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SLS and Orion

NASA-Sponsored Lecture Series Is Blocking Access

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 17, 2014
Filed under , , , ,

Keith’s update: Looks like the Constellation rehash FISO telecon (see below) has been changed (no explanation given). Instead, this week’s presentation is “Making Human Mars Exploration Affordable: Results of a Workshop” Joseph Cassady, Aerojet Rocketdyne & Michael Raftery, Boeing”. It will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) at 3pm EST. Dial in: 877-921-5751 Passcode: 623679.
Also, and perhaps I am being a little paranoid, but when I try to reach this link and this link from my office (in the U.S.), I am told that I am “forbidden” to have access. Yet when I use an anonymizer service (in Europe) or my iPhone to gain access, I can get in. Other people across the country report that they have access. How odd.
Keith’s update: According to their website (again accessed through another route):
“Denial of Service Policy: The FISO telecon archives are being accessed by an ever-increasing number of users. As a result, we now find it wise to more carefully administer those requests. In particular, we have begun “denial of service” to selected IPs. These IPs are those that:
* attempt repeated attacks on our system, and have been identified as being malicious
* download the same file many, many times
* use bandwidth by downloading the entire 3GB archive
* are mp3 robots that only go after mp3 files (we consider it somewhat suspicious when the mp3 file is the only presentation file accessed)
* download pdfs in lots of very tiny pieces, each with an independent server request (we believe this is from downloads to some mobile devices — this mucks up our logs)
If you find that your IP has been blocked, please get in touch with us, and we should be able to trace why that happened.”

Well, I have certainly never done any of these things and I defy Dan Lester at UT to prove that I have. If NASA is going to overtly sponsor, support, participate in, and promote this activity (i.e. allow civil servants to charge their time and present material directly related to their NASA job) then they cannot be a party to the actions of a partner who blocks taxpayers (the ones who pay for this work) from access to these telecons.

Keith’s note: This should be interesting. Revisionist history is certain to presented. If only …
10 Feb posting: NASA FISO telecon, 19 Feb 3pm ET: “Large Programs at NASA: Lessons from Constellation” Jeff Hanley & Dale Thomas, NASA JSC Dial in: 877 921 5751 Passcode: 623679
Jeff Hanley Openly Defies White House Policy (2010), earlier post
Jeff Hanley Removed From CxP Management (2010), earlier post
Jeff Hanley Dumps on Augustine (2009), earlier post
Full Text of Jeff Hanley’s Latest Rant (2009), earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

38 responses to “NASA-Sponsored Lecture Series Is Blocking Access”

  1. Lowell James says:
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    An interesting study might be to have all of the failed programs of the last 15 years report why they think they failed. All the space planes, the progenitors of Constellation, Constellation…let their managers report what they think what went wrong.

    ISS is a successful program and the program manager insisted on getting lessons learned by documenting them from prior programs-but the ISS people never read them and they made sure that the people from the earlier programs were not allowed into relevant positions, which perhaps explains the tortuous development, certification, integration, and flight prep processes, the exorbitant costs and the reluctance of users to come forward.

    I’ve heard that NASA HSF has now learned their lesson and cancelled the lessons learned effort as irrelevant.

    • rb1957 says:
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      “An interesting study might be to have all of the failed programs of the last 15 years report why they think they failed. All the space planes, the progenitors of Constellation, Constellation…let their managers report what they think what went wrong.” …
      “I could’ve been a contender” or “those politicans destroyed a brillant space plan”

    • Vladislaw says:
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      Gosh, we know why they all failed, some elements of congress refused to launch another 20 tons of $100.00 bills at NASA. Isn’t “It was underfunded” always the ‘go to’ meme for why a program was billions over budget and years behind schedule?

  2. dogstar29 says:
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    Well, it appears Mr. Hanley was two thirds right; Congress did go along with canceling the Ares I but the SLS essentially carries on in the role of both Ares I and V, while the Orion went on unscathed.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      SLS carries on the role of keeping as many congressional member’s local NASA “space shuttle” contingent, as protected as possible regardless of productivity or overlap.

  3. Chris says:
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    Is there a transcript available?

  4. Jonna31 says:
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    Lesson 1 is “Don’t attempt to develop and build two new rockets, a capsule, a service module, a lunar landar, 2 new engines, an Earth Departure stage all at the same time.” Be incremental. Space it out. Reuse what you can.

    This is a lesson the “SLS has new cargo or destination” crowd seemingly ignore. Because trying to cram everything into one decade worked so well last time.

    NASA and the ESA teaming up to turn the ATV into Orion’s service module is easily the most brilliant budget-conscience decision made in the last decade.

  5. Anonymous says:
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    Ahh yes… I had seen this doc way back. Its public. It’s a mix of things that are not lessons at all in the sense of not having to do causally with why Cx was canceled, combined with an assortment of un-repentant observations, much like people in prison discussing how not to get caught next time.

  6. John Kavanagh says:
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    A timeline view of Constellation and other 21st century failed/cancelled/stretched NASA human spaceflight programs: http://www.tiki-toki.com/ti

  7. Ray Haskell says:
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    Mr Hanley’s comments were true and reflected the original desires of NASA managers who wanted a follow-on flight Program that was efficient, cost-effective and used off-the-shelf hardware that was robust and proven where we could. We wanted every piece to meet the 1.4 safety margins to ensure flight safety of our Astronauts.
    I was on that original team of many flight industry folks who labored to ensure we would be there to continue after Shuttle’s successes.
    We knew going in that the NASA would ultimately be bidding against the commercial world. (what I jokingly referred to as 32 guys and a trailer). In order to do that, NASA’s juggernaut requirement flow, all eleven NASA centers and contractor involvement would have to be trimmed or eliminated to meet the oncoming budget battles over hardware and turf and still meet those very necessary safety-of-flight requirements.
    We came up with what we thought was a comprehensive and cost efficient way to meet the flight manifest and support ISS.
    Ares/Constellation could have met those challenges, but our report was shelved. It became obvious that these cost efficiencies would affect many jobs here, and in other districts around the country with major political might, and congressional folks would react negatively.
    More studies were requested.
    But then came the political battles that we knew would ensue and a new administration trying to get a grip on rising costs. Thus, a supposed “Independant” Augustine Commission was formed. (Not very independant), as Norm Augustine was an industry liquid-rocket insider who ultimately would try to put a stake in the heart of the already flight-proven, first stage solids and muddy the waters enough to kill the Program.
    So now we have SLS; more costly, behind schedule and money being wasted on an alternative, costly, complex liquid first stage that we didn’t need in the first place.
    We also hear that the Delta/Atlas folks want to enter the manned arena, but I’m pretty sure that their flight hardware, although proven in the commercial world does not meet 1.4 safety factors required by NASA. That would require yet another redesign and requalification regime.
    All of us here on the Space Coast want to see the program ultimately succeed and fly again. But it will NEVER match the grandeur and majesty of seeing the Shuttle Launch Assembly and Orbiter leaping into the air.

    • Todd Martin says:
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      Mr. Haskell’s experience working for ATK notwithstanding, the solid rocket boosters planned for Constellation were not flight proven. Ares was to use 5 segment designs, not the 4 segment version used with STS. I seem to remember 5 segment engine tests related to Constellation but not a Single flight of one. Solids are safer??? Really!!! Please explain how a solid booster is inherently safer for manned flight than a liquid booster.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        There was also a new fuel mix and the internal design of the SRB was going to be changed.

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Solids are much less complex than liquid boosters.

        • Skinny_Lu says:
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          Absolutely true. Solids are simpler. BUT, they are “loaded guns” from the time the propellant is poured into the cases. Transporting and handling these loaded motors is hazardous and expensive. Of course their worst characteristic is, they cannot be shut down in the event something goes wrong with them or any other component of the vehicle. That makes it a very hard sell when analyzing failure modes and effects of such a system.

          • tutiger87 says:
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            Failure modes of liquid fueled rockets much more numerous and complex. Other than Challenger, I’m sure the mission anomalies cause by the failures of liquid fueled rockets far outnumber solids.
            We can talk about the politics of saving jobs in the solid rocket workforce some other time.

          • Skinny_Lu says:
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            Again, tutiger87, we agree. Failure modes are more complex and numerous in liquid engines. However, the severity (lethality) of a solid motor failure is much worse and more likely to be un-survivable. When a liquid engine fails, it will typically shut down the engine. The vehicle looses thrust and the crew punches out of a non-accelerating stage. When a solid motor fails, the unburned propellant will continue to burn in chunks, all the way down to the ground. I would not want to be riding on that ship because my parachutes will likely be made out of something that burns, like nylon or some other fabric. Almost all modern solid motors have composite wound cases. They are great most of the time, but if they get damaged during transport, sometimes the damage is not evident until the case is pressurized at ignition, if the damage is bad enough to breach the case. There have been at least two examples of recent solid motor case failures. Delta 2 #187 (IIRC) blew up above the pad in Florida. A Titan blew up above the pad in California. Look up the videos of those failures and tell me what would happen to the crew, if there was crew riding on them. If you safely punch out of a rocket only to get burned by falling solid propellant debris, you still die. I tell you, I would climb on and strap myself on an Atlas V tomorrow, without an escape system, as long as it did not have any strap-on solids. Liquid engines are also a much smoother ride. The random vibration of a solid motor would shake the fillings off my teeth. Solid motors have a place in the industry, just not on a crewed vehicle, in my opinion. Sure, we can discuss the politics of aerospace jobs any time. Cheers.

        • dogstar29 says:
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          When you add up the components for the thrust vector control system, the APUs, the steerable nozzle, the field joints, and the recovery parachutes, the SRB is about the same complexity as a comparable liquid propellant booster. But the total number of parts is only part of the story. The processing of large segmented solid fuel boosters at Kennedy Space Center was invariably more complex, expensive and hazardous than the processing of liquid propellant boosters. Consider the number of personnel and time required for precision crane lifts, for example. The SRB needs at least six, not to mention the hand installation of the O-rings. The Falcon might require one horizontal lift to put it on the launcher-erector. The Delta doesn’t use any.

          I think the smaller, one-piece SRBs such as those used on the Atlas and Delta will probably remain practical, particularly when the SRB does not require thrust vector control. I doubt that segmented SRBs with TVC will ever be cost-competitive.

    • charliexmurphy says:
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      There lies the problems.
      1. The 1.4 factor safety is arbitrary. There is no basis for it. How much “safer” is it than 1.25?
      2. The charge against Norm Augustine is unwarranted. He was retired from Lockheed Martin for more than 10 years at the time of the commission.
      3. grandeur and majesty are not qualities of that are looked for in an effective transportation system.
      4. Any system using Shuttle based hardware would be neither efficient or cost-effective.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      And the grandeur and majesty of burning through 1.5 billion to launch 25 tons of cargo and 7 passengers to LEO. SpaceX and Bigelow are talking 26 million a seat or 182 million for launch vehicle and spacecraft. The Falcon heavy will put 40 tons into LEO ( not utilizing the cross fed is cheaper but will not lift as much) for 88 million. So at 270 million for the pair NASA could have bought about five flights of each at the cost of one NASA space shuttle flight. That means NASA could have parked 200 tons of hardware and 35 NASA astronauts, in LEO, for the cost of a shuttle flight.
      Ya .. that is REALLY majestic how the Nation has been strangled in our drive to open up space.
      If NASA is this innovation machine, how come they have never been able to innovate ANYTHING to bring costs down? Why do their innovations always work the exact opposite to the commercial world?

    • Paul451 says:
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      We knew going in that the NASA would ultimately be bidding against the commercial world

      Well there’s yer problem. Why the hell are you bidding against them?

      Why aren’t you bidding for them, for projects that support them? The next heat shield, the better avionics package, the advanced sensor designs for landing, modular standardised prox-ops systems, the oft requested in-orbit refueling. In other words, advanced “seed-stock” for the next generation of commercial development, putting more stuff “on the shelf” so that they can get it off. And then the actual missions that utilise commercial capabilities, instead of trying to force missions solely because they need a bespoke government launcher. Become the anchor tenant for commercial services, passing off existing functions to them while developing the next step. Then rinse and repeat until for a few decades you get somewhere interesting.

      [NACA’s job wasn’t to build government planes to compete with US aviation. Why is NASA’s?]

      • M Gray says:
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        “NASA would ultimately be bidding against the commercial world”

        I don’t think the Constellation people ever figured out just what it was they really were trying to do. There was no strategy. There were no recognized requirements.

        If their only goal was an Apollo-like return capsule with an off the pad abort capability there were a lot less expensive and quicker ways to do that, like using an Apollo capsule perhaps upgraded with new electronics.

        Of course given the potential for something like the Dragon capsule there was no reason at all NASA needed to be developing anything. NASA could have put its money into a lander. I don’t think they ever knew where they were landing or why; sortie missions, a lunar outpost?

        If their goal was a deep space spacecraft to take people to planetary distances, that is not an Apollo capsule. You only need an Apollo return capsule if you intend to throw your entire spacecraft away every mission which doesn’t make much sense.

        What was the Program Manager’s job? To straighten out these kinds of big picture strategic issues before deciding what to build or buy.

        NASA is still suffering today, throwing away big money, selling the next generation short, bulding something no one will have a use for.

        • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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          … NASA could have put its money into a lander. …

          NASA is putting its money into lunar landers. They will probably be cancelled this year.

        • Paul451 says:
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          NASA could have put its money into a lander.

          Constellation included Altair. Altair was a bad design but required a heavy-lift launcher, which created fake justification for Constellation’s HLV over EELV.

          [Better to use a crasher stage (based on a conventional upper stage) to eliminate much of the fuel-mass on the
          lander itself. Later develop in-orbit refueling and switch to an
          “uncrasher” stage for greater reusability. The lander and the crasher-stage could then be launched separately on smaller launchers for EOR.]

  8. Vladislaw says:
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    Lesson #1, the Porkonauts have over priced human spaceflight hardware to the point NASA can not longer be involved in the design, development and operation of anything that is not delivered as a turn key system, much like the cars and trucks NASA employees routinely purchase and operate.
    Lesson #2, NASA should be required to ask MULTIPLE commercial vendors one simple question:

    “What is the per seat price for transporting a NASA passenger from point A to point B?”

  9. Anonymous says:
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    These are the Top-10 Constellation lessons learned! A summary from the upcoming FISO briefing-

    Number ten-Every week put out a press release about
    accomplishments, like how Tom finished revision 17 on those drawings for the fasteners.

    Number nine-Find program managers who think that first launch
    in 2042 will bring them glory.

    Number eight-Keep saying it’s the cheapest *cost per pound! (*If
    you don’t count this or most costs, or that, yep, don’t count that either…)

    Number seven-If anyone wants to talk about doing better, repeat
    constantly – space is hard!

    Number six-If everyone still wants to talk about doing better
    stick fingers in ears and chant “nye nye nye nye nye”.

    Number five-If you want a big NASA program, be sure to form
    it from parts of the last big NASA program. (If you want to actually launch more, sooner…ummm…mumble…mumble…)

    Number four-Call those congressman! Speed-dial!

    Number three-Look at people talking about affordability, no
    matter what committee they are from, with annoyance, like children who just don’t get it.

    Number two-Make sure never to do cost analysis, as these are
    never good numbers, nothing good comes of it, and they always get leaked.

    Number one-If things look really bad, just change your name!

  10. DTARS says:
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    LESSON LEARNED

    http://m.space.com/24628-wi

    Read what Mr. Boozer says here.

    This IS the path forward to getting us off this planet!

    It is GREAT to see someone really get it and say it!

    http://m.space.com/24628-wi

    ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS MAKE THE PUBLIC HEAR AND UNDERSTAND

  11. Ray Haskell says:
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    I’ll respond to all who made comments:
    Paul451 – Our job at the time was to get them off the
    ground and into orbit. The issues you espouse were dealt with by the upper stage folks. They did work to improve all the items you mentioned, and would have included other NASA centers.
    Whether or not they’ve been included in the Orion, I don’t know.
    MGray – We had no control over what requirement flow
    would ensue and both side-mount and in-line versions were appraised, but the debris/launch environment concerns drove us to the in-line version. At the time, there WAS no Dragon capsule, but the team knew an improved Apollo-type version would be required.
    Vladislaw – You’re preaching to the choir, sir. The Space-X
    folks didn’t have to go through NASA centers, politicians defending work in their districts and other necessary items required to get through Congressional voting and funding constraints. Don’t forget; one of NASA’s basic tenets is “To employ the technical sector”.
    The propellant changes you discuss were probably required
    as the load and launch profiles were altered. The Thiokol/ATK folks are VERY proficient at this regime. If you look at every Shuttle launch, you’ll see they were dead-center of the desired profile.
    Todd Martin – A number of years ago, I personally went through EVERY single on-pad launch delay to see where time was lost. The numbers speak for themselves. The most time lost was with Orbiter/engine problems. All previous studies have shown that
    liquids are inherently more complex, have more moving parts, require more instrumentation monitoring points. To Rocketdynes credit though, the SSME’s never had an in-flight failure.
    Skinny_Lu –All that dangerous liquid fuel had to be
    brought in, transferred to massive tanks, maintained and then RE-transferred from there to the flight assembly. The fuel farm required oversight and maintenance as well. And, if you’ll remember, when we had the Challenger incident, it wasn’t the boosters that blew up when that ET strut broke loose, they continued flying.
    Charlie Murphy – Arbitrary numbers? Our predecessors,
    (some pretty knowledgeable individuals) came up with that standard. Gee, why not 1.15, or even .95? Do we establish those and then wait for something to fail? Oh, gee, that happened on two rather well documented occasions and we had really bad days as a result. And yes, any system using Shuttle-based hardware with massive overhead and oversight was going to be expensive if NASA centers
    and a National political consensus were required to get funding.
    BlingSlade- There WAS no cold weather test data. The prevailing thought at the time in NASA circles was “It doesn’t get cold in Florida”. When the Challenger pre-Launch meetings were held to discuss the cold temperatures, the Design Data Book gave them a low temperature minimum of 46 degrees for the O-rings to track and
    compress properly. Since Thiokol had no test data to back up their assertions, their pleas went unheard and unheeded. It had been bitterly cold, in the teens for days before and it was 16 degrees at launch time, along with VERY high shear winds. The rest was history. But we took the hit for them at the time. For those of us in Utah that day, someone had spray-painted in large scrawled letters on a freeway overpass…. “Astronaut Killers”. It took NASA years to admit their mistake. For all of us concerned we will never forget it to our dying day.
    Subsequent RSRM testing made SURE those cold weather
    tests were run with side-loading to replicate those shear winds. With the new capture feature and tertiary O-ring the field joints had no further problems. That’s why I’m dead-set against a liquid re-design for 1st stage SLS Launch hardware. The American Public has bought and paid for a perfectly good system. To spend billions to do this is an absolute waste.

    • Gerald Cecil says:
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      Thank you sir for these cogent comments/retorts. One should not forget those down the chain @Thoikol who pleaded against launch but were over-ruled by schedule-pressed managers, some of whom have nonetheless progressed without impact on their careers.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        I personally think the primary problem for Challenger was an unanticipated failure mode. The problem of O-ring leakage was known and a fix would have been implemented had the process for modifying man-rated flight hardware not been so cumbersome. You generally can’t count on high-level management decisions to determine whether or not you fly; you need clear guidelines based on the design and performance, and really it should be up to the vehicle commander, as it is in aviation.

        • Ray Haskell says:
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          vulture4 O-ring erosion/joint rotation was well documented and new capture feature/tertiary O-ring hardware was in work. NASA chose to keep flying, so operational engineering limits were established. (Including those pesky temp limits). BUT….”The President is speaking tonight”. I’m pretty sure Mr. Mulloy had his marching orders at that Level 1 pre-launch meeting. Flight Crew has a seat and a vote, but they were probably under the same pressures as our Mr. Mason to sign off on the authorization document.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      “Arbitrary numbers? Our predecessors, (some pretty knowledgeable individuals) came up with that standard. Gee,
      why not 1.15, or even .95? Do we establish those and then wait for something to fail?”

      These same knowledgeable individuals determined that the Shuttle failure rate was 1 in 10,000. Let’s be honest. It’s a guess. Engineering load factors are established based on the level of knowledge one has regarding structural loads, processes that might weaken the structure, and uncertainty regarding the actual load-bearing strength. In the case of a bridge, an increase in weight imposes little additional cost. Moreover the structure is subject to corrosion, limited maintenance and loads that are not accurately known. A load factor of five or more is perfectly reasonable. In the case of aircraft structures weight is extremely critical. There is no universal load factor; for different components it may vary from 2 or more to as little as 1.0 where the loads are accurately known and the structure is easily inspected.

      A default engineering load factor of 1.4 was specified for the Shuttle. This was for a vehicle that was radically different from anything that had previously flown in space, was designed at a time when computational stress analysis was in its infancy, had structure that would be difficult to inspect over a lifetime of decades and at least 100 flight cycles, and was to carry a crew into orbit and back on its very first flight.

      In the case of the Delta IVH second stage, computational stress analysis is far more precise than it was in the 1970’s when the Shuttle was designed. The vehicle has actually flown numerous times, demonstrating the accuracy of the stress analysis, and could easily accommodate strain gauges on an unmanned flight with the Orion spacecraft to provide a precise measurement of loads. The current engineering load factor of 1.25 could easily be verified, based on variations in actual stresses, to be adequate. The LV is expendable and has an operating life measured in minutes, so cyclic loading and fatigue are irrelevant, and the structure can be fully inspected during assembly. No analysis or evidence currently exists which shows that requiring the structure to be redesigned to an engineering load factor of 1.4 rather than 1.25 would prevent or mitigate any credible contingency.

  12. rb1957 says:
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    from the FISO website …
    Note: This is NOT a public telecon. You may share this link only with qualified participants.

    Feel free to share publicly our archive site, which is at http://spirit.as.utexas.edu

    • kcowing says:
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      It is overtly supported by NASA. NASA and UT never explained what “qualified” means. As for the site you link to, I am blocked from accessing it. As such things are not “publicly” available to this taxpayer.

  13. dogstar29 says:
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    The telecon.began with a poll that was intended to show that the majority of Americans support an increase in the NASA budget and that the primary goal of NASA should be a tax-funded program to send a small group of American astronauts to Mars as soon as possible. However this poll has major methodological flaws. It was presented on the Internet and compete responses were thus biased towards people who were likely to be websurfing and who were interested enough to answer a fairly long questionnaire on manned flight to Mars. It presented the NASA budget only as a fraction of the total Federal budget and never in terms of dollars. Most critically, it presented only one possible use of this budget (human flight to Mars) and asked if respondents favored or opposed it. No other potential NASA goals (lowering cost of human spaceflight and thus increasing the potential for commercial customers, astronomy, planetary probes, earth observation, research and technology, aeronautics, etc.) were mentioned as alternative uses of the money. The fact that funding for SLS/Orion would reduce resources for these other goals wasn’t mentioned.

    These factors suggest that the results of the poll were seriously biased. This is substantiated by the reported results. For example, according to this poll 75% of Americans favor doubling the NASA budget. This is about double the fraction favoring any increase in the NASA budget in other polls conducted annually by a more established public opinion research firm, Gallup, over many years. Indeed, the presenters stated that they intentionally avoided stating any dollar amounts. This is well known to influence people to be more likely to be supportive of any proposal. It is hard to discount the possibility of intentional bias given that the poll was sponsored by companies which have over $100 billion to gain if the policies it appears to support are implemented.

    Based on this poll, the sponsors advocate that funding for SLS/Orion/Mars be increased at a rate at least equal to the inflation rate, and be continued indefinitely. So tax dollars which support SLS/Orion go to contractors who use part of the money to intensely lobby Congress to provide more tax dollars for these programs. Currently this is done in part by reducing funding for other NASA programs such as Commercial Crew which are intended to reduce the cost of human spaceflight. This is presented as providing the American taxpayers with what they want.

    In fairness, there are a lot of young people who are excited about the idea of manned flight to Mars. People old enough to remember Apollo are (according to the Gallup poll) somewhat less enthusiastic about increasing the NASA budget. This might be because they remember what happened after Americans landed on the moon. NASA favored an aggressive program of continued lunar landings but, the “goal” having been achieved, public support declined precipitously. There are also people who have the goal of personally living and working in space. To them, devoting all available resources to a small number of manned flights to Mars means that during our lifetimes no more than a handful of Americans will ever be in space at the same time.