If Steidle taking over was it, color me disappointed. I was hoping that it would relate to hardware and business deals. Not to say that I’m unhappy about it in any way, just that I don’t think the announcement lived up to the pre-announcement hype.
Category Archives: Space
The Fourth Era Of Space Exploration
Thoughts on the anniversaries from Austin Bay. In one of these eras, it would be nice to move from space exploration to space development and settlement. I think we have a lot better shot at that now, though.
[Mid-morning update]
The meaning of human spaceflight — twenty essays over at The Atlantic. I haven’t had time to read them yet — I suspect I’ll agree with some and disagree with others. I hadn’t previously heard of many of the authors.
The NASA Budget
Jeff Foust has the numbers on the deal worked out late last week. This is depressing:
In exploration, the CR directs NASA to spend at least $1.2 billion on the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and $1.8 billion on the Space Launch System “which shall have a lift capability not less than 130 tons and which shall have an upper stage and other core elements developed simultaneously.”
So NASA is forced to waste almost fifteen percent of its budget on a jobs program that will likely result in another programmatic failure in terms of actually flying anything. It’s also frustrating that the technology request was unfunded, though NASA probably will be able to come up with the money for it somewhere else.
As Major Tom points out in comments:
Griffin gave Ares I/Orion a larger budget (~$3.5B in FY10 rising to $5.5B in FY11 versus $3 billion in FY11) and easier requirements (25-tons versus 130-tons to LEO, ISS servicing versus BEO missions). Yet after five years of trying, Ares I and Orion never got past the lower-stage suborbital test stage. There’s no reason to believe that SLS/MPCV, if constrained to the same technical base, contracts, and workforce, can get a 5x bigger LV and more complex capsule operational in the same time for less money.
But it’s the law!
SpaceX Thoughts
…from Ric Locke.
Yuri’s Night In LA
Griffith Observatory 7:30 – 9:00 PM
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Admission is free
Join us for a very special opportunity to join over 200 events around the world celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of humanity’s first step into the cosmos. Hear Griffith Observatory’s Astronomical Observer, Anthony Cook, describe Yuri Gagarin’s historic 108 minute orbit around the planet and how it still affects us today. Look forward to the future as Virgin Galactic CEO, George Whitesides, describes how space travel might change in the coming 50 years. Meet Yuri’s Night co-founders Loretta Hidalgo-Whitesides and George Whitesides, share your own “where were you?” stories, and take part in this historic, global celebration of people in space.
Wood and Vine 9:00pm – 11:30pm
6280 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
[Via Robin Snelson]
Cis-Lunar Space
A rationale, by Paul Spudis.
The Window For Government Human Spaceflight Is Closing
Jeff Foust has an article at The Space Review in which he repeats his spoken remarks on Saturday in Phoenix. It includes quotes the same day from me and Jeff Greason.
[Update a few minutes later]
I have some thoughts on tomorrow’s anniversaries, over at the Washington Examiner.
Do We Need A New Space Race?
Rick Moran doesn’t think so, at least not with other countries.
[Update a while later[
Here’s the real space race, and the one that will get us out there to stay.
Anniversaries
Jeff Foust, Doug Messier and Clark Lindsey are on a panel discussing the Gagarin (fifty years on Tuesday), Dennis Tito (ten years) and Shuttle (thirty years on Tuesday) anniversaries, and where we’re going from here.
Doug Messier noting that Roscosmos will have a new director next week. The current one was fired about a week before the Gagarin anniversary.
Clark talking about Ice Age, Thaw, and New Spring. Need to get evolutionary process going, using example of early automotive age with lots of companies fighting with most efficient designs, but happens in an evolutionary manner. Plants need heat, technologies need funding. By Apollo 17, things had gotten frozen in space, including attitudes (space is expensive and always will be, and only government can do it).
Started to see attitudes thaw in the nineties, little projects started popping up to address the new markets of LEO comsats, then transitioned into tourism with the new century. Starting to see thriving diversity. Expects to see multiple competing designs that will prove out which is the best for which applications and who has the lowest operating cost. Will start to get feedback and change the public mindset about space, that will in turn help bring in investment. Sees hopeful next decade.
Institutions were frozen as well — had gotten locked into Big Project mode by Apollo. For military ELVs were good enough, same thing for comsats. Slow evolution, very little money going into vehicle developments, other than incremental improvements. Shuttle was worst of all worlds, because reduced budget, but increase requirements, so got a hybrid of a system that was horrifically expensive to operate.
Jeff Foust more pessimistic about the future of government human spaceflight. Current policy situation more discombobulated than at any time in the past fifty years. Always knew what next project was going to be, but don’t have that clear of a future right now, because don’t know what the Space Launch System is. Several factors — lost the impetus that drove it initially (Cold War), which ended two decades ago but had so much momentum that it has continued to shape policy since, but ISS is complete, Shuttle is retiring, and the momentum has dissipated. Attempts to turn China into the new nemesis haven’t worked out very well, because they’re not in any particular hurry. It’s been two and a half years since their most recent manned launch. Trying to come up with rationale for why do human spaceflight, and are some compelling reasons (Augustine panel tried to describe them) but hard to communicate to the public. Thinks that there is still a possibility of business as usual, except for the fiscal situation. We are going to see significant changes in space spending, recalling talk that Charles Miller gave a couple years ago about OMB cuts, even before TARP and bailouts. Federal spending across the board will be scrutinized, and non-defense discretionary will be a major target. All these factors lead to a closing window for any kind of recognizable government human spaceflight program, of not more than ten years. Will keep ISS operating until 2020, but if a lot will happen between now and then to cause us to reconsider any activities beyond that.
What does this mean for commercial?
It means it might be the only game in town. Suborbital ventures making steady but slow progress, but will see them develop and perhaps evolve into orbital. Moon and points beyond LEO out of reach of current commercial, but CCDev, COTS may be the shock needed for government encouragement of commercial LEO human spaceflight. Time to rethink how to get the government and commercial sectors to work together for affordable and sustainable infrastructure that can support both government and commercial users. Infrastructure not a sexy term, but a very necessary one, so if we can get it into place, we can get people to see sufficient value in human spaceflight to continue to fund it. Opportunity, but it won’t last long, but it will require innovative thinking and breaking old paradigms.
Messier more upbeat, thinks that these infrastructural items will come to pass. Looking back to the fifties, there were high entry costs into the field, with big investments in tech development and infrastructure. NASA has enormous infrastructure that’s costly to build, maintain, and we’re discovering now to repair. There is a model for doing this in the Middle East, in the United Arab Emirates. Branson has shown the way in Dubai, with a government investment house buying access to suborbital space. XCOR has similar deals going in other countries. Bigelow has similar ideas, including working with the emirates. Future will see commercial provision of training from NASTAR, launch on commercial vehicles, using commercial orbital facilities — will go where the money is. China is rising, India and Brazil could be launching next year in cooperation with the Ukraine, and will transition from billionaires with dreams to institutional investors. With reusable vehicles, we’ll be able to launch from almost anywhere, for suborbital first and eventually orbital. Sees a future with mix of traditional and new spaceports, at least during transition. We get there by starting to fly. A lot of projects and talk, but not a lot of flights. It’s been seven years since Scaled Composites first flew SS1 suborbital, and six and a half since the last time, and it’s taken longer than we hoped. Orbital projects are feasible, once we get the transportation. Have to get commercial orbital transportation to and from facilities, and then they’ll proceed accordingly.
Challenge: hubris — don’t over promise, and don’t try to go too far too fast. Leap from SpaceShipOne to SpaceShipTwo may have been too big. Same may apply from Falcon 9 to Falcon Heavy. Don’t know much about reliability of vehicle with only two flights under their belt. Potential for next ten to fifteen years is a complete change from the way we’ve done space since the Cold War and if so it will be very exciting.
Jim Muncy On Space Politics
He’ll be starting in a couple minutes.
Two topics today, second one a short rant.
Eight years ago companies in the industry and Dennis Tito started to get Congress to create a clear regulatory regime for personal human spaceflight. Some vehicles looked like airplanes and some looked like spaceships, and some like using experimental aircraft certificate route, but set one up for regulation as a common carrier in aviation, which is more burdensome than launch licensing. Culminated in Space Launch Amendments Act in 2004. Industry now lobbying for changes in the act and additional congressional direction/authority that will enable industry growth. Had been avoiding touching act until necessary, but there is a provision that expires next year that they want extended (moratorium of FAA regulation on spaceflight participant safety).
Head of FAA-AST has authority to not only regulate but also to promote the industry (rest of FAA lost this second charter after Valuejet crash in the nineties). Must don’t understand that the moratorium doesn’t stop FAA from writing regs today. Regs can be based on actual observed data (fatalities, casualties, series of incidents, that indicate a problem that could lead to fatalities or casualties). FAA is not mandated to regulate participant safety, but can in the event of events.
In the early twenties, the industry actually asked Dept of Commerce for regulations, to weed out bad actors. This is a similar situation, but regulations have to be based on observed data. In 2012, FAA could write regs based on hypotheses, guesses, analysis, etc,. if they think it will promote the health of the industry, and bureaucracies tend to push the limits of their authority.
Idea in 2005 was that we’d have raised money and flown vehicles for revenue, and getting data about what works and doesn’t, and would have a basis for regulation. Things happened more slowly than desired, and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation is going to Congress and requesting a restoration of the original eight-year learning period, in which FAA learns, industry learns, and we gather data before FAA starts regulating based on no data. Working to reset it to eight years from first flight of commercial provider, to ensure actual period of time of learning, to follow aviation precedent.
House Science, Space and Technology committee will be holding one or more hearings in April/May and mark up legislation that may include this, and that the majority substantively agrees with this provision. If people have other ideas of things that should be included in this legislation, based on challenges or problems they’ve encountered, contact him ASAP.
Also liability issues. Can Congress stipulate that laws of state from which you launch will be the ones that guide any litigation, or will litigants be able to venue shop (e.g., launch from Virginia or Florida, sue in Mississippi?).
Begin rant:
Last year was a blur because he was living in Never-never Land, apologizing for any weirdness last conference. He is former Republican White House and Congressional staffer. Barack Obama proposed to create a broader role for the commercial sector in space, and Republicans in Congress said “No, we don’t trust the private sector — we want a public option.” And his head exploded. Spent a lot of time trying to improve the policy, saving technology budgets, helping commercial crew, did what he could to keep Senate bill from being as disastrous as it was. But supported it, as imperfect as it was in the fall, because it established commercial crew and other things.
For NASA having things to do on the edge of the frontier, just opposed to them operating a trucking service on the near frontier. Orion is a new spacecraft, not in competition with commercial crew. It will have to be tested, and SLS will not be available in time, and Lockheed took risk by spending their own money as a down payment for a Delta IV (they’ve also put on their web site ideas for exploration in 2016/2017 that don’t need heavy lifters). Not competition because NASA doesn’t have enough money to launch Orions on Delta IVs to ISS. Using Orion with Delta or Atlas or Falcon Heavy could allow exploration in this decade, but people in NASA won’t tell Bolden this because they want to build a heavy lifter. Bill doesn’t require that NASA build one — only if “practicable.” Goal is to buy time until it becomes clear that it isn’t, and it won’t take long. It is possible and necessary for commercial space and NASA coexist. It is essential that we engage and show them how commercial helps them and that they know what their opportunities are. Beyond insane that the senators representing KSC where launches are happening and JSC where they are planned and operated, are willing to wait for another center in Alabama that has not successfully developed a launch system in decades. Commercial isn’t just about commercial crew — it’s about commercial approaches for supporting exploration, propellant depots, and getting NASA exploring sooner rather than later. Coalescing around Shuttle derived is short-term way of supporting exploration, and the administration failed last year in failing to connect the dots. They actually read the Augustine report and actually followed recommendations.
In response to a question, a certain senator had a staffer who tried to get commercial crew cut in the final budget, and we won’t know what is in the bill until this week. He thinks that everyone agrees that Senator Shelby’s language will be released in the CR.