Category Archives: Space

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Ending Our Dependence On Moscow

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Defense News has a hit and a miss. First, the hit:

…And after SpaceX unveils the manned version of its previously unmanned Dragon spacecraft this week, NASA should accelerate development of the project

Yes, though unlike me, they don’t actually propose how to do that.

Here’s the miss, and it’s a big one:

and revive the Space Launch System to put super heavy payloads into orbit.

What does “revive” the SLS mean? I thought it was ahead of schedule? That’s what its proponents keep telling me.

And what “super heavy payloads” are there that need to be put into orbit? What does this have to do with dependence on the Russians? This recommendation seems to be a complete non sequitur.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, War Commentary

Shaming Congress

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As I was just tweeting, you know what would be pretty funny? If the other ISS partners weighed in on the Russian thing.

Can you imagine the embarrassment if Canada and ESA said, “Hey, maybe NASA and Congress are afraid to fly without an abort system on the Dragon, but we think that having assured access to ISS is pretty important, even if there’s a risk to crew. Our astronauts are willing to chance it, to stick it to Rogozin. That’s what they signed up for.” I’d love to see the French tell us to stop being such merde du poulet.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Mitchell Study

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I just looked over the preliminary briefing on the RD-180 mess. A couple things stuck out at me. First, let’s compare the policy dictates on launch between the DoD and NASA:

“Secretary of Defense, as the launch agent for national security space missions, shall:
– Ensure, to the maximum extent possible, the availability of at least two US space transportation vehicle families capable of reliably launching national security payloads”

“Administrator, NASA, as the launch agent for civil space missions, shall:
– Develop, in support of US space exploration goals, the transportation-related capabilities necessary to support human and robotic exploration to multiple destinations beyond low-earth orbit, including an asteroid and Mars.”

Emphasis mine.

First, note that the DoD is tasked with a resilient launch capability. No such requirement exists for NASA. Which is why we went through two periods of over two-and-a-half years when we couldn’t get astronauts to orbit during the Shuttle program. Note also what else is missing from the NASA mission: no mention of heavy lift. Some, of course, believe that it is implicit in “transportation-related capabilities necessary to support human and robotic exploration…beyond earth orbit,” but many studies indicate otherwise. And the two omissions are related. If heavy lift is necessary, and if resilience were necessary for human exploration then, as with the DoD mission, the wording would be “Develop, to the maximum extent available, at least two of the transportation-related capabilities necessary to support human and robotic exploration…beyond low-earth orbit.”

Of course, they can’t even afford one, so they know that if they make that a requirement, it would make it utterly hopeless. But it does demonstrate the dramatic difference in importance between national security and “space exploration” “beyond low-earth orbit.”

Also note, later on in the briefing, that they say that there will be a “heavy-lift” requirement for military payloads. But they don’t define that explicitly, instead pointing out potential examples of such a capability (e.g., growth Delta and Falcon Heavy). That is, the DoD has a different definition for “heavy lift” than NASA does.

Given that the two of them, together are supposed to (among other things):

Work with each other and other departments and agencies, and with the private sector, as appropriate, to pursue research and development activities regarding alternative launch capabilities to improve responsiveness, resiliency, and cost effectiveness for future space launch alternatives,

it would be nice if they could resolve these disparities. Particularly since serious use of the EELV (and Falcon) families for exploration could drive down the costs of those vehicles for everyone. Instead, NASA is wasting billions on a non-redundant rocket that no one needs, except those working on it, who depend on it for their salaries.