will care…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    brobof wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    “Phobos by 2030 is a better time scale with the NEO: 1999 AO10 in 2025/26 as a precursor.”

    That would suit this taxpayer just fine.

    :-)

  • It’s about time the Pro NASA 6 senators got some help !

  • “Extending STS is not technically or budgetarily realistic. It can’t be extended — only restarted 2-3 later at a cost of many billions of dollars.”

    Major Tom, this is absolutely false base on the statements made by John Shannon on this very forum. With a STS stretch (2 flights/year) plus converting the LON to a mission the gap goes to zero (ie the first new tank in Spring 2012). The minor start-up costs are also shared by the Jupiter SDHLV development program since new cores will be needed as well anyway from this existing production line. I would also suggest a restart of an existing facility are exceedingly less expensive than the cost of a modern day SaturnV start-up a decade from now.

    “Maybe you mean that the DIRECT team made such a claim during the Augustine hearings, but the committee made no such claim, and their report lays out multiple HLV options. In terms of affordability, an EELV-derived solution was favored in the report.”

    Major Tom, this is also absolutely false, please review the video of what the commissioners actually said in their own words concerning this.

    http://www.vimeo.com/7209149

    I would like to see anyone try and make an equivalent video using the Augustine Commission proceedings endorsing the EELV solution.

    “Option 4B contains $5 billion for commercial crew, not $800 million.”

    Major Tom, the money comes from what Congress and President agree to in the end. The existing progress and hardware of the Orion and SDHLV is also just as commercializable as anything that doesn’t exist. My reference to $800 million dollars is what is in fact in the compromise budget proposal now circulating.

    I would also suggest that the Authorization Bill is in very close alignment with option 4B (ie STS extension with a SDHLV). I continue to amazed by people who don’t seem to able to connect the dots here.

    There are none so blind as those that will not see.

  • Robert,

    “I am not for sure how to take this…but in my view what the GOP is going to be stuck doing is supporting Pork while Obama is going to advance his theories of private sector jobs…I dont think that the GOP will care…”

    Over 89% of the workforce working on Constellation program are private sector jobs working for commercial space companies. The Republicans definitely care when money stops flowing to their districts and the bulk of the money employs high technical jobs that provide a strong tax base for local and state government.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    There are none so blind as those that will not see…

    and then there are those who just see what they want to see…I guess it is all the “passion” you claim you have.

    The music from BSG is entertaining…thats about it. The video is the greatest compilation of logic flaws that I have seen since the case was knitted together that 1) Saddam had WMD, 2) that threatened us and 3) taking him down and regime change was going to pay for itself.

    When people are saying “SDLV:” you hear “DIRECT”…but few are saying that. Why? Because almost no one believes the “numbers” that you and the rest of the “converted” babble. It is all about workforce retention with you, but then again if you keep all the workforce you cannot cut the cost so some are telling people “well 1/3 is the number we keep” (or some other number) and yet there is no hint as to how a project that is at least as complicated as the shuttle orbiter/ET/SRB stack will cost any less to operate the original stack.

    Read or listen to carefully they are not even saying “SDLV”…what everyone on the board said was “if we keep flying the shuttle then a SDLV makes sense”…

    that qualifier is the only reason that the one graphic with the circle and the slash through it on the EELV line makes any sense.

    “The existing progress and hardware of the Orion and SDHLV is also just as commercializable as anything that doesn’t exist.”

    that is a misstatement that assumes a new definition of “commercializable” to be defined as taking NASA out of the operating picture and having some consortium operate a vehicle on behalf of the government (as say USNS ships are operated)…but not in search of a commercial product.

    There is no hint how an SDLV (or Jupiter) has ANY Life past the government…unlike the EELV’s (or more correctly Falcon/Delta/Atlas/and the OSC thing) which, in most cases already do or are in the process of doing. It is in a word “unaffordable”.

    AS to making a video using EELV’s …sure…anyone could by chopping up a few sentences here and there, insert some nice music and there you are.

    No wonder you folks are flailing in the political world right now.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Gary Miles wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    in normal times that might have worked…the problem is that these are not normal times…and Boeing/Lockmart want the EELV’s to fly stuff to the station…Constellation the system simply priced itself out of the market.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “The Augustine report did not in fact say the Constellation program in un-executeable.”

    I don’t believe those words were actually in the report, but many of the committee members have used those words after the fact. Fiscally, it was “unexecutable” given the expected NASA funding profile.

    “These politicians most likely want to see the budget increased to enable Constellation to continue, or as a fallback, to see Constellation stretched out to fit within the budget.”

    That’s nice, and could well be the case, but THEY AREN’T SAYING ANY OF THAT. They’re saying they want the program reinstated without admitting the obvious caveat that in order to be successful, there is at least a huge amount of work to do on the funding front.

    I’m sorry, but their case is a house of cards. Whether one likes the idea of Constellation or not, there’s nothing at all holding their case up. Spin? Sure. But that’s one of the thinnest spins I’ve ever seen. Unless they can pledge to help Congress arrange to come up with $3B, or make specific proposals about what NASA accounts it should come from, it’s just a lot of hot air.

    This isn’t about being pro-HSF, or being pro-NASA, or relinquishing HSF to the Chinese. It’s about making demands about a specific architecture that simply don’t make a lot of sense. At least Rep. Jackson Lee is talking to the Budget Committee, presumably to raise caps for the appropriators. But it’s going to take a lot more than that.

    Would you believe that a fiscally unexecutable program is being trotted out as being a national security asset? Yuk. Yuk.

    I’d just like to see someone call them out on this. I’m surprised that these folks are taken seriously.

  • Robert,

    Boeing and LM are on record as opposing cancelling Constellation program. If they wanted their EELVs to participate in ISS cargo resupply missions, maybe they should have competed their EELV concepts in COTS competition more effectively.

  • Doug:

    I’m sorry, but their case is a house of cards.

    I agree, either the budget has to increase, or the approach has to change. While Mr. Obama’s approach has major problems (in my opinion), at least he took the unpopular bull by the horns.

    Would you believe that a fiscally unexecutable program is being trotted out as being a national security asset?

    How is this different from most defense projects, e.g., the JSF with it’s doubled price per fighter?

    Actually, the Augustine Report does not even say Constellation is fiscally unexecutable. It does say that executing it within the expected budget would push a lunar landing far into the future (I don’t have the date in front of me). If you believe that Constellation or something like it is the only way forward (as at least some — not me — appear to), than stretching it out makes sense and a complete change of strategy after so much has been invested does not make sense. It’s better to achieve your goals a long time from now than not to achieve them at all.

    Many of these people are arguing for the interests of their districts — which, after all, is their job — but there are others (including me) who are very uncomfortable with the apparently un-directed alternative on the table, with its lack of clearly defined goals.

    — Donald

  • red

    Donald F. Robertson: “[The Augustine Report] also said that to continue Constellation while also doing the other things on NASA’s plate, the agency’s budget would have to be increased by $3+ billion.”

    It also said that Constellation with the ramp-up to $3B would still be extremely late. Not only that, but with a ramp-up to $3B, the ISS would still have to be dumped in the ocean in 2016, and it couldn’t be used much before then. Ares I/Orion would arrive long after ISS was gone, giving it no reason to exist. Ares V would arrive long after that, with no money for a payload. Lunar missions would happen much, much farther from today than the 2020 lunar goal was in 2005.

    In addition, no technology program could be afforded with Constellation.

    To top it all off, it’s implied that Constellation under the $3B ramp-up would not allow other NASA budgets like those of Aeronautics and Earth Observations to be repaired, since the increased funding would go to Constellation.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Gary Miles wrote @ March 21st, 2010 at 5:39 pm

    Robert,

    Boeing and LM are on record as opposing cancelling Constellation program. ..

    there is “on record” and there is lobbying…it is fairly clear that Boeing is not lobbying all that hard…LM is lobbying for “Orion” (or as Nelson says “call it something else”)…

    I finally figured out the other day in talking with my lobbiest friend…why the AC did what it did.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Donald,

    You are correct that there are a number of fairly liberal, progressive Democrats who are very uncomfortable with the new proposals. Among them Rep Marcia Fudge and Rep Donna Edwards both of whom were critical of FY2011 budget proposal for NASA in hearings.

  • red

    Mark: “The commercial package stays, but also something resembling Ares V Lite and Orion. Now to add back in a lander and we’re back to the Moon again.”

    Mark, I’m curious what kind of NASA budget you have in mind that would fund the commercial package, something like Ares V Lite, Orion, and a lander.

    What part of the new 2011 budget items would you drop to fund these things?

    Would you drop the exploration technology demos for ISRU, autonomous docking, propellant depots, and so on, the robotic HSF precursors to look for HSF resources, to do ISRU demos, and so forth, the replacement for the Russian RD-180 engine and other propulsion work, the NASA use of commercial suborbital RLVs, extending the ISS to 2020, actually using the ISS, adding to ISS capabilities, general space technology R&D and demonstrations, new Earth observation missions, U.S. production of Plutonium-238 instead of buying from Russia, the much-increased NEO search budget, the 42% increase in human exploration research, the Florida range modernization… ?

    I suspect that even if you dropped all of these things, you wouldn’t be able to fund all of the items you mentioned any time soon, so what kind of budget increase would you be looking for? What kind of schedule do you think we’d be able to get?

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Many of these people are arguing for the interests of their districts — which, after all, is their job …”

    No, but you see, they aren’t. Arguing for a plan that has no clear path to success is not how I’d get people to vote for me. It’s that simple. I want to remain neutral, in this thread, about the value of Constellation, but making arguments for continuing a program that doesn’t have a clear path to success is pure baloney. If I worked at JSC on Constellation, I’d be very, very wary of these folks. They want the plan to continue, but they don’t seem overwhelmingly concerned with finding the money to make it work.

    I would have a lot more respect for these Constellation cheerleaders if they bit down on the problem and said “OK, here’s what its going to take to make it work. We’ll make that happen.” But they don’t. That’s not part of their vocabulary. They have blinders on that completely block out the identified problems with the plan. For them, it’s about getting a non-executable plan back in the budget.

    Do they believe that a $3B/yr increase in the NASA budget proposal to put some credibility behind Constellation is going to simply lead to the required funding? They can’t be that naive.

  • red

    Stephen Metschan: “We don’t need ten different ways of accessing LEO”

    The commercial crew competition planned in the 2011 budget isn’t for ten different ways to access LEO. It’s for “a targeted portfolio of up to four companies with a mixed risk balance consisting of launch vehicles, crew capsules, and supporting technologies, similar to the Commercial Crew Development awards from Recovery Act funds announced on February 2, 2010.”

    It’s possible that some of the “up to 4″ companies won’t offer a complete solution. For example, they might offer life support subsystems or rockets. It’s possible that some won’t make it to the finish line. Thus it doesn’t seem to me like what they’re planning is too much.

    Stephen Metschan: “a crew capable Dragon with Orion as a more expensive backup will be more than sufficient.”

    I don’t think this is viable. Orion will be far too expensive to be an ISS backup. Dragon on its own loses the most important aspects of the commercial approach, competition and multiple independent services to get to ISS (and other destinations).

    In addition, having more commercial competitors will help solve the ISS cargo problem you’ve mentioned.

    Stephen Metschan: “All the above is wisely contained in Augustine option 4B”

    The Augustine options didn’t include just $800M set aside for SpaceX. They had a commercial competition that was funded almost as well as the one in the 2011 budget.

    Stephen Metschan: “which also just so happnes to be a very good compromise postion between the President and Congress.”

    I think that for the DIRECT plan to work, it needs a compromise between the budget you presented in earlier posts and the 2011 budget, rather than between Constellation and the 2011 budget. I think there is room in the 2011 budget to get you some of what you’re looking for, but doing things like cutting the commercial crew effort down to $800M is going way too far. I do agree with a lot of your compromise suggestions for DIRECT (eg: taking over the 2011 budget lines for KSC upgrade, shuttle slip, HLV R&D, and Constellation transition, and I could see minor skimming off of other budget lines), but that doesn’t get you far enough. I’d suggest dropping Orion (eg: just go for cargo support, at least for initial years, and let Orion derivatives fend for themselves in the commercial crew competition), stretching out the DIRECT development schedule which I think has room for a stretch given the schedule in other plans, looking for a budget boost, or taking a look at side-mount for cargo even if it’s not as capable as DIRECT (simply because of lower development costs which are critical in the actual budget).

  • Kill FLEX anyway possible, kil it kill it, kill it. Flex is Obama’s means to bring America’s manned space program to its knees, (as he promised in the last campagin) funneling off millions to progressive university’s for more white paper studies. Many of those funds are then directed back to support his next campaign. Commercial has become so greedy they are willing to hose our space program for mere profit and gain. What Obama’s Flex plan would deliver is 20th century, giant leap backward retro cold war-era splash-down capsule technology flying up and down to the ISS until 2030. Mars in 2030’s that is so far removed it does not qualify as anything but pure speculation. We need plan “B”: which would be a logical progression towards a commercial LEO development. Keep flying the shuttle until “new-space” can deliver a worthy replacement. Splash down capsule concepts clearly demonstrate that the commercial sector is not yet ready to build true spaceships.

  • Bennett

    “Splash down capsule concepts clearly demonstrate that the commercial sector is not yet ready to build true spaceships.”

    But isn’t that what Constellation envisioned?

    “Apollo on steroids”?

  • red

    Doug: “Kill FLEX anyway possible, kil it kill it, kill it. Flex is Obama’s means to bring America’s manned space program to its knees, (as he promised in the last campagin)”

    I don’t recall this promise. I also don’t recall Obama coming up with the Flexible Path. I thought it was the Augustine Committee, using a lot of previous work with similar ideas.

    Doug: “funneling off millions to progressive university’s”

    “funneling off”? So I take it that you don’t think NASA should work with universities? Doesn’t NASA already do that?

    Doug: “for more white paper studies.”

    I know of a lot of actual space mission hardware that came from universities. NASA manned spaceflight itself has a reputation for white paper studies, viewgraph rockets, and the like. I’m sure you could come up with some university projects that could be criticized, but such a broad criticism of universities seems unwarrented to me. Not only that, but a certain amount of white paper studies have their purpose.

    Doug: “Many of those funds are then directed back to support his next campaign.”

    How do they manage to do the accounting on that?

    Doug: “Commercial has become so greedy they are willing to hose our space program for mere profit and gain.”

    Didn’t you pay attention to the Augustine Committee? The space program was already hosed. Commercial space was supposed to be part of the VSE (see the VSE documents). One of the points of the Aldridge Commission was that without strong commercial participation, the HSF program would be “hosed”.

    Doug: “What Obama’s Flex plan would deliver is 20th century, giant leap backward retro cold war-era splash-down capsule technology”

    You seem to be describing Constellation, i.e. “Apollo on Steroids”. Capsules may make sense, though; let’s see what the commercial competition comes up with. I’d be more interested in things like cost to develop, cost to operate, and safety than what the thing looks like. The Sierra Nevada offering doesn’t look anything like what you’re describing, by the way.

    Doug: “flying up and down to the ISS until 2030.”

    I wouldn’t count on that 2030 date. Even if it were true, it’s better than the Constellation plan, which doesn’t fly up and down to the ISS because the ISS is dumped in the ocean, and which doesn’t get anywhere until well into the 2030’s, according to Augustine.

    Doug: “Mars in 2030’s that is so far removed it does not qualify as anything but pure speculation.”

    Let’s wait to see what the destinations and schedules are before criticizing them. I agree that dates in the 2030’s aren’t worth much; that’s why the Augustine findings on Constellation made that program look like pure speculation. Even if the plan turns out to be Mars in the 2030’s, if it’s based on the Flexible Path a whole lot of other useful activity at a whole lot of other useful destinations (lunar orbit, Earth-Moon Lagrange points, Earth-Sun Lagrange points, NEOs, the lunar surface, Mars orbit, and Mars moons) will happen first, so the far-out 2030’s date wouldn’t be much of a drawback (unlike Constellation’s plan which doesn’t have earlier accomplishments).

    Doug: “We need plan “B”: which would be a logical progression towards a commercial LEO development.”

    Didn’t you just have a swipe at commercial space?

    Doug: “Keep flying the shuttle”

    Weren’t you just complaining about old technology? Anyway, what does this criticism have to do with the new plan? We were already planning to shut down the Shuttle; the new budget allows the Shuttle more breathing room to finish its missions – i.e. we’ll probably keep flying it a bit longer under the new plan.

    Doug: “until “new-space” can deliver a worthy replacement.”

    Why do you assume commercial space is “New Space”? Boeing and ULA were winners in the initial commercial crew competition. Orbital is one of the COTS winners. The 2011 budget looks for a broad spectrum of types of commercial competitors.

    Also, how can we afford to keep flying the Shuttle while doing all the other things we need to do, per the VSE?

    Also, what does “worthy” mean here? There’s no need for commercial crew to have the same functionality as the Shuttle, if that’s what you mean. What’s needed is for them to do the job (ISS crew transport and rescue) safely and affordably. That’s it.

    Doug: “Splash down capsule concepts clearly demonstrate that the commercial sector is not yet ready to build true spaceships.”

    Why would they need to build what you call “true spaceships” for the job at hand? If you want them to do true spaceships, let’s set up a commercial competition for that, too (i.e. transportation from LEO to lunar orbit, GEO, and/or Earth-Moon Lagrange points, for example).

  • googaw

    Over 89% of the workforce working on Constellation program are private sector jobs working for commercial space companies.

    Dontchya love euphemism inflation? :-)

  • Major Tom

    “Major Tom, this is absolutely false base on the statements made by John Shannon on this very forum.”

    No, it’s not. Shannon wrote:

    “To bring people back on contract, to get the suppliers spooled up will result in a two year delay in getting new hardware to the launch pad.”

    Moreover, as Mr. Foust reported here, Dave Radzanowksi, deputy associate administrator in the Space Operations Mission Directorate, also stated at the Goddard Symposium:

    “there would still be a two- to three-year gap between the last flight and the new additional flights… That’s just the way it is, folks, that’s the way it is because it takes us that long to build an external tank.”

    And the NASA Deputy Administrator herself stated at a WIA talk:

    “I was told by the entire shuttle NASA folks that, in fact, that time had come and gone. It was not an issue of money at that point, it was an issue of second-tier suppliers, there would be at least a two-year gap between our last flight and the next one.”

    Furthermore, even if we disregard programmatic issues and budget implications, the ASAP has warned against Shuttle extension from a safety standpoint.

    “With a STS stretch (2 flights/year)”

    It makes no sense to further delay ISS assembly and research for the sake of any launch vehicle (Shuttle or otherwise).

    “plus converting the LON to a mission the gap goes to zero”

    This is inconsistent with Shuttle flight safety since Columbia.

    “(ie the first new tank in Spring 2012).”

    Per Radzanowski, the first new tank may not show up until 2013.

    “The minor start-up costs”

    Using Shannon and Radzanowski’s numbers, maintaining the Shuttle infrastructure/workforce for two to three years will cost between over $4 billion and over $8.6 billion. Those are not “minor start-up costs”.

    “I would also suggest a restart of an existing facility are exceedingly less expensive than the cost of a modern day SaturnV start-up a decade from now.”

    Per the Augustine report, the costs of building an HLV that leverages an existing launch infrastructure/workforce that spreads costs across military, commercial, and civil customers will cost NASA less than maintaining and then rebuilding an HLV infrastructure/workforce for which NASA is the only customer.

    “please review the video of what the commissioners actually said in their own words concerning this.”

    I did, and none of the committee members quoted offered support to DIRECT or an SDHLV. They only stated that Shuttle extension only makes sense if the decision is to build an SDHLV. That’s not the decision.

    (And they’re committee members, not “commissioners”.)

    And again, the Augustine report rates an EELV-derived solution as more affordable than any of the other HLV solutions in the report.

    “Major Tom, the money comes from what Congress and President agree to in the end.”

    Obviously. But your statement that Option 4B contained “all the above” in your prior post is still false. Option 4B contains $5 billion for commercial crew, not $800 million.

    “The existing progress and hardware of the Orion and SDHLV is also just as commercializable”

    No commercial firm could commercialize a Shuttle-derived vehicle. Even if the government gave all the infrastructure (Michoud, VAB, launch pads, crawlers, etc.) away for free, the upkeep and workforce are way, way too expensive to compete in the international launch market.

    No commercial firm would commercialize Orion in its current form. Per the Augustine report, it’s arguably too expensive for even the government to operate, forget a commercial firm.

    “as anything that doesn’t exist.”

    EELVs and Falcon 9 exist. Dragon flight hardware exists. SDHLV and Orion flight hardware do not.

    “My reference to $800 million dollars is what is in fact in the compromise budget proposal now circulating.”

    Evidence?

    “I would also suggest that the Authorization Bill is in very close alignment with option 4B (ie STS extension with a SDHLV).”

    It’s not. It funds all of the President’s FY 2011 request in full. It underfunds Shuttle extension and only asks NASA to study HLV acceleration.

    “There are none so blind as those that will not see.”

    Old English proverbs? Really?

    My 2 cents… DIRECT has to compete on its own merits, or it’s not going to convince the White House, NASA management, and the writers of the House and Senate authorization bills to change the path that they’re on. Show, in hard numbers, apples-to-apples, how Shuttle extension, Orion, and an inline SDHLV are going to cost less than commercial crew and an EELV-derived HLV and how they’re going to fit within the five-year budget runout without significant impacts to other NASA programs. (Personally, I don’t think a Shuttle-derived or any other solution for which NASA bears the entire freight can compete, but I don’t pretend to know everything.) Don’t waste time misquoting NASA managers here or misportraying Augustine Committee members on YouTube. There’s only so many months left.

    Again, my 2 cents… FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Flex is Obama’s means to bring America’s manned space program to its knees, (as he promised in the last campagin)”

    The President (or his campaign) never made such a promise. It would be stupid for any national political candidate to do so.

    Don’t make things up.

    “funneling off millions to progressive university’s for more white paper studies.”

    Universities have nothing to do with commercial crew or HLV development. Universities will have limited (if any) role in exploration technology demonstration missions or exploration robotic precursor missions.

    Don’t make things up.

    (And what’s with the weird, hateful, anti-intellectual bent?)

    “Commercial has become so greedy they are willing to hose our space program for mere profit and gain.”

    Company founders have already sunk hundreds of millions of dollars of investment into new launch vehicles, capsules, and space station demonstrators, and they won’t see a profit for more years to come.

    Don’t make things up.

    “What Obama’s Flex plan would deliver is 20th century, giant leap backward retro cold war-era splash-down capsule technology flying up and down to the ISS until 2030.”

    Both the Flexible Path options in the Augustine report and the timelines associated with the President’s FY 2011 budget request for NASA start human exploration missions before 2025.

    Don’t make things up.

    “Keep flying the shuttle until “new-space” can deliver a worthy replacement.”

    Shuttle can’t keep flying. Everyone from the NASA Deputy Administrator to Space Operations Mission Directorate management at Headquarters to the Shuttle program manager himself agrees that Shuttle flights can only be restarted 2-3 years after the last manifested mission, not extended.

    Don’t make things up.

    “Splash down capsule concepts clearly demonstrate that the commercial sector is not yet ready to build true spaceships.”

    Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz were/are not “true spaceships”?

    Really?

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “They also said that to continue Constellation while also doing the other things on NASA’s plate, the agency’s budget would have to be increased by $3+ billion.”

    I’m picking nits, but they’re important ones. It’s $5 billion (per year at the end of the runout), not $3+ billion.

    FWIW…

  • The health bill has nothing to do with the space issue. I see no evidence that Obama even cares about space. Well, except not spend much money on it. I think that it is unlikely that there will be any momentum out today’s health care vote. This would has only happened because the Democrats got it through the Senate before Scott Brown won.

    The key thing is that the Republicans delayed this seven whole months and made Obama use most of his political capital on this one. Long term this is bad for the country but the real damage doesn’t start until 2014.

  • Major Tom

    “Unfortunately, Obama has no space plan except for”

    How is extending ISS to 2020, accelerating HLV development by at least four years over the prior plan, demonstrating multiple critical exploration technologies in space, and executing multiple robotic exploration precursor missions over the next five years not a “space plan”?

    Don’t make things up.

    “a tiny bit of funding for private commercial companies”

    How is $6 billion, $1 billion more than recommended by the Augustine Committee, a “tiny bit of funding”?

    Don’t make things up.

    “But spending $19 billion a year for a Federal space program that doesn’t build anything”

    How does putting in place two providers of ISS crew transport, multiple HLV engines, multiple exploration technology demonstration missions, and multiple robotic precursor missions not “build anything”?

    Don’t make things up.

    “or go anywhere”

    How are the Moon, NEOs, Lagrange Points, Phobos, and Mars not “anywhere”?

    How are exploration missions before 2025 not going “anywhere”?

    Stop making things up.

  • Major Tom

    “If Obama was for HSF he’d be for the government doing it and would come up with the $3 billion per year that is needed.”

    It’s not $3 billion per year to restore the POR. It’s $5 billion per year.

    “I see no evidence that Obama even cares about space. Well, except not spend much money on it.”

    The President’s FY 2011 budget request for NASA adds $6 billion to the NASA runout in a time when most federal departments and agencies are seeing decreases or flat funding.

    FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    John wrote @ March 22nd, 2010 at 12:01 am

    The health bill has nothing to do with the space issue. I see no evidence that Obama even cares about space…

    yeah sure.

    “Obama even cares about space”….so on April 15 he is headed down to Florida for some sort of “event” because he has nothing better to do having had accountants and others do his taxes?

    Gee…

    What impresses me about Obama (and he has gotten a share of criticism from me) is that it seems that they are starting to get together a political machine on the Hill…and he is starting to glue together a “course change” for the US that is on the scale of what Ronaldus the Great did.

    Nelson will get “probably” an additional shuttle flight and some study on an HLV. DIRECT is a joke, shuttle wont be extended…and in the end Obama will have for the first time in US history given human spaceflight the same chance to work its magic on our economy as aviation had.

    If HSF goes even 1/10th as fast as commercial aviation did…we could be on Phobos before my new daughter is 20.

    Robert G. Oler

  • If HSF goes even 1/10th as fast as commercial aviation did…we could be on Phobos before my new daughter is 20.

    Assuming Obama takes change of the situation as effectively as you fantasize, just what is in the Obama/Bolden/Garver plan that will get us to Phobos by 2030?

  • Robert G. Oler

    John wrote @ March 22nd, 2010 at 12:50 am

    If HSF goes even 1/10th as fast as commercial aviation did…we could be on Phobos before my new daughter is 20.

    Assuming Obama takes change of the situation as effectively as you fantasize, just what is in the Obama/Bolden/Garver plan that will get us to Phobos by 2030?..

    It is called, and I know that this is a novel concept for some “Free Enterprise”.

    The “we have to have a plan” folks assume that the US (or some international consortium) will always fund “the next logical place” to go simply because well they are going to do human spaceflight because that is what “great nations” do. So the notion is that every year those “great nations” have to have something to do in space, because they are great. No explanation of why, other then “yucks” that human spaceflight makes them great.

    So each year the plans get grander and less and less gets accomplish.
    Ask the leadership of NASA…they have to “be safe” because if we lose an astronaut in space; support might flounder. So the safest thing to do is have programs but really dont fly…thats what we have gotten to…and had “Slim” thought that way, well he would have never gone down in history. And air transportation would be like human spaceflight.

    Free Enterprise does things because they have cost less then their value…it accepts reasonable risk because the risk bring on personal and corporate rewards. We as humans are never going to go to the Moon other then in Apollo like dashes …ie to stay until there is a free enterprise reason to do it.

    At this point I dont know for sure what money there is to be made in human spaceflight…(I have my guesses but I dont know everything in the future)…but unless we start finding it we are always going to be stuck just doing things to do them…not because of what doing them does.

    We have as a Republic spent in the last 50 years almost half a trillion dollars (constant) in human spaceflight…and have almost nothing to show for it, because it has been all about plans and projects.

    If I had stood on the beach at Kill Devil Hill in 1903…it would have been impossible to have imagined the Dash 80 in 1953 (OK first flight in 1954).

    I guess you would have demanded a plan and project.

    Free Enterprise.

    It wins every time

    Robert G. Oler

  • Fred

    Doug wrote:
    “Kill FLEX anyway possible, kil it kill it, kill it.”

    I wish people would just consider the costs for a moment. Then it’s obvious why Bolden/Garver/Obama have taken the path they have.
    Spent on Ares 1 to date. $9B to get to PDR.
    For that you could buy
    18 Atlas V programs,
    18 Delta IV programs,
    32 Falcon 9 programs (including Dragon)
    52 Taurus II programs (including Cygnus)
    For the total estimated cost of Constellation you could buy…
    Do I need to spell it out?
    Do you really see any alternative to commercial space?
    Can you imagine what NASA might achieve with the money thus freed up?
    Is there any sane and sensible person in the known universe who, with their eyes open, would seriously consider keeping Constellation?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Fred wrote @ March 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 am

    yeah

    Robert G. Oler

  • John Malkin

    Constellation should live to provide the structure of human exploration. I would like to see the adoption of flexible path with “commercial” option and phase out of Ares I with parts reused in other commercial vehicles.

    It so nice to see congress members coming together in support of Ares I at the first hour after the second hour after the eleventh hour (that is sarcastic). Where were they when they voted for lower budgets that didn’t support Ares I or Shuttle extension three years ago?

    I do have to say in the words of Comic Book Guy from Simpsons. “Worst Space Exploration Rollout Ever!”

    Looking forward to ISDC 2010.

  • “Constellation should live to provide the structure of human exploration.” The only way I can imagine John making sense is if he’s confusing the VSE for Constellation.

  • It is called, and I know that this is a novel concept for some “Free Enterprise”.

    What motivation does “free enterprise” have to go to Phobos? The interest in Phobos is science not profit.

  • John, you’re aware that there’s free enterprises which have expressed interest in capturing asteroids right?

    Phobos is most likely a captured asteroid..as in, it’s already captured.. as in, you don’t have to go capture it.

  • Fred

    John asked:
    “just what is in the Obama/Bolden/Garver plan that will get us to Phobos by 2030?”

    Fuel depots.
    Constellation, like Apollo was an all up mission. You had to plan everything to the last drop of fuel, the last breath of air, the last gram of mass, and it was touch and go to design it all to get you from the surface of the earth to the surface of the moon and back again.
    And that’s a total of 30 kilometers per second of Delta-V
    Fuel depots change that.
    You start from the ISS. Assemble your vehicle there.
    Instead of having to find a total of 30kps for your mission you now only have to find 10kps.
    Put fuel depots in lunar orbit and it falls to 4kps to lunar orbit. about 4 to the lunar surface and back, and another 4 back to LEO. (very rough figures)
    Fuel depots buy you margin.
    Margin means you don’t have to count your last gram. You can make your vehicles more robust. Reusable.
    That lowers costs massively.
    Take this path, the flexible path, and we’ll be on Mars soonest, and we’ll be there to stay.

  • Stephen Metschan: “Major Tom, this is absolutely false base on the statements made by John Shannon on this very forum.”

    Major Tom, “No, it’s not. Shannon wrote:”

    John Shannon: “To bring people back on contract, to get the suppliers spooled up will result in a two year delay in getting new hardware to the launch pad.”

    Correct, and your point is the same as mine, we could be flying between 2-4 flights in 2012 if we wanted to with brand new tanks. Flights in FY11 in this scenario are composed of the AMS (Likely due to delay or an overall schedule delay) and LON (essential in order to plugging the ISS logistics hole due to serious COTS vendor delays). So you now agree with me that we can extend the Shuttle with no gap. Game point match on this issue (ten plus two is twelve)

    Major Tom: “Moreover, as Mr. Foust reported here, Dave Radzanowksi, deputy associate administrator in the Space Operations Mission Directorate, also stated at the Goddard Symposium:”

    Dave Radzanowksi: “there would still be a two- to three-year gap between the last flight and the new additional flights… That’s just the way it is, folks, that’s the way it is because it takes us that long to build an external tank.”

    Sorry Dave is dead wrong on this and John Shannon is right.

    What is ironic about his comments is the Mars EDL, Mars sample return, and Mars ISRU elements with the Robotic Precursor Mission Line Item under Exploration (needed to advance our ability to land humans on Mars and something I fought for in public and behind the scenes) are actually increasing the funding on Mars ‘Science’ from under $500 million (FY15) to over $1 Billion. Plus we leave the increases in Science Line Item completely unaltered from the Presidents budget which includes more Earth Science. The big debate that is going on right now is not over Science but within the allocation of the Exploration and Space Operations Line Items (ie the Human Space Flight program).

    Major Tom: “And the NASA Deputy Administrator herself stated at a WIA talk:”

    Lori Garver: “I was told by the entire shuttle NASA folks that, in fact, that time had come and gone. It was not an issue of money at that point, it was an issue of second-tier suppliers, there would be at least a two-year gap between our last flight and the next one.”

    Lori Garver is dead wrong as well, John Shannon is right. I know for a fact this is what Mike Griffin told her but not John Shannon. For the record John Shannon has been entirely consistent on this issue whether he was ask by Lori or Mike. While their motives are very different the truth remains the same. That’s the funny thing about the truth, it’s always self-consistent. People like John Shannon and his team can’t operate safely without the truth even once, unlike those in DC.

    Major Tom: “It makes no sense to further delay ISS assembly and research for the sake of any launch vehicle (Shuttle or otherwise).”

    Wrong again, the AMS flight is an experiment to be done at the ISS and there is plenty of time to do it. LON wasn’t even supposed to be a flight and will be tasked with logistics. What good is it to complete the ISS only to stand it down until COTS shows up?

    Major Tom: “Using Shannon and Radzanowski’s numbers, maintaining the Shuttle infrastructure/workforce for two to three years will cost between over $4 billion and over $8.6 billion. Those are not “minor start-up costs”.

    Read the Senate/House Authorization bill, the total amount of money to fly two flights in 2011 (one was already funded in the President’s proposal) and 2 “New” ones in 2012 costs $3.4 Billion in total. This is not underfunded but directly sourced from the NASA STS program and USA.

    Remember a lot of the existing NASA STS ‘support’ is moving over to the ISS increase, advanced tech and the Jupiter/Orion line items. The STS extension, under this funding scenario, delivers ‘more’ cargo to the ISS for ‘less’ money than COTS even if when you give zero credit for the crew rotations. Given the present situation where we will need to stand down ISS to a two man crew until ‘both’ COTS vendors start delivering, this sounds a lot more rational, don’t you think? We save money over COTS and are actually able to use the $100 Billion dollar ISS, what a deal.

    Stephen Metschan: “I would also suggest a restart of an existing facility are exceedingly less expensive than the cost of a modern day SaturnV start-up a decade from now.”

    Major Tom: “Per the Augustine report, the costs of building an HLV that leverages an existing launch infrastructure/workforce that spreads costs across military, commercial, and civil customers will cost NASA less than maintaining and then rebuilding an HLV infrastructure/workforce for which NASA is the only customer.”

    I would agree that we should leverage our existing HLV infrastructure better know as STS. What other HLV infrastructure are you talking about? What makes you think there aren’t significant game changing military and commercial uses for the Jupiter/Orion besides the obvious civilian space uses? If the STS is already more cost effective than COTS at just 2 flights/year what do think will happen when we lower the cost by removing the orbiter and increase its performance four fold in the form of the Jupiter/Orion? Let’s just say that COTS Phase 2 will need to be a lot more competitive. I thought that more competition and lowering prices for the Government was a good thing?

    Stephen Metschan: “please review the video of what the commissioners actually said in their own words concerning this.”

    Major Tom: “I did, and none of the committee members quoted offered support to DIRECT or an SDHLV. They only stated that Shuttle extension only makes sense if the decision is to build an SDHLV. That’s not the decision.”

    The fact that they used the word ‘directly’ SDHLV throughout the proceedings isn’t important? How about the fact the Jupiter-241 and Jupiter-130 are specifically called out by name in the report as among the SDHLV family of options? Again have you been following any of the Congressional hearings or reading any of the Authorization acts?

    Major Tom: “And again, the Augustine report rates an EELV-derived solution as more affordable than any of the other HLV solutions in the report.”

    No the Augustine Commission produced five policy ‘options’ that used the same budget. What they did was float the dates at which certain milestones were achieved. All five ‘policy’ options had commercial crew to LEO and advanced technology. The launch system ‘policy’ choices were Ares, SDHLV or EELV based. The missions ‘policy’ choices, where Lunar First or Flexible Path. The SDHLV launch system ‘policy’ option had an additional ‘policy’ choice of being with or without an STS extension. The commission also mentioned that the only way to close the gap was to continue to operate the Shuttle, a key point of the DIRECT message. They Commission wisely placed all the policy decision out an in the open. All five options are technically viable and use the same budget and achieve similar mission objectives within a similar time frame give or take.

    They made no ‘recommendations’ the only showed viable policy options of which a SDHLV solution was 2 of the 5 ‘viable’ technical and budgetary options found. They understood that the political process would ultimately chose the ‘policy’ winner. Unfortunately the Presidential advisors invented a new ‘policy’ option that doesn’t start any real HLV effort EELV based or otherwise until a decade from now, Congress is clearly lining up in favor of ‘policy’ option 4B (i.e. SDHLV + STS Extension) while being noncommittal on Lunar First or Flexible path policy decision. Of all the policy options this one can be put off a bit anyway.

    Stephen Metschan: “Major Tom, the money comes from what Congress and President agree to in the end.”

    Major Tom: “Obviously. But your statement that Option 4B contained “all the above” in your prior post is still false. Option 4B contains $5 billion for commercial crew, not $800 million.”

    Again we simple shifted the money for Commercial Crew back into the Orion development effort. The $800 million is for transforming Dragon into a fully capable crew spacecraft. We need to get going on beyond LEO capability. Throwing away the progress already made on Orion in order to create a second LEO only capsule makes zero sense. Orion is the US based back up to Dragon. Did you listen to the hearings in the Senate Thursday?

    Stephen Metschan: “The existing progress and hardware of the Orion and SDHLV is also just as commercializable”

    Major Tom: “No commercial firm could commercialize a Shuttle-derived vehicle. Even if the government gave all the infrastructure (Michoud, VAB, launch pads, crawlers, etc.) away for free, the upkeep and workforce are way, way too expensive to compete in the international launch market.”

    First if giving the COTS contractors another $300 million dollars to cover overruns on a firm fixed milestone based contract is still considered ‘commercial’ than the STS infrastructure is most definitely commercializable on those terms. This sounds a lot like cost plus to me. The Jupiter/Orion systems at just two flights per year will be the lowest cost per kg/orbit in the US, at four flights per year it’s the lowest bar none. How is that not an advantage? Regardless, I think the whole ‘commercialization’ effort is way too focused on launch services and not enough on ‘commercial’ applications for space. You know the other $240 Billion dollars of a $250 Billion dollar industry.

    Ironically, if the government was really serious about lowering launch cost and thereby enabling a significant increase in the ‘commercialization’ of space it would simple require launch service providers (that they do business with) to only charge their incremental cost plus a modest profit for ‘commercial’ launches. Right now the Government requires ‘commercial’ users of this national strategic capability to pay a portion of the Government’s fixed cost. This is an anti-commercial incentive. All I’m suggesting is that we move towards a neutral position. As long as your ‘commercial’ launch doesn’t increase the cost to Government you are good to go at that lower price.

    Major Tom: “EELVs and Falcon 9 exist. Dragon flight hardware exists. SDHLV and Orion flight hardware do not.”

    So all the hardware, tooling, launch infrastructure at ATK, JSC, KSC, MAF, MSFC required by every STS flight doesn’t exist? I suppose you like Mike Griffin believe that that an STS launch is composed of SRB, SSME held together by Cores made at MAF are based on paper and powerpoint slides like he falsely claimed for Jupiter?

    Stephen Metschan: “My reference to $800 million dollars is what is in fact in the compromise budget proposal now circulating.”

    Major Tom: “Evidence?”

    If you don’t know then you are clearly not ‘in’ the loop. Or do you think that Congress and the Whitehouse have just been twiddling their thumbs since Feb 1? Look at some point both branches of government will need to arrive at a compromise. Do you disagree? If something darn close to 4B (ie DIRECT) isn’t that compromise, what is your suggested compromise? And remember in order to be a compromise it must contain elements advocated by both sides.

    Major Tom: “My 2 cents… DIRECT has to compete on its own merits, or it’s not going to convince the White House, NASA management, and the writers of the House and Senate authorization bills to change the path that they’re on. Show, in hard numbers, apples-to-apples, how Shuttle extension, Orion, and an inline SDHLV are going to cost less than commercial crew and an EELV-derived HLV and how they’re going to fit within the five-year budget run out without significant impacts to other NASA programs.”

    I agree, below is link to the current compromise budget proposal. DIRECT is competing on its merits and finally doing very well I might add for the same logical technical, budgetary, and political reason articulated now across three NASA administrators for almost five years. Better late than never.

    http://www.directlauncher.com/documents/NASA-Compromise-Budget-Detailed.xls

  • Robert G. Oler

    John wrote @ March 22nd, 2010 at 7:03 am

    It is called, and I know that this is a novel concept for some “Free Enterprise”.

    What motivation does “free enterprise” have to go to Phobos? The interest in Phobos is science not profit…

    John. you are starting to mimic the DIRECT people…responding to points rather then the concept…but no matter.

    I didnt say that commercial for profit would be what took us first to Phobos. It could and I dont even pretend to be able to predict development paths 20 years in the future on dynamic events …the only thing I can sadly predict the future on are the statist efforts of NASA human spaceflight….

    It would be like in th 1980’s predicting the path that took us to the state of home processors in 2000…

    what the “stirring” mechanism of free enterprise is that it contribute technology to government efforts not requiring government to develop every darn thing as a one time event. So if there is a thriving commercial space industry

    at somepoint the technology to go to Mars will be “in hand” or “Near hand” and some government agency or maybe some group…can put it together and go to Mars. (you know it is how “Slim” got across the Atlantic or Boeing had the technology to build the -80).

    Not some 20-40 year dedicated federal project that just keeps grinding on.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ March 22nd, 2010 at 11:24 am

    If you don’t know then you are clearly not ‘in’ the loop. Or do you think that Congress and the Whitehouse have just been twiddling their thumbs since Feb 1? Look at some point both branches of government will need to arrive at a compromise. Do you disagree? If something darn close to 4B (ie DIRECT) isn’t that compromise, what is your suggested compromise? ..

    there does not at this point appear to need that compromise. Along with some engineering, large project management you really need to learn some politics.

    Compromise with another “block” only has to occur if you need their votes for something AND if what you want to do is not destroyed by that compromise. So for instance. Obama needed the Stupak group to get his health care (he mainly needed those votes so the House leadership could give some other Dems in tight districts “a pass”…go analyze who voted how)…it was easy to get them. The “compromise” was trivial, really changed nothing, got the Stupak people on board…and off they went.

    You assume that a compromise that actually does something you “like” is needed. There is no evidence of that. Nelson has made that pretty clear if you actually read his statements.

    There is probably going to be a shuttle addition (the rescue flight) and a study on an HLV. There is NO indication that there is a block outside of the space pork people that are demanding anything else.

    Worse for your theories are two other things.

    1. Obama is amassing large amounts of political power. The health care vote has solidified his leadership of a solid Democratic block and has also solidified massive amounts of dislike by that block of how the GOP is operating in Congress.

    2. as every day goes by fewer and fewer people believe the hand waving that is the “Jupiter” series of rockets

    you wrote “So all the hardware, tooling, launch infrastructure at ATK, JSC, KSC, MAF, MSFC required by every STS flight doesn’t exist? ”

    no it does. What does not exist is the Jupiter hardware certified for flight. All that exist is a lot of photomanips of hardware…and some hand waving of difficult engineering issues. As someone at JSC told me last night (who deals with the ET) (a modest paraphrase but close) “almost all the assumptions made by the Jupiter fans are by non rocket scientist trying to be one without even staying at a HOliday Inn express”.

    He/she had just come back from DC shooting down most of the fiction the Jupiter folks had been blowing.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Well Robert, then you need to count John Shannon as one of the ‘non’ rocket experts because he is saying what we have said all along. The Aerospace Corporation and ESAS appendix 6a both confirmed our performance numbers. You can sleep well knowing that the Laws of Physics are still intact despite Congressional testimony under Mike Griffin or what you may have heard to the contrary.

    I agree that if we drag our feet long enough the DIRECT option will eventually not work as a fait accompli and that is a primary objective of those that are resisting this option and spreading FUD about it.

    I found there are two types of people FUDing DIRECT in this debate, those that are have no system level understanding of the complex range of issues before us, and those that know all too well just how effective DIRECT is vs their parochial interests or funding sources (ie more jobs at ULA, get NASA out of the HSF activity, lobbyists on behalf of Commercial Space etc.). Many within this more intelligent group have even run the same numbers that I have shown you and have seen the same serious reduction in launch cost they will need to match if the Jupiter should ever see the light of day. A future they want to avoid and are willing to do or say just about anything in order for it not to happen.

    They are perfectly happy to start charging America another $40 billion dollars over the next two decades to recreate in different form what we have already paid for. I’m sure the next generation of lobbyist after them will do the same thing, gee you don’t want this old and big and expensive Kero/LOX HLV, that is so last century, what you really need is a brand new advanced technology RLV and the cycle will begin again.

    ….and their will also be new Robert 2.0 to oppose a new Steve 2.0 only this time Steve 2.0 will support the existing Kero/LOX HLV and Robert 2.0 will want to destroy it in favor of the new and shiny RLV that will save the day. Just you wait and see all it will only take $40 Billion dollars and two decades and then will be saving all kinds of money.

  • Major Tom

    “Correct, and your point is the same as mine… So you now agree with me that we can extend the Shuttle with no gap.”

    We’re not making the same point, and I don’t agree.

    Shannon, Radzanowksi, and Garver all made the same point — that there will be a 2-3 year delay gap. Shuttle flights can only be restarted after an expensive, multi-year, multi-billion dollar hiatus, not extended.

    NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel has also recommended against STS flight extension on the basis of safety.

    I agree with Shannon, Radzanowksi, Garver, and ASAP. You do not.

    “we could be flying between 2-4 flights in 2012″

    No, it’s at least a two-year delay from the last manifested flight. That’s currently late 2010. It might be early 2011. That would put the first flights after the hiatus in late 2012 or early 2013. The program is certainly not going to get off four flights in 2012, and probably not two.

    “Flights in FY11 in this scenario are composed of the AMS”

    Have you discussed this with the AMS partners? AMS is an international payload that has already ballooned into a billion dollar-plus project for its partners. I seriously doubt they’re going agree to more delays costing them hundreds of millions of dollars more for reasons that have nothing to do with AMS. You’re going to torque off international partners, and it’s not clear why or for what.

    “and LON (essential in order to plugging the ISS logistics hole due to serious COTS vendor delays).”

    Reference on logistics hole?

    Again, flying LON without a backup deviates from safety standards set after Columbia. I’m not saying it would definitely lead to another accident, but it’s repeating the same fundamental mistake (waiving established safety standards) that led to Challenger and Columbia. You’re taking extra risks with astronaut lives, and it’s not clear why or for what.

    “Sorry Dave is dead wrong on this and John Shannon is right… Lori Garver is dead wrong as well, John Shannon is right.”

    Shannon, Radzanowski, and Garver are all saying the same thing. Here’s the quotes again:

    Shannon:“ To bring people back on contract, to get the suppliers spooled up will result in a two year delay in getting new hardware to the launch pad.”

    Radzanowski: “there would still be a two- to three-year gap between the last flight and the new additional flights… That’s just the way it is, folks, that’s the way it is because it takes us that long to build an external tank.”

    Garver: “I was told by the entire shuttle NASA folks that, in fact, that time had come and gone. It was not an issue of money at that point, it was an issue of second-tier suppliers, there would be at least a two-year gap between our last flight and the next one.”

    All three of these NASA managers agree that there will be a 2-3 year gap.

    “Game point match on this issue”

    I don’t see how. Three senior NASA managers are telling you Shuttle flights can only go on hiatus for 2-3 years, not be extended. ASAP is telling you it’s not safe to extend Shuttle flights. And the two flights you’re proposing to extend pose major international partner and flight safety issues.

    Spending billions of taxpayer dollars so we can put a program on hiatus for 2-3 years and/or take multiple extra risks with astronaut lives is not a wise use of NASA’s budget.

    “Read the Senate/House Authorization bill, the total amount of money to fly two flights in 2011 (one was already funded in the President’s proposal) and 2 “New” ones in 2012 costs $3.4 Billion in total.”

    That is what’s budgeted in the authorization bill, but it’s not enough. Shannon quoted a Shuttle per month cost of $170 million to $240 million during hiatus. Over two years, that’s between $4.1 billion and $5.8 billion, or a $700 million to $2.4 billion shortfall versus the authorization bill.

    If Shuttle was flying those years, it would be even more. Shannon has stated that the cost of the first Shuttle flight in any year is $3 billion. That’s $6 billion over two years or a $2.6 billion shortfall versus the authorization bill.

    (And, this is a nit, but the authorization bill actually spreads the $3.4 billion over three years — FY 2010, FY 2011, and FY 2012 — not just FY 2011 and FY 2012.)

    “This is not underfunded but directly sourced from the NASA STS program and USA.”

    Reference? If true, it’s not consistent with the costs quoted by the Shuttle program manager. (And “directly sourced” figures from the program or USA would be much more exact than the numbers in the authorization bill, which don’t have significant figures after the hundred million mark.)

    “What is ironic about his comments is the Mars EDL, Mars sample return, and Mars ISRU elements with the Robotic Precursor Mission Line Item under Exploration (needed to advance our ability to land humans on Mars and something I fought for in public and behind the scenes) are actually increasing the funding on Mars ‘Science’ from under $500 million (FY15) to over $1 Billion.”

    Simply not true. In the President’s FY 2011 budget request for NASA, the “Mars Exploration” program line under “Planetary Science” in the Science Mission Directorate budget peaks at $570 million in FY 2014. It never comes close to $1 billion. (It used to before Griffin, but that was five years ago and hasn’t been restored since.)

    “What makes you think there aren’t significant game changing military and commercial uses for the Jupiter/Orion besides the obvious civilian space uses?”

    I havn’t heard of any. I know of no commercial comsats or remote sensing sats that want that kind of throw weight. Maybe there were some NRO sats that could have used some heavy lift (although not as much as a DIRECT-like vehicle) once upon a time, but there’s a reason they got rid of Titan.

    “If the STS is already more cost effective than COTS at just 2 flights/year”

    It’s not more cost-effective on an absolute basis. One year of Shuttle operations pays for several years of CRS flights.

    And it won’t be more cost-effective on a per unit mass basis once two or three years of hiatus costs are applied to the new flights.

    “I thought that more competition and lowering prices for the Government was a good thing?”

    Defunding commercial crew reduces competition. Shuttle or Orion/SDHLV are both more expensive

    “The fact that they used the word ‘directly’ SDHLV throughout the proceedings isn’t important?”

    I don’t mean this to be offensive, but you’re grasping at straws if you think the use of the word “directly” means that committee members favor “DIRECT” — or are even referring to “DIRECT”.

    I’m sure that the committee members used the word “configuration”, which is a synonym for “constellation”. But that doesn’t mean that the committee members favor “Constellation” or are even referring to that program.

    Pretty goofy.

    “How about the fact the Jupiter-241 and Jupiter-130 are specifically called out by name in the report as among the SDHLV family of options?”

    I’d say it means very little since Shuttle side-mount was also called out in the SDHLV family, and other HLV solutions were also called out in the report.

    “Again have you been following any of the Congressional hearings or reading any of the Authorization acts?”

    Yes. And DIRECT or Jupiter have never been called out in any hearing or either draft authorization bill. (And another nit — they’re draft bills, not acts.)

    Even when HLV is mentioned in the bills, its not specific to Shuttle-derived and only asks NASA to study options. There’s no direction to adopt DIRECT or another SDHLV.

    “They made no ‘recommendations’ the only showed viable policy options of which a SDHLV solution was 2 of the 5 ‘viable’ technical and budgetary options found.”

    The Augustine report also rates each of the options against a handful of evaluation criteria in chapter 6. And again, on the criterion of life-cycle cost (and technology), Option 5B is rated superior to the other options.

    “Throwing away the progress already made on Orion in order to create a second LEO only capsule makes zero sense.”

    It does if, per Augustine, Orion is too expensive to operate as a LEO-only capsule.

    “Orion is the US based back up to Dragon. Did you listen to the hearings in the Senate Thursday?”

    Yes, and I don’t recall anyone stating that Orion is or should be the backup to Dragon.

    If they did, it’s a pretty stupid statement since a backup shouldn’t costs an order of magnitude more to develop than the primary vehicle.

    And why can’t a commercial vehicle backup a commercial vehicle?

    “First if giving the COTS contractors another $300 million dollars to cover overruns”

    Content (additional testing, additional flights) has been added to the program at NASA’s request. That’s not an overrun.

    “The Jupiter/Orion systems at just two flights per year will be the lowest cost per kg/orbit in the US, at four flights per year it’s the lowest bar none. How is that not an advantage?”

    Because purchasers of launch services don’t make decisions based on a cost per unit mass basis. They have a satellite of a certain size that needs to go to a certain orbit, and based on that, only certain launch vehicles can deliver their satellite. Within that set of launch vehicles, they’re looking for availability first, so they can start earning revenue with the satellite, and reliability second, since insurance costs tend to swamp the differences in launch costs. Only after that do they start looking at differences in launch costs, and again, that’s on an overall cost basis, not cost per unit mass.

    Put another way, no one is going to flock to an HLV (even an EELV-derived one) with payload capacities no one besides human space flight missions with gobs of propellant needs, reliabilities that aren’t proven and probably never will be due to a low flight rate, and insurance risks that the insurance market can’t bear. Regardless of which HLV we’re building, we’re building a NASA-unique capability. For reasons of sustainability and spreading costs, it’s better to build that NASA-unique capability on a family of vehicles that leverages a non-NASA infrastructure/workforce/customers versus one where NASA is paying the entire freight.

    “Ironically, if the government was really serious about lowering launch cost and thereby enabling a significant increase in the ‘commercialization’ of space it would simple require launch service providers (that they do business with) to only charge their incremental cost plus a modest profit for ‘commercial’ launches. Right now the Government requires ‘commercial’ users of this national strategic capability to pay a portion of the Government’s fixed cost. This is an anti-commercial incentive. All I’m suggesting is that we move towards a neutral position.”

    This is a side discussion, but I’ll just say that’s not a “neutral position”. If a commercial customer is not paying some share of the fixed costs for a launch infrastructure, then the government is subsidizing the commercial launch. That’s actually “pro-business” and “anti-taxpayer” (for lack of better terms), not “neutral”. I’m not saying whether that’s good or bad — just that’s what it is.

    “So all the hardware, tooling, launch infrastructure at ATK, JSC, KSC, MAF, MSFC required by every STS flight doesn’t exist?”

    No, I made no reference to ground hardware. I specifically said flight hardware. Again, EELV, Falcon 9, and Dragon flight hardware exists. SDHLV and Orion flight hardware do not.

    “I suppose you like Mike Griffin believe that that an STS launch is composed of SRB, SSME held together by Cores made at MAF are based on paper and powerpoint slides like he falsely claimed for Jupiter?”

    I would never make that argument, and I thought it was despicable when Griffin & Co. did make that argument.

    That said, the same argument could be made for Ares I — that it’s based on existing STS subsystems and therefore is as good as flight hardware — and that didn’t turn out to be true.

    I’d withhold the same judgement on DIRECT (or any other SDHLV).

    “If you don’t know then you are clearly not ‘in’ the loop.”

    Or maybe the people you’re talking to are “out” of the loop? ;-)

    Seriously, have you talked to appropriations staff? OMB staff? NASA senior management and ESMD management (since the FY11 budget came out)?

    My impression (which may be wrong) from nasaspaceflight.com is that you’ve talked mainly with authorizers, primarily Senate authorizers, and specifically one Senate authorization staffer. I don’t mean this as a knock against those folks, but authorizers don’t have to live within budget limits, they don’t have to produce a bill every year, and even when they do, the probability that it gets passed into law is iffy.

    If I was on a team in this fight, I’d be showing hard-nosed cost analyses to the folks that have to make the hard budget decisions each year. And for better or worse, that’s not the authorizers.

    “Look at some point both branches of government will need to arrive at a compromise. Do you disagree?”

    Yes, based on history, I disagree. From Apollo to Shuttle to Space Station to Constellation, Congress historically has had little influence on major changes in the direction of the human spaceflight program. For better or worse, it’s hard to generate coherent space policy when dozens of elected representatives are involved. Historically, the President leads and, after much gnashing of teeth, the Congress follows. This time around could be the exception, but given that the draft authorization bills already fund the President’s request in full and contain all the major human space flight elements from the request and reduce Constellation and HLV direction (SD or otherwise) to studies, it doesn’t appear to be.

    “I agree, below is link to the current compromise budget proposal.”

    Just so you know for other downloaders, I couldn’t bring up the spreadsheet on two different computers running two different Windows/Excel loads. (Maybe still under protection of some sort?)

    And again, it’s more than budget. Hard-nosed, ideally independent, cost estimates are also needed to back up a budget. (Maybe that was part of the spreadsheet, but it doesn’t sound like it if it’s just a budget proposal.)

    Finally, I’d be very surprised if any budget proposal on a public website is what is actually being seriously discussed, either within Congress or between Congress and the White House (and I seriously doubt the latter is happening this early in the process). They don’t share these kinds of things publicly until they’re finalized.

    My 2 cents… FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ March 22nd, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    Well Robert, then you need to count John Shannon as one of the ‘non’ rocket experts because he is saying what we have said all along. The Aerospace Corporation and ESAS appendix 6a both confirmed our performance numbers. You can sleep well knowing that the Laws of Physics are still intact despite Congressional testimony under Mike Griffin or what you may have heard to the contrary…

    my ten year olds with the appropriate computer programs can plug in mass, thrust, etc and come up with performance figures…what is not known all that well, and you cannot address what the actual cost to take all the shuttle hardware and morph it into Jupiter of any version.

    All the “cost” numbers I have seen for (to pick one example) converting the standard ET to a “in line” ET are next to fantasy. …you have a budget number that was derived but there is no inkling that an agency that spent 9 billion so far on a more or less paper vehicle (of several orders of complexity “less” then Jupiter…ie Ares 1) can somehow pull of the conversion of the stack from what it is to the great photoshopped versions of Jupiter.

    Operations and processing cost are the same way. The numbers you mention to actually preserve the shuttle is, as I see Major Tom has pointed out fantasy if one believes the likes of Shannon and others.

    “I found there are two types of people FUDing DIRECT in this debate, ”

    there are more…I for instance dont fall into any of those categories…(odd I actually have some Op eds in a few industry publications from the 80’s that argue for a SDHLV…and then one in the 90’s explaining how the window had closed on that…and perhaps the best summation of todays policy was published in 1999 in The Weekly Standard…I wrote it, Rich Kolker edited it and Mark Whittington has his name on it).

    What I do find is that there are three types of people pushing DIRECT.

    The first is the space groupie. They somehow think that this effort gets Apollo back but better so maybe somehow they can get a ride…the second is those who hold an honorable position on the issue (their thoughts are much like mine in the time period mentioned above)…and the third is the “true believers” who are as much in love with the concept as anything else.

    The latter group can be seen by their explaining how their clarity is so much greater then anyone elses because they have “passion” and the rest of us are just chopped liver.

    There comes a time when hardware can be reasonably derived and there comes a time when it comes time to move on to new hardware. Those are difficult choices. Boeing for instance faced it in their 777 (and the B737 next gen…ie the BBJ through -800 through P8 Poseidon)

    they are much happier with the 777 choice then the latter.

    I do not support Jupiter (or any SDLV) for a few reasons (and I think you will find these reasons more or less kill it)

    1. To costly for what one gets
    2. No commercial spinoffs or mission possible
    3 No real exploration missions for it that can be afforded
    4. It does nothing to help the commercial launch industry in The Republic

    and then we get down to “its a photoshopped rocket with no real solid cost behind it”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    I quickly went through the posts here. I am still stunned so to speak how the DIRECT supporters and in particular Stephen here fight the Commercials, that however slim their chances they do not realize that the WH is set on Commercials. Therefore anytime they fight Commercials they fight the WH. Yet they want the WH to give them the work…

    Bizarre.

  • red

    Stephen Metschan: “First if giving the COTS contractors another $300 million dollars to cover overruns on a firm fixed milestone based contract is still considered ‘commercial’ than the STS infrastructure is most definitely commercializable on those terms.”

    I’m not aware of COTS contractor overruns. The $312M accounts for the increased importance of the ISS on the NASA side in the new budget, and goes for

    “adding or accelerating the achievement of already-planned milestones, adding additional capabilities, or tests that may ultimately expedite the pace of development of cargo flights to the ISS. Risk reduction activities may include adding milestones to complete the Probabilistic Risk
    Assessment (PRA) to identify early risks. Accelerating enhanced capabilities may include adding milestones for early development of items such as the high energy engine for Orbital’s Taurus II upper stage, and Block 2 engine upgrades SpaceX’s Falcon 9; a demonstration flight may be added to validate the upgrades.”

    Stephen Metschan: “I think the whole ‘commercialization’ effort is way too focused on launch services and not enough on ‘commercial’ applications for space.”

    The COTS cargo and crew programs also include spacecraft and rescue services. The Space Technology, Exploration Demonstrations, ISS, and Heavy Lift and Propulsion lines are also intended to have strong commercial participation.

    Stephen Metschan: “If something darn close to 4B (ie DIRECT) isn’t that compromise, what is your suggested compromise? And remember in order to be a compromise it must contain elements advocated by both sides.”

    I’m not convinced that the Administration needs a compromise. There are lots of advantages in the 2011 budget for the states with major Constellation work (propulsion work, EELV and other launches, launch range upgrades, etc), especially considering that Constellation as defined in the old POR is in the long run doomed regardless of whether or not it’s canceled now. There are also lots of advantages to other states, such as states with strong commercial space, aeronautics, unmanned space, ISS, university, R&D, and other strengths.

    However, let’s assume a compromise is needed. I wouldn’t give up nearly as much ground on the 2011 budget side as shown in the DIRECT compromise budget. I think what’s needed in that case is something somewhere between the 2011 NASA budget proposal and the DIRECT compromise budget. That might mean taking the DIRECT compromise budget and removing Orion (replacing it with cargo only at least for the budget timeline and perhaps getting rid of Orion outright and using a space-only beyond-LEO crew transport in the long run), drawing out the DIRECT timeline so it takes less funding per year (even if the overall cost is higher) so that maybe operations don’t start until after 2015, switching to cargo-only side-mount, or similar significant compromises to try to enable most of the goals of the 2011 budget while keeping a Shuttle-derived HLV program going (which I assume in this scenario would be required for the compromise). In other words, I think your budget scenario is too far from the 2011 budget, and it would be rejected by the Administration side and the states that support that side, but I also think you should keep looking for an acceptable middle ground between the 2011 budget and the DIRECT compromise budget.

  • Bennett

    Major Tom, Mr. Oler, red, and common sense,

    I know you’re all one-on-one cage match kind of guys, but I was wondering if you’ve ever failed to bring a thread back to fact-based reality when working in concert?

    Inquiring minds etc…

  • googaw

    Stephen, if you are serious about SDLV you should design a COTS / Commercial Crew competitor — same throw weight, able to hoist Dragon, Cygnus, or Orion Lite. Then enter it into the Commercial Crew (and any follow-on COTS) competition. Unless you are willing to play on a level playing field you can’t be taken seriously. It’s just too obvious otherwise that you are pandering for special favors with a set of systems that are not really up to economic snuff.

  • I didnt say that commercial for profit would be what took us first to Phobos. It could and I dont even pretend to be able to predict development paths 20 years in the future on dynamic events

    The one thing I can predict is that if the plan announced on Feb 1 does go forward and is sustained through out the next administration we won’t be going anywhere beyond LEO. We’ll have a cooler looking Soyuz of our own.

    Fred: fuel depots

    This is one of the more positive things about the administration plan. These are largely useless for HSF beyond LEO unless we have a HLV and in fact a reusable HLV. Failing that they don’t really give you that much. I’ve done some parametrics that show that the upper stage of a rocket that can orbit 100,000 points when refueled in LEO can send 300,000 pounds to TLI. But, it would take five launches of this save rocket to orbit the propellant to refuel this stage. Good idea but no panacea.

    Stephen Metschan:

    I like you presentations. You make a lot more sense than a lot of the commerical advocates here. DIRECT is the one thing that may well be better than the POR that can be done within likely budgets. It also dovetails with an extension of the shuttle for near term capability.

  • These are largely useless for HSF beyond LEO unless we have a HLV and in fact a reusable HLV. Failing that they don’t really give you that much.

    Do you have any basis or analysis for this preposterous statement? One of the key features of propellant depots is their ability to render HLVs largely unnecessary.

  • Robert G. Oler

    John wrote @ March 23rd, 2010 at 1:07 am

    The one thing I can predict is that if the plan announced on Feb 1 does go forward and is sustained through out the next administration we won’t be going anywhere beyond LEO. We’ll have a cooler looking Soyuz of our own. ..

    the one thing I would predict is that you are wrong. No way to know because I dont have a 100 percent crystal ball…but…

    the prime realestate in spaceflight is GEO..with the second place finish to sun synch polar. there is little doubt in my mind that we are going to see in the next 10 years or less the first human serviced GEO platform and the first human serviced sun synch platform.

    the trick in all this is to try and figure out how to connect a couple of dots…one doesnt want to go overboard then one makes some mistakes…but…we are headed toward some major space breakthrough capabilities.

    “Fred: fuel depots

    This is one of the more positive things about the administration plan. These are largely useless for HSF beyond LEO unless we have a HLV and in fact a reusable HLV.”

    I would be curious how you justify that (although with your comments on DIRECT maybe not…the folks there are a tad goofy)…

    again I think you are wrong. The trick with ISS was to assemble various part. NO ONE is going to launch on an HLV a vehicle to go anywhere were crib deaths in the systems are game enders…the trick with ISS like assembly is that by the time its all together…the vehicle has moved from the crib death stage to a mature system…and is ready to go into deep space. Fuel depots are the way of the future for a variety of reason.

    Rand and I disagree on a lot of things, but he has nailed the fuel depot argument (at least in my view).

    Robert G. Oler

  • Fred

    John, see
    http://www.ulalaunch.com/index_published.html
    the ULA paper on Affordable Exploration Architecture 2009.
    All I’ve done is tell the story from the POV of the Delta-v’s involved as this underlines how fuel depots simplify everything you do in space.
    If, as the ULA paper shows, you can build lunar bases on reasonable numbers of EELV flights why go to all the trouble of building HLV’s now.
    Sure, we’re going to need HLV’s down the track, but why buy a mini bus in case you get mrried and have kids one day. Buy a small car now and the mini bus when you actually need it.

  • Vladislaw

    “the prime realestate in spaceflight is GEO..with the second place finish to sun synch polar. there is little doubt in my mind that we are going to see in the next 10 years or less the first human serviced GEO platform and the first human serviced sun synch platform.”

    I have argued for this before with a LEO2GEO vehicle. The ownership has already been decided for GEO and this is why commercial is there, in my opinion, and not on other celestral bodies yet. We have hundreds of billions in assets already there and being able to actively maintain, restore, upgrade, deorbit et cetera is only going to make the real estate of orbital slots more expensive so VLOP’s ( very large orbital platforms) will emerge.

    I would disagree with the 10 years timeline you offer and propose and amendment to it. 10 years from the time Bigelow Aerospace has a functioning facility. Even with Sundancer there really will not be much space for commercial. It will have to wait until the first BA 330 is up and running.

  • Red: “I’m not aware of COTS contractor overruns. The $312M accounts for the increased importance of the ISS on the NASA side in the new budget, and goes for”

    (page 348, President’s FY11 Budget Proposal) “This budget allocates $312.0 million in FY 2011 for incentivizing NASA’s current commercial cargo program to improve the chance of mission success by adding or accelerating the achievement of already-planned milestones, adding additional capabilities, or tests that may ultimately expedite the pace of development of cargo flights to the ISS. Risk reduction activities may include adding milestones to complete the Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) to identify early risks.”

    The remaining amount in the FY10 budget for COTS in FY11 was $12 million. Translation, the COTS Cargo suppliers (more Orbital than SpaceX) are running behind and need some more money. Basically we are paying twice for the same statement of work despite all the flowery language used to obfuscate that fact. Hey it happens to even experienced organizations as well. What can we say Space is tough.

    It happens all the time on government projects as well whether they are under the Space Act Agreement (apparently), Firm Fixed Price or Cost Plus. It should be a warning that these ‘commercial’ government contracts are really not all that different in the end. If the government gets to a point of no return money will be found to make the project successful regardless of contracting vehicle. In the case of these COTS Cargo development contracts we are going to need to effectively shut down the ISS as it is (i.e. a two man crew) if the STS is retired abruptly as currently planned. So I support COTS Cargo and even COTS Crew because I support ISS but the Dragon doesn’t need anywhere near $6Billion dollars for completion. A scenario in which we have a SpaceX crew capable Dragon and with a beyond LEO capable Orion as its back up is a sufficient level of redundancy all things considered. Having multiple LEO only crew capsules makes no sense. I thought VSE was about getting the heck out of LEO not finding a ten different ways and reasons to stay in LEO?

    I don’t want to think what it would be like if either Orbital or SpaceX failed to deliver on their already late ISS cargo delivery schedule. Remember we need both at least in the near term. Later on SpaceX or Orbital could take up the slack of any of the Logistics suppliers but in the 2011-2013 it’s going to very tight. In fact if we do retire STS it looks like three years of the five year ISS extension will be effectively wasted based on what looks likely to happen at this point concerning ISS logistics. I now know why Sally made such a big deal about this during the hearings.

    Apparently the fact that the STS extension and ISS utilization are coupled right now hasn’t sunk in for the policy makers at the Whitehouse. Or it could be that they just don’t care about the ISS. I’m trying to find which case it is. I hope it’s that they don’t understand the logistics shortfall.

    If the government is attempting to buy a sacks of hammers than sure find the lowest bidder with the best product and buy it, but anything to do with Space is great distance away from that commercial commoditized reality. The simple fact is that the true commercialization of launch services will occur only ‘after’ the commercial market dominates the ‘use’ of space. Playing games with this organization or that or this or that contracting vehicles will not change the present dynamic.

  • Major Tom,

    I stand by John Shannon’s statement that we could be flying in 2012, yes that’s two years from now for the math impaired, on new tanks.

    John is a very straight shooter, he has to be, is organization actually puts Humans into Space and Space doesn’t suffer fools gladly. That is until those you quote foolishly help to end that activity. At which point Amercians will be stuck on Earth, unless we can thumb a ride from Russia, where fools apparently abound.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ March 23rd, 2010 at 10:31 am

    Red: “I’m not aware of COTS contractor overruns. The $312M accounts for the increased importance of the ISS on the NASA side in the new budget, and goes for”

    (page 348, President’s FY11 Budget Proposal) “This budget allocates $312.0 million in FY 2011 for incentivizing NASA’s current commercial cargo program to improve the chance of mission success by adding or accelerating the achievement of already-planned milestones, adding additional capabilities, or tests that may ultimately expedite the pace of development of cargo flights to the ISS. Risk reduction activities may include adding milestones to complete the Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) to identify early risks.”

    The remaining amount in the FY10 budget for COTS in FY11 was $12 million. Translation, the COTS Cargo suppliers (more Orbital than SpaceX) are running behind and need some more money. ..

    no…that is not a valid translation. That is boarding on a lie.

    It certainly is misinformation.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    tephen Metschan wrote @ March 23rd, 2010 at 10:42 am

    Major Tom,

    I stand by John Shannon’s statement that we could be flying in 2012, yes that’s two years from now for the math impaired, on new tanks…

    no you stand by your interpretation of what Shannon said.

    “John is a very straight shooter, he has to be, is organization actually puts Humans into Space and Space doesn’t suffer fools gladly. That is until those you quote foolishly help to end that activity. At which point Amercians will be stuck on Earth, unless we can thumb a ride from Russia, where fools apparently abound.”

    I’ll just snicker at the first part of the statement. No, I guess I wont pass on it “is organization actually puts…” did you you mean “his” organization…doesnt suffer fools gladly”. This would be the same organization (although not with Shannon at its head) that lost Columbia (at least in this century)…

    anyway “thumb a ride from Russia”. do you people at DIRECT just make this stuff up or what?

    The use of the Soyuz as the CRV would remain even if we chose the DIRECT path…so The Russians would be in the critical path anyway (the entire project is designed for interdependence…there is a reason for that learn it and you learn a lot) and at the rate of shuttle launches of “two a year” the crew changeouts would still occur a LOT on Soyuz.

    When you are left with rhetoric you at least ought to try and have some good stuff. The stuff you are using is so lame it can be knocked down by The Three SToges

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “Major Tom,

    I stand by John Shannon’s statement that we could be flying in 2012, yes that’s two years from now for the math impaired, on new tanks… those you quote foolishly”

    Shannon and “those [I] quote foolishly” (including Shannon, Radzanowksi, and Garver) are all saying the same thing with regard to the inevitability of a two- to three-year gap on Shuttle. If you agree with Shannon, as you just said you did, then you agree with Radzanowksi and Garver.

    “At which point Amercians will be stuck on Earth, unless we can thumb a ride from Russia, where fools apparently abound.”

    Given what the Russians have been able to maintain since the end of the Cold War for a fraction of the NASA human space flight budget, I’d argue that there’s very few fools over there.

    FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Vladislaw wrote @ March 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 am

    “the prime realestate in spaceflight is GEO..with the second place finish to sun synch polar. there is little doubt in my mind that we are going to see in the next 10 years or less the first human serviced GEO platform and the first human serviced sun synch platform.”

    I have argued for this before with a LEO2GEO vehicle. The ownership has already been decided for GEO and this is why commercial is there, in my opinion, and not on other celestral bodies yet. ..

    you make a good point that should be repeated frequently…

    Where the next big space rush is going to come, and the Chinese I think are aiming their program for this (although I have no solid proof but the “pieces” fit this far more then they do a lunar rush)…is going to be to improve space assets both commercial and national in GEO.

    GEO Assets and their possible negation are the game changers in national space efforts. The first country that gets 24/7 1 meter resolution “anywhere” on the planet has amazing capabilities…the first country that develops a “stealth” satellite which can negate GEO assets and make it look like space debris…is a game changer.

    Likewise the ability for very high speed very tightly focused data transmission (ie big antennas) is going to change commercial ops.

    As for a 10 year timetable…I learned a long time ago that in a dynamic system those were just wishful thinking (ie I dont disagree with you!)

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Fred wrote @ March 23rd, 2010 at 2:25 am

    this is the key to national space infrastructure creation.

    Everyone of those changes that is “in the national interest” on commercial boosters…also makes them more competitive in the commercial launch industry.

    This cannot be said for Ares or DIRECT.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Fred Cink

    For Fred and Robert on fuel depots…I think we can all agree they’re absolutey required for much of ANYTHING long term and affordable above LEO. #1 HOW DOES THE FUEL GET TO THE DEPOT ?” (in a long term affordable way) To start with, it has to come from here which means either LOTS of “smaller” launches or fewer HLVs. #2 My guess is the bottom line on economics leans towards fewer and larger. ISRU from the moon or mars (or even asteroids) is better from a shallower gravity well but start up costs make current affordability concerns laughable. #3 We are already farther along on VASIMIR, Nuc thermal, nuc electric, hell, even fission orion or solar sails than we need to be IN RELATION TO CURRENT surface lift. #4 We can not continue to reinvent the same wheel like we’ve been doing for the last 50 years and 100 billion $s If soyuz is the best bang for the buck per # to LEO then lets buy the manufacturing rights. Really heavy Atlas V “LOOKS” better than Delta 4s in spite of RS68 ‘s better ISP. But something in the low cost of mass production of recoverable SRBs (regardless of an even lower ISP) STILL makes SOME SORT OF SDLV look (dare I say faster better cheaper.) To use Roberts own previous concerns …spending (unsupported) “scarce tax dollars” on distant second tier space tech is even less “supportable” than getting cost per # to LEO down to where we have a CHANCE at a future

  • googaw

    But something in the low cost of mass production of recoverable SRBs (regardless of an even lower ISP) STILL makes SOME SORT OF SDLV look (dare I say faster better cheaper.)

    If so, why doesn’t ATK enter it in the Commercial Crew competition and in the next round of CRS? Or for that matter, why don’t they do a startup and launch satellites with them? Money talks, BS walks.

  • My guess is the bottom line on economics leans towards fewer and larger.

    That would be a guess that could only be based on a profound ignorance of the economics of launch.

  • Vladislaw

    “My guess is the bottom line on economics leans towards fewer and larger.”

    I would agree with you if you were talking about copper mining and you were advocating using a Terex TR100. You do not need this large and specialized of launch vehicle to assemble in orbit, reusable space vehicles or to launch fuel into LEO.

    Once there is a commercial fuel station, there will multiple sellers at multiple prices for fuel launches. The fuel station will buy fuel from different sellers at different prices and will sell fuel to NASA at the combined average cost plus profit margin.

  • Raul Armas

    In my view the first priority is to make human space flight more cost-effective by joining forces with the Chinese,Russians,Japanese and creating one centralized global launch facility with the major goals of creating the first permanent human presence by establishing nuclear power plants on the Moon and ridding ourselves entirely of the nagging problem of nuclear waste disposal,yes??

    And since the aging U.S. space shuttle fleet is due to be decommissioned why not use it in a clean-up effort of all the space “junk” in low-earth orbit?

  • Dennis Berube

    I truly hope that Capitol Hill will bump Obamas plan and opt for funding Constellation. We need a spacecraft for deep space exploration. We lack this presently. Everytime we dish out 52 mil. for a Russian ride to space, they probably have a good laugh. If they are our partners, why a charge? How much do we charge other countries to fly on the shuttle???? For the most part we have placed all other modules for other countries into space utilizing the shuttle. Sadly, that is where the shuttle has kept us for to long. We need to break free of LOE and venture out once again….

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