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Commercialization

Urban Myths About Access to Space

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 16, 2014
Filed under , ,

Rep. Mo Brooks joins leaders asking NASA for answers to Russian rocket engine ban, Huntsville Times
“In a statement released today, Brooks repeated his often-stated charge that America would not be without human spaceflight capability if the Obama administration had not cancelled the Constellation rocket program shortly after taking office in 2010. That decision, plus an earlier decision by the George W. Bush administration to retire the space shuttle and replace it with Constellation, has left America buying rides to the station from Russia while three companies race to provide American-owned access to space.”
Keith’s note: More imaginary facts from Mo Brooks. Even if Constellation was still in place NASA’s commercial crew provider would fly crews sooner and vastly more cheaply than NASA ever could.

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

56 responses to “Urban Myths About Access to Space”

  1. Henry Vanderbilt says:
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    I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Ares 1 Constellation’s designated Station crew transport? And wasn’t it Ares 1 that had vibration problems bad enough to verge on delivering astronaut jambalaya? IIRC, toward the end weren’t they proposing fixes like giant shock absorbers for the entire capsule, and cockpit video displays with positional jitter matched to the capsule shaking so the pilots might actually be able to focus on the displays? I note that when Congress was reviving Ares 5 as SLS, nobody seemed eager to include Ares 1.

    Seems to me there’s at least as good a case that if they’d gone along with the proposed reforms in 2011, we’d now have a new hydrocarbon heavy lift engine out of Marshall.

    And there actually is a very good case that if they hadn’t consistently shorted Commercial Crew funding (and interfered with program management) ever since, first flight might not have slipped from 2015 to 2017.

    • Jonna31 says:
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      SLS is considerably different than Ares V. It’s far closer to Direct 3.0. The upper stage may even use RL10s one day, just like the last Jupiter iterations.

      Not that this will ever get the people who spent years pushing for Direct over Constellation to come out of the witness protection program, or wherever they’re hiding.

      • david says:
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        well said, it might just be me but sometimes its seems the commenters here are like a gaggle of geese. Everyday they wake up, its a new day.

        • Jonna31 says:
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          Two events made me extremely cynical about the entire debate surrounding access to space.

          The first was how popular DIRECT was and how unpopular SLS is around here. That makes no sense to me. It’s extremely dishonest, to be frank. SLS is essentially DIRECT. The biggest deviation is in the SRB segments. When asked, folks excuse themselves saying Commercial changed the equation, but when they say that, they’re essentially putting words in Elon Musk’s mouth, who said that the SLS and Falcon variants are not competition, but compliment each other. It’s the same as orbiting fuel depots, and not to mention the DIRECT budget, which proved to be fanciful when actually implemented as SLS… all “hope-based” better looking alternatives that have the advantage of looking sterling because they’re not actually real… just a promise.

          Well I’m quite sick of promises from NASA and space enthusiasts. If Falcon supplants Direct 3.ohhh I’m sorry i meant the SLS, then great. It can do it in the future, if it is capable. I’m not interested in my tax dollars taking that risk.

          The second event was the utterly bizarre ATK boosters over all liquid for early SLS flights conversation. I don’t even know what to say about that. Do people really think that an all new liquid booster by 2017 was something that really had chance of happening… or put aside chance… is it at all practical? No way. SRBs are a known quantity and considerable 5 segment work had been done for CxP. But that pales in comparison to a key “demand” in that conversation… that the entire SLS stack be canceled and replaced with an all-new, all-liquid booster. I think RD-180 was mentioned, ironically enough.

          When it comes down to it, folks just want it their way. Their perfect, idealized way. And if the wind shifts a little, they’ll find a new way and go with that. Is there any wonder that the Space Shuttle has no flying successor yet? Of course not.

          I think that’s what I like most about the SLS. It is happening, like it or not. By virtue of being written into law, it’s taken an “objection noted” route to access to space. I’m very happy to be seeing Congressmen and Senators actually exerting oversight over an agency that got very used to getting its way, and entered the year 2012 with nothing to show for it.

          SLS is far from perfect. In a perfect world, I’d like an all-new, all-liquid booster too. But it is actually going to happen, unlike every other hope-based alternative.

          I wonder if we’ll have to wait until 2017 for the ex-DIRECT crowd to turn coat to it yet again.

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            Replacing SRB’s with LRB’s was a political ploy to get California congressional support, Aerojet being HQ’d in Cali. It was, as you note, never actually going to happen.

            The thing too many don’t understand is that NASA should not be designing ANY new rocket in-house at this point, regardless of what flavor of SDHLV it might be. They. Can. Not. Do. It. for anything resembling a sustainable price.

            NASA in-house major system development costs 10 to 15 times the commercial equivalent cost, because there are massive structural problems in the major-systems parts of NASA dating back to early post-Apollo days and only grown worse in the forty years since.

            Understand that, and you can start to make exploration plans that have a chance to work.

          • savuporo says:
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            Direct had a limited time window where it would have made limited sense. Just as Chevy big block V8 had its time and place. Starting a design of 427 in 90ies however would be insane.

          • david says:
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            Yeah, its pretty crazy but lots of fun. I got one LOL

            http://www.edmunds.com/car-

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Direct would have made sense if Ares V development hadn’t started yet. But with Ares I and Ares V being the personal “pet project” of Mike Griffin, NASA was sent down a virtual dead end path for many years.

      • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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        Both Ares 5 and SLS are BASDV’s – big-ass Shuttle-derived vehicles. The detail differences may be of interest to serious fans of the genre, but in terms of the economics and practical politics of the matter, the same Center and contractors get work, the same districts get pork, and equally unwieldy un-operational and overpriced vehicles result (eventually, maybe).

        Seriously, I, and most of us, don’t care about what engines they might finally settle on for an upper stage that’ll almost certainly never get built, because they’ll once again run out of our money long before then. YMMV, of course.

        • DTARS says:
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          Pigs can’t fly!!

          Nor would you ever want them too!

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          This isn’t a black and white issue. Both are shades of gray between “shuttle derived” and “clean sheet” designs. Ares V was a bit closer to “clean sheet” because of the engines chosen. Engines aren’t cheap to develop (Ares V would have required a new regeneratively cooled version of the RS-68 due to base heating issues).

          Upper stage engines might also end up being different if SLS sticks with RL-10 engines (already developed and currently in use on Delta IV) instead of finishing development of the J2-X, which was also chosen for the EDS on Ares V.

      • DTARS says:
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        I remember when I thought direct was a wonderful idea. A way to use our existing hardware and work force to build it faster and cheaper.

        • Lowell James says:
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          Sometimes timing is everything. The idea of a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle made plenty of sense if it was developedwhen Shuttle was an ongoing concern. But once Shuttle had been shut down, SLS was a rebirth of Shuttle at multipletimes the expense because by time it got started the contractos got greedy and the NASA wonks lost all control; they no longer remembered what it had taken to do the job.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            There is a great deal of truth to this argument. Switching from Ares V to SLS was surely harder than the switch from shuttle to Direct would have been.

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            I’d tend to respectfully disagree. The common problem with all SDHLV proposals over the years is that they all would have ended up being implemented by the same organization. All would have shared the problems of that organization, the problems we saw with Ares and see now with SLS.

            If there was a time window when the Shuttle organization could have more-or-less gracefully handled developing an SDHLV, it was back right after they first developed Shuttle. For most of the time since then, they’ve been primarily operators and maintainers of an existing system, not a development organization. The strains of trying to go back to being a development organization would have shown no matter which flavor SDHLV was chosen, and regardless of whether Shuttle was still being flown.

  2. jamesmuncy says:
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    More to the point, if Congress had not insisted on a Shuttle derived heavy lift system not required (if ever) until we are sending large numbers of people/stuff to Mars, NASA could have flown a few brave astronauts on Orion to ISS with a tiny service module on Delta IV Heavy, at no greater risk than Shuttle flights (which also had no launch escape system). Orion + LAS could have flown on Falcon Heavy.

    But instead we did SLS, and since we had to slow down Orion so it wouldn’t be ready embarrassingly early, we brought Europe in to redesign the already designed and reviewed Orion Service Module. Now the first launch of Orion on SLS has slipped to 2018.

    Of course, if Congress hadn’t insisted on SLS, we’d also be THREE YEARS into a domestic hydrocarbon engine development effort and be close to independence from Russia for the Atlas V, helping both commercial crew and National Security space launch.

    And just imagine how quickly commercial crew would have gone with full funding of three competitors using Space Act Agreements, but NOOOO, we couldn’t have that. Competition and innovation and streamlined contracting are only appropriate for cargo, not human beings. Human beings deserve sole-sourced cost-plus launch vehicles like SLS.

    We don’t need the Russians to keep us out of space. We’re doing it to ourselves.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      The Delta-IV heavy is not man-rated. No EDS (emergency detection system). Also not capable of lifting the fully equipped Orion even with a LEO service module. Blame it on Mike Griffin for designing the Orion to be too heavy for an EELV heavy. Also IIRC the Orion is even more costly than the $400M+ Delta-IV heavy (according to the GAO).

      The SLS is also known as the Senatorial launch system for the number of jobs in certain Congressional critter’s home districts. Chances of more than one SLS flight would be surprising. According to the GAO, not all current developmental expenses are accounted for.

    • Jonna31 says:
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      A few things:

      First integrating the ESA ATV as the Orion Service Module is a stroke of genius. Brilliant way to save money and spread costs by adopting a vehicle that was in part designed to be used exactly the way Orion will be using it. Why double dip? Plus, unlike the Russian-cooperation and China-cooperation pushers, we can rely on the ESA.

      Zed covered how and the ways in which the Delta IV Heavy is not man rated, so that’s a non starter.

      But the one that really bugs me in your post is this line:

      More to the point, if Congress had not insisted on a Shuttle derived heavy lift system not required (if ever) until we are sending large numbers of people/stuff to Mars

      With all due respect, given how the closing two years of Constellation went, I find this comment to be farcical. You would kick development of a heavy lift system further into the future so not only do we need to pay for the Crew Transit vehicle, a lander, the base, a way to get off of Mars, probably a telecomunications relay somewhere, and who knows what else… but we also will now have to pay for the Super Heavy Lift rocket too, in a more compressed period of time. That is your plan, for putting Man on Mars?

      No. Simply no. If we’re going to go to Mars in the 2030s, we’re going to spend the 2020s and part of the 2030s paying for it. First we build the launch vehicles. Then we can start building and testing spacebourne vehicle designs to actually get a crew there. This way when 2032 rolls around and Mars is 5 years away, we don’t run out of money to fund the lander… as you know, what happened with Constellation just before it was canceled.

      Trying to squeeze building all the different parts required to send a crew to Mars inside of one decade is simply never going to happen. It needs to be maximally spread out. So I don’t know about you, but I think starting early… now namely… on the most ready to go part of that equation – a super heavy lift vehicle – is pragmatic and sensible. It honestly barely matters how often if flies between now and the 2030s (with respect to keeping production open per NASA’s requirement, which is 2 a year as I recall), so long as we’re not paying for large scale engineering work on it simultaneously as we are every other component of the eventual Mars mission.

      The quickest way never to go to Mars is to keep pushing vehicles of the mission perpetually to the future.

      • Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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        course I think ESA has only committed to building the two for the test flights. I think it was barter for ISS obligations.

      • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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        The quickest way never to go to Mars is to tie up all the available funding right at the start in a SDHLV establishment that will not magically go into cold storage and stop needing funding in the interim. SLS is costing two billion a year now, and if allowed to continue it will be costing at least that much per year (probably considerably more once they start producing flight hardware) whether it flies twice a year, once every two years, or not at all.

        There Is No More Money. NASA will not magically get more funding to pay for your dreams; its overall funding has been flat for decades. The three billion a year currently going to SLS/Orion is all there is. The rest is spoken for by other regional/Congressional coalitions.

        Three billion a year is actually a reasonable amount of money to do exploration with – IF you don’t commit it all right at the start in perpetuity to a vehicle that if you need it at all, you won’t need for decades.

        Assuming an HLV is needed, the way to get it is to put it out to commercial bid a few years before it’s actually required. Seriously. By NASA’s and the GAO’s own numbers, doing boosters in-house at NASA costs TEN TO FIFTEEN TIMES the cost of a modern commercial development.

        Three billion a year. You can have a jobs program, or an exploration program. Your choice.

        • DTARS says:
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          If you really want to go to Mars, send the money directly to Musk

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            As a gamble on getting the job done for a fraction of what it is traditionally expected to cost, that would have decent odds of hitting the jackpot. Musk has proven he can get spectacular results for a fraction of current government costs, and he’s serious about Mars. We could do worse.

            Politically speaking, it’ll never happen – Congress and the bureaucracy already hate giving up the degree of detail control they lost in Commercial Cargo and the start of Commercial Crew. They’re doing everything they can to claw close control back, never mind if it delays or cripples Commercial Crew, never mind how badly the product of Commercial Crew is needed.

            My take is, if we can hang onto the COTS/CCDEV OTA low-bureaucracy processes and buy major pieces of a serious government exploration program commercially, we’ll end up drastically better off than under the status quo. Perfect, no – but useful exploration could get done within likely flat budgets.

            I misspoke, by the way. If you add in the non-SLS/Orion bits currently allocated to exploration, it’s more like $4 billion a year available. We really ought to be able to go somewhere interesting for $4 billion a year.

          • Engineer_in_Houston says:
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            Regarding the Congressional blame that goes with the current state of affairs, the voices of Lori Garver, Chris Chraft, and others aren’t being heeded – not a surprise, I guess. I’ve often wondered if a collection of engineers, managers, civil servants, space fans, and so on came together, grabbed their “pitchforks”, and confronted the powers-that-be (in a way that is far more organized than “Operation American Spring” was) if we could make a difference. After all: “It’s YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work – for YOU.” And, by “confronting the powers-that-be”, I’m not talking about confronting them directly, I’m suggesting calling them out in front of the voters, and unequivocally showing how the NASA budget is prioritized to appease certain vocal Congressional representatives rather than to invest the taxpayer’s money wisely, moving us forward in exploration and towards incorporating the Solar System into our economic sphere (paraphrasing John Marburger”. The ironic thing is that if we had a program that was sensible and sustainable, there would be plenty of jobs for everyone, for now, and even more in the future.

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            If we want to pressure the Congress about the difference between an effective space exploration program and what we’ve currently got, there’s a fundamental political reality we have to deal with:

            A majority of the American voting public thinks NASA doing things for the country in space is cool and a matter of national pride. 90%+ of that majority, however, doesn’t know a thing about the budgetary or technical details, doesn’t want to know, but if asked will tell you whatever we’re currently doing and spending is about right.

            In other words, as long as cool space stuff happens on TV a few times a year with no obvious flaming botched disasters, there’s near-zero constituent pressure on Congress over NASA. This leaves plenty of room for Really Bad Space Policy, as long as the disastrous results don’t happen on TV right away.

            Does this mean things are hopeless? No, just that those of us who do sweat the details need to understand we’re a minority, adopt minority pressure-group tactics, and play for the long run.

            There’s a lot more on this at a primitive 90’s-relic website called http://www.space-access.org, buried in the twenty years or so of Space Access Updates posted there. The most recent, #135, is a good place to start; it gives pointers to other recent pieces that describe the current situation and the options we have.

          • Engineer_in_Houston says:
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            The idea of putting space policy out in front of the citizenry and promoting a coherent, sustainable approach – and expecting results – is probably a fantasy. But, as the saying goes, if not us, who … if not now, when? I would think that the space industry organizations would be all over this one, coordinated, and using all media channels available.

          • Henry Vanderbilt says:
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            Alas, certainly a fantasy. The vast majority of the citizenry simply aren’t interested in the details.

            Mainline space industry organizations – Aerospace Industries Association comes to mind – generally stick to broad “space is neat” appeals plus the occasional call for funding NASA, and do very little of what I’d consider pushing for specific better policies. Realistically, they’re sticking to what their paying members can agree on.

            As for the self-motivated political advocacy outfits, well, you’ve heard the phrase “herding cats”? Trust me, cats are easy to get moving in the same direction, by comparison!

            But don’t despair.

            The single-digits-percent minority who do care tends to include staff and advisors to the policymakers, in some cases even the policymakers themselves. Changing the thinking in this minority community can change policy, albeit slowly – there’s far less immediate pressure to fix bad pork-based policy than there would be if a voting majority cared, but over time and as bad results accumulate, change does happen.

            Consensus in this community can affect that other Congressional constituency, the rest of Congress. Congress largely functions on the basis of horse-trading among all manner of narrow interests – you vote for my pork and I’ll vote for yours – but there are limits. If some narrow interest comes to be seen by the rest of Congress as a potential electoral embarrassment, tremendous pressure to tone down the bad policy can quickly result. EG, the “bridge to nowhere” never did get built.

            Things are much better now than they were a decade or two ago, and the trend continues in the right direction. Used to be I was pushing for 1% of NASA’s budget to go for useful space advances and happy to (eventually) get it. Lately, on a good day you might even get me to agree that we’re up to 10%-and-rising going to useful space stuff.

            The long game is working. But, well, it’s still a long game.

        • Engineer_in_Houston says:
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          Henry is absolutely spot on.

          It’s frustrating that this stuff has to continually be explained to people who by now should know better. Look at the cash flow. What money is going to be available over the coming decades. What will (or won’t) SLS be used for over the coming decades until we go to Mars? How much will it cost us to simply sit idle while waiting for payloads? What payloads will be developed and launched (or won’t be) and how much in time and money will they cost? How much will it cost to launch those at a very low rate – and, more importantly – will they even *require* SLS? What will the commercial launch market look like in ten years – what will be available?

        • Anonymous says:
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          Yes exactly…the people drawing out lunar or Mars missions show the launch of the SLS when needed but forget the yearly fixed cost of likely 2 to 3 billion a year even when it’s not flying at all. Before any first mission to Mars for example, and till the one after.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        The SpaceX MCT (Marian Colonial Transport) is rumored to combine the super heavy lifter, Mars transfer vehicle, Mars lander, Mars ascent vehicle, Mars habitation module and ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) module roles in one system.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          I hadn’t heard that or seen it around?

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            key word “rumored” aka SpaceX fanboys hear Elon Musk say “Mars Colonial Transporter” once and go WILD with rampant speculation. everything he’s said is a wild ass guess.

          • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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            Wellll, not exactly. There’s actually been quite a bit of educated work done around potential vehicles and the Raptor engine on L2 on NasaSpaceFlight.com . ThereRe some experienced and talented individuals from different countries including an actual ex Russian rocket designer.
            Strongly recommend anyone really interested in future SpaceX directions join L2.
            Cheers

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            educated speculation is great, but everything Zed said is … well, wildly optimistic at best. let’s put it that way.

          • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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            Ok, let’s hope that our ‘wildly optimistic assessment’ is hopelessly underestimated. LOL
            Cheers.

    • Lowell James says:
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      “We had to slow down Orion”

      You’ve got to be kidding me; you must be dreaming jamesmuncy.

      Orion is on the same schedule it has been on since the beginning. Its lethargic pace is owing to several poor management decisions on size and mass of the vehicle, technologies, poorly defined requirements, poorly established and poorly met schedules. It has absolutely nothing to do with SLS which didn’t even get started until many years later, only about 2-3 years ago. Your “miniature service module” flies later this year, but it is not a manable spacecraft.

      Personally I would say Orion is a vehicle designed for no particular purpose, and it cannot meet any of the notions people have thrown out. It is far too expensive for virtually any purpose whether LEO or moon or Mars. It cannot do an asteroid mission or a Mars mission. I doubt it will ever actually fly and that the people who have been working on it will find they have wasted a dozen years of their lives.

      • RocketScientist327 says:
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        CEV I mean Orion I mean MPCV I mean
        MPCV/Orion has been slowed down. It has been underfunded and requirements have changed. Even with these requirement changes, Jim Muncy is correct. The SLS side didn’t want MPCV/Orion finished without a ride.

        The DIVH was a compromise and not a threat to SLS because the RS-68 doesn’t have an EDS and it would cost a small fortune to human rate.

        • DTARS says:
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          If it is true that one program was slowed to wait on another? That’s sorry! Good example of why NASA should NOT be building rockets!

        • Brian_M2525 says:
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          …slowed down…the program has proceeded far too slowly than it shouldhave right from the start, but that is the result of incompetent leadership.

          …underfunded…its cost is now up to about $20 billion and yet in the words of the Orion leadership, it was a known shape, useing almost all existing technology. Safe, simple, soon, is what we were told. And originally it was supposed to have been an entire vehicle. But now it is only the command module since ESA is contributing the SM. And yet, the roughly equivalent Drragon, which has flown several active missions over the last two years, started later and has spent perhaps 1/20 the amount spent on Orion.

          Of course next thing soeone will say is that Orion was designed for planetary missios while Dragon was designed only for LEO. And in reality, neither is true.

          Dragon is being designed for Mars, ultimately.

          Orion was designed for the moon and cannot do asteroids or planetary we have recently been told, and
          Underfunded… in a pig’s eye.

          • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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            NASA made an elementary engineering design error right from the get-go. They assumed that they could simply scale up the Apollo vehicle. That of course and the changing vehicle requirements.
            Cheers

        • Anonymous says:
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          Orion will have been a 23 billion dollar development by completion in 2021. It’s laughable or very sad to even use the word “underfunded” in any mention of Orion.

          • RocketScientist327 says:
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            Orion is underfunded when you look at the NASA Authorization Law. However, I agree with sentiments here that Orion is not underfunded. Orion suffers from the FAR.

      • Engineer_in_Houston says:
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        The real slowdown will occur after the first or second SLS flight, and then the question, “Now what?” gets asked. And then those in Congress will look to their predecessors and ask, “Why?”

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Predecessors? really? The face of Congress changes so slowly that “predecessors” is hard to imagine.

    • Littrow says:
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      The title is “Urban Myths”

      I think jamesmuncy is trying to spread some new urban myths.

      Remember that Mr. Augustine’s panel met about the time Obama was sworn in, in 2008-9. The then Constellation Program Manager, Mr. Henly, and the Orion Project Manager, Mr. Geyer, both said that they would be flying Orion in 5 years. That would b e about 2014, this year. Dr. Sally Ride responded she felt that perhaps 2017 or 2018 were possible though 2019 were more likely. I think the schedule is hanging in there, just as Dr. Ride predicted and not as Mr. Henly and Mr. Geyer suggested.

      SLS did not yet exist at the time.

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      SLS did not start until long after Constellation, Ares 1, Ares 5, Altair, and the Orion SM were all cancelled or reined way back. Overall spendng on Exploration was not significantly cut, so the idea that money was deferred to SLS is inaccurate.
      Rocketscientist327 brings up a good point. Given the uncertainty of CEV,, Orion, MPCV’s future use, what was needed was a “general purpose” sortie space vehicle that could fly a variety of missions. Most of all it needed to be an earth to orbit and back “escape pod” to replace Shuttle and protect astronauts during launch and return. In fact the requirements were never prioritized which led to the vehicle doing nothing well, being too largefor its primary purpose, and so heavy that ultimately the prime payload,people had to be cut back so much that it is really not serving any of the prime functions as originally intended. It might now carry a crew of only 2 instead of the originallyintended 7, and land in the ocean instead of on land for reuse.

      The establishment of requirements for this vehicle was a farce. Yet most of the same people are in charge now as 8 or 9 years ago during the start up. NASA technical management is incompetent. The effort is a joke, and yet its costing the American taxpayer billions of dollars.

    • Paul451 says:
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      NASA could have flown a few brave astronauts on Orion to ISS with a tiny service module on Delta IV Heavy, at no greater risk than Shuttle flights (which also had no launch escape system). Orion + LAS could have flown on Falcon Heavy.

      For what purpose?

      If you are funding three CC vendors, what do you need Orion for (lite or otherwise)? Certainly it’s an expensive waste for ISS. Why not just accept that it was a dog specifically designed to force Constellation, and kill it off like its master?

      For the price of Orion development, you could easily develop Bigelow and other modules (ideally in a COTS/CC-like multi-vendor, multi-design competition) for BEO missions.

      [Also, all three CC vehicles are capable of aero-capture into LEO from BEO (about 5km/s delta-v) with some GNC upgrades. Splits the reentry into two stages, aero-capture into orbit in the launch capsule, then dock with and reenter in a brand new recovery capsule.]

      • jamesmuncy says:
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        The purpose was to let the “we only believe in government spaceships” folks have their government backup without having to rush-fund SLS and slash funding for commercial crew. as has happened every year since.

  3. Anonymous says:
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    Would Representative Brooks (R-Huntsville) be happy with answers to his questions like-

    NASA answer: On Atlas, well, NASA plans to stop the use of any launchers currently reliant on Russian hardware. Falcon’s and Delta’s should do it all. Antares is fine BTW, as those engines are already in the US and no buyer relationship exists or is planned for these old Russian engines that are no longer produced. Orbital will be informed about this direction, so as to plan ahead on any upgrade there. Does that answer your question?

    NASA answer: On crew access to the ISS, well, to answer that question, you could assist us Representative Brooks, by begining a bi-partisan effort to get the commercial crew program the funding that’s been requested by the White House. It’s not much after all, something in the range of an extra three hundred million a year. A bargain. We should be flying by late 2017 to early 2018, resuming US human spaceflight and US access to the ISS.

    NASA answer: On Constellation being canceled, and the question about how that program was to provide access to the ISS, we’ll, we can just clarify that once that program began it fell behind more and more every day. Before Constellation was canceled, mostly affecting the crew carrying vehicle “Ares I”, it had about said progress was slow because it needed even more money than the over $2B a year it was getting. Constellation needed the money from ISS (which they assumed would be de-orbited in 2016) . Even had Ares I been kept, the last project schedules showed they might have made about 2017 or 2018, the same as commercial crew. With less progress on any heavy lift vehicle during that time by the way (due to using the same funds). Would you like us to resurrect Ares I? I’m sure we can re-direct SLS funds rather quickly. It’s all the same people after all.

    We’ll-then I wake up…

  4. Anonymous says:
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    Perhaps these Congressmen are latently and quite patently pleased Russia may pull out of ISS. They never liked commercial crew (especially SpaceX) and it gives them motive plus opportunity to curtail international cooperation and pour NASA resources into SLS.

  5. Saturn1300 says:
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    Ares was not to be used for transport to ISS. COTS-D was. Instead of taking a super deal from SpaceX, NASA got greedy and started CC. In the letter from Congress about Russia, they ask about how Orion is coming along to transport crew to ISS. It is the law, they say. NASA did give some money to Bigelow to study Orion Lite. I guess that is working on it. Suppose to be ready in case the others are not. I don’t think so. I don’t see much activity. Orion too heavy for Delta Heavy? Orion lite was to fly on Atlas. And Russia will supply engines for non military uses it seems. So CC can go on as before. Wonder if NASA will get the same treatment on Orion-ISS that they got on SLS. It’s the law.
    But the law says SLS. Build a 1st stage from a stretched 2nd stage. It is 16′ diameter, so it would match Orion. Use 2 SME. Of course this would never be needed and just make a paper rocket. Work on it and CC will get going and then there will be no need for it. I guess a full deep space SLS could be used. Does Congress understand how much that would cost? It would have to be an emergency.

    • pathfinder_01 says:
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      Orion on an ARES-1 to the ISS was always going to be Plan A. COTS was plan B. Orion was to first transport
      cargo to the ISS, but as it slipped that went away. Only the Space X dragon has some COT-D possibility. None of the other COTS systems selected were built for COT-D.COTS was about transport to the station not crew spacecraft development. COT-A,B, and C did not require ability to move people or be evolved into it. Only COTS-D did.

      Orion-lite was to be based on Orion but when Orion went disposable, water landing and expensive Bigleow rejected it.
      Another Orion-lite was going to be based on the composite

      capsule and ATK prompted it but it was not selected for CCREW. It was mostly an excuse to build the liberty rocket out of SRB and had way too much risk associated with it.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        When the CAIB report was issued in Aug 2003 it recommended that the Shuttle continue supporting ISS until a replacement system based on the Orbital Space Plane with EELV launch was operational, and even after that point if needed. The CAIB does not call for the cancellation of Shuttle with the completion of ISS assembly, as was later widely claimed. When Constellation was first announced in Jan 2004 it called for cancellation of Shuttle in 2010 and turnover of ISS support to international partners. When the ESAS appeared in Nov 2005 it called for CEV support of ISS until ISS “end-of-life” in 2016. COTS-D was funded by Congress for the demonstration of commercial human flight to ISS (SpaceX was selected as the sole awardee) but COTS-D was never implemented by NASA.
        http://quantumg.blogspot.co
        http://spaceflight.nasa.gov
        http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/140

  6. J C says:
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    I live in Brooks’ district. We have MSFC and ULA here, but no intelligent representation in Congress. Instead of helping steer a path that keeps both of these major interests relevant in a changing environment, he is bent on forcing the government to continue purchasing buggywhips in order to allow them to continue with business as usual. If he succeeds in driving a major NASA center and a major rocket plant into the ground, it will devastate the economy here. A number of local tech companies are working to diversify into areas such as energy, geospatial, and cybersecurity in an effort to stay afloat should Congress continue down this unsustainable path. We need some leadership in Congress, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming this election year.