posted 06-02-2010 10:15 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by issman1:
So why doesn't Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan start up a company to build rockets to take Americans to space?

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It takes a lot of effort to run a company. The last Apollo era astronaut who tried to set the foundation for doing that (and could have potentially succeeded) was Pete Conrad. Unfortunately his motorcycle accident killed that idea (even though Ken Mattingly took over the effort).

posted 06-02-2010 11:30 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
There comes a point when you have to sit back and watch from the sidelines to see what the younger generation will do.

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Possibly.

According to media reports, ex-NASA administrator Griffin met with both Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Cernan in the US Senate before giving their testimony last month.

I'm certain they weren't there to do anything but endorse the mess that Mr. Griffin made of Constellation.

As bona fide American heroes, I'm sure there would be no shortage in the number of financial backers or volunteers wanting to help Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Cernan kickstart an aerospace firm to rival Space X.

posted 06-02-2010 09:48 PM               

Besides, with all due respect Griffin's plan was actually better then what is being proposed in my opinion. The plan from day one was always to develop the Constellation Ares I/Orion to fly to the ISS initially while working on the Ares V and Altair lander for the lunar program. At the same time, COTS-D (a program instituted under Griffin's watch) was initiated to contract out cargo ferry services to the commercial sector. After a few years of this, when the commercial providers had proven themselves capable of launching cargo with a good track record, they would be given a chance to fly crews to the ISS, freeing up Orion hardware and manpower for use in the lunar program (and eventually the Mars program). It was a logical progression and accommodated all sides. It had goals and knew what it wanted to do.

The only mess is Congress underfunded the Constellation program by about a third a year, resulting in the robbing of Peter to pay Paul. So development of the booster and spacecraft stretched out while Altair and Ares V development was put on the back burner so the funds allocated could be used to work on the first two parts. Even if Constellation got all the funding though, given it is a new design, some delays were bound to happen. Even with what Apollo had, they still experienced delays as well. Even if things had been on track, Mike Griffin still said that with the operational funds that shuttle was eating up annually to fly, it was still going to need retirement to free up those funds to ramp up work on the Constellation equipment on a more massive scale then to that point. Next year if all goes to plan, we will be at that point and hopefully things will begin to accelerate in regards to Ares I Orion work flow.

So, the plan of the administration is to scrap about six years of investment and work and turn over services to the commercial sector before they have even flown a spacecraft of their own design. If it works, great. But there WILL still be delays, costs will spiral, weight will go up and hard questions will be asked of the contractor if they are doing the right things (no difference there). The last program where similar things like this happened was the ISS when Russia was brought in as a full partner. NASA practically had to subsidize the Mir, providing funding to finish up their last two modules (Spektr and Priroda) and practically ignore some of their own safety culture to fly astronauts to it. Then there were the delays in getting the service module core to fly, bringing it over budget and delaying the program by about two years when one of the reasons why the Russians were brought in was to cut the budget and save time with their experience. History has shown the match of NASA and Roscomos to be a pretty good one when each play to their strengths, but it sure as heck was not a great start by anyone's standards. Presidential diplomacy (to keep engineers from working for threat countries according to the Clinton Administration) and some serious horse trading got it to fly, but a lot of the money funneled to Russia never ended up involved in the hardware development on the Energia side as allegations of corruption were rampant.

These promises of a manned craft from SpaceX in 2 to 3 years are SO unrealistic given the learning curve involved with developing a system from the ground up. All the resources of NASA and the contractors in the 1960s got manned block 1 Apollo craft ready to fly about 5 years after the commitment from Kennedy and they never did fly manned after Apollo 1. The block 2 Apollo craft took another two years (in development since late 1963 so the block 1 design could be frozen and built). The LM took about 6 years from 1963 to spring of 1969 to fly manned. Granted SpaceX has started work on Dragon, but the Apollo contractors thrusted fourth a rather large effort by comparison and they still couldn't cut the timetable down.

As it stands, what this new plan wants to do is indeed "bold" but in my opinion it is also like playing Russian Roulette when you don't know HOW many bullets are in the revolver. Could it work? Yes it could. It could succeed brilliantly. But it also could result in a longer development time for a manned craft as a hypothetical contractor doesn't quite know what they are in for and experiences cost overruns and delays. Their own pocketbooks are potentially strapped, so they ask the government for a bailout. Funds are allocated, eliminating the promise of doing it for less. Then say a spacecraft is ready to go. What if it has an Apollo 1/Challenger type disaster right at the beginning of its manned testing or during the ramping up of the launch schedule? Would it have the financial stability to survive the resulting lawsuit attempts? Would the government again have to come to the rescue to bail out said company? During Apollo 1, the contractor did take the blame, but NASA didn't change contractors and they didn't get prosecuted in a court of law. Challenger and Columbia were different cases where it was shown that the disasters were due to NASA not focusing on the right things when they should have. Being a government agency though, they were buffered from lawsuits and the administration and Congress made promises to "fix" what went wrong (so administrators were removed and the civil servants got sent to other jobs in NASA or were maybe asked to retire/resign). Point being though, NASA did still manage to survive the loss of a second shuttle when many (including me) thought it might be the end of the US spaceflight program. Can a contractor do the same?

In a sense, you could say I prefer the "evil" I know over the "evil" I don't know. But I have a couple friends who work on the commercial side and even they admit commercial is still in too embryonic a stage right now for manned orbital spaceflight.

Another thing I will point out is to date, the ISS would be the only destination in orbit for the foreseeable future unless somebody flies to another target. So, even if a commercial manned spacecraft is ready to fly to the ISS by 2015, if you factor in how many launches there will be per year, the numbers are still too low to really drop the costs.

Say crews do a three person rotation every 6 months with a 3 month stagger? That means in a given year there will be 4 manned crew launches. Multiply that by five years to bring the program to 2020 and that leaves a maximum of 20 flights to the ISS. Say the Russians still want to keep their crews going up on Soyuz, you cut that number in half to 10 flights over a 5 year period. So your production run is now shorter and the cost per produced spacecraft is higher compared to a more substantial production run. Past 2020, if the ISS can support continued operations then things may get better. But, systems wear out and the ISS will be at the end of its 20 year planned lifespan without a major upgrade of some sort. Solar arrays will degrade, the cooling system will likely develop some hiccups and astronauts on orbit will begin to devote more time to maintenance instead of science work. Mir was intended for a 10 year lifespan and things began to show signs of wear right when the clock hit the 10 year point (Progress ram damage and two fires didn't help matters).

Maybe by that point there will be another station flying, or another destination and the contractor can double his capsule production and flight status to another point. But those are some BIG hypotheticals.

Commercial station design work will have a similar five year cycle to spacecraft development since they will encounter a different set of challenges. If there is a robust space tourism market to orbit by that point, great. But they are going to be playing Russian roulette as well in our lawsuit happy society.

posted 06-03-2010 03:26 AM            

In that case, when can we expect to see Ares I launching the Orion CEV?

What will be its initial destination (and when)?

When will Ares V be ready? And the Altair lunar lander?

When will NASA astronauts be returning to the Moon (in 2020 as is still mentioned in news reports today)?

posted 06-03-2010 05:42 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by issman1:
So the Constellation programme is still NASA's post-shuttle architecture?

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When will Constellation be fully funded to give it every chance of success?

When will ESA build a manned spacecraft that can launch on an Arianne V?

I want SpaceX to succeed beyond all expectations. But I don't want to be relying on one vehicle (Soyuz) to get to orbit until they do. There needs to be a redundant system available. I'll admit the US political process with all its stops and starts - lurching from the right to the left and back again can be maddening. But what I fear is a retreat from the progress we have made.

Thousands of space workers will have to move on to other careers when the shuttle program is ended. We've known that for six years. But we knew at least that there was a follow-on program that would retain a few thousand people to return us to the Moon. Now that is being taken away as well.

For six years we listened to politicians tell us that "we remember what it was like after Apollo - that won't happen this time."

This year the President unveiled a bold plan that encourages the private sector, call for development of "game-changing" technologies that will take us beyond the Moon. It's bold but it relies on the supposition that commercial companies can operate in LEO more efficiently than government. It relies on the ability to develop those new technologies in time to take us to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars ten years later.

But what happens if the commercial companies cannot deliver? What if the game-changing technologies elude us as what happened with the STO X-33. Why do we need to wait until 2015 before we decide on a HLV?

The Secretary of Labor stopped by yesterday to announce a grant that is going to help space workers retrain to become health care workers or some other career. Why aren't we expanding the need for space workers?

There is a lot to like about what the President proposes, but his plan is too vague - it relies on too many unknowns that if not developed will stop it in its tracks.

posted 06-03-2010 06:41 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt T:
Don't know if you read the previous post but your questions are answered there. Then show me the Obama timetable - NOT the aspirations.

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Vaguely answered, I might say, because there is no definitive answer.

Similarly, there can be no definitive "timetable" for the Obama plan if the distinguished ladies and gentlemen in Washington are too busy bickering and fighting over their little turf!

posted 06-03-2010 07:10 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by KSCartist:
When will Constellation be fully funded to give it every chance of success?

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quote:

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When will ESA build a manned spacecraft that can launch on an Arianne V?

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quote:

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we knew at least that there was a follow-on program that would retain a few thousand people to return us to the Moon. Now that is being taken away as well.

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quote:

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Why do we need to wait until 2015 before we decide on a HLV?

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posted 06-03-2010 10:05 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by issman1:
The Moon isn't necessarily the be all and end all of space travel. Obama has in fact suggested that an asteroid be the next destination.

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posted 06-03-2010 10:45 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by KSCartist:
...let's make the Moonbase permanent...

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Mr. Griffin failed to articulate the significance of Constellation. As you're doubtless aware, NASA was recovering from Columbia and the ISS half-built.

Mr. Griffin's mistake (I feel) was to call Constellation "Apollo on steroids" which made it sound like a re-hash of the 1960s space race (lending credence to Obama's recent quip "we've been there before").

Setting a deadline (2020) was another error - because deadlines require vast, sustained funds if they are to be met. And in 2005, the Afghan War and War on Terror were (and still are) the largest recipients of sustained national funding - upto $4 billion per month.

The shuttle was still going to be retired in 2010 and ISS would be sunk in the Pacific in 2015. Yet, one is supposed to believe NASA astronauts will ride an unbuilt, unproven rocket (Ares I) and capsule (a pared-down Orion) to the Moon by 2020. Where's the science fact from the fiction (Ares V wasn't even close to being built)?

posted 06-08-2010 06:42 PM               

That said, Bigelow Aerospace started working with Lockheed Martin to man-rate Atlas V in 2008 to support their commercial space station plans.

Both Atlas and Delta were looked at and passed over in favor of ATK's solid rocket motor for NASA's CEV launch vehicle. At the time, there were concerns about black zones -- times when the crew's safety during an abort would be at jeopardy. United Launch Alliance has said since it can address the black zones such that they are negligible.

posted 06-08-2010 07:14 PM               

Ariane V sort of had manned plans in it from the beginning as in the early days it was supposed to be the launch vehicle for the ESA Hermes mini-shuttle. Granted those plans went when Hermes did, but I'll bet it wouldn't take too much to get it to work if ATV's design was modified to carry a crew since the early studies looked at it.

posted 06-09-2010 02:42 PM               

The US Space program is in serious trouble. Without repeating the article, please see the May 31st issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology. Constellation was having problems due to funding... serious funding problems exist even with the "rosy" beliefs of the Obama plan... at least $47 billion underfunded.

posted 06-09-2010 05:40 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by BNorton:
The US Space program is in serious trouble.

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Like a damsel in distress, she awaits her knight in shining armour. That may well be Elon Musk

If there's anyone who can cut the price of access to LEO, it's either the Space X guru or the guys at Orbital Sciences.

posted 06-09-2010 09:20 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by issman1:
Like a damsel in distress, she awaits her knight in shining armour. That may well be Elon Musk

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Only if NASA gives him lots more money. He does not have the silver bullet. Look the world over and you will find that no one does.

posted 06-10-2010 12:35 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by BNorton:
Only if NASA gives him lots more money. He does not have the silver bullet. Look the world over and you will find that no one does.

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So you'd rather stick with Constellation as it exists rather than modify it?

Ares I/Orion is estimated to cost $1.5 billion per flight! That's just as expensive as the shuttle, but with only 3 crewmembers, almost zero upmass/downmass capability and virtually no destination.

posted 06-10-2010 06:59 AM               

You think SpaceX will be cheap? When they are only flying two to three flights per year the total program cost (hardware, buildings, training, etc.) will be placed on those two or three flights, making each of their flights costs easily over a billion as well, regardless of what SpaceX claims at this point.

Besides, SpaceX has yet to build and fly any craft. I do not have the deep faith that you apparently have that it will be done.

Again, I have not read an argument from you or anyone else on this list making the case that a company can use their own capital to design, build, and fly a capsule and make a profit. It has not been done for good reason: the business model does not exist. Where will SpaceX or others get the 10 billion plus to do? They are already begging for more money from the Government and lots of it... not exactly commercial space... just more of the same from a different company.

posted 06-10-2010 07:20 AM            

But if you want to get into the nitty-gritty, a Falcon-launched Dragon has the potential to transport cargo or crew to and from the ISS. There's even a suggestion Dragon could also return scientific experiment results and broken equipment (something not possible with Progress, ATV or HTV).

posted 06-10-2010 02:15 PM               

How long would it take to man-rate the Delta and Atlas boosters?

Could the CEV be mated to them? Would a combination EOR/LOR mission get us back to the Moon and beyond in a reasonably short time?

I'm sure these questions have been asked and answered by more intelligent people than I.

posted 06-10-2010 05:33 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by BNorton:
Again, I have not read an argument from you or anyone else on this list making the case that a company can use their own capital to design, build, and fly a capsule and make a profit.

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posted 06-10-2010 08:34 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by cjh5801:
That's because not everyone accepts your definition of what a commercial space program must look like.

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I use the generally accepted "man on the street" definition. If I were to use the definition some on this thread have used, then one could argue that a commercial manned program currently exists in the US: the Space Shuttle program. Companies exist (e.g., USA) and make a profit. I do not believe most in the real world would accept that perversion of the definition nor do I believe that is the goal when people talk about commercial space.

posted 06-10-2010 10:08 PM               

If the spacecraft is owned by the government, then it is not commercial. For example, while the space shuttle was built by Rockwell (now Boeing) and is primarily operated by United Space Alliance, the space shuttle belongs to the U.S. government and therefore is not a commercial spacecraft.

If the Orion CRV comes to fruition, it will ultimately be owned by the government, even though Lockheed Martin will have designed and built it. It too therefore, will not be a commercial vehicle.

posted 06-11-2010 07:10 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Duke Of URL:
How long would it take to man-rate the Delta and Atlas boosters?

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Based on our understanding of the requirements, we believe that that an Atlas V can be ready for commercial Human Spaceflight in less than 4 years and that the Delta IV-Heavy can be ready to launch Orion in 4-1/2 years...

The Atlas V, with the relatively minor addition of an Emergency Detection System and a dedicated NASA Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) and Mobile Launch Platform (MLP), is ready for commercial human spaceflight and complies with NASA human rating standards.

The Delta IV can support a mid-2014 Crewed IOC... The proposed 37A pad is a look-alike counterpart to the existing 37B pad with low development risk. Human rating the Delta is a relatively modest activity, with the addition of an Emergency Detection System, an array of relatively small redundancy and safety upgrades, both in the vehicle and the engines that are almost trivial compared to the original development of the Delta IV.

posted 06-14-2010 01:35 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
There is a really funny clip from South Park on the internet where they make fun of this New Vision!

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posted 06-14-2010 05:16 PM               

New authorizing legislation taking shape in the U.S. Senate would require NASA to begin development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle in 2011 that takes advantage of the U.S. space agency's investment in the retiring space shuttle and follow-on Ares 1 rocket.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on science and space, outlined key elements of the 2011 authorization bill he is drafting in a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA spending. Nelson said his bill, which would set funding limits and dictate policy guidance for the agency in the budget year that begins Oct. 1, would address the future of space exploration beyond low Earth orbit, and urge NASA to work with other nations to define near-term missions to deep space destinations.

"The authorization bill will direct NASA to initiate development of a heavy-lift vehicle in fiscal year 2011, both to support these new human space flight activities and to serve as a contingency capability to the [international space station]," he wrote. "The authorization will propose that both the heavy-lift and crew exploration vehicles leverage the workforce, contracts, assets and capabilities of the Shuttle, Ares 1 and Orion efforts."

posted 06-14-2010 11:22 PM               

NASA Appoints Constellation Program Managers

Lawrence D. Thomas has been appointed manager of NASA's Constellation Program, which manages the effort to take humans beyond low-Earth orbit and develop the next generation launch vehicle and spacecraft.

Charles M. Stegemoeller has been appointed as deputy program manager. He and Thomas will be based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Thomas most recently served as the deputy program manager of the Constellation Program at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. He began his NASA career in 1983 as an aerospace systems engineer at Marshall's Science and Engineering Directorate.

He served in leadership positions at Marshall including manager of the Systems Engineering and Analysis Office for the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle Program Office, and chief of the Systems Engineering Division, Spacecraft and Vehicle Systems Department. Thomas also spent two years at Johnson as manager of the Vehicle Analysis and Integration Office in the International Space Station Program.

He earned a bachelor's degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; master's degree in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University; and doctorate in systems engineering also from Alabama.

Stegemoeller most recently served as director of the program planning and control office for the Constellation Program. He joined NASA in 1985 and served in several leadership positions within the Space Station Freedom and NASA/Mir Programs at Johnson. He was later named associate director for the Office of Bioastronautics within the Space Life Sciences Directorate.

Stegemoeller earned his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station.

posted 06-15-2010 08:21 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
I wonder if they were given unofficial orders to slow or wind things down, in other words to play the public relations game for Congress but to play the President's plan in reality.

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Contractors Told to Prepare for Moon Program’s End