Congress, NASA

Briefly: $1.4 million a day, a call for level-headed bipartisan leadership

While the current situation involving NASA’s budget and restrictions on terminating Constellation contracts is familiar to most readers here, the Orlando Sentinel lays it out in dollars and cents: NASA is forced to “waste” $1.4 million per day on Constellation contracts it can’t cancel because of a provision in the FY2010 appropriations bill, even as we approach the halfway mark of FY2011. A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who vowed earlier this year to remove the so-called “Shelby provision” (after Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who got it included in the FY10 appropriations act), blamed “partisan politics over a broader government spending measure” for the failure to get that provision eliminated. (Republican appropriators earlier this month also said that they would seek to eliminate that provision in the next CR, but failed to do so.) NASA officials, including Administrator Bolden in a House appropriations hearing earlier this month and his associate administrators in a Senate hearing last week, have shied away from claims that the current situation has been causing them to waste money, but made it clear they’d like the language removed sooner rather than later.

In an editorial today, Florida Today calls on Congress to fund commercial crew development as the best means to limit the impending gap in US human spaceflight capabilities. The paper notes that the current situation the US finds itself in, with the US reliant on Russia for access to the station for at least several years after the shuttle’s retirement this year, is an artifact of the original implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration back in 2004, which was endorsed by Congresses with both Republican and Democratic majorities. “In the hyper-partisan climate in Congress, the announcement brought familiar criticism from Republicans that the Obama administration is ceding U.S. human spaceflight to Russia,” the editorial states, referring to the latest NASA contract for Soyuz flights. “The rhetoric accomplishes nothing, further poisoning the atmosphere when level-headed bipartisan leadership is necessary to steer NASA through the post-shuttle transition.”

86 comments to Briefly: $1.4 million a day, a call for level-headed bipartisan leadership

  • “level-headed bipartisan leadership…”?

    Good luck with that.

  • What can I say? More anti-NASA slander from Matthews and Braun. Opps, Braun doesn’t work for the OS anymore. He works for…Elon Musk! Surprise!

    And rubbish from Floriday Today: We can depend upon untried novices like Elon Musk, who is already 2 years behind schedule, using the unsubstantiated claim that he will put people in orbit for $20 million per seat. And then they make the outlandish claim that Blue Origin is going to be orbital-ready by 2015. And that we should depend upon Almaz,… a Russian outfit… Why? Because we must not depend upon the Russians!

  • CharlesHouston

    Reasonable people may debate the future of various flavors of space exploration/utilization, but may we all agree that this extended failure to fund the government is an embarrassment as well as cause of tremendous waste?

    The Administration has now proposed two budget directions that were received as Dead On Arrival, even by reliable Senatorial allies such as Bill Nelson of Florida. Last year the Administration attempted to delete Orion, it “survives” though cleverly disguised as MPCV. This year they did it again, and the Senate is not poised to follow the lead. It seems that the Administration is still learning how the Federal budgeting process works. Possibly their third budget will be more acceptable when it is delivered?

    The Congress is no more innocent. The Shelby provisions should have been long ago overcome by a budget – but we saw the December 2010 appropriations bill fail. The Congress should have taken that chance to compromise and pass something, if for no other reason than to fund STS-135 and to keep the commercial guys working. Commercial operators are hoping to get some basis to plan – will the money to pay them to fly to ISS be coming eventually or will it be bargained away? We are spending more and more money per person to get people up to ISS, when that money could have been spent on US vehicles.

    Our short term disaster is compounding the long term disaster, as we try to prevent too many of the hard-won skills from dispersing. If we could have smoothly transitioned from Government launchers to commercial launchers, many of the people in the business could have made a transition. Instead, many of them are going into other businesses, and taking their experience with them. Sure we could dismiss their skills but let’s not dismiss the fact that we will need to qualify vehicles to rendezvous and dock with ISS, to co-exist with the EMI environment there, etc etc. Sure academically those are known tasks but current experience is valuable, and do we want to invent those wheels again?

    Sigh.

  • amightywind

    Florida Today is a liberal mouthpiece. Of course it will spew the party line. Obama and Newspace hijackers created the partisan battle. You cannot expect the GOP to go quietly, especially not with the shirting fortunes of the parties. The NASA stalemate will persist. Assuming things go to plan in 2012 Constellation could very well be reconstituted in 2013. Senator Shelby is wisely keeping that option open.

  • Next time Bolden is on Capital Hill maybe Rep Rohrabacher, or some such Rep less beholden to heavy-lift, will ask him when a human rated Delta IV or Atlas V will be ready?

    and the further question, will all the cuts to ground facility upgrades, when will NASA have a launch site be ready for these Human Rated lifters?

  • pathfinder_01

    sftommy:

    ULA plans to have human rated Atlas by 2014. Funding willing. There is debate atm as to where Atlas wil launch. Either from a new pad at 39B, or modified exsisting Atlas pad at LC41 or a new pad at 36A/B.

    The ksc modernization money could be used for the purpose of building pads.

  • pathfinder_01

    There are no plans to human rate Delta unless Orion goes on top of it since none of the commercail crew companies plan to use Delta.

  • CharlesHouston

    for sftommy (as doubtless others will also point out): NASA will not have a launch site for the human rated lifters – they are all on the Air Force side of the causeway. Even SpaceX launches from the old Titan launch complex on the Air Force side. There are cuts to the ground facility upgrades on the KSC side but I have not heard of any cuts on the (very busy) Air Force side. And at least SpaceX paid a part of the refurb cost of their pad.
    Bu there will be upgrades needed and that source of funds has yet to be identified, it may be included in a future budget.
    A more salient point that you allude to is: what will be done to human rate the Atlas and Delta? Those “requirements” have tended to be squishy.

  • sftommy wrote:

    and the further question, will all the cuts to ground facility upgrades, when will NASA have a launch site be ready for these Human Rated lifters?

    Presumably the human-rated Delta IV or Atlas V will launch from their current launch complexes, LC-37 or LC-41 respectively.

    Space-X at LC-40 is located between the two.

    Regardless of which pad, it will mean the first launch of humans from Cape Canaveral since Apollo 7 in October 1968 from LC-34. Those of us who are students of CCAFS history are very excited that one day soon humans will once again launch from Cape Canaveral, despite much of the public thinking the Shuttle does (which is actually in Merritt Island).

  • Joe

    Not that anybody here is going to care, but it appears the source of the “Orlando Sentinal” article is the Chicago Tribune.

    Note that the writerse-mail and address are lisred as “mmatthews2@tribune or 202-824-8222″ in the article.

  • pathfinder_01

    202 is not a chicago area code.

  • what will be done to human rate the Atlas and Delta?

    Very little is needed except to add failure on-set detection. ULA is already planning this for Atlas as part of their CCDev conctract.

  • Joe wrote:

    Not that anybody here is going to care, but it appears the source of the “Orlando Sentinal” article is the Chicago Tribune.

    Per Tribune.com:

    Tribune is one of the country’s leading multimedia companies, operating businesses in publishing, digital and broadcasting. In publishing, Tribune’s leading daily newspapers include the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel (South Florida), Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, The Morning Call and Daily Press. The company’s broadcasting group operates 23 television stations, WGN America on national cable and Chicago’s WGN-AM. Popular news and information websites complement Tribune’s print and broadcast properties and extend the company’s nationwide audience.

  • Ferris Valyn

    The Administration has now proposed two budget directions that were received as Dead On Arrival, even by reliable Senatorial allies such as Bill Nelson of Florida. Last year the Administration attempted to delete Orion, it “survives” though cleverly disguised as MPCV. This year they did it again, and the Senate is not poised to follow the lead. It seems that the Administration is still learning how the Federal budgeting process works. Possibly their third budget will be more acceptable when it is delivered?

    Explain to me how Orion is getting killed (or SLS for that matter) when they have the majority of the exploration budget? And each is higher than Commercial Crew (and not just by a few dollars).

  • 202 is not a chicago area code.

    He’s based in DC.

  • Coastal Ron

    CharlesHouston wrote @ March 24th, 2011 at 2:37 pm

    …as we try to prevent too many of the hard-won skills from dispersing.

    I keep hearing this, but what skills are they?

    And are they really and truly needed in the future (and where)?

    If we could have smoothly transitioned from Government launchers to commercial launchers, many of the people in the business could have made a transition.

    I don’t think so, and for two reasons:

    1. The amount of activity going on at the ISS is reducing dramatically as the Shuttle finishes the task of construction. Construction related personnel would have gone away anyways without any new in-space construction projects.

    2. Commercial space companies won’t need anywhere near the amount of personnel the Shuttle program has needed, both because of the inherent differences in efficiencies between private industry vs government-run operations, and the crew and cargo commercial transports are far more simple than the Shuttle.

    If anything our next generation of launch vehicles should be using LESS personnel, not the same or more. And unfortunately we don’t have a program overlap for the Shuttle program people to rely upon, but in life there are usually few perfect transitions from an old system to a new one. That’s life, and unless someone can explain the downsides, I’m not worried.

  • Thank you all for the feedback on the launch sites and which rocket they’re seriously planning to go with. My own belief is that this is the most immediate NASA priority as the shortest route returning NASA to HSF, more so than heavy lift.

    I recognize, neither Atlas nor Delta are a replacement for heavy lift and I do want NASA to acquire such a vehicle eventually. By my calcs to get a heavy lift by 2016 will cost $22B a year. I don’t see that happening.

  • amightywind

    I keep hearing this, but what skills are they?
    And are they really and truly needed in the future (and where)?

    Shuttle personnel have done an amazing job turning around the orbiters, servicing components, processing the stack, troubleshooting when problems occur, and launching safely. It is a confidence inspiring ballet. If you cannot see that then your political ideology has gotten the best of you. You greatly overestimate the Potemkin Village that is SpaceX launch operations.

  • tps

    windy:

    What? You’re not happy that they don’t need thousands of people to overhaul their vehicle everytime its flown?

    Besides, a comparison to the shuttle is silly in that they are very different machines. Comparing SpaceX to the Atlas, Delta, or Ariane crews is fairer. And before you say it, they had their problems and missed schedules too. Ariane lost their first two launches of the Ariane 5 IIRC?

  • pathfinder_01

    amightywind

    Space X has hired NASA people.

    The problem is the shuttle ran too long. In the time the shuttle has run:
    Atlas became Atlas II/Atlas III and Atlas V. Delta became Delta II, Delta III and Delta IV. Titan was both upgraded and retired.

    If the shuttle system had been replaced years ago there would be fewer people out of work at one time but now the pain is greater becuase newer systems require much less labor.

  • gdale

    The Florida today article emphasis the daily ‘waste’ of U S Taxpayers treasure due to Congressional dysfunction.

    This blog focus’s on Space politics.

    What I wonder is, how many other Agency’s are having their chains jerked around by the CR debacle? I’m willing to bet NASA is not alone in being negatively impacted by this budgetary stalemate.

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ March 24th, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    Shuttle personnel have done an amazing job…

    I didn’t ask how well they did their job, I asked what specific skills will be lost, and are they really and truly needed in the future (and where)?

    If you cannot see that then your political ideology has gotten the best of you.

    As someone that has spent most of their career in management, I look for quantifiable skills. What skills does an employee have that 1) adds value, and 2) I can’t do without. No manager worth their salt is going to put themselves in a position where an employee has an irreplaceable skill, since that is a risk to the business.

    And so it is with the Shuttle program. What specific skills are supposedly being lost? Is it orbiter-related personnel, or are we just talking SRB & ET related people here?

    You greatly overestimate the Potemkin Village that is SpaceX launch operations.

    Actually the launch company that is the better comparison is ULA, since they routinely launch our nations most valuable payloads into space. What skill sets are we losing from the Shuttle program that are needed for the future, and are not already employed at ULA?

  • Curtis Quick

    Windy,

    I don’t think anyone posting on this blog would wish to bad-talk the shuttle ground crew. Servicing a spacecraft as complicated and labor-intensive to maintain as the shuttle system is incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. They deserve our heart-felt congratulations for their hard work.

    However, for HSF to have a future we have to get away from spacecraft systems that are complex, time-consuming, and expensive. We need to simplify and reduce the amount of human resource hours required to run a spacecraft support system. We need to get to a point where computerized autonomic spacecraft support systems deal with much of what now requires the standing army of ground support crew to accomplish. This, aside from cost plus contracts, is perhaps the single most significant cost factor that keeps HSF so very expensive and will almost certainly lead to its demise if we don’t learn how to leverage modern technology to reduce cost. Either we find ways to radically reduce cost or we close up shop on HSF, because there is not, and will not anytime soon, money to support such programs that operate on the traditional budgets that we have had up to this point. NASA and its contractors must become radically more efficient or die.

  • reader

    “…as we try to prevent too many of the hard-won skills from dispersing.”

    I keep hearing this, but what skills are they?

    Release bolt #435, inspect and fill out the form, tighten bolt #435 and torque at 32.1 lb-ft, sign off, have validation by engineer #29, get approval and signoff. Write the report and file with form #8772

    These skills are invaluable and cannot be easily replaced, and are invaluable for the country to lead in critical technology areas !

  • The shuttle ops crews have served the country well for 30 years and it’s now their time to stand down. Newer systems are evolving and like all new systems, computers and automation are making launch vehicle ops smoother, safer and faster than before with fewer people.

    Bad-mouthing companies like SpaceX isn’t going to change anything and even if money is withheld from commercial companies for crew ops, private firms launching humans into space for profit is an inevitability.

    Partisan politics are brutally dismantling NASA, not companies like SpaceX, OSC or even the ULA and ATK. And unfortunately it’ll get worse before it’s better.

  • How many of us are still grieving the loss of those irreplaceable skills in the stagecoach industry?

    (crickets chirp)

  • Dennis Berube

    Like I said before, I believe Orion will indeed be Americas next space vehicle. What launch vehicle will be used to put it into space, remains to be seen. Orion is presently undergoing tests, and further development, and I dont see it being canceled. HLV may bet the boot for a Delta IV, which again remains to be seen. I still think if HLV is built, it will have those SRBs attached.

  • Curtis Quick

    Dennis,

    Honestly, I don’t think anyone in Congress actually expects NASA to produce a functional HLV or manned spacecraft. Orion work may continue and it may even consume billions over the current decade. A congressionally mandated SLS may also be funded to the tune of more tens of billions, but neither is actually going to fly. And that’s not really the purpose. The goal is to keep congressional districts happy and aerospace campaign contributions flowing. Unfortunately, it seems this can only happen by promising to spend billions.

    In point of fact, the longer it takes to get the NASA budget approved, the better it looks for the future of HSF. I say this because the delay will keep substantial work on the government program from beginning in earnest (and not so much money wasted) and still keep congressional districts happy because the promise of big spending will still be there.

    And I expect it will remain this way until after the shuttle infrastructure is gone and commercial has finished developing a manned capability. However, once a commercial manned system has launched people to LEO it will no longer work to promise billions for a government HSF program. It will not seen as acceptable to do so. At that point commercial will become the darling of the American people AND Congress, because it is American and NOT Russian. Congressional leaders will fall all over themselves congratulating American commercial and stand in line offering their support so as to be seen helping the American space industry take over the commercial space world. I suspect this will happen by 2014, perhaps sooner.

  • >>What I wonder is, how many other Agency’s are having their chains jerked around by the CR debacle?

    I can tell you from first hand experience, all of them.

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 25th, 2011 at 6:48 am

    I believe Orion will indeed be Americas next space vehicle.

    How far would we have advanced in automobile technology if there had only been one national car?

    How far would we have advanced in aerospace technology if there had only been one national airplane?

    Dennis, you shouldn’t be rooting for one government-run capsule, but for all the vehicles that everyone wants to build. Otherwise you’re damning us to a pretty bleak HSF future.

  • common sense

    @ Dennis Berube wrote @ March 25th, 2011 at 6:48 am

    You may want to try and ask people at NASA whether they “believe” such a farce.

    Oh well…

  • Sorry if I sound like I am coming down too hard on SpaceX. I don’t fault them for being two years late on COTS. That is normal in the space business. Even “Commercial” space.

    I just don’t buy into all this the blind faith in profit-driven space exploration, any more than I belived in the $100/pound shuttle promises or ISS miracle cures…

    Maybe commercial space could dramatically transform NASA. Maybe not. The wisest way to find out is to gradually give them a chance to prove out their claims. Watch the progress on COTS. Give them some CCDev funding. If they live up to even half of their hype, we can shift more and more of the funding to them in the future. But if not, we still need the real NASA. Let’s not start dismantling it, quite yet.

  • Dennis Berube

    Hey guys, I am rooting for all of them. Orion is our deep space vehicle for the future. Im certainly for commerial for LEO, but we dont want to wait on them to go out beyond our planets orbit. Orion will get us back on track, and apparently out to an asteroid, and maybe a moon of Mars. I am rooting for SpaceX and all the others.

  • Dennis Berube

    So most of you do not believe Orion will ever fly??????? Even with the present progression via Lockheed with its new facility just opening up and testing starting on Orion? A Delta being built to ferry the first Orion to space sometime in 2013, which is not that far off. You think all of this is just a farce?

  • Orion is our deep space vehicle for the future.

    Orion was not designed for deep space. It is a lunar vehicle. It is far too small for a serious deep-space mission. Nautilus is a deep-space vehicle.

  • Major Tom

    “Even with the present progression via Lockheed with its new facility just opening up and testing starting on Orion?”

    If you’re talking about the simulator facility, it’s just that — a simulator. It’s not testing actual Orion flight hardware.

    “A Delta being built to ferry the first Orion to space sometime in 2013, which is not that far off.”

    No Delta IVH is being built for an Orion launch (in 2013 or otherwise). LockMart only put a reservation down for a Delta IVH launch. As long as LockMart watch the calendar, they can rescind that reservation without losing a dime. No metal is being bent.

    “So most of you do not believe Orion will ever fly???????”

    It depends on whether Congress and the President cough up another $5 billion-plus this year and next to finish an Orion-based MPCV development by 2013. That’s unlikely given the funding levels in the 2010 Authorization Act, which cut MPCV’s budget versus the Constellation Orion runout, and which imposed additional requirements over and above what Orion had to meet.

    It also depends on they’ll cough up another $1.3 billion (Delta IV) to $16 billion-plus (SLS) in the next couple to few years to create a launch capability for Orion. Again, given the funding levels in the 2010 Authorization Act, which are lower than the Constellation Ares I runout, and the direction in the 2010 Authorization Act, which is away from EELV and towards Shuttle-derived solutions, it’s unlikely that an LV for Orion will emerge even if an Orion-based MPCV development is completed.

    “You think all of this is just a farce?”

    It’s a farce that Congress levied additional requirements and shorter timelines on MPCV and SLS while cutting their budgets relative to the runouts for Orion and Ares I. Based on Constellation, there’s no reason to belive that NASA can design and build a larger, heavier SDLV more quickly and for less money than was budgeted for a smaller, lighter SDLV. Or that a more complex Orion-based MPCV can be built more quickly and for less money than was budgeted for a less complex Orion capsule.

    It’s a farce that NASA is being forced to waste limited taxpayer dollars on an Orion simulator when a domestic alternative has flown orbitally and been recovered successfully.

    It’s a farce that NASA may be forced to waste limited taxpayer dollars pursuing an SDLV that won’t fly for years when there are multiple domestic alternatives that do have or will have scores of launches under their belts before the first SLS test launch.

    It’s a farce that NASA has been forced to squander billions of dollars and years of time on expensive, unsafe, and unneeded Shuttle-derived LVs that no one else will use — not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars in Soyuz payments — when there are multiple, less expensive, and safer alternatives in the nation’s launch stable that could have gotten NASA off Soyuz dependence much earlier.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Shuttle personnel have done an amazing job… It is a confidence inspiring…”

    There is nothing “amazing” or “confidence inspiring” about…

    Cocaine in the OPF:

    space.com/7780-cocaine-nasa-space-shuttle-hangar.html

    A USA engineer falling to his death from Endeavour’s launch pad,

    cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/14/scitech/main20042920.shtml

    Cracks in ET structure:

    cbsnews.com/network/news/space/home/spacenews/files/8c4404c8989776f17023d5982b9757cc-122.html

    Or multiple gaseous hydrogen leaks:

    spaceref.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=31494

    spacedaily.com/reports/Hydrogen_leak_delays_shuttle_Discovery_launch_NASA_999.html

    “…ballet.”

    We need an efficient, reliable, redundant commute to ETO. Not a frail, starved ballerina.

    “You greatly overestimate the Potemkin Village that is SpaceX launch operations.”

    SpaceX has turned around Falcon 9 engine misstarts in a day and cracked bell nozzles in a week.

    The Shuttle program, by contrast, took nearly half a year to overcome a gaseous hydrogen leak and intertank cracks.

    And who says we need to rely on SpaceX given the Atlas V and Delta IV track records?

    Sigh…

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 25th, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    I just don’t buy into all this the blind faith in profit-driven space exploration…

    No wonder you’re confused. Commercial space companies like SpaceX are focused on the near-term needs, which is crew and cargo transportation to LEO. That is not exploration, and no one has been characterizing it as such.

    I personally think that NASA is still the lead for exploration, but is not being allowed to avail themselves of the least-costliest ways of doing that. So in my view, it is those that put their faith in systems mandated by Congress that have blind faith.

    The wisest way to find out is to gradually give them a chance to prove out their claims. Watch the progress on COTS.

    By my count, SpaceX has been paid 91% their COTS contract for successful completion of their milestone schedule. All the is left is Demo flights 2 & 3, and NASA is still reviewing whether they will allow them to be combined.

    I don’t fault them for being two years late on COTS.

    Just to be clear, SpaceX completed their first 14 COTS milestones on time.

    If SpaceX has to fly COTS Demo flight #3, and they do it by the end of the year, then they will only be 9 months behind the initial COTS schedule. If they combine Demo flights 2 & 3, and fly in June, then they will be only 3 months behind the original schedule. In any case, they will have stayed on schedule better than any other major NASA program in recent memory, and we the taxpayer didn’t have to pay them anything extra for being late – the advantages of milestone contracts.

    If they live up to even half of their hype, we can shift more and more of the funding to them in the future.

    Hype is for gullible people. All that matters is what actually gets done, and since SpaceX has arguably done more than half what they signed up for on the COTS program, then you must feel they qualify for more funding? If not, quantify your answer please.

    But if not, we still need the real NASA. Let’s not start dismantling it, quite yet.

    This is a false argument. Commercial space transportation to LEO does not replace NASA exploration in LEO or beyond. It does make exploration less expensive for NASA, which is why so many people want to see it put in place as soon as possible.

    And regarding dismantling, the only things we are ending is the Shuttle program, and that doesn’t stop us from doing anything in the future. To think otherwise is to ignore the large and continuing aerospace industry that we have outside of the Shuttle program.

    To refute Chicken Little, the sky is not falling.

  • common sense

    For those who don’t quite understand the waste.

    Take for input about $200K/year for an engineer (all taxes included) in any given organization. Therefore $1.4M represent 7 (seven) engineers per year, PER YEAR!

    The waste is 7 (seven) engineer/year PER DAY!!!!

    Do you get the perspective? How much of a waste this represents for any given large or small company? In those days of rampant unemployment I would hope our Congress would stop this farce.

    Perspective my friends PERSPECTIVE…

  • Coastal Ron: “The amount of activity going on at the ISS is reducing dramatically as the Shuttle finishes the task of construction. Construction related personnel would have gone away anyways without any new in-space construction projects.”

    I’ve been involved, at least peripherally, with ISS since the Space Operations Center concepts of the 1970’s Abandoning the Shuttle was never the plan. Every station concept since the beginning of the Shuttle program included the potential for continued addition of new modules; “assembly complete” was simply an arbitrary point where full utilization began. The ISS was designed to be resupplied using the PLM, and later the MPLMs, which are now useless. How the The very term “Space Transportation System” or STS referred to three elements, the Shuttle, the Station, and the Orbital Transfer Vehicle.

    The very first time, to my knowledge, that anyone suggested that the Shuttle wasn’t needed, was when Sean O’Keefe announced the plan for Constellation to a Senate committee in 2004. Safety was not an issue; had it been an issue we could not have returned to flight after Columbia was lost. Shuttle was canceled because GW Bush had become persuaded that by doing so, the US could go back to the moon and on to Mars without raising taxes. One of the senators who pointed out that even without Shuttle there obviously wasn’t enough money in the budget was John McCain.

    Since then NASA has created an urban myth that Shuttle was only intended for the assembly phase of ISS. How supposedly competent NASA leaders can promulgate such blatant rewriting of history is beyond me. In fact, for the last few years of the Bush Administration all US participation in ISS was to terminate in 2010. Obama was at least able to prevent this tragedy.

    But the truth is that ISS was originally proposed as an indefinite program, and the assumption was that the Shuttle would keep flying until we had a new shuttle to replace it.

  • Coastal Ron

    I need to correct some of the information I provided above. In looking at the COTS schedule, my mind is still rooted in 2010 instead of 2011.

    The updated info would be that if SpaceX flies COTS Demo Flight 3 by this December, then they will be 1.75 years behind schedule. If NASA let’s them combine Flights 2 & 3, and they fly in June, then they will only be 1.25 years behind schedule.

    Compared to just about any other NASA program (or even comparable government programs), SpaceX is doing pretty good. And remember again that we the taxpayer have not paid for any schedule slips, nor has the ISS been impacted by them, especially since STS-135 is partially being flown for in-space repair parts that are outside the scope of the CRS program capabilities.

  • Ron:

    Elon (boy, I thought that Nelson was a bad first name!) has made a number of absurd promises. Not more than 2 years ago (when Falcon 9 was supposed to be operational) he claimed that SpaceX is going to put men on Mars by 2020 or 2025. Despite your claims, he would clearly like for almost the entire NASA space budget to be shoveled into his pockets. That appears to be the objective of the Obama WH, which wants to cut back on the HLV (manned exploration) in order to increase commercial crew funding.

  • …Not to mention Bolden’s insistance on devoting manpower to studies of a SpaceX HLV, even though Congress stated clearly that they must (for contractual closing costs reasons) use shuttle and Constellation components.

  • Frank Glover

    “…the Obama WH, which wants to cut back on the HLV (manned exploration)…”

    HLV does not equal manned exploration, no matter how may times you say it. You might tell us what manned exploratory vehicles are supposed to go on top of it, though. Where’s Congress on that…?

  • Major Tom

    “Elon… would clearly like for almost the entire NASA space budget to be shoveled into his pockets.”

    Source? Reference? Quote? Link?

    SpaceX earned a contract worth $278 million during the Bush II Administration for its COTS work.

    SpaceX has applied to the CCDev program, and Musk has estimated that $300 million is needed for the crewed Dragon variant, specifically to accelerate development of the launch abort system.

    Musk has further stated that he thinks a Falcon-derived HLV could be developed for less than $3 billion.

    Altogether, that’s less than $3.6 billion. NASA’s total FY 2010 budget is $18.7 billion. So even if Musk/SpaceX won every development they want from NASA, they’d spend less than 20% of one year of NASA’s total budget.

    Don’t post blatant lies.

    “That appears to be the objective of the Obama WH, which wants to cut back on the HLV (manned exploration) in order to increase commercial crew funding.”

    “Cut back” from what by the White House? Congress has yet to pass any FY11 appropriations for SLS, the HLV remaining in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act after Constellation imploded. There is no approved HLV budget.

    Moreover, the White House has requested $1.8 billion (with a “b”) for SLS in FY12, and has only requested $850 million (with an “m”) for commercial crew. The White House has actually asked for nearly a billion dollars more in taxpayer dollars to produce an HLV with no payload or mission versus multiple commercial crew vehicles with clearly defined payloads and mission.

    nasa.gov/pdf/516674main_FY12Budget_Estimates_Overview.pdf

    Don’t post blatant lies.

    “…Not to mention Bolden’s insistance on devoting manpower to studies of a SpaceX HLV, even though Congress stated clearly that they must (for contractual closing costs reasons) use shuttle and Constellation components.”

    The 2010 NASA Authorization Act expresses a congressional preference for using existing Shuttle and Constellation contracts. But it does not require NASA to use those contracts if they will result in an unaffordable, unsafe, or ineffective MPCV or SLS, and the Act actually requires NASA to study alternatives.

    Don’t post blatant lies.

    Ugh…

  • pathfinder_01

    I think Orion will fly but beyond that test flight is iffy. LM is paying for the test flight not NASA. LM is trying to show progress on the spacecraft and from what I read it takes 2 years to order an EELV.

    There are two problems. Problem one is that the people who want SLS fear that putting Orion on an EELV will get rid of the case for SLS. One rep. from Texas stated he was going to find a way to block the Delta flight.

    Problem two is Orion’s costs. NASA’s HEFT report puts at $840 million a for a NEO mission(although it can get as low as $400, or $597 a unit if it does not carry crew to orbit and is just used for reentry).

    The last problem is the budget and LM is basically holding off everything the crew needs just to test the Orion’s systems.

    Also atm Orion is tied to SLS(unless you want to launch it unmanned on Delta IV heavy).

    I like the Nautilus concept but you still would need an Orion like craft to use Nautilus. The trouble is returning to LEO is very costly. Once Nautilus has left LEO it would probably never return. This would put it out of range of the commercial LEO taxis. Orion would be able to get to it. Dragon would need some upgrades while cst100 and dream chaser would not be able to get to Nautilus once it left LEO.Also Orion’s ability to support a crew for 21 days would be handy in case you need to do an in space abort(aka Apollo 13).

    The only changes I would make to Nautilus is limit the crew to 4(or be expandable to for 6) instead of 6. I would also seriously think about resizing it so that am HLV is not needed.

    Orion isn’t deep space craft but is is a deep space(or lunar) transfer craft.

    If I where in charge I would upgrade delta to carry about 40-50MT. Create a space storable earth departure stage able and work from there.

  • It would be much better to pay the closing costs and abandon Constellation. None of the components of Constellation is affordable, nor do any of them provide any practical benefits worth their cost.

  • GuessWho

    CS – “Perspective my friends PERSPECTIVE…”

    Hear, Hear.

    Time it takes to pay off the following amount if you paid $1 every second, 24/7 with no break (and no interest growth):

    $1M – About 12 days
    $1B – About 32 yrs
    $1T – About 31700 yrs

    Proposed 2012 Deficit: $1.65T
    Current National Debt: ~$14T

    Perspective folks, perspective!

  • BeancounterFromDownunder

    Nelson. Could you quote your sources for the above claims regarding SpaceX please? I think I’ve missed them somewhere.

  • Ferris Valyn

    pathfinder_01

    One rep. from Texas stated he was going to find a way to block the Delta flight.

    Do you remember who said that and when?

  • Justin Kugler

    SpaceX is only one of several companies involved in the HLV study. No one is “shoveling” money to them.

  • common sense

    @ GuessWho wrote @ March 26th, 2011 at 1:08 am

    Not that I do not agree with you but what does that have to do with anything? So to you it is okay to waste $1.4 every day??? Just because we have $1.3T deficit? In what way is that going to improve our deficit? I thought you were a fan of the $61B cut.

    Consistency my friend, consistency!

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 25th, 2011 at 7:13 pm

    Elon (boy, I thought that Nelson was a bad first name!)

    How is “Elon Musk” any worse than “Nelson Bridwell”? I don’t see any issue with either, but all of a sudden you’ve made people notice you live in a glass house, and you’re throwing stones…

    Not more than 2 years ago…

    I’m always amused when people have trouble separating fact from fiction, or in this case “forward looking statements” from funded efforts.

    Your singular focus on SpaceX has blinded you to the same types of statements that come from just about all companies and groups. How about Lockheed Martin and their Plymouth Rock mission? Or even the Nautilus proposal? All forward looking statements of where they would like to go if circumstances allow them to.

    If you don’t understand that concept, then I recommend you don’t manage your own stock portfolio.

    …he would clearly like for almost the entire NASA space budget to be shoveled into his pockets.

    First of all, with less than 1,500 employees, all SpaceX does is build launchers and capsules. Most of NASA’s non-Shuttle budget is for science and payloads, not the transportation, so this is a ridiculous statement to begin with. And I think Major Tom above did a good job showing how much of NASA’s budget SpaceX could possibly get even if they got everything they wanted (i.e. not much).

    But are you also forgetting that Boeing and Lockheed Martin already get the largest portion of NASA’s space budget? And let’s not forget that they own USA and ULA. So you’re complaining that SpaceX wants to take away business from Boeing and Lockheed Martin? Is that your beef? Hilarious!! Is it because you don’t want your BA or LMT stock to go down?

  • Major Tom

    “I think Orion will fly but beyond that test flight is iffy. LM is paying for the test flight not NASA.”

    No. To be clear, LockMart has only put a _refundable_ deposit down to reserve a future Delta IVH launch. LockMart is not going to spend billions of shareholder dollars developing and launching Orion on their own dime. LockMart is only reserving the option to test Orion on a Delta IVH (since there’s no other LV for Orion) if NASA chooses to go down that path. If NASA does not choose to go down that path, then LockMart will terminate the reservation and ULA will refund LockMart’s deposit.

    “Problem two is Orion’s costs. NASA’s HEFT report puts at $840 million a for a NEO mission”

    That’s an optimistic underestimate. The Aerospace Corp. and the Augustine Committee priced Orion at $1 billion per _ISS_ mission (forget a NEO variant).

    “(although it can get as low as $400, or $597 a unit if it does not carry crew to orbit and is just used for reentry.)”

    This doesn’t make sense. If it’s $400 million for a simple reentry test, why is it $597 per “unit”.

    “Once Nautilus has left LEO it would probably never return.”

    Per the Nautilus-X presentation, it refuels in GEO:

    http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Holderman-Henderson_1-26-11/

    “This would put it out of range of the commercial LEO taxis… I like the Nautilus concept but you still would need an Orion like craft to use Nautilus.”

    No, even old Soyuzes can do circumlunar missions with little modification. With Nautilus recrewing in GEO, you’re much better off modifying Dragon than Orion. With Dragon, you’re starting at a base price that is something less than $65 million per mission (competitive with Soyuz), while Orion starts more than an order of magnitude higher at $1 billion per mission (maybe $850 million if your earlier figure was right).

    “Dragon would need some upgrades while cst100 and dream chaser would not be able to get to Nautilus once it left LEO.”

    If a service module was developed for it, there’s no reason CST-100 (along with Dragon and Soyuz) couldn’t also service Nautilus in GEO.

    “I would also seriously think about resizing it so that am HLV is not needed.”

    They baselined an HLV, but there’s no unfueled Nautilus-X component that requires that much throw weight. It’s mostly inflatable, Bigelow-esque modules.

    “If I where in charge I would upgrade delta to carry about 40-50MT. Create a space storable earth departure stage able and work from there.”

    Agreed.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “SpaceX is only one of several companies involved in the HLV study. No one is ‘shoveling’ money to them.”

    Actually, IIRC, there’s 13 HLV study contracts.

    FWIW…

  • Fred Cink

    Sorry, just can’t help myself…Its that “Perspective/Consistency” thing.

  • Could you quote your sources for the above claims regarding SpaceX please? I think I’ve missed them somewhere.

    As with most of his comments, he is literally sitting on the source of them.

  • Coastal Ron

    vulture4 wrote @ March 25th, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    Since then NASA has created an urban myth that Shuttle was only intended for the assembly phase of ISS.

    As an outsider, what I saw was that the last big job for the Shuttle was the ISS. After it’s completion there was no real need for the Shuttle’s unique talents, so although I didn’t like the cancellation announcement at first, I came to see it as a logical point to end the Shuttle program.

    But the truth is that ISS was originally proposed as an indefinite program, and the assumption was that the Shuttle would keep flying until we had a new shuttle to replace it.

    No doubt, and this would have been nice, but for what is probably many reasons, it didn’t happen.

    If a replacement would have been started back in the 90’s, I think they may have looked at going to something less complex, and hopefully less expensive. But what we now have is a hard reset of our capabilities, with capsules looking like the predominate method of transportation for through at least 2020.

    What I hope for is that the Dream Chaser and Prometheus type programs actually make it, and that provides a bridge to fully reusable crew transportation systems. But there needs to be a lot of demand for such systems to attract the development money it will take to get them going, and that demand is a big unknown.

    Hope springs eternal, but we’ll have to see how far we can stretch the available funds. And that’s part of the reason I advocate for those things that lower the cost to access space, since that tends to spur demand.

  • common sense

    @ Fred Cink wrote @ March 26th, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    “Sorry, just can’t help myself…Its that “Perspective/Consistency” thing.”

    Sorry for what???

  • Martijn Meijering

    If I where in charge I would upgrade delta to carry about 40-50MT. Create a space storable earth departure stage able and work from there.

    This works better if you let the storable stage operate from L1/L2 onward and use a cryogenic upper stage to get there. In that case you don’t even need the EELV Phase 1 right away.

  • “Nelson. Could you quote your sources for the above claims regarding SpaceX please? I think I’ve missed them somewhere.”

    SpaceX CEO Bets Manned Mission ot Mars by 2020
    April 7, 2009.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn7obiurdxg

    Yes, there are clearly other companies bidding for CCDev contacts, but SpaceX is clearly a front-runner, due to COTS funding. And when Obama went to KSC on 4/15/10, almost everyone was surprised how totally he shunned NASA personnel and instead decided to hang out with Elon.

    http://www.enjoyspace.com/uploads/news/juin2010/falcon9/obama-musk.jpg

  • NASA COTS Space Act Agreeement –

    http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/162330main_SPACE_ACT_AGREEMENT_FOR_COTS.pdf

    Appendix 1 – SpaceX Executive Summary – Response to NASA

    Capability A-C
    • Demo 1, Q2 2008 – Core Functionality Flight. The first flight of Dragon is intended to demonstrate core functionality, such as on orbit maneuvering, structural integrity, systems functions and entry/descent/landing. Note, the spacecraft will be highly instrumented, with multi-megabit telemetry and video on all missions.

    • Demo 2, Q1 2009 – Virtual Autonomous Rendezvous & Berthing. This test will validate autonomous rendezvous and berthing procedures, including testing of autonomous & manual aborts, but with a virtual version of the ISS to alleviate concerns over a malflmction.
    • Demo 3, Q3 2009 – ISS Berthing and Downmass Return. This test is to complete qualification of the Dragon/_9 LV for cargo delivery and return. The goal will be to rendezvous and berth with the ISS, then return safely back to Earth, carrying ISS experiments
    and/or waste.

    Actual:

    First Falcon 9 flight was June 2010, more than 2 years behind schedule, because it carried only a boilerplace Dragon, which could not perform any of the Demon 1 milestones, such as on-orbit maneouvering and safe reentry.

    Second Falcon 9 flight was December 2010, was 2.5 years behind schedle. Successfully accomplished the Demo 1 flght milestones.

  • “What I hope for is that the Dream Chaser and Prometheus type programs actually make it, and that provides a bridge to fully reusable crew transportation systems. But there needs to be a lot of demand for such systems to attract the development money it will take to get them going, and that demand is a big unknown.”

    My guess is that NASA will go for Falcon9+Dragon and AtlasV+CST-100. I suspect that Promethius and Dream Chaser will be too high-risk and too expensive. ATK will get HLV contracts instead of Liberty. I concur that there isn’t much of a market to support 2 major players, let alone more…

  • “he is literally sitting on the source of them”

    Vulgar insults tend to stick to those who throw them…

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 26th, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    I suspect that Promethius and Dream Chaser will be too high-risk and too expensive.

    I do think these type of vehicles will take a medium-term commitment from both NASA and the companies developing them, and that certainly will be high-risk. I’m hoping that the companies can get investment backing due to an expanding LEO marketplace demand, but that likely won’t happen until late in this decade.

    Just like how everyone in the 50’s was envisioning we’d have flying cars by 2000, so it seems with our spacecraft – slower to evolve than we want.

    I concur that there isn’t much of a market to support 2 major players, let alone more…

    Yep. I don’t think the ISS will be able to fully support two transportation systems (like Dragon + CST-100), but I think it will almost support them, and that Boeing and SpaceX will leverage the ISS business to expand into commercial support for Bigelow and (hopefully) others. Won’t happen overnight, but Boeing can afford it if it wants to be a market leader, and SpaceX will be able to afford it because they have such a low cost structure (e.g. 14 Dragon left over from CRS).

  • Major Tom

    “First Falcon 9 flight was June 2010, more than 2 years behind schedule, because it carried only a boilerplace Dragon, which could not perform any of the Demon 1 milestones, such as on-orbit maneouvering and safe reentry.”

    The first Falcon 9 flight was not a COTS milestone and it was not funded by NASA. It was funded by a military or intelligence space agency.

    “The maiden Falcon 9 mission was funded by a U.S. government agency that SpaceX has declined to name and carried a qualification unit of the company’s Dragon space station cargo capsule into orbit. The next three Falcon 9 missions will carry Dragon in an increasingly complex series of demonstrations under SpaceX’s $278 million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) agreement with NASA. Upon successful completion of the demo missions, SpaceX will begin making regular cargo-delivery runs to the international space station under a separate contract valued at $1.6 billion.”

    http://www.spacenews.com/venture_space/100903-spacex-tweaking-falcon-software-for-upcoming-launch.html

    Don’t post blatant lies.

    “Vulgar insults tend to stick to those who throw them…”

    If you don’t want to be insulted, then don’t post blatant lies here that you pulled out of your arse.

    Lawdy…

  • Byeman

    Define “real” NASA

  • Tom:

    If you say something that you belive to be true, I would not accuse you of being dishonest. Just misinformed, or possibly misguided.

    If these conversations degenerate to the level of true dishonesty, then they have little, if any value.

    By the way, is Major a reference you prior military service, or to your fondness for Bowie, or both?

    And perhaps the secret government agency that you say funded the Falcon 9 flight was the USDA?

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Spacecraft_Qualification_Unit

    The Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit was a boilerplate version of the Dragon spacecraft manufactured by SpaceX, a space transportation company in Hawthorne, California. After using it for ground tests to rate Dragon’s shape and mass in various tests, SpaceX launched it into low-Earth orbit on Falcon 9 Flight 1, the maiden flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, on June 4, 2010.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilerplate_(spaceflight)

    The term boilerplate in rocketry refers to a nonfunctional craft, system, or payload which is used to test various configurations and basic size, load, and handling characteristics. It is far less expensive to build multiple, full-scale, non-functional boilerplate spacecraft than it is to develop the full system (design, test, redesign, and launch).

  • Ferris Valyn

    Let me propose an alternative then simply the “there is going to be 2 winners” in all of this

    There is the question of development vs deployment/utilization. And I can see a situation where NASA funds the development of more than 2 providers, but then only utilizes 2 providers, where the remaining vehicles act as backups, and act as a way to accelerate the growth of the market (since they’ll be looking for customers).

    Thoughts?

  • Congress rejected Obama’s initial request for a total commercial development budget of $6 billion. The figures that I have seen look closer to 1.5B, total, over the next few years.

    “Orbital says development of Prometheus would cost $3.5 billion to $4 billion, which would include the cost of upgrading the Atlas V rocket and two test flights.”

    http://spaceports.blogspot.com/2011/02/orbital-science-corporations-prometheus.html

    At this point it looks like the total cost for Falcon 9 + Dragon will come to about $1 billion. Some of that came out of the pockets of SpaceX investors.

    If CCDev goes amazingly well (I am not holding my breath) I could see Congress giving it a bigger slice of funding after ISS crew operations have begun. Possibly if there is significant competition from China, and the economy bounces back.

    But until then, I think there is going to be a limited window of opportunity for commercial space, and they need to make sure that they live up to everyone’s expectations. No Challengers, please!

  • Coastal Ron

    Ferris Valyn wrote @ March 27th, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    Thoughts?

    Maybe this is similar to what you said:

    Considering how little money NASA will have to work with, I hope they fully fund two providers, which likely will be capsules. I don’t think there is a profitable business in just supporting the ISS, but I think the two winners will be counting on growing the crew transportation market to make it profitable.

    At the same time I hope that NASA can find money in their technology development funds to keep funding work on Dream Chaser and/or Prometheus as the next incremental improvement to capsules, but I don’t think NASA will have enough funds in the next 5 years to fully fund them, especially since they won’t be needed for ISS support until after 2020.

    I think capsules are it until the non-ISS market starts expanding, or there is a big need for better downmass capabilities than Dragon or CST-100 can provide.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Coastal Ron – No, thats not what I am saying. Let me draw the comparison to COTS & CRS – Commercial Crew will be like the COTS program, and produce vehicles capable of delivering astronauts to ISS (like COTS did), and there will be a follow-on contract to actually deliver astronauts to ISS (like CRS is a contract to actually deliver cargo to ISS)

    Now, the assumption is that the number of Commercial Crew winners would equal the number of the something like the CRS contract, but for crew delivery.

    However, its worth asking – why would that need to be the case? Why not have more Commercial Crew vehicles get developed than get used?

  • One possible additional market for commercial crew in the 2020s could be another, small space station, in LEO.

    I see two real needs for NASA:
    (1) A lower inclination orbit that could be compatiable with staging BEO missoins.
    (2) Rotation of the station to produce a simulated 1/3 and 1/6 g, for testing the long-term human effects of exposure to the Moon and Mars.

    Bigelow could be a reasonable candidate for this mission.

  • Major Tom

    “Tom:

    If you say something that you belive to be true, I would not accuse you of being dishonest. Just misinformed, or possibly misguided.”

    I’m not going to apologize for calling a spade a spade. You lied. I and multiple other posters on this site and others have corrected you on these points repeatedly and provided references and links. Once or twice is fine. But you should know better by now. You should no longer be repeating the same false statements.

    “If these conversations degenerate to the level of true dishonesty”

    You take “these conversations” to “the level of true dishonesty” by repeating the same false statements over and over. That’s not ignorance. That’s lying.

    “And perhaps the secret government agency that you say funded the Falcon 9 flight…”

    It’s not what I said or wrote. It’s what was written in the Space News article that I quoted and linked to above.

    And the Space News article did not say that it was a “secret” government agency. The article simply stated that SpaceX declined to name the agency.

    Read, comprehend, and think before you post.

    “… was the USDA?”

    Why would you even bother to make such a stupid statement? It’s obviously not the Department of Agriculture. It’s most likely the NRO or DARPA, possibly the USAF.

    Cripes…

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 27th, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    Congress rejected Obama’s initial request for a total commercial development budget of $6 billion.

    You forget about the strategy of asking for more than you need, so the lesser amount you settle for is what you’re OK with.

    You also forget that the highest priority was the cancellation of the over-schedule, over-budget Constellation program, and specifically the unneeded Ares I. So while you focus on what they didn’t get, you miss the huge amount that they DID get.

    If CCDev goes amazingly well (I am not holding my breath) I could see Congress giving it a bigger slice of funding after ISS crew operations have begun.

    I don’t know what you mean by this – ISS crew operations have been going for a decade.

    …and they need to make sure that they live up to everyone’s expectations.

    That should be the standard for everyone, including government programs. And since you’re pointing this out, then you must have agreed with the cancellation of the over-schedule, over-budget Constellation program?

    You must also be applauding Elon Musk’s suggestions for NASA to adopt more milestone-type contracts in order to hold contractors more accountable, and reduce contract liabilities for the government?

    Gee, maybe you’re a Musk fanboi and you didn’t even know it… ;-)

  • Coastal Ron

    Ferris Valyn wrote @ March 28th, 2011 at 12:14 am

    However, its worth asking – why would that need to be the case? Why not have more Commercial Crew vehicles get developed than get used?

    I guess it depends on the types of systems we’re talking about. I think capsules will be basic transportation for the next 10-15 years, but I’m hoping they are just the first iteration of our future crew transportation needs.

    In order evolve the market as fast as possible, you can’t have too many legacy systems that have not had a chance to be profitable, since otherwise you risk the chance of flooding the market with too many low cost systems, and not enough market demand for next generation systems (which likely cost more).

    The other issue to consider is how much money the government can & will kick in to jumpstart this market? In my mind, two is the least amount of providers we can have and still have redundancy, and combined with the low amount of business there will be until Bigelow gets going, why have more?

    I would rather put the money that would have gone to a third system towards the next evolution of crew transportation, whether that be Dream Chaser type vehicles, or if we’re ready to make that leap, fully reusable systems.

    My $0.02

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 28th, 2011 at 12:14 am

    (2) Rotation of the station to produce a simulated 1/3 and 1/6 g, for testing the long-term human effects of exposure to the Moon and Mars.

    I don’t know why the exploration of rotational article gravity is not getting much attention. We only know how well we survive in 1-G and 0-G environments, but like you point out, not what we would experience on the Moon or Mars.

    The next national or international space laboratory should have this as one of it’s major goals.

  • Ron:

    It sounds like we are in agreement on a number of points.

    What is interesting to me is Wayne Hale’s recent blog that NASA’s shuttle effort was crippled by the lack of a block B development effort 10 years after the first flights that would have leared from past mistakes.. Perhaps recurring development funding beyond 2015 should be planned.

    But I think the biggest factor, aside from safety, would be ways to lower costs. An Atlas V is never going to be cheap. Neither is a displosable Falcon 9. We need a fully reusable first stage, and, eventually, upper stage. It looks like all the new capsules should be reusable several times.

  • pathfinder_01

    NASA has plans for up to 3 commercial companies going to the ISS (funding willing). The only way that can work is if one of the companies is acting as crew rescue vehicles while the others are crew taxi. The advantage of doing it this way would be the ability to sell a few seats to the ISS since the crew taxi is no longer staying the whole time of the trip.

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 28th, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    It sounds like we are in agreement on a number of points.

    I wanted to show you that we do have areas of agreement – we’re not always diametrically opposed… ;-)

    Perhaps recurring development funding beyond 2015 should be planned.

    We’ve lost the bubble on any Shuttle evolution, and I for one would not advocate pursing it right now, or at least not as a NASA led program.

    The time for government-run transportation systems is winding down, and if the SLS is not finished, then hopefully we will be able to fully transition into a commercial cargo & crew marketplace for Earth to LEO, and likely beyond.

    NASA can build their mission unique vehicles for exploration (the MPCV qualifies – barely), but the aerospace industry, which is where all the construction & service expertise really resides, is more than capable of taking over the routine transportation needs.

    We need a fully reusable first stage, and, eventually, upper stage. It looks like all the new capsules should be reusable several times.

    You’re thinking very much like Elon Musk. I think you’re beginning to take a shine to him… ;-)

  • Let’s assume that NASA selects 2 suppliers, and provides development funds to each of about $500,000,000.

    If NASA pays each provider $50,000,000 per seat x 3 that comes to $150,000,000 per flight. Add to that the development cost, spread over 5 years, and the cost to nasa comes to about $83,000,000 per seat.

    The launch provider gets $150,000,000 per year with which to pay for one Atlas V + (used) Boeing CTS-100, or one Falcon 9 and (used) Dragon.

    If Musk can provide seats for $20,000,000 per flight then it woud bring the total cost per seat to NASA of about $53,000,000, and provide SpaceX with $60,000,000 for a Falcon 9 + used Dragon.

    Dragon and CTS can hadle up to 7 seats, but I assume 3 belong to NASA with the rest used for cargo…

    Any one else want to take a stab at the numbers?

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 28th, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    Any one else want to take a stab at the numbers?

    If NASA did nothing, and bought 5-years of transportation needs from Russia after 2016, then we would pay them about $1.5B for transporting 24 people to/from the ISS. I’m using figures from here:

    http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/mar/HQ_C11-013_Soyuz_Contract.html

    So in your example (which is using fictitious numbers) to match the pricing we get for Soyuz, the R&D would take $1B, leaving $500M for the actual service. Those 24 people would then cost $20.8M/seat.

    There are too many unknowns in these equations, so this is just a simple math exercise. For instance, Soyuz will be transporting 2 ISS crew members on some flights (and one tourist), and likely 3 on others (no tourist). Dragon & CST-100 can transport 7 people in total, and so there exists an opportunity for either the ISS partners to add more people (likely temporarily), or potential for tourists (short stays between personnel changes).

    Keep in mind too that Boeing and SpaceX may offer prices below their actual costs in order to grow the market. This is a typical tactic in the business world, so it would not be unusual for this new market either. And this is also what I think both Boeing and SpaceX will do, since both have stated they want to be in the business, and Boeing is already working with their second potential customer (Bigelow Aerospace), so there is market demand beyond the ISS once it is established.

    My $0.02

  • Ron:

    You are certainly right. My numbers are approximate guesses. I am very willing to look at others. One interesting option that was mentioned the other day is for NASA to just select one commercial provider.

    I don’t think that SpaceX could afford to operate at a loss. Boeing could, but I don’t think that their stockholders would approve that strategy because, at this point, there is no clear major revenue stream on the near-term horizon.

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ March 29th, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    One interesting option that was mentioned the other day is for NASA to just select one commercial provider.

    I’m not in favor of replacing one monopoly (Shuttle) with another (Boeing or SpaceX). In such a situation you have to depend on a benevolent provider to expand the market, and while that could happen, how does the second provider gain a foothold? We need competition to keep costs in check, and to provide constant innovation.

    I don’t think that SpaceX could afford to operate at a loss.

    I think the only high dollar hurtle that they have to solve is the LAS. Once they have that, they will have a fleet of already-paid-for capsules that they can use on top of their in-house built (and cost efficient) Falcon 9 launchers. They are a disruptive presence to the crew and cargo transportation market, which normally is a good thing, but I don’t want them stifling a competitive marketplace. That is where NASA can be a force in spreading the ISS work evenly amongst the providers, ensuring that they have a dependable level of demand from which to build upon.

    To give you an analogy, SpaceX could be to space transportation as Walmart was to the retail market. Walmart’s key competitive difference was in lowering the costs of their distribution system, which is hard to duplicate without lots of scale.

    SpaceX started with no legacy cost structures, could use the latest manufacturing techniques and innovations, and discovered that they could build most of their product in-house, which brings cost, leadtime and quality improvements that their competitors can’t easily match.

    Boeing could, but I don’t think that their stockholders would approve that strategy because, at this point, there is no clear major revenue stream on the near-term horizon.

    The ISS is a funded revenue stream through 2020, and likely far beyond. And Boeing has been working with Bigelow too, which would provide a second stream of demand. If Boeing sees the space transportation market as growable, and they see that they can be one of the top two providers, I think they will move forward. But they need NASA to support the start of this marketplace.

    By next year we should know, which is when I think Boeing will need to know in order to meet a late 2016 service date.

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