It is theoretically conceivable that there have been chairs of the Senate budget committee more damaging to the future of spaceflight than him, but I don’t want to do the necessary research to determine it, and the thought itself is pretty frightening.
Kudos to Eric Berger for continuing to cover this like almost no one else in the media.
[Late-evening update]
Bad link, fixed now. Sorry!
Your link points to a CBS article on the IRS data breach being more massive than it was thought:
Massive IRS data breach much bigger than first thought
A problem that goes away if everyone writes a check for 15% of their income – no deductions – by April 15th.
Rand,
If you’re referring to Eric’s article about the Super Strypi earmark (the current link goes to an unrelated cbs article), I agree that’s pretty ridiculous. When you combine that with Mikulski’s earmark for Restore-L, and the usual raiding of STMD’s budget, that’s a lot of damage. Shelby is a poster child for why we need term limits for Congress…
That said, with McCain’s anti-ULA shenanigans, I wouldn’t mind if voters gave both of them the opportunity to spend more time with their grandkids…
~Jon
In any case Mike Enzi is chair of Senate Budget. Shelby is chair of Senate Commerce. And William Proxmire was far more damaging than Shelby could ever dream of being
Shelby is the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for NASA. Cruz is the chair for Senate Commerce. And Shelby has wreaked far more damage than Proxmire could have dreamed, in the name of “space exploration.”
Right about the committee assignments. Wrong as usual on history. Prox was the Ebola virus for space. Shelby is just a pol who wants his beak wetted.
Except Cruz is not chair of Senate Commerce but the subcommittee that oversees NASA.
Proxmire, by comparison, was was a wart. Shelby is a melanoma. Proxmire was openly against spaceflight. That could be argued easily whenever the money is not spent to benefit one State. Precisely that is what Shelby is for, an Alabama space program. even if he cannot get that, he gets as close as he can.
Shelby is for conversion, …converting money supposedly for spaceflight into money for supporting Alabama. This is so whether it does anything positive for spaceflight or not. no matter what the opportunity costs for the Republic’s future in Space, Shelby will see Alabama benefit. He is an “LBJian” through and through, who inside Alabama wants to say, …”Look what Ahhh brought you!” He cares *nothing* for the competent purpose of human spaceflight, settling the Solar System.
Thus, Shelby tarnishes not just the present progress NASA might make towards settling the Solar System, but also the future reputation of *any* government money spent on human spaceflight.
Agree. Proxmire was a noisy nit and relentless self-promoter who always chose targets that were even smaller than he was. The vast majority of his “Golden Fleece” awards were to projects with 7-, 6- or even 5-figure budgets. Even then, said projects weren’t usually actually cancelled. Proxmire was all about the noise, not the spending.
Shelby, on the other hand, has been almost single-handedly responsible for looting billions from worthy programs elsewhere in NASA’s budget to benefit ULA in Decatur and MSFC in Huntsville without regard to the merit of the beneficiaries.
Ebola indeed.
I think this is what Rand intended to link to: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/senator-cuts-nasas-tech-budge/
I hadn’t heard of the Super Strypi before. If it works as planned, it will put 300 kg of payload into orbit for $15 million a launch. That’s $22,700/lb while SpaceX is charging $1,230/lb to LEO. To be competitive they need to get their cost down to $800,000 a launch.
Where do you get $1,230/lb to LEO for SpaceX? Their website quotes $62 million for up to 5,500kg to GTO, which works out to $5,113/lb to GTO. I don’t see a price for LEO launches.
That would come from this simple calculation of:
($62,000000/22,200)/2.204kilos/lb.
I get $1,267/ lb. that way.
The $62m price is only given for sending up to 5,500kg to GTO. We don’t know what they’d charge for sending 22,200kg to LEO. They might charge more for missions that don’t allow first-stage recovery.
Before the Falcon 1 was abandoned they proposed a 1,480 lb payload to LEO. Given the upgrades they’ve made since then to double the Falcon 9 payload, the same techniques should give a Falcon 1 a payload of about 3,000 lbs at about a tenth the price of a Falcon 9, or approximately half the price of a Super Strypi for four and a half times the payload.
If the small satellite market was really important to NASA, as opposed to Aerojet, telling Elon to roll out a new Falcon 1 would be the obvious path forward.
The relevant comparisons would seem to be to VG, Firefly, Rocket Lab and Vector Space Systems. Super Strypi can apparently – if it ever works – put 250 kg. into a 400 km. sun-synchronous orbit for ca. $15 million. Vector plans on putting up payloads a lot smaller than Super Strypi – 25 kg. to 400 km. sun-sync – for $2 – 3 million a pop. Rocket Lab’s payload manual shows ca. 158 kg. to 400 km. sun-sync for ca. $5 million. Firefly’s Alpha can do ca. 215 kg. to 400 km. sun-sync for $8 – 9 million. VG’s payload manual says LauncherOne can put 300 kg. into 500 km. sun-sync orbit so it should be able to put a bit more into a 400 km. SSO. The LauncherOne mission price is “less than $10 million.”
Super Strypi would seem to be uncompetitive with all four of the above-named other launch providers, but that, of course, reckons without the effect $30 million “free” dollars worth of development cash will have on the ability of its two MSFC crumb-chaser “sponsors” to muscle into the market with Uncle Sugar providing a convenient thumb on the scale.
When it comes to constituent service, Sen. Shelby runs a full-service superstore it seems.