Category Archives: Space

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

John Shannon Responds

9 Comments

For those who have been following the foofaraw about Shuttle extension, and the supposed “conflict” between what Lori Garver has said versus John Shannon (Shuttle program manager), he has responded in comments over at Space Politics. Part of the issue is nomenclature, and what Shuttle “extension” really means. If by that you mean continue operations into the future at the current flight rate, there’s not enough money in the world to do so, so Lori is correct in that regard. If you mean instead to not shut down the program, and waste lots of money keeping the standing army in place, and hope that they don’t lose their edge, while you’re waiting two or three years to get tanks produced again, then yes, you could “extend” the Shuttle, but I’d call that more something like, hibernate and resurrect it. Either way, there is no way to avoid reliance on the Russians in the near term (and the same would have been true with the Program of Record). Once the decision was made to shut down tank production a couple years ago, the die was cast. And there is no real conflict between what the Deputy Administrator and Shuttle PM are saying.

I would note that opponents of the decision have decided to make Lori the focal point of their anger, and will grab any cudgel that comes to hand to beat her, imagining somehow that if they can just dispose of their newfound enemy, that the realities of the budgetary situation will go away, and that all will be well in Aresland again. As they have been for years, they are in denial.

[Update late morning, in fact, after the one that follows this, so I don’t screw up the flow over the fold]

It occurs to me that there’s an aspect of Shuttle extension (or continuation, or whatever) that hasn’t been discussed. One of the reasons to shut down Shuttle in 2010 was to save money that could be then diverted to VSE. But another one (and particularly after Constellation was born) was to free up pads 39A and B to be converted for Ares operations (plus to make other KSC facilities available). If Ares isn’t being developed, the urgency to get the Shuttles off the pads goes away. I’m not sure that’s sufficient reason to keep flying it, but it’s one more issue to be considered. I continue to think that continuing to fly Shuttle is a huge opportunity cost of the available budget, and that if Congress wants to do so without increasing the budget, they’ll have to decide what they want to give up. To give up the best near-term and nearest-term alternative (commercial) would be a travesty.

[Update a few minutes later]

There are a lot of comments to wade through there, so I hope Jeff won’t mind if I just repost the Shannon comment here to make it easier to find and relink (it would help if he had Space Politics set up to provide individual permalinks for comments, as I do here). Continue reading John Shannon Responds →

Space

And It’s Lit

22 Comments

I just got a text from FL Today that SpaceX has started the Falcon 9 hot fire test. Here’s hoping all goes well.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I guess that text was way late. Here are some comments over at Clark Lindsey’s place. Sounds like it may not have gone as planned.

Business, Political Commentary, Space

The Latest Lurio Report

1 Comment

…is out. Clark Lindsey has a summary of it. If you’re a subscriber (and if you’re not, you should be) you can read it here.

Charles seems quite encouraged by recent events. I’m a little less sanguine, because I’ve seen too many times how Washington can really screw things up, even when the people attempting to execute a good policy are acting in good faith.

Media Criticism, Space, Technology and Society

Here We Go Again

96 Comments

Every time there’s a test of a scramjet, there’s associated overhype about how great it will be for space access. The upcoming X-51 flight is no exception:

Ms. Waldman said in her report that as scramjet technology is developed testers believe that in the near future it could be used to aid warfighters as a weapons delivery system. She said officials believe that in the future the scramjet technology will make space access easier.

“The application really is all about space lift,” Mr. Brink agreed, and said, “This is the one, I think, in the Air Force Research Lab we’re most excited about.”

Mr. Brink pointed out that they currently transport payload into space with the shuttle, which has to carry all of its oxidizers for the propulsion concept. He said the shuttle is a pure rocket system and said if they can incorporate scramjet engine technology into the space lift systems, they wouldn’t have to carry the oxidizers and could carry more payload instead.

Yeah, if there’s any payload left after you count the weight of the engines, which have terrible T/W compared to rockets, and all of the extra drag you incur staying in the atmosphere to collect the oxygen. I’ve discussed this more than once in the past. I’ve never seen a hypersonic airbreathing conceptual vehicle design that was an improvement in performance over a rocket for a space transport, at least if there was any analysis more serious than the above performed on it. Scramjets have plenty of utility for military applications. I wish that people selling the program didn’t always feel the need to oversell it. And if we had a smarter space media, they’d get called on it.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

There Is No “Plan B”

51 Comments

Or if there is, it wasn’t at the administrator’s request. And I think that Andy Pasztor should have done a little more digging before running his original story.

I think that all these rumors and leaks are just guerilla warfare by Ares/Constellation dead enders. And the end is growing near. If you look at the Senate Authorization language, it essentially buys into the new policy, for all intents and purposes.

Political Commentary, Space

And So It Begins

52 Comments

The astronaut office has provided their view of the transition to commercial crew. I have some heartburn with it:

As commercial providers become integrated with NASA flight operations, questions pertaining to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) versus NASA certifications and standards arise. Currently, FAA (Office of Space Transportation) standards are only designed to protect the public from over-flight hazards associated with a launch. In contrast, NASA’s Human-Rating Requirements (HRR) for Space Systems (NPR 8705.2B) and Flight Rules have evolved over decades and are set in place to protect both the flight crew on board the vehicle and the public. It is anticipated that NASA and the FAA would collaborate in the future to determine rules and regulations for space control and commercial space vehicle licensing. Even with collaborative efforts amongst licensing agencies that evolve for human space vehicles, the NASA Human-Rating Requirements are the only current benchmark standards and should be used as the controlling document for certifying human rating of crewed spacecraft.

You mean the human-rating requirements that NASA hasn’t designed a vehicle to meet in decades, and had to waive when Orion couldn’t meet them? There needs to be severe pushback against this from the CSF.

One other point. I disagree with this requirement:

While on the ISS, each crewmember requires a path to return to the Earth in the event of a catastrophic station failure or medical emergency. A ready vehicle (lifeboat) attached to the ISS, in lieu of a ground based launch-on-need vehicle is required for ACR. A de-orbit in this ready vehicle must be executed to a targeted ground site capable of post landing support.

These are two different requirements, and may require two different vehicle types — a “lifeboat” and an ambulance. It also ignores the requirement of a non-catastrophic station failure, which might necessitate temporary abandonment, but not a wholesale evacuation all the way to the ground. I’ve always found the designation of “lifeboat” for a vehicle designed to return crew to earth to be a misnomer. A lifeboat is a temporary vehicle to provide protection until the survivors can be picked up by another vessel, not something that takes the Titanic passengers all the way back to Southampton.

There is an intrinsic assumption in this requirement that spaceflight remains expensive and rare, and that there are no other facilities in orbit to which to repair if there are problems on the station. But part of the idea of the new plan is to fix both these problems (or at least the former — I’m not sure much thought has been given to the latter, but cheap regular access makes it easier to solve). So, the notion of simply going somewhere else and waiting out either a repair of the station (if possible) or a rescue vessel from earth doesn’t occur to them, hence the (IMO, ridiculous) requirement that everyone has to go back to earth any time there’s a serious problem.

And it becomes doubly absurd if you insist that the assured return vehicle be an ambulance as well. If you use it for that purpose, it may kill the patient, since the design requirement for a crew return vehicle might assume healthy passengers, and have several gees on entry. In addition, it means that the station will be without a return capability for the rest of the crew, if the vehicles are one-size-fits-all. It would be a huge waste of (say) a six-person vehicle to use it to deliver one sick or injured crewperson. Again, this assumes that either a) there is no capability of getting an ambulance up from earth or b) no ability to so so in time. Now (b) is certainly a possibility for certain emergencies, but should we really let that drive transportation requirements? As I’ve pointed out in the past, the people wintering at McMurdo have no “assured crew return” capability, and when they get sick, they tough it out (including Jerri Nielsen, the woman physician who came down with breast cancer and treated herself until spring — she died last year). Why are astronauts more special than polarnauts? I’m sure that if we wanted to spend a few billion, we could come up with a vehicle that could extract people from the south pole during the winter. Why haven’t we done so?

These requirements are based on old mind sets and architecture assumptions. I think that they need rethinking, as part of a larger set of infrastructure requirements.

[Late afternoon update]

From a high-level government source:

The astronaut office, as well as many other NASA parties, have been making their views known for some time to the COTS team led by Geoff Yoder in ESMD. Industry will also be given an opportunity to provide input.

Allowing the astronauts to provide input is appropriate, as they are a “user”, but they are not in control.

That’s what I assumed. And hoped.