Is "the Stick" alive and well?

Who knows?

All the doom and gloom about the Stick lacked a certain amount of perspective. When you're in the middle of a program and something goes wrong, everybody screams and people on the outside hear the screaming and think that it's hopeless and conclude that you might as well throw in the towel. But the people on the outside don't realize that the screaming is often quickly followed by somebody saying "Well, we can fix it if we do X, Y and Z..." (i.e. normal engineering trade-offs). Or they don't realize that sometimes the screaming is exaggerated in order to get more attention and funding.

I suspect that in this case, a lot of people who were bloviating about all the problems had little sense of whether the problems were the kinds of things that normally occur in any development program, or were actually showstoppers. They assumed the latter, without good evidence.

That's okay, a little humble pie is good for the soul.

I wonder if the internet has made this too much akin to sausage an politics.

Perhaps best if we don't know too much detail.

I think that a lot of the opposition to the "stick" is political rather than technical.

One of the biggest problems with NASA and the aerospace industry (and other industries as well) is that it's filled with umpteen kajillion geniuses. This has its benefits no doubt but one of those "benefits" happens to be the ability to parlay really, really, really bad ideas into reality. The Shuttle is a superbly complex collection of machinery, and its successful construction and continual operation are truly feats of stupendous proportions. Nevertheless, feat or no, it's still a poor design and should have been junked for other alternatives.

I have no doubt that NASA et al will be able to make the stick fly. But flying won't make it a good design, and expending all that marvelous talent making a catastrophically bad idea only just barely workable is such a tremendous waste it ought to be a crime.

I have no doubt that NASA et al will be able to make the stick fly. But flying won't make it a good design, and expending all that marvelous talent making a catastrophically bad idea only just barely workable is such a tremendous waste it ought to be a crime.

The stick is a placeholder design to assure that the 5 segment solids are available for Ares V. It also holds a place open for SpaceX and Kistler. Due to the finite number of SRB casings, and the need for those casings for Ares V, the Ares 1 Stick simply cannot occupy the market niche that Kistler and SpaceX are aiming at.

Now, if EELV were the carrier rocket for CLV, then come 2008 or 2009 Boeing and Lockheed lobbyists can say (truthfully enough) that buying Falcon or Kistler undermines the market for D-IV or A-V therefore COTS needs to be cut to protect the CLV and CEV.

The real argument is EELV versus Ares V and that involves Mars. My interpretation is that Griffin wants NASA to get on the Moon and then turn the Moon over to the private sector (NewSpace) in the same manner ISS re-supply will be turned over to COTS. Then, NASA heads to Mars.

The Stick is a lousy long term solution for Earth-to-LEO and therefore its deployment will not occupy that market niche that NewSpace needs to aim at.

EELV will compete head-to-head with SpaceX and Kistler. The Stick will not.

Griffin admits that he has no money for the Moon, so what is to turn over?

From space.com

Griffin outlined his thoughts on the role of international cooperation within the vision.

“We hope to enlist international partners, to bring some of the elements that we won’t be able to afford to build,” Griffin said. “We don’t have big habitats, laboratories, power stations, things like that for a lunar base. We don’t have them in our budget. We have got transportation ‘to and from’ in our budget.”

Dennis

Dennis, without private sector revenue flowing into space exploration, a lunar base with "big habitats, laboratories, power stations, [and] things like that" will not be affordable no matter what launch vehicle NASA uses.

Neither the Stick CLV or EELV are cheap enough to support lunar tourism, for example, or any other for profit enterprise. Buying Russian (Chinese?) opens a whole different can of worms.

If we use EELV for CEV then there will be lobbyist pressure to use Delta or Atlas for ISS re-supply (to save NASA money on volume purchases) and that closes the COTS niche that creates a market for SpaceX and Kistler to do ISS logistics.

If/when either SpaceX and Kistler achieves ~$1000 per pound to LEO then the private sector can access the Moon easily enough and the private sector can build moon bases and NASA can go to Mars using Ares V, perhaps fueled by NewSpace fuel tankers and lunar LOX.

Looking to drive prices below ~$1000 per pound to LEO? Once a moon base exists based on ~$1000 per pound, people will attempt to beat Falcon and Kistler on price to obtain that business.

Of course, developing cheaper travel from LEO-to-Luna and back to Earth is a huge commercial opportunity entirely unrelated to Earth-to-LEO. Think solar ion or MoEx tethers. And lunar LOX.

= = =

Bottom line: ESAS creates a market niche for NewSpace to occupy, starting with ISS re-supply. Keeping EELV away from routine Earth-to-LEO travel is a necessary part of COTS so that Congress is not asked (in 2008/2009) to use smaller versions of Atlas-V or Delta-IV for ISS work to help subsidize CEV/CLV. Because the Stick is overkill for travel to ISS, it cannot compete with NewSpace.

= = =

Moon or Mars?

If there is money to be made on the Moon, the private sector doesn't need NASA once Kistler and SpaceX lower the cost of LEO access to Russian levels. If there really is money to be made on the Moon, NASA needs to stay out of the way of the private sector. Set up a small moon base and solicit COTS-like proposals for logistics support.

If there is no money to be made on the Moon, I'd rather go to Mars. More interesting, in my opinion.

If the private sector does make money on the Moon there is no need for NASA to spend much time on the Moon because scientists can buy tickets commercially. In that case, I want NASA to go to Mars.

Bill

If private enterprise is to be a lead for a lunar infrastructure (I don't want to use the word base) then NASA needs to provide transportation for free or just dump the whole ESAS heavy lift architecture as it will never be cost effective.

Dennis

Dennis -

I believe any private venture that seeks to make money on the Moon needs to find a non-NASA ride to LEO no matter what vehicle NASA eventually selects for the VSE. NASA rides will just be too expensive and I do not foresee that changing any time soon.

EELV (for example) simply will never compete with the Russians on price. Now, if Musk can fly Falcon 5 and 9, a US alternative to NASA will exist soon enough.

= = =

Okay, here is an idea to use Ares V to assist private sector lunar infrastructure. Not quite a free launch, but close.

Design and test (on the Moon) a robotic LOX extraction facility (on NASA's dime). Build another two or three turnkey plants and send them to Luna via Ares V onboard a cargo-only LSAM.

Using Ares V means this robotic LOX plant can be relatively large and need not be assembled in LEO or on the Moon. Like I said, a turnkey LOX extraction facility.

Sell it free and clear to the highest bidder with no reserve, meaning that even if NASA loses money on the deal, the facility will be owned and operated 100% by the private winning bidder. If they buy it before launch, they can designate where to land it, on the moon.