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John Glenn wants to extend the shuttle. What else is new?

Several news outlets yesterday reported on the release of a letter by former senator and astronaut John Glenn, who called for extending the shuttle beyond this year. (Here’s the full text of the letter.) “Why terminate a perfectly good system that has been made more safe and reliable through many years of development?” Glenn asks in the letter. He also claimed that flying the shuttle would not cost significantly more than continuing to rely on the shuttle and avoid the risks of a Soyuz failure.

What few pointed out, though, is that this is hardly the first time Glenn has advocated for extending the shuttle. Back in May 2008 Glenn called for extending the shuttle, saying that the shuttles are “still working very well” and that it will be “expensive to contract with the Russians”, themes similar to what he expressed in Monday’s letter. Glenn also recommended a shuttle extension when he testified before the House Science and Technology Committee in July 2008, as well as extending the life of the ISS. Elements of that written testimony are very similar to Monday’s letter.

The claim in his letter retiring the shuttle would result in “minimal, if any” cost savings don’t appear to add up, something overlooked in media accounts of his letter. The shuttle program currently costs NASA about $3 billion a year, according to NASA budget documents. Assuming an average of six NASA-purchased Soyuz seats a year (half those available on the four Soyuz flights to the ISS) at $55 million a seat the price starting in 2013, that’s $330 million a year. One can add to that cargo costs from the CRS contracts ($3.5 billion to Orbital and SpaceX through 2016), but that adds up to no more than about $700 million a year. Even if you’re able to reduce shuttle operations costs to about $2 billion a year, as some suggest, shuttle operations still appear significantly more expensive.

In the letter Glenn has mixed impressions of the administration’s new plan for NASA. It’s clear he supports plans to extend the ISS to at least 2020, and he also agrees with plans to defer a return to the Moon. “To establish a lunar base is extremely expensive and can wait, at least for now,” he writes. “Other expenditures pale beside that one.” He is more critical of plans to rely on “smaller, less experienced companies” for commercial crew access, saying that “at this early stage of their experience they should be phased in only after they demonstrate a high degree of competency and reliability, particularly with regard to safety concerns.” (No word on what he thinks of bigger, more experienced companies like ULA and Boeing.)

50 comments to John Glenn wants to extend the shuttle. What else is new?

  • The cognitive dissonance of the Soyuz-denial argument is just frightening.

    http://quantumg.blogspot.com/2010/06/russian-failure.html

  • red

    “Why terminate a perfectly good system that has been made more safe and reliable through many years of development?”

    Because it’s still not safe and reliable? Because it’s way too expensive to operate, and paying for it would prevent NASA from doing all sorts of other things, especially if we spend $4.5B or more on the Orion CRV? Because it’s already far down the shutdown path, and it will take years and lots of money to start up again? Because it will be competition for U.S. commercial crew?

    I agree that Griffin put us in a very bad situation by shutting down the Shuttle while not funding COTS-D years ago. If he’d funded it, we would be in much better shape now. I guess Griffin didn’t care about sustaining the ISS during the gap because he wanted to shut it down and grab its funding for Ares in 2015. An early ISS deorbit would just be a bonus from Griffin’s point of view. There’s nothing we can do to change the past, though.

    “Starting at the end of this year, and probably for the next five to ten years, the launches of U.S. astronauts into space will be viewed in classrooms and homes in America only through the courtesy of Russian TV.”

    Give thanks to Ares I’s ever-expanding gap and vacuum-cleaner hunger for every spare bit of change for that.

    “Hard to believe, perhaps, but to save the expense of U.S. Shuttle launches (approximately $400 million each) we are contracting with the Russians for crew and light equipment launch services to and from our ISS at $55.8 million per astronaut. Each total crew change of six, then, will cost nearly $335 million, with future charges expected to increase substantially.”

    I think that $400M per launch figure is a bit low given likely flight rates. Glenn should also note that, even with the Shuttle, we will still need to pay for the Soyuz anyway for crew return capability until the Orion CRV or a commercial CRV capability is ready, which will be years from now.

    “Another rationale for establishing a moon base is the proposal for development of Helium-3 sources on the moon which could factor into our future fusion based energy needs.”

    I agree that we should recover from Constellation in LEO, and hit a few more distant in-space destinations (at least in cislunar space) before going to the Moon, but Glenn downplays the lunar surface a bit too much. He doesn’t mention using other lunar resources like bulk regolith for radiation protection, and extracting lunar oxygen or water for use on the surface or export to depots in cislunar space. We should at least send some robotic precursors there to scout for resources and practice using them.

    “We must have a heavy-lift space launch vehicle – whether Constellation or other – if we are to keep our options open.”

    That’s debatable. An HLV might close more options than it opens. An HLV would be nice, but only if its development and operations are affordable.

    “$1.5+ Billion a year has been estimated as the cost to keep the Shuttles flying and to bring the ISS research programs back up to speed.”

    The figures I’ve seen are higher.

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    No word on what he thinks of bigger, more experienced companies like ULA and Boeing

    I suspect to most people outside of the community, ULA is a set of meaningless letters. In their mind, the Delta-IV and Atlas-V are either ‘Air Force Rockets’ (when they launch DoD and NRO payloads) or ‘NASA Rockets’ (when they launch space probes and orbital observatories). The existance of a commercial space provider that already has a >85% share of NASA unmanned launch and a near-monopoly on DoD launch is unknown to the vast majority of voters and opinion formers.

    Naturally, I’m a bit disappointed in someone as knowledgable as Mr. Glenn not remembering ULA. FWIW, though, I’m not sure that ULA are particularly interested in getting into this fight, other than as a launch service provider for whoever can pay up-front in cash.

    Regarding Boeing…? Well the CST-100/Atlas-V system hasn’t even got 1% of the public profile of the Dragon/Falcon-9, so I’m not surprised it isn’t mentioned here.

  • GeeSpace

    If would be interesting if NASA and the Obama Administration would provide specific plans or proposals for manned missions beyond Earth Orbit instead of generalizes “buzz” words which can be (and probably are interpreted according to a readers own viewpoint. Also, it would be helpful if they would define at what point of time the investigation of new technology stops and the building of manned missions beyond Earth would start. Stating that there will be a manned mission to an asteroid in 2025 is really not a defined mission.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Glenn’s comments are well typical Glenn. He has been quite ineffective in moving space policy, even during the Clinton administration and he had their ear. What I would find amusing is what interaction (if any) he had with Garver on this.

    as a practical matter it has no affect…it is total heat no light

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    GeeSpace wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 8:43 am

    If would be interesting if NASA and the Obama Administration would provide specific plans or proposals for manned missions beyond Earth

    probably not. there is massive budget cutting coming or the country is in serious trouble…well its in serious trouble anyway. Do you really think that people who are trying to hang on to their homes want to hear “we are sending X number of people to some rock”

    Robert G. Oler

  • Arguing that Soyuz isn’t safe is laughable. The last Soyuz fatality was in 1971, on one of its first missions. They haven’t lost a life in nearly 40 years.

    Shuttle has lost 14 lives, most recently in 2003. They average one fatality every 9.4 flights.

    Bush cancelled Shuttle in January 2004 after his Columbia Accident Investigation Board concluded Shuttle has a fundamental design flaw — the crew vehicle mounted on the side, exposing the crew to flame and falling debris. CAIB recommended going back to the design every other human spacefaring nation uses — the crew vehicle atop the rocket.

    Shuttle was allowed to continue because it’s the only vehicle capable of finishing the International Space Station. Otherwise, it would have been retired in 2004.

  • GeeSpace wrote:

    If would be interesting if NASA and the Obama Administration would provide specific plans or proposals for manned missions beyond Earth Orbit instead of generalizes “buzz” words which can be (and probably are interpreted according to a readers own viewpoint.

    Try reading the front page of today’s Florida Today:

    http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100622/NEWS01/6220320/1086/Obama+s+plan+to+send+astronauts+to+asteroid+no+easy+feat

    You can also find all the “specifics” you want in the FY 2011 NASA budget proposal online at:

    http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/

    I usually find that the people hurling criticisms at the proposal are typically those who haven’t read it.

  • GeeSpace

    Robert G Oler wrote

    probably not. there is massive budget cutting coming or the country is in serious trouble…well its in serious trouble anyway. Do you really think that people who are trying to hang on to their homes want to hear “we are sending X number of people to some rock”

    What then should people concerned with space exploration and development beyond the Earth Orbit do? Stick our heads in the sand and say “woe be me”

    I believe an aggressive space plan will provide us with an uplifting, grand future with many benefits. In regards to costs, yes there are some but the less than 1% cost of the total budget is minimum.

  • They average one fatality every 9.4 flights.

    As I’ve said before, that a statistically meaningless number. It tells you nothing useful about Shuttle safety.

  • GeeSpace

    Stephen C. Smith wrote

    You can also find all the “specifics” you want in the FY 2011 NASA budget proposal online

    Stephen, that just ‘proofs’ my point. The proposed FY2011 NASA budget uses generalized terms with budget funding that questions whether it will be adequate.

    We are currently witnessing what happens when a program is not funded at an adequate level.

  • Robert G. Oler

    GeeSpace wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 10:15 am

    I believe an aggressive space plan will provide us with an uplifting, grand future with many benefits. In regards to costs, yes there are some but the less than 1% cost of the total budget is minimum.

    I am sure you do. The problem that most space fans cannot get or get over is that most Americans dont agree.

    A lot of supporters of HSF see NASA spaceflight and in their mind what to morph it into the “dawn of a new age” sort of 2001 A Space Odessey in real time. Problem of course is that it isnt. I dont know how many “real” dollars the shuttle has spent since 1980…but lets say about 200 billion (in current/constant dollars) dont like that number? Lets use 100 billion instead. For the longest times spacefans saw in the shuttle the future…then after billions and a lot of flights (and a space station) that future didnt happen so now we need to “stop going around in circles and go somewhere” (a useless metaphor just like “take the high ground”)…

    to spacefans that is now “the future” and 20 years from now when we finally did go someplace wow it will look just like the space station and they (or others because some of them will die off) will now say “we need to do something different” to satisfy the dream.

    the point is that the “reality” they are hoping for never comes, but they keep betting on the “dream”.

    The big deal here is that most Americans the vast majority..dont even have the dream. And most of the spacefans cannot even figure that point out. (and I dont say that mockingly).

    Most Americans simply dont care…and the ones that do , the very few, cannot see any difference between humans on the space station; and Cassini around Saturn.

    that is the reality of it.

    Just as shuttle was never going to get us to Heywood Floyd and the Pan Am shuttle in 2001…Ares/Constellation was never going to get us to Clavius base.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Red: “I agree that Griffin put us in a very bad situation by shutting down the Shuttle while not funding COTS-D years ago. If he ’d funded it, we would be in much better shape now. I guess Griffin didn’t care about sustaining the ISS during the gap because he wanted to shut it down and grab its funding for Ares in 2015. An early ISS deorbit would just be a bonus from Griffin’s point of view. There’s nothing we can do to change the past, though.”

    Red this is 100% spot on. Griffin didn’t care about the ISS or think SpaceX would be as successful as it has turned out to be given how small the scraps he was giving it under COTS. If COTS was late, starving the ISS to death would have been just fine by him so never no mind. In fact he was counting on SpaceX not delievering the goods on time. At which point the CRS contract wouldn’t be needed because the ISS wouldn’t be in orbit, game point match. Looks like the hard workers at SpaceX may have proved him wrong on yet another issue.

    Given how inexpensive COTS D is now and would have been we would indeed be in much better situation regarding our 100% dependency on the Russians had this been funded a few years back. The Augustine commission is right though the ‘only’ option to eliminate the gap is to extend the Shuttle. What ultimately comes after Shuttle is of course a heated debate but that is fact of the present situation none the less.

    Mike’s main objective in funding ‘new’ space was to keep ‘experienced’ space (ie ULA) from competing against a NASA designed/lead Ares-1/Orion program. The Ares-1 being important in his ‘master plan’ to spread out the development cost of the Ares-5. In the end the Ares-1 was just a means to an end to the uber rocket for him.

    This was his real fear that ULA, in a sincere desire to adhere to the clear direction from Congress to eliminate the gap using available perfectly adequate (some would even call commercial) rockets, would undercut Ares-1 and therefore Ares-5. Whether SpaceX would or would not be ultimately successful in the end in supporting the ISS was not of concern. All the above is perfectly understandable when you realized he could have cared less about the ‘gap’ because he could have cared less about the ISS.

    Though he did use the ‘gap’ in order spur Congress on a regular basis to try and pony up more money for the Ares-1/Orion or at least stay the course with his master plan. Simultaneously he effectively eliminated all other better approaches (ie DIRECT, ULA, COTS-D, STS Extension) of closing the gap. He used various contracting arrangements (constrain ULA via CxP contracts to the primes), withholding of perfectly common sense additions to COTS (ie COTS-D), and actually going before the Congress telling them that DIRECT defied the laws of physics, despite ESAS appendix 6a stating facts to the contrary, attempted to destroy the tooling at MAF (ie STS Extension) which we helped stop. Unfortunately, too many people in Congress bought into this year after year and now here we are.

    The other under current was that ATK was attempting to not only become the lead contractor for both Ares-1 and Ares-5 but also become the next USA for not only Ares-1 but the follow on Ares-5. In summary, CxP under Mike was just a technical and budgetary mess but had a lot of designed in yet unnecessary conflicts throughout the industry used in a vain attempt to protect his ‘master’ plan to build the uber 175% larger than the SaturnV rocket.

    Red: “I think that $400M per launch figure is a bit low given likely flight rates.”

    No, Glenn is about right in terms of the actual savings we will get by shutting down the Shuttle. It would be more accurate to describe it as about $1 Billion in ‘actual’ savings vs running two flights per year but he is close enough. All you need to do is dollarize the actual operational headcount reductions and you’ll see I’m pretty much on the mark as to the actual savings. Plus as Glenn correctly points out this $1 Billion dollars per year will offset the cost associated with procuring those same services cargo/crew from others. Bear in mind that the CRS contract is actually more expensive per kg to the ISS than cost of running two flights of the Shuttle per year (which also includes a crew rotation and tons of down mass capability for free). So the total premium for keeping our options open by continuing to fly the Shuttle isn’t all that expensive, in fact it may actually save money. Once again Mike didn’t care about inking those high priced contracts because it helped get rid of the STS the ISS was going to gone soon.

    Regardless, the simple fact is that the support requirements for the ISS have increased under the proposed policy shift (endorsed by both the President and Congress) that the ISS mission should be expanded (both in scope and duration) over where Mike had the ISS going which was little utilization followed by a quick trip to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

    NASA ISS planning has not yet been updated from this 2015 deorbit/50% utilization paradigm yet. An update the Congress has explicitly asked for from NASA but as of today has not yet received. This represents a much more serious breach IMHO given the $100 billion dollar ISS investment and international commitments than the canceling the $10 billion CxP outright with no transition plan represents, as bad as that is as well.

    As such we have a serious disconnect between the agreed upon policy concerning the ISS and the actual method and budget for accomplishing that agreed upon policy. Quite frankly we need to focus on this issue this legislative cycle first because whether we are going to Moon, Mars, NEO or this or that flavor of HLV or this or that flavor of contracting mechanism is policy disconnect is dealt with.

    All things considered, having another year or two of Shuttle operations makes a lot of sense until we have at least figured out just where we stand logistically for the new ISS mission. We will also have a much better hold on how far both SpaceX and Orbital are in delivering on the CRS contracts a year from now as well. Once we disband the STS workforce there is no going back.

  • Robert Horning

    Given that the Shuttle program has been winding down for some time, I’m sort of curious about the general ballpark figure of what5 it would take to get a genuine Shuttle program going again…. presuming that the desire would be there to go back to launching people into space using the STS architecture?

    John Glenn seems to be of the notion that it is just a few hundred million dollars to get a bunch of flights for next year and to pick up with a Shuttle program as if nothing has happened. I know that it is a couple billion dollars per year just to operate KSC (including pad services, refurbishing vehicles after each flight, maintaining the recovery ships, etc.) and that is just scratching the surface of the costs involved.

    It would seem to me that re-starting the supply chain for a significant number of shuttle launches (let’s presume for the sake of argument that it would be about 40-50 launches over a roughly 10 year period of time) would also not be a trivial amount of money, and that it would require a commitment of several launches (not just a couple more) to make the effort worthwhile. It may even require building a “replacement” shuttle…. with heavens knows what costs would be involved to make a whole new shuttle even using existing vehicles as a blueprint.

    To me, it seems like restarting the shuttle program would be something akin to the order of magnitude of costs to be almost identical to paying for Constellation outright… including the building and deployment of the Ares V rocket as well. Am I missing something here, or is this something that I may be looking at correctly?

    There was a need to finish the ISS in terms of staying compliant with international treaties and agreements with the ISS partners, and to do that needed the current scheduled Shuttle flights. There might also be the ability to get a couple more Shuttle flights by really scrounging hard for “spare parts” and perhaps paying a HUGE premium to restart a couple production lines for some things that might be absolutely mission critical, but it is at most a couple additional flights… not a continuation of Shuttle processing as if the Columbia accident never happened.

    It was the loss of the Columbia that really has forced this issue more than anything else to shut down the Shuttle program, and it is to me the singular failure of both the Bush administration and now the Obama administration to really address this issue substantially that gives us the situation we are at. I blame Obama simply because NASA has been kept as a back-burner issue at the White House for some time, taking a nearly record amount of time (putting off the decision, in other words) of appointing a new administrator and really looking at space policy issues in general. Even then, support from the White House has been tepid at best.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 10:47 am

    No, Glenn is about right in terms of the actual savings we will get by shutting down the Shuttle. It would be more accurate to describe it as about $1 Billion in ‘actual’ savings vs running two flights per year but he is close enough.

    nope.

    If one flies no flights on the shuttle or two flights or up to some number (probably about 8 flights) the shuttle infrastructure cost about 200 million a month. If one flies no flights that makes the number about 2.4 billion (give or take a hundred million or so) and then we have to start flying.

    The Soyuz flights occur no matter what. If the shuttle’s fly or if they become museums because, like now, they are the CRV and just flying the shuttle will not end our obligation (or need) to maintain that flight rate…and Americans flying to and from the station in the Soyuz.

    A shuttle extension (other then the obvious pork benefits) does exactly two things.

    1. It ends the CRS effort. It ends the pathway to privatizing commercial lift of cargo and eventually people. There is NO REASON to have that program if one is going to continue flying the shuttle because some mass has to be found to fly on the shuttle.

    2. It maintains the shuttle infrastructure (people parts and projects). It doesnt force any efficiencies on the system, it in fact goes the other direction it makes the system more inefficient. NOW you bang that drum constantly all the endless payloads that dont exist or for which there is no political will for (Mars, Moon, and all the DoD programs you have imagined) and now you come up with a new one :

    “until we have at least figured out just where we stand logistically for the new ISS mission.”

    which is another canard. We already “know” the new ISS mission” logistics. That is CRS.

    You and the rest of the “converted” on the DIRECT groups and the SDHLV groups are trying to invent missions for vehicles that no one wants.

    nice try…but its not flying

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Robert Horning wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 11:22 am

    exactly. The problem with the shuttle (and I think the station as well) is that no one knows how far away we are from another “RCC ” moment. ie when the shuttle goes “bang” or something happens on the station that up until that moment “the shuttle was flying great”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Vladislaw

    ULA just joined the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

    http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/

    Would they have joined if Constellation was going to remain the program of record? Does this move represent a change in direction?

  • Bennett

    This quote from Michael C. Gass, President and CEO of United Launch Alliance

    “United Launch Alliance is excited to offer our proven Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles to potential commercial crew providers, many of whom are members of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. We look forward to the day when astronauts are flying to low Earth orbit onboard commercial vehicles such as Atlas and Delta. And the track record of success for Atlas V and Delta IV shows that commercial spaceflight can and will be conducted safely.”

    I guess it’s not just “so called” commercial launch companies with “toy rockets” anymore. Not that it ever was, but you get my point.

    Thanks for the heads up, Vladislaw!

  • Gary Church

    Good Mornining everyone. I scanned through the comments and again- not even a mention of the sand on which the whole private space house is built; the DOD budget. Before this gets nasty- like always does- let me say that almost the entire conversation going on here most of the time is predicated on one thing; NASA’s “fixed” budget. Why is it that all the DOD projects that consume hundreds of billions of dollars are never discussed? An Astronomer wrote an article for the recent Space Review and mentioned HSF in connection with defense policy; excellent.

    Would it be fair to say most of the private space hubbub is generated by a limiting underfunding of an Agency that is an easy target for bought politicians? These bought dogs are the tools of unscrupulous masters looking for a vulnerable public sector to disembowel and cannibalize.

    I say decrease the B-1,B-2,B-3, v-22, f-35, B-52, etc. budgets and increase the budget of the vehicle needed for the U.S. space program to advance into the solar system- HLV. Go Sidemount!

  • Gary Church

    “or something happens on the station that up until that moment “the shuttle was flying great”.

    I have to agree with Mr. Oler.
    The SRB’s, SSME’ and external tank are fine with me- but that orbiter has no escape system. I would ground them now and send them all to the museum.

    A rocket is a controlled explosion- except LOX and H2 are much more powerful than any conventional explosive. It is amazing to anyone who is interested in the subject how NASA convinced themselves they could get away with no escape system. Going cheap does things like that.
    But a capsule and an escape tower for Sidemount will work.
    Go Sidemount!

  • Robert Horning wrote:

    I blame Obama simply because NASA has been kept as a back-burner issue at the White House for some time, taking a nearly record amount of time (putting off the decision, in other words) of appointing a new administrator and really looking at space policy issues in general. Even then, support from the White House has been tepid at best.

    Huh?!

    The man took office on January 20, 2009. He’s had exactly one budget year under his command. One of the first things he did — May 7, 2009 — was appoint the Augustine Commission to do a complete review of how NASA does business.

    The summary report was issued in September 8, 2009, too late to make any changes to the FY 2010 fiscal year budget which began on October 1, 2009.

    You need to understand that the federal budget runs on a cycle. The Obama administration had no time to change NASA for FY 2010, as it had to submit its first budget within a couple weeks of Obama taking office.

    Even then, it’s only a proposal. Congress determines the final budget. All the Preisdent can do is sign it, or veto it.

    Without any unbiased evidence to back it up, Obama cancelling Constellation in his first budget would have been eaten alive. Instead, he did the intelligent thing — appointed a panel of experts from across the aerospace industry, who did their homework and produced a neutral report.

    That report was folded into the FY 2011, which was really the first time Obama could have done anything.

    You also need to realize that the Obama administration inherited a lot of contracts from the Bush administration, including the one to fly U.S. astronauts on Soyuz. They can’t just walk away from legally binding contracts unless there are clauses permitting so — for example, the recent flap over NASA requiring aerospace companies to set aside money for Constellation cancellation.

    Anyone who understands how federal budgeting works realizes this was the first time Obama could have proposed anything. Again, he can only propose. Congress has to approve it.

  • Robert: “If one flies no flights on the shuttle or two flights or up to some number (probably about 8 flights) the shuttle infrastructure cost about 200 million a month. If one flies no flights that makes the number about 2.4 billion (give or take a hundred million or so) and then we have to start flying.”

    Wrong, based on actual budgets it will be about $2 billion/year to fly the Space Shuttle, twice per year, not the four to six time rate we are running at right now. The actual savings will be about $1 billion/year once you dissect the color of money (contractor vs federal) and what the headcount will actually go down to, this is also a fact based on actual budget history. Plus, again, as John Glenn correctly pointed out that $1 billion/year in savings will be reduced still further by needing to backfill the crew and cargo needs of the ISS if we actually support it to the new policy, 100% utilization plus 2020 life.

    Now if we basically shut down the ISS for a few years you can save this expense (ie the current plan) after which we gradually ramp up the ISS supply via COTS in order to keep a few people alive doing little more than keeping the station from killing them, then we can in fact save about $2 billion/year all things considered.

    But then I have to ask the question, aren’t we just throwing good money after bad concerning the ISS under this scenario? A scenario that is not only at odds with the new policy but one that generates no return on the ISS investment. If that is the plan I think we truly are better off just de-orbiting the ISS and canceling the CRS, both of which would save some serious money. Fortunately the at least the Senate seems to have a better grasp on reality than you or the President advisors do at this point. As such a STS extension is essential for actually utilizing the ISS. The House still seems to be on the fence with regards to this.

    Concerning the STS extension, we have on Light Weight Tank in inventory at MAF right now and about three SLWT that are between 50-90% complete plus spares for two more brand new tanks. So in summary we can in short order have about six tanks which is enough for a three year extension (2 flights/year) ‘without’ restarting the line. ATK can still pour more SRB segments, USA is still up and running for operations, plus SSME is still active to support the remaining flights.

    For all you let’s shutdown the Shuttle and abandon the ISS types out there (a point of view shared by Griffin), the Rubicon that will signal you have actually won and destroyed about $150 billion dollars worth of our nations existing HSF capability (STS+ISS+CxP) will be if/when we layoff the Shuttle operations workforce. An event that cannot happen until the last flight leaves the pad. Even then the end of the current HSF era will not occur until there is no money to retain this experienced workforce. That will be the true end of the existing HSF program and one that Congress must ultimately approve as only they have the power of purse. It’s really up to them.

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    The Shuttle program manager has stated publicly that it costs him $200M/month, regardless if he launches a shuttle. As I recall, he also said the costs go up after you start launching more than two or three per year.

    Regarding the ISS, we already have our crew and cargo delivery needs taken care of through 2015. Maybe there are national pride issues with who or what is satisfying those needs, but they are covered by four different cargo systems, and the old reliable Soyuz for crew.

    The Shuttle is not needed for ISS operations after these last few flights.

  • The rest of the world thinks the US is in decline and China is on the rise. And so do many people in the US. And I don’t think a world dominated by the ruling oligarchy in China is going to make the world a better place!

    If the US has no access to space for several years while China and Russia are flying people into space then this perception will only be increased, decreasing America’s influence around the world while increasing the political and economic influence of fascist China.

    Keeping the shuttle flying for $2 to $3 billion a year until a successor system is built is not too much to ask, IMO, to help maintain America’s political influence around the world. But it may cost us and the free world a lot more, if we don’t!

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    The Congress did not agree with your point of view two years ago (Shuttle shutdown deadline), so why should they now?

    When Columbia disintegrated, and the Shuttle program stood down, we were fine with flying Soyuz to keep the ISS alive. The situation is not too different today, and though not preferable, I’m not as anti-Russia as I am anti-stupid decisions.

    We have three near-term non-Shuttle options that we can pursue.

    1. Delta IV Heavy – $1.3B to man-rate, and $300M/launch for Orion or ??
    2. Atlas V – $400M to man-rate, and $130M/launch for a commercial capsule.
    3. Falcon 9/Dragon – Unknown amount to complete crew systems (>$1B?), then $20M/seat.

    All of these rely on existing launchers, and represent the direction we have been going for the last six years – put crew on top of launchers, not next to them. Any of these would be far saver than the Shuttle.

    No one knows what the costs and schedule would be for ramping the Shuttle program back up again, and for how long the program would be kept open. These types of open-ended Billion $ commitments are what have killed small technology programs in NASA over the years, and we are losing our edge in next generation space systems because of it.

    Let’s not reincarnate an old system. Let’s build the next system faster.

  • Robert Horning

    Steven Smith wrote:
    “You also need to realize that the Obama administration inherited a lot of contracts from the Bush administration, including the one to fly U.S. astronauts on Soyuz. They can’t just walk away from legally binding contracts unless there are clauses permitting so — for example, the recent flap over NASA requiring aerospace companies to set aside money for Constellation cancellation.

    “Anyone who understands how federal budgeting works realizes this was the first time Obama could have proposed anything. Again, he can only propose. Congress has to approve it.”

    —————————

    While I do understand the budget process, I certainly don’t see Obama making any sort of grand stand on this particular issue in terms of pushing for commercial spaceflight and sticking with a particular spaceflight agenda. Yes, there was the Augustine commission (IMHO one of the best things to hit human spaceflight in quite some time) but Obama himself has hardly been taking a leadership position on this particular area of policy.

    What more could Obama do? While I admit it is “spending political capital”, he could certainly be defending this bold new “change” in space policy and offering solid rebuttals in terms of Senator Shelby and trying to smooth down ruffled feathers of congressmen that have been offended by certain staff members at NASA and some very prickly personalities that are not helping things out either. Besides the fancy speech in Florida and visiting pad #40 at KSC, the White House has been mostly silent in regards to space policy and certainly has not been answering critics of the “new” approach.

    If anything, the lack of leadership from the White House is a huge vacuum that is having to be filled by people such as Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and perhaps Bill Nelson who are stepping up to the plate and at least trying to set a policy. There are a number of other major policy decisions that are being set at the White House, but the national space policy certainly isn’t one of them. The fact that the debate over continuing the Shuttle is even happening at all is a clear indication that the leadership needed for human spaceflight simply isn’t there at the moment.

    As sad as it may seem, and I”m not really contradicting myself above either on this point, restarting a major shuttle program including building new “replacement” shuttles to get up to four or five shuttles (such as actually sending the Enterprise into orbit or something silly like that) is still not off the table. It continues to be talked about and those who are proposing an extension to shuttle launches are continuing to get not only press time but are getting serious considerations in the appropriation process. A simple but direct statement from the commander-in-chief that would state that the Shuttle program is over, that there will be at most only one or two additional flights and even that is unlikely would be a huge positive step in the right direction.

    I’ll say it again, Obama is not providing leadership that he can be providing, and that kind of leadership which is needed is something which Charles Bolden simply can’t provide, given Bolden’s current position within the government. Only the chief executive of the USA can provide that level of leadership.

  • Gary Church

    We have four near-term options that we can pursue.

    1. Delta IV Heavy – $1.3B to man-rate, and $300M/launch for Orion or ??
    2. Atlas V – $400M to man-rate, and $130M/launch for a commercial capsule.
    3. Falcon 9/Dragon – Unknown amount to complete crew systems (>$1B?), then $20M/seat.
    4. Side Mount shuttle derived Heavy lift. 7.8 billion; the most powerful and capable launch vehicle on planet earth without a rival. Built on existing infrastructure.

    Number 4 is by far the best option.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    Wrong, based on actual budgets it will be about $2 billion/year to fly the Space Shuttle, twice per year, not the four to six time rate we are running at right now.

    maybe in the world where you live, but John Shannon has been “on this forum” this actual forum and said you are wrong. He claims it takes 200 million a month to maintain the infrastructure if the vehicle flies or not..and then the marginal cost (whatever they are) after that.

    Now you may have some ideas about how to change those cost, and they might even be possible, but the history of the shuttle is that as flight rates go down, flight cost go up…and look at the times that they “stood down” due to blowing one up and in constant dollars Shannon has the right number and you dont.

    Once that fact is understood then everything else you said is fantasy

    Robert G. Oler

  • One of the first things he did — May 7, 2009 — was appoint the Augustine Commission to do a complete review of how NASA does business.

    I think it’s an exaggeration to say that something he did over three months after taking office is “one of the first things he did.”

  • Costal and Robert, we aren’t all that far apart on what John said off the cuff and the numbers I’m showing. The numbers I’m showing have been gone over multiple times since John made that swag estimate by both NASA and USA, key players for STS. A swag he made after Lori quoted a cost of $5 Billion/year for STS BTW.

    After sharpening their pencils based on final closeout of STS after no more than six more flights (ie no need to restart the lower tier suppliers/requalifications to the ET line at MAF) at two flights per year the number is more like $170 million per month. The $2Billion/year number is in fact what is in the compromise budget and has been signed off as sufficient by all involved given the ground rules above.

    Having said that you are both missing three significantly more important facts than a debate as to whether $170 or $200 million dollars/month is the right STS extension number. These other facts more than overwhelm this tit for tat debate namely;

    Fact One. Shutting down STS will not save $2 billion dollars, either within the overall NASA budget or when one sees how a lot of the STS fixed cost shifts to the DOD via ULA.

    Fact Two: The capabilities we lose with the STS shutdown will need to be backfilled at current prices in order to draw a cost equivalence of a world with or without the STS. Sure it’s always easy to save money by doing less. As I said if you really want to save money just shutdown the ISS and de-orbit it in 2011 since under the Presidents plan we waste a ton of money just reckless endangering the lives of three astronauts just doing laps in LEO. This leads to fact number three.

    Fact Three: The NASA’s logistics and ISS support model is still based upon the 2015 shutdown and 50% utilization policy, a policy that is going to change to 2020 and 100% utilization. The GAO has now produce three separate evaluations of COTS in conjunction with the partner support capabilities, all which call into question being able to support even the old limited use/life ISS policy let alone the new expanded mission for the ISS endorsed by the Commission, President and Congress.

    At this point in time the President’s actual plan will not extend the ISS life beyond 2015 and drops the utilization to 0%. While it will be possible to ramp up logistics support this not only increases the budget we need to plan for from the COTS vendors and partners but won’t be online until about 2015. If you remember the Commission deliberated on this issue and discussed it with our partners as to their ability to ramp up, the came back with 2015 as the earliest they could be on line at this higher support rate. Basically using the STS to give the ISS a big logistics and on orbit spares push into the future will enable the logisitics capacities we do have planned (ie COTS + Partners) to finish out the ISS mission in 2020 at full capacity as it gradually burns down this STS logistics/spare support.

    So in summary the savings associated with STS shutdown will not be significant if we intend to actually use the ISS. If we shutdown the STS prematurely the ISS utilization goes to zero at which point there is no logical basis for either ISS or COTS.

    Look we are where we are due a number of extremely poor decision and oversight up to this point. This is all water under the bridge though. It’s very important that everyone understands that the ISS utilization and life span under a STS shutdown scenario this year is significantly different than under the modest STS extension option. Any actual savings associated with the STS shutdown will be a direct product of not utilizing the ISS not from the STS.

    Further as Jeff Greason correctly pointed out the best HLV becomes a SDHLV approach ‘if’ we extend the STS to close the gap. Under this plan we will arrive at 2015 time period with Jupiter-130/Orion for BEO backing up the prime LEO/ISS of Falcon/Dragon. The gap will be about two years and while the disruptions to the industrial base and workforce, while not insignificant, will at least be recoverable.

    It just pains me to know that had we started down this path five years ago, SpaceX would be close to demonstrating both cargo and crew in the next couple of years and Jupiter-130/Orion would be on a similar schedule for BEO. Therefore no STS extension would be needed.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    After sharpening their pencils based on final closeout of STS after no more than six more flights (ie no need to restart the lower tier suppliers/requalifications to the ET line at MAF) at two flights per year the number is more like $170 million per month.

    no, that may be your viewpoint but that is not Shannon’s. He came on this forum and didnt talk at all about “sharpening pencils” or any other silly phrases that are meaningless in terms of actually accomplishing anything.

    Put it another way. I doubt you could get Shannon “on the record” saying he could operate and fly at the cost you mention and indicate how.

    Fact One. Shutting down STS will not save $2 billion dollars,

    actually it should save more then that.

    The savings of 2 billion assume that shuttle ops only cost about 3 billion a year, my feeling is that all cost are more like 3.8 or so maybe more. If the numbers are greater then 3 then one saves even more money.

    Fact Two: The capabilities we lose with the STS shutdown will need to be backfilled at current prices in order to draw a cost equivalence of a world with or without the STS.

    and this is your main fallacy.

    The only reason a STS infrastructure returns is if we do another project like STS or Constellation…meaning vehicles that require hugh enormous ground support teams for both pre and launch/operations cycles. This assumes an enormous government/contractor staff that I dont think will exist in any future operation.

    One reason I oppose SDLV (or one of the reasons I oppose DIRECT…other then its fantasy assumptions) is that it sticks in place the infrastructure that you are trying to save. It assumes that every mission has this massive mission control/SPAN/etc infrastructure. The hardware and tradition of the hardware require it and it is one reason (here we go again) that it cost 200 million a month to maintain the darn thing.

    As for the logistics models. things will work out just fine as we ditch shuttle/Constellation and all SDV’s there is going to be a lot of money to work with.

    remember 200 million a month to start!

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    It just pains me to know that had we started down this path five years ago, SpaceX would be close to demonstrating both cargo and crew in the next couple of years and Jupiter-130/Orion would be on a similar schedule for BEO.

    I doubt it, particularly in the case of “Jupiter”. Had someone been so foolish to have bought into that system we would now all be wringing our hands wondering how the heck it got to be costing so much.

    SpaceX is close to demonstrating cargo. The first flight should happen in a few months.

    you will love it

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    ‘All of these rely on existing launchers, and represent the direction we have been going for the last six years – put crew on top of launchers, not next to them. Any of these would be far safer than the Shuttle.”

    The reasons we lost two shuttles were:

    1. Underfunding- trying to do it cheaper and for a profit. The profit motive is toxic to space exploration and colonization. It will set back HSF even more decades than the nickel and dime design compromises of the shuttle. “Private Space” is screwing over America’s future in space even as we speak by cheerleading the myth that we don’t need a HLV.

    2. The segmented SRB’s, selected instead of the far safer and more powerful aerojet monolithic designs which actually won passed all the tests the thiokol monolithics failed. Because of politics. The pressure to launch and make a buck and save a buck destroyed Challenger.

    3. The shuttle was sidemounted because the orbiter was designed to bring the SSME’s back without ocean recovery- to save money. The fragile heat shield- used instead of more expensive exotic metals already tested several years previously for dynasoar- to save money- was hit by foam. The flight director decided against even taking any pictures to see if the Columbia was damaged. And as far as I know that flight director still works for NASA. Again- pressure to make a buck and save a buck and not make waves or spend any extra money. That is what destroyed the Columbia.

    The Side mounted carrier will protect the Orion somewhat from damage in the event of an “anomaly” just as their is evidence that 3 of the astronauts on the challenger survived and rode the crew compartment down to impact. The escape tower and robust construction of the capsule will give the astronauts a chance. Not quite as good a chance if they were on top of the stack- but, it is not a perfect world.

    Ron, you are once again misrepresenting the truth to fit a business plan. The real truth is none of the smaller launchers will be able to lift anywhere near as much as a sidemount- or anywhere near as powerful an escape system. The “hypergolic pusher” SpaceX is supposedly going to use (just like they are going to recover and reuse the first stage, right) is a pathetic design for an escape system. One SpaceXcrementer on this site even went so far as to say an escape tower might kill the crew so it should not be used. Loading a capsule with enough hypergolic propellant for an escape system is what will kill a crew, not an escape tower.
    Was that you Ron? have to go back and look at the archives.

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    I second a lot of what Robert G. Oler wrote. In addition:

    It just pains me to know that had we started down this path five years ago, SpaceX would be close to demonstrating both cargo and crew in the next couple of years and Jupiter-130/Orion would be on a similar schedule for BEO. Therefore no STS extension would be needed.

    What we knew more than 5 years ago was that Delta IV or Atlas V could be upgraded for crew launches, and the only new hardware (other than upgrades) would be a capsule for LEO. If they would have pursued that, then we would not have had a U.S. gap in transporting crew to the ISS.

    For continuing the ISS, we have enough capability today to do everything planned through 2015. If the President, Congress and our partners want to ramp things up, then all we need to do is increase the frequency of our deliveries of crew and cargo. If we need something big delivered, we have Delta IV Heavy that can lift the same payload as the Shuttle, and all we would need is to attach a maneuvering motor to delivery it next to the ISS (arm docks it). Delta IV Heavy could also be used to deliver additional modules if needed. The Shuttle was needed during early construction, but now that the ISS has two robotic arms, it can do it’s own additions.

    As many have pointed out, until we develop another crew capsule, the Soyuz is a necessity for crew on the ISS, and because they need to be rotated every six months, we already have frequent launches.

    No STS extension is needed. Let’s not reincarnate an old system – let’s build a better system faster.

  • Gary Church

    “If we need something big delivered, we have Delta IV Heavy that can lift the same payload as the Shuttle,”

    That is your idea of big? The payload of the shuttle WAS the shuttle. The SRB’s, SSME’ and external tank are a Saturn V class launcher with over 6million pounds of thrust. None of the systems you are talking about have anywhere near that capability. “Big” is a misrepresentation and misleading. What is needed for space exploration is a HLV. The only answer you have to that statement is the old whining dodge, “but it costs too much.”

    Take a look at the DOD budget and tell me it costs too much with a straight face. You can’t.

  • Gary Church

    “What we knew more than 5 years ago was that Delta IV or Atlas V could be upgraded for crew launches, and the only new hardware (other than upgrades) would be a capsule for LEO. If they would have pursued that, then we would not have had a U.S. gap in transporting crew to the ISS.”

    Well, yes, I have to give you that one. Delta IV heavy is the best candidate for that, seeing as there is no Atlas heavy yet. If “they” would have pursued that…..who is they?

  • Gary Church

    “For all you let’s shutdown the Shuttle and abandon the ISS types out there (a point of view shared by Griffin), the Rubicon that will signal you have actually won and destroyed about $150 billion dollars worth of our nations existing HSF capability (STS+ISS+CxP) will be if/when we layoff the Shuttle operations workforce. An event that cannot happen until the last flight leaves the pad. Even then the end of the current HSF era will not occur until there is no money to retain this experienced workforce. That will be the true end of the existing HSF program and one that Congress must ultimately approve as only they have the power of purse. It’s really up to them.”

    I forgot to add. Hopefully Sidemount will save our space program.
    Go Sidemount!

  • DCSCA

    SpaceX is close to demonstrating cargo. The first flight should happen in a few months. you will love it.

    A blast from the past. Progress 1 was launched on January 20, 1978.

  • DCSCA

    “I know that it is a couple billion dollars per year just to operate KSC (including pad services, refurbishing vehicles after each flight, maintaining the recovery ships, etc.) and that is just scratching the surface of the costs involved.” ROFLMAO cc: Elon Musk

  • @Coastal Ron

    What has killed NASA is the fact that the politicians have kept it trapped at LEO since 1973. That has not been good for NASA and it was not good for this country.

  • Coastal Ron

    Over the past few months I’ve heard a number of comments about the characterization of the the capacity of the Shuttle, and it’s comparison to dedicated launchers like Delta IV Heavy. The confusion is quite understandable if you’re looking at the mass of the Shuttle assembly and the thrust generated by it’s cluster of 5 engines, but as with all things in life, it doesn’t matter how much effort you put into something, it’s the results. Let’s review:

    Mass at liftoff (max.):
    Shuttle = 4,470,000 lbs
    Delta IV Heavy = 1,616,870 lbs

    Payload to LEO (max.):
    Shuttle = 53,600 lbs
    Delta IV Heavy = 49,470 lbs

    IF you need to put payload into orbit, then the Shuttle and Delta IV Heavy can do about the same. The Shuttle has an added advantage of having it’s own maneuvering engines for rendezvousing with another spacecraft (i.e. ISS), but the Delta IV Heavy upper stage will get the payload in the proper orbit, and then would need a small maneuvering engine to take it the rest of the way. For non-Shuttle deliveries, the ISS robotic arms can grapple the payloads and dock them (all non-Russian supplies will be delivered this way).

    So far the largest Shuttle-delivered ISS segments have only weighed about 35,000 lbs, so the Delta IV Heavy (or Atlas V & Falcon 9 heavies) could easily deliver more ISS sections if needed. Even the largest Russian segment weighed 42,600 lbs – still within the capacity of dedicated launchers.

    If the Shuttle is delivering internal supplies for the ISS, then it’s payload is decreased by the MPLM, which can only carry 17,636 lbs of cargo. By comparison, the SpaceX Dragon can deliver up to 13,227 lbs of combined cargo to the ISS.

    If the Shuttle is delivering crew, it can carry up to eight (7 normally), of which two are the flight crew. Capsule alternatives could be Delta IV Heavy/Orion (6 crew), Falcon 9/Dragon (7 crew) or Atlas V/CST-100 (7 crew). The advantage of capsules is that they can stay docked at the ISS for emergency use, whereas the Shuttle can only stay in space for about two weeks.

    Of course the real reason for the disparity in liftoff mass is that those five clustered engines are lifting a reusable spaceplane, as well as the crew & cargo, and the spaceplane weighs 172,000 lbs empty. The Shuttle has been a wonderful jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none vehicle for these past 30 years, and it’s amazing that a 1st generation vehicle like it has had such a long service life.

    I won’t go into the debate about whether the Shuttle should end now, or whether a SDHLV should be it’s successor – I just wanted to clarify what it can do for cargo & crew in comparison to existing (or near-term) dedicated launch vehicles.

  • Gary Church

    “I won’t go into the debate about whether the Shuttle should end now, or whether a SDHLV should be it’s successor – I just wanted to clarify”

    Without mentioning how much an SDHLV could lift compared to the smaller launchers, of course.

    More like muddying the water.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 10:16 pm

    What has killed NASA is the fact that the politicians have kept it trapped at LEO since 1973. That has not been good for NASA and it was not good for this country.

    The motivations of politicians will never change. Job #1 is to get re-elected, and job #2 is to do those things that support #1. Don’t get me wrong, there are many that have good intentions, but those intentions don’t always align with whatever plans you or I may have for space. That is why I believe that we need to change NASA from doing everything in space, to transitioning the routine stuff to commercial providers.

    The “routine stuff” of course is not that easy, and I think NASA needs to be the guiding hand to lead commercial space forward. Whether it’s a military model (buy commercial, but government employee operated) or more of a contractor-lead model, I’m not too concerned either way.

    What is clear is that the U.S. – Congress, President + public – has a hard time keeping a clear focus on $100B programs that don’t pay off for 15-20 years. We have to figure out a way to break down our goals into smaller chunks that pay off faster.

  • Gary Church

    “that don’t pay off for 15-20 years.”

    That is just a little too much to stomach Ron. How much do you think one trillion in defense spending is going to pay off this year? You are saying the space program has to make money? Is that is what it was created for- to turn a profit? I do not think so.

  • Fred Brady

    All the commentary I’ve seen has had a fatal flaw. People assume that a “contract” with the Russians priced at $55MM/seat for crew transport will be binding on the Russians and honored once they have monopoly power – WHICH WE ARE GIVING THEM – by cancelling STS before we have a working alternative crew transport system. THEY WILL NOT HONOR THAT PRICE. Since the fall of the USSR, the Russians have become avid and expert players at capitalism. They know the power of monopoly and will use it to maximum gain.

    The day the Shuttle is permanently, irretrievably out of service is the day crew transport prices increases to $100-$200MM per seat. The price increases will start small – maybe $10-15MM for “scheduling priority” , etc. But withing 18 months, we’ll be looking at $700MM-1B/yr if we want to fully utilize US ISS rights (we won’t). There will also be terrible challenges in finding space for US personnel on the busy Soyuz manifest. We will no longer call the shots on staffing the ISS as we do today.

    The US may “own” significant staffing/utilization rights on ISS, but unless the Russians take our people up we will be unable to use those”ISS rights” that the US has invested $100B to create. In canceling US direct access to ISS its as though we’ve invested $100B to “buy” a distant star. You may have a piece of paper that says you own it, but good luck with enforcing your claim on a place you can’t get to.

    Naive hubris – like trying to rely on the make believe world of international law to enforce a nation’s will.

  • Vladislaw

    “The day the Shuttle is permanently, irretrievably out of service is the day crew transport prices increases to $100-$200MM per seat.”

    I hope they do, nothing drives innovation and capital flows faster than extra normal profits.

  • Paul D.

    That is just a little too much to stomach Ron. How much do you think one trillion in defense spending is going to pay off this year? You are saying the space program has to make money? Is that is what it was created for- to turn a profit? I do not think so.

    Defense has a return. The return is the avoided cost of being conquered. And even with defense, there is concern for cost effectiveness. Resources are finite even there.

    Cx, at huge expense, would deliver us, very late, to a state of dubious value. Why should any taxpayer want to support this? (Tax-fed parasites feeding from this particular iron ricebowl notwithstanding.)

  • Coastal Ron

    Gary Church wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 11:50 pm

    You are saying the space program has to make money?

    Pay off (or payoff) = “The climax of a narrative or sequence of events”

    For instance, the payoff for Constellation was landing humans on the Moon. That was not going to happen until sometime in the mid-2020’s, or 15-20 years after the program was announced and funding started.

    Apollo had to span two presidents in order to see Apollo 11 generate payoff (land & return a man). Constellation would have spanned at least three, possibly four or five presidential administrations, and 7-10 congressional bodies. That’s a long time to keep politicians focused on something that is “Apollo on steroids” – a repeat of something we’ve already done.

  • Coastal Ron

    Gary Church wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 11:35 pm

    Without mentioning how much an SDHLV could lift compared to the smaller launchers, of course.

    Gary, there have been so many SDHLV designs proposed, who knows which one will actually be funded (if any). All the launcher choices I have listed have published specs, so it’s an apples-to-apples comparison for crew and cargo.

    If you want to identify a set of SDHLV specs that you think should be pursued (and compared), that would be great.

  • kwfixitman

    While I don’t understand all of the things talked about here I would like to give you the view of regular guy not in the space field but facinated by it and NASA. First off I cant concive how some of you talk so badly about the Shuttle and its design being unsafe. Can anyone gaurantee that if we had been flying traditional rockets IE: top mounts that there would have been zero loss of life? I doubt it, because like every thing we do mistakes are made and things are over looked. Especially at this kind of speed and stress on a vehicle. Some times it just can’t be made safe and needs to be accepted that way. Nothing that is launched into the sky will ever be 100% safe and the last time I checked that was part of being an astronaut. Having the guts and ambition to go into space with no gaurantees. Seems to me that too many people with the ” got to be 100% safe” attitude are causing too much trouble these days. I agree saftey is VERY important, how ever so is being realistic. If you guys betting on the commercial side think they are immune to bad things happening to them you are in a dream world. They will have bad things happen to them as well, and you out there talking about how unsafe the shuttle is and better those other designs are will be sticking your feet in your mouth when it happens, and it will. The rockets of the past and expecially the shuttle are the things dreams are made of. Maybe some of you have forgoten that. The way I see it we will always need a shuttle type vehicle in our garage at kenedy to do things that only it can do. Things like fixing Hubble. There are more things like Hubble going up there that can be upgraded and repaired. Just take a look a those missions for example. How much money was saved by going to that telescope and fixing and upgrading it so many times rather than sending up brand new one with a potentially serious problem. You don’t think a mistake could be made like that again? Remember we are human, not perfect.

    Somthing that really bothers me is that it seems that we stop things right when they are comming into greatness. I heard that the last couple of STS flights have been at the top of their game and that Atlantis was one of the cleanest orbiters they have ever seen after STS132. Is there no credit for that? This is more of the no praise for a job well done and a lot of flack for bad things that happen mentality that is every where. Two flights lost out of 132 in thirty years isnt really that bad when you consider what goes into this and how one little thing like an o-ring or a tile or a bad decision ( remember we are human) can make it all go wrong. After all look at what was learned after each accident. I’m not saying loosing peoples lives a good way to learn but thats how life is sometimes. It took thirty years to work the kinks of the STS system and get it to a work of art and now we are going to throw it away. What a shame! I work on State of the art earth moving equipment every day and equipment downing problems sneek up on us every day. I cant imagine how they have made it as safe as they have when you compare this. Well done NASA. Keep her flying as long as you can.

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