November 21, 2010
Keeping an eye on NASA
The now-defunct Ares launch vehicle. A "lesson learned"?
Credible rumor has it that NASA has initiated a “lessons learned” postmortem of Project Constellation in order to camouflage their failure to implement the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and to justify their new direction. I had originally intended to expand on the agency’s postmortem pursuit by writing a piece about time wasting, bureaucratic “butt-cover” exercises done for public consumption, when a report in the press caught my eye that nicely illustrates a major problem with the configuration of our national space program.
In brief, a meeting was recently held between elected federal officials from Utah and the top levels of management of NASA. Although we do not have a transcript of all that was said at this meeting, it is clear that a great deal of dissatisfaction was expressed in terms of the way NASA was fulfilling (or rather, not fulfilling) its directed tasks as expressed in the recently signed Authorization act. That legislation directed the agency to begin a program to build a heavy-lift launch vehicle (initially capable of putting 70 metric tonnes (mT) into orbit, but ultimately expandable to capacities greater than 100 mT). They also were directed to use parts of the soon to be retired Space Shuttle system “to the maximum extent possible.” Similar wording was included in NASA’s last two authorization bills and thus, is nothing new or unconventional.
The press reported that some in Utah’s delegation are not satisfied with the way NASA is approaching this task. Senator Orin Hatch expressed concern that NASA might not be following the law, or at least, the intent of Congress. The Senator’s immediate concern is that ATK (manufacturer of solid rocket motors for the Shuttle stack and a large employer in Utah) might be cut from participating in the building of the new heavy lift rocket, probably through the selection of some design that relies solely on liquid-fuel boosters. Whether or not this concern is justified or even if it is appropriate, it does serve to illustrate an issue: how do we know when the agency is executing its assigned duties correctly, or at least, as they were directed?
In theory, NASA is subject to oversight by both Congress and the Executive branch of the federal government. The administrator is appointed by the President and answerable to him. The agency’s budget request is prepared and overseen by the Office of Management and Budget, under White House administration. In Congress, both the Senate and the House have standing committees that oversee the agency’s authorization (what it is to work on) and appropriation (money to work on it). In practice, this oversight involves numerous briefings and reports by NASA to its oversight authority – before, during, and after program execution.
This appears to be a lot of oversight, so how could NASA deviate from its appointed task and run afoul of its political direction? In broad terms, the agency has always complied with its mandate, but as in so many other areas of life, “the devil is in the details.” When the President says “Go to the Moon!” he is not involved in the minutiae of architectural selection. He cares only that his direction is executed within the time frame and budget boundaries set forth. He may have some particular objective in mind and even express that concept as part of a new policy direction, but because he is consumed with a multitude of complex responsibilities, he typically leaves the details of the implementation of his direction to NASA through the agency administrator. Presidents have little technical or scientific training and have neither the time nor inclination to acquire much more. These same characterizations apply to most members of Congress; their staffers may possess considerable knowledge on space and technical issues, but can only advise the elected members. And those members have a thousand other things vying for their time and attention.
So in actual fact, NASA implements space policy as it chooses. It may get general direction from political entities, but exactly how it approaches a mission or objective is within their institutional discretion. A given approach either meets its objective or it doesn’t. Typically, when they run into trouble, the agency goes to the White House and Congress and asks for more money to fix the problem. Sometimes throwing money at a problem works, sometimes it doesn’t. But real difficulties come about when no additional money is forthcoming. That usually means a given program or mission is redefined to be smaller or is cancelled outright. Is it possible in practice to head off program missteps before it’s too late?
Once the nation had an entity to oversee how the agency was implementing major space programs, a body that existed and monitored the implementation of national space policy in the early 1990s. As previously configured, the council is comprised of selected sitting cabinet heads and the President, backed up by the expertise of a technical support staff knowledgeable in space flight and program specifics and capable of overseeing and reporting on how NASA is implementing its assigned programs. Such oversight finds and corrects significant technical issues early, before they become insurmountable budgetary problems.
The major problem with the implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration was that the agency did not adhere to the intent or mission of the return to the Moon segment early in the program. As this was done subtly, no one (in either oversight branch) initially noticed that an unaffordable approach to lunar return was being developed. Moreover, because the agency was approaching lunar return as a “super Apollo” set of extended sorties, the architecture was incapable of accomplishing the basic objective of going to the Moon to learn how to live and work there. A space council reporting to the President directly (not through the NASA administrator) could provide the necessary independent technical advice and oversight the President and Congress require to determine if an architecture or launch vehicle is the appropriate choice for achieving national strategic objectives. Re-creation of the National Space Council was a specific recommendation of the 2004 Aldridge Commission (on which I had the honor to serve) precisely because of the concerns I’ve discussed here.
This oversight recommendation of the Aldridge Commission was neither embraced nor adopted by NASA. I know for a fact that Sean O’Keefe did not like the recommendation; although I have not discussed it directly with Mike Griffin, I suspect that he felt the same way about someone looking over his shoulder. But NASA and the space program do not belong to the administrator, they belong to the American people. And the people are entitled to and should demand accountability from the agency for a more considered and thoughtful program, one relevant to national interests that won’t be abruptly canceled because of budget concerns. If NASA’s implementation of the VSE had been reviewed independently on a regular and continuing basis, its fundamental programmatic and technical deficiencies would have been revealed and corrected long before the convening of the Presidential-level Augustine Commission, by which time the only solution (an untenable one) was to significantly increase the agency’s budget – to preserve the non-optimum decision made many years earlier, not to set the pursuit of the objective back on the right track.
There is plenty to be said about motives, miscues and the abdication of responsible behavior, but by convening a “lesson’s learned” exercise in pursuit of political cover, we merely continue to delay leadership decisions at the very time the country is demanding that sensible solutions replace national folly.
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Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing……
Trackback by World Spinner — November 21, 2010 @ 4:33 pm
Paul:
For all it’s faults, Constellation was at least a real program to get us somewhere, and at the beginning, when the US had a very health economy, Griffin stated up front that it would be a “go as you can pay” effort where the real schedule would be driven by availabel funding, which could change. There was nothing sacred about 2020. If we did not return to the moon until 2030, it was still be a worthwhile endeavor.
Personally, the part that I most regret was Griffin’s reluctant decision to drop several of the unmanned lunar missions in order to accelerate realization of manned capability.
I think that at this time our primary objective should be to maximize our scientific understanding of the origin and resources of the Moon. We should be landing lots of rovers and later and manned exploration/servicing mission capabilities. I am not sure that there is any immediate need for a permanent manned base, other than to learn as much as possible about the longterm effects of 1/6 g on human explorers.
Comment by Nelson Bridwell — November 21, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
I think that at this time our primary objective should be to maximize our scientific understanding of the origin and resources of the Moon. We should be landing lots of rovers and later and manned exploration/servicing mission capabilities.
I agree with this and I will soon be outlining a new architecture that proceeds on precisely this basis. We begin with robotic assets on the lunar surface teleoperated from Earth to construct an outpost and begin using resources. Humans arrive later at a turn key facility on the Moon.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 21, 2010 @ 6:03 pm
Personally, the part that I most regret was Griffin’s reluctant decision
IMO the most regrettable part is this : VSE already DID have a nice architectural start, CE&R done under Sean O’Keefe by Steidle. It would have kept all the robotic precursors.
Griffin threw it out and replaced it with ESAS. This is regrettable.
Griffin also made sure that the most exciting near term project after LRO, the RLEP-2 failed, by letting it to be transferred from ARC to MSFC …
Comment by kert — November 21, 2010 @ 6:43 pm
Along those lines, I wonder if it could be productive to put into Lunar orbit an unmanned spacecraft that could maneouver into VERY LOW oribts and “dispense” a large number of small, rugged rovers, which would each have a simple solid-state rocket to break the orbital velocity, and airbags to break the landing impact.
Comment by Nelson Bridwell — November 21, 2010 @ 7:44 pm
I seriously believe that President Obama will lose the critically important swing state of Florida unless he finally shows some real interest in NASA and a polar Moon base program.
Any serious interest in learning about the nature of various NEO asteroids could be much more efficiently done by cheap unmanned missions. For the cost of a single manned mission to an asteroid, NASA could probably fund robotic rover landings and regolith retrieval missions to a large number of NEO asteroids plus the moons of Mars.
Comment by Marcel F. Williams — November 22, 2010 @ 12:06 am
VSE already DID have a nice architectural start, CE&R done under Sean O’Keefe by Steidle.
I know that this is commonly held internet wisdom, but in fact, under Steidle, there was no architecture — merely an endless road mapping exercise and the funding of widgets under a broad “technology development program.” It was an excuse to delay making architectural decisions.
Griffin also made sure that the most exciting near term project after LRO, the RLEP-2 failed, by letting it to be transferred from ARC to MSFC
Marshall was not the reason RLEP 2 didn’t fly — Ares was. Horowitz and Griffin pulled the plug on RLEP-2 because Ares was having development cost problems and in their view, the launch vehicle was the most important item on their plate.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 22, 2010 @ 5:01 am
Paul D. Spudis said,
”
We begin with robotic assets on the lunar surface teleoperated from Earth to construct an outpost and begin using resources. Humans arrive later at a turn key facility on the Moon.
”
Go, baby, go! I wish you the best in your attempt to change the oil tanker’s course towards something more rational.
Comment by Itokawa — November 22, 2010 @ 9:05 am
Paul,
I certainly agree that a space policy board providing oversight for both Congress and the President with an independent agency like the former Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) would certainly go a long ways toward keeping NASA on course. However, given the criticality of space for communications, global security, environmental monitoring, and economic development, isn’t it about time that Congress raise NASA to a Cabinet level agency?
The HSFR final report made pretty clear that any kind of development for human deep space missions centered on the Moon or other destinations would require significant increase in NASA’s budget irregardless of the architecture chosen. Given the political reality, the Constellation program, while far from perfect, was the most pragmatic way of accomplishing the VSE goals. People can come up with more ideal architectures, but getting that passed through Congress is another matter. I think this is something that Dr. Griffin recognized early on when he came up with Constellation program.
Of course, I am no policy expert, but the NASA authorization bills from 2005 and 2008, each under different political party rule, passed overwhelmingly. Appropriations for NASA was another reality largely affected by the OMB and the economy.
Respectfully,
Gary Miles
Comment by Gary Miles — November 22, 2010 @ 10:20 am
isn’t it about time that Congress raise NASA to a Cabinet level agency?
I don’t think this will fundamentally alter the issue I am discussing here — how do you monitor the progress of an agency given a technical assignment? For other entities, there is independent oversight (e.g., the Defense Science Board). NASA is pretty much given a free rein. That allows them to drift away from the strategic direction and it may not be noticed until it’s too late.
The HSFR final report made pretty clear that any kind of development for human deep space missions centered on the Moon or other destinations would require significant increase in NASA’s budget irregardless of the architecture chosen.
I know it says that and it is wrong. The entire budgetary analysis of that study is fundamentally biased and flawed. I cover that topic here:
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2010/03/24/value-for-cost-the-determinate-path/
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 22, 2010 @ 11:20 am
There were several possible paths forward, given sufficient patience and funding. Constellation was one approach that would have provided NASA with exceptional manned beyond LEO capability. Even ObamaSpace in theory could hypothetically have eventually resulted in something useful.
I think that what is missing in all of these discussions and debates is an agreed upon set of long-range goals for 100, 50, and 25 years out, of where we want to be, and what we want to be able to do.
Given those goals, it should be possible to perform a sober, realistic analysis (unlike the unfulfilled, wildly optimistic promises made to justify the Shuttle, then the ISS, and now “commercial” space) of which pathways are most likely to get us there.
Clearly, this is something that the Augustine committee failed to accomplish. Their “flexible path” was a collection of marginally useless destinations that amounted to a spaceflight program that was totally UNWORTHY of a great nation. And only 6 years after the disasterous loss of the 7 Columbia crewmebers, they chose to totally ignore safety.
Comment by Nelson Bridwell — November 22, 2010 @ 12:46 pm
Paul, is Ares officially dead, or is it presently in limbo awaiting a kill shot? NASA’s website seems to suggest Ares is full speed ahead — http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/index.html
Comment by William McEwen — November 22, 2010 @ 1:24 pm
is Ares officially dead, or is it presently in limbo awaiting a kill shot?
More or less the latter, I think. The new NASA Authorization has been signed into law and it directs the agency to build a new heavy lift vehicle of ~70 mT class. Such a descriptor isn’t Ares. On the other hand, the agency has no FY 2011 budget; the entire federal government is on a continuing resolution. So we have a new heavy lift LV program that hasn’t been funded this fiscal year and an old Ares LV program that has been “de-authorized,” but has line funding under last year’s budget.
To quote Ed Harris in the movie Apollo 13, “Tell me this isn’t a government operation!”
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 22, 2010 @ 2:02 pm
Much of their report argues that the existing program of record (more specifically, the Ares I and V launch system) is not affordable, a fact already apparent to most observers.
From your previous post to which you linked, Augustine II committee final report never makes any such claim. Rather this statement is your interpretation. In fact here is the statement made in the beginning paragraph of that report:
“The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an
unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most demanding and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations. Such is the case today.”
This statement does not point toward NASA, it states that US policy is at fault. The President and Congress set and authorized a policy for NASA for which these policymakers subsequently did not provide adequate funding. Nowhere in the report were there any claims that the Constellation program was unaffordable. Dr. Griffin and NASA provided up front real cost estimates for funding at the time that the Constellation program was approved. Those cost estimates were pared down considerably by OMB in NASA’s budget and not restored by Congress. A fact pointed out frequently by Dr. Griffin and many others.
Could the Constellation program have been modified to build a SDLV like that proposed by Direct? Certainly. Should there be other lunar development programs like ISRU. Absolutely. But the underlying issue is the funding. Which is a point made throughout that final report.
Comment by Gary Miles — November 22, 2010 @ 2:05 pm
The President and Congress set and authorized a policy for NASA for which these policymakers subsequently did not provide adequate funding.
Yes, I know that this is what the report says. My point is that they are wrong.
The Augustine committee was presented with at least two different alternative architectures (one using currently available EELVs and fuel depots and the other using a Shuttle-derived side-mount vehicle) that accomplished lunar return and fell within the out-year budget guidelines assumed by the committee. It is not an accurate statement to say that “the President and Congress did not provide adequate funding” to implement the policy. That statement is true only for the development and building of Project Constellation. But Constellation was not and is not the Vision for Space Exploration — it was NASA’s implementation of the VSE. Alternative implementations were (and still are) possible.
But that’s not my topic. My theme is that the agency drifted off track in implementing their mission (and never really understood or accepted it to begin with) and that this drift may have been caught and corrected early (before program termination was required) if appropriate technical oversight had existed.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 22, 2010 @ 2:36 pm
Just a pedantic note about units:
1 mT = 1 millitesla
1 t = 1 tonne.
Comment by anonymous — November 22, 2010 @ 2:43 pm
Paul:
A slight sidetrack…I personally agree with the Moon first pathway, and development of ISRU.
However, are you familiar with the Mars Direct argument put forward by Robert Zurbin that because of Delta V constraints, even if we had a fully functioning ISRU fuel production facility on the Moon, the required delta-V for lunar escape is sufficiently large that (if I can remember his words) it wouldn’t buy us anything as far as supporting Mars exploration? I would be interesting in your take on his argument.
(I have a lot of respect for Zurbin’s advocacy for space exploration and his well-articulated cirticism of ObamaSpace, although I think that for the search of life on Mars, we need to take a rover-first approach to eliminate the probability of airborne contamination every time that the airlock opens.)
Comment by Nelson Bridwell — November 22, 2010 @ 4:23 pm
Nelson,
Bob tends to view lunar presence through the prism of how it supports or detracts from his principal concern — human Mars missions. Thus, he does not appreciate the principal value of lunar propellant production: the creation of a reusable, extensible cislunar transportation system. I view the development of such a system as more valuable than one-off, PR stunt missions with discarded vehicles, flags and footprints, and huge price tags. The primary destination of such a system is not Mars, but the points of cislunar space, including routine access to all of our various economic, scientific and national security satellite assets. If we develop such a system, it would naturally be available to eventually support missions beyond cislunar space, including to Mars.
However, Bob and I are in agreement that the current administration’s space plan is poor in concept and execution. We discuss that in this op-ed piece:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/nasas-mission-to-nowhere/
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 22, 2010 @ 6:45 pm
I would like to think that 100 years into the future when our great grandchildren look up at the Moon with binoculars at night, they will be able to see city lights from several towns where research, power generation, mining, manufacturing, and tourism take place.
Comment by Nelson Bridwell — November 22, 2010 @ 8:04 pm
Paul:
While I agree with much of what you wrote, I ask that you reconsider the sweeping scope of your criticism. You wrote:
Credible rumor has it that NASA has initiated a “lessons learned” postmortem of Project Constellation in order to camouflage their failure to implement the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and to justify their new direction. I had originally intended to expand on the agency’s postmortem pursuit by writing a piece about time wasting, bureaucratic “butt-cover” exercises done for public consumption [...]
After Obama cancelled CxP early this year, our team started to document our work (3+ years). Our work spanned a number of the Lunar Surface Systems (LSS) elements, and we felt it was important to leave a coherent set of findings for those who will someday pick up the pieces (NASA or otherwise).
We spent a lot of time reverse-engineering decisions from Apollo, Shuttle, et al, and we hope our findings and decisions give the next Lunar base team a slightly more coherent start.
Our effort was not directed from above, is not bureaucratic in nature, nor is it an effort to cover anyone’s butt. I can not speak for the Cx Program, or even the LSS Project, but I can say that the document we will release was started from within our team and intended for future designers.
Moreover, because the agency was approaching lunar return as a “super Apollo” set of extended sorties, the architecture was incapable of accomplishing the basic objective of going to the Moon to learn how to live and work there.
I think this comment does a disservice to the LSS team. The LSS team was building more than a ““super Apollo” set of extended sorties”. I believe the team understood (I certainly did) that we were building towards a permanent presence on the Moon. Our sub-team, for example, spent countless hours trading reliability, sustainability, commonality, maintainability, costs, logistics, etc, to create systems that would keep people safe and keep missions going.
The LSS team worked with relatively small funding and little fanfare, but accomplished a great deal. CxP, Ares in particular, were big targets; so LSS got lumped in with them when it was time to attack them. LSS was a baby in the more visible Ares-Orion bath water. We haven’t hit the alley yet, but many of our team have been re-assigned to jobs that will live beyond the end of the continuing resolution.
Our “lessons learned” documents may be an important piece we hand on to the next generation of lunar outpost designers. I wish I could retire saying the last few years had a more tangible outcome, but please don’t take this one last thing away!
Comment by John — November 22, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
John,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and for your hard work on Constellation. Let me respond to a couple of your reactions.
I can not speak for the Cx Program, or even the LSS Project, but I can say that the document we will release was started from within our team and intended for future designers.
I accept this statement about LSS on your word. However, the effort to which I refer in this post is one directed from agency management — the management responsible (in part) for the train wreck. Even now, many of the people responsible for poor decisions during the ESAS are now planning and laying out the new direction (HEFT) — the new planning repeats many of the same decisions that doomed Constellation. So I guess I wonder how many lessons are really being learned.
The LSS team was building more than a ““super Apollo” set of extended sorties”. I believe the team understood (I certainly did) that we were building towards a permanent presence on the Moon
The team may have understood that, but management didn’t. As late as a year ago, the acting Administrator said in a public speech that he did not know why America was going to the Moon. The ESAS architecture was configured to favor Apollo-type “sorties” and human Mars missions staged from Earth. There was no provision in any lunar surface planning for significant ISRU and resource development, except for bench-scale technology demos. Without using local resources, we’re not staying anywhere in space.
Our “lessons learned” documents may be an important piece we hand on to the next generation of lunar outpost designers. I wish I could retire saying the last few years had a more tangible outcome, but please don’t take this one last thing away!
I am not taking anything away. I’m trying in my own way to dissect what lessons should be drawn from this episode. My theme here is that one of the biggest ones is that the agency needs to be monitored for mission creep and strategic drift, because that’s what happened when NASA tried to implement the VSE.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — November 23, 2010 @ 4:45 am
I am somewhat intrigued by John’s putting together a Lunar Surface Systems how-to study.
Constellation managers told me they had no interest in prior work on lunar surface systems done during SEI. They also said they had no interest in work or processes done during ISS planning and early development. The ISS management told me, 15 years ago, they had no interest in work done during Mir. Current commercial program offices at NASA have shown not the slightest interest in the work done during the pioneering Spacehab effort 20 years ago. “Not invented here” and the distinction each new manager wants of putting together their own new plan and processes has killed the continuity of knowledge and ability that was critical in the space program a generation ago.
Based on my experience, I doubt that anyone will ever look at John’s LSS memories book. He should keep it as a souvenir of a program gone awry.
Comment by James H — November 27, 2010 @ 9:54 am
I find it interesting that there is virtually no discussion of commercial viability. Until it pays, we ain’t going nowhere. Constellation was an abomination from a commercial standpoint. Where was the market? Who, other than NASA, would buy it? Who could afford to operate it? How many times per year? What about production levels? High enough to get real learning curve and cost reduction? And of course, what does it give us that orbital refueling, assembly in LEO and the use of existing or planned commercial boosters doesn’t?
One answer is that the new approach does not pay the Utah tax. They don’t give a flying whether we move out into the solar system or not so long as they get their re-election coffers filled for bringing in the pork.
Comment by Dale Amon — December 5, 2010 @ 12:35 pm
I find it interesting that there is virtually no discussion of commercial viability. Until it pays, we ain’t going nowhere.
I’ve discussed commercial space possibilities many times, but that was not the theme of this post. In any event, we’ve had a space program for over 50 years and it has never “paid for itself” in a commercial sense. We sometimes support efforts that have long-term societal value. Such value is not always monetary.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — December 5, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
Paul, great overview, I can’t wait to read what NASA comes up with as the “official” reason Constellation went off the tracks. My prediction is that they will choose to take the blue pill and remain in dreamland.
Along those lines MSFC is falsely promoting that the laws requirements for the SLS is in terms of metric tons, ie tonnes but the language in the bill which clearly states tons (ie 2,000 lbs). Why would they do that? Because the difference between 70 tonnes and 70 tons is the difference between a Jupiter-130 and Jupiter-130 Heavy (5-Seg SRB) configurations we both detailed before the Commission.
At present ATK is saying that the price of the 5-Segment SRB and 4-Segment SRB are the same. Sounds good until you discover that they raised the price of the 4-Segment SRB to match the 5-Segement SRB. Of course this little switch will push the stack resonance frequency into the danger zone, result in major launch facility issues and cause a whole host of unknowns to be introduced into a time/cost critical design. But once again let’s ignore those little issues like we did on the Ares-1. It will all work out somehow, you’ll see, I mean we are the rocket scientist after all and your common sense proposal “defies the laws the physics”. Besides cost plus contracting will take care of any cost overruns because we think we have a near infinite period of time to implement this.
All risk above in order to produce a 15% increase in lift capacity over the entry level inline ie Jupiter-130). A second to none capability, that protects for a Saturn V class (diameter, volume, lift) expansion option, while still easily exceeding what we can afford to put into orbit for at least a decade if not longer right out of the box using an existing $40 billion dollar infrastructure. Hence the laws phase 1 followed by phase 2 language, not an accident BTW and 100% in alignment to what we presented to the commission even though they mangled it in report as just this rocket vs that rocket. Talk about complicating the obvious and trivializing the momentous.
In the end the near term value of the entry Jupiter-130 is not the lift capacity as much as the additional diameter and volume it provides to future missions (civilian, military, commercial). One only has to look at how the serious cost overruns of both the JWST and MSL are being largely driven by constraints in diameter and volume of existing launch systems. You know something is wrong when your cost overruns are not only driven by the launch system limitations but are running at 5 times what the launch cost is. Now we could reduce the scope of our future mission to work within the diameter and volume of the existing launch systems but that would mean just re-flying past missions so what’s the point?
What is ironic is that our proposal (now law I might add)is still being attacked by both extremes. One extreme is represented by those that ignore the realities of spacecraft design 101 and suggest that we don’t need any upgrade in the launch system volume and diameter. The other extreme believes that only something with lift capacity 50% higher than Saturn V, thereby require 100% new stuff, will do.
I for one believe that the Jupiter-130 will be more than sufficient to launch ground integrated spacecraft dry that will then be tanked up in space using Lunar and other in space resources. In this way we manufacture on Earth what we can only do on Earth and we use the “dumb” mass in space to provision everything else. The everything else represents +75% of the mission mass but less than 1% of the mission manufacturing cost on Earth. The Spacecraft will also be more robust and useable over multiple mission cycles. I think Reuseability is key to cost reduction, but as the Space Shuttle showed us its not the reusability from Earth to Orbit we need to focus on but the reusability from Orbit to everywhere else.
Comment by Stephen Metschan — December 6, 2010 @ 12:16 pm