On the 45th anniversary of his historic orbital space flight, John Glenn was speaking out about space, in particular his concern that the US is abandoning the ISS. “To not utilize that station the way I think it ought to be utilized is just wrong,” the former senator said, reiterating previous concerns he’s expressed about the ISS. “We will not even begin to realize its potential.” Glenn doesn’t tell the AP, though, how the station should be utilized, or what he thinks its potential actually is.
NASA has budgeted about $14 billion for the ISS between 2007 and 2012, it actually got almost $500m more this year than last whereas Constellaiton saw its budget reduced by nearly $200million. It’s hard to tell if Glenn or the reporter is aware of this from such a skimpy article built on two brief quotes. Anything goes as long as it bashs the NASA Bush proxy.
The ISS meet it’s full potential? I have yet to see a compelling argument done for zero-g science on the ISS. It’s major research objectives are essentially adding decimal places to data already established by Salyut, Skylab, and Mir.
The ISS is a road to no-where, it should be cut and its funds diverted to, in equal measure, NASAs aeronautics budget and getting the Ares V off the ground as soon as financially and technically feasbile since if we don’t get the Ares V we are stuck in LEO with a not very capable capsule launched on a very expensive rocket if we get a manned spaceflight program at all.
“NASA has budgeted about $14 billion for the ISS between 2007 and 2012″
I think you’re looking at ISS construction and operations, which is budgeted under Space Operations. ISS research is budgeted separately under Exploration Systems, in their research and technology line. It’s a much smaller number and took a huge whack to help pay for ESAS when it was first rolled out. That’s the root cause of Glenn’s concerns.
“it actually got almost $500m more this year than last whereas Constellaiton saw its budget reduced by nearly $200million.”
Most of that was due to a change in accounting. The outyear budget for COTS was transferred from Constellation (Exploration Systems) to ISS (Space Operations). Again, it’s not ISS research.
“It’s hard to tell if Glenn or the reporter is aware of this from such a skimpy article built on two brief quotes. Anything goes as long as it bashs the NASA Bush proxy.”
To be fair to Glenn, he spent many years in the Senate fighting for ISS and represented a field center that had its legs cut out from underneath it on ISS research. It’s understandable that he wants a program that he spent so much effort bringing to realization actually pay off. I don’t agree with his priorities — most micro-g applications have failed to pan out, access to ISS is too infrequent to hope to reverse that, ISS is needlessly costly and complex for exploration research, and we would have been better off cooperating with foreign partners on other projects — but I understand and sympathize with where he’s coming from.
Regardless of which side you’re on, the budget- and time-consuming complexity of ISS is a real tragedy. We would have been much better off with a couple, small, single-launch space stations (e.g., one human-tended for micro-g research and apps like ISF, one fully-tended for human research to prepare for exploration, etc.).
FWIW…
The ISS is a great thing, IMO. I know the research may not seem like a big deal, but when you consider the science done on the space shuttle for the last two decades, and you figure that this was a total time in space of about two years, maybe, you’ll realize that the ISS is a tremendous opportunity to learn a lot. This will probably never be done again, so let’s keep it as long as possible.
For those against the ISS, I’m not completely sure why. What do you think will be done on the moon? On Mars? It’s all research. It’s not about colonization. And I guarantee that the economic return sucks for anything in that realm. It’s all manned research, despite what the administrators are trying to say about economic spheres. The ISS is just zero-g research. The moon will be lunar research, etc. In fact, I’m sure the ISS will probably be on the cheaper end when compared to the costs of the lunar outpost.
I’m very happy that the Russians have decided to keep the ISS beyond what the Americans are going to do. The tragedy, regardless, is that $100 billion was spent on it, and it’s not going to be used to it’s full extent, by Americans anyway.
The biophysical research that can be done on ISS will be critical for crewed missions to Mars. This alone makes it an important element of VSE. Walking away from ISS is tantamount to dropping the longer-term VSE goal of establishing a human presence on Mars.
you’ll realize that the ISS is a tremendous opportunity to learn a lot.
Nonsense. The science done on the shuttle is also vastly overhyped, with the exception of science involving observation (outwards and downwards) that could have been done just as well, or better, by unmanned satellites.
Ok, I admit we can learn alot about how long the government will tolerate pouring money down a rathole.
The biophysical research that can be done on ISS will be critical for crewed missions to Mars
And we need need crewed missions to Mars… why? Also, I see no reason why ISS science will resolve anything any more than Soyuz/Skylab/Mir did. ISS will have a very small sample size, and will be unable to do variable gravity experiments, even on animals (now that the centrifuge has been deleted).
What science on the shuttle and station has been is a rationalization for building them. It’s a talking point, not a sound argument.
With all the debate about science, why then can’t we turn ISS into something else – open it up and create a space based business park? Or go one better and turn it into a full fledge space colony? I know that seems radical, but this could give a chance to prove the validaty of space commericalizations possiblities.
Anonymous, the Space Station appears to be one of the few areas where I strongly disagree with you. The most important thing we are learning from the Space Station is how to do construction in orbit. This will be a key skill, usuable for the rest of history (however long or short that may be), comparable to learning to build in stone instead of mud brick. (The latter achievement was accomplished by the first name of an individual who was not a king to survive in history, the physician and architect Imhotep. It is no accident that we remember his name five thousand years later.)
Likewise, the ISS has one vital purpose in life and that is as a market for COTS (or, if COTS fails, whatever succeeds it). Without that market, we really are going nowhere. Moreover, space facility logistics is a skill that takes practice and can only be learned by doing. Again, that knowledge may well be of more long-term importance than any science the facility may or may not produce.
Likewise again, Paul, you, and I have no idea whether something imporant will result from having real, first-class laboratory facilities in the microgravity environment that domantes the universe outside of Earth’s special case environment, for long periods of time. We won’t know until that lab has been there for a decade or three. It is possible it will turn out to be useless, but I will be very surprised if that is the final outcome.
None of that is to say that the project could not (and should not) have been accomplished for far, far less money, and after the loss of Columbia, I argued that we should stop building the ISS and use it as is since it had lab space and was clearly able to function. But here and now, today, the SS is built, it is in orbit, it probably will cost little more to maintain than would an alternative facility, and it has first-class laboratory space — we might as well use it.
While I am unlikely to live to see the outcome of the following prediction, I believe that what we are learning in building and maintaining the Space Station will ultimately prove of far more historical moment than a quick and dirty dash to the moon with Apollo.
— Donald
Likewise again, Paul, you, and I have no idea whether something imporant will result from having real, first-class laboratory facilities in the microgravity environment that domantes the universe outside of Earth’s special case environment, for long periods of time.
No, we have a pretty good idea what the results will be — minimal. If there were any clue the results would be valuable, they would have been hyped six ways from sunday. The lack of anything substantial even from the NASA boosters tells us the cupboard is bare.
In real science, as opposed to pork-masquerading-as-science, multibillion dollar projects have to have really convincing reasons they’ll produce valuable results (see HST, for example) or they don’t get funded.
Well, Paul, you might recall that many (most?) astronomers opposed HST on the same grounds that you are opposing the Space Station. I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying, we don’t know.
— Donald
“Anonymous, the Space Station appears to be one of the few areas where I strongly disagree with you. The most important thing we are learning from the Space Station is how to do construction in orbit. This will be a key skill”
I would agree with your point regarding in-space assembly, if conditioned by your point regarding cost below.
“None of that is to say that the project could not (and should not) have been accomplished for far, far less money,”
Even discounting STS launch costs, $60 billion is one hellaciously expensive in-space assembly technology demonstration. I’d argue that more effective, informative, and useful in-space assembly demos — ones that demonstrated different structures like propellant tanks and inflatables, autonomous assembly, and rationale solar panel build-outs — could have been performed for a tenth, maybe even a hundredth, of ISS assembly costs.
I agree with you that in-space assembly is a critical tool. But if you’re interested in creating better in-space assembly tools, ISS was totally the wrong way to go about it.
“Likewise, the ISS has one vital purpose in life and that is as a market for COTS (or, if COTS fails, whatever succeeds it). Without that market, we really are going nowhere. Moreover, space facility logistics is a skill that takes practice and can only be learned by doing. Again, that knowledge may well be of more long-term importance than any science the facility may or may not produce.”
Not to dredge up old arguments, but again, NASA did not need to wait for the ISS to open its human space flight “market” to commercial suppliers. A NASA human space flight “market” existed for decades before ISS. All NASA needed to do was start shifting its human space flight needs and requirements off of the Shuttle and onto commercial vehicles. Something like COTS could have been started at any point after the Challenger accident in 1986, when Delta and Atlas started commercializing. Tragic seems to be my buzzword the past couple of days, but it is tragic that NASA waited for a second Shuttle accident before starting to shift human space flight transportation requirements to commercial vehicles.
My 2 cents… FWIW.
Well, Paul, you might recall that many (most?) astronomers opposed HST on the same grounds that you are opposing the Space Station.
I recall no such thing, and I suggest you are being very ‘creative’ with the truth.
No competent astronomer would have said that HST would not produce major scientific results. Indeed, there were entire lists of major scientific questions that HST was expected to answer (as it has).
What some astronomers argued was that HST wasn’t the best or most economical way to do astronomy. And they may have been right, although they would also have admitted that ground based astronomy would never have recieved most of the money that went into HST.
ISS, in contrast, had no major set of scientific questions it was going to answer. The constrast between it and HST is night and day.
Anonymous: $60 billion is one hellaciously expensive in-space assembly technology demonstration.
I agree. But that is in the past, and it doesn’t mean we should not use the skills and techniques — and structures — that were created.
I’d argue that more effective, informative, and useful in-space assembly demos — ones that demonstrated different structures like propellant tanks and inflatables, autonomous assembly, and rationale solar panel build-outs — could have been performed for a tenth, maybe even a hundredth, of ISS assembly costs.
I’m less in agreement with this. The kinds of structures that are being built will prove important, and NASA did the right thing in off-loading inflatable research when somebody else was able and willing to take it on. Likewise, it will be a long time before most construction jobs can be automated at reasonable cost. If and when launch costs come down, the cost of astronaut time will come down as well, and the incentive to try to automate the almost impossible to automate will come down.
Anonymous: Something like COTS could have been started at any point after the Challenger accident in 1986, when Delta and Atlas started commercializing.
Maybe, but for what markets? A handful of military, civil, and commercial satellites doesn’t cut it. The Space Station represents a much, much larger market, one that is permanent. Again, to all of these things, the Space Station (or something like it) is key.
— Donald
Paul,
I think that I generally agree with your specific point about the low-value of most ISS/Shuttle research. But I think it’s important to draw a distinction between ISS/Shuttle microgravity research, and microgravity research in general. Shuttle was so expensive, complicated, flew so infrequently, and was tied to such a business unfriendly environment that it made doing effective research and development almost impossible. It’s not that there isn’t value to doing microgravity research in space. It’s just that the tools we’ve had so far for doing so have been so hamstrung compared to terrestrial research and so expensive that they haven’t been worth it.
A much less expensive commercial station, with better and more frequent access opportunities, that was run less as a welfare-for-nerds scheme, and more as a profit generating business I think could do a whole lot better. Once you start getting reflight times measured in single-digit-days instead of months or years, things can change very quickly.
So while I agree that ISS/Shuttle are worse than useless for microgravity research, it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It isn’t 100% certain that a commercial space research facility can be built and operated in a way that could yield good and cost effective research and development results, but I think that the case is good enough to not just cynically brush it off.
~Jon
Paul, I think your memory of the long, drawn-out war over Hubble politics, ground-based / small versus space-based / big science is a lot more selective than mine. Be that as it may,
ISS, in contrast, had no major set of scientific questions it was going to answer. The constrast between it and HST is night and day.
That is your opinion, and an honest scientist would recognize it as such. The truth is that you believe the scientific rational for HST and do not for the Space Station. Only time will tell whether you are correct, right now neither of us knows.
And, while we’re touting results or lack thereof, a clear prerequisit for extended missions into the Solar System is growing plants in microgravity, and I would point you toward the survey of this subject published in Spacefight a year or so ago. Achieving regular success took years of work extending from Mir to the early Space Station, but success was ultimately achieved. This is a result, and probably a valuable one and the kind of science for which a space-based laboratory (note I do not specify the ISS here) is essential, or do you not consider biology and farming sciences?
— Donald
“The kinds of structures that are being built will prove important,”
When I look at what the Soviet space program did in the past, what Bigelow is doing now, and what the Chinese hope to do in the future, I dunno. We don’t see trusses in any of those structures. No one sets up their solar arrays, takes them apart, repositions them, then takes them apart again before putting them in their final configuration. And even if you don’t go inflatable, putting storage along the interior axis a la Bigelow, instead of exterior walls, appears to be the winning configuration.
And then when I look at potential human planetary mission and base needs (radiation, artificial gravity, dusty/corrosive/poisonous environments, closed life-support, etc.), I see even less utility from ISS.
And then when I look at true planetary development, where structures need to be affordable, then ISS is blown out of the water.
Even if some of the same module designs wind up in NASA’s initial lunar base (assuming it’s built), I’d still argue that NASA could have been a lot farther along on a greater number of more relevant technologies for a fraction of ISS costs.
“and NASA did the right thing in off-loading inflatable research when somebody else was able and willing to take it on.”
Actually, NASA did not “offload” inflatable research onto Bigelow. TransHab was a pet project of Abbey’s down at JSC. When the Clinton White House (OMB, IIRC) found out about it, they terminated it with prejudice, given the unauthorized redirection of funds and the fact that the Clinton space policy restricted NASA human space flight to Earth orbit until ISS was finished. Bigelow came along a number of years later and licensed the technology from JSC.
“Likewise, it will be a long time before most construction jobs can be automated at reasonable cost. If and when launch costs come down, the cost of astronaut time will come down as well, and the incentive to try to automate the almost impossible to automate will come down.”
Again, I dunno. If I had to place bets on the progress of computer technology versus the progress of rocket technology, I’d bet on computers every time.
I’d also point out that a lot of automation is just designing smart, so you don’t have to go to the expense and hazards of spacewalks to hook up electric lines, reposition solar arrays, etc. Plug-and-play is also a form of automated assembly.
“Maybe, but for what markets? A handful of military, civil, and commercial satellites doesn’t cut it.”
I think you’re missing the point. NASA did offload its robotic science missions onto Atlas and Delta after Challenger. What it did not offload was what Shuttle did for microgravity and other space-based research. Even after Challenger, those Shuttles still did up to eight or nine flights every year, averaging up to two weeks each, taking up a variety of gascan-, middeck locker-, research rack-, and even bay-sized experiments and payloads. Unless they involved human subjects or absolutely required astronaut interaction, there’s little reason those experiments and payloads could not have been offloaded onto Pegasus, Atlas, and Delta flights as well. Only the need to sustain the Shuttle budget until ISS assembly started kept NASA from doing so. Although admittedly not as big as ISS resupply, all those Shuttle payloads were still a pretty big market and could have had NASA and the commercial sector a couple decades down the COTS road versus where we are today.
You might want to look up a commercial reentry capsule project called COMET (Commercial Experiment Transporter), which NASA invested in back in the 90s (and which, incidentally, Rutan was involved in). Unfortunately, the launch vehicle for COMET failed, but it’s a taste of what could have been in a commercial human space flight-related market — prior to ISS assembly — had NASA pushed harder.
“The Space Station represents a much, much larger market, one that is permanent. Again, to all of these things, the Space Station (or something like it) is key.”
No, again, markets for NASA human space flight experiments and payloads existed well before ISS. It’s just a question of whether NASA chose to transition some of those needs off the Shuttle. Just because they did not consider doing so does not prove that ISS had to exist before something like COTS came along. In fact, I would argue that it was not the existence of ISS, but the Columbia accident, the necessitated the development of COTS.
Again, I’m raising old arguments. We may just have to disagree on this chicken/egg question.
“It’s just that the tools we’ve had so far for doing so have been so hamstrung compared to terrestrial research and so expensive that they haven’t been worth it.”
Mr. Goff hits the nail on the head here, IMO.
Had microgravity research not been tied to STS or ISS, it would be a very different game. Even when you subsidize STS and ISS costs, commercial innovation just requires a much faster pace than the multi-year planning/development/launch cycle that STS and ISS (or probably any government system) demands. (And that assumes STS is flying well and ISS assembly is finished.)
If microgravity researchers had been in control of their own fate, and had access to the same satellites and launch vehicles as space science and earth science researchers, or been able to invest in capabilities like COMET or the old Industrial Space Facility (ISF), the advantages of the space environment might have been able to compete against terrestrial alternatives.
Again, it’s my buzzword for today, but it’s a tragedy that it’s taken decades for the microgravity community to finally launch something like Genesat just last year, and it’s a tragedy that they’ll have to wait even longer for COTS capabilities.
Anonymous: Regarding construction lessons from the Space Station, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Especially if we build small with medium-class launch vehicles, we will need to do a lot of construction in microgravity of every sort — including things like moving rotating arrays around and plugging in fuel and power lines — not just assembly of pre-manufactured elements. Look at Hubble for another model. If you stick to the latter, you severely limit what you can ultimately do. I might be sympathetic to the argument that we might be doing this too soon, but not that we shouldn’t be doing it at all.
Bigelow came along a number of years later and licensed the technology from JSC
That doesn’t mean JSC (who is often criticized for wanting to keep everything in house) didn’t let them have it. I believe that was important.
If I had to place bets on the progress of computer technology versus the progress of rocket technology, I’d bet on computers every time.
Computers and automation are two entirely different skills. When we confuse them, we over-estimate what can be automated. In reality, very little that is not extremely repetative has ever successfully been automated (recall the Space Telescope study, where it was found to cost more and have a lower chance of success even using the super-expensive Shuttle infrastructure.) See my article in Space News called “Space Exploration: a reality check.” My background is in archaeology and, unlike most astromers or space engineers, I know what’s involved in field research. Stop a second and actually think of all the many actions that are required to locate and identify a fossil.
To quote my article: Finding a fossil on Earth requires scouting wide areas for likely rocks; being able to select, hold, and handle many thousands of oddly shaped samples with wildly differing textures; and observing all of them from any angle and at any scale. It also involves being able to cleanly cut samples of any size along any axis; examining each cut at a wide range of scales and wavelengths; and doing sophisticated on-the-fly pattern recognition to recognize any fossil. No foreseeable robot, at any cost, will be able to handle even a few of these tasks, yet a single geologist with a limited set of tools can quickly do them all. Finding the second fossil will be no easier, nor will the third or fourth; then we need to study their distribution, stratigraphy, and history. It is barely conceivable we could automate the detection of life on Mars. Understanding any life, or ruling out life’s existence, requires scientists on site.”
Many of the same issues are involved in construction — which is why very little construction is automated on Earth, even though it is an activity that could benefit enormously (at least financially) by reducing labor costs.
I know my views here are not popular, that doesn’t mean they aren’t correct, and I think the insular space commuity despirately needs some outside input.
Unfortunately, the launch vehicle for COMET failed
Exactly. When the entreprenurs actually achieve something, people will take them more seriously. Without the Space Station and a politically perceived requirement to deliver supplies day in and day out, COTS was not really a politically achievable goal. If the Columbia accident had happend in the absense of a partially built Space Station, I think there would have been far, far less political and economic pressure for something like COTS.
— Donald
Had microgravity research not been tied to STS or ISS, it would be a very different game
I don’t disagree with that (or at least with the potential for that to be true), but all that is in the past. Today, for better or worse, we have the Space Station and its labs; we are developing more routine access to it; it is insane not to use that investment, especially for things like plant growth experiments where you really have no alternative.
— Donald
“Regarding construction lessons from the Space Station, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
No problem. Discussion dropped.
“That doesn’t mean JSC (who is often criticized for wanting to keep everything in house) didn’t let them have it.”
Just to be clear, JSC let Bigelow license the technology only because JSC was forbidden from working on it themselves. Had TransHab gone forward at any level, I don’t think Bigelow’s satellite would be in orbit today.
“Stop a second and actually think of all the many actions that are required to locate and identify a fossil.”
I don’t mean to nitpick, but you’re changing the argument. I wouldn’t argue with you regarding the research capabilities of a rover versus a geologist in a foreign environment like Mars. Unknowns, scientific context, planning on the fly, timelag, etc. are all huge issues that impair the robot greatly compared to the geologist. But that’s a world (literally and figuratively) removed from unplugging and plugging cables and trusses and screwing bolts and nuts according to a planned sequence in a well-known, controlled, and artificial environment like a space station.
Not to get caught up in analogies, but it’s orders of magnitude more difficult for my nephew to find Easter eggs in his backyard than it is for him to construct a wall out of his Duplo blocks.
And no snide jokes about how the Mars rovers are smarter than my nephew…
“Without the Space Station and a politically perceived requirement to deliver supplies day in and day out, COTS was not really a politically achievable goal.”
No, Shuttle’s continued existence, not ISS, had everything to do with NASA not giving serious consideration to commercial providers for Shuttle payloads. Get rid of Shuttle (as we are doing in 2010 thanks to the unfortunate Columbia accident) and NASA is forced to pursue commercial alternatives to transport those payloads. It doesn’t matter whether those payloads are free-flying or headed to ISS.
Politically, since the time of Challenger, the pressure has been in the other direction, towards more NASA payloads on commercial vehicles. Witness the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 and the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990. It’s a testament to the power of bureaucratic drift that NASA managed to avoid moving any human space flight payloads to commercial vehicles until after facing Shuttle termination.
“I think the insular space commuity despirately needs some outside input.”
Amen to that, brother. Disagreements aside, I will join you in singing from that hymnal.
“especially for things like plant growth experiments where you really have no alternative”
Actually, there are alternatives. AeroAstro, for example, has developed free-flying satellites that could maintain and observe small plant-growth experiments.
FWIW…
Anonymous: AeroAstro, for example, has developed free-flying satellites that could maintain and observe small plant-growth experiments.
Which, at least at first, would have been useless. It took a lot of close interaction between astronauts, the plants, and scientists back on the ground, to figure out why plants would not stay alive in microgravity and develope countermeasures.
I submit that it is not clear that doing each experiment and its incremental improvement on separate missions would have been cheaper in the end.
— Donald
“Which, at least at first, would have been useless. It took a lot of close interaction between astronauts, the plants, and scientists back on the ground, to figure out why plants would not stay alive in microgravity and develope countermeasures.”
If you say so. Without more explanation, it’s not clear to me what humans on orbit could vary that would affect countermeasure development that automated water, feeding, heat, and light mechanisms could not.
“I submit that it is not clear that doing each experiment and its incremental improvement on separate missions would have been cheaper in the end.”
At a half-billion per Shuttle launch, I submit that’s an easy bar to hurdle over.
DONALD SAID: Anonymous, the Space Station appears to be one of the few areas where I strongly disagree with you. The most important thing we are learning from the Space Station is how to do construction in orbit. This will be a key skill, usuable for the rest of history (however long or short that may be), comparable to learning to build in stone instead of mud brick.
THEN
ANONYMOUS SAID: Even discounting STS launch costs, $60 billion is one hellaciously expensive in-space assembly technology demonstration. I’d argue that more effective, informative, and useful in-space assembly demos — ones that demonstrated different structures like propellant tanks and inflatables, autonomous assembly, and rationale solar panel build-outs — could have been performed for a tenth, maybe even a hundredth, of ISS assembly costs.
I agree with you that in-space assembly is a critical tool. But if you’re interested in creating better in-space assembly tools, ISS was totally the wrong way to go about it.
I don’t have time this week to engage, in detail, in this discussion.
In summary:
1) I agree with both of them, that on-orbit assembly is a critical and important capability.
2) I strongly agree with Anonymous, and disagree with Donald, on what was learned.
We learned a lot from the ISS assembly project. Mostly “how NOT to do on-orbit assembly”. Those lessons were valuable, but also extremely expensive. We could have learned them at MUCH MUCH lower cost if we had been smart about it, and we could be much further along.
We should learn from our failures — and do something different — rather repeating them again, and again, and again.
– Al
I do agree that the ISS may not have been the best thing to do, but with it in orbit, I think it should be used as long as it’s expense is tolerable. Just like MIR one day was costing too much in maintenance, so will the ISS one day cost too much to maintain, and it will be discarded. But until that day, I am happy that someone is using it! (RSA through 2025, I believe)
Anonymous: At a half-billion per Shuttle launch, I submit that’s an easy bar to hurdle over.
Last time I looked, an expendable launch to the same orbit with a fraction the payload cost one-tenth of that. It’s not that low a bar! Unfortunately, Mr. Musk seems to be repeating the experience of Orbital Science — that those prices are not likely to be coming down much any time soon. . . .
— Donald
“Last time I looked, an expendable launch to the same orbit with a fraction the payload cost one-tenth of that.”
No, like Surrey Satellite, AeroAstro is a company big on “microspace” and their satellite would fly on a sub-Delta II launcher (e.g., Pegasus/Taurus/Minotaur) and even then probably as a secondary payload. It’s more in the class of Genesat than COMET. It’s a WAG, but a couple dozen, maybe a few dozen, such missions could be flown for the price of one Shuttle flight. The ratio is more like 20-, 30-, or 40-to-1, not 10-to-1.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Musk seems to be repeating the experience of Orbital Science — that those prices are not likely to be coming down much any time soon. . . .”
We’ll see. I think the jury is still out. There was a good discussion on what happened to Pegasus costs with Antonio Elias (the inventor of the Pegasus concept) over on nasaspaceflight.com. What happened to Pegasus (customers insisting on lots of additional analysis and costly extras) is not what’s happening to Falcon (more vehicle health monitoring), at least not yet.
Anonymous: I think the jury is still out
Just for the record, I do agree with that. I’m worried, though.
customers insisting on lots of additional analysis and costly extras [versus] more vehicle health monitoring
I thought a lot of the “additional analysis” was because of the repeated failures of the second generation Pegasus. NASA refused to use the launcher unless they did this to increase reliability. I’m not sure I see much difference between that and increased costs because of “increased vehicle health monitoring” resulting from a flight failure.
Okay, according to SpaceX (!), a Pegasus launch costs a minimum of $15 million. Dividing $500 million by that gives me 33. I’ll agree that this is more of a wash, but it is still far from clear to me (and I would hope most biologists) that thirty-three Pegasus launches with a clockwork robot would achieve as much as having a biologist in a lab for over a week.
— Donald
lessons from ISS orbital operations? hmm .. lets see, whats the single most important tech for staging operations on LEO .. refuelling .. cryogenic propellant transfer. when exactly is ISS going to help US develop this capability ?
IIRC, even hydrazine is pumped to ISS tanks by russian tech ..
Amen to that, brother. Disagreements aside, I will join you in singing from that hymnal.
Wow, yet another faith based rocket designer.
You know, I think I can almost guess who anonymous really is.
“Wow, yet another faith based rocket designer.”
Must… resist… troll…
“You know, I think I can almost guess who anonymous really is.”
Thinking and doing are not the same thing.
You’ve sure got the five consecutive rambling posts thing going.
Slow day at church? Do you have any actual … ideas … to share with us?
You know … ideas of the … ‘how do we get past the space impasse’ variety?
“Do you have any actual … ideas … to share with us?”
Yeah, tough guy, they’re up there in my five consecutive rambling posts.
“Slow day at church?”
Silly boy, it’s a Monday. No one is at church today.
“You know … ideas of the … ‘how do we get past the space impasse’ variety?”
You obviously do. Please enlighten me and stop boring me with your ad hominem attacks and personal insults.
This forum is better than that.
Muncy is just bitter that he and his nutjob parter Chas did not get any more money from NASA. Even his wacko former boss in Congress couldn’t help.
Cots Fan —
As Anonymous pointed out, on behalf of t/Space I advocated many of the changes that led to COTS going down the crew road, which is what turned out to hurt all-cargo options, like CSI.
But NASA made its selections. COTS is what it is, and the world will judge “commercialization”, broadly defined, by the results from COTS.
That is one reason I think COTS needs — and deserves — more money now, to help both the existing winners and to broaden the “investment portfolio”.
But I’m sure you will attack me for saying even that. From behind the safety of your nom de plume.
– Jim
You have your hand in everyone’s pocket, Muncy. You want more money for COTS because you want more money in your pocket as well.
“Muncy is just bitter”
Until your post, COTS Fan, Mr. Muncy had not participated in this thread. I don’t see how you can accuse someone of being anything when they have yet to write something.
“that he and his nutjob parter Chas did not get any more money from NASA.”
We’ll see. If NASA responds positively to the industry input on the recent RFI, I would guess that CSI (and SpaceHab and some others) will have another — and take another — shot at some COTS business.
“You have your hand in everyone’s pocket, Muncy. You want more money for COTS because you want more money in your pocket as well.”
I have a hard time thinking of someone who has worked longer and more consistently to turn the policy tide in favor commercial space markets than Mr. Muncy. He may benefit moderately from his advocacy, but unless you’re in the leadership of one of the “newspace” companies, he’s put in far more work than you or I to help those companies.
It’s rather hypocritical to launch a personal, ad hominem attack using an anonymous handle. It’s even more hypocritical to criticize someone for making a living advocating the viewpoint you favor. And it’s really hypocritical to criticize someone for earning a buck when the viewpoint you favor is pro-capitalist.
I don’t mean to attack you, COTS Fan, but let’s please keep these forums civil.
Anonymous: We’ll see. If NASA responds positively to the industry input on the recent RFI, I would guess that CSI (and SpaceHab and some others) will have another — and take another — shot at some COTS business.
Would this be wise? Wouldn’t it spread the money even more thinly? Wouldn’t it be better to put any additional money into the incumbants. Maybe not in cash, but, say, in government-backed loan guarantees. . . .
That said, I think your implication in another thread that additional funding is unlikely is correct.
— Donald
“Would this be wise? Wouldn’t it spread the money even more thinly? Wouldn’t it be better to put any additional money into the incumbants.”
The RFI is for a single mission in the relative near-term, 2009 IIRC, and has no foreign restrictions. If NASA acts on the RFI, the resulting procurement would be suited to offerers employing existing hardware. CSI fits into this category (Ruskie hardware), as do various combinations of SpaceHab/ATV/HTV upper stages on Atlas/Delta/etc.
It’s not really for the T-Space/Bensons of the world and the money would come from ISS operations, not the Space-X/Kistler pot (to my knowledge).
“Maybe not in cash, but, say, in government-backed loan guarantees. . .”
Although it would be wonderful if such financing mechanisms could be worked out, I rate things like loan guarantees and zero-g tax breaks at a very low probability of happening. These are things that require the cooperation of Congressional committees outside those that oversee NASA (e.g., those involved with the Treasury, the tax code, etc.), and I don’t see those committees taking much of an interest.
Muncy gets cash from all over so do not think he is just a bystander. He waves his influence with Rep. Rohrabacher at the drop of a hat. If you dare to contradict Muncy he goes into manic mode and threatens you. He is Washington revolving door ethics at its worst.
The discussion here has run its course, and I am closing this post to additional comments.