“If ISS will remain in orbit only until 2024, and commercial space flights will not begin until 2019, ”

If you are going to lie, and spread propaganda you should do the BIG LIE.

Since you are obviously a psyhic and can see into the future can you tell me on what date the decision will be made to not extend the ISS past 2024?

Can you also please give me the date that SpaceX publically announces they are not going to launch a human test flight in 2015 and will not beable to do a human launch until 2019?

“given that the appropriators have never been big fans of the commercial, ”

They have given to Commercial crew
50 million
250 million
406 million
550 million
696 million

Can you tell me if appropriators are not fans of commercial why do they keep INCREASING the commercial funding?

“If any of you had read the actual House appropriations bill, …$171M will be available only after a C-B analysis on CCP vs. ISS lifespan.”

I knew that, and I didn’t even have to read the bill. It’s been in the news. And since the merits of Commercial Crew are very easy to understand and quantify, I’m not concerned about it.

“Last question for all of you; given that the appropriators have never been big fans of the commercial, and that’s a very loose definition of the word, space efforts, why do you think they put that condition in?”

Old ways die hard. There are those that think only NASA can do things in space. They are wrong of course, but for good or bad reasons, they haven’t come around.

“If ISS will remain in orbit only until 2024, and commercial space flights will not begin until 2019…”

SpaceX has stated that they will be ready in 2017, and since they plan a company test flight with humans next year (i.e. 2015), they seem like they are on track, or even ahead of schedule.

“…does a 5-year period of supporting crew transport to and from ISS justify an additional $2B…”

Yes, the 7-year span of anticipated crew transportation service for the ISS merits full Commercial Crew funding so we can stop sending money to Russian and instead create a U.S. based crew transportation service industry that will far exceed what Russia and China can provide. You don’t think that’s a good idea?

“Many of you celebrated when Constellation, after years of annual funding shortfalls caused delays, was canceled.”

No, I celebrated when a bi-partisan Congress cancelled a program that was severely behind schedule, and would have consumed far more money than was promised by the Real Mike Griffin. And that can initially be blamed on Griffin too, since he is the one that forced NASA to use the unsupportable Ares I/V design instead of using existing and upgraded commercial launchers.

“I imagine very few of you who are fanboys of the supposed commercial space efforts would realize that not 6 years later you would see your own cherished efforts facing the same fate of funding delays leading to a programmatic justification for termination.”

Of course in the case of Commercial Crew, which only pays for milestones that produce value, and not for being late, the program can never be “over budget”. That’s the difference between public/private programs like Commercial Crew and standard Cost-Plus contracts that go Constellation in so much trouble.

I’m not sure you made any of the points you were trying to make.

If any of you had read the actual House appropriations bill, you would know that the funding for CCP is $525M. Yes, $696M is appropriated. But of that amount, $171M will be available only after a C-B analysis on CCP vs. ISS lifespan.

Last question for all of you; given that the appropriators have never been big fans of the commercial, and that’s a very loose definition of the word, space efforts, why do you think they put that condition in? Here’s a hint; it wasn’t to ratify the merits of the commercial (there’s that misused word again) space efforts but to give Bolden just enough rope to help hang it.

If ISS will remain in orbit only until 2024, and commercial space flights will not begin until 2019, does a 5-year period of supporting crew transport to and from ISS justify an additional $2B, and based on what we saw with COTS very likely more, in development funds to commercial space vendors, never mind the actual funds needed for those transportation services, when the cost of such flights with the Russians is less? And the answer is, obviously not.

Of course, the real question is whether NASA Administrator Bolden will actually form a group that will answer that question.

That additional $171M will come at a high cost.

Many of you celebrated when Constellation, after years of annual funding shortfalls caused delays, was canceled. I imagine very few of you who are fanboys of the supposed commercial space efforts would realize that not 6 years later you would see your own cherished efforts facing the same fate of funding delays leading to a programmatic justification for termination. You are so close, so very, very close. And soon, maybe “commercial” space will be forced to go and seek out investors and begin to act like a real commercial endeavor.

Lord almighty, they DON’T strap the Orion to the side of the SLS! They put it on top, just like with Apollo! Who would have known!? Yep, that’s one answer for pushing humans into deep space. Don’t strap it onto the side.

WOW, can’t even do a simple search and he believes he has the answers for pushing humans into deep space… whew…

What is that called Hubris?

“Living & working in DEEP space should be the real name of the game, here——and Project Apollo went a long way to proving the preliminary viability of all that, some forty-one years ago.”

Oh to be so ignorant.

The longest Apollo mission was about two weeks long, and did not attempt to answer any of the questions concerning how to keep humans alive in space (DEEP or otherwise) for durations longer than two weeks. We ain’t goin’ far in two weeks, and certainly not to “DEEP space”.

The research on the ISS has focused since day one on how long-term weightlessness affects the human body, and BECAUSE we have the ability to do tests on humans over long periods of time, scientists have been able to find ways to mitigate the effects of zero-G on the human body enough that they are going to be testing out what happens when humans stay in space for one year.

You can’t do that kind of deliberative and repeatable science when you rush off on a DEEP space mission with one-off equipment that have never been validated in actual use.

“What is needed now, is an expansion of the same capabilities, magnified to permit multi-week & multi-month manned operations on the Moon, and in the Lunar vicinity.”

Hate to break it to you, but “the Moon, and in the Lunar vicinity” are NOT DEEP space. The Moon endlessly circles the Earth, round and round. Certainly not in the region of what we call “Low Earth Orbit”, but certainly “Earth Orbit”. The Moon is LOCAL space.

“The ISS program has been enormous dead-weight to NASA, and an onerous obstacle to its future deep space ambitions.”

Yep, oh to be so ignorant…

Let’s be careful here. Congress and the Administration have never said that. You’re saying that. Living & working in DEEP space has never been established as a national priority.

Now, the 2010 NASA Auth bill did establish a long-term goal of permanent presence beyond LEO (which is not exactly “living”, since that presence isn’t supposed to be with individuals who stay there permanently).

But the “Key Objectives” in that legislation were to (1)”sustain the capability for long-duration presence in low-Earth orbit” and (2)”determine if humans can live in an extended manner in space with decreasing reliance on Earth, starting with utilization of low-Earth orbit infrastructure.”

So THAT’S the name of the game, and that’s precisely what we’re doing right now with ISS. I think it’ll be hard to convince Congress that it’s a mega-waste of resources & government budget money because it’s doing exactly what Congress wants it to do.

So at least when you’re naming the game, you’re telling us what you think it should be, rather than what you think it actually is.

Oh give us a break. What you’re talking about is a would-not-have-been human return to the Moon. That’s what was cancelled. As to how Orion/SLS is supposed to work, it should be taken into account that SLS wasn’t the idea of this “ignorant and naive” president. It was the result of an ignorant and naive Congress that foisted SLS on the taxpayer. Let Congress produce their own animations about what they had in mind.

I did refer to “memorable” animations, since it is clear that at least someone can’t seem to remember any.

“Does the manned Orion sit atop the gigantic SLS, in the same way as the Apollo did atop the Saturn 5?”

Duh, no, they strap it to the side.

Oh for crying out loud. How ignorant can you be?

“VAB integration between SLS and Orion outlined by SPIO”

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/12/vab-integration-sls-orion-outlined-by-spio/

Cripes…

Yeah, that worked out so well for Altair. Spend half a decade and ten-plus billion dollars on a launcher and capsule and maybe there will be enough left over for one lander study before the whole thing is terminated.

We have launchers that can put human-scale landers on the Moon today. If we want to go back to the Moon, then we should go back to the Moon, not fool around with unneeded ETO launch systems.
The political process and budget don’t tolerate that level of waste over changes in Administration.