Congress, NASA

Nelson, Hutchison, and Hall respond to NASA report

The Senate Commerce Committee released today a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden by Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), chair of the committee’s space subcommittee, and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), ranking member of the full committee. The letter goes in more detail to the statement issued by the committee Wednesday that advised NASA that building a heavy-lift rocket and crew spacecraft “is not optional” despite the NASA report’s conclusions that the effort could not be completed on the budget and by the deadline in the NASA authorization act.

“The report contains no specific justification on analyses to validate the claim that ‘none of the design options studied thus far appeared to be affordable in our present fiscal conditions,'” Nelson and Hutchison write. They argue that by “building on current capabilities and previous investments, and making effective use of NASA’s existing workforce and contracts to focus on the immediate development of a heavy-lift rocket and crew vehicle, NASA can reach initial operating capability much more quickly than by conducting another vehicle study.” They add that by doing so, “NASA can reach initial operating capability of a scalable heavy-lift launch vehicle with the funds authorized, especially if the agency refines its procurement, contract management, and oversight processes.” (emphasis added)

The letter also acknowledges the letter sent to Congress on Thursday by NASA’s Inspector General, asking for the repeal of a provision in the FY2010 appropriations bill that prevents NASA from canceling unnecessary elements of Constellation. They agree that action should be taken by Congress, saying they will “work with out Appropriations Committee colleagues to assist them in achieving this as quickly as possible.” In the meantime, though, they urge NASA to move ahead on Constellation-heritage programs related to the Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

Separately, Congressman Ralph Hall (R-TX), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, issued his own statement about the NASA report to Congress. “The report recently provided to Congress by NASA on its heavy lift development is only the beginning of a long conversation Congress will have with the Agency regarding the future of the human space flight program,” Hall said, blaming the administration for canceling Constellation and not adequately funding a replacement. “We must work to restore U.S. capability to get American astronauts to and from the International Space Station, once the Shuttle is retired later this year, and I’m not convinced that the commercial market is ready to fill that role.”

Hall also had comments similar to Nelson and Hutchison about the NASA IG letter. “NASA should be taking steps to prioritize spending on projects that are likely to have applicability in a future heavy lift vehicle, in an effort to maintain production lines and reduce inefficient use of taxpayer funds,” he said, something that the agency already appears to be doing, according to the IG letter. “However, I agree with the NASA OIG that this is an issue that the Appropriators will need to deal with in an expedient manner, in order to avoid wasteful spending.”

Hall closed his statement by stating that his committee would be “paying very close attention” to NASA’s human spaceflight programs, with a series of hearings on the subject planned for the coming months.

49 comments to Nelson, Hutchison, and Hall respond to NASA report

  • James T

    “We must work to restore U.S. capability to get American astronauts to and from the International Space Station, once the Shuttle is retired later this year, and I’m not convinced that the commercial market is ready to fill that role. If they should fail, we will have no option but to continue buying seats from the Russians, an option I find unacceptable.”

    I don’t really feel it should be so unacceptable to continue buying seats from the Russians. They’re one of our partners in the ISS! Why is it so unacceptable to work with the people we’re already working with? We need to get over the selfish elitism and LEAD an international effort to make space more accessible.

    And even if the the HLV can be completed by 2016, how much longer after that could it take for commercial to be ready? SpaceX will have completed 12 cargo flights by then with the same rocket and capsule they intend to use for crew transport. How many years between HLV operations and commercial crew readiness does there have to be for them to be able to look back and say the HLV was a practical way to fill the gap?

    And I think it’s becoming ever clearer that the HLV will not be ready by 2016, so I don’t think there will be enough years of HLV utility. And the ISS is currently only funded until 2020! So then we’re either using the HLV for the ISS for maybe a couple of years before that function is moot, or we extend ISS operations… but that would be spending more money in the future just to justify the money we’re spending now (it’s like spending more money just to spend more money, but in temporal reverse!).

    For the record I’m not against extending ISS operations, I’d just rather that extension be a result of the money saved by using commercial space taxis.

    Delay the HLV until we anticipate wanting it for a post-ISS mission. If commercial isn’t ready then we buy seats from our ISS partner until they are. But I feel very strongly that SpaceX or some other company WILL be ready.

  • Fred Willett

    At ISDC 2010
    Jeff Greason said
    (this is at 24 .50 into the youtube video)
    “The worst thing I can possibly imagine is that after having been exposed as a program that simply can not be done within NASA’s budget Congress were to somehow mandate on the one hand that NASA continue doing that which can not be done, while with the other hand they refuse to give them any more money. That is a receipe for disaster. I don’t think the agency’s public support can survive another one of those. I think that would be the end.
    I don’t want to see that happen so I hope we do better.”
    Well it looks like it’s happening.
    Can NASA survive “…another one of those.”

  • Robert G. Oler

    Ben Russell-Gough wrote @ January 13th, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    Such BEO human exploration as happens will be the work of private visionaries who are able to generate finance (much as the explorers of the 19th Century did) and leverage commercial crewed spaceflight technologies…

    to carry the conversation from another thread…Ben and NASAFAN.

    I dont disagree with what Ben wrote except I would add this…

    I think government will do some of that exploration…but the structure has to be different..

    HSF is unique among almost all the endeavors attempted by man in recorded history. The assets that have been spent have been enormous and yet in 50 years of HSF the dollars spent and lives lost have NOT resulted in a single solitary human that lives off earth.

    The analogy was made to me by another person but it is a good one. Imagine if the Brits having figured out that Australia was around…had spent the then equivelent of 1/3 of a trillion dollars and hadnt relocated a single person to the continent. That is what human spaceflight in the US (and the world) has done…

    what that means is that either the effort to go into space is far to complex and difficult for our technology, or for very strange reasons we have made it that way or we are just simply going about it in the wrong way.

    I think it is the later. The Brits did not invent ships or build them special purpose to go to Australia…they used what they had…we dont have a HSF industry because of government policy.

    If we get a HSF and it finds something useful for humans to do in space at a price point that is affordable…then we are in a place where both government and private industry and private concerns can do unique and good things in space with humans. If we dont ever try and get to that point…

    we will always be in a situation where the effort is just a taxpayer supported thing…done for a lot of reasons none of which have anything to do with what is done in spaceflight…and that right now…is NASA HSF.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    All this back and forth between Bolden and the space porkers should be seen not only in light of a normal give and take of a federal program changing direction, but also in line with the early comments by Daryl Issa (spell) ON Face the NATION..

    the space porkers are pretty afraid that the money is about to dry up…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    Well… I must say that Nelson, et al, have come a lot closer to specifically shouting “Liar, liar! Pants on fire!” than I ever imagined that they would!

    FWIW, I suspect that Rep Hall’s comments might be an early sign of a trimming of R&D and robotic exploration budget in FY2012 in favour of moving the funds to support the SLS project. Might we see some projects like JWST de-funded?

    I’m sure that will earn the HSF lobby lots of friends in the science field! [/sarc]

  • Robert G. Oler

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41057011/ns/technology_and_science-space/

    if you read this it is clear why there is almost no public support for going back to the Moon

    Robert G. Oler

  • Rep. Hall is already providing good theater with his partisan rhetoric, almost as entertaining as Windy! LOL.

    The more Congress d!cks around with CRs, funding and oversight committees, the more STS infrastructure goes away and lay-offs happen.

    It’s sad to witness, but maybe it’s necessary so something better can be born from the carnage.

  • Rep. Hall oinked:

    “We must work to restore U.S. capability to get American astronauts to and from the International Space Station, once the Shuttle is retired later this year, and I’m not convinced that the commercial market is ready to fill that role.”

    Gee, why wasn’t he concerned during the last five years of the Bush Administration after President Bush cancelled Shuttle in January 2004 and announced we’d rely on Soyuz for at least four years after that?

    Oh yeah, it was assured pork would continue flowing to Texas regardless of anything actually getting done.

  • Oh yeah, it was assured pork would continue flowing to Texas regardless of anything actually getting done.

    Agreed Stephen. As the STS dies away, so does the potential for STS/CxP legacy funding also, and that is fueling the fury.

    Congress can rant and threaten all it wants, but the Red State taxpayer funded aerospace industrial complex base is shifting, no matter how much GOPers whine “national security.”

    If NASA is as important as national security, fund it like national security. Otherwise STFU.

  • NASA Fan

    @ Robert Oler,

    “If we get a HSF and it finds something useful for humans to do in space at a price point that is affordable…then we are in a place where both government and private industry and private concerns can do unique and good things in space with humans. If we dont ever try and get to that point…

    Robert, if you look over the recently released HEFT report, you’ll see that NASA wants to build a ‘capabilities infrastructure’ that creates building blocks of systems that enable incrementally more challenging mission. ..and flexibility in mission content. Supposedly these missions are designed to facilitate the growth of the infrastructure.

    (lets forget for the moment that every grandiose idea NASA ever has that sounds good on paper never materialized due to lack of budgets)

    They chose this option vs. ‘mad dash’ to somewhere architectures. This option also looks like ‘pay as you go’,,,,doing things as money is available.

    However, unless there is something discovered along the way that private industry see’s they can make some money off of, the new infrastructure is going to be funded by and maintained by taxpayer dollars, and we’re back where we are now.

    Where in the history of our republic has the US Government ever took on building an infrastructure capability that didn’t have a prior commercial interests intertwined in the outcome of said infrastructure? Not the airlines, nor railroads, nor interstate highways……

  • Martijn Meijering

    Well… I must say that Nelson, et al, have come a lot closer to specifically shouting “Liar, liar! Pants on fire!” than I ever imagined that they would!

    He cannot come a lot closer than that because he knows that he himself is the liar, not Bolden or Garver. Two can play that game, and he’d lose and he knows it. He can claim they are wrong of course, but he doesn’t have any credibility against NASA experts. What he can do is to find himself a friendly NASA engineer who will tell him what he wants to hear. That shouldn’t be too difficult.

  • Robert G. Oler

    dad2059 wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 6:05 am

    “The more Congress d!cks around with CRs, funding and oversight committees, the more STS infrastructure goes away and lay-offs happen.”

    this is why Griffin had to go. If Griffin were administrator Hanley would still be where he is and the “bias” would have been toward finding ways to spend the money to keep the shuttle infrastructure intact.

    What Hall et al are peeved at is that Bolden is executing “his” policy and spending the money that is being spent in a fashion that is not really keeping the infrastructure intact…thats the difference an administrator makes.

    Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    “NASA should be taking steps to prioritize spending on projects that are likely to have applicability in a future heavy lift vehicle…

    Precisely my comment yesterday. Rep. Hall shouldn’t have to say this to a leader. One wonders what Bolden and Garver actually do with their day. In 2011 the recovery of NASA begins.

  • Reading through the letter, I’m struck by this passage:

    If the law directed NASA to start with an entirely new development without the use of existing contracts, technologies, and infrastructure, we can see where affordability may come into question, but this conclusion suggests a misunderstanding of the Congressional intent …

    By building on current capabilities and previous investments, and making effective use of NASA’s existing workforce and contracts to focus on the immediate development of a heavy-lift rocket and crew vehicle, NASA can reach initial operating capability much more quickly than it can by conducting another vehicle study.

    This is an astonishing assumption, for which they offer no evidence to back it up.

    They want NASA to leverage 1970s technology that has proven to be unreliable and cost-inefficient. STS-133 has been grounded for months because they still can’t solve the problem of the foam failing on the external tank. If the HLV has the crew vehicle on top instead of one the side, maybe it’s not that big a deal, but evidence in recent days suggests that the root cause of the current problem was substandard metal used in the tank’s construction. If the tank’s structure fails, it doesn’t matter where the crew vehicle is mounted, it’s still a bad day.

    Nor does the letter say what the HLV will be used for, which was never addressed in the original appropriation either.

    It’s just more proof that these people are in it for the pork. I’m reminded of the V-22 Osprey, how for years the Pentagon said they didn’t need it or want it, yet Congress told them to keep building them strictly to keep the jobs going. Now Congress is doing the same to NASA.

  • MichaelC

    “We must work to restore U.S. capability to get American astronauts to and from the International Space Station, once the Shuttle is retired later this year, and I’m not convinced that the commercial market is ready to fill that role.”

    He may not be convinced but I am sure- that it cannot fill the more important role of escaping captivity from LEO. Dismantle the shuttle infrastructure and BEO-HSF becomes a lost cause for many decades. This is so sad.

  • mark valah

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 3:40 am
    “if you read this it is clear why there is almost no public support for going back to the Moon”

    Robert, the text seems to me the contrary, a collection of opinions in support of going back to the Moon, for more or less logic reasons.

    And on the topic of the parallels with the 17th century explorers and space exploration there are two fundamental facts which reduce the similarities i)the old explorers had economic reasons to start with (HSF does not) and ii) survining on a newly discovered land only required food, water and some fuel to keep warm and cook (not the case with outer space, where very expensive infrastructure is needed for survival). On a private discussion with Elon Musk, on the topic of Moon versus Mars he asked me why nobody colonized Antarctica, geographically closer to Europe than Americas or Australia?

  • Robert, if you look over the recently released HEFT report, you’ll see that NASA wants to build a ‘capabilities infrastructure’ that creates building blocks of systems that enable incrementally more challenging mission. ..and flexibility in mission content. /em>

    Not an affordable or scalable one.

    He may not be convinced but I am sure- that it cannot fill the more important role of escaping captivity from LEO. Dismantle the shuttle infrastructure and BEO-HSF becomes a lost cause for many decades.

    The problem with people isn’t the things they don’t know, but the things they know for damn sure that are completely wrong.

  • Vladislaw

    “He may not be convinced but I am sure- that it cannot fill the more important role of escaping captivity from LEO. Dismantle the shuttle infrastructure and BEO-HSF becomes a lost cause for many decades.”

    The space shuttle, it’s infrastructure and operations, which was blamed for being to expensive and keeping us in LEO, now is what is important to save to get us BEO?

    So adding tools to our toolkit, like aerocapture, inspace refueling, fuel depots, closed loop life support, inflatable habitats, advanced power and propulsion those things are not going to help us move forward?

    Build a huge, over budget, over schedule, heavy lift launch vehicle, that nobody but NASA can use, do not fund a single payload for it or the new technologies needed and save the over bloated shuttle infrastructure, that is your answer for BEO?

    Sorry but your logic fails me.

  • Coastal Ron

    MichaelC wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 11:30 am

    Dismantle the shuttle infrastructure and BEO-HSF becomes a lost cause for many decades.

    Maybe you don’t realize it, but the Shuttle infrastructure has not taken us BEO in it’s 30 year history, so claiming the lack of it keeps us from BEO is kind of bizarre.

  • Whoops, that second graf was mine.

  • Dennis Berube

    Apparently they are still looking at those hot 5 seg. SRBs. It seems the ball is still rolling along. Decisions need to be made, so we can reach deep space again.

  • mr. mark

    And as we argue, Spacex is gearing up for a combined COTS 2/3 launch to the ISS and Orbital’s Taurus 2 is making great progress toward it’s first flight later this year. Virgin Galactic just had another successful glide test of it’s suborbital SS2. The future looks bright, it may just not be the future that some of us here want.

  • amightywind

    Osprey, how for years the Pentagon said they didn’t need it or want it, yet Congress told them to keep building them strictly to keep the jobs going.

    The V-22 turned out to be a successful program. The Bush Pentagon did approve its full rate production and it is serving ably in the field Ares will be no different. The NASA leadership needs to understand that congress runs the show. Sabotaging congress’ wishes won’t get them far. America debated the Obamaspace policy hatched by Holdren, Garver, and Bolden. The country hated it. They rejected it as an irresponsible overreach. This fact is not likely to change.

  • dad2059 wrote:

    Congress can rant and threaten all it wants, but the Red State taxpayer funded aerospace industrial complex base is shifting, no matter how much GOPers whine “national security.”

    If one looks at the opening paragraphs of the National Aeronautics and Space Act, it specifically places defense interests in the hands of the Defense Department, not NASA:

    The Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that adequate provision be made for aeronautical and space activities. The Congress further declares that such activities shall be the responsibility of, and shall be directed by, a civilian agency exercising control over aeronautical and space activities sponsored by the United States, except that activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems, military operations, or the defense of the United States (including the research and development necessary to make effective provision for the defense of the United States) shall be the responsibility of, and shall be directed by, the Department of Defense … (Emphasis added)

    Someday I’d like to poll the members of the Congressional space subcommittees to find out how many of them, if any, have actually read the Act. Maybe it would be smarter to give them a quiz and find out how much they actually know about it.

  • We don’t need five-segment SRBs, or SRBs at all, to reach deep space again.

  • Robert G. Oler

    NASA Fan wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 8:15 am

    Robert, if you look over the recently released HEFT report, you’ll see that NASA wants to build a ‘capabilities infrastructure’ that creates building blocks of systems that enable incrementally more challenging mission. …

    yeah, that is one reason I found the HEFT report not very impressive.

    NASA has a building block approach to everything, 30 years ago the phrase was “the next logical step”…they had a building block approach to Apollo…we never got past the “advanced LM”” stage but they had “workshops” and all to go to the Moon do ever longer missions then come back…

    there are so many problems with the building block approach, but I will just name one.

    There is never anything to justify the second building block or enough money to build the second block, while keeping the first.

    IN good times, meaning federal budgets that were somewhat in balance and maybe even surplus, there was at best a “fixed” pie of spending that was going to go into NASA. If one wanted to start another program, particularly in human spaceflight there never was that much more money…where the money came from was essentially devestating the
    uncrewed projects, aviation research, and shutting down old infrastructure.

    And this was why the notion was to bail out of ISS…going back to the Moon needed the money.

    IN the end the reality is that NON of the steps of human spaceflight including the lunar landing were self sustaining…there never has been a reason to keep doing what was being done, other then the jobs…and in the era of sane budgeting that was good enough. With eight years of Bush and two of Obama where the budget is just out of control and getting worse…that no longer works.

    I was amazed going to some of Pete Olsen’s town hall meetings…how little the folks not in the NASA voting districts cared about human spaceflight…

    NASA and its supporters are just tone deaf…thats why I mocked the piece that I posted the link to…those reasons couldnt sale squat. NOW…they might have under Clinton when money was there but not now in a near depression when the schools in Clear Lake and even Austin are going to have a hard time opening in the fall.

    “Where in the history of our republic has the US Government ever took on building an infrastructure capability that didn’t have a prior commercial interests intertwined in the outcome of said infrastructure? ”

    There are two reasons the US government is interested in this. The first is to try and preserve the launcher industry in the US (and lower the cost) and second is to fullfill the international agreements at a cheaper price then NASA can…and not ship money overseas.

    Thats it

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    The V-22 turned out to be a successful program.

    Maybe you’re reading the headlines from the far future, but so far it has not met it’s goals. Just this week it was announced that the V-22 only has a 57% mission availability rating, instead of the required 82 percent. You can’t do your job if you’re sitting on the ground. Although come to think of it, you thought a launcher that never flew was a success, so now I understand your problem… ;-)

    The Bush Pentagon did approve its full rate production

    Over the objections of VP Cheney, who had been trying to kill the program ever since he was SecDef.

    Ares will be no different

    Ares I/V no longer exist, so as usual you are behind the times. If you really meant the SLS, I think this past election will give you a good view into the scrutiny all unneeded programs are going to get, and since SLS has no defined mission, payload or program to support, it’s just a huge slab of pork ready to be cut away – a true launcher to nowhere.

    At least the V-22 does real work 57% percent of the time…

  • Robert G. Oler

    mark valah wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Robert, the text seems to me the contrary, a collection of opinions in support of going back to the Moon, for more or less logic reasons. ..

    none of these reasons have any real substance to them…they are just old reasons for human spaceflight retread in the notion of going back to the Moon

    “And on the topic of the parallels with the 17th century explorers and space exploration there are two fundamental facts”

    YES.

    thats why we wont be going back to the Moon for sometime.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Das Boese

    So basically they’re sticking their fingers in their ears and sing “la la la, can’t hear you!”

    This back-and-forth where the side that calls the shots, basically, ignores reality until it bites them in the ass is a rather self-destructive dynamic, in politics as much as in other aspects of life*. Of course Politicians have the unique advantage of often being able to skirt the consequences of bad decisions, a problem all western democracies are suffering from and increasingly so, it seems, as we’ve become used to it.

    (*)I’ve experienced this attitude not too long ago at a place I worked (prototype testing, i.e. mostly glorified button pushing) for a few months, a small company that builds highly specialized production machines. Both the boss and the project lead I worked under had selective hearing. Tell them something can’t work (without expensive changes), they’ll tell you to do it anyway because we’re time-constrained. Then surprisingly when the part in question doesn’t work, panic, order expensive parts and make everyone work overtime to fix a problem that was entirely avoidable in the first place. The machine was demonstrated to the customer, upper level management from a major global electronics company, one day after a crucial subassembly had been integrated without any time left to test and fine-tune. Total embarassment was narrowly avoided because we eventually got it to work at a halfway decent level and the inconsistent quality of the raw material offered a convenient excuse for the delay. They eventually ironed out the problems and delivered the thing after I left, years after they were supposed to.
    Needless to say that company wasn’t in the best financial health, that’s why they cut hours for the full-timers while hiring cheap student workers like me and a bunch of unpaid interns.

  • Justin Kugler

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-12/textron-boeing-v-22-still-dogged-by-bad-parts-tester-says.html

    “The V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey, five years after it was cleared for full-production, remains dogged by unreliable parts that reduce its availability for missions, according to the Pentagon’s top tester.

    The Textron Inc. and Boeing Co. V-22, in its most recent testing to evaluate upgrades, was available only 57 percent of the time it was required to fly, rather than the specification of 82 percent, according to a new report by Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation. ”

    When they can get it in the air, it works great.

    Ares I hasn’t even flown, though, and it never will.

  • James T

    uh oh…. the **** is about to hit the fan.

  • DCSCA

    @dad2059 wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 7:53 am
    “Congress can rant and threaten all it wants, but the Red State taxpayer funded aerospace industrial complex base is shifting, no matter how much GOPers whine “national security.” If NASA is as important as national security, fund it like national security.’

    It will be, as soon as the agency is made a civilian department/division under the protective wing of the DoD, where it can be more fully funded, be permitted to plan longer term projects and at shielded by the umbrella of ‘national security.’ Otherwise, it’s being left to the corrosive elements of the Age of Austerity to rust away as a relic of the Cold War.

  • DCSCA

    @Justin Kugler wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    “The V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey…”

    We see them all the time- in formations of four. Keep waiting for one to just fall out of the sky.

  • NASA Fan

    @ Robert ….Thanks.

    Seems another way to preserve the launch industry is to spend more money on the robotic side of the house, upping the launch rate. SMD is struggling big time, flight rates are dropping, ergo LV costs are going up….missions get more expensive, and because money is fixed, they have to drop the flight rate, which drops the demand for LV’s, which drives the costs up, which makes missions more expensive, and because money is fixed, they have to drop the flight rate, which drops the demand for LV’s, which drives the costs up…

    …you get the picture.

    Not sure why HSF is seen as a way to sustain the lv industry, when the ‘mission’ of HSF is so dubious.

    NASA is now pursuing use of DoD rockets,,,as they might get them cheaper…but a crisis is present, now, wrt LV’s, and I don’t see NASA doing anything about it (if they were serious, they’d end KSC involvement in LV procurements…just ask Space X about the costs of accommodating KSC requirements on services)

    what a wacky time at NASA

  • Shaggy

    EELV’s aren’t expensive???

    http://spacenews.com/military/110114-eelv-program-costs-skyrocket.html

    1.8 billion for 2012… unbelievable!

  • Rhyolite

    James T wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    “uh oh…. the **** is about to hit the fan.”

    Not really.

    Congress mandated that the SLS “shall be designed from inception as a fully-integrated vehicle capable of carrying a total payload of 130 tons or more into low-Earth orbit” with the integration of an upper stage. I haven’t seen too many side mount configurations that can get to 130 tons (post a reference if you have one) so the referenced design does not meet Congresses requirements.

    Also, SLS has to be capable of launching MPCV, which while it is possible with a side mount, is generally undesirable from a safety standpoint.

    Congress, in effect, asked for an enormous in-line SD-HLV and shouldn’t be surprised by the cost.

  • Coastal Ron

    James T wrote @ January 14th, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    uh oh…. the **** is about to hit the fan.

    The Senators already knew that Side Mount would be cheaper, but they want the bigger launcher.

    Though the NASA Authorization Act states that NASA was to build a 70 ton launcher that could be evolved to 130 tons, the draft appropriations legislation (which was not enacted) said “the initial lift capability for the heavy lift launch vehicle system shall be not less than 130 tons” and that “the upper stage and other core elements shall be simultaneously developed.”

    That’s why when NASA submitted their report to Congress, the Senators didn’t respond back by saying “build Side Mount to lower costs”, they essentially said “you have enough money to build the 130T launcher”. No surprise, in that the goal of the legislation was to spend money, not necessarily to build an operational launcher – IMHO.

  • Aggelos

    ” If the HLV has the crew vehicle on top instead of one the side, maybe it’s not that big a deal, but evidence in recent days suggests that the root cause of the current problem was substandard metal used in the tank’s construction. If the tank’s structure fails, it doesn’t matter where the crew vehicle is mounted, it’s still a bad day.”

    Maybe for this reason nasa also studies a kerolox core instead the hydrogen ,

    Imagine.. 5 or less Merlin 2 engines on the core,and shutle boosters around..

    Its possible ?

  • On the V-22, there’s also this lenghty 2007 Time exposé:

    http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1665835,00.html

    No reason to respond to the resident troll, everyone knows he’ll argue the sky is plaid if it gets him attention. I wish people would just ignore him.

  • Pathfinder_01

    ah the 1.8 billion buys 5 launchers. 1.8 billion would only buy 2 shuttle flights!

  • Byeman

    “It will be, as soon as the agency is made a civilian department/division under the protective wing of the DoD,”

    It is like a kid repeating the same thing over and over. No matter how many times you say it DSCSA, it is not going to come true.

    “where it can be more fully funded, ”

    That is completely wrong. The DOD Space Test Program struggles yearly because of inadequate funding and their missions are more directly applicable to the DOD.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Its possible ?

    Why would you even want it? We already have adequate launch vehicles.

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    @ Aggelos Why bother have RSRMs on a multi-1Mlbf+ kerolox-
    powered HLV? The boosters are only on the shuttle because the SSMEs
    aren’t powerful enough to lift its mass off the pad and through the
    early stage of flight. A 5 x Merlin-2-powered vehicle would have in
    the area of 7-8 million pounds of thrust at
    launch, more than sufficient with a good upper stage (maybe a
    RL-10B-2 cluster) to put 100t into LEO. Adding RSRMs to that would
    be a needless and expensive elaboration that would only make VAB
    and pad handling more difficult and dangerous.

  • Aggelos

    ‘@ Aggelos Why bother have RSRMs on a multi-1Mlbf+ kerolox-
    powered HLV?”

    because congress wants clearly on paper..the say liquid for the core,,but the same srbs by Atk..

    ‘A 5 x Merlin-2-powered vehicle would have in
    the area of 7-8 million pounds of thrust at”

    The Falcon X design has 3 “merlin 2″ engines..40t payload.6m diameter

    instead of triple core or falcon 9 cores strapped..
    why not shuttle srbs around?less volume,,more mass..

  • Aggelos

    A vehicle ofcourse like that will have veeery biig thrust,,and vibration at liftoff I suppose..

    But nasa studies for kerolox core because Nelson plan dont specify hydrogen or engines for the core,,but just liquid..

    Its an open window..

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    @ Aggelos,

    instead of triple core or falcon 9 cores strapped..
    why not shuttle srbs around?less volume,,more mass..

    Because the Falcon-9 core couldn’t handle the g-loadings and other mechanical forces – It would be triple or more its designed limits.

    Oh, and Congress simply said use Shuttle and Ares heritage parts “wherever practicable” and specified required lift performance. They didn’t specify particular parts or suppliers by name. The RSRM is good enough for a SDLV but it is hardly optimal.

  • Fred Cink

    Mr Oler, thank you SSOO very much for the link to msnbc, probably the the most viewed and highly respected source of news (especially science related) on the entire planet.

  • richard schumacher

    Time and money are running out. This concept can still meet Congress’ requirements for schedule, budget, and re-use of at least some Shuttle components:
    http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/a_single_stage_to_orbit_thought_experiment.shtml
    It also provides a path for future developments such as flyback boosters and recovery of assets from orbit.

    But it would be better overall for the HLV notion to simply die, because it’s mostly pork and there’s no need for it. As many have pointed out HLV would starve the development of a more efficient operational model using less expensive more reliable launchers, in-orbit assembly, refueling and servicing capabilities, and so on.

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