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Congress

Dueling NASA Hearings On Wednesday

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 25, 2018
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Dueling NASA Hearings On Wednesday

Hearing: Global Space Race: Ensuring the United States Remains the Leader in Space
“U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, will convene a hearing titled “Global Space Race: Ensuring the United States Remains the Leader in Space,” at 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday, September 26, 2018. Witnesses: The Honorable James Bridenstine, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration”
Hearing: 60 Years of NASA Leadership in Human Space Exploration: Past, Present, and Future
2:00 p.m. William Gerstenmaier, HEOMD; Mark Geyer, JSC; Jody Singer, MSFC; Robert Cabana, KSC”
Keith’s note: The Senate hearing with Cruz and Bridenstine should be much more interesting given their previous interactions and their recent joint visit to NASA JSC. The House hearing is going to be filled with boring non-answers from NASA HQ and field center representatives reading from talking points that serve to tow the line and make no news.

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

7 responses to “Dueling NASA Hearings On Wednesday”

  1. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    The Ted Cruz hearing is almost certainly a campaign event. What is the NASA Administrator going to say? Just what the President (with a bit of Congress??) has directed him to do.

    The House hearing is almost certainly scheduled to give House candidates some camera time, a chance to record footage for campaign commercials. Watch for them to posture as defenders of the tax payer dollar, holding the NASA folk’s feet to the flames. But it is just for show.

    We know that the next Tweet could change our directions and priorities.

    Sad how cynical we are, isn’t it?

  2. Saturn1300 says:
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    The only thing of interest was Gerst said they were doing load and go because it is what they do all the time. To do something different more likely to cause an error. No one asked about using SLS ,a law passed, to go to ISS. How is that going NASA? Of course they could use an SRB and not have to worry about all the failure points of LRBs. They just got to have LRB, all the way from Mr. Goddard. The Feds could have built a spy sat and launched by SRB before WW2 and Pearl Harbor would have never happened. They could build A bombs but not spy-weather sats? None thinkers I guess. Vacuum tube radios lasted a long time. They would work in space. A SRM mounted sideways could have fired and kicked the SRB to point to the right angle using a timer sequencer and firing the 2nd stage. Laws of motion and the Gravity Turn does the rest. No steering needed. The Feds ought to apologize to the world for their error. Keith remove this rant if you do not think it is on subject. Thanks.
    Sam
    I did some research on the Russian Tsiolkovsky( spell check, I can’t pronounce or spell it). He completely figured out space travel in 1900. He thought of everything.He figured the G’s of Jules Verne cannon. The escape velocity needed to leave Earth and go to the Moon. He thought Mars was the place to go. Hydrogen- lox rocket engines. He thought of the graphite vanes used to steer the V2. Nothing about SRBs yet though. I am going to read some of his papers. They are mostly in Russian. Maybe Google can translate. I am going to find his birthday and celebrate it every year. It should be International Space Day. He did it all by himself in a little log cabin way out in the country. He was a rocket, Space scientist only. He did not have the means to build anything.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      The only way that a reconnaissance satellite would have worked In 1941 to see the Japanese fleet would have been if there were humans aboard. The early reconnaissance satellites depended on film return, so they focused on static targets and there was a delay of days between when pictures were taken and their intelligence available. TV was just too experimental to use even in the early 1960’s for reconnaissance satellites. It wasn’t until the technology that NASA used for the Ranger and Surveyor was refined that it became available as a replacement technology for the NRO to use.

      The second point is that there was no way to build large solid fuel rockets in the 1930’s. That technology wasn’t developed until the late 1950’s which is why the first generation of American and Soviet ICBM were all liquid fueled. The early rocket developers focused on liquid fuel because it was the only scalable technology available at the time for large rockets.

      Not sure what you mean about a SRB mounted sideways, as the the second stage on a SRB would work the same as on a liquid rocket.

      It’s good NASA has finally agreed to use the current procedure for launching a F9R for CCP. I wonder how much time and money was wasted before determining it would work, and is probably saver since the pad is cleared while fueling and the astronauts have an escape system to save them if there is a problem with it.

      • Saturn1300 says:
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        The segmented SRB is made of steel. Very low tech to make.If Carnegie liked Rockets better than Opera, he could have made one. The nozzle is steel. Just a large lathe is needed.The case is forged( may be 700PSI sewer pipe since it is bought from a supplier), so no welding. Using black powder for fuel may have been tricky. We could have gone to the Moon before Cars or Airplanes. There were plenty of railroads and sea transport. Cars and Planes are complicated, SRB’s are not. Jules Verne was right, but he should have checked with the rocket people before he used a canon to go to the Moon.
        The sideways SRM is in the tail section. It rotates the rocket on its’ CG to point in the right direction. With so much mass the rocket follows an arc to space. It may not be the exact orbit wanted, but close enough. I am sure you disagree.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          People have tried to make orbit with solid rockets that don’t have active guidance systems. It does not work very well, if at all. If you have a cite for an unguided solid rocket making orbit, I’d like to see it, because that’s what you are asserting and I don’t believe it’s possible.

          As for trying to scale up a black powder motor to large SRB size, well good luck with that. That type of propellant doesn’t scale up well to very large sizes. At very large sizes that propellant ends up cracking due to pressure differentials. Cracks lead to additional flame fronts which results in a CATO/RUD. Very large solid rocket motors really weren’t possible until the 1960s due to advances in solid propellant technology.

          Your assertions would make for a good sci-fi alternate history book, but they’re not terribly plausible in the real world.