With Congress expected to complete work next week on a FY2012 appropriations bill that includes NASA (the goal is to complete the bill before the current continuing resolution expires next Friday), supporters of NASA’s commercial crew program are making another, perhaps final, push to win full funding for the program. In an op-ed published Monday in The Space Review, Alan Stern, the new director of the Florida Space Institute, and Frank DiBello, president of Space Florida, argued that NASA, Congress, and the White House all should work to “expedite” the program. For Congress, that means funding the program at $850 million, the level requested by the administration in its FY12 request. NASA, meanwhile, should “streamline the business and technical processes” for commercial crew providers, while the Obama Administration should push NASA to make commercial crew a top priority for the agency.
Stern and DiBello are also signatories on an open letter to Congress and the White House released Tuesday on the topic of commercial crew funding. The letter, like the earlier op-ed, calls for expediting commercial crew through increased funding and streamlined processes. The letter is signed by over 40 people, ranging from executives of entrepreneurial space companies to former astronauts and NASA officials.
The day before that letter, nearly two dozen former astronauts submitted a similar letter to key House and Senate appropriators, also in support of commercial crew. This letter also calls for full funding of commercial crew, although the signatories appear willing to accept the $500 million the Senate approved in its version of the appropriations legislation. “Funding Commercial Crew at least at the Authorization Act level of $500 million will mean less reliance on Russia and a stronger space program here at home, and funding Commercial Crew at NASA’s requested level of $850 million will enable these commercial vehicles to be developed on an even more expeditious basis,” they write.
It’s noteworthy that commercial crew has been the one NASA program that has received significant lobbying attention as the appropriations process reaches its conclusion. NASA’s Space Technology program, for example, had its requested budget cut significantly in both the House and Senate, but hasn’t received nearly the same attention as commercial crew. (There has been concern about planetary exploration, but that has focused more on the long-term prospects beyond the FY12 budget.) Of course, commercial crew has a clear constituency—those companies involved or seeking to be involved in the program, as well as those companies and organizations that would benefit from commercial crew systems—while the constituency for technology programs is more diffuse. Whether this press of attention will have any affect on the appropriations process, though, remains to be seen.
The pro-commerica; space advocates shpuld be asking and advocatiing for $1 billon for commerical crew funding. Why limit the request to $850 million/ O yea, the $850 million was requested by Barack Obama, a leading voice for space development/ Cas closed/
Ooh! Ablastofhotair is going to take off on this one. His hot air balloon will out perform the Montgolfier brothers! In fact he may have already posted one of his idiotic diatribes since Jeff posted the article at 7:19 AM, there is a fairly long lag between Jeff’s updates, and I’m writing this at 8:40AM.
Ooh! Ablastofhotair is going to take off on this one.
Not really much to get excited about, just disgusted. They’re making the usual corrupt sausage on Capitol Hill, using more and more Chinese filler every year…
You never fail to behave true to form.
Its advocating and funneling taxpayer monies ( subsidized ) for a ‘NASA’ and Congress recommended and approved commercial launch vehicle.
What a surprise, the letter for ‘full government funding’ is signed by ‘private enterprise’ commercial space advocate Elon Musk– trying to tap the treasury again– and a Tea Party space cadet as well– the same folks who rail against massive government deficits and government spending. These folks ooze hypocrisy. The source for funding commerical space projects are the rich, worldwide private capital markets, not the U.S. Treasury. Write a check, Elon.
SpaceX in a WSJ article admitted putting $500M in private money into their business so far. Add another $300M in government assistance.
$800M spent for developing in launching the First Falcon. Compare that against development costs of traditional NASA suppliers.
as GeeSpace said above: CASE CLOSED!
Commercial space initiatives are the best investment NASA has made in decades. $850M is right on the mark for the specific plans in place.
I think Russia has it right, as long as private space passengers like this one http://bit.ly/ukBz1T are making you a profit, take up anyone thats not annoying or fat
look what’s going to fly in early 2014.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=14483&media_id=119820481&module=homepage
Well one thing, the more money we borrow from China, they at least know they wont get paid back if they go to war with us. So hell why not let them pay for our space program.
@sftommy wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
“SpaceX in a WSJ article admitted putting $500M in private money into their business so far. Add another $300M in government assistance.”
‘assistance’ ROFLMAO which negates any claim at private enterprise commerical operations. Memo to Elon- sell off Tesla, write a check for SpaceX and return $300 million to the taxpayers. Multimillionaires with assets to sell don’t need large scale ‘government assistance.’
Best ROI NASA has made has been in unmanned spacecraft.
@sftommy wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
… and a postscript- BTW, in case you haven’t noticed, SpaceX has flown nobody. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
DCSCA wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
er duh! SpaceX hasn’t been asked or paid to fly anybody yet. Normally don’t respond but just got a bit sick of this continual tick tock rubbish. Can’t you ppplllleeeeaaaaase think of something better to say. Useful comment may make a change.
Cheers.
sftommy wrote:
SpaceX in a WSJ article admitted putting $500M in private money into their business so far. Add another $300M in government assistance.
According to a SpaceX presentation I attended the other night, if memory serves SpaceX has received $260 million so far in COTS and CCDev awards for the Dragon. The total spent so far on Dragon/Falcon 9 is about $800 million.
What SpaceX critics fail to overlook is that NASA is paying seed money to accelerate Dragon development for NASA, to be used as a cargo and crew vehicle. SpaceX already has plenty of business for the Falcon 9 — about 40 confirmed launches already, with another 20 or so that have made a down payment. Dragon exists primarily to serve NASA, with perhaps Bigelow down the line.
SpaceX as a company will do just fine without NASA. NASA needs SpaceX a lot more than SpaceX needs NASA. If the government monopolists want to kill commercial, SpaceX will be flying anyway and all you’ve done is turn over our spacefaring future to Russia. Congratulations, comrade.
By the way, the target date for the COTS 2/3 launch now is January 7, with a January 5 “wet” dress rehearsal. They’ll fire the engines for five seconds on January 5, and if that goes well then they launch on January 7.
postscript, SpaceX isn’t trying to fly anyone …. yet.
@ GeeSpace:
I don’t know how the $850 million figure was arrived at, but I must assume it was an honest estimate. Keeping in mind what VonBraun once said about the inability to make a baby in one month, by impregnating nine women, it may simply be that more is just not necessary, and would not bring the desired results any sooner. (It might even incline some to see it as a side of pork, for which process would become *more* important than results. We’ve seen enough of that.)
“Those whom the gods would destroy, they first give unlimited resources.”
– Twyla Tharp
And, as the entire $850 million doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, why would requesting even more, make any difference?
They’d best be realistic and take the $500 mil, because that’s as much as they’re going to get out of this Congress.
Opposition to Commercial Crew can best be described like this: 1) NASA has always flown the vehicles built by private contractors, not contractors operating the vehicle under NASA supervision. That’s a new way of doing things, and there are those who question the wisdom of that, believing it to be irresponsible or worse. 2) Skepticism that private entities can deliver on their promises and that there is a market besides NASA or NASA-sponsored astronauts to LEO. 3) Fiscal: no problem with NASA choosing to fly astronauts to LEO via private contractor-operated vehicles, but NO government funds should be spent on their development; if these contractors want to build and operate spacecraft under NASA contract, do it on their own dime, not NASA’s. 4) Fallout from FY 11 and related spin of that unpleasantness: Leroy Chao said it best: it was spun to the point that “if you support commercial crew, you’re against NASA doing exploration.” The commercial crew advocates, to their discredit, have failed to promote their line sufficiently, which is that Commercial Crew to the ISS enables NASA to do exploration missions. 5) Trust. NASA, over the years since 5 May 1961, has earned the trust of Congress and the Public to fly Astronauts and bring them home safely. While there have been tragedies, the public has accepted those losses as the price to be paid on the high frontier. The private sector, however, has flown NO ONE as of yet, and thus has yet to earn Congressional or public trust. And 6) All of the above. (my choice)
DCSCA wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
A NASA report
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/543572main_Section%20403%28b%29%20Commercial%20Market%20Assessment%20Report%20Final.pdf
audited SpaceX development costs as follows
Falcon 1 – $90M
Falcon 9 – $300M
Dragon – $300M
NASA admitted it couldn’t do the development for less that $1.4B and more likely $4B.
NASA, under COTS, payed $278M towards development while SpaceX picked up the remainder of the costs
Meanwhile in another universe contractors received $10B to develop Ares 1 and totally failed. The contractors had no risk. No skin in the game, no responsibility for their total failure, no responsibility for schedule slips and no responsibility for cost over runs. But they got paid. No risk.
Which program represents a better use of public funds?
2 launch vehicles + a spacecraft for $278M or a failed rocket program for $10B?
in case you haven’t noticed, SpaceX has flown nobody.
Actually its not flying very much of anything. I’m all for commercial but i actually do not see much in a way of commerce happening here.
Last i checked, Russians still practically own the global commercial launch market by and large.
@Beancounter from Downunder wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
So you oppose SpaceX demonstrating the viability of their product and services for potential customers. Or you realize they can’t do it. Everything from the makers of potato chips and cereal to manufacturers of cars and jetliners invite customers to ‘test drive’ the product before making the buy. Marketing 101. It’s part of the cost of doing business in the private sector. Elon knows that. And so do you… tick-tock, tick-tock.
@Stephen C. Smith wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
“What SpaceX critics fail to overlook is that NASA is paying seed money to accelerate Dragon development for NASA”
In fact, it’s quite the opposite- “SpaceX critics’ regularly make mention the waste of dwindling resources in the guise of ‘seed money’ dumped down the rathole on SpaceX, a supposed private enterprised firm (always seeking gov’t subsidies) perfectly capable of sourcing finacing from the private sector, not the U.S. Treasury for funding. SpaceX’s ‘contractual’ obligations for LEO operations, which is a costly ticket to no place, are to service an exhorbitantly expensive, orbiting dinosaur called the ISS, doomed to a fiery extinction in the Pacific not long off and as of November, 2011, SpaceX has failed to deliver any cargo to the ISS (just as the ISS has failed to deliver anything of value for its $100 billion cost) and most likely will never fly crews to it as well, given the constraints of the Age of Austerity. Every government dollar wasted on SpaceX is a dollar lost to going in circles and inhibits pressing on back to the moon and beyond.
@Vladislaw wrote @ November 9th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Because SpaceX can’t. NASA orbited Glenn nearly 50 years ago when missile systems, per Chris Kraft, had a reliability of just 60%. But then, the government shouldered the risk and flew. Not so w/t private sector. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Anyone thinking that Senators Shelby and Mikulski; and Rep. Wolf will allow anything approaching $500 million be appropriated to CCDEV is out of touch.
CCDEV is hurt by the issues holding back progress in the COTS program. The boastful predictions of Elon Musk stand in strark contrast to the tortoise like progress of the Falcon 9’s launch schedule. By the time the next Falcon 9 launches in February 2012, SpaceX will be nearly 2 1/2 years behind schedule. Orbital Sciences is even farther behind. And this after both companies received additional funds and “assistance” from NASA HQ in 2010. Listening two weeks ago to the CCDEV representatives testify before Rep. Hall’s Space Committee only served to affirm that commercial space, if you can even call these guys “commercial”, is running out of rhetoric as fast as it is running out of credibility. And as happened to the first commercial rocket companies in 1999, soon will follow funding.
If the glacial pace of COTS development is any guide, the various and sundry CCDEV sponsored spacecraft should be flying just in time to witness ISS’s demise, and years after NASA’s own Orion/SLS first flew.
@Matt Wiser
BTW, this makes the third time I have asked you the question in the next paragraph, and you keep avoiding answering it. Why are you so scared to answer my question? Which is:
Again, I showed you how Mike Griffin contradicted himself by saying we need an Ares V/SLS launcher for going to the moon and indicated China can use Delta/Falcon size ELVs for doing the same thing. Why can the Chinese do this and not us?
@Reader
@MIke
I give you the same response that I posted in another thread for Matt.
NASA is betting the farm on SLS that the Booz-Allen report says can only be held within budget for the first 4 to 5 years before its costs explode. What good is working on an HLV that won’t be finished because there won’t be enough money in the outlying years when its costs blow ballistically out of the budget?
You’ve swallowed Griffin’s B.S. vis-a-vis using EELVs vs SLS, but within the last couple of months he has contradicted himself on that issue. As is illustrated by Griffin himself in the following quotes in an article by Rand http://www.competitivespace.org/2011/11/04/the-sls-empire-strikes-back/
“The fuel depot concept may be — we think will be — valuable when propellant can be harvested from in-space resources, such as water trapped in lunar craters or oxygen extracted from the regolith. Unfortunately, we are not yet in a position to exploit such resources, and so for now fuel depots are an answer to a question that is at best premature. The SLS and the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) are needed today. Fuel depots will be needed tomorrow, when a robust space operations infrastructure has been established and operations beyond LEO are common.”
As Rand points out:
“That is simply not true. I have already described the benefits of depots above, even without the use of extraterrestrial resources. And if we really need SLS today, then we’re in trouble, because NASA tells us we aren’t going to get it until the end of the decade. But fortunately, we don’t need it today (or any day). In fact, as I noted over at Popular Mechanics today, Dr. Griffin recently testified before Congress that one can go to the moon without SLS, at least if one is Chinese:â€
Here’s the Griffin testimony about the Chinese that contradicts his other testimony wherein he stated Atlas/Delta/Falcon class rockets won’t do the job because an SLS sized rocket is required:
“Q: I know the Chinese Long March 5 rocket is in development. I wondered if you could compare that to anything we have in the American inventory. When it’s built will it really be larger than anything we have? And why do you think that the Chinese are building such a large rocket?
Griffin: Well, the Long March 5 is comparable in scale to today’s Delta IV Heavy or to the Ares I crew vehicle—which we were going to build and which was cancelled. So it’s on the order of, and of course until it flies regularly we won’t actually know, but it’s on the order of 25 tons of payload to LEO. So it’s not in the class of, say, the Saturn V or the new SLS [Space Launch System].
But it’s a very significant capability and in fact by launching and rendezvousing four of those in LEO it would be possible for the Chinese to construct a manned lunar mission with no more than that rocket and no more than Apollo technology. And I have in the past written up on how that mission would work from an engineering perspective. So with the Long March 5 the Chinese inherently possess the capability to return to the moon should they wish to do so.
Q: And you are saying that we do not have anything comparable to that other than what had been talked about?
Griffin: We do not. Well, we have nice view graphs (laughter in the background).â€
As Rand summarizes:
” Actually, contrary to Griffin’s implication, the Delta IV Heavy has flown, so it’s more than “view graphs.†And the Long March 5 isn’t scheduled to fly until 2014. But even in that timeline, China could be thinking about a moon visit relatively soon. In the U.S., by comparison, the Space Launch System NASA is now mandated to build couldn’t return Americans to the moon until at least the late 2020s (and would add tens of billions to the cost), according to a recently leaked NASA internal document.â€
So all I have to say is, will the real Mike Griffin please stand up? Either SLS is required and Delta/Falcon sized launchers can’t hack it, or not. You can’t have some magic difference between us and the Chinese that allows them to do it with normal ELVs, but does not allow us to do the same.
@Mike
“If the glacial pace of COTS development is any guide, the various and sundry CCDEV sponsored spacecraft should be flying just in time to witness ISS’s demise, and years after NASA’s own Orion/SLS first flew.”
And it didn’t seem to bother people like you that Ares I was even farther behind schedule and billions over budget. Falcon 9/Dragon is $0 over budget because it was done with a fixed price contract. As I said in my previous post, the Booz-Allen study indicates SLS will be able to stay within budget for only the first 4 to 5 years.
Let’s be realistic here for a second. I know it’s hard for most on this site.
Commercial human space flight is the equivalent of a start-up business for all these companies, even Boeing. Beyond servicing the ISS, the market need is murky at best. In start-up environments delays like this are not uncommon or unexpected. I’m not the only one that believes that human space flight and exploitation of resources will a big growth industry in this century. It’s important for this nation to help promising companies by providing technical expertise and a limited funding stream to assure they will be able to compete in the years to come.
The nation can also help by taking on the great expense of exploration and providing markets for commercial services as they go. That’s why SLS and MPCV are important. As commercial company’s gain more experience, more can be handed over to them.
$850 million is a small price to pay to assure our commercial competitiveness in this emerging economy.
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 12:01 am
“They’d best be realistic and take the $500 mil, because that’s as much as they’re going to get out of this Congress.”
Said the person who never thought Congress would kill Constellation. You don’t have a good track record in predicting what Congress will do – at least no more than a dart board.
Less money means we have to rely on the Russians for many more years. Congress just needs to decide when they want to stop funding Vladimir Putin’s government.
“1) NASA has always flown the vehicles built by private contractors, not contractors operating the vehicle under NASA supervision.”
As usual you’re making things up. NASA, or whoever is buying the crew service, will be able to use their own personnel to operate the vehicles.
“3) Fiscal: no problem with NASA choosing to fly astronauts to LEO via private contractor-operated vehicles, but NO government funds should be spent on their development; if these contractors want to build and operate spacecraft under NASA contract, do it on their own dime, not NASA’s. ”
Matt, if NASA put out a simple RFP saying “get our crew to/from the ISS anyway you want“, then you could argue NASA should not provide any funding. But that’s not the situation, and you know it.
NASA doesn’t even know what the human-rating specs should be for commercial crew systems, yet they want a say over how the commercial crew vehicles will be certified. That means they must pay for that ability. This is such a simple concept that I would have thought even you could have understood it, but I guess not…
“NASA, over the years since 5 May 1961, has earned the trust of Congress and the Public to fly Astronauts and bring them home safely.”
Oh don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that we’ve lost 40% of the Shuttle fleet to preventable accidents? And that the Shuttle lacked a Launch Escape System (LES) that ALL Commercial Crew vehicles will have?
Commercial Crew vehicles will be inherently far safer than the Shuttle, or any preceding NASA vehicles, so that kind of blow your theory out of the water.
$850 million is a small price to pay to assure our commercial competitiveness in this emerging economy.
If you want commerce, simply purchase payloads and get the rockets flying. $850M would buy a LOT of tonnage to the orbit.
US total satellite launch revenues are what, around $2B-3B a year ? Adding nearly another billion to these would make a huge difference.
Purchase services, don’t pay for random vehicle building milestones.
How much total revenue has SpaceX actually made from launch services that have actually flown? How much in 2011 ? Where is the commerce ?
And as usual, it should be up to the companies what they want to do with the revenues they make, if, when and how fast do they choose to develop new products and services
@MrEarl
I ask you the same question I put to Matt:
“Mike Griffin contradicted himself by saying we need an Ares V/SLS launcher for going to the moon and indicated China can use Delta/Falcon size ELVs for doing the same thing. Why can the Chinese do this and not us?“
“Let’s be realistic here for a second. I know it’s hard for most on this site.
Commercial human space flight is the equivalent of a start-up business for all these companies, even Boeing.
I know it’s hard for people like you. But let’s be realistic for a second. The engineers working on SLS at NASA centers and contracting companies are some of the best in the world. However, you need to realize that many of the best engineers working for companies like Boeing and SpaceX are former employees of those same NASA centers and contracting companies. Colleagues who have worked side-by-side with the people now working on SLS. They were trained in the same NASA research centers and other training facilities. They are the peers of the excellent people working on SLS. Otherwise, how do you think a company such as SpaceX could have accomplished what it has in such a short period of time?
Now the fact of the matter is that NONE of the engineers designing and developing SLS have developed an actual crewed spaceflight system, but then neither have the CC guys. The guys with such design and development experience who worked on Apollo and shuttle are either retired or dead. So maybe the Commercial Crew guys have yet to prove themselves when it comes to human transport, but so do the SLS people. To claim anything else is utter hypocrisy.
When SLS is cancelled, it won’t be because the people working on it weren’t some of the best. It will be because certain politicians dictated a rocket for maximum pork that led to budget overruns rather maximum bang for the buck. That is why the Senate Launch System and the More Politically Correct Vehicle are not important in advancing space exploration.
As for whether or not a viable commercial market will exist, Bigelow and countries that have signed letters of intent with Bigelow and SpaceX are just waiting for the vehicles that will be available after CC launcher development is complete. NASA service to ISS is the egg that must be there for the chicken (a commercial space market) to come to be.
reader wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 11:31 am
“How much total revenue has SpaceX actually made from launch services that have actually flown? How much in 2011 ? Where is the commerce ?”
Buying transport on a rocket is not like hiring a truck to move something – rockets have to be ordered years in advance of their intended use, and the payloads themselves take years to build.
Looking at the SpaceX launch manifest, they ramp up their flight tempo with CRS flights next year, and they get real busy with commercial satellite launches starting around 2013.
Spaceflight is not for the impatient. As we’ve seen with the Shuttle accidents impatience can lead to mistakes, and since commercial companies can’t shrug off $Billion “Oops” like the government can, it behooves them to do things right the first time.
“Commercial human space flight is the equivalent of a start-up business for all these companies, even Boeing”
Not true. Boeing is just continuing what it has been doing for 50 years
MrEarl wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 10:35 am
I would agree with your first paragraph, but not this:
“The nation can also help by taking on the great expense of exploration and providing markets for commercial services as they go. That’s why SLS and MPCV are important. As commercial company’s gain more experience, more can be handed over to them.”
You seem to imply that “the nation” is doing companies a favor by doing paying for exploration, and that is not the reason why “the nation” spends money on exploration or even research.
Regarding the SLS and MPCV, they are not what’s been holding us back from doing exploration, and they certainly are not important for the commercial services sector. If anything, by the government owning and running their own transportation system the government is retarding the expansion of the commercial services sector.
The few in Congress that have pushed the SLS have failed to provide a compelling reason why the SLS is better than using existing and near-term commercial alternatives. And I’m not talking about “expert testimony”, since there are plenty of “experts” on every side of this debate, but a clear lack of any congressionally-funded need for the SLS.
Where is the long list of missions that will require a SLS-sized rocket? Where is the funding stream to not only pay for the mission payloads, but pay for the decades of operation for those missions?
People complain about the cost to build and operate the ISS, but the SLS will be putting up an ISS equivalent mass every 4-8 years – where is that in NASA’s budget?
Just from a budget standpoint, the SLS is too big for NASA to use.
Rick said:
“NASA service to ISS is the egg that must be there for the chicken (a commercial space market) to come to be.â€
That is the crux of my argument and the next step is:
NASA service to the moon base made possible by SLS and MPCV development is the egg that must be there for the chicken (a commercial space market) to grow and expand.
NASA service to Mars and NEO’s made possible by SLS and MPCV development is the egg that must be there for the chicken (a commercial space market) to grow and expand even more.
“The engineers working on SLS at NASA centers and contracting companies are some of the best in the world.”
Individually many of these engineers are very capable people. But they have been hobbled by a program with no mission and a fragmented management structure in which decisions are made without considering the full impact, i.e. solids, water landing, expendable launch vehicles, etc. Who will come up with the $30B/year needed to pay for actual SLS missions to the moon and planets? Not the GOP, that’s for sure; they have signed pledges to cut taxes although they attack Obama for cutting programs.
The current NASA leadership wants nothing more than to be rid of this albatross. It’s politicians like Bill Nelson who are forcing them to keep wasting money on it.
Byeman wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
“Not true. Boeing is just continuing what it has been doing for 50 years”
Agreed. If anything Boeing could easily replace NASA for exploration if Congress wanted to outsource a specific exploration goal.
SNC and Orbital Sciences are not startups either, since both have been in the aerospace industry for decades (Orbital is like a mini-Boeing). SpaceX and Blue Origin qualify as startups, but SpaceX is poised to graduate from that moniker once they get their launch tempo going (~2013-14).
MrEarl wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Rick said:
“NASA service to ISS is the egg that must be there for the chicken (a commercial space market) to come to be.â€
You repied: “That is the crux of my argument and the next step is:”
problem is that the “crux” is a stretch to far.
way to far.
For government to “create” a market (which is done frequently in this country, for instance the interstate highway system) there must be some means of private industry to fullfil that market AT SOME COST where the market can be expanded beyond government use…unless that is the only thing you want free enterprise to do..and that is serve as a government contractor for services.
Now that is OK in and of itself, it will clearly save government money (its done all the time in this country…for instance in Space the military is starting to dovetail on commercial satellites) but it wont by itself “open the market” or act as a pardon the pun “Launch customer”.
There is no hint that this works on the Moon or Mars now. That is clear by the notion that it is going to take NASA 30 plus billion just to build SLS…and that doesnt get you a lander or anything really…just a jobs program masquerading as a rocket.
BUT there is a case to be made 1) to bring lower cost launches back to the US if for no other reason then to recapture the commercial satellite market…although making it cheaper for DOD and other alphabet groups to launch national security payloads is a good thing…and 2) there is a way to fly people cheaper in near earth orbit then NASA is currently doing that.
I think that both cases are accurate. We have tried it the old way of NASA monopolizing the market hoping that somehow free enterprise can break out…why are you oppossed to trying something different? RGO
Mike wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 6:26 am
” The boastful predictions of Elon Musk stand in strark contrast to the tortoise like progress of the Falcon 9′s launch schedule”
how do you make that statement with the reality staring one clearly in the face that Musk in particular but commercial resupply in general has made more progress on less money the Cx did before it was canned?
Curious howyou can have the double standard RGO
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 12:01 am
this continues your tradition of fairly goofy single dimension analysis. in fact some of them are contradictory…having said that you left out the real opposition to commercial crew…aka it doesnt keep all the people who had jobs with shuttle…employed.
I dont know what your opposition is…RGO
NASA service to the moon base made possible by SLS and MPCV development is the egg that must be there for the chicken (a commercial space market) to grow and expand.
A vehicle that only flies every couple years and costs billions per flight does not make a moon base possible.
@Mr Earl
You like Master Wiser, ignore the stickier question I posed and purposely chose not to answer it. How convenient! That is because you both know an honest answer to that question makes your position on SLS logically untenable to any reasonable unbiased human being. Such a forthright answer from you (based on the facts as I pose them to you in the question) would totally contradict everything you say you stand for; therefore, you choose to act as if I did not ask the question. Quit making the old way of doing things at NASA your religion based on blind faith. What should be more important to you is what offers our Republic leadership in spaceflight with maximum return for it’s taxpayers.
An honest answer to that question means that SLS/MPCV is NOT the most budgetarily responsible way to get to the moon, Mars or anywhere else. Yes, as you even you say, an exploratory egg is a good way to produce the chicken. But not your egg that bilks the American taxpayer out of billions. Again, if according to Griffin, the Chinese can do it without going to the ridiculous expense of a super large HLV, why can’t we? Cut the hypocrisy.
While we wait (and wait, and wait!) for Musk to apply enough bubble gum and bailing wire to the F9/Dragon to deliver underwear to the castaways on the ISS, development of the surviving Constellation components continues inexorably and with little drama. The core of NASA lives.
Coastal Ron wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 10:40 am
Oh don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that we’ve lost 40% of the Shuttle fleet to preventable accidents?
=yawn= apparently, you’ve forgotten that the Mercury test pilots fully expected to lose at least one or two of the team given the systems in use and the unforgiving nature of spaceflight operations; which is one of the reasons why test pilots were selected in the first place; and, of course, Gemini 9’s prime crew was killed in training- or rather, in transit to training- and why safety systems in both programs were so redundant and areas of single point failure minimized as much as possible. The failures of shuttle management, just as the failures in Apollo mamagement pre-fire, are well documented and are chiefly due to complacency born out of success. But you know that.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
“Spaceflight is not for the impatient.”
Which is precisely why quarterly driven, for profit, commercial HSF enterprises, whose prmary raison d’etre is to make a profit, are not an acceptable foundation on which to build the future of America’s space program.
amightywind wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
The core of NASA lives.
We will see in 2014 if Orion MPCV lives when it does an unmanned orbital test. Gee hasn’t someone already done it? Of course the real rocket won’t launch for the first time until 2017. Well the mini version. I wonder the cost of the Orion MPCV orbital test unmanned without the real rocket costs? So by 2020 we will loop around the moon not even landing on it. At least we will have American’s on ISS.
Yippee!? (sarcastic)
Remember what John Glenn said post-Challenger? The Mercury 7 were all wondering how many of them would still be alive when the program finished. Given their background as military pilots with test flying and combat experience, that was a very valid question. And they were surprised to see all six who’d flown (besides Deke Slayton, who’d been grounded) still alive. But then again, there’s a few here who agree with this Administration’s shabby treatment of the likes of Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Capt. Gene Cernan, etc.
DCSCA: Bravo with your most recent post!
Which is precisely why quarterly driven, for profit, commercial HSF enterprises, whose prmary raison d’etre is to make a profit, are not an acceptable foundation on which to build the future of America’s space program.
Yes, much better to put politicians in charge who can’t see past the next election.
Anyway, it’s idiotic to call SpaceX a “quarterly-driven” company, given the multiple statements that its founder has made on the subject.
Rick Boozer wrote:
The engineers working on SLS at NASA centers and contracting companies are some of the best in the world.
To be clear, the engineers are working on a design dictated by a couple of Senators on the space subcommittee to direct pork to their states. The engineers were not asked to design the SLS, therefore their degree of skill is irrelevant.
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
“Remember what John Glenn said post-Challenger? The Mercury 7 were all wondering how many of them would still be alive when the program finished.”
and I am trying still to this day to figure out the relevance of the statement to well anything.
The Mercury program was a test flying effort that the US lavished enormous amounts of dollars and talent on…more then any other effort in test flying in the history (to that time) in aviation and besides it was not like test pilots were dying every day out at Muroc or Edwards AFB.
combat and test flying have nothing in common. the unknowns of battle are far greater then the unknowns of test flying.
And despite your efforts to say how comfortable the nation is with NASA flying people in space; the 14 that they killed (and the other near misses) are all a result of incompetence, not test flying. Incompetence by the people who you claim need to be the ones managing any future space efforts.
But all of that was then, this is now. There are very little unknowns about sending people into space now. Musk and OSC seem to be doing just fine…and at a far cheaper price.
RGO
DCSCA wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
” of course, Gemini 9′s prime crew was killed in training- or rather, in transit to training-”
and it had nothing to do with spaceflight, the crew was killed based on pilot error…basic incompetence actually RGO
Ok Rick, lets to go your “stickier†question:
“Mike Griffin contradicted himself by saying we need an Ares V/SLS launcher for going to the moon and indicated China can use Delta/Falcon size ELVs for doing the same thing. Why can the Chinese do this and not us?“
First off, I’m not Mike Griffin, I didn’t make that statement, I never heard or read that he made that statement and if he did, I don’t think he is right in any part of that statement. So to your question of, “Why can the Chinese do that and not us?†all I can say is, we can.
But this is not just about going back to the moon to drop more flags and footprints. If that’s all you want to do than we could find a way to do it with the launch vehicles we already have.
This is about becoming a spacefaring nation. Exploring the solar system with an eye toward utilization and exploitation of the resources there. To do that you need heavy lift. You need to be able to launch large, heavy assemblies to the moon to create bases, laboratories, mining operations and so on. Many people on this site believe that can be done with present LV’s but most people far better versed in the subject than you or I, believe otherwise. These laboratories and bases become the “eggâ€, as you called it, for commercial to expand their capabilities from cargo and crew to the ISS to providing the same on the moon. Once that’s done, commercial will also be in a better position to exploit the mineral resources of the moon.
So for me it really comes down to this; what’s more wasteful, spending $10 billion to repeat a stunt we did over 40 years ago or spend $30 billion to expand our claim to the new economy that is space exploration and utilization?
@Matt Wiser wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Precisely. As long as thevprimary motivation for commerical HSF in this era is profiteering, not rocketeering, it’ll be going no place fast. Such is the state of the art in this era.
@Robert G. Oler wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
“and I am trying still to this day to figure out the relevance of the statement to well anything.”
The reliability of a rocket-propelled system in that era was roughly 60%, per Chris Kraft. That pretty much satisfies the relevance of the statement– not only to anythihg, but everything regarding spaceflight operations in that era.
DCSCA wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
“apparently, you’ve forgotten that the Mercury test pilots fully expected to lose at least one or two of the team…”
Apparently your inability to comprehend what the topic of conversation is has lead you to talk about a test program, whereas I was talking about a transportation system that was being treated as fully tested and ready for routine service.
Since you missed the point, I’ll restate it.
NASA ran a transportation system for 30 years that had known flaws and no way to save the crew during certain ascent failure modes. Shuttle passengers knew they could die on each flight, but since there was no U.S. alternative they accepted those risks. All of the Commercial Crew participants have designed systems that will protect their crew far better than the Shuttle could.
Matt’s assertion (the original conversation) that no one will ride commercial crew systems is ridiculous when comparing the actual accident rate of the Shuttle versus the predicted ones for the commercial crew systems.
“The failures of shuttle management, just as the failures in Apollo mamagement pre-fire, are well documented and are chiefly due to complacency born out of success. But you know that.”
You are proving my point for me. Government bureaucracies don’t have inherent safety advantages over commercial service companies, and it can be argued that commercial service companies are more likely to create safer systems due to the potential consequences (i.e. market perception and financial). How many people lost their government jobs over Challenger and Columbia? That should tell you something.
Governments role in transportation is best when it does rule setting and oversight, not running a real transportation system.
Oh, and DCSCA, when are you loading your family up on a Conestoga rocket? Remember you berated Oler for not wanting to move his out into space – have you told your spouse yet?
MrEarl wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
“This is about becoming a spacefaring nation. Exploring the solar system with an eye toward utilization and exploitation of the resources there. To do that you need heavy lift. You need to be able to launch large, heavy assemblies to the moon to create bases, laboratories, mining operations and so on.”
So far this is a figment of everyone’s imagination at this point. Even NASA’s own studies don’t support the need for anything bigger than what fits on existing rockets.
Can you point to a list of “large, heavy assemblies” that substantiate your beliefs?
MrEarl,
Cut out the middleman. Build a moon base or asteroid or mars mission with the commercial space industry. NASA can take on exploration while engaging with the commercial companies at the same time.
ISS did not need to be constructed by the Space Shuttle. Programs like CCDev and COTS and buying rockets from the commercial launch industry could have been implemented from the get go to build and man a space station, and then we would be living in the world created by decades of investment in commercial capability, and that capability existent to be used, rather than those funds invested in a diversion and a dead end, and now having to create systems to meet our needs.
And as studies like that recent fuel depot one indicate, there is more exploration to be had through the commercial route than the SLS route. Rather than further the state of exploration, SLS is a parasite inhibiting the extent of NASA’s exploration potential.
Delaying NASA engagement with the commercial space industry for the purposes of exploration benefits neither the establishment of commercial BEO capability nor achieving the fruits of the conduct of humanity on other worlds.
Matt Wiser whined:
But then again, there’s a few here who agree with this Administration’s shabby treatment of the likes of Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Capt. Gene Cernan, etc.
In what way did the administration treat any of those people “shabbily”? More nutty fantasies.
Mr. Earl ignorantly bloviated:
You need to be able to launch large, heavy assemblies to the moon to create bases, laboratories, mining operations and so on. Many people on this site believe that can be done with present LV’s but most people far better versed in the subject than you or I, believe otherwise.
People who do this for a living, at Boeing, have developed lunar-base architecture concepts that can go up on existing vehicles. They presented it at the AIAA meeting in Long Beach in September. And in fact there are very few people more versed in the subject than me, having been paid to perform analyses on it with NASA money. I will agree that you appear to be quite clueless, however, given that you can’t even follow a link to find Mike Griffin’s congressional testimony on the subject.
reader wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 11:31 am
If you want commerce, simply purchase payloads and get the rockets flying. $850M would buy a LOT of tonnage to the orbit.
NASA’s problem is that it wants more than just putting cargo into orbit, it wants the cargo safely inside the International Space Station (ISS). The existing Atlas V, Delta IV and Falcon 9 can get the cargo into orbit but not
safely inside the ISS. Some thing like the Dragon and the Cygnet are needed for that. NASA is also particular about where on the ISS the spacecraft docks/berths. It is having to pay for that made-to-measure item.
NASA also wants to get people to the ISS. Since not even SLS can do that task NASA is having to pay for the design of new spacecraft under CCDev and MPCV.
It seems to me that profiteering has been the driving force behind every other technology industry in the US. Or did the early computer, automotive, aviation, and software industries all get to where they are by ignoring whether or not they were being (or would be) profitable? What is so different about human space flight makes progress antithetical to seeking profit?
We can all see the current state of human space flight today after decades of non-profiteering government control. Perhaps a change in approach is warranted?
@MrEarl
“This is about becoming a spacefaring nation. Exploring the solar system with an eye toward utilization and exploitation of the resources there. To do that you need heavy lift. “
Nope. See the following technical studies. The first three are by Boeing, ULA, and the Space Systems Laboratory at the U of Maryland, respectively that cover both getting to the moon with EELVs and doing resource utilization there. The third is one from NASA itself that has to do with deep space exploration in general claiming SLS is not necessary for that.
http://www.transterrestrial.com/papers/Bienhoff_AIAASpace2011.pdf
http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/publications/2010/SpaceOps2010inspacex.pdf
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdf
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1577
“So for me it really comes down to this; what’s more wasteful, spending $10 billion to repeat a stunt we did over 40 years ago or spend $30 billion to expand our claim to the new economy that is space exploration and utilization?
A gross distortion of the facts. Getting to Earth orbit with CC is just the first step. You have to reach LEO before you can go anywhere else. If you don’t believe exploring the solar system was always the plan, look at the original plan proposed by the current administration before SLS was thrown into the mix. As Rand said to you, an HLV that only flies once or twice a year doesn’t hack it.
So it turns out, only one of your statements is correct. However misguided you are as to the method, this is about becoming a true spacefaring nation. I and others who want the U.S. to be number one in human space exploration of the solar system wouldn’t support it if it weren’t.
@Robert G. Oler wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
In fact, training has everything to do with spaceflight, including transit to and from mission related meetings and inspections and so forth, which is why the prime crew of Gemini 9 had the misfortune of being killed on that day in St. Louis.
@ Mr. Earl:
“This is about becoming a spacefaring nation. Exploring the solar system with an eye toward utilization and exploitation of the resources there.”
Yes.
“To do that you need heavy lift.”
Not necessarily:
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdf
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/ULA-Innovation-March-2010.pdf
http://ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/TheAdvancedCryogenicEvolvedStageACES2006LeBar7454.pdf
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/DepotBasedTransportationArchitecture2010.pdf
https://info.aiaa.org/tac/SMG/STTC/White%20Papers/DualThrustAxisLander%28DTAL%292009.pdf
“You need to be able to launch large, heavy assemblies to the moon to create bases, laboratories, mining operations and so on. Many people on this site believe that can be done with present LV’s but most people far better versed in the subject than you or I, believe otherwise.”
Such as whom? I’ve shown my cards, where are yours?
“So for me it really comes down to this; what’s more wasteful, spending $10 billion to repeat a stunt we did over 40 years ago or spend $30 billion to expand our claim to the new economy that is space exploration and utilization?”
And that’s why it won’t happen, if that’s the only choice. If we *do* need heavy lift for research and commercial needs (and the kind of demand and traffic that would be best satisfied by it are certainly ultimately possible, but they don’t exist yet), it’s not going to be SLS or anything very close to it. That HLV is going to be one whose operational costs and development costs are low enough to have some chance of being recovered in a reasonable time, by launch prices that customers, especially commercial ones can afford.
The Space Launch System is not that one.
(Go ahead, tell Bob Bigelow what it’ll cost him to get a ride to LEO for his biggest module on SLS…an honest price that isn’t subsidized. Assuming the government should be selling such launches, anyway. It should be interesting.)
No one here realizes that we already are a “space faring nation”, all of us passengers aboard spaceship Earth.
No one here is analyzing launch systems in terms of planetary defense requirements.
Aside from that, it is clear that ATK wants their launcher as the manned backup system, not SpaceX’s, nor Boeing’s. With the emphasis on not SpaceX’s.
DCSCA wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
@Robert G. Oler wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
In fact, training has everything to do with spaceflight, including transit to and from mission related meetings and inspections and so forth, which is why the prime crew of Gemini 9 had the misfortune of being killed on that day in St. Louis.>
nope …
what killed the prime crew of G-9 was amistake that claims the lives of about 100 or so “non commercial” pilots a year. It claimed Senator Paul Wellstone’s life and almost got oh whats his name the former NASA administrator in Alaska. There was nothing space related or training related about a circling approach in weather that would not sustain it. The incident is used in Air Force UPT to illustrate incompetence.
your statement is laughable RGO
DCSCA wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
“The reliability of a rocket-propelled system in that era was roughly 60%, per Chris Kraft.”
he is just wrong on that, if that is what he is saying. The best that can maybe make that stat work is a complete summing of all rocket launches in that era to get to that number…but by the time Mercury flew…that wasnt the number at all.
things get better whoever you are. the first Atlas had a 50 percent or so failure/success ratio by the time Mercury came around it was far better then 60 percent. You are either mistating things on purpose or simply ignorant RGO
@Larson wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 6:01 pm
“It seems to me that profiteering has been the driving force behind every other technology industry in the US.”
Not modern rocketry and spaceflight, chiefly due to the huge initial costs, high risk and low to no return on investment. Private. for profit firms, quarterly driven, cannot absorb these expenditures– except in the movies- see ‘Destination Moon’ for details, where the profit motive was uranium on the moon. Quaint fiction, but the business plan was surprising sound for its time. Over the 80-plus year history on modern rocket development, it has been governments, in various guises and for variois motivations, chiefly military and geopolitical, which has moved the science and technology forward. Private industry has never led the way in this field and whenever the opportunity to step up and do so has presented itself, private industry has balked, letting government and taxpayers (in the case of America) absorb the costs and assume the risks. Witness Goddard’s experience, his research starved and literally begging for philonthropic handouts while in the samer era, Von Brauns reasearch was flush with Reichmarks. When Sputnik was orbited, again it was government that shouldered the challenge while private industry balked. Private firms have always been follow-alongs in this field, cashing in where they could.
“We can all see the current state of human space flight today after decades of non-profiteering government control.”
Yes and given the costs and risks involved over its brief half-century history, with respect to human evolution, government funded and managed HSF has progressed quite far- including six manned Apollo lunar expeditions. Commerncial HSF, not so much. If it had been left in the hands of the private sector, HSF would most likely remain in the future, as evidenced by its failure to fly anybody into and back from Earth orbit since 1961.
“Perhaps a change in approach is warranted?” Sure- have commerical HSF access private capital sources to take the same risk, when missile systems were much more primative, NASA did lofting Shepard or orbiting Glenn and the Soviets did orbiting Gagarin and Titov. Fly somebody. Until then, it’s all talk on the part of commerical HSF. It remains a matter pf putting somebody up– or basically shutting up. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
@MrEarl
“This is about becoming a spacefaring nation. Exploring the solar system with an eye toward utilization and exploitation of the resources there. To do that you need heavy lift. “
Links have already been posted showing how you can explore, build bases on the moon and so on without needing Heavy Lift.
It would help you also to listen to this presentation by the FISO (Future In Space Operations) group. They are a bunch of NASA folk working on exploration architectures.
http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Woodcock_9-14-11/
Here they present an architecture to build bases on Mars. All in chunks of less than 40t. Which could be lifted on a slightly evolved Delta 4 Heavy. No SLS required.
Ron: I didn’t say nobody would ride Commercial systems; if commercial is available to take the monopoly away from the Russians, the crews will ride commercial-though I’d be more comfortable with a lease arrangement: NASA leases the vehicle from the contractor and returns it after the flight. Or the NASA crew actually flies the vehicle, but other than safety, the commercial contractor is responsible for all other aspects of the flight. FYI, Peggy Whitson last year was on record (Houston Chronicle, for example) as preferring a lease approach-the opinion of the Chief Astronaut ought to count in this. What I was saying was that there are people-including those ON THE HILL-who question the wisdom of outsourcing the LEO mission to private entities who have yet to show that they can fly people into space and return them safely. And it’s those people on the relevant House and Senate committees that deal with NASA and appropriations that you have to convince.
Ron, I’ve read that material you reference, and it is well thought out and presented. Again, I ask: if ULA is so interested in this strategy, why haven’t they lobbied NASA and Congress to consider it? I’ve shown their concept for Altair to two pilots I know-both are military with at least 2500 hours of stick time each. Both rejected it out of hand. I asked why and they said “in case of abort.” They’d rather have the original concept for Altair, with the fuel on the descent stage, and the ascent module on top. If something went wrong and they had to abort, they’d rather go up than ahead.
Agree with the spaceship Earth as one approach although technologically doubt there’s really anything that could be done given the scale of the issue.
However ATK’s efforts are a lost cause. There’s no money, missions, or anything else for that matter for Liberty. Waste of space. The unfunded space act is simply window dressing.
SpaceX will carry on regardless of what other companies or NASA actually do. They have end goals in sight and everything that they do is a step along that path. Most don’t understand that (even on this blog) and certainly the majority of politicians if any at all, don’t.
@Matt Wiser
“Again, I ask: if ULA is so interested in this strategy, why haven’t they lobbied NASA and Congress to consider it?
They did before SLS was foisted upon NASA. Guess what happened? A jobs program feeding frenzy was chosen over actually accomplishing exploration. But even before that, an earlier proposal to NASA was mentioned in the October 2009 issue of Aviation Week which stated:
“An alternative architecture proposed by ULA does not need the Ares V, instead using smaller EELV-class boosters such as Atlas V purchased competitively to launch the Orion crew vehicle and Delta IV the Altair lander to refuel in space and rendezvous in lunar orbit. The Constellation architecture weighs 150 tons in orbit, 100 tons of which is propellant, Kutter says, and four missions a year “would open up a huge new market,†with higher propellant launch tempos stimulating competition.
Depots could be derived from the existing Centaur and planned advanced cryogenic upper stages for the EELV. The advanced stage would be designed to minimize heat transfer and propellant boil-off for extended operations in space. The depot additionally would be able to deploy a conical sunshield to fully encapsulate the tanks. “We can build a near-term depot without resorting to extreme, zero boil-off designs,†says Kutter.
Again Matt. For the fourth time, answer my question. The only reason I can see that you won’t is that you know an honest answer undermines your cherished beloved position.
Someday I hope you will put aside unthinking loyalties to the part of NASA that is the Old Guard and take the position that will give the U.S. the space advantage it needs in the 21st century. The latter is what you should have greater loyalty to anyway. In other words, I hope that eventually you will strive as hard to live up to your surname to the same extent that I endeavor not to live down to mine. But as long as no amount of reason will sway you, I can only think of you as Matt None-the-Wiser.
“the opinion of the Chief Astronaut ought to count in this”
No, it is biased. They don’t want to lose their jobs. NASA astronauts don’t need to fly a vehicle, they just need a ride to ISS.
Military pilots are no better source for opinion either. They are one of the reasons NASA is in the crapper. Pilots (astronauts) going into management.
Rick wrote:
“Someday I hope you will put aside unthinking loyalties to the part of NASA that is the Old Guard and take the position that will give the U.S. the space advantage it needs in the 21st century.”
You can always count on America to do the right thing, after it has tried everything else.
It will take another country, doing space the right way, to finally break the pork machine. Then it will be a frenzied push and recriminations on why we are not doing what the other country is doing.
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 10th, 2011 at 10:22 pm
“though I’d be more comfortable with a lease arrangement: NASA leases the vehicle from the contractor and returns it after the flight.”
I’m sure NASA will take your feelings into account when they buy rides…
In actuality, NASA can pretty much ask for whatever arrangement they want, and the service providers will be fine with it. Buy the rocket & capsule, buy the rocket and lease the capsule, buy the seats & fly it themselves, buy the seats and have the contractor provide the flight crew – no one has said that there are any limits on this. The only limits exist in your mind. This is a non-problem.
“I’ve read that material you reference, and it is well thought out and presented. Again, I ask: if ULA is so interested in this strategy, why haven’t they lobbied NASA and Congress to consider it?”
Don’t you know who owns ULA? Go look it up, and that will answer your question. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you lots of money for little risk.
“I’ve shown their concept for Altair to two pilots I know-both are military with at least 2500 hours of stick time each. Both rejected it out of hand. I asked why and they said “in case of abort.†They’d rather have the original concept for Altair, with the fuel on the descent stage, and the ascent module on top. If something went wrong and they had to abort, they’d rather go up than ahead.”
Do I need to do ALL YOUR RESEARCH for you? On ULA’s website they have a paper called “Lunar Lander Configurations Incorporating Accessibility 2006-7284″, which actually preceded the “Affordable Exploration Architecture 2009″ study. Starting on page 6 they describe how the crew lander could have separate ascent and decent sections to allow for aborted landings. Again, this is a non-problem – see a trend?
And personally I don’t call anything “Altair” except for NASA’s concept version of the Constellation lander. That was an unimaginative and dangerous design, but since that program is dead so is the Altair name.
@Vladislaw
I hope you are wrong, but I am afraid you are right.
“No one here realizes that we already are a “space faring nationâ€, all of us passengers aboard spaceship Earth.”
What I realize, is that you can push a metaphor too far.
If Earth is a spaceship, where are the controls? Who’s plotting the course? When and how can I get off? Where are the other planetary ‘ships?’ And Relativity being what it is, what does it mean to ‘stop?’
To call riding the rock we evolved on ‘spacefaring,’ is like calling continental drift ‘sailing…’
Two events on the horizon could change the SLS forever. First, of course is the up and coming COTS flight by SpaceX. If successful, without any problems emerging during the flight, will certainly give Mr. Musk a thumbs up from everyone. Second will be the launch of the Orion aboard a Delta heavy. If this is proven then maybe SLS will be surrendered for a lower cost option. I dread to think what will happen if the Mars Science Lab follows the same fate as the Russian Phobos mission that is stuck in Earth orbit.
Ron: I’d rather take the word of someone who actually has stick time in their logbook than some egghead who’s probably never flown a plane in their life-and no, flight sims on a PC don’t count. And I’ve sent those docs to two other pilots (both USN and carrier aviators)-one hasn’t read them, but the other says “That kind of lander? FORGET IT! I wouldn’t ride on a lander that doesn’t send me straight up like the old Apollo LM in case of abort.” And that’s from an aviator with 650+ traps on carriers.
Rick: In case you’ve forgotten: it’s the ADMINISTRATION’s fault we’re in this mess. Now, if (and I do mean if) Charlie Bolden had come out and said “We’re going to a depot/EELV based strategy, while deferring heavy-lift until such a time as we need it, and we’re offering those contractors who were working on Ares I and V opportunities to be a part of this strategy,” it may well have been approved. That would’ve offered carrots to those Congressmembers angry about losing Constellation-related work (minus Orion, which would’ve gone ahead anyway), and lessened the pushback. They didn’t. They ran with their disaster and needless to say, Congress had different ideas. And right now, the political environment in D.C. doesn’t support YOUR cherished strategy. Capche?
“Second will be the launch of the Orion aboard a Delta heavy. If this is proven then maybe SLS will be surrendered for a lower cost option.â€
Delta heavy has been proven about 17 times now and the one failure simply put the satellite in the wrong orbit. The shuttle had an abort to orbit and loss of crew within its first 25 flights too. Why does it have to prove itself?
I mean honestly the loss of a military spy satellite could be much more profound for this country than the loss of crew/mission for NASA. Loss of NASA crew equals embarrassment and funerals. Loss of spy satellite could put us at risk for invasion/military disaster/diplomatic out maneuvering ect things that can affect the whole country. ULA offered to man rate Delta for like about 1.5 billion and offered nine flights of Orion for about 300 million a flight.
“First, of course is the up and coming COTS flight by SpaceX. If successful, without any problems emerging during the flight, will certainly give Mr. Musk a thumbs up from everyone.â€
What’s this obsession over Musk? Orbital also have a contract to the ISS and I don’t see you complaining about them. Orbital originally wanted to design as system for COTS-D capability (a manned system) but NASA chose COTS B for orbital and COTS C for Space X.
ULA, Boeing, Sierra Nevada all have commercial crew agreements.
Heck Ford once said “I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. â€
This is laughable considering what cars before the model T were. Expensive, unreliable, hard to maintain, toys for the rich. They were not cheap and practical. I once got a laugh from watching a program where a woman who lived to be 100 explain that when she was young, she preferred the horse over the car because at least with the horse you knew you were going to get where you were going.
People have all sorts of goals. They are what drive them. I don’t know if he will or will not retire on mars, but I he has moved closer towards that goal by forming space x and developing the Falcon 9 and the dragon.
Anyway SLS is about JOBS period. Delta IV heavy does not use as many people to build or launch that is WHY ULA could offer it for 300 million a flight and why the shuttle costs so much.
ULA only employs 3,000 or so people who both build and launch Atlas and Delta. NASA has 10,000-20,000 contractors who worked on the shuttle program. Anything shuttle derived will simply cost way more than anything commercial unless you magically get the number of people needed to build/launch down to the level of ULA or Space X.
Anyway if we had real space program instead of a jobs program NASA would simply work on payloads not rockets. We have rockets a plenty and if we need bigger rockets ULA, Orbital and Space X are capable of building something bigger.
Also commercial crew and commercial cargo are enablers. For instance all of the commercial crew craft can carry 7 people.
You could crew a space station (hey don’t we have one of those) and Orion (or other deep space craft) in one launch. Without the heavy LES Orion would be loft able by an Atlas rocket(which is cheaper than Delta). An Atlas launch for Orion could be bought for maybe 200(or less) million and you would need to exchange the crew on the ISS from time to time anyway(i.e. you would spend about this much anyway say about 200 million a flight). You would launch Orion unmanned to the ISS, launch the crew on a ccrew craft and launch an EDS on a Delta IV heavy (or FH).
A centaur would be able to push Orion to l1/l2 where you would stage the mission. The launch window from the ISS opens every ten days or so and there are launch windows daily to the ISS.
In terms of Cargo, you could ether launch the COTS craft on bigger rockets(Delta IV or FH) or develop a tug to transfer cargo to l1/l2. The cargo craft hold enough to supply a crew for weeks or months depending on number of crew.
However if you let NASA develop its own rocket it sits on the ground for years and does not get much done. SLS wont be manned till the 2020ies!
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 1:39 am
“I’d rather take the word of someone who actually has stick time in their logbook than some egghead who’s probably never flown a plane in their life”
Your pilot friends are experts in vehicles that have to balance Lift and Drag – those forces don’t exist in space, and their horizontal landing skills don’t apply to vertical landing situations. If they were Harrier pilots their opinion would have more weight, but as it is practically none of their skill is applicable.
Regarding your “egghead” comment, I guess you have no idea what aerospace engineers are like, do you? Nor do you even know the background of the engineers at ULA that did the design work? Ignorance is bliss for you Matt.
While we’re on the subject of lunar landers, let me tell you what I don’t like about the now dead NASA Altair concept. Besides being yet another “Apollo on steroids” design (i.e. the Apollo lunar lander scaled up), it would have been an unsafe vehicle to use on the Moon.
Why? The crew would have had to climb down 20 feet or more to reach the surface, and if someone fell they would have had to have been hauled up the side of the vehicle 20 feet or more. Unsafe egress and ingress, and way too much work to access their primary living space.
The ULA concept is not only an elegant solution, but very safe too for all aspects of the mission (plus emergency abort).
All this talk about lunar landers is really just for fun though, since there is no Moon Return program – Congress agreed to cancel it when they gave Obama the vast majority of what he wanted for NASA last year. All that public moaning and groaning about his proposals was for the cameras, but in the end they agreed with Obama. Time to get over it Matt.
 Matt Wiser wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 1:39 am
Ron: I’d rather take the word of someone who actually has stick time in their logbook than some egghead who’s probably never flown a plane in their life-and no, flight sims on a PC don’t count. ….
With all due respect to the current chief astronaut you have just described her. She may have a lot of time in space And Eva but she has no experience “flying” nor has any real talents in aviation safety. She is a bio chemist.
Peg was a passenger on the shuttle to the same extent she was a passenger on NASA T38’s and would be on a Spacex or Boeing commercial crew mission. NASA bad decisions regarding safety are what killed 14 people and near misses on others they are the butt of jokes in professional safety classes. The two dysfunctional safety groups in the world are the Russian submarine force and NASA.
There is no group that callas on NASA for safety suggestions The chief astronaut during the time of both challenger and Columbia sat back in blissful silence as decisions were made which killed those folks.
NASA is today where the nuclear power industry was at three mile island although after TMI the nuke people got better fast. NASA is at about the same place with station they were with shuttle an accident waiting to happen.
You display enormous ignorance or fascination with all your post. BTW I do have a lot of stick time. And I have been supersonic in the last month.. Have you?
Right now I am about to leave to inspect space facilities in las Vegas. What are u doing?
Robert
Sent from my IPAD
Now, if (and I do mean if) Charlie Bolden had come out and said “We’re going to a depot/EELV based strategy, while deferring heavy-lift until such a time as we need it, and we’re offering those contractors who were working on Ares I and V opportunities to be a part of this strategy,†it may well have been approved.
That is essentially what they said. You, like many others, only heard what you wanted to hear, and made up the rest.
Rand: Again, Charlie should’ve been more explicit. He wasn’t, didn’t listen to his PAOs, and blew it. He’s admitted as such that he lgnored the advice his PAOs were giving him, and as he himself said a week later, “I thought I knew more than they did.” Throw in very lukewarm performances on The Hill and not showing any concern for issues raised by members of the relevant Congressional Committees, and either dismissing or ignoring the pushback that was coming, and the results were shown in the 2010 Authorization Act. Which, btw, was approved in a bipartisan manner in both Houses, in case you’ve forgotten.
Why the focus on Musk? Simple: his company is in the forefront in this Commercial Space endeavor, and until he flies people, is an obvious target for skeptics. Throw in the perceptions of him being an amateur, despite his hiring quite a few ex-NASA or ex-Industry people to work for him, and that “retiring on Mars” crap he spouted, and there you go. Now, if Boeing or ULA was in the lead on this instead of a startup, there probably wouldn’t be the amount of doubt or hostility towards the concept, as both firms have been around the block for a long time, and know how to get things done. And what Musk and the other firms for that matter, is follow what the Commercial Spaceflight Federation said last year: “We need to stop talking and start flying.” Do that often and repeatedly, and not only will you get the accolades that will be richly deserved, but you’ll silence the skeptics. That and nothing else.
Ron: Heard from another friend who’s a high-time military pilot. This one is not so concerned about the ULA design for a lunar lander and is comfortable with it, but that’s because of his background: he’s a Helo pilot. That lander seen in the ULA documents is something a rotorhead would be comfortable flying. But the fast-jet drivers I know (and I do know a few), as Tony Soprano once said often: “Fugadabouttit.”
 Matt Wiser wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
At least your post bring mirth
There is no set of circumstances where people who are losing their federal dollar job like the policy that does that unless it gets them another federal dollar. Job..particularly in red states where GOP economics have made other jobs the true private sector jobs suck..
The workforce that is being lost is caught in the hypocrisies of hating federal spending except when it is for their job
Musk is not liked by you because you are ignorant.. But he is not liked by congress people for the same reason herb kelleher of SWA was not liked. They said the same things about him and. SWA at the startup that goofy people like you repeat..
When you are more then a “ask other pilots ” poster then you might have more then entertainment value here. RGO
SENT FROM MY IPAD
@Matt None-the-Wiser
“Rick: In case you’ve forgotten: it’s the ADMINISTRATION’s fault we’re in this mess. Now, if (and I do mean if) Charlie Bolden had come out and said “We’re going to a depot/EELV based strategy, while deferring heavy-lift until such a time as we need it, and we’re offering those contractors who were working on Ares I and V opportunities to be a part of this strategy,†it may well have been approved.
I’ve been in my mountain wilderness “Fortress of Solitude” with no internet access, so I didn’t see your comment until now.
No, the main problem is not the current presidential administration nor was it primarily the previous one. I know I have countered people before who blamed the “gap” with the Russians on Obama, but that was just because it was not true, not because it was Obama. The real problem was and still is the part of NASA that is the Old Guard, and the political porkers with shuttle workers in their constituencies, not whoever was President at the time. As for you saying Bolden should have mentioned heavy lift would be deferred, that is exactly what was said. You keep making false statements through ignorance of the facts.
Your saying the alternate method might have been approved is a pure Polyanna attitude. Despite some of your wild rationalized arguments, I don’t think even you are gullible enough to believe that the shuttle related politicians were going to allow anything that did not involve shuttle infrastructure and workers. Also, the Old Guard at NASA does not want to embrace any method that changes the standard way of doing things that they have used for decades.
Grow up Matt. Quit blaming presidents for the current predicament and start blaming those who are truly responsible. As long as you and other people like you refuse to so, it can only make the situation worse. It is time for such people to start thinking about what is good for the country as a whole to advance it in the space frontier and not just about their local short run benefit or their fanaticism (yes, I’m talking about you) linked to prior glory days. Rethinking things in terms of what can be accomplished within budget will lead to more jobs for everyone in the long run when flight rates go up, causing the U.S. to be far and away the most active spacefaring nation.
I used to have a very similar attitude to yours, defending the same old status quo attitudes, until I sat down and tried to consider all of the evidence in a balanced manner. But I realize that a lot of people will not even recognize the truth when it is staring them in their faces. And so on Thursday, we are going to have another Congressional dog and pony show with heroic but misguided figures such as Armstrong and Cernan testifying and no Buzz Aldrin or other of their peers on the opposite side to counter them – simply because some corrupt politicians think it will make their local-oriented position look better to the nation as a whole. And people like you will swallow the B.S. presented, hook line and sinker.
But you still haven’t answered my question. You have always stated as a certainty that SLS is needed to return to the moon and to go to other deep space destinations. This assertion came from Mike Griffin and you accepted it at face value, but he has contradicted himself. If you want people to take your opinions seriously, then quit being a coward. For the FIFTH time, quit dodging the question by changing the subject, give me an answer to my question. Even if it’s another one of your ridiculous rationalizations. After all, I’ve been addressing your comments to me.
If (as Griffin testified before Congress) the Chinese can get to the moon with ELVs of the same power as ULA and SpaceX vehicles, why can’t we?”
Rick, HLV boils down to the following things: 1) Augustine’s final report includes Heavy-Lift in its options. You can disagree with that, but the Augustine Panel included heavy-lift in most of their variants of the five major options. 2) Desire to recoup Constellation work that was done on Ares I that was also being applied to Ares V. Augustine in fact reccommended an Ares V light variant as a Heavy-Lifter, and guess what? We’ve got it-as SLS. 3) Maintenance of the industrial base, especially of large SRBs. 4) Loathing of certain commercially provided vehicles, or more specifically, those promoting them. (Musk specifically-he’s still percieved as an “amateur.” 5) Pride: A desire to have the biggest, baddest, and most powerful rocket for HSF since the Saturn 5. You may think that’s stupid, but guess what? Congress sure doesn’t. 6) Individual congresscritters putting their constitutents first-which explains the hostility to EELV based exploration-you know as well as I do that the key Congresscritters (House and Senate both) are from “space states” where a LOT of Constellation, and now SLS, work was/is being done. Promises of alternative exploration work “in a few years” do NOT cut it for either the Congresscritters, nor the the mayors, chambers of commerce, etc. of the affected communities. 7) “The Chinese can do it their way. We’ll do it OUR way; a loathing to copy or imitate how the “ChiComs” are doing something. 8) Any combination of the above. Those explanations may not satisfy you, but those are the ones on the table.
Mike Griffin has changed his tune enough that I’m not sure what to make of him. Either he’s an opportunist, telling what his questioners want to hear, or is “flip-flopping.” If Dubya had appointed Admiral Steadle as NASA Administratior when O’Keefe left, or if O’Keefe had stayed on, we’d be in a lot better shape than where we are now.
The “my way or the highway” nonsense gets nowhere. Chances are, the 70-ton SLS version is what’s going to be the main variant for both crew and cargo, and there will be depots either in LEO or L-2 (likely both). The eventual program will likely have both. Again, Rick, do you understand that there’s a difference between what’s technically possible and what’s politically possible? Right now, it is NOT politically possible to get the votes to approve a depot/EELV based exploration strategy-it’d probably never get out of either the House or Senate Sci/Tech committees.
@Matt None-the-Wiser
“Augustine in fact reccommended an Ares V light variant as a Heavy-Lifter, and guess what? We’ve got it-as SLS.
Matt, you are better at rewriting history than any Bolshevik I ever heard of. The Augustine Commission mentioned Ares V as an option for an HLV, they did NOT recommend it.
I and others already know the arguments made for an HLV. And even if they were valid, there are other more cost effective ways to get one and operate it. I’m not going to reiterate them again because you and others have been told what they are over and over again and you choose not to let it sink in.
“If Dubya had appointed Admiral Steadle as NASA Administratior when O’Keefe left, or if O’Keefe had stayed on, we’d be in a lot better shape than where we are now.
Ah, for once you got something right. Steidle (you didn’t even get his name right) was an early proponent of using existing EELVs for crewed spaceflight. Griffin fired him (Steidle was the first Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems) because of that advocacy as soon as he became administrator.
“Mike Griffin has changed his tune enough that I’m not sure what to make of him.”
It was Griffin who was originally the prime motivator behind the super HLV first as Ares V and he now advocates its reincarnation called SLS. YOU backed his choice of a shuttle derived HLV and cited him as your primary authority. He hasn’t changed his tune, he just hypocritcally contradicted himself the way YOU continually contradict yourself.
You can’t have it both ways Matt. You can’t reasonably state we need a super-HLV because that is what Griffin said and continues to say, and pretend he has reversed his position. Cut the B.S., Matt. Given me an honest noncontradictory answer. Do you have NO SHAME? You need to care less about your pride along with misplaced loyalties and more about doing what is right for your country’s efforts in space to help keep it the leading world power in the 21st century. The sickening hypocrisy of your statements has eroded what little respect I and others here had for you.
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 3:44 am
this is the most goofy post I have seen from you. Not only does it repeat things which are goofy and label them as fact but then it starts to expand those things to a belief system by a majority of hte Congress. which is not fact.
the one I really love though is this
“5) Pride: A desire to have the biggest, baddest, and most powerful rocket for HSF since the Saturn 5. You may think that’s stupid, but guess what? Congress sure doesn’t””
It is the notion of the right wing (sorry Rand) of the GOP, the base of the party…but it is only their notion and the notion of space porkers. Congress doesnt give a fig…and you will know that when SLS dies in the budget “crisis” that is coming or we are in and a major new crisis is coming
Goofy RGO
@Robert G. Oler
You quoted this:
“A desire to have the biggest, baddest, and most powerful rocket for HSF since the Saturn 5.”
OMG, Robert, I just glazed over that sentence without it registering. It explains so much. Matt, I’m so sorry about your _____!
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 3:44 am
“HLV boils down to the following things:”
The old dartboard approach, also known as “I don’t know the answer, so I’ll throw out a bunch of guesses and hope one is right”.
The answer to the need for an HLV is pretty simple Matt – what funded payloads are there that won’t fit un-fueled on a current U.S. commercial rocket, and what funded programs envision such payloads?
The answer to both questions is currently ZERO, which means the need for the SLS is driven purely by politics. And that is no way to get the most out of our space program and general efforts to expand out into space.
If you’re willing to settle for a politically driven space program, instead of one that is driven by hardware needs, then settle in for many years of disappointment. I won’t settle for that however, nor will many others on this blog, so that certainly is a bright dividing line between you and us.
And please, stop trying to convince us that politicians know what the lift requirements should be for rockets better than NASA and the aerospace industry – it makes you look like a toadie.
Is Roscosmos not the best argument for fully funding commercial crew?
Oler, your own hostility to HSF has been demonstrated in the past, so there.
Ron and Rick: Augstine’s Summary Report on p. 6:
“In a different, related architecture (to Constellation), the Orion and Altair are launched on two separate “Lite” versions of Ares V, providing more robust mass margins. Building a single NASA vehicle could reduce carrying and operations costs, and accelerate heavy-lift development. Of these two (the POR was the other) the Committee finds the Ares V lite in the dual mode the preferred reference option.
“The more directly Shuttle-derived family consists of in-line and side-mount vehicles substantially derived from the Shuttle, providing more continuity in workforce. The development cost of the more shuttle derived-system would be lower, but it would be less capable from the Ares V family and have higher recurring costs. The lower launch capability could be offset by developing on-orbit refueling.”
That is what NASA is on track to do. Develop an Ares V Light-type vehicle, and develop on-orbit refueling.
Again, NASA cannot spend any money or do anything WITHOUT Congressional Approval. If you want NASA to adopt a EELV/Depot based strategy, you need more congresscritters (Rohrabacher’s the only one so far) to push for that. Note that when SLS was rolled out, the Congressional members present werre bipartisan, and not just from Science and Tech committees, but from Appropriations. Regardless of party differences on other issues, this is something that nearly all of the members can agree on. Either you get a new NASA chief, or Congressional direction to change course. Not likely in the latter, and even if Mr. Obama does get reelected, they’ll likely stay this course.
Again, when that disaster known as FY 11 was rolled out, they didn’t dangle carrots to the pro-Constellation crowd. No offers to CxP contractors to become second-source suppliers in an EELV-based strategy, no offers to affected communities of other NASA-related work, NOTHING. If the economy was doing better than it is, there wouldn’t have been the pushback. The Administration thought their proposals would be praised to the skies for being “new, bold, and innovative”, that Congressional and other pushback would be minimimal, and that it would be easy to sell to Congress and the Public. Wrong on all counts. Again, the opposition wasn’t just the GOP saying “Obama bad, therefore we’re against it,” it was bipartisan: Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) was a key critic, and the 2010 Authorization Act was probably written by him and by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX). Shelby, Vitter, Landreau, Feinstein, etc., no doubt had a say, though.
@Matt None-the-Wiser
No one here said that use of a Shuttle derived HLV was not discussed in the Augustine Report, but you said it was recommended and that is a lie.
Yes, there is extensive discussion of Ares V size shuttle derived vehicles in the Augustine Report, but there was also extensive discussion of EELV derived hydrocarbon vehicles. Get this through your head, neither were recommended. There was merely a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of launcher. You conveniently, neglect the whole section of the report called, “6.5.3 Examination of the key question on NASA heritage vs. EELV-heritage super-heavy
vehicles”
You ignore positive statements about alternatives like:
“While there are technical differences between the two families, the Committee intended the principal difference to be programmatic. The EELV-heritage super heavy would represent a new way of doing business for NASA, which would have the benefit of potentially lowering development and operational costs. The Committee used the EELV heritage super-heavy vehicle to investigate the possibility of an essentially commercial acquisition of the required heavy launch capability by a small NASA organization similar to a system program office in the Department of Defense. It would eliminate somewhat the historic carrying cost of many Apollo- and Shuttle-era facilities and systems. This creates the possibility of substantially reduced operating costs, which may ultimately allow NASA to escape its conundrum of not having sufficient resources to both operate existing systems and build a new one.“
Now there are other advantages mentioned for Shuttle-derived vehicles, just as there were other advantages mentioned for Commercially derived HLVs. There are also relative disadvantages mentioned for both. But neither was recommended
Stop the dishonesty, Matt. Again, do you have no shame? You have reached levels of mendacity comparable to amightywind.
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
“Either you get a new NASA chief, or Congressional direction to change course.”
It doesn’t matter who the Administrator of NASA is, it only matters what Congress wants to spend money on. The SLS represents jobs in the right places, so they don’t care who is managing NASA.
“Again, when that disaster known as FY 11 was rolled out, they didn’t dangle carrots to the pro-Constellation crowd.”
That you advocate for decisions based on politics and not need is pretty telling. I guess you’re OK with NASA not going anywhere…
“No offers to CxP contractors to become second-source suppliers in an EELV-based strategy”
You do realize who owns the EELV manufacturer ULA, right? Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the two biggest NASA contractors that were building Constellation. They were already primes on CxP, and you’re saying Obama/Bolden should have offered them to become second-tier suppliers? You really don’t know what you are talking about.
Boeing and LM have a virtual lock on any future NASA rocket business, whether it’s through their commercial rocket company (ULA) or if NASA wants to build their own rocket (currently the SLS). Even the exploration hardware such as the MPCV are built by one of them.
I hinted at this earlier, but I guess you didn’t figure it out. Boeing and LM don’t have any incentive to REDUCE the amount of revenue they get from the U.S. Taxpayer, which is the reason they don’t push for lower cost exploration architectures that they have presented publicly. Do you understand now?
You have railed in the past about a perceived lack of vision from the Administration, yet your vision is to let politicians use NASA as a funding stream for their constituents, not to go anywhere in space. I don’t know why you bother to call yourself a space enthusiast – maybe your livelihood depends on non-competitive pork projects?
Matt Wiser wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Oler, your own hostility to HSF has been demonstrated in the past, so there. >>
a goofy response. I am quite pro HSF, just not mindless space exploration by humans using government programs that are designed for technowelfare.
So here is your logic. You are using a position I do not hold to dismiss valid points I made in the fallacy of your logic.
more goofiness RGO
Here are my two cents, if anyone is interested:
http://opinionmatters.flatoday.net/2011/11/practical-benefits-for-america.html