Paul Spudis doesn’t think so. Neither do I. In fact, given what they’re doing with it, they apparently have too much.
12 thoughts on “Does NASA Need More Money?”
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Paul Spudis doesn’t think so. Neither do I. In fact, given what they’re doing with it, they apparently have too much.
Comments are closed.
Cutting the budget by so much NASA would have to choose between owning its own launchers and having a space program may be the only way to fix it. And even with a very low budget some shuttle-huggers would rather spend all the money on shuttle stack fixed costs and ISS missions just to keep the HLV option alive, just in case a more ‘enlightened’ administration and Congress might want to give them more money later. And all in the name of going beyond LEO soon, without needing those oh-so-risky cryogenic depots and in the name of blazing a trail for commercial space. Yeah right.
Unfortunately Paul, for whom I have the deepest respect, destroys his own arguement when he suggests that a NASA budget of between .5 and 1 percent of federal spending is sustainable. Now the current request for 2010 is at about .54 percent of the overall 2010 budget request, on the low end of Paul’s range of sustainability. 1 percent would give us a 35 billion dollar NASA, which is a ludicrous notion. But adding–say–two or three billion a year to properly pay for Constellation would only take NASA up to just over .6 percent of federal spending, well within Paul’s range of sustainability. So I fail to understand what the problem is.
Now the current request for 2010 is at about .54 percent of the overall 2010 budget request, on the low end of Paul’s range of sustainability. 1 percent would give us a 35 billion dollar NASA, which is a ludicrous notion.
I sincerely hope that the 2010 budget request is an anomaly.
“I sincerely hope that the 2010 budget request is an anomaly.”
A hope I share. But cutting down Obama’s spending doesn’t change my point by very much.
for the Ares I development costs, virgin galactic could fly about half a million humans to space. That should give every space nut a pause.
What budget is sustainable is highly dependent on the return on investment – which recently has not been good. NASA will now have to prove itself with less before being given more (is this possible within the current architecture?).
Did NASA really think it would not have to pay the price for succumbing to pork barrel politics?
The most important part of the article is in the closing paragraphs:
The response to the questions I asked at the beginning should not be, “Give them more money.” The question we need to ask NASA is, “Given a constant level of funding over time, can you create a program that incrementally and cumulatively builds up a real space faring capability?”
If the answer to that question is “No,” then we need to ask, “Why not?”
Steidle was right: systems of systems and spiral development. No more Griffin/Zubrin hubris. Although Zubrin at least got the part about not developing unnecessary systems right.
Stuff I never quite understood (as a software developer):
– Why wasn’t the SSME an option to XRS-2200 for X-33 in case development of that failed? SSME beat XRS-2200 on every performance metric. I remember reading about plane design during WWII and it was common to retrofit different engines before reaching production if the originally designed engine wasn’t available.
– Why weren’t the aluminum-lithium tanks for X-33 a fallback option from the onset and developed in parallel?
– Why wasn’t the Shuttle upgrade program pursued further?
– Why wasn’t an F1 engine powered boost stage used instead of the solids for Shuttle in the original design, consigning an important engine design to the dustbin and introducing new failure modes because of solid motor quirkyness?
…and so on.
Godzilla, from my reading of the nasaspaceflight.com forum, I gather that X-33 was merely a technology demonstration. There was no high level intent to move beyond that. And for it to be funded as an X project, they had to have enough new technologies (like new composite tanks or rocket engines) bundled in.
As for a Shuttle upgrade program, what is the point of upgrading Shuttles when their existence alone as political pork is the main reason for their existence? Further, there’s never been prior to 2005 a sufficiently coherent view of what could be a successor to the Shuttle.
In the case of the F1 engine, my impression is that the SRBs’ strength was in their simplicity. They are effectively giant tubes packed with solid propellant. Reusing them is a far easier task than an equivalent liquid fuel system, especially when exposed to air. It’s worth noting also that a number of prototype launch systems (Pegasus and the first Indian rockets come to mind) start with solid fuel motors precisely because these parts are easy to make.
Karl:
From what I understand solids are cheap in R&D costs compared to a liquid engine, but not quite that cheap in production. I am not sure how good these shuttle operations numbers are but:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/budget/fy96/hsf_3.html
If these numbers are accurate, the solid rockets manage to be even more expensive than SSME + ET, and the much badmouthed SSME ends up costing less than half than manufacturing the ET, which is just a drop down tank.
1. > Pete Says:
> July 8th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
> What budget is sustainable is highly dependent on the return on investment – =
>==Did NASA really think it would not have to pay the price for succumbing to pork barrel politics?
The problem is NASA (since the beat the Soviets moon race) was only seen by the public as good for prestige (we have a “sent folks to the moon” agency and you don’t) or as for pork. So NASA must market its projects to Washington on how much pork they can generate per project or per flight. Efficiency means generating the most expenses (pork to districts) per program or flight voted for.
1. > Godzilla Says:
> July 8th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
> Stuff I never quite understood (as a software developer):
> Why wasn’t the SSME an option to XRS-2200 for X-33 in case development
> of that failed? ==
>- Why weren’t the aluminum-lithium tanks for X-33 a fallback option
> from the onset and developed in parallel?
NASA didn’t want, nor would it except, a vehicle development program (theyt paid L/M a billion more to NOT build it as a full up functional RLV). They wanted a new technology integration demonstrator. L/M pointed out aluminum-lithium tanks would be lighter then composites for that use, etc – but NASA stated to congress that there was no point to the X-33 program unless it integrated in ALL the new technologies originally proposed for it.
That’s why L/M won the X-33 competition – everyone else’s bids used all off the shelf equipment to do SSTO.