A point that Jim Muncy (or Henry Vanderbilt, or both) made last night in the wrap-up session was that he have to keep stamping down this nonsense that the new policy is the end of human spaceflight. Unfortunately, it’s like whack-a-mole. Here’s the latest, over at American Thinker:
America’s subsequent triumph in space, as the first and only nation to land men on the moon and safely return them, is the greatest achievement of the 20th century. So it makes perverted sense for Obama to destroy our pride in this matchless accomplishment and stage our humiliation before the world. America, which once deployed masterly innovation, commitment and daring to vanquish the Soviets in space, is now deliberately stranding seven astronauts in orbit with no way home except to hitch a ride from the Russians. We’ve surrendered the New Frontier.
The symbolism is breathtaking. From now on, whenever we remember with pride the courage and sacrifice of the Mercury astronauts, or Neil Armstrong taking “One small step for a man, one giant step for mankind,” or Jim Lovell and the crew of Apollo 13 calmly tinkering with duct tape to repair their capsule, we’ll quickly deflate with the afterthought: “Oh yeah. Now the Russians do that. We don’t.” There will always be a punchline, an asterisk, an anti-climactic stain at the end of the story.
Hey, lady? News flash. That was the Bush administration policy. And with that plan, we were not only going to be without a means to get to the space station before 2017 (and likely later), but at that point in time, we wouldn’t even have a space station. So if you’re going to complain about “surrender in space,” you’re six years late, and blaming the wrong guy.
The Bush/Griffin plan was to end shuttle and not extend ISS.
Extending ISS to 2020 and perhaps beyond 2020 creates a new category of up-mass and down-mass logistical challenges, especially if ISS is to be fully utilized as a research facility.
FY2011 does not address this challenge except perhaps by saying “We have experts working on this problem. Top experts. We will get back to you.”
PS — Continuing Constellation would indeed be disastrous.
However, to end shuttle AND extend ISS before being assured that ISS can be adequately supported will also be disastrous. Especially since ISS is now the linchpin of US space policy.
Who the hell is Stella Paul? What an efff-ing idiot. 5 paragraphs of content-free drivel and a last sentence:
The eternal flame on Kennedy’s grave is sputtering out, and America is lost in the dark.
Geeez, she earns something for writing that?? Good gawd I’m in the wrong profession.
It’s even more disheartening to look at the comments that people left on the article – it really seems like it was a political piece, and not meant to touch on any semblance of fact.
This is such a polarized political year – it will be interesting to see how the proposed NASA budget does as it moves through congress…
Another important point is that Bush is also the wrong guy to blame. Ending the space shuttle at some point was the right decision, because the space shuttle was never going to get us anywhere new. You have to throw down the gauntlet when dealing with a government bureaucracy, because otherwise it will argue forever that what it’s always been doing is a sacred cow. Look at Amtrak.
No, the guy to blame is Griffin. It’s not just that Griffin came in with biases and preconceptions — any leader, good or bad, is going to have those. The problem was that in Griffin’s world, replacing the space shuttle with something new was all about him. It would be like a golf tournament run by Tiger Woods; of course, he would want to win. All of the excitement these days in human spaceflight comes from people like Rutan and Musk and Carmack, not necessarily because they are better engineers than Griffin, but because they are competing against each other.
The current NASA leader, Bolden, is by no means perfect, but he deserves great credit for this much: He’s not trying to design his own rocket. He isn’t a referee who is out on the field trying to score a touchdown himself.
As for depending on the Russians, that was Clinton’s decision. It would have been far better to open the operation to free-market competition back then, but bringing in Russia at least created a degree of competition between their space agency and NASA. After all, they are the ones who got serious about space tourism.
I think that Stella Paul is too busy waving the American flag to see any of this. She has lost track of the fact that free enterprise is the real point, not the flag. Amtrak is also red, white, and blue, but that shouldn’t fool anybody.
Certainly the comments are correct that its humiliating for the US/NASA to longer be in the human space flight busness, adn rather then being leaders on this frontier – they have to buy seats on the old Soviet Soyuz they beat in the ’60’s in the space race.
> Jim Harris Says:
> April 11th, 2010 at 9:15 am
>
>==
> No, the guy to blame is Griffin. It’s not just that Griffin came in with
> biases and preconceptions — any leader, good or bad, is going to
> have those. The problem was that in Griffin’s world, replacing the
> space shuttle with something new was all about him. ==
Big agree. Griffen saw VSE as a way to build his ships, his alternative to the Saturn-I and V, and give him a legacy rivaling Von Braun. But by specifing a design and program with twice the cost of the space race, a cost dwarfing any project NASA had ever attempted, he doomed the program.
I left a fun little post for the conservatives over there. It only takes 1/2 an hour to get aproved for comments. Let them know the facts!
I posted this, I don’t think the moderators are going to let it through though:
Simple facts:
Cancellation of Shuttle & ISS was mandated by “The Vision for Space Exploration” in 2004. To fund this vision NASA was to receive an inflation plus 3% increase each year from 2004-2014. The received a inflation -2% decrease each year. Ares 1 was to have it’s 1st manned launch 2 years from now, they are now 5 years behind schedule.
Obama is proposing that NASA reform their launch services to purchase launch services in the same fashion as the Department of Defence, and every other space agency in the world.
ULA and Oribital both have impressive track records of safe launches, and delivering products on time, and on budget. Both have saved DOD billions over their former government ran launch system (Early Atals, Detla, and Titan).
I believe in capitalism on earth, and in LEO. Are you a socialist in space (only government can do LEO), but a capitalist on earth? Remember, the Russian space agency CONTRACTS Soyuz capsule launch, they don’t even own the capsule, at the end of every flight they return the capsule to Energia corporation, who owns every capsule but 1 that ever went to orbit). I guess America just can be as capitalist as the Russians.
Actually Griffin saw VSE as a means to getting back to the Moon and going other places. Now, under Obamaspace, we’re not, blatherings about “game changing technology” that wull allow us to do so some day in the undefined future notwithstanding.
Mark R. Whittington said “Actually Griffin saw VSE as a means to getting back to the Moon and going other places. Now, under Obamaspace, we’re not…”.
I think it’s funny to hear people say that if we don’t go to the Moon with Constellation, then we’ll never go. It’s not like the Moon is going anywhere. Were you as concerned about this before the Constellation program? We already won the moon race, and now we also have a space station in orbit. No other country has accomplished that, and no other country has any firm/funded plans to do it in the near future.
If we want to return to the Moon, it should be with a clear goal in mind (exploration & exploitation), and a steady build up of capabilities. This can’t be a completely government funded program, but it will need to be government instigated. And I see this happening BECAUSE we have a robust commercial industrial base, and not INSTEAD of it. Constellation would not have done this.
You know, perhaps instead of fighting them on there terms, you turn the argument against them. Some people seem to need a “destination”. So give them one:
“By 2050, we will have 1,000 people working in space.”
This speaks directly to the ultimate goal of becoming a space faring species – the elephant in the room that no one will admit to. It also requires that we build infrastructure instead of heavy lift.
“By 2050, we will have 1,000 people working in space.”
What are they going to be working on? Or are we just going to be transferring the make-work culture of Florida and Houston and the ISS to the moon, at astronomically greater expense?
BTW, I’m referring to the NASA sites and contractors in those states (and several others), not to the millions of wonderful people who work in the real market in those states.
I don’t think Griffin is solely, or even chiefly, to blame for the Ares I/V debacle either. Sure it was his “design” but it wasn’t inherently a bad design, I would call it a mediocre design with a horrendous implementation. On paper at least it satisfied lift requirements and maybe more importantly political considerations in that it made certain politicians happy. Scoff if you like, but that IS important when you want those politicians to pay for the program.
I think that Griffins biggest error was in assuming that the people of NASA could make his or any other architecture work. What I mean by that is no matter what architecture was chosen if it were dependent on the NASA bureaucracy for its implementation it was doomed to failure. Turn SpaceX or Scaled Composites were suddenly being ran by NASA HQ bureaucrats they would fail too, in short order.
I’m convinced that commercial space is the way forward, but only if there is an actual national manned spaceflight goal to achieve. Obama has only gotten half of the equation right, and even that is questionable as I for one am not convinced that he is sincere in his stated manned space goals. In fact were I to be betting on his secret intentions I would put my money on his only paying lip service to manned commercial space for as long as it is politically profitable to him to do so. Some seem to, on this subject at least, be ready to take him at his word. Thus far that hasn’t been a good bet where Obama is concerned.
Remember that *all* space policies have expiration dates. But also, that future policies are driven by what we have at any given time.
If we get going on commercial crew taxis, some kind of exploration spacecraft that fits on an existing booster, and R&D for later steps, that will be getting close to flight by 2013 (next election + 1 year to get new NASA administrator), and that will all be good even if direction gets a course correction then.
If we spend the next three years working on another HLV whose flight is in the sweet bye-and-bye, it is all to easy to cancel.
“Surrender in space”
Started in 1972 with LEO and ISS, Bush attempted to right it with VSE but then failed to follow through. Then along comes Griffin to seal the fate of VSE with the constellation Ares back to Apollo boondoggle. Now here we go again with mindless, knee-jerk vague look but don’t touch flex path commercial program that promises nothing short of more LEO, ISS. Same old re-run of the past 38 years only with even less capable splash down capsules based on cold war era technology. No thanks…!
As for ISS please kill the white elephant the sooner the better. It is a concept from a by-gone era. Meanwhile water on the moon sets waiting for commercial development while we flex around LEO for another thirty years. We have gone from bad to worse. Flex is the final nail in NASA’s coffin and Obama has truly hammered it home with vengeance! Spreading the NASA brain trust and experience base to the four winds. Unleashing an economic tsunami on the cape and surrounding areas.
What the commercial sector needs is a market driven goal to pull the technology forward. The only companies pursuing these types of market driven technologies are Rutan, Masten Space and XCOR. NASA remains a dead-end side show to nowhere without a market to apply the hyped fantastic technologies flex is supposedly to develop. Without infrastructure and a market force all we have is a very limited funded subsidized space program.
>..And I see this happening BECAUSE we have a robust commercial
> industrial base, and not INSTEAD of it. Constellation would not have done this.
Course right now were seeing a sharply declining industrial base and space capacity. Constellation was a fleet of peaces of crap – but it was keeping folks from starving out.
>.. Some people seem to need a “destination”. ..
Hell, NASA needs a destination or dead line, or they historically never deliver anything.
I love the way people seem to think NASA “hitching rides” is a new thing.. NASA has been buying seats on the Soyuz for 10 years.
> Cecil Trotter Says:
> April 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
===
>== I’m convinced that commercial space is the way forward, but only if
> there is an actual national manned spaceflight goal to achieve. <<
Problem folks overlook, is commercials need enough market to keep them going and interest investors. NASA with COTS and likely commercial crew, is keeping the money folks will get minimal – and split it across a couple companies, for a couple years. That’s not exactly going to bankroll a new industry.
.
Excellent points Jim Harris. Griffin in the quintessential failure point in this analysis, and the ESAS architecture is the proof. Bush opened the door to the solar system, and Griffin and his cabal of idiots slammed it shut. Obama just swept up the crap off the floor and a stupid and gullible media blames HIM for the end of NASA’s dominance?
Probably because the media is too lazy to do their own research anymore, simply relying on NASA PAO to write their stories for them. I had a friend who worked in MSFC PAO and he would tell me that this is just what they would do, and PAO was perfectly happy with it. He got sick of spinning lies after a while.
Even if flex delivers on some of the tech hype there are no LEO markets to sustain or utilize it. And flex strongly discourages forages into gravity wells where potential resources exists to spark LEO and deep space commercial based markets. Flex offers splash down capsules to replace established reusable runway landing technology. I cannot justify retiring our existing orbitors with splash down capsules. Surely commercial can do better than this? Splash down capsules concepts only magnify the technological short comings and lack of innovation that exist within some of these commercial efforts. So flex fields splash down capsule technology while claiming and hyping giant leaps in future technology will occur. Seems something is very wrong with this picture.
Flex could be a great step away from the central planning mentality that has failed miserably. The NASA post-Apollo strategy has been to take some economically ludicrous vision out of a 1950s Colliers magazine and pursue it with religious obsession at the cost of all other possibilities. “Flex” may finally be an admission that we can’t centrally plan the future.
Unfortunately, if Josh is right this is simply a temporary shuffle until we get locked in to a new set of phony dates for idiotic goals. There are an astronomical number of possibilities and the odds that our glorious central planners at NASA HQ will get it right this time are again astronomically slim. But every NewSpace company who wants to do orbital HSF will have to do obeisance to the new idiocy. Meet the NewSpace, same as the OldSpace.
Doug said “I cannot justify retiring our existing orbitors with splash down capsules. Surely commercial can do better than this?”
Are you forgetting the SpaceDev Dream Chaser that NASA gave a small contract to? I too think that we’re devolving a little by going back to capsules, but that’s where the Constellation program has left us – without any runway landing spacecraft in development. I give points to Bolden for at least starting the work to get us something to launch and return U.S. astronauts, and capsules would be the quickest way.
Cecil Trotter said “Obama… only paying lip service to manned commercial space…”.
I think if that were true, he and Bolden would not have done such a sweeping change in direction. I think a lot of us thought that parts of Constellation would change, but never so much. Not that it didn’t make sense, but that he is going to have to fight people in his own party to push thru his budget as submitted. The politically safe thing would have been to only make small changes, and call them “improvements”. This is resetting the course of our future in space. I, along with many others, agree with the intent, and we’ll have to wait and see what comes from Obama’s speech on the 15th to see if he can address all the concerns out there.
“without any runway landing spacecraft in development.”
You mean, other than Dream Chaser.. which is one of the commercial crew vehicles being considered and received NASA funding this year. It’s amazing how little press they’re getting for such an interesting vehicle.
> Coastal Ron Says:
> April 11th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
>> Cecil Trotter said
>> “Obama… only paying lip service to manned commercial space…”.
> I think if that were true, he and Bolden would not have
> done such a sweeping change in direction. ===
I don’t follow this? Killing the gov maned space program (other then ISS maint) until NASA develops a HLV, and havnig commercials (if it chooses to certify any) as competitors to Soyuz post 2015, is not big support for commercial space.
Killing the gov maned space program (other then ISS maint) until NASA develops a HLV,
That’s not what’s happening. Another post from Planet Kelly.
I agree with Jeff Greason. Lets get something going now with what we have (or will have soon). A human expedition to a near earth asteroid could be getting close to take-off by 2013. Private hotels in orbit could be a real thing by 2014. It looks like a capsule with an inflatable habitat and a Centaur-based propulsion could be cobbled together fairly soon with EELV-class boosters. Why not give that a try?
Trent, Dream Chaser is not in development, but has received funding from NASA’s C3PO program for “investments to stimulate the commercial space industry”. This may lead to a development program, but that remains to be seen (I hope they do). Like Bigelow, they are resurrecting unused NASA research and pursuing commercialization. I hope more U.S. companies dig up old U.S. taxpayer funded R&D – it should speed up the development of new space systems, and potentially lower their cost.
Don’t worry about American Stinker, they can’t even seem to operate a website registration system, I’ve been trying to log into their site for three days and their own admin can’t figure out why the login doesn’t work. Evidently they like not receiving any comments from readers…
> Rand Simberg Says:
> April 12th, 2010 at 6:11 am
>> Killing the gov maned space program (other then ISS maint) until
>> NASA develops a HLV,
> That’s not what’s happening. Another post from Planet Kelly.
You say no, Bolden says yes. Whom am i to believe?
😉
You say no, Bolden says yes. Whom am i to believe?
OK, maybe Bolden said that Obama is “killing the gov maned space program (other then ISS maint) until NASA develops an HLV” on Planet Kelly, but it didn’t happen on my planet. Can you provide such a quote from the administrator?
That nothing past ISS will be done until NASA develops a HLV, yes.
That “Obama is killing the gov maned space program (other then ISS maint) until NASA develops an HLV”, no.
I’ve gathered you feel the difference is huge – I don’t.
That nothing past ISS will be done until NASA develops a HLV, yes.
Even if that’s the policy (still waiting for an actual quote from Bolden), it was true of Constellation as well. So why is that the Obama has killed manned spaceflight, but not Bush?
> So why is that the Obama has killed manned spaceflight, but not Bush?
Constellation intended to go past LEO and was worknig toward it. Obamas not and disbanding the teams related to such tasks.
Constellation intended to go past LEO and was worknig toward it. Obamas not and disbanding the teams related to such tasks.
And assembling new ones that will do it much more efficiently.
>Rand Simberg Says:
> And assembling new ones that will do it much more efficiently.
No, theres been no talks about assembling any new teams with such capabilities – or even retaining the capabilities. Their just shutting it down.
You can argue they would have regardless of who was in the Oval office now since congress wasn’t going to fund Constellation fully anyway – or that its been scheduled for a few years now (though more so now under Obama obviously), but Obamas the one actually runing the place on the day, and hes advocating even greater program and capacity cut backs then ever proposed before.
No, theres been no talks about assembling any new teams with such capabilities – or even retaining the capabilities. Their just shutting it down.
No, that was the old plan. The new one requires them.
It’s really tiresome to discuss things with someone who just makes shit up.