“But to get funding for what you want to do, one must please the Congresscritters-they do write the checks, after all.”

Matt, EVERYONE knows this, including the companies that get Congress to insert earmarks, or perpetuate locked-in contractors for non-compete programs.

Hmm, what programs does that sound like…

Instead of Congress writing the technical requirements, the best non-political (and usually least costly) method has been for Congress to define the need, allocate a budget, let NASA determine the solution, and then compete out the solution for the best value for the American Taxpayer.

The people in Congress who control NASA’s budget don’t want the best value for the American Taxpayer, they want specific companies to do specific work, which retains jobs in specific locations.

Don’t be naive.

If Congress wants the most cost-effective HLV, then they should have not specified what parts to use, and given NASA too little time to consider alternatives, which ever they may be. Maybe the ultimate solution would have used ATK 5-segment SRM’s, but maybe not. Maybe it would have used SSME’s, and maybe not. See the point?

“Congressional intent appears to be fully funding Orion and SLS as per the authorization act”

Nope, not fully funded according to NASA, and Congress just accelerated the coming train wreck by adding the requirement for an EDS, but not providing anymore funding or schedule relief. The first GAO report that comes out will mirror the Constellation report that said it lacked a business case and was not properly funded. We all know what Congress ultimately did to Constellation…

“What some House members strongly hinted at when Bolden went before the full House Science and Technology Committee was that they want answers: When is the first BEO mission? Where? Are there target asteroids that you can visit by 2025? Do you have lunar exploration in mind (no robots-people)? ”

So Congress is saying “here’s a launcher larger than you need, but no money for missions – what can you do with it, and why can’t you do it faster?”. They are so cute.

It’s all cart-before-the-cart stuff. If they want exploration, they should be asking NASA to put together an exploration plan and budget, and THEN debate the associated costs such as transportation.

NASA has been developing different plans for doing exploration (HEFT, Nautilus-X, etc.), but none require the SLS. However spending money on the SLS actually SLOWS DOWN exploration because of the funds required to get the SLS going, and the recurring costs of maintaining the SLS while it waits for missions. How stupid is that?

Congress has to choose if they want human exploration, or they want a Shuttle-derived massive launcher without a need. There is not enough money for both.

Matt, you have this view of Congress as technical geniuses. I’m sorry to tell you that they are not, and they are just looking for ways to bring home the bacon. SLS is a whole lot of bacon, and nothing else.

It’s bad enough for Bolden that he’s got a House Committee head who is skeptical at best to Commercial Crew. If the Senate committee (Rockefeller heads it) was of a similar mindset, things would be worse in that department.

Congressional intent appears to be fully funding Orion and SLS as per the authorization act, and getting enough for Commercial Crew to get at least two companies in on this.

What some House members strongly hinted at when Bolden went before the full House Science and Technology Committee was that they want answers: When is the first BEO mission? Where? Are there target asteroids that you can visit by 2025? Do you have lunar exploration in mind (no robots-people)? Things like that. Now, information like that can’t be provided overnight. But, if Bolden wants these congresscritters’ votes, that information had best come soon, if he wants a budget similar to what is proposed to get Congressional approval.

“SLS has more support in Congress than Commercial crew does.”

That’s not saying much. NASA is an agency that consumes only 0.5% of the federal budget, so other than ignorant views of national security, it doesn’t get much attention compared to 99.5% of the rest of the government.

“There’s a difference in what you want to do and what the politicans will allow you to do.”

And that will always be what holds NASA back, no matter what the program or who is President. But the great thing about the commercial market is that is far more immune from political shenanigans than NASA is. For instance, while Congress decides what size rocket it really wants NASA to build (70, 100 or 130 ton), and how much to finally fund it, the commercial market keeps launching customer payloads and working on their next generation systems.

“NASA is bound by the Authorization Act. It dictates a MPCV and a heavy-lift vehicle that uses as much Constellation work as possible. It is not a suggestion. It’s the law. And there was no objection from the White House when it passed.”

You keep forgetting what the President was trying to achieve, and what he was willing to trade for it. Constellation is now officially dead (Shelby amendment is now removed), and now NASA needs to get Congress to realize that building the biggest rocket in the world doesn’t make sense if Congress is not going to fund a mission for it.

How can you justify a rocket that doesn’t have a funded mission?

And regarding “it’s the law”, look at the budget and the schedule, and compare it to what Ares I was trying to do, and see if you can honestly say that NASA has enough money and enough time to build the SLS.

Ares I was billed as Simple, Safe, Soon, and after 5 years no flight hardware ever flew – how is a rocket that can lift 4.6X more payload supposed to be built in the same timeframe?

And you keep forgetting that the VSE, which called for landing on the Moon by 2020, is not going to be met, and Congress cancelled the program that was supposed to be meeting that goal (Constellation). Is Congress going to amend the VSE to reflect a new Moon date? They did not replace Constellation, and likely the same fate will happen with the SLS once it becomes horribly apparent that it is under-funded and behind-schedulenow that they FINALLY FUNDED IT.

Ron: NASA is bound by the Authorization Act. It dictates a MPCV and a heavy-lift vehicle that uses as much Constellation work as possible. It is not a suggestion. It’s the law. And there was no objection from the White House when it passed.

No doubt, once the commercial sector gets cargo and crew flying, the skeptics will be silenced. But until they prove that, those in Congress with concerns about the viability of such services will not be satisfied. The commercial space advocates need to stop preaching to the choir and start talking to those with reservations about their goals and plans. Obviously, those who are downright hostile are a waste of time, but when Musk does show up on The Hill before the House (as he’s supposed to do at some point in the future), he’ll be in a position to do just that. And the other commercial advocates, too.

Sure, and I agree the issue of cryogens vs storables is separate from that of toxicity. Even if for whatever reason we ended up using storable propellant in the long run, it wouldn’t have to be traditional hypergolics, it could be others like the ones you mentioned.

But what I’m after is commercial manned spaceflight and that is hindered much more by the absence of cheap lift than by the absence of a replacement for toxic hypergolics (one that can also be stored and transferred in space). I see competitive commercial propellant flights funded through a NASA procurement program for launch services for the propellant it needs anyway for exploration as a way to achieve cheap lift. Using hypergolics is “merely” the fastest way to get that going, but in my mind minimising time to initial operational capability is an important consideration.

Once we have cheap lift, I think we’ll see the flood gates of purely commercial funding opening. At that stage progress would not longer depend on continued synergy with NASA, although both NASA and commercial manned spaceflight could continue to profit from it if it did continue. At that point (or long before) the market will get rid of the hypergolics. I don’t think it requires policy attention from NASA and I don’t think it ought to influence the choice of propellant for a near term spacecraft.

So in essence, I’m accepting a near term inconvenience (one that is widely accepted in the industry, has been for a long time and will continue to be for the foreseeable future) to help solve a much more urgent and much more difficult problem, namely achieving cheap lift.

In my opinion even that is understating the case, since I believe achieving cheap lift is the only thing that stands between us and commercial development of space in our lifetime. People who disagree with that analysis are likely to be much less enthusiastic about starting commercial propellant flights as soon as possible and consequently less willing to accept the undeniable disadvantages of hypergolics.

If you happen to be among those who do not share this analysis of the importance of achieving cheap lift, then I’d be very interested in getting to the bottom of that, rather than a superficial discussion of the pros and cons of hypergolics, which are merely a means to an end. In the former area discussion could lead to deeper insight on either or perhaps both sides and maybe even a new consensus.

Great summary.

Matt Wiser wrote @ April 11th, 2011 at 10:43 pm

“I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat:the sooner the commercial side starts flying people, the skepticism about the private sector will go away.”

That’s kind of stating the obvious, but what has not been obvious is that it also applies to NASA. NASA has not built a new spacecraft in over 30 years, and the vast amount of people working on the current one are contractors, not NASA personnel.

And regarding flying, the SpaceX Dragon already has 12 launches scheduled – how many does the MPCV? Do you see where the trend is going, and who is going to be getting the most flight experience? It’s not NASA.

Now that the Senate Appropriations committee has stated that the SLS will lift 130 tons from the start, it will be too expensive for MPCV-only missions, and will require full-up (i.e. real expensive) missions in order to justify it’s use. The way the budget is going, how often will they be able to afford one of those, and how long will it take them to build the mission elements?

The sustaining costs for the SLS are going to retard the ability for NASA to do anything in space, and ironically it will force them to rely on the commercial side for more and more. At some point the SLS will be deemed too expensive to maintain, and NASA will have been forced to waste $Billions that it could have used to build mission payloads and launch on commercial rockets.

The SLS is an evolutionary dead-end, and the longer we wait to cancel it the longer it will take for NASA to start real exploration. What a waste, both in time and money.