Category Archives: Space

Economics, Political Commentary, Space

DIRECT Rebuttal Thoughts

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I had missed this when they were posted, but the Chair Force Engineer had some thoughts on DIRECT a couple weeks ago, here and here.

“Wow.” Are we to believe that ESAS was designed with little or no consideration of what the supporting infrastructure would cost? It would certainly explain why we’re stuck with the unaffordable Ares I and Ares V.

I’d like to say that I’m surprised, but sadly, I’m not.

Further NASA statements such as “Ares I + Ares V uses 15 SRB segments, while two Jupiter 232’s use 16 segments” also reveal an incredibly simplistic approach to cost estimation. Such simple methods might be appropriate for pre-algebra students. Professional cost estimators ought to know better. That’s why cost estimation is so difficult; there may literally be thousands of dependent and independent variables that make up the true cost of the system over its lifetime. Saving a few million in rocket hardware may have bigger reprocussions with development dollars, standing army costs, and infrastructure costs. It’s best summed up on Slide 26, where Jupiter’s higher launch costs (measured in tens of millions per launch) are offset by the savings of billions in development costs.

We’d have to see a full life-cycle cost accounting with assumptions to know whether or not it’s a good saving to cut development cost at the price of higher ops costs. It depends on how much you’re going to fly. But I suspect that it probably is, because the up-front costs are in expensive near-term dollars whereas the flight costs are down stream and discounted, and the flight rate will probably never get big enough to justify spending more on development to reduce marginal cost per flight. That’s always the problem with expendables.

I really need to write up my talk on marginal costs from Space Access.

Political Commentary, Space

But Other Than That, It’s Great

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Some criticism (to put it mildly) of Constellation over at SpaceVidCast, in comments.

I agree with the commenter over at Clark’s place, though, that the purpose of the program should not be to create jobs, and layoffs at NASA centers are a feature, rather than a bug, if we want to get more for the taxpayers’ money. Of course, if NASA could come up with something useful for those people to do in advancing the goal of becoming a spacefaring nation, and keep them on, that would be even better.

Business, Economics, Space

Rocketplane Resurrection?

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I talked to George French briefly last night at the bar. He hasn’t given up on raising funds not only for Rocketplane XP, but is still hoping to revive Kistler itself. It wasn’t clear whether or not this was contingent on another bite at the COTS apple, but he’s hoping to have money reraised by August. Good luck with that in this economy. It would be nice, though, to see at least one reusable system going to orbit, after all these years.

Political Commentary, Space

The Augustine Commission

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It’s not official, but the Orlando Sentinel has some names, including one surprising one:

Christopher Chyba – Professor of Astrophysical Sciences and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. He once held the Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

Sally Ride – Physicist and a former NASA astronaut who, in 1983, became the first American woman and youngest American (at the time) to enter space.

Lester Lyles – Retired Air Force General and NASA administrator candidate. He is an expert in military space issues and is a member of the NASA Advisory Committee.

Edward Crawley – Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT, and a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems. He is engaged with NASA on the design of its lunar and earth observing systems, and with BP on oil exploration system designs.

Bohdan “Bo” Bejmuk – Respected engineer and executive at Boeing Co. and one-time executive at Sea Launch, where he helped put together and run the company’s unique offshore rocket launch system. He also assembled and led an elite Boeing engineering team to assist leading the integration of Russian elements into the Station. He was also involved in the space shuttle program from its earliest days.

Jeff Greason – President, CEO and founder of XCOR Aerospace and the Personal Spaceflight Federation. He was the team leader for engine development at the now-defunct Rotary Rocket, and previously worked at the computer chip manufacturer Intel. He has been active in lobbying to encourage support for private spaceflight activities.

Wanda Austin — President and CEO of The Aerospace Corp., an independent non-profit dedicated to assisting the nation’s space program. NASA recently commissioned her company to study whether military rockets could lift people and cargo to the international space station and the moon, and the study concluded they could, contrary to NASA’s previous assertions.

Emphasis mine. As confirmation (sort of), Jeff mentioned to me yesterday that he was going to be doing some consulting this summer, which was going to be keeping him very busy. I didn’t ask him what it was at the time, but I think I can guess now.

I think that this is great news (I know Bo Bejmuk, too, from Rockwell days). Jeff will definitely have an oar in the water to steer in a useful direction.

I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I’d love to know how he was picked, and who suggested him.