NASA, Other

Boeing, Space Adventures, and the commercial crew debate

At a press conference yesterday, Boeing and Space Adventures announced an agreement where Space Adventures will market seats on Boeing’s planned CST-100 commercial crew capsule. The announcement comes, of course, in the midst of a debate on Capitol Hill about NASA’s future direction, including how much agency funding should be devoted to commercial crew development efforts. (During the nearly 90-minute press conference, someone did ask whether the press conference was timed to influence the debate; Boeing’s John Elbon, vice president anad manager of the company’s commercial crew transportation program, said the timing was coincidental “although maybe it will turn out to be a fortuitous situation.”)

Elbon, though, did acknowledge that commercial crew funding from NASA was essential to the development of the CST-100. “If we had to do this with Boeing investment only,” he said, “we wouldn’t be able to close the business case.” NASA’s proposed program aids their business case both by providing funding to support vehicle development as well as a customer base in the form of transporting NASA astronaut crews to and from the ISS, he said. Elbon added that if commercial crew is funded at the much lower level in the House bill that the Senate version or the administration’s original proposal, it wasn’t a case of closing the business plan but instead delaying their schedule, which currently calls for the CST-100 to be ready for service in 2015.

However, both Elbon and Space Adventures chairman Eric Anderson rejected the argument that, because Boeing’s business plan required government funding, the program was thus somehow not commercial. “It becomes a very good deal for the US taxpayer” by having multiple customer bases that spread out the development and operational costs of such a system, Anderson said, later citing historical examples such as airmail supporting the early aviation industry. “I think the argument that if it’s not purely funded and purely financed by private industry that there’s no market, I think that is, with all due respect, hogwash.”

While not explicitly saying as much, Elbon in his comments all but endorsed the Senate’s version of a NASA authorization bill with what he called “a very balanced approach to the exploration program.” That includes not just commercial crew funding but also continued work on Orion for crewed missions beyond Earth orbit as well as immediate work on a heavy-lift launch vehicle. “We don’t see a lot of new technology on the horizon that would make that development [of an HLV] faster or less expensive.” All of these items, of course, are in the Senate’s version of the bill, but not all are in the House version.

138 comments to Boeing, Space Adventures, and the commercial crew debate

  • common sense

    “While not explicitly saying as much, Elbon in his comments all but endorsed the Senate’s version of a NASA authorization bill with what he called “a very balanced approach to the exploration program.” That includes not just commercial crew funding but also continued work on Orion for crewed missions beyond Earth orbit as well as immediate work on a heavy-lift launch vehicle. “We don’t see a lot of new technology on the horizon that would make that development [of an HLV] faster or less expensive.” All of these items, of course, are in the Senate’s version of the bill, but not all are in the House version. ”

    Hmm. So Boeing is developing the Ares-I 2nd stage for Orion. Could it be they want to have the cake…?

    Just wondering. Oh well…

  • amightywind

    The future of HSF should not consist of millionaires launching millionaires to the ISS. The same goes for the recalcitrant Ruskies. Boeing and Bigelow should fulfill their vision of a small space station and launch passengers to it. ISS must be deorbited!

  • Ferris Valyn

    I say we should de-orbit the moon, along with ISS.

  • MrEarl

    Why must the ISS be deorbited?

  • amightywind

    Why must the ISS be deorbited?

    It is a fiscal albatross. It is grossly oversized for the mission. The vast wealth wasted on it could be used to fund a new HSF effort in an era of declining budgets.

  • Vladislaw

    So … stopping constellation when we have already invested 10 billion into is it stupid, but deorbiting the ISS after 100 billion has been invested and it is finally finished is brilliant?

    go back to eating your captain crunch.

  • googaw

    “I think the argument that if it’s not purely funded and purely financed by private industry that there’s no market, I think that is, with all due respect, hogwash.”

    Straw man alert! The argument goes in the other direction: there is little or no private market, therefore the government should not be funding it based on the justification that it is “commercial” or that there will be substantial cost-sharing with private customers or that it will give rise to some grand new space industry. This “commercial” HSF is just a different (and perhaps not very good) way to do government contracting. This kind of “marketing deal” is completely empty (how much money has actually changed hands? You’d be foolish not to guess $0). The timing is hardly coincidental. This faux-market activity is a good way to get naive space fans who think of themselves as libertarians to nevertheless write in support of continued government funding for their beloved astronauts — funding that will utterly dominant any little drops they might get from any actual private customers.

  • Now this is interesting . . .

    http://blog.al.com/space-news/2010/09/crunch_time_for_nasa_budget_as.html

    Instead, U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, confirms there has been pressure for the House to simply adopt the Senate plan.

    “There is behind-the-scenes lobbying by special interest groups to force a vote on the Senate NASA authorization bill in the House, with no chance to offer or vote on amendments,” Aderholt said Wednesday in a statement. “While I appreciate some aspects of the Senate authorization bill, the House of Representatives deserves a vote on its own committee bill, and I hope Democrat House leadership schedules that soon.”

    and

    In e-mail correspondence with The Times this week, [Michael] Griffin further spelled out why he thinks Huntsville should be leery of the Senate bill.

    The Senate requires NASA to develop the core stage of the heavy-lift rocket first and add an upper stage later, Griffin said. Given federal budget realities, Griffin said, that really means no upper stage.

  • googaw . . .

    Do you remember Quisp & Quake? Same cereal, same manufacturer, different marketing slogans.

    Television commercials for the two cereals pitted kids who supported Quisp against those who favored Quake, the brilliant part of this strategy being that while the two products were represented by contending media figures marketed to the cereal eating populace as being in opposition to one another, both were actually owned and manufactured by a single corporate interest,

    http://www.wastedspace.com/blog/quisp/index.html

    Rather like EELV versus SDLV, as both are manufactured mostly by the same companies.

  • Vladislaw

    googaw wrote:

    “there is little or no private market, ….. faux-market activity is a good way to get naive space fans who think of themselves as libertarians to nevertheless write in support of continued government funding for their beloved astronauts — funding that will utterly dominant any little drops they might get from any actual private customers.”

    I forget, how many people signed up with the russians to try and get a seat to the ISS but with the VERY limited amount of spaces available only a very small handful have allowed to go.

    Oh and how many have already signed up with virgin galactic hundreds? ya i guess you’re right .. it is all fake.

  • googaw

    Bill, that is hilarious. :-)

  • googaw

    Vladislaw, the amount of government funding for HSF during years tourists have flown has dwarfed the amount of revenue from the tourists by well over 200:1 (that’s two hundred to one).

  • Ferris Valyn

    Vlad – thats the fiscal responsibility that windy is always going on about

  • FWIW, I believe LEO tourism (including LEO sporting events) is a huge potential market.

    That said, ISS is a truly lousy venue for conducting such activities, in part because the scientists will complain endlessly.

    We need co-orbiting Bigelow habitats, sooner rather than later.

  • googaw

    And, BTW, the “limited space” stuff is economically illiterate nonsense. If it was profitable to build more rockets and capsules to launch tourists, we’d see the Russians adding Soyuz launches to do so in a blink of the eye. It’s only profitable, just barely, to launch a tourist if there was otherwise going to be an empty seat: a marginal cost of a marginal cost. Not only is the rocket development long since paid for, but the specific flight is already paid for and they’re just trying to fill the last seat. It’s like getting an airline ticket bargain by buying a seat at the last moment that was otherwise going to fly empty (that’s one of the reasons airline ticket price vary so much and so unpredictably).

    But an airline could never be anywhere close to profitable if it only sold such tickets. It first has to sell most of the seats at full price. If you are justifying a capital expenditure you have to make it profitable in terms of the full costs, not the marginal costs, much less the marginal costs of marginal costs as with the Soyuz spare seats. That an occasional Soyuz spare seat gets sold to a tourist at bargain-basement discounts is extremely poor evidence of any private market for orbital tourism that can actually contribute substantially to the funding of HSF.

  • “The future of HSF should not consist of millionaires launching millionaires to the ISS.”

    It’s not. That’s the status quo and the situation as it will be if we put no investment into commercial.

    “Boeing and Bigelow should fulfill their vision of a small space station and launch passengers to it.”

    I certainly hope so.

    “ISS must be deorbited!”

    Why do people raise this as a possibility as if we actually own the ISS? The Russians, Europeans, and Japanese own significant portions of the space station. And while there’s little they can do to stop us from dropping our parts into the ocean, they’ve already plotted their strategies to keep their parts flying. The Russians, at the very least, are almost certain to keep their components flying and have plans for new modules in the event of a de-orbit of the American portion.

    Why does this matter? With beyond LEO missions almost a decade away no matter what program we choose, the Russian (and possibly European and Japanese) remnants of the ISS and the Bigelow station would be literally the only game in town in space for nearly a decade under almost every proposal on the table including your beloved Constellation. Mighty, are you a secret schill for private spaceflight? Or are you working for the Russians? Both, maybe?

  • Robert G. Oler

    googaw wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 3:11 pm

    you have just in a round about way talked about the theory behind the airmail contract.

    It is important to realize about the airmail contract that the airmail subsidy actually came in two parts. There was a fee for flying the mail…but there also was a subsidy for making the airplanes “airmail” capable…and just to be sure about which airplanes we were talking about the “airmail capable” part was a size factor that was designed to push the airlines to fly larger equipment…that subsidy existed even if one only “flew” the equipment and carried no mail.

    The airmail system itself was nothing new…the notion came from how the US government subsidized the Railroads on a per seat basis by having a “troop transport” subsidy…ie the US government could not only guy seats for the troops but also subsidized the RR’s for having the seats in the first place.

    This still exist in its modern form of the Civil reserve airline fleet and how the US government subsidizes certain carriers to fly larger airplanes then their routes would demand…so the added capability can be there when necessary (and the Afland/Iraq thing has proved the value of that).

    The notion (not yours) that space lift in this country (or the world) can go from a complete government only club to a free enterprise effort in one fell policy change is goofy.

    The Russians for instance would build more Soyuz and fly more tourist if the crew exchange program were happening on a closer spaced level…but the Russian government is dependent on western powers to pay for the crew exchange anyway…

    If the US gets back into the crew exchange program and does it on a private basis, it is completely possible that on the space station a first big change would be that the crew exchange rate would quicken…ie the same numbers of people but the crews swap in lesser intervals, which should free up seats for more “paying” passengers…the more there are the more there is going to be some real revenue and sort of “prime the pump” as they say.

    We are going to have to evolve into a market for space lift…its probably there but it wont come in one massive “rush” nor by some magical event (Look ma we have landed people on the Moon now everyone wants to go there)…

    But in my view it is in the national interest to create a private space market that eventually becomes the driver for space lift development.

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    “At a press conference yesterday, Boeing and Space Adventures announced an agreement where Space Adventures will market seats on Boeing’s planned CST-100 commercial crew capsule.” More press releases promising ‘things to come’ as the government’s fiscal year comes to a close at month’s end. Boeing also said it was going to need 2 million new employees over a decade (per Fox News) – most overseas hires. Yet Dreamliners are still not flying yet. All a comfort to stockholders.

  • Martijn Meijering

    googaw

    Googaw? Long time no see! I’m starting to wonder if I was right in guessing your favourite flavour of icecream and your favourite flavour of nuclear fuel.

  • Byeman

    DCSCA wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    What is your point? The same contractor supports your archaic method of spaceflight management.

    Stop talking and quit killing astronauts.

  • googaw

    Martijn, great to be back (though probably not for long, I’ve got a short idle spell). I didn’t see your guesses, but I have no strong or very highly informed opinions about nuclear fuel. As for ice cream, what flavors could there be besides infinite varieties of chocolate?

    Robert, the big difference is that moving troops and moving the mail were millennia-old activities of proven utility to millions of people. Moving mail and troops faster was an obvious way to improve these crucial services. No such high utility comes even remotely close to attaching to either astronauts or space tourists. It’s just astronauts for the sake of astronauts.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Googaw, I was guessing vanilla and thorium, but you’re probably not who I suspected you were…

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    FWIW, I believe LEO tourism (including LEO sporting events) is a huge potential market.

    That said, ISS is a truly lousy venue for conducting such activities, in part because the scientists will complain endlessly.

    We need co-orbiting Bigelow habitats, sooner rather than later.

    I don’t see tourism as the initial driver of the commercial crew market. Maybe a follow-on segment, but certainly not the initial reason Boeing and SpaceX get customers.

    As of 2016, if Windy doesn’t deorbit the ISS, there is a steady but small market for crew rotation. Since the launchers for the capsules are already being used for satellites, there is no reason to worry about flight rates.

    For the capsules, even though NASA may mandate new capsules for the first couple of flights, they are going to have to let companies re-fly them, otherwise the costs will not support the expenditures (and what do you do with the once-used capsules?).

    For SpaceX, that means they will have 14+ capsules from the COTS/CRS program that they can use for crew, meaning that they have tons of excess capacity, but all of it paid for. Boeing is not so lucky, but they might be able to count on more flights from their Bigelow and Space Adventures partnerships.

    All in all, I see this as a slow growing market until everyone realizes that crew to LEO is dependable. Because of that, companies can commit to developing LEO research stations, or businesses that are not apparent yet today (including tourism). If commercial starts in 2016, then I think 2020 is when the non-ISS market will really pick up and start to differentiate itself from what has come before (i.e. NASA dominated).

  • googaw

    BTW, we already have thriving markets for private space services. Indeed we have thriving private space commerce beyond LEO, and have had for decades, despite all this nonsense even the supposedly pro-“commerce” people spout about how NASA will “still be in charge” of “going beyond LEO”.

    But it has nothing to do with flying people in space for the sake of flying people in space. It merely does something very important to billions of people, communicating information all over the planet. Real space commerce, being of actual substantial use to the people who pay for it, is apparently too boring and too self-sufficient to merit interest. Also, it has that terrible property of being real rather than imaginary. And worst of all of being self-sufficient rather than requiring all this noisy lobbying to get one’s pet HSF project, whether “commercial” or otherwise, funded by politicians out of our apparently infinite stock of tax dollars and borrowed money.

  • Robert G. Oler

    googaw wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    it is what “good leadership ” makes of it.

    When Ike started the national highway system the conservative wing of the GOP was oppossed to it…but he sold it on the national defense aspects of it…bucking his own party

    Airmail is the same way…there was mail and airmail was (for the time) more expensive in an America where pennies counted.

    I think that this is going to happen on inertia actually…but a good leader (which we dont have now) could sale this…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Mark R. Whittington

    “When Ike started the national highway system the conservative wing of the GOP was oppossed to it…but he sold it on the national defense aspects of it…bucking his own party”

    Oh, I would love to see someone try to sell Obamaspace on the basis of national defense. That would be a hoot. Mind, the regime would have more cache about commercial space if it were to get behind Dana’s zero g zero taxes idea.

  • Vladislaw

    googaw wrote:

    “And, BTW, the “limited space” stuff is economically illiterate nonsense. If it was profitable to build more rockets and capsules to launch tourists, we’d see the Russians adding Soyuz launches to do so in a blink of the eye.”

    What happened when russia was considereing turning the mir into a commercial station?

    What is the production capacity of the soyuz factory?

    How much of the company is still funded by the russian government?

    Just as the US is struggling over funding and going commercial the same fights are taking place there. There isn’t any “blink of the eye” opportunities for commercial human space flight, it is a constant struggle over government versus private sector.

    NASA’s mandate change, under Reagan, to use more commercial is almost 30 years old and we are just getting commercial cargo, and you think someone could, like the wright brothers, just build a rocket and go and there would be no government intervention?

  • Vladislaw wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 5:39 pm

    There isn’t any “blink of the eye” opportunities for commercial human space flight . . .

    Agreed.

    And that is why the Senate approach makes so much sense.

    Fund commercial crew (at a level SpaceX says is acceptable, given SpaceX support for the Senate bill) but don’t bet the entire farm on it.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Nonsense. The Obama plan would not have bet the farm on SpaceX either. The Senate plan is betting nearly the whole farm on SDLV, which is a very bad bet.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Fund commercial crew (at a level SpaceX says is acceptable, given SpaceX support for the Senate bill) but don’t bet the entire farm on it.

    The problem is Bill, just having 1 won’t be enough. You have to have more than one (and really, 2 isn’t even enough).

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 5:30 pm

    Oh, I would love to see someone try to sell Obamaspace on the basis of national defense….

    that is an odd statement coming from someone who says that the Chinese are going to take over the Moon and we must have a 20 year 200 billion dollar program to go back there (for a few NASA employees).

    People like you opposed the Ike highway system…but selling the current space policy as one of national defense, depends entirely on how much one values a thriving aerospace industry that favors innovation and low cost but viable solutions to problems over what we have now.

    how weak the right wing (and your theories) are is that you think tax cuts can solve anything…2 dimensional thinking

    Robert G. Oler

  • googaw

    Robert, you can make a far better argument along those lines for GPS than for HSF. Something of great practical use in one crucial area (military navigation) often is discovered to be of practical use in another (civilian navigation). It turns out civilians as well as the military want better ways to solve the age-old problem of figuring out where they are. In this case since the broadcast goes to everybody anyway it costs little to extend it to civilian use, and almost all of that extra cost (making the consumer ground units) is borne by the customer rather than the government. Even a libertarian-leaning fellow such as myself can support a government-run utility in such a case. The analogies between freeways and airmail and government space operations of obvious, substantial, and economical utility like GPS succeed, but applied to HSF they fail miserably.

    BTW, as is usually the case with people advocating government-funded but civilian capital investments, you cherry-pick the handful of successes and ignore than far greater number of colossal failures. Since some of the most spectacular recent failures are in our own backyard — especially the Shuttle and ISS which were sold as supposedly going to revolutionize space commerce but ended up each being $100 billion+ ratholes that our children will somehow have to pay for — you’d think we here in this forum would have most learned this lesson. But apparently not.

    Alas for GPS, no sci-fi writer of the Golden Age ever wrote a riveting sci-fi yarn about navigation satellites. There was no glossy spread in Collier’s about it. It doesn’t involve our beloved astronauts and doesn’t get politicians excited so it doesn’t count.

  • Robert G. Oler

    googaw wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 6:06 pm

    The argument for GPS does not require leadership that has a vision…(in my view) it requires faith that the system can work. What the system does (ie navigation) is a self declared good thing (based on the Loran system).

    What it takes to sell the airmail contract or the Ike highway system (particularly to the troglodytes of your own party) is an ability to find a practical reason to hang the entire effort on…but to share (as Ike did) with the people the vision of what was possible.

    Nothing like the mobility of the Ike highway system existed at the time…but Ike was good at painting what could be, and the American people filled in the rest…hence we now have a thriving automobile industry (or did), overnight shipping etc.

    For human spaceflight it is going to take someone who has a vision of what it can be (maybe Bolden has that) and lynchpin it on a practical need today (which I think exist) and then let the American people to their degree of farsightness fill in the rest.

    A thriving launcher industry with decreasing cost is an amazing change agent. It is far more a change agent then a few NASA astronauts sitting on the Moon making PAO approved “historical” statements.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris Valyn wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    Bill: Fund commercial crew (at a level SpaceX says is acceptable, given SpaceX support for the Senate bill) but don’t bet the entire farm on it.

    Ferris: The problem is Bill, just having 1 won’t be enough. You have to have more than one (and really, 2 isn’t even enough).

    Bill: Unless there are other destinations besides ISS, there won’t be enough demand for more than 1 and if Congress pays for multiple commercial crew providers and non-NASA destinations do not materialize we will have subsidized surplus capability we cannot use.

    (Oink!, Oink!)

    And since US commercial crew won’t be cheaper than Soyuz, I say let’s test the non-NASA market using Soyuz.

    If the LEO research opportunities or tourism opportunities do close at Soyuz price points, then close the case using Soyuz, get those free flyers up there and encourage US NewSpace to beat Soyuz on price.

    In the meantime, NASA retains the capability to go beyond LEO using the most basic SLS configuation – 4 segment RSRM, NO tank stretch, and RL-10 upper stage with no J2X.

  • A thriving launcher industry with decreasing cost is an amazing change agent.

    Agreed. However, a NASA run allegedly “commercial” crew program (as proposd last February) won’t get us there.

    Private dollars buying private lift is what is needed to get us there.

  • googaw

    bet the whole farm on SDLV, which is a very bad bet.

    What are you Martijn, some kind of enemy of democracy? How can you be opposed to a rocket designed by the representatives of the people? The only thing better would be to have a design for an even bigger rocket drafted by our most esteemed Supreme Court Justices and voted on in a nation-wide referendum. Then declare it unconstitutional to fly on anything else. Stop being an engineering bigot and get with the political program.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Unless there are other destinations besides ISS, there won’t be enough demand for more than 1 and if Congress pays for multiple commercial crew providers and non-NASA destinations do not materialize we will have subsidized surplus capability we cannot use.

    How do you know what the total market demand is for ISS? Yes, we know the current NASA’s market demand, but that doesn’t mean thats the only user of ISS. There is a lot of potential for ISS, and we still have no clear idea of how the private sector might fully utilize ISS. The number of empty racks I’ve heard is quite large. Lets see what happens if we try and fill some of those racks.

    And since US commercial crew won’t be cheaper than Soyuz, I say let’s test the non-NASA market using Soyuz

    Because the non-NASA market doesn’t want to use Soyuz. Because the larger player, Bigelow, wants 2 US providers. AND, in some respects, we have tested the Non-NASA market.

    In the meantime, NASA retains the capability to go beyond LEO using the most basic SLS configuation – 4 segment RSRM, NO tank stretch, and RL-10 upper stage with no J2X.

    Except it won’t have the money to fly any missions.

  • googaw

    Sorry, Robert, no “vision” of any “leader” can make magic pixie dust that will turn bad ideas into good ones, much less turn grossly uneconomical endeavors into thriving private industries.

  • It is also not established that all “commercial” can provide sufficient up-mass logistical support to sustain ISS between 2015 and 2020.

    Not commercial crew, cargo. Especially large volume items.

    This is why a Jupiter 130 with Orion could necessary for full utilization of ISS, since a Jupiter 130 can loft cargo modules having far greater capacity than shuttle.

    = = =

    Technical arguments aside, what about the politics of all this?

    Is there ANYONE in the US Congress demanding that Obama’s original plan be adopted. Anyone?

    Maybe it is the “best” plan but if no one in Congress will vote for it, does it matter?

  • Robert G. Oler

    googaw wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    Sorry, Robert, no “vision” of any “leader” can make magic pixie dust that will turn bad ideas into good ones, much less turn grossly uneconomical endeavors into thriving private industries…

    I agree, but what neither you nor I know is if that description applies to human spaceflight.

    My position is that we have had 30-50 years (depending on how one counts) of cost to access space for humans going up, one barrier after another thrown into the mix for ANYTHING to access space that requires human intervention once there…

    and it is far time to give an other method of attack a try.

    I dont know if commercial crew carriage is the pivot point where prices start going down and access starts going up…but it can do no worse then 30 years of government efforts at 100-300 billion depending on how you count have done.

    I’m up for a change.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bill White wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 6:43 pm

    there is never going to be a Jupiter…or a SDV or another try at some sort of heavy lift short of a Delta IV heavy…the era of even talking about going beyond Earth orbit is closing…and will stay that way for a bit.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Martijn Meijering

    Stop being an engineering bigot and get with the political program.

    Yeah, I know. But I’m annoyed by the constant shilling by certain individuals who repeatedly trot out falsehoods and misleading statements that suggest they are trying to help commercial space when they are trying to preserve the status quo.

  • Dennis Berube

    Wow, I just read where Boeing is working for commercial crew to space and is advertising. One problem was that I thought the cost of spaceflight was to come down with commercial. Boeing says the cost will be in line with the Russian Soyuz, which last cost 40 mill. a seat. Now how is that lowering costs?????? I think commercial will turn the tables on everyone after they get rolling. No low cost to orbit for anyone. 40 mil. indeed….

  • Ferris Valyn

    Dennis – compare that with the cost of a Shuttle launch. When you factor in the fixed costs, its around $1-2 Billion per launch

    break that over 7 astronauts….

  • Michael Kent

    Bill White wrote:

    Bill: Unless there are other destinations besides ISS, there won’t be enough demand for more than 1 and if Congress pays for multiple commercial crew providers and non-NASA destinations do not materialize we will have subsidized surplus capability we cannot use [emphasis mine]

    So? The cost of manned Dragon, CST-100, and man-rating the Delta IV, Atlas V, and Falcon 9 all combined is 1/10 the government-only solution. The taxpayers save tens of billions whether the capability is surplus or not.

    Mike

  • Michael Kent

    Bill White wrote:

    This is why a Jupiter 130 with Orion could necessary for full utilization of ISS, since a Jupiter 130 can loft cargo modules having far greater capacity than shuttle

    We built the space station with the shuttle. It was designed to be maintained and supplied with the shuttle. We don’t need anything larger.

    And for the $30 billion cost of the SLS / Orion, we could afford to buy 120 Delta IV Heavy launches, which can launch the same size payload as the shuttle. Subtract off a few hundred million to have Boeing, Orbital, or SpaceX build a tug to deliver the payloads to the station, and you’d still have 118 shuttle-equivalents.

    Mike

  • mr. mark

    And while you continue to argue Spacex has it’s second Falcon 9 and first fully functional Dragon cargo capsule on the Launch pad undergoing fueling tests for an October launch. The future moves on… keep it up, LOL.

  • Florida Today reports NASA has selected four companies to bid for up to 70 science missions over the next ten years:

    http://space.flatoday.net/2010/09/nasa-selects-companies-to-launch.html

    Under the NASA Launch Services Contract II, NASA will choose from the following vehicles: Lockheed’s Athena I and Athena II, Orbital’s Pegasus XL and Taurus XL, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, and United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V. ULA’s Delta IV is not included.

  • mr. mark wrote:

    And while you continue to argue Spacex has it’s second Falcon 9 and first fully functional Dragon cargo capsule on the Launch pad undergoing fueling tests for an October launch. The future moves on… keep it up, LOL.

    This must be how the stagecoach builders reacted after the invention of the horseless carriage …

  • red

    “Oh, I would love to see someone try to sell Obamaspace on the basis of national defense. That would be a hoot.”

    That’s easy. First, let’s see what the Constellation plan offers:

    Ares I: far in the future, duplicates existing launchers, useless for national defense
    Orion: depends on Ares I, no national defense applications
    Ares V: decades away, too expensive for national defense applications
    Moon: unreachable under Constellation
    solid rocket argument: debunked

    In short, the Constellation plan offers nothing for national defense.

    What Mark calls Obamaspace includes:

    – replacement of the Russian RD-180 engine used on Atlas V with an affordable U.S. version

    Ok, NASA’s FY2011 plan already beats the Constellation plan on the basis of national defense, but why stop there? There’s much more:

    – Flagship Technology Demonstration 1 (FTD1) – This mission demonstrates the FAST solar array technology from DARPA (a national defense agency) in space. It also demonstrates an advanced solar electric propulsion system that would have military uses.
    – Flagship Technology Demonstration 2 (FTD2) – This mission demonstrates propellant storage and trasfer (e.g.: propellant depot) technologies. This will have various national security benefits – enabling servicing/refueling of national security satellites, encouraging the commercial launch market to supply propellant to depots and thus potentially increase competition and lower national security launch costs in the long term, etc
    – Flagship Technology Demonstration 3 (FTD3) – This includes an inflatable habitat demonstration that could encourage the commercial space station market which could have benefits to national security. It also includes ECLSS technology demonstrations, some of which could have national security uses.
    – FTD1-3 also include development of a space tug. This technology could also have national security uses (deploying or servicing military and intelligence satellites, etc)
    – the FTD missions would share launch costs/infrastructure with the EELVs used by the military
    – exploration technology development and demonstrations in areas like precision landings (using and helping development of suborbital assets with potential military uses), lunar ISRU (which could be useful for national security using the Vision for Space Exploration model that Constellation wiped out), high power electric propulsion (FTD1’s military applications super-charged), telerobotics (obvious potential military use in the age of UAVs), and fission power systems
    – numerous additional FTDs and ETDDs would fit in the FY2011 budget, but details have only been released for the first few proposals. Additional ones would probably also have national security benefits.
    – propulsion research that can benefit national defense users
    – a fleet of robotic precursor missions to the Moon, NEOs, Mars, and Mars moons that will share launch, spacecraft, instrument, and analysis costs with national defense users of similar capabilities (the military and intelligence agencies use satellites, not astronauts)
    – a fleet of small robotic precursor missions like the larger ones I just mentioned that will have similar benefits, but on a scale that will also benefit Operationally Responsive Space
    – funding for additional commercial cargo capabilities – the rocket part of these capabilities will probably be useful to national defense
    – commercial crew – the rocket part of this will probably be useful to national defense (both new rocket capabilities and launch costs shared with national defense users)
    – commercial crew and cargo spacecraft may have some national defense applications (e.g.: national defense experiments housed on DragonLabs)
    – if affordable enough, especially if it enables commercial space stations, commercial crew could enable additional national defense applications (experiments housed in commercial space stations, military analysists deployed in orbit)
    – U.S. PU-238 production instead of buying it from Russia
    – 4-fold increase in NEO detection funding, if you’re inclined to consider “planetary defense” part of national defense
    – funding for small satellite technologies of use for Operationally Responsive Space military applications
    – funding for small satellite technology demonstration missions of use for Operationally Responsive Space military applications
    – CRUSR, NASA use of commercial RLVs, could help develop those RLV capabilities which have potential miiltary uses, and could also help develop applications deployed on those vehicles with national security uses (e.g.: remote sensing instruments)
    – additional Centennial Challenges funding – some of these challenges could have national security benefits in areas like low-cost space access and robotics
    – Space Technology funding helps develop the space workforce with 500 graduate student fellowships per year. This helps develop the talent needed for future national defense space applications.
    – the Space Technology funding line includes many other areas, from early stage space technology research, later stage space technology research, and in-space technology demonstrations, where NASA’s work may result in technologies with national security benefits. This funding line is specifically intended to be “cross-cutting” – i.e. to benefit multiple areas, including other government agencies that use space technology. Example technologies listed in the budget include many with national security uses: high-bandwidth communications, materials and structures, radiation shielding, debris impact mitigation, precision timing and navigation, microwave/laser power beaming, sensors, energy storage, and many others. This funding line is supposed to involve cooperation with non-NASA interests, including national security agencies. It is supposed to use a DARPA model.
    – aeronautics funding boost: This funds new aeronautics work like integration of UAVs in the U.S. airspace, which would benefit the U.S. UAV industry and, indirectly, national defense use of UAVs.
    – keeping, using, and adding to the ISS, and finishing the Shuttle’s ISS work – In contrast, under the Constellation plan, the Shuttle work be ending just about now, the ISS would be incomplete, and the ISS would be deorbited in a few years. This could sour relations with ISS partners, and thus make international cooperation and national security alliances that much harder
    – 21st Century Launch Complex – This would improve the Cape, and would enable KSC to contribute to commercial and national security needs
    – human research funding – some of this would have national security implications (space radiation, bioinformatics, medical technology, etc). Collaboration with DoD is expected in this area.

    … and all of that is just in the FY2011-FY2015 budget years, compared to Constellation’s drawn-out misery through 2035. Imagine how many national defense benefits the new NASA plan could deliver in FY2016-2035!

  • Matt Wiser

    Bill: about the only member of Congress that supported the original FY 11 Budget was Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA). Mainly because Orbital (I think, but I’m not sure) has a facility in his district. Other than him….hardly anyone spoke in favor of it, even members of the President’s own party. The original FY 11 budget is dead and buried, those Nobel laurates and Bill Nye from the Planetary Society’s letter notwithstanding.

    One thing that Ron Paul, Barney Frank, and our own Oler have in common: they all oppose Human Space Flight. Well, Congress is on record as supporting HSF, which is why we’re getting Orion and an HLV in the Senate Bill. That version will become law, one way or another. Oler, the Meek can have the Earth: the Rest of Us are Going to the Stars. It may take a while, but we’ll get there eventually. Count on it.

  • From the original piece Jeff posted above:

    While not explicitly saying as much, Elbon in his comments all but endorsed the Senate’s version of a NASA authorization bill with what he called “a very balanced approach to the exploration program.” That includes not just commercial crew funding but also continued work on Orion for crewed missions beyond Earth orbit as well as immediate work on a heavy-lift launch vehicle.

    Funding commercial crew? Check

    Orion & HLV for beyond LEO? Check

    Okay, I’m good. Now, lets get the House to vote up or down on the Senate Authorization Bill and get this sucker to the President’s desk.

  • Bennett

    red wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Excellent!

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Both of my Senators supported the FY2011 NASA Budget, and I’m sure the same is true of many others. Not being on the committee means you’re not in the spotlight, it doesn’t mean you don’t support the President’s proposed budget.

  • Byeman

    “FY 11 budget is dead and buried, ”

    Wrong, more of it (>50%) exists in the Senate bill than CxP or the House bill.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Matt…I dont know about Frank etal, but when you misstate someone’s position then dont be surprised if they stop listening to the rest of what you have to say.

    I have no problem with human spaceflight; what I dont like is HSF that has no value commensurate with the cost, and is more of either a stunt or an employment act for people.

    The only way people, and I hope that they are Americans will break out of earth orbit on a permanent basis, is if we find something of value that humans can do and lower the cost of them doing it. Until then not only will the meek be stuck on the Earth but so will everyone else except a few NASA astronauts that generally dont have a clue about why space is special or what it means to the future of The REpublic.

    It is for them, like most of the folks who participate in it…a job not an adventure.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Byeman wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    “FY 11 budget is dead and buried, ”

    Wrong, more of it (>50%) exists in the Senate bill than CxP or the House bill.

    Agreed. Obama wins with the Senate bill. And . . . .

    The two leading players for commercial crew (Boeing with CST-100 and SpaceX with Dragon) appear supportive of the Senate Authorization.

  • Rhyolite

    Byeman wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    ““FY 11 budget is dead and buried, ””

    “Wrong, more of it (>50%) exists in the Senate bill than CxP or the House bill.”

    I would say it is a lot higher than 50%.

    Structurally, the Senate bill and the administration proposal have exactly the same elements: Retire shuttle, keep ISS, commercial for LEO crew and cargo, technology funding, an HLV, a flexible destination and (as a late addition to the administration proposal) Orion in some form.

    The differences in the Senate bill have to do with relative levels of funding between the program elements and the time phasing, particularly of the HLV. I don’t see these difference affecting the general thrust of the administration proposal.

    The Senate is also trying to steer NASA towards and SD-HLV. The administration plan left the design of the HLV open so an SD-HLV might have been the outcome anyways. On the other hand, the Senate language leaves plenty of room for the administration to declare an SD-HLV as not “practicable” and go off in what ever direction it wants.

    I would put the number at more like 80%.

  • Matt Wiser

    Bill: concur completely. Get the Senate bill passed, and onto POTUS’ desk for his signature. Then we can get going with both Orion/HLV for BEO, and some commercial for LEO. Oler and the Luddites notwithstanding.

    Any of you check the various “space” papers like the Houston Chronicle, Florida Today, Orlando Sentinel, and the Huntsville Times? They’re all saying the original FY 11 budget is dead and buried. Same thing with Aviation Week (or Aviation Leak, depending on one’s POV). Everyone gets something in the Senate bill, though the Commercial crowd doesn’t get as much, so we can have heavy-lift and Orion for BEO. And when that sucker flies in a few years, Lockheed-Martin will be in a position to push for Plymouth Rock, as the NEO mission is being called, as long as the first BEO mission (or two) is to lunar orbit. Then we can start thinking about L-points, lunar landing, and the big bannana: Mars proper-flybys, moons of Mars, Mars orbit. And while that’s going on, the lunar program as a proving ground for Mars can be done. Because as Ed Crawley said in his KSC presentation (watch it on NASA’s Youtube channel) “You want to tell the President in 2035 that we’re ready for Mars and have done very little surface operations on another planetary body?” Read: to go to Mars, lunar surface ops are virtually a necessity.

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 6:43 pm

    It is also not established that all “commercial” can provide sufficient up-mass logistical support to sustain ISS between 2015 and 2020.

    Not commercial crew, cargo. Especially large volume items.

    This is why a Jupiter 130 with Orion could necessary for full utilization of ISS, since a Jupiter 130 can loft cargo modules having far greater capacity than shuttle.

    Why do you say it is not established about “commercial”? We already have Progress, ATV and HTV established, and we’re adding two more suppliers. Why reservations do you have about any or all of them?

    When you qualified commercial cargo as “especially large volume items”, you’re essentially stating that current cargo capacity is not even enough to sustain the ISS as is. Why do you think that? Can you quantify the shortage you see?

    As far as ISS cargo modules, Delta IV Heavy can lift the heaviest ISS parts that the Shuttle ever delivered, so why is a Jupiter needed? Again, please quantify your reasoning.

  • Ron, Delta IVH can carry a shuttle bay equivalent payload but there is no space tug available for “last mile” guidance.

    Jupiter 130 can loft Orion together with more cargo than shuttle.

    Orion docks with the cargo pod and delivers it to ISS.

    Yes, Progress, ATV & HTV are available however my understanding is that those systems are already fully manifested. We would need to order more of them to cover shortfalls in logistics up-mass caused by shuttle retirement.

    = = =

    And again, if EELV solutions are so obviously superior why are ULA lobbyists so very bad at winning over Congress?

    After all the same companies pretty much make both EELV and SDLV.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    “flies in a few years, Lockheed-Martin will be in a position to push for Plymouth Rock,”

    yes one can hear the ground swelling with support for such a mission…10 billion (a guess) for 1 week! WOW

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    They’re all saying the original FY 11 budget is dead and buried.

    Matt, everyone that is a regular on this blog is fully aware of what is going on with the proposed FY11 NASA budget, the Senate bill, and the House bill. We also know that Congress did not take the proposed NASA budget and rubber stamp it for the Senate & House bills. You’re arguing a point that no one is talking about.

    What people ARE talking about is how the Senate bill, which is favored by all the people you mentioned, is essentially a win for the Obama Administration, and though it’s not close to what they proposed, it has all of the major items that they wanted – kill Constellation, keep the ISS, fund commercial crew, etc. Everyone is OK with the Senate bill, even though it’s far from perfect.

    though the Commercial crowd doesn’t get as much

    Keep in mind that last year there really was no commercial crew program, but just the COTS-D possibility. The Senate bill officially kicks off commercial crew, and the money stated is enough to do some good work.

    The other thing to remember is that 2016 (when commercial crew has to take over from Soyuz) is still years away, so there are plenty of future budget years to fully fund the program. The Senate bill is the foot in the door, and COTS/CRS plus Boeing and others will have lots of progress to show off at the next budget battle, and they will be more likely to convince Congress that commercial is ready. It’s just a matter of time…

    Because as Ed Crawley said…

    I know you’re a “Moon First” type of guy, but powerpoint jokes are not a good basis for future decisions. It’s what’s called “a forward looking statement”, and no one is going to spend money to go to the Moon just because Ed Crawley said that sentence. I don’t know anyone that can predict future technologies ten years out, much less predict market needs for markets that don’t yet exist. Focus on our immediate needs, which is commercial crew & cargo to LEO, because until that is in place, we can’t afford the Moon.

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 12:07 am

    Delta IVH can carry a shuttle bay equivalent payload but there is no space tug available for “last mile” guidance.

    Why do you ignore the possibility of mating a tug to them? The ATV and HTV have integrated propulsion systems, but why couldn’t you just use the propulsion systems off of them for a tug? It’s a simple, inexpensive solution, especially when compared to the cost of a Jupiter.

    Jupiter 130 can loft Orion together with more cargo than shuttle.

    So now you make it mandatory that everything delivered to the ISS has to use Orion? Isn’t that both expensive and a poor use of Orion? And what about the CAIB, which said that crew should be separated from cargo? Are you ignoring those recommendations?

    Orion docks with the cargo pod and delivers it to ISS.

    How is this any better than what ATV, HTV & Progress do unmanned? What value does Orion add to the delivery? Is this like union rules on a dock, in that only union workers can move cargo around (i.e. you’re mandating Orion for every cargo mission)? Doesn’t that miss the point about lowering the cost of delivering cargo to the ISS?

    We would need to order more of them to cover shortfalls in logistics up-mass caused by shuttle retirement.

    Hmm, yes, if only we had other options…. Oh wait, we happen to have two NASA contractors preparing to add additional ISS cargo capability, including down-mass (Dragon). And if you didn’t think that they added enough capacity, NASA could just order more ATV, HTV or Progress – no R&D, known costs, known leadtimes, no safety issues. No need for a Jupiter.

    if EELV solutions are so obviously superior why are ULA lobbyists so very bad at winning over Congress?

    After all the same companies pretty much make both EELV and SDLV.

    Is this your justification for building Jupiter? Because ULA doesn’t lobby Congress? Shouldn’t we be looking for the best value for the country, or the best overall solution?

    Did you ever consider that ULA, which is a 50-50 partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, may be prohibited from doing their own lobbying? That their parents may have conflicting contract priorities? Like on Constellation?

    It’s like you saying that the absence of unicorns proves that mermaids exist. You’re drawing the wrong conclusion from unrelated inferences.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Coastal Ron – another point about the Senate Bill – it makes Commercial Crew the primary crew transport mechanism.

  • Frediiiie

    Personally I’d preser the President’s FY11 budget proposal, but I’m happy enough with the Senate version. We get enough money for commercial crew and not enough for HLV or Orion. NASA can go away and play at building a HLV. chances are, with less time and less budget they’ll fail again. But it doesn’t matter. By the time NASA works out which end of the slide rule is which we will have SpaceX and Orbital doing cargo to ISS and SpaceX and Boeing doing crew.
    If NASA by some miracle manages to pull off a working HLV so much the better.
    But I’m not counting on it.
    Why am I so down on NASA?
    Look at the recent HEFT document.
    NASA is planning to spend $7B to develop an inflatable habitat when you can buy a Sundancer from Bigelow NOW for about $100M.
    Do you think Bigelow would take $6.9B to modify it to NASA requirements?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
    ” Because as Ed Crawley said in his KSC presentation (watch it on NASA’s Youtube channel) “You want to tell the President in 2035 that we’re ready for Mars and have done very little surface operations on another planetary body?”

    that is one of Ed’s more goofy statements…

    First off no one is going to go back to the Moon just because Ed thinks it is a good idea or that it is going to prep us for a Mars trip. When we go back to the moon we are going to go back because there is some intrinsic value in doing so that remotely equals the cost. Same for Mars.

    But on its on Ed’s statement is simply goofy.

    We have a lot of time doing surface operations on a planetary body; the Earth…and while there are some differences between doing them on the Moon or on Mars the primary one is that any ops that have to be done are essentially done by remote sensing in all respects because of the “suit” that would be worn at any non Earth location…and we are gaining experience doing things like that using our robotics in most industries on an ever growing basis ON EARTH.

    Most operations “in the sea” are now done by humans either in “suits” (where touch is of little value) and with mechanical friends. A classmate just got back from a three month cruise in the Pacific where she did some very good work “on the sea bed” using mostly robotic tools and “mini subs” which have robotic attachments.

    that is the kind of effort that is going to be involved in any planetary operation even if Humans are “there”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Boeing’s mentioned $40m for a seat on the CST-100 but it’s pretty much a gestimate due to the fact that there’s essentially nothing built yet.
    SpaceX quote in the order of $20-25m which is much cheaper than the Russians. They’re just about to send their first fully functional Dragon Cargo capsule to orbit on their own launcher. I know who’s cost estimates I’d consider the more reliable.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Frediiiie wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 1:16 am
    ‘NASA is planning to spend $7B to develop an inflatable habitat when you can buy a Sundancer from Bigelow NOW for about $100M.’

    Yes I’m firmly convinced that NASA doesn’t know how to do anything in the HSF space efficiently or effectively. Therefore our only hope for getting beyond leo lies with the new commercial players who may provide sufficient competition to get the larger companies going. Evidence Boeing CST-100 after SpaceX started pushing the Dragon Crew vehicle.

  • Martijn Meijering

    And again, if EELV solutions are so obviously superior why are ULA lobbyists so very bad at winning over Congress?

    You know the answer Bill: pork.

    After all the same companies pretty much make both EELV and SDLV.

    A very misleading statement. This ignores the role of ATK, MSFC and USA.

  • Matt Wiser

    Oler would’ve been against Apollo because of “no intrensic value.” Seems that unless it’s done with robots, he’s against exploration in any form. Ever see one of Steve Squyres’ talks? He’s the Principal Investigator on the MERs, and he’s been on record as saying that a Human geologist on Mars can do in a day what it takes a rover weeks to do. Even some of the Luddite crowd were convinced of the value of Humans exploring when Dave Scott and Jim Irwin found the Genesis Rock on Apollo 15…..It took a trained eye to pick it out as something interesting. When we go back-not if-when-it’ll be trained eyes finding things and looking further to see what else is out there-not some robot. Same thing for Mars or a Martian Moon. Per Adua Ad Astra: “Through Hardship to the Stars.”

  • John G

    Going 400 kilometers up to a station that are eating up the NASA budget – for what? For nothing!!!
    It doesn’t matter if it’s NASA or commercial. It’s the purpose and goal of space exploration that matters.

    There is nothing to discover on the ISS. Let’s go to a real world where we can truly discover things, set up bases, utilize resources and expand humanity.

    Let’s abandon the ISS and let it sink! If the Russians or the Europeans want to run the ISS – let them!

    Let’s take the real step beyond LEO and make space exploration with the name.

    ISS MUST BE DEORBITED!!!

  • googaw

    “if EELV solutions are so obviously superior why are ULA lobbyists so very bad at winning over Congress?

    What a remarkable discovery of a group of experts right in our midst, and we had totally missed it! What a brilliant line of reasoning to shortcut all these noisy debates between lobbyists: Congress is funding it, and Congress knows best, therefore Congress should keep funding it. QED. Just imagine how life would have improved if only we’d asked:

    (from the 1900s) If the Wright Brother are more likely to fly than Langley, why did Langley get money from Congress and the Wrights not? What pathetic losers those Wrights are, they don’t even know how to lobby Congress.

    (from the 1970s) from If ELVs are going to be more cost-efficient for launching satellites than the Shuttle, then why is Congress funding the Shuttle over ELVs to launch satellites? The folks working on ELVs obviously can’t convince Congress because ELVs are so 1960s.

    (from the 1950s) if semiconductors are such a great idea, then why are they being funded by Bell Labs instead of Congress? They’re just a bunch of nerds who wouldn’t know K Street from Constitution Avenue.

    (from 1956 and most of 1957) if launching a satellite is such a great idea then why can’t Von Braun convince Congress to fund him to do it? Another loser, he should just shut up and get on with building more IRBMs.

    The imagination boggles on all the opportunities we’ve missed. If only we’d never challenged the unquestionable expertise of Congress!

  • @ googaw & Martijn

    You both may be right but your strategy for changing things strikes me as largely ineffectual. If ULA lobbyists cannot move Congress what hope is there that the web based space advocates can?

    If Congress is a dysfunctional as you say (and it probably is) then yelling about it on an internet message board won’t accomplish anything.

    If Congress is a dysfunctional as you say (and it probably is) then they will bloat out an EELV program is precisely the same way you say they will bloat out an SDLV program.

    As I have been saying for years, NASA needs an outside competitor. That will reform NASA faster than advocacy websites.

    MirCorp was one such potential competitor. Bigelow has potential to be another.

    NewSpace should go around NASA rather than through NASA.

  • Dennis Berube

    I guess with all the savings that commercial crew will give us, the people in government can vote themselves in a big raise here in 2011, You think?

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 8:37 am

    If ULA lobbyists cannot move Congress…

    If there were ULA lobbyists, they would be out-numbered and out-funded by the Boeing & Lockheed Martin lobbyists for Constellation and HLV work.

    Why are you so fixated on this?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 3:59 am

    Oler would’ve been against Apollo because of “no intrensic value.”..

    there you go again telling me what I think…

    and worse not even understanding it (as best I can see).

    Apollo’s “intrinsic worth” was its political facade. We were (at the time JFK proposed it) on “close to war” status with the USSR, detterence (which is what kept the peace) is a mostly psychological state of mind and the fact that our rockets seemed to be “less” then theirs was not to be trivialized (although our deterrence was quite strong)…

    there might have been some thought in the Kennedy administration about a goal that would in the long run have more staying power; but in terms of “doing something about the problem” the money JFK programmed in had far more benefit then say Bush’s answer to 9/11…

    outside of that the money cannot be justified. Dave Scott’s rock doesnt justify the billions (hundreds in today’s dollars) spent; Tang doesnt, really nothing does. And that is why Apollo collapsed faster then it reved up…once the singularity was gone there was nothing left to keep it afloat…

    The person on Mars doing the mars notion of “geo” logy compared to the two little rovers is weak.

    It might take the rovers a week to do something a person could do in 10 minutes; but even on a cost per minute basis with the staff all sitting around their consoles, the dollar value compared to a crewed expedition is a bargin.

    If NASA was tasked to go to Mars the cost would be (based on current efforts) between 300-600 billion dollars…unless they discover the STargate there is nothing that can be done on Mars that is worth that much money…

    Now I am fully convinced that as cost come down; we will reach a point where going wont be that much and then the dollar level gets better…but no I really dont think going just to go…is that good an explanation.

    The history of humanity is that humans do things when they are just barely doable…and that is a good thing. We fly the ATlantic non stop when the technology can just do it…

    But a factor in that is cost/technology. The Money spent to put Lindy’s plane together while high, was no where near in proportion to what we spent to stretch to go to the Moon. As SpaceX has shown, that is not because it is space; it is just because going to the Moon was a decade or two (or maybe three) to early.

    And that is why shortly after Lindy flew the Atlantic it more or less became common place…and after Neil and Buzz walked on the Moon, it isnt.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bill: about the only member of Congress that supported the original FY 11 Budget was Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA). Mainly because Orbital (I think, but I’m not sure) has a facility in his district.

    The only space company in Dana’s district is Boeing. He supported the new policy (as did former committee chairman Bob Walker, and Newt Gingrich) because they understand the issues, and because it made a lot more sense than the old one. Most of the rest of the committee was just preserving pork.

  • Coastal Ron wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 10:19 am

    Boeing and Lockheed manufacture the EELVs that ULA sells.

    If Boeing and Lockheed would make more money with Constellation and HLV than they would under an all EELV program, why wouldn’t they simply raise the prices they charge for EELV, if all EELV were chosen by Congress?

    Funding SpaceX is a good counter to that and the Senate bill does fund SpaceX, as it should.

  • Martijn Meijering

    If ULA lobbyists cannot move Congress what hope is there that the web based space advocates can?

    No hope, but that’s not a reason to support the bad guys. All I can do is to point out the facts and to unmask lies and deception wherever I can. It’s not easy when you’re up against people with professional training in the art of lying and deceiving, some of whom appear to be contributing their services free of charge.

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 10:58 am

    Boeing and Lockheed manufacture the EELVs that ULA sells.

    Ah, now I see why you’re so confused.

    ULA manufactures their own products (Atlas & Delta), and provides launch services. It’s on their website.

    If Boeing and Lockheed would make more money with Constellation and HLV than they would under an all EELV program, why wouldn’t they simply raise the prices they charge for EELV, if all EELV were chosen by Congress?

    Yes, exactly, why should the cost to access space ever go down….

    I really don’t think you understand the issues involved here. Now that you understand that ULA is a separate legal company from Boeing & LM (see above), you also have to understand that ULA wouldn’t, or in some case couldn’t, just raise prices for the fun of it.

    Just this week, NASA announced the awards for the NASA Launch Services (NLS) II Contract. The award will provide a broad range of launch services for NASA’s planetary, Earth-observing, exploration and scientific satellites.

    The four companies awarded the contract were ULA, SpaceX, OSC and LM Space Systems. This was a competition, and there are other companies in this space, so ULA can’t bid prices that are too high, otherwise they may lose business. And this is good, because competition should lower prices over time, and that’s partly what’s been missing with the government-run space transportation system (i.e. Shuttle), and what would be missing with any of the congressionally proposed crew & cargo LEO systems.

    Funding SpaceX is a good counter to that and the Senate bill does fund SpaceX, as it should.

    The Senate bill does not carve out any money for SpaceX, and I don’t advocate that ANY company should be singled out for favor. SpaceX just won potential NLS work for NASA, and they and others will compete for any commercial crew funding that gets approved. Competition is good, and those of us that advocate for SpaceX are advocating for the CHANCE for SpaceX to compete, not the right for them to win. Commercial crew funding will give them that chance, but let the best companies win – whoever they are.

  • Rhyolite

    Bill White wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 10:58 am

    “Boeing and Lockheed manufacture the EELVs that ULA sells.”

    That’s not correct. Boeing and Lockheed transfered the manufactuing assets and employees to ULA.

    http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/061202/merger.shtml

    ULA manufactures and sells EELVs. Boeing and Lockheed, the owners, split the profits and losses.

  • Okay, point taken.

    ULA manufactures and sells EELVs. Boeing and Lockheed, the owners, split the profits and losses.

    But who appoints the ULA Board of Directors? And its operating officers?

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    But who appoints the ULA Board of Directors? And its operating officers?

    Are you looking for a conspiracy now?

    Does it change anything if you were to learn that the 50-50 joint venture of Boeing & Lockheed Martin is staffed by former Boeing & Lockheed Martin employees, and that the owners (Boeing & Lockheed Martin) sit on the Board of Directors of their joint venture company?

    It’s clear that you are spending no time at all researching any of your allegations, and that you prefer to be proven wrong, rather than be right up front. Do I have that correct?

  • If Boeing and Lockheed would make more money with Constellation and HLV than they would under an all EELV program, why wouldn’t they simply [tell ULA] to raise the prices they charge for EELV, if all EELV were chosen by Congress?

    Okay, I have correct my earlier post.

  • DCSCA

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 16th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
    “When Ike started the national highway system the conservative wing of the GOP was oppossed to it…but he sold it on the national defense aspects of it…bucking his own party” “Oh, I would love to see someone try to sell Obamaspace on the basis of national defense. That would be a hoot….” <- Redundant, too, for the Age of Austerity as the DoD has its own space operations.

  • googaw

    Bill, speaking for myself I am far more in favor of cutting Constellation and similar NASA-run HLV projects than I am in favor of more NASA funding for EELVs or SpaceX or the like. I am actually glad to see Commercial Crew cut back because the amount of money that would have gone to the EELVs or SpaceX under the original plan was far too large relative to what they would be getting from genuine private sector business. I am very happy to see that NewSpace has recently been putting more energy into trying to find private sector customers, and, gasp, actually pursuing some projects of real sapce commerce instead of just NASA-inspired economic fantasies of HSF.

    But I am very unhappy to see that money going back into the welfare program formerly called Constellation and now called HLV. I am not sitting here as a NASA contractor or contractor wannabe in one camp bashing the NASA contractors in the other camp and urging funding for my own, which is what most space activism these days seems to be about. I am here as a taxpayer first, and person who dreams of our human future in space second, who wants to see either efficient and effective government spending, or, failing that, for the budget to be ruthlessly slashed until efficient and effective spending is all that’s left.

    Now I have question of my own for you. If you share our skeptical opinion about NASA, then why are you pushing massive NASA funding for a NASA-run Jupiter? Presumably sharing our skepticism of NASA and observing the very long string of failed NASA purported attempts to reduce launch costs, that NASA will suddenly due to the magic of Jupiter start delivering cost-effective launch services?

    Or is it that you think that SDLV/Jupiter/Ares kinds of projects are so obviously bad, and there are so many useless bureaucrats working for NASA and its contractors, that we need an obviously useless jobs program in which to shove them? So obviously bad that no good engineers would actually be attracted away from the private sector to work on it? Something sitting at an already dysfunctional NASA center that can be cordoned off from actually valuable space efforts? I can sort of buy that.

    But alas, I don’t think a dysfunctional space project can actually be cordoned off like that. If an HLV project hired good engineers who happened to be naive about space politics and thus failed to realize the program was a fraud, we would have a brain drain away from more valuable private sector programs. If it actually ever flew, it could attract payloads away from private sector rockets, reducing revenues and profits and thus discouraging private sector investment. It will also eat up valuable scarce launch space at KSC delaying private sector launches. Worst of all, we would be perpetuating a dysfunctional NASA culture that convinces people via its vast funding that it is the authoritative standard and guide to the future of space development, causing other public and private sector projects to follow it off a cliff, as happened with the Shuttle (and happens almost ubiquitously even now in more subtle ways).

    So why not just fire these useless bureaucrats instead of giving into to their whining for welfare dressed up as a job? This is my tax money and my children’s tax money we’re talking about here!

  • Martijn Meijering

    You tell ‘em googaw!

  • googaw,

    Simply put, I believe the DIRECT team’s political analysis as developed over the years at nasaspaceflight dot com. It is not politically feasible to get an all EELV architecture through Congress.

    I also believe that the smallest SDLV versions (Jupiter 130 & Jupiter 246) would integrate fabulously with fuel depots to support a truly robust presence on the Moon, if the programs were well managed.

    If we could ignore politics (and somehow cure the dysfunctional contracting arrangements NASA faces), Atlas V Phase 1 and Phase 2 could probably function as well or better than SDLV. However, as Jeff Foxworthy might say “You all can’t get there from here.” Getting an EELV-centric program through Congress cannot be done. O’Keefe & Steidle tried and failed and FY2011 sank like a rock.

    Maybe lets try this analogy:

    I see the STS infrastructure as being like an inoperable tumor woven into the vital organs of NASA. I very much fear we cannot remove it without killing the patient.

    Now, some say, “Operate now! And if NASA dies, no great loss.”

    I am not ready to say that and wish to try the chemotherapy of DIRECT before rooting out the STS infrastructure with radical surgery.

    Now, for the record, I do agree that the HEFT documents indicate that the chemotherapy might not work, but we aren’t finished yet, IMHO.

    From a technical perspective, and if properly managed, EELV could work. If properly managed, SDLV could also work. Improperly managed, neither will work. But to compare a well managed EELV program with a poorly managed SDLV program is avoiding reality.

    = = =

    As of September 17, 2010 the Senate Authorization Bill offers the best balance of the various competing interests. IMHO

    = = =

    I also do not want NewSpace to be assimilated (Borg-like) into the NASA collective. I want NewSpace to compete with NASA.

  • Kensington Mouseball

    I am not ready to say that and wish to try the chemotherapy of DIRECT before rooting out the STS infrastructure with radical surgery.

    NASA died on the operating table on September 20th, 2005, Bill.

    I want NewSpace to compete with NASA.

    Do you think NASA should get into the airline business as well?

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    Your tumor analogy is definitely apt, and kind of tragically funny.

    From a technical perspective, and if properly managed, EELV could work. If properly managed, SDLV could also work. Improperly managed, neither will work. But to compare a well managed EELV program with a poorly managed SDLV program is avoiding reality.

    From a technical perspective, yes, just about anything could be made to work – although the amount of money it takes could be prohibitive. And that’s what many of us feel about any SDLV, that it will not be worth the money, and that there will be many lost opportunities like near-term space exploration using existing launchers.

    The subject of launchers is not a single track however, and there are things NASA can be doing in parallel to any efforts on a SDLV. Because of that, as long as commercial crew gets funded, then NASA will have commercial crew and cargo to rely upon for future missions.

    We don’t appreciate that as of now, but at some point mission planners will find new ways to utilize these new transportation options, and that will remove the need for SDLV’s. The only way Congress will be able to stop that is by specific legislation, but that is where the disparity between what’s political versus what makes sense will eventually become very public, and hopefully that is where politics starts losing on this issue. I have a dream!

  • Martijn Meijering

    Let’s try a couple of slogans. What we really want is a good place to start:

    1. I want to preserve the STS infrastructure and make sure it isn’t replaced by EELVs

    Hmm, doesn’t sound like a valid position. We need to get away from EELVs, they are too obviously a good idea. Let’s pretend EELVs don’t exist or are just as porky as SDLV. Pretending NewSpace is the alternative is a convenient ploy:

    2. I want to preserve the STS infrastucture and make sure it isn’t replaced by NewSpace

    Better, but it’s still too obvious we’re shilling for STS. Let’s try to replace STS by a different word, even if it’s not a synonym. After all, it worked with EELVs and NewSpace:

    3. I want to preserve NASA and make sure it isn’t replaced by NewSpace

    Much better, people love NASA. It does sound a bit harsh on NewSpace. We’re going to have to toss them a bone. Better them then EELVs, the enemy of my enemy is my friend:

    4. I want to preserve NASA and stimulate NewSpace

    Great, it sounds as if we’re friends of NewSpace. Now we need to hide the fact that we’re friends of SDLV (aka as NASA). Let’s pretend we’re critical of NASA:

    4. I want NewSpace to compete with NASA.

    Brilliant. Instead of appearing to be protecting SDLV from competition I’m pretending to do the opposite by advocating competition. But NewSpace can only compete with “NASA” if SDLV gets funded in the first place, so my main goal is implicitly included in this. And the competition only comes from a much weaker enemy than EELV. NewSpace is much further away from an HLV and we can easily convince the public HLV is necessary.

    Good, really good. We’ve adopted our opponents’ terminology and said sometimes that appears to mean the opposite of what it really means. Not technically a lie, but just as good for practical purposes and harder to detect.

    See, a little bit of lawyering will cover up a lot of pork. Why tell the truth if you can have spin?

  • googaw

    So you believe that DIRECT will magically reverse a long string of NASA failed attempts to reduce launch costs or improve launch services because — because some DIRECT NASA contractor wannabes on a web site said so?

    OMG.

    And BTW how is an “independent” NewSpace supposed to compete with an agency that has a budget of over $10 billion per year gratis, borrowed right out of the mouths of my children? Ridiculous. When a $10 billion pot of free money is lying around no rational economic actor tries to compete with it, they rather try to get a piece of it. Which is indeed what all these blog arguments between various contractor lobbies are all about — who gets a piece of this pie. And that unfortunately is what so far NewSpace has spent most of its energies doing — pursuing NASA’s patholigical strategies of space development that are 100% based on attractive futuristic political pitches and 0% on real economics. Thinking they are building useful things akin to port facilities and factories and transport routes, they actually pursue NASA visions of Cold War cathedrals like bigger rockets and big centralized space stations — things that were only useful for sending Cold War messages but are utterly useless for real commerce. They set out to build cathedrals and, surprise surprise, they end up working for the Church. Meanwhile, yet another surprise, while Americans follow the lead of NASA over a cliff, launch services for real space commerce are dominated by the Russians and Europeans. This while we are in a severe economic depression and running massive deficits — in an era where it is crucial to ensure that every dollar our government spends is effectively and efficiently spent. And when it’s crucial that our industries be as customer-focused and export-focused as possible. Yet the sci-fi spiels that have defrauded taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars already continue unabated while the Russians and Europeans do the real space commerce launches.

    If there is anybody on this forum who is not just fronting for a NASA contractor or contractor wannabe, or is not just a naive dupe of same — if there is somebody who actually wants a real space commerce that isn’t competing for engineers, launch sites and most importantly mind space with the pathological sci-fi sales pitches of NASA and its contractors, please join me in advocating an end to this pathology. I am asking you to join me in advocating that we shrink this NASA pie that contractors are wasting their time and our tax money and our children’s tax money fighting over. In this crucial economic period let’s have people stop working on dysfunctional NASA projects and go to work on something that is actually productive for our economy. You know, like building communications satellites for export, since, and I know this is heresy around there, these things actually have a practical use, so practical that people are actually willing to voluntarily fork over their money to pay for the resulting phone and TV and radio and Internet etc. services.

    Too boring, I suppose, and involves no fun squabbling over government money. You’d rather waste my children’s money (which they don’t even have yet, and at the rate things are going will never be able to get) spinning sci-fi tales in order to fund your pet projects and welfare dressed up in the guise of supposed hi-tech jobs. While China does the real economic work — actually make things that people want to buy, do you people have any understanding of that concept?! — and slowly takes over our economy.

    Most of you NASA bureaucrats and contractor bastards with your squabbling frauds are seriously evil and seriously piss me off and will piss off any patriotic American who figures out what you are up to.

  • Martijn Meijering

    I am with you googaw. But I think you are mistaken about NewSpace and the space libertarians: most of them would support dismantling NASA altogether.

  • googaw

    Martijn, perhaps many silently support that but alas I rarely see them actually advocating it. When is the last time Rand Simberg or Jeff Foust or Elon Musk or Jon Goff promoted the dismantling of NASA, if they even actually support such a thing at all as you suggest? Almost all of the NewSpace energy is spent on things like Elon Musk’s e-mail campaigns to get SpaceX more NASA funding. In other words, many of them have become just another competing group of squabbling fraud artists in their quest for NASA funding.

    Secondly, because NASA’s visions of Cold War message cathedrals like big rockets and space stations (and really HSF generally at this point excepting sub-orbital) still dominates NewSpace thinking, NewSpace like NASA builds Cold War cathedrals, not economically useful things that people actually want to fork over their own money for. If you build cathedrals, you’re going to end up working for the Church.

  • Coastal Ron

    Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 5:40 pm

    Luckily you don’t work in politics – you have the makings of spin-meister!

  • Martijn Meijering

    Do you include the suborbital companies in that assessment?

  • When is the last time Rand Simberg or Jeff Foust or Elon Musk or Jon Goff promoted the dismantling of NASA, if they even actually support such a thing at all as you suggest?

    Perhaps we’re too busy to tilt at windmills? I’ve always said that I wouldn’t weep if NASA were dismantled, but that as long as it continues to get taxpayer funds, I’m going to continue to fight to see them spent as sensibly as possible toward the goal of opening up space. Killing Constellation and moving toward commercial procurement is a step in that direction.

  • googaw

    Martijn, I don’t include that portion of Virgin Galactic, which AFAIK is till the vast majority of it, that is focused on actually signing up and preparing to serve private tourists. The portion of some suborbital companies that pretends to be doing space-station-like “microgravity science” in suborbital, funded directly or indirectly (through university grants) by NASA, I sadly will probably have to add to the list of squabbling fraudsters.

    But on the whole, suborbital is where NewSpace has most escaped from the old NASA Cold War visions and seems to have found a niche where people are actually willing to voluntarily fork over their own money for a space service, and I quite applaud these endeavors. Unfortunately, most of NewSpace continues to ignore the large bulk of real space commerce, because it doesn’t involve HSF, and that is both stupid and disgraceful.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Unfortunately, most of NewSpace continues to ignore the large bulk of real space commerce, because it doesn’t involve HSF, and that is both stupid and disgraceful.

    Well, what if your goal is to see people in space, not just robots and if you’re doing it with your own money like Beal did or Bezos and Bigelow are still trying to do? And I think NewSpace companies are starting to see the value of selling components to commercial clients.

  • Coastal Ron

    googaw wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 6:30 pm

    I share part of your frustrations, but I don’t necessarily agree with your solution.

    I think there is a certain level of ossification at NASA, and I think the worst areas are with the HSF-related stuff. The HEFT report certainly confirmed that the ossified parts of NASA were incapable of rational thought.

    Part of the problem has been like any entity that ramps up for a big task, but then is no longer needed when that task is done. With companies, they shed the workforce and downsize the company. With government they come up with make-work assignments, and politicians look for new programs, needed or not (like SDLV). NASA has to be allowed to adjust it’s workforce to the needed amount of work – such a revelation!

    Certainly what I’m suggesting won’t be easy to implement, and who knows, maybe it will take some sort of severe restructuring to force this to happen. But something needs to change…

    My $0.02

  • googaw

    and moving toward commercial procurement

    Yes, don’t forget this crucial step, making sure one’s favorite set of squabbling fraudsters (“the good guys”) get the NASA money rather than the other set of sci-fi fraud artists (“the bad guys”).

    Like I said, Martijn, the actual movers and shakers of NewSpace show no signs of actually using their time and energy to advocate for any substantial cut in NASA’s budget. Earlier this year they were bragging about how Obama actually increased NASA’s budget as if that was a feature rather than a bug. They spend far, far more energy making sure their pals “the good guys” get the NASA money instead of those strangers in Alabama and Utah “the bad guys”. In pursuit of NASA contracts they act just like “the bad guys” do — as if there is some infinite well of money that they take my children’s future W-2 statements for.

    Meanwhile real space commerce launches are dominated by ILS and ArianeSpace who unlike NewSpace companies are not following NASA over the cliff by pretending that Cold War cathedrals are economically useful infrastructure. They have instead been assiduously pursuing that boring unmanned and unimaginary space commerce — actually useful services that people are actually willing to fork over what is actually their own rather than somebody else’s money for. A concept neither NASA nor its contractors, including sadly the “commercial” ones, who are following NASA over the cliff of Cold War economic fantasies, are able to grasp.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Meanwhile real space commerce launches are dominated by ILS and ArianeSpace who unlike NewSpace companies are not following NASA over the cliff by pretending that Cold War cathedrals are economically useful infrastructure.

    Arianespace isn’t much better than NASA. In a sense it is like pre-Challenger NASA, only with a more economical launch vehicle.

  • Martijn Meijering

    OK googaw, you have a good point. I parted company with the DIRECT crowd when I reluctantly concluded they didn’t mean it when they said they only wanted SDLV because it was a political necessity. Maybe it was naive of me to believe them in the first place. But it soon became apparent they weren’t willing to fight for something that could lead to the end of SDLV. Not insisting on the end of SDLV is one thing, refusing to support the possibility is another. So maybe space libertarians should also be willing to actively campaign for abolishing NASA, while accepting incremental steps in that direction. How do we maximise our effectiveness?

  • googaw

    Coastal Ron, a big part of the problem seems to be short memories. The irrationality of the HEFT report is nothing new. That kind of thing has been going on at NASA since the 1970s, when all sorts of idiotic claims were made about how the Shuttle was going to dramatically reduce launch costs. Then in the 1980s and 1990s, space station Freedom (now ISS) was supposed to generate a vast new microgravity industry and lead to astounding scientific discoveries for example cures for cancer. And it was supposed to be a port that would be a gateway to the Moon and Mars. And it was supposed to fix satellites even though hardly any satellites have an orbit anywhere near it. Seriously! Because of the authority of NASA, and because their wishful thinking makes them perpetually gullible to such claims, space fans took these solemn proclamations and breathless press releases quite seriously.

    And many space fans still seem to take the claims of NASA and its contractors and their shills who comment on these blogs seriously, because each generation they get a new set of suckers who don’t remembers the previous frauds. We’ve had one massive expenditure of money after another with no resulting real commerce since the 1970s, an incredibly long string of them, with many earnest attempts between the 1970s and now by space fans to reverse the pattern, to no avail. Instead we’re now supposed to de-orbit the most recent colossal fraud, ISS, so that we can quickly forget about it and get on with funding the next big fraud. How much preposterous waste do we keep creating before we recognize that NASA’s Exploration Directorate (or whatever they are calling it now) is, architecturally as well as institutionally, a historical pathology that has taken us far, far away from the universe of economic rationality?

  • googaw

    Martijn, it’s not complicated: we advocate cuts by advocating cuts. A libertarian writes letters to Congress and posts on blogs to advocate cuts, not to urge NASA funding for “commercial” contracts. A libertarian criticizes people who brag that Obama increasing the NASA budget is a feature rather than a bug, rather than joining in the praise and supporting government-funded cathedral building in a time when we need to be putting money into and focusing on practical business in order to revive our economy. A libertarian gets smart and does not fall for the various clever ruses contractors use to get people to lobby for their fat NASA contracts — one of the most recent clever frauds being the idea that a government contract spending taxpayer or borrowed money on projects unaccountable to private customers is actually “commercial” and “market” and thus libertarians should support such government spending. A libertarian recognizes these fraud artists and calls them out for who they are. By contrast, people who love the promise of gleaming goverment sci-fi architectures more than they love liberty or a sound economy, and the contractors and government bureaucrats who make their living by duping such people. let the fraud proceed and silently mope when the promised sci-fi dreams fail to come true.

  • Googaw, you don’t seem to understand that politics is the art of the possible.

  • On the other hand, having said that, if your goal is to reduce NASA’s budget, this is certainly the time to attempt to implement that, given the fiscal and political situation.

  • DCSCA

    googaw wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 8:01 pm Politics is the art of compromise.

  • Matt Wiser

    This might be the article some have been referring to: it was in the Orlando Sentinel.

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-nasa-redesigns-shuttle-20100912,0,7720708.story.

    It’s also at PhysOrg.com:

    http://www.physorg.com/news203853662.html

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 17th, 2010 at 10:37 pm

    This might be the article some have been referring to

    Thanks for the links.

    It’s interesting how Ares I had slipped schedule-wise to no earlier than 2017, but a DIRECT-type vehicle, which is more complicated, could be ready for a test flight by 2014, and operational by 2016 – and all for $11B.

    Considering the history of Ares I, I don’t believe that a DIRECT-type vehicle could be operational before 2020 if NASA is building it – and if the schedule slips, then the budget will skyrocket. Yuck!

  • I agree totally with Almighty Wind’s much earlier comment: LET’S DE-ORBIT THE ISS!!! IT’S A HUGE WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY, AND DOESN’T HELP ONE LITTLE BIT IN THE QUEST FOR NASA GETTING OUT OF LOW EARTH ORBIT!!!! Our next man-rated spacecraft does NOT need an LEO space station to go to! Until the Shuttle-to-Mir dockings, NASA wasn’t launching astronauts to ANY station at all! So this stupid “Our-astronauts-will-have-nowhere-to-go” argument, is just plain ignorance!! Low Earth Orbit should be a mere parking-orbit, quick transition-stage, onto greater things! Apollo spent a mere two hours in parking orbit, each mission, before firing the earth-departure stage, and journeying to the Moon. Enough of this seeing LEO as an end-all to everything! We’ve got to get out of LEO, and this LEO-centric space plan of Obama!

  • Matt Wiser

    We’ll probably get DIRECT or something like it. I can live with that. Two or three full-up test flights, then a LEO mission to ISS, and then we can head BEO. Lockheed-Martin is probably pleased, as they not only get Orion full-up, but Plymouth Rock looks like it can go ahead. Ignoring the Luddites as needed along the way, of course.

    In a way, almost everyone involved with Shuttle wins: the Michoud facility will be busy, ATK can still build SRBs, while the Orbiter-specific folks will probably work on Orion or get hired by the Commercial sector. Pads 39 A-B will no doubt be refitted for the new HLV in due time. Orion final assembly and checkout is at the Cape, and the Navy handles recovery. (though I doubt an HH- or MH-60 can lift Orion out of the drink-you’ll need a CH-53E or MH-53E for the job)

  • Coastal Ron

    Chris Castro wrote @ September 18th, 2010 at 12:50 am

    …AND DOESN’T HELP ONE LITTLE BIT IN THE QUEST FOR NASA GETTING OUT OF LOW EARTH ORBIT!

    The problem with using absolutes is that hardly anything is “always” or “never”.

    For instance, without the ISS, and it’s constant flow of astronauts/guinea pigs, we wouldn’t have found out the physical challenges we have to design for to SURVIVE once we get out of LEO:

    http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/astronaut-muscle-waste/

    If properly used, I see the ISS as a great laboratory to learn how to live and work in space.

    Another great example is in building the ISS. We now have lots of experience building large structures in space, which no matter how big a launcher we may ever build, we’ll always want something bigger that what we can launch. Now we have to maintain it, and we’ll learn a lot with that too. If we don’t have any way to gain experience, then there is no way to learn.

    You may think that Congress should immediately approve funding for something beyond LEO, but we’re not ready, and for the amount of ready that we are, it’s due mainly to the ISS. Like it or not, the ISS has been, and will continue to be useful.

  • googaw

    OH YEA BABY DE-ORBIT THE ISS BEFORE THEY CATCH ON NOW!!!!

    Destroy the current sci-fi fraud quickly before more people figure out it’s a $100+ billion white elephant rather than the promised microgravity industry bonanza! Let’s start funding the next big scam already! Then when our brand new sci-fi spectacular also fails to materialize, we can bitch and moan about how we’d have conquered the solar system if only they hadn’t abandoned that wonderful station without which astronauts have no place to go! On to the next exciting “beyond LEO” phase of our wonderful welfare program for “engineers” and “managers” who can’t get jobs actually making something useful!

    ALL CAPS LOBBYING DESTROY THE ISS BEFORE THEY CATCH ON NOW!!!!!

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ September 18th, 2010 at 1:51 am

    Two or three full-up test flights, then a LEO mission to ISS, and then we can head BEO.

    Of course there is no budget proposed for BEO, so that’s wishful thinking.

    the Navy handles recovery. (though I doubt an HH- or MH-60 can lift Orion out of the drink-you’ll need a CH-53E or MH-53E for the job)

    Why would anyone design a transportation system that requires our Navy to pick them up? Do you know how expensive it is to keep a warship, especially one that can deploy heavy helicopters (like a Wasp class LHD) hanging around? And who picks them up if the Navy is busy with real work?

    If true, that would be ultimate embodiment of the “Apollo on Steroids” mindset…

  • Guys: face it: THE ISS IS KEEPING US TRAPPED IN LEO! Do you all really want to see the year 2050 get here, and all America, Europe, China, & Russia are doing is going around in circles in LEO?? Come on! I saw that animation video of the PROPOSED Boeing corp. space capsule, and its flight profile. It was dull & boring. Same old bland thing NASA & the Soviet Union/ Russia have been doing ever since Apollo 17 returned home. This is the future of manned spaceflight? Cavourting OVER & OVER to a space station, located a mere 200 miles up? I personally would NOT pay even one grand to go up there as a “space tourist”!! I have NO interest in going to the ISS, float around & flutter, just to brag:”Look at me, I’m in space!” That does NOT appeal to me in the least! I have way higher ambitions than that, if I could become a space traveler! I want to voyage to another world: I want to go to the Moon. That’s where the excitement really is!

  • googaw

    CHRIS CASTRO ROCKS!!!! ISS under the ocean is out of sight, out of mind! What $100 billion white elephant in a useless orbit?! I never heard of it, AND ANYWAY ITS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PACIFIC HA HA HA!

    NEXT COOL MISSION AFTER ISS SPEND $200 BILLION TO SEND MARK WHITTINGTON TO THE NORTH LUNAR POLE NAKKID NOW!!!

  • Martijn Meijering

    It may be a white elephant, but it is not actually in a useless orbit.

  • Martijn Meijering

    I am here as a taxpayer first, and person who dreams of our human future in space second, who wants to see either efficient and effective government spending, or, failing that, for the budget to be ruthlessly slashed until efficient and effective spending is all that’s left.

    Well, I’ve heard talk that a Republican House would advocate 22% cuts across the board. Would a $4B-$5B cut to the NASA budget meet your criterion above? I would support such a cut.

    Martijn, it’s not complicated: we advocate cuts by advocating cuts.

    Well, it’s not as if being as radical as possible is usually the most effective. On the one extreme we could say “Government is a racket and all politicians are liars and thieves”, while not saying anything would be the other extreme. Both are equally effective, namely not at all. Somewhere in between there has to be a maximum. I agree that maximum includes calling for cuts and I agree we should make an effort. So where do you think the maximum lies?

  • brobof

    Chris Castro wrote @ September 18th, 2010 at 2:40 am
    “That’s where the excitement really is!”

    Scientific Progress Goes “Boink?”
    Yes in the next toy. Until the next toy comes along and the next…
    Personally I blame Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and Saturday Morning Kids TV.
    If in doubt I always buy Lego.

  • Martijn Meijering

    It’s interesting how Ares I had slipped schedule-wise to no earlier than 2017, but a DIRECT-type vehicle, which is more complicated, could be ready for a test flight by 2014, and operational by 2016 – and all for $11B.

    Obviously I would want it to fail and I’m skeptical of the numbers, but J-130 or J-120 wouldn’t need 5 seg boosters or J2X and has ridiculous amounts of margin.

  • You know, capitalizing and adding lots of exclamation marks doesn’t somehow render stupid smart.

  • Vladislaw

    “This is the future of manned spaceflight? Cavourting OVER & OVER to a space station, located a mere 200 miles up? ”

    This is the future of manned automoblies? cavorting over and over to a store, work, relatives located a mear 200 miles away? That is crazy talk. EVERYTIME you get into an automobile you should drive across country!!!!

  • Dennis Berube

    While Russia seems to also have lost its gutts for deep space, presently it wouldnt take much to launch a Soyuz out for a lunar orbit mission, or even a swing around free return trajectory. I think such a flight would bolster our desires for more. It would show us once again what we can really do and after all Soyuz was designed for lunar missions. With all that money they are making at 40 million a seat, you would think they could afford a lunar mission with a Soyuz and bring its designers dream into reality…

  • Vladislaw

    They only got 40mil for the last one.. the first one started at 20 mil. Charles the guy that did it twice paid 25 and 30. They are making the big money off the price they are charging NASA at 56 mil a seat.

  • googaw

    Martijn, what major satellite constellation in need of servicing is in or near (delta-v wise) the ISS orbit?

    What’s the best orbit for earth departure on trips to the Moon and Mars? Anywhere close to the ISS’s orbit?

    Both of those functions were original justifications for funding the Freedom/ISS spending spree. So “useless orbit” is indeed quite apropos wrt the propaganda that was used to sell the program.

    Anybody who can’t see what a colossal waste of money Freedom/ISS has been is a hopeless mental basket case who shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

    And since when has advocating budget cuts become “radical”? The idea that fiscal prudence is “radical” does explain the current outrageous budget deficit and level of debt we have. And yes, I’d heartily support a $4-5B cut in NASA, especially one focused on the Exploration Directorate with its useless gigastunts and Cold War message cathedrals. Any sensible person who is really a conservative or libertarian and has examined the history of NASA would also support such a cut. We could even get many liberals on board for such a cut. Of course the NASA contractor shills and their space fan dupes who post on this board will deem it “radical”, but the people who post here are extremely far from being representative of the American body politic.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Without a SEP tug the ISS is useless for servicing satellites, except for a relocated Hubble. And even then this is only useful as a less expensive way of learning how to service structures in space, not as a cheaper way to maintain constellations. ISS is perfectly usable for lunar or Mars exploration, as a first waypoint, followed by a second waypoint at L1/L2. I’m not saying ISS isn’t a white elephant and I’m not denying it was mis-sold, I’m merely pointing out its orbit isn’t totally useless.

    Anybody who can’t see what a colossal waste of money Freedom/ISS has been is a hopeless mental basket case who shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

    Just to make sure we don’t misunderstand each other, I’m not saying it isn’t. A Bigelow hab serviced by Dragon and/or CST-100 could be a much cheaper way to run a LEO only program or a LEO port as part of an exploration program.

    And since when has advocating budget cuts become “radical”?

    I didn’t say it was, I was only asking where the optimum lies and pointing out it wasn’t at either extreme. Are you saying a $4B-$5B cut would be enough for now and a good position to argue for?

  • googaw

    Are you saying a $4B-$5B cut would be enough for now and a good position to argue for?

    Yes, certainly.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Heh. That was easy. We’ve probably set some kind of internet record here. ;-)

  • Mr. Mark

    While the mess in the House and Senate and here at spacepolitics.com continues to go on, here is a link to pictures of the first fully flight ready Spacex cargo capsule and the second Falcon 9 rocket integrated at the cape. The future is unfolding. Keep arguing! From an article at spaceref.com http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1438

  • Dennis Berube; you are totally right on the mark. WHY CAN’T RUSSIA JUST QUIT THE DULL CRAP OF LEO FLIGHTS, AND USE THE SOYUZ FOR THE REAL GRANDEUR THAT IT WAS MEANT TO DO: A CIRCUMLUNAR FLIGHT??!! Either a free-return sling-shot flight, or an actual Lunar orbital trek; dammit, let’s get out of freaking LEO, for once in our lives!!!! (Literally: For as long as I’ve been alive, NO astronaut has left the safety & bland comfort of Low Earth Orbit.) Where has our adventurous spirits gone? Just how frigging close to the Earth could we possibly be, and still claim to be “in space”? Come on boys, let’s fire that earth-departure rocket stage, and let’s get back to true voyages of discovery!

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    ‘Chris Castro wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 4:31 am’

    Why? What’s in it for them?? Governments are no longer going to do stuff just for the sake of it. The U.S. seems intent on doing stuff with NASA simply to keep people employed. The Russians have no real long-term goals that are apparent. The Chinese are simply developing a technological capability for the Earth science, military applications. The Indians again like the Chinese. The Japanese a little more ambitious but again based around science.
    Note that no government is interested in getting people into space except for where they are currently politically contracted ie. the ISS. As for ‘exploration’, welll you can forget that – insufficient short-term return – no cost/benefit return.

    That leaves you with commercial and the ‘only’ organisation actually spending money on that is Bigelow. SpaceX may be but it’s not a stated priiority at this point.

    Oh and Chis, it isn’t sci-fi. You’ve got to have the technology before you can go anywhere. That’s what the Obama plan was tryng to put in place.

    Oh well!!

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ September 18th, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    While Russia seems to also have lost its gutts for deep space, presently it wouldnt take much to launch a Soyuz out for a lunar orbit mission, or even a swing around free return trajectory.

    I think there is no question that the Russians are capable of doing that, so it’s not a question of whether they could, but whether they want to spend the money to do it. It’s the same for the U.S., in that we’ve always had the ability to go back to the Moon, it’s just that we chose not to spend the money to do it.

    People keep thinking that this is some great mystery, but it’s not. It’s just a matter of money. Until you convince your Congressional reps to pony up the big bucks, it will never happen. Get busy Dennis.

  • googaw

    we’ve always had the ability to go back to the Moon, it’s just that we chose not to spend the money to do it.

    Leaving aside the fact that we have been back to the moon — just without your beloved astronauts — sure, we could send up astronauts to huddle in $50 billion RVs on the moon. We could also build a shopping mall at the bottom of the ocean, a single building that fills up every block of Manhattan, a rock-and-roll museum a mile underneath the earth, and a 20-lane racetrack around the entire circumference of Australia.

    All sorts of fun we could have if economics didn’t matter.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Buggar economics. Really wanted that racetrack. LOL.

  • Coastal Ron

    googaw wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 12:05 am

    Leaving aside the fact that we have been back to the moon — just without your beloved astronauts — sure, we could send up astronauts to huddle in $50 billion RVs on the moon.

    Maybe you missed it, but Dennis was talking about human missions, not robotics. My point then was about human lunar missions, not robotic missions, and how the only thing holding us back from returning U.S. citizens to the surface of the Moon is the lack of desire to spend the money required.

    So apparently, you were agreeing with me.

  • brobof

    Chris Castro wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 4:31 am

    Actually it’s down to production which is maxed out at the moment [1] to four Soyuz and six (?) Progresses p.a. However the production line is OLD and the techniques inefficient. Whilst the next launch will be in a new model: TMA-01M, this is only a tweak tried out with the earlier Progresses; I would expect their NextGen system to match the industrial capacity of the Chinese ‘knock-off’ but with a much more sophisticated DSV.

    As to destination, the Russians are still slowly working to the goal of a long term “Piloted Complex” (= Spacecraft) capable of taking the Hammer and Sickle to Mars the Red Planet! And a facility at which to assemble said craft: OPSEK. You will note that the more recent parts of the Russian segment evolve into OPSEK and that the Europeans are interested in the Russian plans. Having been burned too many times by the USA, I dont blame them.
    As to lunar orbital tourism: 100 million dollars. Probably more now….

    [1] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/06/19/russia-expand-soyuz-production-consolidate-space-industry/
    [2] http://www.russianspaceweb.com/acts.html

    PS we are discovering the Heliopause at the moment. And never in my wildest of dreams would I have imagined a lander on Titan! Pluto: 1758 days; Vesta 299 days…
    Be grateful for the toys you have got and play with them rather than demand for the latest shiny piece of junk / cartoon tie-in.
    It aint in the family budget.

  • googaw

    Be grateful for the toys you have got and play with them rather than demand for the latest shiny piece of junk / cartoon tie-in. It aint in the family budget.

    Well said.

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