Bob Zimmerman reports that AIAA seems to have been won over:
Historically, AIAA has not been considered a New Space organization. Its members mostly come from the older aerospace companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Since these companies have generally been hostile to the new commercial space companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic — seeing them as a dangerous and competitive threat — I would have expected an effort by AIAA to influence Congress would mean they are trying to encourage funding for Big Space projects like the Space Launch System (SLS). In the past it has been these Big Space projects that has filled the coffers of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The contracts for these project have been cost-plus, meaning that they have been able to rake in a lot of cash, whether or not they even build anything.
To my joy Mr. Shweyk’s presentation described something completely different. Instead, the AIAA is gung-ho for commercial space, and is doing everything it can to encourage Congress to come up with the money to fund the efforts of new companies like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, and Boeing to build new cheap cargo and manned ferrying spacecraft to low Earth orbit. The Space Launch System was not on their agenda. They had no interest in promoting it. Instead, they wanted money to go to the new efforts, so that more rockets and spaceships could be built by more companies, for less money.
For this organization, dominated as it is by the big and older aerospace companies, to push this agenda suggests to me that the culture truly has shifted, and that private space is definitely winning the political and cultural battle.
You can only defend the indefensible for so long. Remaining with the old approaches will result in a moribund industry, and people are starting to realize it.
I thought this a rather astonishing statement…
…the constant [0.01] Gs would overcome the medical problems caused by prolonged weightlessness.
[Power just went out but I did not lose the above… modern tech. is amazing.]
Anyway, this suggests we could work pretty well in 0.38g, doesn’t it?
I’ve heard it before.. it would actually help various systems on a spacecraft, and perhaps even medical procedures if necessary, and who knows if it actually helps with bone/muscle loss. Gotta try it.
It only suggests that if it’s true. I’m unaware of any evidence for it. A hundredth of a gee is almost indistinguishable from weightlessness.
Which is why I found it an astonishing statement.
Perhaps he meant to say that acceleration at 0.01G would reduce the travel time so dramatically that the medical problems caused by prolonged weightlessness wouldn’t have time to happen.
Yes, that’s probably what he meant.
In that case, the emphasis in the statement is wrong, but you are probably right.
Don’t just try to get the biggest piece of the pie.
Grow the pie.
Knowing this is the principal distinction between engineer-bureaucrats and engineer-entrepreneurs.
Boeing has done a few things that show it sees the potential for commercial space. Not only are they working on their CST100 capsule, but (at least as of a couple years ago) they designed it to be carried on the Delta IV, Atlas V and Falcon 9 V1.1 booster. The early flights are set for the Atlas V but they’re fairly open to launching on other boosters, or at least they were. I don’t know if that has changed.
Boeing also designed their 702SP satellite bus to be carried on a variety of boosters including the Falcon 9. A Falcon 9 can carry two 702SP satellites in a single launch.
Much as I hate to throw cold water on this glee, but likely the reason AIAA is not concentrating on supporting SLS is because it doesn’t need it. Despite the yearnings of some New Space fan boys, it is not in serious peril of being cancelled. He has total support from Congress and pretty much total support from the administration. SLS is going to fly and I think it’s time that enemies of heavy lift need to recognize and deal with it.
A heavy lift booster that so expensive as to leave no money for building payloads (other than the obscenely overpriced Orion capsule) is a rocket to nowhere.
Will NASA sell SLS launches to the private sector? What good is a giant rocket if none of us get to use it?
There are certainly a lot of benefits with a SHLV but if the private sector doesn’t have access there is enormous wasted potential.
Wodun,
Isn’t Dennis Tito considering it for his Mars flight?
Not if he’s serious about hitting his schedule and being able to afford the project.
He’s made nice, but that’s only because a lot of things need locking down before anything actually happens. Tito does not seem like a person that would miss the realities.
Well, it would be useful as a precedent but a one time stunt doesn’t mean NASA will be engaged in selling a significant number of launches.
Besides, do we really want the government trying to act like a business?
“Will NASA sell SLS launches to the private sector?
I don’t see how. The cost of SLS is estimated to be $1.5 billion / launch. Who could afford it?
Since when does government sell anything above cost?
No one says it has to be one customer and subsidization would make it more affordable.
One thing to consider is that selling launches would reduce the fixed costs assigned to each launch which are a large part of that $1.5b. Even if NASA didn’t turn a profit, it might help cover those fixed costs. But who knows if they could get the flight rate high enough for it to be effective or what the actual costs will be?
Just to be clear, I don’t want NASA to act as a business but it is interesting to think about.
One thing to consider is that selling launches would reduce the fixed costs assigned to each launch which are a large part of that $1.5b. Even if NASA didn’t turn a profit, it might help cover those fixed costs. But who knows if they could get the flight rate high enough for it to be effective or what the actual costs will be?
It would be trivial for the US government to exchange large fixed costs for large variable costs. But what would be the point?
And if NASA were a real business with nobody giving them lots of money to build a big rocket with ATK components, then they wouldn’t be touching SLS.
“Much as I hate to throw cold water on this glee, but likely the reason AIAA is not concentrating on supporting SLS is because it doesn’t need it. Despite the yearnings of some New Space fan boys, it is not in serious peril of being cancelled. He has total support from Congress and pretty much total support from the administration. SLS is going to fly and I think it’s time that enemies of heavy lift need to recognize and deal with it.”
It seems SLS will continue to get funding. But that is hardly news.
It would news if it actually flew. And five year from now is probably around the point it will be cancelled- basically once it’s known it won’t fly.
So Obama will continue to support it, more uncertainty with next administration. But even if fully supported at current levels of funding [a +50% increase would different story] it’s not given it will fly, nor not blow up.
So no good reason for NASA to be in rocket launch business, but not certain NASA will be in rocket launch business. Only certainty is NASA not going to Moon and is pissing away tax dollars.
SLS is going to fly and I think it’s time that enemies of heavy lift need to recognize and deal with it.
In that case, NASA’s human spaceflight will die.
NASA just announced 8 new astronaut candidates. At nearly the same time, Virgin Galactic announced that it has signed its 600th. Yet, you cannot see the handwriting on the wall.
NASA can be part of the future, or it can cling to the past. It cannot do both.
I remember when people said the government’s Very High Speed Integrated Circuit program was going to fly! Central planning and national industrial policy were going to save the US computer industry from Japan.
Years later, the VHSIC project finally delivered its first processor — which was *almost* as fast as the chips Intel was already marketing.
A funny thing happened on the way to the National Industrial Policy. The cheap “low end” game machines changed the world.
I also remember when Ronald Reagan made the decision to privatize NASA’s expendable launch vehicles. Critics said the move was reckless, it would endanger America’s space leadership and national security — but unlike today’s “Republicans,” Ronald Reagan had faith in private enterprise and the American people.
I miss Ronald Reagan.
His speeches have more impact today then when he first gave them.
Sarah Palin / Allen West. Give them both a big broom.
I’m not opposed to heavy lift in principle; I just don’t think we need it right now. I would prefer an incremental evolution in the size and capacity of existing launch vehicles on an as-needed basis rather than building a giant rocket from scratch. SpaceX seems to be thinking along these lines.
Science and science fiction writers since the 1940s have advocated building interplanetary ships in Earth orbit. We don’t need heavy lift for that. A true interplanetary spaceship would more closely resemble the ISS (or Bigelow modules) with engines, rather than a super Apollo.
Despite the yearnings of some New Space fan boys, it is not in serious peril of being cancelled. He has total support from Congress and pretty much total support from the administration. SLS is going to fly and I think it’s time that enemies of heavy lift need to recognize and deal with it.
While you weren’t quite as enthusiastic about Constellation and VSE, you made similar predictions. They didn’t reflect reality very well. The fundamental problem with SLS is that it doesn’t make sense from an economic point of view. There isn’t money for both an active space program and a huge, infrequently launched rocket. And if SpaceX gets their heavy lift rocket going, that’ll destroy any pretext for the SLS at all. It’ll be competing with a far cheaper rocket with similar capabilities (assuming they ever get the SLS to launch at all).
What a silly statement.
Heavy lift, as a capability, doesn’t have any enemies I know of.
NASA’s spending all it’s money on a launcher, leaving no money for any missions to fly on it, has a few, though probably not enough.
However, you really can’t help an addict who thinks one more fix will solve all their problems, and when it comes to NASA nostalgists endless yearning for one more Apollo program, the position is the same.
Heavy lift is useless. In fact, it’s worse than useless, because if there is an HLV, there won’t be a large and fiercely competitive propellant launch market if government exploration missions ever happen. And that means we’ll have to wait even longer for RLVs.
So you are wrong that HLVs don’t have enemies and wodun is wrong that they are at all useful, let alone very useful.
SHLV couldn’t be used for fuel depots?
Even with a SHLV there would still be a roll for smaller launchers and there would still be a pay off for developing a RLV.
Bigelow has said that an SLS sized launcher would allow for much larger expandables.
There are benefits to SHLV’s but that doesn’t mean SLS is the best utilization of them.
SHLV couldn’t be used for fuel depots?
What would be the point? And what are you going to launch on an HLV if not mostly propellant? That doesn’t leave any propellant for the private sector. And there isn’t really anything that needs an HLV and cannot be replaced by something that doesn’t.
Bigelow has said that an SLS sized launcher would allow for much larger expandables.
The nice thing about expandables is that they can be huge even without an HLV.
SHLV could be used in the construction of a fuel depot and smaller launchers used to supply it. A SHLV propellent delivery every now and then might be nice too. More propellent available would mean there would be more available to all customers. But it depends on where the fuel depot is.
For expandables, ins’t the fairing size is the limiting factor? I don’t know how much bigger the fairings can be on current launchers.
To me the problem isn’t with the concept of a SHLV and what could be done with one but with SLS, which is a bad use of resources and asks us to wait too long to do things we could do today with more launches.
But the one problem is these fearful words “government funding”, the ultimate tool of assimilation and corruption of goals.
Which is why to me this is just one more sign New Space is simply going to simply become the New Space Contractors.
Remember nothing destroys the ideals of rebels than winning the revolution and becoming the establishment.
We can find more rebels.
To elaborate on ken’s observation, our society can mint rebels for far cheaper than it costs to coopt them with public funding.
I think it fairly simple.
People who build space vehicles, like to see space vehicles being launched.
I heavy lift is useless and too expensive, why is SpaceX building the Falcon Heavy and is contemplating its own line of SLS class rockets?
Heavy lift isn’t useless and too expensive; SLS is useless and too expensive. As would be any vehicle designed by Congress.
Not having heavy lift is certainly cheap. Of course that means no Americans beyond LEO in our life times.
What nonsense.
It is the falsely perceived need for heavy lift that is trapping us in LEO. If they had taken the money wasted on Ares and SLS and spent it instead on landers and propellant storage, We’d be back to the moon within five years.
“Not having heavy lift is certainly cheap. Of course that means no Americans beyond LEO in our life times.”
Nonsense is right.
Boeing, ULA, and NASA have all examined depot-centric architectures for manned BLEO flight. All have found them cheaper than equivalent HLV-centric architectures. IIRC, NASA concluded they could perform the same missions $57 billion cheaper with propellant depots than with SLS.
Why are you opposed to saving the taxpayers billions?
Having the HLV doesn’t make it any easier to explore, and waiting for it makes it more difficult.
“..heavy lift is useless and too expensive, why is SpaceX building the Falcon Heavy and is contemplating its own line of SLS class rockets?”
Suppose Falcon heavy is actually ready to launch in couple years and suppose it costs 1/3rd the costs per SLS launch that is dreamed to cost. Suppose for the yearly development costs, NASA spends it could buy couple Falcon heavy launches, and NASA is only going to have 1 SLS launch per year [whenever they get to point of launching SLS]. And Falcon might have stages re-usable.
How does NASA explain to Congress why they need to continue developing SLS?
Do they decide to skip the 70 ton version, and rush to make 130 ton version so they can then claim the 130 ton rocket is better?
Sounds like something they will do, and sounds like rockets are going to explode trying to do such a silly thing.
and then we will get hearings to investigate the likely forth coming launch disasters in which panels of experts will explain the various ways that NASA was doing idiotic things and why they were doing such idiotic things.
They won’t need to explain to Congress.. that’s who ordered SLS.
“I would like the soup, Sir.”
“If you order the bread, the soup comes free.”
“I don’t want the bread, I want the soup.”
“Very well, Sir.”
…
“Here’s your bread Sir, the soup will be along shortly.”
“Damn you! I said I didn’t want the bread! Bring me my soup!”
“My apologizes, Sir.”
FH isn’t really an HLV, it’s an all kerolox GTO launcher. What matters is its performance to GTO, not LEO. And to GTO its performance is comparable to that of Ariane 5.
…that means no Americans beyond LEO in our life times.
By that logic, think of the size of the rocket to send a crew to Centauri?
Why is SpaceX building the Falcon Heavy
Wrong question Mark. They have designs for much bigger rockets. Why aren’t they building those?
Answer: Because they are a business and like any other must make profit to continue. They looked at their business where F9 made sense and F1 and F5 did not.
F9H and F9R are both incremental steps up from F9 so they make sense. Once the market matures, FX and the rest will start to make sense as well.
Regarding the comments here about the Falcon 9 Heavy vs SLS. The main difference is Falcon 9 Heavy reuses components from the Falcon 9 (engines, cores, etc). So it will have economies of scale since it uses components from their main satellite launcher vehicle. SLS is going to reuse squat if it continues its development tendency. It is also not going to develop any significant new technologies to reduce launch costs. Plus it is going to have horrendous R&D and launch costs. That is why I am against SLS.
I used to be in favor of the Atlas and Delta expansion plans put foward by Lockmart and Boeing. I also used to be in favor of OSP (except for the name) since it was going to address the ISS launch requirements using existing launchers. RL-60, ACES upper stage and propellant depots. The ISS requirement is now being addressed just fine by CCDev. SLS is a make work program.
For those interested ULA posted an updated paper about their proposed EELV evolution program a couple of years back:
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/EELVPhase2_2010.pdf
SHLV could be used in the construction of a fuel depot and smaller launchers used to supply it.
A depot doesn’t need to be launched on an HLV. If it does, it’s too big, possibly because the intended architecture envisions no refueling at a Lagrange point.
A SHLV propellent delivery every now and then might be nice too.
I couldn’t disagree more. What we need is very high launch rates, and using an HLV for launching propellant (about the only thing it can do short of a spectacular budget increase) would prevent that.
For expandables, ins’t the fairing size is the limiting factor?
Expandables were invented precisely so you could have much larger on orbit volumes without needing wider fairings. Obviously, the bigger the fairing, the bigger the expandable. But the expandables that are possible with existing fairings are huge already. In fact, even rigid modules fitting inside existing fairings would be enough if necessary.
To me the problem isn’t with the concept of a SHLV and what could be done with one but with SLS, which is a bad use of resources and asks us to wait too long to do things we could do today with more launches.
Maybe one day an SHLV will allow us to do useful things, but we are a long way away from that. And in the mean time there is one, and only one, issue we need to focus on: making space launch radically cheaper.