NASA, Other

Still waiting on an SLS

Going into Friday afternoon’s speech at the National Press Club, there was little expectation that NASA administrator Charles Bolden would make any major announcements, including on the agency’s plans for the Space Launch System (SLS). And that’s how it turned out: his speech was focused on the agency’s general plans for life after the space shuttle, and for a more general audience.

Bolden specifically sought to counter the belief in some quarters that the end of the shuttle program was tantamount to the end of human spaceflight or even the space program itself. “Some say that our final shuttle mission will mark the end of America’s 50-year dominance in human spaceflight,” he said. “As a former astronaut, as the current NASA administrator, i’m here to tell you that American leadership in space will continue for at least, at least the next half-century because we’ve laid the foundation for success, and for us at NASA, failure is not an option.” A little later in the speech, he was even more to the point. “So, when I hear people say, or listen to the media reports, that the final shuttle flight marks the end of US human spaceflight, I have to tell you: you must all be living on another planet.”

(The only news that arguably came out of the address had nothing to do with Bolden or NASA: in brief comments at the end of the luncheon, retiring astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, knocked down rumors that he was eying a political career. “My main focus right now, and for the foreseeable future, is Gabby’s recovery and also spending some more time with my kids,” he said, referring to his wife’s continuing recovery from a near-fatal shooting in January. Rumors about him potentially running for Giffords’ House seat or the open Senate seat in Arizona in 2012 had been in the media in recent weeks, although based almost wholly in speculation and not on anything Kelly had said or done. At least one news outlet tried to keep the story alive, though: “Giffords’ husband rules out run for public office — at least for now” was the headline in The Hill.)

In his speech, Bolden said little about plans for the SLS, other than “we’re nearing a decision” on it and “we’ll announce that soon”. While not surprising, the lack of a formal announcement about the agency’s SLS plans–or even the specific timing of that announcement–has disappointed industry. “We had been hearing a few weeks ago that the plan was to get all this done and make some sort of formal announcement on or before July 8,” when Atlantis is set to launch on the final shuttle mission, Jim Maser, president of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), said in an interview earlier Friday. Now, though, he said he’s not certain an announcement will come by the scheduled launch.

Maser, who made clear in March his desire for a decision on NASA’s future programs, including the SLS, still has that same sense of urgency, if not greater. “Now that the shuttle is finally ending, there’s a huge sense of urgency in industry” to know what those plans are, he said, adding he wasn’t concerned about the specifics of the plan so much as having a firm direction for industry: “We need a plan, the direction where we’re going.” He said his company would be “fine” with some of the rumored SLS designs leaked in recent weeks that would use Space Shuttle Main Engines and the J-2X, both manufactured by PWR.

Maser said in the interview that he’s had to give layoff notices to about 300 PWR employees, but some of those notices could be rescinded if a decision on SLS comes soon. “I don’t think we can wait any longer than the end of this fiscal year,” or the end of September, he said. “We’d like to see something in July.” He noted that the end of July will mark a year and a half since the administration’s original announcement that it was canceling Constellation without a firm replacement plan in place. “The only word I have for that is pathetic.”

120 comments to Still waiting on an SLS

  • Mark R, Whittington

    Hope and Change…

  • Robert G. Oler

    “Maser said in the interview that he’s had to give layoff notices to about 300 PWR employees, but some of those notices could be rescinded if a decision on SLS comes soon. ”

    who cares? 300 jobs, 3000 jobs are not worth the 12-20 billion it would take to save them. go find a job that is not a taxpayer technowelfare

    RGO

  • Matt Wiser

    Charlie Bolden’s waiting for the shuttle finale to make the announcement; his political masters (Holdren and POTUS) won’t allow it before then.

    One good thing he said at that event: he mentioned lunar return. Not just asteroids or Mars, but the Moon. About bloody time! He knows Congress is pushing in that direction, even if some in the Administration are reluctant.

    He may be a good NASA administrator, and an excellent Marine, but he just doesn’t seem to be a good communicator. Not just at this event, but whenver he goes to Congress to testify.

  • Coastal Ron

    Needless to say, I think the more time they take to define the Senate Launch System, the better.

    Any way they can lower the R&D and operational costs is well worth the wait, and as a bonus, that extra time may give Congress the chance to reconsider a jobs program that has no funded use after it’s done.

  • Bennett

    “The only word I have for that is pathetic.”

    What is he referring to? The lengthy delay caused by a dithering Congress or that there is no “replacement” for CxP that will enhance his company’s profits?

    Methinks he misses the pig trough.

  • DCSCA

    “[Bolden’s] speech was focused on the agency’s general plans for life after the space shuttle, and for a more general audience… Bolden specifically sought to counter the belief in some quarters that the end of the shuttle program was tantamount to the end of human spaceflight or even the space program itself.”

    In other words, Bolden was trying to alay anxieties in the general public– aka taxpayers– who consider shuttle as one of a growing list of national symbols of American prowness in decline. Of course, the point is, that he even had to address the question at all is indicative of how the public perceives the end of three decades of shuttle operations. Russians are still flying and, in the epilogue of the ‘space race,’ through the disintegration of the USSR as well, they won, with Americans paying for rides on Soyuz. Meanwhile PRC space operations are on the rise, too. The Amiercan public will just absorb this as just another benchmark in the end of the ‘American Century.’

  • Egad

    How about a companion thread titled “Still Waiting on a Reason for SLS?”

  • Jeff Foust wrote:

    In his speech, Bolden said little about plans for the SLS, other than “we’re nearing a decision” on it and “we’ll announce that soon”. While not surprising, the lack of a formal announcement about the agency’s SLS plans–or even the specific timing of that announcement–has disappointed industry.

    Well, here at the Cape all I can say is the hot rumor is that all the announcements come after STS-135 launches on Friday. The worldwide press will be here, an Orion test vehicle currently at the KSC Visitor Complex will be moved on Tuesday to the press site, and some other stuff is going on I can’t talk about. SpaceX brought the Dragon to the History Center through July 10, so that timing can’t be coincidental.

    If I were Charlie Bolden, I’d tell Mr. Maser to stuff it. NASA isn’t run simply to placate some businessman’s bottom line, despite what porking members of Congress think. If and when NASA has business for Mr. Maser, it’s guaranteed Mr. Maser will belly up to the trough.

  • The core problem with the SLS is that the administration really doesn’t want NASA to have a MPCV or an SLS since they view the government manned space program as a series of expensive flag planting stunts. Even though the administration itself is promoting more expensive flag planting stunts on an asteroid and possibly on the moons of Mars, they’re not really serious about such goals which is why they are set way far into the future! Fortunately, the Congress had a different perspective on this matter.

    What the Obama administration really wanted was to get the Federal government out of the manned spaceflight business so that those funds could be used for social programs. And they believe that simply turning spaceflight over to private industry as the best way to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, many of these private space company’s simply want to become middle men for wasteful big government programs like the ISS in order to get their hands on tax payer dollars. And, ironically, practically all of these emerging companies would not even exist if it weren’t for the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payer investment in aerospace technology over the past 60 years.

    Some of us, however, view NASA’s manned space program as a pioneering program designed to advance America’s technological know how while growing the American economy by expanding America’s strategic and economic realm beyond the Earth and towards the rest of the solar system– starting with a permanent base on the Moon. And where the pioneers go, the privateers usually follow!

  • Vladislaw

    “Meanwhile PRC space operations are on the rise, too.”

    When they launch humans at least twice in a single year, let me know.

  • Michael from Iowa

    Why we’re still planning on a public LV is beyond me.

    In the same time span and for a fraction of the cost of the SLS/Ares 2.0 we could accelerate development of half a dozen commercial vehicles.

  • Marcel, we’re really not interested in your pathetically failed attempts at mind reading.

  • Bennett

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    It must be nice to live in a world where whatever you suppose become facts. Nothing that you wrote has any basis in reality, it’s all speculation, and pretty far out stuff at that.

    “Unfortunately, many of these private space company’s simply want to become middle men for wasteful big government programs like the ISS in order to get their hands on tax payer dollars.”

    Go on, Marcel, name names! “Many” implies more than several, so who exactly ARE these companies that want to become middle men for wasteful big government programs?

    Your entire comment is pretty much all crap.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    The core problem with the SLS is that the administration really doesn’t want NASA to have a MPCV or an SLS since they view the government manned space program as a series of expensive flag planting stunts.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m a big space enthusiast, and I like what the administration is trying to do. Why?

    Because building the SLS is a long, costly distraction to doing exploration.

    With the budget we’ll be spending on the SLS, we could be build the Nautilus-X and have enough money left over to start taking trips around the Moon and start venturing beyond. And all we need are existing launchers.

    Or, if we really wanted get go back to the Moon next, then we could use the ULA plan that utilizes existing launchers and a new vehicle family (ACES) that can be the basis for a tanker, a fuel depot, and a reusable lander (cargo & crew).

    None of this needs the SLS, and none of it requires NASA to spend it’s operating budget every month retaining a standing army just to service a rocket. That is not NASA’s mission.

    And while you think it is the administration that doesn’t want to explore, how do you explain that Congress hasn’t even funded a mission or payload for the SLS?

    Where are the dozens of payload missions that everyone says will make the SLS the least costly way to explore space?

    At least with the administration plan, we end up with a usable transportation system that doesn’t drain NASA’s budget. The same can’t be said about the SLS.

  • Bennett

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    “…and some other stuff is going on I can’t talk about. “

    My guess is that since SpaceX in adding the Delta 2 facility to it’s real estate, it’s either XCOR or (god-forbid-say-it-aint-so) “Le Stick”.

    Boeing fielding a capsule only, it doesn’t make sense for such a large facility.

    However, Blue Origin has plans that are held close and don’t leak, so perhaps Mr. Bezos is making a move.

    I wish I knew what you know.

  • Martijn Meijering

    He noted that the end of July will mark a year and a half since the administration’s original announcement that it was canceling Constellation without a firm replacement plan in place. “The only word I have for that is pathetic.”

    What’s pathetic is that Constellation even had to be cancelled, it was such a disastrously bad program it should never have been initiated in the first place. It’s perfectly natural that it takes some time for decision makers to come up with a new plan. This would be true even if they were all well-meaning honourable men and women, and truer still when they clearly aren’t. Maser’s own whining is pathetic too of course, especially as he probably means a plan that replaces his company’s revenue stream with an equivalent one, not one that replaces the exploration program with a better one.

  • Bennett wrote:

    I wish I knew what you know.

    Well, let’s put it this way … I don’t believe in spreading rumors, only facts. But what Charlie said in Friday’s speech about the OPFs made my ears perk up, because it gave more validity to the rumor. The source for the rumor was someone you would think is credible.

    The rumor has one big problem, which is that something I thought was in the design phase actually exists. That’s why I’m reluctant to say anything.

    So I want to wait until July 8 to see what Charlie or anyone else says.

    In general, I will say that between KSC and CCAFS it seems like a lot of players in both COTS and SLS are increasingly active. The Orion Pad Abort 1 test article is at the KSC Visitor Complex, and the actual SpaceX Dragon is over at the Air Force Space and Missile History Center.

    I saw the other day on NASA Parkway something else being towed from one facility to another. I’ve seen it a couple times now. I’m not sure what it is. It looked like two halves of a crew capsule, which makes no sense, so maybe it’s a demo.

    Bottom line, we’re not a ghost town as some people are peddling.

  • common sense

    @ Stephen C. Smith wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 7:04 am

    Rumor?… I’ll try 2 guesses:

    1. MPCV, unlikely but…
    2. CST-100, I’d like that!

    Can’t wait to know now.

  • Lengthy article in Florida Today about the future of space flight in the Space Coast, debunking those who’ve falsely claimed that it’s all coming to an end.

    “Kennedy Space Center Changing, Not Vanishing”

    Regarding the above discussion about the rumored tenant in OPF-3, the article has this passage:

    To facilitate that goal and other potential commercial initiatives, such as suborbital space tourism flights, KSC and Space Florida are working to open former shuttle facilities to commercial users for processing or manufacturing work.

    A new tenant may be named soon for the hangar that for years housed shuttle fleet leader Discovery.

    Cabana said 11 agreements have been signed with commercial or government entities and more are in negotiation.

    Among the companies interested in KSC facilities is Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems, whose seven-seat Dream Chaser resembles a mini-shuttle.

    And to help Bennett from leaping off the ledge, I’ll give you a hint — the company I heard is in OPF-3 isn’t mentioned in this passage. :-)

  • Martijn Meijering

    Dare I hope it’s Blue Origin?

  • ha

    Space enthusiasts versus Obama haters. Round 73,231,120. When Obama Derangement Syndrome = a viable space program, wake me.

  • Click here for the CNN.com summary of what tonight’s CNN Presents will cover about the end of Shuttle. 8 PM and 11 PM EDT.

  • vulture4

    SLS is an expensive system to operate, probably $1B+ per launch. The same senators that demand it also demand tax cuts. There is no chance of any NASA budget permitting BEO human spaceflight with this technology. At the same time, we are throwing away the lessons of 30 years of experience with reusable systems.

    The problem with Blue Origin is that they are treating the DC-X as an operational vehicle, when it was intended as a technology demonstrator. In its current form, how much of an advantage it would have in performance and operating cost over a conventional capsule is unclear, and I do not understand the plan to separate crew and propulsion modules for landing. That said, with a sufficiently powerful booster it may be capable of orbital flight. With no separable service module and sufficient propulsion capability for pinpoint landing, it could potentially land at KSC.

  • While following the SLS situation, I have been trying to understand what the SpaceX cross-feed arrangement buys them.

    Looking at the rocket equation log(wet mass/dry mass) terms, it looks like you end up with the exact same identical delta-v if you only fire up the strap on boosters, and not pour any fuel into the center engine, and only light up the center engine after you jettison the strap-on boosters.

    That would be functionally equivalent to a conventional stacked booster.
    It looks like cross feed does not provide you with any additional delta-v.

    It does, however, provide you with more initial thrust.

    In theory, it might allow you to economically construct a 4 or even a 5 stage rocket (9 cores, then 7, then 5, then 3, then 1) which could provide greater delta-v than an rocket with fewer stages. Without cross-feed I would think that the thrust from just 2 cores, alone, might not be enought to lift a 9-core booster off the launch pad…

  • DCSCA

    @Matt Wiser wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 1:50 pm
    “He may be a good NASA administrator, and an excellent Marine, but he just doesn’t seem to be a good communicator.”

    Let’s see… an ex-‘general’ and a top government executive who doesn’t communicate well. In fact, as both positions require a keen communicative skill set, (as in issuing orders and directives) that actually makes him a poor administrator. No matter. Bolden turns 65 next month and, like shuttle, he’ll retire and be gone from this administration by the end of the year. Little point in administering over the downsizing of a government agency in the face of the Age of Austerity. That’s the kind of thing ex-administrator ‘Beancounter’ O’Keefe would enjoy.

  • DCSCA

    @Stephen C. Smith wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    “Well, here at the Cape all I can say is the hot rumor is that all the announcements come after STS-135 launches on Friday.”

    Announcements about layoffs more likely will come withi hours of Atlantis clearing the tower. Might be interesting if you’d share the general sense of what the immediate future there ‘at the Cape’ holds in store as shuttle ends in areas off government installations. Clearly local businesses in most venues, real estate values, etc., have to be affected by the ending of this program on top of the Great Recession. Swung by the Cape back in 1978 when activities were minimal between programs and the place was a sad ghost town. And given shuttle’s history of delays- both technical and weather related– STS-135 launching on time on Friday is questionable.

  • DCSCA

    @Stephen C. Smith wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    This is a product of the CNN Productions unit. CNN assigned John Holliman as the lead CNN anchor/correspondent on space for the network from the late 80’s until his untimely death and it is worth recalling his tireless reportage of all things space as shuttle ends. O’Brien was then assigned the gig in 1998. CNN disbanded their space & technology broadcast unit roughly 18 months ago around the same time they jettinosned O’Brien to save $. Zarrella is a field reporter based out of Florida and was on site for the STS-25 BTW. These ‘CNN Presents’ pieces are trying to replicate the famed, stories CBS Reports series from years back.

  • vulture4

    Parallel staging increases liftoff thrust and liftoff thrust-to-weight ratio, which are often limiting for an all-liquid-fuel vehicle. Crossfeed leaves the core stage fully fueled at booster separation, combining the fuel mass fraction of conventional staging at booster separation, with the thrust-to-weight ratio of parallel staging at launch.

    Solid fuel boosters are not typically thrust-limited, so there is no intrinsic reason to even have the liquid stage lighted at launch. It is done on the Shuttle mainly to make sure the main engines are working. On the Delta II the main engine is needed at launch for steering, as the solids are nonsteerable. The Titan had steerable solids, so eventually it went to not igniting the “first” stage at all until the SRBs dropped off.

  • Looking at the rocket equation log(wet mass/dry mass) terms, it looks like you end up with the exact same identical delta-v if you only fire up the strap on boosters, and not pour any fuel into the center engine, and only light up the center engine after you jettison the strap-on boosters.

    Don’t confuse your inability to understand how to use the rocket equation with SpaceX’s lack of expertise. There’s no way to even start to explain why you’re wrong if you don’t show your work.

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    …it looks like you end up with the exact same identical delta-v if you only fire up the strap on boosters, and not pour any fuel into the center engine, and only light up the center engine after you jettison the strap-on boosters.

    From what I understand, when they are using the cross-feed propellant system they start up all three cores, with the center core being fueled equally from both strap-ons. When they run out of fuel in the strap-ons, the cross-feed system switches over to the center core, which is still fully loaded with fuel. Maybe this works out to more mass in orbit due to less air resistance without the strap-ons? I imagine they’ll release more details once they get closer to launch.

    I have also heard that they will offer a version that doesn’t use the cross-feed system, and my guess is that is what they will first launch. This version would have lower performance, but still more than Delta IV Heavy (and 1/4 the price).

  • Rhyolite

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    “While following the SLS situation, I have been trying to understand what the SpaceX cross-feed arrangement buys them.”

    Cross-feed parallel staging doesn’t provide any additional delta-v relative to serial staging the strap on boosters and the core.* It does provide a higher delta-v relative to parallel staging without cross-feeding. In addition, a higher thrust to weight ratio reduces the gravity loss and the total delta-v required to get to orbit. All else being equal, higher thrust to weight – that is higher acceleration – trajectories require less total delta-v.

    * This assumes that serial staging the strap-on boosters and the core would even have a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to get off the pad.

  • pathfinder_01

    As for how it relates to SLS. Well SLS probably won’t cross feed, solids or liquids with different propellants than the core make that not likely.
    ULA planned to develop cross feeding Delta phase 1 combined with the ACES would push it’s payload up to 45MT. Currently Delta is at 30MT. ACES alone would bring it to 35.

    If you choose Atlas instead Phase 1 would push it to 35MT.
    The advantage of an HLV based around common cores is that the HLV can be keep in production so long as it’s cores remain in production. It also might give economies of scale.

  • Matt Wiser

    Ron, you know this as much as I do: NASA is beholden to Congress. Congress says “Do this. Here’s the money.” They go ahead and do it. NASA cannot decide which laws it’ll obey and which ones it won’t, as much as some here would like them to. There is a big difference in what you would like to do and what Congress will allow you to do. Congress has said: Buld SLS, build MPCV, and start using them. Oh, btw, we want more info on destinations and launch dates. This comes up a lot whever Charlie Bolden or any NASA brass are on the Hill, and congresscritters of both parties aren’t happy with the answers they get. They’re also not happy with Commercial Crew/Cargo getting more money than the exploration side in this year’s budget. Expect the ratios to be reversed when appropriations time comes around.

    Does anyone know offhand what Mr. Obama’s voting record re: NASA was as a Senator?

  • Ferris Valyn

    Mr. Wiser

    They’re also not happy with Commercial Crew/Cargo getting more money than the exploration side in this year’s budget.

    You are either lying, or ignorant.

    1. Commercial Crew is part of exploration
    2. Of the 3 big ticket items (Commercial Crew, MPCV, SLS), Commercial Crew got the least.

  • “In addition, a higher thrust to weight ratio reduces the gravity loss and the total delta-v required to get to orbit.”

    That could very well be. I have been looking at pure delta-v with no gravitational fields and no atmosphere. You start out at rest in space. I am assuming the use of identical Falcon 9 cores, which for the Block 1 has a dry mass of 19 tons and a wet mass of 258 tons.

    However, for the purposes of comparing different staging arrangements, you can use any mass numbers that you want, and the effective exhaust velocity Ve is a constant multiplier for all of the different results that can also be set to any arbitrary value, such as 1.

    In this simplified example it does not matter where you place the center core. What matters is when you start to burn the center core fuel. If you don’t start consuming any of the center core fuel until after you have burned and discarded the side cores, the result is exactly the same as serial staging. If you instead start buring your center fuel earlier then it will perform more like a single stage rocket, with a lower resulting delta-v.

    An interesting idea to me would be the possibility of extending the cross-feed idea to more than two side core. Go with 6 or 8 side cores, consuming and discarding 2 at a time. In empty space you would obtain the delta-v advantages of a 4 or 5 stage rocket. As a bonus, it could also work well for launches from sea level, because of the large thrust.

  • pathfinder_01

    “An interesting idea to me would be the possibility of extending the cross-feed idea to more than two side core. Go with 6 or 8 side cores, consuming and discarding 2 at a time. In empty space you would obtain the delta-v advantages of a 4 or 5 stage rocket. As a bonus, it could also work well for launches from sea level, because of the large thrust.”

    http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/EELVPhase2_2010.pdf

    That would be an Atlas Phase 3 from ULA capable of lifting up to 140MT to orbit. Scaleable down to 10MT.

    Space X to my knowledge has no such plans

  • Bennett

    But but, Nelson, your entire speculation about multiple cores and cross-feeding is based on starting in space?

    “no gravitational fields and no atmosphere”

    Oh, well gee, that makes a LOT of sense.

    I can’t wait to come down from this acid.

  • Matt Wiser

    Ferris, the folks on the Hill are not happy that the Administration, in their NASA FY 12 Budget request, didn’t fund the MPCV/Orion and heavy-lift vehicle to the amount the authorization act allowed. Instead, the difference that should’ve gone to those projects went to Commercial Crew/Cargo. Charlie Bolden got grilled on that matter the last time he was on The Hill. And no, by the tone of the questioning, the Congressmen and Senators were not happy with his response. He’s just not a good communicator, and is either a gladiator going into the arena knowing bad things will happen, or he’s like a deer in the headlights, depending on one’s POV.

    There are folks on The Hill who have no objection to private industry developing rockets and capsules for the LEO mission: their main objection is that these companies, whether start-ups or established firms, should not get any kind of grant, subsudies, or loans to get the work going. If they want to develop these systems, do it on their own dime.

    Hate to be repetitive, but if Rohrbacher had gotten the House Science Committee chair instead of Hall, the kind of exploration and commercial services that Ron is championing would have a more receptive ear at the helm of that committee. He didn’t get it, and seems to be the only voice for Commercial Crew on that committee: everyone else is skeptical at best, or hostile at most. They’re resigned to it, but they don’t like it, seeing it as the lesser of two evils: continued reliance on the Russians is seen as worse.

  • From what I understand, when they are using the cross-feed propellant system they start up all three cores, with the center core being fueled equally from both strap-ons. When they run out of fuel in the strap-ons, the cross-feed system switches over to the center core, which is still fully loaded with fuel. Maybe this works out to more mass in orbit due to less air resistance without the strap-ons?

    Cross feed results in more payload, and a lot, because it allows you to drop the parasitic structural weight of the outer cores sooner, and leave a center core full of propellant.

  • Nelson wrote:

    I have been looking at pure delta-v with no gravitational fields and no atmosphere.

    Then you’ve been wasting your time. Such an analysis is useless for launch systems. Not that this explains why you are wrong, of course.

  • pathfinder_01

    Nelson now you see the amazing things that happend when you are not limited to SD. If NASA were to get an Phase I/Phase II/Phase II EEELV, they would be able to launch from 10-100+ tons to orbit.

    A Phase I would be a competier to Space X could use the same exsisting pads and combined with a Fuel Depot be quite effective for deep space flight.

    A Phase II would lift as much as SLS.

    A Phase III would lift as much as a 130 ton SLS.

    However Congress is more concerned that the money gets spend in the right districts that giving NASA the proper tools.

  • DCSCA

    @Vladislaw wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 10:00 pm
    When they [PRC] launch humans at least twice in a single year, let me know.”

    If SpaceX ever launches ANYONE, let us all know. Tick-tock, tick-tock. And FYI, ‘letting you know’ PRC multi-crewed flights and spacewalking are worth taking note of.

  • Cross feed results in more payload, and a lot, because it allows you to drop the parasitic structural weight of the outer cores sooner, and leave a center core full of propellant.

    One way to think of it is as a sort of “in-air refueling” of the core.

  • Matt:

    The initial Obama request for 2011 was to spend zero for SLS and MPCV, and I think something close a billion on commercial crew…

    I have lost track of the status of the 2012 budget, but the numbers that Obama proposed, and that have thus far been rejected by Congress, are $2.81 billion for SLS+MPCV, and $850 million for commercial crew. To that, I assume that SpaceX and Orbital will also receive COTS funding, although COTS is listed at $0 in the 2012 budget request document:

    http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/516674main_FY12Budget_Estimates_Overview.pdf

    The major issue is that Obama proposed, compared to the approved 2011 Appropriation Bill, to boost commercial crew funding, while substantially cutting funding for the SLS. Sounds like his Constellation strategy. He cut Constellation funding by half a billion in 2010, and later cancelled it using the excuse that (Surprise!) it was behind schedule.

  • Anyone else watch CNN Presents last night?

    I thought it was a pretty good show, other than they didn’t directly explain why Shuttle had been cancelled, i.e. the CAIB report that led the Bush administration to cancel Shuttle in January 2004, effective the end of ISS construction.

  • red

    “Congress has said: Buld SLS, build MPCV, and start using them.”

    Actually the SLS/MPCV Congressional interests said “Build SLS, build MPCV”. They didn’t say anything about using them. They know that building them, which is what they want, means not using them, because they are too expensive to build and maintain to actually use them (e.g.: to build a lander, destination node, satellite servicing capability, improved propulsion, habitat module, or other additional item that would make a mission that actually does something). They also have schedules that would push any missions way off the radar, even if there was a remaining budget to actually do something with SLS/MPCV.

    “Oh, btw, we want more info on destinations and launch dates.”

    See above.

    “congresscritters of both parties aren’t happy with the answers they get”

    That’s true, and it’s amusing, since it’s their fault.

    “They’re also not happy with Commercial Crew/Cargo getting more money than the exploration side in this year’s budget.”

    Do you mean the Administration’s FY2012 proposed budget? Here are the figures for the Exploration account, in $millions:

    Human Exploration Capabilities: $2810.2
    Commercial Spaceflight: $850
    Exploration Research and Development: $288.5

    The Human Exploration Capabilities figure is for SLS/MPCV. As you can see, it gets much more than Commercial Spaceflight in the Administration’s proposal. The SLS/MPCV complaint is that Commercial Spaceflight gets more than in last year’s Authorization compromise. The Administration counters that that amount isn’t enough to have Commercial Crew succeed, leaving use depending on and paying the Russians, and putting the ISS at more risk. The Congressional complaint about more funding for Commercial Spaceflight is hypocritical, since Congress gave more money to both SLS and MPCV than the Authorization a few weeks ago, and that was real money, not just a budget proposal.

    “Expect the ratios to be reversed when appropriations time comes around.”

    See above. I don’t think the Commercial Spaceflight advocates are worried about having that ratio reversed, since that would give them much more funding. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the spirit of your comment, rather than the literal meaning, happened (i.e. Commercial Spaceflight cut, SLS/MPCV increased).

  • Egad

    > Actually the SLS/MPCV Congressional interests said “Build SLS, build MPCV”. They didn’t say anything about using them. They know that building them, which is what they want, means not using them, because they are too expensive to build and maintain to actually use them (e.g.: to build a lander, destination node, satellite servicing capability, improved propulsion, habitat module, or other additional item that would make a mission that actually does something). They also have schedules that would push any missions way off the radar, even if there was a remaining budget to actually do something with SLS/MPCV.

    Very unfortunately, I think this is an excellent summary of what’s likely to be the actual situation at present. SLS/MPCV are primarily pork, plus perhaps an attempt by some staffers to salvage the Constellation return to the moon focus. But the realities of the budget now and for the foreseeable future keep the RTM motive (or indeed just about any concrete mission for SLS) from being openly admitted.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 9:43 pm

    Congress says “Do this. Here’s the money.”

    Matt, I don’t know if you know much about the business world, but what Congress is doing with the SLS is completely backwards. Congress is saying, “here, we designed the rocket for you NASA, now go build it within the budget we’ve set”. Then when NASA tells them that it doesn’t appear there is enough money or enough time, Congress is upset.

    Congress has only itself to blame for the SLS mess.

    : Buld SLS, build MPCV, and start using them

    No, Matt, go reread what Congress actually passed. All they’ve provided is just part of the total funds needed for the SLS and MPCV, and there are no funds allocated or identified for payloads or missions. Makes you wonder, huh?

    Oh, btw, we want more info on destinations and launch dates.

    Again, it’s a backwards process. They’re not asking what NASA needs to start exploring in space, since if they did NASA would say they want to build the Nautilus-X for far less than the SLS. A rocket is not exploration, but a spaceship is.

    Nautilus-X can be built using existing launchers, is reusable, and will let us start working on the technologies and techniques we need to fly anywhere.

    Why are you against things like Nautilus-X Matt?

    Why this fixation with making NASA a transportation company?

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 11:59 pm

    They’re resigned to it [Commercial Crew for the ISS], but they don’t like it, seeing it as the lesser of two evils: continued reliance on the Russians is seen as worse.

    Simple question Matt.

    Congress has designated Commercial Crew as the primary method of supporting the ISS (by law, MPCV is only a backup).

    What would you do to support our crew needs for the ISS?

  • Ferris, the folks on the Hill are not happy that the Administration, in their NASA FY 12 Budget request, didn’t fund the MPCV/Orion and heavy-lift vehicle to the amount the authorization act allowed. Instead, the difference that should’ve gone to those projects went to Commercial Crew/Cargo.

    That may or not be true but, either way, it doesn’t change the fact that what you wrote was utter nonsense. And yet you persist.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Ferris, the folks on the Hill are not happy that the Administration, in their NASA FY 12 Budget request, didn’t fund the MPCV/Orion and heavy-lift vehicle to the amount the authorization act allowed. Instead, the difference that should’ve gone to those projects went to Commercial Crew/Cargo.

    Sorry, but again, thats a mis-representation of the facts. Let me make it very clear for everyone involved

    1. SLS was authorized at $2.65 Billion, and the president requested $1.8 Billion. Thus, the president’s request was $850 Million below the authorized levels.

    2. MPCV was authorized at $1.4 Billion, and the president requested $1.01 Billion for it. Thus, the president’s request was $390 Million below the authorized level.

    3. Commercial Crew was authorized at $500 Million, and the president requested $850 million. Thus, the president’s request was $350 million over the requested levels

    Thus, SLS is getting more money than Commercial Crew, AND MPCV is getting more money than commercial crew. Further, the total level cut from SLS & MPCV was $1.240 Billion, which is much greater than the $350 Million increase for Commercial Crew.

    The reality is that the money which was cut from SLS & MPCV went to 2 places. First, there was a total top line budget cut from NASA. Second, supporters of last year’s authorization law totally forgot about $547 million dollars of pension liability that NASA had to deal with.

    Those are the facts – I know some people like to ignore facts, but I find its much better to deal with reality, than live in a fantasy

  • Matt Wiser

    I would put MPCV on EELV (as Lockheed-Martin has proposed) for the ISS mission. Until the Commercial Sector demonstrates that they can do what they’re being contracted to do. The commercial space foundation last year had a symposium (and was reported in Space News), and the bottom line was “we need to stop talking and start flying before Congress will take us seriously.”

    Ferris: Congress (based on Rep.Hall, Sens Nelson, Hutchinson, and Shelby’s reaction) is not happy with that. They want SLS and MPCV funded to the levels authorized in the authorization act. If they can’t find the money out of Commercial Crew/Cargo, they’ll find it somewheres else. Some Congresscritters have stated they’d like to see NASA do purely space and aeronautics: Climate change is NOAA’s job, not NASA’s….and none of this “outreach” to Muslim countries-Charlie Bolden’s words will haunt him again.

  • @Bennett

    “It must be nice to live in a world where whatever you suppose become facts. Nothing that you wrote has any basis in reality, it’s all speculation, and pretty far out stuff at that.

    Go on, Marcel, name names! “Many” implies more than several, so who exactly ARE these companies that want to become middle men for wasteful big government programs?

    Your entire comment is pretty much all crap.”

    “ELON!!! Never saw a tax dollar he didn’t want to get his hands on:-) And unnecessarily extending the ISS program beyond 2016 is simply corporate welfare for the emerging spaceflight companies at a cost of $3 billion a year plus. The tax payers won’t see any savings from this boondoggle!

    You guys have been drinking the Tea Party and Libertarian cool-aid much too long!

  • Byeman

    Bolden turns 65 next month and, like shuttle, he’ll retire and be gone from this administration by the end of the year.

    Bolden’s age has no bearing on his retirement, which is not happen as you say. Why do you keep repeating nonsense? Your post are as asinine as a kid repeating the same words spoken to him.

  • @Coastal Ron

    “I don’t know about you, but I’m a big space enthusiast, and I like what the administration is trying to do. Why?

    Because building the SLS is a long, costly distraction to doing exploration.

    With the budget we’ll be spending on the SLS, we could be build the Nautilus-X and have enough money left over to start taking trips around the Moon and start venturing beyond. And all we need are existing launchers.”

    MW: There are no man-rated existing launchers except for the Space Shuttle. And man-rating EELVs will cost billions and won’t even get you close to the capabilities of the SLS.

    Nautilus-X is fantasy. Where’s the 500 tonnes plus of mass shielding required to protect humans on board from permanent brain damage from heavy nuclei? Or is the Nautilus-X going to be a suicide mission to Mars or the asteroids?

    “Or, if we really wanted get go back to the Moon next, then we could use the ULA plan that utilizes existing launchers and a new vehicle family (ACES) that can be the basis for a tanker, a fuel depot, and a reusable lander (cargo & crew).”

    MW: Obama said we’ve been to the Moon already:-) So he and Holdren apparently doen’t care about winning America’s water rights on the lunar surface!

    “None of this needs the SLS, and none of it requires NASA to spend it’s operating budget every month retaining a standing army just to service a rocket. That is not NASA’s mission.”

    MW: A shuttle derived SLS will allow the US to strategically and economically dominate cis-lunar space since you can derive super heavy lift vehicles from the architecture and simple sub-heavy lift vehicles. And the SLS will be the only launch vehicle capable of deploying Bigelow’s largest commercial space stations, the BA-2100.

    “And while you think it is the administration that doesn’t want to explore, how do you explain that Congress hasn’t even funded a mission or payload for the SLS?
    Where are the dozens of payload missions that everyone says will make the SLS the least costly way to explore space?”

    MW: Congress required the President to tell them what missions the new SLS will be utilized for in the near future within cis-lunar space. But the administration has yet to respond!

    “At least with the administration plan, we end up with a usable transportation system that doesn’t drain NASA’s budget. The same can’t be said about the SLS.”

    MW: What sustainable transportation system are you talking about. The original Obama plan was for NASA to spend tens of billions annually over the next decade with out any goals or hardware to show for it. That would have set NASA up for deep spending cuts in the near future by a Congress that is desperately looking for wasteful government programs to cut. And the Obama plan was the most wasteful of them all!

    The only good thing about the Obama plan is the fact that he’s using a tiny amount of the NASA budget for private commercial crew development. Its just too bad he plans to waste NASA dollars on continuing the ISS program as big government make-work for them. Space tourism is the key to the future of private commercial spaceflight, not the ISS.

  • Bennett

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    Right, you want a NASA space program, but you want to de-orbit our NASA space program. That certainly makes sense.

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    Stark raving, are we?

    By all means, let’s wait until the SLS is “man rated” and payloads are built, sometime around 2030 (give or take a decade), before we launch anything, at which point I’ll either be 70, or dead.

    Sounds exciting.

    Hoo-rah Marcel’s Plan.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Jeff –

    Administrator Bolden also announced NASA’s manned spaceflight path, and your omission of it says quite a bit. Did you not include it because you did not want to hear it, or because you think it is unimportant?

    As far as the SLS goes:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/73P/Schwassmann%E2%80%93Wachmann
    Note how large the fragments are:
    http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0073P/2011-pictures.html

    Indeed, failure is not an option for NASA, and that is why Ed Weiler needs to be fired.

  • Das Boese

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    You guys have been drinking the Tea Party and Libertarian cool-aid much too long!

    Funny, that. I happen to agree with the commercial advocates and SLS opponents here and I’m not even American, let alone a Tea Party sympathizer.

    This has nothing to do with ideology, it’s pure pragmatism.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi pathfinder –

    “The advantage of an HLV based around common cores is that the HLV can be keep in production so long as it’s cores remain in production. It also might give economies of scale.”

    Yes. Apply this principle to the next Long March series.

    My current question is whether after that China will go for a larger engine, or whether they will go with re-usability, something similar to the fly-back Zenit design.

    I think that folding wing fly-back tech will win, but I suppose that depends on engine costs, re-usability, and reliability. In any case those decisions are a way off for them.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    There are no man-rated existing launchers except for the Space Shuttle.

    Which goes to show you how bogus the term “man rated” is. The Shuttle doesn’t even have a crew escape system. The commercial crew capsules will have escape systems, so getting “man rated” using Shuttle standards should be pretty easy.

    And man-rating EELVs will cost billions and won’t even get you close to the capabilities of the SLS.

    The only two rockets that are being considered for commercial crew are Falcon 9 and Atlas V.

    Falcon 9 has been built to meet all of NASA’s published human ratings, and it will have already flown more than 10 flights with the Dragon capsule before commercial flights start. Oh, and if NASA doesn’t add anymore requirements, then it will have cost the U.S. taxpayer $0.

    Atlas V already has a successful launch record, and ULA has stated that it will only cost $400M to upgrade it for crew, so there is little question it will be “man rated”.

    All for far less that your supposed “billions”.

    Nautilus-X is fantasy.

    No more of a power-point than SLS. But it costs $Billions less, and at least it’s reusable.

    Where’s the 500 tonnes plus of mass shielding required to protect humans on board from permanent brain damage from heavy nuclei?

    If you took the chance to read about Nautilus-X, you would know that NASA says it has the “Capability to mitigate Space Radiation environment

  • Matt Wiser

    Nautilus-X is still a powerpoint presentation at present. Still in the study phase. Orion/MPCV and SLS are in development, and at least Orion has actual hardware undergoing developmental test. Once final SLS approval is given, then the real work of getting hardware developed, tested, and flown can get going.

    Does that mean we won’t need Nautilus or something like it? No. Chances are, something similar to it will be needed for Mars, but that’s a ways off. Follow Crawley’s advice: build the HLV, the crew vehicle, and any hab module, and start going places. Get some exploration done without landing (Lunar Orbit, L-Points, NEO) and then decide on lunar return, because we’ll need that to get ready for surface ops on Mars.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    I would put MPCV on EELV (as Lockheed-Martin has proposed) for the ISS mission.

    ULA says that it will cost $1.3B to human rate Delta IV Heavy, which isn’t a bad deal compared to the SLS. However Delta IV Heavy for crew is probably only needed for the MPCV, which means the MPCV budget would need to absorb that $1.3B, making their budget over $6B for one 4-person capsule. Ugh.

    By contrast, NASA was originally planning to spend that much for a whole fleet of commercial vehicles, which we also know will be reusable (we don’t know that for the MPCV).

    We also know that both SpaceX and Boeing has said that their systems will be competitive with the Russians regarding price, which the MPCV won’t be able to be.

    So out of curiosity Matt, how much do you think the MPCV will cost to fly one crew to the ISS, and will that be competitive to what we’re paying the Russians.

    And if your MPCV-on-DIVH costs far more than what we’re paying the Russians, why should we be spending more? Wouldn’t that just be a jobs program? Or some sort of subsidy?

    Until the Commercial Sector demonstrates that they can do what they’re being contracted to do.

    What are you talking about?

    COTS? SpaceX could finish on their next launch. CCDev-1? Complete. CCDev-2? The latest status shows everyone on schedule or ahead of schedule. Looks like they are doing what they have been contracted to do.

    What contracts are you talking about?

  • Das Boese

    Oh man, he’s at it with the “1000000tons of mass shielding or everyone dies!” again. Sigh.

    Marcel, there’s a ton of research left to do before we can determine what kind of shielding is required for safe interplanetary journeys. None of it requires heavy lift, but something like a 6 month DragonLab mission to a Lagrange point would be extremely useful.

    But suppose he is right and you need, say, 500 metric tons of shielding. Most of it will likely be bulk material that doesn’t care about the size of the fairing it launches in.

    A Falcon Heavy will lift 53 mt for as low as $80 million. Let’s say actual payload is 50 tons, that’s a nice round number, leaving 3 tons for a small service module.

    500/50 = 10

    10 Falcon Heavy flights get your 500 metric tons of shielding mass into orbit for $800 million at best, but probably under one billion.

    You’ll be lucky if you are able to afford a single SLS launch for that money which would deliver a mere 117 mt total.

    Conclusion: SLS is a collossal waste of money.

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    @ Marcel F Williams,

    I find it interesting that the vast majority of MTV designs do not have the hundreds of tons of mass shielding that you say are required. Even those that do have auxiliary radiation shielding for BEO missions have nowhere near the level that you think is necessary.

    Does this mean that:

    1) The majority of spacecraft design engineers are hopelessly incompetent for missing something so basic and critical?

    or

    2) You are massively exaggerating both the threat and the shielding requirements to mitigate that threat?

    Enquiring minds would like to know.

  • DCSCA

    Byeman wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
    Bolden’s age has no bearing on his retirement.

    Of course it does. Wise up. Best you bone up on age requirements for partial and full pension/SS qualifications. He’s not going to stick around at his age as the agency ‘s budget remain flat and goes no place for years. He’s outta here.

  • I spent last night writing a blog about why Shuttle is being retired (gratuitous link here) but in the process came across a quote in the CAIB report which I thought reflects the attitude of those who keep coming up with all sorts of irrational claims about the future of U.S. human space flight.

    From page 102 of the CAIB report:

    External criticism and doubt, rather than spurring NASA to change for the better, instead reinforced the will to “impose the party line vision on the environment, not to reconsider it,” according to one authority on organizational behavior. This in turn led to “flawed decision making, self deception, introversion and a diminished curiosity about the world outside the perfect place.” The NASA human space flight culture the Board found during its investigation manifested many of these characteristics, in particular a self-confidence about NASA possessing unique knowledge about how to safely launch people into space.

    The “perfect place” which possesses “unique knowledge about how to safely launch people into space.”

    It accurately describe the people who’ve been claiming that SpaceX will blow up astronauts and that CCDev will be a miserable failure, those who claim that only NASA has the “unique knowledge.”

    On Page 13 was this cynical observation:

    The changes we recommend will be difficult to accomplish — and will be internally resisted.

    Apparently the CAIB members had no faith in NASA to implement their recommendations, or even consider them. They must have run into a lot of resistance during their investigation to have written such harsh words.

    Now, all this was six years before the Augustine Committee, but when you consider their two reports together we understand why Constellation ran into a wall, and the recommendation to take space flight to the commercial sector to escape the NASA bureaucracy.

  • Jeff Foust

    Administrator Bolden also announced NASA’s manned spaceflight path, and your omission of it says quite a bit. Did you not include it because you did not want to hear it, or because you think it is unimportant?

    I’m unaware of anything Bolden said in Friday’s NPC speech regarding “NASA’s manned spaceflight path” that has not been previously mentioned, often many times over. If you found something newsworthy in his comments that I omitted, Mr. Grondine, please do share it with the rest of us.

  • Allen Thomson

    Stephen C. Smith reported,

    External criticism and doubt, rather than spurring NASA to change for the better, instead reinforced the will to “impose the party line vision on the environment, not to reconsider it,” according to one authority on organizational behavior. This in turn led to “flawed decision making, self deception, introversion and a diminished curiosity about the world outside the perfect place.” The NASA human space flight culture the Board found during its investigation manifested many of these characteristics, in particular a self-confidence about NASA possessing unique knowledge about…

    To be fair, this kind of behavior is pretty widespread among H.sap. A random example that comes to mind is the classical NRO, which fit the CAIB text to a T.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Mr. Wiser,

    None of what you said contradicts my underlying point about funding levels for Commercial Crew, MPCV, and SLS.

    Congress (based on Rep.Hall, Sens Nelson, Hutchinson, and Shelby’s reaction) is not happy with that. They want SLS and MPCV funded to the levels authorized in the authorization act.

    Whether or not Hall, Nelson, Hutchinson, and Shelby are happy or not with the budget request, you cannot telescope that to represent all of NASA.

    Also of note, only 2 of those members are on the appropriations committee, which determines actual funding levels.

    If they can’t find the money out of Commercial Crew/Cargo, they’ll find it somewheres else.

    I have no doubt that they will try. However, I have strong doubts as to whether they can actually find the money they want/need.

    Some Congresscritters have stated they’d like to see NASA do purely space and aeronautics: Climate change is NOAA’s job, not NASA’s….and none of this “outreach” to Muslim countries-Charlie Bolden’s words will haunt him again.

    Um, not to beat a dead horse, but WTF does this have to do with the issue of funding levels? I have no doubt individual Congress people have thoughts and wishes, but that doesn’t translate into action.

    The underlying issue is that even under the president’s request, SLS remained the biggest chunk of the HSF budget, and MPCV remained the second largest.

  • There are no man-rated existing launchers except for the Space Shuttle. And man-rating EELVs will cost billions and won’t even get you close to the capabilities of the SLS.

    You don’t know what the phrase “man rating” means. The Shuttle was never man rated. And the notion that it will cost “billions” to “man rate” EELVs is ludicrously insane. And the only capability that SLS will have (if it ever gets built) that current launch vehicles have is to launch a lot more in a single launch, at a horrific cost — a capability that is completely unneeded.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 3rd, 2011 at 9:43 pm

    “Ron, you know this as much as I do: NASA is beholden to Congress. Congress says “Do this. Here’s the money.” They go ahead and do it. NASA cannot decide which laws it’ll obey and which ones it won’t, as much as some here would like them to. ”

    lol, the executive does it all the time. In Reagan’s era the Congress passed a law (which is still on the books) specifically saying that women could not be stationed on the aircraft carriers. Reagan simply ignored it…for a while there was the fiction that they were “TDY” then they just dropped that all together. Soon, next 10 years, a woman will command a flattop with that law still in place.

    FDR “broke” one neutrality law after another.

    Sorry you know as much about cross feeding as you do about politics. RGO

  • E.P. Grondine

    Jeff –

    News only becomes news when its read.

    If you do a Google news search on Obama, Bolden, moon, Mars, and asteroid you will be surprised at the number of hits. It would appear that a large number of editors and producers found Administrator Bolden’s remarks newsworthy.

    What those here know and are focused on, and what the general public is focused on, are often different.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 1:49 am

    Orion/MPCV and SLS are in development, and at least Orion has actual hardware undergoing developmental test.

    The SLS is still a paper rocket, existing only in the dreams of Senate staffers. NASA will announce their version of it soon, but how much it will cost and how long it will take to build are complete unknowns.

    Chances are, something similar to it will be needed for Mars [Nautilus-X], but that’s a ways off.

    You can’t wait till the last minute and build a fully tested spaceship. It’s going to take years of testing and refinement to build up our capabilities, which is what we’ve been experiencing with the ISS. The Nautilus-X is essentially a flying testbed for figuring out what works and what doesn’t if we want to go BEO.

    Nautilus-X is exploration, whereas the SLS is being a transportation company.

    Matt, why do you insist on NASA being a transportation company? Why don’t you want the U.S. Taxpayer to save money by having NASA buy it’s transportation needs using the NLS II contract that is already in place?

    What is the SLS supposed to launch that can’t be launched by existing rockets?

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 4th, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    And the SLS will be the only launch vehicle capable of deploying Bigelow’s largest commercial space stations, the BA-2100.

    Nope. The BA-2100 will launch on the Falcon X, since both will be built at the same time (i.e. not for a very, very long time).

    The SLS will not be allowed to compete against the commercial marketplace, so you can give up any dreams you may have of mythical commercial payloads lining up to spend $Billions to launch on a NASA rocket. In any case, the DoD doesn’t even trust NASA for payload launches, so why would the commercial marketplace?

  • That should have been “…current launch vehicles don’t have…”

  • Egadz

    From the SpaceX zealots to the Obama worshipers to those whose only goal is ripping on the this Marcel F. person- I’m really glad that everything posted here has ZERO actual influance on current space events. You people are quite funny- perhaps some of you should just find a corner and shout at traffic.

  • Matt Wiser

    Ron: the commercial sector hasn’t flown ANYONE yet into LEO. Not even on a test flight. I’d want to see if they’re able to do what they say they can do: fly people to and from ISS, and do it safely. Once they start proving that they can fly crew up and back, then I’d be more than willing to say “Well done. Keep up the good work,” and let NASA get on with the business of BEO.

  • DCSCA

    @Stephen C. Smith wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 6:42 am
    “Apparently the CAIB members had no faith in NASA to implement their recommendations, or even consider them.”

    Based on their findings in comparison with similar findings by the Rogers Commission this shouldn’t be a surprise to observers. The problem has always rested in the culture within the management structure. Cleaning house of shuttle era management from the top down at NASA is long overdue. .

  • Ron: the commercial sector hasn’t flown ANYONE yet into LEO. Not even on a test flight. I’d want to see if they’re able to do what they say they can do: fly people to and from ISS, and do it safely. Once they start proving that they can fly crew up and back, then I’d be more than willing to say “Well done. Keep up the good work,” and let NASA get on with the business of BEO.

    Do you have some rational reason to think that they won’t be able to do so?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 2nd, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    “He may be a good NASA administrator, and an excellent Marine, but he just doesn’t seem to be a good communicator.”

    the problem is really that no one at NASA and the hangers on, like what he is saying in any event. So they dont listen.

    NASA has become an entitlement organization. They dont want to hear that this gravy train has rolled to a stop. Pete Olson has a facebook page and time after time people come on there and say “let NASA get back to what it does best” and when you ask them “what is that”…they go on with endless babbly about “inspiring us” or “giving us hope” or my favorite “calling the future”…as if anyof those things meant anything real.

    So long they have lived with the notion of “space is hard” and its collolary “only we can do it” that they have come to believe it. Sad

    RGO

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    “Ron: the commercial sector hasn’t flown ANYONE yet into LEO. Not even on a test flight. I’d want to see if they’re able to do what they say they can do: fly people to and from ISS, and do it safely”

    and how do you define “safely”? RGO

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    the commercial sector hasn’t flown ANYONE yet into LEO. Not even on a test flight.

    SpaceX has flown a Dragon test flight that someone could have flown on, and the passenger(s) would have returned safely.

    Now there are more things that need to be added and tested prior to regular commercial service (i.e. seats, controls, LAS, etc.), but the rocket and capsule have proven that they work as advertised so far.

    And while this testing is being paid for to deliver cargo, it is also checking the boxes on a number of things that are needed for crew.

    When will NASA do a orbital test of the MPCV?

    I’d want to see if they’re able to do what they say they can do: fly people to and from ISS, and do it safely.

    Matt, you keep saying things like they are revelations to everyone.

    No one wants to take risks like they did on the Shuttle program, which had no way to test the Shuttle system unmanned.

    The CCDev program exists to promulgate NASA’s crew standards to the CCDev participants, and to insure that they are able to meet those standards. That testing will include unmanned as well as manned testing, and SpaceX will likely be the furthest along in this respect, since they will be gaining flight heritage for Falcon 9/Dragon with every CRS delivery to the ISS.

    Keep in mind though Matt, that NASA doesn’t have a complete and comprehensive crew standard yet, so NASA can’t tell the industry everything they need to build a NASA-approved crew system.

    What other way are you suggesting?

    And will that “other way” be the same that is used on the MPCV? Or do you have different standards for different companies?

  • DCSCA

    Rand Simberg wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    “Do you have some rational reason to think that they won’t be able to do so?”

    Yeah. Talk is cheap. HSF is not, especially if you’re goal is to make a profit at it and the risk of failure outweighs the value of the rewards to be gained. Decades of saying they want to, they can, they will but don’t says it all. HSF by press release is not HSF. Make the commitment and take the risk NASA did back in ’62 when they orbited Glenn and the reliability of missile technology was less than it is these days- back in 1962 it was in the 60% range, per Kraft’s own memoirs. Get someone up arond and back down safely. Put someone up or shut up. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Just do it. Not by press release, but for real.

  • DCSCA

    Coastal Ron wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    SpaceX has flown a Dragon test flight that someone could have flown on, and the passenger(s) would have returned safely.

    Untrue.

  • DCSCA

    “So long they have lived with the notion of “space is hard” and its collolary “only we can do it” that they have come to believe it.”

    So far only ‘they’ have done it and it is hard— at least w/respect to orbital HSF, and crew survival– and it is very unforgiving of human error. As long as the risks outweigh the value of the rewards, commerical orbital HSF will never fly.

  • Das Boese

    DCSCA wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 5:06 am

    Of course it does. Wise up. Best you bone up on age requirements for partial and full pension/SS qualifications. He’s not going to stick around at his age as the agency ‘s budget remain flat and goes no place for years. He’s outta here.

    The man is a retired general, former test pilot and astronaut. Do you seriously believe he is just biding his time until he can kick back in front of a TV in his comfy chair? And Musk is going to sell out SpaceX, yup, just you wait…

    Can you really not grasp the concepts of enthusiasm or personal dedication beyond mere economic self-interest? The story you like to tell about that nephew or whatever of yours sure hint at it… if that’s your outlook on life, dude, I feel truly sorry for you.

  • Matt Wiser

    Rand and Ron: Do I doubt the Private Sector? No. But before any taxpayer money (read: my money) goes to these companies to fly crew and cargo to ISS and back, they should prove that they can do the work NASA is asking them to do. Do I think they can do it? Yes. But prove it first; a boilerplate launched into orbit is one thing. A vehicle with real crew is another matter entirely.

    Now, if NASA would go by what Lockheed-Martin is recommending, they could integrate Orion with an EELV for Earth Orbit flight test. I’m actually surprised that the congresscritters in whose districts L-M has Orion related work going on aren’t pushing for that. For uncrewed flight test, you wouldn’t need to human-rate the vehicle. If a human-rated EELV becomes available, then NASA can fly the Earth Orbit flight tests (read: Apollo 7 analog) before heavy-lift is available. Then fly an LEO flight test of heavy-lift w/Orion before repeating Apollo 8. That would get folks excited, and as Ed Crawley says in his presentation, “It would show the world two things: first, we’re back in space, and second, we can go back to the moon whenver we feel like it.” Then fly Obama’s precious NEO mission before getting serious with Lunar exploration.

  • Matt Wiser

    Robert: I have a cousin who is an active duty USN Fighter Pilot. SHE never made a cruise until the law was changed in 1994 that was longer than a week. Her first real deployment was in 1994-95. (Med/IO/Persian Gulf) She’s flown with people who never deployed with women aboard carriers in the 1980s and early ’90s. The first women aboard a carrier were those aboard a training ship (Lexington) that taught carrier proceedures to new pilots. Because it wasn’t a combat ship. The first women who regularly deployed went after the law was repealed in the early ’90s. TDY assignments, with a few exceptions, lasted a week or less. In 1992-93, there were TDYs with women that lasted the whole cruise, to evaluate how women would handle long deployments. Reagan, btw, was opposed to women in combat in any event.

    Oh, btw, the Harry Truman Carrier Group has a female Admiral commanding the group. Sorry, but you’re behind the times in that…..

    Now, Robert, you know full well that NASA has to do what Congress tells them to do, or NO MONEY. They cannot pick and choose. Cut and dry, that is it. Do what congress tells them to do and funds them to do, or no more funds next year.

  • pathfinder_01

    “ULA says that it will cost $1.3B to human rate Delta IV Heavy, which isn’t a bad deal compared to the SLS. However Delta IV Heavy for crew is probably only needed for the MPCV, which means the MPCV budget would need to absorb that $1.3B, making their budget over $6B for one 4-person capsule. Ugh.”

    In addition ULA promised costs of $300 million a flight if NASA would agree to buy nine flights (reasonable).Imagine what could have been done if we had a space storable earth departure stage right now. We would be doing L-point missions for launch costs of $600 million each.
    “By contrast, NASA was originally planning to spend that much for a whole fleet of commercial vehicles, which we also know will be reusable (we don’t know that for the MPCV).”

    Unless things change Orion is disposable:

    http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/996239–nasa-announces-new-name-destination-for-orion-spacecraft
    http://www.nasawatch.com/images/heft.presentation.pdf

    And expensive, HEFT was expecting to spend $800 million per unit for the CTV based on Orion and launched with a crew. It would drop to $400 million they expect if the CTV was just for reentry(i.e. launched without a crew like a lifeboat) or $597 million if just launched without a crew but more in its current form. The MPCV is more like the CTV prime than the CTV-E or CTV-entry.

    To compare: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110201/ARTICLE/102011052?p=4&tc=pg

    Dream chaser the most expensive of the CCREW is expected to take less than a billion to finish and be reusable 20 times. Boeing hasn’t mentioned it’s costs on the CST100 but it is well known that a Space X dragon probably costs about 800 million to 1 billion to finish both Dragon and Falcon 9 for crew (depending on what NASA wants) right now the per unit cost of a dragon cargo capsule is probably about $73 million as each COTS flight is $133 million and a Falcon launch is about 59.5 million and for COTS dragon is not being reused (but it was designed with that in mind).

    http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/04/cost-overruns/

    MAT: Space X is about 2 years behind schedule but now in a position where they can catch up a bit and Orbital about 1year. NASA’s CXP program was running about 6-7 years late before the Obama administration put it out its misery. The space shuttle was about 2 years late by the way.

    Anyway Orion on an EELV isn’t politically palatable. The Delta IV heavy does not use the shuttle’s workforce so Congress does not like it and the Administration isn’t crazy about Orion.

  • pathfinder_01

    ULA thinks Atlas can be ready for crew by 2014:http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1102/13ulaccdev/

    Falcon 9 likewise.

    NASA isn’t expecting CCREW to be online till 2016 and lord help Orion/SLS cause NASA doesn’t think thoose two can be ready by late 2016…with enough funding 2018 would be a more likely date…and with the low funding try 2020.

  • pathfinder_01

    “SpaceX has flown a Dragon test flight that someone could have flown on, and the passenger(s) would have returned safely.
    Untrue.’

    Dragon in its cargo version is able to deliver live lab animals to the ISS. It has a life support system and pressurization normally, it just lacked one able to support a human being during flight. It however has enough life support(fans, ect.) to allow an astronaut at the ISS to work in it.

    As part of CCDEV round 1 Paragon developed and ground tested a life-support system for commercial crew. Paragon is the company that developed Orion’s system. The only thing that cargo dragon which flew in December was missing was a human sized life support system and some seats. Space X does not plan to use the Paragon system but is working with Paragon to develop its own life support system. Paragon also developed the current life-support system of Dragon.

  • “Get some exploration done without landing (Lunar Orbit, L-Points, NEO) and then decide on lunar return, because we’ll need that to get ready for surface ops on Mars.”

    This is a poor strategy for manned spaceflight:
    (1) There isn’t any exploration to be done a Lagrange Point. It is simply empty space.
    (2) We don’t need people in lunar orbit. We need them on the surface.
    (3) The human risks and financial costs of a Mars mission are to great to permit not landing and exploring.
    (4) With the sole exception of a small number of NEOs, we should not go until we have a lander.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 6th, 2011 at 12:09 am

    “Robert: I have a cousin who is an active duty USN Fighter Pilot. SHE never made a cruise until the law was changed in 1994 that was longer than a week. Her first real deployment was in 1994-95. (Med/IO/Persian Gulf) She’s flown with people who never deployed with women aboard carriers in the 1980s and early ’90s”

    A few points.

    There is a difference between commanding a carrier battle group and commanding a flattop. The former is work, the later is a joy. At some point very soon there will be a female commander of a flattop.

    Women have been on the CVN in some form or fashion since El Dorado Canyon. I dont know your cousin’s story but go look in USNI Proceedings in the 80’s…you will recognize the guy who wrote the article(s) “Lets end the Waveiator Experiment” and “The The Start of the new Road”

    Women were rare on the flattop in the 80’s they were rare in naval aviation. They are not that way today. And Ronaldus the Great started it.

    “Now, Robert, you know full well that NASA has to do what Congress tells them to do, or NO MONEY. ”

    LOL really a hoot. Congress does not have the balls to do that. They never have not recently or in history RGO

  • Vladislaw

    So you are not actually in favor of space exploration, you only want to travel through space. What you really are advocating is lunar exploration, not space exploration. If that is the case call it what it is and say you are against space exploration, but are in favor of lunar exploration.

  • Vladislaw

    Matt Wiser wrote:

    “Ron: the commercial sector hasn’t flown ANYONE yet into LEO. Not even on a test flight. I’d want to see if they’re able to do what they say they can do”

    Matt,

    in what year did the federal government order the Dept of Transportation to generate all the proposed laws and regulations needed to allow commercial human launches?

    In what year did the federal government order the FAA to generate all the proposed laws and regulations needed to allow commercial human launches?

    in what year did the federal government order NASA to generate all the proposed laws and regulations needed to allow commercial human launches?

    In what year did congress pass all the laws and regulations needed that would allow private human spaceflight?

    The idea that the federal government has been setting up all the needed regs for private spaceflight 50 years ago and commercial has just never wanted to try it is silly. NASA made it clear, talk about commercial human launches and good luck trying to get a NASA contract. Commercial knew where it’s bread was buttered, go along with NASA and get your pork, buck them and good bye.

  • But before any taxpayer money (read: my money) goes to these companies to fly crew and cargo to ISS and back, they should prove that they can do the work NASA is asking them to do.

    Why don’t you have the same standard for the billions of taxpayer money that was poured into ATK, Boeing and Lockheed Martin for Constellation? Why don’t you have the same standard for NASA itself, which has had failure after failure to develop new launch systems for thirty years?

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 11:53 pm

    But before any taxpayer money (read: my money) goes to these companies to fly crew and cargo to ISS and back, they should prove that they can do the work NASA is asking them to do.

    Matt, they are. You just choose to ignore that they are doing it.

    The COTS and CCDev programs don’t pay unless the participants actually do what they said they would do. Also, the participants have to contribute their own funds to the project, so unlike Orion/MPCV, which is 100% financed by the U.S. Taxpayer, COTS and CCDev have a mix of public and private funding.

    This is also the funding model that Elon Musk has been lobbying for NASA to change over to for all future programs.

    But if you think that anyone, including Boeing, is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do something that has not been defined (see Vladislaw’s comments), and isn’t yet funded by Congress, then you are very naive.

  • “So you are not actually in favor of space exploration, you only want to travel through space. What you really are advocating is lunar exploration, not space exploration. If that is the case call it what it is and say you are against space exploration, but are in favor of lunar exploration.”

    Semantically correct.

    Putting a human on the scene is risky and very expensive. In return, we get superb manual dexterity, legs that do not easily get stuck in sand traps, and responsive high-level intelligence that can circumvent Earth-return time lags.

    There is great potential value in having humans on the surface of Mars and asteroids, and also on the Moon (although on the Moon a great deal could be accomplished by JPL-controlled rovers). Those are the 3 destinations where it clearly makes scientific sense to send humans.

    As far as being able to sustain humans in space, which is also important, most of that research and engineering can be conducted in LEO and on the ground. We could be testing artificial gravity in orbit, which would tell us about long-term human exposure to reduced gravity, such as on the Moon and Mars. We can test closed-look environmental systems on the ground…

  • Coastal Ron

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ July 6th, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    most of that research and engineering can be conducted in LEO…

    So you’re supporting the ISS as the research platform for technologies an techniques we need to expand into space?

    We can test closed-look environmental systems on the ground…

    That’s nice in theory, but the water-and-urine recycling system experience should tell you that ground testing can only take you so far. If you want to validate systems for use in space, then you have to test them in space, and in the environments they will be used. Anything less is just guessing.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ July 5th, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Untrue.

    Informative as usual (i.e. not at all).

    In this case you’re going to have to do better. Why?

    Oh, and don’t use rhetoric, since any two year old can say what you said, but use relevant facts.

    For instance, are you saying a person would not have been able to survive because of the G-forces incurred? Or the vibration? Or the force of the impact?

    What? Why?

  • Matt Wiser

    Ron and Vadislaw: I was orignally a “Moon first” person. In the ideal world, that would still be the case. I know full well the money’s not there, because that was CxP’s problem: trying to develop everything all at once, and delays and overruns on one item (Ares I in this case) meant delay and overrun on all. Said it before and I’ll repeat: I know FlexPath is what we’re going to be doing, because that’s what the budget will allow. But I’m not a commercial space zealot, nor am I a Lord Musk worshiper, and I still am skeptical of ObamaSpace. I’m a space buff who just thinks NEO before the moon is NOT the way to go. Lunar orbit first, then L-points, lunar return, asteroid, then Mars. In that order. I missed Apollo: my earliest HSF memory is Apollo-Soyuz, and want to see NASA return to the moon as soon as technology and budgets allow. Then go out-let’s make our mistakes in the earth-moon system, because we will make mistakes and (though I hope not) have an Apollo 13 type event. Am I still angry about what Mr. Obama has said, the “been there, done that” condacending speech. You bet. Apollo only visited six sites with humans: as Dave Scott said, “There’s a lot more to be seen and done up there.” Human far side landing: never been done; human landing at the Poles: never been done. First female on the lunar surface, surface stays longer than 72 hours. You get the idea. We need to relearn planetary surface ops in a low-gravity environment before we try for Mars proper, and the only place near enough for that is 240K miles away. Get both: lunar experience and deep-space experience before going to Mars. We’ll need it.

    Do I want the commercial sector to succeed so that NASA can go explore? Of course. And they can support exploration with a propellant depot if that proves feasable. But I do not want to bet the farm on them like we did with Shuttle: hence having MPCV available as backup. Just as NASA overpromised with shuttle, the commercial sector may be overpromising with their proposals.

  • But I’m not a commercial space zealot, nor am I a Lord Musk worshiper

    Isn’t it hilarious that the only people who call him “Lord Musk” are those who proclaim not to worship him?

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 6th, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    Just as NASA overpromised with shuttle, the commercial sector may be overpromising with their proposals.

    You’re avoiding the questions Matt.

    The COTS and CCDev programs are public-private partnerships, and participants only get paid when they successfully complete an agreed upon task.

    How in any way does that not meet your desires as a U.S. Taxpayer?

    A company could over-promise, but as soon as they don’t accomplish a task they don’t get paid. That type of behavior becomes visible pretty quickly, and NASA can drop them or replace them with someone else.

    NASA has already demonstrated how this works when Rocketplane Kistler couldn’t meet their COTS milestones, and NASA kicked them out of the program and replaced them with the runner-up (Orbital Sciences).

    The system works – NASA gets more than one provider, the participants have their own skin in the game, and the U.S. Taxpayer only pays for results, not effort.

    And all of the activity is overseen by NASA, so NASA gets detailed insight into what everyone is doing, and the companies get direct access to NASA for any assistance.

    If you have a better way to get two or more commercial crew systems up and running before 2016, without breaking the bank, we’d all like to hear it.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 6th, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    But I’m not a commercial space zealot…

    Neither am I. I support commercial space efforts because I have examined all the other possibilities over the past couple of years, and at this point with what we’re doing in space and what’s going on in the Nation, supporting the efforts of the commercial space industry makes the most sense.

    What are the alternatives? NASA’s shrinking budget?

    Unless you can create alternative sources of spending for doing activities in space, you’re going to be cooling your jets here on terra firma for a long time waiting for NASA to get you beyond LEO.

    …nor am I a Lord Musk worshiper…

    Neither am I. I support those things that lower the cost to access space.

    Right now Musk and SpaceX lead the pack on doing that, but once someone else comes along that can do it better, I’ll move my support over to them.

    As Michael said in the Godfather: “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.

    I think you are the one that focuses on personalities instead of actions. Politicians and magicians love those types of people… just sayin’

    …and I still am skeptical of ObamaSpace.

    What is “ObamaSpace”?

    Since it’s meant as a derogatory term, and not a descriptive one, essentially what you doing is using an insult.

    If you need help in defining what you really mean, then go back to the NASA’s proposed budget and talk about the line items you disagree with. Otherwise you’re just engaging in rhetoric.

  • Matt Wiser

    I’ll admit, I did not vote for Mr. Obama in ’08, and probably won’t in ’12. But he is POTUS, and is my commander-in-chief. That does not mean I agree with everything he says or does. Now, if he had announced a restructured lunar program, using elements of Constellation, but delaying landings until the budget picture allowed, and using things like propellant depots and ISRU to make the program more affordable and sustainable, I would’ve gladly supported it. But that “been there, done that” condescending attitude towards lunar missions was something I didn’t care fore. We’re going to have to return to the lunar surface anyway, to relearn planetary surface ops in a low-gravity environment, and we might as well start laying the groundwork for that. There are a lot of things that need to be learned to prep for Mars: surface ops with crew rovers, ISRU, new spacesuits, operating a rover from a spacecraft, ROVs to go where a human or a human-operated rover can’t go, all of that and more we’ll need for Mars.

    What I call “ObamaSpace” is this vague promise of a NEO by 2025, with the promise of Mars orbit and Martian moons by 2035. Nothing in between that’s official. And you hear this a lot on The Hill, whenever Charlie Bolden, Lori Garver, or Doug Cooke (Head of NASA’s Exploration Office) testify. There’s no “meat on the bones” so to speak. The congresscritters want more information: where do you plan on going, when do you expect to fly some of these missions, what do you want to do at those destinations, how often will you fly BEO, things like that. And the lack of information on this subject is something that comes up in the relevant hearings. Now, once Charlie Bolden (or his successor) fleshes out the skeleton, so to speak, there’ll be more support on The Hill, and I’d be glad that there’s more on the table than what Mr. Obama said last year at the Cape. All that’s needed is something like this: “I can’t give you more detailed information, but here’s what we’ll be doing BEO before the asteroid mission, here’s what follows it, and what we’ll be doing to get ready for Mars. Mission dates are very tentative, but these are the earliest possible dates for these missions, and there will be multiple flights. I know a lot of people want to return to the moon, and we will, but there’s other destinations that are just as important in our exploration activities. NASA will return to the moon’s surface, but we want to do other things first.” That’s it. And a lot of the rancor, the anger, the acrimony, and yes, the disgust, will either go away, or at least be mitigated. Just my two cents….

  • Now, if he had announced a restructured lunar program, using elements of Constellation

    There were no elements of Constellation that were affordably useful for a lunar program. But please, continue to rewrite history.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 6th, 2011 at 9:55 pm

    Now, if he had announced a restructured lunar program, using elements of Constellation

    Congress cancelled Constellation Matt. It’s dead and gone – get over it.

    All that’s needed is something like this: “I can’t give you more detailed information, but here’s what we’ll be doing…

    Matt, since you know that Obama can’t control what’s beyond his term in office (which could end in 2013), why do you need him to detail what will happen when he’s been out of office for well over a decade?

    If you require politicians to lie to you in order to feel better, then I feel sorry for you. I would rather hear the truth, no matter whether I like it or not.

    Obama provided his preference for where he would like NASA to go, but the next President and Congress could choose something different. Everyone knows that.

    What you don’t seem to understand is that Obama/Bolden are focused on putting in place basic capabilities right now, like dependable transportation to LEO, not exploration systems like landers and ISRU. They can forecast what the capabilities will lead to, and what their preferences are, but beyond that they have no control, and no money from Congress to make such promises.

    And the “rancor and anger” you mention? It’s because certain members of Congress were not getting enough money going to their districts. Most of Congress couldn’t even tell you what NASA is doing outside of the Shuttle and the ISS, and are too busy fighting over what programs are going to be cut, not added.

  • Matt Wiser

    Oh, and what about the anger from people like Gene Cernan, Neil Armstrong, Chris Kraft, Gene Krantz, Jim Lovell, hmm? Those aren’t members of Congress, last I checked.

    Did you see the last time Charlie Bolden was on the Hill? He was grilled by members of both parties (this was the House Science and Tech Committee-the full committee, mind you, not the subcommittee dealing with NASA), and there were pointed questions asked about where, when, how, etc. From members of both parties. The tone of the questioning was very pointed and direct, and the members were not happy with the answers they were getting.

    I know CxP’s been cancelled, and I know it’s not coming back. BUT, and this is BUT, if Mr. Obama had just announced a restructured lunar program, with NEO following, that’s a program I would have gladly supported. Ron, you just don’t get it: There are a lot of people out there who missed Apollo, and I’m one of them, who want to see NASA astronauts, NOT the ChiComs, return to the moon first. None of this vague promise of NEO by 2025 and a firm promise of Mars orbit by 2035. Just say where you’re planning to go, when, how, and how often. That’s ALL. And in case you forgot: NASA is beholden to Congress. And I’ll bet that this house committee axing JWST is revenge for killing CxP by certain members of that committee.

  • Martijn Meijering

    There were no elements of Constellation that were affordably useful for a lunar program.

    The spacesuits would have been nice. :-)

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 7th, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    There are a lot of people out there who missed Apollo, and I’m one of them…

    I missed Lewis and Clark, but you don’t see me complaining.

    I did live through Apollo, and I think you have an overinflated idea about what it was. It was a political program to beat the Soviets, and we did, so three cheers for us. Oh yeah, we also picked up some rocks and played some golf. You can buy the DVD to see what you missed.

    The reason we haven’t been back is because we don’t have any big reason to go back. Water on the Moon? We have that. He3 on the Moon? We don’t need that yet. Glory and adulation for returning to the Moon? We can’t afford that.

    Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we’ve had the ability to go back to the Moon for the past 40 years, it’s just that we’ve chosen not too. Tough luck for you I guess, but that’s the way it is.

    Now you “Moon First” types are a really small minority, right alongside the “Mars First” groups. Neither of you understand that most people assume we’ll go everywhere once we get out into space, but for the last 30 years we’ve only had the ability to pop-up and stay in LEO for two weeks, then go back home.

    Until we can improve our capabilities so that we can leave LEO without breaking the bank (and using a decreasing budget) no one can make a promise to go anywhere beyond LEO. No one. Not the President, not the NASA Administrator, and certainly not Congress. No one Matt.

    So again, would you rather hear the truth or a lie? What makes you feel better?

  • Matt Wiser

    Call it anger, call it disappointment, call it whatever. (Besides, the Lewis and Clark analogy is not a good one) Am I upset that “moon first” was canned? YES. But I know FlexPath is the only game in town, and I have to support it, because there’s no other choice. Ed Crawley sold me on it when I saw the youtube video of his presentation last year and I saw it as something I can support. He mentions the places to go and what can be done (even without a lander) in the short term, with landings-including lunar, in the medium-to-long term. What am I really upset about? That NO one at NASA-Bolden, Garver, Doug Cooke, etc, comes out and says “Yes, that’s what we have in mind. We can’t say when we’ll be going, and what we’ll be doing when we get there, but yes, those are all places NASA wants to send our Astronauts. Will there be landings? Yes, but not right away. Will we return to the lunar surface? Yes, and sooner than Constellation would have. Just not right now, because there are other things we want to do first. And our long-term goal is Mars, first to orbit, and then to land people there. Every mission is a stepping stone to that.” There’s been none of that (at least on the record) at any of the House or Senate hearings, despite Congresscritters of both parties-including those not from “space states” pressing Bolden and company to do so. Why is he so reluctant? Orders from above, perhaps?

    Said it before, and I hate to repeat, but again, if POTUS had not said that “been there, done that” in regards to the moon, and said “before we return to the moon, we have to make our program sustainable and affordable, and there are other possible exploration targets for our astronauts besides the moon, such as asteroids, that we gain both deep space flight experience and experience working on another planetary body,” that’s something everyone could be happy with. The “moon first” people would get a Presidential commitment to lunar return-not the first item, but it would be official, and those in favor of deep space flights get what they want, too. It wasn’t presented that way.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 7th, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    Said it before, and I hate to repeat, but again, if POTUS had not said that “been there, done that” in regards to the moon, and said “before we return to the moon, we have to make our program sustainable and affordable, and there are other possible exploration targets for our astronauts besides the moon, such as asteroids, that we gain both deep space flight experience and experience working on another planetary body,” that’s something everyone could be happy with.

    Speaking at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, President Barack Obama discussed his plans for NASA:

    “Let me start by being extremely clear,” Obama said. “I am 100 per cent committed to the mission of NASA and its future because broadening our capabilities in space will continue to serve us in ways we can hardly imagine.”

    And

    “By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crew missions beyond the Moon into deep space,” Obama said. “So, we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on Mars will follow.”

    It looks like he met your requirements in his public speech last year.

    If you think he should have said more, or said it differently, then join the very long list of people that want to be speechwriters for Presidents.

    And if you think Presidents and administrations are completely in charge of what will happen decades after they leave office, and their predictions should be followed as gospel, they you are living in a fantasy world. Consult your psychologist if you need clarification.

  • There’s been none of that (at least on the record) at any of the House or Senate hearings, despite Congresscritters of both parties-including those not from “space states” pressing Bolden and company to do so.

    Lori Garver has said that, a number of times. She hasn’t said it before Congress because, for some reason, Congress never calls her to testify. Sorry you haven’t been paying attention.

  • Matt Wiser

    Ron, POTUS was not specific enough. And the tone of the speech, and yes, I’ve read the transcript, wasn’t helpful. That “been there, done that” turned my stomach.

    Rand: show me where she lists destinations and the like, and I”ll check them out for myself. C-Span and NASA channel don’t show her speeches. And why doesn’t Bolden echo what she says in his House or Senate testimony?

    Anyway, it was bittersweet today. The shuttle took its last ride, and that song by the Verve, Bittersweet Symphony, had meaning today. It’s been the only program I know, and I’m sad to see it go. Still upset, but with time, that’ll fade. Now let’s see if Boeing, Orbital, Sierra Nevada, and yes, even Space X, can do the job they say that they can do in LEO. And settle on BEO strategy, spacecraft, rockets, etc. And stick to it. As Alan Shepard once said, “Fix your silly little problems and light this candle!”

    One thing that I found on Keith Cowling’s NASAwatch.com; it was just after the announcement of the cancellation decision for CxP a year ago. He noted that within 24 hours of the announcement, there were “Save Constellation” web sites, youtube videos, online petitions, and so forth. He understood because he had worked on Space Station Freedom, and when it was morphed into ISS, his colleagues were outraged. A program that he and his friends had put time, effort, energy, and heart into was being taken away-unfairly, they felt. They wanted to fight back, to save the program, but couldn’t. So their stuff was packed away, to NASA archives, to be seen only by engineers, grad students, and historians. Maybe 5% of their work made it into orbit, but he said something else did: the spirit of the program. When they look at ISS, they see the spirit of Freedom flying: it may not be what they originally worked on; a U.S. Space Station on orbit, manned 24/7/365, but it’s the same concept, only an international project.

    So those of us who supported Constellation, and those who worked on it, will do the same thing. So when the first BEO mission flies later this decade, we can look at it and say, “It’s not exactly what we wanted. Not quite a lunar landing program yet, but at least NASA’s flying astronauts BEO.
    Lunar orbit, L-points, NEO (with maybe a Venus flyby on the way home), things like that. So that in the late 2020s, maybe 2029, when it’s the 60th Anniversary of Apollo 11, when we go back to the lunar surface with people. And it’ll probably be an international effort, with NASA, Canadians, ESA, JAXA, maybe even Russians, but when the first NASA astronaut steps on the lunar surface, and replaces Gene Cernan as the last person on the moon, then we can say “We finally did it. We got what we wanted: a lunar landing program. Not exactly what was originally in mind, but be that as it may, we’re back on lunar soil.” I’ll be watching. And will be darned glad it’s not a DVD or whatever, but the real deal on CNN and the NASA Channel.

    Sorry to be a little longwinded, but had to get that off my chest.

  • Coastal Ron

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 8th, 2011 at 10:06 pm

    The shuttle took its last ride, and that song by thec, had meaning today.

    It’s interesting that you equate a song that has a questionable history with the Shuttle, which also had a questionable history.

    I’ve always preferred Countdown by Rush. They were at the launch of STS-1, and dedicated the song to Young and Crippen (as well as incorporated launch communications into the song). Still on my playlist.

    And will be darned glad it’s not a DVD or whatever, but the real deal on CNN and the NASA Channel.

    What’s a DVD? ;-)

    For someone so “young” (far younger than me), you can be so old fashioned. Maybe that’s part of the difference between how we view the future for space – I’m ready to move on to new things, and you want to hang on to the old.

    I’m not worried about when we get back to the Moon, or if someone else “beats” us back to the place we’ve already been. As long as we are expanding steadily into space, someone, some company, or some government-funded mission will go back there.

    For me, the exciting part is moving out past the Moon and on to other destinations. The Moon is just our closest destination, but not our ultimate one.

  • Matt Wiser

    I guess you could say that my primary reason (other than nostalgia for missing out on Apollo), is that it’s the closest destination for BEO. It’s one that you can look up at on most nights and say “We can go there, we’ve been there in the past and will be again.” Personally, I’d rather see NASA pick up where Apollo 17 left off in 1972 than someone else, and have the first person to walk on the Moon since Gene Cernan be an American. Call it national pride, or whatever.

  • Das Boese

    Matt Wiser wrote @ July 9th, 2011 at 1:36 pm

    I guess you could say that my primary reason (other than nostalgia for missing out on Apollo), is that it’s the closest destination for BEO.

    Actually, it really isn’t.
    The consensus in the scientific community is that the Moon does, in fact, orbit the Earth.

  • VirgilSamms

    “The consensus in the scientific community is that the Moon does, in fact, orbit the Earth.”

    You make it sound like it is in LEO. No.

  • Martijn Meijering

    You make it sound like it is in LEO.

    No he didn’t. Matt was simply using the term BEO incorrectly. Many people do.

  • Das Boese

    VirgilSamms wrote @ July 11th, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    “The consensus in the scientific community is that the Moon does, in fact, orbit the Earth.”

    You make it sound like it is in LEO. No.

    Did I write that? No.
    Do you have a point? No.

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