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.

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.

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.

“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…

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.

> 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.

>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.