You’ve probably heard that Orion lives. But not as the CEV — as a crew rescue vehicle (itself a nonsensical requirement). I can live with this. It will give JSC (and to a lesser extent KSC) something to do, and keep them out of commercial’s hair to a degree. And it will buy off some of the whiners about the new policy. The good thing is that Ares remains dead. But it would be nice to get a wooden stake for the Stick.
[Wednesday morning update]
OSTP has released a fact sheet on the new plans. The bad news — they’re still talking heavy lift, but that’s probably politically necessary right now, because so many of the cargo cultists will believe that it’s necessary for BEO trips. The good news — the decision on what it will look like is five years off, which is plenty of time to educate the public (and politicians) on the lack of need for it. And even if we go forward with it, as the fact sheet notes, 2015 is at least two years earlier than work would have started on Ares V.
What it looks to me like is that they want to develop a home-grown version of the RD-80 so that we’re not dependent on the Russians for them. The problem with that is the vast increase in cost, not just for development, but for production. We’re buying them from the Russians now for about ten million each, and a domestic version is likely to cost several times that.
There’s no discussion of propellant depots per se, but they’re implied by this:
The new rocket also will benefit from the budget’s proposed R&D on other breakthrough technologies in our new strategy for human exploration (such as in- space refueling), which should make possible a more cost-effective and optimized heavy lift capability as part of future exploration architectures.
You don’t do “in-space refueling” without a depot, and if they’re looking into this, it implies tech demos much sooner. There’s no reason that we can’t elevate the technology readiness of this to an eight or nine in the next five years with an intelligent development program.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Foust has more on the fact sheet.
[Bumped]
I like this compromise and find it fairly inspired. It gives us a scale-able “back-up” that we’ll hopefully never need, but most importantly, allows us to buy-back some of the better features from the original, deep-space Orion (that were ironically sacrificed for the ISS-only Orion). Namely, autonomous flying and docking and the ability to hibernate for six months or more. These will be vital techs for a future Flexible Path and it’s good to see them back in the fold.
Also, and somewhat lamely, I think Orion is a cool name for a spaceship. I’m glad to see it survive.
This is not an immediate disaster, but it would have been better if they had started work on an orbital lander precursor, something like the Buzz Aldrin exploration module, or Huntress’ Deep Space Shuttle. They could do that with the same Orion workforce. If they did that both exploration and commercial propellant flights could happen sooner.
There is also the risk that a NASA capsule allows NASA to dump commercial crew taxis and the ISS later, especially if they get to build an HLV too. HLV + capsule retains the possibility of a vertically integrated NASA only exploration architecture. A deep-space only vehicle on the other hand would keep NASA reliant on commercial launch services for crew, cargo and propellant.
Would it be worthwhile to invest in making sure the new Orion be capable of being launched on at least two or more different launch vehicles? We have to move away from losing launch capability for multiple years whenever there is a launch vehicle accident. Of course, I’m assuming that the Orion would eventually be used to launch crews to somewhere interesting.
So, why not pull X-38 out of the hangar instead ? Apart from the fact that it was designed for the STS payload bay ?
This is a blow to SpaceX as the Dragon will not get funded to go manned. Even if privately funded for manned launch NASA/FAA or whoever will make “man-rating” a Falcon 9 impossible. Dragon will never become the crew-rescue-vehicle for down-orbit either. Bad news.
And the budget and schedule of the new “crew rescue vehicle” NASA builds will drag out, fissile, crash and burn just like the earlier CRV. Meanwhile funding for important items like fuel depots will dry up. Bad news.
It’s not a bad “consolation prize”, but I worry that the camel has his nose under the tent again.
It is interesting that they are proposing it as a crew rescue vehicle. It means that commercial crew vehicles really can be taxis. They could be operated by a private company and a private crew and simply transport NASA personnel to and from the station. I had been imagining that if NASA were to use commercial crew vehicles they would be flown by NASA astronauts and remain docked to the station for the duration of the mission. But with a rescue vehicle available that’s not necessary.
Robots don’t need a crew rescue vehicle. We just leave them out there.
What are those astronauts on ISS doing again that’s so incredibly important?
I worry that the camel has his nose under the tent again
Yeah really depends on which way camel decides to go. The potential to later morph this into a deep space vehicle with docked propulsion modules etc actually sounds nice. The other direction, not so nice.
Without shuttle, under what circumstances will there be more people at ISS than seats available on-board the spacecraft that brought them up there?
What purpose is served by redundant CRV seats?
Hmm, I suppose you’re right it works both ways. Even a deep space shuttle could serve as the basis for a later capsule. That would be harder if the commercial launch vehicles and crew vehicles were already entrenched.
In that sense anything that delays an HLV (say insisting on kerolox engine development) and exploration (by making it dependent on an HLV) mitigates that risk. On a strategic level that makes much more sense to me than the technical reasons that have been put forward, but I’d be strongly opposed to using those arguments based on a hidden agenda. I’d hate to see the New Space community slowly turn into another group of economic special interests peddling false arguments. What good does it do to abolish SDLV only to replace it with EELV Phase 2 or 3? OK, OK, some limited amount of good, but it’s a very dangerous slippery slope.
@Bill Hensley, reader: I’d prefer a horrible ending rather than horrors without end.
I’d hate to see the New Space community slowly turn into another group of economic special interests peddling false arguments
Well this is a white house proposal here. They do politics, and this is definitely a political animal. Make-work project to quiet the whining, like Rand said.
Lets hope it works, the course is changed using that device and something good can actually come out of it.
Well the concern, from a commercial space perspective, is that they’d go ahead and fully develop the thing as an “alternative” to commercial, which of course undermines the business case for commercial crew. However, if they really do just develop what they need for a rescue capsule then it’s not an immediate threat. And it will be a lot cheaper because it won’t need an LAS or a man-rated EELV. It will also make the NASA-centric folks feel better because if commercial vehicles don’t materialize they can just finish the Orion/EELV system and not be faced with an indefinite “gap”. So there is a fair amount of genius in this compromise, although Rand is right that there is actually no requirement for this at all (other than political).
Does this include some sort of standardized mating hatch that others can design attachments to?
Kirk, justifying the NASA budget.. duh! Oh, and “science”.
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum39/HTML/000250.html
more details. See the “Restructuring the Orion Crew Capsule” section.
How much will this “lifeboat” cost? What will it be capable of that a Dragon capsule wouldn’t be? How much “sooner” will it be available compared to a Dragon capsule (that MUST be a negative number)?
I’m guessing that the cost will be at least one SpaceX. That is my new monetary unit for space related stuff, it is equal to the approximate amount of money that SpaceX has spent in developing the Merlin engine, the Falcon I, near complete development of the Falcon V and an at least 50% complete design Dragon spacecraft, Draco thruster, ISS docking systems etc. IE somewhere in the neighborhood of $200-250 million as best I can tell from internet sources. They’ve accomplished all of this for 1 SpaceX, and I am betting that NASA will spend at least 1 SpaceX to design a capsule that is only capable of acting as a lifeboat. Not to mention the multiple SpaceX’s that it will cost to “accelerate development of a heavy-lift launcher, selecting a design by 2015” as the Space Politics post further stated. Only in NASA’s world is taking 5 years to select a design considered “accelerate(d) development”!
For the same money (and most likely much less) SpaceX could have a Dragon lifeboat on station in less than 3 years. And a Falcon V derived HLV ready for first launch in not much more than the 5 years NASA plans on just selecting a design for an HLV.
“This new rocket would take advantage of the new technology investments proposed in the budget — primarily a $3.1 billion investment over five years on heavy-lift R&D.”
$3.1 BILLION. Or roughly 12 SpaceX’s.
Hey, we have to protect our phony-baloney jobs here, gentlemen!
“What are those astronauts on ISS doing again that’s so incredibly important?”
….and what is it exactly that you contribute to this board that a spambot could not do better?
I’ll take:”nothing” for $500 Alex!
Mike, did Kirk ask a hard question?
Anyway, maybe another thing the Orion Escape Vehicle will have that Dragon wont is a long term ECLSS. The OEV could actually compliment life support on the station, and by providing the extra escape capability it means the boxes are ticked for larger crews for “full utilization” of the ISS. It also means commercial crew providers don’t have to provide escape capability.. meaning they could fly their vehicle up, drop off the crew, load up the downmass, and return to Earth autonomously, all in a much shorter timespan.
Another way to do that would be to recognize escape as being stupid overkill, but this is NASA we’re talking about.
No Trent, he went into his ‘Robots uber alles’ straw hut to fap again.
Bill wrote:
” there is actually no requirement for this at all (other than political).”
There are times when political bakes the cake.
“Ares remains dead?” Where is that, Rand?
And how the hell does ‘flame trench’ get that Obama’s adding back 2500 more jobs to KSC than _with_ Constellation.
Committing sooner to a heavy lifter is just stupid,since what we really need is to get those tech demos of the fuel depots out of the way first, so there is a chance that a rational heavy lifter (say the 75MT EELV derived item using Delta IV diameter tooling and kerosene instead of LH2) if any, is selected.
Though if it really is only a decision on making a 2015 decision, that’s (likely) meaningless.
Even as a lifeboat, Orion will eat the technology funds, and I fear this is just the start of the end of the new direction. Instead of standing up and saying that that the old ways must end, Obama is conceding stuff, which will only lead Congress to take a much bigger bite out of the plan. Like committing to a full-up Orion and no commercial money, or at least minimal amounts.
I’ve been hitting hell this week with some personal stuff ever since SA’10, and it looks like Obama’s speech could be a coda to that.
Bill White:
The CRV function isn’t redundant… the taxis no long have to waste 6 months sitting at station, they can bring down people and/or cargo and be launched again ASAP.
Charles Lurio:
Be cool, pal. They don’t decide on heavy lift until 2015, which is AFTER the prop xfer demos are done. and the OSTP white paper indicates hydrocarbon, which sounds like EELV derived to me. This is all good, if Congress doesn’t ruin it.
– Jim
Mike, a similar example: for quite a while Dragonlab was assumed to be an automation platform.. only recently have HSF advocates begun seeing it as a possible manned platform, although none of the SpaceX documentation seems to suggest it will be in the short term. All this happens mindlessly. Is there an actual, practical, need for human tending? or is the science just a justification for flying the astronauts?
I, for one, think its backwards to be dedicating missions to science when there’s not even infrastructure in place. A non-cynical viewpoint is that the ISS really was an attempt to “pave the road” for scientific research on-orbit.. but astronauts are still camping out in the labs because the crew quarters got cut. If the humans really are necessary, then it makes sense to expand the station to accommodate not only professional astronauts, but scientists who are actually trained to do the science.
@ Jim Muncy
Anyone do a cost – benefit spreadsheet on this?
The CRV function isn’t redundant… the taxis no long have to waste 6 months sitting at station, they can bring down people and/or cargo and be launched again ASAP.
Why would an Orion CRV be less expensive than simply buying one more Dragon to leave at ISS as a redundant CRV?
speaking of cake, I’m gonna make an icecream cake.
two layers of brownies (out of a box, though I’m gonna use extra butter and include some chocolate syrup) with a layer of vanilla icecream, topped with a chocolate ganache (spelling) and then covered with white chocolate icing, and then drizzled with chocolate syrup.
Then frozen.
Yes I went off topic on purpose, simply cuz some of you were getting too comfortable with the abbreviations and accronymns which was allienating the fanboys.
“Be cool, pal. They don’t decide on heavy lift until 2015, which is AFTER the prop xfer demos are done. and the OSTP white paper indicates hydrocarbon, which sounds like EELV derived to me. This is all good, if Congress doesn’t ruin it. ”
Atlas Phase II. Scales from 9 to 75 tons IIRC. You can get 35tons on a single core.
With that, you can just scrap the current Atlas and have the ability to handle small to pretty heavy payloads all at one pad. All we need is a nice, modern, large US Hydrocarbon engine.
First let me point out that my nickname FAR predates the Orion program. It’s a nod to a tactical space combat game that was popular in the early 1980s (grin).
Secondly, can I ask what we’re doing out on the ISS that’s so all-fired bloody important? Besides sending hard currency to Russia’s scientists and technicians as a bribe to keep them from building nukes for al Qaeda, that is. We’ve got pretty much all the data points we need for zero-g habitation studies. As far as I’m concerned the ISS redefines “boondoggle” upwards. Oh, wait: we need the ISS as a destination for our Space Shuttle Program, that’s right. /sarcasm. As far as I’m concerned, hand the Russians our keys to the place and tell them to write when they find work.
Unlike some in the space community I believe the Moon is an ideal intermediary step in our expansion into space. It’s got minerals, it’s got unfiltered sunlight, it’s got 1/6g which makes EM railguns/slingshots economically feasible for moving goods manufactured on the Moon into orbit. Unlike Mars it’d only be 3 days for an emergency resupply/rescue ship to reach the colony. Mars shouldn’t be an endpoint but a waypoint on a Grand Expedition to study all the planets of the inner solar system. But that’s just my opinion. What really annoys me is that we’ve spent all this time and money since Apollo on sending a fleet of U-Haul trucks into orbit to build a weather shack that serves no useful purpose.
I guess we now have the Cornhusker Kickback for Obamaspace…
“What are those astronauts on ISS doing again that’s so incredibly important?”
Proving beyond doubt that NASA needs restructuring.
can I ask what we’re doing out on the ISS that’s so all-fired bloody important?
Now that it’s built, we’re trying to make astronaut fans happy without breaking the bank. It’s a thankless task, to be sure.
Kirk, we can look at it this way: with ISS extension the astronaut-centric infrastructure pushers get one last shot to put up or shut up about microgravity processes and space tourism. Not that they can’t generate more creative excuses if they fail once again over yet another decade to get this stuff going, but every extra year they are given the resources to try and yet fail a few more people wake up. Far less expensive to go through this learning process with a space station that’s already been built then to give them another excuse for failure and money to build an even more ludicrous bridge to nowhere. Every year that the ISS remains a white elephant provides another good reason for rational people to reject future astronaut-centric “infrastructure” projects on the moon and elsewhere for what they are, the obsolete economic fantasies of yesteryear.
That said, it would be nice if NASA learned to economize more on the ISS budget. For example by extending the stays of the crew and reducing the number of annual crew replacement flights. That would not only save money but it would actually test whether astronauts can withstand microgravity over the long voyages to an asteroid or Mars. Another thing the Exploration Directorate and astronaut fans should put up or shut up about. Don’t raise money based on wild promises of future heavenly pilgrimages to here or there when we haven’t even done the most straightforward experiments we could do to see how well it would work.
Anyone do a cost – benefit spreadsheet on this?
First you might want to figure out what the benefit is.
Bill,
The Block I Orion will be used as a CRV to get data on long exposure in space. The Block II Orion will be used for the deep space missions. Both will be launched unmanned to the ISS where astronauts will transfer to the Block II Orion from the taxi for BEO missions.
Tom
@ Bill Dale: Dragon will never become the crew-rescue-vehicle for down-orbit either. Bad news.
This is actually a good thing by most accounts for a commercial vehicle. It is much easier (and cheaper) to make something work right in space for the few days it takes to deliver cargo and re-enter, than to make the same vehicle work for months as a lifeboat.
Throwing NASA under its own lifeboat bus really cuts back on the highest level of testing they can reasonably require for a “taxi” type vehicle. Ostensibly, they could require a commercial firm to test the flight article for the duration it is expected to be in use. This keeps the test and design turnaround to a fraction of what it might otherwise be. On top of that, the extra capabilities – let’s call it the “lots of boredom with the occasional unannounced moment of terror” capability – is very much pertinent to beyond-LEO travel. I am actually impressed by the thought (or luck) that went into this decision.
Who wants to lay bets that ATK pulls its head out and tries to build a Stick launcher to be competitive? We’ll finally see what the real price of an SRB is. They’ll wind up building it to the old Safe, Simple, Soon design too since there’s no capital for doing all new engines and upper stages.
I’m still hearing the patriotism and pride BS from my republican friends who seem to not give a crap about free enterprise when it comes to international pissing contests…
LOL they want FIVE years to settle on an HLV design so they can start bending metal in 2016? Evidently NASA has NOT learned their frakking lesson from recent events. There’s plenty of perfectly acceptable HLV designs out there already. Pick one and get your butts to work…
But, as I’ve previously commented, this is just a feel good proposal. By the time 2015 rolls around, we’ll have a new president, and a new congress, and they will all want nothing to do with anything stamped with the imprimateur of Obama, so the HLV will be cancelled in favor of whatever bunch of losers the new president wants to pay off with contracts.
if they had started work on an orbital lander precursor, something like the Buzz Aldrin exploration module, or Huntress’ Deep Space Shuttle.
Good grief, more ludicrously oversized garbage of the future. If NASA really wants to solve something important for future lunar commerce they can help solve the problem that is holding up the Google Lunar X Prize people, namely the lack of an affordable lunar lander at the 100-200 kg payload range. Something like a companion prize to GLXP that would add another $30 million and pay it to the first privately developed lander to land such a payload on the moon could be the way to go here. Astronomically preferable to spending upwards of $10 billion for a make-work project to produce yet another monstrous white elephant.
The last thing we need to be doing, BTW, is providing more tax money for the government- and contractor-union activists like those in Florida who plow our money back into lobbying and funding politicians who protect their jobs. The biggest benefit of the new budget is not the greater money going to the supposedly “commercial” contracts, but the cut of money going to this Old Space network of political parasitism. Compromises that keep this monster alive to fight another year are not to any of our benefits whether astronaut fan or not.
If Orion is only being preserved for use as an ISS escape vehicle (which the first press releases strongly imply), then it’s a stupid waste of money. If on the other hand, Orion is being preserved as a deep space vehicle, that could make some sense.
As it is stands now, NASA has no plans to design or build a manned spacecraft before 2020, which is intended for deep space operations. The only current plan is for commercial LEO taxis.
But an Orion that doesn’t have the crew launch mission could still serve the deep space mission and be available sooner than under the Constellation/ESAS plan. Without the manned launch mission an Orion doesn’t need a heavy and expensive launch escape system or a “crew rated” launch vehicle. The Orion could be launched to orbit as unmanned cargo. Crew could be delivered to a waiting Orion, via a commercial crew launch vendor such as SpaceX or ULA.
Freed of the crew launch job, Orion could even revert to the earlier Lockheed-Martin lifting body design, and launch inside a payload shroud. Orion needn’t be handicapped by clinging to the Apollo moldline, a shape which is problematic for higher energy missions such as flights to Mars.
The HLV timeline is absurd considering ISS is now stated to keep flying beyond 2020. With ISS sucking 3 billion a year from the NASA budget, how will NASA afford HLV? Let alone afford any payload for this mythical HLV.
It’s silly to keep ISS going beyond the reasonable obligations NASA has to it’s international partners. When NASA needs to conduct LEO experiments after 2016, it should be leasing space on a station owned by Bigelow or another commercial vendor rather than keep the ISS flying.
Space Shuttle ops drained NASA dry for over 30 years. Do we really need to repeat that experience with ISS? I can easily see ISS keep going up to 2030, all the while making it difficult for NASA to afford any other manned project.
Orion doesn’t live – it was killed in 1962. More points: Kirk, the reason for the people in ISS to be there is primarily just that – to be there and prove that people can live, albeit for limited periods of time right now, in space. Sending robots to places to none of which we never intend to go is largely pointless, also.
ISS is a stepping stone – admittedly a very flimsy one – to the stars. Without space colonisation, mankind is indeed doomed to the fate Malthus told us about all those centuries ago – and sooner or later some incredibly unlikely accident (on a human timescale) will happen to us and we will become extinct. And of mind and soul there will be no more forever – there is not time, and there are not the resources, for another race to succeed us.
Wells: “The choice is the Universe or nothing. Which shall it be?”
Another quote, from O’Neill: “The question was asked whether the surface of a planet is the best place for a technological civilisation – and the answer is no.”
Here is a better news article on the story.
http://www.space.com/news/obama-space-plan-revives-orion-sn-100413.html
Excerpt————————————————–
Garver said NASA has no plans to continue development of Orion for exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
“We will ask them to focus Orion for the government purposes on our unique requirement of crew escape,” she said, adding that Lockheed Martin would be welcome to use the Orion capsule to bid on the agency’s $6 billion commercial crew program proposed in the president’s 2011 budget.
———————————————————–
Sigh. How pathetic.
Trent Waddington said:
Anyway, maybe another thing the Orion Escape Vehicle will have that Dragon wont is a long term ECLSS.
Actually, Dragon has already been designed for a six month duration at ISS. And DragonLab is being touted for missions up to 270 days. So there really isn’t any technical reason to develop Orion just as a crew rescue vehicle. But politically, if it buys off some Congressmen with jobs in their districts and they still fund commercial crew, then it’s a reasonable political compromise in my book.
Fletcher Christian, I simply don’t believe that the ISS is worth it if the excuse for operating it is to “gain data about human microgravity exposure” for some future expedition that has just been defunded and which itself has no justification.
Human expansion into space is not going to save humanity. That’s a fantasy, and an extraordinarily expensive one to boot.
Good grief, more ludicrously oversized garbage of the future.
That’s your strawman googaw, not what I proposed. You make good points, but like others you harm your case by overstating it.
Bill, no.. Dragon may have sufficient ECLSS for a trip to the station and back down but it won’t be functioning while it is connected to the station… One could imagine the Orion vehicle being designed to carry up some life support systems, perhaps even experimental ones.