Congress, NASA

Crafting an ideal (for some) authorization bill

As some space advocates seek to block the House’s version of a NASA authorization bill, others have expressed support for at least key elements of the legislation. At a roundtable on Capitol Hill Thursday organized by the Space Transportation Association, former NASA administrator Mike Griffin offered his ideas of what he would like to see in a final authorization bill. “We’re no longer facing a future in which the administration’s proposal is one of the possible outcomes,” he said. “The Senate has passed an authorization bill that takes a more mature approach to human space exploration, and the House Science and Technology Committee has issued a draft bill that is even better.”

Griffin said that, given the chance, he would mix and match elements of the House and Senate bills. He said it was “crucial” to include the provisions in the House bill for the development of a government human space transportation system. “A crew launch capability which is not dependent on commercial interests or the state of international partner relationships is a strategic national asset and should not be sacrificed for lesser interests,” he said. He also called for retaining the safety standards for a crew launch system included in the House version. The Senate version’s language on heavy-lift launch vehicle develop should be retained, although modified to remove the initial development of an HLV with a capacity of as little as 70 tons “as it is technically unwise.”

“A NASA authorization act that captures the best of both bills will take us beyond the present muddled state to what we all hope will be a clear statement of national space policy and bipartisan agreement,” Griffin concluded.

Another panelist, Scott Pace, a former NASA official who is now director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, also threw his support primarily behind the House version of the bill. “The numbers in the House bill for developing government capabilities are higher than those in the Senate, thus, I believe it has a better chance for programmatic success,” he said. “The Senate bill has more funds for commercial crew and technology than the House, risking funds being spread perhaps too thin and schedules being slipped.” His preference, he said, was to start with the Senate bill since it has already passed the Senate “but to use the funding numbers that are in the House bill to ensure the best chance of success.”

A third panelist, Gary Payton, who retired as the deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space a little over a month ago, didn’t talk directly about the authorization bills but instead lamented the looming gap in US human spaceflight access. Asked, though, if the US should close the gap by extending the shuttle program, he disagreed. “The shuttle program has killed 14 people in flight. I don’t know why you would ever fly another one,” he said. Payton, who flew as a payload specialist on a military shuttle mission in 1985, said that mission was worth risking the lives of astronauts, “but I’m not sure microgravity research warrants that.”

Striking a different tone from the other panelists, AIAA executive director Robert Dickman endorsed the idea of commercial crew transportation. While he said suborbital commercial flights like those of SpaceShipOne in 2004 “were a far cry from what I would call spaceflight”, he saw a bright future for commercial human spaceflight. “I have no doubt that private citizens will travel on vehicles other than government rockets, be it for tourism or for some other reason,” he said. “I’m probably much less concerned than some about the prospect of using commercial providers for human access to low Earth orbit.”

229 comments to Crafting an ideal (for some) authorization bill

  • A third panelist, Gary Payton, who retired as the deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space a little over a month ago, didn’t talk directly about the authorization bills but instead lamented the looming gap in US human spaceflight access. Asked, though, if the US should close the gap by extending the shuttle program, he disagreed. “The shuttle program has killed 14 people in flight. I don’t know why you would ever fly another one,” he said.

    Wow, that took some huevos.

    As I’ve often written, that’s why Shuttle was cancelled. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board concluded the Shuttle design was fundamentally unsafe because the crew vehicle is mounted on the side where it’s exposed to flame and falling debris. That’s why Bush cancelled Shuttle in January 2004 and Congress went along with it.

    The people pushing for extending Shuttle overlook the history, and it’s the same myopic thinking that led to both the Challenger and Columbia disasters. They pretend everything is fine and no Bad Day can possibly happen — until it happens.

  • amightywind

    “A crew launch capability which is not dependent on commercial interests or the state of international partner relationships is a strategic national asset and should not be sacrificed for lesser interests,”

    This is the winning argument against Obamaspace. It is good to see the House bill gaining momentum. The bad dream that has been America’s space policy for the last 19 months is coming to an end, and Ares I/Orion development can continue with no further political meddling.

  • sc220

    It is good to see the House bill gaining momentum.

    Not sure how you could possibly come to this conclusion. It actually appears to be completely reversed. The fact that your hero, Mike Griffin, likes the House Bill does not mean it’s gaining traction. Remember, Griffin is no longer NASA Administrator.

  • Robert G. Oler

    “The shuttle program has killed 14 people in flight. I don’t know why you would ever fly another one,”

    Yeah that has been obvious from the Columbia “accident”.

    any vehicle that you have to have a “rescue mission” standing by for…and that mission is yet another of the same vehicle…well we have gone badly off track somewhere.

    One can just see how the rescue mission works

    “Well the orbiter before you has suffered some fatal flaw and we cant reenter it so you have to go up in a similar vehicle to rescue the crew..we have the highest confidence in the mission and the orbiters ability to carry it out…the highest confidence, really high, ok sort of high…you will do great”

    Robert G. oler

  • Martijn Meijering

    This is the winning argument against Obamaspace.

    Maybe, but it is also a lie. Billion dollar national security payloads already launch on launchers provided by commercial interests. The structure of the relevant contracts addresses concerns about US strategic interests. A relative frivolity like manned spaceflight could take advantage of the same services that are already there, at no additional cost since the importance of assured access to space for the DoD ensures permanent funding. It doesn’t get much better than that.

  • Justin Kugler

    I think Griffin needs to go back and re-read the Space Act. Enabling commercial utilization of space is explicitly stated as one of NASA’s primary interests.

  • Dennis Berube

    If anything Griffin should be reinstated…….. I liked old Mike! Lets hope that when the vote is in, that indeed some of the Constellation frame work survives. Im for commercial space too, but not at the sacrifice of deep space exploration.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Im for commercial space too, but not at the sacrifice of deep space exploration.

    The two are not at odds, in fact SDLV is probably an obstacle to deep space exploration and commercial space certainly isn’t. But now I’ll probably get into trouble with Trent…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 8:54 am

    If anything Griffin should be reinstated…

    yes during his tenure things were going so well…lol

    Robert G. Oler

  • Justin Kugler

    That’s a false dichotomy, Dennis. I think NASA’s best chance at sustaining BEO exploration is by leveraging public-private partnerships.

  • “A crew launch capability which is not dependent on commercial interests or the state of international partner relationships is a strategic national asset and should not be sacrificed for lesser interests,”

    *Yawn*

    Same old tired neo-con bloviating from Dr. Mike the Genius that ignores the $40 Billion price tag for Ares1 alone.

    Trouble is, there’s enough supporters in the House to keep the zombie stumbling into a CR and from a proper consensus bill.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Trouble is, there’s enough supporters in the House to keep the zombie stumbling into a CR and from a proper consensus bill.

    Do you mean a standalone NASA CR or the CR for the budget as a whole?

  • amightywind

    That’s a false dichotomy, Dennis. I think NASA’s best chance at sustaining BEO exploration is by leveraging public-private partnerships.

    The best chance for sustaining BEO exploration is to develop large launch vehicles. Even the spartan Plymouth Rock mission requires the baseline Ares V and an additional modified Orion, and it barely has teh energy to to the job. There are no credible mission profile designs based on EELV launchers.

  • Martijn Meijering

    There are no credible mission profile designs based on EELV launchers.

    I’ve already provided you with documentation that proves otherwise. Stop peddling falsehoods.

  • Justin Kugler

    If a heavy lift rocket is truly necessary, NASA should put it out for competitive bid and let the design win that meets the requirements at the best cost.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Justin Kugler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 9:26 am

    If a heavy lift rocket is truly necessary,..

    yes but of course the larger point is that no one has demonstrated why it is necessary. Even over at nasaspaceflight.com the direct beloved are coming to the conclusion that things are unaffordable.

    At somepoint someone will figure out that human exploration of space beyond GEO is just to expensive now and we will stop this tragic performance of leadership.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Do you mean a standalone NASA CR or the CR for the budget as a whole?

    A stand alone CR, but that would actually be good in a way since specific items could be funded that way.

    But…the things that don’t deserve funding IMHO could get minimal monies just to keep them on minimal life support.

  • Robert Oler, what possible reason is there to send humans to GEO? And how might that be considered exploration? In any sense?

    And if going beyond is taken off the table, why not shut everything down?

    An ISS only space program would seem to be the essence of “pork” done for no reason except jobs.

  • Martijn Meijering

    An ISS only space program would seem to be the essence of “pork” done for no reason except jobs.

    So would you say that NASA’s manned spaceflight program has been the essence of pork for the past twenty years?

    Note that it wouldn’t be just a jobs program if you believe it will make a substantial contribution to establishing commercial manned spaceflight or if you believe it will prepare us for exploration. Depending on how well you optimise it for that role it may or may not give enough returns to justify the costs.

  • Martijn Meijering

    GEO is a somewhat plausible staging point for a reusable manned lander / transfer craft. It would trade time for delta-v, which could be justifiable.

  • amightywind

    MM wrote:

    I’ve already provided you with documentation that proves otherwise. Stop peddling falsehoods.

    I am not trolling. The Boeing pictures of fuel depots are not the same as the orbit and energy constraints provided in the Plymouth Rock proposal. Post another link if you know of that info.

  • Martijn Meijering

    The Plymouth rock proposals are not at all problematic once you have refueling. A bigger upper stage than a Centaur or Delta upper stage would be nice to have, but not crucial. Have a look at the following delta-v budget chart from byeman’s favourite spaceflight source and you’ll see why:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deltavs.svg

    Such an upper stage could be ACES which would give you EELV Phase 1 as a bonus. This would be a 40-50mT launcher which would be a huge commercial launcher or a smallish HLV. In the highly unlikely event you needed even more lift you could upgrade to Atlas Phase 2 (better than Delta Phase 2) if and when the need arises.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 9:46 am

    Robert Oler, what possible reason is there to send humans to GEO? And how might that be considered exploration? In any sense?

    And if going beyond is taken off the table, why not shut everything down?…

    I dont think going to GEO is exploration; I think that there are things that if the cost of human access to space gets low enough that humans can do there which justifies their value in space.

    I dont believe that human exploration of space is justified with 1) the current cost to do it, 2) the lack of any real ANY REAL tangible benefit of humans doing it to the rest of society, 3) the ability (increasing btw) of robots to do good exploration at lowering cost (for value) and 4) that it is sustainable in these economic times.

    There has to be some value for cost. If a human cost XX dollars to send to the (insert place here) right now a robot can go for about (at least with NASA dollars) 1/10th of the cost, maybe less (NASA is talking 300 billion for an asteroid mission).

    OK for 1/10th you dont get the heroic statements, the history making words, the great wave shots, the golfballs or cool pictures of people but you get some value that approximates the cost.

    I think human exploration of (insert body here) will one day be great but only when the cost to do it (and I might add the flexibility to do it) comes down/goes up.

    I honestly dont see what the big deal is about “people” exploring things in space. None of them are Lewis or Clark paving the way for the rest of society…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 9:46 am

    An ISS only space program would seem to be the essence of “pork” done for no reason except jobs….

    I would not have an ISS only space program, and what I would do (and think will be done) is that ISS will eventually and soon have to start paying its way or at least making noise in that direction.

    What I would do is encourage by every way possible with federal funds companies to explore opportunities in space for both processes and humans.

    We have to have a commercial success in human spaceflight or there is no reason to have it.

    Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    MM

    The NEO target Obama specified is not called out in the graph. The graph doesn’t address the vehicle and mass delivered to the targets, or the energy margin of the outbound or inbound leg. How many Atlas V flights would it take to accomplish the Plymouth Rock scenario. If you are going to hype a mission profile, at some point you need to address the brutal reality of physics. It is clear you like a tinker toy approach to a mission profile, the kind that was rejected during Apollo. It is not clear that you can show why it makes sense.

  • Martijn Meijering

    NEOs are much easier to reach than Mars, which can be easily reached as you can see on the charts. I don’t recall the exact numbers (you can look them up), but they were barely above escape velocity. The number of flights is not an issue once you have depots. The probability of mission failure only goes up dramatically if you have propellant that is boiling off.

  • Anne Spudis

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 10:16 am [OK for 1/10th you dont get the heroic statements, the history making words, the great wave shots, the golfballs or cool pictures of people but you get some value that approximates the cost. ……………I honestly dont see what the big deal is about “people” exploring things in space. None of them are Lewis or Clark paving the way for the rest of society…]

    And the reason we’re all typing on websites instead of having “the heroic statements, the history making words, the great wave shots, the golfballs or cool pictures of people” — doing those inspiring things that make living, succeeding, growing and being human so special. We need to reclaim that feeling in our space program. We can’t afford not to.

  • amightywind

    I don’t recall the exact numbers (you can look them up), but they were barely above escape velocity.

    If you look at the Plymouth Rock proposal NEO launch opportunities are astonishingly rare. There is much more at work than achieving escape velocity. You have to simultaneously have a viable transfer orbit, and an encounter speed near 0 (you must match the orbit of a target whose orbit is inclined relative to yours). It adds up to a few launch opportunities per decade to very small objects. Unless spacecraft become much larger we won’t be visiting asteroids often. That is why this Newspace obsession for adapting puny launchers designed to launch satellites is so infuriating.

  • Justin Kugler

    “Unless spacecraft become much larger we won’t be visiting asteroids often.”

    You’re going in the wrong direction. Spacecraft need to become more efficient, not larger. The “Battlestar Galactica” approach isn’t going to work.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 10:47 am
    ” We need to reclaim that feeling in our space program. We can’t afford not to.”

    REasonable people can differ but I dont agree that the government employee backed by (whats the shuttle number?) 15000 people who labored for 10, 20 or 30 years making some statement on the moment of a brief visit to an asteroid or Moon or moon or Planet…is all that heroic other then on a personal level, nor does it do all that much to lift national spirits.

    But then again I left my chest thumping “we are number 1″ mentality back in my 20’s.

    American greatness our exceptionalism if you must, is that we value the ability of people to succeed as individuals in a system that allows access to that success as fairly as possible. We can as a country when necessary summon our collective might to do great things on a national scale, but we do it that way only when necessary by external events.

    That is one reason the “glory of Apollo” vanished so quickly. It was a national triumph seen in the faces of three or two (more likely one) person and then it was gone and the American people went back to their lives…because the moment had no staying power in their lives. We all (who were alive and above 5 or something) remember where we were that Sunday night…but few if any of us can truly point to it and say “our lives” or the world changed.

    If Musk makes a go of it, if Bigelow makes a go at it; that will be truly a period of American greatness reborn. A person will have had an idea, poured his capital (of all sorts into it) encouraged people to join his team, sacrifice long hours to make it happen…and created wealth that they all will share and so will our economy.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Brian Paine

    Interesting creatures these homosapiens…spending 20 billion a year on space exploration and arguing about it while ignoring the fact that over 600 billion a year is spent on “defence.” And that is just one country, allbeit the richest. Perhaps what is needed is a new definition of sanity as the figures show clearly that the accepted definition is seriously flawed…20,000 nuclear weapons are NOT WRONG…their target is ourselves!
    It is of little wonder then that quite a decent percentage of the population would leave planet Earth given half a chance…with space x or anyone at the right price…but of course the majority will accept the arguments that reason away reason…

  • Martijn Meijering

    I understand the orbital mechanics that is involved. Staging from a Lagrange point is superior for a long list of reasons. You will get longer launch windows with refueling and you can reach targets that are further away in delta-v. For a given target this will not increase the number of opportunities, but neither will it decrease it. What it does do is increase the number of targets. If anything this argues for depots, because we’ll only be clowning around without them. And with depots, the HLV is unnecessary and only smallish HLVs are nice to have. HLVs are not at all critical and they get in the way of everything else that is.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Elaborating on the rarity of opportunities: this is only so because you are limited by the throw weight of one or maybe two HLVs. That is what makes architectures without depots so brittle and frankly useless. HLVs don’t solve the problem of infrequent opportunities, they create it. If you really want to see deep space exploration and aren’t just shilling for NASA launchers, you should be arguing for depots and against SDLV.

  • Dennis Berube

    Gentlemen, I was thinking! Want to really get a full fledged space program underway? Just announce to the world that we are going to build a military base on the Moon, and WOW the clatter will start if full swing. All will be lunar bound!

  • Justin Kugler

    That would be an explicit violation of treaty, Dennis. No-go.

  • amightywind

    HLVs don’t solve the problem of infrequent opportunities, they create it.

    The coordination and logistics of the dozens or required launches for your alternative are even less appealing. You can build a road with productive modern machinery, or you can give thousands of workers a shovel.

    That would be an explicit violation of treaty, Dennis. No-go.

    If the moon is off limits (I think it is by rights a US state), what about small asteroids? Can we legally create zones of exclusion?

  • Justin Kugler

    The Outer Space Treaty expressly prohibits the use of the Moon and all other celestial bodies for military purposes.

    http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty_of_1967#Article_IV

  • Martijn Meijering

    The coordination and logistics of the dozens or required launches for your alternative are even less appealing.

    Why? Terrestrial logistics deals with far more complicated scenarios. And high flight rates are crucial if you want to reduce launch prices substantially. We should actively seek out and promote depots and smaller launchers, not think of them as a last resort.

  • Anne Spudis

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 11:03 am [But then again I left my chest thumping “we are number 1″ mentality back in my 20′s……That is one reason the “glory of Apollo” vanished so quickly. It was a national triumph seen in the faces of three or two (more likely one) person and then it was gone and the American people went back to their lives…because the moment had no staying power in their lives. We all (who were alive and above 5 or something) remember where we were that Sunday night…but few if any of us can truly point to it and say “our lives” or the world changed. ]

    I disagree Robert G. Oler. People all around the world saw the possibilities for their future in those faces. It’s been a very long Apollo wave ride because it DID hold promise and won a place in our hearts and minds. It isn’t the Borg going into space but individuals with dreams and a belief in the exceptionalism and importance of humanity.

  • I appreciate Payton’s comments about Shuttle fatalities (14 total), but as a DOD official he should be well aware of the fatality rates on other DOD aircraft, many of which are still flying today. The V-22 Osprey is a good example (among many), with 34 fatalities from five mostly non-combat crashes.

    I guess astronauts are slightly different from our military service members, but they too signed up for the risks their jobs entail. As I’ve asked before: Would you feel safer flying on the last Space Shuttle mission, or first Ares-1 (or Falcon/Dragon, etc.)?

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Mike Griffin, as usual, has some very good points about what the final authorization bill should look like. Unfortunately we are going to be on auto pilot until the next President fixes the mess Obama and his minions made.

    Annie Spudis makes an interesting point about Apollo. While its great tragedy is that it was abandoned and not built on, it did at least demonstrate what can happen when we set our minds on a goal.

  • I’ve been a jerk eveywhere I could for last couple of months arguing the same thing. Fully fund NASA for all the best elements proposed by each branch of government.

    2011 $21.5 B
    2012 $21 B
    2013 $22 B

    Lots of little chiefs with great ideas we need some solid leadership to pull it all together and say this is the cost, this the future, this is cheap for what America gets for the $$$ !

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 11:31 am

    The coordination and logistics of the dozens or required launches for your alternative are even less appealing.

    When you build a bigger building on Earth, you just schedule more deliveries on existing trucks – you don’t build bigger trucks.

  • Mike Snyder

    Stephen Smith,

    You are wrong on essentially every point you made.

    That is not why President Bush “cancelled” the program in 2004. In fact it still has not been “cancelled”. The reason it was scheduled to be phased out this year was purely budgetary so that the money for shuttle could be allocated to something else.

    The CAIB never outright said the program should be cancelled either. It never said these vehicles could not fly beyond 2010. They made *recommendation* on what they believe should happen, recommendations that were adopted and complied with.

    If the vehicles were so “unsafe” then they should have never been allowed to fly again. Period. But, no one seriously thought that and 2010 was derived based on ISS construction and politics.

    What Mr. Payton said was equally ridiculous. His mission was “worthy”, but others are not, that is just a bit delusional.

  • Long story short, Mike Griffin supports a stealth approach to getting back to Ares-5 because he wants to skip the simpler, sooner, safer entry level 70mT 12m inline SDHLV (ie the Jupiter-130).

    I strongly believe that it could take well over a decade for any mission (we can afford) to bump up against the limits of even this entry level SDHLV launch system. If they do we can always grow into the higher lift variants at a later date.

    As such every dollar over the absolute minimum we need to spend in order to leverage the existing $30 billion dollar HLV industrial base and workforce is a dollar lost to future R&D and Missions.

    Its time to step away from the steroids Mike and consider the budget and narrow political window we have for once. It appears he is still in denial as to why his plan utterly failed. Hint Mike, it had nothing to do with performance.

  • Hugman Hughes

    Tell us more about your theory of global warming, Anne, the reality based among us need to calibrate your reality index.

  • Coastal Ron

    Edward Ellegood wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    The V-22 Osprey is a good example (among many), with 34 fatalities from five mostly non-combat crashes.

    Not to mention the rate of 12.31 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people. Death is a part of life, so to speak, and we seem to accept it when it’s routine (like car accidents), but agonize over it when it’s unique (Apollo 1, Columbia, etc.).

    Would you feel safer flying on the last Space Shuttle mission, or first Ares-1 (or Falcon/Dragon, etc.)?

    If Shuttle is your only option, then it’s quite clear that astronauts feel the Shuttle is an acceptable risk. However, for technical reasons, I think I would rank a future F9/Dragon safer than Ares I, and Ares I safer than Shuttle. Nothing against the Shuttle program workers, but just that it’s a complicated beast.

  • Major Tom

    “This is the winning argument against Obamaspace.”

    Griffin’s argument is a false one. Civil human space launch has never played a strategic role in U.S. relations. It’s never been a tool of hard power. (Military launch and systems, yes, but civil space flight, no.) And major space accomplishments, like the Cold War lunar competition with the Soviets and the post-Cold War Russian partnership on ISS — not civil human space launches — are the tools of soft power that civil human space flight brings to the foreign policy table.

    Civil human space launches may be inspiring and patriotic to watch, but they’re not and never have been a strategic asset to the nation or in world relations. That we’ve been willing to pay Russia to launch U.S. astronauts on Soyuzes for years now further shows that civil human space launch is a commoditized means to an end. NASA should be seeking the most efficient and reliable way to deliver astronauts to orbit, not pretending that just because a design came out of a government study like ESAS or government center like MSFC that it’s somehow more “strategic” than the commercially designed and procured EELVs that DoD relies on for missions that are actually strategic to the nation.

    “It is good to see the House bill gaining momentum.”

    What momentum?

    Nobel Prize winners and former CAIB members are against the House bill:

    spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=34830

    Members of the Augustine Committee are against the House bill:

    spacenews.com/civil/100908-augustine-panelist-rallying-support-for-senates-nasa-bill.html

    Multiple public space interest groups are against the House bill:

    spacefrontier.org/2010/09/09/commercial-space-in-jeopardy/

    space-access.org/updates/bulletin090910.html

    ssi.org/2010/09/space-studies-institute-urges-the-congress-to-defeat-h-r-5781/

    Even random lobbying and general political websites are against the House bill:

    reformspacenow.com/

    www2.yesspacecan.com/HR_5781_FAIL.html

    dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/9/10/900535/-Kill-that-Bill

    The only public figures for the House bill are an ex-NASA Administrator and one of his former HQ managers, and even they would prefer a blending of the House and Senate bills.

    “Ares I/Orion development can continue with no further political meddling.”

    Ares I still exists, if at all, in unenforceable report language. It’s dead in any actual bill language.

    “The best chance for sustaining BEO exploration…”

    There’s no ongoing BEO exploration to sustain. BEO exploration stopped in December 1972. It’s a question of restarting it on the right foot.

    “…is to develop large launch vehicles.”

    It’s not. As Apollo, Constellation, and now the HEFT study show, HLVs, especially NASA-unique HLVs, are egregiously expensive compared to NASA’s non-Apollo budget. They either require huge, multi-billion dollar increases to NASA’s budget, which havn’t been in the offing for more than 40 years now and certainly aren’t in the offing in the projected budget environment, or they push even simple lunar and NEO missions into the 2030s or farther.

    If we want to start actual BEO exploration in the next 20 years, we have to forgo the costs of the old Apollo/Shuttle infrastructure and workforce, employ HLVs only if and when absolutely necessary, and leverage launch infrastructures whose costs are shared by non-NASA customers to field those HLVs.

    Otherwise, U.S. civil human BEO exploration is always going to be hundreds of billions of dollars and 20+ years away.

    “Even the spartan Plymouth Rock mission requires the baseline Ares V”

    No, it doesn’t. LockMart has submitted conference papers showing that the Plymouth Rock mission can be accomplished via EELV-derived HLVs. I’ve pointed one of these papers out to you repeatedly in past threads, on top of the references from Mr. Meijering. Stop trolling.

    Even the recent HEFT closeout study doesn’t employ any hardware weighing more than 20-25 tons. Propellant is fungible and the architecture already employs propellant depot technology. The whole architecture can be put up with _existing_ EELVs.

    There’s no reason to go to the extraordinary expense of developing Ares V. Before termination, Constellation managers were quoting Ares I/Orion development costs in the $40 billion neighborhood. Even assuming the much bigger and more complex Ares V could be fielded for the same amount, we could buy 80 20-25-ton EELV Heavy launches at a very conservative $500 million each for a $40 billion Ares V development. That’s enough launches to put up the 300-ton HEFT architecture 6-7 times over. More realistically, Ares V development is going to be double or so the cost of Ares 1/Orion development, which means we could put up the HEFT architecture 13-14 or more times over instead of developing Ares V. And all this is before new entrants like SpaceX get into the higher end of the market.

    It’s a simple choice. Spend the next 20 years building a NASA-unique HLV that we can’t afford to do anything with (and that’s not actually going to save the Shuttle jobs and votes that are already being shed, anyway). Or spend the next 20 years conducting actual human space exploration using the tools we have available.

    “There are no credible mission profile designs based on EELV launchers.”

    Patently false. See the references Mr. Meijering and I have both repeatedly pointed out to you. Stop trolling.

    The correct statement is that, given the budgets constraints NASA has been under for the past 40 years and is projected to be under ad infinitum, there are no affordable or timely missions or architectures for human BEO exploration that utilize HLVs, especially NASA-unique HLVs. Apollo, Constellation, and now HEFT have demonstrated this in spades.

    “The coordination and logistics of the dozens or required launches for your alternative are even less appealing.”

    Even in the case of the big HEFT architecture, it requires a dozen launches of an existing Delta IV Heavy, not dozens (plural). It’s even less for the more streamlined Plymouth Rock mission. Even less than that with very modest enhancements to EELV lift capabilities.

    And the EELV infrastructure is already sized to support a few dozen launches per year.

    “You can build a road with productive modern machinery”

    Existing EELVs use 1990s technology. A commercially-derived HLV would be even more modern.

    SDHLVs recycle 1960/70s technology.

    “or you can give thousands of workers a shovel.”

    It’s the Shuttle infrastructure that requires tens of thousands of workers at great cost to the taxpayer, not the EELV infrastructure.

    “If the moon is off limits (I think it is by rights a US state), what about small asteroids? Can we legally create zones of exclusion?”

    All celestial objects are treated the same as the Moon under the relevant treaties.

    Sigh…

  • Michael Kent

    Dennis Berube wrote:

    Lets hope that when the vote is in, that indeed some of the Constellation frame work survives. Im for commercial space too, but not at the sacrifice of deep space exploration.

    If deep space exploration’s your game, then why on Earth are you supporting Constellation? Constellation wasn’t going beyond the moon ever, and it wasn’t getting there until 2035.

    Mike

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen Metschan wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    As such every dollar over the absolute minimum we need to spend in order to leverage the existing $30 billion dollar HLV industrial base and workforce is a dollar lost to future R&D and Missions.

    I applaud your logic, and it’s the same we use when we talk about the lack of need for ANY HLV – that every dollar used to build an HLV is a dollar lost to future R&D and missions with existing launchers.

    But I must say, that if an HLV has to be built, a small SDLV would be my choice (i.e. lesser of many evils).

  • Mike Snyder

    “but just that it’s a complicated beast.”

    You’re right Ron, but that does not mean it is inherently “unsafe” either.

    This kind of statement is always a bit strange to me. A 747 is certainly more complicated than a DC-3, yet should we be afraid of it? Accidents happen with commercial aircraft, and I have never heard any serious calls to abandon them and go back to something “simpler”

    More so, people say they want to move beyond LEO yet do they think those vehicles are not going to be complicated. Going to, traveling in and doing work in space is going to be “complicated” and dangerous for the forseeable future. That is the reality that people must come to grips with and why I feel this type arguement is a bit mis-leading.

    Yes, there are simpler ways to get to space. Yet you trade simpler for less capability as well.

  • Anne Spudis

    Hugman Hughes wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Who’s “we” “HH?” I didn’t think anyone else lived in your make believe world. I guess the “we” and the “us” you represent would be all those aliases you think are so darned amusing.

  • amightywind

    Michael Kent wrote:

    If deep space exploration’s your game, then why on Earth are you supporting Constellation? Constellation wasn’t going beyond the moon ever, and it wasn’t getting there until 2035.

    Lockheed Martin’s Playmouth Rock proposal uses the elements of the Constellation program: Ares V, Ares I, Orion, and substitutes a second modified Orion for the Altair lander. Quite an elegant solution and demonstration of the flexibility of the new architecture. Properly funded we could launch a mission in 2019. But the administration continues to stonewall the program…

  • Justin Kugler

    Mike,
    A system should only be as complicated as necessary to perform its objective, though. Yes, a 747 is more complicated than a DC-3, but it is a reliable and robust enough platform to live with that. So much so that it is a workhorse of commercial aviation today.

    Can you honestly say the same for the Shuttle, which is effectively an experimental vehicle that’s been operated as if it was an operational vehicle? It’s the ultimate hangar queen.

  • I guess astronauts are slightly different from our military service members, but they too signed up for the risks their jobs entail.

    That we treat astronauts as more precious than military personnel is a strong indication that spaceflight isn’t very important.

  • Major Tom

    “Lockheed Martin’s Playmouth Rock proposal uses the elements of the Constellation program: Ares V,”

    Or EELV-derived HLVs, per LockMart’s conference papers.

    “Properly funded we could launch a mission in 2019.”

    No. Even with the additional $3-5 billion boost in NASA’s topline budget in the Augustine Committee’s final report, only Ares I/Orion will be ready by 2019. Ares V first flight isn’t until 2028.

  • Justin Kugler

    amightywind forgot to mention that Delta IV is also an option for crew launch in the Plymouth Rock proposal, nor does it specify a particular HLV. LM specifically states that the proposal is intended to be flexible around whatever launch options are available.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mike Snyder wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    “This kind of statement is always a bit strange to me. A 747 is certainly more complicated than a DC-3, yet should we be afraid of it? ”

    no comparison

    To its era the DC-3 was as complicated and “next gen” as the Dreamliner is to this generation and the B-747 (more correctly the B-707 because the 747 is a true offshot of the oh seven) was to the generation before that.

    It might not seem so to you, or to others who are looking back on the span of time and the march of technology; but if one took a snapshot of the progress going forward and gauged the reactions of those who were there, who were transitioning into the “new equipment” well the stats would be similar. Pilots had on the average as much trouble leaving Ford Trimotors and other lessor airplanes for teh 247 and DC-3 as they did moving from the Stratocruisers/DC-6/7’s for707 Jet equipment. The same is true in the transitions today.

    I was talking with some UAL pilots who had flown the -247 and 3 while they were touring the triple seven…and THEY were asking about upgrade problems, I told them what we were seeing so far and the response was “pilots always have a hard time with new capabilities; they use to say that the fuel gauges would cause the fuel to explode”. The other planes had none.

    What made the DC-3 and the 247 what they were is that they were designed to meet operational requirements that were well understood and the rules to operate that technology were though in their infancy maturing.

    The shuttles design were managed by people who had no real idea of “operational” and designed in some cases by them with operational the farthest thing from their minds. They are more correctly test vehicles that are used as operational vehicle with no real notion of what operational means.

    Here is a clue. At the airlines the MEL is never waived unless the MEL itself contains a waiver. Go be sitting on a 737-500 (or 800) sitting on the ramp in Lubbock and the B system electric driven hydraulic pump fails…there are no safety meetings, no this or that. The crew pulls up their electronic flight bag; writes the failure in and it comes up and says what one can and cannot do. It is that simple. (you can dispatch to a base where maintenance can be performed btw I happen to know most of the ones from recall)

    NASA has flight rules that say dont fly with this or that…and then when this or that breaks they routinely have meetings to talk themselves into how they can fly with it broke. Goofy.

    Then we get into the systems…equally goofy

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Edward Ellegood wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    I appreciate Payton’s comments about Shuttle fatalities (14 total), but as a DOD official he should be well aware of the fatality rates on other DOD aircraft, many of which are still flying today. The V-22 Osprey is a good example (among many), with 34 fatalities from five mostly non-combat crashes….

    the deaths in the Osprey were directly related to political pressure to show progress on a program that was stalled…by forcing it out of “test” into operation or at least look like it was operational way before its time.

    After the deaths saner heads prevailed and they took an airplane/helicopter that had been made to work as a test vehicle and spent some more time trying to make it work as an operational vehicle.

    The deaths in the shuttle and the Osprey are quite related.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Edward Ellegood wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
    Would you feel safer flying on the last Space Shuttle mission, or first Ares-1 (or Falcon/Dragon, etc.)?…

    I would not ride on an Ares1 the LAS is almost as bad as the explosion…

    but the first crewed Dragon/Falcon or something EELV combination would be far safer then the shuttle. the previous vehicles will have demonstrated successful flight uncrewed, will have an LAS, and in the case of Dragon/Falcon seem to have the notions of airplane design all over them

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:01 pm

    I am sure those sentiments hold a place in your heart, how much one is evident by the fact that you seem to try and project them on the rest of the world…and thats simply not happening.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Mike Snyder wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    You’re right Ron, but that does not mean it is inherently “unsafe” either.

    And I didn’t say it was. You’re reading too much into what I said.

    I ranked the three choices, and I just pointing out that I ranked them that way for technical reasons, not because of the efforts of the Shuttle workers.

    Yes, there are simpler ways to get to space. Yet you trade simpler for less capability as well.

    That’s only a problem if you need that capability. The Shuttle is a wonderful jack-of-all-trades vehicle, but there is a big prices that comes with that. If all you want to do is move cargo or crew to LEO, then there are less complex/costly vehicles that you can use.

    For the Shuttle program, it’s time to throw a party, congratulate all involved, and shut it down.

  • amightywind

    MTwrote:

    And major space accomplishments, like the Cold War lunar competition with the Soviets and the post-Cold War Russian partnership on ISS — not civil human space launches — are the tools of soft power that civil human space flight brings to the foreign policy table.

    The Russians currently occupy a democratic US ally in Georgia. We ‘partner’ with the Russians because the administration pretends that a long list of Russian transgressions do not exist. Not much to be proud of.

    MT wrote:

    Nobel Prize winners and former CAIB members are against the House bill:

    Multiple public space interest groups are against the House bill:

    Yes, left leaning special interests have come out and asked congress to try to force through just one more bill against the will of the American people. This is hardly surprising, but not likely. Time is short for the super-majority in congress.

  • amightywind

    but the first crewed Dragon/Falcon or something EELV combination would be far safer then the shuttle.

    Not from what I saw this spring. The roll rates on the F9 would mean a terrifying and deadly ride on Dragon. SpaceX will need to exceed the shuttle’s 98% success rate before we entertain such grandiose claims.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    “Not from what I saw this spring. The roll rates on the F9 would mean a terrifying and deadly ride on Dragon.”

    no…and you dont understand the role of flight testing.

    Robert G. Oler

  • The roll rates on the F9 would mean a terrifying and deadly ride on Dragon.

    Yeah, a whole fifteen seconds to do a rotation. Terrifying.

    SpaceX will need to exceed the shuttle’s 98% success rate before we entertain such grandiose claims.

    How many centuries will it take Ares I to do that?

  • amightywind

    Yeah, a whole fifteen seconds to do a rotation. Terrifying.

    When the video cut out on the F9 flight the second stage was spinning at 4 RPM and accelerating. I do not know what the acceleration levels were (they weren’t published), so I don’t know if the roll rate was enough to interfere with fuel quantity measurement. The final rate may have been much higher. Nobody is saying. They key here is that the roll was uncontrolled! If you were an astronaut unfortunate enough to be strapped into a Dragon, would you want to ride a stage with an uncontrolled rate?

    The F9 is what it is. A crude test rocket. To compare it to the space shuttle is outrageous.

  • amightywind

    How many centuries will it take Ares I to do that?

    At this rate, a long time. There is hope that the irritants to the program will soon be removed. At $138M per flight, Ares I compares very favorably with other putative options.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    and it crashed into the ocean! Dont be goofy

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    How many centuries will it take Ares I to do that?

    At this rate, a long time. There is hope that the irritants to the program will soon be removed. At $138M per flight, Ares I compares very favorably with other putative options…

    that is not the cost. Dont be dishonest

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “The roll rates on the F9 would mean a terrifying and deadly ride on Dragon.”

    If you think that’s terrifying and deadly, then the teacup ride at Disneyland must make you wet your pants.

    Gemini capsules had worse roll rates after final burn. No astronaut died or was terrified on a Gemini flight.

    Grow up.

    “SpaceX will need to exceed the shuttle’s 98% success rate before we entertain such grandiose claims.”

    NASA planned to start flying crews on the Orion 2 flight, after only one full-up uncrewed Ares I/Orion test flight (the Orion 1 flight). Shuttle flew with crew right out of the gate.

    Stop trolling with a double standard.

    Regardless, unlike Ares I/Orion and Shuttle, Falcon 9 will have launched many times and Dragon will have flown uncrewed several times before the transition to crew.

    “Yes, left leaning special interests”

    Ah yes, that evil coven of leftist/Marxist/Stalinist/socialist/communist ideologues known as the National Review:

    nationalreview.com/corner/246195/space-pork-and-astronaut-nepotism-rand-simberg

    Stop trolling with false statements.

    “have come out and asked congress to try to force through just one more bill against the will of the American people.”

    No, they’ve come out and asked Congress _not_ to “force through” the House bill.

    And the only public “American people” who support the House bill are one former NASA Administrator and one of his managers.

    Stop trolling with false statements.

  • Major Tom

    “They key here is that the roll was uncontrolled!”

    Of course it was. That was a boilerplate Dragon test article. It lacked the orbital manuevering engines necessary to correct the roll.

    Don’t troll with ignorant statements.

    “At $138M per flight, Ares I compares very favorably with other putative options.”

    That’s not the cost per flight at Ares I’s putative flight rate or with an Orion on top (Ares I’s only payload). It’s $1 billion per Ares I/Orion flight, per the Augustine Committee’s final report.

    Don’t troll with ignorant statements.

    “The F9 is what it is. A crude test rocket. To compare it to the space shuttle is outrageous.”

    The CAIB repeatedly stated that every Shuttle launch is a test flight.

    Stop trolling with ignorant statements.

  • amightywind

    Of course it was. That was a boilerplate Dragon test article. It lacked the orbital manuevering engines necessary to correct the roll.
    Don’t troll with ignorant statements.

    You say Dragon’s orbital maneuvering engines are responsible for second stage roll control, and call me ignorant? I can assure you, they are not intended for that purpose.

    It’s $1 billion per Ares I/Orion flight, per the Augustine Committee’s final report.

    That would be the Augustine Committee that was formed by the leftists in order to kill Constellation, right? A shocking conclusion. Didn’t this site post a story from one of them (Chyba) lobbying congress only yesterday?

  • Major Tom

    “You say Dragon’s orbital maneuvering engines are responsible for second stage roll control… I can assure you, they are not intended for that purpose.”

    No, I stated that the boilerplate Dragon launched on the Falcon 9 maiden flight lacked the orbital maneuvering engines necessary to counteract the roll induced by Falcon 9’s second stage.

    Read, comprehend, and think before you post.

    ” and call me ignorant?

    No, I told you to stop trolling with ignorant statements.

    Again, read, comprehend, and think before you post.

    “That would be the Augustine Committee that was formed by the leftists in order to kill Constellation, right? A shocking conclusion.”

    It doesn’t matter who formed the Augustine Committee. The Augustine Committee used an independent technical authority, the Aerospace Corp — arguably the best in the business, for their Constellation costing.

    Stop trolling with ignorant statements.

    And if you disagree with the costing, then read the report and Aerospace’s inputs and show how they’re wrong.

    Sigh…

  • Major Tom

    Freeman Dyson also comes out against the House bill:

    parabolicarc.com/2010/09/10/freemon-dyson-congress-reject-hr-5781-choose-side-history/

    FWIW…

  • Justin Kugler

    That’s not an argument against the analysis of the report, amightywind. It’s an attempt to avoid an apples-to-apples comparison by casting aspersions on the motivations of the Human Space Flight Plans Committee. You’ll have to do better than that.

    Besides, everyone knows that you’re citing the lowest estimate of the Ares I marginal cost. If you include the fixed costs, the annual and per-flight total costs go up.

  • Artemus

    Maybe, but it is also a lie. Billion dollar national security payloads already launch on launchers provided by commercial interests. The structure of the relevant contracts addresses concerns about US strategic interests. A relative frivolity like manned spaceflight could take advantage of the same services that are already there, at no additional cost since the importance of assured access to space for the DoD ensures permanent funding. It doesn’t get much better than that.

    The DOD EELV program is not commercial in any recognizable sense of the word. It is a program in which the government bargained away much of its control, yet somehow is still responsible for all program costs. And the contractors think they were “enticed” and “extorted”. The government will never offer a contract like that again and nobody would bid on it if they did.

    Some of the commenters on this site need to take it down a notch. Just because you do not agree with an argument does not make it a “lie” or “trolling”: Pretty soon anyone who argues against commercial HSF will be called a racist, too.

  • Orbitron Reground

    Freeman Dyson also comes out against the House bill:

    Dyson’s and Valentines opinions mean exactly jack sh_t to the well educated considering the consistent crackpot fringe nutty anti-science statements against well understood consensus science they routinely regurgitate.

  • Martijn Meijering

    The DOD EELV program is not commercial in any recognizable sense of the word.

    What’s not commercial about it? Boeing an LM invested a lot of their own money in the vehicles and lost much of it. They would have got out of the launch business if the DoD hadn’t decided it needed assured access to space. That access was then competitively procured and long term certainty required a launch capability contract. The vehicles are available for commercial use. Sounds like a perfectly legitimate commercial supplier of a legitimate government need.

    Just because you do not agree with an argument does not make it a “lie” or “trolling”

    Certainly not, but a lie is a lie and the fact that I disagree with it doesn’t make it any less of a lie.

  • amightywind

    Justin Kugler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    It’s an attempt to avoid an apples-to-apples comparison by casting aspersions on the motivations of the Human Space Flight Plans Committee.

    In Washington it is currently popular for congress and the President to outsource their decision making to blue ribbon panels of unelected experts. Those experts usually validate the desired outcome of the politicians. The public is encouraged to see it as prudence and deliberation. It is really an abdication of leadership. Obama engaged in this charade with the Augustine Panel and most recently with the deficit panel. Enjoy it, if you will, but they validate nothing.

    Besides, everyone knows that you’re citing the lowest estimate of the Ares I marginal cost. If you include the fixed costs, the annual and per-flight total costs go up.

    I tend not to cite cost estimates because they are unreliable. Over time one launch costs will not be much different from platform to another. What is important is to do the ‘right thing’ in an engineering sense and meet the requirements. But when Coastal Ron and Major Tom start flinging around numbers PFTA, I have no choice but respond in the same spirit. Ares I/V are the right tools for the task of lunar and NEO exploration.

  • Mr. Griffin was tasked to build a LEO vehicle to take six astronauts to ISS.
    When canceled his vehicle was so badly planned that to put four was the most his rocket could hope for.

    He accomplished that failure with $9B

    Why credence does that lend to any of his words?

  • Martijn Meijering

    Ares I/V are the right tools for the task of lunar and NEO exploration.

    That appears to be a faith-based assertion on your part.

  • Major Tom

    “The DOD EELV program is not commercial in any recognizable sense of the word.”

    Actually, eight of Atlas V’s 22 payloads have been commercial comsats, including this one from late last year:

    spacefellowship.com/news/art15473/atlas-v-set-to-launch-commercial-intelsat-14-satellite-nov-14.html

    But you’re right that the EELV manifest is not dominated by commercial comsats as originally planned and that those payloads are paying for only a small fraction of the infrastructure.

    “It is a program in which the government bargained away much of its control, yet somehow is still responsible for all program costs.”

    It’s not a mystery what happened. EELV infrastructure sizing and the decision to go with two providers was built on the promise of rapidly growing launch demand from new LEO comsat constellations. The LEO constellations misjudged their terrestrial competition and when the bottom fell out, Boeing and LockMart were left holding the bag. Boeing and LockMart finished their EELV development commitments ($4 billion corporate investment to USAF’s $1 billion) and have lost money on the deal ever since. But they weren’t going to lose more, and the USAF has also had to pick up a much bigger operations pricetag than it planned to keep two EELV fleets in place.

    “And the contractors think they were ‘enticed’ and ‘extorted’.”

    I doubt any contractor who was working Atlas V or Delta IV at the time thinks they were enticed or extorted. It was their idea for the USAF to split its $1 billion investment between two providers because the LEO comsat market was suppossed to make up the rest.

    “The government will never offer a contract like that again and nobody would bid on it if they did.”

    If I was on the government side, I’d offer a contract like that again. I only put $1 billion of taxpayer money into development and get two, modern, highly reliable launch vehicle families? Sure. Yeah, they cost a lot more per launch than what I thought they’d cost, but they’re still substantially cheaper than their predecessors (like Titan IV) and way cheaper than anything NASA has come up with. And I can always replace them new entrants like Falcon 9 when they come along.

    Commercial crew is basically EELV, but with 6x the government investment (much greater likelihood of technical and business success) and pay-only-on-delivery milestones.

    “Just because you do not agree with an argument does not make it a “lie” or “trolling”‘

    Agreed. But the same false statements from the same posters ad nauseum after they’ve been corrected is trolling.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Dyson’s and Valentines opinions mean exactly jack sh_t to the well educated considering the consistent crackpot fringe nutty anti-science statements against well understood consensus science they routinely regurgitate.”

    Go away, Elifritz. Take your vulgar language elsewhere.

  • DCSCA

    Oler’s musing on manned space flight operations are nulled by his own words: “Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 2nd, 2010 at 4:17 pm “First I really dont care that we (the US or humanity or whatever) goes to the Moon or Mars or an asteroid in the next 10-20 years. I dont think that there is any need to send people we have good robotics which can do the job at far lower cost.” ‘Nuff said.

  • DCSCA

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 10:16 am Your inability to assess and assign ‘value’– Cernan intangibles et al., is disturbing. Fortunately, it is also renders your commentary irrelevant.

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:51 pm “Civil human space launch has never played a strategic role in U.S. relations.”

    Wrong. And a surprisingly foolish statement to make on a site devoted to ‘space politics.’ History really isnt your strong point.

    “Civil human space launches may be inspiring and patriotic to watch, but they’re not and never have been a strategic asset to the nation or in world relations.”

    Incredibly wrong. History really is not a strong point with you.

    This writer has witnessed their impact and use as effective instruments of international diplomacy first hand– elements of which you clearly lack given your continued use of such insecure phrases as: “I told you to stop trolling with ignorant statements….Read, comprehend, and think before you post….Stop trolling with ignorant statements.”

    “Gemini capsules had worse roll rates after final burn. No astronaut died or was terrified on a Gemini flight.” <– That was part of the flight profile for the vehicle– they were designed to accomplish that maneuver. Good grief.

  • Major Tom

    “In Washington it is currently popular for congress and the President to outsource their decision making to blue ribbon panels of unelected experts.”

    It’s not “currently popular”. It’s always been done.

    Bush II had the Aldridge Commission on VSE implementation.

    Clinton had the Advisory Committee on the Redesign of the Space Station to salvage something out of Freedom.

    Bush I has the first Augustine Committee to salvage something out of SEI and NASA’s 90-day report.

    Etc., etc.

    Stop trolling with ignorant statements.

    “Over time one launch costs will not be much different from platform to another.”

    That’s simply not true. Today’s Delta IV Heavy is substantially less costly than the old Titan IV. Commercialized Russian launchers are substantially less costly than the EELV families. Based on recent wins, including the largest commercial launch contract in history from Iridium, Falcon 9 appears to be substantially less costly than any other medium lift launch vehicle. Just yesterday, EADS Astrium signed on the lower cost Falcon 1 to compete with the expensive European Vega launcher.

    Costs do differ between launch vehicles and that’s part of what drives business to certain vehicles and away from others. It’s even more true when egregiously expensive launch vehicles like Ares I/V are considered, which no one besides their builder wants to use and are too expensive to see to completion.

    “But when Coastal Ron and Major Tom start flinging around numbers PFTA”

    I’ve provided multiple references and significant analysis. So has Coastal Ron. So has Mr. Meijering. You’ve provided none.

    Stop trolling and provide the references and analysis that demonstrate where our numbers are wrong. Put up or shut up.

    “What is important is to do the ‘right thing’ in an engineering sense”

    Gobbledygook. Engineering, especially the high-level systems engineering discussed in this thread, is about hard-nosed analysis of alternatives and options. It’s not about political, feel-good “right things”.

    Stop trolling with ignorant statements.

    “Ares I/V are the right tools for the task of lunar and NEO exploration.”

    Based on what?

    Less costly than alternatives? No.

    Affordable within NASA’s likely budget projection? No.

    Faster than alternatives? No.

    Timely flights within a couple Presidential cycles? No

    Systems are reliable with substantial flight histories before astronauts fly on them? No.

    Sigh…

  • Robert G. Oler

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/246195/space-pork-and-astronaut-nepotism-rand-simberg

    Simberg and I cant seem to get along personally and while there are some reservations I have about the piece, he has in my view hit the nail on the head here.

    Nice job Rand.

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 7:27 am <- Challenger and Columbia were lost because a complacent bureaucracy was riddled with mediocre managment making poor decisions. That's not unique to NASA– but better was expected. The operational envelopes of the vehicles were known. It is what it is. The engineering design flaws revealed and suspected were left unfixed or deemed acceptable flight risks. That's weak managment.

  • Major Tom

    “Wrong. And a surprisingly foolish statement to make on a site devoted to ‘space politics.’.. This writer has witnessed their impact and use as effective instruments of international diplomacy first hand”

    When? Where? What specific diplomatic achievements? What U.S. crewed launch?

    You supported the negotiating team for what arms treaty, trade treaty, etc. that a crewed NASA launch helped secure?

    Seriously, educate me. Let’s have some references.

    “elements of which you clearly lack”

    I lack “elements” of “effective instruments of international diplomacy”?

    Really?

    You can’t even construct intelligible English sentences, and you expect me to believe that you’ve been a first-hand witness to international diplomacy?

    Really?

    “given your continued use of such insecure phrases as… ‘Stop trolling with ignorant statements.’”

    It’s true. The other poster repeated the same false statements after being corrected multiple times. That’s “trolling with ignorant statements”. It’s not insecurity. It’s calling a spade, a spade.

    “That was part of the flight profile for the vehicle”

    Oh really? I had no idea! Gosh, I sure am glad we have your encyclopedic knowledge of space history to guide us here. We’d be so lost without it.

    [rolls eyes]

    Your point?

    “History really isnt your strong point… Incredibly wrong. History really is not a strong point with you….”

    Take your pills. Your OCD is starting to creep back into your posts.

    Sigh…

  • DCSCA

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 5:01 pm <- The last place on Earth to source any commentary on 'space policy' is the conservative bible, The National Review.

  • DCSCA

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 10:47 am<- Relax, Anne. He has an agenda that is pretty much discredited and voided by his own position about 'not really caring' about spaceflight.

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 5:11 pm <- Stop embarrassing yourself. Your credibility is minimal. Really.

  • Major Tom

    A reference that came out today about how significant differences (~30% in this case) in launch prices can drive markets:

    “Already, it has a queue of spacecraft operators who want to use it. The most high-profile contract to date is probably the one with satellite phone company Iridium, which will send most of its 66-spacecraft, next-generation constellation into orbit on Falcons.

    A big part of the attraction has to do with price, of course.

    SpaceX is the only rocket company that advertises prices on its website, and they are substantially lower than those charged by the established commercial launch companies. About a third lower – some $12,000 per kilo to geostationary orbit (GEO) compared with something just over $20,000.”

    bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/jonathanamos/2010/09/the-big-rockets-jostle-for-mar.shtml

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Stop embarrassing yourself. Your credibility is minimal. Really.”

    I’ll repeat:

    When? Where? What specific diplomatic achievements? What U.S. crewed launch?

    You supported the negotiating team for what arms treaty, trade treaty, etc. that a crewed NASA launch helped secure?

    Seriously, educate me. Let’s have some references.

    I’m waiting…

  • Major Tom

    While Congress debates whether NASA’s human space flight programs should enter the 21st century, Boeing is making commercial space flight moves, both domestically (Space Adventures) and overseas (India):

    cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/09/5081319-boeing-teams-up-with-space-tour-firm

    timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Boeing-offers-Isro-tech-help-for-2016-manned-space-trip/articleshow/6503639.cms

    FWIW…

  • Bennett

    If I start referring to myself as “this writer” do I get extra points?

    On my “Credibility Index”, everyone here has more than DCSCA. Most have much much more. Some, like windy and Elefritz (or whatever) have only slightly more. Believe it or not, Mr Earl is way ahead of the three mentioned. IMHO.

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 4:14 pm

    But when Coastal Ron and Major Tom start flinging around numbers PFTA…

    Help me out. PFTA stands for:
    Peru Free Trade Agreement?
    Payload Flight Test Article?
    Polish Field Target Association?

    Whatever it means, at least we are “flinging around numbers”, as opposed to the feel-good platitudes you use to justify Ares I.

    As I recall, you have yet to “educate us” on what a great fiscal deal Ares I is compared to Delta IV Heavy or anything else. You can’t even add up how much has been quoted for the cost of Ares I flights.

  • DCSCA

    Justin Kugler wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 1:42 pm <– Always amusing reading comments where people attempt to compare operations of civil aviation propeller and jet-propelled aircraft, designed for use at subsonic/transonic velocities in the lower atmosphere, to a rocket-propelled spacecraft designed to move out of the atmosphere into earth orbit– as high as 300 miles– reenter at 17,000 mph and glide to earth for reuse.

  • DCSCA

    Bennett wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 5:29 pm <- In other words, no response.

  • DCSCA

    amightywind wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    “Not from what I saw this spring. The roll rates on the F9 would mean a terrifying and deadly ride on Dragon.”

    Not necessarily. But a probable success should be higher that the 60% favorable percentage facing Shepard when lofted a top that Redstone in ’61, per Kraft, as the technologies should be easier to master half a century on. A big plus for the Falcon/Dragon stack is A.- not a side-mount configuration; 2. An escape system. The real test will be when they actually launch someone up around and down safely or just up and down safely. but then there’s that tick-tock, tick-tock again. And some desperate commerical space proponents equate a successful cargo flight w/a manned flight. You know, a ground-rule double in their league is the same as a home run in the big leagues. Their credibilty gap will close when they get somebody up and back safely.

  • common sense

    @ Bennett wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 5:29 pm

    “On my “Credibility Index”, everyone here has more than DCSCA. Most have much much more. Some, like windy and Elefritz (or whatever) have only slightly more. Believe it or not, Mr Earl is way ahead of the three mentioned. IMHO.”

    This writer, not that writer, nor this other writer, thinks that Ellifritz actually is a lot more entertaining than that writer and this and that other writers…

  • “A crew launch capability which is not dependent on commercial interests or the state of international partner relationships is a strategic national asset and should not be sacrificed for lesser interests,”

    Couple of problems with this statement.
    1.) If true, what didn’t Griffin fast track HSF with known launch vehicle families, instead of allowing US to be forced to buy Russian seats, seems like a criticism of his own leadership

    2.) If true the DoD would be launching military folks into space. The DoD has never opted for manned space flight and does not deem it essential to their strategic function (and they’re spending $30B +/- a year.

    3.) Aside from DoD, a Strategic asset is one USA can trade-off with other countries to get what USA wants-Int’l politics. Again Griffin did nothing to preserve this asset he now bemoans Obama for.

    Griffins rocket visions are not specifically essential to national security and his criticisms appear desperately off-the-mark. Developing LEO orbit into a zone of peace and trade, before other nations define it as the ultimate tactical high ground is the second greatest benefit of Commercial Space effort.

    Commercial space offers more for US National Security than anything Griffin ever dreamed up.

  • Snargle Whistledorf

    OMG, I’m so sorry, I forget Ms. Tom has never been down in the shop or out on the construction site or launch pad, and never gets off the freeway or out of the cubicle when she’s not chilling in her McMansion out past the beltway.

    My apologies, I should just let the science deniers run wild around here.

  • Dennis Berube

    Mr. Kent, indeed Constellation was targeted for Mars. NASA even has videos of possible mission scenarios, with the Altairs landers and all. So what do you mean it was only a lunar vehicle. I think not.

  • Dennis Berube

    Mr Kugler, how many other treaties have been broken throughout history? It would certainly get all the other countries space ready and we would have a new lunar program in full swing. Of course I am being sarcastic here, but it certainly would get things moving. It wouldnt even have to be us that said it. Any other country claiming sucha goal would get us on our feet into space once again..

  • Robert G. Oler cited:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/246195/space-pork-and-astronaut-nepotism-rand-simberg

    Simberg and I cant seem to get along personally and while there are some reservations I have about the piece, he has in my view hit the nail on the head here.

    Nice job Rand.

    Roger that. Great job, Rand.

  • Major Tom observed:

    If you think that’s terrifying and deadly, then the teacup ride at Disneyland must make you wet your pants.

    ROTFLMAO. Early candidate for zinger of the month.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 7:23 pm

    I got a great kick out of it as well…and Monica my better half added

    “and you might not have the right stuff:”

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-tumlinson/the-constellation-halluci_b_708459.html

    this is typical Rick but again on the Mark…besides Mark W doesnt like it so well it cant be all bad.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    Constellation was targeted for Mars. NASA even has videos of possible mission scenarios, with the Altairs landers and all. So what do you mean it was only a lunar vehicle. I think not.

    In all the promo stuff for Altair, you’ll notice that there is no heat shield, parachutes, or anything else that would be needed to survive or slow down in an atmosphere – and that’s because a lander for the Moon doesn’t need those things.

    I don’t know what you look at Dennis, but all available documentation for Constellation clearly shows that the goal was the Moon. Now it may have said that this was one step on the way to Mars, but Orion, EDS and Altair were sized for a Moon mission – and not a very long one at that.

    A simple internet search would confirmed all of this, so please remember:

    “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”

    Here is the link to the NASA Altair page:

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/altair/index.html

  • Rhyolite

    Major Tom wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    “If we want to start actual BEO exploration in the next 20 years, we have to forgo the costs of the old Apollo/Shuttle infrastructure and workforce, employ HLVs only if and when absolutely necessary, and leverage launch infrastructures whose costs are shared by non-NASA customers to field those HLVs.”

    This is an absolutely critical point. I would add that going down the SDHLV route leaves stuck with the same unfordable cost basis twenty or thirty years from now that we have today. We might be able to pull of flags and footprints but meaningful HSF will still not be economical.

    At least if we purchase a whole lot of EELVs and Falcons to do the job of an HLV, we would push down the cost basis for other users of space. Fostering vigorous competition between ULA, SpaceX, and OSC over a time might lead to further reductions in cost, which would tangibly serve the national interest.

  • Michael Kent

    Dennis Berube wrote:

    Mr. Kent, indeed Constellation was targeted for Mars. NASA even has videos of possible mission scenarios, with the Altairs landers and all. So what do you mean it was only a lunar vehicle. I think not.

    No, Constellation was not ever going to get within a million miles of Mars.

    Constellation was the reason the Space Shuttle was going to be retired in 2010 and the Space Station was going to be de-orbited in 2016 — it needed the money. Constellation was not going to launch a crew into LEO until at least 2017 and most likely in 2019. Without a space station to dock to, a payload bay to carry cargo, a robot arm to manipulate objects, an airlock to perform EVAs, or even a toilet, there was nothing that Orion could do this decade beyond test flights at $1 billion a piece.

    When Ares I & Orion were complete in 2019 — and only then — would significant development begin on Ares V. That would take all available budget until its first launch in 2028, a test launch because Ares V would have no operational payloads by then.

    When Ares V was complete in 2028 — and only then — would significant development begin on its payloads, the EDS and Altair lander. That would take all available budget until their first launch in 2035, the first operational flight anywhere under Constellation.

    Constellation then had enough budget to launch two flights a year to the moon beginning in 2035. That’s it. There was no money for more. There was no money for Mars missions. There was no money for development of a Mars Transfer Vehicle. There was no money even for a lunar base or manned lunar rovers. Constellation would be spending its entire budget on two short lunar flights a year.

    It doesn’t matter what the pretty videos said. Constellation had no money for anything beyond two operational lunar flights a year beginning in 2035. That’s all there was.

    Mike

  • Rhyolite

    Michael Kent wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    Planning any technological development over a twenty year time frame was ludicrous and bound to failure. Eight years is probably the longest program that can be run while maintain any kind of coherence and avoiding a costly replan at some point. Everything beyond that is a power point fantasy.

  • Rhyolite

    Sorry, that should be maintaining rather than maintain.

  • Bennett

    It amazes me that Mike Griffin didn’t see it coming. For someone who had so much experience in the business to think that, for some reason, despite all odds to the contrary, that everything would line up 7’s and get done on time and work as planned… It makes no sense at all.

  • common sense

    @ Bennett wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 10:57 pm

    “It amazes me that Mike Griffin didn’t see it coming. For someone who had so much experience in the business to think that, for some reason, despite all odds to the contrary, that everything would line up 7′s and get done on time and work as planned… It makes no sense at all.”

    Actually it makes some sort of sense and we are watching why as we all debate. He bet the farm on Congress’ addiction to pork. And on the political influence of some like Sen. Shelby and at some point Sen. Nelson, this other Rep. Sen. from FLA… And in that sense he almost hit the mark right. Unfortunately, as with any great plan, they did not think of the consequences of the policy of the previous WHs (note plural) when they deregulated WS so to speak. And we all went to the ditch as a happy family. Including Constellation. Funny how tiny details can kill you in this business.

    Oh well…

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
    Stop embarrassing yourself. Your credibility was repeatedly downgraded posting May 5, 1961 as the launch date for Friendship 7. Basic stuff and, as ‘common sense noted in a post above, “Funny how tiny details can kill you in this business.” Indeed. Details, uch as basic historical events and their context- particularly pertaining to space politics– has been shown to be a weak point in your arguments. No doubt you make up for it by being a calm minded, steely-eyed missile man.

  • Major Tom

    “Stop embarrassing yourself.”

    I’m still waiting… when are you going to answer the questions I posed earlier in the thread:

    When? Where? What specific diplomatic achievements? What U.S. crewed launch?

    You supported the negotiating team for what arms treaty, trade treaty, etc. that a crewed NASA launch helped secure?

    Seriously, educate me. Let’s have some references. This is the third time I’ve had to ask.

    “Details, uch as basic historical events and their context- particularly pertaining to space politics– has been shown to be a weak point in your arguments.”

    This from the poster who either doesn’t know the difference between human and robotic missions or can’t pick up on the context of a human space exploration discussion?

    The same poster who claims he’s been a personal witness to the power of a single human crew launch in international diplomacy, but can’t cite the event after being asked multiple times?

    Please…

    “as ‘common sense noted in a post above, ‘Funny how tiny details can kill you in this business.’ Indeed.”

    Since when have historical details killed anyone?

    Goofy.

    “No doubt you make up for it by being a calm minded, steely-eyed missile man.”

    Whatever… if you say so.

    Look, if you’re here to have a discussion about space policy, then do so.

    But for many threads now, all you’ve done is litter this forum with bad poetry, false statements, ad nauseum repetition of said statements, and ad hominem arguments.

    It’s far past time for you to take your trolling elsewhere.

    Sigh…

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 2:13 am <–You don't seem to get it and you waste space on it. Your credibility has shown to be mimimal, to be kind, at least on 'space policy' given your weak knowledge base on basic facts resulting in a plethora of false assertions easily and repeatedly disproved. And you even makes excuses for it, too. Insecure and defensive. Priceless.

  • DCSCA

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 7:21 pm <- the last place on Earth to source council on pending space policy is the conservative bible, Nat'l Review. Conservative pols have rarely been supportive of America's space program since the early days of its inception.

  • DCSCA

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 7:27 am
    “Wow, that took some huevos.”

    Maybe not as much as you think. Gary Payton’s opinion may well be colored by events learned after his one and only shuttle flight over 25 years ago aboard Discovery.

    He and his crewmates were, in fact, lucky.

    STS-51-C, launched in January, 1985, ( year before Challenger) was the first totally dedicated to DoD shuttle mission, on which he was a payload specialist for a classified mission that orbited three days. It was reported to the Rogers Commission 18 months later in the wake of Challenger, that during the Payton’s shuttle launch, the worst solid rocket booster (SRB) blow-by effects of any mission prior to Challenger occurred, indicating conclusively that the O-rings were not sufficiently sealing the hot gases inside the combustion chamber of the SRBs while firing. After they were recovered post-flight, the O-rings in both the right and left SRBs showed some degree of charring, but analysis of the center field joint of the right SRB showed an unprecedented penetration of the primary O-ring and heavily charred effects on the secondary O-ring.

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 2:13 am <- In order to have a discussion on space policy you have to have a command of basic, factual information. Let's review just a few of your inaccuracies: a. Paul Krugman did not win a Nobel Prize. <-Wrong. b. The moon was abandoned in '72. <-Wrong. c. Friendship 7 was launched May 5, 1961. <-Wrong. d. The success/failure of Freedom 7 played no part in the final decision to go for the moon. <-Wrong. All corrected by this writer and documented from a variety of sources. But this is figuratively and literally old history. So yes, stop embarrassing yourself. We know you're an evangelical proponent of commercial space. We know you're a SpaceX apologist– or cheerleader– depending on your POV. Rest assured if SpaceX ever gets someone up around and down safely, the crowds will cheer with you. Until that day, the world, the space community, skeptics in Congress and in the investor class await your success.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Until that day, the world, the space community, skeptics in Congress and in the investor class await your success.

    And the “skeptics” in Congress will happily continue to sink money into organisations with much less of a record of developing launch vehicles than SpaceX, such as MSFC. The achievements of a previous generation do not count.

  • Major Tom

    “Paul Krugman did not win a Nobel Prize. <-Wrong."

    Krugman did not win a Nobel Prize. He won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Even Wikipedia will tell you that "It [the Riksbank Prize] is not one of the Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel during 1895". The Riksbank Prize is obviously associated with Nobel since it is partly named in his honor. But it was created and funded by a Swedish bank, not by Nobel, and is therefore not a Nobel Prize.

    "The moon was abandoned in '72. <-Wrong."

    Abandoned means uninhabited or deserted. There have been no humans in orbit or on the surface of the Moon since Apollo 17 left in December 1972. The Moon has been uninhabited, deserted, and abandoned since that time.

    "The success/failure of Freedom 7 played no part in the final decision to go for the moon. <-Wrong."

    It didn't. Shepherd and Freedom 7 flew May 5, 1961, days and weeks after the dates on the memos and correspondence written by Kennedy, Johnson, von Braun, and key members of Congress on the decision to go to the Moon. Those memos and correspondence are available at:

    history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/docs.htm

    "All corrected by this writer and documented from a variety of sources."

    Where are your corrections?

    Where are your sources?

    Let's see them.

    "We know you're an evangelical proponent of commercial space. We know you're a SpaceX apologist– or cheerleader– depending on your POV."

    I'm a common sense advocate for an efficient and relevant civil human space flight program. What organization and launchers that program uses to get crews to LEO doesn't matter as long as it leaves enough funding in NASA's human space flight budget to do more than run a trucking business and greatly underutilize the ISS. So far, SpaceX appears to have the most efficient trucking business, orders of magnitude more efficient than Ares I or any other NASA in-house launcher, and is on track to start flying crews years before Orion or any other in-house NASA vehicle.

    Since you're bringing up the same false statements from old threads, why havn't you answered the questions I posed on Orion:

    When is Orion scheduled to fly?

    Will it be suborbital? Orbital?

    What’s the launch vehicle?

    These are simple questions. I can answer them for Dragon. Why can't you answer them for Orion?

    Tick-tock, tick-tock… Until you can answer these questions, the world, the space community, skeptics in Congress and the investor class await your success.

    [rolls eyes]

    Oh, and what about the questions I posed earlier in this thread that you still havn't answered about your suppossed first-hand experience with the power of crew launches in international relations:

    When? Where? What specific diplomatic achievements? What U.S. crewed launch?

    You supported the negotiating team for what arms treaty, trade treaty, etc. that a crewed NASA launch helped secure?

    This is the fourth time I've had to ask in this thread.

    I've responded repeatedly to your points with facts and sources. Why can't you answer my questions with the same?

    Are you here to discuss space policy, and actually address the questions put to you? Or are you just going keep trolling with the same ad hominem and false statements that were disproven many threads ago?

    Yawn…

  • Major Tom

    National Space Society is calling on the House to adopt the Senate authorization bill:

    blog.nss.org/?p=2055

    FWIW…

  • Coastal Ron

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 11:12 am

    I’ve responded repeatedly to your [DCSCA] points with facts and sources. Why can’t you answer my questions with the same?

    I’m sure the answer is “you can’t give what you don’t have”.

    He’s actually worse than Windy now – truly a race to the bottom…

  • Mike Snyder wrote @ September 10th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
    Stephen Smith,

    You are wrong on essentially every point you made.

    That is not why President Bush “cancelled” the program in 2004. In fact it still has not been “cancelled”. The reason it was scheduled to be phased out this year was purely budgetary so that the money for shuttle could be allocated to something else.

    The CAIB never outright said the program should be cancelled either. It never said these vehicles could not fly beyond 2010. They made *recommendation* on what they believe should happen, recommendations that were adopted and complied with.

    If the vehicles were so “unsafe” then they should have never been allowed to fly again. Period. But, no one seriously thought that and 2010 was derived based on ISS construction and politics.

    Page 210 of the CAIB report (and the italics are in the original:

    … Based on its in-depth examination of the Space Shuttle program, the Board has reached an inescapable conclusion: Because of the risks inherent in the original design of the Space Shuttle, because that design was based in many aspects on now-obsolete technologies, and because the Shuttle is now an aging system but still developmental in character, it is in the nation’s interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible as the primary means for transporting humans to and from Earth orbit.

    The report cites the Orbital Space Plane as the “likely” replacement, i.e. placing an orbiter-like crew vehicle atop the rocket rather than mounted on the side. It also suggests the traditional capsule atop the rocket approach.

    As for Bush’s speech, it was delivered five months after release of the CAIB report. Bush said:

    … we will return the Space Shuttle to flight as soon as possible, consistent with safety concerns and the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. The Shuttle’s chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the International Space Station. In 2010, the Space Shuttle — after nearly 30 years of duty — will be retired from service.

    Our second goal is to develop and test a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014. The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be capable of ferrying astronauts and scientists to the Space Station after the shuttle is retired. But the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds. This will be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo Command Module.

    Bush’s speech implemented the recommendation of the CAIB report, which was to phase out Shuttle as soon as possible and replace it with a design that placed the crew vehicle atop the rocket. Exactly as I said.

  • Robert G. Oler

    The shuttle era has been deadly for NASA, not in just losing 14 astronauts , nor that every solution to every problem in HSF now looks like it fits a shuttle or shuttle derived vehicle solution…but the era cost it its engineering and management competence.

    It is really quite stunning if you think of it for just a moment that a year before Challenger was lost, they came very close to loss of a vehicle…and kept flying.

    It is really hard to understand the mechanisms that go to work in “group think” where reality is suppressed to rhetoric….history is of course populated with endless examples of that but in an organization that once was the signature of technical excellence and rigor in the US …

    to see it fall to a point where management was aware that a vehicle was nearly lost and didnt say “we have to stop and fix that”…shows you how far the agency has gone. Its never recovered.

    If you look at the agency from say 1984 to today it is fairly clear that “group think” has taken over from reality; with really never a pause even for the accidents. I was reading on NASAspaceflight.com some of the issues with Discovery and here is a quote:

    “However, the completion of soft mate is enough to allow one engineer to enter Discovery’s aft compartment, via a few waivers. ”

    sure waive the flight rules…

    NASA needs to get out of the launch industry for a lot of reasons but one is to try and regain some technical and management chops. It has none now.

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 11:12 am <- Wrong on all points- and documented repeatedly. Your credibility is less than minimal. When you're in a hole, stop digging, Tom.

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 11:38 am <- He's consistently inaccurate and proved so on repeated occastions. History is not his strong point. Sad.

  • DCSCA

    @Oler : “It is really quite stunning if you think of it for just a moment that a year before Challenger was lost, they came very close to loss of a vehicle…and kept flying.” Nobody disputes that NASA was riddled with complacent managment making poor decisions. Such is the nature of bureaucracies over time. What is more distressing is the same mind set surfaced amidst the Columbia tragedy. We may agree that there remains no real accountability within the space agency surrounding the managment which made poor decisions resulting in the loss of the crew and vehicle. nobody was really ‘fired.’ The CYA cry of ‘nobody is to blame’ remains an unacceptable excuse and indicative of a bureaucracy more at home with its CYA government brethern than on the cutting edge of space technology, where accidents can be expected to occur. Regardless of the direction the space program takes in the next few years, NASA needs a strong house-cleaning and a removal of a lot of shuttle managment ‘deadwood.’

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 11:12 am <- All your errors were corrected and posted on a previous thread. Stop wasting space and time. It's alll pretty easy to verify and look up. Start w/the official Nobel website on Krugman– the folks who actually give them out.

    http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/lauretes/

    The rest is SOP and verified. For goodness sake, Kennedy himself, in his own words told Shepard they were still only thinking about going and that was on May 8– no final decision on the commitment was until the Cabinet reviewed the MacNamara-Webb report, LBJ's recommendation made with the added success of Shepard's flight… and the presdient ratified it. Even Kraft himself has stated the success was the 'singular event' that prompted the final decision to go. This is all well documented by the people there who partcipated in making the decision. Stop embarrassing yourself. It only weakens your credibility to merit further serious discussion.

  • DCSCA

    @Oler: “It is really quite stunning if you think of it for just a moment that a year before Challenger was lost, they came very close to loss of a vehicle…and kept flying. It is really hard to understand the mechanisms that go to work in “group think” where reality is suppressed to rhetoric….history is of course populated with endless examples of that but in an organization that once was the signature of technical excellence and rigor in the US …
    to see it fall to a point where management was aware that a vehicle was nearly lost and didnt say “we have to stop and fix that”…shows you how far the agency has gone.”

    <– On this we can agree. In hindsight, the decision-making processes– even when viewed within the greater whole of the context of the times in which they were made — was/is appallingly unsettling and totally unacceptable.

  • Coastal Ron

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 11:17 am

    National Space Society is calling on the House to adopt the Senate authorization bill:

    blog.nss.org/?p=2055

    Just curious, but are there any major space or industry groups that are coming out in favor of the House bill vs the Senate one? Other that Griffin and the couple other guys mentioned by Jeff above, I’m just not hearing much support for the House bill.

    What do other people hear or see?

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
    DCSCA wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 5:07 pm

    on both these things we can agree…but I guess that this was my point…

    your words

    “The CYA cry of ‘nobody is to blame’ remains an unacceptable excuse and indicative of a bureaucracy more at home with its CYA government brethern than on the cutting edge of space technology,”

    my point in so many words is that since there is strong evidence to suggest that in or about 1984 the agency went off the track in terms of engineering and management COMMON SENSE (forget engineering competence) and has more or less resisted getting back on that track…(and I think that is evident in terms of its latest plans) …

    then in my view it is time that we stop relying on the agency or its representatives (mostly at JSC but some at MSC) to have any real role in the shaping of American space policy.

    I am not talking engineering or management competence, I am talking common sense.

    You dont continue to fly with O ring violation when that is one of your flight rules (ie that there is none)…but the instant you start waiving one rule, then the rest get easy to do…and its pretty clear from current examples that rule waiving at NASA HSF is nothing new. That is not an issue of competence, it is one of common sense.

    Likewise some of the “Plans” coming out of the agency indicate that they are good for “any” plan just so long as it uses all the parts that they were planning on using for “the vision”. And at just about the same price.

    I dont see that there is any real indication that any modicum of common sense prevails anyplace at JSC or MSC in terms of dealing with the reality of declining economies etc. Even over at NASAspaceflight.com which is the “soul” of the DIRECT groups the beloved are starting to get a little soured on the ability of every thing at NASA to look well the same.

    There are issues of “competence” and “common sense”. AS a long time instructor pilot I can almost teach and nurture competence and as a leader in large engineering projects (and small ones) competence is something that comes down from above…

    Common sense is another matter. My five month old daughter seems to know more common sense then the folks at JSC who are making up the current set of plans to “press ahead”.

    Something happened in the early 80’s that really screwed NASA HSF badly. I cant decide if it was the retirement of the Apollo people and the ascension of people who had always lived in their shadow…or if it just was the fact that the leadership of that era made saying “we cant do that” to political masters impossible and that filtered down. But whatever it is has produced the likes of idiots that would be shit canned in any other agency of the federal government (or the military) in about two seconds. And they are running the place.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “Start w/the official Nobel website…”

    Sigh…

    Peter Englund, a secretary of the Nobel Academy, writes on that same website “The Nobel Prizes are only those that are specifically mentioned in Alfred Nobel’s will (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace). The Economics Prize came much later and is a prize in memory of Alfred Nobel.”

    nobelprize.org/prize_announcements/economics/eco_questions_07.html

    Per Nobel’s own will, also on that website, there is no prize for economics. Instead, the interest from his wealth is apportioned “one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

    nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/short_testamente.html

    The book “A Beautiful Mind”, p. 358, which is about one of the Riksbank Prize winners, also states “It is, in fact, not a Nobel Prize, but rather ‘The Central Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel.'”

    Per the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Riksbank Prize “is not technically a Nobel Prize”.

    britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416856/Nobel-Prize

    Even Wikipedia states “The official name is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Swedish: Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne). It is not one of the Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel during 1895, but is commonly identified with them”.

    Read, comprehend, and think before you post. Cripes.

    “LBJ’s recommendation made with the added success of Shepard’s flight…”

    No, it wasn’t. Johnson’s memo to Kennedy was dated April 28, more than a week before Freedom 7’s flight. You can read it here:

    history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/apollo2.pdf

    Von Braun, who sat on Johnson’s Space Council, sent a letter to Kennedy reinforcing Johnson’s recommendation the very next day (April 29), a full week before Freedom 7’s flight. You can read it here:

    history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/apollo3.pdf

    Key members of Congress were approached and were onboard with the decision to go to the Moon before Freedom 7’s flight. The Chair of the House Committee on Science and Aeronautics sent his letter to Kennedy on May 4, the day before Freedom 7’s flight. You can read it here:

    history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/apollo4.pdf

    No one, from Von Braun to Johnso, to Kennedy to Congress, was waiting on Shepard’s flight to make the decision to go to the Moon. The memos and letters detailing the decision process are all dated weeks to days before Freedom 7’s flight on May 5.

    Learn how to use a calendar. Cripes.

    “Even Kraft himself has stated the success was the ‘singular event’ that prompted the final decision to go.”

    Reference?

    And why are you using a mission controller who was in Houston, TX to document a political decision process that took place in Washington, DC?

    Goofy…

    “all well documented by the people there who partcipated in making the decision.”

    Where are your documents detailing the decision process leading to Apollo?

    I’ve provided mine.

    Where are yours?

    “Wrong on all points- and documented repeatedly. Your credibility is less than minimal… When you’re in a hole, stop digging… He’s consistently inaccurate and proved so on repeated occastions. History is not his strong point… All your errors were corrected and posted on a previous thread. Stop wasting space and time… Stop embarrassing yourself. It only weakens your credibility to merit further serious discussion.”

    Your comments are the height of hypocrisy. Every single statement you’ve made is factually wrong and undocumented, wasting this forum’s space and time and causing other posters like Coastal Ron to deride you repeatedly and rank you at the bottom of the trolls here. When are you going to get something, anything, right?

    And while you’re at it, answer my questions about your suppossed first-hand experience with the power of crew launches in international relations:

    When? Where? What specific diplomatic achievements? What U.S. crewed launch?

    You supported the negotiating team for what arms treaty, trade treaty, etc. that a crewed NASA launch helped secure?

    This is the fifth time I’ve had to ask them.

    And where are your answers to the questions I’ve posed on Orion over multiple threads:

    When is Orion scheduled to fly?

    Will it be suborbital? Orbital?

    What’s the launch vehicle?

    These are simple questions. I’ve answered them for Dragon. Why can’t you answer them for Orion?

    Tick-tock, tick-tock… Until you can answer these questions, the world, the space community, skeptics in Congress and the investor class await your ability to demonstrate one ounce of credibility!!!

    Sigh…

  • Mike Snyder

    Stephen Smith,

    I’m glad that was what you quoted. None of that implies what you said at the very top nor does it negate what I said.

  • Coastal Ron

    Major Tom wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 7:56 pm

    You would think that DCSCA, claiming to have been a writer (maybe now just a “has-been” writer), would be able to easily provide documentation for his claims.

    But his problem could be that all his information comes from books published in the 60’s, and there are no links to provide (i.e. out of date).

    We’ll probably never know…

  • Mike Snyder

    Robert G Oler,

    Again you seem to do a lot of talking without saying anything. I started to read your reply and couldn’t finish. What you try to imply is simply over-exaggerated and incorrect.

    I would suggest that everyone else who reads his understand he has no first hand experience to speak from and consider his comments…”appropriately”.

  • scuze me folks, but did anything actually happen with a vote on HR5781 yesterday? Or is it postponed for next week or for sometime later?

  • Snardly Wombast

    he has no first hand experience to speak from and consider his comments…”appropriately”.

    Mr. Oler has no ‘first hand experience’ in spaceflight for the sole reason that NASA is in charge of human space flight in America. After looking at three separate proposals to change that from KSC (reusability is a myth), MSFC (we don’t need to study it anymore) and JSC (human extinction facilitation team), it’s clear to most people that it’s game over for any Earth to LEO transportation for NASA. Senate and congressional authorization legislation isn’t going to change that result.

  • Artemus

    I doubt any contractor who was working Atlas V or Delta IV at the time thinks they were enticed or extorted.

    Those were precisely George Sowers’s words last week at AIAA Space 2010.

    As for EELV being commercial…it could be commercial, except that it isn’t cost-competitive, isn’t responsive due to government priority, and isn’t even viable, let alone profitable without multiple government backstops like “Assured Access to Space” funding. Yes, it looked great on paper, just like commercial crew looks great on paper. But a successful commercial crew program will have to look very different from EELV. So different that it is questionable whether any company will bid on it.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mike Snyder wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    your post are next to goofy. If you do work at NASA HSF it is clear that you are part of the problem and/or if you are an engineer, the effort was wasted!

    It does not take first hand experience to recognize the difference between “errors” repeated on a broad scale and “mistakes”. Linda H in her depressing testimony to the CAIB kept confusing the two, even when General Deal and others tried to straighten her out…but all one has to do is look in the safety manual published for NATOPS (and it is a carbon of every safety manual in the US government) to learn the terms.

    But I dont mind teaching.

    “Errors” are paths of decisions for which there is no plausible explanation.

    “Mistakes” are paths of decisions for which there are plausible explanations.

    OK Mike so you figure it out. Which category do these two events fall into.

    Scenario A. The airplane you are a passenger on has a known defect. Most every flight the defect occurs and in a couple of instances the defect nearly causes the loss of the vehicle. Its noted by some that as the temperature gets colder the defect gets worse. In fact the worst the defect has ever been has been in the coldest the vehicle has been operated. All this of course is out of specification…but gee…no one wants to stop flying.

    Today on the trip you are taking it is colder then ever…the folks making the decision for your flight to take off huddle and decide “its ok when do you want to fly anyway sometime this summer?”

    (there are multiple “decisions” here but go with either one.)

    …..

    ok here this is where “your” first hand experience can make all the difference.

    Now lets go to Scenario B.

    The airplane you are a passenger in takes off. Unknown to you or the pilots a piece of the tire shreds off. Management collects the piece of the tire from the runway. There is some satisfaction in that the airplane model you are riding in has shed parts off the tire before but well its always been able to land successfully. (even though again the spec is that the tires dont shed parts).

    Oddly enough however this is the largest piece of material to ever come off the tire.

    There is some urgent talk that more information should be gathered, maybe a fly by of the tower…but the folks who are making the decisions have it nailed. their response is “what could we do anyway if the tire malfunctions?” Should we tell the pilots? The person in charge thinks about it for a whole second or two on her way to the golf course and says “again what can they do about it?”

    ……………..

    In both instances when things turn out badly the answer is “we didnt mean to make those mistakes”…but are they mistakes?

    you have all the first hand knowledge here (not really but pretend).

    Error or mistake?

    tick tock…

    you folks are pathetic.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Simberg and I cant seem to get along personally

    Yeah, that happens when one person repeatedly writes lies about the other on the Internet without even attempting to substantiate them, or retracting them.

  • Major Tom

    “did anything actually happen… on HR5781?”

    No, Congress isn’t back in session until next week.

    FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 9:39 pm

    OK whatever you want to believe, but that aside,…

    nice piece. I have linked it on facebook and several people have reciprocated.

    Robert G . Oler

  • OK whatever you want to believe

    It has nothing to do with what “I want to believe.” It has to do with what you do, and continue to do, with that very comment. Thanks for the demo.

  • Anne Spudis

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 8:40 pm [But his problem could be that all his information comes from books published in the 60′s, and there are no links to provide (i.e. out of date). We’ll probably never know…]

    Odd you should wonder about another poster’s depth of knowledge Coastal Ron.
    One might ask the same question of you. But as you so aptly say, “We’ll probably never know…”]

    On a previous thread post you described your background as, “I didn’t get involved in the space debate until earlier this year” and characterized yourself as, “a space enthusiast not an insider,” but Coastal Ron I still enjoy the banter and discussion, regardless of your expertise. Everyone brings something to the debate. I too am a space enthusiast. I’ve been fortunate to have had “good seats” to this debate and topic for around 30 year. But I hold no degree in any field related to space, only a passion and what information I’ve acquired along the way.

    Quite frankly, it’s the nasty comments, typically used to shut down discussion, that are so telling. It’s not like we’re writing space policy in these discussions — more like venting — something we feel the need to do these days with the way things are going.

  • Bryan R

    “An ISS only space program would seem to be the essence of “pork” done for no reason except jobs….

    I would not have an ISS only space program, and what I would do (and think will be done) is that ISS will eventually and soon have to start paying its way or at least making noise in that direction.”

    Good luck !

    NASA has been trying to find science or other activities that have a payback since the first experiments on Apollo 14.

    One of the reasons for lack of success is that NASA’s integration schedules are so long – they are planned for 30 months currently but based on reality – AMS for instance, the real time line is more like 10-15 years. Remember electrophoresis in 1985. At that time it had been in work for 4 years, then Challenger delayed the continuation another 3 years and the whole investment went belly-up.

    ISS and micro-G are worthwhile as a national laboratory, supported by government funds. But even then if you want to seriously get some industries to use the facility, NASA needs to do a lot better on schedules and costs of use. It can be done. Spacehab and NASA-Mir had one year (and less) integration schedules and flew frequently enough that the cost to fly was almost a nit. Somewhere between 1998 and 2010, NASA went awry. Its now a longer and more difficult process than it was 15 years ago.

    The other problems is that with upmass and downmass so restricted for the next five years, until Dragon and Falcon are flying a half dozen times a year, no one need worry about ISS paying its own way. There is no opportunity for anyone to be doing more than a pocketful of science at any time. This is a direct outcome of Constellation as implemented. Another example of NASA gone awry.

  • Mike Snyder

    Robert Oler @ September 11, 9:36 pm

    My post is “goofy’? Perhaps you should take another look at yours because after the first few sentances I couldn’t even finish it. In the few weeks we have been having these “conversations”, I tried to be very respectful to you at first. It was clear very soon however you are nothing but trying to promote yourself on this one website by bashing everyone else, and doing it incorrectly.

    Now it seems it extends to me. You do not even know me and if I was standing next to you on the street you would have no idea. We never have had any real contact, certainly none professionally, so it is like grapsing for straws when you say I am part of the “problem”.

    You consistently misdiagnose the “problem” calling out blame to groups and organizations that have nothing to do with your “rants”. It shows, quite honestly, how shallow your knowledge base truly is.

    In addition, you are the one is clearly seems to be somewhat of a problem. Always shouting people down with terms like “goofy” all the while making incorrect counter-arguements and trying to “pad” your resume to make yourself sound more credible than you are (CAIB consultant for instant, where in fact your name is not listed at all and other “inconsistentcies”). So how is that Delta IV super-heavy coming too?

    It’s really quite sad

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mike Snyder wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 10:36 am

    Robert Oler @ September 11, 9:36 pm

    My post is “goofy’? Perhaps you should take another look at yours because after the first few sentances I couldn’t even finish it…

    that is your problem not mine.

    But it is indicative of the situation at NASA HSF. Always looking for someone else to blame and never standing up and taking responsibility for the deaths, the over budget programs, the behind schedule programs, and the shoddy engineering and management.

    It is always “someone elses fault” or as Linda H so noted “no ones fault”.

    I dont know or care if you are just a NASA groupie or for all I know one of the geniuses who figured out that Columbia could safely reenter. Either way try dealing in some reality.

    Delta IV super heavy is coming along far better then Ares.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Dennis Berube

    Mr. Snyder, I too left this site due to the relentless name calling, not just by Mr. Oler, but by others whom seem to think because you dont agree with them you automatically become a troll or something else. Its sad, childish, and gains nothing. It is kind of an attempt at bullying and also attempting to out shout everyone else. While I do not know everything about the space program, and I admit it, these people seem to indicate that I too am a troll. Thats okay, as like you said they dont even know me. They claim that we that do not agree with them are stupid etc…… If they were truly intelligent, they would convey their thoughts in more adult ways without relying on childish name calling. I agree with you Mr. Snyder. Also not everyone is like that, just a few, that choose to spoil this site…… Thanks for the imput, as I am attempting to staywith it here. I may or may not….

  • Dennis Berube

    The whole question of whether NASA makes mistakes, is futile. Of course they do, they are human. Also the same can be said in the Concorde mishap. People knew the problems but made decisions on what they thought at the time was right. Deaths have happened, and let me tell you, they will continue to happen. IT will also happen in the commercial sector. What will our government do then? I dont think the safety issues will go away. It is a fact of life. Everyday people die in auto accidents, yet we continue to ride in these contraptions. Many faults are attributed to design, what can be said. Risk is an everyday part of life, otherwise seal yourself in a room and never come out….

  • Martijn Meijering

    Being a shill is not the same as being a troll, and strongly disagreeing with someone does not mean you are accusing them of being either of the two.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 11:11 am

    The whole question of whether NASA makes mistakes, is futile. Of course they do, they are human. Also the same can be said in the Concorde mishap….

    no not at all.

    The Concorde loss was not even in the same league as the loss of both shuttle orbiters. Until you grasp that fact then you dont have a good handle on events.

    The Concorde loss was a Mistake…the shuttle(s) an error

    Robert G. Oler

  • vulture4

    I don’t necessarily believe the the CAB clearly said the Shuttle could, with appropriate care, continue to fly until a replacement was operational for the specific mission of access to LEO, not the Moon or Mars:

    “The first step should be to reach an agreement that the overriding mission of the replacement system is to move humans safely and reliably into and out of Earth orbit. To demand more would be to fall into the same trap as all previous, unsuccessful, efforts.”

    In other word, the CAIB was clearly opposed to the whole concept of Constellation, which did everything CAIB said shouldn’t be done.

    Robert G. Oler: “I don’t see that there is any real indication that any modicum of common sense prevails anyplace at JSC or MSC in terms of dealing with the reality of declining economies etc.”

    I would certainly agree. NASA’s original mission (when it was called NACA) was extremely practical; to help the us civil aircraft industry become more competitive in the world market, whee it was rapidly falling behind. Industry would tell NACA what it needed. Today it’s the reverse. The only way NASA can do anything of practical value is to claim it is “spinoff”, a “free” accidental byproduct of human spaceflight.

  • vulture4

    Sorry, misprint. I meant to say the CAIB DID say the Shuttle could safely fly until a replacement was available. It most assuredly did NOT call for the Shuttle to be grounded or taken out of service by any specific date, while it was still needed.

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 11:01 am

    Re: Trollness And This Blog

    First a definition of an internet troll:

    a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community

    Considering that this is the “Space Politics” blog, anyone joining in the conversation should know up front that politics in the U.S. is not a gentleman’s sport. And since politics cannot be measured by facts, true winners are determined by opinion, not by the weight of truth.

    For you Dennis, I’m not aware of anyone specifically calling you a troll, but there have been requests for you to do a little simple research before you post.

    For instance, your claim that Constellation was being built to go to Mars as well as the Moon was certainly wrong, and since you stated as fact, many people had to correct you. If you felt besieged because of that, then imagine everyone that felt the need to correct you – your lack of simple fact checking caused a lot of people to waste their time correcting you.

    Just like on the sailing blog you have used for comparison, imagine if someone started giving out wrong advice? Wouldn’t you feel the need to correct them so others would not be mislead? The same here.

    Now opinions are a different thing. Your opinions are just as valid as mine, and while I may disagree and debate with you about them, that’s about all anyone can do. But again, this is a blog about “Space Politics”, so if you’re coming here thinking no one is going to challenge or disagree with you, then I think you’ll continue to be disappointed.

    Regarding those that are true trolls, I sent a message to our host Jeff recently pointing out how productive the discussions were at that point, since a couple of the more trollish posters had been fairly quiet. There had been lots of good debate and discussion, and the discourse was fairly moderate. I concluded that it was because our usual trolls had been absent, and sure enough when they started commenting again, the value of the debate and discussion went down. I saw cause & effect.

    My $0.02

  • Coastal Ron

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 5:16 am

    Odd you should wonder about another poster’s depth of knowledge

    Hi Anne. I’m sure you’re not stepping into this conversation to defend someone that is widely acclaimed to be a troll, so I guess you’re using it as a convenient way of bringing up a subject.

    One might ask the same question of you.

    Oh I’ve discussed my background before (manufacturing), as well as my stated interest (lowering the cost to access space). I don’t debate delta v’s or ISP’s, and I certainly have been corrected on more than a few technical issues.

    My big interest is keeping a spotlight on the cost side of the equation, because that is one of the areas I have dealt with in manufacturing, and it’s a huge weakness with NASA and Congress. It’s also the big reason we’re talking about space stuff, and not doing it. So even though no one will ever know how good I actually was at my job, I hope my contributions to the overall conversation make that irrelevant.

    I still enjoy the banter and discussion, regardless of your expertise

    And I yours, Anne. :-)

    ’ve been fortunate to have had “good seats” to this debate and topic for around 30 year.

    I started out to be an aerospace engineer 35 years ago, and a serious financial shortage & lack of calculus skills ended that part way through. But I have kept up with the trade publications, plus worked for a number of DOD/NASA contractors, so I think my background gives me a certain perspective.

    It’s not like we’re writing space policy in these discussions — more like venting — something we feel the need to do these days with the way things are going.

    No, we’re not writing space policy, but I think I am much more engaged in the national debate than if I hadn’t been engaged in these blog conversations. I have learned a lot, even from some I don’t always agree with, and for me the debate has helped me distill my viewpoints.

    Whereas months ago I would have had a general idea what I wanted out of NASA, now I have very specific ideas, and I can debate them with confidence gained in months of discussion and discourse. In fact, because of all the research I end up doing for some of my posts, I think I’ve become pretty knowledgeable – definitely more so on this topic than my representatives in Congress.

    I think this quote kind of sums it up:

    “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;… whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” –Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 11th, 2010 at 8:40 pm =yawn= they have, were and are easily researched. But then, not really worth the energy repeating for a group that purports to try to equate a ‘cargo’ flight with a manned spaceflight. Sad. You commercial space advocates best just get someone up, around and down safely. As it stands now, you have zero crediblity in even attempting to fashion an argument as an alternative to government funded and managed manned spaceflight operations, because you’ve flown nobody. As Neil Armstrong and others have said, these commercial efforts are to be welcomed and encouraged, but based on 50 years experience, there’s a lot for y’all to learn– much from basic manned flight experience, which you have yet to achieve. But we’re awaiting that moment with great anticipation.

  • DCSCA

    @Oler “Something happened in the early 80′s that really screwed NASA HSF badly.” ROFLMAO It’s called Reaganomics. The idiotic premise to push an R&D organization into becoming a run-for-profit enterprise was doomed from day one.

  • DCSCA

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 5:16 am <- Relax, Anne. This stuff is all published, easily researched and a matter of public record. It really should be part of their knowledge base as well. But 'denial' is also a river in Egypt to commercial space advocates easily identified on this forum and spin is a cycle on a washing machine as well as an erroneous flight characteristic of the only known Falcon9 launch. The problem is these commerical space advocates are trying to establish a position and desperate create something from nothing by sourcing government support because the private sector has moslty balked so far– mainly because of no demonstrated performance. They want to leverage government subsidies and loan guarantees without any proven or successful flight records. That gimmick might have worked in better economic times but figuratively and literally just 'won't fly' in this tight economic era. The simple solution is to get someone up, around and down safely a la Gagarin, or suborbitally, just up and down safely a la Shepard. Yet they makes excuses for why its not necessary, a waste of costs, their hardware surpasses such inane test flights or that it would be a 'stunt'; unworthy of their stature… or a cargo flight is as good as a manned mission and so on. The smoke screen is easy to penetrate. Because they have no stature, at least compared to the half century success of government funded manned spaceflight operations. They don't fly anyone because they don't dare do it now given the consequences of failure for commercial space. It would set them back 20 years. Or they simply can't do it. But someday they will, and when it occurs, the skeptics will melt away and the subsidies and loan guarantees will flourish. Until then, they exist by press release and promises of 'things to come, maybe' chiefly from their champion of hype, Emperor Elon, the self-appointed 'savior' of human spaceflight. Always remember- they've not launched, orbited and returned anyone yet safely to Earth. And when they finally do, they'll be on a par with manned spaceflight technology circa 1965.

  • DCSCA

    @Tom <-' No one, from Von Braun to Johnso, to Kennedy to Congress, was waiting on Shepard’s flight to make the decision to go to the Moon." Inaccurate. You're simply wrong. Consistently doo. And it's hilarious for you to continue to pursue this and other avenues. Get a library card, Tom.

  • DCSCA

    @Oler “then in my view it is time that we stop relying on the agency or its representatives (mostly at JSC but some at MSC) to have any real role in the shaping of American space policy.”

    <– Disagree. You may want to toss the baby out with the bath water, this writer does not. Purging the agency of mediocre managers, shuttle hanger-ons and the natural deadwood that any bureaucracy acquires seems an appropriate move. And, of course, purging the civilian space agency of any and all "for profit" directives left over from the Reagan days and reladed trickle down directives from various Republican/conservative sources would return the agency to a healthier course. And, of course, many of the experienced Apollo era managers whose accomplishments remain milestones in the human experience, have councelled wisely on new directions over the years but often that advice has fallen on deaf ears. Maybe less so this go around. But we can agree that the dismissal of managers responsible for decisions and thinking processes that resulted in the loss of two vehicles and crews should be self-evident. But then, the concept of expecting 'accountibility' from government and private sectored organizations has always been a source of frustration and fuels public anger. Mediocrity in government and the private sector is still not a crime. But it is a shame. Complacency just caught up with NASA… and based on past performance, the nation expected better.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 7:26 pm

    Inaccurate. You’re simply wrong. Consistently doo. And it’s hilarious for you to continue to pursue this and other avenues.

    And as usual, you don’t provide any evidence of your claims. Major Tom has provided many links to back up his, and you provide none.

    As Bush would say, you’re “all hat, no cattle”… ;-)

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 7:54 pm <- Posted previously and repeatedly. Easily sourced as well and part of the basic historical knowledge base for space advocates. Keeps the 'major' in the 'minor' leagues with respect to advocacy opinion from this writer's POV. Repeatedly noting the incorrect L/D for Friendship 7 speaks volumes along with your own effort to equate a successful commercial cargo flight w/a manned space flight. Just get flying, guys. This writer is on record voicing support for government subsidies and loan guarantees for commerical space once they demostrate they can fly crews up around and down safely. For commerical, the 'ol line from the government has been flipped… now it's "No Buck Rogers, No bucks." Get flying.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 8:27 pm

    Posted previously and repeatedly.

    We’re not talking about the sticky notes you have posted all over your 60’s era memory books, but real, verifiable, public sources of information.

    As far as your grasp of “basic historical knowledge”, you’re a legend in your own mind…

  • Matt Wiser

    When the Commerical crowd finally gets a person up and back, the doubters (and I count myself as one) will be quieted. Not before. Then the successful company (or companies) can apply for subsidies, loan guarantees, and whatnot. Do I think they can do the job that NASA wants them to do? Yes. But they have to prove it to NASA’s satisfaction (along with Congress). Some people here have been clinging to the original FY 11 budget, along with Bill Nye, the Planetary Society, and those Nobel winners, “like Grim Death to a dead cat”, notwithstanding the fact that Congress isn’t a rubber stamp. They can choose to accept, modify (in this case, significantly modify), or reject. And it’s not just NASA: every government agency has to have their budget approved by Congress, and DOD’s is often the most contentious, as congresscritters fight to keep programs alive in their states-and they usually win-the C-17, Virginia-class SSN, M-1 tank, F-35 JSF, etc. Congress controls the purse strings, people, and you’d best keep that in mind.

    I noticed someone here has an idee fixee on oribital refueling depots. Now, the Augustine Commission (not holy writ, but options and guidelines) did say that if it was proven to be viable, the concept would provide additional opportunities for the private sector to get involved. Several questions are at work here: who owns the depot-NASA or the contractor, first of all? (and is thus responsible for depot maintenance and for restocking the depot every so often) Second, propellant storage-the propellants have to be kept stable in terms of temperature, regardless of where the depot is in space. Third, can propellant be transferred safely from one spacecraft to another? (one mistake and you are in the middle of a very big fireball). Lots of other intangibles need to be ironed out before this concept can go from the pages of a novel to reality.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    When the Commerical crowd finally gets a person up and back… Then the successful company (or companies) can apply for subsidies, loan guarantees, and whatnot.

    A hypothetical here – what if no one decides that the market ROI is worth it without NASA involvement/money up front? Boeing sure doesn’t.

    Are you content to let the status quo (i.e. Russia only) take care of getting our people to/from the ISS?

    Or, explain your vision of how the ISS will be supplied with crew after the end of the current 2015 Soyuz contract.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    Re: In-space Fuel Depots

    A. “who owns the depot-NASA or the contractor” – If a strictly commercial model is used, then NASA would not own the depots. I think 3rd parties will eventually own/operate the depots, under contract with NASA or whoever. The DOD usually contracts for fuel services, and this model should work in space too.

    B. “propellant storage-the propellants have to be kept stable in terms of temperature, regardless of where the depot is in space.” – ULA has done a lot of research on this, and they think their ACES family of tankers address boil-off issues well enough that the LH2 loses will be very low, and used for station keeping.

    C. “can propellant be transferred safely from one spacecraft to another?” – This is not a perfected science, but various forms of liquid transfer have been done for a long time. However, the proposed FY11 NASA budget specifically wanted to work out all the issues (TBD on the congressional version). “one mistake and you are in the middle of a very big fireball” – Fuel ignition has it’s own challenges in space. We need to know what the actual concerns are going to be, and that’s why we need to start testing it soon. No matter what size launch vehicle is used, we’re always going to need to transfer fuel in space – the laws of physics mandate it.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    Some people here have been clinging to the original FY 11 budget

    From what I read, people only reference the original budget as an example of what good or bad the Administration wanted to do – I was in the “good” camp.

    Since Jeff (our host) has done such a good job keeping us up to date on the various House and Senate machinations, no one is “clinging” to the idea that the proposed budget will reappear and get passed.

    But between the House and Senate bills, the Senate version provides a good deal of what the Administration wanted to achieve, but not necessarily in the amount desired, nor the time. However, as long as Constellation gets confirmed as cancelled (with Ares I ended), and any amount of money is provided for commercial crew, then you’ll hear a lot of cheers going up. :-)

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 9:07 pm “As Bush would say, you’re “all hat, no cattle”…” <– Indeed, indeed, such is the position of commerical manned spaceflight circa 2010. Accordingly, if your " stated interest (lowering the cost to access space)" is accurate, stop talking, start flying. Get somebody up and around for pennies on the dollar and down safely to earth, dirt cheap. The cheapest ever in human history. Go for it.The space community, the world and investor class worldwide await your success.

  • Matt Wiser

    Remember, Ron, that Congress controls the purse strings. If they tell NASA to put Orion on an existing rocket (as Lockheed-Martin has said they can) for the LEO mission, and provides the necessary funds, NASA has to comply. No ifs, ands, or buts. I would imagine that studies have already been done in this regard.

    I for one would rather have the Senate bill; Orion with HLV, some commercial crew funding to get them started, so everyone is basically happy with half of their respective loaves than none at all. I was mainly addressing the “Grim Death” comment to the Planetary Society and those Nobel winners: they were demanding the original FY 11 budget be passed. Demanding that Congress do someting, instead of “politely requesting” is a straight shot to defeat for whatever your cause is.

    As for owning the depot: the AF doesn’t contract for the KC-135 or KC-10 fleet, so why not have NASA have its own depot, but serviced/restocked by the commercial sector?

  • Martijn Meijering

    Lots of other intangibles need to be ironed out before this concept can go from the pages of a novel to reality.

    Only if you’re talking about cryogenic propellant, but noncryogenic propellant is good enough and there is >30 years of experience with that. Whether we start exploration with noncryogenic propellant and develop cryogenic depots simultaneously as I prefer or develop cryogenic depots first and start exploration later we already know that we don’t need heavy lift and we already know that we don’t need government launchers. And if we want to see commercial development of space we shouldn’t want them either.

  • Dennis Berube

    Mr. Coastal Ron. This is nothing against you, but at one time I was called stupid here. Not specifically a troll, but stupid still fills the bill with regards to name calling. Anyway, as to my reading, I dont understand something, and so maybe you can clear it up. Go to the NASA page on Constellation, or any number of other pages relating to the program and there you will see, NASA was looking at sending Constellation on to Mars after the Moon. Now am I reading this wrong?????? They even have vids. of the possible scenarios. Mars was one of Orions targets at a future date, so I dont understand Obamas cancellation of the program when he wants Mars as a destination. Somewhere I even read how the Altairs lander would have been modified to enter Mars atmosphere, with heat shielding and whatever. So now you individuals who keep saying Mars was not a destination for Constellation, look it up yourselves, and then explain my misconceptions to me. Now Im not saying Im wrong, but once again I loooked it up this morning just to be sure of what Im saying. If you like I can even put thelink in. But just go to the Constellation page.

  • Anne Spudis

    DCSCA wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    This is like watching the ship’s captain and the industrialists aboard the Titanic argue over the seating chart.

    Unless and until we decide to make space function for us, the budget/political ice burg remains.

  • Anne Spudis

    As in Iceberg.

  • Mike Snyder

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 12th, 2010 at 10:55 am

    This is perhaps your most ridiculous post ever….and that is saying something. I have never “blamed” you or anyone for anything.

    My credibility far exceeds yours I would bet and some simple research on your part would likely prove that, although surely you would never acknowledge that. But that is ok too. I understand you have a bubble world here on this site and if you are not admonishing people and inflating your own self-importance you likely will feel incomplete. Too bad most of it is wrong.

    Again, you make large statements with nothing to back up those claims and usually miss the target in the process.

  • libs0n

    Dennis Berube,

    Constellation wasn’t doing anything. The cost to develop Constellation pushed back full operations into two decades from now. The cost of operations was greater than NASA’s budget, therefore nothing would be able to be accomplished.

    Constellation was a dead end. The intent of Constellation was irrelevant; it could not deliver on any modicum of its intent. That is why it was canceled, that is why so many were against it.

    You either accept this truth, or continue deluding yourself.

    Anyone who wants to see any type of progress occur, can only see that progress occur through the death of Constellation.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Sadly, the bits I liked most, new spacesuits and a lander were cancelled first.

  • Anne Spudis

    libs0n wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 8:42 am [Constellation was a dead end. The intent of Constellation was irrelevant; it could not deliver on any modicum of its intent. That is why it was canceled, that is why so many were against it.]

    The intent of the Vision is not irrelevant. The architecture (Constellation) chosen (Ares) put the Vision out of reach.

    The Vision specifically said the transport program chosen should be affordable. That directive was ignored.

    The reason so many were against the Vision is it was going to the Moon first to learn how to use space resources to make human space exploration viable and that “detour” isn’t what the Mars science group running NASA wants.

    The reason so many find the Constellation architecture such an affront is that it took a Vision that was the best thing that could have happened to NASA and ignored it to focus solely on an overkill rocket design.

    The Mars “search for life” and Griffin “Ares” marriage was a convenient union for both because it pushed human return to the Moon and Mars into the wings and shuttle would be wound down.

    They were each betting that they’d prevail: A rocket believed too big to kill vs the never ending “search for life” mantra that keeps academic coffers filled and human space flight unaffordable.

    And again, here we sit.

  • Mike Snyder

    “The reason so many find the Constellation architecture such an affront is that it took a Vision that was the best thing that could have happened to NASA and ignored it to focus solely on an overkill rocket design.”

    Spot on Anne. Spot on.

  • Bennett

    “The reason so many find the Constellation architecture such an affront is that it took a Vision that was the best thing that could have happened to NASA and ignored it to focus solely on an overkill rocket design.”

    Amen to that.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 4:03 am

    Remember, Ron, that Congress controls the purse strings. If they tell NASA to put Orion on an existing rocket (as Lockheed-Martin has said they can) for the LEO mission, and provides the necessary funds, NASA has to comply. No ifs, ands, or buts. I would imagine that studies have already been done in this regard.

    Yes, and the most recent study is Ares I/Orion (i.e. Constellation). That turned out well…

    You put a lot of “if’s” in your answer, but the question still remains. If no commercial company decides to invest their money up front to “prove” they can do commercial crew, then how will NASA get crew to/from the ISS without Russia?

    And remember, NASA has not fielded a new crewed spacecraft since Shuttle, so it’s not like they have a lot of current talent to rely upon. Lockheed Martin said that it could deliver an Orion-based crew rescue vehicle for the ISS for as little as $4.5 billion, but that is a down only, not up. Also remember that the only commercial launch vehicle for Orion would be Delta IV Heavy, but that will need $1.3B to man-rate, and 4.5 years (which I think should be done anyways), but Congress has not allocated any money for this in their budget so far.

    So you Matt Wiser, get to decide how the ISS will get it’s crew in 2016 – how will you do it, and how much will it cost (round numbers are OK)?

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 6:48 am

    This is nothing against you, but at one time I was called stupid here.

    The name of the blog is “Space Politics”, so all I can say is that you shouldn’t be surprised when your toes get stepped on. Or, as I’m sure your sailing club would say, “If you can’t stand the waves, you shouldn’t be out on the ocean.” ;-)

    Go to the NASA page on Constellation, or any number of other pages relating to the program and there you will see, NASA was looking at sending Constellation on to Mars after the Moon. Now am I reading this wrong?

    Dennis, I’ve seen the video’s, and there is a big difference between marketing videos and what is actually being funded and built. If you want to believe the marketing hype, that’s fine, but don’t state it as fact, otherwise you’ll continue to be challenged. Wikipedia is a good place to get a simple overview and background.

    I dont understand Obamas cancellation of the program when he wants Mars as a destination.

    Obama cancelled Constellation because it was not achieving it’s goals – it was over budget and over schedule. Your tax dollars were being wasted.

    Somewhere I even read how the Altairs lander would have been modified to enter Mars atmosphere

    No, it can’t. But if you think you read it, then post the link from the article, and then we can all discuss it. Otherwise maybe you’re remembering it wrong, and that’s not a good basis for discussion.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Well surely an Altair could evolve into a Mars lander. It could share some subsystems. But Dennis may be thinking of a plan to use a Mars ascent stage as a monolithic moon lander as a dress rehearsal mission.

  • Coastal Ron

    Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 12:10 pm

    It could share some subsystems.

    Internally, sure, just like many internal spacecraft systems could be shared with other spacecraft (electrical busses, environmental systems, etc.).

    But a lander designed for a 1/6 gravity airless satellite is not going to be morphed into a lander for a 1/3 gravity atmospheric one – stresses alone would dictate completely different designs. The cup holders could be the same, however… ;-)

  • Martijn Meijering

    Sure, and a Mars ascent stage would be seriously overdesigned for moon missions. But an evolutionary development orbital transfer craft -> Moon lander -> Mars lander seems wise to me.

  • brobof

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 6:48 am

    Dennis Take a look at the last Design Reference Architecture for a Mars Landing. You will note that there are images of four distinct lander/ ascender craft, only one which bears any resemblance to Altair. Furthermore I would suggest that any plan involving 20 to 30 year old technology is doomed to failure. That being the gap between America being able to afford a Cx style MoonBase and then being able to afford a DRA style Mars Mission. I would add that, like any sensible transportation infrastructure, form follows function. Thus a Moon Lander will be specialised to land on the Moon and a Mars Lander will not. The complexities of a Moon Landing are trivial compared to getting any large payload down to the Martian Surface. For a nautical analogy would you go ocean racing in a narrow boat or take a three master up the Grand Union Canal?

    http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090012109_2009010520.pdf
    (Page 17 refers.)

  • Major Tom

    “Inaccurate. You’re simply wrong.”

    Based on what? I’ve provided links in this thread to three primary sources on the NASA history website that show that the decision to go to the Moon was made weeks and days before the Freedom 7 flight. I provided a fourth primary source on another thread.

    Where are your sources and links showing otherwise?

    “Consistently doo.”

    Keep the scatology to yourself.

    “And it’s hilarious for you to continue to pursue this and other avenues.”

    I’m not pursuing anything. You’re the one who keeps claiming that the primary sources I cited are wrong and then providing no evidence, verifiable or otherwise, to the contrary.

    Where are your sources and links?

    “Get a library card, Tom.”

    Let’s see your citations. What books (titles and authors) have you read that claim that the Freedom 7 flight enabled the decision to go to the Moon? On what page(s) did they make this claim? And what source(s) were they citing?

    “Posted previously and repeatedly.”

    When? Where? In which threads and in which posts?

    “Easily sourced…”

    If your false statements are so “easily sourced”, then it should be no problem for you to provide sources and links.

    “… as well and part of the basic historical knowledge base for space advocates.”

    What “space advocates” are in agreement with you? No one on this thread is supporting your false statements. In fact, other posters besides me are criticizing your lack of “basic historical knowledge.”

    “Keeps the ‘major’ in the ‘minor’ leagues with respect to advocacy opinion from this writer’s POV.”

    No one is going to care about your point-of-view if you don’t produce sources to support your false statements.

    “Repeatedly noting the incorrect L/D for Friendship 7″

    I never referenced Friendship 7’s lift-over-drag ratio. This discussion has never been about the engineering details of that capsule.

    And your false statement was about the timing of the Freedom 7 flight with respect to the timing of the decision to go to the Moon, not Friendship 7 (Glenn’s flight), which happened even later.

    Take your meds. You can’t even follow your own train of thought.

    “your own effort to equate a successful commercial cargo flight w/a manned space flight.”

    When and where did I do that?

    I have repeatedly pointed out that Dragon is scheduled to demonstrate uncrewed flights next month while NASA’s in-house alternative has no scheduled flight, flight hardware, or even a launch vehicle. But just because I’m pointing out that Orion is years behind Dragon doesn’t mean that that I equate an uncrewed flight test with no life support or abort system to a crewed flight test.

    Only an idiot who equates robotic lunar missions with human lunar missions would make such an argument.

    Sigh…

  • Coastal Ron

    Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    But an evolutionary development orbital transfer craft -> Moon lander -> Mars lander seems wise to me.

    Isn’t that kind of like saying the Shuttle evolved from a Apollo CM? Sure, from an overall technical & knowledge standpoint, but they didn’t take the Apollo CM blueprints and mark them up to get a Shuttle orbiter. Nor did they use the Shuttle orbiter drawings as a starting point for Orion. We’re talking about knowledge evolution, not vehicle evolution.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Well, at least from a knowledge standpoint, but I’d be hoping for more. And I think you could expect much more if you deliberately sought it. I don’t think that Altair as it was envisaged by NASA was necessarily a good way to do that.

  • Coastal Ron

    Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    I don’t think that Altair as it was envisaged by NASA was necessarily a good way to do that.

    The NASA Altair (Apollo LM on steroids) is a pretty dumb design – it showed no imagination, or consideration for actual use (astronauts had to climb up/down 20ft of hand-holds).

    ULA has proposed a lander built on their ACES (Advance Common Evolved Stage) family, and which lands horizontally with detachable cargo pods. A much smarter design overall, and one that lends itself to just about any airless environment. Smart designs exist – NASA just needs to ask.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Yeah, I’m a big fan of horizontal landers. NASA actually did a number of studies on them, back when they thought their landers would have to fit inside a Shuttle payload bay.

  • DCSCA

    Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 2:10 pm <- Yeah, that a subset of vehicle design worth exploiting. In an ideal world, would be great to have 'space planes' and 'spacecraft' providing redundant access.

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 1:34 pm <- Verified and repeatedly posted. You just don't get it. This is all a matter of public record, easily sourced from presidential libraries, personal memoirs, etc. Stop embarrassing yourself. Read up on the Webb-MacNamara report and get a library card, Tom.

    "I have repeatedly pointed out that Dragon is scheduled to demonstrate uncrewed flights next month while NASA’s in-house alternative has no scheduled flight, flight hardware, or even a launch vehicle." <- Another 'promise of things to come' press release. Good grief. Still no credibility. Stop talking, start flying. The world awaits your success as does the space community, the investor class and skeptics in Congress. If the crew lives to tell the tale, the loan guarantees and subidies will unfold. It always comes back to this- stop talking, start flying. Get somebody up and down safely or up around and down safely.

  • Aggelos

    “ULA has proposed a lander built on their ACES (Advance Common Evolved Stage) family, and which lands horizontally with detachable cargo pods. A much smarter design overall, and one that lends itself to just about any airless environment.”

    thats good for cargo..with no spaecial expensive moon crane required..

    but humans it maybe better to land in small lander like apollo vertical..
    bu small,,after alot of cargo is on the surface..

    not together.. robotics teleoperation..thats he key..
    so a very small crrewed lander it will be needed in the end,,and not altair monster..

  • Coastal Ron

    Aggelos wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    but humans it maybe better to land in small lander like apollo vertical..
    bu small,,after alot of cargo is on the surface..

    The ULA ACES lander also includes a crew version – you should look at their proposal, which is very detailed. Do a search for:

    “Affordable Exploration Architecture 2009″

    Their design can also be used as a lunar surface taxi, since it’s refuel-able (unlike Altair), so you’re building up usable assets as you land more crew. It’s pretty elegant.

    Again, I’m sure there are other good ideas out there, but NASA was not looking for them with Constellation.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    So that would be, no, you can’t provide any documentation for your claims.

    It’s funny, you could easily prove your point to everyone if you just provided a couple of links to your so-called “proof”, but instead you’ll spend endless hours explaining why you don’t have to explain – you’re spending an awful amount of time digging yourself into this hole.

    The general space community, as well as the investor class, awaits your proof! ;-)

  • Major Tom

    “Verified… This is all a matter of public record, easily sourced from presidential libraries, personal memoirs, etc.”

    Sounds great. Provide links to these suppossed sources in the public record, to these claimed documents in Presidential libraries, and to these personal memoirs. Or just quote and cite the documents (titles, authors, page numbers) if they’re not available online.

    I’ve provided links to four primary sources in the NASA history archive.

    Where are your sources and links?

    “and repeatedly posted”

    Where and when? Where did you cite public records, documents in Presidential libraries, and personal memoirs? On this website? In which threads? In which posts?

    “Read up on the Webb-MacNamara report”

    It’s McNamara, genius, not MacNamara.

    And the Webb-McNamara agreement apportioned responsibilities for large liquid and solid rocket development between NASA and the Defense Department. An inter-agency agreement that the Defense Department wasn’t going to build the Saturn boosters has no relevance to the timing of the Freedom 7 flight relative to the decision to go to the Moon.

    “You just don’t get it… Stop embarrassing yourself… get a library card, Tom.”

    This from the poster who has failed to cite one relevant, verifiable source over multiple threads?

    The same poster who doesn’t even know the proper spelling of the name of the historical figure in the one non-relevant source he’s cited?

    The same poster who can’t read a calendar from 1961 and who conflates robotic missions with human missions?

    Please…

    “Another ‘promise of things to come’ press release.”

    You have two choices:

    A) A capsule with an uncrewed orbital demonstration flight next month on a launch vehicle that’s already flown successfully to orbit, or

    B) A capsule with no scheduled flights (uncrewed or crewed, suborbital or orbital), no flight hardware, and no launch vehicle.

    Only an idiot would pick B.

    For the umpteenth time, answer the questions I’ve posed to you repeatedly:

    When is Orion scheduled to fly?

    Will it be crewed or uncrewed?

    Will it be suborbital? Orbital?

    Where’s the flight hardware?

    What’s the launch vehicle?

    These are simple questions. I’ve answered them for Dragon. Why can’t you answer them for Orion?

    Tick-tock, tick-tock… Until you can answer these questions, the world, the space community, skeptics in Congress and the investor class await your ability to demonstrate one ounce of credibility.

    Yawn…

  • Bennett

    For what it’s worth, I’ve been following this MT-DCSCA debate (with Coastal Ron as a side judge) and I agree with MT.

    DCSCA: You have NEVER shown links or anything to back up your statements. Everyone who reads this blog knows it, so put up or…

  • Matt Wiser

    Ron, remember that in politics, nothing is certain until the bill is passed and signed into law. I”m for the Senate Bill, as it’s the best possible compromise between the commercial folks and those of us who supported Constellation (we get Orion and Heavy-Lift). Check the Orlando Sentinel’s online edition: they have a story that seems to indicate that the DIRECT guys may have won over NASA, though nothing’s finalized. But, and this is a big but, if a congresscritter proposes an amendment to the NASA bill, mandating a government LEO vehicle until the commercial sector is ready to assume that mission,providing funds for that role, and it’s passed, NASA has to comply. Like it or not. DOD has the same problem with systems or programs they don’t want, but Congress insists on procurement (C-17, for example).

    And I’m not dissing on-orbit refueling, as it does have potential to reduce costs, gets the commercial sector more involved, and enables multiple users besides NASA (other space agencies, DOD, commercial entities, etc.), but it needs to be validated, tested, and proven to be safe, especially if the vehicle being refueled is a human-operated one. The arguments I posted above will no doubt come up again when the subject does come before Congress-if not in next year’s budget-but it will come up. And proponents need to be ready for such questioning.

  • brobof

    Bennett wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
    Debate?
    You can’t debate with someone who has no grasp of the facts and little grasp of reality. Debating with trolls is a contradiction in terms as trolls only post in a vague hope that someone will rise to de bait.
    Generally one can tell within a few posts whether or not a contributor to the thread is worth engaging in reasoned discourse. Of course sometimes trolls can be amusing as they promote their idée fixe. Sometimes.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 2:12 am

    Ron, remember that in politics, nothing is certain until the bill is passed and signed into law.

    Yes, that has always been a given. Let’s move on to the question I asked, which gets down to choices – and you get to make them:

    If commercial space decides that the crew market ROI is not profitable without NASA involvement/money up front (like Boeing has stated), then how will crew get to/from the ISS after 2015 (end of current Soyuz contract).

    Are you content to let the status quo (i.e. Russia only) take care of getting our people to/from the ISS?

    Or, explain your vision of how the ISS will be supplied with crew after the end of the current 2015 Soyuz contract. Provide some round budget numbers if you can (or I can cost it out for you later).

    What’s the plan?

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 2:12 am

    But, and this is a big but, if a congresscritter proposes an amendment to the NASA bill, mandating a government LEO vehicle until the commercial sector is ready to assume that mission,providing funds for that role, and it’s passed, NASA has to comply.

    Congress can direct NASA to build anti-gravity machines, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll ever succeed in doing it.

    And Congress does hold the purse strings, but look how well that turned out for Constellation. Maybe you think they will fully fund some new NASA launcher or crew program, but history is not on your side.

  • DCSCA

    Bennett wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 7:32 pm <- Wrong. Posted and reposted. This is all a matter of public record. For the uneducated, it's fairly easy, though time consuming, to look up. Start w/presidential libraries, the Webb-MacNamara report and the memoirs of those actually there who participated in the decisions. It's all a matter or public record and base knowledge for any genuine space enthsuasts. Good grief.

  • DCSCA

    @Bennett, here’s a few easy sources, even for you: Neufeld’s book, ‘Von Braun'; Thompson’s book, ‘Light This Candle’ Burrows’ ‘This New Ocean’ McDougall’s ‘Heavens and the Earth’ and, of course the JFK library archives/the LBJ library archives along with Kraft & Kranz’s memoirs, to name just a few. This is all a matter of public record for you to plow through. So yes– ‘shut-up.’ Hard cheese, ol’boy.

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 6:05 pm <- inaccurate. You're quite minor league and your knowledge base of elemental spaceflight history continue to amuse-(your Friendship 7 errors still bring chuckles around the office.) But the errors have significantly marginalized your POV. Get a library card, Tom.

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 5:36 pm <- Wrong. It's all a matter of public record posted and reposted. Not claims, facts, Ron. you and Tom can go in on a library card together. Whether you want to accept the comments and perspectives of those who actually made the decisions in the context of the times they were made remains to be seen.

  • common sense

    @ Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    “Sure, and a Mars ascent stage would be seriously overdesigned for moon missions. But an evolutionary development orbital transfer craft -> Moon lander -> Mars lander seems wise to me.”

    Did not see that before. The evolution from a Moon lander to a Mars lander would not make a lot of sense – if I got your statement right. One word: Atmosphere.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 7:09 pm

    It’s all a matter of public record posted and reposted.

    I’ve never seen the posts, nor has anyone else – no one has come to your defense on this, nor have you been able to tell us what blog topic your information was posted at.

    Using the maxim “trust, be verify”, you had trust, but you lost it because you can’t be verified, and in fact you refuse to verify your claims.

    Whether you want to accept the comments and perspectives of those who actually made the decisions in the context of the times they were made remains to be seen.

    How can we even consider them when you don’t even provide the references so we can read what they said in their original context? You picking and choosing the text your want to present is OK for you, but if you want to convince anyone of their validity for a certain point of view, then the context of the quote has to be considered – you don’t give us that chance, so therefore you’re hiding something…

    The other thing to point out is that people of the past lived in the past, and their relevance to today can only be taken in context to history, not the future. Would Henry Ford have embraced OEM outsourcing, or Alfred Nobel have embraced the atomic bomb? Who knows? You can’t pluck people out of the past and use them for justifying the world we live in.

  • DCSCA

    Major Tom wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 6:05 pm <– You don't seem to comprehend. You don't pose questions. Your positions, comments 'questions and queries' have been rendered irrelevant by your own posting. Of course, you do not merit being labelled a 'troll.' But credibility has been shown to be minimal.

  • DCSCA

    Anne Spudis wrote @ September 13th, 2010 at 8:21 am <- LOL except he has no argument to make as the historical context is all a matter or public record. Sad. He just doesn't read very well. Must be a 20-something. Actually, the analogy he brought to my mind was the one about the flight crew on that passenger jet about 35 years ago that fiddled with, almost obsessively, a faulty 3-cent landing gear light bulb and let their jet spiral down and crash into the Everglades.

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 7:36 pm <- Well, they were. cant help it if you missed them. Sad.

  • someguy

    DCSCA wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
    DCSCA wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    DSCSA, if you are going to make a point, it is up to you to provide your specific source alongside your point, not say “it’s out there somewhere” or “for the uneducated, it’s fairly easy, though time consuming, to look up” and expect that to be adequate.

    Whether or not anyone thinks Major Tom is correct in his points, at least he is providing his sources inline with his points, including ones directly from NASA. You are not doing this. That is the problem.

    You can’t expect everyone else to go searching for where you got your points. No one is going to spend that time, nor is it their responsibility. It is your responsibility to show the specific source of a point you are making. No one else’s.

  • DCSCA

    someguy wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 8:33 pm <- They were posted repeatedly and in lengthy posts. The material is all a matter of public record. The individual challenging it has minimal crediblity..

  • DCSCA

    @Bennett- 4/14/61. JFK mulled over whether to go or not. Asks LBJ for input as head of Space Council. 4/19 directs LBJ to make overall survey of ‘where we stand in space’- Announces to press 4/20. Johnson given ‘carte blanche’ to set a goal. Doubts LBJ harbored about going to the moon, evaporated after the successful flight of Freedom 7 (not Friendship 7, Tom) ended them. But not everyone was aboard on making an affirmative decision. The Saturday after Shepard’s successful flight, Webb & MacNamara exchanged reports prepared at LBJ’s request. The VP told the participants to craft a persuasive rationale for going to the moon. (Two months earlier, JFK rejected a budget increase of $182.5 million for NASA.) JFK first saw the report on May 8 just after he awarded Shepard his medal and had told him to his face they were ‘thinking about’ the moon commitment but no final firm decision to the commitment had been made. Two days later, May 10, JFK ratified the recommendations in the report w/his senior advisors. So glad you’ve bothered to discover the MacNamara-Webb report. It indicate you do have the capacity to learn. As Kraft commented in 2004, Shepard’s successful flight was the ‘singular event’ that prompted JFK to challenge the technical and scientific communities to land men on the moon and bring them back safely to earth. ,- sources, MacDougall, Burrows, Thompson, Kraft, Kranz… etc…. This is all a matter of public record. Good grief.

  • DCSCA

    @MajorTom: Again hese are YOUR assertions:
    a. Paul Krugman did not win a Nobel Prize. <-Wrong.
    b. The moon was abandoned in '72. <-Wrong. (Attempting to redefine 'abandoned' to fit your assertion post-posting doesn't work, Tom.
    c. Friendship 7 was launched May 5, 1961. <-Just plain wrong ( oh yes, L/D as in launch date, Tom).
    d. The success/failure of Freedom 7 played no part in the final decision to go for the moon. <-Wrong. (and it's spelled Shepard, not Shepherd, as opposed to my typo on MacNamara.)

    All you assertions corrected by this writer from a recommended variety of sources. Sources including presidential libraries, memoirs etc., with decisions referenced in the context of the times they were made. Get a library card, Tom.

    But this is figuratively and literally old history. We know you're an evangelical proponent of commercial space. We know you're a SpaceX apologist– or cheerleader– depending on your POV. Rest assured if SpaceX ever gets someone up around and down safely, the crowds will cheer with you. Until that day, the world, the space community, skeptics in Congress and in the investor class await your success.

  • DCSCA

    @CoastalRon- You assertion that a successful cargo-flight has some equivalance w/a manned flight doesn’t do much to enhance your mind set, either. It’s quaint spin and seen as such but hardly an honest assessment. Your credibility remains worthy od comment w/t writer, albeit wrong-headed at times for the sake of argument. Tom much less so, and by his own doing. One would expect more. But we probably agree that a manitaining a manned space effort is good for the nation. Best you and Tom just stop talking and start flying. Get some one up around and down safely or up and down safely and you’ll be amazed at how subsidies and loan guarantees will materialize. Unfortunately for the commercial sector, (as opposed to the government) it has really come down to: “No Buck Rogers, no bucks.”

  • DCSCA

    someguy wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 8:33 pm <- Bear in mind, 1+1=2. For Tom, more often than not of late, 1+1=11.

  • Matt Wiser

    Ron, I’m just pointing out that if Congress directs NASA to put Orion on an EELV and appropriates the necessary funds, they have to do it. No choice in the matter. Same thing with the AF and the C-17. The AF doesn’t want any more, but they keep getting appropriated, and they have to buy them. Micromanagement by Congress is not a new thing, and every Federal Agency has to put up with it, some more than others.

    Space entirely commerical? Try selling that to Congress. Incidentally, there are two Congresscritters one can expect to vote against any NASA bill, regardless of how good it is: Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) (Liberal with a capital L) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), or “Doctor No”. (votes against anything not in the Constitution-NASA’s not mentioned, so he votes against it)

  • DCSCA

    @Wiser “Space entirely commerical?” <- Never happen.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 14th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    I’m just pointing out that if Congress directs NASA to put Orion on an EELV and appropriates the necessary funds, they have to do it.

    There are three “if’s” in that statement:

    1. Congress directs NASA to use an EELV – No current legislation has this, and it being in Senator Shelby’s jurisdiction, you would think he would be the sponsor.

    2. Congress directs NASA to finish the Orion MPCV for crew operations, not just lifeboat – IF Delta IV Heavy is the launcher, then Orion can finally stop being changed, so it would be build-able. As an LEO taxi, however, Orion is really expensive, both in capsule cost & launcher costs (D-IVH is $300M/flight).

    3. Congress appropriates the necessary funds – So far, Constellation was seriously shortchanged by Congress and Bush, so the track record is not good. On top of that, the Senate Bill was only allocating $4.1B vs the $5.9B Griffin last asked for. And Griffin’s budget only supported a 2017 operational date, so the $1.8B shortfall is not going to speed things up.

    Conclusion:

    Based on your Congressional wishlist, it looks like we’re going to be using the Russians for the ISS taxi duties for a couple extra years. Is this what you really want??

    Also, your government solution is one accident away from program shutdown, just like Challenger/Columbia – it’s not redundant. Is that what you really want???

    If you don’t want your tax dollars going overseas, and you want redundant access to space, then you better start advocating for a commercial solution.

    Space entirely commerical?

    It works for the DOD – industry builds the stuff, and the government pilots fly them. Some of the same aircraft types are sold to commercial firms to fly too, and no one raises any issues with that.

    What Congress is crying about is pork, not that Boeing can’t be trusted to build a 60’s era capsule.

    there are two Congresscritters one can expect to vote against any NASA bill

    Out of 435 Representatives, I’m sure there are even more. Maybe you didn’t know this, but only a 218 need to vote “Yes”… ;-)

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