I’d even support discontinuing the ISS early to free up funds for such a program since I believe cheap lift is more important than a permanent LEO station.

This point is probably moot by now, if only because the private sector is likely to close the remaining gaps in national spacelift capability with cheaper alternatives to heavy lift before any conceivable government system hits the pad.

“It wouldn’t have to be retired. That implies deorbiting it, which I think would be a huge waste of money spent.”

Exactly what I meant.

“It could be sold. Not too many potential buyers, but still an option.”

China might buy it. I’d love to see a debate on that one though. Even if we remove all the “sensitive” systems inside. A little like when some country sells its old stripped-down aircraft carrier to another one.

“It could be broken up and used in other space projects. I think this is the mostly likely future for it anyways, in that I think it’s unlikely that it will last long enough to turn into a museum.”

That might be the subject of a very interesting RFI from NASA.

“But until then, I support fully using it, and even expanding it as part of testing next generation assembly components.”

I think if we are not too stupid on that one that we can use the ISS for many years to come. It’s built, it’s operational and it’s not far. If someone was willing to come up with a plan, industry and/or government, as to what HSF will be from here on then it could really be used to validate the plan. But I am not going to hold my breath especially if we need any form of Congress approval in the mix.

“I don’t think it’d be a good idea to retire the ISS now.”

It wouldn’t have to be retired. That implies deorbiting it, which I think would be a huge waste of money spent.

It could be sold. Not too many potential buyers, but still an option.

It could be broken up and used in other space projects. I think this is the mostly likely future for it anyways, in that I think it’s unlikely that it will last long enough to turn into a museum.

But until then, I support fully using it, and even expanding it as part of testing next generation assembly components.

“I’d even support discontinuing the ISS early to free up funds for such a program since I believe cheap lift is more important than a permanent LEO station. ”

I don’t think it’d be a good idea to retire the ISS now. If one can show as you suggest that others stations would be on the way then maybe but there is a lot to the ISS including science, international cooperation, engineering, etc.

I think it’d be interesting at the end of its life, if there is such a thing for a modular station that it might be used as a deep space exploration vehicle prototype, crewed or instrumented. For example we could put a crew in there to L1. Stay there for a while. Assuming depots and a propulsion system then we could move the thing uncrewed to deep space with life science experiments including radiation experiments. You would attached a deep space Dragon ( ) to it for returning the crew back to Earth when needed. We could also imagine a large heatshield, deployable, and attempt (some form of) aerobraking to LMO at Mars for such a large vehicle… Possibilities are endless in space

I agree almost completely with what you said. I was just trying to point out the opportunity cost of an HLV, not because I thought you weren’t aware of it, but because you didn’t mention it.

It is kind of a chicken and egg senario though, have cheap launch first and then the demand follows or create the traffic and demand first and let the reusablity evolve from that.

A propellant market in support of an exploration program would have been perfect for breaking that deadlock. Alas, such an exploration program now looks very unlikely to happen any time soon even though enough money for such a program will continue to be spent on efforts that have not borne fruit and aren’t likely to do so.

I’d even support discontinuing the ISS early to free up funds for such a program since I believe cheap lift is more important than a permanent LEO station. Not that there is a real contradiction, since once we had cheap lift commercial LEO stations would surely follow. Still, it is probably best to continue ISS for long enough to facilitate commercial crew, because there is a possibility it will help Bigelow succeed. That might be the perfect moment to retire the ISS.

They should created it by doing the latter (including real X-rockets) and by providing a large market (e.g., propellant or water delivery).

“Especially as you don’t need it for exploration whereas development of cheap lift could sure use the traffic.”

We are on the same page for heavy lift. For reusability that is something I have went back and forth on. Should the federal government back a program to create it, or should they do the grunt work of marginal change R&D on what is currently provided by the marketplace, i.e. what NACA(?) did in the airspace arena with aircraft research, wings, cowlings et cetera.

Currently numbers I crunched says let the marketplace determine when it needs to make the switch to reusables and it will first take place for non human cargo.

That is why I have advocated for multiple LEO destinations and pushing for longer term stays in LEO to increase cargo traffic. I believe Bigelow is on the right track for going after the 2nd and 3rd tier governmental space programs.

I don’t believe straight up ‘short stay’ tourism would provide the cargo traffic you need for enough competition to make the R&D investment jump into reusables.

NASA numbers, as always, never tell a complete picture. The range I have seen for how many pounds of consumables/spare parts et cetera needed to keep a person in LEO has ranged from 42 to 67 pounds per day.

Using a baseline of 55 pounds per day and average stay per person of 180 days ( I believe other governments will try and match what ISS personal are doing with six month stays and by going with 180 days it would mean they would only need crew launches 2 times per year lowering their overall costs) you will need a 5 ton cargo launch once a year per person per six month stay. For me it looks like the numbers game will be trying to get about 100 people in LEO at a time for six month stays. If Bigelow’s numbers pan out that capability will be reached around 2020. That is about the time where reusablity will actually start making sense as far as R&D spending by launch providers.

It is kind of a chicken and egg senario though, have cheap launch first and then the demand follows or create the traffic and demand first and let the reusablity evolve from that.

Really getting OT here, but hard-over rudder would have been fine if they hadn’t reversed the engines, which wiped out most of its side thrust. In fact, it was the attempt to miss it that doomed them. If they’d hit it head on, it would have killed/injured people, particularly up front, but it would have damaged only the front. Instead, they side swiped it and took out too many chambers to maintain buoyancy once they filled.

“If NASA is the owner and means they can keep doing endless design changes, like they did for Ares I/Orion, I would prefer they be kept out of that also, again if it means NASA would retain more of their budget for other hardware.”

I wasn’t clear in what I originally said about me being OK with NASA being an owner/operator. What I had in mind was NASA buying an existing launch system and operating it, not a custom built one like the Shuttle.

For instance, if they want their own way to get crew to LEO, then I’d be fine with them buying their own CST-100 or Dragon capsules. In my mind it would be no different then when they buy and operate their own Gulfstreams.

However my real preference would be that they define the payloads and put them out for competition. In order to do that even better, they should create payload “families” that can fit on inter-changeable launchers, such as 10,000 kg, 20,000 kg, 25,000 kg, etc.

It’s no secret that the reason we’re so efficient at moving cargo around the world today is because of the standardization of shipping containers, and that should be the goal for space too. The Shuttles payload volume constituted one standard, and I hope that the spacefaring nations can at least agree on certain standards that will help define common design, manufacturing and logistics commonalities which will also lower the overall cost of doing things in space. For instance, agreeing on 4.5m as the standard diameter for habitat modules.

nice post.

The voyage of RMS Titanic into history is one of the more entertaining of technical disasters…because in the end while there were a lot of “contributing factors”…the main one, the one that sunk here was the decision to steam at a rate where answers to the helm were longer then what the Lookouts could effectively spot targets. And if the various “docusomethings” on the event (A Night To Remember Walter Lord is about the best still)…the standing bridge watch tried, in the etiquette of the sea…to communicate their concerns to the Captain…who didnt give them enough weight.

There are a lot of other things which rolled into it…the biggest is that standard steaming doctrine of that era in terms of engine commands with hard over rudder was probably not the best… but as in every “goof” there is always one “focal point” where the accident is assured and nothing really will stop it…and nothing before really matters.

Where the Cx program floundered was the decision by Griffin to develop boosters instead of using what “is” and adapting the strategery to figure out how to make us of what was…

But what we dont know, and Mike is babbling on to much to say…is that political support for the project, always pretty tenuous might have evaped all together without the Utah group being behind it…and all the folks who thought all the jobs from shuttle were going to be “saved”…and Griffin might have been faced with that.

If so, thats something to ponder but Mike is really doing an even greater disservice with his current level of babbling and interference in the new direction.

The reality of the entire mess is that NASA HSF and the thunderheads that run it are incapable of doing anything serious (or even trivial) for any sort of set budget.. They are about the most incompetent people, particularly Shannon to manage a project since oh the F-35.

Robert G. Oler