The fact is that the Space Age is now fifty years old and the marginal improvement of re-flying past missions using existing launch systems is getting uninspiring to say the least. We have used every trick in the book, some at great expense, to keep moving the mission capabilities up. Our bag of tricks are used up we need an upgraded launch system so the next fifty years will not look like nostalgic repeats with slight better sensors of the last fifty years.”

There are plenty of new missions we can do with existing technology, launchers, schedules, and budgets. We can take past missions to new locations. We can include improvements to technologies like instruments that are already in hand to make new missions. Doing that can result in what amounts to a new mission because of the improvement (eg: 10m resolution vs. 1m resolution). There are also plenty of innovative missions that haven’t been flown at all. See the following, for example, for ideas in the Planetary Science field (I assume you’re talking about more than Planetary Science, but it’s a good example field):

http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/

We do need to avoid super-expensive missions like JWST, MSL, Mars Sample Return, and probably even the ambitious version of the Jupiter Europa Orbiter, though. Just avoid them in the first place for now until our more affordable opportunities really do start drying up the way Stephen describes.

I would also suggest that the approach taken in the FY2011 proposal allows us to increase our capabilities using the same class of launchers. It does this in part through lowering launcher costs and prices by using these launchers much more for robotic precursors, ISS, technology demos, and so on. In the long run this should help develop a better launcher market. It also spurs the commercial suborbital RLV industry which some day could feed into the orbital launch business. The exploration technology development and demonstration line includes lots of technologies that would apply to other missions (my example is Planetary Science): aerocapture, more powerful solar panels and solar electric propulsion, propellant depots, space tugs, telerobotics, and more. The general Space Technology line develops technologies that will help this sort of mission, too (eg: small satellites).

A lot of these technology and business advances have the advantage that, once accomplished, they are self-sustaining. For example, some of the technologies can be applied usefully to work that needs to be done anyway (eg: space tugs, improved panels, improved solar electric propulsion, etc). A big HLV, in contrast, is expensive to maintain.

Actually having a robotic precursor line with $3B of funding over 5 years instead of $44M in 1 year allows a lot of exciting missions to take place, too. The HSF robotic precursor idea, rather than robotic science missions, suggests lots of affordable missions that NASA Science wouldn’t do and hasn’t done. The early precursor plans were for 5 medium-sized missions, 3 small “scouts”, and various instruments funded with the $3B … that’s quite a lot of new results if they could pull it off, judging from their initial mission plans. It would have all used existing launcher classes.

There is a big danger with expanded volume and mass that you will wind up making the missions and mission overruns much more expensive. It would be nice if we could take that mass and volume available in larger launchers and apply it to payload cost savings. There are inclinations in aerospace technology, management, and politics that tend to want to cram every last bit of capability into that mass and volume, and then be surprised later when costs shoot up and schedules fly away. It’s not impossible, but it will take a lot of work and leadership to reverse that tendency. I wouldn’t count on it happening.

Set all that aside, though. Let’s suppose we really do need bigger launchers for big improvements. In that case, why not try incremental improvements to existing launchers that we need anyway (eg: EELVs)? That should be cheaper to do and to maintain. Then, if we run out of misssions again at that level, take it again to the next step.

Hmmm. Both Bolden and Truly were astronauts; both administrators. Andf, of course, taxi design takes driver input in design; suggest you review history of the Chrcker cab. And, although your ‘landlord’ may not design your apartment complex, hotels usually take input from their patrons as well as the owner. See Hilton for details.

It provided better base security, and it was theoretically capable of getting to much higher inclinations, albeit with much less payload. It wasn’t “useless.” It just wasn’t worth the money.

Which was done (63 degrees) from KSC, hence VAFB was useless. VAFB was not canceled because of hydrogen entrainment problems, it was fixable and it was cost and performance in the end.

Both Boeing and SpaceX have now proposed HLV derivatives of their current designs, all sensibly liquid propelled. If NASA wants an HLV they can just procure one.

Vandenberg flights were cancelled because of hydrogen entrainment problems in the flame trench at SLC-6, (not to mention costs) and then Challenger, which put the final nails in the coffin. High-inclination performance was lower than spec, but not useless. IIRC, it could still have gotten close to fifteen tons to 65 degrees.

1. The shuttle did not have a spy mission. It was to be a launch vehicle for reconsats
2. The SRB’s were not anemic, it was that the orbiter was over weight as you state above. There was never any dispute that west coast shuttle flights were canceled due to lack of payload capability. As for being a liar, your continue insistence in the myth the lack of SRB performance in the face of documented data to the contrary is “lying”

3. The DOD did not ” weighed in” on monolithic solids. NASA made the choice based on existing data, and the fact that monolithic solids were logistically impossible. Nor are monolithic solids any more powerful, nor any cheaper.

4. The “facts’ don’t support any of your assertions. Again, I provided sources that discredited everyone of your points.

All this is documented in the shuttle decision.

“My HLV ‘table of preference’ goes like this:”

Good list. Mine would probably move SD-HLV Side-mount to number two, and slide the others down. But I have an ulterior motive with this, and that would be to see the NASA launcher phased out as quickly as possible for a commercial alternative (Atlas P2 or Falcon X), and SD-HLV Side-mount would take the least investment, and thus the least to write-off.

In my assessment, any government HLV is going to be sitting around a lot, and by the time we really need to have one, only a commercial one will be affordable. That is unless the government decides to subsidize the HLV launches, which will kill any commercial HLV market before it starts. That’s really what I fear the most, and why I don’t want a government HLV – it will screw up the demand/supply market forces for U.S. companies.