Given this admission, any Heavy Lift investment dollars are better spent on commercial launch providers who do plan to be on time and on budget.

If I might be permitted a tiny bit of snark, it has yet to be shown that NASA itself will be a user. I.e., no payloads except maybe Orion, and even the 70-ton smallest version of SLS is way oversized for that.

“A launcher that can put 70 tons to LEO has the potential to be used for launching a couple sats at a time to GEO.”

If the GTO mass was 35 tons, it would would be something like 5 to 7 GEO payloads of average size. The logistics of processing that many large payloads simultaneously would be a nightmare. Processing two at a time is enough of a pain for Ariane 5 that they are proposing to move to single manifest for Ariane 6.

“At 70 tons you might even get a military payload once in a while.”

I wouldn’t hold your breath for any military HLV payloads. It takes the military 10+ years to get most new space systems off the ground. Nothing is in the pipe now for a payload that large. Also, the trend has been towards smaller commercially derived space systems systems so building giant payloads would require reversing the current trend.

It’s called PORK! And besides which SpaceX is the major challenger to doing business in the traditional cost-plus way.

“I challenge each reader to take 30 seconds and look at all the things near their computer/smart phone when reading this.”

MIT has set up a taskforce to look at how manufacturing jobs can be added to the economy. First they looked into the historical amount of export that the U.S. has done, and found that the percentage (~23%) has stayed about the same over the past 50 years or so.

What has changed is the amount of labor that is required to produce virtually everything. It used to be the rule of thumb that labor was 10% of your product cost, but with various amounts of automation, technology improvements and less expensive labor pools, that amount has fallen, sometimes significantly.

MIT is not done with their study, but one of the things they do know is that our educational system is not doing a good enough job in creating potential workers for the manufacturing that we still do, or want to do. I remember my first real job, which was as a management intern for a manufacturing company making electrical connectors (lots of machining). They had their own school system, because they could not find anyone coming out of the local high schools or colleges that had relevant education for the work they needed done. We still have this problem, which strangles manufacturing companies before they grow beyond the local level.

The MIT study has also found that high labor costs are not directly to blame either, because many european countries have higher pay than us, and export far more than us.

So I echo what Vladislaw said – “NASA, launching two heavy lift launch vehicles, per year, is not the answer. ”

What is needed is a robust commercial space industry that will lower the cost of accessing space for both cargo and crew. Only by making it more affordable can we increase the amount of space commerce, and that is the only way we’re going to be able to grow our space industry. Building a government-run rocket that operates at the whim of congressional budgets is not going to help us increase our manufacturing base.

“What if this is the opportunity to bring a manufacturing base of some kind back into the US? I fear that if we don’t do heavy something (we had the steel industry, the auto industry…) we will only have our service based economy and associated volatility. Someone needs to invest some capital to get something moving…”

You make a compeling arguement for why the United States of America should move towards a commercial human launch sector for LEO. You have to understand, NASA, representing the Nation’s monopoly for human spaceflight, is never going to open up space enough to create this manufacturing base.

NASA, launching two heavy lift launch vehicles, per year, is not the answer. Especially because there is no other user for this vehicle making it a very expensive, single use, system to operate.

If the military wanted 130 ton lift, with a 700 billion dollar per year budget, they would have it. There is already a 200 billion dollar a year commercial satellite sector, if they wanted to launch 130 ton satellites they would already have a launch system.

Any heavy lift system should be designed around multiple users. That means defining what the average payload mass to GEO is today. A launcher that can put 70 tons to LEO has the potential to be used for launching a couple sats at a time to GEO. Bigger than that and you would be harder pressed to find enough satellites for a single launch, much less if you are trying to launch more times per year to achieve a higher flight rate to lower costs. At 70 tons you might even get a military payload once in a while.

If we want a new manufacturing base for the Nation we should focus on new markets and how to capitalize on dominating that industry and sectors. Lower cost commercial human launch systems, more that just a budding tourism industry, is going to be a real driver in giving any 2nd or 3rd tier country with a space program to have instant access and prestige for their country. That is the real new market, 50-60 countries with the checkbook big enough to have a real space program, now that American capitalism brings space access to the government masses first.

An HLV blank slate may seem like a delay in progress, but it undoubtedly will stimulate the creative instincts and design prowess of LV engineers.

The ideas and discussions that ensue, be they based on Atlas, Delta, Falcon, or a new hydro/lox concept, will be intellectually exciting, and may point to more effective approaches, on the grand macro and detail design levels.

NASA’s Congressionally Mandated Vehicle to Cost More and Take Longer

“The original version of Obamaspace had not included any program for space exploration to replace the canceled Constellation program. Only belatedly, after some public and congressional outrage, did the president announce a goal of visiting an Earth approaching asteroid by the middle of the next decade.”

Obamaspace? Was that the title of the bill? I thought President Obama presented a budget for NASA for 2011, but having read it, I do not recall it being refered to as that. What exactly are you trying to report, your name calling ability? This is your idea on how to win converts?

“President Obama, having destroyed the old Constellation space exploration plan, then having jury rigged a new plan that few people seem entirely satisfied with, seems content to sit back passively and allow developments to transpire on their own without trying to lead and shape them.”

How did President Obama, presenting a budget to Congress, destroy Constellation? Didn’t Congress, that represents the entire population, have to vote down Constellation funding? If you have a beef, it should be with the polis for not advising their Representatives and Senators to vote for Constellation funding.

Jury rig? Proof?