The title of this post should be the title of Tom Jones’ editorial over at the New York Post, in his defense of NASA’s current architecture and plans:
The shuttle’s successor, Orion, won’t fly until at least 2015. Some critics have called for NASA to scrap Orion’s new booster and go back to the drawing board. More worrisome, President Obama has left NASA leaderless since his inauguration, and proposes over the next four years to cut $3.1 billion from the Constellation program designed to develop Orion and its new Ares I booster. It’s hard to see how either approach will reduce the four-year “gap” between 2011 and 2015, when America will have no human launch capability, forcing our astronauts to ride Russian rockets to the space station.
The last sentence presumes that minimizing the gap should be NASA’s, and the nation’s highest priority in government-funded human spaceflight, to the exclusion of whether or not we get a good solution, or a cost-effective one. Obviously, anyone who has been reading me for long knows that I vehemently disagree.
Augustine said last week that his panel will also evaluate alternatives to the much-debated Ares I rocket booster. But Ares I has been in development for five years, with a first unmanned test flight scheduled for this fall. With adequate funding, I’m sure it can get Orion to orbit.
A review of NASA’s management and program execution is prudent, but also invites further delay in getting Orion flying. Building our first new manned spaceship in thirty-five years will be difficult, but NASA’s people are up to the challenge, just as they are proving with Hubble. If given the resources, I know they will launch Orion, and make it both safer and cheaper to operate than the shuttle. Its Ares boosters will be able to send its crews to the moon and beyond, to nearby asteroids.
The fact that Ares I has been in development for five years, but still hasn’t completed a Preliminary Design Review, should be a hint to Dr. Jones that there may be a problem with the program, or NASA’s management of it, and one that goes beyond a simple lack of funding. And there is little relationship between the supposedly upcoming “umanned test flight” and the actual vehicle design. Many program insiders have claimed that it is a Potemkin test, a public relations exercise to spectacularly demonstrate program “progress,” rather than one designed to give us much insight into actual Ares hardware performance.
There is no doubt in my mind that, given sufficient funding and time, NASA can launch something resembling Orion with something that may resemble Ares I. But it doesn’t follow that allowing them to do so would be a good idea. As I noted in my piece at PJM this past week, even ignoring all of the intrinsic technical issues with the Ares concept, even if it goes as NASA plans, it’s simply not worth the money. All it does is return us to the expensive days of Apollo, and is a huge step backward in capability.
For instance, we just saw the assembly of the ISS, and we are seeing the successful repair and upgrade of the Hubble as I type these words. I assume that Tom is aware that Ares/Orion would have no capability to do either of these things, despite a cost per flight comparable to, and perhaps even higher than that of the Shuttle, after amortizing development costs? (I should note that this is particularly amazing considering that Tom played a major role in that, with three ISS EVAs.)
We have built up a huge experience base of orbital operations over the past two decades, with satellite retrievals and repair, and the assembly of a huge structure in orbit. But NASA’s future plans completely abandon and ignore this capability, returning to the Apollo mentality of putting everything up in a single (or at most two) launches, and not preparing us at all, or at least long putting off the day for things like a Mars mission, for which it would simply be impractical, if not impossible, to stage without orbital assembly.
Once satisfied that our trajectory in space is correct, the President should dedicate the funds to meet those goals. In spending terms, NASA’s annual budget is miniscule: $18.3 billion next year, just one half of one percent of the $3.6 trillion federal outlay. Failing to correct NASA’s chronic budget shortfalls, on the other hand, will cede U.S. leadership in space even as we celebrate Apollo’s landmark achievements.
Yes, it’s a half of a percent, but that’s an artifact of the insane explosion of the federal budget this year, not because NASA is being particularly squeezed. In a normal budget, it would be about what it normally is, a percent or so.
But the problem isn’t the money. As I noted above, there seem to be two implicit assumptions in Tom’s piece — first, that reducing the gap is of paramount importance (though even there, he ignores the possibility of Falcon 9/Dragon), and that we should be willing to spend whatever it takes to not only make that happen, but to get back to the moon the way NASA proposes to do so.
Like the Constellation architecture itself, this was the mentality of Apollo. The program’s driving phrase was “waste anything but time.”
But it made sense then, because while space exploration was no more important then that it is now (i.e., not very), beating the Soviets to the moon was, as a key propaganda element of the Cold War, and it was justified to spend vast amounts of money to achieve that goal, despite the fact that it was so economically inefficient that we chose to no longer spend the money on that architecture once the goal was achieved.
We have to consider the possibility, which I hope Augustine will, that in fact the Ares concept is a poor use of taxpayer dollars if we want to have a cost-effective and mission-effective system. Tom’s editorial assumes a priori that there is no better way to go. But if there is, it’s certainly worth a year or three of additional gap. After all, we lived with a gap in the seventies while the Shuttle was under development, and the world didn’t come to an end. And if the private sector is sufficiently motivated, it is likely that it can solve the gap problem much faster than a fully funded Ares, particularly given that the confidence that it can hit the delayed 2015 date is so low.
I like Tom, but this is just NASA boosterism, and I don’t agree that it would be good policy, for either the taxpayers, or for those of us who want to see the US develop serious space capability.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Phil Plait has more boosterism at the Post. Again, it’s the typical plea for more money for NASA, on the assumption that money is all that is lacking, with no serious (or in this case, even unserious) thoughts as to how the money should be spent. And when he says that we need a “modern Apollo program,” it’s an indication to me that he doesn’t really understand what the Apollo program was all about.
What we need is a modern space policy, more attuned to the traditional national values of individualism and free enterprise than NASA has ever been.
“What we need is a modern space policy, more attuned to the traditional national values of individualism and free enterprise than NASA has ever been.”
So how do we get there? If we can kill the shuttle stack, we should. But can we? I don’t think we can. And if not, how do we make sure it is not harmful and perhaps even a little bit useful?
NASA’s ARES cr*p doesn’t use the shuttle stack. To reuse a well-understood system, check out the DIRECT folks.
It may not be the best way forward, but it may be the only politically feasible way forward.
Oh, I agree, it would be politically feasible. And it would allow for ISS extension, and it wouldn’t have to gut the science budget. It would be an improvement over Ares. It would not bring a modern space policy one bit closer however. I’d be amazed if the plan made it to the depot phase, since depots would make the shuttle stack superfluous. I you are going to kill it, why not kill it now? And if they’re not going to kill it now (and I don’t think they are), they won’t kill it later. Hence no depots and no modern space policy.
So suppose the Augustine people accept much of your reasoning, and assume Barak Obama accepts their guidance for determining future space policy. Ares I is killed, with the hope that COTS and COTS-D will suffice for getting supplies and people to the ISS. We rely on Bigelow for other human habitats in low earth orbit, possibly leading to some LEO space tourism. We kill Ares V, with the notion of eventually creating some better way of reaching the moon or nearby-passing asteroids.
Then what? We build propellant depots in LEO, right? That won’t come for free. We build (or buy from various free-market suppliers) rockets to take propellants from earth to those depots. Costing something, I’m sure. We devise a brand new set of rockets (“we” meaning some commercial company, not government employees) to fuel up on those orbital propellants and fly people onward to the moon or Mars or elsewhere.
This is absolutely sure to be BETTER than the Constellation program, it’s going to be FASTER, and it’s going to be a whole lot CHEAPER. Pick two.
We build (or buy from various free-market suppliers) rockets to take propellants from earth to those depots. Costing something, I’m sure.
I don’t think it’s going to cost fifty billion, which is the current estimate for Ares I/Orion…
This is absolutely sure to be BETTER than the Constellation program, it’s going to be FASTER, and it’s going to be a whole lot CHEAPER. Pick two.
When you compare it to Constellation, you can probably get all three… 😉
But even if a depot-based architecture results in a longer wait for return to the moon than Apollo on steroids, since we have to go that direction anyway, the sooner we do so the better, and it will save us a lot of money both up front and in the long run.
I’m unconvinced, let’s say, about propellant depots.
Long run, getting around the solar system (or futher) is going to take solar/laser-driven sails, ion engines, or nuclear power — likely (in my mind) on spacecraft which stay entirely in space and rendevouz with Aldrin-style Cyclers and planetary-based shuttles. Yes, we’ll need to refuel these interplanetary craft, but I think it’s going to be simpler and more convenient (and even possibly cheaper) to boost up a tank of hydrogen or helium from ground to spacecraft directly rather than deal with the hassle of maintaining depots.
Granted, I’m thinking in terms of established planetary colonies which have a great deal of infrastructure already in place. Propellant depots might be a grand idea in say 2050, even if passe by 2150.
Your thoughts?
@mike shupp:
What you and Rand say would be much better, but I believe the DIRECT proponents are right that it is very unlikely Congress will kill off the shuttle stack. They ought to, but they won’t. DIRECT has a chance of being acceptable. But I don’t believe for one moment that it will lead to an efficient cis-lunar transport architecture. So we have one plan that will work technically but not politically and one that will work politically but not technically. I keep hoping we can come up with a plan that is acceptable on both fronts.
My own idea for a compromise was to start with a hypergolics depot at L1/L2, because it is the cheapest, least technically risky depot possible, and the one that could be developed soonest. And despite the inefficiency of hypergolics, L1/L2 are such good locations that you can still reach a number of interesting places is cis-lunar space or even a bit beyond.
To get an Orion to L1/L2, you’d need some kind of upper stage and the smallest one that will do is the largest upper stage that is currently available, the Delta-IV upper stage. Since it is too heavy to launch by EELV, you’d need a bigger launcher and that’s where DIRECT comes in. They were planning to use the J-130 to launch the upper stage and an Orion to lunar orbit. It is enough to get your Orion to L1/L2 and back.
At L1/L2 you’d eventually need some kind of station, but you could start with just an Orion as a makeshift space station, perhaps doing radiation research. Then start with a modified Altair ascent stage as a slightly bigger station. A further upgrade with a descent stage precursor could be used as a cis-lunar shuttle. It could even get to GEO. You could also move out to SEL-2, and with further depots out to NEO’s and back. After that you could develop a lander.
And once you develop cryo depots, or SEP tugs, or cheap propellant launchers or arcjet tugs, or ISRU or whatever, you’d increase the capacity and efficiency of the transport network.
I’ve tried to sell this scheme to the DIRECT people, but to no avail. They keep saying it would be nice as a later addition, but they want to go to the moon first. I think the underlying reason is that they are afraid commercial entities will beat J-130+Orion to the ISS or beyond LEO. Because once you have a capsule the size of a Dragon or even a Soyuz, a Centaur will get you to L1/L2 and EELVs will get your Centaur to LEO. And then it will be plain for all to see that NASA developed an unnecessary launcher and an unnecessary capsule. They don’t want that and I don’t think Congress wants that either.
So, it appears the trick is to find a way that preserves a long term and crucial role for the shuttle stack and Orion. Orion is fine as a long-distance capsule that will take a crew all the way back from SEL-2 (>14 days) in a pinch, so that’s taken care of. It’s the shuttle stack that we need to find a long term role for.
One objection that has been raised against Lagrange rendez-vous is the lack of a life-boat. That might be circumvented by using GEO staging. It’s a kind of weird idea, but it might be harder to reach and therefore provide a lasting role for the shuttle stack. It would also allow for propulsive braking back to Earth and therefore reusable transport elements, even with hypergolics. In this way the long term survival of the shuttle stack might be made dependent on reusable hardware, depots and gateway stations. And NASA would have a strong incentive to develop novel propulsion systems to make the whole scheme more efficient.
A twist on this would be to see if you could launch something like Dream Chaser to GEO (not LEO) on J-130. This too would be a bit odd, but if they’re considering launching Orion on EELV, why not consider Dream Chaser on J-130?
Anyway, this would be a complete reversal, NASA would then be arguing in favour of what needs to be done instead of against it. Even at $1.5B a year for the shuttle stack, that would be a bargain.
Now, I don’t think this plan will work both politically and technically, but maybe it can be the start of a plan that could. I’m not expecting much good from the DIRECT camp, but I’m hoping people here might have better ideas. Bottom line: we might not like the shuttle, but I don’t think there’s a space program without. We might also wish most people were libertarians, but they’re not.
What do you think?
Martijn —
I really HATE the idea of Legrange point missions. Send robot spacecraft off to take a look, sure. But, people, no. Such trips don’t lead to anything; they’re tiptoe-ino-the-distance-and-run-back missions which don’t build anything for the future and will simply postpone the hard, expensive, and absolutely necessary task of establishing space/lunar-based infrastructure for another 10-15 years.
If we had a lot of money and will and could run several manned programs concurrently, you could argue that “Missions to L2” and L5 or whatever would give us a quick, cheap test of our manned spaceflight capabilities, but we don’t have the money and don’t have a lot of national will and we aren’t going to be running several manned programs simultaneously for decades to come.
I don’t want to see three astronauts at L2 in 2025, I’m trying to say. I want to see six guys (and gals) at a Little America-style base near the lunar south pole. And by 2050, I want to see 200 people in that Lunar Base, and by 2100 I want to see — through the sides of my coffin, no doubt — 2000 people in Luna City One and several hundred other people digging out foundations for Heinleinville, Clarksburg, Von Braunplatz, and Far Side Station. And by 2200 I want ….
L2 isn’t getting us in that direction.
Long run, getting around the solar system (or futher) is going to take solar/laser-driven sails, ion engines, or nuclear power
Solar sails and ion engines are poorly suited for human missions.
Nuclear propulsion is another matter but the political obstacles are formidable. It may not be viable until we can mine nuclear fuel from the Moon or asteroids instead of launching it from Earth.
Yes, we’ll need to refuel these interplanetary craft, but I think it’s going to be simpler and more convenient (and even possibly cheaper) to boost up a tank of hydrogen or helium from ground to spacecraft directly rather than deal with the hassle of maintaining depots.
What about operations in Low Earth Orbit? Building interplanetary craft doesn’t mean we have to stop doing everything closer to home. People didn’t stop building coastal vessels when they invented ships that could cross the ocean.
I really HATE the idea of Legrange point missions. Send robot spacecraft off to take a look, sure… If we had a lot of money and will and could run several manned programs concurrently, you could argue that “Missions to L2″ and L5 or whatever would give us a quick, cheap test of our manned spaceflight capabilities, but we don’t have the money and don’t have a lot of national will and we aren’t going to be running several manned programs simultaneously for decades to come.
You overlook another possibility — reducing the cost of spaceflight so multiple missions *don’t* cost a lot of money.
You also assume that spaceflight is something that can only be done by “national will.” That isn’t true. There are several manned programs running simultaneously right now: Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace, Pioneer Rocketplane, Armadillo Aerospace, Bigelow Aerospace, and others. I know, none of those companies are going to the Moon, Mars, or Epsilon Eridani III but the first airplanes didn’t cross the Atlantic nonstop, either. (There’s SpaceX, which has an explicit goal of going to the Moon and Mars.)
And, curiously, you say you don’t hate Lagrange point missions as long as only robots are allowed to go. Why is that? It isn’t true that unmanned missions are always cheaper. NASA is spending $500 million to do an unmanned circumlunar mission, for example, while Space Adventures is offering a manned circumlunar Soyuz flight for $100 million. You need to define the parameters to determine whether robots or humans will be more cost-effective for a given mission.
Saying that humans should not go to the Langrange points because it will make it impossible for humans to go to the Moon is like saying that Alcock and Brown should not have flown from North America to Ireland because it would make it impossible for Lindbergh to fly from North America to France.
I want to see six guys (and gals) at a Little America-style base near the lunar south pole. And by 2050, I want to see 200 people in that Lunar Base
Von Braun wanted things like that, too, but Apollo turned out to be a dead end. There’s no reason to think Apollo II will succeed where he failed. In order to grow, infrastructure needs to be affordable.
@Mike:
Lagrange points are mainly useful as transit hubs. They sit on interplanetary crossroads and they are the cheapest accessible locations beyond LEO. They lead to the moon, but also to Mars. Earth Moon L1/L2 also lead to Sun-Earth L2 which is even even better staging location for a Mars Transfer Vehicle. Once we have the Lagrange points, we have the moon. And once we have the moon and ISRU, we have the solar system.
A Lagrange point is where you would arrive by capsule and get in a reusable lunar lander. Without gateway stations and depots, you couldn’t have reusable transport and you would need massive launchers, launching both capsule and expendable lander, which no commercial entity can afford. And as it happens, Lagrange points are really great for tourism beyond LEO. Travelling between Lagrange points is cheap, so you could easily make a cruise around the moon from L1 to L4 to L2 to L5 and then back home. In this way you could look at the Earth and moon from various angles and distances (including the far side) for not much higher cost than a trip just to L1. This is going to happen long before any tourist can afford a trip to the lunar surface or any operator can afford to build a lunar surface hotel.
In short: if we are going to go to the moon in a sustainable way, we have to go to the Lagrange points first.
@Edward:
Don’t forget that Apollo was not the way von Braun wanted to do it, he would have gone down the incremental road. When people try to out-von-Braun von Braun, they try to emulate what von Braun was forced to do, not what he wanted to do. The cancellation of Apollo was not von Braun’s fault. On the other hand, there would have been no funding for von Braun’s far-sighted vision. I think this is what Rand was alluding to when he talked about understanding what Apollo was all about.
To get an Orion to L1/L2, you’d need some kind of upper stage and the smallest one that will do is the largest upper stage that is currently available, the Delta-IV upper stage. Since it is too heavy to launch by EELV, you’d need a bigger launcher and that’s where DIRECT comes in.
Why do you need to use Orion? A Soyuz would be about 7 tons, a Dragon about 10 tons, rather than 20+ tons.
And if you don’t have to spend $10 billion to develop an Orion capsule and $N billion to develop DIRECT, you can afford to buy a lot of Soyuz or Dragon capsules. (Remember, while DIRECT may be cheaper than Ares on paper, Ares on paper was also considerably cheaper than Ares in practice. There’s no reason to think the same thing the same thing wouldn’t happen to DIRECT once NASA started building it.)
At L1/L2 you’d eventually need some kind of station, but you could start with just an Orion as a makeshift space station, perhaps doing radiation research. Then start with a modified Altair ascent stage as a slightly bigger station.
Again, why not start with a Dragonlab (which SpaceX is already developing)? If more space is needed, why not add a Bigelow module (which, unlike the Altair, actually exists)? Why must NASA develop everything from scratch when commercial hardware is available off the shelf or in development?
I’m not expecting much good from the DIRECT camp, but I’m hoping people here might have better ideas.
Better ideas than DIRECT? That’s a pretty low bar. Simply burning dollar bills on Pad 39, for example. 🙂
Bottom line: we might not like the shuttle, but I don’t think there’s a space program without.
You are mistaken. There are many space programs, and only one has the Shuttle. (Two, if you want to count Buran.)
Edward,
I agree completely, that would be a much better way of doing it. But while it’s wonderful from a technical point of view, it seems completely impossible from a political point of view. I’d love to be wrong, but directing pork to the appropriate districts and organisations is likely to be the number one priority Congress has. And that means preserving the shuttle stack and its workforce. I think any architecture that doesn’t preserve the shuttle stack is dead on arrival in Washington. It’s wrong, but that’s just the way it is.
And the fact that a smaller capsule could reach L1/L2 with existing launchers is exactly why NASA doesn’t want gateways and depots before they have reached the moon and are on their way to Mars. It would expose the fact that their capsule and launcher are unnecessary and neither they nor their supporters in Congress want that. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to NASA and Congress if commercial players went beyond LEO before NASA could.
Don’t forget that Apollo was not the way von Braun wanted to do it, he would have gone down the incremental road.
Not really. From the time he published Das Marsprojekt, Von Braun always had the same basic plan. Build der Great Big Rocket, then a space station, followed by a sprint to the Moon, then a sprint to Mars. He would have relied more on orbital rendezvous and assembly, but apart from that there was little incremental about it.
The cancellation of Apollo was not von Braun’s fault.
Von Braun himself disagreed with you, at the end. He himself acknowledged that Apollo was unsustainable.
On the other hand, there would have been no funding for von Braun’s far-sighted vision. I think this is what Rand was alluding to when he talked about understanding what Apollo was all about.
I won’t presume to speak for Rand, but Apollo was about providing political cover for JFK after the Bay of Pigs. It was not about science, exploration, or even national security. The guys working on military x-planes laughed at the idea that there was any value (or military threat) in launching astronauts in “capsules” on ballistic missiles. Tom Wolfe mentions that in “The Right Stuff,” and there’s even a brief allusion to it in the movie. (When the Air Force press liason says, “These boys sense panic in your program. That’s something they don’t respond to.”)
I agree completely, that would be a much better way of doing it. But while it’s wonderful from a technical point of view, it seems completely impossible from a political point of view…. I think any architecture that doesn’t preserve the shuttle stack is dead on arrival in Washington.
And why do you believe we should depend on Washington?
Well, if commercial players were to reach L1/L2 before NASA reached the moon, I’d be extatic. I’m not saying there should be government run space programs. In fact, I think there probably shouldn’t be. But if there is going to be one anyway, then it would be nice if those $20B a year were spent in a way that had synergy with commercial manned spaceflight. Once we have a spacefaring society, there wouldn’t be much of a role for government run space organisations, any more then there would be a role for government run banks. Oh wait…
Ed Wright —
“Solar sails and ion engines are poorly suited for human missions.”
I said “solar/laser-driven sails.” I have in mind something like 10-mile across layers, zipping along at say 3-8 million miles from surface of the sun, possibly in a constellation of 2-4 dozen such gadgets. Not doable this century, I’m sure, but I’m trying to look a bit further out.
“What about operations in Low Earth Orbit?”
What about them? Long run, I’m sure we’ll have lots of vessels running about in NEO, Clark orbits, etc., and most of them will be assembled in space, operated in space, and chopped to pieces for salvage in space, without ever entering the earth’s atmosphere. Will they be most efficienty fueled from a propellant depot or by dedicated fuel tanks shipped up from the earth? I dunno, and I think it’s an open question.
“You overlook another possibility — reducing the cost of spaceflight so multiple missions *don’t* cost a lot of money. ”
This year, spaceflights are expensive. Next year they will be expensive. The year after they will be expensive. And so on. Sufficienty expensive that that even that Instrument of Ultimate Terror and Abomination, the US Government, is unlikely to fund several simultaneous manned space programs.
“Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace, Pioneer Rocketplane, Armadillo Aerospace, Bigelow Aerospace, and others”
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I’m sure over time these and other firms will make significant contributions to manned space flight. But, are these the Eastern Airlines and Trans World Airlines and BOACs and Air Yemani’s of the future? I’m skeptical again. The airplane business got a little bit of R&D subsidization in 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1950-1952, and 1952-1991 — two world wars, a Korean conflict, and a lengthy cold war pushed aircraft design at a much faster clip than purely commercial requirements would have. Spaceflight isn’t gettiing anything close to that push.
“It isn’t true that unmanned missions are always cheaper. NASA is spending $500 million to do an unmanned circumlunar mission, for example, while Space Adventures is offering a manned circumlunar Soyuz flight for $100 million.”
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid too fast, Ed. You’ll choke, or even worse things will happen.
“Von Braun wanted things like that, too, but Apollo turned out to be a dead end.”
Jesus Christ and his apostles died too (I point out as a really devout agnostic) and things really didn’t go afterwards as they had anticipated, and nothing was ever afterwards heard… Too damned bad about these dead ends, isn’t it?
Seriously, if you REALLY think Werner von Braun had a blueprint for spaceflight far into the future that only allowed for Apollo-like government demonstrations of capability, you’ve misread the man as badly as those who damned him for gunning down Jews with his personal pistol because “he was a Nazi and that’s what all the Nazi’s did”.
Get past thinking about this stuff like a ten year old, please.
But if there is going to be one anyway, then it would be nice if those $20B a year were spent in a way that had synergy with commercial manned spaceflight.
Yes, and it would be nice if cocker spaniels learned how to use can openers. 🙂
What does that have to do with your proposal? DIRECT has no synergy with commercial spaceflight.
What about them? Long run, I’m sure we’ll have lots of vessels running about in NEO, Clark orbits, etc., and most of them will be assembled in space, operated in space, and chopped to pieces for salvage in space, without ever entering the earth’s atmosphere.
How will that happen, if NASA’s basic modus operandi for the next decade or more is to avoid it?
“DIRECT has no synergy with commercial spaceflight.”
Oh, the guys are going to be hurt when they hear this. They were when I said it… 🙂
What I’m proposing is a compromise between DIRECT and what you and I might want. Under the compromise NASA would get to build J-130, but no upper stage and would be required to set up an L1 hypergolics depot. J-130+DHCSS+Orion would allow them to go beyond LEO soon, sparing NASA and Congress the embarassment of seeing commercial players go beyond LEO before NASA did and giving voters and taxpayers some earlier return on their tax dollars than would have been the case under DIRECT.
At the same time, J-130 would be mostly banished beyond LEO, thus freeing up ISS support for COTS-D and EELVs. The EELVs would initially launch Orion, but once a commercial capsule became operational, Orion would be banished to beyond LEO duty too.
On beyond LEO duty J-130 would occasionally launch astronauts to L1 to check up on radiation experiments and to make sure little green men didn’t get their hands on the taxpayers’ precious hypergolic propellants. Appropriate amounts of hypergolic propellants could be launched by J-130 to distribute the necessary amount of pork to Sen Nelson’s state to solve the political system of equations. As the cis-lunar shuttle came online, J-130 could get out of the propellant launching business and leave that to commercial launchers. It could then focus on cis-lunar missions.
After a while commercial capsules and launchers would be able to reach an L1 gateway under an L1 COTS-D program. J-130 could then develop a new hobby launching Dream Chasers modified for GEO duty. These would conveniently be heavy enough not to fit on an EELV, thus preserving the shuttle stack and hence political support. You might need to extend the payload of J-130, while still not being allowed to build a new upper stage. This gives an excellent excuse to tinker with those solid rocket boosters, meaning more pork for ATK and hence more political support. The GEO gateway would allow propulsive transfer both ways between GEO and L1, thus alowwing reusable shuttles all the way to Earth. Continued survival of the shuttle stack would now be aligned with gateways, depots and commercial spaceplanes.
Since hypergolics are inefficient, this would give MSFC the perfect excuse to embark on a multi-year research project trying out various exotic propellants (green propellants, isru propellants, you name it) and propulsion systems (arcjet, resistojet, SEP, hybrid, whatever), thus giving Sen Shelby and the state of Alabama the appropriate amounts of pork to compensate them for the loss of Ares or even J-246. It would also ensure that American scientists and engineers would be at the forefront of advanced in-space propulsion systems.
It would still cost loads of money, but at least now that money would be doing something useful.
Anyway, that’s my sales pitch. I’m sure it’s full of holes, but let’s find the bugs and see if we can fix them.
I have in mind something like 10-mile across layers, zipping along at say 3-8 million miles from surface of the sun, possibly in a constellation of 2-4 dozen such gadgets. Not doable this century, I’m sure, but I’m trying to look a bit further out.
I doubt if human beings will be zipping along 3-8 miles above the surface of the Sun in any century.
This year, spaceflights are expensive. Next year they will be expensive. The year after they will be expensive.
That’s irrelevant. NASA is not planning to build a Moon base, zip along the surface of the Sun, or do any of the things you’re talking about this year. Or next year. Or the year after.
the US Government, is unlikely to fund several simultaneous manned space programs.
That’s only a problem for those who assume all manned space programs should be funded by the US government. It doesn’t bother me at all.
I’m skeptical again. The airplane business got a little bit of R&D subsidization in 1914-1918, 1939-1945, 1950-1952, and 1952-1991 — two world wars, a Korean conflict, and a lengthy cold war pushed aircraft design at a much faster clip than purely commercial requirements would have
Ah, that old chestnut. You don’t think there was any military spending for rocket development during the Cold War? Only aircraft development?
Over 40,000 people flew on airplanes *before* World War I — about 100x the number who’ve flown in space, in about 1/10 the time. What war do you credit that development to?
Jesus Christ and his apostles died too
Do you expect Von Braun to rise from the grave and take his followers into space? If so, all I can say is that I believe you’re mistaken.
Yes, Von Braun promised Apollo would lead to all sorts of things beyond “Apollo-like government demonstrations.” He was lying in order to get funding for his program. The difference between Von Braun and his disciples is that he knew he was lying.
Do you have any logical arguments?
J-130+DHCSS+Orion would allow them to go beyond LEO soon, sparing NASA and Congress the embarassment of seeing commercial players go beyond LEO before NASA
NASA doesn’t want to go beyond LEO soon. Neither do the DIRECT guys. If they did, they’d use Delta/Atlas/Proton/Soyuz/Ariane/etc. As Burt Rutan said, “If all you want to do is go to the Moon in a capsule, why not do it next Tuesday?”
There’s no guarantee that NASA would manage to complete all of those development projects before commercial companies go beyond LEO. Or ever, for that matter. And if NASA and Congress can’t do anything more rational than DIRECT, they deserve to be embarrassed.
Wernher von Braun speaks from the grave!
In a 1962 Encyclopedia Americana article, Wernher von Braun and his Space Systems Information Chief, Frederick I. Ordway, III wrote an encyclopedia article relevant to the present topic where they describe space exploration architectures. The citation for the paper is “Space-Vehicles, Space Carriers, Spacecraft, Space Stations, and Spaceships,” (With Frederick I. Ordway III) The Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. 25, 1962, pp. 320-334.
They write in section 4 under spaceships, “Whereas manned flights from the earth’s surface to a space station require streamlined multistage space carrier rockets with earth-returnable upper stages, voyages into deeper space, departing from and returning to a space station, permit the use of radically different and far more efficient vehicles. Such deep-space vehicles, or spaceships, would operate solely in vacuum conditions making streamlining unnecessary. In fact, even a hull would not be required for many designs.
Propellant tanks of plastic material, sent as freight from earth to the departure orbit in a collapsed condition, could be suspended in an open, lightweight framing. Or rigid tanks assembled from parts of orbiting space carriers could be used to make up the spaceship. The rocket thrust of a spaceship may be much smaller than its own weight, a circumstance prohibiting ground-launched space carriers which would simply not lift off. It must be appreciated that prior to a departure from the space station, the spaceship’s weight would be sustained completely by centrifugal force, and with small amounts of thrust the vehicle could spiral out from the orbit into a space departure trajectory.
All these advantages and alleviating factors of which the designer of a spaceship can avail himself are so great that they easily outweigh the obvious disadvantages of assembly and fueling operation in the orbit of departure and the necessity for deep-space expeditions to change ships in this orbit (Fig. 13). We therefore may expect that voyages in to deeper space and to other heavenly bodies will consist of two distinct phases: (1) flights by carrier ferry rockets between the earth’s surface and orbital space stations, and (2) flight in spaceships from these space stations around the earth to a distant planetary target with ensuing return to the space stations. Since equipment, propellants, and personnel for phase (1) flights must first be sent as cargo to the space station orbit of departure, phase (1) flights may be considered as a support operation for phase (2) flights.”
Wernher von Braun
Director,
and Frederick I. Ordway, III,
Chief, Space Systems Information Branch,
George C. Marshall Space Flight Center,
National Aeronatics and Space Administration,
Huntsville, Ala.
So von Braun said the obvious and we still debate it today. Different ships for different environments.
Sort of like how boats, planes, trains, cars and feet can all coexist?
The chief problem with NASA or anyone’s spacefaring plans is that nobody can really figure out why to bother at all. I love the space program and have followed it since I was a kid–I even watched the first step on the moon life on TV! But for the life of me, I can’t come up with a scientific justification for the manned space program. The robotic program has been wildly successful with a payback far exceeding the manned program.
There is also the nasty fact that one thing we have learned from the manned space program is that humans are a terrible fit in outer space. There is extremely good evidence that humans will fair very poorly on the moon and on mars during long term missions.
In a world where money was no object, a manned space program is wonderful, but we don’t live in such a world and the manned program has very high costs and absurdly low return on investment (contrary to myth, the manned space program led to very few technological breakthroughs–almost all the vaunted leaps were actually due to cold war military spending and would have happened regardless.)
The space station, for example, is a gargantuan waste of money by any measure. It does nothing that couldn’t be done in other ways for much, much lower costs.
All that being said; there may be a commercial justification for a manned space program (though I’m not convinced.) If there is, let corporations foot the bill and enjoy the profits.
By the way, to make clear, despite my decrying of wasting so much money on a manned program, I am for the following two things:
1) Sending a dash mission to and from Mars just so we can say we did it. (One idea I’ve had is to use terminal cancer patients so we don’t have to worry so much about shielding and/or someone dying and to preposition fuel and supplies.)
2) There may be scientific justification for a huge array telescope on the far side of the moon. On the flip side, it may be more feasible to create such an array using robotic telescopes in outer space.
Joe:
…
Terminal cancer patients so that we don’t have to worry so much about rad shielding.
Seriously? I mean, that’s a joke, right? I mean…seriously?
Rand:
“All it does is return us to the expensive days of Apollo…”
Oh-ho-ho. We’ve been hearing for years about how “we could go to the Moon in the 1960s but we can’t go there today”. Now, all of a sudden, going to the Moon was a foolish waste of money that was done totally wrong. Which was it? A grand technological achievement, or a foolish and pointless stunt?
Thread:
Hm, lots of DIRECT boosterism, as it were. I’d like to see the CVs of these posters so that we can establish how much actual design experience they’ve had. I’ve said this elsewhere, but “heritage reuse” is like suggesting that you can save money on a Ferrari if you use the engine from your old Ford Taurus.
Oh-ho-ho. We’ve been hearing for years about how “we could go to the Moon in the 1960s but we can’t go there today”. Now, all of a sudden, going to the Moon was a foolish waste of money that was done totally wrong.
Why can’t it be both?
The point isn’t that it was a foolish waste of money per se — it was well worth the money for its purpose, which was a propaganda victory in the Cold War. It was only a foolish waste of money in the context of the goal of developing an affordable space-faring infrastructure. There is nothing inconsistent about my position.
@DensityDuck:
By DIRECT boosterism, do you include what I wrote above? If so, I’d love to see the DIRECT guys’ reaction to that! I’ve been a vocal critic for a while… The only reason I would support an “L1/L2 Direct” is because I think it may be more politically acceptable than all-commercial launchers. Other than that there is no reason for the shuttle stack to exist.
The point isn’t that it was a foolish waste of money per se — it was well worth the money for its purpose, which was a propaganda victory in the Cold War.
I have serious doubts it was worthwhile even for that. The Soviet Union died not because we beat them to the moon, but because they collapsed economically. If a lack of US space achievements had caused them to acquire more client states (although I doubt it would have), they would likely have collapsed faster — their client states were economic drains (see Cuba, for example).
It’s not “all of a sudden,” Mr. Duck. If you read The Right Stuff, you would know Air Force officers were saying the same thing in the 60’s.
Just because you haven’t heard something before doesn’t mean it’s a new idea.
And even if it were a new idea, that wouldn’t necessarily mean it was wrong.
NASA policy makes perfect sense if properly interpreted; and that interpretation is that NASA’s real goal is to prevent a human presence in space that actually means something, by any means necessary.
Using the name “Orion” for their latest massively expensive waste of time fits in perfectly with that viewpoint. What happened to the real Orion?