Fallacy of the excluded middle.

@vulture “From an engineering point of view, it doesn’t make sense to say that the future of SpaceX depends on one launch. Initial launches have a high loss rate even for launch vehicles that are ultimately quite succesful.”

Why not? Musk isnt promoting SpaceX’s Falcon/Dragon system as an experimental program but a viable replacement for NASA activities wih 50 years experience. Perhaps you dont recall the early days when Americans rockets exploding on the launch pad was more the rule than the exception. A private enterprise company could not have absorbed those kind of losses perfecting a new technology. The brutal truth of the free market, private enterprise system these days is Musk’s rocket cannot afford failures not only for financial reasons but PR reasons as well. Debut a lousy product and the market will rule on its fate. Today SpaceX cannot afford the luxury of operating like Project Vanguard.

It was not reusable in the sense that the largest and most useful component of the system, the external tank, was thrown away. As for runway recovery, the airframe, wing, and landing gear are what this Saturn V class vehicle spent most of it’s payload sending in to orbit just so it could come right back again.

“should not be used in a future program, they are the LC-39 facilities and the solid fuel booster.”

There is no system that is reusable and provides the massive thrust of SRB’s. And the LC-39 facilities are the only ones that can handle heavy lift launchers. Hi cost is inherent in space flight. There is no cheap.

That said, the design of the Falcon is superior to that of the Ares, and you only have to look at the processing flow to tell why. The Falcon is a clean-sheet design, with a very simple and efficient horizontal integration flow; a single modern hangar, a few hundred feet of rail, no service tower and no crane hoists, no processing of solid motors which are hazardous at all times and much heavier. The number of unique components is minimal.

Ares requires maintaining all the vast Apollo-era facilities, including the Vehicle Assembly Building, the crawlers, and MLPs. As an example, the crawlers were chosen as a spur-of-the-moment decision to save time in the moon race, because the LC-39 pads with their steep approach ramps had already been designed. But no sane engineer would use a tracked vehicle to move a load of thousands of tons repeatedly over the same route, when rails would have a fraction of the operating coast. Because it requires all these facilities, the total launch cost for Ares, including facility maintenance, manufacturing, integration, servicing and the still-required R&D, is actually higher than the launch cost for Shuttle in spite of its much smaller crew and payload. Recovery cost for Orion is also higher due to the large naval vessel required.

If there are two high-cost elements of Shuttle that should not be used in a future program, they are the LC-39 facilities and the solid fuel booster. If there are two elements of Shuttle that have saved money and should be preserved, they are reusability and runway recovery. Constellation does the exact reverse.

It is clear to me how biased your view is on this subject. With no chance to convince you otherwise so I will not waste my time.

As to shareholders we do agree but remember that the NASA primary defense contractors do have that very same obligation.

Now you do seem to have a problem with SpaceX since for some reason YOU do equate private companies with SpaceX. SpaceX at least until now is not traded anywhere. It certainly have investors. But this argument is artificial in the US.

The days of free spending on HSF are coming to an end. You believe it, you don’t I don’t really care. I would hope you’d understand why it is so but you cannot. It seems anyway.

The SRB design was flawed and was supposed to be redesigned eventually. Eventually was too late. Bad managment killed that crew.

The debris problem was again flawed design which management overlooked. Bad managment killed them as well. No excuse for it and heads should have rolled over it– not retirements and transfers. This writer used to have a photo of both hanging in his office with the sentence-‘Bad management can kill’ underneath. The boss always remembered it.

@commonsense- Ignorant? Speak for yourself. Advocating replacing the government managed and operated manned space program with the kind of tinker toy operation SpaceX proposes (as nothing is truly operational yet) is not only ignorance but negligence. It’s a giant leap backwards to 1960. From a guy who could not guarantee simple basic computer security of his other brainchild, PayPal. And it isn’t even truly a private enterprised set-up, as the launch complex was retro-fitted using stimulus tax dollars before Constellation was torpedoed. It is just not a viable replacement for the HSF program. A welcomed alternative, yes. Replacement, no.

“You cannot rectify “political design”.

Of course you can if you modify the politics. And if you don’t believe that, you have the entrenched perspective a bureaucrat.

“No one is calling to “cancel” HSF at NASA but rather to take on a new more challenging direction.”

If it’s such a ‘challenging direction’ let SpaceX follow that vapor trail to oblivion. Wake up and smell the java. This proposal essentially eliminates the 50 year old manned spaceflight program managed and operated by NASA. There is nothing in the out years. No new spacecraft in the pipeline. No plans and no clear goal. Just a mission to no place on paper that politicians with withering budgets in out years can tear up. And in four or five years, when the budgets are tighter and the economy remains flat and other agencies are competing for these shrinking revenues, the remaining assets of NASA will be folded into existing agencies like the FAA, NOAA, USAF etc., and the civilian agency disbanded. In the eyes of the public, who pay the freight, NASA puts people into space. Remove that mission and it’s something an economically distressed nation can easily eliminate and there isn’t a politician alive who wouldn’t love to take credit for eliminating a Federal agency.

“At this stage only the privates can.”

Nonsense. They’ve done nothing for three decades and NASA has been putting people and payloads up for half a century. Privates have had thirty yers to get off the ground with nothing practical to show for it. Recall Conestoga 1 from the early 80s? Thirty years later and nothing much more beyond that scale of rocketry. Private efforts are to be welcomed and should be solely capitalized in the private sector and the risk not socialized on the back of taxpayers. But it is not a replacement for manned spaceflight projects on a government scale designed to expand the human presence in space — not turn a profit. It’s just not a realistic or viable proposal at this point in history and the past 40 years has shown that. And it is wrong headed to expect private U.S. corporations– whose primary goal is to turn quarterly profits and satisfy share/stockholders– to manage the American space program. Their allegiance. as with BP management, is to stockholders, not the nation(s) they service.

“@commonsense- <- show some class and try not to be rude."

Sometimes reality is rude and not classy. Such is life. In any case, saying your post I was referring to is ignorant is not rude. It is what it is. In any case.

"This writer has stated before that several elements of Constellation are wrong headed- chiefly Ares LVs. Political design, not engineering design IMO and that should be rectified."

You cannot rectify "political design". NASA is a political tool and as such is at the mercy of the politicians. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it does not. How can you go to the Moon if your vehicles are designed with politics in mind? How does politics change physics?

"But replacing shuttle with a general purpose spacecraft (Orion) and flying it atop existing LVs modified for manned flight seems a wise move, then in years out develop a lander and lunar habitat for long term stays. That's a sound space program for the next 30 years and puts the engineering community to work on something worthwhile. "

This was the original O'Keefe's approach that was dumped by his successor. Politics. It is not salvageable. The Flex-Path is the most sensible way to "return to the Moon". Orion as such would not "replace" Shuttle. It is a totally different concept for a very different use.

"The premise of returning to the moon, expanding the experience and knowledge base of operating to lunar distance and marrying that experience to a Mars expedition in out years seems a logical progression outwards."

In what way is Flex-Path not doing what you want? No timeline?

" Killing the government run/managed manned space program and downgrading it with profit-centered private space ventures is foolish. In tandem, fine. But as a replacement, no way."

See the problem is this: VSE had a real private enterprise component: Servicing of the ISS. It was the previous WH direction. NASA under Griffin essentially did nothing to support it, even though COTS was essentially born under Griffin. When NASA got in trouble instead of trying to use COTS to salvage Constellation they made the "privates" their enemy. What is foolish is the way Constellation was managed. A lot of people (you included?) misunderstand the NASA of Shuttle operations and that of vehicle design. NASA as it stands cannot effectively design a vehicle that will accomplish all you'd like. At this stage only the privates can. It is all about cost. Given the current budget IF the privates can design and field a vehicle to service the ISS they will be able to eventually go to the Moon. Beyond the Moon is a totally different story. Also if the "privates" successfully make cash then no one will ever question the HSF program. No one is calling to "cancel" HSF at NASA but rather to take on a new more challenging direction. Please read carefully the current proposed plan and the Augustine report. And if you have more precise questions I would be happy to answer if I can and if not I am sure others here would.

BUT you cannot call up people for class if you do not even make the effort to read all that is available to you and rather just make empty claims. If you want to know what SpaceX for example is about, read their website, if not enough call them up. BUT again don't say things that are wrong to support your statements. That is class: Make an argument based on reality and not wishful thinking. Show us how in reality NASA can make it with HSF without relying on the privates. They tried, really hard and they failed so?

Someone mentioned bolting a vasmir engine on the keel and heading out for somewhere. But I personally do not think vasmir will ever work anywhere near as advertised. I cannot help but be completely depressed about that ISS. Skylab was just one empty 3rd stage tank. Von Braun wanted to pack it full of stuff and leave it connected to the second stage and move the stuff in for a station three times as big. One launch. I hear it has a nice window now but I have not seen it yet.