Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget

Not sure exactly what the "heavy launcher" (Ares V or Jupiter?) means but I did notice that Ares I got the ax. Good riddance!

I did not seen anything at all about commercial crew transportation. Staying tuned...

It would be good to get independent confirmation of the story. The way the reporter refers to yearly budgets without mentioning they're yearly (ie the $3.5B Constellation Program) makes me somewhat skeptical, but it could just be poor wording on their part. It'll be interesting to hear any further details/corroborating stories as they come out.

~Jon

Could this possibly be Shuttle-C or some sort of Side mount heavy launcher?

A heavy launcher by 2018? I am not biting. With no identified source for this story, Andrew Lawler is spinning little more than rumors.

Hard to believe--but might have kernels of truth--I hope so! Look for Shelby and Co. to fight it UNLESS the HLV is the Sidemount or Direct and MSFC is assured the lead--which they should be. Also, MAYBE, it means keeping Shuttle alive for a few more years (maybe just one live Orbiter?) with a few more flights while workers are shifted over to the new Shuttle-derived work! ARES IS DEAD--LONG LIVE SHUTTLE! (Of course, notice there will be a huge emphasis on Earth science to "save" the Earth from Global Warming--but platitudes will carry the know-nothing public and it's a small price to pay to get on with reasonable exploration infrastructure development!) Hey, the Prez might be worth keeping after all---nahhhhhh!

One might assume that the HLV they're talking about is the Ares V-Lite suggested by the Augustine committee. That would be a capable vehicle, and was suggested by them specifically to obviate any need for an Ares I. Because it uses proven RS-68A's and simpler SRBs than Ares V, can presumably be developed before a full-up Ares V could be. If that's the case, MSFC has little to worry about.

As the reporter who broke the story of the birth of the VSE (in October 2003 in Spaceref) My hat's off to Andrew Lawyer for the scoop of the year (assuming, of course this is an accurate story, which, knowing Andrew, I am certain of). Kudos!

Sounds like a lunar version of the ISS.

But allowing the international community to develop a lunar lander and lunar base modules appears to be cheap and simple enough for them to do. Developing the Altair shouldn't cost more than $5 billion.

But what do you call such a lunar facility: The International Lunar Base?

Marcel F. Williams

For all those hoping for a Shuttle extension, I'm sorry to say you might see one added flight with a Russian rescue if needed. But that's it. The last SRB has been cast, the last tank is in work and parts vendors have been shut off for years now. It would take several billion and years to start the line up again. And as for a new vehicle from the ground up by 2018 for the bargain sum of an extra $1 billion a year? Keep dreaming. By the time contracts are put out for bid, awarded, and any real work starts it'll be 2012/2013, the Cape will be a ghost town, and the gap will have widened even more. I hope this report isn't true because if it is it is the end of the US manned space program for a decade to come.

you guys are dreaming; this is stay the course with a gratuitous donation for new work

Thank God they came to a quick decision. If Obama gets re-elected (and the odds are, he will), then we have nearly 8 years to make progress down this path before a new Administration. That ought to be enough to keep it going - e.g. Missile Defense after Reagan, Space Station and even Apollo. Congrats to Andrew for a job well done!

I find this very hard to believe a misted all the deficit talk in Washington . This was Obama patting Bolden on the head " there you go little buddy do something with this" lip service nothing more..

"But what do you call such a lunar facility: The International Lunar Base?"

What else but "Moonbase Alpha"? Especially if the horizontal lander concept is used instead of 'Altair-Classic'. ;)

Seriously, there are no great surprises to those in the internet spaceflight community in this report but it is good to have the very clear noises that have been made confirmed. I am not surprised by the relative lack of detail of the identity of the new HLV. That probably will be decided internally at NASA and may not even have been decided yet. As this story appears to be a leak direct from the White House, technical detail like that might not have been available to Mr. Lawler's source

From the term 'simpler HLV', I am going to take a risk and say that this is either going to be the SD-HLLV or an inline like the DIRECT Jupiter-24x. The Rat is correct to point out that starting 'from scratch' with the 10m-diameter of the Ares-V-Lite or Ares-V-RP1 would be a 'long gap' measure. Using the existing 8.4m-diameter tooling will save a lot of time and effort.

However, I do believe that The Rat is being either overly pessimistic or unnecessarily dramatic when he talks about Cape Canaveral becoming 'a ghost town' by 2012. Remember that ULA will still be busy at LC-37 and -41 with the EELVs. Additionally, all going well, SpaceX operations at LC-40 will be well underway.

The big activity at LC-39 would be the construction of the FSS towers for the new HLV and refitting the VAB for the new vehicle. It is possible that only one pad may be constructed initially, depending on the flight rate required for the moonbase program. My guess? If the new HLV is a D-SDLV (8.4m core, SSME engines), then the first test flight might be as early as 2013/14.

I wouldn't worry too much about Shelby. If they are going to build a moonbase, then MSFC and JSC will be hard at work with designing the base modules. I'd be more worried about the delegation from Utah. ATK are not going to get to be crewed rocket stage builders after all.

I agree with Ben the Brit, ATK is the biggest loser in this deal. Sorry, Charlie Precourt! Sorry, Doc Horowitz! and especially... Sorry Mike Griffin! You guys are to blame for this debacle! Live with that!

Not too worried about ATK, though. They are the best in the solid motor business, by far. They will do fine with their niche market - First Stage Booster for liquid fueled rocket... Just like Delta 2 with the GEM-40&46 and the big ones, the GEM-60s for Delta 4.

Perhaps, they can find a way to strap Shuttle SRBs on the new vehicle, to give it an extra kick...

For those wishing Ares I to die, you may end up with an automated capsule on a Falcon vehicle with no crew control. And that likely would not support a trip to the moon or beyond so then we'll need money for another vehicle.

If indeed this is an 'international' moon base that Obama is hinting at, then it will take years to get off the ground.

It will probably take a full year just to get all the players involved to agree to play. It will take another year to get commitments of money from other governments, and once the dust settles on that, then one can begin to formulate what a moon base will cost, the architecture to get there, land, etc. etc. etc. Then there will re negotiations over the cost each partner has to bear, then alternations of the architecture to accommodate the results of negotiations and budget limitations, then Congress will get fed up with NASA over runs, and put the thing to a vote, which will create more turmoil in the program. Sound familiar?

This will be much more complicated than the ISS, which was hatched in 1984, and 25 years later isn't complete.

Oh, and I think it is a great idea for a moon base to be an international collaboration. Whatever benefits can be derived by such exploration will benefit everyone, so why not have everyone contribute.

All of you are assuming too much on the part of international partners. Any mention of establishing a moon base or even developing a lander to get to the surface is merely an attempt to placate the lunar enthusiasts, nothing more. The U.S. focus will be on Flexpath missions with what I'm sure will become heavy international involvement with telerobots and unmanned lander/ascent systems. No one is going to see humans clomping around on the lunar surface anytime soon.

Whatever the faults, real or imagined, of Ares-1 it seems risky to terminate it (and delay Orion, since there won't be a launcher available to flight test it before a HLV 'lite' is ready ... small missing detail) in exchange for a yet-to-be-qualified Falcon/Dragon and a conceptual HLV. One bilion per year sounds like a lot of money, but much of it will go into new Earth observing satellites and subsidizing private programs (as soon as they hit likely cost overruns and delays).

We'll be lucky if Dragon/Falcon is even flight-certified in 2018, and just in time to support operations to ISS as it rapidly nears the end of its design life (many of its critical components will have been already 20 years in space by 2020 ... yet another small detail being overlooked).

I've just made up my mind for the November 2010 mid term elections.

Just recently, Toyota pitched their advanced robots to JAXA as means to establish a robotic moonbase by 2020.

Some real technological convergence could come out of this.

Ding dong the Stick is dead!
The Stick is dead!
Ding Dong' the merry-oh,
Sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know:
The Wicked Stick is dead! :-)

Where that new billon's going to depends on how the 2011 appropriations will be written. I suppose there's such a thing out there as unencumbered federal money, but I haven't seen it in the NASA budgets. For what it's worth, neither party has been all that awesome for NASA, as far as I can tell.

Caution: all of this information has been given out by unnamed officials. Assuming that the information is basically correct, it is a strong indication that the Administration is actually listening to the Augustine Commission. Even though they did not make specific recommendations, they did state the hard facts. Of their points made in September's initial release, the following have now shown up in the current leaks:

- Multiple Destinations - (flexible path).
- Need for a simpler heavy lift vehicle.
- Insufficient funds for the Ares I program
- Multinational participation with the US as a "more equal partner" in developing critical pieces of transportation hardware.
- Mars as one of the ultimate destinations.
- Earth to Orbit cargo using commercial transport

The new plan has many implications which have not yet been clarified, such as:

- Will Earth to Orbit Crew transport be included.
- Which HLV version will be selected?
- How much can it carry and what is the payload cost/pound to LEO?
- Can we afford enough HLV launches per year to sustain full development of a lunar base?
- Will propellant depots and commercial propellant delivery to them be incuded as critical components to a transport SYSTEM?
- Will they launch the Orion with the new HLV?
- Will weight limits on the Orion capsule be relaxed to allow more re-usability?
- Will the lunar landers be re-usable?

Most or all of the current HLV designs have adequate payload capacity for a lunar program. The capacity is more than adequate for a lunar program if we get depots.

We probably will need an HLV with more than 100 tons to LEO for a re-usable Mars lander, but given the current trends, this is at least 20 years in the future, and a private re-usable HLV will probably be available by then.

Hopefully a compromise can soon be reached with the NASA centers and their political supporters to allow continued work on shuttle-based components for the HLV.

In the very big picture there were three possible outcomes. Less budget, about the same budget, or increased budget.

We can wonder about the details and wish the increase was greater, but we've dodged the two worst outcomes - less money or the same money - either of which would be vary bad news for HSF and especially HSF beyond LEO.

Well, for a measly $1M per annum budget increase we're limited to the in-house sidemount SD-HLV or the (out!)house DIRECT LV family concept which, of all the designs, has both the most flexible and upgradeable of all the "Paper" LV designs. Let's hope Bolden is smart enough to bite the bullet and adopt this excellent design: and GETTING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD within the original timeframe by the by! It's a pity they've already chewed up LC39B to accommodate ARES 1-X...

Based on our leadership making this move, things are going to soon change and get crazy for a while. I hope most are ready for a change.

Someone is going to start suggesting based on this new move to a new heavy lift vehicle, that we use the best of the Direct Approach with the best of the Side-Mount Approach, i.e., a side-mounted canister holding the main engines and payload and a redesigned tank top to support the Orion or a commercial/military/foreign satellite.

You'd only use a commercial/military/foreign satellite option when lifting a small amount of cargo to LEO only to subsidize the cost of getting the side-mounted cargo to the ISS or whatever other need they have in LEO, like fuel for a fuel depot perhaps.

Having an overabundance of relatively cheap dual-purpose lift capability makes NASA's proven launch system very attractive to commercial, military, and even foreign space interests. It puts NASA in a commercial type embrace that helps tremendously in their constant need for space funding from the government or whomever else willing to help pay for their launches. This way they don't have to wait until the ISS or whatever else they have in LEO to all of a sudden need 250K lbs of cargo each time a heavy lift vehicle blasts off into space.

Although nothing is as simple as that because of the orbit inclination issue, it stands to reason that if it exists, people will come and use it.

The navigation instruments used on shuttle re-entry can be dummy-stubbed-out and the flight computers and other flight-related instruments can be part of the payload to orbit and later returned on a returnable flight to save money like the Russians do.

In short, based on the pending decision announcement, NASA is now sitting on a gold mine.

Whatever we get is better than we currently have. The current architecture is more expensive and less safe than the current Shuttle. There are so many things wrong with Ares I that there is no way it will succeed. Even if it were to fly before 2020 (which is doubtful given it has taken 5 years to get to PDR), the flight rate could never exceed one every year or two due to launch tower damage from the fly-away maneuver required to avoid contact with the tower. This is good news for NASA. If it weren't for Senator Shelby and his budget clause that prevents changes to the Constellation architecture in 2010, we could get on with putting NASA back on course to success instead of guaranteed failure. Unfortunately, we have to wait until 2011.

My understanding is that the 2010 budget requires approval by Congress for any changes to the Constellation Program, including terminations. Unfortunately, that means that a large chunk of the 2010 money might just get wasted on doomed programs.

I still think Obama hasn't been moving quickly enough. While it's not good to rush too much, I think it would have been better to come out with something before the 2010 budget got passed, and another year got wasted.

At the very least, cancellation of Ares I could have been announced a long time ago. Cancellation has looked inevitable for months, so it would have been better to end it quickly, before it got more money, and before supporters had time to circle the wagons.

The 2018 launch date is going to be a tough sell, since that's later than even pessimistic estimates I've seen for Ares I, though it gets you heavy lift before Ares V would have been ready. From what I've read, it seems like it shouldn't take that long, though.

All this sets up a confrontation with Congress over changes, which threatens to waste more time. Not only do you have Ares supporters to deal with, but also Pelosi's lack of enthusiasm.

I'm definitely glad to see movement, though. I didn't think the Obama-Bolden meeting would even happen this year, so that's good.

Hummmm, "fly-away maneuver" damaged the tower and would limit launch rate to one or two a year? You're kidding right? Assuming that you're talking about Ares 1-X, the damage on lift off was not to the "tower" it was to some of the systems mounted at the pad. Those particular systems will not be in place when they go back to the "clean pad" concept utilizing umbilical towers and systems mounted on mobile launchers. NASA had excellent results and launch rates when the Saturn V (with more thrust and acoustic energy than an Ares vehicle) was flying from these pads. The limit to their launch rate was the amount of money available. I think that it is safe to assume that the Ares launch rate will be limited by funding (or program termination) and not pad damage.

Mike, you don't understand. The current drift curve for Ares I, albeit worse case that will probably never happen, has a hard interference with the new ML tower. The Ares I will be required to perform a "fly-away maneuver" to prevent contact with the umbilical tower. This maneuver means the SRB exhaust will gimbal towards the tower in order to push the vehicle away from the tower. This will cause major damage to the systems on the tower. The tower on the ML will be closer to Ares I than the existing FSS was for Ares I-X. We are designing systems to 4 psi blast pressure because that is all that can be reasonably accomplished. The predicted loads are two to three times that but it is impractical to design to the predicted load. There are many who feel we will be rebuilding the systems on the tower every launch. But there's nothing you can do about it, the vehicle is what it is. Current allowable winds for liftoff are only 60% of allowables for Shuttle, Ares I may never get to launch due to weather even if it is built.

Sorry "possum" I do understand. The Saturn V performed a similar fly away maneuver from its LUT (and it was closer to the LUT just as the real Ares 1 will be) and it didn't limit the launch rate. If YOU are indeed designing a system that can't handle the pressure from the statistically prevalent scenarios then you're not using sound engineering priciples for the system.

Yes the damage was "substantial", two elevators, communications systems, hypergol servicing, etc. BUT these were designed for Shuttle not Ares and since the next Ares launch, with a new LUT, is years away (if at all) then there is plenty of time to take the results of this test flight and incorporate into the new LUT already being built but not yet outfitted with the final systems.

Back to my point, I object to your off hand assertion that the blast pressure damage will limit the launch rate to one or two per year when the hisory of a more energetic system (Saturn V) similarly close to a LUT shows that sound engineering prevents your scenario. I notice that you now try to buttress your contention by bringing out the other constraints to launch. Yes, those limit the launch rate but we're talking of LUT systems damage. Good luck with your continued campaign against Ares.