The only person who has posted tnat is you. And whether you realize it or not, space policy is a projection of political power on Earth– a matter of presidential interest as he is CIC, as the late Rocco Petrone often noted. That you don’t see this is rather sad. Space projects are about projecting national political and economic power on Earth. Why do you think the PRC is it– a people who walled themselves off for centuries and hardly known for their exploration forays. And why do you think NK is at it as well=== certainly not to ‘explore’ space.

“He only needs to have input or get advice when there is something changing.” says Ron. Which verifies your embrace of a reactive U.S. space policy– a problem it has had since Sputnik.

“Spirit and Opportuniy cost $800 million for the pair in ’04. By 2013, Curiosity alone was $2.6 billion”

Two excellent examples of “false equivilancy”. From your near constant misuse of the term I was certain you didn’t understand it… :eyeroll:

“You don’t know that. Now that he has constructed a stage that is clearly SSTO capable anyone can do it.”

Sure, anyone can do it. Just like the Chinese, who just announced that because they can’t figure out how to build 5m diameter rocket bodies yet, their initial launch date for the Long March 5 has slipped to 2015. Seeing that someone has figured it out is not the same as figuring it out yourself.

There is also a lot of cost to retooling, and I don’t see ULA spending that kind of money to change their manufacturing processes yet, nor anyone else in the world. Change is slow in the aerospace industry.

“If your payload is the launch vehicle…”

In this case the launch vehicle is just a launch vehicle.

“Unless you have some kind of internal insight or can predict the future of technology development and new launch and payload delivery scenarios and missions, then I just can’t take any of your pronouncements very seriously.”

Hey, ditto.

I just take Musk’s word for what he wants to do – who are you listening to?

“You guys are moving space advocacy from the domain of uncooperative cats and into the domain of packs of rabid dogs.”

I’m not the one trying to change what Congress wants out of the SLS.

I support the efforts of companies to lower the cost to access space. Doesn’t matter who.

But the only way to support that is with a business model that supports the innovation, not the other way around. Innovation first, without a business model, has not proven successful.

I haven’t heard you explain what the business model is for SSTO.

“The technological innovation is occurring outside of the program by those who are trying to either fix the program or find better ways of satisfying its requirements…”

There are no requirements. No customers. No funded programs to use the SLS.

And unless you can show otherwise, there is no one with any money outside of the government that is trying to improve the SLS. That would be a foolish investment.

Thanks for trying to educate us (all of us here).

Seems like you have expertise in SSTO, hypersonic reentry and, what I personally find really useful, advanced space technology development by the way of ruse. Not in procurement though. Well can’t be great at everything I suppose.

Looking forward to see F9 v1.1 SSTO flight and maybe, possibly, reentry of 2nd stage even though I am still struggling with the notion of a 2nd stage reentry of an SSTO. My imagination is a little limited I guess.

Always great to read from you though. Keep us posted on your progress.

You again totally misunderstand what is happening here. The technological innovation is occurring outside of the program by those who are trying to either fix the program or find better ways of satisfying its requirements, since the program is not ‘going away’. There is no trickle down, this is happening from the bottom up.

You don’t know that. Now that he has constructed a stage that is clearly SSTO capable anyone can do it. Also he wants his second stage back as well, which if he does not intend to use it on orbit will require the same kinds of reentry systems that a first stage Falcon 9 1.1 will. And he intends on flying this thing to 300k at White Sands. If your payload is the launch vehicle then that is a large payload and contains none of the dangerous staging pyrotechnics and procedures. Unless you have some kind of internal insight or can predict the future of technology development and new launch and payload delivery scenarios and missions, then I just can’t take any of your pronouncements very seriously. All newspace is TBD – to be developed. Nothing is off the table at this point, everything is in total flux. This is why people brainstorm ideas and then test them by simulation.

You guys are moving space advocacy from the domain of uncooperative cats and into the domain of packs of rabid dogs. You (all of you here) say the same things over and over again, and then expect people not to analyze your statements or think critically about the material. You make statements about things that you haven’t even bothered to read or investigate. If you think that will result in progress, good luck.

“the executive office and his advising institutions would have never signed onto it if they thought it wouldn’t lead to the kind of technical innovation and legacy engine preservation that would mimic the kind of development program they had proposed.”

Well this really gets down to a belief system, since I don’t have access to Obama, and I doubt you do.

As to “technical innovation”, that is not happening on the Congressionally-designed SLS, since they mandated using existing technologies (J-2X is about the only new thing). And going forward I don’t see any incentive for U.S. commercial launch companies to adopt any of the SLS technologies for their own use, so how that is supposed to trickle down for future use is unclear.

You continue to have unconvincing arguments. You need a clearer business case.