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Big Aerospace Misses The Point

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 26, 2019
Filed under
Big Aerospace Misses The Point

The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration’s Comments on March 26 National Space
“Though we support the focus of this White House on deep space exploration and the sense of urgency instilled by aggressive timelines and goals, we also are cognizant of the resources that will be required to meet these objectives. Bold plans must be matched by bold resources made available in a consistent manner in order to assure successful execution. Similarly, the contracting mechanisms by which spacecraft, facilities, systems and supporting equipment are incorporated into a robust Moon-to-Mars architecture must be applied in a rapid and flexible manner with only the absolute minimum of bureaucratic process and oversight necessary to succeed. This is especially true for technologies that have long been in use but continue to labor under excessive oversight during development – a burden that exacerbates cost, schedule, and program risks.”
Keith’s note: Based on what was said at the National Space Council today by Vice President Pence, the standard procedure employed by NASA and Big Aerospace is not working and that NASA needs to avail itself of “any means necessary” to land Americans on the Moon by 26 march 2024. Clearly the standard practices employed by the Coalition for Deep Space member companies are not working. If they were then the need for a “course correction” vis-a-vis the architecture for getting humans back to the Mon would not be required. Big Aerospace has not been able to be “bold” for decades.

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

7 responses to “Big Aerospace Misses The Point”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    They will need more resources if they want to meet that deadline while still forcing it through the Lunar Orbital Gateway tollbooth.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      The day that Starship enters Lunar gravity and returns safely, SLS and LOPG will be without a mission. Whichever of them are not already flying by around that time will never fly.

      • TheBrett says:
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        Maybe. A Starship mission to the Moon would be pretty complex – in-orbit refueling in Low Earth Orbit, (probably) in-orbit refueling in lunar orbit, and then re-fueling on the lunar surface.

        • Bill Housley says:
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          I wasn’t referring to a lunar landing, but to the “there and back again” mission that they already have in the works.

  2. Henry Vanderbilt says:
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    IMHO there is no amount of money you could shovel into the current NASA human spaceflight bureaucracy that would achieve Americans back on the Moon in five years. They’re just too far gone into organizational rigor mortis.

    Bypass the current NASA HSF bureaucracy. Go back to the original Commercial Cargo COTS model, where the contractors can cherry-pick useful NASA expertise but NASA can *not* burrow into and control the contractors’ development processes.

    If it’s to happen, that’s how.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      The biggest problem, and the biggest solution, to deep-space (including the Moon) activities is the sourcing of its cost estimates.

      Ask SpaceX and Bigalow and I’ll bet you’ll chop a full digit off of both the cost and days that Boeing and Lockheed estimate.

  3. MAGA_Ken says:
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    This is especially true for technologies that have long been in use but continue to labor under excessive oversight during development – a burden that exacerbates cost, schedule, and program risks.

    ——-

    The OIG report paints a far different picture.