“Rick: to you, the HSF business is the commercial side.”

Read what he said. He said “NASA’s focus should be exploratory manned spaceflight BEO.” He did not say that HSF should be commercial only. Sheesh.

“Oh, as far as SLS is concerned: try telling that to Congress.”

Again with the reading comprehension problems. Rick said the SLS is not necessary from a technical standpoint for NASA BEO exploration.

So far all Congress has said is that they want to spend money on building the SLS, but they haven’t said they will spend money to build anything that USES the SLS. Big difference Matt.

And still the physics of the situation don’t change – you don’t need an HLV in order to do BEO exploration. Existing launchers can carry the same elements to space that were used by the Apollo program (CM and Lander), so there are no roadblocks to redoing Apollo right now without an HLV if we so desired.

But Congress as a whole doesn’t care to redo Apollo, or really care much for any destination to invest a lot of money. About the only thing they are happy supporting right now is the ISS, and if you remember back, that narrowly avoided being cancelled too. There are no sacred cows.

“Especially as we’re getting close to an election year.”

Remember what happened after the election year before last – Congress cancelled Constellation. And so far the House is recommending the cancellation of the JWST just prior to the next election, so don’t think that Congress as a whole won’t pull the plug on something that only a few in Congress are pushing.

And since there are few people currently employed by SLS contracts, it’ll hardly affect anyones districts. Could be a tough year for SLS proponents…

The above is the only part of your sentence that was correct. They want NASA doing manned space flight. They don’t want NASA interfering with the manned spaceflight business. NASA’s focus should be exploratory manned spaceflight BEO. And though it may or may not require an HLV, it definitely does not specifically require SLS.

Yes, and he’s not “begging” for anything. Except in DCSCA’s fantasy world.

“Which is precisely what Musk is saying and the banks are saying back to him– hence he’s begging for government subsidies.”

You keep promoting this canard, but no one believes you. And why should they, since you offer no proof.

SpaceX has been profitable for years, and with $3B in customer backlog has no funding issues.

“hence he’s begging for government subsidies”

Here’s you chance. Just point us to a link that shows SpaceX is looking for subsidies. Just one.

So far the only money they receive from the government is for work performed (i.e. contracts). No subsidies. I know English is a hard language for you, but just keep a dictionary next to the keyboard – that should help.

“Branson is where commercial HSF has a chance of taking root in this immediate future.”

Virgin Galactic, which is an entertainment company that takes you to the edge of space for a few minutes, only has 430 people signed up for $200,000 rides, which equals $86M in potential revenue.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/booking/

I wish Virgin Galactic well, and maybe some day I’ll book a trip since I seem to make better stock choices than you do. But to compare sub-orbital to orbital, and a company with 3% the customer backlog of another, is really just ignorant.

But coming from you, that’s not unexpected…

No, it took congressional action to force the Obama administration to accept what they knew wasn’t needed: an HLV to do exploration. They knew exploration wasn’t necessary and they may have known an HLV isn’t necessary to do exploration.

What we’re seeing here is the power of money and of lies: $3.5B/yr will buy you a lot of lies. Anyone who claims an HLV is necessary for exploration is either ignorant or a liar, or both. Simple rocket equation level analysis suffices to establish that beyond all doubt.

Holdren and Obama really don’t want the Federal government in the manned spaceflight business since they believe that those funds could be better spent on social programs. So they’re perfectly willing to completely turn over the New Frontier to the corporations.

Agreed, Marcel. Remember the Washington Post article from 23 Nov 07? Candidate Hillary Clinton came out in favor of Constellation without any reservation, while Obama had to be drug into doing so. Why? Because he originally wanted to delay CxP by 5 years to “fund education programs.” Kinda like what Mondale wanted to do when he was a Senator and was against both Apollo and Shuttle.

It took Congressional Action after that disaster known as FY 11 to force the Administration to admit that HLV was needed: after all, its own Augustine Panel says in its report that HLV is needed. Bolden himself wants it, but does the White House? Congress sure thinks one is needed-and had to drag it out of the Administration. And the Administration still doesn’t get the message.

DCSCA wrote @ August 19th, 2011 at 5:07 am
So the primary reason for the fight from Lori and Charlie is to change the destiny of US (and ESA/JAXA) human space flight.
“Lori” is a lobbyist, wholly unqualified to ‘chage the destiny of human space flight…” and Bolden is a classic example of the Peter Principle at work. If the fate of human space flight is seen in their hands, we be goin’ no place fast.

Concur.

Reading the Vision for Space Exploration NASA was supposed launch the CEV by 2014 and to land on the moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020.

“Ares I was solving its technical issues within the years and dollars allotted. Not the extreme you post.”

Why go with a design that has those unique technical issues to begin with?

Why not go with a standard launch vehicle design like the government had already partly funded like the Atlas V and the Delta IV? Hell why not just build so you can use them in the first place and save ALL those funds for payloads.

Reading the Vision for Space Exploration NASA was supposed launch Ares I by 2014 and to land on the moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020.

The Augustine panel said it would be 2017-2018 and would take another 3 billion a year for Ares I. The ISS would be deorbited at the end of 2015. Where was the Orion going to go once in LEO? The Ares V was going to take until 2028 and into the 2030’s for the EDS and Altair lander.

So we would launch the Orion from 2017-2018 until the 2030’s with no space station? Congress would have loved funding those launches.

“Larger payloads will come when the capability to lift them arrives.”

so we spend billions for designing, developing, testing and finally launching a HLV with the orion capsule to LEO, then we start funding payloads. How long does the average NASA payload take to get ready to launch? How many years?

So what does the rocket and the launch operations workers do while you now design, develop, test an EDS?

So what does the rocket and the launch operations workers do while you now design, develop, test a lander?

Branson is where commercial HSF has a chance of taking root in this immediate future.