Senate Bill Adds Shuttle Flight, New Shuttle-Derived Vehicle 230
simonbp writes "The Senate Commerce Committee this morning marked up a compromise NASA Authorization Act that rolls back some of Obama's plans for NASA, while keeping others. The bill adds at least one more shuttle flight, keeps Obama's technology demonstrators and commercial access to ISS (albeit at reduced funding), restores the Orion crew capsule, and replaces the Ares rockets with a Shuttle-Derived 'Space Launch System' for going to the ISS and Beyond, which could be ready as soon as 2015."
KILL IT (Score:2, Insightful)
Preface: I'm firmly in the camp that believes that Bush wasn't as bad as we were all told and that Obama is nowhere as great as we've been all told but, Obama got the idea of privatizing LEO work 100% right. I'm getting tired of the rest of the weasels (in both parties) trying to shove even more pork into NASA instead of letting it do its job..
Hell I think the whole "foremost mission of NASA is to make Muslims feel like they are smart" is something that proves that the characters in Atlas Shrugged actually
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Have you read the book? Sure, it sucks, but the fact is, that line about "NASA's foremost mission" being one of outreach to the Muslim community could have come straight from one of its villains.
Only a fool rejects wisdom because of its source.
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The moment you mention "Atlas Shrugged" you marked yourself as a retard.
Your point is invalid.
Good day.
But you just mentioned "Atlas Shrugged" too, so now you're also marked as a retard. Oh, shit, I just did it too!
Wrong Direction (Score:5, Insightful)
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Until we can structure a space organization that won't be a political football
Short of a war that includes activities in space I really don't see how that's going to happen. There's no way to involve the Federal Government in anything remotely related to appropriations that won't become a political football.
Re:Wrong Direction (Score:4, Funny)
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And that falls under "short of a war", Bruce. ARPA was a DoD entity, not a civilian entity.
Re:Wrong Direction (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh-huh. I had a nice grant from ARPA at Pixar to work on movie-making software. Why, because they wanted to make 3D technology in the states economically viable. That way, they'd have it if they needed it for war. Unfortunately, not even I could keep SGI afloat with my one little grant.
So, that was my military mission. I don't really mind more like that happening.
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A bill that kills NASA entirely would be a better direction for space research and the United States.
Why? With what would you replace NASA so that the space research can continue?
Until we can structure a space organization that won't be a political football...
Oh, I see... So, replacing NASA is not because of the research it does, but because is done in a "political football" fashion?
If this is the problem, then why demolish demolish the stadium (i.e. NASA) if you actually blame the game played on the stadium?
Insurance: (Score:5, Insightful)
The phrase "baby with the bathwater" comes to mind here. NASA does some things that no other US entity currently does.
We're about to rely on a foreign country as our sole source supplier for manned access to the ISS for at least several years. We don't have a backup. Just as you say NASA is a political football, international relations can be just as unpredictable. Right now we have a shortage of Pu-238 for RTGs in part because we felt we could buy what we needed from the Russians. That's fine. It's a good source for it. But, we didn't move ahead with funding for getting DOE ready to produce more. There's a contract dispute with the Russians that no one anticipated, and that's left us looking for other alternatives.
I prefer to keep a couple of shuttles around and launching at a low rate rather than just relying on Soyuz. Expensive, and hopefully unneeded, but most insurance is like that.
It gives us a backup that won't take years to be ready. Ultimately, a man rated Falcon 9 or some other private launcher would be a good solution. But, we don't have it yet.
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We have no need to put humans in space urgently, nor a need to use the ISS. Those are dispensable projects.
Hand off the space program to the military, and stick to remote-manned missions. There is plenty of time to send tourists in the future.
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The phrase "baby with the bathwater" comes to mind here. NASA does some things that no other US entity currently does.
Completely agreed but none of the things I care about are tied to the shuttle or derived vehicles.
We're about to rely on a foreign country as our sole source supplier for manned access to the ISS for at least several years.
It gives us a backup that won't take years to be ready. Ultimately, a man rated Falcon 9 or some other private launcher would be a good solution. But, we don't have it yet
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I wasn't particularly arguing in favor of the congressional plan as far as the shuttle derived vehicle. I'm largely agnostic as to what sort of manned access we end up with. I just want to continue to have it. Private launchers would be great. They aren't ready yet. Neither is this proposed HLV based on shuttle tech.
What I was arguing for was a reduced shuttle program as a backup regardless of what we end up deciding to develop for the next launcher. The shuttles are aging, but they currently work. Use Soy
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That's a more general problem than just with the shuttle. What do they plan to fly on their HLV? Read the linked articles in the original post about the HLV study. It's all speculative at the moment, of the form "we could do this, or that". We're not terribly sure just where we're going to go other than maintaining presence at the ISS. I'd like that situation to improve, because a firm (but fairly open ended) goal helps direct a course for research better than just a general research funding intitiative.
My
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We're about to rely on a foreign country as our sole source supplier for manned access to the ISS for at least several years
No, we are about to rely on a private company, Space X [spacex.com], to ferry astronauts to the ISS. That seems reasonable to me, with the Russians as a backup / lifeboat.
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Well, I'm sure that Elon Musk et al would like to present that as a done deal. But, they don't have a man rated rocket fully operational yet. I do think that ultimately it's a good solution.
Their latest test was very impressive. But, it's just one step on a several year track to being able to provide manned access to the ISS.
Both Soyuz and the shuttle are fully operational now. Not just likely to be in the future. I've watched a lot of projects that looked good not work out for whatever reason. And it's usu
Re:Insurance: (Score:4, Informative)
No, we are about to rely on a private company, Space X, to ferry astronauts to the ISS.
Actually, even SpaceX's Elon Musk has stated that SpaceX will probably be a smaller provider, with the United Launch Alliance's Atlas rockets getting more of the commercial crew funding. For those unfamiliar with them, the ULA has had 40 consecutive successful launches in 40 months, often carrying multi-billion dollar DOD payloads critical to national security, so it's pretty indisputable that they have proven rockets. This produces a competitive market in commercial spaceflight, which is of the utmost importance to avoid all the problems inherent with monopolies.
Re:Insurance: (Score:4, Funny)
Well, ISS is more part of the problem than it is a program we need to support until some future date. What's it for? Not research, that is done better by other programs. It and the shuttle seem to have been designed to justify each other. And unlike interplanetary research, we actually do have free enterprise building near-earth capability.
Use what you got in creative ways: (Score:2)
Well, regardless of the scientific merits, continuing access to ISS is one of the main points that can sell putting money into SpaceX and other private ventures in the near term. Once again, it may not be what we wanted, but it's what we've got.
Virgin Galactic and some others are gearing up for non-orbital tourist work on their own dime at the moment, but there aren't a whole lot of other manned projects I'd consider advanced contenders at the moment that don't in part rely on providing services to the gove
Re:Wrong Direction (Score:5, Insightful)
A bill that kills NASA entirely would be a better direction for space research and the United States.
Without NASA there would be virtually no space research in the United States, which is only "better" if you aren't in favor of space exploration to begin with. Nobody but NASA is going to launch missions like LISA, Cassini, Deep Impact, Mars Science Laboratory, etc etc. The only people on earth that are doing things like that are other governmental space agencies. Much like NSF, NASA serves a vital function of providing funding for projects that are infeasible for universities and unprofitable for private industry, with basic research that advances the state of knowledge and technology for the future.
The problem with NASA, the thing that makes it a political football, is the huge in-house rocket projects. The shuttle (and now derivatives) represent $billions/year all going to a single project and a small number of contractors. A giant target like that is tempting to get rid of, and nearly impossible for those profiting from it to let go of. Thus the political stalemate.
Yet all the interesting projects I mentioned, and all the technology programs that Obama wanted to have happen and which I pray to God won't be crippled by this compromise, are individually much cheaper. No single constituency has such a stake in them that they will fight tooth and nail to keep them, nor are they such tempting targets for cuts. They're more flexible, and also more broadly addressing the needs of future space exploration.
The shuttle-derived HLV, that does nothing but keep a contractor in business and let NASA have a rocket with its logo on the side, is the problem. Other than that, NASA is fine and does great work and saying it should be killed is the worst idea ever.
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Don't you understand? The moment you kill NASA, private industry will rise to the space research and exploration challenge and do a better job for less money!
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Yes, because there's so much profit to be made in sending probes to Saturnian moons...
Re:Wrong Direction (Score:4, Funny)
Caltech does just fine building MSL, without all that much help from NASA other than signing checks. You don't need NASA to give Caltech a grant.
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Yes, but all the reports I hear are that MBAs running the show is indeed happening. And folks with less qualification than MBAs in congress.
It needs to be run by scientists, and with independence.
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What, scientists don't have politics and all the bullshit that comes with it? How would scientists decide what projects to fund, towards what ends? You think just because someone is a professional in sciences that he or she is automatically altruistic? Good lord, some of these science peeps are the most condescending, lost-in-their-own-world, self-centered bastards imaginable!
Yeah, professional politicians suck. But I say, better the devil you k
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Signing the checks, providing mission direction, providing design support and reviews, keeping the budget in check, keeping the plans from growing too grandiose, providing contract support, coordinating launch and DSN services, etc... etc...
Caltech/JPL builds some damn fine hardware and runs some damn fine missions - but you're a fool if you believe that all NASA does is 'sign the checks'.
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A bill that kills NASA entirely would be a better direction for space research and the United States.
That's great. Instead of what we have now, which is some very successful robotic missions (to Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, space telescopes, the Sun, etc.), and a space station that's somewhat useful for microgravity research and research on the effects of weightlessness on humans over long periods, we get nothing, and rely on ESA and JAXA to do all our space science for us. Space research isn't going to happen
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Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't NASA design and build all the equipment necessary? Yes, I realize a lot of University professors analyze the data brought back by NASA, but getting that data requires physical probes, which must be designed and constructed by engineers and technicians.
Even if NASA outsourced a lot of its work (which it always has--the Apollo rocket engines were built by Rocketdyne, not by NASA, for instance), there still has to be a government agency in place there to coordinate pro
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No. They subcontract that.
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Well, today NASA to a great extent relies on Caltech to do the pure science programs for them. Mars Science Lab, etc. Why not cut out the middleman?
JPL is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center [wikipedia.org] (FFRDC) operated by Caltech, the only one NASA has. Other government agencies use the FFRDC approach to a greater extent, e.g. the DOE's national labs, and they tend to operate much more efficiently than government-operated centers. One of the really great recommendations of the 2004 Aldridge Commission [wikipedia.org] was to evolve the existing NASA Centers into the FFRDCs, although Congress put this idea in the grave pretty quickly as it tends to make pork much mo
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Our entire government needs to cut the pork out. Picking on only NASA isn't exactly fair, and they're hardly the worst offenders. Maintaining a space program is important for our political image on the international stage if nothing else; would you prefer that we going begging hat-in-hand to China for our next rockets? What are you going to do when one of our benevolent allies simply tells us no?
Space exploration is a noble goal, of course, and one that I fully support. Someday it will even be considered a
Congress (Score:2, Funny)
They should just mandate that NASA builds a space elevator by 2020 and be done with it...
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They should just mandate that NASA builds a space elevator by 2020 and be done with it...
Are you being sarcastic, or just delusional?
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Are you being sarcastic, or just delusional?
It's about as likely to happen as NASA getting a new heavy lifter off the ground by 2015; not that it matters since they have no use for it.
Re:Congress (Score:4, Funny)
Bad, bad mistake. (Score:5, Insightful)
What we've got here is the worst of both worlds, reducing the effectiveness of both robotic and manned spaceflight, with no meaningful budget to pay for either. Adding one more Shuttle flight won't bridge any gap whatsoever, but to get an alternative launch vehicle any time soon is going to require ploughing in ten times the resources that had been allocated to the task. The new capsule plus the extra shuttle launch will, however, bleed cash away from other projects, making them far less likely to yield useful results. Thus, what you get is a lot of money wasted with no possibility of return, all for the sake of helping out some poor rocket provider who is running out of death merchants to sell to.
This is worse than bailing out the banks. At least the government was honest enough to say that it was the banks they were giving the money to. It was dishonest about everything else, sure, but at least there was at least one bullet point you could claim was sincere. In this case, there is a clearly defined effort to obscure who is getting the money and why. Perhaps because nobody is going to believe that this rocket vendor is too big to fail.
NASA gets nothing from this compromise. Let us understand that right from the start. NASA will lose. The only way NASA can win is if they get sane objectives AND the backing to make those objectives possible. Almost anything could be made "sane", if it were clearly stated and adequately funded and was likely to remain adequately funded from start to finish and was not going to be tortured into oblivion for political reasons. (The Space Shuttle should have been twice as good as it was, and even the Russians had a better space shuttle, but it was crippled in order to serve the selfish desires of politicians who put their popularity over not only the space program itself but also over the lives of those who would put that program into action.)
Re:Bad, bad mistake. (Score:5, Insightful)
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But you have to learn to think like a Congress-person
Errr, maybe the word you are looking for is "bribe"?
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Well, that's the intrinsic downside of democracy. Your political leaders have an incentive to whore for votes in the next election, and virtually no incentive to do what's best for the country in the long term.
I suppose there's an argument in there for monarchy - a king isn't subject to the fickle whims of the electorate, and since his offspring are going to inherit his throne, he has some incentive to leave them a country that's in fairly decent order.
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Just wait till this same sensible decision making acumen of the political class is more powerfully governing our banking system, our health care system and our energy policy.
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The DoE has managed the energy policy for decades. Since the Federal Reserve is selected by Congress, they've run the banking system for forever. Since the FDA controls the supply of meds and the CDC controls the demand, they've also had control of the parts of the health care system that really matter.
At the end of the day, though, corrupt politicians can be replaced. Corrupt businessmen cannot. It is not the fault of the system that voters deliberately and knowingly keep picking corrupt politicians to rep
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Lets see...
DoE: You're right and they have managed it for decades... and what was their mission? Oh yeah.. oversee the end of U.S. dependence on foreign oil in the wake of OPEC embargo of the 70's. They've done a stunning job, so now we want to given them greater influence in energy policy and to do it with greater power and money than before. I'm only sure you want them to be as successful in their future as they have been in their past.
The Fed: Yes, to a large degree you're right there, too. They h
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There's nothing a corrupt businessman can do? Oh, so you get to pick which power stations power the grid in your area? Thought not. You get to pick which PBX exchange your phone line connects to? (There aren't nearly as many as there are phone companies.) You get to pick which reservoir the water in your tap comes from? You get to pick which manufacturer develops the components in your car? (The car manufacturer probably didn't.) Do you choose the Operating System your bank uses? (Indirect business that inv
Name for the new 75mT launcher (Score:2)
The Porklauncher.
Shuttle : No spare parts (Score:3, Informative)
I was told by people who work on the Shuttle that a decision to run another shuttle flight should have been made 1-2 years ago, that there are not enough spare parts to do this, and that this is basically throwing good money after bad.
Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
But discontinuing Aries/Constellation is a mistake. Any accommodation for a Mars mission for those craft should be dropped as premature and uneconomic. Orion should be limited in scope to earth/moon shuttle visits and no more - and the timeline appropriately accelerated. With just sliderules and pencils we went from Mercury to Apollo in fewer years than the Constellation program has taken to do next to nothing. We're stuck in a cycle of increasing the capabilities of the program in order to make it "sexy", and by the time it's approved it's much more costly to build and will take much longer to develop.
So task Aries/Constellation with a moon mission, and leave LEO to private industry or contracting with the Russians. Instead of spending $2 billion on another shuttle flight, give 10 space start-ups $200 million each, and a free hand - I guarantee that in the end we will have much more to show from it.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-38 [wikipedia.org]
Development was unceremoniously dropped in 2002 due to "budget cuts". All they needed was a shroud and a booster like they now use for the X-37B and there ya go, instant shuttle replacement. As for cargo, there's no reason to send up cargo on a man-rated craft. Need special handling in orbit? You have a crew already just hanging out in the ISS.
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Well, X-37B and X-38 seem to share a lot other than size, and the program's been in development all of that time.
SpaceDev's (now Sierra Nevada's) Dream Chaser is an upgraded version of the X-38 and planned to launch on an Atlas V, and is one of the top contenders for commercial access to LEO under the White House's plans for NASA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceDev_Dream_Chaser [wikipedia.org]
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/awst/2010/02/22/AW_02_22_2010_p53-204735.xml&headline=Sierra%20Nevada%20Building%20On%20NASA%20Design [aviationweek.com]
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Development was unceremoniously dropped in 2002 due to "budget cuts".
Right at the height of post-9/11 paranoia while the military budget was being expanded and the Unitary Executive (tm) gave themselves unprecedented powers? Yeah sure it was "dropped"... dropped right on Mars! Whoosh! With OUR heat-ray! [getalyric.com]
Ok, I can dream...
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Von Braun's body is a moulderin' in the ground and we aint got the moon no more.
Apollo was pretty well the payoff of continuing work from a growing group of experts since about 1940, a different group from those that worked on Mercury and they had the some groundwork for Apollo established before Mercury flew.
Aries/Constellation is surrounded by so much politics that i
Re:Too late (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately that 'prototype' shouldn't be called that. The Ares 1 was designed as a J-2X engine on top of a 5-segment SRB.
The Ares 1-X however was intended solely as a test of the aerodynamics of the launch vehicle. As such, none of the other components had to be anything like the final one. The first stage was merely a 4-segment SRB, the same type we use on the shuttle, with a dummy 5th segment. That may not sound like much, but changing the length of the engine chamber means they have to completely redesign the fuel grain and that won't be done till 2017ish. The second stage is still completely non-existant - the one on that launch is a dead mass. Even the control system is just one they stole from a Titan missile.
And all of that cost more than $500M. While I dislike bringing up SpaceX in this sense, because Falcon 9/Dragon is not as capable as Ares 1/Orion, this is comparable to all of the money that SpaceX has spent so far.
Sadly you've been fooled by a publicity stunt meant to convince people that a program that was way behind schedule and over budget was actually making progress.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the 'old stuff' is very expensive to maintain, is inherently dangerous and the only thing it's good for is barking around in LEO.
If you want NASA to push out of LEO, you need some better systems. If you had enough money, then sure, you could keep the Shuttle and start on the Shiny New Thing but we don't have enough money, so it was felt that it is better to cut your losses and start over. Keeping the Shuttle pieces parts going is mostly a make work project for a couple of Senators and their constituents. It has no scientific or engineering value.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, as has been discussed somewhere the Senators evidently were not around to hear, the Shuttle program is dead. It's been dead as a program for about five years. Production lines are closed, staff fired, supplier contracts ended. Anything beyond the one additional mission that parts exist for would be hugely expensive, as the production would need to be started up again from scratch. (Consequently, that last one won't have any rescue shuttle on standby.)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got a dumb question (Score:4, Interesting)
The crew returns to Earth via a reentry vehicle. Fill the vehicle with supplies, send it up there, and the crew comes back on a specialized reentry bus.
Re:I've got a dumb question (Score:4, Insightful)
A reasonable question. The shuttle is not the right design for that. It is expensive to build, is the wrong shape to stack well, and has lots of mass devoted to winged landing. It's also rated for about three weeks in orbit tops; beyond that it'll run out of many consumables and you'll have to start wondering if the tires will still hold air and suchlike.
But! If one had a design for an orbital habitat module suitably sized for launch on a cheap mass produced rocket - 20 tons to LEO is probably about right - and the capability to robotically assemble and supply them in orbit, one could in principle build an arbitrarily large modular orbital habitat. As big as budgets allow, anyway. The crew can ride up in different flights. And if one had an orbital fuel depot and robotic refueling capability, one could in principle push such a habitat somewhere beyond earth orbit.
Cool, huh?
That's the kind of capability NASA had been planning to develop before the senate fucked it up today.
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Well, if there's a time gap between when the shuttle retires and when its replacement arrives, you will want to keep some spare parts laying around. What if someone spots an big-ass asteroid hurtling our way? We will need something that can fly Bruce Willis up there and save the day.
I know you're joking, but FYI the US already has quite a few commercial launchers available which could send up Bruce Willis and Steve Buscemi to the incoming asteroid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_II [wikipedia.org]
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Funny)
Could we lie about the asteroid and shoot them into space now?
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Informative)
Atlas and Delta could be, with relatively minor changes.
United Launch Alliance evaluation (pdf) [ulalaunch.com]
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If you want NASA to push out of LEO, you need some better systems.
If we want to get out of LEO, then we need to make getting to LEO cheaper and easier, and develop technology that will let us go from there as a separate step. Lifting everything we need for a manned moon or (ha!) Mars mission from the surface of the earth one one giant rocket is foolish and will just mean the mission scope is cut down to the point of, well, pointlessness.
Keeping the Shuttle pieces parts going is mostly a make work project f
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I'd say that pretty much all manned spaceflight from NASA is dead. I'd be very, very surprised if they get anything completed at all, considering their mandate seems to change every time you turn around.
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It turns out that in business school classes on running defense contractors teach a fairly simple concept:
If your project isn't far enough along to survive cancellation when the power shifts in the white house, you fucked up.
Thus, NASA's problem isn't changing political whims, it's that the Constellation program was so far behind, overbudget, and mismanaged in 2009 that it got canned by the incoming administration.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the last manned spaceflight program to actually make it into orbit was started under the Johnson administration (the Space Shuttle), I would say that the established record for getting into space is pretty dismal indeed. Every single manned spaceflight vehicle that has ever been proposed since then (and in particular since the Nixon administration) has been systematically killed either the the subsequent or even current administrations involved. The question isn't why did this particular program (Constellation) die, but why did any succeed in the past at all?
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They just need to mount a gun on the next project and it will get all the approval it needs and never have to worry about funding cuts.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:5, Insightful)
True enough, but using the Shuttle (or parts thereof) doesn't appear to be the way to go. Nothing about the Shuttle is cheap or easy. Sure, take your lessons learned, improve on the technology that we've developed (the Shuttle engine is pretty impressive and seem to have the bugs worked out of it).
But as we've flogged to death on many a post here, the entire premise of the Space Shuttle was falsified from the beginning. Personally, I would be in favor of keeping it going as a servicer for the ISS until the next generation of craft is actually up and running. However, since (as has been pointed out), the production lines are dead AND the money isn't there, we have to scramble a bit for a decade or two. IMHO, for the foreseeable future, I'd stay in LEO and work out the nuts and bolts engineering of keeping people alive in space for extended periods of time. When you take six months to plan each space walk, you're not quite ready to venture out of the Van Allen belts.
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The largest problem with the Space Shuttle is that the era is now over anyway. No more will be built, the production line for external tanks and SRBs has been killed, and the tooling for even putting up another flight simply can't happen. It would cost almost as much as simply finishing the Constellation program now as it would to restart the Shuttle program again... including building a new shuttle or two to replace the Columbia. Ideally if the Shuttle program was to continue, it would need six to eight
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I would be in favor of keeping it going as a servicer for the ISS until the next generation of craft is actually up and running.
Soyuz is cheaper and safer. There's no scientific or engineering reason not to use it.
They've had a few close calls, but unlike the shuttle, the Soyuz capsule has modes of failure in which the cosmo/astronauts aboard do not die. Hell, a Soyuz rocket once exploded on the pad, and the astronauts aboard walked away from the incident with nothing more than minor injuries.
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The idiot just looked up the number of launches of "Soyuz" (without any scary additions to the name like "-U" or "-FG" for example) rocket, the first variant which was named like that (after the vehicle it started carrying back then) - really, all just R7 variants (though for the longest time also direct derivatives of the first Soyuz one)
What he did is especially ironic considering that the rocket flew over 1700 times, and according to ESA [esa.int] (for whom it is a very succesfull competition) is "the most reliabl
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Don't forget it also apparently keeps prices down on ICBM parts, because the DOD is so strapped for cash they need NASA to subsidize their equipment(?!)
Oh well. At least the pointless moon mission is dead. Hopefully this compromise doesn't cripple the actual useful and new projects that will expand our capabilities. And hey, maybe we'll actually find a good use for our HLV to LEO, and not just find arbitrary ways to justify its existence.
The Moon mission was dead a couple of years ago... it just took Congress this long to recognize that fact and a change in the presidency (or rather a new NASA administrator to wake up to the fact). Constellation, as it was proposed, was simply unsustainable and required federal spending on spaceflight to be proportional to what NASA got in the 1960's to get it to happen. There is no possible way that Congress would have ever forked out that kind of money for a sustained effort that would have lasted decad
left over parts (Score:5, Insightful)
The big caveat here is that there are enough parts sitting around for at least another 3 flights of shuttle hardware. We already paid for it to be built, so we should try to find a way to use it, and as cheaply as possible. Doing it cheaply means bolting on a payload with an engine instead of a shuttle.
The same budgetary things happened with Apollo. We had the hardware for Apollo 18, 19, and 20 ready to go, but funding got cut for them and that was that.
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That's fine and all, but the fact is that the STS systems are already developed and in production. New, better systems are only on the drawing board. It seems obvious that a sensible approach would be to use the existing systems (albeit in a new configuration) during a transition period until you're done designing and testing the new systems, and are able to transition to them.
The current idea, of simply abandoning the old STS systems and not replacing them with anything at all, and not having any capabil
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"That's fine and all, but the fact is that the STS systems are already developed and in production"
No, the STS systems are developed and were in production. It's no longer the case that they are in production. The launches remaining will be flown with parts on hand.
NASA was directed to close down the project several years ago and has faithfully executed its orders to do so. Now the supply chain is broken and scattered. (Staff fired, tooling scrapped, etc etc.) There is no reviving it without costs approachi
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Insightful)
"How do you propose sending humans into LEO, without Shuttle pieces? Your choices seem to be 1) don't do it, or 2) ask the Russians for help. Stupid."
Both points 1 and 2 are perfectly valid. The primary reason to send humans into LEO is to staff the INTERNATIONAL Space Station of which Russia is part. We actually have NO NEED to send humans into space. If we did then I suspect we would have spent the money to keep the capability. Many people have the desire to send humans into space. Very different.
The only thing I find incredibly stupid is spending money to be able to send humans into space for no apparent reason. We don't send humans into space for research or exploration. We send them for PR and justify it with science. We always have.
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If we wanted RAPID technology development, we'd skip passengers for a few decades and perfect remote-manned systems first. We would not be trapped by the glacial pace dictated by protecting politically valuable astronauts.
Back in The Day, men and wooden ships were literally expendable. Now, humans are too valued to risk, and robots are required for practical space exploitation in any event. Humans don't "explore" anything, they are along for the ride. We can leave them on Earth and greatly speed development
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Don't forget communication latency. Human-driven robots need to either be semi-autonomous or be slow. At its closest to Earth, you're looking at about six minutes of round-trip latency for Martian control.
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The Space Shuttle is the Edsel of the space industry. It looks cool, is real shiny, and when you really get down to brass tacks it sucks big time. The Edsel is the very definition of a lemon of a vehicle. The Space Shuttle is a spacecraft designed by committee, incredibly dangerous for its crew, and could have done a much better job had there not been so many compromises on its design that it couldn't really do any of the missions it was intended to accomplish. It was also a system drastically overbudge
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Yet, given the chance, I'd take a ride without a second thought.
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Which delivery system is proven? The space shuttle is expensive, slow, and unsafe. Solid rockets are good for cargo, but not for people. Can't we just buy rockets from the russians to launch our people up and use older technology for cargo?
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We could if the goal of NASA was to accomplish something. It's not. The goal of NASA is to steer contracts to campaign donors and to create jobs. That's why we're going to get a shuttle-derived program no matter what happens. Most likely it will end up like VentureStar or NASP - lots of money spent with nothing to show for it. But all that money is going somewhere.
Your tax dollars. Providing jobs for senators since 1788.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Informative)
oddly enough the shuttle has the same safety as soyuz with roughly 2% failure. Of course no one wants to actually say that. We have lost 2 shuttles, but have launched 2.5 times more shuttles/people than russia has 3 man capsules.
No a new smaller reusable capsule for personnel launches, and then a larger heavy lift rocket for equipment combined with a manned space station would be a far better option. Instead of launching the lab up with every launch.
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Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Insightful)
oddly enough the shuttle has the same safety as soyuz with roughly 2% failure. Of course no one wants to actually say that. We have lost 2 shuttles, but have launched 2.5 times more shuttles/people than russia has 3 man capsules.
One point that has to be made is that with the Shuttle its 'manned or no flight', while the Soyuz system is actually three different 'configurations' for different situations - the Soyuz manned capsule for launching three people into orbit plus a small payload, the Progress unmanned capsule for launching a medium payload into orbit and the Soyuz booster for launching other payloads.
Based on the above, I think the whole Soyuz/Shuttle record needs to be looked at from a different angle - as already noted, with the Shuttle the people are sent up regardless of whether the core mission requires it, and thats not a good situation.
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Right keep the system that cost us 14 lives and two expensive launch vehicles. Keep the system that never could do what is was originally advertised to do. It was a waste of money and resources that could have been better used for unmanned missions or even maned ones with better equipment and real goals.
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The main thing for which the the Shuttle is a "proven delivery system" is the transportation of breathtaking amounts of taxpayer money to a cabal of well-connected aerospace contractors.
Aside from that one feature, the design, capabilities and risk profile of the Shuttle launch system make almost zero sense.
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It seems as though our politicians keep changing things. I'm not really sure how I would feel as a NASA employee, or what to work on. Obama says, "Screw the moon, I'm setting up a 20 year project to go to Mars." A few years down the line the next president will say, "Screw Mars, I'm setting up a 20 year project to go to the moon." Meanwhile congress flip flops back and forth on all kinds of things.
We ought to just pick a few projects and STICK TO THEM
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Exactly. NASA is the Microsoft of government agencies. The engineers are capable of building great things, but any project worth doing is worth doing right, and any project worth doing right will probably take longer than the tenure of whatever politician or administrator sponsored it. When the new head honcho comes in, or the next election is held, the old administration's pet projects are put in a box and gassed.
Re:Help me with the timeline (Score:5, Informative)
Obama says, "Screw the moon, I'm setting up a 20 year project to go to Mars."
But that's not what he said. He said "I'm creating projects to develop technology that could enable a mission to Mars in 20 years", and that's a huge difference. He's talking about developing general technologies and capabilities that would be useful for a wide variety of missions outside of Mars, and if nobody wants to pull the trigger on the Mars mission in 20 years, we still have all the technology and capabilities. Mars was only mentioned to make the people who think we must have a specific mission happy (and it's not a bad policy to at least have a practical application in mind).
Whereas a definite "Mars in 20 years" would mean lots of development of tech designed for that mission and only that mission. 20 years to have enough technology in place that a Mars mission doesn't require that much specific development is a much more sensible, useful, and future-proof plan.
But hey, I guess having a giant expensive rocket that can't do anything rockets of 30 years ago couldn't do is nice too. :/
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He's talking about developing general technologies and capabilities that would be useful for a wide variety of missions outside of Mars, and if nobody wants to pull the trigger on the Mars mission in 20 years, we still have all the technology and capabilities.
I'd be happy just with 1985's Orbital Transfer Vehicle [astronautix.com].
Think you guys will have one of those built by 2030?
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I'm not really sure how I would feel as a NASA employee, or what to work on.
The same way you feel when you're the employee of a large company that keeps initiating and canceling projects and can't seem to figure out what direction it's headed in. You find a way to look busy, and continue to collect your check without working too hard, since you know anything you put any effort into will never see the light of day, anyway. Guess what NASA's employees are probably doing?
We ought to just pick a few projects and STICK TO THEM!
Well, you've convinced me - try telling it to the government.
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This however:
Also these projects could have a built in rule/law that the project could not be canceled until X number of years after started and only if it had missed 50% or more of its deadlines/milestones/goals during that time(allows cancellation for those money sapping unfeasible projects, but protects projects making progress).
I would support 100%. Other than hashing out the details I can't really think of anything to say to this except "I agree".
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You missed :
Aldrin : Strongly supports Obama's space plans.
Re:Help me with the timeline (Score:5, Informative)
Let me try, using your timeline as a base (feel free to modify/copy/reuse):
2003: Space Shuttle Columbia accident
2004: Bush announces Vision for Space Exploration [nasa.gov] for sustainable human presence on the Moon starting in 2020 as testbed for Mars exploration and expansion into the solar system, calls for shuttle retirement in 2010 and replacement crew capability in operation by 2014, calls for commercial cargo/crew to ISS and no new launch vehicles developed unless absolutely necessary, NASA solicits plans from industry for best ways to achieve these goals
2005: Sean O'Keefe resigns as NASA administrator, Bush appoints Michael Griffin and gives him free reign with NASA, Michael Griffin throws out industry studies and NASA releases ESAS study which has NASA design two rockets in-house instead of utilizing commercial rockets (The Ares I and V, coincidentally based on old designs Michael Griffin came up with), ostensibly because they're "safe, simple, and soon" compared to alternatives
2005-present: Ares I development slips in schedule a year for every year that it exists, costs balloon from a few billion dollars to tens of billions of dollars, 2020 lunar date becomes increasingly unachievable
2009: NASA and White House appoint Augustine Committee, consisting of best and brightest from aerospace and astronaut community, to evaluate Constellation's progress and come up with options for future of
human spaceflight at NASA; they release a report [nasa.gov] presenting a number of viable options for NASA's beyond-Earth exploration plans
February 2010: White House calls for boost to NASA's budget (but not as large as Augustine Committee presented) releases plan similar to Augustine Report's option 5B [spacepolicyonline.com], calling for investments in commercial crew and long-neglected space technology and cancellation of Ares I, delays building of heavy-lift launcher until 2015 since it won't be needed until then; a lot of congressmen in space states freak out
March-July 2010: lots of back and forth discussion and congressional hearings, Armstrong and Cernan come out against White House Plans, Buzz Aldrin comes out in favor; NASA scales back Ares/Constellation program without congressional approval, ostensibly to comply with termination liability laws
June-July 2010: NASA announces a bunch of new space technology initiatives (contingent on White House funding plans coming through), including new Centennial Challenge [nasa.gov] prize competitions (Nanosatellite launch, night rover, and sample return robot challenge) , revived NIAC to research experimental concepts, in-space technology demonstrations/missions utilizing in-space refueling, inflatable modules, electric propulsion, and inflatable reentry shields, all launched on existing commercial rockets
Today (July 15): Senate comes out with compromise bill, adding 1+ shuttle flight using existing equipment (no backup rescue shuttle if there's a problem, though); immediate development of 75mt shuttle-derived rocket quite similar to the one proposed by the DIRECT project [directlauncher.com], more commercial crew, robotic precursor mission, and space technology funding than 2010 but much less than Obama requested (over three years $1.6B vs. $3.3B for commercial crew, $244M vs. $1.33B exploration robotic precursor missions, $2.1B vs. $8B space technology development/missions); White House and Congress potentially both support the compromise, though
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Scaling back Constellation was not against congressional ban. What happened was that Bolden demanded that they take into account an accounting law that people had been ignoring, one that requires them to keep some cash on hand to help handle potential shutdowns.
This action was not against the law, but was in fact enforcing the law.
And how do the centennial challenges fit into this? $5 Million is pretty small compared to the questions around shuttle/Ares/CCDev.