You remember that letter from Senators Boxer and Feinstein? ATK and Orrin Hatch aren’t going to be very happy with another one coming out tomorrow, from a surprise source (though it’s not that much of a surprise when you think about it). The divide-and-conquer strategy against the porkers is working.
[Update a while later]
No need to wait for tomorrow — I have the scoop over at Competitive Space.
Hatch is done. The Tea Party is too strong in Utah to let this slide, and they’re watching. I’m a Utah native; my uncle works for ATK. But I can’t support propping up a losing space program when there’s so much vigor and investment in the commercial sector. Surely there’s room for ATK in that space?
Letter from Shelby already is out.
Shelby, now that’s a surprise. I would have guessed Nelson or Hutchison would break ranks first. Porquoi mourir pour Huntsville?
The Competitive Space Task Force applauds Senator Shelby’s concern for both the taxpayers and those supporting robust competitive US space activities
Yes, very touching.
It didn’t take till tomorrow – NASAWatch has it as Shelby coming out in favor of SLS competition. http://nasawatch.com/archives/2011/06/shelby-on-sls–.html
My take is, be careful what you ask for. SLS with “competition” can become just as expensive a dead-end as the Shuttle-derived mandated version. And they’ll be able to say, “but we gave them what they asked for!”
The immediate issue is, who develops it, and how? If it’s the same old bureaucracy that brought us Ares, using the same central-planning methods, we’ll get essentially the same results, regardless of whether contractors compete for slices of the pork. The real competition needed (that I’ll bet neither Boxer nor Feinstein nor Shelby intend) would be among NASA project management teams and contracting styles. Bring on something like the COTS management team, authorized to do it as other than Cost-Plus, and you might have something.
The meta-issue, of course, is do we even need a new NASA heavy lifter, and if so, how heavy?
Don’t let lip-service to “competition” distract from the real issues. It’s an old bureaucratic trick, waiting till we ask for the wrong thing, then giving it to us, good and hard…
Meanwhile in the twilight zone a conservative supports competition.
About time
The meta-issue, of course, is do we even need a new NASA heavy lifter, and if so, how heavy?
And much as some might it want it to be otherwise, the answer is no we don’t. What we need is fair, competitive and redundant procurement, and that rules out anything larger than a smallish HLV (EELV/Falcon evolutions), and even that only if the companies involved in it pay for it themselves. In other words, for the foreseeable future that rules out HLVs.
I suspect it would be relatively easy for SpaceX to increase the Falcon Heavy by 2/3 if they thought it was worth their while. Would that count as an HLV?
It seems to me th eonly practical upgrade path for the Falcon Heavy is a Hydrolox upper stage.
Reports are this would give us 70 metric tons. That’s pretty damn good and would get us a cryo stage for depot and deep space use too.
I wish Elon would go for the Raptor before Merlin 2
$#!+ just got real…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUH3JQjcweM
Why is the competitive space organization website still online? Walker, space companies, board members et al walked away from that organization months ago. The only “news” are the links once every month or so that Rand posts that point to this website. I guess they forgot to tell Rand to turn out the lights.
The Falcon Heavy is planned to take 53 tons to LEO.. that’s 3 more than it needs to be in the class of “heavy”.. thus the name.
Clearly a deal has been made that will benefit Alabama no matter whio wins this competition. Shelby would not have thrown ATK under the bus for any other reason.
Put another way, the shape of the planned deal seems clear: ATK & Utah walk the plank, Aerojet & California come on board, while Huntsville hangs on to overall command. Net course change: imperceptible.
Why is the competitive space organization website still online?
It’s my web site. Why would I take it down?
Walker, space companies, board members et al walked away from that organization months ago.
Really?
When did that happen?
And how do people “walk away” from something with which they were never involved to begin with?
Bob Walker was generous enough to hold a joint press conference with me. That was the extent of his involvement.
What “space companies” were involved with it in the first place to “walk away from it”? How can “board members” have “walked away from it” when it never had any board members? Who do you fantasize was “on the board” who is no longer?
Do you realize what an ignorant fool this comment makes you appear to be?
Or we might wind up with Super Athena: A 3-segment SRB on top of a 4-segment SRB on top of a 5-segment SRB core with four 5-segment SRB strapons. That should lift 130 tons. Now all we need is a Super Crawler to transport it from a stretched VAB to a heavily reinforced Pad 39A.
Surely there’s room for ATK in that space?
Only if they dramatically change their way of doing business.
It seems that Aerojet and Teledyn is going to make a bid to build a liquid fuel booster in Huntsville, creating quite a few jobs for Shelby’s voters. No wonder ATK is suddenly out.
I noticed Shelby made a mremark about rthe high fixed costs of solids so that would make sense Mark.
Of course, if Downix from Nasaspaceflight is right, you can use nearly-stock Atlas V’s for liquid boosters and could spread the fixed costs of use over the entire Atlas V program, heavy and non-heavy lift alike.
MPM,
The real question is do we even need NASA….
Clearly a deal has been made that will benefit Alabama no matter whio wins this competition. Shelby would not have thrown ATK under the bus for any other reason.
Maybe someone pointed out to the dumbass that Decatur (where ULA builds rockets) is only 20 miles from Huntsville and is far from a “hobby” rocket company.
Something I keep thinking about…
Would not ATK be an ideal launch provider for payloads that are insensitive to the thrust instability problem of solid fueled rockets? Payloads such as propellents for orbital depots would be unaffected by accelerations greater than three-Gs (non-military G-tolerance). Surely this idea has been examined by other experts. My reading from this blog has been that all the compensations for the thrust instability shaking the passangers to death is what breaks the business case for Ares. Is there something more that precludes ATK from presenting a shuttle SRB and saying ‘attach G-insensitive payload on top’ and saving on any further development, cornering the market for bulk payloads?
if there was a market for “mass” cargo like propellant then sure.. of course, someone else could more than likely develop a launch vehicle tailored to that particular market and beat the pants off ATK.
Why not just call it what it is Trent. A Tanker.
Ultimately, a fuel depot would benefit for a dedicated fuel-only tanker that was all tank and no faring.
Thanks everybody for some great reading!
That’s a reasonable term. Thanks.
An even more extreme concept is an expendable SSTO with the only payload being the vehicle itself. On-orbit the tanks are used for storage of propellant brought up on reusable tankers, or cleaned out for habitation. The engines are used for maneuvering, or reboost.
Would not ATK be an ideal launch provider for payloads that are insensitive to the thrust instability problem of solid fueled rockets?
Only if they’re insensitive to cost as well.
Is there something more that precludes ATK from presenting a shuttle SRB and saying ‘attach G-insensitive payload on top’ and saving on any further development, cornering the market for bulk payloads?
You mean besides price competition?
Um, no. And other than that, Mrs. Lincoln enjoyed the play just fine.
Space X needs the Merlin 2 sooner than Raptor and may never need the
Raptor. Engine production pressures will require them to move to a larger
engine to keep up with there manifest. Meanwhile the P&W J2X is a beautiful second stage engine. For that matter they could evolve a Merlin
1 D into a Methane/Lox space engine and get more performance out of
it. In any case clearly the Falcon Heavy design looks evolvable into a
rocket with more than the 53mt. to LEO advertised.
‘attach G-insensitive payload on top’
Not to pile on too much, but in space, there are very few loads of G magnitude. That is to say, much of your load bearing structure of any spacecraft (manned or unmanned) is for handling launch loads. In short, launch load bearing structure is mostly unnecessary mass for a spacecraft’s primary operation. Therefore, to make a spacecraft “G-insensitive” would require making it unnecessarily heavy. Indeed, this is one of the primary reasons that Ares-I failed from an engineering standpoint (as opposed to many other policy and finacial problems).
The real question is do we even need NASA….
That depends on what your goals are. But generally speaking I’d say no, and spending US federal money on manned spaceflight probably isn’t even constitutional.
Only if they’re insensitive to cost as well.
Zing!
So, the closest thing to a Space Ship that’s been constructed is the Space Station.
Pricy.
The third shoe may have just dropped.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/06/managers-sls-announcement-after-sd-hlv-victory/