Sorry, but we can’t afford to do both. I disagree with this OC Register Op-Ed by Peter Navarro, Stu Witt, and Greg Autry:
At least to date, the private space sector has demonstrated very limited capability to move either cargo or crews into orbit or to dock with anything. Moreover, none is human-rated for orbital space flight while there are very difficult challenges requiring large infrastructure and access to larger investment.
Really? Atlas and Delta have “very limited capability to move cargo into orbit”? I think that the military satellite community will be wondering where all those satellite went, if not into orbit. As for docking, SpaceX plans to demonstrate that this year. It’s not like it’s just a twinkle in their eye. Crew will be along shortly after that, with the development of launch abort systems, and long before Ares I is projected to be complete.
We believe all these limitations can be overcome if the private space industry is encouraged along the lines of Mr. Obama’s plan. However, pressing matters of national security also call for a continued U.S. government presence in space. That’s why we believe Mr. Obama was dead wrong in cancelling the Constellation program, the successor to the shuttle program developed after the shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.
While we have been winding down our space program, other countries – China, in particular – have been working on (and, with China, even testing) capabilities to weaponize space and seize a strategic position on the moon. To prevent this, we must present a credible deterrent with ongoing robust and responsive manned and unmanned space programs. That’s why Constellation remains important, both as a concrete program now and as a bridge to a cooperative public-private space partnership.
Obviously, there are national security implications for a US government presence in space. But not for a manned presence. There have been no national security implications for that in forty years. And if it’s a national security issue to put humans in space, then the Pentagon should be responsible for and paying for it, not NASA, which is a civilian program. And how having a launcher that costs a couple billion per flight and can only fly a few times a year contributes to national security remains unexplained, even if one really believes that the Chinese are “working on seizing a strategic position on the moon” (what does that mean?).
They go on with the standard flawed and failed spinoff argument. And then this:
What we do not need is what President Obama is leaving us with: Showing up at the doors of countries like Russia and China, begging for a lift up to our space station. To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan: “Weakness invites aggression.”
Hey, I’m not a big fan of relying on the Russians either, but you know when the time was to complain about that? First, six years ago, when Bush baked it into the policy cake for at least three years, and then four years ago, when Mike Griffin increased the gap with his disastrous decision to build a whole new horrifically expensive and unnecessary launch system, instead of finishing Steidle’s plan for a CEV flyoff that would have resulted in something (and possibly two somethings) that could have flown on existing vehicles. The one person whose fault it isn’t is Barack Obama’s, and going back to the Program of Record doesn’t fix that problem.
I’m disappointed.
There’s a lot of discussion about this over at Space Politics, where I found the link.
So, what do you think the explanation is, ignorance or a desire to create a “narrative”?
When you’re talking about reporters, the safe bet is “ignorance.”
Unfortunately, they’re not reporters. As I said, I’m disappointed.
Rand,
[[[Really? Atlas and Delta have “very limited capability to move cargo into orbit”?]]]
Unfortunately New Space is a victim of its own success. Because of all the New Space PR most people now associate commercial with Virgin Galactic and SpaceX while firms like Boeing and Lockheed that have been involved in commercial activities in space for decades are seen as “Old Space” “government contractors”, not existing commercial alternatives to the entrepreneurial start-ups.
that isnt why opponents only criticize spacex, Thomas Matula.
opponents know that boeing, etc are capable. lets not play ignorant here. they leave out the big players because those are harder to criticize.
Umm.. retirement of the shuttle had nothing to do with the agreement to get expedition members to the station on Soyuz. It was always the plan, and started 4 years before shuttle retirement was announced.
If the shuttle wasn’t retiring this year the missions they would be doing would be resupply.. maybe some more experimental hardware installations.. the same kind of stuff they do now *and then leave the station after 2 weeks*. Shuttle has not, can not and never would have stayed on station for longer.
Now, I can understand journalists, politicians, and dipshits on the Internet bemoaning the retirement of the shuttle as the end of how NASA gets expedition members to the station.. a position that is simply false in fact, as well as impractical on merit, but I have no idea why sensible educated people who have any idea how the ISS program operates would repeat this stupid meme, unless they are deliberately being dishonest.
Sorry, but we can’t afford to do both.
You know, I used to think that, too. But watching President Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress in action, I’ve come to the conclusion, “Screw it! They’re going to waste trillions of dollars anyway, so why not spend some money on space?” Three billion bucks: Cash For Clunkers, or a bounty for LOX and liquid methane delivered to a fuel depot in LEO? Sixty billion under the radar to bail out Greece via the IMF for a few more weeks, or doing the entire VSE over from scratch in a way that makes sense?
The money’s going to get spent and we’re going to end up bankrupt no matter what happens, so why not spend it on something that WE consider useful? The other parasites have already killed the host, so why not finish draining the corpse?
(Have you seen the bumper sticker that says, “Shhh! Don’t tell Obama what comes after ‘trillion’!”)
At least to date, the private space sector has demonstrated very limited capability to move either cargo or crews into orbit or to dock with anything.
There’s a lot of inaccurate use of language on the part of SDLV proponents and a lot of language that seems likely to lead unsuspecting bystanders to draw incorrect conclusions while not being technically incorrect.
Sometimes people say “the government” when “NASA” would be more accurate. “The US government pays for it, so the US government should be allowed to do it itself”. Sometimes people say “NASA” when “MSFC, KSC, JSC and MAF” would be more appropriate. “NASA will be decimated”. Sometimes people say “US domestic spaceflight capability” when “United Space Alliance provided spaceflight” would be more accurate. “US domestic spaceflight capability will be lost within a year”.
Sometimes, as seems to be the case here, “NASA” is used where “USA & MSFC” would be more accurate. The authors of the present article advocate a continuation of Constellation because of a lack of experience in the private sector.
The United Space Alliance is part of the private space sector. When it comes to launch services, it has no edge over ULA and deserves no special exemption from competition. MSFC isn’t part of the private sector, but when it comes to launch vehicle development ULA (and probably Boeing and LM) have a clear edge over today’s MSFC.
Martijn, you write like you’re unaware that both USA and ULA are owned and operated by Boeing and LM…
No, I know that. That makes them even more of a part of the private sector, doesn’t it?
1. SpaceX is the natural focus for the discussion for a number of reasons. It’s the only company with both launcher and orbital vehicle in the testing stages and it already has the lion share of the cargo SAAs. Obviously it’s getting the most media and blog attention.
2. NASA’s charter, the VSE, and even Flexible Path do not weigh priorities against one another. So, as Constellation defenders ask, why not scale back astronomy, planetary science and aeronautics in pursuit of a both robust commercial and super heavy to the Moon?
It’s the only company with both launcher and orbital vehicle in the testing stages and it already has the lion share of the cargo SAAs.
That looks like an artificial selection criterion to me, one especially designed to fit only SpaceX. Focussing on ULA as the only company to have not one but three launch vehicles in operation today seems much more logical.
ULA has no architecture beyond the drawing board for cargo resupply and crew rotation…except Ares I and Orion. That system’s getting plenty of attention, wouldn’t you say?
In what way is Newspace a victim? Are EELVs on the chopping block? Are OSC and SpaceX at risk of losing their contracts?
Curious, Rand. What alternative heritage system in 2005 beat a shuttle derived approached, and metrics yield that conclusion? I’m curious, because for all the bashing of Mike Griffin’s decision back then I’ve yet to see the quantitative counterargument. In fact, I and God knows how many on the outside looking in have been led to believe that such an argument–for either side–would be impossible to make without proprietary information.
Isn’t that what this all boils down to? A disagreement between people in the know echoed by people who lack the data necessary to arrive at their own conclusions?
ULA has no architecture beyond the drawing board for cargo resupply and crew rotation…except Ares I and Orion. That system’s getting plenty of attention, wouldn’t you say?
The FTC consent decree forbids ULA from providing spacecraft. They are working with potential spacecraft providers who could. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have are obvious candidates for crew vehicles, as they and their predecessor organisations were for Apollo, the original CEV and for Constellation. Dream Chaser is also a logical possibility given the extensive work NASA has done on HL-20.
EELV + a Big Three spacecraft would be the most mature and reliable option. Having more than one spacecraft is essential for competition to take hold. Having a third spacecraft from an unproven supplier would also be good.
The prime reason for singling out SpaceX would seem to be discrediting the ability of private space to match NASA’s alleged expertise. The truth of the matter is that there is far more expertise in the private sector, even excluding USA.
What alternative heritage system in 2005 beat a shuttle derived approached, and metrics yield that conclusion?
To meet what requirement? It was Mike Griffin’s choice to develop a new launch system — it wasn’t required by the VSE. The Aldridge Commission told him to build a heavy lifter, but he ignored everything else they told him, so he could have ignored that instead.
I think it’s more like there is a debate that doesn’t consider the details of execution and there is a debate that does, and there are participants of varying degrees of interest and knowledge in both. You cannot, for example, point to your typical Congressman and expect him to wade into the details of trades between different launch and orbital spacecraft costs and capabilities. He is more concerned with the overall vision and what it means for his country’s interests in space and the economic interests of his constituents. He may not attach a great deal of importance on whether ULA or USA are monopolies, or MSFC imposes on an area of industry the private sector could and should handle. Especially when there is a broader debate on the strategic priorities these agencies and firms should be working towards.
On the other hand, I’ve seen a *lot* of confusing red herrings from the more technically inclined SDV critics–regardless of their interests. The false debate over commercial launch and orbital vehicle development, is probably the most blatant recent example that comes to mind. That it emerged from an obscure, extremely technical, and apparently highly proprietary debate between EELV and SDV camps from five years is even more disturbing.
Yes, all very interesting. And all besides the point. You asked why SpaceX gets so much attention. It’s because they’ve got a launcher and capsule in testing. OSC has the launcher; not sure how far along Cygnus is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not as far along as Dragon. Ultimately, SpaceX is leading the pack with OSC in second place. That’s why they’re the face of Newspace.
I can’t say I’ve heard anyone mention Virgin at all in context of this debate, and if they did I’d be surprised if it wasn’t in the most off-hand, throwaway context possible.
Based on what? A Powerpoint presentation that said as much? Not even Augustine bothered to evaluate the cost trades between heavy lift architectures. They punted. The only review of these architectures in competition was done five years ago and neither the EELV and SDV folks privy to the proprietary elements of that debate are giving each other ground. More to the point, the principal participants themselves eschewed multiple opportunities to have it out in public using open source information for the benefits of their mutual enthusiasts on the outside. At least those of us who will never get a look at the confidential stuff would be able to bound our WAGs and back of the envelope calcs.
This is truism, and it tells us nothing as to whether or not we could’ve had more than one spacecraft. You only assume as much based on what little we know about EELV heritage launchers and proposed orbital vehicles. Mike Griffin basically argues he was in a sole source situation in 2005. He might be wrong. I don’t know, and I’m pretty sure most of the people arguing on either side don’t know either.
What I do know is that today there is only one architecture even partially off the drawing board that can do any manned lunar mission. That’s Constellation.
The people who single out SpaceX the most are the Augustinophiles, who can never seem to shut up about it. This new narrative that SpaceX is being picked on is also crap. If it were even remotely true, do you think Falcon 1, let alone Falcon 9, would’ve gotten through COTS?
What I do know is that today there is only one architecture even partially off the drawing board that can do any manned lunar mission. That’s Constellation.
It’s nowhere close to doing that. They blew all their money on unnecessary launchers. The bit that is most critical to a lunar mission – the bleeping lander – barely got onto the drawing boards, much less off it. They could have done a lunar architecture based around EELVs. If they’d spent the money wasted on new launchers on spacecraft instead, we might at least have had orbital cislunar capability by now. Right now they have nothing, not even a suborbital launcher.
You can’t possibly imagine how grating those six words are starting to sound, especially considering the four the Augustinophiles keep dropping–under current budget authority.
If you’d just get off autopilot for a second and read the third paragraph in my last response to you, we could pick up from there. That way we can go back and forth instead of simply regurgitating our talking points.
Seriously, how can you describe any single major component of the system as the “most critical?” Your lunar lander achieves nothing without cargo delivery vehicle. The cargo delivery vehicle achieves nothing without the crew delivery system. Hell, one of the most poignant criticisms made about the Constellation arch is that it has a critical serial path in all of its components.
And none of this has anything to do with the fact that no other architecture is nearly as far along as Constellation. None, zip, zero. No budgetary qualifications, no nada. They simply do not exist outside of the crib notes and Powerpoints of their innovators.
Constellation is the most cost-effective space program in the history of space. Hell, it’s the most cost-effective way to do anything–from landing on the moon and ironing my shorts. See? I can play this game as well.
Hey, I get it. Hell, I’m even sympathetic to the notion that EELV might be a better architecture to SDV. Hell, maybe t/Space could’ve doen a better job. Or maybe super heavy is a worse option than assembling electrically propelled vehicles right there in space. But guess what? I don’t pretend that I’ve done the trade analysis. I don’t immediately accept it when someone who may or may not have been on the inside in 2005 says Griffin’s full of it. I don’t pit barebones proposals against systems under active development and testing and hand wave in some numbers and call it a CER.
But more importantly, I don’t enlarge an obscure technical debate to fend off the critics and distract from the most critical issue–does FP abandon and embrace Moonshot II?
A,
Funny how EELV, Boeing and Lockheed have gone from being examples of government subsidized launch systems to shining examples of space commerce in the eyes of New Space. 🙂
Presley Cannady
[[[ Unfortunately New Space is a victim of its own success.
In what way is Newspace a victim? Are EELVs on the chopping block? Are OSC and SpaceX at risk of losing their contracts?]]]
Again, its funny how EELVs are now “New Space” instead of “Old Space.” Especially since they were failures commercially which is why ULA was created.
New Space is as much a product of the NASA culture as any other movement in space advocacy. Too much damned infatuation with “inspiration,” which as best as I can tell is Big Science and Big Engineering’s analogue to Obama’s “teachable moments.”
Until New Space is out there demanding government do what it’s done since the days of the Land Ordinance of 1786, Lewis and Clark, and the Homestead Act–actually go into the frontiers and drag markets out of the dusk–then can we really take it seriously?
Seriously, how can you describe any single major component of the system as the “most critical?” Your lunar lander achieves nothing without cargo delivery vehicle. The cargo delivery vehicle achieves nothing without the crew delivery system. Hell, one of the most poignant criticisms made about the Constellation arch is that it has a critical serial path in all of its components.
Exactly. We have a crew delivery vehicle — it’s called Delta or Atlas. We have a cargo delivery vehicle — it’s called Delta or Atlas. We have no lander. If Mike had focused on a lander and earth departure stage (and a depot), and not wasted time and money on unneeded vehicles, we’d be a lot closer to being on the moon.
I don’t pretend that I’ve done the trade analysis. I don’t immediately accept it when someone who may or may not have been on the inside in 2005 says Griffin’s full of it. I don’t pit barebones proposals against systems under active development and testing and hand wave in some numbers and call it a CER.
I don’t have to pretend. I did do the trade analysis, for Boeing, on CE&R. None of the CE&R contractors came up with anything resembling Constellation (or anything costing anywhere near as much as Ares/Orion). Why do you think that is?
Seriously, how can you describe any single major component of the system as the “most critical?” Your lunar lander achieves nothing without cargo delivery vehicle. The cargo delivery vehicle achieves nothing without the crew delivery system. Hell, one of the most poignant criticisms made about the Constellation arch is that it has a critical serial path in all of its components.
It’s very simple: to go the moon we need a lander. We already have launch vehicles. The only major pieces that are missing are a lander and a return capsule.
And none of this has anything to do with the fact that no other architecture is nearly as far along as Constellation. None, zip, zero. No budgetary qualifications, no nada. They simply do not exist outside of the crib notes and Powerpoints of their innovators.
Other architectures have at least proven launch vehicles. Constellation doesn’t even have a suborbital launcher. It has nothing.
Question. Who did the CERs informing Mike Griffin’s decision?
Who did the CERs informing Mike Griffin’s decision?
No one. Mike Griffin didn’t even look at the CE&R results, because those studies were commissioned by Steidle. Mike Griffin came into NASA knowing what he wanted to do, having published a paper on it with the Planetary Society a year earlier.
You cannot, for example, point to your typical Congressman and expect him to wade into the details
What I expect (and never get) is for the critter to be honest and tell me what he knows. He’s in a better position to know than I am because he has two things I don’t… a staff and access.
I expect them not to just make crap up and look presidential (Biden.) I expect them to tell me what they know honestly, which includes telling me when they don’t know. They get paid to know and represent me.
No, they don’t. Some have proven launch heritages. So does Constellation–Ares I and V a shuttle derived launch vehicle. And Ares I is at least partly off the drawing board, whereas EELV heritage isn’t even mostly in the design stage.
I don’t immediately accept it when someone who may or may not have been on the inside in 2005 says Griffin’s full of it.
An admirable quality. Here’s the thing, when you are on the outside there is just one criteria for judgment… results.
No, they don’t. Some have proven launch heritages.
What does that mean? We aren’t proposing to fly things on “heritages.” We are proposing to fly them on, you know, vehicles. Like Delta IV and Atlas V.
Sounds like Presley is falling for the fallacy of throwing more good money after bad. Only problem is that tube of lipstick can get awfully expensive when trying to dress up a pig.
So the outsider is forced to conclude either Griffin commissioned new CERs of dubious quality in the space of two months, or is fibbing when he signs off on the ESAS final report. That report, if you recall, plainly states: “The team’s major trade study was a detailed examination of the costs, schedule, reliability, safety, and risk of using EELV- and Shuttle-derived launchers for crew and cargo missions.”
We’re also to conclude that Augustine somehow missed addressing either possible conclusion in his own review.
Do you see now the dilemma the outsider faces?
So strap a CEV on top of an existing EELV. No redesign. Game over. Does that even work?
No, they don’t. Some have proven launch heritages. So does Constellation–Ares I and V a shuttle derived launch vehicle. And Ares I is at least partly off the drawing board, whereas EELV heritage isn’t even mostly in the design stage.
You seem to be assuming HLV is necessary for exploration. It isn’t. We can land Constellation sized payloads and bigger on the moon using just EELVs. And those are definitely operational today.
To understand the opposition you’re getting from some of the regulars on this site, it is helpful to know what it is that we’re trying to achieve. It’s commercial development of space, that is fully commercial and ubsubsidised, profitable operations in space, even if that means just in LEO.
High launch costs are the major obstacle to that, high development costs of crew vehicles are another. The first of the two is the most crucial. If we can get launch costs down by an order of magnitude, then financing crew vehicles would probably no longer be a problem.
In order to reduce launch costs we believe we need to harness market forces, since a rerun of SLI or – goodness forbid – STS is no more likely to be successful than the first attempt. We would need substantial initial demand to lead the market to develop RLVs, cheap expendables or whatever else would give us cheap and reliable commercial access to space.
An exploration program based around propellant transfer could provide that initial demand. For that to happen NASA needs to get out of the launch business, the architecture must not depend on HLVs and there has to be unrestricted competition between commercial launch vehicles.
That is why we are opposed to Constellation and SDLV-based architectures in general.
Of course it works. All that’s needed are systems to detect failure onset in sufficient time to allow an abort. United Launch Analysis just got a small contract to develop one for the Atlas (that may be adaptable to the Delta) under CCDev. Lockheed Martin had a joint press conference on this with Bigelow over three years ago, in which they proposed to use Atlas to launch a crew capsule to Sundancer.
Potpourii:
Can’t very well agree on the results if we can’t agree on the objective.
Neither of which does him any good if he and his staff don’t have the tools or the knowledge to ask the right questions and process the answers. This isn’t just a NASA problem, it’s a problem in any part of society where the technical intersects with the business interest. We could be talking about Deep Horizon or the Java team you just sunk a few million bucks into.
That, on the other hand, would be a nice change of pace . No argument here.
Depends how badly you want to have relations with that pig. And as they say, you’ve got to spend money to make money.
So the outsider is forced to conclude either Griffin commissioned new CERs of dubious quality in the space of two months, or is fibbing when he signs off on the ESAS final report. That report, if you recall, plainly states: “The team’s major trade study was a detailed examination of the costs, schedule, reliability, safety, and risk of using EELV- and Shuttle-derived launchers for crew and cargo missions.”
The history of what happened with ESAS is pretty well known. Griffin came in, threw out the CE&R results (or at least left them sitting on the shelf, unread), pulled together cronies from OSC (led by Doug Stanley) to do the sixty-day “study” and generate the ESAS report to give him the result he wanted — the Shuttle-baseed architecture that he had proposed with the Planetary Society a year earlier. Yes, they did the “trade study,” but their thumbs were on the scale. The degree to which this was the case didn’t become clear until a year or two ago, when we finally got to see the previously hidden appendices with the assumptions, many of which were laughable (or would be, if only not to cry).
ULA has said its EDS will be applicable to both Atlas and Delta, and might be used on other launch vehicles as well.
Depends how badly you want to have relations with that pig. And as they say, you’ve got to spend money to make money.
I never want to have relations with a pig. And there is no way that Constellation would ever have “made money.” It was a money sink.
Perhaps you missed it when I said: “Hey, I get it. Hell, I’m even sympathetic to the notion that EELV might be a better architecture to SDV. Hell, maybe t/Space could’ve doen a better job. Or maybe super heavy is a worse option than assembling electrically propelled vehicles right there in space.”
The point I’m making, as an outsider, is that I don’t have all the information necessary to make that judgement. I rely on people who do, and those people are in a very nasty fight on this very issue.
I’m glad you cleared that up. Lord knows I would’ve never figured that out on my own. 😉
C’mon man, who here isn’t for the commercial development of space?
Once again, no argument here.
C’mon man, who here isn’t for the commercial development of space?
Anyone who supports Constellation, even if they don’t realize it.
We’re at the stage where we start providing the foundation for those reasons.
Why? Isn’t it just a matter of having different goals, or at least different priorities?
And for outsiders, I’d love to know how we go about that; especially when the people who’ve had access to both the proprietary and open source data can’t seem to see eye to eye.
Few people arguing about this have seen all the data. The Augustine panel saw all of the data, and came up with a consensus (watered down mostly because of Boeing’s Bo Bejmuk). Go read the report.
I wouldn’t go so far as to predict that RLVs are likely market choices. I don’t think we know nearly enough about how launch technology will progress to make that determination.
Agreed and that’s why I also included cheap expendables and “whatever else” as contenders. I do believe both cheap expendables and RLVs are promising contenders.
This is where we depart. This paragraph is pure dicta.
OK, missed that bit. It is helpful to see where we disagree. I don’t understand your position. How could an architecture that uses NASA launch vehicles or HLVs be likely to lead to early development of launch vehicles that will gives us cheap and reliable access to space?
How could an architecture that uses NASA launch vehicles or HLVs be likely to lead to early development of launch vehicles that will gives us cheap and reliable access to space?
It should be borne in mind that Mike Griffin’s NASA didn’t believe in cheap access to space. It didn’t believe it possible. That’s why it thought that Ares was just fine.
I dug up a link that documents the claim that the ULA EDS will be usable on multiple launch vehicles. From Alan Lindenmoyer’s presentation to the 13th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference:
http://www.aiaa.org/pdf/industry/presentations/Lindenmoyer_C3PO.pdf
Comprehensive maturation plan for commercial crew launch vehicles includes addition of modular Emergency Detection System (EDS) which can be used with Atlas V, Delta IV, and other LVs
EDS definition
• Identify LV failure modes and how measured
• Algorithm development, software coding, validation
• Crew interface design
• Prototype EDS testing and demonstration
• Real-time monitoring demonstration
It can’t. But that’s not why it exists, is it?
Yeah. Kill Constellation. That’s it. The report is utterly silent where it concerns a lunar mission architecture. Probably because the report is utterly agnostic about destinations in the first place. Getting NASA out of the architecture business for manned spaceflight is one thing. Sending them away to stare at their $100 billion navels for the next ten years is another.
A Congressman might.
You can say the same about the ISS, yet we now propose to use it as the $100 billion, thoroughly governmental seed for commercial space to LEO. Why shouldn’t we consider Constellation a part of the the same half-assed family–only this time opening up the Moon instead of empty space? But this is all moot now, isn’t it? We’re not just chucking Constellation, but FY2011 doesn’t even bother programming for any pre-ESAS architecture for Moonshot 2 and settlement. And why would we? As Obama says, “we’ve been there before.”
That’s Flexible Path for you.
It can’t. But that’s not why it exists, is it?
No, but it is why people who are eager to see commercial development of space in their lifetimes are opposed to it. And that is both an assessment of the technical likelihood of cheap commercial access to space and a matter of setting priorities.