Congress, NASA

The budget debate heats up

It appears that NASA has complied, at least partially, with a request by a House committee for documents about the FY11 budget process. Tucked into an article about impending layoffs at Constellation contractors, the New York Times reports that NASA sent over documents to the House Science and Technology Committee Friday evening, which staff members are now reviewing. The committee demanded the documents last week after NASA was not forthcoming with earlier requests for information about aspects of the budget. The report does not indicate, however, whether the agency withheld any documents, and if so for what reasons.

Meanwhile, six senators have written to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, asking him to abandon efforts to slow down Constellation by requiring contractors to withhold funds to cover termination liability. In the letter the senators cite concerns about “inconsistent treatment and the counter-productive effect of withholding funding” on NASA contractors. The letter was organized, according to Florida Today, by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and signed by Sens. Robert Bennett (R-UT), Jon Cornyn (R-TX), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), George LeMieux (R-FL), and David Vitter (R-LA). While the signers are all from states that have perhaps the most to lose from the cancellation of Constellation, interestingly, neither Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) nor Alabama’s two senators signed the letter.

All this comes as the House is expected to finally start to take action on the NASA budget proposal. Next Tuesday afternoon the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will markup its version of the FY11 spending bill, which includes NASA. The House is also expected to take up next week a supplemental appropriations bill for FY10, including deciding whether to include language similar to the Senate version that requires NASA to fund “continued performance of Constellation contracts” with the remaining funding this fiscal year. An article in Saturday’s Houston Chronicle discusses these developments, although some might find the article has a curious tilt. “Two milestones in the protracted congressional budget process are expected to provide NASA supporters their first concrete evidence next week that lawmakers from states without major NASA facilities are willing to defy the president and support the campaign to salvage parts of the $108 billion back-to-the-moon program,” the article states. So one can’t be a “NASA supporter” and also back the administration’s new direction for the agency? Perhaps not in Houston.

180 comments to The budget debate heats up

  • Robert G. Oler

    ““Two milestones in the protracted congressional budget process are expected to provide NASA supporters their first concrete evidence next week that lawmakers from states without major NASA facilities are willing to defy the president and support the campaign to salvage parts of the $108 billion back-to-the-moon program,” the article states. So one can’t be a “NASA supporter” and also back the administration’s new direction for the agency? Perhaps not in Houston.”

    that is about the sum of it.

    Right now the only “ground” that NASA HSF holds is “exploration”…it is a curious definition of it, one that is limited to simply having programs not having them do anything. But that is what constitute “NASA supporters”.

    If you want an example of that go read Whittington’s blog. He daily parrots the big government line.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Alan Stern

    I see Nelson also apparently didn’t sign the letter.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    “If you want an example of that go read Whittington’s blog. He daily parrots the big government line.”

    Oler continues his smears, I see. But, by all means, read my blog.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 11:01 am

    you support a 100-200 and couple of decade effort to send a few NASA astronauts back to the Moon.

    thats big government

    Robert G. Oler

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler, I fail to see how a 19 Billion dollar NASA is “not big government” and a 24 billion dollar NASA is “big government.” The difference between the two is a rounding error in the stimulus package or in health care reform. A return to the Moon is as crucial to the long term national security of the United States as funding the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines. Obama’s plan to go to an asteroid and then on to Mars is a joke.

    Mind, I’m in favor of privitizing social security, free market reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, and repealing health care reform. Like Willy Sutton, where it comes to “big government” I like to go to where the real money is, unlike you or Obama.

  • amightywind

    If you go through the exercise of redressing the shortcomings of NASA over the last 40 years, you will come up with a program like Constellation. You may quibble about whether to use an RS-68 or an SSME, but the path forward is obvious. Many on this forum fanatically hype commercial space for reasons that are hard to fathom. Are they investors? Probably not. Elon Musk fanbois? Some. Most are just irresponsible people who sow chaos and call it a vision of the future. It is the same ‘hope and change’ thing that brought us government run health care. Main steam America rejects them.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 11:51 am

    “Oler, I fail to see how a 19 Billion dollar NASA is “not big government” and a 24 billion dollar NASA is “big government.” The difference between the two is a rounding error in the stimulus package or in health care reform. A return to the Moon is as crucial to the long term national security of the United States as funding the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines.”

    two points.

    First to be intellectually honest “big government” is not defined by a dollar figure rather by Actions and how programs are structured. You seem to admit that as you are for privatizing social security and free market reforms to other programs…but in human spaceflight you are all for a government program that is by all definitions wasteful, not accomplishing anything and spending money mostly on maintenance of government infrastructure, not actually “doing” much.

    If the threshold of “big government” is one that a bank robber set 3/4 of a century ago…ie just where the money is then why have I heard you rail against things like PBS funding, or NEA funding or other “minor” things that consume far less money then is spent on social security?

    “Big Government” is more a definition of how things are run; when something is run to the exclusion of private enterprise (indeed to its determent in the case of human spaceflight) then the cost are not relevant…it is the entire notion of how things are done. That is one reason NASA consumed Billions to get to a suborbital test flight (indeed the actual cost for that flight) are far more then what private enterprise has spent on Falcon and Falcon 9 combined.

    the reason you make the “money” breakdown is that you are not intellectually honest…and to cover that you invent the nonsense of NASA being on some par with the US military

    The second point is that there is no national priority or need to “go back to the Moon”. There is no demonstrated method that any of the resources there now could help our economy or that there is any threat to them. Like Bush did with the WMD in Iraq you have tried to invent one. The silly stuff of the chinese making a run to take control of them is stupid.

    The first test of big government is when a government project becomes more important then anything else…and the first test of a failed on, is when people like you invent justifications for it.

    A 19 billion dollar NASA that accomplishes little is slightly less big government then a 24 billion dollar NASA that also accomplishes little…but both are big government and you are supporting that.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    @ Alan Stern,

    A lot depends on your definition of ‘Project Constellation’, I guess. Depending on who you ask, it is the return-to-the-moon system based around Orion, Altair, Ares-I and Ares-V. Others consider it to be a broader concept about restoring US beyond Earth Orbit HSF. From what I understand, the latter definition really confuses CxP with the the earlier VSE speech in response to which NASA claims Constellation was developed.

    Whilst I suspect Nelson would prefer a large, monolithic program like Apollo or Shuttle as NASA’s next HSF mission, I suspect that CxP is no longer seen by many NASA supporters as the only option of that nature on the table (or even the most desirable one). So, saving ‘Constellation’ is becoming less and less an issue with the notable exceptions of ATK’s local Senators and a few others. The fact that Sens. Hutchinson and Shelby are not signatories is, IMHO, proof of an effective abandonment of CxP by the politicians. That ship has sunk.

    As Jeff says in his article, the Science Subcommittee’s version of FY2011 will answer a lot of questions about whether ObamaSpace is going to survive more-or-less intact or whether the various interests in Congress send money and effort in a different direction. All eyes (in the space community, anyway) turn to DC on Tuesday.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    “Big government” is not defined as how big government is? Thanks for the clarification, Oler. As for the return to the Moon not being a national priority, I have to disagree with that view. The recent discovery of water on the Moon suggests that the Moon is the key for the Solar System and is therefore strategic territory that must be controlled by any power that hopes to be space faring.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    “Big government” is not defined as how big government is?…

    I wrote: “First to be intellectually honest “big government” is not defined by a dollar figure rather by Actions and how programs are structured.”

    you are supporting a program (Constellation) that is structured to maintain and perpetuate government control over an operation. (in this case HSF)…

    that shows how badly you deviated during the Bush years…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    This is my best shot at a solution to everyone’s problems.

    1. Sidemount- the retention of the SRB/SSME/ET as the most powerful and capable heavy launch vehicle system on planet earth.

    Why? To launch Nuclear Pulse Propulsion engine components (plates) into high polar orbit. The engine has to be in one to three big pieces and because of the minimum size of pulse units (bombs) they will require a HLV.

    2. Continue with Orion development as a fully capable vehicle for the Sidemount with the powerful escape systems already tested.

    Why? Carrying pulse units (bombs) into orbit safely is one of the obstacles to implementing Pulse propulsion- a man rated fully developed system ( what else can go wrong with the shuttle hardware?) on an HLV can carry a large number of “fast fission” components ,with protections, into the required fallout free polar orbit in the fewest number of flights.

    3. Accelerate development of a plastic ET or smaller dry workshop component as prefab hull sections of an interplanetary spaceship. Plastic mitigation, and double hulls with water radiation barriers, the water acquired off world, is the long awaited solution for the cosmic radiation problem.

    Why? To carry astronauts to the Asteroid belt for infrastructure development. The belt is where everything private space fans want; vast quantities of precious metals. The Belt also has what is required to build Bernal spheres and establish permanent independent off world colonies. This will perform the ultimate national security mission; no matter what happens on earth, the human race will survive.

    Enablers:
    1. Anti-nuclear movements want to get rid of the bombs, Obama wants to reduce the stockpile. The international situation has never been better for Nuclear Space Propulsion.

    2. The vast defense spending of fiscal year 2010 is proof beyond any criticism that the U.S. can redirect some percentage of that spending toward a nuclear space program, starting with Sidemount. ( a couple percent of one trillion dollars is several times NASA’s present budget)

    3. The rescinding of the law limiting Nuclear weapons to 5 kilotons by Bush removes the legal barrier to building smaller more appropriate devices for space propulsion. And the nuclear stockpile needs repair anyway. Bombs work well, right now, and are the only presently viable interplanetary space propulsion option. Chemical propulsion is a show stopper.

    Conclusion: The belt will be open to commercial exploitation, the species will have insurance in case of a catastrophe, the shuttle infrastructure will finally do something worthy of the effort. Private space can shift from building rockets to building deep space vehicles designed for prospecting and belt exploitation (carried up in the Space Transportation System HLV’s- what the shuttle should have done 30 years ago).

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
    ” The recent discovery of water on the Moon suggests that the Moon is the key for the Solar System and is therefore strategic territory that must be controlled by any power that hopes to be space faring.”

    sorry the sentence above is almost comical. It makes you sound like “Buck Turgidson” from Dr. Strangelove railing away on a “mine shaft gap” or Dick Cheney in the “tank” spewing forth his theories on how to invade the mideast to get the oil.

    The discovery of water on the Moon suggest a lot of things, the last of which is that the US has to react by having some inefficient NASA effort to send 6, 4 or 3 astronauts (whatever it is these days) back to the Moon to do what a lot of robotic probes can do far better…ie determine the ground truth of some recent discoveries…

    Worse no nation, including this one is anywhere near the technology (or demand) for us to replace “we came in peace for all mankind” with “We need to conquer the Moon”.

    havent all you “we need to take everything before the evil doers get it” people had enough with the results in Iraq and Afland?

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Alan Stern wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 10:45 am

    I see Nelson also apparently didn’t sign the letter…

    yes. Nelson has broken the code. His effort on the Hill to get “more money” for his heavy lift experiment flounding…was I am told sobering. He has now fallen back to making sure he gets the money for retraining, unemployment etc.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Mark R. Whittington

    “you are supporting a program (Constellation) that is structured to maintain and perpetuate government control over an operation. (in this case HSF)…”

    The premise of that absurd statement is piffle, on the level of claiming that Lewis and Clark was designed to maintain “government control” over western expansion. The statement is rendered even more absurd by the fact that the Obama regime contemplates no return to the Moon, private or public and that its sole contribution to space exploration is landing on an asteroid. No private participation there.

    Opening up the Moon to exploration opens up numerous opportunities to commercial development. Obamaspace contemplates no private space beyond LEO.

    In any case, it looks like that the Obama regme is bracing for defeat in the Congress. NASA is already backing away from the anti deficiency manuever and is handing out more money to ATK to keep Ares alive until October at least.

  • Gary Church

    Yes, I have had enough of Irafland. That trillion dollars could have done what I outlined in my previous post. There are 3 showstoppers to going into space in the very near future;

    1. Funding. Solution- DOD. nuff said.

    2. Radiation. Solution-

    http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/travelinginspace/25aug_plasticspaceships.html

    Plastic mitigation of cosmic radiation and off world water as shielding.

    3. Propulsion. Solution- Bombs.

    We are ready to go now. Let’s go!

  • Gary Church

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
    ” The recent discovery of water on the Moon suggests that the Moon is the key for the Solar System and is therefore strategic territory that must be controlled by any power that hopes to be space faring.”

    The moon is a gravity well which makes it unattractive for resources compared to the asteroid belt. But…..it is very attractive as a place for nuclear facilities. It is also easier to shield from cosmic radiation. If there is water there in the form of ice all the better.

    But there is alot ice out there, it is just far away and chemical propulsion will not get you there or push the required amount of rad shielding around. Vast resources between mars and jupiter- VAST.

    The trick is getting there and back fast and protected- or staying there independent of earth. Both are doable. But not the way we are going. HLV’s and nuclear propulsion are required.

  • A return to the Moon is as crucial to the long term national security of the United States as funding the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines.

    That’s nonsense, but even if it were true, that would mean that it’s not NASA’s job.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:43 pm

    to favorably compare Constellation with the Lewis and Clark expedition in terms of the depth of free enterprise involvement AND the value to The Republic is as absurd as comparing the need for the Iraq war to fighting the Japanese after Pearl Harbor…but of course you have done that ridiculous comparison as well.

    “bracing for defeat” LOL you clearly dont understand what they are doing wtih releasing “some” modest funds (keeping what they want!) and Obama will get his space policy. You have been wrong about everything since VSE.

    Sorry you use to be better at politics then this.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Vladislaw

    Mark R. Whittington wrote:

    “The recent discovery of water on the Moon suggests that the Moon is the key for the Solar System and is therefore strategic territory that must be controlled by any power that hopes to be space faring.”

    Define controled.

    Luna is roughly 9 billion acres and it appears that there are multiple watering holes on both poles.

    Controled by guns and boots on the ground?

    How do you control strategic assets that we can not put a claim of ownership to?

  • Set it straight

    Remember, even though those people didsn’t sign the letter (nelson, hutchinson, etc.) doesn’t mean they are not against the new plan. It could have been just a matter of getting them the letter in time. 62 people signed that letter. Most of which hasn’t said a thing about this debate at all. That says volumes about those people. Especially the ones that don’t have a NASA center in their state.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Set it straight wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 2:52 pm

    . Most of which hasn’t said a thing about this debate at all. That says volumes about those people…

    yes it does…meaning that folks on the Hill sign these letters all the time to pat each other on the back. They are meaningless.

    There are about 10 or 20 folks in both houses of Congress who would vote for more money for Constellation. Support goes to nothing outside of the space pork folks when the folks get the word that its going to take a NASA budget of about 3 to 4 billion more to get the program on track…and nothing flies until 2018 and we dont go back to the Moon until another 200 billion is spent and 2 decades have elapsed.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Egad

    Lunar water is the new lunar 3He, it seems.

    Sigh. Maybe some robotic probes to find out just how how much water is available in what forms and concentrations would be in order. After that, you could figure out how to exploit it.

    I confess that lunar water is, in some marginal sense, less snake-oily than 3He, since we can electrolyze water into H2 and O2 for rocket engines, whereas we have no foreseeable way to use 3He for significant power generation at all. OTOH, it would probably be cheaper to launch the water from earth to the moon than to launch and operate the in-situ extraction machinery.

  • DCSCA

    “you support a 100-200 and couple of decade effort to send a few NASA astronauts back to the Moon. thats big government.”

    Big government is good.

  • DCSCA

    @RobertGOler- “A 19 billion dollar NASA that accomplishes little is slightly less big government then a 24 billion dollar NASA that also accomplishes little…” <- and yet you've stated “at one point (well before ISS flew) I supported making the Moon a focus point of our activities… then back to "For the cost I dont see any value now in human exploration of space." Doesn't wash.

    Advocates of commercial space as a path to expanding the human presence out into space are disingenuous at best and self-serving at worst. Space exploitation is not space exploration. The private sector has never led the way in this field but followed along in the wake of government success to cash in on advances where they could. Business interests ignored America's Goddard and it was a fascist German government that funded parellel rocket development and advancement, not the private sector; Soviet Russia's Sputnik was not a privately funded venture- nor were any responses to it in the West, which had ample reseources in the private sector to do so. Instead, government stepped in to respond. Conestoga 1 was 28 years ago, cobbled together out of government surpluss parts and business went no place with it for three decades. Developing commercial space exploitation is a welcomed enterprise as long as the private sector fully accepts the risks– financialor otherwise, involved, but not at the cost of losing government funded and managed manned space exploration.

  • DCSCA

    “Two milestones in the protracted congressional budget process are expected to provide NASA supporters their first concrete evidence next week that lawmakers from states without major NASA facilities are willing to defy the president and support the campaign to salvage parts of the $108 billion back-to-the-moon program,” the article states.

    Congress will never kill Constellation in an election year, particularly with jobs at stake in states along the Gulf coast.

  • DCSCA

    Mind, I’m in favor of privitizing social security, free market reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, and repealing health care reform. <– ??? Big government is good.

  • DCSCA, do you truly not understand why social security must be privatized, why free market reforms are necessary to Medicare and Medicaid, why the health care bill must be repealed, and why NASA must turn to the private sector for routine orbital access?

    Several times you have made the statement “big government is good” as though it was a fact, an axiom that may simply be taken true on its face. Have you studied any 20th century history, or any macroeconomics?

    Do you truly not understand the pension bubble, due to burst in about 8 or 9 years? Do you not see the end result of decades of government expansion and increasing government debt, passing off payment to unborn grandchildren and then not having enough children to replace the population?

    Do you think you have any vote in what happens after the US goes bankrupt?

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm

    well we have some entertaining disagreements.

    You bring up Goddard and Nazi Germany.

    The joy of the free market even in the development of military equipment is that the free market usually doesnt grapple on to technologies, to use a phrase from Huntington “before they are baked”…ie when they are ready to go.

    Take Germany and Rockets. In all respects the fixation by Nazi Germany and its leaders on the V-2 was a blessing for the Allies. OK it killed a few people in England at near the end of the war, but the assets poured into the V-2; time, talent, and technology were essentially in terms of the war effort a waste. Those assets (including the materials) would have done far more to determine the outcome of the war had they been channeled to almost anything put perhaps building ME-109’s FW 190’s or ME 262’s if one must be exotic (really ME-262’s optimized for air defense).

    I dont recall how many 109/190’s or 262’s the materials alone poured into the V-2 would have built…but as I recall it was 600 or something.

    The V-2 had not a chance of changing the outcome of the war. 600 air defense vehicles would have, if it did nothing else but prolong it.

    One of the things that US materials command was good at in the US was making sure that the technologies that the US pursued during the war were “near term force multipliers”. FDR for instance was all well and good with building Essex class carriers but balked on transitioning to the Midway’s because they had no value in the war. The same was with turbojet research. Admiral Rockford nailed it “we will win this war without them”…and he was correct.

    You are correct that private enterprise is more about space explotation then exploration…but we can do significant exploration without humans (in fact we are doing it now)…and at far cheaper cost. If we do not develop private enterprise space operations…then we will never advance much more then ISS…because NASA has proven it is to expensive.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “A return to the Moon is as crucial to the long term national security of the United States as funding the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines.”

    The DoD is the agency that is responsible for our national security. I guess that explains why the DoD has the pedal to the metal in returning humans to the Moon. Oh, wait …

    Lunar water may well be the new helium-3. I suppose with regard to space exploration it well may make people talk funny, just like helium-3 does. One funny thing about lunar water is that although it is enormously easier than terrestrial water to loft into free space once you have it, it is enormously harder to get it. That is, it may be expensive to launch water from the Earth, but it sure is trivial to collect it. All other things being equal, lunar water is hugely enabling. But all other things aren’t equal. I can put five metric tons of water anywhere in cis-lunar space for the price of an ELV-heavy (or Falcon 9). Can you even come close to extracting it from the Moon and getting it there for that amount of money?

    Given that it has been established that Constellation is non-executable for the money available, I’d find it remarkable if it were not cancelable in an election year. Sure, you might lose votes from key HSF states if you did cancel it, but you might win some votes from everywhere else. This isn’t about canceling our plans to go to the Moon. It’s about canceling our plans not to go to the Moon.

  • DCSCA

    @RobertGOler “If you want an example of that go read Whittington’s blog. He daily parrots the big government line. Robert G. Oler”

    This is a curious position for you, as on another thread, you posted disappointment w/Obama, after his oil spill speech, and professed a preference for Hillary ‘it takes a village’ Clinton, who is the queen of big government programs and also has a personal affinity for human spaceflight.

  • DCSCA

    Ed Minchau wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 5:10 pm <- you've been asleep since 1981. Besides, Cheney told us, 'deficits don't matter.'

  • DCSCA

    Given that it has been established that Constellation is non-executable for the money available, I’d find it remarkable if it were not cancelable in an election year.<– Constellation needs reworked (Ares for a start) but it will not be cancelled in an election year– and votes related to its survival– or ultimate demise– it will no doubt be bargaining chips. The job situation and the ripple effect in the Gulf region is a factor. The suspension of exploratory oil drilling was reversed chiefly on the argument of jobs– relatively few at that, (in the face of a massive oil spill no less). Consider the collateral jobs across the region affected as well. Work on Constellation at installations in that region is a factor politicians will consider, at least through November.

  • DCSCA

    @RobertGOler- “OK it [V-2] killed a few people in England at near the end of the war…”

    An estimated 2,754 people in London were killed by V-2 attacks. Close to the total ‘few’ killed on 9/11… This map is worth a look:

    http://londonist.com/2009/01/london_v2_rocket_sitesmapped.php

    And, as a former resident of London, who lived close to one of the impact sites and saw war damage there a good 25 years after hostilities ceased, this writer finds it less than easy to dismiss the havoc caused so cavalierly — but then Americans often do that without malace of intent, as their cities were never blitzed. But the damage inflicted was in this writer’s mind when meeting Von Braun years ago.

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 8:13 pm

    not really.

    First off the question was of leadership. it was not about philosophies of government. My theory of Presidential elections (and you can ask Kolker I said this when Bush won in 00 and I think he is dumber then my chickens) is that when one side wins they get to govern. In my view the minority view of any Presidential election should congratulate the winner, offer alternatives but if those cannot carry the day sit back and see how the majority does in governing. I am really discouraged that President Obama cannot seem to figure out how to lead.

    That has nothing to do with “space” and or big government.

    I dont have a problem with “big” (meaning a strong federal government). The 14th in my view killed “states rights” (as did Appomatox) and the rise of the US to superpower status is coincident with the rise of a large competent federal government”. I dont have a problem with national health care (most of my life I have had tri care) nor do I have a problem with the same roads etc being in Virginia/Texas/Florida/Colorado etc (to mention a few places I have lived.

    But government projects need to be competently done. It is hard to make a logical presentation that there is anything competent about NASA HSF right now.

    We are The United States of America not the united States of America. When my young daughter is my age, the “states rights” people of today will be looked at in utter amazement.

    Long Live The Republic

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 9:09 pm

    @RobertGOler- “OK it [V-2] killed a few people in England at near the end of the war…”

    An estimated 2,754 people in London were killed by V-2 attacks…

    That is a minor number. I bet it doesnt even match what the Blitz caused. It is less then the first day of Iraqi civilian casualties we caused during “shock and awe”.

    In addition that number is insignificant in terms of the total war casualties or the daily combat total that just the US experienced. And it didnt do a think to change the outcome of the war.

    As Rumsfeld so eloquently put it “death gives war a bad connotation” or something like that. I dont care if you take offense.

    The reality is that my point is correct. The Germans of the Reich wasted resources on the V-2. Just as Saddam wasted them on the Soviet constructed uselessly deployed missile..

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    Many on this forum fanatically hype commercial space for reasons that are hard to fathom.

    Hmm… ULA, a commercial company with commercial and government business, has had a streak of over 40 successful launches over the past 40 or so months. They have also stated publicly what it would take to upgrade their launchers to carry Orion or any commercial capsule (or cargo). Their costs are way below what it would take to build and launch Ares I, which is still a $9B paper rocket.

    You should be looking at the question from the standpoint of who is better at building and operating launchers:
    – Is this an area that NASA excels at?
    – Do they know how to design a product that is usable for both their own needs, and the launch market in general?
    – Can their product compete on the basis of service, price and reliability?

    Your favorite new space company, SpaceX, has accomplished more with less money that NASA could ever hope to do, and they currently have a larger projected launch schedule than NASA could ever hope for (or we taxpayers could afford). There is a difference between plans and accomplishments, and SpaceX can point to a lot of accomplishments that enable their plans. NASA not so much in regards to Ares I or Orion.

    I root for commercial space because I see that NASA is not capable of providing reliable and low cost access to space. This is not a slam against the people at NASA. As chartered and funded, NASA is not set up to do this, and it’s stupid to try and force them to do it. It’s like taking an NFL lineman and having them play NBA basketball – wrong skill sets.

    NASA has many skills, and I see the proposed budget as giving them a great chance to get back to their basics. Commercial space is one of the reasons that NASA will be able to do more within their budget allotment, so of course I root for them, as should everyone else that wants to do more in space.

  • Coastal Ron

    Gary Church wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    Nuclear Pulse Propulsion engine

    I’m a great fan of hard Science Fiction, and I have read many examples of this type of engine, as well as actual studies examining their potential use.

    While the idea of depopulating our nuclear stockpile by using them in space has a nice symmetry, I don’t think it would work for the simple reason that no one would want nukes in space. Regardless of the safeguards, there will always be a certain level of paranoia that someone could use them for nefarious reasons.

    Those that are anti-nuclear I’m sure would rather see the nukes disassembled and used for power plant fuel than have them loose in space too.

    This has no bearing on their technical use, but it would be enough to nix the idea from ever happening.

  • brobof

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
    Yet more American revisionism!

    “These were the first of 2,754 British civilians to be killed by the 1,115 V2 rockets launched against Britain”
    […]
    Conventional bombing during the “Blitz” of September 1940 to May 1941 and subsequent air raids had killed over 40,000 British civilians”
    Terry Charman, Historian. Research and Information Department. Imperial War Museum.

    ~7% but wait there is more (unfortunately):

    “Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, mostly London and later Antwerp, resulting in the death of an estimated 7,250 military personnel and civilians.” (Wiki’fact’)

    And that’s not counting the deaths of some 20,000 inmates of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp.

    “A dossier released by Iraq Body Count, a project of the UK non-governmental non-violent and disarmament organization Oxford Research Group, attributed approximately 6,616 civilian deaths to the actions of US-led forces during the “invasion phase”, including the shock-and-awe bombing campaign on Baghdad” (Wiki’fact’)

    “I dont care if you take offense.”
    (Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 9:19 pm)
    Thank you for reinforcing an already poor opinion. Of America.
    But, given your sterling example, life (and talk) is cheap.

  • rabbit

    just commenting on a couple of apparent inconsistencies in the numbers of Oler and DCSCA:
    “An estimated 2,754 people in London were killed by V-2 attacks… ” was stated in DCSCA post, but the interesting link you posted says more than 9000 Londoners were killed, and they haven’t fully included in their maps about 1/3 of the total number of hits that were out in the burbs

    Oler says: That (2764) “is a minor number… In addition that number is insignificant in terms of …the daily combat total that just the US experienced. ” Well, my public education told me that about 250,000 Americans died in the war; let’s say we were involved for 1000 days (actually it was more more, but this will give an upper limit to the daily rate), so that’s 250 per day – sure seems a lot less than 2754 per day (let alone 9000).

    Look, whether or not it was significant as to the course of the war – a silly thing to be talking about since the original post seemed to be talking about original technology development by government – as we all know technology will get used for a lot more than the stated reason for which it is developed…

    If the political arguments on this forum are as bad as the math, why are we bothering?

  • Robert G. Oler

    rabbit wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 11:19 pm

    If the daily US combat death in WW2 was 250 a day, in slightly over 2 and 1/2 weeks the number exceeded the 2500 or something number. Or put it another way, 2500 people is 25 B-17’s shot down.

    the point is that every amount of resource that the Germans of the Reich put into the V-2 did nothing to forward their aim of winning the war.

    the resources were as wasted as the 10 billion on Constellation has been.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    “Regardless of the safeguards, there will always be a certain level of paranoia that someone could use them for nefarious reasons.”

    Like someone having their own ICBM? Hmmm.

    Anyway, it is not a question of wanting, it is simple not possible to travel BEO with chemical propulsion if you are going to protect your astronauts from cosmic radiation. Too much mass. And nuclear engines have problem no one can solve- they melt.

  • rabbit

    it’s late here, but let’s work a bit more on the arithmetic as there are a couple more errors there… (maybe it is just late there too?)

    first: “If the daily US combat death in WW2 was 250 a day, in slightly over 2 and 1/2 weeks the number exceeded the 2500 or something number.”

    – at 250/day, it takes 10 days to get to 2500 (that’s 1 1/2 weeks, not 2 1/2

    second: “Or put it another way, 2500 people is 25 B-17’s shot down.”

    – if 25 B-17’s makes 2500 people, then they were cramming 100 into each one; perhaps you mean 250 B-17’s at 10 per?

    “every amount of resource that the Germans of the Reich put into the V-2 did nothing to forward their aim of winning the war”

    probably, but it sure did help out the Soviet and American rocket programs a decade or so later…

    “the resources were as wasted as the 10 billion on Constellation has been”

    how can you know what will come out of that effort on a longer-term perspective? 10 billion equates to about 50,000-100,000 fully-loaded person-years at 100-200K per; even if it only kept those resources off the breadline or out of alternative employment so that the expertise is still around, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a “waste”;

  • DSCSA, I can only assume that you resort to ad hominem because you cannot or will not answer any of the questions I asked. You state “big government is good” over and over as though we should suddenly smack our foreheads and say “of course!”

    Why? Why is big government a good thing? This support of Constellation obviously stems from the support for big government, so explain why.

    The bigger a government is, the more power it has to take your property, you rights, and eventually your life. Hundreds of millions of people found that out the hard way in the 20th century.

    And the United States is about to hit a wall. The wall was coming anyhow, Bush and Obama just sped things up. You see, the first of the Baby Boomer generation just hit age 64. What would have taken fifteen years – the collapse of Social Security (*ahem* big government *ahem*) under the current system – should now take about 8 or 9 years.

    If you think the current recession is a big deal, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The dominoes are already starting to fall in Greece and Spain. What happens when it is the United States that goes bankrupt?

    You see, I think you have taken it as axiomatic that “big government is good” and treated it as though it were a generally-accepted fact. Such a position should not be taken as axiomatic, as it is obviously in dispute. Back it up.

  • As Rumsfeld so eloquently put it “death gives war a bad connotation”

    Rumsfeld (at last the former Secretary of Defense) never said that, or anything like it. Why do you feel so free to just make things up about other people? Particularly when they’re recorded for posterity on the Internet?

  • You guys sure know how to get off topic!

    I am curious if anyone knows more detail on this (from above)- “..to the Senate version that requires NASA to fund “continued performance of Constellation contracts” with the remaining funding this fiscal year…”

    The Chronicle seems to be indicating that this includes language to bypass the ADA issue (Chronicle)- ““..And the full 60-member House Appropriations Committee will be deciding whether to adopt Senate-passed restrictions designed to block an administration effort to have Constellation contractors set aside funds to pay potential contract termination costs – a move that critics contend bleeds the program before Congress has taken action. The language is part of the must-pass wartime defense supplemental bill…”

    I looked up the “Senate version” and it is dated May 27, before the ADA tactic was implemented.

    The last I heard Friday was that if Congress wants to keep CxP, it would need to appropriate the $1B, presumably in some appropriations bill (maybe wartime appropriations as mentioned in the Chronicle).

    I’m not into debating the CxP costs for the 10 to the nth time. I’m just trying to figure out what the status is. What do people think? Or is going back over WW2 more interesting!? :)

  • >>(and you can ask Kolker I said this when Bush won in 00 and I think he is dumber then my chickens)

    You may want to make clear who you are referring to here.

    :-)

  • Jeff Foust

    The Chronicle seems to be indicating that this includes language to bypass the ADA issue

    Yes, that appears to be the intent of the provision: others noted in an earlier discussion about the language that it is not merely intended to restate the language in the FY10 appropriations bill but to compel NASA to spend the funding on Constellation. Note that potential use of the Antideficiency Act had been discussed for at least a couple of months: the invocation of the act by NASA earlier this month did not come out of the blue.

  • Justin Kugler

    Stewart Powell seems more than happy to carry the water for Houston politicians on this issue. Perhaps because it’s an election year, they have very deliberately tried to set this up as an “us against the Administration” dichotomy. This only makes it harder for those of us who reject that false argument and have been pursuing public/private partnerships in our work.

    Besides, we’re talking about the same people who consistently failed to fund Constellation at the level the program said it required to stay on schedule. I heard Olson talk at the Apollo 11 Splashdown Celebration about his memory of the Saturn V’s solid rocket boosters, for crying out loud. Now that a Democrat President wants to change the direction of the Agency towards incremental development of BEO capabilities and the long-coming Shuttle retirement is close at hand, they’re panicking.

    If Congress wants giant rockets and monolithic programs, then they should pay for it. If they are unwilling or unable to do so, then we in the spaceflight community have a professional obligation to be honest about what we can really do with the funding given.

    In either case, we have a responsibility to get the taxpayers the best value for their money. We can’t keep doing things the same way we’ve always done them and expect to stay effective or relevant.

  • Gary Church

    “You see, I think you have taken it as axiomatic that “big government is good” and treated it as though it were a generally-accepted fact. Such a position should not be taken as axiomatic, as it is obviously in dispute. Back it up.”

    I personally believe that “big government” is a tough beast to handle; people have to spend alot of time staying involved, keeping an eye on it- and voting. None of which the politicians want because it keeps them honest. “Big Business” on the other hand, which many who post here seem to think is somehow a form of government, runs on the profit motive- profit for shareholders. We have all seen, and the whole planet in fact, has felt the effects of what happens when big business pays off big government to look the other way while they make paupers of the population. Can you argue with that?

    Mr. Oler likes to invoke the holy “Republic” while others use the “Market” in their incantations. There is a right wing fanatic and a couple NASA supporters who endless argue. I am only concerned with one thing; the survival imperative. If it takes commercial space to safeguard the human race then so be it; but there is the problem- it will not work.

    There are some facts everyone ignores about space because it does not fit their business plan or their admiration of the space program.
    1. Space flight is inherently expensive- there is no cheap. You might be able to put come tons in orbit with private kerosene rockets and smaller commercial launchers but the big pieces require big vehicles. No way around that.

    2. Big pieces are required because a) chemical propulsion is hopelessly inadequate for BEO exploration b) Nuclear propulsion has to be external pulse because of material limitations c) the big pusher plates for these bomb propelled systems weigh in the one hundred ton range and have to be in one to three pieces.

    3. Only a government agency can manage heavy lift infrastructure and put up the billions of capital to develop infrastructure in space and authorize and provide use of the fast fission devices (bombs). There will be no profit until there is a way out to where the easy resources are in the asteroid belt and that will require very heavy plastic hulled off-world water filled spaceships to protect the crews from radiation.

    My “back up” is the easily checked facts about chemical propulsion, GCR’s (galactic cosmic radiation) and the conspicuous absence of any nuclear propulsion systems that work.

  • MrEarl

    Wow, you guys are wayyyyyyy off topic.
    Just an observation.
    It amazes me that the strongest support for “commercial” space efforts come from the people who have the least personal experience with how the real free enterprise system works. Profit is what drives the system and the enemy of profit is risk/cost or return on investment (ROI).
    It’s because of governments blazing the trail to Earth orbit and mitigating the risk thus raising the ROI, that we can now have commercial launches to Earth orbit from LEO to GEO. We can now seriously consider HSF by commercial concerns.
    If you believe that humans should be going beyond Earth orbit to explore our solar system the only way this will happen is with a robust government plan to do the trail blazing. The risk is too great and the future profit too murky for commercial ventures to strike out on their own. Even a small scientific base on the moon would be ripe for commercial exploitation, providing transport and materials to the base. From this beginning I’m sure some sharp business people will be able to expand opportunities.
    That’s why when the president talking about the moon says; been there, done that, I know he really doesn’t understand HSF beyond Earth orbit and is not serious about it. COTs and commercial human space flight are the first steps for form a tighter alliance between government and business in spaceflight. Government’s next step is not just R&D and demonstration projects, but a long term plan to expand into the solar system. No plan has been put forward to do that. Bolden and others have said that the reason for the backlash against the FY’11 budget was because it was rolled out poorly. Well it’s been 5 months and there has been plenty of opportunity’s to explain it better but so far all we get are platitudes and no clear direction.
    Even if these R&D projects lead to trips to asteroids by 2025,which I seriously doubt, this will be a step too far for commercial enterprise to take advantage of. The profit and risk equation from traveling from Earth would be too steep, but if a space infrastructure had been built between the Earth and moon, taking advantage of whatever is discovered further out becomes much more profitable by reducing the risk and raising the ROI.

  • Gary Church

    The role of Private Space?

    I see commercial providers building deep space vehicles for prospecting and working in the asteroid belt. This is much more profitable and efficient use of their efforts. HLV’s and nuclear propulsion system, the prerequisites to belt exploitation, are out of reach of commercial investment. NOFBX monopropellant engines, hardsuits, ROV’s, and the spacecraft themselves are where competition for the best equipment can be found, not trying to build cheap rockets when the really big solid and hydrogen fuel mothers are what is required.

  • Gary Church

    “We can now seriously consider HSF by commercial concerns.”

    It depends on what you define as HSF. If you mean floating around for a couple months in LEO under the protection of the magnetosphere then yes. If you mean going BEO to the asteroid belt- or Saturn’s moons- or the moons of Uranus or Neptune- or the dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt or even all the way out to the comets in the Oort cloud- then no. To go anywhere else BEO is not possible unless the crew is protected from cosmic radiation and can travel at a much higher speed. To push the mass of shielding and to go fast is impossible with chemical propulsion. No discussion required- it is impossible.

    To put the big pieces up there requires HLVs. You could launch delta’s every day for years and it would not matter because what is needed is big pieces- wet workshops and hundred plus tons monolithic slabs of metal.

    If you want to go BEO and exploit the vast resources of the solar system- and make alot of money- that is the only way it is going to happen.

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 10:56 am

    It amazes me that the strongest support for “commercial” space efforts come from the people who have the least personal experience with how the real free enterprise system works.

    I remember you said you had been an employee of a contractor working for NASA. Maybe we should turn the question around and ask how someone with no commercial experience can understand the need for the free enterprise system (commercial space) to take over the routine duties from NASA?

    I myself have worked for free enterprise companies, competing for commercial, DOD and even NASA contracts. We had to not only have the best product, but the best price and service, otherwise we would not get follow-on business. It’s in part because of my commercial background that I support COTS/CRS, ULA launchers, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX and the myriad of other companies that could do the routine jobs in space for NASA. It’s also why I think forcing NASA to become a launcher owner/operator is not only a bad idea, but a costly one for all of us taxpayers.

    The risk is too great and the future profit too murky for commercial ventures to strike out on their own.

    See, this is where you don’t understand private enterprise. Ask an airline what happens if they relax on safety. Or a cruise ship company. Or a long-haul trucking company. Life is full of risks, but that does not stop us from meeting them head-on and creating businesses out of them. For NASA, this is not their core charter, so why are we forcing it on them? Sure they have people that can create safe systems, but they don’t have the private enterprise incentives to both be safe and drive down costs.

    Even a small scientific base on the moon would be ripe for commercial exploitation, providing transport and materials to the base. From this beginning I’m sure some sharp business people will be able to expand opportunities.

    This is exactly the type of services that us “commercial” supporters have been saying needs to happen. ULA already launches all of the DOD and NASA payloads to GEO & BEO (as well as commercial GEO), and SpaceX is getting close to becoming a competitor in both service and price.

    NASA does not need to build it’s own launchers, it can use the commercial market.

    If you believe that humans should be going beyond Earth orbit to explore our solar system the only way this will happen is with a robust government plan to do the trail blazing.

    I’m glad you agree with President Obama. He’s also constrained within the NASA budget in doing this, and that is why he thinks that the next big step for HSF is to go BEO, and not repeat landing on the Moon. BEO is trailblazing, the Moon, while nice for science and pure exploration, won’t be.

    No plan has been put forward to do that.

    There are those that need to know every step of their journey before they get in the car, and there are those that get in their car to start a journey. I can’t solve this philosophical difference, but it kind of sums up my view of the difference between CxP and Flexible Path. I like Flexible Path, and the proposed budget focuses on providing the tools and technology that we will need for any journey, not just one limited one.

    I always like to look at extreme examples to help me see what the choices are. For Constellation, if we followed the plan as proposed, and no program followed it (lack of funds or ??), this would be the result.

    – No American’s in space after we pulled out of the ISS. If our partners continued with it, SpaceX & Orbital most likely would continue to supply it, and maybe SpaceX would start ferrying crew there and back. For the first time, other nations would start racking up more space time than the U.S.

    – Ares I would fly in space for test flights of Orion, but the budget did not call for anything else. The U.S. would have to wait for Ares V before we get back into space.

    – Ares V, the EDS and Altair are ready sometime in mid-to-late 2020’s, or about 10 years after we stopped being a NASA-provided spacefaring nation. Other U.S. companies may be providing HSF, but no government astronaut has been in space for 10 years.

    – The Moon. The Constellation program goes to the Moon, does it’s four missions for 4 crew each. A lot is learned, and many miles are covered.

    At this point, if no other funding is available for NASA to do something in space, then nothing is left in space for anyone to build on. Sure there is Ares I, but it is far more expensive than Delta IV Heavy, and less capable. There is also Ares V, but no educational institution or company can afford to build payloads for it, and it becomes so expensive that it eats up NASA’s exploration budget even if it does get used occasionally.

    This scenario for me is my worst nightmare, as it would mean the end of NASA HSF. And it would be because Constellation is too limited in scope (no reusable hardware), too over-reaching in infrastructure (Ares I/V), and too expensive to continue.

    The Flexible Plan & proposed budget address the cores issues that could lead us to that horrible conclusion, and though not perfect, is a far better plan than CxP.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 10:56 am

    If you believe that humans should be going beyond Earth orbit to explore our solar system the only way this will happen is with a robust government plan to do the trail blazing.

    no doubt. but that will only be affordable when government can “blaze the trail” without have 200 billion dollar projects. IE when they dont have to invent every last thing to make it happen, instead they adapt commercial products.

    OTHERWISE you have the scenario of nuclear submarines…and the only reason we have those is that there is a darn good reason

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 2:58 am

    that saying (or close to it…it was a paraphrase) is on my DVD of famous Rummy quotes…I bought it at the same place I bought the DVD of UDAY and Qusay (spell) at the birthday party.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    “Even a small scientific base on the moon would be ripe for commercial exploitation, providing transport and materials to the base. From this beginning I’m sure some sharp business people will be able to expand opportunities.”

    What opportunities? 10,000 dollars for a bottle of water? That is how much it will cost. It will require an infrastructure- like airports and harbors do on earth. You cannot build that infrastructure 4 tons at time to the moon, which about what the available launchers can do. Fuel depots and tugs? More launches till you are going every day and it still won’t be enough. And the fact remains the space industry is actually a nuclear industry- radiation and propulsion or both showstoppers; one problem can only be solved by the other.

    I think the only place a private company is going to show a profit is in the belt. And to get there……..

  • MrEarl

    Robert:
    “when they dont have to invent every last thing to make it happen, instead they adapt commercial products.”
    Trailblazing in this context means having to invent much of the equipment and techniques to make it happen. No doubt NASA, like all government bureaucracies, can be make to work more efficiently and make better use of what is available, but you can’t wait for everything to become “off the shelf” products because that will never happen.

  • Robert G. Oler

    rabbit wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 12:31 am

    thank you for correcting the math errors…they were just quick runs at it to make my point…dont know how I missed the one about the B-17’s…I blame all those errors on having to deal with Baby at the same time (grin).

    The point is that while German rocketry may have made a difference in our lives (or the life of the world in 1960’s) the reality is that it did not change their lives for the better…or help in the national goals.

    The human spaceflight program has for 50 years been betting on the “future”. This or that program will always enable something to happen in the future that is going to make it all worthwhile.

    And what it does in the present is well keep people employeed in a sort of technowelfare that really is not all that valuable. (as an aside I was at a thing the other day in Clear Lake where a person I know who is going to lose his job on Constellation thought all welfare recipients should have to work doing something “useful” like picking up trash…he had a good time explaining how what he did was useful …amazing I get elected to things in Clear Lake..or did).

    What constellation argues for is betting on “two decades” for the future to come. We have to keep this large mass of people employed to send 6,4 or 3 astronauts to the Moon so that “the future” can come.

    It doesnt work that way. Charlie Crist (who is carving a nice niche for himself) is actually getting money in FL for high speed rail…why? After the jobs are gone from building it, there are jobs because of what it does. Highway 646 is being build outside the house here…and it will change the local area far more then any NASA space program has done.

    The Germans were stupid to spend the money and talent and resources on the V-2. It did nothing in terms of the outcome of the war. A chum told me last night that Adolf Galland has stated that for the V-2 production effort they could have built 1500 ME 109’s or FW 190’s.

    that would have changed things.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    Trailblazing in this context means having to invent much of the equipment and techniques to make it happen…

    then it is a trail that is to expensive to blaze.

    South pole exploration/crewing cost almost nothing. Why? Because the C-130’s etc that supply it, the other things that maintain it were invented for something else and adapted to the effort on the South Pole.

    We desperately need a commercial human space industry so that things can be adapted to human space exploration; not invented at every turn.

    we are not going to Mars until the parts for the Mars effort “come” from stuff already in use for other things. VASIMER for satellite transfer, for instance.

    the cost is just to high

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    “we are not going to Mars until the parts for the Mars effort “come” from stuff already in use for other things. VASIMER for satellite transfer, for instance.”

    Mars is a gravity well- too expensive to descend into or climb out of; why go there? VASIMER needs a lightweight reactor to work at all and that is unobtanium in my opinion.

    I am really on everyone’s side here. I hate to see the very infrastructure that would allow private space to get out to where the money is get dismantled.

    Why can’t we all just get along?

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    Trailblazing in this context means having to invent much of the equipment and techniques to make it happen.

    NASA is the entity to do trailblazing, so why was it building launchers? That was not trailblazing, and it distracted them from their prime mission (exploration). Maybe you could argue that an HLV was needed, but NASA did not have to build and run it – they could have put it out for bid to a commercial company.

    No doubt NASA, like all government bureaucracies, can be make to work more efficiently and make better use of what is available

    If wishes were horses…

    There is a certain level of inefficiency that occurs within government bureaucracies, and while one can hope for improvement, don’t bet the farm until you see it happen.

    The best way to lower costs is to offload routine/repetitive operations off of NASA, and compete them out to the private sector. I’m not saying that the private sector magically makes space stuff cheap, but that the private sector can lower the costs below what government alone can do, which means that the government can afford to do even more.

    For space, launching cargo has become routine, and more companies are getting into the business. For crew, with NASA’s guidance and oversight (as they are starting with CCDev), NASA can transfer most crew operations to the private sector too. Then NASA can concentrate it’s limited resources on doing the things that no one else can do – the hard stuff that NASA excels at. And as they figure out how to do the hard stuff routinely (like they did for Moon landings), they can transfer that knowledge to the private sector so it can become less costly and more available.

  • there is no cheap.

    Here is another stupid repeated phrase that would be a useful comment ban filter.

  • Coastal Ron

    Gary Church wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    What opportunities? 10,000 dollars for a bottle of water?

    It costs us thousands of dollars per gallon for fuel delivered to Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan, and that is one of the reasons the DOD is looking at more fuel efficient vehicles and solar power.

    But sometimes you don’t have the luxury of a dedicated supply line or a lot of extra room, so yes, it could cost quite a bit to resupply deep space exploration. That has to be factored into the costs of exploration, and it could be the reason you don’t fly off to Mars or Pluto or ???. But over time, the more you operate in an environment, the more you learn about how to lower costs without compromising quality or safety, and that’s how you can eventually afford to go further.

    The private sector is constantly looking for new ways to open markets, and this is why we have to make sure they are heavily involved in our efforts in space. Constellation did not include them, and would have been a disaster for HSF and our nation.

    And the question is not whether our activities in space will ever be cheap, but whether they will be affordable. Mining thousands of feet under the ground for minerals is not cheap, and it has it’s hazards, but the payoffs are well worth the effort. Space will not pay off in the same way for decades to come, but some day it will, and if we don’t keep pushing to get there, we never will.

  • Coastal Ron

    Gary Church wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 1:40 pm

    VASIMER needs a lightweight reactor to work at all and that is unobtanium in my opinion

    VASIMR is one of several types of spacecraft electric propulsion systems. It needs a source of electricity, which could come from nuclear, or from solar. The more electricity you supply, the more thrust you get, so it’s really a matter of what you’re doing with it. If it’s OK to take a few months to get cargo to the Moon, then VASIMR would be a good choice. Or if you are accelerating a probe within the solar system, solar panels may do the job.

    There are a number of space reactors that have already been used in space, and the proposed budget has a little money in there for more research. Certainly the lbs/KW need to come down a whole lot before we get our Mars Express powered by VASIMR or some other electric propulsion engine. I think this is one area where the Russians could corner the market, since they don’t have the environmental movement we have here, and they have the most expertise already (and a need for export revenue). Overall though, I don’t see this being a big enabler for a couple of decades.

    As for nuclear propulsion (nuclear bombs pushing a spacecraft), in theory it works, but ask your neighbors if they are more comfortable with nuclear weapons secured in the ground on some military base, or orbiting in space above them. That is a politically charged issue that cannot be solved with a wave of the hand, no matter the technical merits of it’s use. Maybe it will be viable if we mine the uranium in space and build the bombs there, but then that opens up another can of worms for potential space terrorism.

    Good discussion.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler
    >
    > .. Nelson has broken the code. His effort on the Hill to get “more
    > money” for his heavy lift experiment flounding…was I am told
    > sobering. He has now fallen back to making sure he gets the money
    > for retraining, unemployment etc.

    Oh great. Well Obama’s proposal was DOA, and if the Hutchison and Nelson proposals are not getting traction, that pretty much shuts down all options other then a continuing resolution maintaining Constellation as the walking dead – or if Bolden’s legal tricks stand – closing out manned space post shuttle except for NASA caretaker flights on Soyuz. Sounds like NASA’s backing down though – so Constellation gets at least another year.

    Also Constellation has consistently gotten enough votes to keep going. Seems its still going to get funding.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
    > ” The recent discovery of water on the Moon suggests
    > that the Moon is the key for the Solar System and
    > is therefore strategic territory that must be controlled
    > by any power that hopes to be space faring.”

    That’s really a stretch Mark. Ignoring the whole angle of how could you control all access to lunar water – no ones figured out a way to use lunar resources to support “space faringness” that doesn’t cost more then just shipping the stuff up from Earth.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
    >
    > Advocates of commercial space as a path to expanding the human
    > presence out into space are disingenuous at best and self-serving
    > at worst. Space exploitation is not space exploration. The private
    > sector has never led the way in this field but followed along in the
    > wake of government success to cash in on advances where they could. ==

    To be fair space advocates are right that purely commercial development of launchers, lunar bases, etc – would be much faster and cheaper . Like hw rapidly polar and other exploration advanced when commercial aircraft offered rapid distant access – but of course that assumes someone’s going to actual stand up and be a real market, not just gov ordering 1’ses and two’ses

    And of course NASA never really taken the lead in developing this stuff either. They ride on the DOD’s coattails for technology.

  • Kelly Starks

    Coastal Ron wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    “>> If you believe that humans should be going beyond Earth
    >> orbit to explore our solar system the only way this will happen
    >> is with a robust government plan to do the trail blazing.”

    > I’m glad you agree with President Obama. He’s also constrained
    > within the NASA budget in doing this, and that is why he thinks
    >that the next big step for HSF is to go BEO, and not repeat landing on the Moon. ==

    Hint: He is trying to cancel all BEO HSF efforts, and hes not constrained by the NASA budget – he proposes NASA budgets.

    Hes not proposing to do any work on beyond LEO development, nor even maintain our curren LEO skill sets and abilities. Just pork to reresearch old tech used operationally for decades – or that is uncompetitive..

    > There are those that need to know every step of their journey
    > before they get in the car, and there are those that get in their
    > car to start a journey. ==

    And Obama talks about thinking about developing cars someday, so in a few years if we actually do develop cars, we can after that think about driving somewhere. In the mean time – the car industry likely dies.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
    >
    > IE when they dont have to invent every last thing to make
    > it happen, instead they adapt commercial products.

    They have been doing that for half a century.

    >… We desperately need a commercial human space
    > industry so that things can be adapted to human
    > space exploration==

    That would be great, but no one has figured out a way to build one. Theres just no market.

  • DCSCA

    @RobertGOler: “I dont care if you take offense.”

    Start.

    Or someday, in the wrong company, you’ll embarrass yourself– and more importantly your country, by revealing just how much of an ignorant American you can be. And that kind of damage reflects on all U.S. nationals.

    Again, this writer finds it less than easy to dismiss the havoc caused by that bombardment so cavalierly, as you have,— but then many Americans often do that without malace of intent; it’s usually out of bravado– or general ignorance [<- and it appears, in your case, you rank four stars], as their cities were never blitzed. Your passion for ancient aviation circa 1903 – 1953 is noted and as stated, preferred to the half century of progress in spaceflight. No one disputes the poor allocation of resources regarding German rocket development during the war. The point was it was expanded and funded as a government project, unfunded in pre-war years by and significant private enterprise.

  • DCSCA

    @KellyStarks- “To be fair space advocates are right that purely commercial development of launchers, lunar bases, etc – would be much faster and cheaper.” Well the costs can be disputed, but nothing has stopped them from developing anything– except the very marketplace they embrace. See Conestoga 1 for details. This writer is in total support of commercial space exploitation– just not at the price of losing manned space exploration by the government funded/manage civilian space agency.

  • DCSCA

    @rabbit <- Just as a POR, "An estimated 2,754 civilians were killed in London by V-2 attacks with another 6,523 injured, which is two people killed per V-2 rocket." – source, T/L; Wiki. These numbers are ez to look up. But if you want to include the 'injury count' as well, that tallies roughly 9000- my reference was to those stated as 'killed,' responding to Oler's somewhat disturbing-if-not-cavilier comment: “OK it [V-2] killed a few people in England at near the end of the war…”

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- “but of course that assumes someone’s going to actual stand up and be a real market, not just gov ordering 1’ses and two’ses” Indeed, but somehow tourism doesn’t seem to be the ‘rocket to ride’ for capital investors. No ‘lunar Levittowns’ in the near future, either. This writer would guesstimate that the moon will develop in a similar fashion to Antarctica. 100 years on after the South Polar exploration began we see where we’re at down there today. The moon– figure 200 -250 years out; but doubtful it will be led by a ‘moon- American- Floyd’-styled enterprise.

  • DCSCA

    @Oler: “We desperately need a commercial human space industry so that things can be adapted to human space exploration; not invented at every turn.”

    Except, of course, you have it backwards. Nothing has stopping the commercial human space industry from developing except the lack of demand for those services in the very ‘free market’ it would serve. No investors. Or, as the government human space industry so quaintly coined it: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.” For the ‘desperate,’ atch ‘Destination:Moon”… the trip, hardware, business plan w/financing all presented in Technicolor. Or revisit See Conestoga 1 from 28 years ago for some promising details on commercial space. Go for it.

  • Jeff Foust

    While discussion of the V-2 may have once had some relevance in this discussion, it has since gone far off-topic. Your cooperation in keeping the discussions on topic and professional is greatly appreciated.

  • DCSCA

    Gary Church wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    “What opportunities? 10,000 dollars for a bottle of water?”

    @CoastalRon” It costs us thousands of dollars per gallon for fuel delivered to Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan, and that is one of the reasons the DOD is looking at more fuel efficient vehicles and solar power.”

    Indeed. Back in the day, salt was once a highly valued commodity as well.

  • DCSCA

    Jeff Foust wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 7:25 pm <- agreed. Its first reference by this poster was in reference to the pattern of gov't funding rocket research while private industries initially ignored it, and that the pattern is not unique to current events.

  • Gary Church

    “As of 2008, $27 billion have been spent on the Osprey program and another $27.2 billion will be required to complete planned production numbers by the end of the program.[2]

    (for less than 500 aircraft that are maintenance nightmares, cannot autorotate, are unpressurized and cannot fly above bad weather, and cannot carry half as many troops as a helicopter with half the horsepower, and cannot carry them as far without cabin fuel tanks that lower the number of troops to a rifle squad.)

    Anyone want to do the math on this and then tell me NASA wastes money?
    I can keep going with DOD program after program until it gets into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
    >> @KellyStarks- “To be fair space advocates are right that purely commercial
    >> development of launchers, lunar bases, etc – would be much faster and cheaper.”

    > Well the costs can be disputed, ===

    Its pretty much historic fact.

    >=== but nothing has stopped them from
    > developing anything– except the very marketplace they embrace.

    Its fair to say there nothing else they can find.

    > See Conestoga 1 for details. This writer is in total support of commercial
    > space exploitation– just not at the price of losing manned space exploration
    > by the government funded/manage civilian space agency.

    Agree. I’ld also say commercials could be contracted more efficiently if federal laws and political interests were different – but a lot of gov things would be much cheaper if that was true.

  • MrEarl

    Ron:
    “NASA is the entity to do trailblazing, so why was it building launchers? ”
    NASA has never built a launcher, it’s always been subcontracted to private industry.

    “For space, launching cargo has become routine, and more companies are getting into the business. ”
    Really? How many companies are launching cargo to the ISS today? None.
    Russia launches the progress, the Japanese have the HTV and the Europeans have the ATV. No, satellites are not the same as cargo.

    Robert:
    “then it is a trail that is to expensive to blaze.”
    and that is not a question that is up to you, it’s up to the republic, as you you like to refer to this nation and more and more of the elected representatives are speaking up saying that trailblazing and exploration is important to the republic.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
    >> @Kelly- “but of course that assumes someone’s going to actual stand up
    >> and be a real market, not just gov ordering 1’ses and two’ses”

    > Indeed, but somehow tourism doesn’t seem to be the ‘rocket to ride’
    > for capital investors. No ‘lunar Levittowns’ in the near future,
    > either. This writer would guesstimate that the moon will develop
    > in a similar fashion to Antarctica. 100 years on after the South Polar
    > exploration began we see where we’re at down there today.
    > The moon– figure 200 -250 years out; but doubtful it will be led
    > by a ‘moon- American- Floyd’-styled enterprise.

    The Tourist market may develop into something very large – but it ain’t there yet. Same can be said for big mining or industry. It’s the getting from here to there everyones stumped by.

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    NASA has never built a launcher, it’s always been subcontracted to private industry.

    With Ares I/V, NASA was doing the same thing a company like Boeing or Lockheed Martin would do as a prime contractor, but they don’t have any recent experience doing it.

    Doing that also goes against the NASA charter:

    Sec. 203. (a) The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of this Act, shall–
    (4) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space; and
    (5) encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.

    And it’s not NASA’s area expertise, both in capability and management.

    Mike Griffin did not compete out Ares I or Ares V, but decided that NASA would become a launcher manufacturer and operator. He essentially awarded NASA (who he was administrator of) a sole-sourced, no-bid contract for the entire Constellation program. Cost overruns? No problem, the government will have to suck it up and provide more money. Over schedule, no problem, it’s the government, who are you going to fire?

    You don’t see a problem with this?

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- “The Tourist market may develop into something very large – but it ain’t there yet. Same can be said for big mining or industry. It’s the getting from here to there everyones stumped by.”

    Hard to see that flourishing in our era. Maybe 100- 150 years from now. The ‘extremes’ of the environments in play are working against it. On the other hand, reverse it, and operating in space is a norm for pretty much everything outside our goldfish bowl of life; in a 12 mile thick sphere of gases is the aberration. Consider digging into the idea of undersea mining. Great training and developmental areas to transfer technology for work off-planet in extreme environments long term, but immediate return to make it routine on such an investment on Earth isn’t here yet– unless the government funded it and could absorb a loss for years to develop it. Quarterly driven private enterprise can’t- or won’t- absorb the risk associated with that kind of investment– not in this century, nor in the economic system we have today. And although desired, not a huge growth area so far over 100 years in undesea mining, and that excludes oil drilling, as operations are chiefly controlled remotely– with the hazards all to apparent of late. But if you were coming in from the outside to mine the Earth for resources, the undersea operations would be down the list –unless you’re Aquaman/Aquawoman by origin.

    As for tourism, don’t see the PanAms of the world scheduling hourly flights with family getaway packages to Legoland in Antarctica quite yet (don’t see PanAm anymore for that matter;) nor heavy underesa tourist traffic down to cruises the decks of the Titanic. Plus ‘tourists’ like Aunt Bea and Goober Pyle may not even be physically tolerent to do the space tourist thing, a la Alan Shepard in Freedom 7. Inventment capital is like electricity- it follows the path of least resistence- and the comemrcial space ventures that show promise are the ones which can return a profit to these investors relatively fast. Aside from the few self-indulgent multi-millionare jaunts up we’ve witnessed, practical space tourism is along the lines of space elevators, solar sails and the like. Possible, but not practical in the immediate future in this economic environment.

  • Robert G. Oler

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
    it’s up to the republic, as you you like to refer to this nation and more and more of the elected representatives are speaking up saying that trailblazing and exploration is important to the republic…

    that is a hoot.

    REcently a bill failed in the Senate by fillibuster which would have extended unemployment benefits to the long term unemployed. Reason? It wasnt paid for by other cuts.

    There is not more then 2 or 3 Senators and probably the same number of Congress people who is proposing an increase in the NASA budget to pay for Constellation.

    Polls and polls say the American people have had it with human space exploration.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    MrEarl wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    How many companies are launching cargo to the ISS today? None.
    Russia launches the progress, the Japanese have the HTV and the Europeans have the ATV. No, satellites are not the same as cargo.

    No, satellites are not the same as ISS cargo, they are more complicated.

    Launching payload to space has become fairly routine. The Soyuz, Progress, HTV and ATV have all demonstrated the ability to navigate and rendezvous with the ISS. This is a demonstrated technique, and though it needs to be done carefully, the physics of it are well understood.

    If you think it would be so hard for SpaceX or Orbital Sciences to deliver cargo, then please describe the specific reasons. Waving hands and saying “they’ve never done it before” is not a reason they can’t do it.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 27th, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    That would be great, but no one has figured out a way to build one. Theres just no market…

    yes some of us have. It is called the Obama space policy

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 12:41 am

    Hard to see that flourishing in our era. Maybe 100- 150 years from now.

    My grandfather grew up in an era before the car, and died when the Shuttle was in it’s prime and the Internet was on the cusp of being born. I can tell you that your success in forecasting the future that far out is going to be pretty far off.

    The only thing you’re probably close on is that non-government business in space is going to build up gradually.

  • Gary Church

    “Aside from the few self-indulgent multi-millionare jaunts up we’ve witnessed, practical space tourism is along the lines of space elevators, solar sails and the like. Possible, but not practical in the immediate future in this economic environment.”

    I have to agree with that. And if Griffin screwed things up, it does not change the fact that America needs a HLV so we should build Sidemount. I gave an example of DOD spending- about 30 billion to complete the rest of the Osprey fleet. What a piece of junk. It would be nice to write a letter to the prez and ask him to please cancel that program and redirect the money to sidemount but that of course, is fantasy. The V-22 has proven itself invincible. It is built in so many states nothing could drive a stake through it’s heart. With no sidemount, Delta IV is the next bird and it is the perfect expendable vehicle. I never liked the expendable philosophy- though many feel that reusability is a myth. Delta heavy is not man-rated and is no heavy lift vehicle.

    So the situation looks grim for BEO-HSF. Because as I have explained, the flexible path is a myth. The space industry is a nuclear industry.

  • DCSCA

    @CoastalRon- This writer’s grandfather was born 11 months before the Wright’s flew at Litty Hawk; the telegraph was his internet; lived to see man walk on the moon and Voyagers beam back images from the edge of the solar system. But establishing a relative permanent foothold in Antarctica took pretty much his entire lifetime- from sailing ships through steam, nuclear vessels, surface and sub, and aircraft. And the challenges to establish a foot hold there did not include needing to bring along survival essentials like air and water. You underestimate the extremes of the challanges at hand. Still one of my late grandfather’s favorite lines was, “Only Americans were smart enough to walk on the moon and dumb enough to walk away from it.” That’s fast approaching half century ago. Nothing would please this writer more than to have underestimated the time. But the past is prologue.

  • DCSCA

    “yes some of us have. It is called the Obama space policy”

    Wonder which policy it is this month. Because President Obama’s policy today is 180 degrees from Candidate [Senator] Obama’s stated position less than 24 months ago.

    Embracing Human Space Exploration:

    “Human spaceflight is important to America’s political, economic, technological, and scientific leadership. Barack Obama will support renewed human exploration beyond low earth orbit.”

    “He endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more
    distant destinations, including Mars.”

    http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/policy/Space_Fact_Sheet_FINAL.pdf

    Oops! Change you can believe in… President Obama, maybe not so much.

  • DCSCA

    @CoastalRon– oops, typo- Kitty Hawk, not Litty Hawk, although they probably trained through there from Dayton. ;-)

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:11 am

    The south pole analogy is one model for Human spaceflight. At the South Pole nothing is done that has anything other then scientific value. There is no product produced, not real goods or services offered from the poles…it is all science all the time…and it can be done because exploration/use of the South Pole waited until, for other reasons the technology had matured to let it happen.

    It is concievable that Human spaceflight is in that mold. At one point in the last century people were predicting “underwater cities” and those never cranked up because no one could figure out any reason that would justify such an effort. The closest thing we have to those is nuclear submarines.

    If the South Pole model is the model for human spaceflight then ISS is probably as good as it gets for a very long time. We are entering a period (I believe) in history where the world economic situation is going to decline rather then expand. All around the world developed nations are looking to cut their space expenditures…India and China flush with US cash are making some expenditures but the results of those dont seem targeted on any real effort beyond LEO.

    Unlike exploration of the South Pole the technology needed simply doesnt exist for other reasons.

    All this changes if some role for humans in space that justifies the cost comes into play. But the cruel part of that path is that until the cost to get humans into space, and have them do things there goes way down…nothing will have the value for cost.

    This is why Obama’s policy is so important. It signals the attempt to push forward with technologies and structures which can lower the cost of humans in space…

    Dont worry…exploration by machines is getting cheaper and cheaper…and more versatile. We will have a lot of that.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:15 am

    Obama has wisely decided that human exploration of space is to much buck for far to little bang right now.

    He is trying to rebalance that equation.

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:23 am

    Obama has wisely decided that human exploration of space is to much buck for far to little bang right now. He is trying to rebalance that equation.

    And as a sitting, voting United States Senator he sort of missed that, eh. Uh-huh. ‘Rebalancing’ is spelled b-a-i-t-a-n-d-s-w-i-t-c-h. But you can make excuses and try to rationalize it if you want. Cernan et al don’t buy that line. Polls indicating eroding public confidence in Obama’s capacity to ‘wisely decide’ regarding other expensive forays involving national blood and treasure (healthcare, Afghanistan; oil spills; healthcare) speak for themselves– and the nation .

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- “It’s the getting from here to there everyones stumped by.”

    So the question becomes will our Zephrum Cochran, please phone home, eh. Is Musk another Von Braun– or Ford…. or Preston Tucker. Maybe Musk outta just start telling investors and customers they can have their rocket in any color they want as long as it’s black. ;-)

  • Ferris Valyn

    DCSCA – I am less concerned with whether Musk is Ford or Preston Tucker.

    I am much more interested in which of the following spacecrafts, the CST-100, Dragon, Dreamchaser, or Blue Origin’s capsule, is the Model T?

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:51 am
    >> @Kelly- “It’s the getting from here to there everyones stumped by.”

    > So the question becomes will our Zephrum Cochran, please phone home,
    > eh. Is Musk another Von Braun– or Ford…. or Preston Tucker. Maybe Musk
    > outta just start telling investors and customers they can have their rocket
    > in any color they want as long as it’s black.

    ;)

    Really its not a Zephrum Cochran, we was supposed to have developed a warp drive, and we have all the technology we need. Von Braun knew how to run a team of high tech folks – but mainly he could work congress and the public.

    Ford might be the better example. He’s famed for the assembly line – but his big edge is he saw a big market and knew how to build for it.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:00 am
    >
    > I am less concerned with whether Musk is Ford or Preston Tucker.
    >
    > I am much more interested in which of the following spacecrafts,
    > the CST-100, Dragon, Dreamchaser, or Blue Origin’s capsule,
    > is the Model T?

    With out any doubt, none of the above. They are far to high cost, low relyability, and low function to serve any significant market. These are like the handmade cars done for rick folks to show off in. They can’t even carry anything significant back down.

    No we’ve gone backwards from shuttle, which was solid concept (if not executed well) for a practical general purpose Earth tofrom space craft, and LEO short term ops craft. Obviously more commercial scale then a mom and pop model-T, but it had the Model-T general practical utility. None of the above come anywhere near it – or what a model-T for space would need.

  • Kelly Starks

    >DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:15 am
    >
    >>“yes some of us have. It is called the Obama space policy”

    > Wonder which policy it is this month. Because President Obama’s
    > policy today is 180 degrees from Candidate [Senator] Obama’s
    > stated position less than 24 months ago.

    Only a heritic would try to hold Obama to things he said 2 hold years ago – or 40 months ago.

    ;)

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:11 am
    >
    > @CoastalRon- This writer’s grandfather was born 11 months before
    > the Wright’s flew at Kitty Hawk; the telegraph was his internet; lived
    > to see man walk on the moon and Voyagers beam back images from
    > the edge of the solar system. But establishing a relative permanent
    > foothold in Antarctica took pretty much his entire lifetime- from sailing
    > ships through steam, nuclear vessels, surface and sub, and aircraft.
    > And the challenges to establish a foot hold there did not include
    > needing to bring along survival essentials like air and water. ==

    Its actually less technically challenging to get to the moon since there aren’t the weather extremes, and you do need to fly most of all supplies (food fuel etc).. However there’s a huge market for cargo planes that can be adapted to fly to Antarctica.

    And Antarctic based moved forward once there were cargo aircraft that could fly and land no it. Course development is allowed in Antarctica – so the question is how fast would a commercially developable area be settled.

  • Gary Church

    “No we’ve gone backwards from shuttle, which was solid concept (if not executed well)”

    “Its actually less technically challenging to get to the moon since there aren’t the weather extremes,”

    I completely disagree with the idea that the shuttle was a “solid concept.” It used a Saturn V class launch system to essentially put a 737 into LEO orbit. The wings, airframe, and landing gear ate up most of the payload.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Kelly – the fundamental problem is we can’t address any real market with Shuttle.

    There are good reasons to think that we can address real market demand with those vehicles

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:31 am
    However there’s a huge market for cargo planes that can be adapted to fly to Antarctica….

    only because there are government supported bases there. Take those away and the market vanishes.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 1:35 am

    lol George Bush the last was for a “humble” foreign policy. then after 9/11 he went rogue.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Gary Church

    “Kelly – the fundamental problem is we can’t address any real market with Shuttle.”

    The orbiter/space plane is a dead end. But the SRB’s,SSME’ and ET are the most powerful and fully developed launch hardware on planet earth. Sidemount is what “should’a been.”

    You want to design some amazing machines? Send up 70 ton telescopes or outer planet probes? Want to orbit big defense payloads like a squadron of X-37s? There is only one way,

    Go Sidemount!

  • Justin Kugler

    I’m curious how Kelly reaches those assertions about the cost, reliability, and functionality of the commercially-developed vehicles.

    The ISS Program is depending on Dragon for all of our cargo return capability after Shuttle retires. The allocation for utilization is plenty enough for our purposes, from what I’ve seen. If CST-100 becomes a player, so much the better. Trash will be disposed of on Progress, Cygnus, ATV, and HTV.

  • Gary Church

    “No we’ve gone backwards from shuttle, which was solid concept (if not executed well)”

    These kind of statements need to be revisited often if we are going to understand and learn from past mistakes.

    It was, in my opinion, the opposite; a poor concept executed as well as possible given budget constraints.

    They tried to make it do everything- spyplane, cargo carrier, man-rated, re-usable, cheap. There was never any possibility of it accomplishing all of this. It developed a head of steam, the train left the station and if you were not on it, you were in trouble. It is a familiar story.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Gary Church wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:44 am
    >> “No we’ve gone backwards from shuttle, which was solid concept
    >> (if not executed well)”
    ==
    > I completely disagree with the idea that the shuttle was a
    > “solid concept.” It used a Saturn V class launch system to
    > essentially put a 737 into LEO orbit. The wings, airframe,
    > and landing gear ate up most of the payload.

    The point was a Saturn-V class load was to small for much beyond quick dashes to the moon. For and large scale use of space, or big missions like Mars, you’d need several hundred tons and a more economical economical and flexible system. Just like on Earth you ship things in smaller sections. Shuttle carries a cargo bulky and heavy by most air transport standards, and offers reusability and lower costs – and a the ability to do very large scale (hundreds to several hundreds of tons) no orbit project.

    Problem, the per flight costs were threatening to get to low if you fixed things, and NASA had no big project scheduled that would demand the 50 flights a year they were trying to ramp up to (I was in the flight planning department – yes they really were working and building infrastructure up toward that). So congress didn’t approve the upgrades and fixes, and the flight rate was kept low.

    Though given the margin cost per flight did get down to the levels GAO had forecast (about $60 million a flight in now years dollars), and the shuttles did do the lions share of all of human space fight (50% of all cargo tonnage and 60% of all people carried to orbit).

    Shuttle itself was quite economical for a NASA program. The orbiters in same year dollars cost 15%-20% less then the Apollo or Orion Capsule and service module to develop, obviously far less per flight to prep. The total shuttle stack wasn’t much above the budge for teh Ares-I booster alone. etc..

    Look at it this way – if shuttles serviceability and ruggedness issues had been dealt with using the simple refits proposed, you’d have a fleet that could lift thousands of tons a year – way beyond the scope of any of the HLV concepts currently proposed. If you need more then that – then you probably need a HLV shuttle/spaceplane.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:01 am
    >
    > Kelly – the fundamental problem is we can’t address any real market with Shuttle.

    Other then its a fully NASA controlled craft, why? Its margin cost per flight is about falcon/dragon costs, and its FAR more capable, and safer. Do the fixes long proposed for shuttle you can improve fight rates, costs, reliability, and safety dramatically.
    One of the reason commercial launcher dev programs died in the ‘80’s (this from the execs of them) was they had to compete with shuttle.

    Bottom line – you can’t do space industrialization no any scale, with anything as limited, expensive, and unreliably as EELV’s or Falcons with capsules.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:36 am
    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:31 am
    >> However there’s a huge market for cargo planes that can
    >> be adapted to fly to Antarctica….

    > only because there are government supported bases there.
    > Take those away and the market vanishes.

    The bases never were the market – that’s why no plane was ever developed for them. The market was general rough field transport, and those planes could be modified for the cold and with skis.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Justin Kugler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:56 am
    >I’m curious how Kelly reaches those assertions about the cost,
    > reliability, and functionality of the commercially-developed vehicles.

    Which ones?

    > The ISS Program is depending on Dragon for all of our cargo
    > return capability after Shuttle retires. ==

    And Soyuz.

    >==The allocation for utilization is plenty enough for our purposes, ==

    Only because we don’t really intend to do anything with the ISS. Never did. So if you don’t make anything more then lab samples, and you throw away most everything rather then return and refly, then yes its “enough”.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Gary Church wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
    >
    > They tried to make [shuttle] do everything- spyplane, cargo carrier,
    > man-rated, re-usable, cheap. There was never any possibility of it
    > accomplishing all of this. ==
    Really?
    Ok the spyplane part only required the cross range no reentry abilities, which it has – and was never considered likely. Obviously it is man-rated and has the best (though still crapy) safety record of anything people ever flew into space, Cheap by NASA standards (margin cost per flight are about $1,000+ per pound) – and NASA literally had to work to not let it get cheaper. The orbiters fully reusable, the SRBs.. not so much, but they were a short term patch. Kinda the same for the ET’s, but they are damn cheap no a per unit basis.

    If anything shuttle shows a reusable – (more rugged then shuttle) – with high flight rates is capable of vastly more, at vasty lower cost, then expendables.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Well

    1. That “Other then a NASA controlled craft” point is not insignificant.

    2. To do the “fixes” requires SUBSTAINTIAL investment, and I’d like to see someone who is actually going to put the money up to do them. Its easy to say “All we need is a Billion dollars.” Its quite another thing to actually RAISE that money

    3. Related to the first, your point about compete with the shuttle – the point wasn’t that they couldn’t compete on capability – rather, a lot of promises were made regarding the shuttle.

    4. Without the “fixes” shuttle remains far more limited and expensive and unreliable than EELV and Falcon’s and CST-100 and Dragon and Dreamchaser.

    5. We don’t know that you can’t do space industrialization using vehicles of that scale. What we do know is that Shuttle, as is, won’t work.

    Its time to try something new

  • Kelly Starks

    > Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
    >
    >1. That “Other then a NASA controlled craft” point is not insignificant.

    I said “Other then its a fully NASA controlled craft, why?” It doesn’t have to be. Certainly a new noe doesn’t need to be.

    > 2. To do the “fixes” requires SUBSTAINTIAL investment, ==

    Actually not – though I suppose that depends on how extensive of fixes you mean. Also many of the fixes (certainly the cost drivers) wouldn’t cost anything, they would just be you needed the authority to eliminate redundant and unnecessary staff and facilities. Go with commercial organizational structures not gov civile service, etc.

    Then again, they are talking about $6 billion just to allow KSC to “support” Commercial crew.

    >== and I’d like to see someone who is actually going to put the
    > money up to do them. Its easy to say “All we need is a Billion
    > dollars.” Its quite another thing to actually RAISE that money

    Well its well within commercial norms for aircraft of that cargo capacity and power levels per flight – course they have markets for aircraft with those capacities.

    > 3. Related to the first, your point about compete with the
    > shuttle – the point wasn’t that they couldn’t compete on
    > capability – rather, a lot of promises were made regarding the shuttle.

    That’s not what they said. Basically if a customer had Conestoga, or Beal, etc adn Shuttle – with NASA committed to being “competitive”. No way would the customer choose them over the space shuttle backed with the full US space program.

    > 4. Without the “fixes” shuttle remains far more limited and expensive
    > and unreliable than EELV and Falcon’s and CST-100 and Dragon and Dreamchaser.

    Untrue on all counts from any likely numbers I’ve seen.

  • eh

    SDLV is the chicken and egg again. For a deep space focus, we lack the technology to execute it well. If we develop the HLV now, there will be little left for tech and Congress will demand an active program once it’s build. Once again, no time for tech. A problem that Sally Ride has noted.

    There is no question that HLV is the easiest thing to get funded. Look at all of the advocates online and in Congress. It’s easy for many reasons. But the technology required for BEO is much harder to get funded. Best to run with this opportunity while it’s available as it doesnt come along very often.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:36 am

    The bases never were the market – that’s why no plane was ever developed for them. The market was general rough field transport, and those planes could be modified for the cold and with skis…

    no.

    The bases are the market for the planes. The basis exist because the planes were developed for something else and were easily modifiable to South Pole work. For instance, in the early days of south pole ops the DC-3 had no idea that it was not in Alaska (where it performed/performs quite well). the C-130 has had no modifications (other then skis and some oil cooler work) to perform in the region…same now for the C-17.

    Once the airplanes became available the bases could be built. But until the planes became available South Pole crewing was going nowhere.

    The irony of all this is that there is now a “land bridge” under construction that will use vehicles that are knock offs of those used to supply the north slope.

    but what keeps all of that there…is that the government keeps the bases there. It is no different then ISS

    Robert G. Oler

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:36 am

    > == The [Arctic] bases are the market for the planes. The
    > basis exist because the planes were developed for something
    > else and were easily modifiable to South Pole work. ==

    Thats my point. DC-3s, C-130, etc weer not developed to fly to Antarctica. They weer built for a unrelated reason butt weer adaptable to support the Antarctic bases.

    Currently theres no other real market for space launch (though long range suborbital could be).

  • Justin Kugler

    Kelly,
    Perhaps I’m biased since I work in the ISS Payloads Office, but where do you get the idea that “we don’t really intend to do anything with the ISS”? Between the National Lab Office and the ERTD proposals, the future hasn’t looked brighter for Station. Many of our payload developers are specifically planning for return and reflight.

    As for Soyuz, its return capability is negligible and has to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. It’s not seriously considered in research planning, though it is kept as an emergency option for small, unpowered samples.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    > Kelly – the fundamental problem is we can’t address any real market with Shuttle.

    Other then its a fully NASA controlled craft, why? Its margin cost per flight is about falcon/dragon costs

    I don’t think you understand how to calculate Shuttle costs. The Shuttle Program Manager stated that it costs him $200M/month to run the Shuttle program, regardless of how many flights. After you get past the second or third flight, then the marginal cost per flight starts getting added in.

    Keeping the the Shuttle running at two flights per year seems to be one popular proposal, and let’s say they max out the Shuttle payload capacity of 53,600 lbs, which would give us a cost of $22,388/lb. In reality, the MPLM can only carry 17,636 lbs internally, so that would work out to $68,042/lb.

    SpaceX advertises the Falcon 9 for $56M/flight to LEO, and it can carry up to 23,050 lbs, which calculates to $2,430/lb. The Dragon capsule has the capacity to carry up to 13,228 lbs combined payload, and let’s double the cost of the flight to $112M to account for the Dragon capsule and misc. other stuff, that would still give us a respectable $8,467/lb.

    The Shuttle is not as cheap as you thought, huh?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    Thats my point. DC-3s, C-130, etc weer not developed to fly to Antarctica. They weer built for a unrelated reason butt weer adaptable to support the Antarctic bases.

    Currently theres no other real market for space launch (though long range suborbital could be)…

    that would surprise Elon Musk. His Falcon 9 is just like a C-130…it is designed for “something else” other then human spaceflight and is being adapted to i…

    There is a market for space launch..right now it is called communications and other satellites. there is nothing that says those rockets cannot be adapted to human spaceflight.

    you have broken the code!

    Robert G. Oler

  • Given the low flight rate and high fixed annual costs, the marginal cost of the Shuttle is meaningless in terms of comparing it to other systems. The only sensible use for it is in a decision to fly one more flight in a year in which it is already flying, or in determining how much money would be saved by cutting one.

  • John Malkin

    One big problem with Constellation is it doesn’t incorporate our international partners similar to ISS. Why should the US pay for Constellation on its own?

    The US needs reliable access to LEO. We are already being forced to depend on our International partners for LEO access. I’m sure and I would bet money on it, that Ares I will be obsolete before its first unmanned mission.

    BEO should be more than just the US. The goals should be more than just the US. BEO requires an Earth departure stage which may or may not require heavy lift. I think the important thing we should learn from LEO is we need flexibility. A single do all vehicle isn’t flexible. Multiple diverse vehicles and systems are flexible.

  • Gary Church

    “Given the low flight rate and high fixed annual costs”

    Why is the flight rate so low? Spend more money and fly it often and the fixed costs go down.

    Why is it so expensive per pound of payload? Because it’s payload is mostly the orbiter; Sidemount reverses the ratio and lowers the cost per pound making spending more to increase the flight rate more viable.

    Go Sidemount!

  • Kelly Starks

    > Justin Kugler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
    >
    > Kelly,
    > Perhaps I’m biased since I work in the ISS Payloads Office, but where
    > do you get the idea that “we don’t really intend to do anything with the ISS”? ==

    Because of the way while I was in the SSFP dev office all operational capacities were removed from it. Small research functions within the limits really doesn’t impress me give what it was to be designed to do.

    ==
    > As for Soyuz, its return capability is negligible and has to be
    > negotiated on a case-by-case basis. It’s not seriously considered
    > in research planning, though it is kept as an emergency option
    > for small, unpowered samples.

    Agreed, but it seemed worth mentioning.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
    >>> “> Kelly – the fundamental problem is we can’t address any real market with Shuttle.

    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
    >>Other then its a fully NASA controlled craft, why? Its
    >>margin cost per flight is about falcon/dragon costs”

    > I don’t think you understand how to calculate Shuttle costs.
    > The Shuttle Program Manager stated that it costs him $200M/month
    > to run the Shuttle program, regardless of how many flights. ==

    That’s the cost to run the shuttle program, not to operate the shuttles. [And I was referring to the margin costs.]

    Also it looks like they are projecting about $100 million a moth for Commercial crew – and that’s for half as many flights carrying half as many people. And estimates for program costs and dev costs per commercial crew (while all over the map) look to AT LEAST be a billion a flight, or about $2B + a year. About $200M a month.

    > == let’s say they max out the Shuttle payload capacity of 53,600 lbs, which
    > would give us a cost of $22,388/lb. In reality, the MPLM can only carry
    ?> 17,636 lbs internally, so that would work out to $68,042/lb.

    Actually the cost is $0.0. The cargo is a free extra on a flight to carry crew – you don’t need to launch a second cargo craft..

    ;)

    > SpaceX advertises the Falcon 9 for $56M/flight to LEO,
    > and it can carry up to 23,050 lbs, which calculates to
    > $2,430/lb. The Dragon capsule has the capacity to carry
    > up to 13,228 lbs combined payload, and let’s double the
    > cost of the flight to $112M to account for the Dragon capsule
    > and misc. other stuff, that would still give us a respectable $8,467/lb.

    Actually I read that with the program overhead they figure each COTS flight will cost about $240 (ish?) million – or $18,000 a LB.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    > that would surprise Elon Musk. His Falcon 9 is just like
    > a C-130…it is designed for “something else” other then human
    > spaceflight and is being adapted to i…

    No it was always designed for that.

    > There is a market for space launch..right now it is called
    > communications and other satellites. ==

    No theres no launch market. At best world wide <50 a year.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Rand Simberg wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
    > Given the low flight rate and high fixed annual costs, the marginal
    > cost of the Shuttle is meaningless in terms of comparing it to other systems.

    Yes and no – it is reasonable to compare it to other programs like Constellation or Commercial crew that are proposed to go to ISS. With their high NASA overhead, and development fixed costs for some, its comparable.

    Hell over $600M per flight of overhead is already in the budget proposal for commercial crew between now and 2015. If the L/M orion proposal was chosen for CC, I NASA agreed to reduced oversight – ;/ – they would double that with dev costs. Then you add the costs of building and launching them At least a couple hundred million for a EELV alone I believe.

  • Kelly Starks

    > John Malkin wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
    > One big problem with Constellation is it doesn’t incorporate
    > our international partners similar to ISS. Why should the US
    > pay for Constellation on its own?

    Because they learned on ISS that the costs to them of international programs is far higher then paying it all on there own.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    No theres no launch market. At best world wide <50 a year..

    oh yes there is.

    IF MUSK can make his cost nuimbers illustrated by the Iridium contract then Musk will have to beat the customers back with a stick (or will be able to raise his prices some). AND if the cost figures are met, he will find people launching satellites who have not traditionally done it…indeed this might be the door opener to low altitude constellations of various types.

    Musk has built primarily a satellite launcher machine. It will launch people as well, but where he will make his cash is in the satellite launch industry.

    His money in the human launch industry comes from ISS. That is the market and it is a valid one. Now if the market for human services in space expands because the access "bar" is lower then the numbers do nothing but go up.

    Musk is in part trying to launch people because of the same reason when I started my transport category flight training business I wanted government contracts…they are stable and instant credibility in the training (and launch) business. The irony in Musk case is that he will have proven the 9 well before it launches people.

    If Musk makes his numbers on the 9…we have the first step toward lower cost space access.

    That is a bigger deal then humans landing on the Moon.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:17 pm

    Because they learned on ISS that the costs to them of international programs is far higher then paying it all on there own…

    you are joking right? We would not have a space station if we didnt have the international cooperation (and or Boeing had not contracted with the Italians to build most of the modules).

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly “Its actually less technically challenging to get to the moon since there aren’t the weather extremes, and you do need to fly most of all supplies (food fuel etc).. However there’s a huge market for cargo planes that can be adapted to fly to Antarctica.” Depends on how you define ‘weather’– the environmental extremes involved in reaching the moon are pretty extreme and self evident, compared to those of Antarctica. Plenty of aeroplanes can fly to Antarctica– but again, there’s not quite a market demand to vacation there yet– no Iglooland or Wallyworld yet.

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- Von Braun had it right regarding running rocket teams.

  • DCSCA

    “Musk has built primarily a satellite launcher machine.” <- which puts him around circa 1960… one giant leap… backwards.

  • DCSCA

    “If Musk makes his numbers on the 9…we have the first step toward lower cost space access.” <- But then liars figure and figures can lie. 'WE' have nothing; Musk has a going concern he will sell for a return on his investment, just as he has done in the past. He's a business man, not a space man.

    "That is a bigger deal then humans landing on the Moon." <- nonsense.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    OK, I give up, you are math challenged. Oh, and you need to slow down when you type too, because you have a lot of typo’s, sometimes major ones (ULA vs USA, etc.). Maybe use that extra time to validate your research too… ;-)

    Actually the cost is $0.0. The cargo is a free extra on a flight to carry crew – you don’t need to launch a second cargo craft.

    TANSTAAFL. First of all, you are forgetting that the Shuttle cannot add crew to the ISS, it can only rotate them. The ISS is limited in personnel by the number of crew lifeboats it has docked (currently taken care of by the Soyuz) and they need to be returned to earth after six months.

    Why would we spend a minimum of $2.4B/year to rotate crew early from the ISS? This seems to be your primary reason for keeping the Shuttle, so what is the value? Weird.

    The best use of the Shuttle for the ISS has been with it’s construction, but the construction will be done in two more flights, so we don’t need the Shuttle to do the little stuff. It’s like keeping the tractor trailer that delivered your modular home so you can use it to shop at the supermarket – overkill.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    “Musk has built primarily a satellite launcher machine.” <- which puts him around circa 1960… one giant leap… backwards.

    I suppose you drive a hover-car instead of those old rubber-tire kind?

    You’re hilarious!

    I have no doubt that you could build a medium-class launcher family in your backyard, and do it for far less than SpaceX… ;-)

    Of course, what you decline to state is that SpaceX has built their launchers for far less than anyone ever has, and that they offer launch services for far less than has every been offered. I’m sure that bores you, but for people that want to do real stuff in space, that is a game changer.

    I’m reminded of the professor that gave Fred Smith a ‘C’ for his paper describing FedEx (which he founded):

    “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:51 pm

    >>Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
    >>No theres no launch market. At best world wide oh yes there is.
    > IF MUSK can make his cost nuimbers illustrated
    >by the Iridium contract then Musk will have to beat
    > the customers back with a stick
    > he will find people launching satellites who have not traditionally done it…

    That’s a hope, not a existing market. (And I don’t think his cost numbers are lower then previous ones like when the Russians were dumping old boosters on the market several years ago.)

    And its not the first time Iridium launched a fleet.

    > His money in the human launch industry comes from ISS. ==

    No he doesn’t expect to get any human launch contracts to the ISS.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
    >>Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
    >>Because they learned on ISS that the costs to them of international
    >>programs is far higher then paying it all on there own…

    > you are joking right?

    Nope. The estimates from NASA and others is internationalizing the station involved so much extra international gov bureaucracies and politics from all the space agencies it boosted the program duration and cost much beyond what doing the whole station by themselves would have. I think it was 20% more cost and half again longer then going it alone, but its been several years since I read the stats.

    Really you would expect it. It takes everything that makes NASA projects 4 times more expensive then commercial doing the same thing – and multiplies it. If the US didn’t do the vast bulk of the station ourselves anyway, it likely would be much worse.

  • Kelly Starks

    >DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    >> “Musk has built primarily a satellite launcher machine.”

    > which puts him around circa 1960… one giant leap… backwards

    ’50, he’s basically got the biggest hobby rocket in the Titan scale in history.

    ;)

    Why he started with that configuration as the basis for a RLV baffles me!

    Hey as a retirement hobby job hes doing pretty damn good – but he’ld have to be a LOT cheaper before I’ld put my sat on his birds, and judging from the disappointing results from Tesla so far….

    We’ll see.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    >– you need to slow down when you type too, —

    Lifes short – type faster.

    ;)

    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    >> “Actually the cost is $0.0. The cargo is a free extra on
    >> a flight to carry crew – you don’t need to launch a second cargo craft.”

    > TANSTAAFL.

    Its called piggy backing. The shuttles can carry crew (twice what the crew swap out – yes I know your not going to fly up more crew per year.) and carry the cargo. So you dropped the extra cargo flight completely.

    > = Why would we spend a minimum of $2.4B/year to rotate
    > crew early from the ISS?

    What early? And they are proposing to spend most of that on Commercial crew alone. This consolidates crew and cargo transports, and still allows major upgrades and maintenance of the station with a more capable platform.

    Course a reasonable person might streamline the shuttle “program” and do some of the fixes to lower costs – but DC don’t like that, and might prefer the preferred high cost systems.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    that is NASA horse excrement. NASA spent billions on hardware that never flew but yet was critical to the station, and it was no where near developing it.

    I would have to go look for the GAO report but they really knock the wind out of that argument

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    it will be the first time Iridium launched its fleet and didnt go bankrupt in the process.

    Musk has the market, if he can make his cost.

    My prediction is that in under 3 years he will be launching oh 14 FAlcon 9’s a year. and that doesnt include cargo to ISS or eventually people.

    Musk is (if he makes his cost) going to take the launcher business in The Republic…watch

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:30 pm

    Its called piggy backing. The shuttles can carry crew (twice what the crew swap out – yes I know your not going to fly up more crew per year.) and carry the cargo. So you dropped the extra cargo flight completely.

    So then we agree that the Shuttle flights are only worth doing for cargo, since they don’t add any crew for the ISS.

    Let’s look at what the COTS contract is providing:

    SpaceX/Dragon is capable of transporting 13,228 lbs of pressurized & unpressurized cargo, and return up to 5,500 lbs back to Earth. Due to cargo density, typical payloads will be less both up & down. Their part of the COTS contract is for 12 cargo resupply missions for $1.6B, or $133.3M/mission IF they were to max out their payload capacity, that would give us a figure of $10,080/lb just for the upmass.

    Orbital/Cygnus is capable of transporting 5,952 lbs of pressurized & unpressurized cargo, and return up to 2,646 lbs back to Earth. Due to cargo density, typical payloads will be less both up & down. Their part of the COTS contract is for 8 cargo resupply missions for $1.9B, or $237.5M/mission IF they were to max out their payload capacity, that would give us a figure of $39,903/lb just for the upmass.

    The Shuttle has a cargo capacity of 53,600 lbs, but if it carries the MPLM, then the MPLM only carries 17,636 of pressurized cargo, leaving a potential for 26,263 lbs (43,899 lbs total). IF they were to max out their payload, and fly twice per year, that would give us $1.2B/flight for 43,899 lbs, or $27,335/lb. The reality, however, is that the ISS cannot take too many supplies at one time, so the real payload carried would be closer to the MPLM max, which would raise the price to $68,043/lb.

    For the Shuttle program, after 30 years they have worked out the biggest cost drivers, and I don’t think there are any improvements that can be made without significant capital investments, which would raise the overall cost of the Shuttle program even more.

    For SpaceX and Orbital, their costs are likely to continue falling, especially if they are able to reuse their capsules (Dragon is designed for reuse). When they finish their initial COTS deliveries, their development costs will be behind them, and they don’t have to pad their prices for the many unknown risks new contract services entail.

    Conclusions:

    1. The Shuttle won’t get any cheaper over time, but Orbital and SpaceX are already cheaper, and most likely will lower their prices for future COTS contracts – commercial cargo services for the ISS are a better value for the U.S. Taxpayer than the Shuttle.

    2. The Shuttle cannot replace capsules (Soyuz for now) for crew on the ISS because the Shuttle is not capable of staying parked at the ISS as a lifeboat.

    3. The Shuttle is not needed for the ISS.

    Time to retire the Shuttle program, and throw a parade for all involved. Wonderful vehicles, but they are no longer needed…

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:20 pm

    Hey as a retirement hobby job hes doing pretty damn good – but he’ld have to be a LOT cheaper before I’ld put my sat on his birds

    I don’t think you have any idea what his prices are, otherwise you wouldn’t make such a silly comment. SpaceX already offers the lowest launch prices in the industry, so if you had a satellite that you needed to put up, you couldn’t get any lower prices. Why do you think Iridium went with them? Weird.

  • Rhyolite

    DCSCA wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    “Plenty of aeroplanes can fly to Antarctica– but again, there’s not quite a market demand to vacation there yet– no Iglooland or Wallyworld yet.”

    That’s just plain wrong. There is actually fairly well developed market for Antarctic vacations.

    There are a large number of cruise operators with ice reinforced vessels that make excursions to Antarctica. No there aren’t any theme parks but you can visit Amundsen base camp, climb glaciers and visit penguin rookeries.

    There are also flights to Antarctica. Quantas, flies 747s sight seeing flights around Antarctica and there are smaller operators who will land you on Antarctica and even take you to the South Pole. It’s something for hard core adventure tourists to do.

    An order of magnitude more people visit Antarctica today as toursits than as scientists or explorers. Space tourism will follow the same pattern if prices get low enough.

  • Rhyolite

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    “No theres no launch market. At best world wide <50 a year."

    That reminds me of the apocryphal quote from the IBM chairman that "there is a world market for about five computers."

    Actually, the launch vehicle market has buyers, sellers, list prices, vigorous competition, and several billion in yearly revenue. Sure looks like a market to market to those of us who have participated in it.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
    > NASA spent billions on hardware that never flew
    > but yet was critical to the station, and it was no
    > where near developing it

    Didn’t say NASA was that great, its just no worse then the other gov space agencies. So if if noe screwed up gov agency involved in a project is bad, 10 really gets horrible.
    .

    > Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    > it will be the first time Iridium launched its
    > fleet and didnt go bankrupt in the process.

    One hopes.

    > Musk has the market, if he can make his cost.
    > My prediction is that in under 3 years he will be
    > launching oh 14 FAlcon 9’s a year. ==

    His bookings are not showing that.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 12:13 am
    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
    >> “Its called piggy backing. The shuttles can carry crew
    >> (twice what the crew swap out – yes I know your not going
    >> to fly up more crew per year.) and carry the cargo. So you
    >>dropped the extra cargo flight completely.”

    > So then we agree that the Shuttle flights are only worth doing
    > for cargo, since they don’t add any crew for the ISS.

    No I said the opposite. Shuttles could deliver crew AND cargo on the same flight. Given the total flight costs for shuttle now rival the projected Commercial Crew flight costs – and are laughably cheap compared to Ares/Orion flights, effectively the cargo lift is a free extra.

    > For the Shuttle program, after 30 years they have worked
    > out the biggest cost drivers, and I don’t think there are any
    > improvements that can be made without significant capital
    > investments, ==

    Quite untrue. Maintaining high per flight costs was a requirement from congress. Many simple cheap cost lowering refit ideas (metal clad bolt no tiles, removable servicing panels, streamlining some of the plumping, and at this point bringing some onboard tech up from ‘1970’s era) have been collecting dust for decades.

    If you want to consider MAJOR upgrades, they would be cheaper then whats being proposed for Commercial crew, finishing Orion, etc.

    > 2. The Shuttle cannot replace capsules (Soyuz for now) for
    > crew on the ISS because the Shuttle is not capable of staying
    > parked at the ISS as a lifeboat.

    Again, the systems being adapted to allow Orion to do this were originally designed for shuttle, so it would be cheaper to adapt shuttle to serve as a lifeboat, them build a new Orion as a life boat – or just still park the Soyuz.

    > 3. The Shuttle is not needed for the ISS.

    Its a cheaper more capable option to do the crew carry and cargo carry options, and theirs is some debate how long ISS can be maintained without something like the shuttle.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 12:19 am
    >>Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
    >> “Hey as a retirement hobby job hes doing pretty damn
    >> good – but he’ld have to be a LOT cheaper before I’ld put my sat on his birds”

    > I don’t think you have any idea what his prices are, otherwise
    > you wouldn’t make such a silly comment. ==

    Wrong on both counts.

    >== Why do you think Iridium went with them? ==.

    Iridium, unlike virtually any other launch customer, is launching a fleet of sats, to upgrade their current fleet. So if they lose one it doesn’t impact them much. They just order another to be added to the end of the production and launch sequence – or just use a spare. They therefore can afford the extra risk of a untried launch provider offering significantly lower prices.

    If on the other hand you were launching you one and only multibillion dollar sat needed for you companies total cash flow from your project – losing it and waiting to launch another new one you need to rebid a order for, could mean years of no cash flow.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Rhyolite wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 2:36 am
    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 28th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
    >> “No theres no launch market. At best world wide That reminds me of the apocryphal quote from the IBM chairman
    > that “there is a world market for about five computers.”

    Except there really isn’t any market demand for more then 50 launches a year now, and the demand is going down – not up. The IBM guy found sales dwarfing anything he thought possible – I.E. the demand was much higher, and going up fast.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 10:48 am

    Given the total flight costs for shuttle now rival the projected Commercial Crew flight costs – and are laughably cheap compared to Ares/Orion flights, effectively the cargo lift is a free extra.

    You’re math challenged. Debate the Shuttle Program Manager who said that it costs the U.S. Taxpayer $200M/month to run the Shuttle program. How is that “laughably cheap”?

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 10:49 am

    Except there really isn’t any market demand for more then 50 launches a year now, and the demand is going down – not up.

    You’re also marketing challenged. Look up “Price Elasticity of Demand” to see what happens when you lower the price of something. ULA recently said that they would charge $130M for a Atlas V, so that gives us a current price. SpaceX currently charges $56M for a Falcon 9. Both have the same payload capability – do you see the economic difference here? Ask American Airlines if they like having Southwest Airlines competing with them…

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:08 am
    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 10:48 am
    >> “Given the total flight costs for shuttle now rival the
    >> projected Commercial Crew flight costs – and are laughably
    >> cheap compared to Ares/Orion flights, effectively the cargo lift is a free extra.”

    > You’re math challenged. Debate the Shuttle Program
    > Manager who said that it costs the U.S. Taxpayer
    > $200M/month to run the Shuttle program. How is that “laughably cheap”?

    For 2 shuttle flights a year thats $1.2B a flight. Ares/Orions projected to push $7B a flight. Commercial crew proposal already includes $6B in program support costs before the first flight. That’s $0.6 B per flight just for support overhead. Assuming similar costs during flights, or that Orion is used and L/M is allowed to save money with lower NASA oversight, it would add another $0.6 B per flight, I.E. bring it to shutles per flight costs. Add in other less optimistic cost assumptions adn the costs go up a lot.

    Or you could streamline shuttle support costs and increase serviceability and safety and eliminate the need for a lifeboat – but Congress hasn’t smiled no that before.

    > You’re also marketing challenged. Look up
    > “Price Elasticity of Demand” to see what happens when
    > you lower the price of something. ==

    Look up what happened whern the Russians weere selling launches at fire sale prices bellow $1,000 a pound (lower then Falcon 9). It did not spawn a huge change. Effectivly the price was still to high to have much elasticity.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 10:48 am

    > For the Shuttle program, after 30 years they have worked
    > out the biggest cost drivers, and I don’t think there are any
    > improvements that can be made without significant capital
    > investments, ==

    Quite untrue. Maintaining high per flight costs was a requirement from congress. Many simple cheap cost lowering refit ideas (metal clad bolt no tiles, removable servicing panels, streamlining some of the plumping, and at this point bringing some onboard tech up from ‘1970’s era) have been collecting dust for decades.

    If you want to consider MAJOR upgrades, they would be cheaper then whats being proposed for Commercial crew, finishing Orion, etc.

    Sigh. Do you have proof that Congress mandated “maintaining high per flight costs”, or is this a conspiracy theory?

    For every dollar you spend on making upgrades, that makes your flight costs higher, since you have to amortize those costs against future flights. Where do you think the money for these upgrades will come from? Your mythical “cost lowering refit ideas” would take Billions to research, and years to implement. The payoff would take decades.

    Take the “metal clad bolt no tiles” idea, which I’m assuming you’re thinking about the X-33 metallic thermal protection system. Did you ever think that maybe there was a reason they could not directly bolt them on?

    – What is the weight difference between a Inconel 617 TPS panel assembly and LI-900 Silica ceramics? This affects CG and overall vehicle performance.

    – Lack of attachment points, meaning you have to pry open each orbiter and add thousands of standoffs (and weight).

    – Then you have to re-qualify the Shuttle with the new TPS, which takes at least one flight (add that to your zero-cost budget).

    bringing some onboard tech up from ‘1970’s era

    They have already done that once, by upgrading the flight avionics and displays, but how is that supposed to save Millions of dollars? You’re proposing SPENDING Millions (if not Billions) on things that don’t provide payback for way past the life of the vehicles. Each change you make in any hardware or software has to be rigorously tested and validated, and that takes time and money. At some point you have to say “is it worth it”, and so far Bush/Griffin, Obama/Bolden and numerous Congresses have said “no” by voting to end the program.

    30 years is a good run, and we should thank everyone involved and throw a parade in their honor (you too). It’s time to move on.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:22 am

    Look up what happened whern the Russians weere selling launches at fire sale prices bellow $1,000 a pound (lower then Falcon 9). It did not spawn a huge change. Effectivly the price was still to high to have much elasticity.

    Russia is not a fully trusted member of the free market system now, and especially back then when they had just transitioned out of being the USSR. Companies were reluctant politically to completely trust that Russia was real, or that the prices and service were real.

    The market also understands that “dumping” (predator pricing) is not sustainable, so why would that spur a market to plan for it? Econ 101.

    To a certain degree SpaceX has to overcome the same perceptions and fears about pricing, and so that’s why you did not see the Iridium order announced until after SpaceX proved they could build and launch their Falcon 9. It’s one thing to set up a pretty factory, but it’s another thing to build a working rocket. They have allayed part of those fears, but the market will take a while to truly believe and adjust to the new market price points.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:22 am

    Or you could streamline shuttle support costs and increase serviceability and safety and eliminate the need for a lifeboat

    You make it seem so easy – snap your fingers, and those magic cost savings that every Shuttle program manager didn’t want, will suddenly be available for zero cost, and can be implemented immediately!

    See, it was Congress holding us back!

    Oh, and ISS lifeboats? We don’t need no stinkin lifeboats!

    Guess we’ll rename the space station ISS Titanic… ;-)

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:38 am
    >>> For the Shuttle program, after 30 years they have worked
    >>> out the biggest cost drivers, and I don’t think there are any
    >>> improvements that can be made without significant capital
    >>> investments, ==

    >>Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 10:48 am
    >> Quite untrue. Maintaining high per flight costs wa
    >> a requirement from congress. Many simple cheap cost
    >>lowering refit ideas (metal clad bolt no tiles, removable
    >> servicing panels, streamlining some of the plumping,
    >> and at this point bringing some onboard tech up from
    >> ‘1970’s era) have been collecting dust for decades.
    >>
    >> If you want to consider MAJOR upgrades, they would be
    >> cheaper then whats being proposed for Commercial crew, finishing Orion, etc.”

    >Sigh. Do you have proof that Congress mandated
    > “maintaining high per flight costs”, or is this a conspiracy theory?

    No they consistently vetoed the cost reduction upgrades or anything to lower staffing levels at centers (I.E. that $200M a month to support a program that noly costs $60M a flight.).

    That was why Griffen stated his goal with Constellation was to make flight rarer, adn keep the total program cost as high or higher. And why when I was in the office of space access tech they feared someone fielding a CATS launcher – and why they treated L/M’s offer to field VentureStar for free if NASA would use it, as about as welcome as a turd ni a punch bowel.

    In general with NASA they have always found its much easier to get the votes for a multi billion dollar program, then a multi million dollar program,.

    You must remember to congress the primary reason for a NASA program is to justify the high staff loads in the centers.

    >== For every dollar you spend on making upgrades,
    > that makes your flight costs higher, since you have
    > to amortize those costs against future flights. ==

    True but these upgrades would cost less then the cost to field teh Orion lifeboat or Commercial crew – so that’s a wash.

    > Take the “metal clad bolt no tiles” idea, which
    > I’m assuming you’re thinking about the X-33 metallic
    > thermal protection system. ==

    No the design predated X-33 and was a shutle refit proposal from the ‘80’s. Actually Rockwell after building Columbia proposed it for all the other orbiters for safety and cost savings reasons. It was part of their STS-200 proposal (Columbia was STS-101)

    It would have both ruggedized the orbiters from debris falling off teh tank, adn saved about $6 million a flight in shuttle tile check out costs.

    > – What is the weight difference =
    It actually was lighter, since you could eliminate a lot of the structura adn layers below the tiles – adn go with thiner tiles.

    > – Lack of attachment points, =

    Not a issue given all the substructure adn framing under teh tiles.

    > – Then you have to re-qualify the Shuttle with the
    > new TPS, which takes at least one flight (add that to your zero-cost budget).

    $60 million for the extra fight, payback in lower servicing costs in 10 flights.

    >> “bringing some onboard tech up from ‘1970’s era”

    > They have already done that once, by upgrading
    > the flight avionics and displays, ==

    Yeah they were forced to, all the parts suppliers for the old (‘50’s era in some cases) systems had stopped production or gone out of business.

    Course there are a lot of other systems that are pretty dated, hydraulics, power, etc. Newer more reliable gear would further cut servicing costs and eliminate all the staffing overhead of folks needed to maintain parts no longer serviced commercially. I.E. you cut down that $200 a month overhead.

    >== It’s time to move on

    The problem is, all the replacements are less capable and more expensive.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:49 am

    > The market also understands that “dumping” (predator
    > pricing) is not sustainable, so why would that spur a
    > market to plan for it? Econ 101.

    Agreed – but you also didn’t see a race to use them over other launchers booknig at the same time.

    Launch costs are a fairly small fraction of current sat costs – so there’s not the price elasticity. Now if the price went to $200 a pound – that could spawn some serious new markets. I saw a estimate that you’d really need to get below — $500? ni current year dollars? (been 20 years since I saw the presentation)

    > To a certain degree SpaceX has to overcome the same
    > perceptions and fears about pricing, == one thing to set up a
    > pretty factory, but it’s another thing to build a working rocket. ==

    Big agree. Its also one reasonable reason given for why SpaceX won’t really be considered for commercial crew. [Can you see voter reaction to swapping out shuttles for a Dragon before it even carries anyone?!]

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:55 am
    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:22 am
    >> “Or you could streamline shuttle support costs and increase
    >> serviceability and safety and eliminate the need for a lifeboat”

    > You make it seem so easy – snap your fingers, and those
    > magic cost savings that every Shuttle program manager didn’t want, ==

    You didn’t work there or you wouldn’t find it that hard to understand. Yeah the shuttle folks wanted them bad – but the proposal got a very frosty response in congress.

    You got to do what the boss says.

    >Oh, and ISS lifeboats? We don’t need no stinkin lifeboats!
    Did you miss that part of my post? Thats a lower cost option with shuttle to. ;)

    This stiffs been collecting dust on shelves for close to 30 years, some of the upgrade proposals are now outdated. For example why metal clad the old tiles when you could use thiner lighter composit skins now on the market ( ultramet (dot) com ) and flight tested. Or order composit ET tanks from Northrup.

    The sad part is it has been colecting dust for so long, most folks assume it must be impossible, or would have been done.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    To do the things that you’re talking about amounts to building a brand new Shuttle, which is not possible in the current NASA budget, regardless if you cut everything else. Two administrations and three congresses have spoken on this already, and they don’t agree with you, either for keeping the Shuttles or spending money to upgrade them. I agree too, especially since there is no job that they are needed for right now, so now is a good time to build the next generation of spacecraft.

    Regarding launch costs, you don’t see a big difference in lowering the cost of putting a satellite in space by $50-70M? I think you’re getting confused with the % way of looking at things, which is not how business works.

    The problem has been that launch costs has been high enough to prohibit lower revenue products from entering the market, since their payoff’s come in smaller revenue streams. Taking $50M off the cost of a program provides lots of opportunities to lower prices or add features, both of which increases competition, and spurs demand for more launchers. Econ 101.

  • Kelly Starks

    FYI for grins

    scifiairshow.com/guided-tour.html

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
    >To do the things that you’re talking about amounts to building
    > brand new Shuttle, ==

    The manufacturer disagrees.

    >==which is not possible in the current NASA budget,==

    Actually (if you’ld checked the math I showed) not only is the upgrades possible within current NASA budget progections for Commercial crew/life boat – a total NEW shuttle class RLV would be cheaper then the Ares-1/Orion option congress is fighting to keep. Cheaper by NASA estimates by $10B, if done commercially possibly $40 B less then Ares-1/Orion, with a 5+ year delivery date (though that projection might be optimistic on their part).

    Though given the DoD is looking to replace EELV with a RLV in the mid 2020’s, moving that up by 10 years with a joint program might sit well with them and congress?

    >=
    > Regarding launch costs, you don’t see a big difference
    > in lowering the cost of putting a satellite in space by $50-70M? ==

    As I mentioned thats such a small fraction of a sat deployment program, its not worth the risk to them if the discount is from a untried vendor.

    >= The problem has been that launch costs has been
    > high enough to prohibit lower revenue products from
    > entering the market, since their payoff’s come in smaller revenue streams.

    Still likely is given the surveys and stuff over the years.

  • Kelly Starks

    Coastal Ron, I think your just not able to get your head around the budgets currently being thrown around for Lifeboat and Commercial crew.
    lifeboat will “only” cost $6B IF NASA will agree on lower oversight, If NASA doesn’t agree to reduced oversight (likely), Orion lifeboat could cost another $15B.
    another $6B is proposed to “facilitate” Commercial crew for the next 5 years 2011-2015.
    “manrating” a EELV for commercial crew is projected to be $4.5B EVEN THOUGH CUSTOMERS HAVE ALREADY BOOKED CREW FLIGHTS ON IT! Expect at least that much to certify anyone’s capsule, and congressional noise to stop Boeing from flying people to Biggelow stations on “uncertified for humans” craft.

    So lifeboat and commercial crew is at $20B-$35B! In current year money the total cost to develop and certify the orbiters from scratch is $17B, the total shuttle system dev program from scratch is $37B, and a full RLV would not need the ET’s of strap ons – those were kluges. Commercials (Boeing, l/M, etc) have said they could field a shuttle class FAA certified for passenger carry, RLV spaceliner for $16!!.

    So the current “new” “commercial” option under Obama’s plan, would not only pay to comlpetly replace the shuttles under NASA program rules, it would pay to field 2 fleets of commercial spaceliner RLV’s, certified for commercial operation!

    With this STAGERING level of waste under the current budgets, everything I’m proposing is trivial.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    lifeboat will “only” cost $6B

    The number being debated for Orion is $4.5B, not $6B. The $6B figure is what NASA wants to add on to the budget, part of which is to cover getting commercial crew going. There are no estimates within NASA for the commercial crew yet, since they have not created the requirements and received quotes from industry.

    “manrating” a EELV for commercial crew is projected to be $4.5B EVEN THOUGH CUSTOMERS HAVE ALREADY BOOKED CREW FLIGHTS ON IT!

    U.S. commercial crew vehicles don’t exist yet, and no one is selling tickets. Where do you come up with this stuff?

    However, let’s take a look at the public information that is out there:

    o ULA Delta IV Heavy – The CEO testified before the Augustine Commission that it would take $1.3B to upgrade Delta IV Heavy and facilities to carry crew to orbit, and then they would charge $300M/flight to send Orion (or ???) to LEO.

    o ULA Atlas V – The CEO also testified that it would take $400M to upgrade Atlas V to carry crew, and that they would charge $130M/flight to send a commercial capsule up (lighter than Orion).

    o SpaceX – Elon Musk said that it would take less than $1B to upgrade everything for crew, and he has stated publicly (and on their website) that they would charge $20M/seat for Dragon.

    As you can see, these publicly available numbers are far below what you’re stating. Maybe you’re typing too fast again, but you need to validate your information before you start using caps… ;-)

    As for the rest of the stuff you talked about (Boeing spaceliners, strap ons, etc.), none of it is either mainstream (i.e. seriously being talked about) or even close to being right math-wise.

    See you on the next blog, this one is done…

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    > > Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
    >> “lifeboat will “only” cost $6B
    > The number being debated for Orion is $4.5B, not $6B.==

    Opps – your right.

    >== The $6B figure is what NASA wants to add on to the budget, part
    > of which is to cover getting commercial crew going. ==
    More the overhead, but thats a nit

    >> ““manrating” a EELV for commercial crew is projected
    >> to be $4.5B EVEN THOUGH CUSTOMERS HAVE ALREADY BOOKED CREW FLIGHTS ON IT!”

    > U.S. commercial crew vehicles don’t exist yet, and no one
    > is selling tickets. Where do you come up with this stuff?

    Biggelow has taken uot options for up to a dozen flights a year on NBoeings CST-100, which they are bidding for commercial crew (though its a long shot). It flys on a EELV, which NASA and related folks have talked about costing something like $4.5 B to “manrate”. This presumably would be on top of the Upgrade costs your listing.

    > o SpaceX – Elon Musk said that it would take less than $1B to upgrade everything for crew, ==

    Ah this I’m pretty sure is wrong. Everythings alread built for crew, he said a couple hundred million for the escape rocket.

    >==
    > As you can see, these publicly available numbers are far below what you’re stating.==

    As yuo can see, they are far below the program numbers for Commercial crew. It doesn’t mater if Boeing would charge $300M if NASA adds $1.2 billion on top of it.

    >== As for the rest of the stuff you talked about (Boeing
    > spaceliners, strap ons, etc.), none of it is either mainstream
    > (i.e. seriously being talked about) or even close to being right math-wise.

    Incorrect. These were public statements.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    I’d be curious to see how you research your information. Do you ever use Wikipedia? Even though the information can be a little out of date, they have the references to the information sources, so you can always check their accuracy.

    Biggelow has taken uot options for up to a dozen flights a year on NBoeings CST-100

    Boeing has received $18M from the CCDev program to work on CST-100, but have not committed to building it.

    Bigelow has booked a Falcon 9 for 2014, but has not announced what they are sending up on it. They have not booked any other launches at this time, but have been reported to be negotiating for an Atlas 401.

    Bigelow and Boeing have talked about using the CST-100, and Bigelow is on record stating that he wants more than one capsule and launcher before he opens for business, which is TBD at this time.

    These are all public facts, none of which support your statement. Can you supply documentation for what you are stating?

  • Ah this I’m pretty sure is wrong. Everythings alread built for crew, he said a couple hundred million for the escape rocket.

    He estimates a hundred million for the escape system. If it costs as much as a billion (his high-end estimate) it will include three test flights (one pad abort, one high-altitude abort, and a flight all the way to ISS and back). Those billions being thrown around to human rate ULA vehicles are nonsensical, representing nothing but FUD from NASA.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    It doesn’t mater if Boeing would charge $300M if NASA adds $1.2 billion on top of it.

    How do you come up with NASA adding $1.2B to every crew flight???

    You’re having problems keeping non-recurring and recurring costs straight, plus commercial versus government pricing…

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    >> Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    >> “It doesn’t mater if Boeing would charge $300M if
    >> NASA adds $1.2 billion on top of it.”

    > How do you come up with NASA adding $1.2B to every crew flight???

    The Obama CC proposal added $600 million per flight with the $6B to KSC to Facilitate the CC program. Thats straight from Obama’s mouth. If operations overhead (to facilitate actual flights) is similar that’s another $600M per flight in overhead. So if you assume no charges to customize the CC ships, or to man rate them, your still already adding $1.2B per flight in overhead.

    However:
    ISS lifeboat (Ares/Orion was to serve that purpose as well) is projected to cost Under $5B if NASA takes a completly hands off oversite possition. If (as is almost certain) they don’t, normal oversite overhead would at least triple that. Say another $1.5B per CC flight to replace the lifeboat capacity lost if Ares/Orion is lost (you know thats how it will be presented in congress).

    Then their are the questions.
    How much will they add in costs to “manrate” CC craft? A couple billion per ship?

    How much customization will they demand? Previous article reported Boeing and L/M expected several billion worth.

    And whats the program cost for training, crew planing, care and feeding of the centers, etc. Obamas proposing to keep the costs up.

    All these program costs are poured on top of the per flight costs charged for the flights. Just like Shuttles margin cost per flight was about $60M, total costs with all overhead is $1.2B.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 6:50 pm

    The Obama CC proposal added $600 million per flight with the $6B to KSC to Facilitate the CC program. Thats straight from Obama’s mouth.

    According to your claim, NASA is only planning 10 commercial crew flights? I get that by dividing your $6B number by your $600M number. Simple math. Do you have any reference to this supposed statement from Obama that commercial crew will only fly 10 times, or is it opinion?

    Sounds more like conspiracy theory stuff to me…

  • DCSCA

    @CoastalRon– “I have no doubt that you could build a medium-class launcher family in your backyard, and do it for far less than SpaceX…” No need… Conestoga 1 flew 28 years ago.

  • DCSCA

    you are supporting a program (Constellation) that is structured to maintain and perpetuate government control over an operation. (in this case HSF)… <- and there's nothing wrong with that in this era at all.

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- “Hey as a retirement hobby job hes doing pretty damn good – but he’ld have to be a LOT cheaper before I’ld put my sat on his birds, and judging from the disappointing results from Tesla so far….” The IPO for Tesla wasn’t too bad but it is disturbing that they’ve sold under 1500 of his expensive cars in 7 years. Not the kind of ‘automotive performance’ you’d like to see from a CEO who wants to transfer that ‘executive’ experience to the space business targeting NASA. Wonder if crews who may fly on his birds will be able to have insurance policies penned for them.

  • DCSCA

    @Kelly- What is amusing is how commercial space advocates seem certain– almost eager— to prove there’s a huge market for their services. And nobody has stopped them for three decades. Maybe they’re thinking like Wall Streeters and plan on creating their own junk ‘derivative’ markets… space junkets as it were. Sort of fly-by-nite, literally. Just don’t see it surplanting government-funded and managed space exploration in the near future.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Coastal Ron wrote @ June 30th, 2010 at 12:24 am

    >According to your claim, NASA is only planning 10 commercial
    > crew flights?

    Thats a MAX. CC to ISS after 2015 until they drop the ISS in 2020. there are only 2 crew rotations a year, 3 people each, and they retain the option to still use Soyuz for some (or all) of these crew flights.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 30th, 2010 at 6:13 am
    >> Kelly- “Hey as a retirement hobby job hes doing
    >> pretty damn good – but he’ld have to be a LOT cheaper
    >> before I’ld put my sat on his birds, and judging from
    >>the disappointing results from Tesla so far….”

    > The IPO for Tesla wasn’t too bad but it is disturbing that
    > they’ve sold under 1500 of his expensive cars in 7 years. ==

    Well his expensive cars don’t actually work yet. They delivered 2 for testing to a Brit car show, one died in a half hour, the second would go or charge at all – then they couldn’t recharge the first.

    The transmissions were pretty bad to – but they promised customers that they would replace them when they develop new ones.

    Oh the IPO stock offering got them over $200M? Given they sold about $60m-$80M of cars – thats not a lot of investor buy in.

  • Kelly Starks

    > DCSCA wrote @ June 30th, 2010 at 6:21 am
    >What is amusing is how commercial space advocates seem
    > certain– almost eager— to prove there’s a huge market for
    > their services. And nobody has stopped them for three decades.
    > Maybe they’re thinking like Wall Streeters and plan on creating
    > their own junk ‘derivative’ markets… s==

    Space advocates have amazingly big blind spots. The whole L-5 colony / SSPS manufacture idea is based on assuming there is no economy of scale for space launch. Go from launching tens of tons a year to millions of tons a year and the cost per pound is fixed. If you further assume (incorrectly) that launch costs are directly related to power and you assume lunar launch is 20 times cheaper…

    Mars Direct folks ignore radiation hazards, and low G health impacts…..and of course folks (say millionaires) want to sell everything they own for a one way ticket to Mars…

    Space launch buffs assum there is this huge line of folks whole line up for launches or flights themselves – just as soon as a new space company offers them…

    …and of course the old aerospace folks are just to stupid to understand.

    >== Just don’t see it surplanting government-funded and managed space exploration in the near future.

    The Market could get huge if the costs were down, but the costs won’t come down until the markets huge.

    The gov could (and should) break this chicken and egg thing – but that wouldn’t get votes.

    Right now the 2 big questions are – will Bigelow actually get his huge market needing 10-20+? flights a year to his stations? Or is it not going to materialize?

    Will the suborbital tourist market get huge and fund Virgin (etc)’s orbital projects?

    But right now US aero is shrinking, and Obama’s plan eliminates most of the space launch market commercial had with NASA. Not good if you want a commercial space launch (much less human space launch) industry in the US.

  • Coastal Ron

    Kelly Starks wrote @ June 30th, 2010 at 10:15 am

    Well his expensive cars don’t actually work yet. They delivered 2 for testing to a Brit car show, one died in a half hour, the second would go or charge at all – then they couldn’t recharge the first.

    You are so funny! You really don’t have a clue about how to find facts on the Internet, do you?

    Are you clipping newspaper and magazine articles? I’m just trying to figure out how you can be so hopelessly behind the times with basic knowledge…

  • vulture4

    “The Market could get huge if the costs were down, but the costs won’t come down until the markets huge.”

    This is a misconception. The economies of scale for ELVs are minor, not least since modern robotic machining makes small parts runs about the same cost per part as large ones. Every stage of launch vehicle and spacecraft manufacturing from raw materials to final assembly is expensive. The market for human spaceflight won’t expand significantly without a drop to at most $2 million per seat to orbit. Only reusable LVs and spacecraft can achieve this. Only the fuel is needed by physics, and the cost of fuel is insignificant, for the Shuttle the fuel costs less than the helium, less than the rental for the recovery ship needed for the Orion.

    The Shuttle is expensive because the ET must be manufactured, because the SRBs must be completely disassembled and remanufactured, because the TPS is much less durable than predicted and even the insulation on the wiring is more brittle than designers realized. But all these problems could be avoided with a new design based on new technologies tested in repeated spaceflight with unmanned demonstrators, like … the X-33, X-34, DC-X and X-37, all cancelled during the previous administration.

  • Dennis Berube

    First regardless of what people have indicated, as to Orions purpose, the facts remain clear. Obama says he wants us to go to an asteroid or on to Mars. This is exactly what NASA had planned for project Constelllation over the long run, and in the first place. Calling it strictly a Moon program is totally wrong. All Obama is doing is to postpone it further into the future. First the US needs a deep space vehicle. Orion is it. I should rephrase that! The world needs a deep space vehicle, Orion is it!!!! We have been tied to LEO for to long and it is time to venture back out into deep space. Leaving the future of manned missions in the hands of private industry might, and I say might be okay for LEO, but not for the future of deep space exploration. Right now the Soviets could launch a Soyuz on a Lunar mission and it befuddles me why they havent. At least Congress should support the construction of the Orion in its original form, built for deep space, and not Orion light, built by private industry and used as a lifeboat for the ISS!!!!

  • Kelly Starks

    > vulture4 wrote @ July 3rd, 2010 at 10:42 pm
    >
    > economies of scale for ELVs are minor, not least since modern
    > robotic machining makes small parts runs about the
    > same cost per part as large ones. Every stage of launch
    > vehicle and spacecraft manufacturing from raw materials
    > to final assembly is expensive.==

    Yes, though the big overhead for development of the craft likely costs more then the manufacture of the unit = or at least rival it. I.E. tens of billions, divided over 10’s of fights (few LV’s fly over a 100 times) adds up.

    Though the lower development adn per flight costs of the RLV’s do help.

    > == The Shuttle is expensive because the ET must be
    > manufactured, because the SRBs must be completely disassembled
    > and remanufactured, because the TPS is much less durable than
    >predicted and even the insulation on the wiring is more brittle
    > than designers realized. But all these problems could be avoided
    > with a new design based on new technologies ==

    Agree better RLVs would lower the launch margin costs more.

  • Kelly Starks

    > Dennis Berube wrote @ July 5th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
    >
    > First regardless of what people have indicated, as to Orions
    > purpose, the facts remain clear. Obama says he wants us to
    > go to an asteroid or on to Mars. This is exactly what NASA
    > had planned for project Constelllation over the long run, ==

    Actually Griffen stoped talking about beyond Moon missions some time ago.

    >== First the US needs a deep space vehicle. Orion is it. ==

    Orion really isn’t suitable for long term deep space missions like Mars or a asteroid. Doesn’t have the life support, or designed service life in space.

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