when NASA gets ISS cost down to say 100-400 people on EArth then we can start talking about something else. RGO

How extensive are the redundancies at KSC, JSC and JPL?

If all we had to worry about were cargo/crew flight cost and a “few” (meaning less then 100) people on Earth “overseeing” things then we might find the cost affordable.

I would suspect that the NASA “support” staff for a L station would be counted in the thousands (1-2K) and same for a lunar effort…For Creators sake if there was a station on the Moon the number of people back here on Earth supporting it would simply be a pile on.

when NASA gets ISS cost down to say 100-400 people on EArth then we can start talking about something else. RGO

“it is not hard it is impossible some cost numbers for a L station and a moon station run about 7 to 10 billion a year to support”

For a EML1/L2 station, I don’t see why the cargo support costs would be too much different than what they are for the ISS. Sure you have to push the cargo vehicle further out Earth’s gravity well, but that could be done using a dedicated tug. I think both Cygnus and Dragon could be used pretty much as is.

For crew it would depend on whether the current Dragon offers enough protection for the passengers beyond LEO. I don’t know, but SpaceX certainly planned for it to go beyond LEO. If it can, then there too it would need a tug of some sort (likely a faster one than for cargo). I’m assuming CST-100 could be adapted as a secondary vehicle too.

So using existing spacecraft, and just adding fast and slow tugs (or one that can do both), I think we could support a EML1/L2 station. It would have relatively low development costs, and the mission costs shouldn’t be too much more.

For the lunar surface, if you already have a EML1/L2 station, then you could rendezvous with the lunar shuttle and transfer cargo and crew. The development costs would be for the lunar shuttle, and likely a fuel resupply system. I won’t add in the cost of the lunar outpost, but just from a resupply standpoint, we’re not talking about a really big new investment above what we need to support the ISS.

I think the same as A M Swallow – if we cancel the SLS soon and replace it with this effort (one for one swap on the budget), then we could be on the Moon’s surface within 10 years.

To be fair to LockMart, the big problems impacting Orion/MPCV do not originate with that company. LockMart had to redesign Orion ad nauseum because the throw weight on Ares I kept going down. That genius LV engineering originated with Griffin, Horowitz, and Cook, not LockMart. And this latest slip is SLS budget-driven. NASA is trying to fit 10lbs. of SLS potatos in the proverbial 5lb. sack and there’s nothing left over to finish MPCV development in a rational way. Congress is responsible for the brilliant budgeting in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, not LockMart.

No doubt, LockMart corporate is sitting back and smiling at all these stupid moves. They’re happy to reap the additional cost-plus dollars as Orion/MPCV development keeps getting stretched out. (Who wouldn’t?) They’ve also clearly put their B- and C-team members, like Cleon Lacefield of X-33 infamy, on the project. But the idiocy that has driven Orion budget and schedule and continues to drive MPCV budget and schedule originated with NASA’s prior management and the current Congress, not with LockMart management.

“The hard part is not doing it with new money but doing it with the current money.”

it is not hard it is impossible some cost numbers for a L station and a moon station run about 7 to 10 billion a year to support RGO

both of these (the first is on the previous thread if one is looking for it) are good post and intertwined in my view with each other AND signify the problems we have in both space politics and US politics in general.

No matter if you support Orion or not; or SLS or not; there is no defense of the notion that these are programs of both old technology AND old methods of putting a program together.

It is interesting to compare the Falcon9/Dragon program with the SLS/Orion effort. Falcon9/Dragon has been about a decade long effort which is a success…and for about 1.2 billion. Lets say it takes another 2 years and 1 billion (it wont) to put together a crewed version…thats 2.2 billion and say 12 years.

Orion/SLS will take longer and will consume about 30-40 billion dollars so far over 20 billion has been dropped in both programs.

It is hard to imagine how a group (NASA and the contractors) could spend that money for so little results; until you go back and Look at Ike’s speech on the MIC and see that we have finally gotten to those points. We now have industries whose sole customer is the federal government and whose sole venue is either the armaments industry or the space industrial complex.

And it is protected mostly by the GOP…

good thoughts on these two post. RGO

take a good look windy, this is old space at work.

Anyone who thinks that there is going to be money from the US federal government for a lunar L station or a lunar station or any major project in the next 10-15 years is fooling themselves or has drunk from the right wing neo con Koolaide.

The hard part is not doing it with new money but doing it with the current money.

‘More nonsense’ Evidence?