Category Archives: Space

Business, Economics, Space

“NASA Problems”

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Yesterday, over at Space Politics, I saw a very peculiar comment:

…NASA failed to achieve the goal of low cost shuttle operations when they failed to pursue the privatization of the shuttle transportation system. Regrettably this failure may cost the lives of another shuttle crew as one of the cost saving features of the privatized shuttle would have been crew escape pods…a fatal flaw.

To which I responded: “Huh?”

Then, today, over at the Orlando Sentinel space blog, I saw something seemingly similar, from the same person:

Sen. Bill Nelson is backing a dead horse. If his staff had done their homework they know Ares I Orion shuttle replacement is not feasible. Too expensive to develop and to operate. Sen. Nelson is driving nails in NASA’s coffin…and maybe a shuttle crew by not supporting the shuttle crew escape pods…see: wwwnasaproblems.com [sic]

Posted by: Don Nelson | February 06, 2009 at 10:33 AM

So I corrected the URL by putting a dot between the “www” and “nasaproblems,” and wandered over there to see what was going on.

What a mess. Ignoring the site design, very little of this makes any sense, either from a business or technical standpoint.

I don’t have the time or the energy to delve into all the problems, but just to respond to the blog comments, I don’t know what “opportunity” NASA ever had to privatize the Shuttle. I actually supported a privatization study by USA back in the nineties, and it was very difficult to come up with a scenario that would make any kind of business sense for Shuttle privatization, given its intrinsically high costs, with little demand for it outside of government. And that’s ignoring all of the intrinsic institutional resistance that NASA and particularly JSC had to handing over the keys to anyone else.

But even if it could have been privatized, the notion that adding “crew escape pods” (even assuming that it is even really technically feasible) to the existing design would somehow “reduce costs” is absolutely loopy. What is the basis of this claim? Similarly, why would a private entity do this?

Putting a crew escape system into the orbiter as designed makes zero economic sense. As I’ve noted many times, crew are replaceable, while orbiters are not. If the Shuttle isn’t safe enough to fly crew, it’s not reliable enough to fly at all, as we’ve learned with the Challenger and Columbia losses, because we’re now down to a fleet of three vehicles, and it would cost billions to replace them, even if it made economic sense to operate them privately. That, in fact, is why we’re retiring it. The notion of privatizing Shuttle at this late date is utterly ludicrous.

This is obviously the work of an engineer, and not a program analyst.

Space

Delta Launch Tonight

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A Delta II, out of Vandenberg, with a new weather satellite, with a ten-minute window starting at 2:22 AM Pacific. The place I’m staying has a good view from the roof patio, but I’m afraid that the Pacific storm moving in tonight and tomorrow will obscure it. On the other hand, it may also delay it. If they don’t get out tonight, though, I’d guess they’ll have to scrub until after the second front moves through on Saturday.

Political Commentary, Space

Just Words?

Keith Cowing notes that President Obama read to schoolkids about the moon landings.

It would be nice to think that this is a harbinger for his space policy, but I would note that he’s been in office for two weeks now, and despite all the rumors prior to the inauguration, NASA continues to operate on an acting administrator. Of course, it would actually be unusual for an administration to name a NASA administrator so early. This is because it’s hard to find a candidate who is both capable and willing to do the job. The other reason is that space isn’t important…

Political Commentary, Space

Richardson’s Replacement

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(Republican) New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg has accepted President Obama’s nomination to be the new Secretary of Commerce. Apparently, a deal has been cut to allow this to occur without a change in the balance of power in the Senate, by having the Democrat governor appoint a Republican to replace him.

From a space standpoint, a lot of people in the commercial space community were excited about the Richardson pick, because of his very visible and active support of commercial space and space tourism. As head of the Commerce Department, he could have been helpful to that cause, through the Office of Commercial Space, and perhaps helping ameliorate ITAR and other regulatory issues. But Gregg is a cipher on these issues, so it isn’t clear whether this is good, bad or indifferent for commercial space. It’s probably not a subject to which he’s given much thought. On the other hand, he’s reportedly a smart guy, and perhaps educable if people can get to him early.

Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Six Years

It’s hard to believe, but the Columbia disintegrated, with seven crew, over the skies of Texas six years ago today. And our space policy remains as screwed up as ever.

[Update in the evening]

Clark Lindsey has links to some musical tributes to the disasters. Also, for those who missed the link on the earlier anniversaries this week, here are my thoughts a year ago on the cluster of space disasters at the end of January and early February.

[Bumped]

Political Commentary, Space

They’re Baaaaaccckkk

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George Abbey and Neal Lane have a new white paper on space policy recommendations. I haven’t read it yet, but I expect it to be pretty bad, based on history.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, I skimmed it. Other than the recommendation to cancel Ares 1, almost everything else is wrong. Certainly turning our backs on missions beyond LEO is, as is a focus on energy and the environment. There are other agencies responsible for this. I was amused by this:

It is distressing to observe the current state of the U.S. space program as the nation moves into a new progressive era with the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January 2009.

Emphasis mine. I don’t think that word means what they think it means.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Like one of the commenters over at NASA Watch, I too am shocked, shocked that John Muratore wants to revive X-38 and come back in a lifting body.

Political Commentary, Space

Shake Those Pom Poms, Jeff

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A dispatch from an alternate reality:

I know you all have seen the public discourse regarding Ares and Orion and shuttle, and understandably such discourse can temper our resolve to push forward — if we let it. But, let’s review the bidding. First, we should remind ourselves, as we saw in intimate detail at last summer’s Lunar Capability Concept Review (arguably the finest such review the team has yet executed), that the Ares I/Ares V/Orion/Altair transportation system is highly integrated and keenly designed to open the lunar frontier to us in the years to come. Our driving requirements of going anywhere on the Moon, staying twice as long as Apollo in a sortie mode, sending twice as many crew members, and enabling their return at any time, must remain at the forefront of any consideration to alter the nation’s exploration launch architecture. I assure each of you that we are doing all we can to communicate this key aspect of our baseline plan — it is about much more than launching Orion to LEO (Low Earth Orbit).

And where did those (trivial) requirements come from?

We don’t know, because the agency continues to refuse to show its work.

But it’s pretty pathetic that forty years after Apollo, it thinks it the height of ambition to spend tens of billions of dollars on a system that, even in the unlikely event that it works as currently designed, within budget and schedule, will only do twice the number of crew for twice the duration for billions of dollars per flight. Such a paltry goal simply isn’t worth the money, even if we ignore all the design and management issues. If NASA doesn’t want to get serious about space, then it should stop wasting the taxpayers’ money, and let someone else have it who is.