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ISS Without Russia: Deja Vu All Over Again

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 13, 2014
Filed under ,

NASA Puts One Space Station Propulsion Vehicle on Ice While Moving Ahead with Another, (2000)
“Meanwhile, the U.S. Propulsion Module (USPM) activity continues to move ahead. The USPM is a long term solution designed to provide reboost capability independent of that provided by the Russian Service Module. Unlike the ICM which was not designed to be refueled in orbit, the USPM would have all of the capabilities currently provided by the Service Module – without the pressurized living volume.”
US Propulsion Module Why, What, When?
Alternate means for ISS GN&C/Propulsion system functions are required for potential loss of Russian partnership (Risk of unfriendly break-up)
NASA’s 1999 Plan To Splash ISS
“NASA has always been required to have a way to bring the ISS back to Earth once its mission is completed. This briefing first appeared online at NASAWatch.com in April 1999. The Propulsion Module mentioned in this proposal was never built. It was being considered when Russia’s delays on delivering the Service Module to orbit began to mount.”
Keith’s note: Yes, yes, the U.S. paid for FGB and we own it – but then there’s Crimea.

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

57 responses to “ISS Without Russia: Deja Vu All Over Again”

  1. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    Time to start planning a follow-on station anyway, just have to speed it up a bit now. (Well, quite a bit maybe.) Good job for SLS – outfit an extra SLS upper stage tank or two with ISS systems and launch in a couple of pieces. Sort of Skylab on steroids…

    • mattmcc80 says:
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      Or put up a few BA-330’s which can be carried by existing rockets, no SLS required.

    • Jonna31 says:
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      Follow up station? Seriously? The only follow up station will be a smaller station in Lunar orbit or L2 or something. If we’re going to Mars, we’re not building an “ISS 2”

      And neither should we. The ISS is scientifically negligible . Why should we build another space station except as a staging point?

      • dogstar29 says:
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        The ISS has considerable potential in earth obs and refuel, checkout and servicing, and medium aperture astronomical obs, particularly in UV and (with the considerable power available) IR. We should consider the pressurized hangar module that was proposed back in the late 70’s. A Bigelow expansion module might serve the purpose quite well.

        Unless we can make the ISS a useful and sustainable program, it is not credible that human spaceflight BEO will be sustainable. As to the Russians, the fastest way to get them to change their tune would be to invite the Chinese to join the crew. Also, the US prop module is old stuff, need the Solar Electric Propulsion module instead.

        • Jonna31 says:
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          No. Not again. Refueling? When that infrastructure exists, we can have that conversation. Not a second before. No more space programs run primarily on hope. We hoped the ISS would be able to live up to it’s “considerable potential. We hoped we could maintain a long term productive joint space program with the Russians. We hoped that somehow, someway, we could get a return on our massive ISS investment, scientific or otherwise.

          None of this has come true. Fifteen years, and exactly what kind of hardware has been flight tested on the ISS for BEO missions? Not a single thing. The ISS is home to science which ends up in third and fourth rate journals as. Let’s call a spade a spade: building the ISS was important and groundbreaking. Keeping it in orbit is not.

          Now we have heard all sorts of magical solutions to preserving it’s usefulness. Your hanger. A “construction yard”. Orbital refueling.

          First, you’re going to retrofit a 15 year old space station to that end? Second, how many billions will this cost that delays other programs? Third, there isn’t a modern Design Reference Mission that incorporates the ISS as any one of these, even as a cost saving measure… so one of you is wrong.

          I’ll tell you what I think: folks have been wedded to the ISS for so long, they don’t want to let go. Well fortunately, the choice is no longer theirs to make.Without the ISS, billions of dollars are freed up to actually go places in our solar system with technology that exists, rather than look for missions in LEO and hypothesize about wonderful it would be to have orbital refueling.

          You know what that conversation reminds me of? Those fanciful arguments from a few years back from folks who decried the selection of another shuttle derived launch vehicle design instead of an all-new (non Falcon) liquid design. It was like we had two communities: the one based in reality, which looks at budgets and what we have ready to go… and other one, which didn’t care, and just wanted it their way because in their eyes it was manifestly the only way, regardless of the very real limitations such a scheme faced. It was a bizarre conversation then. It’s a bizarre conversation now. Show me a way to turn ISS into what you say it is within the next three years (as an upper limit on time), or your proposal is yet more “hope-based” planning.

          So sure, we can spend billions of dollars a year studying more crystal formation or cell cultures in microgravity. Or we could do something actually productive for the first time since ISS construction. For my part, I would rather have no space program, than a space program that looks like the painful running-in-space that is maintaining the ISS to the tune of $3 billion. A space program based around the ISS is not policy worth supporting. And to that end the only place I want to see that accursed space station is at the bottom of the Pacific.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            and that is ONLY your opinion.

          • Paul451 says:
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            It constantly amazes me that you believe this stuff, that you can bring forward those arguments, and yet support SLS/Orion.

            “No more space programs run primarily on hope. We hope the SLS would be able to live up to it’s “considerable potential. We hope that somehow, some way, we could get a return on our massive SLS investment.”

            “First, you’re going to retrofit a 30 year old engines to that end? Second, how many tens of billions will this cost that kills other programs?”

            “You know what that conversation reminds me of? Those fanciful arguments from a few years back from folks who decried the cancellation of Constellation and recreated it with SLS/Orion. It was like we had two communities: the one based in reality, which looks at budgets and what we have ready to go… and other one, which didn’t care, and just wanted it their way because in their eyes it was manifestly the only way, regardless of the very real limitations such a scheme faced. It was a bizarre conversation then. It’s a bizarre conversation now.”

            “Show me a way to turn SLS into what you say it is within the next three years (as an upper limit on time), or your proposal is yet more “hope-based” planning.”

            “For my part, I would rather have no space program, than a space program that looks like the painful repeating history that is the SLS/Orion development to the tune of $3 billion every year for decades. A space program based around the SLS is not policy worth supporting. And to that end the only place I want to see that accursed zombie rocket is an obscure historical footnote on Encyclopedia Astronautica.”

            “Or we could do something actually productive for the first time”

          • Jonna31 says:
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            Sure I’ll tell you why. You know why I believe this stuff?
            Because it’s
            (A) Being funded annually despite what detractors have claimed would be the case.
            (B) Making Rapid Progress and far beyond where Constellation was when it was terminated.
            (C) Tangible. Unlike every other alternative / companion except for Falcon, you can touch and feel SLS hardware, which makes it in a far better spot than say, an all new liquid booster, or orbital refueling… neither of which actually exist.
            (D) It’s the law, and written by people who will protect the business it brings to their districts.

            So the way I see it, Team SLS is holding all the cards, and the anti-SLS crowd, rhetoric aside, has rather few.

            Your amusing parody of what I wrote is full of holes. NASA looked through all sorts of engines to be used. All of a sudden the RS-25D, which we already ahve isn’t good enough? And a simplified/modified RS-25E isn’t sufficient? Since when? Why? Or is it just because

            You know what really soured me on alternatives to the SLS plan? The bizarre conversation at NASA Watch two years ago about all liquid boosters for it. It was a conversation from another dimension. How can can supposedly serious people decry the choice of using 5 segment SRBs, which you know, also exist (and the 4 segment flew), and call it pork… just because their all liquid solution is a decade down the line? Do they watch a different set of news than I do? Do they exist in a universe with a better budgetary environment? It makes no practical sense to have liquid boosters to start with for a Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle, when we have known-quantity solid boosters. But no… not in that conversation. Solid? Automatically pork, to keep ATK alive.

            Unlike most people here, I don’t advocate some kind of silver bullet all new, all liquid rocket. I see SpaceX was what SpaceX sees itself as… a compliment to the SLS… not competition. I advocated for the law, as it is written and the space vehicle legislated into existence that should wear the name “Senate Launch System” with pride.

            After all… what has trusting NASA to guide the way gotten us in the last 20 years? A space station that we’re problematically entangled with the Russians with, and a lot of broken promises about a Shuttle successor. I’ll go with congressional oversight… and you know, elected officials saying where taxpayer dollars should be spent, rather than more writing of NASA a blank check.

            Here’s the facts. In by the end of 2020, Falcon 9 + Dragonrider and Falcon Heavy will have flown (and hopefully landed!). SLS will have flown at least once, maybe with a cargo mission prior to EM-2.

            Want to know what won’t fly? An alternative to any of these. Or orbital refueling, which has not made an inch of progress in a decade of talking about it. Heck, I’m gonna go out and a limb and say for economical reasons alone, we won’t even see Orbital fuel depots in the 2020s either.

            Politics is the art of the possible, and in these budget times, the space program needs to be intrinsically pragmatic. The SLS, cheaper to fly than the Space Shuttle (which we flew for 30 years) is pragmatic Without the ISS cargo can be readily funded. What the SLS is not, is some perfect design. I’m fine with that. You’re going to have to be fine with it too when it flies, which, you know, will make it even more real and be a break from 20 years of CG art letdowns by an agency that is supposedly the paragon of excellence in engineering.

          • Paul451 says:
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            My comment wasn’t a “parody”, it was to show the incredible hypocrisy in your claims about ISS, when contrasted with your bizarre defence of SLS.

            And in response, you just showed even more of the same double-think.

            For example:

            You know why I believe this stuff? Because [SLS is]
            (A) Being funded annually despite what detractors have claimed would be the case.
            (B) Making Rapid Progress and far beyond where Constellation was when it was terminated.
            (C) Tangible. Unlike every other alternative / companion except for Falcon, you can touch and feel SLS hardware, which makes it in a far better spot than say, an all new liquid booster, or orbital refueling… neither of which actually exist.
            (D) It’s the law, and written by people who will protect the business it brings to their districts.

            And yet ISS is:
            (A) Being funded annually. (Duh!)
            (B) Actually In Existence, it’s flying.
            (C) Actually In Existence, carrying crew.
            (D) It’s the law, and written by people who will protect the business it brings to their districts.

            …but you are happy to kill it. So why is ISS not sacrosanct like your precious SLS if it meets the same criteria?

            And you’re wrong anyway. SLS isn’t really “being funded”. Only partial development has been funded. So far, the 60-tonne SLS and the 21-day Orion. Orion’s initial configuration won’t even be able to dock with mission hardware, if there was any to dock with, lacking docking systems.

            To get to 70-tonne and any BEO capability, more funding will need to be found. To get to 130 tonnes and the ability for Orion to dock with it, even more funding will need to be found.

            That is important to remember. You claim that killing ISS will free up funding for “cargo” for SLS (I assume you mean mission hardware beyond the capsule and launcher). But in reality, that $3b/yr would be consumed just in bringing SLS up to it’s first requirements. Man-rated SLS-70, cargo SLS-130, BEO-Orion, and upper stages capable of throwing cargo BEO.

            To fly anything on SLS, yet more funding is needed. So what will you kill next after ISS to feed your all consuming monster?

            See the people calling for an end to SLS/Orion and wanting to use ISS to develop refuelling/propulsion/inflatables/etc, are actually trying to replace ISS with something that solves the problems of ISS. To develop an entirely new space industry which the US would be dominant in. And, as a nice side effect, to lower NASA’s ongoing mission costs, to allow the US to be able to afford to do more.

            Killing ISS to support SLS does not solve the problems with SLS. It isn’t about using SLS to develop the next generation of commercial space-flight. It’s purely about feeding SLS, to justify SLS, to continue SLS, with no stepping stone beyond SLS.

            We’re using our slow buggy computer to go online and order a newer faster computer. We’re driving our old, costs-more-to-keep-running-than-its-worth, clunker on one last trip to the dealer to buy a newer, better model.

            You just want to throw more money down the big hole you’ve already thrown money down.

            We hate SLS precisely because it repeats the same mistakes made with ISS. Too expensive and slow to develop. Too expensive to operate.

            The SLS, cheaper to fly than the Space Shuttle

            I’ve seen nothing to support that claim. On the contrary, by definition SLS will cost as much or more than the Shuttle to launch, given the shared systems (engines/SRBS), in addition to the new untested configuration. Nothing’s been developed to lower the operations cost. And the proposed launch schedule suggests that the SLS mission planners also believe that $3 billion a year can only afford a single launch per year, even when operational.

            The SLS […] is pragmatic

            Pragmatic? $20 billion by 2021? That could buy 100 Falcon Heavy launches and 100 Falcon 9 launches and 100 Dragon-crew flights. 5000 tonnes and 700 crew to orbit.

            Or, at a third of that, 1500 tonnes and 135 crew. Leaving TWO BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR for actual mission hardware and operations.

            And that’s just over the next seven years. Before SLS/Orion can launch its first crew-to-nowhere.

            And from 2021 to 2030, another $30 billion on top of the previous $20 billion (plus another $50 billion if you had your way), or top of the already sunk costs… For a bare handful of flights.

            Pragmatic?

            [Laughs]

            orbital refueling, which has not made an inch of progress in a decade of talking about it.

            DoD demo flight. ISS robotics demo mission. Ie, hardware in orbit. For just millions. What has SLS/Orion flown for BILLIONS?

            Heck, I’m gonna go out and a limb and say for economical reasons alone, we won’t even see Orbital fuel depots in the 2020s either.

            Yes the unfunded thing will struggle to exist unless it’s funded. Shock.

            Same as SLS’s missions. Won’t exist unless they get funding. The difference is the order of magnitude more funding required for SLS over that required to develop orbital refuelling.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            And yet ISS is:

            (A) Being funded annually. (Duh!)
            (B) Actually In Existence, it’s flying.
            (C) Actually In Existence, carrying crew.
            (D) It’s the law, and written by people who will protect the business it brings to their districts.

            …but you are happy to kill it. So why is ISS not sacrosanct like your precious SLS if it meets the same criteria?

            Simply put, because the SLS provides capability while the ISS provides none. With the SLS, we can go BEO. We could go to the Moon. We could go to Mars. We can go to Asteroids. Even one mission to the least of these every two years in my opinion is a better use of tax payer dollars, than the ISS which is in orbit… doing what exactly? Rack science and…? Yeah. Not a thing. That’s why I want to kill the ISS. Because if the plan is to send human beings out of LEO again, the ISS does absolutely nothing to accomplish that goal.

            And you’re wrong anyway. SLS isn’t really “being funded”. Only partial development has been funded. So far, the 60-tonne SLS and the 21-day Orion. Orion’s initial configuration won’t even be able to dock with mission hardware, if there was any to dock with, lacking docking systems.

            To get to 70-tonne and any BEO capability, more funding will need to be found. To get to 130 tonnes and the ability for Orion to dock with it, even more funding will need to be found.

            This strikes me as a rather bizarre complaint. So it’s being funded – wisely – under a pay as you go scheme. That’s fine. It’s also ahead of schedule and under budget. This pairs up with the other bizarre complaint that the SLS “doesn’t have a mission”, as if generic capability driven framework is pioneering. Well maybe to NASA. But for the rest of the world, paying as you go and designing things around what it can do, rather than some arbitrary end point is the norm.

            That is important to remember. You claim that killing ISS will free up funding for “cargo” for SLS (I assume you mean mission hardware beyond the capsule and launcher). But in reality, that $3b/yr would be consumed just in bringing SLS up to it’sfirst requirements. Man-rated SLS-70, cargo SLS-130, BEO-Orion, and upper stages capable of throwing cargo BEO.

            To fly anything on SLS, yet more funding is needed. So what will you kill next after ISS to feed your all consuming monster?

            Frankly? I was hoping Mars 2020 and Mars Sample Return, also known as the project that is keeping JPL in the Mars robot business, and the mission that isn’t needed when people go there a decade later. That’s like what…. $5-7 billion right there?

            I know I’m being cheeky in the feed the monster thing. The point is, everything NASA does should be secondary towards putting people on Mars. I think the $3 billion a year in a world without the ISS over a decade and a half will be more than enough. If we’re going to go to Mars in the late 2030s, we’re going to spend the 2010s and 2020s (and early 2030s) paying for it. That’s more than enough time.

            Killing ISS to support SLS does not solve the problems with SLS. It isn’t about using SLS to develop the next generation of commercial space-flight. It’s purely about feeding SLS, to justify SLS, to continue SLS, with no stepping stone beyond SLS.

            Is this the “SLS has no mission” argument? The SLS is a general purpose super heavy lift launch vehicle that will be used for cargo more than manned missions in any event (which is fine by me… I don’t care for it as a manned launcher, but rather an unmanned one is my priority). We’ll have it for decades. Why should there be a stepping stone beyond the SLS? You know what replaces the SLS? A SpaceX superheavy lift vehicle in the 130t+ range. Exactly what commercial market will there be for such a thing? Maybe orbital refueling? To what end?

            I’m not interested in banking our dreams of Mars on another hope that Falcon Heavy, and then it’s super heavy lift successor finds a commercial market. We heard that song and dance with the EELV market in the early 2000s. How did that work out?

            I’ve seen nothing to support that claim. On the contrary, by definition SLS will cost as much or more than the Shuttle to launch, given the shared systems (engines/SRBS), in addition to the new untested configuration. Nothing’s been developed to lower the operations cost. And the proposed launch schedule suggests that the SLS mission planners also believe that $3 billion a year can only afford a single launch per year, even when operational.

            http://www.space.com/17556-

            NASA itself says $500 million per launch.

            Space shuttle was about $600 million per launch. Factoring in program costs it was $1.2 billion.

            The SLS is affordable. Is it as affordable as Falcon Heavy launches? Nope. Not nearly. But it’s doing something entirely different.

            Pragmatic? $20 billion by 2021? That could buy 100 Falcon Heavy launches and 100 Falcon 9 launchesand 100 Dragon-crew flights. 5000 tonnes and 700 crew to orbit.

            On a vehicle with a 4.5 meter fairing that maxes out at 53 tons per launch. Don’t get me wrong, Falcon Heavy has a major role to play in BEO missions. But it does not replace the SLS in mass or volume in a single launch. Are we seriously going to launch a modularized Earth Departure Stage on a bunch of Falcon Heavies? That’s going to be the plan? Somehow, I rather doubt it.

            By the way, will Falcon Heavy have an upper stage to be able to take supplies (and a return vehicle) to Mars to be waiting for the crew to get there? No it won’t.

            And from 2021 to 2030, another $30 billion on top of the previous $20 billion (plus another $50 billion if you had your way), or top of the already sunk costs… For a bare handful of flights.

            That’s fine. We won’t have to pay for it int he 2030s, when the Mars mission is a few years out as opposed to decades out. Why are people so keen on paying for all these systems at once?

            DoD demo flight. ISS robotics demo mission. Ie, hardware in orbit. For just millions. What has SLS/Orion flown for BILLIONS?

            Small scale one-offs that will lead to nothing. That’s what your saying.

            I say it again. Orbital Refueling? If it has to be rocketed up from earth, it’s never going to happen. And asteroid mining for fuel is decades away.

            What has the SLS launched? Nothing yet. That changes in December. But it’s also made more progress in the past two years than Constellation made in 7.

            That’s the diffrence between NASA being given a free hand to define the vehicle and mission as it did with Constellation, and NASA being told by their superiors in Congress “this is the way it’s going to be.” I admire Congress for taking control of an agency that’s become far too used to getting its way.

            Yes the unfunded thing will struggle to exist unless it’s funded. Shock.

            Same as SLS’s missions. Won’t exist unless they get funding. The difference is the order of magnitude more funding required for SLS over that required to develop orbital refueling.

            Except the SLS something whose development is in pretty much a straight line – being entirely existing or modified components in a new configuration, whereas orbital refueling needs to solve major technical challenges (like boiling off in orbit) and major economical ones (will anyone besides NASA have a need? how does the depot tank get refilled economically?).

            SLS is clearly the path of least resistance. It’s a program based on tangible hardware. Unlike orbital refueling, which is all dream and no reality.

          • Paul451 says:
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            because the SLS provides capability while the ISS provides none. With the SLS, we can go BEO. We could go to the Moon. We could go to Mars. We can go to Asteroids.

            To use your own words again:
            “That’s the very picture of hope based policy. […] There is a proclivity to confuse desire and reality.”

            What’s been funded out to 2021 only has the “capability” for an Apollo-8 type flight around the moon and back. That’s it. After consuming $20 billion more on top of already sunk-cost.

            No landing. No Mars. No asteroids, unless they send another mission to bring the asteroid back as close as the moon. How does the existence of the ARM proposal not show you the limitations in SLS/Orion?

            SLS has somehow managed to be even less capable than ISS.

            Hell Orion can’t even go to the ISS, it lacks a docking system. Which also means it can’t perform any mission requiring it to do an Apollo style flip-and-dock manoeuvre to dock with its own stack.

            You are imagining that killing ISS will buy missions for SLS. But you’re wrong. SLS/Orion requires ISS to die merely to meet its minimum capability requirements. Killing ISS still leaves SLS/Orion unable to fund actual missions.

            OTOH, killing SLS/Orion frees up funding for dozens of programs, all useful in lowering NASA’s long term costs and increasing its long term capability.

            It’s also ahead of schedule

            The 2017 test flight looks like it’s already delayed until 2018 at the earliest in spite of recently increased funding. That doesn’t bode well for the 2021 manned launch. Let alone the 2032 SLS-130 launch.

            NASA itself says $500 million per launch.

            The same people said $450m per Shuttle launch. The actual figures were $206b/135, $1.5 billion per launch. (Correcting for inflation.)

            So that would give SLS/Orion a minimum launch cost of $1.6b. This makes more sense since it uses much of same systems, engines, SRBs, and nothing has been done to reduce operational costs.

            However, the schedule is 12 flights by 2032. Over $50 billion in funding from now until then, so over $4 billion per launch. Realistically, absorbing the test flights, it works out at about $10 billion per “mission”, not including the cost of any mission hardware, with those “missions” being either 70 or 100 tonnes of payload plus one four-man Orion and one European service module. For $10 billion. Gee what a bargain.

            [For $1 billion you could, for example, buy 6 FH launches, plus 4 F9 launches, plus 4 Dragon crew capsules. So 300 tonnes payload and up to 28 crew. Leaving you $9 billion for every mission to buy hardware: Couple of booster stages, fuelled in orbit; a few Bigelow modules; a LSS module; even pay for a couple of tests of Dragon on FH flown around the moon and back to prove the heat-shield, etc etc. All for the price of each SLS-based mission.]

            By the way, will Falcon Heavy have an upper stage to be able to take supplies (and a return vehicle) to Mars to be waiting for the crew to get there? No it won’t.

            Neither will SLS for a long time. In spite of already spending $2.1 billion to partially develop the engines for one, which they’ll now mothball for about 15 years.

            So the only difference is that one option saves you $20 billion by 2021 (and $50 billion by 2030), and the other doesn’t.

            And SpaceX could develop a whole lot of upper stage for $20 billion.

            Why are people so keen on paying for all these systems at once?

            You keep repeating that line. We don’t want to “pay for all these systems at once”, we want to pay for them instead. We want to free up tens of billions of dollars to develop cost-effective hardware that really empowers a new generation of missions. Rather than pour it all into the blackhole of SLS, decade after decade like we did with the Shuttle program, and ISS/Freedom development.

            Why is that so hard to understand? We don’t want to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over, for yet another lifetime.

            Are we seriously going to launch a modularized Earth Departure Stage on a bunch of Falcon Heavies? That’s going to be the plan? Somehow, I rather doubt it.

            What is there to doubt? All proposed SLS missions require multiple launches, except the Apollo-8-redux. All would require the SLS-70 and SLS-130 components to be docked in Earth orbit, or to dock at Mars, depending on the proposal. So the docking/mating technology needs to be developed anyway. And the current plan can’t even start to develop that technology before the mid-2020’s. Without the burden of SLS/Orion, we can start developing it tomorrow, and be flying actual BEO missions before 2021.

            BTW, that “boil off” problem with refuelling will need to be solved for any Mars mission. Assuming they want to have enough fuel left to enter Mars orbit, let alone to get home.

            What has the SLS launched? Nothing yet. That changes in December.

            [laughs] An empty capsule shell, no service module, no docking capability, on an Atlas launcher. And only if the Russians let you use their engines.

            That’s the diffrence between NASA being given a free hand to define the vehicle and mission as it did with Constellation, and NASA being told by their superiors in Congress “this is the way it’s going to be.”

            The difference seems to be between Griffin and Bolden. Bolden seems to have pulled a number of programs back into line. Griffin thought he was somehow being politically clever selling something he knew NASA couldn’t afford.

            I can see nothing in SLS’s enabling legislation that tells NASA what order to fund SLS or what missions to fly. It orders up a 70 and 130 tonne version, and it demands recycled shuttle components, that’s it. The proposed schedule and missions have come from NASA.

            However, I find it funny how much you defer to the “wisdom” of Congress when they’ve consistently supported ISS from the days of Space Station Freedom, against every attempt to kill it off.

            “And then they’ve appropriated for it every year,” to use your own words.

            So why is it okay for you to ignore their “wisdom” when it suits you, but SLS-critics must defer? Can you not see the hypocrisy of your arguments?

            When it suits you, you defer to Congress; when it suits you, you ignore them. When it suits you, you throw around Powerpoint fantasies as “missions”; when it suits you, you decry as mere “hope” the idea that companies like SpaceX will simply continue as they have. When it suits you, you can use imaginary future capacity for SLS; when it suits you, you denounce the idea of orbital refuelling… which the Russians routinely perform on their side of ISS today.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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            I will grant you that putting ISS in a high inclination orbit was a stupid strategic blunder that crippled it as a staging point and should never be repeated.
            However, these “modern” design reference missions you speak of are fools errands that have zero potential for creating a sustainable space industry. Things like the post Apollo plans and the late ’80’s SEI have a vastly better grasp of how to do real space flight than the one shot financially and politically unsustainable fantasies in these “modern” mission plans you speak of. Even if all we do for the forseable future is maintain a permanently inhabited outpost in LEO, that would still be a bigger success than a single flag and a weeks worth of boot prints on Mars that will never be seen twice by human eyes, or far more likely a wharehouse full of forgotten power point charts that cost billions to make. If you want a repeat of Apollo one shot stunt that makes no lasting progress towards really establishing humans in space, then your “modern” design reference missions might not be a complete fiasco, but the end result would still be a noble failure in the best case scenario and a pointless diversion of resources from getting at least half a loaf rather than having no loaf at all in more realistic scenarios.

        • Michael Kaplan says:
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          ISS is a highly sub-optimal platform and location for astronomical observations. Contamination. Vibrations. Very poor observational efficiency, dodging the sun, moon and the Earth. Same goes for LEO. Too warm for IR observations as well.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Dennis Wingo made a point awhile back, that there have been experiments flown on ISS to directly measure contamination. It’s not an issue.

            I don’t think ISS is the perfect platform for observations, but it’s there. And it’s manned. Power, comms, station-keeping, pointing, repair and return. (And robots arms. What mission can’t be made better with robot arms?) That makes it a good testing ground for developing hardware, if you could get the station ops people to pull their heads out of their collective.

            I’ve often wondered what could be saved in JWST had they tested basic prototypes of the sun-shield and mirror-deployment mechanism on ISS. (Rather than trying to partially simulate space, on Earth.) See what breaks, rinse, repeat with other sub-systems. Incremental development of hardware, rather than a $9 billion radically-new-design-but-everything-must-work-first-time development.

          • Michael Kaplan says:
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            There were tech demos on the JWST program early on that were eliminated. Poor observational efficiency is probably the biggest issue from doing astrophysics in LEO. HST observes ~ 35% of the time. JWST should observe 100% of the time, like Spitzer.

          • Paul451 says:
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            HST observes ~ 35% of the time. JWST should observe 100% of the time, like Spitzer.

            In return for a risk of 100% mission failure if an easily repairable component fails, resulting in how much increase in costs? If it’s more than 3 times, the prize is not worth the ticket.

            This is a point I’ve tried (and usually failed) to make recently. There’s a point where you are spending more money focusing on a single unique spacecraft (or on saving mass to fit the launcher or insisting on single-launch), than you would spend just launching whole extra payloads.

            [Aside: once you have proven the design in LEO, you can always then “throw one away” to L1, perhaps via an add-on SEP.]

          • Michael Kaplan says:
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            How does one propose one gets multiple 6.5 m class, IR optimized payloads? Is that what you are suggesting, or am I missing your point? Large aperture astrophysical facilities are bound to be single, unique facilities. One opportunity missed by JWST is robotic serviceability. Significant capabilities were demonstrated by Orbital Express in 2007. By the time it flew, it was too late to make architecture changes in JWST. It would make sense that the next large space astrophysical observatory would be designed with robotic serviceability in mind.

      • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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        Because, without the ISS as a test-bed for the ECLSS and other technologies, it is far less likely that the Mars spacecraft will ever be developed.

        “Where are these technologies?” You rightly ask. “Why aren’t they being flown now?” The truth is that they are under development now and the 2015-20 period is when they are most likely to be ready for LEO tests. That’s why either the ISS or a similar platform is needed.

        • Jonna31 says:
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          Ah so another “it’s coming up over the horizon” promise from an agency that’s become professionals at that kind of bait an switch.

          No thank you. If they’re ready before 2020, sure, we should send them up.

          But
          (A) I doubt anything much will fly at all. Looking at you VASIMR in particular. How come I doubt NASA still has 100 people still working on it’s ISS integration?

          (B) When 2020 rolls around, nothing else should go up and everything should come down.

          You know what will make a Mars craft even more likely to be built than some tested technology? The $3 billion a year that the ISS sponges up to do mostly worthless rack science. That’s what.

          • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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            But that $£ billion/year will go on food stamps, not SLS payloads. You know that. Why are you indulging in this fantasy that the ISS is standing in the way of HSF achievement when, in fact, it is the only thing standing in the way of HSF cancellation?

          • Jonna31 says:
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            I’ll take the risk. I seriously will. I’ll take that risk two times over and then some. I don’t think HSF will get canceled because when the Obama Administration tried to make it an all-commercial affair and get the government out of the rocket-producing / man launching business, Congress emphatically said ‘no’, and then legislated the biggest rocket since Saturn V, into existence. And then they’ve appropriated for it every year. We’ve been through the scenario you’re describing, and it didn’t happen. In fact, the opposite did.

            Is that not convincing or something? I’m not sure how you can draw the conclusion that HSF is in danger of being shutdown, when if it was gonna happen, it would have after the Obama 2011 budget proposal. Instead Congressmen and Senators with NASA districts circled the wagons and made a new program, one that the Obama administration did not want and was forced to accept. And Commercial got funded too.

            How can you claim both to be true? How can the SLS be pork that should not exist…. that is only in existence because of district-protecting congressmen and state-protecting senators, and then on the other hand claim that the SLS endangers HSF because it means we abandoned the ISS? Only if you define human space flight so narrowly as to mean “enduring human presence on the ISS” then sure. But I don’t care about a romantic notion like a permanent human presence in orbit, and I never will. Romantic notions got us entagled with Russia. Romantic notions have been encouraging to cooperate with China of all countries on the ISS. Romantic notions keep extolling the ISS despite it’s meager scientific return. If a manned SLS launches every other year – which is the worst case scenario plan, not the actual case mind you – constitute HSF for the US, so long as they are doing something interesting, then absolutely then that’s a big net gain. Even a skin and bones program like that, is desirable to the unproductive $3 billion a year anchor we have in orbit.

            It isn’t important if there are “Americans in space” aside from that. Doing what exactly? Keeping the lights on an orbiting vehicle? How much Nature-published science has been done on the ISS? Yeah… I thought so. That is why I don’t care for it. On its merits, it is not a vehicle worthy of support.

            So yeah, I’ll take the risk. And I say this as a lover of space, who grew up with the space shuttle and being NASA’s target demographic, and grew to be a scientist… if we don’t ditch the ISS and plan for the world after it where we go bigger and more ambitious, starting now, on the back of super heavy lift space vehicles, I’d be entirely fine with that $3 billion going to food stamps. At least they’d be doing something productive with taxpayer dollars, which isn’t something NASA has done with the ISS since construction ceased.

          • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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            And this are the words of a ‘lover of space’. Not.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            No, just someone asking more of their agency, you know, the purpose of this site.

            But it’s also the words of someone who is tired of the NASA bait and switch. It wasn’t so long ago posters, scientists, officials in NASA, were pushing for cooperating with China and saying “hey look, we have good relations with the Russians”. Well… funny that.

            That’s the very picture of hope based policy. The supposition that Russia would never be antagonistic towards the West, after two decades of decline on their part, was incredibly taken for granted. And now we should expect the same of China?

            I bring that up because it directly connects to orbiting fuel depots, and single mindedness of how “right” Falcon is (reminding me of how “right” DIRECT was in the age of CxP). There is a proclivity to confuse desire and reality. A desire for sustainable cooperation doesn’t intrinsically make it possible. A desire for Commercial to fully meet the needs of NASA for the next two decades (despite NASA itself saying they will be inadequate) does not intrinsically make it possible. Both are simply other ways of saying “Hope”, and hope should be a dirty word, as far as budgets are concerned.

            And then I look at the proposed budget for NASA for next year and I see the SLS fully funded. Yet again. Why do I somehow doubt this is going to stop being the case?

            SLS detractors like yourself keep moving the goalpost. First was that it will never get funded. Then it was that it will never fly. Now’ it’s “it might fly once or twice”. You keep retreating as the “moment of failure” keeps getting pushed further and further into the future. What’s the moment now? 2022?

            I trust Congressmen and Senators to be entirely self interested about keeping the SLS alive. I’m not sure why you would on one hand decry them for funding and building it, and then on the other hand, say it won’t fly more than once or twice. What possible incentive would they have to not fully funding it year in and year out.

            Will it come at the expense of other things? Sure. A budget is a list of priorities,not a wish list. But deep space human travel is something we’ll be able to uniquely do and other countries won’t be able to. That should be encouraged, even at the expense of other things. Maybe in that budgetary environment, SMD and the rest of NASA will take a cue from the ESA and not ask for multi-billion dollar missions.

            So yeah. This lover of space is just asking for more than keeping a few astronauts in orbit playing with mice, cell cultures and keeping the lights on. So sue me.

          • duheagle says:
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            Of course SLS is pork. You also might want to consider whose pork it is. Right now, the SLS caucus is mainly Utah (ATK), Alabama (Huntsville), Louisiana (Michoud) and Texas (JSC).

            Orbital just merged with ATK. If ATK decides it sees more of a stable future in building new solid first stages for Antares instead of a pair of 5-segment SRB’s for SLS every two to four years, then ATK’s former rabid SLS boosterism switches to ISS and probably kills SLS outright. If this happens, the remaining portions of the SLS caucus won’t be able to save it, so, game over.

            Louisiana wants to build SLS, but Michoud has more irons than SLS in the fire. SLS is definitely the tent pole, but Michoud also has some purely commercial contracts. It would certainly like more, especially if ATK sweeps the legs out from under SLS. In a couple more years, SpaceX might be far enough along with its Raptor engine work to begin gearing up to produce the BFR it will power. Especially if SLS has cratered in the meantime, Michoud might be amenable to being acquired by SpaceX as the basis of its BFR works. Even if SLS is, somehow, still limping along at this point, it might be an offer to good to refuse. Again, game over.

            Texas has always been a balancing act. It has been in both the SLS and ISS caucuses because both mean work for JSC. But ISS work at JSC is current and ongoing. SLS work is in the future, if ever. Given SpaceX’s increasing Texas footprint and a natural tendency to prefer a bird in the hand over one that may or may not ever be caught, I think Texas peels away from SLS if push comes to shove.

            That leaves Alabama on its own. Recent Russian moves in Ukraine and in response to our sanctions suggest the days of ULA are numbered. Shelby, et al, will have their hands full defending both ULA and SLS business-as-usual simultaneously. I don’t think they’re going to be successful at either, long-term. Personally, I think SLS goes down before ULA, but then ULA goes down too. World events and Elon Musk are going to drive this part of Old Dixie down.

          • Paul451 says:
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            If ATK decides it sees more of a stable future in building new solid first stages for Antares instead of a pair of 5-segment SRB’s for SLS every two to four years, then ATK’s former rabid SLS boosterism switches to ISS and probably kills SLS outright.

            I can’t see ATK turning away billions of dollars in free money just because it’s getting hundreds of millions of dollars elsewhere. They are perfectly capable of simultaneously supporting all kinds of pork.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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        We’re not going to Mars anytime soon. Do you understand the severity of the radiation and landing problems? Until we have nuclear rocket engines to reduce the trip times to something reasonable, fleets of massive boosters to launch the huge landing systems required, and lunar bases to supply the massive amounts of shielding and fuel required without even bigger fleets of even bigger boosters, the only things that can reach Mars are robots or corpses. It’s not as though the dollars to do those things are looking super likely either.
        On the other hand, staging point is exactly right. Deep space missions without a LEO staging point outbound and returning will never be anything more than one time stunts that loose political favor faster than they can happen, if at all.

        Human Mars missions are going to exist only in artists renderings for the forseable future and at this point we aren’t exactly on track to return to the moon in ten years either. Whether it be in 2020 or 2024, I for one am not satisfied to set ourselves up for yet another failure where the only human space flight program remaining after the end of ISS is a bunch of artist renderings that have no hope of coming true in our lifetimes.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      The problem? SLS has enough engines for four flights and that’s all she wrote. RS-25E (the new engine) and the new boosters would all need new manufacturing plant and staff – years of work, just like a US-built RD-180.

      So, something that can be launched on and supported entirely by Falcon and Delta, which are likely to be the only US launchers in the medium term, is needed.

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      When is SLS planned to fly?

      • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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        First crewed flight in 2021 at the earliest. First cargo flight in 2023-ish and first operational mission either 2024 or 2025. At that point, the supply of RS-25D SSME-IIs and RSRM-V booster casings both run out and NASA had better hope that the RS-25E and the new-generation booster are in production or it’s back to the benches for them.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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        First flight 2017. Two flights should be sufficient to launch a pretty respectable station along the lines of the old Station C concept.

        • pathfinder_01 says:
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          No one in their right mind would put an space station model or any cargo they care about on the first flight of any rocket. It is way the heck too risky.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            If we are going to use water to protect against radiation its needs lifting into space. The test flight can lift a big tank of water. If the LV works we get the water. If it fails the only things we lost were a tank and a homing beacon, which are cheap.

            Allow for the change in a volume of water when it freezes.

          • Paul451 says:
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            The payload will need the other half of a docking system, plus astronaut manipulation equipment (handholds, etc.), which will have more cost than tankage and a “homing beacon”.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            Handholds and robot arm holds are not expensive.

            The docking system will definitely add cost but should be an off the shelf item by then.

            This means the water carrier is still a cheap to make payload. More than I was hoping but still cheap.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Forgot about the robot grapples. There’ll be some other system, telemetry, thermal control (or at least monitoring.) You don’t want the tank overheating, leaking, exploding, whatever.

            If it was a dummy test payload put into an otherwise unused unstable low orbit, where it is going to decay within a year or so, you can pretty much send up a re-purposed rainwater-tank. Doesn’t matter if it leaks, ruptures, whatever. But if you are putting it in a regular LEO slot, it has to conform to the usual rules of spacecraft debris safety (such as for satellite and upperstage fuel tanks). Asposions is bad.

            The docking system will definitely add cost but should be an off the shelf item by then.

            The docking system should be an off-the-shelf item full-stop. A general purpose adaptable/modular docking system is a fantastic enabling item for commercial space. (Like PICA and FasTrac was for SpaceX, Transhab was for Bigelow, and HL-20 for SNC.)

            Even better, a modular auto-docking system, where you have say six small standardised self-contained thruster pods, and a standard guidance/docking pod. Bolt them on to any spacecraft, supply power, Bam! Dumb payload instantly becomes smart payload. [As JDAM did to turn dumb “iron bombs” into smart munitions. $25,000 bolt on kit to replicate the accuracy of million-dollar laser-guided missiles.]

            These are the sort of projects that NASA HSF should be funding, not SLS/Orion.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            Five NASA Docking Systems are being purchased by NASA under the Commercial Crew transport System Capability (CCtCap). So that part will be off the shelf.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

            Any company that is building a launch vehicle can develop the attitude controller, there are plenty of satellite thrusters around. They can then sell more as a product.

            Water can be sold in LEO for thousands of dollars a pint so a space capable tank is worth buying/making.

          • Paul451 says:
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            That’s the actual docking ring. What I meant by “docking system” is better described as “prox ops systems”, the approach sensors, GNC system, thruster control systems, telemetry and comms, etc. The whole kit, not just the physical docking connector.

            I think it would be useful to have a flight-proven bolt-on kit suitable for virtually any vehicle up to a certain mass-limit. The sort of thing that could be bolted onto your water-tank (at least the passive half of the kit), and know that five years from now, any client can use the standard kit and the two spacecraft are virtually guaranteed to work together. Gonna make it a hell of a lot easier for you to sell it, isn’t it?

            It would increase capabilities (and save money) in the long term, as it would encourage planners to include the kits even where there’s currently no plan to have other craft dock with their satellites. (For example, USAF/NRO spy or comm satellites, NASA/ESA/JAXA observatories, etc.) Five or ten years later, someone can change their mind and know that they don’t have to justify funding the custom design of a one-off spacecraft to work with the quirks of one satellite that was never designed with prox.ops in mind. And it makes it easier for a small vendor to bid for such a service mission by designing once for multiple bids.

            Perhaps there’s not enough market yet to justify it. But it seems to be a chicken/egg problem. Today, everything would be so bespoke and expensive that throw-away is actually cheaper. If there was a standard low-cost kit for otherwise “dumb” spacecraft/satellites/etc, it’d increase the likelihood of the other side of the equation (servicing) emerging spontaneously down the track.

            [Same with payload integration on launchers. Once launch costs drop enough, it would help to have the equivalent of a “shipping container” that works with any launch vehicle in the class, which acts as an interface between the payload and the launcher. So that you can build your payload to suit the “container”, without worrying about the launch vehicle, and the launchers can be built to carry just the standard “containers”, without worrying about payloads. Bit like a giant version of the nanosat ejectors. Anything to lower ops costs for launches. It’s ridiculous to have a $100,000/tonne reusable launch vehicle, but it costs you $millions to do payload integration planning, and tens of $millions if you need to swap vehicles.]

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            NASA has solved the chicken and the egg situation by putting the docking collar on the ISS and CCDev craft.

  2. Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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    What are they going to do? Re-engineer the Morpheus Lander as a propulsion unit for the US part of the ISS?

  3. Anonymous says:
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    So if this becomes official Russian space policy will enthusiasm for the 2024 extension date of ISS among other international partners wane? Seems to me NASA may only require one commercial crew provider now, while the idea of Russia working closely with Asia-Pacific nations in spaceflight could further isolate the USA.
    Sinking ISS early may not even guarantee a future for Orion or SLS.

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      Sinking ISS guarantees an end for SLS and Orion. Bolden (if you believe him) said he needed the station to develop the beo technology. Without it, he would recommend cancelling SLS and Orion.
      Also don’t know if any of the international partners have confirmed plans to extend to 2024.

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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      Even if the ISS 2024 plan happens, there still only enough business for one NASA crew launch provider. Best case scenario is only a dozen or so flights before ISS is done, maybe around 20 if by some miracle a future administration extends to 2028.

  4. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    There is, as I understand it, a fourth Node in existence but I’m not sure how practical it would be to turn it into a propulsion module and launch it on top of a Delta-IV Heavy. It might even be too heavy for the current D-IVH, in which case the ‘Phase-I’ upgrades for Delta-IV and Falcon Heavy suddenly both become critical to the future of US independent space flight.

    • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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      If the new propulsion module is designed to be refuelable then it can be launched nearly empty. The fuel goes up on a second launch.

      • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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        It would also be a GNC platform so it could fly itself. The simplest thing to do, therefore, would be for it to fly itself to rendezvous once launched. Then the SSRMS could attach it if it didn’t have its own docking system.

  5. Michael Reynolds says:
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    What happened to VASMIR and the VF-200 being sent up in 2015?

    • Mike says:
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      From what I understand VASMIR has yet to prove it can produce any thrust at all. I hear it’s not very highly regarded in the electric propulsion community.

  6. david says:
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    Deja Vu for sure, whew!, not sure that burned bridge could ever be rebuilt. Not better, faster, cheaper’s finest hour imho

  7. Anonymous says:
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    And now we see the folly of co-operating in space with rival
    nations. In the future, any joint ventures must have the US clearly in the lead and controlling role. No more of this critical dependence on anyone but ourselves.

    As to co-operation with China, yeah right until they pull a Putin in Taiwan or something.

    As to what’s next beyond ISS, a permanently station in polar lunar orbit, from which landed sorties could be staged, with telerobotic control of surface assets, fits the bill nicely. Our interests on the moon, known and future, must be protected.

  8. Anonymous says:
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    that would be: … a permanently staffed station …

  9. MattW2 says:
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    One thing to take away from this is that international cooperation on long-term space projects should focus on redundancy, not interdependence.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      That’s a smart comment. It’s just too easy to go around wrapped in a flag- like the Russians are doing now. Long term peace on our planet is too important. And this is just a blip, albeit a blip by a recurring, faceless madman. Still. Play the long game.

    • savuporo says:
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      Any long term engineering project like that, ESPECIALLY publically funded should have built in redundancy, modularity and reconfigurability built in from the get go.
      ISS, as a project, actually got a large part of this right – except for relying on a single launch system for it’s assembly sequence. Cancelling key redundancy elements like independent US lifeboat etc were bad calls, of course.

      Any future exploration plan ( be it moon, mars or anything else ) should learn the lessons, and not ever rely on a single irreplaceable critical path launch vehicle, such as SLS

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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      Yes indeed.

  10. NX_0 says:
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    Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.
    If only something like this could have been predicted.
    …oh, wait.

  11. Lowell James says:
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    I wonder how this perfect international alliance will now effect the ISS Nobel Peace Prize chances?