Congress, Lobbying, NASA, White House

Letters, we get letters

In a letter to President Obama earlier this week, 62 members of Congress have expressed their displeasure with plans to cancel Constellation. “If we continue with this new space policy, including the outright cancellation of the Constellation program,” they write, “we are concerned that other countries will forge ahead of us, challenging our space dominance as we literally cede the higher ground to our foreign competitors.” However, they are not asking for the complete restoration of Constellation: instead, they support the “immediate development” of a heavy-lift vehicle that, along with Orion, “may be used for either lunar or deep-space exploration to an asteroid and beyond, as you said in Florida.” This is apparently the letter that a Houston Chronicle article referred to earlier this month as part of a shift to “political pragmatism”.

Congress, though, can get as good as they can give. As they were sending the letter to the White House, they were also receiving an open letter from a diverse group ranging from space company executives to spaceport operators to space advocates. The letter calls for both full funding for the commercial crew element in the White House budget proposal as well as a call to “accelerate the pace and funding” of NASA human space exploration plans. “We specifically wish to express our concern that the commercial crew to Space Station program is sometimes seen as optional or too risky to America’s future in space, but nothing could be further from the truth,” they write. “In fact, the commercial crew to Space Station program is a fundamental enabler of NASA’s human space exploration beyond Earth orbit, specifically because it will free up the NASA dollars needed to develop deep space transportation and exploration systems for astronauts.”

102 comments to Letters, we get letters

  • Commercial crew to Space Station program could be a fundamental enabler of NASA’s human space exploration beyond Earth orbit

    OR

    Commercial crew to Space Station program could enable a significant reduction in the human spaceflight component of NASA’s budget once the Constellation termination costs are paid.

    In today’s budgetary environment, unless commercial to ISS is tightly linked to tangible and immediate BEO objectives, the savings that commercial to ISS will create are more likely to be redirected to high speed trains, wind farms and global climate study than BEO exploration.

  • Commercial crew to Space Station program could enable a significant reduction in the human spaceflight component of NASA’s budget once the Constellation termination costs are paid.

    This could be a very likely scenario, if not the scenario given this Administration’s track record to date.

    In today’s budgetary environment, unless commercial to ISS is tightly linked to tangible and immediate BEO objectives, the savings that commercial to ISS will create are more likely to be redirected to high speed trains, wind farms and global climate study than BEO exploration.

    A highly politicized opinion. Is it based on fact, or a pre-election campaign speech made in 2008 that might not be valid?

    Actually, I like your stories about Lunar libration points Bill and that looks like a likely scenario as any at this point. ;)

  • red

    “If we continue with this new space policy, including the outright cancellation of the Constellation program, we are concerned that other countries will forge ahead of us, challenging our space dominance as we literally cede the higher ground to our foreign competitors.”

    Constellation was the thing that would literally cede the higher ground to our foreign competitors. The only high ground we’d have with Constellation is the one we could make by standing on top of a stack of all the money we’d waste on it. Constellation was going to go nowhere, wipe out much of the remaining productive parts of NASA, and provide no benefits to the taxpayer. The one thing it might do,if it somehow was able to survive the decades, is result in redoing Apollo, but with none of the Apollo benefits of doing it the first time, around year 2035 before likely meeting a similar fate.

    “… the cancellation of this program with nothing else in the pipeline …”

    There is a lot in the pipeline in the FY2011 NASA budget proposal. I gave a sample from “neilh” in the previous thread. There is so much in the pipeline that I’m not going to reproduce it here. Suffice it to say that it’s a big part of what we need to explore, stay competitive in space (or in some cases regain our competitive posture in space), have a strong military space program, thrive in traditional and new commercial space ventures, and more. Add a few more items like balanced ITAR reform and we’ll be there.

    “We support the immediate development and production of a heavy-lift launch vehicle that, in conjunction with the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle…”

    That’s going to be very expensive. Members of Congress, where is the money? How do we do all of that with realistic budgets without sacrificing the things in the new budget that will actually do the things you say you want (have a robust American deep-space exploration program, inspire our youth, strengthen our national security, keep the high ground, etc).

    Ok, here’s my compromise towards the items in the letter:

    Part 1: Orion CRV changed to a COTS-style CRV competition (commercial crew competition entries can go for this, too)

    Part 2: Heavy lift development started now using the heavy lift R&D money in the current budget. This would be for a modest HLV that could be upgraded later. An example might be the EELV Phase I 40-50mt to LEO proposal. I assume we could find some payloads for it. This would not support crew launch.

    If a SDHLV is chosen as an additional compromise, it (including development, infrastructure, etc) would have to fit within the current FY2011 budget items for KSC upgrades, HLV work, and Shuttle extension (plus possibly some of the Constellation transition funding). If that’s not enough money, development would just have to go slower – or not start at all.

    Part 3: Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle replaced with some kind of in-space only vehicle (except perhaps for emergency landing). Since this is new, it would be on a modest budget for a few years (similar to Constellation’s Ares V), and would go slowly and cautiously, but “development” would start. This would be done in a way and on a schedule that could incorporate results from technology demonstration missions and other new work.

  • In today’s budgetary environment, unless commercial to ISS is tightly linked to tangible and immediate BEO objectives, the savings that commercial to ISS will create are more likely to be redirected to high speed trains, wind farms and global climate study than BEO exploration.

    A highly politicized opinion. Is it based on fact, or a pre-election campaign speech made in 2008 that might not be valid?

    I believe many in Congress will see opportunity to raid funds intended by FY2011 advocates for “game changing” R&D (depots TRL work, VASIMR, a new kerolox engine) especially if BEO missions are vaguely proposed for the day after tomorrow.

    Unless there is a specific committed target date for BEO missions then LEO fuel depot R&D (for example) simply is not an urgent need, just as HLV is not an urgent need.

    Congress could easily decide to fund commercial crew today and promise to fund LEO depot R&D in a few years, after we commit to a BEO destination. Then, procrastinate with that funding due to other more urgent needs.

    = = =

    I like your stories about Lunar libration points

    Thanks! :-)

  • GeeSpace

    It would be nice if we had a Bulldog for Space in the Obama Administration to strongly advocate for commercial and human missions beyond Earth orbit now or in the very near future.
    O well, so much for today;s dream,

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 7:14 am

    Commercial crew to Space Station program could be a fundamental enabler of NASA’s human space exploration beyond Earth orbit

    OR

    Commercial crew to Space Station program could enable a significant reduction in the human spaceflight component of NASA’s budget once the Constellation termination costs are paid.

    in my “humble” view either is possible but the former is more likely.

    Large space programs with no real sustainable support passed “pork” in the American political life are in my view doomed in the coming budgetary environment.

    in difficult budgetary environments the first and easiest cuts are made to programs which have no secure reason for existing AND which are out of control budget wise.

    put it another way. Orion cannot survive today…it wont be able to survive tomorrow as the budget numbers (and the economy) get worse.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Both letters, though from somewhat diverse interests groups are actually very similar.

    As the NASA Administrator and others have pointed out NASA was relied upon commercial competitively bid contracts for the vast majority of everything it uses since it was founded. So this whole ‘commercial’ vs ‘non-commercial’ debate is a non sequitur. In addition COTS/CRS is just one of many variants of government to commercial contracting and part of mutually agreed upon policy (Congress+President). It’s not the second coming as some would have us believe nor is it the end of Human Space Flight as we know it in and of itself. I think it’s a big distraction that is taking our collective eye of what is really important frankly.

    What is important is we have an existing commercial Human Space Flight industrial base and workforce that we are effectively being destroying under the FY11 proposal in order to chase low cost rainbows. While it is always a good idea to keep competition alive and to refresh the industry with new starts, more efficient approaches will always replace less efficient ones in due time. We didn’t get rid of propeller driven airplanes for long range travel ‘before’ the jet engine, the advancement achievable in the demostrated jet engine was sufficient all on its own to achieve that. So it will be with any new space technology, organizational, or contracting innovations. The key is making sure the proven systems/approaches don’t consume every last dollar so you can’t experiment, something the PoR was failing at miserably.

    I really think the plan that closes whatever distance there is between about 80% of those involved in this debate (the other 20% being hopeless to compromise with like Robert because they exist in an alternate reality) is to move forward on a minor STS Extension in conjunction with Jupiter-130/Orion development effort for BEO and LEO backup with the prime ISS/LEO provider (for both Crew and Cargo) being Falcon/Dragon.

    In addition we do an efficient S-curve ramp up to the advanced technology and mission development budgets arriving at a similar run rate in 2015 as proposed in the FY11 submission to Congress. This funding line then feeds about four breakthrough civilian precursor missions to the Jupiter-130 in 2015-2020 frame with the other four launch slots (ie 2 flights/year) being taking up with precursor BEO manned missions (ie Apollo-8), ISS logistics, and breakthrough military applications (yes Robert these do exist, believe it or not, not everything has been invented/fielded yet).

    The plan above fits the top line budget (see below) plus doesn’t change any of the funding profiles outside of Human Space Flight.

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

  • Bill White

    To supplement what Stephen Metschan just posted (he may or may not agree with me) I would advocate using Jupiter 130 to deploy an EML located fuel depot to leverage BEO missions to the Moon, NEOs, Phobos and Mars.

    Not either / or but all of the above.

    An EML depot would exist in synergy and symbiosis with LEO depots since LEO depots would allow the EML depot to be supported with fuel and supplies at a lower cost AND the EML depot would give purpose to and justification for those LEO depots.

    While I personally support DIRECT as being the lowest cost SDLV option, I also wish to assert that EML architectures are beneficial regardless of the launchers used to reach LEO and I will advocate for EML depots whether we use some flavor of shuttle derived, EELV, SpaceX, Proton, Long March or JP Aerospace inflatables to orbit.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 9:56 am
    So this whole ‘commercial’ vs ‘non-commercial’ debate is a non sequitur.

    nope.

    it is the heart of the entire debate. Everything else as the Good Barron would say is “twaddle”.

    What exist now, personafied by the Constellation (Ares/Orion) contract is “commercial in name only”. It is not just that the vehicle has no customers or potential customers outside of the government, it is that the requirements put on the vehicle(s) have killed it having any appeal outside of the government operations.

    There is a reason that Ares 1 wont be finished with contractor money and competed on the international launch market. It cant. It is financially incapable of making a profit for the people who would invest money in it; because of the requirements put on the project by NASA.

    The Ares/Orion combination is (if this is possible) even less of a commercial venture then say the F-22. In theory at least (and to some extent in fact) if the DoD would allow the F-22 to be “sold” overseas…it would have clients. Not so with Ares…or for that matter “Jupiter/Direct”.

    If we were to build “DIRECT” we would have to do so on the federal dollar and then to have it fly, we would have to invent payloads to fly on it that are paid for by the federal government. There is no chance that any agency outside of NASA would put payloads on the launcher (your claims about the DoD being just that…claims)…but there is also no chance that any commercial group would say “lets buy a Jupiter and let us launch our proprietary payload on it”.

    None.

    SpaceX (and likely others) are not that way. Unlike your “Jupiter/DIRECT” effort SpaceX is building the rocket with mostly (the vast majority) of its own money. Unlike Jupiter it has already booked customers to fly payloads on the rocket which have nothing to do with government. That the rocket carries Dragon is useful and one day it is possible that SpaceX will make some use of the surplus Dragon’s that it gets as a virtue of the contract…but the rockets that launch the Dragon are indistinguishable from the ones that launch commercial payloads.

    What you are arguing for is another “project”.

    What SpaceX (and some others) have is a “product”.

    there is a big difference.

    Robert G. Oler

  • One payload I would gladly “invent” for the Jupiter 130 is an EML-1 depot and a reusable re-fuelable lunar lander. Then let “true” commercial supply fuel, other supplies and crew transit to EML-1.

    I assert such a facility would encourage and facilitate NewSpace far better than commercial crew to ISS ever would.

    Yes, you can build an EML-1 Gateway with EELV (or Proton, see my novel) but doing it with a Jupiter 130 would be very much faster and easier.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 9:56 am

    one more point.

    there is no real “debate”. there are people like you who are making a lot of statements that have no real basis in fact.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Yes, you can build an EML-1 Gateway with EELV (or Proton, see my novel) but doing it with a Jupiter 130 would be very much faster and easier.

    That may be true Bill, but you would need more than your lunar ‘gateway’ to justify the costs of a Jupiter130.

    I used to be a huge fan of DIRECT myself, but after reading all of the info being bandied about from sites like this for the past two years I’ve come to realize that there is just no justification for DIRECT. Like RGO says, it’d be just another ‘project’ paid for by taxpayers.

  • Yes, you can build an EML-1 Gateway with EELV (or Proton, see my novel) but doing it with a Jupiter 130 would be very much faster and easier.

    That may be true Bill, but you would need more than your lunar ‘gateway’ to justify the costs of a Jupiter130.

    I would rather a Jupiter 130 built EML Gateway than the Constellation PoR and unless the Constellation huggers and the Constellation haters forge some sort of compromise, perhaps Congress terminates ALL plans for BEO space exploration for the indefinite future. Stalemate gets us no where.

    Which goes back to my original question at the top of the thread — will FY2011 lead to robust BEO exploration (if so, how?) or a retreat to LEO-only operations for 10, 15, 20 years or longer?

    I also do not see ISS – by itself – as offering sufficient demand or markets to achieve the lower cost Earth-to-LEO lift we all desire.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 am

    besides the reality that most of DIRECT is a lot of handwaving in terms of what things cost.

    and that I am looking for “products”

    the reality is that any “project” is going to turn out to be managed and all by the same people who have screwed up Constellation. I have no confidence that they can manage building the bathroom…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bill White

    @ Robert Oler

    Fair enough. But if you are correct about NASA then NewSpace climbing into bed with NASA won’t end well, either.

    WHich leads me back to looking at “Nike Space” for funding and doing an EML Gateway with an off shore corporation that buys Protons. ;-)

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    Fair enough. But if you are correct about NASA then NewSpace climbing into bed with NASA won’t end well, either.

    maybe, but maybe not.

    As the Soviet Captain on The Hunt for Red October would say “it depends on if we meet the right sort….”

    it all depends on how the system is structured. There needs to be a lot of cleanout at NASA

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bill, I really like the EML1 depot idea especially when combined with Lunar ISRU. The pre-ESAS approaches done by industry using existing medium lift launchers have a number of good ideas in them. Bear in mind the Jupiter-130 has both a technical and political dimension to it. You need both funding first and then ultimately then the technical ability to successful execute on any plan. Fail either and you fail altogether. I’d like to see a number of robotic precursor missions for both propellant transfer and ISRU before we move to anything heavier that Jupiter-130 anyway.

    I agree with Jeff Greason, that while the case can be made for more volume, diameter and mass than we have now, the case that we need a launch system 75% larger than the Saturn V right now is not, ie Mike’s uber rocket. The Jupiter-130 is a modest near term HLV based on existing proven assets that still preserves the capability to grow to about 25% more capable than the Saturn V.

    Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery we wrote extensively about the advantages of the EML1/Lunar ISRU architecture option in our AIAA 2007 paper. The very same paper specifically referenced/asked about in congressionally hearing before NASA. The first time I’ve ever heard of that happening. The same hearing where Mike Griffin’s mouth piece said we defied the laws of physics directly to Congress. Refuted by the then existing ESAS Appendix 6a and now by recent Boeing AIAA paper and NASA’s just recent released +700 page SDHLV study covering both inline and sidemount variants.

  • So Robert, 62 members of Congress is still not enough for you? Would 535 Congressional signatures convince you? Would that be a sufficient amount of Congressional support to convince you? I would be happy with just 2/3 support from both the House and Senate myself?

    I don’t think Robert will even be convinced that the ground has shifted under neither him even if we do manage get both Congress and the President’s signed approval for a policy/plan/budget along the lines of what we have been advocating now for five years. If he does ever admit to it he’ll then claim we had zero to do with or that it isn’t even close to what we advocated.

    While I agree this isn’t a done deal by any stretch of the imagination to claim that key elements of our basic proposal (ie STS Extension + full ISS utilization + SDHLV/Orion ISS backup focused on BEO + COTS-D via SpaceX for prime ISS Crew/Cargo + Advanced Tech/Mission) isn’t gradually (faster please Congress) gaining political support in Congress is absurd at this point.

    Three months ago we could count the number of Congressional signatures on these letters supportive of the basics of our proposal on one hand, now we have 62. Plus I still say the other letter shares a lot in common with other aspects of our big tent proposal.

  • Dee D.

    Regardless of what you say or think, the heavy lift vehicle you want isn’t going to be the heavy lift vehicle you get. Direct is unsustainable and unaffordable, for the simple fact that it is expendable. You guys totally dropped the ball.

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 9:56 am

    What is important is we have an existing commercial Human Space Flight industrial base and workforce that we are effectively being destroying under the FY11 proposal in order to chase low cost rainbows.

    Are you saying that cost should never be a factor for anything we do?

    What is the problem with sending 12 astronauts to the ISS on Delta IV Heavy/Orion (two flights) for the same price as it would have cost us to send four on one Ares I/Orion flight? Don’t you see that as an enabler? Wouldn’t doing more with the same money be a reason to change?

    And lower cost access to space is not a rainbow. United Launch Alliance (Boeing/Lockheed Martin) is not some “toy rocket company”, and they have a string of 40+ successful launches (including 4 for Delta IV Heavy). No other entity in the world has their experience with space hardware.

    Stephen, how many centuries will we need to use this “existing industrial base”? Under what conditions are changes allowed?

    The answer cannot always be “because we’ve always done it this way”.

  • Dave Huntsman

    Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery we wrote extensively about the advantages of the EML1/Lunar ISRU architecture option in our AIAA 2007 paper.

    Stephen, could you send me a copy of your AIAA paper, please?
    I’m most curious about the business case part of it. To date, for example, in spite of several within NASA talking about ‘exporting’ resources off-moon to fuel depots (as one example), I have myself never seen evidence that the business case closes for off-moon resource exports, so long as rockets are the sole means of doing the exporting.

    Thanks.

    Dave

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 11:10 am

    Yes, you can build an EML-1 Gateway with EELV (or Proton, see my novel) but doing it with a Jupiter 130 would be very much faster and easier.

    Under the Faster, Better, Cheaper theory, you chose Faster, Better. Why not choose Better, Cheaper? Then you can have more money to spend on other space hardware?

  • Bill White

    @ Coastal Ron

    I would be thrilled to see a detailed transparent and objective cost analysis of deploying an EML Gateway using various flavors of shuttle derived, EELV and foreign launchers.

    Mr. Oler rejects the DIRECT cost analysis as “hand waving” and perhaps he is correct. Or perhaps others wish to hand wave away the DIRECT analysis because it competes with their ideologically preferred solution.

    All I would ask is that Congress (together with OMB & GAO) objectively and transparently analyze the costs of deploying an EML Gateway with one or another flavor of shuttle derived and EELV and SpaceX.

    To date that has not been done and the continuing refusal to give Congress the documents needed to “look under the hood” of FY2011 if something I find troubling.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 7:14 am
    >
    > Commercial crew to Space Station program could be a
    > fundamental enabler of NASA’s human space exploration beyond Earth orbit
    >
    > OR
    >
    > Commercial crew to Space Station program could enable a significant
    > reduction in the human spaceflight component of NASA’s budget once
    > the Constellation termination costs are paid.

    Really, #2 is the only realistic option. By def the end of shuttle, ISS construction, and constellation – lays of 10’s of thousands of folks in the commercial human space flight industries. Commercial crews 10 flights and maybe an Orion light development contract, is just a going away gift for the bulk of industry involved in any way with manned space flight. I’m sure (if it passes) Boeing and l/M will like the gift – but they’ll be seeing more pink slips then greenbacks.

    Looking at the proposed budgets, its all pork research projects (restudying Lox/Kero engines, Vasmir, and orbital refueling), no money directed toward actual new human space flight projects. NASA’s budget stays the same – but the spaceflight and exploration budgets take a bath.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Dave Huntsman wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 1:15 pm
    >
    > Stephen, could you send me a copy of your AIAA paper, please?

    Agreed! Could you post a URL if available? or the AIAA link to buy it?

    > I’m most curious about the business case part of it. To date, for
    > example, in spite of several within NASA talking about ‘exporting’
    > resources off-moon to fuel depots (as one example), I have
    > myself never seen evidence that the business case closes for
    > off-moon resource exports, so long as rockets are the sole
    > means of doing the exporting.

    Agreed. Every time I run the numbers the extra capital costs for the recover effort (Lunar to space freighters, ISRU equip, development, etc) it drives the cost for resource to space higher then just launching them from Earth. DOE found the same thing in the ‘70’s when they looked seriously at the Space Solar Power concept.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    So Robert, 62 members of Congress is still not enough for you?

    as you always do you take any news and morph it into support for DIRECT…

    It is not.

    I’ve read the letter and at best what it argues for is Obama’s policy that he spoke about at the Cape.

    You then take that letter and morph it into this some basis of support for DIRECT or shuttle extension or whatever your theories are at the moment.

    Indeed this letter is almost a capitulation to the notion of Obama’s theory.

    I agree that there is going to be some form of “heavier lift”. I have predicted that for sometime. It is going to be a version of the Delta and ATlas.

    The shuttle infrastructure is going away. Watch

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    I would be thrilled to see a detailed transparent and objective cost analysis of deploying an EML Gateway using various flavors of shuttle derived, EELV and foreign launchers.

    I have not found a “detailed transparent and objective cost description” of your “EML Gateway”, so apparently there lots of detail that needs to be made public. ;-)

    As an industry alternative, ULA has their “Affordable Exploration Architecture 2009″, which they proposed for creating a permanently manned colony on the Moon, with crew rotation, exploration vehicles, and lots of redundancy. I have costed out the launch price for the first two years (~$15B) using Delta IV Heavy, but I have not seen a proposed overall budget.

    They use existing hardware and near-term versions of other hardware, so one could make a guess. They also accomplish the same (or more) than what you propose, and only use EELV class launchers. This is Boeing/Lockheed Martin saying that HLV’s are not mandatory for colonizing the Moon. Maybe it would cost more (a big unknown), but we can do it.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    Mr. Oler rejects the DIRECT cost analysis as “hand waving” and perhaps he is correct. Or perhaps others wish to hand wave away the DIRECT analysis because it competes with their ideologically preferred solution.

    Bill…at least for me there is some ideology. I like Free Enterprise and have grown over the last 20 years to disdain big government projects that do nothing of value for the dollars that they consume.

    DIRECT has really two strikes against it. First there is hand waving…the chief proponent for it does a lot of that here. On the last thread he comes on and dismisses Shannon’s statement of 200 million a month to maintain the shuttle infrastructure (which would be needed for DIRECT) with the mere claim of “we can sharpen our pencils” or some nonsense like that. That is simple nonsense. The handwaving is a refusal (or inability) to demonstrate where and how the cost go down.

    But the second strike is more for me and why I dont like any SDV. I dont want another “program” or “project” what I want is human space efforts to start producing “products”.

    Without those hsf is on a fast and getting faster road to extinction .

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    “But the second strike is more for me and why I dont like any SDV. I dont want another “program” or “project” what I want is human space efforts to start producing “products”.

    Without those hsf is on a fast and getting faster road to extinction .”

    You are absolutely right. So much so that if today we remove commercial crew then there will be nothing but Soyuz and Shenzou to go to space. Period. And then it will be surely commercial but we, the US, will only be the customers and since there is very little competition the prices will never ever go down, most likely up.

  • DCSCA

    Congress will never kill Constellation, particularly in an election year. It means jobs (particularly in the Gulf region); it represents national prestige– and pride in country. SpaceX, not so much.

  • Gary Church

    “Congress will never kill Constellation”

    Wishful thinking. Better put the crystal ball away and start thinking about the correct path.

    Go Sidemount!

  • Congress will never kill Constellation, particularly in an election year.

    Constellation is dead.

  • Bennett

    it represents national prestige

    “We can spend billions and get nothing, better than any other country.”

    Spare me.

  • Robert: “On the last thread he comes on and dismisses Shannon’s statement of 200 million a month to maintain the shuttle infrastructure (which would be needed for DIRECT) with the mere claim of “we can sharpen our pencils” or some nonsense like that.”

    Robert you didn’t read what I wrote (not an unusual occurrence for you). Here it is again, John swaged the $200 million per month number a few months ago in response to the Lori’s assertion that the STS cost $5 billion/year which was dead wrong. After that little episode the question was asked by members of Congress what would a STS program running at two flights per year cost, along with a few other ground rules.

    ‘After’ John’s swag both NASA and USA looked at the requirements and they developed a well supported $2 billion/year number. The fact that you’re completely clueless about what is actually going on behind the scenes probably explains, to some extent, just how illogical your positions are.

    Second the Space Shuttle is a significant portion of the total cost of STS operations. The Jupiter will not have this expenses. Right now it’s looking that at two flights per year of the Jupiter-130 will cost about $1.5 billion/year all things considered or about $10K/kg fully amortized. A price lower than what ULA is running at based on DOD budgeting divided kg delivered.

    We have some ideas on how to get that to about $1.2 billion per year for two flights per year but this will require some development dollars for the SSME and SRB. Not sure if the $300 million per year in savings will close the business case though. NASA as a customer really must get better at putting life cycle cost considerations before performance. Regardless the Jupiter-130 will not break the bank as some here assert based on what must be nearly zero amount of cost actual information.

    Given that USA and ULA organizations and the Delta, Atlas and Jupiter launch systems have the exact same parent and supplier organizations and industrial bases makes all the industrial participants involved somewhat agnostic as too which way the political wind blows this. Sure various lower level management groups underneath the parents will win or loose but the parent organization’s shareholders always win. After all, all good companies will sell to anyone who will buy, their shareholders wouldn’t have it any other way.

    This is why SpaceX’s vertical integration business model has drawn so much fire because it represents “a disruption in the force” and the existing power brokers can’t cut them off or raise prices on key industry unique components. A disruption that will help make everyone (including the more experienced organizations) a little more competitive which is why this was initiated in the first place.

    Those that see new space though as just this side of the second coming are blowing this way out of portion as to the reality and the political driving force of the situation. Making sure the big guys can lose once in a while keeps them leaner than they would otherwise be without any real competition.

  • The 2007 AIAA paper can be found on the http://www.directlauncher.com

    We didn’t run the business case in the paper but I have run some scenarios. Depending on assumptions some close some do not. We have identified some of the key parameters/assumptions that must be answered before we can narrow down the predictions sufficiently to know if we can close this or not under various demand scenarios. Fortunately a number of these more technical parameters can be found by experimenting and then scaling up ISRU approaches using lunar simulated material on Earth. This is exactly why I like the Advanced Tech/Mission initiative in the President’s plan. If it looks good we can then move to the next step a put a proto-type ISRU plant on the Moon and operate it remotely answering still more questions within the actual environment exploring other issues difficult to test on Earth. I obviously can’t predict if it will close but the path to determine that is the same for all new ideas.

    My prediction is that after the dust settles the approach that eventually takes us to Mars within the budget will have a mix of existing and new approaches. I just don’t think we should get rid of existing proven approaches before the newer ones have proved themselves. The key driver (constrained by political realities of getting funding) needs to life cycle cost in the end. The PoR went of the rails because it place performance above all other considerations. The reality is that it’s not about performance trades but about how well the plan aligns with budget and policy. Whatever the performance is that falls out of that process is by definition adequate.

  • Gary Church

    “My prediction is that after the dust settles the approach that eventually takes us to Mars within the budget will have a mix of existing and new approaches.”

    Those were two incredibly long posts to simply to say you are pushing a shuttle derived HLV.

    Better get behind Sidemount and Shannon and stop playing the make a buck save a buck game. The profit motive is toxic to space exploration.

    Go Sidemount!

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    nope

    you wrote:

    “‘After’ John’s swag both NASA and USA looked at the requirements and they developed a well supported $2 billion/year number. ”

    well no.

    first off 2 billion a year vrs 2.4 billion a year is 400 million and no where is the number of 2 billion a year to maintain the infrastructure alone supported in any documentation. There is no statement from anyone as to where cuts would be made to substantiate that number. That number is something you pulled out of thin air. Even in the Shannon effort at a SDV that number is not supported

    But you go on to say

    “Right now it’s looking that at two flights per year of the Jupiter-130 will cost about $1.5 billion/year all things considered or about $10K/kg fully amortized.”

    there is no data but yours to support that. In the latest effort by Shannon to develop a SDV the cost figures are no where near what you claim. You can make any cost claims you want, and I know that the devoted on NASAspaceflight.com make them all the time. But the key thing is that YOU nor anyone really in the DIRECT effort will be tasked with developing any vehicle along those cost lines.

    And the people that would be, dont buy your numbers.

    I notice you left the “sharpen our pencils” or whatever you were sharpening out…LOL

    finally

    “Second the Space Shuttle is a significant portion of the total cost of STS operations.”

    That is a typical misstatement.

    The orbiter is a large amount of the cost, but the MAIN cost function in the Shuttle system are “integration”. You have no idea how much it would cost to integrate any sort of Orion/SM/Second stage to a SDV or a “Jupiter” stack. You have no idea how much it would cost to even integrate something “uncrewed” with a second stage.

    But a rule of thumb until demonstrated otherwise is that the integration cost would be on an order of the shuttle system. Now you can waive your hands and say “no” but I’ve seen wags at the integration cost of Orion with Ares and they are “high”.

    Worse keeping shuttle hardware keeps the shuttle infrastructure (that “base” you are so worried about) and it knows how to do business only one way.

    So we are back to the reality. When you can show me how Shannon’s 2.4 billion a year number is reduced on paper, by someone who is not a DIRECT “evangelist” then the number gets some inspection.

    otherwise it is just more Stephen handwaiving.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    John swaged the $200 million per month number a few months ago in response to the Lori’s assertion

    I don’t know about that, but I do know that he stated that number last month during a Shuttle pre-launch review Q&A that I watched on NASA TV. He didn’t use any of the qualifications that you did, and I haven’t heard him change that number, so I would tend to believe his number over yours.

    Right now it’s looking that at two flights per year of the Jupiter-130 will cost about $1.5 billion/year all things considered or about $10K/kg fully amortized.

    How many launches does it take for you to hit $10K/kg ($4,536/lb)? Obliviously your launches have to include some portion of your R&D costs, and you need to state how many launches you are amortizing that across.

  • MrEarl

    I’ve been watching this tread through the day enjoying Bill and Steve making well informed points and watching Oler and the rest though nothing but smoke, but I have to ask……
    I’ve, for one, said for months that the shuttle orbiters are the largest cost of the shuttle program and Oler and others have always denied it.
    Robert, or anyone, I want a breakdown of costs for the STS system. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the orbiters care and feeding by far the largest part of the STS budget. I’m throwing it out there, prove me wrong.

  • common sense

    @ MrEarl wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    “I want a breakdown of costs for the STS system.”

    Ask John Shannon see if even he knows… That’d be fun.

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    Robert, or anyone, I want a breakdown of costs for the STS system. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the orbiters care and feeding by far the largest part of the STS budget. I’m throwing it out there, prove me wrong.

    Yes, this is the crux of the problem when comparing all these different plans and hardware – how much do they cost?

    In the commercial world, it’s a little easier to see, since companies advertise their services. For SpaceX, they advertise their Falcon 9 launcher for $56M to put up to 23,050 lbs into LEO. ULA has stated publicly how much it would cost to man-rate their Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V launchers ($1.3B and $400M respectively, and how much they would charge per launch ($300M and $130M). That’s pretty clear, and something that everyone can use to calculate value.

    For NASA, or anyone assuming the use of NASA assets, the costs involved are more murky. Whether by nature or on purpose, NASA’s accounting has been criticized by the GAO and other organizations for decades about how they keep their books, and the true cost of anything is unknown. I would say those in NASA have a better idea, but if they have an agenda (i.e. keeping their program alive), then they also have a motivation to understate the numbers publicly.

    I look forward to someone being able to provide the info you mention, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Which is unfortunate, because as a taxpayer, I want decisions made based on correct information, and I want people to have clear goals that they can be held accountable to.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    sorry Mr. Earl. with the statements you made both on autoland in general and the shuttle autoland in specific I regret to tell you that you wouldnt know smoke from fire!

    If you want to understand shuttle ops cost then go look at the latest missive from Shannon about the SDV.

    but do learn something on autoland. Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    “So we are back to the reality. When you can show me how Shannon’s 2.4 billion a year number is reduced on paper, by someone who is not a DIRECT “evangelist” then the number gets some inspection.”

    I am not a DIRECT evangelist. I have only one statement up for inspection; the SRB,SSME’ and ET are the most powerful launch system on planet earth with no rival now or in the near future. The hardware has been improved over decades and is capable of the most economical conversion into a heavy launch vehicle possible. To dismantle this infrastructure will be a loss to the U.S. in launch capability, planetary defense, BEO exploration, and simply a waste of a unique asset.

    Go Sidemount!

  • DCSCA

    Rand Simberg wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 4:00 pm Constellation is dead. Uh, no it’s not and that final decision is up to Congress, not astroturfers… or you.

  • DCSCA

    Gary Church wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 3:50 pm <- wake up and look at the world around you– or in the United States. Congress will never kill Constellation in an election year, especially with the economic conditions along the Gulf region in decline.

  • Mrearl

    So, Oler, you have no idea but you’ll continue to try to shout down anyone who has a different opinion, or in the case of John Shannon accuse him of lying, while spreading your own BS and mis-information.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mrearl wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    MrEarl….as several people told you I dont think that Shannon could give you a number for orbiter processing alone…but one can do a little investigation and figure things out.

    It doesnt take all that many key strokes to figure out what STS processing cost are for a total year…then to look at Ares/Orion proposed cost…and then go look at Shannon’s latest estimate for the SDV ops cost…

    Shannon is being modestly “truthful” or at least accurate in terms of what the cost to operate the shuttle and a SDV are. If you punch through the numbers you get about 700 million to fly a SDV but it has to fly about 6-7 times to get to that number…less and the cost per flight go up much as the shuttle does (go look at shuttle cost during the Columbia standdown period and you will learn something).

    What Shannon is being less then honest about are the development cost. How he and his team get to those numbers is even stated in the stuff on NASAspaceflight.com and the internal report which I have (I have very good friends at JSC and good friends in the lobby political business). It is typical NASA “shave margins” go to “conventional” organizational structures…all things that they claim that they will do in every program but never ever do. They were going to do all these things in Ares but of course we have seen how that works out.

    You are not all that well versed in aerospace. If you were then you would not have made the statements you made about the shuttle and autoland. I enjoy those discussions because they allow me to figure out who is blowing smoke and who simply doesnt know what they dont know.

    But it is somewhat surprising that you would imagine that “the next” (my quote) NASA Program is going to go where no HSF NASA program has gone in the last 40 years…on time and on any real budget.

    Shannon is misstating the development cost to get buy in. It wont work…the program is toast.

    Watch…when this is over I will be almost all correct…

    I have been since VSE was announced

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    I’m not anti-HLV. I like the approach Orbital Sciences is taking on their Taurus II rocket (repurposing existing rocket engines), and I have appreciated the designs of Ares IV, DIRECT, and SDHLV (with or without sidemount) for doing the same. There is no question in my mind that these HLV’s could launch large payloads.

    My issue has always been that we haven’t needed an HLV for the past 30 years, and I don’t see that changing. Everything we have sent into space on the Shuttle has fit into a 15’x60′ cargo space, and weighed no more than 53,600 lbs. How do we go from that to payloads that are 3-8x bigger? Who is funding them, and when are they being built?

    How big is really needed? HLV advocates claim in-space assembly can’t be used (despite the ISS proving them wrong), nor that fuel depots are needed. Instead they proclaim that fully-fueled, non-expandable, and pre-tested spacecraft can only do the job. What job? No one knows, but it’s going to be BIG! But how big?

    It has to be big to: A) send us beyond LEO, or B) save us from asteroids, or C) propagate humanity off the Earth. Anything smaller than the mythical HLV has been proven to be too small, so we shouldn’t even THINK of anything else.

    Or, HLV advocates claim that we have to build an HLV so that we can utilize the Shuttle people and infrastructure. What if we used that standard for every 30 year old transportation system? Why fly a 787 when you can fly an upgraded 707? Don’t throw away the 707 workforce or their tooling, because we spent so much on them! Right.

    Finally, HLV advocates want the U.S. taxpayer to pay for all of this. Why? The way they talk there is a TON of payloads to launch, so wouldn’t this be fertile ground for a private launch company? Um, I guess there isn’t a clear business case, so they have to rely on the investor of last resort – the U.S. Taxpayer!

    I’m not ready to invest yet…

  • I really hate that it has come down to a choice between Constellation and the flexible plan to nowhere. IMHO, they’re both wrong.

    But the letter is correct … the compromise is to go ahead and turn LEO over to commercial enterprise. I don’t have a problem with that part.

    I think what is giving most people heartache, isn’t that Constellation is being given the ax but that the flexible plan to nowhere is replacing it.

    So here it is … I’ve seen the debate … Do we need an HLV? Some say yes, some so no. The construction for the ISS is complete so we really don’t need an HLV for LEO … Is it an absolute necessity for a Moon or Mars mission. It not absolutely necessary but would make things easier.

    If we want an HLV, then let’s step back and give the Saturn V restart a try. We’ve rejected a Saturn V restart twice on the assumption that a new rocket could be done for the same price or less and twice that assumption has proven false.

    Back in 1992, AIAA published paper 92-1546, “Launch Vehicles for the Space Exploration Initiative”. This paper concluded that a revived Saturn V was actually cheaper than the NLS (National Launch Systems) vehicle then being debated.

    Let’s go with what we know works.

  • MrEarl

    Lobo:
    you are absolutely right. The PoR and FY’11 budget are two extremes and neither will get us past LEO in my lifetime, and I plan on at least being here another 50 years to torment Oler. :-)
    Constellation is myopically focused on launch vehicles, the FY’11 budget myopically focuses on R&D. Both will be needed but are only a part of true effort to advance the human presence beyond Earth orbit.
    A true road map of where we want to go and how we’re going to get there is essential.

    Let’s stop abandoning our technology and manufacturing base and build on what we have. If management is the problem let’s partner with private industry to improve. Ron, a 787 IS an upgraded 707. Everything that Boeing learned in the 50+ years of producing the 707, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777 was combined with new technology to develop the 787.

    The FY’11 budget is really a dismantling of NASA human space flight. Which is a legitimate point of view but one that I strongly disagree with as do many others. Holdren, Garver, Bolden and the President are trying to tell us it’s not. That we’ll be off to asteroids and other “flexible” paths. My point on that is that it’s a very important change that need to be debated an not shoved down the nation’s throat.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 9:59 am
    . Ron, a 787 IS an upgraded 707. Everything that Boeing learned in the 50+ years of producing the 707, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777 was combined with new technology to develop the 787.

    MrEarl…you really ought to stay away from airplanes.

    A 787 is not an upgraded 707. if there is an upgraded 707 flying it was the last 10 produced for the JSTARS program…but more correctly it is a P8 which is essentially a twin engine 707.

    I agree with you that everything Boeing learned in 50 plus years (actually it dates back to the 247 so farther back) is used in current airplanes, but the current airplanes are no more “updated” from the past then the B-29 was an updated B-17.

    you dont know airplanes

    or aerospace history

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    I may not know too much about airplanes, but the 797 is an amazing craft and 1000 passengers flying at mach 0.88 (654 mph) sounds like a game changer.

  • MrEarl

    Oler: There you go again, taking one little thing out of context, making a big deal out of it, and flying off on some tangent when your argument is so weak as to be indefensible.
    I think most people were smart enough to realize that I was referencing the fact that the 787 was the culmination of over 50 years of Boeing experience with jet aviation. That Boeing didn’t throw out their engineers and workforce, some of who may have been around to design and build versions the 707, 737, ect., and collective body of experience to build the 787.

  • MrEarl

    Bennett, that would be cool if it was real.
    http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/boeing797.asp
    But Boeing is working with NASA on a blended wing concept and one day, who knows!

  • the flexible plan to nowhere

    It’s not a “flexible plan to nowhere.” It’s a flexible path to anywhere we want to go.

  • Bennett

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:32 am

    Yeah, that’s the photo that I saw. Well there you go, a nice photoshop job that was presented to me as real. Ah well, as you say “one day, who knows”.

    Thanks for clearing that up!

  • MrEarl

    Rand;
    I, and a lot of other people, would feel much better about “Flexible” if there was a true plan behind it.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:28 am

    Well…when you say one airplane is an upgrade of another; that in the aviation aerospace business defines things one way.

    OK so in your world “an upgrade” is just moving forward. Well it is sort of like saying a Pentium is merely an upgrade of an 8088…its not.

    The 787 is no more an upgrade of the Dash 80 then the Dash was an upgrade of the Stratocruiser.

    An “upgrade” is what Convair did with its YB 66…that is why the USAF bought the B-52. An upgrade is what Consalidated did with its B-32…that is why the USAAC bought the B-29.

    again you dont understand airplanes.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bennett wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:44 am

    there is defiantly interest in blended wing technology…the trick is how to mesh any new really new design with current airport infrastructure.

    Robert G. Oler

  • MrEarl

    Bennett: you know that’s how I feel about the FY’11 NASA budget, a nice “Photoshop” image passing itself off as real.
    You seem like someone who would like to see HSF beyond Earth orbit sooner rather than later yet you hold pretty close to Oler’s views about the FY’11 NASA budget and his philosophy is geared tword HSF as latter rather than sooner. How do you reconcile that?

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:45 am

    Rand;
    I, and a lot of other people, would feel much better about “Flexible” if there was a true plan behind it………….

    two points

    First there is no real political support outside the space fan club and second the notion of “flexible” is not all the much with a rigid plan.

    Robert G. Oler

  • MrEarl

    Give it up Robert and stay on topic.

  • MrEarl

    “First there is no real political support outside the space fan club”
    Tell that to the 62 members of the house that just released the letter mentioned in the first paragraph of Jeff’s post.

    “the notion of “flexible” is not all the much with a rigid plan.”
    “Flexible” is touted for the destinations, there still has to be an architecture and plan to develop it that make those destinations possible.

  • Bennett

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:54 am

    You characterization is correct, but after watching the last 35 years of almost nothing happening, certainly nothing BEO, I have grown weary of following “legacy programs” that end up going nowhere.

    If we focus our resources on developing technology for BEO, while helping ULA and SpaceX carry the LEO torch for NASA, Bigelow, and anyone else wanting to access LEO, I think we’ll be much further along the path to BEO HSF.

    The ISS isn’t going away, neither are Bigelow’s plans for on orbit facilities. So right there we have something new and exciting (not so much ISS, but having commercial space going there IS new). The schedule laid out a number of times here and on other blogs and in the FY’11 budget itself promise missions and tech developments that will be interesting to watch.

    Just watching SpaceX do what it has done since ’05 has been better than darn near anything else that’s happened since the shuttle first flew.

    I actually think NASA will shine over the next 10 years, and I can’t wait for this dust to clear so that they can get started.

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:45 am

    I, and a lot of other people, would feel much better about “Flexible” if there was a true plan behind it.

    Next time you buy a car, you must tell us the EXACT destinations you plan on driving to, and when you’ll be there!

    See how silly that would be if everyone had to know that ahead of time?

    The whole point behind the “Flexible Plan” is that you don’t have to create a 10-15 year “program” to decide to go somewhere. NASA just builds the unique stuff, and contracts with one of the transportation providers to get them most of the way there. Need to get a NASA scientist to the ISS? You don’t need to create a program, or fund a capsule – just buy a seat position from ULA or SpaceX or one of the other commercial crew providers.

    For government owned spacecraft, they will be able to refuel at commercial fuel depots in space, as well as re-provision. The government doesn’t run gas stations or restaurants on it’s military bases, it contracts for those services to be supplied. It’s the same model that has been used over and over for both civilian and military needs, and Russia has already started doing it with private citizens being able to buy transportation to the ISS.

    Flexible = more opportunities

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:28 am

    OK, my fault for using the wrong airplanes for my analogy (it was late). Instead of the 707/787 comparison (both Boeing Seattle), I should have used the 717/787.

    The 717 was produced in Long Beach CA until 2006. I’m sure the employees at the plant would have wanted to use the same argument being made for the Shuttle personnel and facilities – just use us instead of building a whole new 787 plant.

    Sometimes you have to take the long view. Will closing an old facility, and building a new one with the latest technologies, be better? Will the personnel find better jobs in the newer companies that follow?

    What if SpaceX had been told that they had to use a Shuttle crawler and launch pad for their Falcon 9? How would that have affected their launch costs? Instead they are taking old Titan IV launch pads, clearing away what they don’t need, and building them back up new. Maybe some of the people they hire for the facility may have worked on the Titan pad, or maybe they came over from some other launch area. This is life, and change can be good.

    Congress may decide to fund a jobs program, and mandate the use of the existing shuttle complex for future launchers. But in the commercial world, if you don’t need it, then why keep it around if it’s costing you money?

  • MrEarl

    Ron, you may want to rethink the car analogy. When I buy a car, what I want to do with it is one of my top considerations. Do I need a truck to haul loads, a minivan (heaven forbid!!) to haul children or a sports car to haul my mid-life crisis? I’m all for some commercial concern to provide LEO access, it’s about time. But the flexible path is about destinations beyond Earth orbit. So, how are we going to get there? No answer. What are we going to do once we get there, No answer. Ok, why are we going? No answer. But we’re going to do a lot of R&D and technology demonstrators. R&D is good in theory but not very useful if it’s not focused on a goal.

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    When President Kennedy set the Moon as the goal, he said the goal was “of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth”.

    I didn’t hear any talk about “what are we going to do once we get there”. The opportunity presented many possibilities that were decided as they planned to meet the stated goals. With each successive landing they expanded the capabilities until we were finally driving around playing golf on the Moon. Kennedy never said playing golf on the Moon was a goal, nor did he say anything about doing scientific experiments. All of it was implied (why go there if you’re not going to look around).

    Same with your car. Yes you need it to take you to work, but what about that unplanned lunch excursion, or going to the beach on a sunny day. Extraneous trips that were unknown or undefined, but enabled by the assets you had available. How often would you/could do that if you had to plan them out a month ahead of time, and submit your budget plan to your spouse or boss?

    Give a NASA scientist the chance to go to any place in space, and they’ll pack as much scientific equipment as they can to make the most of the journey. Finding something to do is not for the President to determine, but for the scientists who are given the opportunity. The Flexible Plan gives them that opportunity.

  • common sense

    @ MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    Oh come on MrEarl!

    “So, how are we going to get there? No answer. What are we going to do once we get there, No answer. Ok, why are we going? No answer. ”

    The POR did not have these answers either. The VSE provided some of what you are looking for. Marburger also in a statement. But the POR did not satisfy the VSE. And that is that. Now if you really want to be constructive you’ll have to answer some of those yourself. AND I suspect that the answers you come up with means we need to change the Space Act. It has nothing to do with Constellation.

    “R&D is good in theory but not very useful if it’s not focused on a goal.”

    Now, how much experience do you have with R&D? I am serious. R&D is good period. Not “in theory”. Without R&D would you be using your browser today? How many people envisioned what the Internet has become when it started? Please.

  • MrEarl

    CS, you’re right the VSE did answer those questions and Constellation was Griffin’s answer to do them. As I said earlier it was myopically focused on launch vehicles and left the rest of the VSE for the nebulous future. Under FY’11 the VSE is dead, no need to go to the moon, been there done that. So what’s the new plan?

    To your other point, the internet was an R&D project, funded by DARPA, FOCUSED on sharing information between the government, industry and academia. How many people envisioned the internet to become what it is now, I would say none, but it did grow out of a focused R&D project.

  • common sense

    @ MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    I have a problem with the “focus” you talk about. All the R&D projects under the new NASA plan are “focused”. What you seem to refer to is “focused on a destination with a timeline”. Hence my comparison with the Internet. Nowhere was the Internet focused in such a manner. The focus was communication. Well each and evry R&D program has a focus, e.g. propulsion, HLV, etc. They have focus, not the one you would like. I think.

    Even the VSE had its problems: The worst being the timeline. There was not a chance that they would make it. Not a chance! Had they been a bit more realistic… Etc…

    Once again, how do you enforce destination and timeline when you do not have the capability? Worse, the 1960s TRL of the required technologies actually went backward with time!!! So if something was TRL 9 in 1969 it now is TRL 7 at best (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level). A tough pill to swallow a real one nonetheless. Such is life.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 3:27 pm
    >
    >Congress will never kill Constellation

    Thats why Obama had Bolden play a legally questionable game to force all work on Constellation to end, and lay off the folks. Comgress is fighting back – no clear idea where its going.

    Similarly Obama’s commercial crew proposal was DOA. No support in congress now, no chance of it getting in a budget this year – likely next year you’ll have a more hostile congress.

  • Kelly Starks

    > MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 9:59 am
    >
    > === The PoR and FY’11 budget are two extremes and
    > neither will get us past LEO in my lifetime, and I
    > plan on at least being here another 50 years to torment Oler.

    Its good to have life goals.. ;)

    But yes

    >== Let’s stop abandoning our technology and manufacturing base ==
    >== The FY’11 budget is really a dismantling of NASA
    > human space flight. ==

    Sadly true. More sadly, NASA programs are about the only market industry has. When the NASA markets go – it will decimate the industry. How you could restart later if you wanted, would mean spending maybe a decade rebuilding the industry and expertise at very great expense. That could well make it politically infeasable.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Rand Simberg wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:37 am
    >> the flexible plan to nowhere

    > It’s not a “flexible plan to nowhere.” It’s a flexible
    > path to anywhere we want to go.

    ROTFLMAO

    A program to develop nothing to go anywhere, with no plans to go anywhere, is a opening to go everywhere?

  • Kelly Starks

    > Bennett wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
    >
    > == If we focus our resources on developing technology
    > for BEO, while helping ULA and SpaceX carry the LEO
    > torch for NASA, Bigelow, and anyone else wanting to
    > access LEO, I think we’ll be much further along the path to BEO HSF.

    First, that’s always failed with NASA – they never deliver anything, which was why the VSE was created.

    Second, no ones talking about developing new technology, or expanding anything.
    Really they are talking about NASA’s spending on commercial or operational anything going down by a something like a factor of 10, and eliminating most associated training and staffs, but upping bureaucracy. That doesn’t lead to a leap forward in HSF of commercial space industry, or even maintaining current capacities.

  • A program to develop nothing to go anywhere, with no plans to go anywhere

    Why do you continue to mischaracterize the program?

  • common sense

    @ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    “Second, no ones talking about developing new technology, or expanding anything.”

    I think you should start reading the new plan and budgets.

  • Bennett

    “developing technology” doesn’t have to mean “new technology”. The fuel depot concepts from ULA (ACES-41) need to be “developed, i.e. built and boosted.

    Being obtuse about this stuff doesn’t add to the conversation.

  • MrEarl

    Ok let’s compare and contrast how the VSE was presented as opposed to what we have now.
    The VSE was presented as making the journey worth the risk inherent in space flight. The ultimate goal would be the search for life on Mars. To do that we would first go to the moon to perfect skills in habitat assembly, ISITU resource utilization, ect, ect, all that would be needed to accomplish that mission and to start moving humanity off the rock. While there were time-lines, it was “Go as you pay” which most people took as meaning soft time-lines. Where VES got derailed was when Griffin came on board with “Apollo on Steroids”. Constellation became the beast that ate NASA, sacrificing everything to feed it’s growing appetite.
    Enter the Obama administration and the Augustine committee. Maybe this is a way to get the VSE back on track. The committee creates recommendations but you can see that it’s leaning tword the “Flexible Path”. LM came out with proposals on how Orion can fit into a flexible path scenario taking advantage of some of the money already spent. ULA develops plans to man rate their EELVs to launch Orion, NASA researches ways to leverage the investments made in the Shuttle and Constellation program to come up with cheaper alternatives.
    Then the FY’11 budget is released. There’s $6Billion for development “commercial” human space flight, there’s some R&D thrown out to some of the NASA centers and that’s it. When questioned about directions and the plan going forward NASA Administrator Bolden has no answers because the agency was given the budget a few days before. When pressed for more specifics they throw out things like going to asteroids, Mars is the ultimate destination, there may be circumlunar flights, but plans seem to be so flexible as to me nebulous. Add to that statements from the president like we don’t need to go to the moon, been there done that, and you begin to think that this is really a way to revert back to the NACA and that HSF beyond Earth orbit is abandoned.

  • Bennett

    and you begin to think that this is really a way to revert back to the NACA and that HSF beyond Earth orbit is abandoned.

    Only if you WANT to think that way. Many people think that the new path is a good path. I think it beats the hell out of doing nothing.

  • common sense

    @ MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    “While there were time-lines, it was “Go as you pay” which most people took as meaning soft time-lines. Where VES got derailed was when Griffin came on board with “Apollo on Steroids”. Constellation became the beast that ate NASA, sacrificing everything to feed it’s growing appetite.”

    So you say it yoursefl. Hence the termination. A horrible gamble that did not pay. Poor homework very poor homework planning.

    “Maybe this is a way to get the VSE back on track. ”

    Precisely. But I cannot care less what LM and others plans are, especially those plans related to keeping Orion or any other Constellation parts. Things such as TPS or LAS possibly but that is as far as I will go. Avionics maybe.

    “Add to that statements from the president like we don’t need to go to the moon, been there done that”

    The President is exactly right (and you are saying so yourself above). Constellation was nothing but Apollo on steroids, had it worked, and it was not even going to work!

    “this is really a way to revert back to the NACA”

    So what? Maybe best for NASA and everyone else.

    ” and that HSF beyond Earth orbit is abandoned”

    ??? You like to have precise numbers and references for Shuttle cost but what about applying this to your own reasoning? Please point to a reference from NASA or the WH or anyone who is in charge that says so and I will bow. At least show me where in the plan that if it is executed as intended would terminate HSF at NASA. Please show me!

  • The President is exactly right (and you are saying so yourself above). Constellation was nothing but Apollo on steroids, had it worked, and it was not even going to work!

    That’s a separate issue from going back to the moon per se.

  • common sense

    @ Rand Simberg wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    “That’s a separate issue from going back to the moon per se.”

    Not sure what you mean here. VSE was about going back to the Moon on the way to Mars and to develop commerce on the way there, per Marburger’s statements. Constellation was nothing like that. Constellation was about putting if at all footprints on the Moon. Furthermore Constellation was actually about the SRB/Shuttle workforce (Augustine Committee reports essentially says so, not necessarily me alone). Constellation was put in place to save the workforce while at the same time reduce the workforce! Had Constellation really been about going back to the Moon and address the VSE in any meaningful way it would have followed O’Keefe’s spiral approach. This was the only affordable way for NASA and the US. Today’s Flex-Path is very similar to the VSE in spirit but tries to develop the technologies first before we actually go. Hence the lack of timeline.

  • MrEarl

    CS, you miss the point…….
    You’re to busy looking at this through the prism of SpaceX good, everything else bad, to objectively make comparisons. What the Obama administration is trying to do doesn’t bare the slighted resemblance to the VSE.
    The VSE was started as a way to affordably further the human presence in space. What the administration is trying to do now is kill it.

  • DCSCA

    I actually think NASA will shine over the next 10 years, and I can’t wait for this dust to clear so that they can get started. <– Don't kid yourself.

    Pull manned spaceflight from the game and the civilian space agency has zero reason to remain a separately funded agency with other agencies doing similar esoteric research in hard economic times. And the American public would agree. Congress would lavish praise on an angency that accoumplished its tasks in the past, salue it and dissolve it. NACA did a swell job too– dissolved and the best bones picked clean and absorbed to create.. NASA. As austerity slams home to the people of the U.S., any politician would salivate and crow over dissolving a Federal agency in the name of saving the revenue.

  • DCSCA

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 2:47 pm <- agreed. Next year will be the final decision, after the elections, and the economic/jobs situation. Frankly, only a re-working of Constellation (dumping Ares) and fully funding Orion and lofting it a top existing LV systems seems a better plan. This writer listened to Obama's speech again this afternoon and his proposals for out years in 2020 and 2030 are simply paper projects, little more than pie in the sky. If U.S. manned spaceflight is faced with a decade gap, it's finished in these economic times. When it's gone, the American public wont' miss it… until the next Sputnik moment.

  • common sense

    @ MrEarl wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 7:43 pm

    What point am I missing? You state things and I asked you to back them up and you did not. I do not miss anything but you on the other hand do not want to step back and look. It does not matter if it is SpaceX making it or not in the big picture if others are allowed to play. But today only SpaceX has put its skin in the game much more so than any other competitors. And successfully so, so far. I don’t understand why you pick on SpaceX. I ask you about the VSE and the former and current WH and you answer SpaceX. Where is the logic?

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
    >
    > Pull manned spaceflight from the game and the civilian space
    > agency has zero reason to remain a separately funded agency ==

    The public sees NASA as the manned space flight folks. A NASA who flies on other folks ships, to a space station they built in decades past when they had far more capability —- not a great possition come budget time.

    I actually would support a NASA doing research on cutting edge things – that is needed, adn I can see the public getting interested in that – if it offered great improvements in what NASA can send folks to do in space. HOWEVER NASA just re-researching old systems in operation from decades to generations. That screams has been agency to the public

    The p[public sees NASA as valuable since its the only “took people to the moon” agency in the world, adn that makes America look cool. And jobs in districts. Obama’s striping NASA of its glory, and offering far more pork in lots of other places. So NASA become irrelevant.

    though…. I think restoring American preeminence and exceptionalism could be a big political theme in the next 2 elections and congresses. Rescuing NASA could play well into that – but it could come to late and find to little aerospace in the US to support a real NASA

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
    >
    > == only a re-working of Constellation (dumping Ares) and fully
    > funding Orion and lofting it a top existing LV systems seems a better plan.

    I could think of better planas – but it would need to be something big and fast to recover things. Can’t see congress doing that.

    > == This writer listened to Obama’s speech again this afternoon
    > and his proposals for out years in 2020 and 2030 are simply paper
    > projects, little more than pie in the sky. ===

    Oh of course. Its like Agnew’s talking about Mars by the ‘80s. Or congress passing the bill to direct NASA to advance human settlement in space.. Nothing but sound bytes. I’m utterly baffeled by how seriously folks are taking that. Whistling through a graveyard I guess

    >== If U.S. manned spaceflight is faced with a decade gap, it’s
    > finished in these economic times. When it’s gone, the American
    > public wont’ miss it… until the next Sputnik moment.

    Yeah, when India or china – the poster children of 3rd world poverty – beat us in aerospace and spac

  • common sense

    @ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    “Yeah, when India or china – the poster children of 3rd world poverty – beat us in aerospace and spac”

    Problem is about this: Nobody gives a hoot.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Problem is about this: Nobody gives a hoot.

    If that keeps on, were gonig to stop being a major nation pretty quickly. Big aero firms are already saying pretty soon they will just not be able to staff up any major civilian or military aerospace firm.

  • common sense

    @ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 2:00 pm

    “If that keeps on, were gonig to stop being a major nation pretty quickly. Big aero firms are already saying pretty soon they will just not be able to staff up any major civilian or military aerospace firm.”

    Oh but this has nothing to do with aerospace or NASA or any given specific area. Being a “major” nation has to do with education, health, knowledge, quality of life, science, arts, inventiveness, etc. Nothing to do with a re-do of Apollo.

    See for example if we are successful at making the real first private space companies then it directly feeds into being a major nation. I’ll grant you this: It is a pretty big “if”. But it also only is a fraction of what it takes.

    One of the problem is the total lack of imagination. Look at the airline industry, the automotive industry. What is it that others do so much better than what we do? And how about the crown jewel: Wall Street???

    I am afraid it will take a lot more than going to the Moon or in space to ensure preeminence of the US.

  • Kelly Starks

    > common sense wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
    >> “If that keeps on, were going to stop being a major
    >> nation pretty quickly. Big aero firms are already saying
    >> pretty soon they will just not be able to staff up any
    >> major civilian or military aerospace firm.”

    > Oh but this has nothing to do with aerospace or NASA or
    > any given specific area. Being a “major” nation has to do
    > with education, health, knowledge, quality of life, science,
    > arts, inventiveness, etc. Nothing to do with a re-do of Apollo.
    >
    > See for example if we are successful at making the real first
    > private space companies then it directly feeds into being a
    > major nation. I’ll grant you this: It is a pretty big “if”. ==

    Yes and no. For we’ve had commercial space companies for 50 years. So say if we open up a major new space market like space tourism or something, but we lose out aerospace industry – well we won’t be a major factor in the space tourism industry if we can’t even make the tourist craft.

    If we can’t make cutting edge military aircraft and space craft – were not going to be a major military for long. Aerospace is a major export industry for us – is we lose that, its a big economic hit.

    Also aerospace industry and technology links into a lot of other things. The folks that make NASA space suits and space life support systems also make the life support systems for submarines. If we keep walking away from high tech nidustries – that doesn’t encourage folks to get a higher education – or voters to support it. Universities are already dropping budgets for profs and spending more rebuilding their buildings – because potential students are seen as caring more about new dorms then good proffs.

    Obviously the Constellation program was a peace of garbage, and should have been replaced with something better – but it wasn’t, it was just eliminated along with virtually all expenditures on the development or construction, or operation of space craft etc. NASA keeps the same budget, but its thrown into make work. So the crappy Constellation program at least kept the industry from collapsing.

    > ==One of the problem is the total lack of imagination.
    > Look at the airline industry, the automotive industry.
    > What is it that others do so much better than what we do?

    Well most industry has left the US, were technically a underdeveloped nation since we export mainly food, ore, and timber – and import manly manufactured goods. The gov is strangling the auto industry by regulations to force them to not build what consumers want, and build what they can’t sell to anyone. And now of course the auto industry effectively been nationalized. The gov has pushing to export most of our energy production to other nations with things like drilling restrictions. Our economy hasn’t been growning to the levels of nations like India and China, who both have bigger economies, and bigger skiled labor pools.

    We can still be more inventive (bell labs alone has won more Nobels then any non US nation in the world) – and away from unions, our works adaptability makes them more productive no a dollar per dollar basis – but that’s overwhelmed by our extremely high taxes, and regulations.
    Our standard of living is extremely high, but that just makes one comfortable – not great.

  • common sense

    @ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    “say if we open up a major new space market like space tourism or something, but we lose out aerospace industry”

    I don’t agree. We open a “market” but the providers will be US companies employing the necessary US high skill high tech workforce. If we don’t then all those jobs will go down the drain or abroad. Think it cannot happen? Just wait and see.

    “If we can’t make cutting edge military aircraft and space craft – were not going to be a major military for long. ”

    How did that help us againt the emergence of new low technology threats? A few terrorists with knives brought the US to its knees, like it or not. An F-22 certainly is not the answer. Nor is an Ares V, or Ares I for that matter.

    “If we keep walking away from high tech nidustries – that doesn’t encourage folks to get a higher education – or voters to support it. ”

    High tech industries do not equate with aerospace and defense. Where are you getting this from? How about medical industry? Software industry?

    “Universities are already dropping budgets for profs and spending more rebuilding their buildings – because potential students are seen as caring more about new dorms then good proffs”

    This has been going on for ever. It is not just today. And the US used to attract talent from abroad to compensate for this problem. Not any more. This is a much more profound issue.

    “The gov is strangling the auto industry by regulations to force them to not build what consumers want, and build what they can’t sell to anyone”

    Ah come on! Antiquated SUVs and other pieces of scrap metal is why the industry is going down. A lot of people were laughing and some still are at the Prius… You make what you want with this. The US branches of Ford and GM have kept complaining about engines they cannot build even though their europeans branches were building those very engines. Next time you go to Europe drive a Ford Focus there and then drive one here…

    ” like drilling restrictions. ”

    This is political nonsense. Sorry. Any drilling done today would not bring anything back to the country until way later in the future. In addition why would the drilling/oil companies sell the oil to the US? Why not to larger markets such as India and China? You are fooling yourself if you think that drilling here in the US will help the energy crisis now or in the future. The only thing drilling would provide is more revenues to the oil industry and I am not saying whether it is good or bad. Just stating a fact.

    “Our economy hasn’t been growning to the levels of nations like India and China, who both have bigger economies, and bigger skiled labor pools.”

    It is about time to wake up! But marching orders have always been “profit and more profit”. At the same time companies were not willing to increase workers wages. Therefore they had to buy cheap goods and fall into debt. This narrow shortsighted approach just backfired and we are not done yet with it. You’ll see more fun coming our way I am sure pretty soon if things do not change at a much larger scale. And that compared with Space, or HSF… Anyway.

    “We can still be more inventive (bell labs alone has won more Nobels then any non US nation in the world) – and away from unions, our works adaptability makes them more productive no a dollar per dollar basis – but that’s overwhelmed by our extremely high taxes, and regulations.
    Our standard of living is extremely high, but that just makes one comfortable – not great.”

    Total nonsense. Unions have provided progress in this nation for the workers you are only trivializing their effects in a canned political way. Our standard of living is neither comfortable nor great. We have a rampant debt that only crazy increased deficit is trying to alleviate. People who face illness do not have proper coverage. And if you do not know that then there is nothing I can do for you except maybe to make sure you read the footprints of your healthcare insurance contract.

    You seem to be living in a United States of the past. Come forward to the present! It will help your future.

  • DCSCA

    @KellyStarks “I actually would support a NASA doing research on cutting edge things – that is needed, adn I can see the public getting interested in that – if it offered great improvements in what NASA can send folks to do in space.”

    Except that’s not the plan. The public has come to equate manned space exploration with NASA. That may not be fair to its varied and more esoteric research endeavors, but that’s how the public views it. There is little research it is doing that is not or cannot be conducted by parrellel agencies along similar lines. As the Age of Austerity draws near and this administration is successful in killing off manned spaceflight (which this writer believes is its ultimate goal) — the civilian space agency will be a ripe target for dissolution with its remaining assets folded into existing agencies with similar pedigree (DoD, FAA, NOAA, etc.,). And an increasingly cash-strapped public, desperate for more entitlements to meet the down to earth problems of day to day life will concur. There isn’t a politician alive who wouldn’t crow over closing down a government agency in the face of looming defecits. And the public will suppot it. That’s the ‘Obama’ plan.

  • Kelly Starks

    > common sense wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    >>@ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    >> “say if we open up a major new space market like space tourism
    >> or something, but we lose out aerospace industry”

    > I don’t agree. We open a “market” but the providers will be US
    > companies employing the necessary US high skill high tech workforce. ==

    Not if the industry is gone. They buy from the best source. Were runing out of source companies up to the task.

    >> “If we can’t make cutting edge military aircraft and space
    >> craft – were not going to be a major military for long. ”

    > How did that help us againt the emergence of new low technology threats? ==

    Actually they are mainstays in fighting them — adn we don’t always fight low tech adversaries.

    > = certainly is not the answer. Nor is an Ares V, or Ares I for that matter.

    No, but at least they keep the industry alive.

    >> “If we keep walking away from high tech industries – that doesn’t
    >> encourage folks to get a higher education – or voters to support it. ”

    > High tech industries do not equate with aerospace and defense. ==

    ?
    Aerospace is one of the highest tech industries.

    >== How about medical industry? Software industry?

    Still doing well there.

    >> “Universities are already dropping budgets for profs and spending
    >> more rebuilding their buildings – because potential students are
    >> seen as caring more about new dorms then good proffs”

    > == the US used to attract talent from abroad to compensate for
    > this problem. Not any more. This is a much more profound issue.

    Yeah, now they come for a education adn go home to staff their growing industries.

    >> “The gov is strangling the auto industry by regulations to force
    >> them to not build what consumers want, and build what they
    >> can’t sell to anyone”

    > Ah come on! Antiquated SUVs and other pieces of scrap metal is
    > why the industry is going down.

    SUVs adn pickups make up over half of all US sales.

    >A lot of people were laughing and some still are at the Prius… ==

    Yeah – the Prius in accounts for the bulk of all hybride sales, adn in the ten years its been in the market – its sold ALMOST as much as a single year of Ford F-150 or GM Silverado/1500 pickups.

    The prius is a status purchase to show off to friends. Its very expensive, and for the cost you can get bigger lower fuel consumption conventional cars.

    Think about it. If these things were big sellers – you wouldn’t need laws to force car companies to make them – much less discontinue popular models.

    >== The US branches of Ford and GM have kept complaining about
    > engines they cannot build even though their europeans branches
    > were building those very engines. ==

    So why can’t they? Because they are illegal here?

    >> ” like drilling restrictions. ”

    > This is political nonsense. Sorry. Any drilling done today would
    > not bring anything back to the country until way later in the future. ==

    Actually you’ll notice they started a ban on existing wells in the gulf, even though their experts warned it would maximize chances of another rupture like the BP well.

    And new well would bring oil back to the US faster then not drilling year after year — or decade after decade.

    > In addition why would the drilling/oil companies sell the oil to the US?

    If they drill near the US? Because were a big market. Hell China’s arranging with Cuba to drill off the US coast to sell to us rather then ship it back to China. (they can buy other oil closer to home). Why assume a company in the US wouldn’t?

    Add oil to the market – the costs go down.

    >> “Our economy hasn’t been growning to the levels of nations
    >> like India and China, who both have bigger economies, and
    >> bigger skiled labor pools.”

    > == marching orders have always been “profit and more profit”. At
    > the same time companies were not willing to increase workers wages. =

    If you don’t want to compete, you go out of business. Same for workers and companies. You expecting companies to act like a charity? How do you expect them to keep in busness competing with companies who don’t?

    >> “We can still be more inventive (bell labs alone has won more
    >> Nobels then any non US nation in the world) – and away from
    >> unions, our works adaptability makes them more productive no
    >> a dollar per dollar basis – but that’s overwhelmed by our
    >> extremely high taxes, and regulations.
    >>
    >> Our standard of living is extremely high, but that just makes one comfortable – not great.”

    > Total nonsense. Unions have provided progress in this nation for
    > the workers you are only trivializing their effects in a canned
    > political way.

    No, I grew up in union ares and saw them destroy the industries and sell out their people. And the history does not pain unilns in such rosey pictures.

    > Our standard of living is neither comfortable nor great. ==

    Actually its the highest in the world – for now.

    > == We have a rampant debt that only crazy increased deficit is
    > trying to alleviate. ==

    Ha? Increasing your debt year after year (I.E. having a deficit) is not attempting to lower the debt.

    >== People who face illness do not have proper coverage. ==

    True, but at least the care is avalible here regardless. Though yes it would be nice if half of everything paid for medical care – wasn’t going for lawyers.

    >==read the footprints of your healthcare insurance contract.

    Can’t afford medical insurence. Had to drop the old policy when I was off work for 6 months last year – still not caught up enough to afford a new one.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    >> @KellyStarks “I actually would support a NASA doing research
    >> on cutting edge things – that is needed, adn I can see the public
    >> getting interested in that – if it offered great improvements in
    >> what NASA can send folks to do in space.”

    > Except that’s not the plan.==

    True – though right now no plan is going anywhere.

    >== The public has come to equate manned space exploration with
    > NASA. ==

    True, but if you did research to enhance that (new engine types for better ships, better ships) – that would sell, but not at the expense of maned missions. But of course they are trying to re-research and redevelop old designs and concepts.
    ;/

    > == As the Age of Austerity draws near and this administration is
    > successful in killing off manned spaceflight (which this writer
    > believes is its ultimate goal) ==

    If it ain’t the goal – its amazingly precise for a accident.

    What do you write?

    >==— the civilian space agency will be a ripe target for
    > dissolution with its remaining assets folded into existing
    > agencies with similar pedigree (DoD, FAA, NOAA, etc.,). ==

    Your already seeing DOD moving ahead with RLV and hypersonic research and dev proposals, suborbital transport research – all things logically you’d expect NASA to work on.

    >== There isn’t a politician alive who wouldn’t crow over closing
    > down a government agency in the face of looming deficits. ==

    Are you talking about the current crew in congress? They are stunningly disinterested in public demands, or budget realities.

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- “Are you talking about the current crew in congress? They are stunningly disinterested in public demands, or budget realities.” When the time is right, after the elections, and the Age of Austerity dawns bright and dark, they’ll act. Recall gingrich wanted to kill off NASA nearly 20 years ago but his timing was off and he backed off. If they see an oppofrtunity to dissolve the post office or the “Dept. of Educashun” or NASA, they’ll do it.

  • common sense

    @ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 8:06 pm

    At this stage it looks like we have irreconcilable differences. So there is no point pursuing this. However if you think that the public is ready for a gazillion dollar investment in HSF you’re sadly mistaken. If you think you can convince them otherwise you are not living in this country. And if you believe that aerospace is a high tech industry then you are dreaming.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:42 am

    >> @Kelly- “Are you talking about the current crew in congress?
    >>They are stunningly disinterested in public demands, or budget
    >> realities.”

    > When the time is right, after the elections, and the Age of Austerity
    > dawns bright and dark, they’ll act.==

    Hope fully tyhe newly elected congress will take a hint. Though really NASA bdgets so trivial comparedto the huge welfare and debt interest budgets it hardly maters.

    > Recall gingrich wanted to kill off NASA nearly 20 years ago but
    > his timing was off and he backed off.==

    I think your thinking of someone else. Gingrich was and is a very pro space — though hes interested in doing it using more direct commercial, rather then big gov contracts.

    > If they see an oppofrtunity to dissolve the post office or the
    > “Dept. of Educashun” or NASA, they’ll do it.

    Deot of ED is just pork, Post office … should be contracted out.

    NASA should eaither be used to do something – or dropped, not its current all pork focus.

  • Kelly Starks

    > common sense wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 1:15 am

    >@ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
    > == if you think that the public is ready for a gazillion dollar
    > investment in HSF you’re sadly mistaken.==

    Never suggested that

    >==. And if you believe that aerospace is a high tech industry then you are dreaming.

    If you don’t think aerospace is high tech – you don’t know what it is! I’ve worked aerospace and contracted out to a lot of other industries because THEY saw aerospace as much more tech then them.

  • common sense

    @ Kelly Starks wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 7:13 pm

    “If you don’t think aerospace is high tech – you don’t know what it is!”

    Nope you are right I don’t know.

    Oh well…

  • wind farms are eco friendly and can generate massive amounts of electricity;.;

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