I have a longish rebuttal to Tom Jones up at Popular Mechanics.
[Update a few minutes later]
In case you’re confused, there are a couple problems with the piece that I’m trying to get fixed. First of all, obviously, that was supposed to be two billion dollars per launch not two bucks per launch (if only…). And I’ve quoted Tom Jones in the first paragraph on the second page, and farther down the page, Charlie Bolden, but there are no quote marks right now, so it makes it look as though their words are mine.
[Late afternoon update]
Jeff Greason weighs in on fairing-size issues in comments, and Jon Goff has some thoughts on heavy-lift technologies.
[Update a few minutes later]
The quotes on page two have been fixed, but we still have dollar-store prices for Ares I flights.
[Early evening update]
Ken Murphy says it’s the dawn of a new space enterprise.
The misunderstanding of “flexible path” is so widespread that I do sometimes wonder if it is misunderstanding at all or if some are simply poking at a strawman. I cannot speak to what the Obama administration has in mind, only what the Augustine Committee was talking about.
Unless you get to invent dream budget profiles very unlikely to be approved by Congress today, or indeed at any time since Apollo, the only way to get all the pieces of a planetary exploration architecture done at essentially the same time is to starve them all so they all wind up with substantially *higher* life cycle cost than they would if done in some rational manner.
Landers with no way to boost them to orbit, no way to do Earth departure, and no way to carry crew back to Earth aren’t too useful.
But boosters with an Earth departure stage, and with an Earth return vehicle, *ARE* useful without the lander; there are many useful missions to do with them.
Therefore: do your Earth departure stage and Earth return vehicle first, along with whatever booster is sufficient for those early missions. Then, while working on your landers (and, if so selected, a larger booster), DO those missions, get useful return, build up experience in longer-and-longer duration missions, show everyone that progress is happening. THEN go to the planetary surface (pick the one that you like).
Anyone who can’t think of how to do absolutely *fanstastic* missions to asteroids and Phobos/Deimos while that other work is going on needs to question just how seriously Apollo has come to dominate their thinking.
People who think “flexible path” means “don’t go anywhere” have failed to take the words of the Augustine report at face value.
I do appreciate that the model is so different from Apollo that it takes time and thought to understand what it is about; I did not see it at first myself — but once I got past my preconceptions, I found the logic of this approach overwhelming. This is simply what exploration looks like in a world where the budget doesn’t double for a few years and then halve again. You build a piece at a time and as soon as you can start doing things with the pieces, you do so.
There are intelligent critiques of a flexible approach, which boil down to “the approach might make sense but NASA can’t possibly do anything useful without picking The One Destination and The One Approach”. The concern is legitimate and there are risks in *any* path we take from where NASA finds itself. My question to such critics would be “and how’s that One Best Destination approach been working out for you? Like what you’ve been getting?”
Landers with no way to boost them to orbit, no way to do Earth departure, and no way to carry crew back to Earth aren’t too useful.
Sadly, I feel this is so wrong, and at odds with the principle of incrementalism behind the Flexible Path. To get to the moon, we need a lander. We already have launch vehicles. A refuelable lander precursor can serve as an orbital transfer vehicle, a mini space station and a makeshift depot. Initially it could operate in LEO, on training missions. It could make quick forays into the lower van Allen belt, initially uncrewed, later on when radiation shielding has been demonstrated even with crew. Commercial crew capsules could return the crew to Earth in an emergency. The lander itself could return the crew to the ISS in nominal cases.
But boosters with an Earth departure stage, and with an Earth return vehicle, *ARE* useful without the lander; there are many useful missions to do with them.
They are only useful if you have payloads. And the payloads we have can be launched on existing upper stages. Yes, we need an EDS, but it can be based on Centaur or DCUS and launched on an EELV, fully fueled if necessary.
A launcher without payloads is like a bridge to nowhere.
Excellent writing Rand, and excellent discussion, Jeff and Martijn and others.
I’m a bit skeptical at the moment about yet another “mini heavy” lifter. How big can the other markets use? Ariane 5 is 20 t to LEO and 10 t to GTO and it’s usually dual manifested, I think they are looking for a smaller rocket when now planning Ariane 6 (though everything happens in secret like always with ESA etc.)
Oh, also, I assume the large Mars heat shield that Jeff mentioned is for the re-entry vehicle, not just for aerobraking.
It really does look like the pieces are coming together (Bigelow inflatables, private capsules, VASIMR-type propulsion, etc.) for some excellent, Flexible Path-type missions. Under Constellation these couldn’t even be considered, but now they can. I’m not so happy about killing Orion and Constellation Spacesuit, but Ares needed to die. The whole idea that there is only ONE true way to develop space (i.e. Constellation) was both distressing and disabling.
I rather like the idea that NASA’s true purpose should be to enable the National Geographic Society to send a mission to Mars (see http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/a-space-program-for-the-rest-of-us ).
I am somewhat amazed at the boldness of this proposal and deeply gratified at how much it encourages private industry and development. It will be exciting (and a tad bit scary) to see what the final compromise in Congress will be. I would not be surprised to see Orion-Lite and a Jupiter-type launcher in the budget.
Another thought: EELV Phase 1 and an EDS are highly desirable, but not at all urgent. EELV Phase 2 is undesirable, unless it turns out it is required to avoid marginal solutions. As it is that seems unlikely. In any case it will not happen for another twenty to thirty years, so no money should be spent on it now. It can always be held in reserve.
What we need now above all else is consolidation and commercialisation in LEO. That is what the Obama administration is planning to do already. Any beyond LEO activities should be focused on getting commercial propellant launches up and running as fast as possible. Research is an important part of that. Incrementally developing and fielding lander precursors and inventing plausible missions between LEO and GEO for them that will 1) demonstrate value and 2) consume substantial amounts of propellant is another part. Both are crucial and neither should have to wait for the other.
Both are far more important than launch vehicle development, let alone engine development and HLV research.
> Martijn Meijering Says:
>February 11th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
>==
>
> What we need now above all else is consolidation and
> commercialisation in LEO. That is what the Obama administration
> is planning to do already.
How is the Obama administration planing consolidation and commercialization in LEO? They are not fostering new industry in LEO. Not even increasing spending for launches.
No new market of any significance.
How is development of multiple commercial crew taxis not consolidating and commercialising LEO? Without this development of commercial crew vehicles would have had to be funded entirely from ticket prices. Now much of it will come from NASA funds. A much smaller amount of development money will now have to be recouped from commercial customers. This will make Bigelow’s life a lot easier. Both NASA’s extra demand and the newly enabled commercial demand will drive down launch prices a bit.
> Martijn Meijering Says:
> February 13th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
>
> How is development of multiple commercial crew taxis not
> consolidating and commercialising LEO?
Its not developing any crew taxis, and at the small market they offer, they are not doing much of anything to support anyone else doing it.
The might be buying a couple flights from commercials, on top of Russia, maybe. But nothing on a scale to make a market or comercialize space.
SpaceX already has the Dragon, and NASA already has contracted for them to deliver cargo to the ISS. Dragon is man capable, so SpaceX could get a couple extra fights. Boeing likely will get a couple others.
> Without this development of commercial crew vehicles would have
> had to be funded entirely from ticket prices. Now much of it will
> come from NASA funds. A much smaller amount of development
> money will now have to be recouped from commercial customers.
> This will make Bigelow’s life a lot easier. Both NASA’s extra demand
> and the newly enabled commercial demand will drive down launch
> prices a bit.
The Launchers will already developed to serve Biggelow, who has contract options for over 20 crew flights a year. Obama’s change will likely not add that much over a decade – and at least a good fraction are already tasked to the Russians..
Well, $6B in funding is $6B that will not have to come out of ticket prices. NASA’s use of commercial crew taxis will remove a lot of FUD in the eyes of prospective customers and prospective investors. The increased flight rates of EELVs will drive down launch prices, since a substantial chunk of the price is paying back ELC money to DoD and that can now be divided over a larger number of launches.
> Martijn Meijering Says:
> February 14th, 2010 at 12:02 am
> Well, $6B in funding is $6B that will not have to come out of ticket prices.
They have no plans to spend anything like that on supporting or hiring launch services.
>== NASA’s use of commercial crew taxis will remove a lot of FUD
> in the eyes of prospective customers and prospective investors.
A pr stunt?
>== The increased flight rates of EELVs will drive down launch prices, =
Except they don’t intend to increase the flight rates significantly. I mean another 5-10 launches (likely not as many as 10) is not going to chainge the economics much.
They have no plans to spend anything like that on supporting or hiring launch services.
Correct, that money is for development of crew vehicles, which would otherwise have had to come out of ticket prices. It’s a major one off subsidy.
A pr stunt?
Good sales argument, “as used by NASA”.
> Martijn Meijering Says:
> February 14th, 2010 at 8:23 am
>> They have no plans to spend anything like that on
>> supporting or hiring launch services.
> Correct, that money is for development of crew vehicles, ==
No they don’t intend to do that eiather. The money is not in any way going to support or foster commercial launchers. All they intend to do is contract for a handful of extra crew transfer launches to the ISS.
>= Good sales argument, “as used by NASA”.
??
NASA reduced to a spokesmen. Rather then advancing our technology for space flight or presence in space, they endorse “good enough” launchers not much less safe, and dramatically less capable then the shuttles. With per launch costs — well there much better then they insanely bad Ares/Orion we really wanted to build.