Space

Once Again, I’m Shocked

…just shocked to hear that the exploration mission hardware has outgrown the planned launchers:

Once characterized as “Apollo on steroids” by NASA administrator Mike Griffin, the architecture surrounding the ESAS (Exploration Systems Architecture Study) has grown too heavy for its launch vehicles.

I wish there were more to the story. The last bit, about a rendezvous thousands of kilometers above the far side of the moon is tantalizing. Are they proposing to use L-2 instead of L-1? Why? Inquiring minds want to know.

This was (almost) inevitable. And it shows the shortsightedness of the “Apollo on steroids” approach. By insisting on doing it all in one and a half launches, they put off the day that we developed the necessary spacefaring capabilities of orbital rendezvous, docking and routine operations, including propellant transfer and storage. What did they plan to do when after a few lunar flights, they decided to go to Mars? Develop a Seadragon?

[Update a couple minutes later]

I see that I was channelling Clark Lindsey (as often is the case). He has more, including the fact that it was apparently due to their (other shortsighted) decision to abandon methane.

And a big D’OH! There was a lot more to the story that I mentioned above–I just didn’t realize that I had to scroll down. Yes, it is an L-2 architecture. Let me go read, and think about it, and I’ll have more later.

[Not much later]

OK, I’ve at least glanced through it, and here are initial thoughts. First, the understatement:

It appears that the changes made to the ESAS architecture in the near-term may have long-term ramifications for the entire VSE.

Which was exactly why Steidle wanted to perform the CE&R studies–to consider all of these possibilities, and their implications, both short term and long. But the architecture that NASA came up with doesn’t resemble any of them (as far as I know). There’s little evidence that they even bothered to look at the reports–they’re simply gathering virtual dust on the servers.

I like a Lagrange rendezvous point, but all of the analysis that we did at Boeing indicated that L-1 was a better choice than L-2. The advantage of L-1 is that it’s always visible from earth, and it’s a relatively short trip home from there. We were strongly driven in our trades by NASA demands (unreasonable ones, in my opinion) that astronauts be able to get home in an arbitrarily short amount of time. The disadvantage of L-1 is the propulsion cost, and L-2 is indeed more efficient from that standpoint. But it wasn’t considered in the Boeing CE&R studies because of the trip-time constraint. Its other problem is that unlike L-1, which is continually visible from earth, L-2 never is. For communications, a relay satellite in a halo orbit, or a series of them in lunar orbit, will be required.

I would think that the problems they’re running into at this point would justify a complete reconsideration of their approach, including their previous aversion to orbital operations and propellant depots. Not to mention, as Clark points out, methane. It’s funny, because I was just in a telecon a little while ago in which I was told to expect “big changes” in CEV. Now I understand what that means. It will be interesting to see how this ripples down, and right now, it makes it hard for the contractors to move forward in requirements analysis.

Space

Once Again, I’m Shocked

…just shocked to hear that the exploration mission hardware has outgrown the planned launchers:

Once characterized as “Apollo on steroids” by NASA administrator Mike Griffin, the architecture surrounding the ESAS (Exploration Systems Architecture Study) has grown too heavy for its launch vehicles.

I wish there were more to the story. The last bit, about a rendezvous thousands of kilometers above the far side of the moon is tantalizing. Are they proposing to use L-2 instead of L-1? Why? Inquiring minds want to know.

This was (almost) inevitable. And it shows the shortsightedness of the “Apollo on steroids” approach. By insisting on doing it all in one and a half launches, they put off the day that we developed the necessary spacefaring capabilities of orbital rendezvous, docking and routine operations, including propellant transfer and storage. What did they plan to do when after a few lunar flights, they decided to go to Mars? Develop a Seadragon?

[Update a couple minutes later]

I see that I was channelling Clark Lindsey (as often is the case). He has more, including the fact that it was apparently due to their (other shortsighted) decision to abandon methane.

And a big D’OH! There was a lot more to the story that I mentioned above–I just didn’t realize that I had to scroll down. Yes, it is an L-2 architecture. Let me go read, and think about it, and I’ll have more later.

[Not much later]

OK, I’ve at least glanced through it, and here are initial thoughts. First, the understatement:

It appears that the changes made to the ESAS architecture in the near-term may have long-term ramifications for the entire VSE.

Which was exactly why Steidle wanted to perform the CE&R studies–to consider all of these possibilities, and their implications, both short term and long. But the architecture that NASA came up with doesn’t resemble any of them (as far as I know). There’s little evidence that they even bothered to look at the reports–they’re simply gathering virtual dust on the servers.

I like a Lagrange rendezvous point, but all of the analysis that we did at Boeing indicated that L-1 was a better choice than L-2. The advantage of L-1 is that it’s always visible from earth, and it’s a relatively short trip home from there. We were strongly driven in our trades by NASA demands (unreasonable ones, in my opinion) that astronauts be able to get home in an arbitrarily short amount of time. The disadvantage of L-1 is the propulsion cost, and L-2 is indeed more efficient from that standpoint. But it wasn’t considered in the Boeing CE&R studies because of the trip-time constraint. Its other problem is that unlike L-1, which is continually visible from earth, L-2 never is. For communications, a relay satellite in a halo orbit, or a series of them in lunar orbit, will be required.

I would think that the problems they’re running into at this point would justify a complete reconsideration of their approach, including their previous aversion to orbital operations and propellant depots. Not to mention, as Clark points out, methane. It’s funny, because I was just in a telecon a little while ago in which I was told to expect “big changes” in CEV. Now I understand what that means. It will be interesting to see how this ripples down, and right now, it makes it hard for the contractors to move forward in requirements analysis.

Political Commentary

An Interesting Question

What happened to Hillary’s books?

…here is a FASCINATING observation I have made. I have thus far seen NOT ONE of the Hillary books at either flea markets or thrift stores. Have you? Think about it. This book supposedly has MILLIONS of copies floating around out there and yet somehow they just don’t make their way thru the normal book recycling system like other books. So what happened to all the Hillary books?

…Could the vast majority of the Hillary books (except for the autographed copies sold for profit on eBay) end up in warehouses? That is my suspicion and most likely they are still SITTING there. And who bought those books only to warehouse them? Labor unions? Other organizations? Using Freakonomics observations makes me suspicious that Hillary has received campaign contributions via PHONY book sales.

Someone might want to look into this. But most won’t.

Political Commentary

Bush Was Right

Amidst all of the media hyperventilating over the Bush “leaks,” the WaPo actually has a sensible editorial today. The post title is its first three words:

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson’s charge. In last week’s court filings, he stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity. Mr. Libby’s motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. Mr. Libby is charged with perjury, for having lied about his discussions with two reporters. Yet neither the columnist who published Ms. Plame’s name, Robert D. Novak, nor Mr. Novak’s two sources have been charged with any wrongdoing.

As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby’s indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It’s unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision.

Social Commentary

Homogenization?

So I was looking at this map of how people pronounce things in the US, and I noticed that very few of them showed any distinct regional differences. The most striking of the few that do are what people call sweetened carbonated beverages, that thing you drink water from, and what you call Halloween eve. Bubbler people seem to reside mostly in Wisconsin, and Devil’s Night seems to be a mostly Wolverine thing. I also notice that while they ask what people call drive-through liquor stores, they don’t ask about liquor stores in general. An appellation that’s apparently unique to Michigan (I didn’t realize this until others pointed it out to me, having grown up with it) was “party store.”

Most of them just showed that the distribution of people who called them different things was pretty evenly distributed (that is if 80% called it one and 20% another, that would be as true in the deep south as in New England).

I wonder to what degree mass media and migration has been wiping out regional dialects? How different would these maps have looked a hundred years ago?

Science And Society

Bad Week For Creationism

Via John Rennie (who seems to be blogging at Scientific American now) comes this sad story about “Dr. Dino” (aka Kent Hovind) and his dinosaur Bible park:

Escambia County authorities this week locked up a museum building at the theme park on North Palafox Street in Pensacola after Circuit Judge Michael Allen ruled the owners were in contempt of court.

Owners of the park, which shows how dinosaurs may have roamed the Earth just a few thousand years ago, did not obtain a building permit before constructing the building in 2002. They have argued in and out of court that it violates their “deeply held” religious beliefs, and that the church-run facility does not have to obtain permits.

Did I say sad? I meant hilarious. What a bunch of scam artists.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!