SpaceX will develop its family of heavy lift vehicles, all the way up to the Falcon XX, as the market develops. There is no reason to spend tax money on such a thing.
Instead of “Ares 1,” though, we should name it “Jason” in honor of the unkillable fiend from the “Friday the 13th” franchise…
The heavy-lift problem is how to keep sending money to ATK. If the problem was just keeping NASA engineers busy, they could come up with a range of R&D projects that would involve actual new technology, like Aerojets Thrust Augmentation Nozzel, or have them kibitz the commercial contracts that will provide support to ISS and other actual NASA projects. Ares in any form has no current or near term justification, other than using lots of solid rocket fuel, provided by ATK.
The heavy-lift problem is how to keep sending money to ATK.
At this point, I think that the only people who care about that are Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid. We may be able to divide and conquer with pressure from Shelby, Nelson, Hutchison et all as the budget numbers get more and more grim in the coming weeks and months.
Rand is correct. There a lot of people within government and industry concerned with preservation of the industrial base, but no one other than ATK and its representatives in Congress thinks that segmented solid motors (and the ability to build them) are of any importance whatever. Most of the concern, in fact, is over preserving Rocketdyne…
I might’ve skimmed it too fast but there didn’t appear to be any mention of Ares’ design issues.
Seems like the Huntsville press might be capable of a little better critical analysis regarding a topic of such local importance, but maybe that’s hoping for too much.
I know two good reasons why we don’t need Ares or SLS. ULA and SpaceX. We have all that we need for any currently planned mission. These Senators are doing much more harm than good.
…up to the Falcon XX, as the market develops…
Developing that market is just mindset. That they even consider Ares shows they have no interest in market development.
It upsets me when I hear people I like and respect, say that we need heavy lift.. even if they append the word “eventually” on the end. What annoys me is when they then go on to say we need to “develop” propellant transfer and storage if we’re going to claim that we want to say that we don’t need heavy lift right away. I know he means cryogenic propellant transfer and storage, but that’s not my point.
Lately, I’ve been exploring the phenomena of “we’re not ready”. That seems to be the one thing everyone agrees on. I can understand my fellow advocates for a NASA technology development program using it as a way to talk down to shuttle-derived heavy lift advocates, but ultimately this is going to be self defeating. No-one is ever ready to do anything.. people just do stuff or they don’t. So when you say we’re not ready, you’re saying you don’t want to do anything.
What could we do, where could we go – right now, with the technology we have on hand? What technology development would make us *better* at doing that same mission? Once that happens, what new missions could we do that we couldn’t do previously? That’s the sensible way to go about a space program.
We *have* storable propellant transfer and storage. We *have* reliable medium lift launchers that would make Apollo-era engineers wet their pants with glee. We *have* solar power systems and even some good solar-electric propulsion. We *have* access to Soyuz to get astronauts into space.
Should we develop cryogenic propellant transfer and storage? Should we develop RLVs? Should we research better solar panels and in-space nuclear reactors? Should we work on nuclear-thermal propulsion? Should we support commercial crew to provide an American human launch capability? Of course we should! But not at the expense of going anywhere or doing anything in space.
/rant
Should we support commercial crew to provide an American human launch capability? Of course we should! But not at the expense of going anywhere or doing anything in space.
That’s like saying we should not have supported the development of the commercial airline industry at the expense of sending a few government “air explorers” to places like Tahiti.
If we develop a real human spaceflight industry, NASA will be able to send *lots* of people to the Moon and Mars and [name your favorite destination]. Saying we’re doing it “at the expense of” going anywhere in space is a false formulation.
Except that it has been established that:
1) The industry won’t do it on their own; and
2) Failure to maintain the illusion of a space program will get the government funding cut.
You may not like either of these realities, but they are reality.
The only choice is whether you have the illusion of a space program be digging holes and filling them up again program (SLS) or something which is actually useful.
Except that it has been established that:
1) The industry won’t do it on their own;
How has that been “established”?
At most, it has been established that industry won’t do it on its own within time T.
The question then becomes, what is the urgent need to land a man on body B within time T?
With one possible exception (Earth impactors) there is no urgency. The planets will still be there 10 years from now, or 50, or 100.
That’s why programs like Constellation, although justified on the basis of landing a man on body B, actually place a higher priority on maximizing spending and “job creation.”
And who said industry has to do it “on its own”? Industry didn’t create the airlines, or the transcontinental railroad, entirely on its own. There are a multitude of possible models for government-industry cooperation. The Apollo/Kennedy “land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth, not because it is easy but because it is hard, and because Rice plays Texas” model is not optimal for anything, except diverting voters’ attention away from the Bay of Pigs.
Failure to maintain the illusion of a space program will get the government funding cut.
Perhaps — and exactly how do you know that merely sending astronauts on expensive junkets (for no particular reason except to “go somewhere”) will prevent funding cuts? Did the Apollo Moon landings prevent funding cuts?
Also, is the goal to maintain funding, or to do something useful in space? If NASA could accomplish 20% more, for 20% less money, would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?
The only choice is whether you have the illusion of a space program be digging holes and filling them up again program (SLS) or something which is actually useful.
Usefulness is not a boolean variable. Sending astronauts on a circumlunar flight would be useful, but is it useful enough to justify the cost of a Soyuz or Falcon mission? NASA and Congress don’t think so, or they would be working with with RSA or Space-X to do such a mission right now. They can only justify such a mission if it has the “bonus” of spending a lot of unnecessary money to maintain several thousand jobs in places like Huntsville.
To justify such a circumlunar mission on its merits, rather than a pretext for pork, you will need to improve the cost/benefit ratio by greatly reducing the cost. The same is true for other destinations as well.
You answered your own question.. yes, there *are* a “multitude of possible models for government-industry cooperation” .. but if you want NASA to do one of them then you better have a “space program” in there or you won’t get funding for it. Accept reality.. failing to fly anyone for years and years is just going to get the agency defunded. Maybe you think that’s a good idea.. I know I would experience a few moments of glee.
Failure to maintain the illusion of a space program will get the government funding cut.
Trent, the funding cuts are going to happen soon enough as economic reality finally sinks in. America is broke (borrowing over 40 cents of every dollar in this year’s budget) and heading for bankrupsy. The current level of borrowing is unsustainable and yet even trying to reduce the budget by a couple percent leads to massive outcries from the economic pedophiles*. Reality will hit soon enough and it isn’t going to be pretty. Wasting $10-38 billion on SLS and Orion isn’t going to make things any better.
*What better term is there for people who screw our children’s futures for their political benefit today?
That’s like saying we should not have supported the development of the commercial airline industry at the expense of sending a few government “air explorers” to places like Tahiti.
The difference is that a very good way (perhaps even the best way, but you never know) to support the industry is to go and explore with existing technologies, providing large demand and fiercely competitive procurement of launch services. NASA should focus on deep space spacecraft and could (and I would argue should) leave infrastructure development like RLVs and cryogenic depots to the market. At least at one time this was New Space orthodoxy.
To first approximation cheap lift is the only thing that matters. Competitive procurement of large amounts of launch services is an excellent way to achieve that cheap lift. A government funded exploration program would be an obvious way to generate the necessary demand. An exploration program is currently funded (at least in theory). Focussing on technology development is a recipe for delays. Perhaps some people want it that way.
The question then becomes, what is the urgent need to land a man on body B within time T?
The urgency is not to land a man on body B within time T, but to establish a large and fiercely competitive propellant launch markets as soon as possible so we might have RLVs (or some other form of cheap lift) in our lifetime. Waiting for infrastructure hinders progress on that front.
At this point, I think that the only people who care about that are Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid.
Maybe even Reid can be pacified in some other way since he cares about money for American Pacific Corp. (or more generally jobs in Nevada), not ATK itself.
Only 600 jobs are at risk?
failing to fly anyone for years and years is just going to get the agency defunded.
The Bush Vision of Space Exploration has failed to fly anyone for years and years. it hasn’t been defunded yet.
Instead of calling for NASA to build a new capsule — “the first of its kind since Apollo” — suppose Bush had pointed to SpaceShip One, said “this is the future,” and called for a free-market space program, with tax and market incentives for low-cost access to space?
Could such a program have flown fewer people than Ares and Orion have?
a very good way (perhaps even the best way, but you never know) to support the industry is to go and explore with existing technologies,
So, the NACA and the Kelly Air Mail Act were mistakes? It would have been better to spend the money on a fleet of dirigibles to send government aeronauts on expeditions to Hawaii, Tahiti, and beyond?
The goal should not be to “support” a hothouse industry that will start to collapse the moment the government stops buying Apollo flights but to kick-start the development of an industry than can eventually stand on its own two feet.
NASA should focus on deep space spacecraft
All progress starts at the low end. You have to walk before you can run. Where do you think aviation would be, if the Wright Brothers had decided to work on the problem of transatlantic flight before developing the technology needed to land and take off? “Not because it is easy, but because it is hard… because no goal will be more impressive to mankind, or more difficult to accomplish”?
Even if your ultimate goal is deep space, you need some reliable, affordable way to get “off the runway” first. Focusing on the hardiest, most expensive goal you can think of may be politically sexy, but it makes no sense technologically.
Perhaps you’re too you to remember the “industrial policy” arguments 25 years ago. Back then, we were told that the government needed to focus on the development of high-speed mainframe supercomputers. Our entire future was at stake — if the government didn’t do it, the US was in danger of losing its lead in high-speed computing. The big rival back then was not China but Japan. Private enterprise couldn’t afford the kind of investments that were necessary on its own. If we weren’t careful, the Japanese would surpass us in mainframe computing and we’d be relegated to companies like Apple and Microsoft producing cheap game machines.
So, DARPA put a huge sum of money into the Very High Speed Integrated Chip project and, after many years of effort, produced a chip that was *almost as fast* as the commercial microprocessors being built by Intel.
In the end, the US mainframe computer industry collapsed anyway, not because of competition from Japanese mainframes but because of those “cheap game machines.”
I would argue should) leave infrastructure development like RLVs and cryogenic depots to the market. At least at one time this was New Space orthodoxy.
That’s like saying NASA should do project Apollo and leave the development of RLVs (like the X-15, DynaSoar, etc.) and propellent depots to the military. How did that work out?
Apollo was a jealous god. The politicians funding it were not about to let it be upstaged by the military or anyone else. They established a defacto policy that said the military was not allowed to do manned space — an unwritten policy that’s still in effect today.
Fast forward to right now. What’s happening with the CRUSR program or Centennial Challenges? Those programs are no direct threat to Orion — the total funding wouldn’t even cover the condiments in the Orion cafeteria — yet, the Orion supporters are strangling those programs out of sheer bloodymindedness.
Now, look at the attempts to force the FARs and NASA safety regulations on commercial crew and cargo.
Orion, too, is a jealous god.
Competitive procurement of large amounts of launch services is an excellent way to achieve that cheap lift. A government funded exploration program would be an obvious way to generate the necessary demand. An exploration program is currently funded (at least in theory).
That’s a nice theory, but how has it worked in practice. When was the last time a manned deep-space exploration program resulted in the competitive procurement of launch services? When was the last time a politician other than Dana Rohrabacher even proposed it?
How do you plan to persuade Shelby, Nelson, Hutchison, etc. that they should give up the Senate Launch System they want so badly merely to save a few deep-space exploration missions which, frankly, they do not really seem to care about?
So, the NACA and the Kelly Air Mail Act were mistakes? It would have been better to spend the money on a fleet of dirigibles to send government aeronauts on expeditions to Hawaii, Tahiti, and beyond?
Not at all and that isn’t analogous to what I was proposing. I’m talking about procuring transport services, not vehicles. That would have established a market for winged aircraft just as the mail contracts did.
All progress starts at the low end. You have to walk before you can run.
Currently spacecraft are the low end and RLVs are the high end.
Where do you think aviation would be, if the Wright Brothers had decided to work on the problem of transatlantic flight before developing the technology needed to land and take off?
Again, that is not what I’m proposing. I’m talking about establishing a large and fiercely competitive LEO launch market without onerous throw weight constraints as soon as possible. That will allow industry to focus on Earth to orbit which is what you are advocating.
Focusing on the hardiest, most expensive goal you can think of may be politically sexy, but it makes no sense technologically.
Which is why I’m doing exactly the opposite. Manned exploration can be done with existing technology and without HLVs but with competitively procured propellant launch services instead. There’s no technological risk there. This is something that can be safely left to NASA. Affordable access to space on the other hand is far too difficult a task for NASA and should be left to the market. All NASA would have to do is to provide demand and that it would if it went on exploration missions.
That’s like saying NASA should do project Apollo and leave the development of RLVs (like the X-15, DynaSoar, etc.) and propellent depots to the military. How did that work out?
No, it’s not at all like that, which is why it didn’t work out. What they should have done is Apollo with propellant transfer and competitively procured launch services for that propellant. It would have made all the difference.
That’s a nice theory, but how has it worked in practice. When was the last time a manned deep-space exploration program resulted in the competitive procurement of launch services? When was the last time a politician other than Dana Rohrabacher even proposed it?
Like Christianity it’s never been tried. 😉 Nothing except the stupid / corrupt statist approach (whether of the Apollo or the SLI variety) has ever been tried. It’s high time for a change…
Currently spacecraft are the low end and RLVs are the high end.
You clearly haven’t thought about the energies involved. Suborbital flights are *much* easier than manned missions to the Moon, Mars, or Europa.
JFK said it himself. He chose a moon landing over the X-15 because “no other goal will be more impressive to mankind or harder to accomplish.”
Again, that is not what I’m proposing. I’m talking about establishing a large and fiercely competitive LEO launch market without onerous throw weight constraints as soon as possible.
So, you’re a mouse proposing that cats should not eat mice. That’s nice. How are you going to convince the cats?
Manned exploration can be done with existing technology
Only at very high cost — and for a very limited definition of “manned exploration.” Apollo cost as much as a small war. For that price, fewer than a dozen men explored a tiny fraction of the Moon’s surface.
If the Moon is to become a resource or home for mankind, in needs to be explored in detail comparable to the USGS exploration of the United States. That can’t be done with current launch vehicles.
Even limited Apollo-style lunar exploration requires at least one new vehicle — a lunar lander. Building a lunar lander does not require new technologies, but neither does building an RLV.
There’s no technological risk there.
ISRU, closed-cycle life-support systems, lunar construction techniques, etc. have no technological risk? If you think that, you haven’t thought through the problems.
Those things require a lot more tech development than RLVs do — and NASA should be investing in those things, if it’s serious about exploration.
it’s never been tried.
It’s been tried. In fact, many people predicted the Bush Vision of Space Exploration would bring about the sort of things you want (although Bush himself never said that). The outcome is simply nothing like you imagine.
It’s easy to say NASA should buy commercial launch and commercial propellent services for deep-space missions but the politicians don’t want that, I have no idea how to change their minds, and unfortunately, neither do you.
You clearly haven’t thought about the energies involved. Suborbital flights are *much* easier than manned missions to the Moon, Mars, or Europa.
I can assure you that I have. Note that the exploration doesn’t have to be manned, but more importantly that it doesn’t matter. It’s part of NASA’s job to explore and at least for the unmanned part they are being reasonably succesful at it. That can be used (at least in theory) to establish enough of a market for launch services to make commercial RLVs viable.
How are you going to convince the cats?
I wish I could. What’s your plan?
Only at very high cost — and for a very limited definition of “manned exploration.” Apollo cost as much as a small war. For that price, fewer than a dozen men explored a tiny fraction of the Moon’s surface.
Had they done it with competitively procured propellant launches instead (that would have taken some time to set up), then it would have been much cheaper. More importantly, we would have had RLVs for decades by now.
ISRU, closed-cycle life-support systems, lunar construction techniques, etc. have no technological risk? If you think that, you haven’t thought through the problems.
I didn’t say that. None of these technologies are necessary to establish a market that’s large enough to support commercial RLVs. And to first order cheap lift is the only thing that matters. Once we have that everything else will follow. Until we have it nothing else will allow us to do anything meaningful.
I don’t expect breakthroughs from NASA R&D or attempts to make lunar mining or industry a reality any more than I expect them to be able to develop an economically viable ELV let alone a revolutionary RLV. Funding through competitive procurement is about the most we can expect, but that would be enough even if NASA only did flags and bootprints missions. Who cares what NASA does if it leads to cheap lift as a side effect? Once we have cheap lift, NASA will become irrelevant to further development of space.
It’s easy to say NASA should buy commercial launch and commercial propellent services for deep-space missions but the politicians don’t want that, I have no idea how to change their minds, and unfortunately, neither do you.
I know. So what do we do?
>It’s easy to say NASA should buy commercial launch and commercial propellent services for deep-space missions but the politicians don’t want that, I have no idea how to change their minds, and unfortunately, neither do you.
I know. So what do we do?
I’ll be happy if we can just save CRUSR and Centennial Challenges.
I’m glad that SpaceX got a little bit of a boost from COTS and CCDEV but, frankly, that was more than I ever expected them to get. So, I can’t really be too disappointed about that.
All of the serious work on reusable vehicles is happening in the suborbital realm. Propellant depots would be nice to have a little further down the road, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t get them in the next few years. (It might be the end of NASA’s exploration program, which would be too bad, but not much I can do about that.)
As far as NASA’s LEO and BEO programs go, I don’t see much hope for change until one of three things happen: 1) the current politically-directed program collapses completely and they are forced to start over from scratch, 2) suborbital vehicles succeed dramatically, and the large numbers of people flying in space on commercial vehicles embarrasses politicians into taking notice, or 3) a Reagan-like political leader emerges who has a personal interest in space.
Number 3, I think, is unlikely. The only candidate who seems to fit that bill is Newt Gingrich, who I don’t think will make it through the primaries. 1 and 2, however, are quite likely.
Propellant depots would be nice to have a little further down the road, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t get them in the next few years.
I agree with most of what you say, but it does mean a potential source of funding for commercial RLVs is cut off for the foreseeable future. That’s why I prefer a refuelable storable propellant spacecraft as soon as possible to dedicated cryogenic depots at some unspecified date in the future. A large cash prize for the first economical brick launcher orbital RLV wouldn’t be too bad either, but I still think nothing beats demand-pull if you want to establish efficient commercial transport services to LEO.
SpaceX will develop its family of heavy lift vehicles, all the way up to the Falcon XX, as the market develops. There is no reason to spend tax money on such a thing.
Instead of “Ares 1,” though, we should name it “Jason” in honor of the unkillable fiend from the “Friday the 13th” franchise…
The heavy-lift problem is how to keep sending money to ATK. If the problem was just keeping NASA engineers busy, they could come up with a range of R&D projects that would involve actual new technology, like Aerojets Thrust Augmentation Nozzel, or have them kibitz the commercial contracts that will provide support to ISS and other actual NASA projects. Ares in any form has no current or near term justification, other than using lots of solid rocket fuel, provided by ATK.
The heavy-lift problem is how to keep sending money to ATK.
At this point, I think that the only people who care about that are Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid. We may be able to divide and conquer with pressure from Shelby, Nelson, Hutchison et all as the budget numbers get more and more grim in the coming weeks and months.
Rand is correct. There a lot of people within government and industry concerned with preservation of the industrial base, but no one other than ATK and its representatives in Congress thinks that segmented solid motors (and the ability to build them) are of any importance whatever. Most of the concern, in fact, is over preserving Rocketdyne…
I might’ve skimmed it too fast but there didn’t appear to be any mention of Ares’ design issues.
Seems like the Huntsville press might be capable of a little better critical analysis regarding a topic of such local importance, but maybe that’s hoping for too much.
I know two good reasons why we don’t need Ares or SLS. ULA and SpaceX. We have all that we need for any currently planned mission. These Senators are doing much more harm than good.
…up to the Falcon XX, as the market develops…
Developing that market is just mindset. That they even consider Ares shows they have no interest in market development.
Was just listening to Jim Muncy on The Space Show. http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/1609-BWB-2011-08-21.mp3
It upsets me when I hear people I like and respect, say that we need heavy lift.. even if they append the word “eventually” on the end. What annoys me is when they then go on to say we need to “develop” propellant transfer and storage if we’re going to claim that we want to say that we don’t need heavy lift right away. I know he means cryogenic propellant transfer and storage, but that’s not my point.
Lately, I’ve been exploring the phenomena of “we’re not ready”. That seems to be the one thing everyone agrees on. I can understand my fellow advocates for a NASA technology development program using it as a way to talk down to shuttle-derived heavy lift advocates, but ultimately this is going to be self defeating. No-one is ever ready to do anything.. people just do stuff or they don’t. So when you say we’re not ready, you’re saying you don’t want to do anything.
What could we do, where could we go – right now, with the technology we have on hand? What technology development would make us *better* at doing that same mission? Once that happens, what new missions could we do that we couldn’t do previously? That’s the sensible way to go about a space program.
We *have* storable propellant transfer and storage. We *have* reliable medium lift launchers that would make Apollo-era engineers wet their pants with glee. We *have* solar power systems and even some good solar-electric propulsion. We *have* access to Soyuz to get astronauts into space.
Should we develop cryogenic propellant transfer and storage? Should we develop RLVs? Should we research better solar panels and in-space nuclear reactors? Should we work on nuclear-thermal propulsion? Should we support commercial crew to provide an American human launch capability? Of course we should! But not at the expense of going anywhere or doing anything in space.
/rant
Should we support commercial crew to provide an American human launch capability? Of course we should! But not at the expense of going anywhere or doing anything in space.
That’s like saying we should not have supported the development of the commercial airline industry at the expense of sending a few government “air explorers” to places like Tahiti.
If we develop a real human spaceflight industry, NASA will be able to send *lots* of people to the Moon and Mars and [name your favorite destination]. Saying we’re doing it “at the expense of” going anywhere in space is a false formulation.
Except that it has been established that:
1) The industry won’t do it on their own; and
2) Failure to maintain the illusion of a space program will get the government funding cut.
You may not like either of these realities, but they are reality.
The only choice is whether you have the illusion of a space program be digging holes and filling them up again program (SLS) or something which is actually useful.
Except that it has been established that:
1) The industry won’t do it on their own;
How has that been “established”?
At most, it has been established that industry won’t do it on its own within time T.
The question then becomes, what is the urgent need to land a man on body B within time T?
With one possible exception (Earth impactors) there is no urgency. The planets will still be there 10 years from now, or 50, or 100.
That’s why programs like Constellation, although justified on the basis of landing a man on body B, actually place a higher priority on maximizing spending and “job creation.”
And who said industry has to do it “on its own”? Industry didn’t create the airlines, or the transcontinental railroad, entirely on its own. There are a multitude of possible models for government-industry cooperation. The Apollo/Kennedy “land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth, not because it is easy but because it is hard, and because Rice plays Texas” model is not optimal for anything, except diverting voters’ attention away from the Bay of Pigs.
Failure to maintain the illusion of a space program will get the government funding cut.
Perhaps — and exactly how do you know that merely sending astronauts on expensive junkets (for no particular reason except to “go somewhere”) will prevent funding cuts? Did the Apollo Moon landings prevent funding cuts?
Also, is the goal to maintain funding, or to do something useful in space? If NASA could accomplish 20% more, for 20% less money, would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?
The only choice is whether you have the illusion of a space program be digging holes and filling them up again program (SLS) or something which is actually useful.
Usefulness is not a boolean variable. Sending astronauts on a circumlunar flight would be useful, but is it useful enough to justify the cost of a Soyuz or Falcon mission? NASA and Congress don’t think so, or they would be working with with RSA or Space-X to do such a mission right now. They can only justify such a mission if it has the “bonus” of spending a lot of unnecessary money to maintain several thousand jobs in places like Huntsville.
To justify such a circumlunar mission on its merits, rather than a pretext for pork, you will need to improve the cost/benefit ratio by greatly reducing the cost. The same is true for other destinations as well.
You answered your own question.. yes, there *are* a “multitude of possible models for government-industry cooperation” .. but if you want NASA to do one of them then you better have a “space program” in there or you won’t get funding for it. Accept reality.. failing to fly anyone for years and years is just going to get the agency defunded. Maybe you think that’s a good idea.. I know I would experience a few moments of glee.
Failure to maintain the illusion of a space program will get the government funding cut.
Trent, the funding cuts are going to happen soon enough as economic reality finally sinks in. America is broke (borrowing over 40 cents of every dollar in this year’s budget) and heading for bankrupsy. The current level of borrowing is unsustainable and yet even trying to reduce the budget by a couple percent leads to massive outcries from the economic pedophiles*. Reality will hit soon enough and it isn’t going to be pretty. Wasting $10-38 billion on SLS and Orion isn’t going to make things any better.
*What better term is there for people who screw our children’s futures for their political benefit today?
That’s like saying we should not have supported the development of the commercial airline industry at the expense of sending a few government “air explorers” to places like Tahiti.
The difference is that a very good way (perhaps even the best way, but you never know) to support the industry is to go and explore with existing technologies, providing large demand and fiercely competitive procurement of launch services. NASA should focus on deep space spacecraft and could (and I would argue should) leave infrastructure development like RLVs and cryogenic depots to the market. At least at one time this was New Space orthodoxy.
To first approximation cheap lift is the only thing that matters. Competitive procurement of large amounts of launch services is an excellent way to achieve that cheap lift. A government funded exploration program would be an obvious way to generate the necessary demand. An exploration program is currently funded (at least in theory). Focussing on technology development is a recipe for delays. Perhaps some people want it that way.
The question then becomes, what is the urgent need to land a man on body B within time T?
The urgency is not to land a man on body B within time T, but to establish a large and fiercely competitive propellant launch markets as soon as possible so we might have RLVs (or some other form of cheap lift) in our lifetime. Waiting for infrastructure hinders progress on that front.
At this point, I think that the only people who care about that are Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid.
Maybe even Reid can be pacified in some other way since he cares about money for American Pacific Corp. (or more generally jobs in Nevada), not ATK itself.
Only 600 jobs are at risk?
failing to fly anyone for years and years is just going to get the agency defunded.
The Bush Vision of Space Exploration has failed to fly anyone for years and years. it hasn’t been defunded yet.
Instead of calling for NASA to build a new capsule — “the first of its kind since Apollo” — suppose Bush had pointed to SpaceShip One, said “this is the future,” and called for a free-market space program, with tax and market incentives for low-cost access to space?
Could such a program have flown fewer people than Ares and Orion have?
a very good way (perhaps even the best way, but you never know) to support the industry is to go and explore with existing technologies,
So, the NACA and the Kelly Air Mail Act were mistakes? It would have been better to spend the money on a fleet of dirigibles to send government aeronauts on expeditions to Hawaii, Tahiti, and beyond?
The goal should not be to “support” a hothouse industry that will start to collapse the moment the government stops buying Apollo flights but to kick-start the development of an industry than can eventually stand on its own two feet.
NASA should focus on deep space spacecraft
All progress starts at the low end. You have to walk before you can run. Where do you think aviation would be, if the Wright Brothers had decided to work on the problem of transatlantic flight before developing the technology needed to land and take off? “Not because it is easy, but because it is hard… because no goal will be more impressive to mankind, or more difficult to accomplish”?
Even if your ultimate goal is deep space, you need some reliable, affordable way to get “off the runway” first. Focusing on the hardiest, most expensive goal you can think of may be politically sexy, but it makes no sense technologically.
Perhaps you’re too you to remember the “industrial policy” arguments 25 years ago. Back then, we were told that the government needed to focus on the development of high-speed mainframe supercomputers. Our entire future was at stake — if the government didn’t do it, the US was in danger of losing its lead in high-speed computing. The big rival back then was not China but Japan. Private enterprise couldn’t afford the kind of investments that were necessary on its own. If we weren’t careful, the Japanese would surpass us in mainframe computing and we’d be relegated to companies like Apple and Microsoft producing cheap game machines.
So, DARPA put a huge sum of money into the Very High Speed Integrated Chip project and, after many years of effort, produced a chip that was *almost as fast* as the commercial microprocessors being built by Intel.
In the end, the US mainframe computer industry collapsed anyway, not because of competition from Japanese mainframes but because of those “cheap game machines.”
I would argue should) leave infrastructure development like RLVs and cryogenic depots to the market. At least at one time this was New Space orthodoxy.
That’s like saying NASA should do project Apollo and leave the development of RLVs (like the X-15, DynaSoar, etc.) and propellent depots to the military. How did that work out?
Apollo was a jealous god. The politicians funding it were not about to let it be upstaged by the military or anyone else. They established a defacto policy that said the military was not allowed to do manned space — an unwritten policy that’s still in effect today.
Fast forward to right now. What’s happening with the CRUSR program or Centennial Challenges? Those programs are no direct threat to Orion — the total funding wouldn’t even cover the condiments in the Orion cafeteria — yet, the Orion supporters are strangling those programs out of sheer bloodymindedness.
Now, look at the attempts to force the FARs and NASA safety regulations on commercial crew and cargo.
Orion, too, is a jealous god.
Competitive procurement of large amounts of launch services is an excellent way to achieve that cheap lift. A government funded exploration program would be an obvious way to generate the necessary demand. An exploration program is currently funded (at least in theory).
That’s a nice theory, but how has it worked in practice. When was the last time a manned deep-space exploration program resulted in the competitive procurement of launch services? When was the last time a politician other than Dana Rohrabacher even proposed it?
How do you plan to persuade Shelby, Nelson, Hutchison, etc. that they should give up the Senate Launch System they want so badly merely to save a few deep-space exploration missions which, frankly, they do not really seem to care about?
So, the NACA and the Kelly Air Mail Act were mistakes? It would have been better to spend the money on a fleet of dirigibles to send government aeronauts on expeditions to Hawaii, Tahiti, and beyond?
Not at all and that isn’t analogous to what I was proposing. I’m talking about procuring transport services, not vehicles. That would have established a market for winged aircraft just as the mail contracts did.
All progress starts at the low end. You have to walk before you can run.
Currently spacecraft are the low end and RLVs are the high end.
Where do you think aviation would be, if the Wright Brothers had decided to work on the problem of transatlantic flight before developing the technology needed to land and take off?
Again, that is not what I’m proposing. I’m talking about establishing a large and fiercely competitive LEO launch market without onerous throw weight constraints as soon as possible. That will allow industry to focus on Earth to orbit which is what you are advocating.
Focusing on the hardiest, most expensive goal you can think of may be politically sexy, but it makes no sense technologically.
Which is why I’m doing exactly the opposite. Manned exploration can be done with existing technology and without HLVs but with competitively procured propellant launch services instead. There’s no technological risk there. This is something that can be safely left to NASA. Affordable access to space on the other hand is far too difficult a task for NASA and should be left to the market. All NASA would have to do is to provide demand and that it would if it went on exploration missions.
That’s like saying NASA should do project Apollo and leave the development of RLVs (like the X-15, DynaSoar, etc.) and propellent depots to the military. How did that work out?
No, it’s not at all like that, which is why it didn’t work out. What they should have done is Apollo with propellant transfer and competitively procured launch services for that propellant. It would have made all the difference.
That’s a nice theory, but how has it worked in practice. When was the last time a manned deep-space exploration program resulted in the competitive procurement of launch services? When was the last time a politician other than Dana Rohrabacher even proposed it?
Like Christianity it’s never been tried. 😉 Nothing except the stupid / corrupt statist approach (whether of the Apollo or the SLI variety) has ever been tried. It’s high time for a change…
Currently spacecraft are the low end and RLVs are the high end.
You clearly haven’t thought about the energies involved. Suborbital flights are *much* easier than manned missions to the Moon, Mars, or Europa.
JFK said it himself. He chose a moon landing over the X-15 because “no other goal will be more impressive to mankind or harder to accomplish.”
Again, that is not what I’m proposing. I’m talking about establishing a large and fiercely competitive LEO launch market without onerous throw weight constraints as soon as possible.
So, you’re a mouse proposing that cats should not eat mice. That’s nice. How are you going to convince the cats?
Manned exploration can be done with existing technology
Only at very high cost — and for a very limited definition of “manned exploration.” Apollo cost as much as a small war. For that price, fewer than a dozen men explored a tiny fraction of the Moon’s surface.
If the Moon is to become a resource or home for mankind, in needs to be explored in detail comparable to the USGS exploration of the United States. That can’t be done with current launch vehicles.
Even limited Apollo-style lunar exploration requires at least one new vehicle — a lunar lander. Building a lunar lander does not require new technologies, but neither does building an RLV.
There’s no technological risk there.
ISRU, closed-cycle life-support systems, lunar construction techniques, etc. have no technological risk? If you think that, you haven’t thought through the problems.
Those things require a lot more tech development than RLVs do — and NASA should be investing in those things, if it’s serious about exploration.
it’s never been tried.
It’s been tried. In fact, many people predicted the Bush Vision of Space Exploration would bring about the sort of things you want (although Bush himself never said that). The outcome is simply nothing like you imagine.
It’s easy to say NASA should buy commercial launch and commercial propellent services for deep-space missions but the politicians don’t want that, I have no idea how to change their minds, and unfortunately, neither do you.
You clearly haven’t thought about the energies involved. Suborbital flights are *much* easier than manned missions to the Moon, Mars, or Europa.
I can assure you that I have. Note that the exploration doesn’t have to be manned, but more importantly that it doesn’t matter. It’s part of NASA’s job to explore and at least for the unmanned part they are being reasonably succesful at it. That can be used (at least in theory) to establish enough of a market for launch services to make commercial RLVs viable.
How are you going to convince the cats?
I wish I could. What’s your plan?
Only at very high cost — and for a very limited definition of “manned exploration.” Apollo cost as much as a small war. For that price, fewer than a dozen men explored a tiny fraction of the Moon’s surface.
Had they done it with competitively procured propellant launches instead (that would have taken some time to set up), then it would have been much cheaper. More importantly, we would have had RLVs for decades by now.
ISRU, closed-cycle life-support systems, lunar construction techniques, etc. have no technological risk? If you think that, you haven’t thought through the problems.
I didn’t say that. None of these technologies are necessary to establish a market that’s large enough to support commercial RLVs. And to first order cheap lift is the only thing that matters. Once we have that everything else will follow. Until we have it nothing else will allow us to do anything meaningful.
I don’t expect breakthroughs from NASA R&D or attempts to make lunar mining or industry a reality any more than I expect them to be able to develop an economically viable ELV let alone a revolutionary RLV. Funding through competitive procurement is about the most we can expect, but that would be enough even if NASA only did flags and bootprints missions. Who cares what NASA does if it leads to cheap lift as a side effect? Once we have cheap lift, NASA will become irrelevant to further development of space.
It’s easy to say NASA should buy commercial launch and commercial propellent services for deep-space missions but the politicians don’t want that, I have no idea how to change their minds, and unfortunately, neither do you.
I know. So what do we do?
>It’s easy to say NASA should buy commercial launch and commercial propellent services for deep-space missions but the politicians don’t want that, I have no idea how to change their minds, and unfortunately, neither do you.
I know. So what do we do?
I’ll be happy if we can just save CRUSR and Centennial Challenges.
I’m glad that SpaceX got a little bit of a boost from COTS and CCDEV but, frankly, that was more than I ever expected them to get. So, I can’t really be too disappointed about that.
All of the serious work on reusable vehicles is happening in the suborbital realm. Propellant depots would be nice to have a little further down the road, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t get them in the next few years. (It might be the end of NASA’s exploration program, which would be too bad, but not much I can do about that.)
As far as NASA’s LEO and BEO programs go, I don’t see much hope for change until one of three things happen: 1) the current politically-directed program collapses completely and they are forced to start over from scratch, 2) suborbital vehicles succeed dramatically, and the large numbers of people flying in space on commercial vehicles embarrasses politicians into taking notice, or 3) a Reagan-like political leader emerges who has a personal interest in space.
Number 3, I think, is unlikely. The only candidate who seems to fit that bill is Newt Gingrich, who I don’t think will make it through the primaries. 1 and 2, however, are quite likely.
Propellant depots would be nice to have a little further down the road, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t get them in the next few years.
I agree with most of what you say, but it does mean a potential source of funding for commercial RLVs is cut off for the foreseeable future. That’s why I prefer a refuelable storable propellant spacecraft as soon as possible to dedicated cryogenic depots at some unspecified date in the future. A large cash prize for the first economical brick launcher orbital RLV wouldn’t be too bad either, but I still think nothing beats demand-pull if you want to establish efficient commercial transport services to LEO.