At least by NASA, if the Orlando Sentinel has it right:
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama’s long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new “heavy-lift” rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.
In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.
There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets that can be used as space taxis to take astronauts on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station — a major change in the way the agency has done business for the past 50 years.
As the article notes, there will be a battle royale with people on the Hill like Shelby, but it’s hard for me to see how the program will survive if the White House sticks to its guns. On the other hand, this is not a White House known for sticking to its guns.
Anyway, if that’s the new plan, it actually has a lot better prospects for getting us back to the moon than Constellation ever did, and much more affordably.
[Update a while later]
Clark Lindsey makes a good point on the politics:
Regarding the resistance in Congress to cancellation of Ares I, I’d bet the administration would love that fight. With deficits a huge concern in the general public, the killing of a giant boondoggle government rocket project is exactly the sort of symbolic act that the administration would be happy to see receive a lot of attention. The fact that most of that resistance comes from a handful of Republicans in Alabama and Texas would only highlight the irony of a situation where the President will be fighting conservatives to kill a government program and use private sector services instead.
When it comes to pork, there don’t seem to be any “conservatives.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Keith Cowing feels cheated (again):
NASA has just spent more than half a decade telling Americans that we are all going back to the Moon – and why. In the process, billions of dollars have been spent. Children have grown up being told this again and again – just like my generation heard in the 1960s. Now this is being taken away from them. I can only imagine how my generation would have reacted. It is one thing to alter a plan, change rockets, etc. But it is quite another to abandon the plan altogether.
The ISS has great potential – much of it yet to be realized. But much of that untapped potential was preparing humans to go out into the solar system. Now those destinations have evaporated and have been replaced with the elusive and ill-defined “Flexible Path”.
How is NASA going to explain this about face? Answer – they won’t – because they can’t. They are incapable of admitting mistakes or even stating the obvious. What I really want to see is how NASA attempts to explain this bait and switch to all of the students it has sought to inspire since the VSE was announced. A “Summer of Innovation” centered around a stale and contracting space program seems somewhat contradictory to me.
How will NASA – and the White House – explain the use of vast sums of taxpayer money to bail out the decisions of incompetent financial institutions on Wall Street and yet not be able to find a paltry fraction of that amount to bail out the future of space exploration that future Americans will benefit from – and participate in.
Shrug.
He apparently had far too much faith that anything was going to come of this. I was somewhat hopeful right after the announcement, but once ESAS came out, I knew that the program was doomed to failure. We’ve wasted billions and years more, but at least we’re going to stop the bleeding now. I’m much more encouraged about our prospects to get to the moon now than I have been in five years.
[Early afternoon update]
Bill Posey has fired off a foolish response:
“This Administration has thrown hundreds of billions of dollars into a failed stimulus bill, but when it comes to keeping America first in space his ‘plan’ is to cancel the development of America’s next human space vehicle, outsource our good-paying Shuttle jobs to the Russians, place all of our hopes on a yet unproven commercial adventure, rush/force the transition to yet unproven commercial alternatives, and shifts money from human space flight to global warming research.
“Until we have a clearer plan for the future, the only realistic and reasonable way to preserve America’s leadership in space is too [sic] provide for a temporary extension of the Shuttle. To terminate the Shuttle later this year with no plan, but rather a vain hope, is ill advised.
He has never proposed a realistic plan as to how to extend Shuttle. They’re running out of pieces to fly it, and the lines were shut down long ago. And I get very tired of arguments for “jobs,” good paying or not, with no apparent concern about cost or value to the taxpayer (or space enthusiast, for that matter). I grow even more tired of hearing about how an Atlas that has an almost perfect flight record is “unproven,” while Powerpoint rockets are some kind of sure thing, merely because they are being designed by NASA.
No, this isn’t exactly what I’d be doing if I were president, but it’s a hell of a lot better policy than anything we’ve had since Mike Griffin took over. I don’t even object to spending more money on climate monitoring, particularly given what a mess the science currently is — I just wish that Jim Hansen wouldn’t have any control, or even influence, over it.
On the other hand, this is not a White House known for sticking to its guns.
Does that mean we have to hope for a bitter White House clinging to its guns? 😉
Over at nasaspaceflight, it is being said that Richard Shelby (and ATK) will drop their opposition to the cancellation of Ares 1 & Ares V (which included both a 5 segment & 5.5 segment RSRM development program) if the 5 segment RSRM is used in the new HLV.
A new battleground seems to be whether a launch escape tower should a mandatory feature for a commercial crew launcher for ISS.
It seems to me that Bolden, Garver & Whitesides have been busy making legislative sausage and for better or worse its the only way to line up the necessary votes.
As for Altair, that has been outside the budget envelope for quite a while already.
So let me get this straight. We are canceling plans for Constellation and the goal of returning to the moon, but we moving forward with creating a new heavy lift launch vehicle anyways. Given any new missions for the vehicle are ambiguously defined, can we be sure it will even be a match whatever missions might eventually be identified? Furthermore, doesn’t such an approach get us right back to where we began with the space shuttle? An expensive new toy that really doesn’t have anywhere to go.
We are canceling plans for Constellation and the goal of returning to the moon, but we moving forward with creating a new heavy lift launch vehicle anyways.
Or: keeping MSFC alive (for now) and have them pretend to build an HLV. Kill the shuttle workforce now, deal with MSFC a couple of years later.
What is truly pathetic is that this Administration is prepared to “bear any burden, pay any price, support any foe, oppose any friend,” on behalf of the cause of climate change.
Obama’s Secretary of State told the Chinese that human rights wasn’t as important as working a deal on climate change.
Obama’s only gotten angry when it turned out he wasn’t invited to the China-India-Brazil-South African meeting on climate change.
Obama’s prepared to abandon going back to the Moon, and focus instead on climate change.
No doubt, when temperatures continue to show minimal upswing and the Himalayan glaciers are still around in 2035, it’ll be credited to Obama’s efforts. But at what cost?!
I think heavy lift is a function that a government program can perform as the risk of putting so many eggs in one basket is something private firms are willing to bear.
Here’s my problem with this plan:
If you want Earth observation, defund NASA and bulk up NOAA.
No US capability to launch to ISS until either heavy lift becomes operational or more likely private commercial becomes viable. In the meantime, we are paying Russia for access to ISS.
I’d think Heavy Lift would be pretty easy for Shelby. MSFC is generally the center for developing rockets. So he gives up Ares-I and Ares-V for heavy lift. Really, he trades Ares-V for Heavy lift, as Ares-I was already past PDR (snicker, snicker). It’s KSC and JSC that losses out. And if the article is correct about Heavy Lift perhaps taking 10 years, then those losses will remain for a long time.
I don’t see NASA lasting long with such a plan.
will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects
Mission to Planet Earth Redux!
There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets … on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station
Last best hope.
With the deficit and unsustainable borrowing becoming the lightning rod energizing the electorate, I don’t expect NASA’s budget to remain even at current levels going forward. The heavy lift vehicle is never going to be launched, possibly never even making it off of the powerpoint slides.
RIP NASA, It was a great ride while it lasted…
The only mission for the heavy lifter is the delivery of pork to Shelbyville.
The only mission for the heavy lifter is the delivery of pork to Shelbyville.
And as Clark points out, this might be a perfect opportunity for Obama to look fiscally responsible.
Mission to Planet Earth Redux!
Exactly.
I don’t see how anyone can get all hopping mad over this as though it was unpredictable. If you listened to what he was saying before he got elected and pretty much since then regarding NASA, there were two things which he consistently pointed out as priorities: global warming and education. IOW, NASA as a conduit for money to people like James Hansen and the NEA. The call for new heavy lift is bureaucrat-ese for creating a make-work program to keep constituent groups happy. And keeping ISS open until 2020? Oh goody, goody. More time for the Russians to make it into a giant garbage container a la Mir.
On the whole, it looks to me that Obama is doing the right thing here. Leaving aside whether Constellation is anything like a good exploration plan, the major funding increases for Constellation to succeed as executed by NASA so far were never likely to be there. In the current fiscal crunch, ten times more so – NASA will be lucky to keep a level budget, never mind ongoing increases. Constellation if continued would be endlessly stretched out and never fly while at the same time eating ever more of the rest of NASA.
Shifting Station transportation to commercial was going to happen anyway. This way, there will be US competition for the cash-on-the-barrelhead Russian option, and some chance of costs dropping rather than rising. If, that is, the US contenders are as good as the Russians have been at preventing NASA “help” from bogging down their operations. (Good luck, guys!)
As for the long-term new heavy lifter development, I think Martin and Starless have nailed it: It’s a make-work program for Marshall, a way to push the major cuts there into the future.
What remains to be seen is how much funding there will be for long-term exploration technology, and how well it will be spent.
Mercury capsule, 1100 kg, had a solid rocket LES ~50 years ago.
Soyuz entry vehicle, 3000 kg, had a solid-rocket LES ~40 years ago, and it’s been used to save crew.
Apollo CM, 5800 kg, had a solid-rocket LES ~40 years ago.
The Dragon has a “down-mass” of 3000 kg. Assuming that’s the weight of the entry vehicle, it’s the same as Soyuz and way short of Apollo.
I know this is a stupid question. But why, in 2010, is an LES for a 3000-kg capsule such a big honking deal to fund, design and field?
It’s not difficult for NASA to fund, but to date they haven’t wanted to fund it. It hasn’t been a high priority for SpaceX to fund, relative to getting the launcher working, and having the capability of crew return.
> ==But why, in 2010, is an LES for a 3000-kg capsule
> such a big honking deal to fund, design and field?
Musk has said for years they intend to make a LES, but since he had no maned lift clients for a couple years that was put off. But he also said he could deliver it in – I think 1-1.5 years(?) if a demand materializes.
.. I think it just did.
I know this is a stupid question. But why, in 2010, is an LES for a 3000-kg capsule such a big honking deal to fund, design and field?
It is useless for anything else but human flight. Most LES I know of also use solid rockets because of their nice thrust-to-weight ratio. SpaceX has no in house solid rocket expertise AFAIK.
SpaceX has no in house solid rocket expertise AFAIK.
A lot of experience may soon enter the market at bargain basement prices…
Why in the world is Cowing getting worked up now over the cancellation? Constellation canceled itself years ago. The Augustine Report found it unsustainable under almost all scenarios, save for a *massive cash infusion* that no Administration would give, even if times were good.
This Flexible Path Lite vision has been bandied about for months and is no surprise.
If even a reduced POR was kept, space ten years from now would still be empty, save the occasional, dangerous Ares I launch.
Now, space ten years from now will see numerous commercial launchers and vehicles, possibly even commercial space stations. NASA may well have a HLV and EDS capable of sending one of those vehicles beyond LEO.
And let’s not forgot what ten years of tech development at 1-2/billion a year can accomplish. It’s not sexy, but it’s damn important, and it hasn’t been part of the NASA equation for nearly a generation.
It is useless for anything else but human flight. Most LES I know of also use solid rockets because of their nice thrust-to-weight ratio.
I don’t think it’s the thrust to weight ratio as much as the utter simplicity, fast response, and reliability of a solid rocket motor. You fire the ignitor and it’s gone, as simple as that. In theory, with a liquid rocket’s higher Isp, you could put together an LES that’s lighter than one with a solid rocket motor. In practice, it’d be more expensive, more complicated, have a slower ignition sequence, and likely not as reliable as a good old-fashioned solid rocket motor. When you absolutely, positively have to get the hell out of Dodge RIGHT NOW, it’s hard to beat a solid.
I think Lindsey is wrong. NASAs entire budget is $18 billion. What’s Obama going to cut? A whopping $1 bil a year? Maybe the streets will run with blood, and it will be $5 bil down? Compared to a $1,400 billion deficit he’s running each year? This is noise. Round-off error.
And in exchange he would piss off people. Americans are feeling like it’s the 70s all over again, with a broad-based retreat of American pride and accomplishment. We’re turning down the thermostat and putting on our Jimmy Carter sweaters, buying AMC Gremlins and standing meekly in line for gas on alternate days. Americans will take that kind of hair-shirt moral purge for a year or two — indeed, we like a little fasting once in a while — but it wears thin very quickly, as Carter found out, and Obama is finding out. Americans like to win. We want to see the Stars and Stripes planted proudly on Mars. The prospect of, instead, a half dozen more satellites measuring the movement of glaciers and penguins to the nearest centimeter per day is….frankly boring, the kind of thing only kindergarten teachers get excited about. Feh.
This is really more tin-eared Obama nonsense, his gross and absurd misreading of the electorate. They are not interested in resurrecting Jimmy Carter, getting another lecture on Baptist thriftiness and taking the tithe seriously. They want, first, the Federal government to stop doing so much God-damned robbing of Peter to pay Paul — no more taking our tax money and shoveling it to the likes of GM and the UAW, or Goldman Sachs and AIG. Just stop it.
But secondly, they want a bit of Reagan, a bit of confidence and can-do attitude, and not about this fluffy egghead stuff about whether Tuvalu gets swamped by the tide and whether the nocturnal moonfaced pennyweight bat (found only in mountainous Georgia) can be saved, if only we decline to build the five nukes we need to get electricity prices back under $0.15/kWh, but whether we have better and better-paying jobs than any other country on the planet. Whether we can all afford a nice 40″ HDTV next Christmas, and a ski trip to Telluride. (And if we can, then we’ll slip some dough into the WWF and Sierra Club coffers: the genius of the Prius was that it realized that “going green” is a luxury good.)
Instead of telling us there won’t be any new lunar rovers, and saving chump change of a $billion or so, he would be far better off…
* Pushing Congress to immediately cancel whatever of the “stimulus” money hasn’t yet been spent, probably a good $300 billion. That’s at least 10x what canceling all manned spaceflight would do, right there. And the taxpayers know already it’s useless, stupid, spending, shoveling money down absurd social-dreamer and Democratic constituency ratholes.
* Rescinding the 19% and 13% incrases in the budgets of the Depts of Housing and Education for this year. I mean, WTF? There’s no way they can possibly need that much more money suddenly. Hell, how about just defunding the entire Dept of Education, saving $47 billion. Why do we need a Federal Dept of Education, anyway? They don’t run a single school, nor set any curriculum, nor train one teacher, et cetera.
* Dump Head Start. Doesn’t work. Promise to dump other “Great Society” leftover projects that don’t work.
* Take a long close look at Disability Social Security. Everyone knows there’s a massive level of fraud there.
* Stop extending unemployment benefits. It’s only prolonging the inevitable. In the same way, stop with the desperate attempts to prop up home prices. It’s not going to work, and it’s throwing good money after bad. Some people are going to have to take a bath on their house, and that’s that. Some people are going to have to retrain for lower-paying jobs, and that’s that.
* Stop bailing out the states. They’re on their own, to sink or swim as their respective financial planning has merited. California and New York are sunk. Christie will try to rescue New Jersey. None of the three should be the problem of taxpayers in Nebraska, North Carolina, or Texas.
Of course, if Obama did all that, the Democratic Party would not only not re-nominate him, they’d probably put out a hit on him. Plus his head would explode, of course.
I’m as big a proponent of private space as is Rand, but at the same time, I think this is a very bad move. Not so much canceling Ares, which I agree had all kinds of problems. But it should have been done while announcing something roughly equivalent. Heavy Lift in 10 years isn’t that.
If he’s going to go with private development, fine. Make it a robust, and detailed effort. Explain exactly what funds will be available to private contractors, and for what purpose, and make sure it’s enough to really spur private investment. Outline a vision that you hope to achieve in cooperation with private companies, aside from just sending the occasional ferry flight to the near-useless ISS.
If he did something like set up a series of multi-billion dollar prizes for major achievements in space flight, I’d be less worried.
I predicted before Obama was elected that he would seek to transform NASA into an ‘Earth Sciences’ agency. Totally inward-looking. It may retain its funding, but the funding will be directed towards softer sciences like using satellites to study migration patterns of animals or whatever.
The saddest thing is that he’s going to kill the vision of America as a nation of explorers and visionaries. We’re increasing becoming caretakers of ourselves, gazing at our navels and expending our efforts to maximize our own comfort until we die. That’s how great nations wither away and land on the ash heap of history.
And the most tragic thing of all is that NASA has probably done more for American science education and the inspiration of children than the Department of Education ever has, and it did it as a side-effect of a budget 1/3 of the education budget.
Rand is hopeful that this will kick off a new round of private investment in space. I’m not, because I don’t think Obama’s heart is really in it, and I suspect that as soon as a private vehicle has the inevitable loss of life accident, people of Obama’s ilk will swoop in and regulate the industry out of existence anyway.
The end of NASA as a spacefaring human exploration agency will be a key milestone in charting the decline of America as a great nation.
The end of NASA as a spacefaring human exploration agency will be a key milestone in charting the decline of America as a great nation.
If you want to use it as such a milestone, it actually occurred in 1972.
> ..I think Lindsey is wrong. NASAs entire budget is
> $18 billion. What’s Obama going to cut? A whopping
> $1 bil a year? Maybe the streets will run with blood,
> and it will be $5 bil down? Compared to a $1,400
> billion deficit he’s running each year? This is noise.
> Round-off error. ..
On the radio this am, Obama has just stared boasting about his freeznig the budget for 1/6th the federal budget, saving $17B over the next 3 years. Shuttles close to $6B a year, and the return to the moon program was projected by GAO to exceed $250B.
true all thats trivial compared to next years projected $1.3T deficit, but its a lot bigger then the savings from the budget freeze – and NASA cuts are supported by the public who sees NASA as having a huge budget.
Why do we need a Federal Dept of Education, anyway? They don’t run a single school, nor set any curriculum, nor train one teacher, et cetera.
Carl, don’t give them ideas!
Just more evidence that NASA is irrelivent other than the scraps that fall off the table for commercial space. Colonize space young billionaires and their families… Elon and others will sell you tickets.
No nation on earth appears to understand the economic reality… the cost to colonize is like Obama’s freeze… not even a drop in the bucket. I will die before it happens, but it’s just a lack of vision.
The earth contains no wealth at all compared to what’s waiting for a single visionary.
Cowing (over at NASA Watch) is always either frothing at the mouth about how he gets to hang with the truely talented (astronauts, etc) or how NASA has disrespected him again. Nothing that NASA does gets his approval since he was tossed out of his NASA job doing space biology.
And yes, the Heavy Lift Vehicle is like the Health bill’s Nebraska Medicaid exemption – what they did to get it passed. The HLV can later be killed, and then traded off for something else.
Or: keeping MSFC alive (for now) and have them pretend to build an HLV. Kill the shuttle workforce now, deal with MSFC a couple of years later.
Exactly. These guys were going to take 12 years to build Ares I; how long would you estimate for something 5X the size? HLV is the budgetary equivalent of closed circuit television in the asylum.
> No nation on earth appears to understand the economic
> reality… the cost to colonize is like Obama’s freeze… not
> even a drop in the bucket.
Teh economic erality is, no ones going to do a colony that can’t pay for itself. Yeah we can afford to colonize space, or the Atarctic, or the deep ocean – or resettle abandoned counties and cities in the US. But without a economic justification for their existence – we’ld just be building exotic future ghost towns.
I’ve seen $300M/3 years for a Dragon LES. Perhaps that’s with a 10x markup to make NASA more comfortable, but… that’s like the ejection seat costing more than the jet fighter. The airbags costing more than the SUV. Etc.
“I’m much more encouraged about our prospects to get to the moon now than I have been in five years.”
I’m with Rand. Going commercial with manned orbital flight and possibly doing flight demonstrations of fuel depot technology is the best way for us to get back to the moon in the long run by developing the necessary infrastructure to make it cheaper.
I hope everyone doesn’t mind a slightly off topic question, but my curiosity is killing me.
Rand, wouldn’t any of the commercial launchers be less restricted by cold weather than Ares I? Or maybe I’m wrong in thinking that the O-Ring problem after Challenger was never really solved with the so-called “solution” being only to launch when it is warm. If that is the case, wouldn’t we have more flexible launch conditions with a liquid fuel rocket instead of Ares I?
I don’t know what the temperature restrictions are on launching Delta, Atlas or Falcon. Since it’s all cryo, I would think that the Delta would care the least.
They put heaters on the O-rings, and redesigned the joints to actually conform to how you’re supposed to use O-rings in seals, so in that sense they “solved” the O-ring problem.
Every aerospace vehicle has it’s temperature limits but I can’t find anything on line about what they are. The old Soviet era boosters were designed to launch during bitterly cold Russian winters. American boosters were designed for a more benign environment (Florida or California). There are a lot of things besides fuel and propulsion that can be affected by low temperatures, including the guidance system and the payload itself. I just can’t find any references that state what the limits are for boosters.
“American boosters were designed for a more benign environment (Florida or California)”
Well, the ballistic-missile-derived ones (Atlas, Titan) were designed to be launched from Montana and North Dakota.
The really sad thing is Obama is supposed to show up here in Florida tomorrow to give the state several billion dollars for “high speed rail”. I would be willing to bet that a man (note I did not say American) will set foot on the moon before Florida has built the high speed rail line.
It may be enough to buy the support of the Florida Congressional delegation. People would at least get some value out of it, whereas spending the money on Constellation would be pure waste.
And I get very tired of arguments for “jobs,” good paying or not, with no apparent concern about cost or value to the taxpayer (or space enthusiast, for that matter). I grow even more tired of hearing about how an Atlas that has an almost perfect flight record is “unproven,” while Powerpoint rockets are some kind of sure thing, merely because they are being designed by NASA.
If creating jobs was the justification for government programs, there are things they can do to make more jobs. For example, on a highway or building construction project, outlaw the use of machinery like earth moving equipment. Instead of backhoes, hire manual ditch diggers. Instead of road graders, hire thousands of labors like those Chinese coolies used to build runways during WWII, towing huge concrete rollers to compress hand-crushed rock.
It should never the the primary mission of a government program to create jobs. The mission should be to accomplish the program’s objectives as efficiently as possible to make the best use of the taxpayers’ money. Ares and Constellation had the goal of preserving as many NASA jobs as possible, cost be damned. They ended up with a program that spent billions and accomplished little of value. We simply can’t afford to keep doing business that way.
People would at least get some value out of it
What people? Besides ribbon-cutting legislators, poltically correct hairshirters, and the construction unions? I think there are only two train routes in the country that actually make money, that being Metroliner DC-NYC, and the Sacramento-Bakersfield trains. They did a study here a while ago and concluded the only “high speed” line that had a prayer of paying for itself ever was LA to Vegas, because air safety regs made the short airflight a sufficient pain, and traffic on the 10 was sufficiently ugly, that people might actually drive downtown (shudder) where the damn train station is — where they always are — and pay through the nose for parking, and cope with not having a car at the other end — and gamblers willing to drop 2 G’s at the tables wouldn’t mind the $150 or so fare.
The problem with all this high-speed train fetishization is that it stems from the absolutely ludicrous assumption that the only thing standing in the way of rail lines making a big-time comeback is $8 billion in pump-priming capital.
As if. What did the 787 or latest airbus cost to develop? And let’s throw in the capital necessary to extend runways. At least that size of number. All raised in the old-fashioned way, without looting the taxpayer’s wallet.
There’s no shortage of transportation capital — if anyone could make a rational case that high-speed rail would actually be profitable in the United States. (And note I didn’t say profitable “immediately” or “in the first 10 years” — I mean profitable ever.) We drive short distances and fly long distances because the market has ruthlessly weeded out any more expensive and inconvenient option, and that includes trains, high- or medium-high-speed. The only thing that can change that equation is goverment fingers, e.g. the destruction of the air travel convenience by the TSA’s lunacy, or massive subsidization of 19th century tech like railroads.
Furthermore, one could argue at least spending on rockets, even doomed rockets, might conceivably advance the state of the art (if only by showing what not to do), might provide training spots for young people, and might, yah, provide jobs for Americans. Almost all of the technology and construction business of high-speed rail is Asian or European. If Florida gets $8 bil for high-speed rail, it will nearly all be spent on French, Japanese, German and British firms. How that’s an appropriate return on my tax dollar I cannot fathom.
My God it’s 2010 and we’re going back to Apollo rockets to get to space, if we can at all, and taking the train instead of the Wright’s nifty flying machine. Maybe we should do away with cars and return to the more “organic” and “sustainable” transportation system of hay-burning horses, and buggies made of wood and wrought iron.
Instead of road graders, hire thousands of labors like those Chinese coolies used to build runways during WWII, towing huge concrete rollers to compress hand-crushed rock.
Back in the eighties, some of us at Rockwell joked that we should remove the engines from the crawlers and let hundred of people push and pull the Shuttle from the VAB to the pad, Egyptian pyramid-builder style, to really up the job potential for the program.
Rand, I respect you a great deal…but I really think this is the opening shot in a series of salvos against NASA that will see the agency become an offshoot of NOAA and end all exploration–including robotics–beyond Earth orbit.
That’s why, no matter the flaws of Griffin et al, this is a day to be mourned.
That’s why, no matter the flaws of Griffin et al, this is a day to be mourned.
I don’t agree. While I obviously would hope for a more strenuous program, and an explicit statement of the goal of getting beyond LEO, killing the Program of Record was a necessary condition for any future progress. That will be a decision hard to undo, and we can deal with the future as it arises.
Well, the ballistic-missile-derived ones (Atlas, Titan) were designed to be launched from Montana and North Dakota.
For the Atlas through the Atlas E, the Titan I & II, I’ll agree. I’m not so certain about the later Atlas and Titan III/IV boosters. They were intended for launches from Florida and California. The Delta family derives from the Thor IRBM but differs substancially from the Thor. Once you do away with the harder environmental requirements, you’re able to refine the designs and optimize weight better.
I think Blue has a point, Rand. I feel like you’re seeing this like an engineer or a businessman, where the mission drives the budget. Cut the bad mission, and in principle you free up the budget for a better mission — even if it can’t be done right now.
And in a few cases, what the public sees as “national crises” then, yes, the mission drives the budget even in government. Hence Apolllo, the abortion that is the TSA, the Iraq War…and, yes, it remains barely plausible that a future President leading a future generation might bring about a new feeling of crisis and a new blank check hande to NASA (although I don’t think that’s what you’d like).
But in general, I don’t think bureaucrats and politicians think like you do. For them, it’s the reverse situation: in the routine year in year out appropriations process, it’s the budget (and its alter ego, turf) that drives the mission. We have this money, we want this other money next year, we better get something done. What can we do? Something about space, right…hmm.
I don’t think Obama is planning (if he follows this article) to “reprioritize” NASA spending more wisely, although that’s what he’ll say. He just plans on gutting the manned-space program, about which he couldn’t care less, and turning NASA into a logistics and operations management arm of NOAA, so we can save the polar bears on schedule. Color me surprised if any translunar mission moves forward as long as this President and this Congress are in charge.
And when he says he plans on turning over ISS access to private firms — he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t give a damn. If they do it on their own, and no one gets hurt, and he can take credit for it, well, they can continue to exist. If any of those things fail to happen — well, they’ll be some TARP blackmail or necessity for “regulation” to strangle the baby in the crib, and that’s exactly what they’ll do. They don’t really think human being should be messing around off planet. For one thing, they won’t pack out their trash, you bet, and for another, they’ll be unpleasantly far from central control.
If you think the existence of NASA’s manned space program was sucking all the entrepreneurial oxygen out of manned spaceflight in general, then this death does clear the way. But I am deeply skeptical that money that NASA loses will be gained by anybody else involved in space. It’s going to go to the teachers’ unions, or the states, or down some Democratic maw, and vanish forever. Indeed, frankly, I would rather have NASA utterly waste $18 billion building a pointless rocket then spread that fertilizer among the parasites, so that they can grow that much stronger, harder to kill if we regain our sanity before the United States follows Great Britain down the path of self-castration and decay.
We shall see, of course. I hope there is enough benign neglect, plus I fully expect the Idiocrats and the Chief Idiotarian to be thrown out contemptously over the next two years. I hope the private ventures can thrive and grow. It’s probably just a question of luck — of no one being killed. But unless a miracle happens, it’s hard to see national space flight taking off again in the next half century.
And with it, incidentally, will go the unmanned exploration of the outer planets, I think. I think the robotic science crowd did a deal with the devil. As long as manned spaceflight sucked four and ten time what they did, per mission, those who thought “Solve the problems on Earth first” whispereed soothing lies in their ears. Imagine how much more money you could have if there were no Shuttle, no ISS! Join us! Kiss the inverted cross! But after they’ve been used to help destroy national manned spaceflight, the Judas goats will be shocked to find those implied promises inoperative.
Why do we need $400 million missions to the Oort Cloud? Surely ground-based observation…computer simulation….if necessary robotic observations of Earth orbit…and of course the fratricidal nature of egghead science will find them plenty of allies for that betrayal among the observational astronomers, simulators, et cetera.
It’s going to go to the teachers’ unions, or the states, or down some Democratic maw, and vanish forever. Indeed, frankly, I would rather have NASA utterly waste $18 billion building a pointless rocket then spread that fertilizer among the parasites, so that they can grow that much stronger, harder to kill if we regain our sanity before the United States follows Great Britain down the path of self-castration and decay.
While much of what you say is no doubt accurate, what you propose is that NASA becomes (or continues to be) just another of the parasites.
NASA as we know it may – for better or worse – be effectively dead, at least for the duration of this administration. Just as Jimmy Carter (the previous worst president) killed the B-1 only to have it revived by Ronald Reagan, Obama may effectively kill manned spaceflight at NASA only to have something revived by a future president.
Oh. I thought somebody took the green cheese and made a Really Big pizza.
>
> Patrick Says:
> Mercury capsule, 1100 kg, had a solid rocket LES ~50 years ago.
> Soyuz entry vehicle, 3000 kg, had a solid-rocket LES ~40 years ago,
> and it’s been used to save crew.
> Apollo CM, 5800 kg, had a solid-rocket LES ~40 years ago.
>
> The Dragon has a “down-mass” of 3000 kg. Assuming that’s
> the weight of the entry vehicle, it’s the same as Soyuz and
> way short of Apollo
>
From: http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php
The 3000 kg “down-mass” is the PAYLOAD the Dragon Capsule can bring down from orbit.
In case you’re wondering why Obama made a point of mentioning a several billion dollar high speed rail project for Florida — I’m willing to bet that was how he figures he’ll placate Florida over the shutdown of the return to the moon, Ares, and Orion programs.
Carl Pham, it is easy to say “the market” decided highways and airplanes were cheaper than trains. But the reality is a bit different. Quoting Wikipedia:
Although construction on the Interstate Highway System continues, I-70 through Glenwood Canyon (completed in 1992) is often cited as the completion of the originally planned system. The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years; it ended up costing $114 billion (adjusted for inflation, $425 billion in 2006 dollars) and taking 35 years to complete.
The A380 cost €11 billion to develop, which is over $15 billion. However that does not account for the cost of enlarging airports, or the actual manufactured aircraft themselves, while railway costs numbers do take full system costs into account.
It does not however make a lot of sense to compare airplanes vs rail. There may be some limited overlap over short distances, but rail is not an airplane replacement. Also, the A380 and even the 787 do not compete with rail, since these are mostly used for long distance travel. You should be comparing with a Boeing 737, or even an Bombardier CSeries, Embraer E-Jet which are much cheaper per vehicle.
Um, that quote from wikipedia is out of context. I-70 through Glenwood Canyon cost $490 million for 12 miles, which in comparison to Obama’s chu chu is about equal. But the $425 billion was the cost of the entire US Interstate Highway System covering 46,876 miles. Which in contrast, Obama is granting $2.5 billion of the $3.5 billion needed to go less than 100 miles.