NASA, White House

Differing predictions for April 15

With still few details publicly announced about next Thursday’s presidential space conference at the Kennedy Space Center, there’s no shortage of speculation and predictions about what may be announced there. On SpaceRef Keith Cowing sees signs of a compromise that would preserve Orion in a scaled-down “Orion Lite” version, along with a shuttle sidemount HLV concept. Ares 1 and 5 would remain dead, and the shuttle program would be stretched out at a low flight rate to close the gap. The Orion Lite capsule would launch on EELVs as a government alternative to commercial vehicles, whose development would continue under the revised plan.

The Mars Society has its own, somewhat different, insights into what may come on April 15. “Information received by the Mars Society indicates that there is a real chance that on April 15, President Barack Obama will announce a bold new space policy that breaks substantially from the disastrous ‘flexible path to nowhere’ policy floated by administration spokesmen before Congress on February 2,” they claim. (It’s not clear what this February 2 event was, as there was no Congressional hearing or other public event on the Hill that day, one day after the budget was released.) The organization suggests there is a camp within the administration advocating for a different approach, one that would also involve the development of an Orion Lite as well as an HLV and some kind of hab module, but with an emphasis on a human mission to a near Earth asteroid (NEA) on an aggressive timetable: by 2016.

“There is REAL SUPPORT for an NEA plan such as that indicated above, but the outcome is by no means certain,” the Mars Society argues (emphasis in original.) “If on April 15, Obama commits to a piloted NEA mission by 2016, we will be well on our way to the Red Planet.” The question is whether there is a real argument within the administration for mounting such a mission, or if this is little more than a case of wishful thinking by Mars advocates.

86 comments to Differing predictions for April 15

  • Major Tom

    Adding Shuttle sidemount HLV development ($6.6 billion according to Shannon’s presentation to the Augustine Committee) and Orion-lite development (something less than $7.7 billion for Orion development in the FY 2010 runout) would require that something on the order of $14 billion be added to or carved out of NASA’s FY 2011 budget runout. Barring disaster or war, I don’t ever recall an Administration going back on its budget request publicly or before endgame negotiations. But even if this White House did that, it’s hard to see where that $14 billion would come from.

    Adding a hab module and NEA mission launch within five years on top of Orion-Lite and an HLV would require even more — probably an Apollo-like spike in the NASA topline budget. Really hard to see either the White House or Congress approving that in this deficit/budget environment. Such a large increase would become a weapon it in the deficit debate against whatever party/politicians proposed it.

    FWIW…

  • MrEarl

    Without going into costs, I’m encouraged by Keith’s outline for a compromise. Extension of the shuttle and development of the Shuttle-C is, I think, a logical way to evolve our present assets into the HLV we need. I especially like the idea of an exploration spacecraft that only operates in space.
    My one concern is the development of an Orion “Lite” to compete with commercial HSF providers. This could really put a damper on commercial development of LEO capabilities. Orion should be developed as transportation beyond LEO or as a transport to this new exploration spacecraft.

    As Major Tom pointed out above, I’d be interested in seeing where money for this is coming from.

  • CharlesHouston

    Wow – it sounds almost like everyone gets what they want. Are we all getting ponies as well? The big question, as the other readers pointed out, is: where is the money coming from??? Almost certainly this means we can stretch out the Shuttle some and slowly wither. The Heavy Lift booster will wait another year to be finally cancelled – to delay the bad news. Orion Lite is sort of what we were iterating towards anyway, but lighter due to lighter budgets??

    It sounds a lot like deciding to not decide, except that Ares will go away. If we had just done that in the first place we would be far ahead of where we are now – with a lot less thrashing.

    Does anyone think that any appointees will have their feathers ruffled really badly by backing off on the more comprehensive cancellations????

  • Actually, you will note that the Mars Society statement makes assumptions about development of heavy lift, and even about using a 4-segment Ares 1 to launch Orion Lite.

    But you do not need any of those things for a NEA mission. You can launch an Orion Lite and a Hab module on a Delta IV heavy, and separately launch a fully-fueled Centaur on an Atlas V…

    If you don’t start developing your HLV right away… you can fit Orion lite and a cheapo HAB into the budget runout.

    And do exploration quickly.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    The common thread is that (a) Obamaspace is a nonstarter and (b) we’re not going to build a lander, hence no return to the Moon (or to Mars, really, but the Mars Society folks seem to gloss over that.)

  • space summit

    the only “Florida Space Summit on April 15″ Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=356261201268

  • Robert G. Oler

    ““There is REAL SUPPORT for an NEA plan such as that indicated above, but the outcome is by no means certain,”

    Major Tom as he usually does deals with the finances quite well. As I said on the last thread KC has good sources…but there is a lot here that makes me think most of this is wishful thinking.

    The biggest (just from a political standpoint) is the entire tone of Zubrin’s missive. Representative democracy is a wonderful thing, but if one goes to his web site and reads Zubrin’s post…its almost high schoolish. “Send letters” as if that is going to change anything.

    It strikes me as unlikely that this close to what is hoped by many of the “please go another direction” meeting that such a policy would be in this much flux…and then it strikes me as naive to think that a massive letter writing campaign is what is going to make the difference.

    I cannot do better then

    “CharlesHouston wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 9:31 am

    Wow – it sounds almost like everyone gets what they want. Are we all getting ponies as well? ”

    If there is a major change coming and it is going to be blown out at a “space summit” it will be a major coupe for the folks who have argued for one. More likely all this heat is yet another example of how immature and unplugged from reality most space “folks” are.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 11:47 am

    The common thread is that (a) Obamaspace is a nonstarte..

    well that is your interpretation, but you think that the WMD went to Syria (laugh) and the Chinese are going to take over the Moon (more jocularity) and really thought VSE was going to work.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Jim Muncy wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 10:55 am

    Jim. nice comments. My take on how things are going is that there is something to what you are saying.

    If there is any “additions” (other then the LON flight for the shuttle flies and we all hope it doesnt need a rescue) it is that Orion is going to morph into America’s first deep space spacecraft development.

    I know for a fact (cause I have seen them) some planning has been done on using the “ninja’s” as a baseline for development of a “out of LEO” concept vehicle and they are all launched on Delta/Atlas vehicles and assembled on orbit.

    The rest of it, the sidemount HLV, flying the shuttle etc is I think a pipe dream…

    hope you are well

    Robert G. Oler

  • “Adding Shuttle sidemount HLV development ($6.6 billion according to Shannon’s presentation to the Augustine Committee) and Orion-lite development (something less than $7.7 billion for Orion development in the FY 2010 runout) would require that something on the order of $14 billion be added to or carved out of NASA’s FY 2011 budget runout. Barring disaster or war, I don’t ever recall an Administration going back on its budget request publicly or before endgame negotiations. But even if this White House did that, it’s hard to see where that $14 billion would come from.”

    The $6.6 billion could partially be absorbed by the $3.1billion HLV/propulsion dev portion of FY2011.

    As for Orion Lite, the concept has been proposed by Bigelow, and last I heard they were still moving forward, in conjunction with Lockheed, with developing that craft. As to whether BA has the same idea of Orion Lite as NASA does is another matter. But if there is some opportunity to take advantage of engineering dollars spent, that cost could come down a bit as well. However, I do fundamentally agree with the ‘With what money?’ question. Even if the whole HLV budget is taken up on the Shuttle-C and Bigelow has models half built that are in any way usable, it’s still going to require additional funds.

    I have to say, though, that this is the sort of scenario I was seeing develop even with the HLV studies back in November. I like a lot of it in concept. It’s one of the better scenarios we could hope for given that NASA is an engineering by committee organization. There are better options, but few that would be palatable to the non-space community or the political world. If Cowing’s right I’m all for it, provided the cost gets some kind of believable explanation.

  • Curtis Quick

    Shuttle-C might be the most cost-effective path to a hlv in the near term, but it’s still gonna cost billions to develop and keep the baseline 3$ billion/year for shuttle operations going for several more years. I suspect that any such monies found to fund this plan will have to come from the monies that were going to be spent on new technology development and commercial crew development. That limits the path to a new and better future, although not nearly to the extent that Ares 1 and V did!

    As far as missions to NEO by 2016, that’s a nice dream, but nothing more. It’s too soon and will be fund-starved from the start. After developing Shuttle-C and Orion-Lite, there will be little if any money or time to develop the technology needed to protect a crew for the long-duration mission outside Earth’s protective magnetosphere, nor the new propulsion systems to get them there in the suggested time frame. And besides, why would the American people wish to spend 30 billion or so dollars to send three astronauts on a joyride to a nearby space rock when James Cameron can take them to Alpha Centauri for the cost of a movie ticket! And I suspect, by the time such missions can fly, entertainment technology will make it seem like we can actually go there without ever leaving the comfort of our family room!! Space missions should be chosen because they make our nation better by helping to open up a new space-based economy whose industry benefits us on the ground, not to make us think we are a great nation because we can plant flags and leave footprints. The entertainment value is no way worth the cost of the ticket!

    Now, I was just reading up on Shuttle-C as it was developed in the late 80’s (http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sts-c.htm) and noticed this ending to the article… “Due to sharing the development costs, the space station community was not ready to commit to using the Shuttle-C. The message from other potential users was “build it and we will come”; however, no one was willing to step up and commit to Shuttle-C. With no clear definition of annual utilization the program was ultimately terminated.”

    If true, does this suggest that Shuttle-C would not find enough use to make it cost-effective? Could Shuttle-C actually be … just another jobs program in sheep’s clothing? Just wondering…

    P.S. I actually like the idea of a Shuttle-C, but when I pick it apart I cannot figure out why – yet I still like the idea. It must be the Star Trek fan in me.

  • Coastal Ron

    I too think that this possible plan seems to hit all the good compromise buttons, but I can’t see this happening from a budget standpoint. The largest budget item in the near term is stretching out the Space Shuttle, which is a political jobs programs more than a program need. Without fully funding everything else, this will suck the life out of a lot of small programs NASA wanted to ramp up or start.

    For the others:

    Orion Lite will satisfy those that want a government owned way to get into space. Until commercial crew is available in abundance, this is probably prudent, and the lessons learned can be passed down to the commercial sector. We need more than one launch system to LEO anyways.

    Shuttle C looks like a political jobs program, needed to secure the politicians in the space industry states. I don’t mind it from a design standpoint, and if it means more money to build an in-space exploration vehicle, then that’s OK. Otherwise, it’s super-heavy lift that we don’t need yet (aka a rocket to nowhere).

    The Presidents budget was already a risk because it cancelled current jobs and asked for an increase above the current budget, so adding anymore $$$ will be an interesting lesson in political sausage making…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Curtis Quick wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    where shuttle C has come unhinged since the studies first started rolling out is three fold.

    First the cost of development are high. Second the cost for ops are high. Third there is no reason for it unless one builds a payload whose mass takes advantage of the lift, and the cost to do that are ‘high”.

    And unless the launches are “recurring” then all the cost are high.

    The only scenario that makes a Shuttle Derived heavy lift seem plausible is some national goal which requires frequent (say four a year) launches of very large payloads. Zubrin thinks that is going to Mars. There is however after that no DoD or civilian government or civilian need for that at least now.

    Build it and they will come implies that there are payloads for it…where are they? Robert G. Oler

  • Curtis Quick

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    You hit this nail square on the head!

    I think the appropriate question at this point would be “Where’s the Beef?

  • Vladislaw

    “My one concern is the development of an Orion “Lite” to compete with commercial HSF providers. This could really put a damper on commercial development of LEO capabilities.”

    How many NASA flights to the ISS would be needed per year for crew rotation, two?

    I believe Bigelow has a baseline of 8 manned flights per year and some additional cargo flights? I don’t know how big of damper orion would put on commercial travel.

  • As for Orion Lite, the concept has been proposed by Bigelow, and last I heard they were still moving forward, in conjunction with Lockheed, with developing that craft.

    No, actually, I think they’re working with Boeing.

  • googaw

    My one concern is the development of an Orion “Lite” to compete with commercial HSF providers.

    “Commercial HSF” in orbit is a fraud. These companie(s) are not competing with government in HSF, they are getting all their HSF revenue from government space agencies. If you believe in government funding for economically useless astronaut heroics, then having government owning a capsule with the standard form factor that can launch on multiple satellite launchers, and then buying the launches, makes a lot of sense. It is the most commercial of the possible alternatives, and has the greatest chance of keeping our heavenly heroes flying.

    Alternatively, astronaut fans can enter the galaxy of Mark Whittington and Stephen Metschan and have NASA develop big manned lunar landers, ludicrously huge custom-built launchers, and other Powerpoint-ware that is many orders of magnitude divorced from economic reality and will never actually fly. But it will make dandy make-work jobs for people who can’t get real jobs.

  • common sense

    Reposting from thread before:

    I cannot see how and why the WH would change the current plan to satisfy a limited audience. Shuttle-C may have been a good cargo only vehicle years if not decades ago. DIRECT, well DIRECT… Orion-Lite? Very, very difficult. If nothing else, I hardly see Boeing, a CCDev contender, somehow bowing (nice huh?) to LMT yet again! In essence LMT would get all the development cash from Orion and then compete with Boeing that is starting from “scratch”???? Nonsense! Or that may be the last time Boeing ever bid a NASA proposal. And that would be very very bad for the country. Now of course they may offer something to Boeing in exchange but I doubt it…

    Oh well…

  • Mark R. Whittington

    “The common thread is that (a) Obamaspace is a nonstarte..

    well that is your interpretation, but you think that the WMD went to Syria (laugh) and the Chinese are going to take over the Moon (more jocularity) and really thought VSE was going to work.”

    Oler, I agree with the US General in charge of satellite imaging and the Israeli Chief of Staff on the first, a great deal of space policy folks on the second, and Norm Augustine on the third.

    The fact of the matter is that almost no one supports Obamaspace in the Congress and, if Cowing is correct, the Regime is coming to that realization and is acting accordingly.

  • I don’t know any reputable “space policy folks” who think that the Chinese are going to take over the moon. And all that Augustine said that it wouldn’t be impossible to get Constellation to work, if you poured enough national treasure into it. It was hardly a ringing endorsement, and was mainly to avoid hurt feelings of the people working it.

  • Alex

    If we suddenly have the money to pull off this compromise, there are surely better compromises, let alone architectures, to be had.

    Otherwise, the only elements of this that seem possible with the current budget run-out and political will are Shuttle-C and Orion Lite.

    Even then, it seems like we’d have to axe the robotic precursors and tech demos (again… sigh).

  • common sense

    “Even then, it seems like we’d have to axe the robotic precursors and tech demos (again… sigh).”

    I for one, an astronaut fan, would think it’d be foolish to axe them. It would however further confirm that NASA HSF is a jobs-program. And that would be totally crazy to tell the American people at a time when they lose their jobs that some jobs are being protected for no other reason than??? Than what? Precursor are a requirements and must be concurrent to “safe” exploration.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 1:56 pm

    Oler, I agree with the US General in charge of satellite imaging and the Israeli Chief of Staff on the first, a great deal of space policy folks on the second, and Norm Augustine on the third. ..

    actually what you agree with is your interpretation of what is said.

    most of which flies in the face of logic.

    David Howell Petraeus says such claims are nonesense as does the former Marine commander in Anbar…not even Dick Cheney is making those claims. as for “a great deal of space policy folks” lol they are all people who have like you made such claims with nothing to back them up…as for VSE I predicted on this forum what has happened to it and I predicted it in 05.

    “Obamaspace” seems to be supported by the bill introduced by the Senior Senator from Texas.

    another whittingtonism down the drain.

    Robert G. Oler

  • We spent $3.4 billion last year for the Constellation program. The Obama budget raises the NASA budget by over $2 billion a year over the next 5 years. So that gives you at least $5.4 billion a year in spending. If you subtract the $1.2 billion a year the administration wants to spend to support the private manned space flight companies, that gives you $4.2 billion a year to spend on vehicle development. That’s $21 billion dollars which is plenty of money to develop the Sidemount and an EDS stage ($9.4 billion in total).

  • Robert G. Oler

    Curtis Quick wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 12:23 pm

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    You hit this nail square on the head!..

    thanks. I was a big proponent of Shuttle C (I have the Av Week and Ad Astra op eds to prove it!) back in the 80’s until someone kindly sat me down and worked the math and most importantly the whole notion of space operations.

    to make shuttle C (or Jupiter or Energia) work is there has to be an overriding need for at least four shuttle orbiter (give or take a few pounds) payloads to orbit every year. As it stand now, people are talking on a shuttle extension “what would it fly?” . To fly four orbiter payloads that do not return to earth a year, that means you are building that mass of stuff a year to fly in space, and that takes money.

    It also assumes that you cannot assemble anything in space and hence need to launch it “Skylab” style, full up ready to go.

    To Zubrin (and I guess Spudis) this is their Mars or Lunar program…but we get back to the thing that once one has a thing to lift stuff into orbit it is a desk ornament unless there is the stuff to lift into orbit…and that alone cost at least as much (see the cost breakdown of Orion/Ares).

    I can see some sort of effort where the remaining “Ninjas” are modified into some sort of “deeper space” vehicle or complex.

    that makes sense.

    It will be interesting to see what happens on the 15th. I suspect that either someone is going to have pulled off the political change of the year…or more likely most space activist who were predicting major changes are just going to be sitting sucking wind wondering why they are so fracken wrong all the time.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    so you would cancel constellation and toss everything into a SDV sidemount and then what would you fly on it?

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    “or more likely most space activist who were predicting major changes are just going to be sitting sucking wind wondering why they are so fracken wrong all the time”

    I know how this is going to sound but there is a simple reason: They don’t know what they are talking about.

    It is “hard work” to understand space. There is no one single person that does understand the whole scheme, nope, no von Braun around these days and I suspect even he would say he does not understand everything, a usual trait of smart people.

    Today’s advocacy is very much like a cult of many cults. Facts based on belief and faith of some sort. Ah if we could only have a Moon base, a Mars ship, a warp drive… Read all the reference to Star Trek from the space fans and you’ll know.

    Yet somehow we need them! Because without advocacy there might just be no HSF whatsoever…

    Oh well…

  • googaw

    BTW, for those who genuinely believe that there will soon be a sufficiently large market for orbital tourism independent of NASA funding, there is an easy way to prevent NASA from competing with it — ban NASA from flying tourists on its capsule once a private company has reached the point where it can fly the tourist to the same or similar destination. Of course, if one is merely using the supposed promise of orbital tourism to troll for NASA contracts this kind of solution is anathema.

  • common sense

    @googaw wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 2:46 pm:

    “ban NASA from flying tourists on its capsule ”

    Is NASA not already sort of banned from getting cash outside the US government?

  • Robert G. Oler

    On KC’s site Dennis Wingo (although to be fair I mentioned it earlier …grin) has hit the nail on the head. And it is interesting with the politics.

    If there is “a surprise” (and I honestly doubt that there will be, Obama hasnt shown any surprise in him on these things I am not persuaded that space is different then say health care)…and it is a sort of “international space ship” (I stole that from someone else on KC’s site…development program.

    It will be interesting to see how that plays with the people who are expecting some sort of “save our jobs save our (shuttle or Constellation) announcement”.

    It would “slant” in my view the coverage. Except on Fox News (which is turning jingoistic) the concept of an “international space ship” would play well with the media and would likely be the notion that comes out of the coverage (whatever there is) with the side bar of the “save our jobs” effort being largely sort of panned.

    I agree with Wingo that the development of a true “space ship” would be the highlight of a sea change even offsetting the notion of commercial lift (which I agree with completely).

    but I also predict that the folks who are counting on “let the pork keep rolling” will be not so happy and that includes the various Congress people from pork districts. It is a safe bet that Whittington and the far right wont like it (but they wouldnt like anything)

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 2:34 pm

    I know how this is going to sound but there is a simple reason: They don’t know what they are talking about. ..

    I concur…they are to much into “space” as a cult not as either politics or just another field of endeavor.

    After the 06 election when Bush and the GOP were “thumped” and it looked as though the Dems were going to ride into DC on a wave of “leaving” Iraq folks who I am good friends with who geniunly felt that it was time to just pull up stakes and leave were quite certain that is what Pelosi and the group were going to do…and my line was “only if Bush doesnt change course, if he does then we stay”.

    And the reason is how The Constitution was written and the Executive has evolved…and that is why in my view Obama will get his space policy almost unscratched.

    I dont know Susan Martin but this is from Zubrin’s site : “Please act now, and write letters, faxes, or emails, (letters or faxes are best) to President Obama, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), and to your own Senators and Congressmen. Tell them you want a REAL humans to Mars program – Mars in Our Time, not “someday”, but in our time – with the commitment made REAL by setting a goal of sending astronauts to a Near Earth Asteroid by 2016. ”

    this is almost childish in terms of both its political and technical expectations.

    As you said “Ah if we could only have a ….”

    I prefer the female uniforms from Star Trek the original…lol

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    googaw wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    BTW, for those who genuinely believe that there will soon be a sufficiently large market for orbital tourism independent of NASA funding, ..

    anyone who thinks that is in my viewpoint as full of it as those who think that Jupiter can be developed for the money the evangelist of the concept are pushing.

    Robert G. Oler

  • An international EML Gateway (depot & transfer station) would be a great place for an international space ship to “ride at anchor” between missions.

    An international EML Gateway would be a great place for multiple true space ships to “ride at anchor” between missions.

    Think Babylon 5. ;-)

  • John Malkin

    I’ll buy everyone pizza if Ares I or lite (yuk!) lives. Orion might continue in some form or in multiple forms to be utilized by the “commercial” vendors.

    Obamaspace = flexible path – bad budget roll-out. I think Obama is doing damage control for the way the budget was roll-out and nothing more. Bolden already took responsibility for this mess by saying he didn’t listen to his people. I don’t expect a major changes to his budget. There is no way Obama will add any more money, he doesn’t care about it as much as health care. He had a personal stake in health care because of his mother, so he risked everything. I bet he won’t do that for space.

    More money will have to be supported by the republicans and I’m not sure they have the stomach for it either.

  • @Robert G. Oler

    “so you would cancel constellation and toss everything into a SDV sidemount and then what would you fly on it?”

    1. I ‘d launch a large ISS derived, or Bigelow derived, space station into an appropriate orbit for easy access from US launch facilities for beyond LEO missions

    2. I’d dock a small reusable 3 to 5 tonne XM (exploratory module) at the space station for Lagrange and Lunar orbit missions. Such an ISS derived module shouldn’t cost more than $1 to $2 billion to develop.

    3. I’d fund the development of the Altair LH2/LOX descent stage and use it as a– single stage vehicle– for lunar cargo missions (10 tonnes plus to lunar surface), manned lunar landing missions (with a 1.5 tonne crew transport module on top plus an additional 1.5 tonnes for crew and payload), and as a lunar departure stage (without any landing legs) for the XM vehicle, to return crews from lunar orbit to an Earth orbiting space station. Using the Altair descent stage to derive three different space vehicles should substantially reduce development and operational cost. Eventually, a single stage Altair might be modified into a fully reusable vehicle that utilizes fuel depots in orbit and on the lunar surface.

    The development of the two stage Altair is estimated to cost about $12 billion. So I’d guess developing the single stage LH2/LOX Altair might be half that amount.

  • John Malkin

    @Marcel F. Williams

    Nice. Can you talk to Bolden? How to you get out of LEO?

    Bigelow derived would be better since its a US Commercial company. The American modules on the station were built outside the US. Also Bigelow has ask a US rocket company (SpaceX) to fly it. Also Bigelow supports the Obama budget.

    It’s interesting how ATK feels the only way they can continue is via a large government contract.

  • Fred

    “Googaw” wrote:
    ““Commercial HSF” in orbit is a fraud. These companie(s) are not competing with government in HSF, they are getting all their HSF revenue from government space agencies.”

    Actually no. Total NASA funding to develop Dragon and Falcon 9 was $278M (under COTS) the rest of the funding to develop the SpaceX vehicles came from investors, and money earnt from sales.
    Again for crew, for adding a LAS and a few other things SpaceX just wanted $330M from NASA under COTS-D. the rest to be funded by SpaceX.
    Clearly SpaceX sees a market in Commercial Crew or they wouldn’t be putting up their own money. They may be right. In which case they make money. They may be wrong. In which case they go broke. But that is what commercial is.

  • Fred

    “Costal Ron” said:
    “Orion Lite will satisfy those that want a government owned way to get into space. Until commercial crew is available in abundance, this is probably prudent, ”

    Orion Lite is little more than a concept yet. Dragon exists, Is through PDR, CDR and Qualification testing. The only things missing to human rate the Dragon are a pilot interface and LAS (and to actually fly). The only thing certain is that by the time an Orion Lite makes it to orbit Dragon will be flying.
    Unless of course Commecial Crew is not funded and Musk has to do it on his own dime (which he has said he will). Then you might be right.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    I probably like most of those payloads…I still dont understand what you are going to fly on an SDV

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    In response to Fred, I’m a big fan of SpaceX & Dragon, and was not very clear in what I wrote. I should have said that I was in favor of a dual-track approach to LEO crew launch services, with Orion-Lite satisfying the faction of people who say the U.S. needs to “own” a vehicle (even though they won’t own the launcher). I think SpaceX would be in the best position to be the other crew vehicle, but NASA would need to do an RFQ to ensure a level playing field. I think SpaceX would go forward with their own crew capability regardless.

    In response to Marcel F. Williams “I’d fund the development of the Altair LH2/LOX descent stage”, Lockheed did a detailed design study for lunar landers in 2006, and one of their designs used the existing RL-10 and was fully reusable (Google “dual thrust axis lander”). No need to develop a new engine.

    We have a lot of technology that is already built, tested & proven, and I think we can save a lot of money by building spacecraft that do 90-95% of the job at a heck of a cheaper price than one designed for 100%.

    Let’s do something novel and pretend we have a finite budget, and we want to do as much as possible in space, as soon as possible.

  • @ Robert G. Oler

    “I probably like most of those payloads…I still dont understand what you are going to fly on an SDV”

    Please be more specific about your question. I believe I’ve already answered you!

  • @ Coastal Ron

    My problem with the RL-10 designs is that they’re not very useful for heavy cargo since they can only land a couple of tonnes of cargo at most on the lunar surface. If you’re trying to set up a lunar base, you’re going to need something that can at least land 8 tonnes or more on the lunar surface per launch. And one of the main reasons for returning to the Moon is to set up a base so that we can start exploiting some of the natural resources of the solar system.

    Utilizing an Altair as a cargo lander should enable us to land at least 10 tonnes plus on the lunar surface. But that same vehicle could also be used to land a manned mission of 3 tonnes on the lunar and return them back to lunar orbit. If a lunar base can eventually manufacture its own oxygen, then a manned mission might be able to land several tonnes more since they wouldn’t have to land take-off oxidizer.

    However, for the XM vehicle, a centaur LH2/LOX upper stage might do to return humans back to Earth orbit from the Moon.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 9:42 pm

    for an SDV to be even remotly useful one needs at least four payloads a year for it…

    Robert G. Oler

  • @Robert G. Oler

    For a lunar base program, you’d need three SD-HLV launches per year to land two habitat modules plus one habitat node on the lunar surface for a continuously growing lunar base. You’d also probably need one or two additional launches per year for ground vehicles, solar power plants, oxygen manufacturing machines, food and supplies, etc. Manned launches to the Moon would require two SD-HLV launches per mission; and you’d probably need one or two manned missions per year. So a lunar base program would require heavy use of a SD-HLV.

    If the private commercial manned spaceflight industry takes off due to space tourism from wealthy folks and space lotto winners then there might be a high demand for large instant space stations placed into orbit by an SD-HLV. These stations could quickly pay for themselves after a few years by charging at least one to five million per head for each visitor to their station, a small fraction of the cost of getting into orbit in the first place.

    I’d also like to use a SD-HLV to deploy a couple of heavy (20 tonne) solar sail vehicles to a Lagrange point so that I could grab 100 to 200 tonnes of NEO asteroid material per year and return into to a Lagrange point to extract oxygen, water, and carbon and also use it the material for mass shielding Lagrange point space stations. Of course, if private industry decides its profitable to exploit asteroid resources, then they might want some reusable solar sails deployed for them too.

    So, again, I think an SD-HLV would be heavily used.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 6th, 2010 at 11:39 pm

    where does the money come from for the payloads? Robert G. Oler

  • googaw

    Fred, despite all your obsfucation, the fact of the matter is that SpaceX has gotten zero (0, null, none, nichts) HSF revenue from anybody except the copious revenue it has been getting from NASA for the HSF-supporting COTS. In fact, in the nearly fifty year history of U.S. HSF no U.S. company has ever flown humans into orbit who were payed for by anybody except the U.S. government.

  • googaw

    the RL-10 designs is that they’re not very useful for heavy cargo since they can only land a couple of tonnes of cargo at most on the lunar surface.

    Two tonnes is already much larger than the economically optimal size for propellant production plants for real markets. The manned lunar bases for which you need a super-duper-sized lunar lander are an economic fantasy.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams said “My problem with the RL-10 designs is that they’re not very useful for heavy cargo…” and “Utilizing an Altair as a cargo lander should enable us to land at least 10 tonnes plus on the lunar surface”.

    I’m confused about your problems with the RL-10, because the Altair was going to use a modified RL-10. In regards to the Altair design, because of it’s stacked design, it’s not designed for cargo, automated or otherwise – how do you get it to the surface?

    I like designs like the Lockheed Dual Thrust Axis Lander because they are elegant solutions that don’t require highly specialized equipment, and they land their cargo horizontally. As far as cargo capacity, this type of craft could be scaled up far easier than the non-reusable Altair stacked design. It also lends itself to automated operations, which is what we’ll probably need to start with. I’m sure there are other equally good designs out there, and my point is really to say we want to build reusable systems, because it’s cheaper to refuel than to replace entire spacecraft.

    Finally, Marcel also wrote “use a SD-HLV to deploy a couple of heavy (20 tonne) solar sail vehicles”. That’s not a real need for an SD-HLV – you can use current Atlas/Delta/Falcon Heavy variants to launch 20 tonne payloads today. While a SD-HLV class vehicle would be nice, we really don’t need it until we are feeling the pain/constraint that our current launchers cannot meet. With modular construction techniques we’re already using on the ISS, I think we’re a long ways away from absolutely needing an SD-HLV. Use that money to build & launch space hardware.

  • Coastal Ron

    In response to Googaw responding to Fred, what’s your SpaceX point? If your point is that SpaceX is receiving payments from the COTS program, then so what? That is for cargo delivery, not HSF. SpaceX started their Dragon program before the NASA COTS program, and their stated goal has always been to launch humans into space on a commercial basis. If they can do that with NASA funding, I’m sure they’d be quite happy, but they plan to do it anyways. The COTS program will help them validate their design, which can be upgraded to HSF for a relatively small (on the government scale) amount of money.

    And let’s not forget Bigelow Aerospace, which has already launched two orbiting spacecraft, and is moving steadily to create their own on-orbit destination. They are creating a commercial need for HSF, and whether it’s Boeing or SpaceX, they seem to want a U.S. based provider. Lots of things still need to go right, but there is a lot of commercial skin in this game.

  • googaw

    If they can do that with NASA funding, I’m sure they’d be quite happy, but they plan to do it anyways.

    Why just “plan” to do it? Why don’t they do it already, instead of aggressively pursuing “Commercial” Crew which will enmesh them in NASA HSF bureaucracy rather than lowering launch costs? And why can’t SpaceX’s fans be satisfied with SpaceX pursuing this supposedly huge tourism market they keep hyping as sufficient instead of “Commercial” Crew?

    SpaceX has already gotten a huge subsidy for Dragon with COTS — according to Shotwell and Musk, most of the technology they need for HSF has already been developed for the COTS Dragon. How much more of a subsidy do they need to get to the point where they can launch tourists? Why the push for an even larger subsidy for SpaceX than the huge artificial dose of government money they have already gotten?

    The answer that the “New New Spacers” don’t want to admit is that the orbital tourism market has turned out to be a dud. Rather like fusion power, there are always more fat government contracts to be worked before this imagined market will then magically become a reality. The only thing the New New Spacers, for whom space can be nothing but HSF, can do now is troll for NASA contracts and pretend that they are as “commercial” as real tourism would be.

    For sane people who don’t think that space revolves around astronauts, there are many lucrative real space markets to be pursued. For example, Internet satellites, for which ViaSat just last week raised $100 million in a public offering.

  • Bill White

    googaw,

    The ILS website has this about the satellite industry:

    Oversupply and Market Rationalization
    Currently, the level of supply with the two main players in the market, ILS and Arianespace, can adequately support the level of demand with 20-22 commercial satellite launches per year. Periods of oversupply in the marketplace have proven to be detrimental to the commercial launch business and leads to instability and rationalization. This was demonstrated with the exiting of the Atlas and Delta vehicles from the commercial market which now exclusively serve the more profitable US Government market. The Sea Launch bankruptcy is another example of commercial launch oversupply.

    http://www.ilslaunch.com/satellite-2010-update-commercial-launch-providers-panel

    On one hand this supports your point, especially this . . . the exiting of the Atlas and Delta vehicles from the commercial market which now exclusively serve the more profitable US Government market . . .

    On the other hand, entering into a saturated market is kinda like wanting to start a new airline. Where will the profit come from?

  • CI

    Maybe only the President knows about the new rumored plan to extend the shuttle because NASA is moving forward that the shuttle is cancelled.

    NASA just YESTERDAY extends contract with Russia for Soyuz in 2013.
    IF the President was going to extend shuttle (which is just a rumor), if reporters knew of this from inside sources, don’t you think Charlie Bolden would have known ??

    And if so, I don’t think they would be signing any new contracts.

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.27d504fa90c41ebd1553e2277f52b361.8a1&show_article=1

  • Googaw,
    You just don’t get it. Sure, the *satellite* business is lucrative. Satellite launch isn’t even close. SpaceX isn’t going to change the world off of demand for satellites. But if the launch industry isn’t healthy and competitive, the satellite industry gets hurt too.

    And saying space tourism is a dud kind of assumes that there has actually been a company that went after space tourism that actually made it to market and then found the market wasn’t there…can you name such a company? None of the companies that have wanted to go after the orbital space tourism market have ever even raised enough money to actually build the hardware, much less try out the market. The one company doing orbital tourism (Space Adventures) has been buying spare seats on Russian Soyuz vehicles, and AIUI has sold every seat they’ve been able to procure. And in fact has sold more seats recently even though the price has gone up dramatically.

    So where exactly do you get your data that space tourism is a “dud”?

    Now, at $20-50M/seat, I don’t expect the market to be huge, but by the time you get down into the $1-5M per seat, all indications point to it growing into the dozens to hundreds of tickets per year worth of demand–if you have a system that can service that many. Right now, we’re nowhere near anything like a competitive free-market for personnel delivery to LEO. If we were, and there were actually flights on the table not being filled because nobody wanted to buy tickets, you might have a point. But there aren’t, and you don’t.

    ~Jon

  • Coastal Ron

    In response to Googaw “Why just “plan” to do it? Why don’t they do it already”. Do you read up on this stuff before you comment? Doing a little research would help answer some of these questions offline, so we can debate current issues instead.

    SpaceX started development of the human-capable Dragon capsule way before NASA COTS came along. Their stated intent, backed up with money, development and real hardware, is to launch humans into LEO. Are you complaining that they’re not moving fast enough? They started this with their own money, and like any other smart business, they are using the COTS program to help them achieve SOME of their development goals. They guessed correctly that there would be a need for a capsule that could handle both cargo & human, so they were well positioned for the COTS program, and possibly future crew launch services. They started this with their own money, so what’s the issue?

    Compare SpaceX to Orbital, who is using existing satellite technology not specifically designed for carrying humans internally. Their craft will do the job just fine for cargo, but was not intended for HSF. Orbital, who has been in the launch business for quite a while, could have made the same gamble, but they didn’t. Probably none of their work will translate to a human-rated version. Nothing wrong with that – SpaceX has HSF as a company goal, but Orbital hasn’t decided to pursue that market yet.

    SpaceX is “doing it”. They have hardware built and in production, and they have a steady plan to get there. NASA won’t need them for HSF until 2015 (just locked in Soyuz for $56/seat thru 2014), so they are still within their 3-year development window. And by that time, they will have built 15 Dragon capsules, flown 15 NASA COTS missions, and have a fleet of once-used Dragon’s waiting for customers that want to pay far less than $56M to LEO. I’d say they have a good plan.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ April 7th, 2010 at 7:56 am

    On the other hand, entering into a saturated market is kinda like wanting to start a new airline. Where will the profit come from?..

    This is the question and people from Herb Kelleher to Ed B. (sorry I will misspell the last name he founded AmWest and Western Pacific) have tried to answer with varying degrees of success and a lot of failure.

    What successful startups look for is “Market desaturating”…tools. For SWA it was to some extent price, but to a large extent it was the frequency of the flights (ie they jumped off every 30 minutes you really didnt need a ticket etc).

    I dont pretend to know what Musk is doing but everything I have seen about his development effort is that it is aimed at completely destabilizing the market in both satellite and people lift by shaking up how almost everything is being done to make it an easier product for the customers.

    What is unique about the Paypal generation is that these are people who are use to thinking completely out of the box in terms of doing business. I am told that is what impressed Mr. Gates when he chatted with Musk recently.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Oler –

    I agree with you about Elon Musk.

    I am less certain whether the FY2011 commercial crew proposal will de-saturate the market or result in NewSpace being assimilated into the NASA collective, perhaps protecting Atlas and Delta profit margins.

    That said, actually deploying a non-NASA destination is what I believe would shake everything up, both for cargo and crew (tourist) delivery – far more than a handful of commercial crew flights to ISS would shake things up – and I still do not understand why commercial crew to ISS must precede a non-NASA destination in LEO.

    Allowing Bigelow to be serviced by Soyuz would create immediate market demand for SpaceX Dragon flights, if Musk can approximate Soyuz pricing.

  • @ Robert G. Oler

    “where does the money come from for the payloads? Robert G. Oler”

    The SD-HLV will be replacing the shuttle program and eventually the ISS program, that gives you $3 billion a year from the shuttle program, $3.4 billion a year from the Constellation program, $2 billion a year from the ISS program, and over $2 billion a year from the increase in the NASA budget by the Obama administration. That’s $10.4 billion a year to run the programs that I’ve advocated for the SD-HLV without increasing the currently proposed budget.

  • Coastal Ron

    For SpaceX, I think they are going to able to offer crew flights to LEO far cheaper than Soyuz. Let’s look at the known cost drivers:

    1. The current price for a Falcon 9 launcher is $51.5M to LEO.
    2. They are going to have 12 (my corrected #) Dragon spacecraft leftover from the NASA COTS deliveries (per NASA contract), so they don’t have to build the vessels.
    3. They need to add the LAS (likely be the most expensive part), crew seats, avionics, etc.
    4. I would imagine they need to upgrade their launch facility to accommodate crew operations.

    A. Assume the Dragon will be piloted by two crew, leaving room for five passengers.
    B. Assume the non-launcher prices add ~$50M/flight (LAS, refurb. $, overhead, profit, etc.)
    C. Assuming $100M/launch, they could price each seat for $20M

    This is just a SWAG, but even if you made the non-launcher price $100M/flight, that only takes you to $30M/seat. I think this will make them a viable delivery system, but we’ll need a number of destinations to create the demand.

  • Coastal Ron

    In response to Marcel F. Williams comment “SD-HLV will be replacing the shuttle program and eventually the ISS program”, are you saying that a launcher is going to replace a space station? That doesn’t make sense.

    The ISS partners plan to keep the ISS in space as long a possible, meaning well past 2020 (2028 & beyond), so you can subtract that number out of your SD-HLV calculations.

    The Shuttle program has already been planned to shut down, and there is no money in the budget past the last flight, so you can subtract that amount too.

    The proposed NASA budget has already reassigned the Constellation program funds into numerous other programs and projects, so if you want those funds, you’ll have to cut robotic exploration, new technologies, and a host of other important stuff.

    SD-HLV is a launcher to nowhere. There are no payloads funded at the present time that need it, and our current fleet of heavy lifters are already available, underused, and quite capable of delivering ISS sized modules to LEO. Let’s use what we have until we have a projected need that exceeds our capacity.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ April 7th, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    I agree with everything you wrote in particular “That said, actually deploying a non-NASA destination is what I believe would shake everything up”

    A place in space other then ISS is essential to the development of a human space flight “technology” that is affordable and actually produces something that has value near the cost.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron wrote @ April 7th, 2010 at 3:14 pm

    “In response to Marcel F. Williams comment “SD-HLV will be replacing the shuttle program and eventually the ISS program”, are you saying that a launcher is going to replace a space station? That doesn’t make sense.

    The ISS partners plan to keep the ISS in space as long a possible, meaning well past 2020 (2028 & beyond), so you can subtract that number out of your SD-HLV calculations.

    The Shuttle program has already been planned to shut down, and there is no money in the budget past the last flight, so you can subtract that amount too.

    The proposed NASA budget has already reassigned the Constellation program funds into numerous other programs and projects, so if you want those funds, you’ll have to cut robotic exploration, new technologies, and a host of other important stuff.

    SD-HLV is a launcher to nowhere. There are no payloads funded at the present time that need it, and our current fleet of heavy lifters are already available, underused, and quite capable of delivering ISS sized modules to LEO. Let’s use what we have until we have a projected need that exceeds our capacity.”

    First of all, the NASA budget has not been lowered. Its actually been increased! So there is not less money to spend over the next 5 years under the Obama budget. So the question is, how do you spend all of this money. Obama wants to reduce manned space flight related funding from about $8.4 billion today down to about $4.1 billion a year within 5 years.

    I’d do the opposite by:

    1. Continuing the space shuttle until a replacement is ready ($2.5 to $3 billion a year)

    2. I’d spend $1.2 billion a year for private commercial spaceflight as proposed by Obama

    3. I’d cap ISS funding at $2 billion a year until 2015 and then slash it in half to fund an NSS (National Space Station program). The ISS would still get US funding but not as much. Its time for our international partners, who are far richer than us, to pay their fare share (Obama actually wants to increase the annual ISS budget to eventually over $3.2 billion annually! That’s crazy!).

    4. I’d spend about $2 billion a year funding the SD-HLV and EDS development

    5. I’d spend another $1billion a year developing an HL-20 type of space plane plus MAX Launch abort system

    6. And I’d spend another billion a year funding a single stage hydrogen/oxygen Altair vehicle.

    7. And another $1 billion a year from lunar base related development

    And I’d still have over $400 million a year to spend for something else.

  • Coastal Ron

    “SD-HLV is a launcher to nowhere. There are no payloads funded at the present time that need it, and our current fleet of heavy lifters are already available, underused, and quite capable of delivering ISS sized modules to LEO. Let’s use what we have until we have a projected need that exceeds our capacity.”

    Both the administration and the Congress agree that we need a heavy lift vehicle. And we’re not going to be able to set up a Moon base without it. And we’re definitely not going to Mars without first testing habitat modules for Mars long term on the lunar surface.

  • common sense

    @ Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 7th, 2010 at 4:24 pm

    “Both the administration and the Congress agree that we need a heavy lift vehicle.”

    No they don’t. The WH agrees there ought to be cash put on HLV development, not on the need for one. And Congress, well, Congress would agree to anything to be re-elected. And I find it funny how you put so much “faith” in an institution, Congress, whose action, or lack thereof, sent us to two idiotic wasteful wars…

    Oh well…

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel, I don’t see how your numbers add up, some of what you’re proposing is already being funded, and some of the vehicles that you want to fund (like Altair) are useless without a fully funded program to the moon (and isn’t on your list).

    NASA has such weird accounting that it’s hard to be so clean-cut on how to fund anything, which is why a clear goal helps. Constellation was a clear goal, even with debatable architecture. Obama/Bolden have an opportunity to make their goals more specific and clear-cut on the 15th.

    Regardless of the details, I think we’re both in agreement that we need a strong, continuing human space program…

  • @ common sense

    Let’s be serious. You don’t dedicated between $500 million to over $700 million (over $3 billion over the next five years) in tax payer dollars per year unless you intend to eventually build a heavy lift vehicle. You might dedicate $25 million to $50 million to study the prospect of developing a heavy lift vehicle. But not billions.

  • You don’t dedicated between $500 million to over $700 million (over $3 billion over the next five years) in tax payer dollars per year unless you intend to eventually build a heavy lift vehicle. You might dedicate $25 million to $50 million to study the prospect of developing a heavy lift vehicle. But not billions.

    Why not? It generates jobs, which is the primary purpose of most human spaceflight spending. If we happen to get a vehicle out of it, that’s just gravy. Most of the time, we don’t. Billions were spent on the space station for fourteen years before the first piece was launched, and it could easily have been cancelled in 1993. But it continued, because it created jobs.

  • common sense

    @Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 7th, 2010 at 7:15 pm:

    “you intend to eventually build a heavy lift vehicle”

    Okay let’s put it this way. I have somewhat misspoken. They are contemplating building possibly an HLV. BUT since there is no requirements so far they are only trying to indetify the required technologies and their different options. I am sure this will be based upon whatever Flex-Path becomes. BUT at this point in time as far as I know no one can say we need “this” HLV, whatever “this” is. The billions may go into the development of the engines, those things cost quickly a lot of money, more so than the structural design. But I believe that NASA does not know now what the HLV will look like and if NASA does not know how could Congress know?

  • Cancell ARES ….no brainer.
    Shuttle-C seems very logical, Extend the shuttle until we have a worthy viable commercial replacement like HL-20 based “Dream Chaser”. Then morph the shuttle into Shuttle-C HLV about as simple and basic as it gets. Reduces the gap, lower development cost HLV, makes congress happy, buys time for commercial to grow-up.

    NEA? Why when the moon has so much more to offer like water , H3 and its closer.

  • @ Coastal Ron

    Check the budgets. Obama increases the NASA budget from 2011 to 2015 by an average of $2.2 billion a year.

    In 2009, we spent nearly $3 billion funding the shuttle, $2 billion funding the ISS, and $3.4 billion funding the Constellation program. That’s $8.4 billion dollars dedicated for manned spaceflight in 2009. You add $2.2 to that number and you get $10.6 billion a year on average that could be dedicated to the manned space program. That’s $53 billion from 2011 to 2015. So even if you subtracted $25 billion to run the ISS and space shuttle program during that time period, that would still give you $25 billion dollars to invest in manned spaceflight development. A Sidemount plus and EDS is only going to cost NASA vendors about $9.4 billion to develop.

    So if anyone is doing any fuzzy math, its Obama. Increasing the NASA budget to develop nothing and to do nothing is ludicrous! I guarantee you that the Congress will not allow him to build– absolutely nothing– with an increased NASA budget!

    However, I find it astonishing that anyone would find the tiny NASA budget any concern at all. Our tiny manned space program budget for a year couldn’t even fund the occupation of Iraq for a month.

  • However, I find it astonishing that anyone would find the tiny NASA budget any concern at all. Our tiny manned space program budget for a year couldn’t even fund the occupation of Iraq for a month.

    No matter how many times this foolish argument is repeated, it somehow never becomes more logical, or rational.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 7th, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    However, I find it astonishing that anyone would find the tiny NASA budget any concern at all…

    does that include you?

    odd

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel, you seem to forget all the current and proposed programs that you would have to eliminate to fund an HLV. Those programs have a direct or near-term need for our future plans in place, but HLV does not have a current need. NOTHING. Oh sure, everyone could think of something big that we’d LIKE to send, but there is NOTHING to send. NOTHING funded, NOTHING planned.

    Why don’t you want to use the launchers we currently have? They exist, they work, and we know what the costs are. What piece of hardware do we have in development that can’t be launched by Atlas/Delta/Falcon Heavy? The Space Shuttle payload to LEO was only 53K lbs, which is about the same as Atlas V Heavy.

    Let’s use supply & demand principles here – we have plenty of supply (launchers), but not enough demand (payload). Until we have a projected demand for something beyond our current supply, it would be a waste of money to build an HLV. Developing the future HLV technologies (like an engine) would be prudent, as they are likely able to be used in other products too. But building an HLV without a projected payload is a launcher to nowhere.

    And don’t be so casual about the “tiny” NASA budget – a Billion $ is a Billion $, and every taxpayer wants to see their taxes used wisely.

  • @Rand Simberg

    Sorry but spending hundreds of billions of dollars invading a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 is extremely wasteful! But our investment in space has paid the US tax payer back many times over!

  • googaw

    the exiting of the Atlas and Delta vehicles from the commercial market which now exclusively serve the more profitable US Government market .

    Yes indeed. Alas, “Commercial” Crew will be even worse because NASA will demand more customizations that are useless for real commerce than the DoD did.

    entering into a saturated market is kinda like wanting to start a new airline. Where will the profit come from?

    Bill, I nevertheless see entrepreneurs starting airlines every year and some of them even turn out successful. As an investor I can tell you that all else being equal I agree that the launch industry probably does have some overcapacity over the two-to-five year timeframe. There are too many government subsidized players in this market. The two market leaders, ILS and Arianespace, make money without major subsidies but most of the rest rely heavily on nationalism-motivated government funding. This year and next launchers have a generous amount of business from the lumpy comsat lifetime cycle, and during the second half of this decade there will be a probable surge given that the predicted subscriber growths will exceed even the new satellites’ capacities by then (subscriptions have been booming despite the deep worldwide recession). But in between there is probably going to be some slump from the lumpy cycle.

    So I put my money into the application companies like ViaSat (which just raised another $100 million in a public offering last week to fund a new generation of Internet satellites) and Integral Systems (a satellite telemetry etc. company) not into launcher companies based on my hunch that the subscriber boom is going to boom even bigger once world’s economy gets back to normal growth. The subscription boom is benefiting satellite operators already, satellite builders towards the middle of this decade and launchers more towards the end of the decade. From an overall space development strategy perspective the answer IMHO is similar to my own investment strategy: it is somewhat more important at this point to develop more sustainable applications of space than to fixate on developing new launchers. Since people don’t want to run around trailing wires, and because people outside the most developed world often can’t afford to install new wires, and for a number of other reasons, comsats are becoming more deeply embedded into our rapidly growing earthside comm networks every year and are here to stay. That’s real and sustainable space development.

    That said, if one has a vehicle that in fact rather than just in promise substantially lowers launch costs, one should not be discouraged from entering the launcher game. While there are many heavily subsidized minor players, the two market leaders are self-sufficiently profitable, so if one can quickly become as good as them one doesn’t need a big subsidy. If one can launch a satellite for $30 million and charge the going rate of $70-$100 million, that is a big fat profit. Even undercutting the competition, such the $50 million or less SpaceX has to charge because they’ve blown up customer payloads and scared many others off, is profitable if one has indeed substantially reduced launched costs. Of course, if a launcher startup has not actually substantially reduced launch costs and isn’t on the government teat it will be SOL. As is often the case there is no point in entering the market unless one is offering a substantial improvement over the competition.

  • @ Coastal Ron

    The current manned spaceflight related programs are the ISS, Shuttle, and Constellation programs which total about $8.4 billion in 2009. Its the shuttle and the Constellation that are being eliminated. But what new investments in the Obama plan excite you!

    The Obama program increases ISS funding from $2 billion a year to $3 billion a year, which I am absolutely against. That doesn’t excite me at all. That’s a nightmare! And completely throwing away the successful Space Shuttle architecture would be extremely foolish.

    But if you don’t want a manned beyond LEO program to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars then you don’t need a heavy lift vehicle. In fact, you don’t need a government manned space program at all.

  • @ googaw

    I am a big supporter of deploying wireless com grids (web, video, voice) across the world in places it shall be too expensive to wire. Rural China and rural India as well as Africa, for example. And yes, demand for such things will skyrocket once the world economy rebounds.

    = = =

    Anyway, in my novel (click my name for a link) an international consortium is formed to beat NASA back to the Moon, in part to trumpet the launch of a truly global satellite media network not too unlike what you are talking about.

    This is done as a reprise of using the 1956 Olympic Games in Sydney to anchor the roll out of broadcast television across Australia. One of my characters crows that by beating NASA back to the Moon, they simply have constructed the largest billboard in all of human history as they seek to build global brand value for their global satellite media network.

    Americans who commodify anti-American sentiment and sell it around the world? Are they Yankee traitors or Yankee traders?

    What about the people who made these Burger King ads:

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/04/07/why-does-burger-king-hate-america/

  • Sorry but spending hundreds of billions of dollars invading a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 is extremely wasteful! But our investment in space has paid the US tax payer back many times over!

    Both of these ungrammatical statements are nonsensical, but it would be far beyond the topic of this site to rebut them, particularly since you are impervious to logic or clue.

  • hehe.. Obama isn’t going to announce some change in direction folks. That would be backstabbing Bolden who only days ago said that he expects Obama to just present the budget request and explain why it is a good thing.

    So, in other words, everyone who currently thinks the budget isn’t a good thing is just going to be *very* disappointed come April 15.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel wrote “The Obama program increases ISS funding from $2 billion a year to $3 billion a year, which I am absolutely against. That doesn’t excite me at all. That’s a nightmare! And completely throwing away the successful Space Shuttle architecture would be extremely foolish.

    But if you don’t want a manned beyond LEO program to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars then you don’t need a heavy lift vehicle. In fact, you don’t need a government manned space program at all.”

    For all it’s flaws, the ISS is a grand achievement. Not only is it a permanent foothold in space (and a destination), but it brings together many nations to learn many things in space. Instead of dumping it in the ocean, we should be leveraging this huge investment by fully utilizing it, and I see the proposed NASA budget as doing just that.

  • googaw

    Not only is it a permanent foothold in space (and a destination),

    Oh yes, under the POR it was going to last all the way to 2016.

  • Those who think Obama is going to “compromise” or “capitulate” or just deluding themselves. Outside of the space centers, there’s no real political support for Constellation, and everyone in Congress knows they’ve spent the last six years shutting down Shuttle since Bush cancelled it in 2004.

    The space center Congresscritters may be making a lot of noise, but they’re just pandering for votes. They don’t have enough support within Congress to force the resumption of the unsustainable status quo.

  • Rand Simberg wrote @ April 8th, 2010 at 1:10 am

    “Sorry but spending hundreds of billions of dollars invading a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 is extremely wasteful! But our investment in space has paid the US tax payer back many times over!

    Both of these ungrammatical statements are nonsensical, but it would be far beyond the topic of this site to rebut them, particularly since you are impervious to logic or clue.”

    The US could have conquered the solar system with those funds giving us access to hundreds of quadrillions of dollars in natural resources in the New Frontier in just the asteroids alone. Spending $10 billion a month in a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 was a huge waste of tax payer dollars! If you want to know one of the reasons why NASA was underfunded during the Bush administration– there’s one of the answers!

  • The ISS is an international space station. Combined, our international partners are wealthier than we are. Yet we pay most of the cost!

    Instead of increasing US funding for the ISS, I’d cut it in half in order to fund a NSS program so that we can utilize for beyond LEO missions.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel, you’re going to have to explain your acronyms – does NSS mean National Streamflow Statistics or Nicaragua Spanish Schools? Google is confused. I know it can’t mean National Space Station, because the ISS is that. Do you want to trash all the work and material we already have in space, and start over again? Good luck getting that funded.

    I can just see the congressional hearings now:

    Chairman – So Mr. Williams, you want to crash the ISS into the ocean as soon as possible, is that right?

    Mr. Williams – Yes Chairman

    Chairman – And why is that?

    Mr. Williams – Well, the we don’t own the whole ISS.

    Chairman – I see. And then what do you propose to do after that?

    Mr. Williams – Well, spend Billions of $$$ to build a new one that we don’t have to share with anyone.

    Chairman – Uh, huh…. NEXT SPEAKER!!

    Marcel, if you look into the history of the ISS, it has been a U.S. driven project from the beginning. Taking on international partners has been a way to spread the costs, and would probably never have been built if we had to fund it completely. Certainly without Russian participation, any station we had would have foundered during the Columbia shuttle stand down, so from that standpoint I’m glad we have others participating.

  • brobof

    And adding to Costal Ron’s comment. There is a story, possibly apocryphal (meaning that I can’t find the reference :) that Reagan’s ‘invitation’ to join the ISS was to stop Europe and Japan developing independant space capability. So that rather than a “fair and full partnership” the IPs were constrained by American politics and restrictive practices. “You will launch on Shuttle.”
    For the French, after losing Hermes, the X 38 (CRV) cancellation April 29, 2002 was the last straw and the appointment of Jean-Jacques Dordain as ESA Director General (July 2003) the political riposte.
    I can’t wait to see the response when China gets a module!
    http://www.russianspaceweb.com/columbus.html

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