House Science Committee Passes SLS/Orion/Webb Immortality Bill
House Committee Approves Bill To Shield Big NASA Programs from Cancellation, Space News
“The House Science Committee on Dec. 11 approved a bill that would require NASA to obtain legislative permission to cancel some of its most expensive human spaceflight and science programs, while at the same time allowing contractors for these programs to tap into hundreds of millions of dollars in reserve funding. The bill, H.R. 3625, was introduced Dec. 2 by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), whose district includes the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.”
House Committee Approves Bill Requiring Congressional Approval Before Terminating JWST, ISS, SLS or Orion, Space Policy Online
“The markup lasted less than 10 minutes and the amendment and bill were adopted by voice vote. … Another change made by the amendment replaces language that would have voided existing contract provisions that provide for payment of termination liability costs in a manner inconsistent with the bill. The new language simply states that funds being held in reserve for termination liability “shall be promptly used” for executing the program. The bill also makes clear that it is the intent of Congress to authorize appropriations to cover termination liability if, in fact, Congress agrees that the Administration should terminate a contract and that it is the Administration’s responsibility to spend such funds for that purpose.”
Turning SLS and Orion into Entitlements (Update: Webb Too), earlier post
“If passed into law, H.R. 3625 would make it exceptionally difficult to ever halt SLS, Orion, or Webb or to adjust funds internally by treating them in a way that is utterly different than other NASA programs. Indeed it would make these programs into Zombies that can never be killed. I have to wonder what CBO will say when it scores this bill and what the Budget Committee might have to say. This bill sets a precedent that could spread across the government.”
TUESDAY, December 10 WEDNESDAY December 11
2:00 p.m. Full Committee Markup Will Resume
H.R. 3625, “To provide for termination liability costs for certain National Aeronautics and Space Administration projects, and for other purposes” 2318 Rayburn House Office Building
This bill must be stopped along with the archic SLS before any more money is wasted on it.
Only if the JWST is killed too. SMD has zero moral authority to preach that SLS should be killed.
Yes JWST is a programmatic debacle, but it is not comparable to SLS. Show me a private company where I can buy space telescope services. With SLS, I can name several companies where I can buy launch services.
Not of the mass or diameter of the SLS’s launch capability. No one will have that. Even Falcon Heavy won’t close. And before you start going on about funded cargo, exactly how much of what the Space Shuttle lofted was fully funded at this point in it’s relative development? Essentially nothing. It was all just ideas.
And exactly how many scientists are going to directly benefit from the JWST? A few hundred maybe? Important science to be sure, but let’s be perfectly clear: the JWST is a very narrow science program. It will last about five years and be best-in-class at exactly one thing: mid and near IR… that’s it.
The SLS, at it’s great cost, at least opens doors. ATLAST will fly on it. Outer solar system probes in the 2030s will fly on it. Maybe WFIRST will fly on it. And the DoD is looking for uses. The net result: the SLS gets built, and as a big dumb rocket, it opens many potential avenues for large mass or large diameter payloads. The Space Shuttle made certain types of missions and projects entirely possible. SLS does the same.
The JWST? Well none of it’s technology will ever be used again. It’s a one off with a five year life span. When it runs out of fuel, it’s successor, a completely different animal, will be similarly narrow.
It seems pretty self evident which one is the better investment: the one that add’s capability. That isn’t the JWST.
I’ll take a crack at this. Fairing sizes of Falcon Heavy and SLS are the same 5 meter class. Lengths are the same 10 meter class not considering aerodynamic cones. As I and others have mentioned, the alternative is that you lift humans always separate from payload. Lift astronauts with a Falcon 9 or Delta IV to LEO. The near Earth-Moon missions that NASA can afford in the next 10 years can be designed around Falcon Heavy. By the time NASA is needing a super heavy lift either Musk will have Falcon X & XX ready or a competitor will have the right stuff.
It was a bunch of (more or less) rogue engineers that came up with DIRECT 2.0, 3.0 that was pushed as a better alternative to Constellation. Their design was adopted and became SLS.
The biggest reason why SLS fails so miserably in comparison to Falcon Heavy is that SLS is being man-rated. NASA NPRs defining requirements to man-rate hardware, software – a whole system are daunting. The details in requirements, design, V&V, I&T raises the cost of development by a factor 2 – a reasonable guess. SLS should have never been designed to carry humans, only payload. If that had happened we would not be here on NASA Watch so concerned about SLS or NASA budget.
As others said, JWST has no commercial alternative. It is needed but it will also have a lifetime much longer than 5 years if all goes well. Robotic cost overruns pale in comparison to HEOMD projects.
Just a point of order – there are several significant differences between SLS and all the permutations of DIRECT. The most notable to me is the separate ‘third stage’ that is the CPS. Generally, the SLS avoids all the potentially cost-saving elements of the DIRECT concept.
It is ridiculous to state that JWST will only benefit ‘a few hundred scientists’. As the successor to HST, the images captured will benefit (and inspire) people around the world.
The HST is the greatest singular achievement of the Shuttle program. It has had the biggest impact of any science program since the dawn of the Space Age. JWST may not have the same impact, but I would wager it will be infinitely more significant than a soon-to-be-cancelled porkfest rocket with no mission, no payloads and no purpose other than as a massive jobs program.
Your assertion about shuttle payloads is not supported. Go back and look at what payloads were launched by shuttle both before and after Challenger. Which were launched due to edict, and which were launched due to availability? Which payloads came into being solely to support the program itself. ISS was always wanted and planned to happen. Shuttle was uniquely suited for that purpose. But, making the leap to claim that “if we build it, the payloads will come” is a huge mistake. Huge. JWST will benefit mankind and our understanding of the universe the way Hubble does. It should have been cancelled long ago before it ever got to this point, but IMHO now I personally couldn’t stomach not finishing it and getting it up there into space.
SLS does not open any doors that could not be opened by other launchers or growth versions of existing launchers. Your premise displays one huge, glaring, failure in logic: if it is too expensive to ever fly, the capability means nothing. You need to understand that there is a cost to simply own the capability regardless of whether it ever flies, and a cost to fly individual missions. At a low flight rate, the production and operations lines and the cost per couple of missions per year are exhorbitant. I’ve seen figures in the $1 billion to $2 billion per launch range. If you include the costs to develop this rocket, it is positively, literally, physically sickening. Because we can do so much better.
Well a few things.
First I’ll say, as a scientist, the science of the JWST – nothing it produces – will be worth $8.9 billion. I look at the ESA’s observatory manifest… the destinations we could have gone to with that money, and I see a one off, serviceable program with a very narrow scope denying us more what… Mars? Outer Solar System? WFIRST? It’s unjustifiable for something that is a technology dead end.
On the topic of the SLS though, I’m on board with it being wasteful as a man rated launcher. Don’t get me wrong… in that regard Falcon is superior, or heck man rate Delta IV and put Orion on top like the mission next year if it is so important to have Orion. But man-rating the thing is the reality that we have. Small price to pay for the added capability.
The 5m Payload fairing is only for Block I and Block IA, not for Block II. And as for your sanguine outlook for Falcon Heavy evolution late next decade… hey I hope it happens, but we’ll see if it does. The problem with DIRECT isn’t so much that when it was adopted and became in a great many ways SLS, many of the costs savings were dropped. It was that ownership of DIRECT was dropped. And by ownership I mean, about five or six years ago in the heyday of Constellation, there was not topic on the subject of Ares I/V that didnt have an army of individuals touting how DIRECT was just so much superior in every conceivable way and Ares was nothing but pork, specifically to keep ATK in business.
Well here we are. Where are the DIRECT acolytes? If they’re anywhere, they’re saying Falcon is just so much superior in every conceivable way and now SLS is nothing but pork, specifically to keep the traditional contractors in business.
To me, that’s pretty ridiculous. Space-related technology and capability development by it’s nature has a very long lead in time. It’s not like my field, software, where things can be turned on their head in months. You need to build fabrication facilities, and pass layers and layers of design review, and build countless test articles. It’s long and expensive, as we all know. The folks who pushed DIRECT had a responsibility stick by SLS, in my view, because SLS is effectively the practical implimentation of their idea. Sure… some things are very different like the upper stage and various engines… but the word for that is “compromise”. But those folks are no where to be found, and they justify it, when this was brought up before, because today we have Dragon and SpaceX. Considering the lead in time required for SLS / DIRECT, in my view, that’s extraordinarily irresponsible. That’s like saying (in the late 1990s) your favorite Basketball team was the Bulls, then a couple years later the Lakers, then a few years after that the Heat. Facile comparison maybe, but it is irresponsible to hawk something then abandon it before it ever truly gets developed.
My position is simple: I’m old enough to remember X-33/VentureStar, OSP, Constellation, and whatever else I missed in there. Fifteen years of talking and arguing and the closest the United States has come to launching something new in space sadly, was Ares I-X… and that wasn’t even really new. If we abandon SLS for Falcon, how long will it be before the same vioices push for abandoning Falcon for something else, maybe a further developed DreamChaser or something like it? We seem to have developed the capability to argue and debate forever while losing the ability to put new rockets on launch pads. At what point do people lose an argument? At what point does someone with authority say “the decision is made, end of story”. In my opinion, with the SLS, that point is now.
It has to stop. The argument is years past “unhealthy” and needs to end. So I’m sticking with the SLS as an idea as well as a project that expands capability from a practical standpoint. If that ruffles a lot of feathers and leads to funding shortages for other things for a few years (including SMD programs)… that’s completely fine with me. It wouldn’t be the first time a government megaproject did that. If it launches humans a few times… big deal. I look at it, and I see the vehicle that will launch ATLAST, that will launch a direct Flagship mission to Uranus in the 2030s, that will build a possible ISS successor (or Gateway station), and who knows maybe one day Europa Sample-Return. If Falcon can do 130,000kg to LEO in 2030, wonderful! Tell me, how many launchers available to the US can do 20,000k+ to LEO today? 3 or 4? Let SLS be the Delta IV for Super-heavy lift and Falcon be the Atlas V in that case. Once we have SLS Block II, we’ll never have to develop super heavy lift from scratch ever again just as EELVs gave this country permanent 20k+ kg capability that survived the Space Shuttle.
It’s simply time to pick a winner and stick with it. Or before long Ares I-Xs, or Orion EFT-1s, or building J-2Xs and throwing them into storage is going to be what constitutes our space program as we watch our competitors pick a direction and stick with it.
It is true that X-33 and OSP and Ares all failed. So did Shuttle II and ASRM and ALS/NLS/Spacelifter before them. But Delta IV and Atlas V did not fail. Falcon 9 did not fail. Antares did not fail. What is in common? They were all INDUSTRY-LED programs. X-33 was the only industry-led failure… the rest were all NASA-run classical projects. There’s a lesson there. Make industry step up and put cash in, and let them succeed or fail. The results will be more sustainable than what we have now.
James; I beg to differ on ASRM It was cancelled because the Thiokol gang in Utah coerced it to be derailed. They played politics behind closed doors to kill it. Aerojet was in the midst of setting up a facility and building test articles for initial acceptance tests when the contract was cancelled. Thiokol knew their days were numbered and they couldn’t afford to lose the SRB contract with NASA.
Jonathan wrote: “The folks who pushed DIRECT had a responsibility stick by SLS, in my view, because SLS is effectively the practical implimentation of their idea. “
Then your view is incorrect. The direct people wanted to continue the exact same production lines for the SRB’s and external tank. No new development of fuel grain sysmetry, extended it to five instead of four. SLS is a new bird and may share the look of the old shuttle stack, but a totally new COST PLUS, FIXED FEE, no bid development program. That is where the money is. ENDLESS development. The SLS is not or never has been about fielding a new launch system,. The porkonauts in congress could care less. When SLS collapses, just start a new one with a new name.
Vlad, I agree with you except when the time comes and the congress that could care less would replace SLS with another pork barrel NASA project, commercial options will be too clear and pressure too great to permit them to do it again. Now, it is possible that they could start another pork barrel project in the manned program that is not a great new launch vehicle. I hope that does not happen, too. Manned flight needs to be planned along the lines of NSF decadal surveys and advisories that guide SMD.
I agree, as I stated before .. the nails are laying on the coffin lid and are ready to be pounded in. Once domestic commercial crew, cargo and destinitation are in place, 2015-17 .. it will no longer matter.
The pork premium will be stripped from NASA’s budget and they will fiy commercial and that pork will move to something new .. highspeed rail, a new defense development contract .. etc…
Good arguments but the weakness is in the question you raise, “If we abandon SLS for Falcon, how long will it be before the same voices push for abandoning Falcon for something else,” If it was just NASA development without any outside choices, this would be true. But call it paradigm shift, disruptive technology but there is now an outside source for heavy lift and even super heavy lift – sooner and cheaper than SLS. It is not reasonable to say enough is enough and stick with SLS.
It is also hard to justify now the expendable Orion capsule in light of reusable Dragon and CST-100.
This bill must be stopped. I sincerely hope that AGU Conference attendees are aware of H.R. 3625 and planning to speak out against this. This is not a Termination Liability Bill. It is really a bill trying to save votes and re-election of congressmen by forcing the completion of SLS and Orion. Planetary Science and advocacy groups need to speak out. NASA Planetary Science, all of the agency will $Billions and it will dismantle decadal plans, ongoing research and careers for lack of funds.
As Gary W states, SLS is archaic. NASA has stated that the cost of one SLS launch is estimated presently at $500M to $600M. In contrast, a Falcon Heavy (53 metric ton payload lift vs 70 mT SLS) has a projected cost of $130M. Compare lift capability and cost – do the math. The proposed near-Earth missions beyond LEO are concepts and can be designed to use a manned Falcon 9 or Delta IV to LEO, docking with hardware for the mission lifted by a Falcon Heavy. When NASA is ready for a Saturn class (super heavy lift), SpaceX will be prepared to supply Falcon X(XX). And competitors will eventually match SpaceX cost & performance.
This is a hard choice to make. Constellation was halted and now we must accept halting SLS and Orion. Commercial space enterprise has overtaken the stop-start-underfund-micromanagement of Constellation/SLS/Orion. SpaceX is undercutting pricing of all competitors. And it will fly 3 Falcon Heavys in the time it takes to fly the first SLS. SLS will cost NASA and SMD a fortune to be maintained for a single flight once a year or two years.
AGU is in San Francisco across from Berkeley. Take a big breath of activism, organize, get a backbone and do something to stop a bill that will damage not just HEOMD but also Planetary Science for a decade and more.
“House Committee Approves H.R. 3625”. It was amended to include JWST. This added support of Maryland rep on the committee – Donna Edwards (district near GSFC). Given this amendment, I would suspect Senator Mikulski is likely to back this as well as Nelson (FL), Shelby (AL) and Cruz(TX). Spacenews.com article quotes Lori Garver, “The ability to cancel a program for convenience is essential to protecting the government against runaway cost increases in big development programs”.
Attached is the schedule of Constellation, DIRECT 3.0 and now SLS today (preliminary). Look at the dwindling scheduled launches. The estimated cost of a SLS launch has gone from $340M (based on $4815/kg initial cost estimate) to $500M to $600M (Gerstenmaier, Nov 12, 2013)($7900/kg). A Falcon Heavy has a listed price of $130M ($2500/kg). DIRECT was a good alternative to Ares but what has happened to it as it morphed into SLS?
So now, the cost and tax conscious minded senators and house representatives want to force the completion of SLS. I see little hope that SLS will be halted before first launch but time has over-taken SLS. Commercial Crew wasn’t a factor yet when the son of DIRECT was chosen to meet the mandate by Nelson-Shelby-Hutchison – creating SLS. Now crew will be lifted to LEO by commercial. Commercial in the form of SpaceX will have launched 3 Falcon Heavy lifters by the time SLS launches once. The manned excursions beyond LEO can still be designed to use the emerging commercial vehicles.
SLS/Orion/JWST is why we cannot have nice things.
Sorta. If you look at the entire budget you soon realize that America is an incredibly rich country suffering from very poor management. We have the funds to improve our lives in so many ways beyond a rich space program: highways, rail systems, airports, universal health care. We have the money to spend on ourselves but we insist on stunningly dumb policies.
The reasoning for this bill seems to be rather transparent. Some of the less dim-witted congress-critters and their staffs have realized that the “wolf” – the Reusable Rocket Revolution – is right on their doorstep – about to change the world – in 2014. The Falcon Rocket family will soon be flying payloads for as low as $500 a pound, while the lowest estimates for the SLS are $5000 a pound, and the Falcon prices will continue to drop. The media will soon notice this vast price difference. As a result the Space-Industrial Complex is trying once again to lock in the most outrageous pork project ever foisted on NASA. The President should VETO such a bill and should announce he will not sign a bill to fund NASA with such provisions in it. Let the Congress risk killing all NASA funding if they dare. Commercial space will continue anyway.
The Presidential Veto is one option, good thinking; but it would have to be presented carefully and forcefully at the same time, because it is also carrying a recent history of abuse — Bush II, as I recall, set a record for the most Vetos, by far, by any President. So, I think Obama would have to use it with apparent reluctance, implying that he had no other choice in a sane world.
Huh? Bush II had the record for LEAST vetos, not most– no bills vetoed in his first term. His second term he did more, with 12, but that still puts him a bit under the presidential average.
Thanks Geoff. Kick me twice for being lazy and not checking my facts. I incorrectly recalled the statement from a news article. It was actually his father (with 44 total vetos) who had the most vetos “in recent history.”
I still see the veto as a last resort that should be used very carefully so that it doesn’t become a common occurrence. Using it a lot I would see as a blow to the democratic process, even when that process is not working at its best.
It sounds more like a golden parachute to me. Step one in cancellation. Whatever you might think of elected officials, they are not stupid.
Even if there were no alternatives available or coming available for SLS, it would still be ridiculous to pass this bill given what everybody knows about how aerospace contractors have long treated cost-plus contracts, and similarly protected programs. SLS/Orion will become the money bag that everyone reacches into. They’ll have a set of charge codes that are basically “Miscellaneous” and everything that can possibly be charged to those codes, no matter how distantly related to HSF, will be charged to them. We’ve seen it time and again before and I can’t think of anything that will keep it from happening again, big time. I can already envision the contractors rubbing their hands.
So what will be done to stop this bill?? Who are the people that can stop it??? And how long do they have to ACT???? And how can the average Joe help???
Realistically, it might not be stoppable. SMD might be placated with a couple million extra here and there. OMB, NASA, Whitehouse might just accept this and kick the can down the road. In 2016, the elections could change the political landscape and permit effectively repealing HR 3625 and terminating SLS and Orion. That is the state of affairs in DC which includes NASA HQ. Lets hope something better is done than this!!!
So much for pubic Space being the solution.
DTARS:
It was only a committee vote. It ain’t a done deal yet. Since this Congress has the prize for the ‘least productive’ session on record, there is hope yet!
tinker
I am so tired of these people that want to hand over our nation’s space program to Elon Musk.
I’m tired of the only answer for any space program related issue being “SpaceX this, Falcon9 that”
I don’t want NASA to become dependent on SpaceX or any commercial provider for getting the nation’s Astronauts into space.
Yes – SpaceX is not the magic saviour of everything, they are a company like any other. Dependence on any sole source service vendor is insane – just look at what has happened to EELV pricing.
However, NASA is dependent on Roscosmos right now for getting Astronauts into space – thats much worse.
So what should be encouraged is more domestic competition, more vendors ( Where is Blue Origin ? DreamChaser ? Where is ATK Liberty and other industry heavyweights ?) – and NASA should be actively working on the far frontier and not in the LEO trucking business.
NASA needs to have its own way to get anywhere NASA wants to go … don’t treat LEO like a “been there done that” place, it never was that, it never WILL be that. We don’t hand over control of the US Navy fleet to Carnival Cruise Lines just because Carnival “makes a profit”, we shouldn’t hand over spaceflight to private companies either.
That’s a bad analogy; you’ll find that a lot of military second-line and support roles have been privatised because private companies can do the work more efficiently, although things that really only the military can do remain in their hands.
The problem is that your core thesis – that NASA needs to develop its own heavy lift launcher – is simply untrue. NASA does not have any current experience in LV development (indeed one of the major cost drivers for Constellation was the anticipated costs of learning how to do this again). All recent US-built LVs have been developed privately, to wit the EELVs, Orbital’s various ICBM-heritage launchers and the Falcon series. The best way for NASA to get a heavy lifter (more than 50t IMLEO) would have been to put the requirement out to tender, much as the USAF does when it wants a new aircraft.
NASA has only a limited budget that isn’t likely to grow any larger any time soon. The only way to ensure that it has enough money for things that only it is currently competent to do (deep-space spacecraft) is to let others shoulder the burden and cost of developing items where they also have competence (launch vehicle development).
No one (rational) is suggesting letting the private sector do everything. However, certainly there is a good argument to let them do things where it is they, not NASA, who have both the knowledge and experience. That means LV development and crew ascent/return vehicles. NASA should supervise, as any organisation should supervise contractors, but they do not have the skill set or current experience to be prime contractor.
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This is the future of space exploration if we let these new companies get too much influence.
Its a future I simply will not tolerate.
If the price to be paid for avoiding that future is slightly higher launch costs, then so be it.
It seems to me that you’ve somehow got it backwards. What’s happening is not about NASA giving away the civil space program to SpaceX, but rather taking it back from Boeing and LM and their joint ventures.
NASA has done development and testing of components and even whole launch systems, but NASA has never had “its own way to get anywhere “. Even Apollo-Saturn and Shuttle were designed and built by contractors (the lowest bidders!), and the launch preparations and operations were all done by contractors. Even putting the astronauts into their suits for a flight has always been done by contractors.
What’s changing with the addition of SpaceX, and hopefully other new-comers, is that the costs and contracting methods between NASA and the contractors are shifting in NASA’s favor for the first time in history. NASA almost always awards any contract to the lowest compliant bidder, but the bidder’s prices have always only ever gone up — until now.
If Boeing and LM want to stay in the game, all they have to do is bid the most competitive prices for the required work, same as always. They have more competition now, and no unspoken understandings with the new competitors.
SpaceX has made itself cost competitive, whereas Boeing and LM have attempted to make themselves eternal, but that’s no longer possible. Put yourself in NASA’s place and consider needing a new car. Are you going to: 1) buy the car you’ve chosen from the company that can build it and sell it to you for the best price; or 2) buy the same car from a more established company for a much higher price?; or 3) design and build the car yourself? That’s not a very accurate analogy, but I think it makes the point.
SpaceX and the other new aerospace companies also offer NASA something that it’s never had before — off-the-shelf spacecraft suited for many types of NASA missions. Compare the cost and delivery of a Dragon (and the other options when they come along) to specifying and having built a new one-off spacecraft for every program.
SpaceX is not the savior of US civil space. NASA being smart enough to take advantage of what SpaceX and others have to offer, when it’s applicable, is what’s going to save NASA, and US civil space. There’s no magic here; just good business sense.
“SpaceX and the other new aerospace companies also offer NASA something
that it’s never had before — off-the-shelf spacecraft suited for many
types of NASA missions.”
You really need to be more careful in the sweeping generalizations you make. Boeing, LM, and Loral have all offered off-the-shelf satellites for the last 15-20 years.
Agreed, but I don’t consider spacecraft and satellites to be the same thing.
“Agreed, but I don’t consider spacecraft and satellites to be the same thing”
Really? What is the difference? Yes, “satellites” can be construed to be the subset of spacecraft that are used for orbital missions, but bear in mind that some of these offerings have been used for non-orbiting missions.
Or were you referring to launch vehicles? Personally, being a spacecraft weenie, I don’t consider LV to be spacecraft at all. 🙂
I agree. LM and Boeing can build good rockets. I don’t think anyone would suggest that Atlas V and Delta IV aren’t good rockets, but for far too long they’ve had no competition. Having no competition breeds complacency. Also, for far too long LM and Boeing have existed because of the guarantee they have of government money and how that money just seems to breed more money under cost-plus contracts.
Perhaps more agile companies offering cheaper prices and equally reliable and robust systems will light a fire under the metaphorical arses of LM and Boeing to force them into a new, more efficient way of doing business as well to rediscover their creativity. They have the ability. Their people are no less talented than those at SpaceX.
The future of the US space industry and US space endeavors is not SpaceX but rather a vibrant, competitive, and creative space industry.
Better be careful with that word “complacency”. Complacency doesn’t get the kind of launch success rate these two boosters have. Delta has already flown a Heavy version, and in the same config as Falcon Heavy. Atlas has a man-rate plan ready to be implemented. While their work pales in boldness, it’s neither static nor complacent.
I also wonder if LM and/or Boeing are looking into recoverable tech and not publicizing it…
“Delta has already flown a Heavy version, and in the same config as Falcon Heavy”
That is simply not true, sorry, DIV is a hydrogen vehicle, uses two separate engines, does not implement cross feeding and has no legs. F9H implements several dramatic innovations and cost reduction strategies, one of which is using essentially the same thrust engine for the upper stage vastly improving performance (for that class of hydrocarbon fuel) and reducing costs.
I was generalizing my comment with the idea that D-IV-H is flying the CCB config before F9-H. Atlas even has an H config on paper. The point however is about complacency.. it’s not complacent to be the first to fly the CCB config.
Personally, I will be giddy for a week when F9-H goes up successfully. The very idea of 27 engines going at the same time gives me the shivers…
I’m sure Elon Musk agrees with you, He has said as much many times about the rocket industry and the car industry. He welcomes competition and lower prices.
Exactly. After some inevitable adjustments, being forced to change their ways or fade away will, I believe, make Boeing and LM into much better performers, and they’ll be again the companies they were before they simply started buying up everybody else.
Remember when anti-trust laws were enforced? Those were the days.
My local bank was actually a local bank.
FUD. Explain to me, why Dragon is not already full of labels like these.
It probably would be if there were companies willing to pay enough. Musk would be a fool to turn down significant funding.
There AREN’T companies willing to pay enough… maybe they’d pay a few tens of thousands at the very most – a relative pittance and easy to turn down. Especially when you figure in the cost of dealing with putting the freaking logos on safely, etc.
There just isn’t that much of an audience in Mars orbit for advertisers to spend that kind of money to reach.
They get more bang for their buck buying a Superbowl commercial.
Space advertising like that is just not a viable market.
People always post pictures like that when people talk of commercializing something. It just doesn’t happen. The only place I have ever seen that sort of thing is on race cars and in sports stadiums. You don’t see that sort of paint job on any of the commercial airlines aircraft, why would a commercial space transportation company be any different?
You are just plain nuts. NASA can put how many American astronauts into space year at 70 million a seat we pay the russians, how many american astronauts can NASA put into space utilizing domestic american providers at 20-30 million a seat…
THEN compare how many astronauts NASA will be able to put into space a year at 250 MILLION per seat .. the cost of the SLS>
So are you saying you would prefer a future where humans never go to Mars over one where they go in an ugly spaceship?
I don’t want certain aspects of our culture being exported into space … commercialism is one of those that I want to see severely regulated in space. Space is too good for MTV and Wal Mart.
I can understand your wanting to keep space from becoming a circus, but, realistically, there will be no “space” without commercialism; it can only progress to a very limited point on taxpayer money, and then everything after that will be dependent on making profits, of one type or another, so best face up to it. It can’t be eliminated and we don’t really want it to be. Better to concentrate on trying to keep it tasteful.
You wanna launcher and capsule with no commercial stickers on it? Go to China.
Where is dream chaser??
As much as I know many of you new Spacers are trying to hatch a little shuttle. Isn’t a rocket that has to land on a runway to safely land not a very practical idea??
Look at the X-37 now orbiting the earth for a year. How cool!! It will roboticly land on a runway cool!!! So what! How much did that cost?? Couldn’t DOD do the same mission with a dragon?? It can fly in orbit for a year too right?? Soon dragons will land on runways/helicopter pads too.
Sadly I just don’t think most space planes can compete.
Somebody prove me wrong.
It’s customer requirements and needs that matter, so whether you are I think a space plane can compete or not is irrelevant. The customer may want to return a crew member or payload to where they want it – not out in the middle of nowhere, needing to chase down the spacecraft wherever it lands via a convoy of helicopters, ships, or trucks, and so on, then transporting it to a payload processing facility some distance away. Also, as you may know (or should know) some payloads do better when they are set down gently. Ask people who have flown in space what their preference is.
It will be interesting to see how softly a capsule can be made to land, As well as if it can have the control to land any where a helicopter can?? After dream chaser lands on a runway softly, how does it get back to its launch site? Does it have jet engines to fly there? Or do you truck it?? Could bolt on jet engines be made to work so you don’t have to haul them around in space?? You would still have to ship the engines?? You are right what I think makes little difference. Hopefully the customer will get a chance to decide.
I am sure NASA astronaut pilots would much rather have a stick or a yoke and a runway… rather then a remote controlled ballistic drop. no heroic landings.
Always good to have job whether its needed or not.
See I got back on topic lol.
Perhaps your vision can’t see what jobs might be required. Perhaps you need to view this without the SpaceX goggles on.
I’m a huge fan of X-37 AND of Dragon. X-37 was designed to maneuver significantly on orbit. Dragon was not. That’s why DOD bought X-37 at the time, instead of funding a capsule.
the X-37 has a payload bay much like Shuttle THAT is why DOD is using it over a capsule such as Dragon. IT can release/retrieve a payload as needed unlike an enclosed capsule. (Maneuverability has nothing to do with it. A capsule is just as maneuverable on orbit as shuttle/X-37) That was one of the primary selling points when getting Nixon to sign off on Shuttle and finalize the end of Apollo. We’ve never had the throw weight capability of a Saturn V since. If we’d have kept the Saturn V line open, even just to launch large unmanned articles we could have had an ISS many decades sooner not to mention a Lunar outpost & we’d even have flown to Mars with a crew by now. The X-37 is giving DOD some Shuttle like capabilities they knew they would still need when the shuttles were no longer flying.
Thanks good info
Im a fan of it too 😉 Trying to learn stuff here
Currently, NASA has to rely on Russia to take the nation’s astronauts into space. Are you saying you’d rather funnel money to Russia than a private American company?
I’m tired of the only answer for any space program related issue being ‘let’s funnel enormous amounts of money to old-school contractors, we get to spend 10x the amount for 1/10 the result’.Perhaps the reason that posters to this site are so enthusiastic about SpaceX is that they are actually achieving results – rather than just pouring taxpayers’ money into a great, big hole?
Time to face facts – SLS will be cancelled, maybe four years from now, with no results, no flights, and nothing to show for billions and years of investment. When that happens, remember this post.
I’d rather see NASA buy the vehicles and operate them themselves rather than be just a paying customer. Hell NASA, NRO and the DOD practically own ULA, so I’d prefer to see ULA be nationalized and get rid of the pretense that its a private company. Maybe then we as taxpayers could get some of the costs down on their vehicles.
And yes I find this whole situation with Roscosmos intolerable as well, but cancelling SLS isn’t the answer to that problem either.
So you want the Nation’s taxpayers, to fund a freakin’ STANDING ARMY at NASA centers to stand around 60% of the year doing nothing because the flights rates are so slow and costly? Congressional porkonauts WANT that standing army. They do not want an engineer in their district to turn a bolt… they want 10 engineers in their district to turn that bolt.
You are such a fool, to think congress cares about getting into space. They could care less. They would rather see and endless string of cost plus, fixed fee, no bid, development contracts like constellational and SLS and venture star and all the rest.
They get campaign contributions for the number of those contracts they can get for their district.. they want bodies working at good paying nasa jobs in their district… that nothing actually gets produced.. is not relavent at all…
No I want that Standing army to launch every month.
I am very socialistic when it comes to space exploration. Private industry needs to be subservient to the people’s space program.
add up the cost of all the space hardware NASA has launched, divide that cost by the total weigh of all those missions. Now you will get the average cost per ton of all space hardware. Now take the average cost of all space hardware and multiply it times 130 tons for the SLS. You will come up with a number close to 14 billion. That will be average cost of 130 tons of space hardware. Now you want to launch 130 tons of space hardware, at an average cost of 14 billion, and you want to launch this once per month? You are looking at about 170 billion a year .. JUST in hardware costs. Not including launch costs. Just where exactly is NASA going to get that kind of money? You launch a 130 ton hubble telescope one month what about the next?
Even human flight will be to costly.l It will be about 3.2 billion per launch of the SLS/MPCV … ALL of this hardware is one time use. So you proprose NASA discard almost 4 billion in hardware per launch. NASA gets about 8 billion a year for human spaceflight, the ISS gets about 3… There is not enough money to launch SLS more that once per year. Forget about the landers the habitats the rovers
You just refuse to understand .. today’s NASA and the porkonauts in congress who control it .. do not care about what you want or your ideas and plans… they are interested in only ONE thing… high paying make work development jobs in their districts and cost plus pork contracts to the contractors so they get champaign money…
“Forget about the landers, the rovers …”
Yup.
So, we’ll get SLS “operational” in 2021? Maybe? And then? Then we begin to develop a lander, because there won’t be any money to do that until then. Is a lander more complex than Orion? Orion will have cost how much to develop? Orion/SLS development combined will have cost $30 billion (by one estimate) by the time SLS flies. If Orion cost $15 billion to develop, what would a lander cost? Ten billion? How long would it take – how long will SLS be waiting to fly a lander? We’ll be maintaining the expertise, manufacturing, and operations capabilities whether SLS is idle for years or not.
NASA OIG stated this in their recent MPCV investigation: “Even after the MPCV is fully developed and ready to transport crew, NASA will continue to face significant challenges concerning the long-term sustainability of its human exploration program. For example, unless NASA begins a program to develop landers and surface systems, NASA astronauts will be limited to orbital missions using the MPCV. Under the current budget environment, it appears unlikely that NASA will obtain significant funding to begin development of this additional exploration hardware, thereby delaying such development into the 2020s. Given the time and money necessary to develop landers and associated systems, it is unlikely that NASA would be able to conduct any surface exploration missions until the late 2020s at the earliest.” (See the report, here: http://oig.nasa.gov/audits/…
And the point of making this argument again is…what? Sorry, maybe a bit crusty this morning.
You know, this and your other comments here puzzle me. I’m a very liberal leftist-person ordinarily quite suspicious of unfettered capitalism, an economic modality that harnesses individualism nicely. But I can’t quite see your point about keeping commercial entities out of space, especially in the face of how governments (not so much the agencies) have performed to date. Eventually space will be nothing more than was California to the American Colonies: hard to get to at first, dead simple now. The moon will be a honeymoon destination at some point just like San Fransisco. Want a flight? Check the prices on various airlines (space lines). What is wrong with this vision?
“They would rather see and endless string of cost plus, fixed fee, no bid, development contracts “
That doesn’t characterize the current penny-pinching Congress, at least as I observe it. In fact it’s so far off the mark– and an example of assigning motivation without the facts–that there is surely a different, unexplained motivation for this action.
That doesn’t characterize the current penny pinching congress? Oh?
then I must have missed the part where the penny pinching congress ended that pork train to no where the SLS and the 16.5 BILLION dollar disposable capsule the MPCV? Lets toss the james webb into the mix .. and NASA is nothing more than an asterick in budget tables .. it’s funding is so small .. look at the MULTIPLE pork trains running through the military… LOL The new joint fighter … it is hilarious for you to even write that.
lol – Nationalize to save money, that is a new one.
Riley:
Yes, it is!
tinker
when has nationalization ever made ANYTHING cheaper?
I’m almost more interested in keeping certain parties OUT of Space. If the price for keeping Mars One grounded is higher costs then … I’m potentially interested.
What?
Now you’re building up a collection of statements which contradict both the facts and common sense. I’m beginning to think you’re just bating us.
That is not my intention … ever.
I have noticed the same and would like to hear a fuller exposition from Mr. 1066.
I agree who will build a cheaper better space vehicle than Spacex. Who will compete!!!
The problem is that no-one else seems to be interested in providing NASA a cost-effective launch system and spacecraft. Almost all the major providers seem determined to sit at the “Tens of Billions of Dollars for No Work” trough until NASA is de-funded and not worry about whether anything is achieved.
So, the question is: If not SpaceX, who else? Who will step up to the plate and volunteer to do more for less? ULA have already ignored that boat and Boeing has only been willing to even consider being part of commercial crew if NASA gives them money guarantees.
I’ve got news for you. NASA is already dependent on commercial companies to build their launchers and spacecraft. Always have been. Frankly, if we stay mired in the same old ways of doing things, launch prices will never come down. And you would be disagreeing with every NASA administator and every carefully thought out vision and plan over the past thirty years or more. The plan and desire is and has been for a long time to leverage the engine of American free enterprise to do the non-frontier activities and leave NASA to do the cutting edge exploration.
You might want to read Appendix B of ” Commercial Market Assessment for Crew and Cargo Systems”.
NASA is holding a competition to provide a way to get crews into space – and this is exactly the way they should be doing it in this country. It’s not just SpaceX.
NASA is already dependent on commercial providers, for starters.
No, you want NASA tied to a 60 year old single string fault system that has plagued our Nation for decades. Name a single planetary transportation system where a single accident grinds the ENTIRE NATION’S transporation to a grinding halt?
Government employees do almost all of their transportation through commercial services and providers. Trains, planes, boats, trucks and autos. This medievel view that somehow our nation has to be tied to a grovernment monopoloy/monopsony is insane.
I want NASA to be I N D E P E N D A N T of any government budget porkonauts in congress killing space transportation for their own very petty reelections.
I want NASA to have its own fleet of Orions, its own fleet of Dreamchasers, its own fleet of CST-100s … The US Navy has more than one type of plane, more than one type of ship, NASA needs the same.
And who is going to pay for the expense of all that hardware, all those launches, all those cost-plus contracts? Have you attention to how such costs have trended? Have you seen how NASA budgets have trended?
No longer can NASA afford the expense of doing things the old way, because that expense is hurting everything else that NASA is trying to do and planning to do.
Simply put, the odds of NASA getting funding at the level needed to do what you envision are vanishingly small and growing smaller.
Let’s be real, here. The Navy, and all of DOD, has both the missions for all those planes and the budget to operate them. NASA has neither, and never will have, not even close. And Congress is making sure that situation is getting worse all the time. So what you want makes absolutely no sense at all.
Oh yea? Because aliens!
They’ve supposedly waited since 1947 to deal with that; I think maybe we can wait a little longer.
I understand completely….
Orions are one time use and disposable… at over 1 billion a copy … thats like saying you want a truckload of disposable bic lighters to heat your house….
I would rather see NASA have a fleet of NAUTILUS-X and commercial fuel stations in space.
What you want is not possible!!!
Sure it is. The nails are already laying out on top of the coffin lid. Once we have domestic, commercial flight services to LEO, it really wont matter, congress can play around the edges, like demanding seatbelts, but they will not control an industry with the same ease they can control a government agency.
Riley; NASA IS NOW & always HAS been dependent on (XYZ) contractor to get our crews into orbit. With project Mercury/Atlas it was: McDonnell Aerospace & General Dynamics – Convair; with Gemini/Titan it was: McDonnell Aerospace & Lockheed; with Apollo it was: Boeing/McDonnell Douglas/North American (Rockwell Int’l). Contractors have always built/provided the means to get to space; NASA is/was the customer. I do agree with your point though; I too am a bit worn out with the SpaceX lovefest. Sure I want them to succeed but I also want NASA to have a launcher family they control. Is SLS the answer, probably not but it is what we will have to work with. For all the screaming for its cancellation be VERY careful what you ask for you just might end up with a whole lot more than gambled for. I cite the recent commentary by the CBO about the “savings” over the next ten years if we “only” do away with Manned space activities. I think I’m safe in saying NONE of us want that.
Riley:
On the contrary, I couldn’t think of a better entity to ‘hand over’ the American space program than to SpaceX. (That is an informed decision on my part!)
tinker
That’s a biased decision. There’s nothing to support the idea that a sole source is the most efficient and cost-effective way forward.
SpaceX and others will, I hope, open the eyes of the traditional space contractors and force them to find new ways of doing things.
PsiS:
You bet it’s a biased point of view! The only reason that you’re portraying SpaceX as a ‘single source’ is that nobody else has (or has reason to) step up to the plate and swing at the ball… until now!
The only reason single source acquisition has such a bad name is that those who were given the opportunity abused the privilege to rip off the American people (with the full complicity of government).
But I do agree with you, SpaceX is aiming to fix that problem instead of complaining about it!
tinker
Actually, no. I used the term “single source” with respect to your suggestion of SpaceX being an entity that we could hand our space program over to. Doing as much would make SpaceX a single source.
Single source does not breed competition, and there’s certainly nothing that would insure that as a single source, SpaceX would not end up behaving just like or very nearly like LM, Boeing, and ULA today.
I’m also against “sole source”. The presence of competitors such as Orbital (for the commercial cargo contract) and Boeing (for commercial crew) forces SpaceX to stay competitive; no argument there. What isn’t competitive is SLS/Orion.
It’s a natural reaction from an audience so starved from any sort of action when NASA is the only horse. Many who see the stars as our future look at SX and think “I KNEW we could do that!”
We have had so many disappointments, haven’t we? So many promises unfulfilled, so many paths to heaven turned muddy before trodden.
SX isn’t perfect. But SX permits me, for one, to dream the dream once more.
No, it doesn’t let YOU dream, it lets Elon Musk dream.
SLS is all about dreaming: dreaming that it will be sustainable; dreaming that it won’t drain much needed money from NASA; dreaming that it will actually be produced at anything close to the projected cost; and dreaming that it will actually fly. It would be equally accurate to replace the word “dreaming” with “fantasizing” because the things I mentioned are all highly unlikely.
I think you’ve also somehow missed the fact that a lot of people are excited about what SpaceX is doing and dreaming about what the future holds. Not only have you missed that but you’ve also missed that SpaceX is in fact a government contractor, now. I’d suggest you check their flight manifest to see what has flown and what is scheduled to fly for the US government. Without question SpaceX will be a contractor for some time to come.
Certainly SpaceX should not be precluded from fielding a vehicle to compete with SLS. It won’t even be hard to compete with SLS. Certainly with more continued success from SpaceX it will start becoming very hard for congresspeople to stump for the significant added expense of SLS over Falcon Heavy or whatever else follows, including whatever else follows from other contractors. I’m willing to bet that if freed from the uninformed and bad technical choices of Congress and in competition with SpaceX, LM and Boeing would produce something different than SLS.
Our space “dreams” should not be defined by or confined by the way things were done in the past. Those ways weren’t sustainable. Those ways were far too expensive.
It’s the entrepreneurs and dreamers that have lead the way, expanded or even created industries, and change the world. Fred Smith, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, John Mackey, Mark Zuckerberg, Herb Kelleher, Sam Walton, Sir Richard Branson, Paul Allen, and most certainly, Elon Musk.
One vision, one hungry company marching lockstep to one leader. It’s a recipe that has been tried before. The British turned to North American Aviation to build the P-40 Warhawk under license for them in 1940. NAA countered that they would build a new aircraft even better – even though they had never built a combat aircraft before. They produced the legendary P-51 Mustang prototype – in under 120 days.
Kelly Johnson and Lockheed’s Skunk Works performed similar such feats. Those were also dreamers who did things differently. God, I pray that there were more such dreamers! Let such dreamers lead the way as far as their talents will take them, and the rest of us can either stand up and help, sit on our hands, or get out of the way.
Passed by a voice vote, including amendment to include James Webb! Yahoo!
Probably not a great surprise, all told.
If “Yahoo!” is taken as sarcasm – then yes. But otherwise, this is bad legislation for taxpayers and NASA.
To answer a few of the valid comments made in the last day….
The SLS is useless not because it is an HLV, but because it is an EXPENDABLE HLV. We do need an HLV, and Musk’s “Big Rocket” will eventually fill part of the bill for the cost of 1 year’s SLS funding. We also need one with a 10 meter diameter to be able to launch up to 15 meter wide payloads. Current estimates put the “big Rocket’s diameter at about 8 meters. The payload volume is just as important as the throw weight. But above all, a launcher must be affordable to use multiple times a year and the SLS is unaffordable to use almost any way you look at it.
It is true that we will not need an HLV right away, but since HLV’s tend to launch payloads more cheaply than smaller rockets, (if you leave out the private vs government price difference), it would be a good idea to have one sooner rather than later.
The “man-rating” process is a good example of why NASA should not design and build any more booster rockets, and I am starting to think they should not design any more vehicles period, since the entire process is political and ends up in the ditch like “the Shuttle Decision”.
However, private companies cannot fund space exploration by themselves, (yet) and we still need NASA as the source of funds for that purpose, compromised and cumbersome as it is. If NASA will work with the private companies, they may be willing to fund a lot of the vehicles and infrastructure that will be needed for real exploration and space development, since they know it will be used.
I take SLS as the last conventional heavy lift vehicle NASA ever designs and manages development. The development of the Super Heavy Lift version of SLS which could carry the larger fairings is now delayed into the late 2020s. Given the time involved, it is likely that commercial (SpaceX and others) will have super heavy lift sooner (Falcon X, XX) and make greater than 5 meters (8, 10, 15) fairing available to NASA.
Even Orion is no longer designed to be reusable. SLS being man-rated and having it managed by NASA raised the cost of development. Being expendable, the price tag per launch makes SLS exclusively a NASA vehicle (like Atlas and Delta are now). SLS and Orion have become expensive jobs programs and the circumstances in Washington leaves little hope of stopping it. Maybe if changes in Senate, Congress and White House in 2016 are just right, SLS (and maybe Orion too) could be halted in 2017.
“I take SLS as the last conventional HLV NASA ever designs….”
Why is this NASA’s fault? Your issue should be with the 70 mT and 130 mT, shuttle derived requirement by Congress, which resulted in multiple shuttle derived engine and capsule development programs.
NASA does not require an HLV, Period. NASA does not require a LV sized above ~20 mT, unless it can be shown that bigger is cheaper.
2 lunar missions a year is 120 mT*2= 240 mT over 10 flights is 24mT and that assumes only a *single* type of LV. The US and world have many with excess capacity. One simply has to transfer the propellant and on orbit, with is >70% of the mission mass. Assembly and transfer of propellant is achievable, but is not funded because this capability *reduces LV size*.
Further, it easily includes IP participation with delivery of dirt cheap propellant, other than the launch costs. Why take cash needed for payloads, missions, and technology development and fund logistics?
When you insist that NASA requires a HLV it reverts back to same flawed ESAS assumption: “the goal is to eliminate all three launch solutions” due to an incorrect assumption on AR&D risk. The simple number then *cough* forces a 120 mT/2 = 60 mT sized LV or 120mT/1 = 120 mT LV. Oops 50 mT is too small. Unfortunately, a Mars mission in the 450 mT class is 450mT/2 or 225 mT LV, which again is not required.
So the million dollar question: what is wrong with NASA’s 70 and 130 mT design(s) that also must be shuttle derived required by Congress? Is not the box so tightly defined that NASA has not choice? Is it simply the cost?
Why on earth would any commercial partner build a Super Heavy Lift? What “market” would this serve?
Perhaps if you stated ” as the last HLV Congress ever designs…” but reading the article, not likely either.
We are on the same wavelength. I do not believe NASA needs even SLS. I say the last HLV because under the present circumstances of dysfunctional government, NASA management that does not argue with politicians, space advocacy groups not united, SLS and Orion will not be stopped. And yes, NASA can do without super heavy lift for nearly everything and does not need to build its own.
However, manned Mars exploration or colonization could be accomplished more efficiently with super heavy lift. The privately owned SpaceX does have designs for >120 mT class lifters. So it is likely NASA does not need to build its own. If SpaceX remains private and Musk has intentions of landing on if not colonizing Mars, super heavy lift will be built by him.
Heavy lift vehicles like Falcon Heavy are commercially viable. And as I’ve stated, it makes SLS obsolete before development has reached critical design review.
By lifting 2 or more payloads at once, F-H will be the first to achieve the $500/lb to LEO milestone. Super HLV is probably not cost effective but SpaceX may have it available (Mars or not) for paying customers with the need. And manned exploration of Mars will be an international venture – government and commercial. SpaceX might supply the Super HLVs or many HLVs but it cannot do Mars alone.
That is tomorrow and today the big problem is SLS and Orion. Even a bigger NASA budget does not justify completing these designs.
Hearing correct common sense gives me hope!
Thanks.
John,
I’m continually surprised by statements about HLV because almost everybody treats the situation like an absolute — they either say we absolutely need a HLV or we absolutely do not need a HLV. A little thought should make everybody realize that any mission we can imagine doing in the next 50 years could be done equally well with or without a HLV. It all comes down to how the mission and its hardware are designed and deployed. NASA has already successfully launched and deployed both hard and soft payloads which could not be fit into any imaginable fairing in their deployed condition. And many of the proposed payloads that people argue need a very large fairing diameter to be launched couldn’t possibly be launched in their “deployed” condition without the launch stresses destroying them. So I maintain that all opinions about the need for a HLV are actually meaningless. For whatever it’s worth, I have yet to imagine a situation myself where a HLV is absolutely essential, based on either payload size or mass.
Steve, I am with your argument completely except for one point that keeps bothering me. You say “A little thought should make everybody realize that any mission we can imagine doing in the next 50 years could be done equally well with or without a HLV”; many others have said the same thing.
Remember that Ford allegedly said if he’d asked people what they wanted they would have asked for a better whip (or something like that)? The point is simple of course. Who knows?
Is this reservation worth keeping the SLS? No, it is not. But it’s a good thing to keep in mind. The view at the end of an imagined 50 year technology road is almost certainly hazed by the fog of current thinking.
Agreed. When we look at the last 50 years and try to extrapolate forward by the same amount of progress I think the future will hold both the very obvious and things no one thought of.
To be honest, though, I don’t envision anything new and exciting in HSF during those 50 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if people are having exactly the same debates 50 years from now as now. Of course, I won’t be around then, so I can get away with imagining pretty much whatever I want.
I hope the future holds more than just better buggy whips, but until the general public gets its collective butt in gear I suspect things will continue to drift along much the same as they have been.
I do have faith that planetary science missions will continue to happen as they get even better and cheaper than now. Part of their success is that they are getting smaller, not bigger, so no HLV needed there.
The one and only “heavy lifter” I would get behind today would be a properly defined and designed shuttle. The Shuttle cargo bay gave us Hubble and the ISS, the two most important contributors (in my opinion) to space exploration and science since the Voyageurs.
But rather than launching endless big items, I would rather see us develop facilities and techniques for assembling and building large items in orbit. It’s something that we’re going to have to do eventually, so why not start now and save that much more time and money? Yes / No?
Folks:
Look, this doesn’t change much. SLS will still never fly (or if it does, be useful) but it will guarantee that it wastes the maximum amount of government funding to NASA until it is cancelled.
But… until then, thousands of folks will be employed building yet another ‘bridge to nowhere’ with the government’s blessings.
tinker
And if it does I will be there watching what will be one HELL of a rocket!
Ahem …Folks:
“SLS will never fly; or if it does, be useful.” But if it is useful, and takes us to the Moon & Mars; I assure you that I will still hate it anyway because it doesn’t fit within my belief system.
If it is built and if it flies, it will be unsustainable and will likely bring other NASA programs to their budget knees.
I believe there was a NASA study that looked at a different program architecture that involved the use of on orbit refueling and construction, along with multiple launches with lighter payloads to complete such missions. Unless I’m mistaken, I think such studies found that such architectures were less risky and less expensive than the all-in-one launch.
SLS is a system that leverages very little of what we’ve learned about operating in orbit and building in orbit.
Really! We learned a lot, but not what you think. We almost had a man drown out there. That would have played well with John Q. Public! I think if you looked a the man hours that go into planning and executing even the simplest EVA’s you would be shocked. It took us forever and a day to build the ISS, with significant engineering and political compromises. Gas stations in space; and mega construction projects…hooey! The environment is so unforgiving to human life that EVA should be kept to the minimum operational duties that must be accomplished by people. How much quicker, better positioned and more capable would a space station have been if we had retained and upgraded the Saturn heavy lift technology? Then augmented that with NTR propulsion. Appropriately funded we might even have red soil on our boots right now.
Let’s see, the taxpayers are funding the development of a DISPOSABLE capsule. A capsule that could be built from SOLID DIAMONDS and would still be cheaper than that the 16.5 billion dollar disposable bic….. SLS.MPCV is nothing but insanity on a bun.
The Nation will not keep a system that is going to toss about 3.2 billion dollars worth of hardware into the drink after each launch . and with absolutely no money for a 10-15 billion dollar lander , it will be earth or moon orbits only. what a porkefest.
This is just the worst kind of earmark. It removes all accountability within those programs.
The Republicans will pass it in the House and the Democrats will pass it in the Senate. No one cares about results… only funding.
Which is why iCap is so important.
This demonstrates why congress should no longer have the ability to decide what programs are proceeded with. It is scientists, engineers and Nasa that should be deciding what programs they want to proceed with. Congress`s job is to decide how much money they want to spend. They are not qualified to make decisions about science and engineering or any projects. The archaic SLS is a complete waste of money that will set Nasa back for many years to come. It is time for all scientists, engineers and Nasa to get some backbone and stand up to these people
Scientists don’t speak the same language as lawyers. Moreover, the two professions are alien to each other. Their implicit assumptions about what a learned person should know, do, and be motivated by are different. An honest scientist qualifies their arguments. Those same qualifications sound like weasel-wording to a lawyer. Without understanding the science, which set of scientists do they trust? How does one differentiate good scientific advice from bad? Do they trust any of the scientists? Why do they need to? Why not deal instead with someone who speaks lawmaker and is responsive to legal culture and ideas?
Reminds me of a NASA scientist I knew once that blamed NASA problems on lawyers.
Exactly, that`s why lawyers shouldn`t be deciding anything about science or engineering because they don`t speak the same language. A lawyer`s realm is semantics and the law. However there are other battle grounds on which to fight. First, there are prominent scientists whose opinion carries a lot of weight. There is the realm that lawyers use to get elected called advertisement. There are firms that specialize in this. Finally there is a certain togetherness that scientist have which lawyers will never have. In mass, scientists have powers that no lawyer will ever have.
I must say Keith, your editing button is a good idea. I write fast while the ideas are fresh and frequently make mistakes. I`m afraid I`m not perfect.
> It is time for all scientists, engineers and Nasa to get some
>backbone and stand up to these people
as Kevin P. said two professions are alien to each other. It seems previous HLV (SaturnV) was successful because the lawyers felt it was important to beat the Reds to the moon. In early 1960s when von Braun gave testimony to committees, he charmed all the politicos. But ten years later, he could not charm them as political priorities changed. Nowadays exploring space regardless of how it’s done is simply not an issue. All of us space fans debate these issues, but discussing space issues with non-techies, they look at you as if you are “from outer space” unless you can successfully and quickly present a compelling plan (i.e. “elevator speech”) on how they can make lots of money.
Change the US Constitution and get back to me on that.
Call your Senators and tell them to kill NASA’s Space Launch System:
http://www.senate.gov/gener…
Email is too easy and so carries almost no weight, and there isn’t enough time to send a letter.
To Steve Whitfield:
I am still against any form of the SLS, but we do need a reusable HLV. You cannot launch a pancake on a pencil. There is a limit to the WIDTH of payloads you can launch on a given diameter booster, about 50% wider using a reverse fairing. I am not talking about fragile payloads with extended components, but strong compact objects like my Mars ferry that is only 30 tons dry but must be about 50 feet wide at the base to land on Mars with little fuel. How can you launch a 50 foot wide object on a 12 foot wide rocket. This ferry design can also be used for a LEO to GEO or L1 and return to LEO via aero-capture vehicle, since it has a heat shield. This is a complex, 3-dimensional space vehicle like the shuttle. How could you safely assemble a complex vehicle like a reusable ferry in orbit with only a small crew. It is impossible with current technology and facilities.
We will also need large cargo vehicles to carry equipment and components for cis-lunar space logistics bases. Propellant depots should also be large to reduce boil-off of the propellant. These would need to be a minimum of 33 feet wide and that is stretching it.
Vladislaw is right about flight rate. We will need a high launch rate to support the construction of the logistics bases and to assemble expedition fleets at them. This would be impossible at the roughly 5-15 Billion cost range of the SLS, and the production rate of the SLS would make it impossible to do this anyway.
The argument over whether a reusable HLV will be built is MOOT, since SpaceX is already working on such a vehicle, government or no government. That is what the reusable Raptor Engine is for!
What if, in 5-10 years, all those college kids who are currently programming quadcopters to construct towers etc. (http://www.extremetech.com/… were instead programming cubesats to build large space structures? It could certainly change the calculus on the maximum size of launcher needed. What could need to be launched that’s much bigger than a human?
Any idea what shape or form and diameter Spacex plans to make it’s first Heavy lifter?? Will it be The falcon xx right away or will they go through falcon x and falcon X heavy forms like in their diagram? What is the possibility that they put 6 falcon X recoverable strap.on boasters around one giant tank like Tinkers Heavy Hydrogen Lifter were the 40 foot diameter center tank stays in space?
No details have been released. However, given the ‘MCT’ tag and interest in LC-39A, I’m thinking it will be a 10m-diameter Saturn-V-class vehicle. This would use the Raptor staged combustion cryogenic LCH4 engine for the core and an extended-nozzle ‘VAC’ version for the upper stage (Musk says 380s vacuum Isp is the target with 400s vacuum Isp ‘achievable’).
I, personally, favour Falcon-X and the similar EELV Phase-II. However, I think that Musk is looking towards a non-scaled SHLV to support his Mars plans.
Let’s just see if they can launch the current iteration of the Falcon at anything approaching the advertised rate; before we go dreaming of reusable HLV’s! The demonstration so far is a pretty good parlor trick, but I suspect upsizing that to an HLV has more than a few bugs to work out. I await with bated breath further developments to be impressed.
You’ll note that SLS has yet to fly. So your argument hardly works in favor of that system. If you think what SpaceX has achieved is a parlor trick, then you don’t understand what it takes to achieve such a “parlor trick.”
Mars ferry???? 🙂
Details PLEASE
Question
Inflatable Space walking safety balloon.
if you fill a clear volume with air in earth orbit, to near sea level pressure, what temperature does that air balance at??? Either in the sun or assuming day night shadow.
Depends on orbit which can vary from being in shadow almost half the time to being in sunlight all the time (sun-synchronous). With a typical orbit and no internal energy source it might be slightly below freezing, Salute 6 and Apollo 13 were good examples, but most manned satellites when operating consume enough power to easily keep warm and require cooling.
“how do you launch a 50-foot wide object on a 12-foot wide rocket?” It wouldn’t be easy even on a 33-foot wide rocket!
That said, my preferred solution has always been launch vertical, land horizontal. That way, you can have a 50 x 20 foot vehicle launched inside a long 25-foot PLF (which is the top limit of what can be fit on top of a Delta-IV or Falcon Heavy-diameter launcher).
If they can’t be cancelled, there is no incentive to finish building anything, let alone launch them. They get paid more for infinite delays. Meanwhile, these Detroit-like projects are sucking billions out of a budget that cannot afford them.
Those who defend OldSpace and massive government projects as the “only way” are now watching Space-X build systems faster, with greater capacity, and at literally 1:100th the price. SLS and so on work just great on a PowerPoint or CGI presentation. But they are rapidly turning into NASA’s answer to Healthcare.gov. Any republican signing this, and apparently they started it, should be primaried and thrown out.