Category Archives: Space

Space

Still Enamored With Orion

10 Comments

I see that Brian Wang is continuing to post on the potential benefits of nuclear-explosion propulsion, here and here (where he takes on Charlie Stross), and here, where he talks about it in the context of unmanned Mars missions and a high-speed asteroid interceptor.

I do think that there’s potential for this vehicle off planet, but I remain highly skeptical that it will ever launch payloads from earth, regardless of how theoretically cheap it might be. Particularly in the Age of Obama.

And frankly, when I read things like:

Nuclear Orion can achieve launch costs of less than $1/kg and perhaps a tiny fraction of that.

…it reminds me of the old claims from the early days of nuclear power that it would be “too cheap to meter.”

Actually, he understates Shuttle costs as being “$5000 to $6000 per pound,” even if it is an “accepted figure.” At current flight rates, I would guess that (at least to ISS), the current costs are about a billion per flight for about 40,000 (or less) lbs, or more like $25,000/lb (or more, depending on the payload). Which makes Orion look even better, of course. But it also displays my long-standing claim that the single most sensitive variable with regard to launch costs is flight rate, and any vehicle design consideration is a secondary matter.

I think that Brian’s mistake is demonstrated in the false choice of the title of this post which was a response to this one of mine:

Small and Expensive Versus Big and Possibly Infrequent Space Launch

The implication is that small is intrinsically expensive. But it’s not.

Small is only expensive when a) you throw the vehicle away and b) you don’t fly it very much. I would suggest that Brian read this piece on the subject of the reasons for high launch costs, which I wrote over four years ago to allay exactly this kind of misunderstanding, and (if he can afford the time and money — it’s really a bargain at the cost if one can get to Phoenix) attend the Space Access conference a month from now, where he can get up to speed on the current state of chemical-rocket launch technology (and its economics and business prospects).

Space

Space Access 2009

5 Comments

…is only a month away. I’ve been attending this conference for years, and hope and plan to do so this year as well. There’s no single way during the year to find out what’s going on in that part of the world of space transportation (largely private, though it tries to pull little nuggets of nutrition out of the waste of the big-government dinosaurs) than at this three-day meeting. Here is the official announcement::

April 2-4, Phoenix Arizona

Space Access ’09 is just over a month away – it’s time to book your flights and rooms. We see that Southwest Airlines is having a fare sale through this Monday March 2nd, so now is the time to decide to get a low airfare. Other airlines too will only get more expensive if you wait. And our reserved special-rate room block opens up to general rental by any tourist who comes along in just over another week – call the Grace Inn at 800 843-6010 and ask for the “space access conference rate” for our $99-all-inclusive discount room rate, soon, if you want to be sure of a room right at the conference.

Continue reading Space Access 2009 →

Political Commentary, Space

Administrator Isakowitz?

2 Comments

Given all the previous “front runners,” I’m taking this latest rumor with at least one grain, and maybe half the shaker, of salt. Some of the comments are encouraging, and Steve is undoubtedly a smart guy, but my recollection of him from OMB was that he was a pretty traditional thinker when it came to launch and didn’t think that costs could be reduced much from where they were. But if Griffin chased him out with Steidle, that’s definitely a point in his favor. And commenter “Major Tom” (who I think is “anonymous.space” under a new pseudonym) is pretty impressed, which seems like a good sign to me.

[Update a few minutes later]

“Major Tom” weighs in in comments with more info (of which I had, surprisingly, been unaware). Any negative impression I have of Steve Isakowitz is from back in the nineties, and may be based on a single (perhaps even out-of context) quote that I saw from him somewhere (perhaps Space News). So don’t take my opinion over the majority (and particularly “Major Tom”‘s) in this matter.

Political Commentary, Space

In Praise Of Large Payloads

46 Comments

Joseph Friedlander discusses BFRs over at Next Big Future.

Absent a dire need (e.g., an asteroid heading right at us), I don’t see these vehicles being developed with the current market or political environment. They’re just too damned big, and they’d have too low a flight rate. I think that, barring some huge tech (probably nanotech) breakthrough, the path to space lies in small reusable chemical vehicles that grow in capability (suborbital, then on to orbit, with perhaps point-to-point in between), then size as their markets grow with them.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

What Is “The Bush Moon Plan”?

23 Comments

Whatever it is, AvWeek says that the Obama administration is going to “stick with it.”

The fiscal 2010 NASA budget outline to be released by the Obama Administration Feb. 26 adds almost $700 million to the out-year figure proposed in the fiscal 2009 budget request submitted by former President Bush, and sticks with the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020.

Well, the story doesn’t support the headline. What they’re sticking with is the goal, not the plan (which is a description of how the goal is to be achieved). It’s hard to know whether this is good news or bad. It depends on whether or not the “plan” (i.e., Constellation/ESAS) is going to be stuck with. We still have no information about the plan.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Thoughts On COTS

…along with fixed-price versus cost-plus, appropriate payment milestones, and “skin in the game,” from Jon Goff.

We have to come up with much more innovative means of reducing the cost of access to orbit, something that Ares I doesn’t do at all. Charles Miller just became “Senior Advisor” on space commercialization with NASA’s Innovative Partnership Programs Office, so perhaps he will be able to help implement some of these kinds of ideas.

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

More OCO Fallout

16 Comments

Alan Boyle has a story on the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, with an amusingly stupid comment in his comments section:

When did NASA become so political? Oh right, when the neocons filled it with “scientists” who don’t like science that refutes the Bible (that is to say, all science). F-ing crazy people. This is what happens when the cornerstones of our civilization fall before the onslaught of religion: our future falls into the ocean. Adios homo sapiens.

Yes, there was never any politics at NASA before those evil “neocons” came along.

Seriously, WTF is this person talking about? When did NASA get “filled” with “scientists” who “don’t like science that refutes the Bible”? And how did they manage to infiltrate Orbital Sciences? Did I miss that?

Political Commentary, Space

Do We Need A Department Of Space?

Jeff Krukin says no.

I agree. We have too many departments already. But we do need a lot better interagency coordination of space policy, something that having a space council might or might not help with. I in fact agree with his recommendations in general (though in addition to elevating the Office of Space Commerce, I would re-elevate AST back out of the FAA and have it report directly to the SECDOT, as it did when originally formed in the eighties).

Political Commentary, Space

Our Continuing Throwaway Space Program

11 Comments

Well, another satellite gets tossed into the drink instead of into orbit:

Brunschwyler said the first sign of trouble during today’s failed launch occurred about three minutes after liftoff, when the Taurus XL rocket’s telemetry showed no sign it had shed its clamshell-like payload fairing.

The fairing is a nose-mounted shroud that protects the spacecraft inside from the Earth’s atmosphere until the booster reaches space. Once it separates, launch controllers expected to see OCO and its upper stage accelerate faster since it would have shed the excess weight. But that speed boost never occurred.

“As a direct result of carrying that extra weight, we could not make orbit,” Brunschwyler said, adding that the failure ultimately sent OCO crashing into the ocean near Antarctica. “We’re fairly certain that it did not fly over any land and it landed short of Antarctica.”

Failure to separate cleanly, or at all, is one of the most common causes of a launch failure of an expendable vehicle. And because it’s expendable, like every other aspect of a launch, each fairing separation is a first one. There’s no way to test it to ensure that it will separate properly when it is supposed to.

Had this been a reusable space transport, it would have had a payload bay door that had been operated successfully many times in the past (and the vehicle would have had the performance capability to take it all the way to orbit). And if for some reason it couldn’t be opened on orbit, the mission would have been aborted, and the payload returned safely to earth to await another attempt, and a three-hundred-million-dollar satellite would have been preserved.

But instead, we continue to put up satellites on unreliable throwaway rockets that generally have much less value than the cargo, but often destroy it. And we plan to continue to do so on steroids, with the abominable plans for Constellation.

The proverbial Martian, looking at how we do spaceflight, would scratch his head at the antics of these crazy earthlings, but wouldn’t be at all surprised that we’d made so little progress in conquering his homeworld. And all because we were in such a hurry half a century ago that we decided to put up satellites with munitions.

[Update a few minutes later]

That satellite cost almost three hundred thousand dollars a pound.

There’s got to be a better way.