AirSpaceMag.com

The white flags of surrender? I certainly hope not.

I think that we need to start planning for what comes next should the Senate Launch System begin to run over schedule and over budget. If it does this, then it might be an opportunity of sorts.

I think that Congress might be reluctant to throw good money after bad. It’s now becoming clear that the axe is beginning to land on NASA’s budget. Whereas the SLS is being preserved while other areas are begin sacrificed, all that could change if the SLS begins to run over budget. At that point, many will be in a real funk. Just how many times can you redirect America’s HSF direction while losing part of the previous investment and still have a viable HSF program? But, at the same time we will know whether or not the commercial companies can deliver service at a price considerably less than we will get with HLVs with low flight rates. If the commercial companies are able to provide even somewhat more affordable service then this will become the logical direction to go — especially if SpaceX is able to demonstrate a Falcon Heavy. And if Masten and Armadillo can design complex landers at a fraction of the regular development costs, then perhaps there too, other parts of a BEO space program can be had within a future constrained budget.

Comment by JohnHunt — July 20, 2011 @ 3:46 am

Yes, Mr. Spudis. Extremely well put! American space policy was bungled from the top, all the way down! I too, have wondered about what future taikonauts & vyomanauts will find at the Apollo landing sites, whenever they visit Luna, come the 2020s or 2030s. It’ll be surreal vistas that these future foreign spacemen will behold, when they eventually get there. When THEIR president and/or prime minister directs THEIR nation to be the second one to land men on another world. Again, I am reminded of the South Polar expedition of U.S. Admiral George Dufek, who reached the Pole with a crew in the later 1950′s, and witnessed the exploration flags & relics of the then-remote past Amundsen & Scott expeditions, from decades earlier. In that case too, it was not the Norweigians nor the British who revisited the big national historical site, but another nation which superceded them, in THAT task.

Comment by Chris Castro — July 20, 2011 @ 4:20 am

But, at the same time we will know whether or not the commercial companies can deliver service at a price considerably less than we will get with HLVs with low flight rates.

Not necessarily. They could have development issues and problems, set-backs, and other difficulties. They could be “almost ready to go” for years. Even if they complete a couple of flights, that says nothing about their long-term viability or the resilience of their costing structure. And no matter what their actual operational state at any given time, their paid and unpaid shills will continue the endless and inflated hype. In the mean time, the nation will have nothing in terms of a space faring capability.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 20, 2011 @ 7:55 am

Comment by JohnHunt — July 20, 2011 @ 3:46 am
“I think that we need to start planning for what comes next should the Senate Launch System begin to run over schedule and over budget. If it does this, then it might be an opportunity of sorts.”

Starting off the day hoping for failure, how exhilarating.

“But, at the same time we will know whether or not the commercial companies can deliver service at a price considerably less than we will get with HLVs with low flight rates. If the commercial companies are able to provide even somewhat more affordable service then this will become the logical direction to go — especially if SpaceX is able to demonstrate a Falcon Heavy. And if Masten and Armadillo can design complex landers at a fraction of the regular development costs, then perhaps there too, other parts of a BEO space program can be had within a future constrained budget.”

A lot of dubious if’s. First assume SLS will fail, and then assume the “New Space” crowd will be completely 100% successful. It reminds me of an old gag I heard as a kid:

Question: How do you put four elephants in a Volkswagen?
Answer: It’s easy. Two in the front, to in the back.

The only two remaining potential COTS providers are already some years behind their original promised schedules and still have no date for their first operational missions. Is it really a good idea to assume Commercial Crew will do any better (by the way I already suspect your answer will be an enthusiastic yes)?

Comment by Joe — July 20, 2011 @ 9:57 am

There is strong support for the SLS in Congress by both Democrats and Republicans and by the President’s own Augustine Commission. The only folks who are really against it are Obama and his ‘insidious’ science adviser, Holdren.

Tthe SLS will probably be the most versatile and useful cis-lunar transport system ever developed. And I wouldn’t be surprised if SLS vendors in the long run end up selling a lot more SLS vehicle configurations to private commercial companies than to NASA.

Comment by Marcel F. Williams — July 20, 2011 @ 1:18 pm

I conducted a poll on the Daily Kos to see what percentage of people wanted the SLS and how it should be used. And once again, a Moon base had the largest number of advocates, more than five times that of visiting an asteroid and nearly twice that of landing humans on Mars:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/12/994065/-Developing-New-Crew-Launch-Vehicles-for-NASA?via=user

Comment by Marcel F. Williams — July 20, 2011 @ 1:23 pm

It will be interesting to see what happens the first time these ‘commercial’ teams lose people.

There’s a reason why NASA has as much redundancy and ‘man rating’. I believe we’re abdicating the safety of these systems to commercial teams. This redudancy creates costs that these folks can ignore.

Granted, NASA had too much bureaucracy, but I recall reading something from Apollo safety about how they heard complaints about their work being ‘unnecessary’ because there never was an accident. Silly, backwards thinking…

Comment by PViebey — July 20, 2011 @ 4:09 pm

I vividly remember where I was 42 years ago today. I watched the landing on the TV in one of our company “day rooms” in the 1st Bn., 325th Inf. at Ft. Bragg. When I heard “the Eagle has landed”, I looked around. There was nobody else there! I thought at the time that it was a bad omen.

When I first saw an artist’s conception of the Constellation lunar architecture I thought I was looking at a graphic from the early days of the Apollo Program. While it may not literally be true that Constellation was an attempt to repeat the Apollo Program, it came awfully close. NASA, it seems, did not learn anything about going to the Moon in 35 years. I was not too disapointed to see Constellation follow the “90 Day Report” response to Bush Sr.’s SEI into the dustbin of history.

Now they tell us we are going to spend the next 15 years going to an asteroid. I have been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of manned spaceflight for over 60 years, but I fail to see what a manned landing on an asteroid would accomplish that could not be done by robots. We already have 10′s if not 100′s of tons of asteroid samples in our museums and private collections. They’re called “meteorites”. We know in great detail what asteroids are made of.

I think the best course for the near future would be an explicit new start on Zubrin’s classic “Mars Direct” scenario. We could be back on the Moon by the end of this decade, with the first few flights landing the initial elements of a lunar base. Those flights would serve as test flights for the Mars flight systems and enable a first Mars landing a few years later.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 20, 2011 @ 5:59 pm

42 years. I remember the 25th anniversary… all the way back in 1994… and I thought we’d certainly have Americans back on the Moon by 2010. And here we are. It’s embarrassing.

Comment by Jim R. — July 20, 2011 @ 7:36 pm

If we return to the Moon, we need to go there to stay.

And when the time comes to venture to the Martian surface, we need to utilize, as much as possible, the infrastructure developed for living on the Moon in order to establish a permanent human presence on the Martian surface. A single Apollo style visit to Mars would be a huge waste of tax payer dollars, IMO.

When we eventually go to Mars, we need to go there to stay!

Comment by Marcel F. Williams — July 20, 2011 @ 7:58 pm

Comment by Marcel F. Williams — July 20, 2011 @ 1:23 pm

Hi Marcel,

With all the caveats placed on on-line polls (small sample size, self-selecting, unscientific, etc.), the Daily Kos is (as I understand it) a very left wing website and thus the natural place to expect to find a lot of Obama supporters. Yet you sample shows only 15% against a government run Space Program and a vast majority in favor of one or all of your alternatives (with the largest plurality in favor of a Lunar Base).

While not dispositive it is certainly interesting and encouraging.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to run it.

Comment by Joe — July 20, 2011 @ 8:00 pm

“I have been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of manned spaceflight for over 60 years, but I fail to see what a manned landing on an asteroid would accomplish that could not be done by robots.”

The only asteroid I am in favor of landing on is Ceres. With the caveat they bring some scuba gear (Ceres might have a subsurface ocean).

Ceres is way out there. Chemical propulsion is not going to get us there. And not to Mars either. The most plausible system would be a beam propelled spaceship launched from the moon using hydrogen derived from lunar ice. The fast 39 day mission to Mars might make sense for later missions but the first Mars expeditions will have to establish a base shielded from radiation. That is a tall order and while slowing down with an aerobrake will get the ship there, there is the matter of getting back. Which brings us back to nuclear propulsion.

Going to Ceres seems like a much better idea for several reasons but the showstopper with lunar launch beam propulsion is how to slow down with no atmosphere to aerobrake in.

And this brings us back to nuclear propulsion again.

In any case, a moonbase is the prerequisite for human spaceflight to the outer planets. And as Dr. Spudis noted, the cawing of private space fanatics is getting very annoying. I have heard “Falcon 9″ and “Falcon Heavy” so many times it has become an infomercial. The hype is beyond belief. The hobby rocket has flown twice. It is a poor design and though sold as cheap- just as the shuttle was- very few people except the space station vacation fantasy club really believe it.

The inferior launch vehicles being advertised will never get us BEO. They are all headed to the only cash cow available- the ISS.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 20, 2011 @ 8:46 pm

Flags as “symbols of American achievement”? Funny. There are lots of stories of American achievement that don’t have a lot to do with flags. To have achievement measured by a piece of cloth is somewhat disturbing, actually, isn’t it? What those flags symbolize is that we were there. We put them there, as all the other hardware that remains there, as well as all those footprints. To say that the fading of a piece of cloth in any way reduces the importance of our accomplishment on the Moon is near-travesty. The battleships with which we fought WWII are largely gone, along with the flags they flew. Do we feel less proud of what we did then as a result?

The fading of the flags means simply that we as a nation saw no great importance in putting new ones there to replace them. Don’t make up other symbolisms for it. We knew we could put new ones there, but for many reasons decided not to. It’s just that simple.

Oh, and if we put UV resistant flags up there instead of ones made of modal, we’d all be happy about it now, right? That would symbolize our technological command of UV-resistant cloth, no doubt.

Comment by Heinrich Monroe — July 20, 2011 @ 9:10 pm

We knew we could put new ones there, but for many reasons decided not to. It’s just that simple.

Perhaps to you it is. Others may differ.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 20, 2011 @ 10:57 pm

@Joe

I guess there are still a lot of pro-space JFK liberals out there:-) But it should be noted that both Democrats and Republicans have been pretty hostile towards President Obama’s space agenda.

With all of the anti-government Tea Party types that exist these days, I found the conservative Wall Street Journal poll on whether or not the US should build a Moon base even more interesting:

http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/question-day-229/topics/would-you-support-building-manned?commentid=1695286

Comment by Marcel F. Williams — July 20, 2011 @ 11:12 pm

Dr Spudis-I am currently rereading your book “The Once and Future Moon” and you have made me a believer…the way to go is to build a Moon base, as soon as possible. I was very pleased when President Bush announced the program to do that, and I was devastated (but not surprised) when Obama cancelled it. There is a very strong anti-technology bent to those on the political far Left and since Obama seems to be allied with these types, it is not unexpected that he did what he did.
Societies that cease exploring end up whithering away and the US seems to show worrying tendencies in this direction. Developing a Moon base and renewing scientific exploration of the Moon Apollo-style with the availibility of modern communiciations which would no longer make the average citizen dependent on the whims of network television for coverage of the activity would energize a new generation of young people to study the science and engineering needed to propel the project forward.
I also agree that it is too soon to go to Mars, we first need to learn how to “live off the land” on the Moon before taking the huge step needed to get to Mars with the as yet unsolved physiological and techological challenges that would involve.
Dr Spudis-keep up your good work…I hope all is not lost!

Comment by Y. Ben-David — July 21, 2011 @ 5:56 am

I hope all is not lost!

Thank you for your kind words. I don’t think that we’re quite dead just yet. We’ve learned quite a bit about the Moon — particularly the poles — since I wrote “Once and Future Moon” in 1996. I suggest that you visit my web site for a variety materials and information on our new discoveries:

http://www.spudislunarresources.com

Thanks for reading.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 21, 2011 @ 8:59 am

Gary Church wrote:

“…the first Mars expeditions will have to establish a base shielded from radiation.”

Zubrin’s “Mars Direct” proposes exactly that. Mars and it’s atmosphere block approx. 3/4 of all space radiation, and he proposes to place sandbags on the roof of the Hab. modules to block most of the rest.

“That is a tall order and while slowing down with an aerobrake will get the ship there, there is the matter of getting back. Which brings us back to nuclear propulsion.”

“Mars Direct” would use CO2 in the atmosphere to manufacture LOX/methane propellants for Earth return using a small amount of seed hydrogen brought from Earth. The ratio of propellant mass to seed hydrogen mass would be 18 to 1. Once we develop a source of water on Mars, we can dispense with the seed hydrogen and use LOX/LH2 both ways.

We would not be able to use aerobraking at Ceres, but the gravity is quite small, and there is probably water on Ceres in the form of ice and/or water-of-crystalization, so manufacturing Earth-return propellants on Ceres should be possible.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 21, 2011 @ 1:01 pm

Marcel,

The numbers from Wall Street Journal (on-line) poll pretty closely mirror yours. 80% Moon Base (they only gave the option of a Moon Base) vs. 20% (basically) do nothing. Also interesting and encouraging. Maybe there are a lot of pro-space Tea Partiers out there also.

It has occurred to me one of the reasons it is difficult to get organized political support for space activities is because it cuts across ideologies. Support for space may be the one thing left wing and right wing types have in common, but they generally never find it out because they never really talk to (as opposed to at) each other.

The bipartisan opposition to the Obama Space Plan might be a break in that divide.

Hey, the last shuttle flight just landed and I am looking for something to be upbeat about.

Comment by Joe — July 21, 2011 @ 1:26 pm

Hello Dick,
I am familiar with Zubrin’s plans. In my opinion relying on automated processors to make rocket fuel would fail. Melting ice into water is one thing but any type of chemical refining requires human intervention frequently.

With that said, I only see two propulsion systems that can get us out there- Beam Propulsion and Nuclear Pulse Propulsion. Unlike fusion and other technologies that are always ten years away, we have bombs and now have gyrotrons that can transmit energy economically. And plenty of classified star wars data on how to redesign warheads as pulse units. Gyrotrons come from fusion research. Ironic that the only two places fusion works is in a sun or in a bomb- but this failure has provided the means to a propulsion system while bombs provide yet another resource for BEO travel.

So cheer up Joe, you have to believe anything can happen after 911 so we might get out there yet.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 21, 2011 @ 3:29 pm

“We would not be able to use aerobraking at Ceres, but the gravity is quite small”

Aerobraking can make flights to bodies with atmospheres more economical but most of the bodies suitable for colonies have no atmosphere. But there is an option that actually benefits from lack of atmosphere.

Beam propulsion can work to both accelerate and decelerate spaceships- but there has to be a transmitting station. In the outer solar system Beam energy means nuclear reactors.
It just so happens that the Moon has thorium deposits that can be used as a superior reactor fuel. So sending thorium reactors outbound from the moon is one future industry.

Nuclear propelled missions to bodies in the outer solar system can land reactors that can power gyrotron stations for economical future flights.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 21, 2011 @ 3:36 pm

Paul:

Thank you again for clearly articulating the concerns and thoughts of so many of us.

Comment by Nelson Bridwell — July 21, 2011 @ 6:24 pm

At the same time as the general wailing and tearing of beards surrounding the last Shuttle flight, the Dawn probe entered orbit around Vesta. It will return boatloads of information that has not been known before, something that will keep PhD students busy for years to come. The probe will have done this without risking a human life, without any “human-rating” of the launcher, and without requiring any monstrous new SLS or other heavy lift launch vehicle.

Comment by Ron Menich — July 21, 2011 @ 6:47 pm

“-without requiring any monstrous new SLS”

The 2700 pound Dawn probe max’d out the Delta launcher that sent it into space.

The “monstrous SLS” could have easily put a 27,000 pound probe up. In fact, it could have sent 3 or 4 probes 10 times the size of dawn on missions of exploration. These probes would not send back boatloads, they would send back supertanker loads of information.

And considering the bloated monster that is the DOD budget, your characterization of human space flight and HLV’s as worthless is….I don’t know what to call it.

Wailing and tearing of beards is more frequently found coming from the private space advocates that want a certain hobby rocket manufacturing company to take over all human space flight funding. They gnash their teeth when anyone working on a DOD project would break down in maniacal laughter when hearing complaints about NASA spending.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 21, 2011 @ 8:39 pm

Comment by Ron Menich — July 21, 2011 @ 6:47 pm

And we are all glad you are happy Ron. Believe me, each and everyone of us will sleep warm and happy tonight just knowing of your joy.

Comment by Joe — July 21, 2011 @ 9:23 pm

The author said:

“Despite misinformation in the press, the Vision was not (and still is not) “unaffordable” – its affordability depends on its implementation.”

With one caveat, I would agree, but the VSE was not just a return-to-Moon program either. Of the four VSE objectives, only one even mentions the Moon, and that is “in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations“.

What made the VSE unaffordable initially was the where it said “Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020“. That fake 2020 need date lead to a whole host of bad design choices by Michael Griffin and others, and lead to the fiscal mess that caused a bipartisan Congress to cancel it.

The mindset nowadays seems to be that in order for us to do anything in space, first we have to spend $25B doing nothing in space, and then magically we’ll be able to do something “wonderful”. What that wonderful is isn’t defined, but none of it is in the NASA budget today, or in the even smaller budget the House is considering. And that $25B? That’s what some estimates are for finishing the MPCV capsule, and then building the brand new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

That’s $25B for disposable hardware that hasn’t even left the ground. No wonder we’re not going anywhere fast.

Instead we need to change our mindset to focusing on what we can do on a shoestring budget. For the author, I don’t know where he stands on the Google Lunar X PRIZE, but I would hope he is volunteering his time to as many teams as possible to help them succeed. Zero government dollars, but an ever increasing likelihood of someone landing a lunar rover on the Moon. That type of behavior should be encouraged, as it’s becoming clear that funding from the government is going to be lacking.

So back to making the VSE affordable. I think it’s more a matter of time scale more than anything else, and generally I support the goals of the VSE (except the 2020 date). But we have to recalibrate our expectations for how much money is available, and learn how to stretch our money in ways we couldn’t have previously.

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 21, 2011 @ 10:07 pm

@ Joe

Since the Obama administration has pretty much defied the Congressional mandate of articulating near term cis-lunar destinations for the future SLS, Congress has every right to do so themselves, IMO.

Congress can do that in the election year of 2012, with an eye on the important swing state of Florida by both Republicans and Democrats, by declaring the development of a manned polar lunar base as the first priority for the utilization of the new Space Launch System and by passing legislation to fund ($1 to $1.5 billion a year) the development of a single stage and potentially reusable Extraterrestrial Landing Vehicle (ETLV) that could be used to land manned and unmanned payloads on the Moon, moons of Mars, Mercury, and large asteroids (Ceres, Vesta, etc.). Full funding ($1-1.5 billion a year) for the six to seven year development of the ETLV would begin in 2013.

If the President isn’t interested enough to provide leadership for our– government space program– then Congress has no choice but to lead, IMO!

Comment by Marcel F. Williams — July 21, 2011 @ 10:22 pm

It will return boatloads of information that has not been known before, something that will keep PhD students busy for years to come.

There’s a real benefit for America , all right.

By the way, the information that we have already in hand can keep PhD students busy for years. And has.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 21, 2011 @ 10:32 pm

–
the ENTIRE (40-tons-total) payload mass that “should” be carried to the ISS between 2014-16 and 2020 (+delays) by ALL the 20 “commercial space” CRS missions (12 with a cargo-Dragon and 8 with a Cygnus) awarded by NASA to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences (for a total price of $3.5 billion + over $1 billion for the COTS program) can be carried by (just) TWO further Shuttle flights (at 20 tons of payload per flight) and NOW, in late 2011 (then, NOT in 2015, or 2018, or 2020) for a total cost of about $1.5 billion, that is LESS THAN HALF the CRS program!!!
–
Cygnus: timeline: 2014-16 to 2020 — number of flights: 8 — max cargo per flight: 2.5 tons — max total payload of all CRS missions: 20 tons
–
Dragon: timeline: 2014-16 to 2020 — number of flights: 12 — max cargo per flight: 3 tons — max total payloads of all CRS missions: 36 tons
–
costs of the COTS + CRS program: $1 billion for COTS + $3.5 billion for CRS including all 20 missions for a total of 56 tons max carried to the ISS = $80 million per ton of payload
–
Shuttle: timeline 2011-12 — number of flights: 2 — max cargo per flight: 24 tons (+ 7 astronauts!!!) — max total payload: 48 tons (or just 40 tons to the ISS)
–
total costs of two further Shuttle missions: $1.6 billion for a total of (only) 40 tons of payload (+ 14 astronauts!!!) = $40 million per ton of payload (that’s HALF the price of the “cheap” commercial space…)
–
SLS: timeline 2017-up — max cargo per flight: 130 tons — costs of the program: $10 billion — price per launch: over $1 billion — number of cargo flights in 2017-2020: four???
–
price per ton of payload of four SLS launches: $10 Bn + $4 Bn = $14 Bn / 520 tons = $27 million per ton of payload (that’s 1/3rd the price of the “cheap” commercial space…)
–

Comment by gaetano marano — July 22, 2011 @ 1:16 am

Comment by Joe – July 20, 2011 @ 9:57 am

“Starting off the day hoping for failure, how exhilarating.”

I think JohnHunt was just being realistic, not fatalistic. What transportation system has NASA successfully fielded in the last 30 years (i.e. after Shuttle)? How many programs has it had to cancel because they went far over budget and/or schedule, or just decided to drop them for whatever reason?

I think the one thing that is clear is that NASA has a hard time managing large programs that extend over long periods of time. The ISS is an exception, but some think it only survived because it was so internationalized.

Regarding the SLS, programs that don’t have defined missions, or even clearly defined needs, are in danger of cancellation every time a new Congress comes to power, so I think the likely time for possible cancellation will be in 2013.

Joe also said:

“The only two remaining potential COTS providers are already some years behind their original promised schedules and still have no date for their first operational missions.”

Since you asked – per Aviation Week yesterday regarding the date for the next SpaceX COTS mission:

“Agency and company officials reached agreement on planning dates of Nov. 30 for the launch and Dec. 7 for the rendezvous and berthing of the Dragon cargo spacecraft with the station during a July 15 meeting.”

If that mission is successful, SpaceX will have completed the COTS program and can move on to regular deliveries under the CRS contract.

And today Orbital Sciences announced the following schedule:

1st Taurus II flight – late this year
1st COTS demo flight – first quarter of 2012
1st regular cargo delivery – 2nd quarter of 2012
2nd cargo delivery – 4th quarter 2012

Orbital has a more aggressive schedule, but they are the more seasoned aerospace company, so we’ll see what happens.

I think these two companies are good examples of making incremental improvements that can be fielded within years, not decades. Though not as capable as the SLS is hoped to be, they nevertheless provide the ability to support any destination in LEO with supplies, and at prices that are far below what NASA can do. And once NASA is done with the COTS program, all they are paying for is successful deliveries, and not the army of people that it takes to make it happen (like the Shuttle needed). That lowers NASA’s funding needs for non-science stuff, and allows more budget to go towards the things that make all the commenters happy here – including going back to the Moon.

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 22, 2011 @ 1:42 am

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 21, 2011 @ 10:07 pm
“The mindset nowadays seems to be that in order for us to do anything in space, first we have to spend $25B doing nothing in space, and then magically we’ll be able to do something “wonderful”. What that wonderful is isn’t defined”

At last something we can agree on, you describe the Obama Space ‘Plan’ exactly. Except you leave out the wasted fifteen years part.

Comment by Joe — July 22, 2011 @ 9:05 am

As usual Ron, you are seeking to deceive thinking no one is aware of your tangled web. Let me un-weave your not-so-clever advertising;

“Instead we need to change our mindset to focusing on what we can do on a shoestring budget.”

Change our mindset to the private space agenda you mean. We cannot do anything on a shoestring budget except go in endless circles in LEO.

“-a whole host of bad design choices by Michael Griffin and others

The bad design choices I am seeing are the ones SpaceX has made with their hobby rocket.

“we have to recalibrate our expectations for how much money is available, and learn how to stretch our money in ways we couldn’t have previously.”

This is the private space red herring. There is plenty of money available and the DOD budget is the proof. The problem is not money- it is the DOD spending it all on cold war toys. The private space plan to go cheap is the worst possible path. There is no cheap.

“NASA has a hard time managing large programs that extend over long periods of time. The ISS is an exception,”

NASA is underfunded and that is the “hard time” you are misrepresenting. Underfunding means no inspectors for strict oversight of contractors. After Apollo 1 they were hired, After Apollo 17 they were fired. The ISS is the “exception” because that is the private space cash cow. The ISS is 100 billion dollars of tin cans going in endless circles.

“Regarding the SLS, programs that don’t have defined missions, or even clearly defined needs,-”

The SLS has a defined mission but you do not like it; BEO. The need is to have a vehicle that can take humans BEO.
Private Space inferior lift vehicles cannot meet this need.

“Though not as capable as the SLS is hoped to be, they nevertheless provide the ability to support any destination in LEO”

LEO is a dead end. The Moon is the next step. You are advocating a step backward, not forward.

“all they are paying for is successful deliveries, and not the army of people that it takes to make it happen (like the Shuttle needed).”

To lift what the Saturn V class hardware the shuttle used to loft the orbiter, private space will need an army to support the absurd number of launches and hundreds of expended engines a year. A HLV is the only practical way to go BEO.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 22, 2011 @ 3:22 pm

Ron wrote:

“That fake 2020 need date led to a whole host of bad design choices by Michael Griffin and others, and led to the fiscal mess that caused a bipartisan Congress to cancel it.”

2020 was some 15 years in the future at the time, so I would not consider it any real constraint as far as design decisions are concerned. We got to the Moon in only 8 years the first time with Apollo, so NASA could have developed just about anything they wanted in plenty of time to support manned lunar flights by 2020.

The first time I saw an artist’s conception of the Constellation lunar spacecraft, I thought I was looking at a graphic from the early days of Apollo. Little, if any, new thinking or imagination seemed to have been expended on Constellation, so it’s no wonder that it ended up being unaffordable.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 22, 2011 @ 5:04 pm

Comment by Joe – July 22, 2011 @ 9:05 am

“At last something we can agree on, you describe the Obama Space ‘Plan’ exactly. Except you leave out the wasted fifteen years part.”

If you’re agreeing that the SLS is a colossal waste of money, then good.

If Congress took that money are used it for payloads that could be launched by existing rockets, then we could finally start doing a lot of exploration. Heck, as long as the Commercial Crew program received a small part of that funding, I wouldn’t mind the rest going towards a progressively more expansive lunar robotic exploration program (i.e. the exploration part of the Spudis/Lavoie plan).

If the next administration put you in charge, what would you do to “turn things around”?

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 22, 2011 @ 5:42 pm

Just a note to all posters — keep it on topic, impersonal and civil or your post gets deleted. I’ve already edited a couple of posts. I have better things to do with my time.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 22, 2011 @ 6:49 pm

“If Congress took that money are used it for payloads that could be launched by existing rockets, then we could finally start doing a lot of exploration.”

Finally? It is obvious you want one thing- private astronaut taxi’s to the government space station.

The space station is a 100 billion dollar boondoggle that is now useless. 30 years of endless circles is enough.

If congress took that money for the ISS and applied to the SLS, we would have a robotically constructed moon base ready for humans to walk in the door in 10 years.

Inferior lift vehicles would require hundreds of launches and hopelessly complicated refueling schemes to soft land miniscule lunar payloads. Those little pieces will not accomplish anything in the way of setting up a base. Nothing.

Private space as sole provider will strand us in LEO for decades if not longer.

Private space is the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 22, 2011 @ 6:59 pm

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 22, 2011 @ 1:42 am

Your missive is rather lengthy, so I will pick the substantive comment you addressed to me:

“Since you asked – per Aviation Week yesterday regarding the date for the next SpaceX COTS mission:
“Agency and company officials reached agreement on planning dates of Nov. 30 for the launch and Dec. 7 for the rendezvous and berthing of the Dragon cargo spacecraft with the station during a July 15 meeting.”
If that mission is successful, SpaceX will have completed the COTS program and can move on to regular deliveries under the CRS contract.”

Point 1: I did not ask you anything.
Point 2: My original post was made prior to the Av Week story. The plan had been for the next flight, in the December time frame, to be a test flight. The purpose would be for the Dragon to demonstrate it could meet its translational/rotational precision requirements while in Proximity Operations with the ISS. If it passed it would help assure that the ISS Robot Arm (driven by ISS Crew) could safely Grapple and Berth the Dragon. I had heard rumors (but I do not like speculating based on rumors) that SpaceX was pressuring NASA to delete the Prox Ops flight test and go directly to a Berthing mission. I had also heard that NASA Safety (and the Russians) were unhappy with this approach. I guess it should come as no surprise (given Musk’s pull with the current White House) where NASA is concerned, but it is surprising that the Russians have acquiesced (if they in fact have). Never the less the Av Week article appears (as always) well sourced, so we will have to see what happens. If the flight goes as apparently currently planned we can only hope that they succeed (or at least do not fail in such a way as to put the ISS at risk).

“And today Orbital Sciences announced the following schedule:
…”

I was originally a big supporter of COTS, but later (as the various parties were eliminated) began to have doubts. I hope Orbital survives (as I think they have the best chance of actually providing cargo services to the ISS), but they do not have a benefactor with Musk’s deep pockets and political connections.

Comment by Joe — July 22, 2011 @ 7:02 pm

“Little, if any, new thinking or imagination seemed to have been expended on Constellation-”

Well, it did separate crew and cargo vehicles which is something that I believe is a must-have after the Shuttle.

And it did use 5 segment boosters which are in effect a reusable Saturn first stage.

It was doomed by the same problem that doomed the shuttle program from the start. A problem Apollo did not suffer from; underfunding.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 22, 2011 @ 7:04 pm

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 22, 2011 @ 5:42 pm
“If you’re agreeing that the SLS is a colossal waste of money, then good.”

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure you know that was not my point.

Comment by Joe — July 22, 2011 @ 7:11 pm

Comment by Joe – July 22, 2011 @ 7:11 pm

“I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure you know that was not my point.”

Not necessarily, but there was always hope.

But in honoring Paul’s request to stick to the subject at hand, I would be interested to hear your answer to my question “If the next administration put you in charge, what would you do to “turn things around”?”

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 23, 2011 @ 12:03 am

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 23, 2011 @ 12:03 am
“But in honoring Paul’s request to stick to the subject at hand, I would be interested to hear your answer to my question “If the next administration put you in charge, what would you do to “turn things around”?“

Sorry Ron, but as I have said before; I have played this kind of game with you before.

You already have a good idea of what kind of Space Program I favor and what I would do if somebody suddenly made me ‘King of the World’. I could easily come up with a short list of bullets outlining my desires at a top level. By past experience you would attack each of those bullets and ask several questions about why I support each bullet (that you would of course expect me to answer). These answers (If I were foolish enough to keep playing) would generate more open ended questions and on and on it would go.

All that leads to is an endless (and increasingly rancorous) debate (actually argument):
- No new information introduced
- No new positions taken
- No minds changed
- Nothing accomplished except the waste of a lot of perfectly good Bandwidth

You seem to enjoy that kind of argument for arguments sake, but I do not. You’re going to have to find somebody else with whom to play your game.

Comment by Joe — July 23, 2011 @ 9:29 am

The private space gang floods the web with talking points that have been repeated ad infinitum, which is why I now refer to these comments as an infomercial. All of these schemes and gimmicks sound great to anyone who is not familiar with space flight. Those of us who know even the basics understand the “Flexible Path” is something completely different that what is being portrayed.

Privates Space is a business plan that proposes to siphon as many tax dollars as possible from the NASA human space flight budget and convert those funds into profit for investors. The name of the game is cheap but it has been proven there is no cheap- space flight is inherently expensive. The underfunding of the past is cited as overspending and an example of government waste by Privates Space advocates.

Apollo 1 is largely largely overlooked in discussions of the space program when it was the key event. Contractor oversight was vastly increased and aerospace companies were forced to deliver what they were being paid for. After Apollo the myth of overspending began when actually it was simply the end of former quality control and account inspectors insuring Aerospace did not steal from NASA as they have always done from the DOD. They started stealing- even going so far as to transfer Shuttle development funding to DOD projects like the B-1 under the table. Swing wings are hard and their profit margin was going down so Aerospace did what all corporate entities do.

Now Private Space companies are making claims for launch prices “that could go as low as 500 dollars per pound.”

We saw it with the shuttle and now it is back in a cheaper, smaller, better form.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 23, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

Hi Joe,

- No new information introduced

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43440116

“-arguably the world’s most reliable rocket: a U.S.-European vehicle which is an upgraded version of the space shuttle’s solid booster rocket that has flown perfectly 216 times, and France’s Ariane-5 rocket as a second stage that has flown 41 times successfully.

The rocket, called Liberty, is being offered by ATK Space Launch Systems. It’s capable of carrying all crew vehicles in development today.

“Both stages of Liberty were designed for human rating from the beginning,” said ATK Vice President Charlie Precourt, a veteran astronaut and former director of NASA’s flight crew operations. The other rockets haven’t yet gone through the time-consuming process to be certified as safe for flying humans.

What’s more, an earlier variant of Liberty has already flown in the form of the Ares 1-X rocket, and it already has its launch pad and facilities to accommodate astronauts. Although the Ares project was canceled last year, that experience gives Liberty an extra boost in this second space race. “We can perform a test flight in late 2013 and deliver crew by 2015,” Precourt said.

Boeing is currently talking with the Liberty folks about using its rocket to boost the CST-100’s first flights with hopes of making a decision next month.
If ATK’s Liberty and Boeing’s CST-100 team up, the U.S.-European rocket should open the door for customers in international governments desiring their own space program.”

- No new positions taken

Liberty is AresI with a euro upper stage. Private Space advocates jeer it but guess what? It has more going for it than the hobby rocket. Alot more.

- No minds changed

I thought the separate crew/cargo vehicle concept died with AresI but now I am hoping for a resurrection.The Europeans might see this as their chance for human spaceflight.

- Nothing accomplished

I just posted an excerpt describing a very practical alternative to the hobby rocket.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 23, 2011 @ 3:15 pm

Comment by GaryChurch – July 23, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

“Privates Space is a business plan that proposes to siphon as many tax dollars as possible from the NASA human space flight budget and convert those funds into profit for investors.”

NASA doesn’t build anything, it contracts out for the work to be done. I know you have an issue with the startups in the aerospace community, but what do you think the goals of ATK and Lockheed Martin are? You’re naive to think that they are not spending $milions on lobbyists just to do work for NASA at no profit.

The goal of every business is to succeed and profit – it’s what the management teams are graded on. The only difference we’re talking about here is who owns the end product, NASA or the companies.

In any case, companies that kill their customers out of reckless disregard don’t tend to survive, and their competitors learn what not to do, so overall the market becomes stronger. It happens all the time in transportation. Commercial transportation to space will be the same, both with successes and failures along the way. The smart and strong will survive, and the weak and clueless won’t. Nothing new.

“Contractor oversight was vastly increased and aerospace companies were forced to deliver what they were being paid for.”

I’ve worked for DoD contractors, so I know what the good and bad of government contracting is. However in the world of Theory X or Theory Y workforce motivation, you would clearly be in the Theory X camp, whereas I would be in Theory Y. I believe when given the chance, people in general want to do a good job.

Regarding Apollo 1, the astronauts’ deaths were attributed to a wide range of lethal design and construction flaws in the early Apollo Command Module. Those kinds of things happen in new industries making new and complex systems.

I think the chance are low that something of that magnitude will happen with the commercial crew vehicles (i.e. mature technology use), but remember that Air France Flight 447 fell out of the sky because of a ice-covered pitot tube, so you never know what combination of benign circumstances will come together to cause a tragedy. Live and learn, but don’t live in fear.

“Now Private Space companies are making claims for launch prices “that could go as low as 500 dollars per pound.””

They were talking about the future of their industry, not making price guarantees.

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 23, 2011 @ 4:30 pm

“We discarded both a working transportation system and a strategic path forward in space in exchange for promises of commercial space travel to LEO and dreams of human missions to an asteroid (with nebulous rationale and timetable). Wishing new capabilities into existence without a clear step-by-step path forward would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. The administration came to a fork in the road, pondered the direction our national space program could go, and chose a path with no objective or productive program architecture that America could embrace to stay on top of her game.”

Problem is NASA didn’t privatize the Shuttle. If NASA had privatize Shuttle then there would been none of the problems you expressed.
What needs to be understood is why didn’t NASA privatize the Shuttle.
On Space Show, a guest said [perhaps it was Larary Kuznetz- it someone who spend many years working on the shuttle] he and others were going to attempt to do this, but said the chances of doing it were very low [5%]. My point isn’t that favor this guy doing this, rather in favor persons like this guy “being allowed” to do this.
In fact I favoring lower this guy’s chance, by having him be only one party competing for this “opportunity”.

An example of deal would be, NASA gives/rents shuttle assets plus some gives some money. And NASA gets to buys shuttle launches AND same company builds Shuttle C.
NASA should want to buy only 1 shuttle launch per year- it doesn’t offer to buy high volume. Same goes with Shuttle-C, it will only offer to buy a few Shuttle-C launches over say a decade of time. So NASA isn’t providing a business model of provide enough launch volume. Which leaves the option operating Shuttle/Shuttle-C at low flight rate and/or getting other customers in addition to NASA.
So for NASA part, it want shuttle as backup system and want the potential of Hvy launch.

Comment by gbaikie — July 23, 2011 @ 4:34 pm

GaryChurch wrote:

“Well, it did separate crew and cargo vehicles which is something that I believe is a must-have after the Shuttle.”

There is no fundamental reason for separating crew and cargo. Every cargo vehicle on Earth – ship, plane, train, truck – is manned. The usual reason given is the expense of “man-rating” manned spacecraft and launch vehicles, but the Shuttle has shown that NASA’s “man rating” process is a sick joke at best. The Shuttle is probably the least reliable launch vehicle we have in service, and it is literally about 40,000 times less reliable than the average commercial airliner. It also cost several orders-of-magnitude more to fly.

“…it has been proven there is no cheap- space flight is inherently expensive.”

Please define “cheap” and “expensive”. Who proved it? When and how? Low cost space transportation has been my primary interest for the last 40 years, so how did I miss that? It certainly wasn’t proven by the Shuttle – the Shuttle was not designed for low cost. Indeed, the Shuttle is a textbook example of how NOT to develop a low cost launch vehicle. If you want to know how to develop a low-cost launch vehicle, study how the Shuttle was developed and do everything exactly the opposite of that.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 23, 2011 @ 6:00 pm

A reminder to the posters here: The purpose of the comments section is to record your reactions and comments to what I have written here. Do not post links to other sites or articles for discussion. There are other forums for that.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 23, 2011 @ 6:24 pm

Comment by GaryChurch — July 23, 2011 @ 3:15 pm

Hi Gary,

Intersting post. I trust you understand the comments of mine you quaoted were not aimed towards you.

Comment by Joe — July 23, 2011 @ 6:40 pm

Hi Paul, Trying to get back on track…

> The end of the Shuttle program and the dismantling of Shuttle infrastructure at Florida’s Cape parallels the dismantling of our national space program.

Like practically all of us here, I too think that we ought to go to the Moon first with the goal of harvesting ice and developing a permanent and as self-sustaining manned base as possible.

But I honestly don’t expect the Administration or the Congress coming out any time soon saying that we are going to spend $87 billion over 16 years going to the Moon, or $X billion to go to Mars, or committing to any single large project. I think that they went with a NEO because it would not require near-term spending on a lander. But for me the real prize is the Moon – especially its ice in a low gravity well. I think it’s a game changer.

So how can we get Obama and Congress to put the Moon back on the target. I think that you either have to get the money from some other committment (e.g. The SLS) and/or you have to find a way of doing it cheaper. For both of these reasons I favor the reversal of the decision to develop and maintain the SLS and why I also favor pay-for-milestones and using launchers that can clearly share costs with commercial and military payloads. I would also like to see if landers can be developed inexpensively by the likes of Armadillo and Masten, and that lunar surface equipment could either be developed in a NASA-funded prize approach or a Lunar-COTS-like approach. If the $87 billion approach does not get the government to bite then I think that an alternate lower-cost approach such as I am describing should be presented especially if the development of the SLS starts going over budget.

Now, regarding the Liberty rocket, yes, it comes from proven rockets, that’s good. But I haven’t heard of a configuration that would be able to lift 53,000 kg to LEO thereby opening up the possibility of sizable payloads to the Moon. SpaceX is moving forward spending a significant amount of money at Vandenberg. They are certainly acting as though they plan on launching the Falcon Heavy in the forseeable future.

Comment by JohnHunt — July 24, 2011 @ 2:43 am

JohnHunt,

I honestly don’t expect the Administration or the Congress coming out any time soon saying that we are going to spend $87 billion over 16 years going to the Moon, or $X billion to go to Mars, or committing to any single large project. I think that they went with a NEO because it would not require near-term spending on a lander.

Close — they went with a NEO because: ) a human mission to one is far enough away in time and money as to not be real; and 2) it’s not the Moon.

But for me the real prize is the Moon – especially its ice in a low gravity well. I think it’s a game changer.

We are in total agreement here.

In regard to “$87 billion over 16 years,” if you read our paper, you will note that the budget and schedule we present are completely notional. We picked that amount of money because that was the non-augmented run-out budget provided to Augustine et al and we wrote our paper (in part) to refute their conclusion that nothing was possible with such a funding level. A key feature of our architecture is that it can be adjusted to fit almost ANY budget profile — we just go slower. But we make constant, steady and inexorable progress.

The biggest problem with the current approach is not the NEO destination (which is not real anyway), but the abandonment of mission, a real set of strategic goals and activities at your destination. We go to the Moon to use its resources to create new space faring capability. What will we do at a NEO, except plant a flag and pick up some meteorites, to add to the thousands of kilograms of meteorites that we already have here on Earth?

I look upon SLS as both an attempt to preserve Shuttle infrastructure for future human missions and a statement of reluctance to discard it in the absence of a credible alternative.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 24, 2011 @ 5:09 am

“I trust you understand the comments of mine you quoted were not aimed towards you.”

Of course Joe, we are on the same team. I understand you.

“You’re naive if-”
“The only difference we’re talking about here is who owns the end product, NASA or the companies.”

You are naive if you do not understand what that difference means. You intimated that Apollo 1 was no big deal along with everything else I said. I have nothing else to say about that except Dr. Spudis allows you to post so enjoy.

“Every cargo vehicle on Earth – ship, plane, train, truck – is manned.”

While we agree on many things, this is the point where we go our separate ways. It is not earth- it is space. Almost all the analogies I have read about space on these forums have no merit at all. They are in fact misrepresenting the reality and steering the public in the wrong direction. The commercial airlines are the worst analogy of all. Space is like nothing on earth because….it is not on earth. It is a vacuum seething with radiation and distances beyond comparison.

“-the abandonment of mission,”

I was an autopilot troubleshooter for many years. If I know anything I know how a flow chart works and the one for space exploration is not hard to read.

Is there power (money)= No

Find the power= DOD

Is there a ground (mission)= No

Find the mission= Deflection/Colonization

Is the component (BEO access) functioning= No

Replace component= Heavy Lift Vehicle.

Is the problem operator (U.S.) error= Yes

Advise (we the people) operator (congress)= op check

Still a discrepancy? Yes

Maintenance ( adviser, we the people) op check

Still a discrepancy? No

Replace Operator (congress)

Unfortunately our maintenance advisers as the citizenry have no knowledge of the system, and our operators as congress are not even trying to turn the power as money on so the ground as mission does not matter, or the component HLV as a way to get BEO and do the mission.

So the first thing is to educate the citizenry. Unfortunately the Private Space Advocates are trying to replace our jet airplane with a biplane and are telling everyone they can fly the Atlantic with it. They are paying the operators to not say anything.

It should be apparent from my exercise that Analogy is not a replacement for the truth. It usually belittles and mocks reality. Just stating the facts is best.

“A key feature of our architecture is that it can be adjusted to fit almost ANY budget profile — we just go slower. But we make constant, steady and inexorable progress.”

Comment by GaryChurch — July 24, 2011 @ 1:59 pm

“Now, regarding the Liberty rocket, yes, it comes from proven rockets, that’s good. But I haven’t heard of a configuration that would be able to lift 53,000 kg to LEO thereby opening up the possibility of sizable payloads to the Moon.”

Because lunar payloads is what the SLS is for John. Liberty is a crew vehicle and not a heavy lifter. And the mythical Falcon Heavy is not an HLV either. With 27 expendable engines and nightmare plumbing the rest of the world is laughing at us for hyping this junk.

The Falcon 9 is a crew vehicle with 10 expendable engines instead of Liberty’s one (41 flights) and a much simpler and very powerful reusable solid rocket booster (216 flights for the 4 segment, 3 perfect tests for the 5 segment). Falcon 9 has flown twice. The basic launch data for the Liberty was acquired from the Ares1X test.

The Falcon 9 and the follow on “heavy” are hobby rockets.

The SLS and Liberty are the corrected and affordable version of the much maligned Constellation system designed for BEO human missions. Inferior lift vehicles combining crew and cargo vehicles and using absurd numbers of engines have been spin doctored into the solution to all problems. Private Space is in fact the worst problem space exploration has ever come up against.

We can go to the moon with Heavy Lift Vehicles and reliable crew vehicles, all partially reusable with the most powerful boosters available, or we can fail miserably with the cheaper-smaller-is better flexible path.
We have the most powerful and evolved heavy lift components on earth to work with. There is nothing else that even comes close.

There is no Flexible Path and there is no cheap.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 24, 2011 @ 2:18 pm

Comment by JohnHunt — July 24, 2011 @ 2:43 am
A good post, it may even allow a civil discussion of agreements and differences. It is unlikely that we will come to complete agreement here, but maybe we can at least come to understand each other’s positions better.

“Like practically all of us here, I too think that we ought to go to the Moon first with the goal of harvesting ice and developing a permanent and as self-sustaining manned base as possible.”
“But for me the real prize is the Moon – especially its ice in a low gravity well. I think it’s a game changer.”

Agree 100% with these statements (right down to the punctuation marks.

“So how can we get Obama and Congress to put the Moon back on the target. I think that you either have to get the money from some other committment (e.g. The SLS) and/or you have to find a way of doing it cheaper. For both of these reasons I favor the reversal of the decision to develop and maintain the SLS and why I also favor pay-for-milestones and using launchers that can clearly share costs with commercial and military payloads.”

While I do not agree with the “using launchers that can clearly share costs with commercial and military payloads” position I do understand the line of reasoning that takes you there. If I thought that depending on Delta IV/Atlas V size payloads exclusively could support the buildup of the kind of program we are advocating, I would agree. However, I have reviewed the document “A Commercially Based Lunar Architecture AIAA 2009-6567Frank Zegler1, Bernard F. Kutter2, Jon Barr3” and have noted the following”
- In its operational years it requires 30 or more launches to support the mission (that is well beyond any launch rates that have been achieved by the existing EELV fleet)
- These launches would then require dozens of totally automated rendezvous/docking operations to take place flawlessly every year (certainly nothing like this has been achieved to date and it would be a considerable technical challenge). This is to get the fuel to LEO. I must then be moved to the L2 point requiring at least 4 more such operations per year.
- There is no provision for Maintenance/Servicing of the propellant depots.
- Then come the Crew/Hardware Launches.

All of that to replace what can be done with maybe 4 SLS launched per year. Every bit of practical experience (from almost three decades in the business) tells me that the proposal will not work.

Do not get me wrong on two points:
- I do not think I am infallible. I am not trying to tell you to accept what I am saying (or even to get you to change your mind – at least at this point). Just to get you to recognize that someone who shares your goal can have an honest and reasonably based opinion about a different way to achieve it.
- I am not against the concept of propellant depots. In fact, I believe once lunar propellant is available they will be absolutely necessary to achieving the overall goal of developing a highly capable Cis-Lunar Architecture. At that time the launch of propellants from the Moon should be far easier than from Earth and the Propellant Depot would become part of the list of the Cis-Lunar Satellites that would be serviced/maintenance by the system we trying to build.

“SpaceX is moving forward spending a significant amount of money at Vandenberg. “

The Falcon Heavy is a very complex step up from the Falcon 9 (cross feeding propellant from one stage to another while feeding that stages engines as well). I wish them luck, but even if they succeed; it will be short of the payload I believe required. Additionally until they produce it to give up the SD HLV capability would be like (to paraphrase an old Texas expression) – Shooting the horse you are riding because someone promised you a new one.

Comment by Joe — July 24, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

“-the Shuttle was not designed for low cost.”

Well, according to you Dick, but the history books say otherwise. The program was cut every year it was in development and the SRB’s were used to save money. Payload was sacrificed by combining crew and cargo vehicles to save money, returning the engines to a runway was to save money, and the air force requirements came about because the funds had been cut so much the Air Force had to come in for support. It came in close to budget and we will never know how much of the program funding was diverted to other DOD projects- but we know this happened.

It all reeks of cheap. The reason it ended up so expensive was because as so often happens, trying to go cheap ends up costing alot more. No cheap access, most of the payload sacrificed and as a result of this no escape system, pressure to launch satellites to make money (and cut operating costs. And above all contractors working under a fraction of the oversight and inspections used in Apollo- to save money.

There is no cheap.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 24, 2011 @ 4:02 pm

Comment by Joe — July 24, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

You are awesome Joe. You rock!

Comment by GaryChurch — July 24, 2011 @ 4:25 pm

“I believe once lunar propellant is available they will be absolutely necessary to achieving the overall goal of developing a highly capable Cis-Lunar Architecture.”

I am very skeptical of cryogenic propellants- most especially LH2. It gets glossed over every time the subject is brought up that liquid hydrogen is not easy to store or transfer. Large and complex facilities are required on the ground to keep it stored and stable and transferring it is a complex task due to the need to pre-cool the entire transfer system and the tank on the recieving end. Transfer generates boil off by it’s kinetic nature and the impossibility of a perfect pre-cool cycle. Re-liquifying the boil-off results in generation of the exothermic form of hydrogen and this introduces heat into the storage system that results in more boil off and so it takes a long time to get the storage tank stable again.

Now this is verifiable fact and not some advertisement by ULA showing a tin can with a sun shade on a star field.

The problems become far more complicated in space with more radiation penetrating the tank than facilities on earth and with zero gravity effects on super cold liquids giving rise to kinetic effects that make keeping the stuff stable an order of magnitude more difficult.

I read a NASA history series piece called “Taming Liquid Hydrogen” and was very impressed with what it takes to store,transfer,and burn a liquid only a few degrees above absolute zero.

The private space gange scoffs at any suggestion that fuel depots may not be practical. Of course they would.

So I like hydrogen as a propellant when launched from the earth- or the moon. But storing and transferring the stuff in space without a very large mass of equipment does not sound like a winner to me. This does not preclude storable propellants in the the various forms of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide being used but it must be realized that these chemicals have their own issues and I do not know if producing it on the moon in situ is possible or practical.

My view of all this only makes me more convinced that a HLV is a prerequisite for any BEO activity. Launching HLV’s from the moon will not be any more difficult than cryogenic depots in my opinion. I predict Soft landing empty stages to construct launch vehicles with in an underground moon base will be a much easier engineering problem to solve than storing LH2 and transferring it in space on a large scale.

It makes me appreciate Cernan’s recent comment that “they don’t know what they don’t know.”

Comment by GaryChurch — July 24, 2011 @ 6:53 pm

Joe,

There is no such SD HLV vehicle. The Space Shuttle is no more capable of lifting 70mt+ exploration payloads than the present EELVs are. Creating a SD HLV out of the shuttle requires many billions of dollars of development money to build a heavy lift vehicle derived from it. However, this sum of money can also create a HLV derived from EELVs just the same. There are proposals for evolutions of the EELVs into heavy lift territory(an example of which you can find on their website on a paper titled EELV Phase 2 in their Published Paper section under Evolution). Such a proposal, Atlas 5 Phase 2, was investigated by the Augustine Commission alongside the SD HLV and found to offer superior programmatic costs to the SD HLV.

Furthermore, it has attributes that make it a more compelling heavy lift vehicle than the SD HLV. The capability to create a HLV based upon the EELVs remains an option going forward regardless of Shuttle program shutdown. There is no use it or lose it, it is always an option as long as the DoD maintains the EELVs for space access, which they plan to do until well into the next decade at least.

It is more suited for exploration missions by including a TLI injection capability in the base model. The SD HLV requires the development of an EDS on top of the ~70mt to LEO core stage in order to inject payload into TLI. The Atlas 5 Phase 2 is a modular HLV whose 70mt to LEO version can inject ~25mt into TLI instead using its second stage as an EDS, with greater payload capacity than that through TLI or into LEO with the addition of more common core liquid boosters. This is enough to place Orion into the L1/L2 points for L1/l2 rendezvous type lunar missions, as well as lunar lander segments or vehicles, or to send cargo landers to the moon.

Because you are not in danger of losing any capability to build an EELV HLV, you can better allocate budget to mission priorities. The SD HLV path requires you to spend billions up front on vehicle development, and then vehicle support, during times when there are few payload elements because budget for them has been allocated to launch vehicle development, and continuing operations. This is a parasitic drain on exploration payload development. With the EELV evolution path, monies for vehicle development can be deferred and instead allocated to payload development and other agency priorities, with vehicle development taking place at a later date to better align with mission occurrence.

When the EELV evolution is operational, it can share costs with the EELV chain through shared systems and suppliers. This has benefits to both NASA exploration, by lowering that constant monetary drain to keep a HLV operational and allowing more of the budget to be spent on missions, and other users of the EELVs, like the DoD and NASA Science missions that use that vehicle.

Furthermore, if HLV development is delayed, then when you do pursue a HLV, you can open up the development to tenders other than ULA who can offer a more compelling launch solution. Now, you may scoff at SpaceX today, but surely you can entertain the thought that they may be able to deliver on offering a more efficient cost structure in the field of launch. By delaying acquisition of a HLV, which you would do anyway when pursuing an EELV solution to better allocate budget to payload development as the EELV solution offers you that luxury, you can entertain the notion of a competitor vehicle when the time comes and that competitor can offer more demonstrated dependability.

Occluded in the discussion of present or near present commercial vehicles versus shuttle derived heavy lift is that there are other heavy lift options in alternative to SD HLVs that offer meritable reasons for their selection over such a SD HLV, and by an organization that has recent successful experience in developing and operating reliable launch vehicles, with such a path pursued also offering the possibility of a better than EELV evolution HLV being a contender when the time comes to develop a HLV.

Even if you subscribe to the notion that HLVs are a necessity, that does not justify the blind devotion to the SD HLV as the exclusive and exalted manifestation of such a vehicle. The option set is larger than Shuttle derivatives, and the Shuttle derivatives are poor contenders for such a role compared to the option outlined above.

Comment by libs0n — July 25, 2011 @ 12:41 am

Comments by Joe and GaryChurch – July 24, 2011

Joe said:

“These launches would then require dozens of totally automated rendezvous/docking operations to take place flawlessly every year (certainly nothing like this has been achieved to date and it would be a considerable technical challenge). This is to get the fuel to LEO. I must then be moved to the L2 point requiring at least 4 more such operations per year.”

and Gary said:

“I am very skeptical of cryogenic propellants- most especially LH2. It gets glossed over every time the subject is brought up that liquid hydrogen is not easy to store or transfer.”

While automated rendezvous and cryogenic propellant in space may not be easy, does anyone think they can’t be solved?

Because if we can’t solve them, then we’re not venturing very far away from Earth, regardless the size of our rockets.

I see these two challenges as two of the long pole technologies and techniques that must be solved for not only the Spudis/Lavoie plan, but everyone else’s too, so the sooner we master them, the sooner everyone can start delivering fuel with automated systems.

Joe also said:

“In its operational years it requires 30 or more launches to support the mission (that is well beyond any launch rates that have been achieved by the existing EELV fleet)”

ULA’s CEO Michael Gass has stated that they currently have excess capacity for producing more Atlas and Delta launchers, and they can easily ramp up further by adding a second shift or expanding their facility. And if you have been following what the CEO of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne has been saying, they would love more work.

From a manufacturing standpoint, ULA has a lot of opportunity to ramp up the number of rockets they can produce and launch, and I’m sure they would be glad to provide a quote.

“All of that to replace what can be done with maybe 4 SLS launched per year.”

The SLS will be a new vehicle, and no one knows how long it will take for it to become reliable. That is the situation every new launcher goes through (like Falcon too), so while the SLS could do the job in 4 launches, if one fails that’s 1/4 of your need. Atlas V and Delta IV already have a higher reliability rate than that, so maybe they are not such a risk after all.

The other challenge is that the SLS is a government vehicle, and by law cannot compete against commercial providers, so ULA may end up making and launching those 30 rockets a year after all. Or SpaceX. Hopefully both, since competition is a good thing to have.

The big challenge is getting enough budget from Congress for the mission that needs that amount of mass, and that’s where the comments of JohnHunt definitely ring true.

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 25, 2011 @ 2:32 am

Comment by GaryChurch — July 24, 2011 @ 6:53 pm

Hi Gary,

I actually do not disagree with any of your technical descriptions of the challenges involved in handling of any cryogenics (especially Hydrogen). That is the reason I think putting orbital propellant depots in the critical path for any BEO activity (especially Lunar Return) is a bad idea. This is all very speculative at this point, but I suspect that if a successful propellant depot system is ever deployed the first depots will be on the lunar surface.

That said, if we are ever going to have a truly extensive spaceflight capability in Cis-Lunar Space and Beyond (barring some technical breakthroughs) orbital propellant depots will (in my opinion) have to be developed.

I did not mean to imply it would be easy, only necessary.

Comment by Joe — July 25, 2011 @ 9:27 am

Comment by libs0n — July 25, 2011 @ 12:41 am

“There is no such SD HLV vehicle.”

A SD HLV (the Side Mount) can lift 72 Metric Tons to LEO (with a 10% performance reserve) and requires design changes only the External Tank (and all of these simplify the design and it’s interfaces). Minimal ground systems reconfiguration is required. The SLS uses an in line configuration which requires more ET and ground systems changes, but those are covered in the Budgeting in the Authorization Law ($11.5 Billion allocated as opposed to $8 Billion for the Side Mount). I would have preferred to have the Side Mount selected. But no system is perfect.

“There are proposals for evolutions of the EELVs into heavy lift territory”

I am familiar with the EELV HLV concepts (they date back at least to ESAS Architecture Study). They require ‘five barrel’ versions of the exiting vehicles, which are far more extensive in the changes to the hardware than those required for the SLS (and thus the Side Mount). They also would require an entirely new launch pad(s). Additionally they would require crew rating of the boosters, something not everybody in the DoD is necessarily happy about (why do you think DoD signed off so easily on the ESAS report, if they really wanted the extra work?)

“Furthermore, if HLV development is delayed, then when you do pursue a HLV, you can open up the development to tenders other than ULA who can offer a more compelling launch solution. Now, you may scoff at SpaceX …”

And then, of course, we get to the real point of your post. If we just delay long enough we can end up giving all the money to SpaceX. Sorry I am not a SpaceX stock holder.

Comment by Joe — July 25, 2011 @ 9:57 am

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 25, 2011 @ 2:32 am
“While automated rendezvous and cryogenic propellant in space may not be easy, does anyone think they can’t be solved?”

I would trust my answer to Gary will answer your question. My problem with the way the HLV vs. Propellant Depots debate is usually phrased is the HLV development cost are always included (almost always in exaggerated form), but the cost (in terms of risk, money and time) of developing all the technologies needed for an Orbital Propellant Depot system is always (implicitly, it is just ignored) assumed to be zero. I once had a car salesman try to convince me I could save money by taking out a loan rather than paying cash using that kind of ‘logic’.

“ULA’s CEO Michael Gass has stated …”

I am sure he would be glad to manufacture as much hardware as someone will pay him to build (no insult intended, that is what he does). But 30 flights a year is a flight every 12 days, when you thow in the already scheduled DoD and commercial flights you would be down to at least a flight a week. Where are you going to launch them from? How many extra launch pads (presumably at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station) would be required? You might want to talk to the range people about the effects of suddenly throwing 30 plus additional flights into the mix (the expressions on their faces should prove enlightening). I am not saying it could not be done, just that it would cost money and again when compared to HLV you make the implicit assumption that the cost is zero.

“The SLS will be a new vehicle, and no one knows how long it will take for it to become reliable. That is the situation every new launcher goes through (like Falcon too), so while the SLS could do the job in 4 launches, if one fails that’s 1/4 of your need. Atlas V and Delta IV already have a higher reliability rate than that, so maybe they are not such a risk after all.”

The Shuttle Program ended with a reliability calculated to be 1 in 90 (and that included the safe return of the Orbiter to the runway). The SD HLV would have at least that. The EELV’s have a calculated reliability of 1 in 50 (and that includes only the delivery of the payload to orbit). Therefore your assertion is inaccurate.

“The other challenge is that the SLS is a government vehicle, and by law cannot compete against commercial providers, so ULA may end up making and launching those 30 rockets a year after all.”

It is hard to tell what that is supposed to mean. If you are implying that ULA would sue to prevent NASA from using the SLS, that is something I doubt even SpaceX would do.

“Or SpaceX. Hopefully both, since competition is a good thing to have.”

And then, of course, we get to the real point of your post. We can end up giving all the money to SpaceX. Sorry I am not a SpaceX stock holder.

Comment by Joe — July 25, 2011 @ 10:58 am

“That said, if we are ever going to have a truly extensive spaceflight capability in Cis-Lunar Space and Beyond (barring some technical breakthroughs) orbital propellant depots will (in my opinion) have to be developed.”

Hi Joe, I am disagreeing with you only in part and I understand your logic.

I believe the technical breakthroughs are very close in the form of those 1 million dollar, 1 megawatt Gyrotrons which are in production. A Very general rule of thumb I have read is one megawatt equals one kilogram to orbit in regards to beam propulsion. Even if this technology proves unsuitable for earth launch (which is a definite possibility) it will be an option for lunar launch.

I have been disappointed before- several years ago I was following the Winglee M2P2 plasma sail research closely. Sadly expanding the field to the kilometers required just did not work out and neither did a way of coupling the sail cloud to the vehicle. That is the way the ball bounces. I never had much faith in VASMIR because of the power requirements but now my attitude has changed- the power is now available by transmitting it. So I am not a VASMIR naysayer anymore when it is combined with beam propulsion.

As for propellant depots, for Cislunar space they are ideal- but for deep space only nuclear propulsion can provide the needed Hi-thrust, Hi-ISP. The question is what kind of propellant?

The Private Space gang goes ballistic when cryogenic storage is criticized. This is because not being able to store and transfer liquid hydrogen throws a big monkey wrench into their agenda. That is why you will keep hearing the variation of this talking point;

“Because if we can’t solve them, then we’re not venturing very far away from Earth, regardless the size of our rockets.”

That is an example of the Private Space dogma.
Of course it is not any more true than me making the same claim about plasma sails or beam propulsion. The truth is that chemical propulsion in any form is not going to get us very far away from Earth. Something else will and the next step up from chemical energy is fission.

Nuclear Power is to the space age as steam was to the industrial age.

This is yet another reason the Moon is critical to any progress in space exploration- LEO is not friendly to things nuclear. A HLV can send fissionables on a lunar trajectory as safely as possible. Inferior lift vehicles, especially owned by private companies, with their rendezvous and fuel transfer antics will not meet this need. Lunar orbit or the moon is where nuclear propulsion will be effected.

As for maintenance of the super satellite family resulting from the Spudis/Lavoie plan, super cold liquified gases are not worth the trouble compared to the storable hypergolics. The trick is producing some form of storable propellant from lunar resources.

Regards

Comment by GaryChurch — July 25, 2011 @ 3:44 pm

“While automated rendezvous and cryogenic propellant in space may not be easy, does anyone think they can’t be solved?”

It seems solvable, but that is not the question.

Will it be worth the trouble? Just like launching once a week (I think it would require more).

Just as Hydrogen is well worth the expense and trouble for use in upper stages, Kerosene is not worth the loss of performance for use in upper stages.

One of the most insidious Private Space techniques is to criticize everything from the 60′s as somehow no longer being relevant. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Physics do not change and materials have not changed that much. Propellants are capable of generating only so much thrust for a given mass.

Werner Von Braun’s calculations for Rockets he proposed in the early 50′s are very close to what is flying today.

The Private Space agenda is to make the public believe they are the next great thing when their whole approach is based on techniques passed over half a century ago as impractical. Orbital fueling, expending large numbers of clustered engines, inferior upper stage propellants, and absurd numbers of launches to accomplish missions heavy lift vehicles could perform in one afternoon.

Repeatedly moaning their is not enough money does not change the amount required to succeed. There is no cheap.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 25, 2011 @ 4:08 pm

Hi Gary,

We are probably perilously close to going off topic here, but let me just say that if practical beamed power propulsion becomes feasible in the near future; I will be the happiest guy in the room.

I was having a discussion with a friend recently about the number of times we got excited about ‘technical breakthroughs’ that never happened. A partial list:
- Laser Induced Fusion
- Cold Fusion
- IEC Fusion

Admittedly all those examples have to do with controlled fusion (there apparently used to be a slogan at the Princeton University Physics Department that said: Fusion is the energy of the future – and it always will be).

I have played ‘Charlie Brown’ to some other guys ‘Lucy with the football’ (if you understand the old Peanuts reference) too many times, so I will wait for a practical demonstration before I get to excited. In the meantime I will stick with the path I already described.

Comment by Joe — July 25, 2011 @ 5:13 pm

“In the meantime I will stick with the path I already described.”

I understand Joe, cryogenic depots on the moon and hypergolic space depots and transfer is present technology no one can disavow.

My appreciation for Fusion comes from weapons research done using fusion reactor work as a cover- as I have commented on before.

Fusion is for stars and bombs and not worth the trouble doing anything else in my humble opinion. That is also present and undeniable right now.

In regards to the Thorium deposits on the Moon, I am interested in Thorium technology and feel that is really a present technology even though there are no thorium reactors. There is so much data on nuclear reactions that it is pretty much certain to work. Not 100% though of course.

I am usually pretty happy when I read about money being spent on actual hardware that could generate a prototype within months vs. decades.

I am into Gyrotrons right now. Transmitting energy is a much better way to go than fuel depot and transfer- and would be awesome launching from the moon.

If it works and works well.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 25, 2011 @ 6:05 pm

Comment by Joe – July 25, 2011 @ 10:58 am

“Sorry I am not a SpaceX stock holder.”

SpaceX is privately held, and since I was not one of the few high-dollar investors, and I’m not an employee getting stock options, I don’t have a financial stake in what happens to them. I might hold Boeing stock (have to check my mutual funds), but otherwise I don’t profit when something launches.

My comment on SpaceX is the same for ULA and everyone else – we need competition. The Shuttle was a monopoly, and tended to have a chilling effect on innovation for delivering cargo and crew to LEO. NASA’s core skill-set is not being a transportation company, and the SLS will also end up being a monopoly of sorts for NASA payloads.

Regarding the SLS and competition, I was pointing out that NASA will not be able to get into the fuel depot business because NASA won’t be allowed to compete against commercial companies for fuel depot work. And yes, companies could sue, and NASA would likely lose. But the NASA administrators will know this, and likely it won’t happen, but what that does is further limit the payloads that the SLS will be used for, which so far is zero (i.e. Congress has not funded any).

As for the rest of your post, nice detail and reasoning.

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 25, 2011 @ 7:57 pm

GaryChurch wrote:

“The commercial airlines are the worst analogy of all. Space is like nothing on earth because….it is not on earth. It is a vacuum seething with radiation and distances beyond comparison.

“Airline-type operations” is the “holy grail” of space transportation, so the best model turns out to be: The commercial airlines. Airliners are designed for a considerable pressure differential, and they probably have as much radiation shielding as the Shuttle. As for distance, in a maximum range flight, the engines of a 747 generate more energy than the plane and it’s payload would have if they were in LEO. Airliners also use most of the same technologies, and, excepting the TPS, a 747 is MORE complex than a Shuttle orbiter.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 25, 2011 @ 7:57 pm

Gary Church wrote:

“Well, according to you Dick, but the history books say otherwise. The program was cut every year it was in development and the SRB’s were used to save money.”

I’m talking operating, not development cost. The Shuttle was, in the end, designed to launch the Air Force’s heavy reconaisance satellites into polar orbit from VAFB, with enough cross-range to enable an abort-once-around. That drove the orbiter’s delta-wing design, and the arbitrary development cost limit imposed by the OMB drove the partly-expendable configuration with those heavy, costly, and inefficient SRBs. All of that drove the recurring cost through the roof, which severely limited the flight rate. The low flight-rate meant a large contribution from fixed costs to the total cost-per-flight. The goal of low operating costs went out the window the day they froze the design.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 25, 2011 @ 8:18 pm

Joe wrote:

“I think putting orbital propellant depots in the critical path for any BEO activity (especially Lunar Return) is a bad idea. This is all very speculative at this point, but I suspect that if a successful propellant depot system is ever deployed the first depots will be on the lunar surface.”

I, for one, don’t necessarily say that in-space propellant depots have to be in the critical path for our initial BEO activities. I believe that Zubrin’s “Mars Direct” proposal is probably the quickest and cheapest route to an early lunar return, and I suspect you are right that lunar refueling may preceed an LEO propellant depot.

“That said, if we are ever going to have a truly extensive spaceflight capability in Cis-Lunar Space and Beyond (barring some technical breakthroughs) orbital propellant depots will (in my opinion) have to be developed.”

Absolutely.
Gary: If we have to carry hundreds of tons of lunar water to Mars and back for radiation shielding, that will require launching many, many thousands of tons of LOX/LH2 propellants from the Moon over a long period of time, then storing and transferring them in space. Exactly what we would do with a propellant depot.

Comment by Dick Morris — July 25, 2011 @ 8:49 pm

Joe,

Building a HLV is by its very nature handing all the exploration launch money to a company or group of companies, be they Shuttle contractors, or ULA and its suppliers, or SpaceX, or another consortium. Now what you propose to do, hand all the money to shuttle contractors without competition, is plain graft. I have outlined how meritable competition exists for the HLV contract, and by supporting no such competition for the decades long multi billion dollar HLV contract, it is you who seeks to preferentially enrich certain shareholders and beneficiaries.

The Atlas Phase 2 has a lower dev cost than SD HLV, even sidemount, therefore it is the most readily available HLV concept. The analog to the sidemount is the Phase 2 HLV tri core, which can be launched from the current Atlas pad. The 5 core variant does require a new pad, but the former shuttle pads are there to be modified for such purposes.

Comment by libs0n — July 25, 2011 @ 10:47 pm

Comment by Coastal Ron — July 25, 2011 @ 7:57 pm
“Regarding the SLS and competition, I was pointing out that NASA will not be able to get into the fuel depot business because NASA won’t be allowed to compete against commercial companies for fuel depot work. And yes, companies could sue, and NASA would likely lose.”

I am still not sure I understand you. I may be being too literal, but if your point is that the SLS could not legally compete to be used to launch and/or fuel (with Earth supplied propellants) an orbital depot system; that might make sense (I am no lawyer and do not pretend to be) if the propellant depot project itself was entirely privately financed. However, since the usual process (and given the risks involved I would think that would be the case here) is for the Government (in this case NASA) to finance (at least in part) such an undertaking, I would think the initial user (again the Government) would select the booster or boosters to be used.

There is currently, of course, no such funded propellant depot project. If there ever is, this kind of discussion would depend on its form

In any case my own position is that orbital propellant depots should not be placed in the critical path to Cis-Lunar development and would become useful (in fact essential) only when lunar propellants are available. Therefore to me there would never be any such competition between the SLS and any other earth based launcher.

Comment by Joe — July 26, 2011 @ 9:25 am

Comment by libs0n — July 25, 2011 @ 10:47 pm

I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree.
To me many of your arguments are a priori statements of ‘fact’ and thus cannot be refuted by other than more a priori statements.

By the way the tri core version of the Atlas V does not currently exist (as the Shuttle Stack – and thus the Side Mount configuration does).

A tri core version of the Delta IV (the Delta IV Heavy) does exist, but there was considerable development work required to produce it (and there was a substantial launch anomaly on its first flight).

Comment by Joe — July 26, 2011 @ 9:50 am

“-what that does is further limit the payloads that the SLS will be used for,-”

SLS is designed for BEO flight by launching Earth Departure Stages. Since these EDS will be going straight to the moon for ISRU, they will not be hauling any fuel to depots. And since the resources on the Moon can make rocket fuel for launch from the moon, the whole concept of orbital depot and transfer is a waste of time. Storables to support satellites are not liquid hydrogen for BEO flight. Orbital depots are not needed for going in endless circles in LEO- Which is probably why there is no funding for cryo storage development. The Private Space gang does not like criticism of cry storage and also do not want anything to do with a real HLV (not the Faux Falcon not-heavy) because it exposes their plans as false promises.

“Airline-type operations” is the “holy grail” of space transportation”

Well, according to you Dick. As I said, it is a counter-productive analogy. There is no air for the airliner.

“I’m talking operating, not development cost.”

I think you are engaging in some circular reasoning here. The development cost was underfunded and this ended up making the design expensive to operate, even though the design goal was low cost operation. The think tank said 50+ flights a year would make the design low cost and this was wrong. So where the falsehood is found is in a projected operating cost and not in the design. I was designed for low cost operation.

“If we have to carry hundreds of tons of lunar water to Mars and back for radiation shielding, that will require launching many, many thousands of tons of LOX/LH2 propellants from the Moon over a long period of time, then storing and transferring them in space.”

Well, again Dick, according to you. Chemical propulsion to Mars requires a multi-billion dollar “Battlestar Galactica” spaceship even without the required shielding. With the shielding it would mass several times the minimum 1000 tons of the most recent study.
It is not going to happen. Tankers of cryogenic or storable propellant will not make a chemical mission any easier- just more complicated and even more expensive. Another propulsion system is required.

“Now what you propose to do, hand all the money to shuttle contractors without competition, is plain graft.”

The shuttle contractors are the ones operating the heavy lift launch facilities and infrastructure, they are the ones with the 3.6 million pound thrust boosters, they are the ones with the large stage manufacturing facilities, and they are the ones who have been launching Heavy Lift Vehicles for the last thirty years.

There is no competition and there is no graft. If the “competition” wants to compete they have to have something to compete with besides computer graphics. None of their proposals will lift or can evolve to 130 tons. The reusable SRB’s of the shuttle derived SLS have an advantage that would require decades of playing catch-up.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 26, 2011 @ 1:27 pm

Gary wrote: “There is no air for the airliner.”

Using airline operations as a model for reusable launch vehicle operations does NOT require that airliners be capablle of flying into orbit, and nobody has ever said that it does. It’s about ground operations and cost structure.

The Shuttle’s primary design requirements were a large payload to polar orbit, a very large cross-range capability on return, and an unrealistically low development cost limit. Operating costs were not specified, and there was no way to get low operating costs with those functional requirements without a much higher budget for development. Nobody with any sense expected to get low operating costs with the design that NASA selected.

Sending hundreds of tons of shielding mass to Mars with nuclear propulsion will still require thousands of tons of LH2, given that there will be no realistic possibility of refueling at Mars for the return trip, or of aerobraking such huge masses. That will require many tanker flights, as well as propellant transfer and storage in orbit. Using Zubrin’s classic “Mars Direct” scenario, none of that will be required

Comment by Dick Morris — July 27, 2011 @ 5:17 pm

29: the contract for SpaceX is for a MINIMUM of 44,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS. The dragon has the ability to bring up a combined pressurized/non pressurized cargo of 13000 pounds. So potentially SpaceX could actually deliver 156,000 pounds of cargo or over 70 metric tons. Another thing not factored in is that Dragon has a down capability of 6600 pounds or over 79000 pounds of down cargo over 12 flights.

Even if you give the cost of down cargo the same as up cargo NASA is still getting the potential of a hell of lot of cargo for 133mil per flight or 6785.00 dollars per pound of cargo moved.

24: “The “monstrous SLS” could have easily put a 27,000 pound probe up. In fact, it could have sent 3 or 4 probes 10 times the size of dawn on missions of exploration”

Dawn was almost 500 million. So how much would each of these probes 10 times bigger that Dawn cost each? 4-10 billion?

So the SLS would be launching 16 to 40 billion in probes at each go? Can we spell r i s k y ?

I would like to see where in the NASA budget you would get the 2-4 billion a year to build the probes? And you have repeatedly said that NASA could launch probes on SLS a couple times per year, where is all the funding coming from?

16: “I was devastated (but not surprised) when Obama cancelled it. There is a very strong anti-technology bent to those on the political far Left and since Obama seems to be allied with these types, it is not unexpected that he did what he did”

President Obama can not cancel anything unless members of congress support it. The Constellation program was CANCELED by BOTH Republicans and Democrats because it was so far behind schedule and costs…. President Obama’s NASA 2010 budget .. was supporting all kinds of technology development.

32: “LEO is a dead end”

That is exactly why seven countries have signed MOU’s with Bigelow Aerospace for leasing a part of a LEO station.

21: “So sending thorium reactors outbound from the moon is one future industry”

What future industry? You said profits were toxic for space exploration, why would industry want to do that if there isn’t a market and profits to be made.

–

Everyone keeps using the 2020 date for a lunar landing. The Vision for Space Exploration specifically states THREE TIMES that the first landing for the moon was 2015 and NO LATER than 2020.

NASA was supposed to launch in 11 years for the first landing and no later than 16 years. Instead Griffin’s Constellation plan was going to get us there sometime in the 2030′s.

Comment by Vladislaw — July 27, 2011 @ 8:00 pm

74. “Sending hundreds of tons of shielding mass to Mars with nuclear propulsion will still require thousands of tons of LH2,”

No, we are not talking about the same kind of nuclear propulsion.

74. “Using airline operations as a model for reusable launch vehicle operations does NOT require that airliners be capable of flying into orbit”

Than why do you call it “airliner type operations”?

75. “Dawn was almost 500 million. So how much would each of these probes 10 times bigger that Dawn cost each? 4-10 billion?”

No, just because something is bigger does not multiply the price.

Comment by GaryChurch — July 28, 2011 @ 10:43 am

gary wrote:

“No, just because something is bigger does not multiply the price”

so huge dump trucks are the same price as small trucks. huge houses cost the same as small houses. Small planes cost the same as large planes. Nano sats cost the same as a huge DOD satellite.. damn .. the world is littered with examples where going bigger doesn’t cost more. So you saying if NASA built a 15 ton probe it wouldn’t cost more than a 2 ton probe?

Comment by Vladislaw — July 28, 2011 @ 3:33 pm

The comments lately demonstrate that we have reached the limits of rational discourse here. No more comments will be approved on this thread.

Comment by Paul D. Spudis — July 28, 2011 @ 6:20 pm

[...] flag,” Platoff says.” Dr. Paul Spudis (lunar scientist) states in a July 2011 blog posting (http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2011/07/faded-flags-on-the-moon/): “For forty-odd years, the flags have been exposed to the full fury of the Moon’s environment [...]

Pingback by Controversy Regarding Lunar Apollo Flag Survival | apolloflags — March 26, 2012 @ 1:19 pm