There’s an update at the Space Access Society, per current events.
50 thoughts on “Space Access”
This is one of the best articles I’ve ever seen; a concise, easily understandable overview of the current space situation.
It also clearly explains the political dynamic of SLS, and gets into why NASA is broken.
Regarding the RD-180, I think the biggest issue that conundrum raises is the statement that even after the cost of setting up US production, it’d cost several times as much per engine than getting it from Russia. I think that may be right, and if so, the reasons why are of paramount importance; why can’t we at least come close to Russian prices? This, to me, indicates an underlying problem, one that is a grave threat to our economic competitiveness, not just in space but in all else.
Thanks for the kind words. This Update is aimed at (among other things) influencing policymakers who may not be primarily focused on space issues, so feedback that we achieved reasonable clarity is good to hear.
RE lower Russian RD-180 prices, there’s less there than meets the eye. It’s not some one single powerful edge they have, but rather a number of factors combining.
– The deal was made in the late nineties, when they really needed the hard currency. They probably lowballed the price to close the deal and they may well be losing money – or at least not making very much – on each new engine at this point.
– They built the engines using processes and production machinery already paid for by other projects; thus up-front costs were low for them. A US production line would be starting from scratch. Worse, starting from scratch and having to pay extra to come up with machines and processes not routinely available here because the Russians just do things differently.
Much of the predicted higher US cost per RD-180 clone is simply a matter of writing off that predicted billion-dollar plant setup cost over the likely production run. if they end up producing a hundred engines, that’s $10 million per engine for the plant even before you start adding up things like labor and overhead and parts and materials and testing.
I just saw somewhere that Russia’s average income is up to around $18,000, versus ours at something over $50K – that alone is going to make Russian manufactures somewhat cheaper where all else is equal (which it seldom is.) But the basic story here is that the $10m per RD-180 is a one-time smoking deal, not an indicator of any current massive Russian advantage.
I’ve always taken it as an indicator not of how competitive the Russian’s are at the engineering of rocket engines, but how dysfunctional we are. Of all the products where Russia can’t possibly compete with us, which is a vast list, rocket engines are notably absent. I don’t think it’s that they devoted all their genius to rocket production instead of tank and rifle production, much less consumer goods, I think it’s that we used the same big-government model of engine production that they did. In fact, I’d say they’re significantly behind us in clever billing and cost overruns.
I’d say it’s a bit of both, actually.
The Russians did put a lot of resources into developing expertise at staged-combustion engines, to the point where they’re good enough at it to routinely use the cycle for new engines.
We built SSME in a barely reusable version, reengineered it into a moderately reusable version, and ever since, well, I’ve lost count of how many US projects to build the Ultimate Staged-Combustion Booster Engine have eaten a lot of time and money, tested some development hardware, then died.
It’s never quite clear whether they die from technical problems or from sticker shock at what it’ll take to carry on to a production engine, but die they all do.
And yeah, world-leading US expertise in cost-plus project-milking is a major factor. Who ya gonna call, AerojetPWR? Better have a lot of time and a LOT of dimes.
Perhaps they need a different approach to engine development. Instead of spending gobs of time and money trying to squeeze the last second of Isp out of an engine only to have something that’s too expensive to produce, design for a reliable engine of good performance that can be built in large numbers for reasonable cost. See: SpaceX Merlin D. The perfect is the enemy of the good enough.
Yes, excellent article.
“As for what the current US Station workforce should be told to do if we lose the current Station (whether via overt takeover or due to politically-caused operational problems) the obvious answer is, build, launch, assemble and operate a new and better (and if done properly many times cheaper than ISS’s $100 billion-plus cost) space station, ASAP.”
I think better is to boost ISS to higher orbit. The higher the orbit more international it is. So Earth/Moon L-1 is accessible from all over the world. Or don’t need to launch to a 51 inclination, or L-1 is more international than GEO or LEO 51 degree inclination.
So if put at L-1 than ISS does need yearly reboosting, it stay in L-1 with little need of station keeping and does require reboosting like ISS because of atmospheric drag.
Of course it does cost more to go to L-1, and one should increase amount of radiation sheilding. But also ISS gets more solar energy at L-1 as compared to LEO.
But I am not saying ISS has to be re-boosted to L-1, instead it could boosted 1/2 way to the Moon. So it could be say perigee of say 20,000 km and apogee of 100,000 km. Which is orbit which lasts forever with stationkeeping- or no atmospheric drag. Or less, say 500 km by 50,000 km. Or whatever.
Or the final destination might be considered to be a L-point, but don’t have to get to the final point right away.
So needs to boosted and needs shielding. Shielding does not have to be entire station. Basically sheilding on station can be a solar flare shelter. And roomy solar flare shelter. And so being solar flare shelter it should also shield against GCR and Van Allen belt radiation. And have access to rest of station when there is less radiation [not flying through van allen belt, nor solar flares are happening, and hopefully be able to predict GCR well enough to choose time when it’s at lower level.
So this transforms ISS into a vehicle to test operation in deep space. It’s doing another leg of what we need a space station to test in order to send crew to Mars [or Moon].
And all of this should cost less than building another station. Though we also build more space stations. If it was in L-1 one could have stations a few km distance to each other. And if going 1/2 way to L-1, one can also do this. You could do it at LEO also. But one say further one gets away from LEO the more leg room one gets.
Why should NASA build another station when Mr. Bigelow has been waiting since 2010 to put one up? Bigelow Aerospace could have a BA330 up as soon as commercial crew is available. It NASA leases the entire BA330 it will only cost NASA $450 million a year, far less than the $3 billion is currently spending each year on the ISS.
Politics is the art of the possible. Sometimes we write about how things should be in the best of all possible worlds, and sometimes we write to try to influence policymakers to actually consider taking finite practical steps in the right direction. This piece is the latter.
Put another way, Station is not just a complicated piece of hardware orbiting 220 miles up, it’s the organization behind the hardware, and politically speaking the organization has a life of its own beyond the particular hardware. The policy advice we came up with here is aimed at producing the most good and the least harm we thought practically achievable in the event the organization loses its current hardware and is casting about for what to do next. IE, the mix of repurposed surplus hardware from Station (there’s a group within NASA already working on this, so it’s not a stretch to think it’d probably have to be included) and commercial Bigelow modules (we tried to be subtle and not actually name Bigelow, but who else ya gonna buy US commercial space hab modules from?)
“…who else ya gonna buy US commercial space hab modules from?)”
Astrotech (formerly Spacehab). Tons of experience in habitable space modules attached to Shuttle.
Boeing. They built Destiny and the Nodes for the ISS.
Those are just the ones with a proven track record. Bigelow’s two test stations count as TRL-9 as well, but they’re not the only game in town.
“Why should NASA build another station when Mr. Bigelow has been waiting since 2010 to put one up? ”
Well, American tax payer has spent over 100 billion on ISS and it’s considered an asset in terms of international cooperation. De-orbited ISS, is actually worse than ending Saturn V.
ISS cost more and it’s focus international activity in space.
So I might hate the UN, but I think it would bad idea to burn the UN building- burning up ISS into our atmosphere, politically speak has no plus points to it, unlike burning down the UN building.
Destroying ISS is lose in terms of internationally and a lose in terms of domestically, with no up side.
So move ISS out of LEO.
As far a Bigelow, we put a space station in LEO at JSC inclination and it could related to space tourists and fuel depots. And/or one put Bigelow, station also in L-1 or lunar suface, Mars orbit, Mars surface, or whatever. Basically Bigelow would more business if moved ISS out of LEO. And as said blowing up ISS should not be a option we consider down the road.
Calculate how many hundreds of tons of propellant it would take to boost the ISS to L1, figure out how you’re going to get all that propellant there to do the job and get back to us.
“Calculate how many hundreds of tons of propellant it would take to boost the ISS to L1, figure out how you’re going to get all that propellant there to do the job and get back to us.”
Well, I think we start from this baseline:
“The ISS requires an average 7,000 kg of propellant each year for altitude maintenance, debris avoidance and attitude control. Based on current usage, it will need 105,000 kg through 2014. ”
So as metric, if ISS uses another 100 tons to reboost in coming years, that would better than limiting it to only 50 tons used in coming years.
So to boost to higher orbit one talking about somewhere around 1000 tons of propellant.
Also one consider that if NASA were to pay to deorbit ISS, it would probably ask for at 1 least 1 billion dollars.
I would say there is some merit continuing ISS at it’s current location, for some indefinite time period. Or I don’t we should put ISS into higher orbit within say 2 years.
And I think many things would need to be done before doing this. What I am suggesting is not to de-orbit ISS and not to wait, until de-orbiting ISS is only viable option [simply due to budget and lack of time to do anything other course of action].
Or in other words, various activity is going on with ISS and there is no need to disrupt immediate plans.
So I would say putting ISS into higher orbit is not a long term goal, but intermediate goal to begin the process which could take years to complete. And since it will take a long time and you don’t want to remove the station from service for a long time [and one wants to do this at lowest cost in terms of each step] I would suggest it would done in stages. So major first stage, would getting ISS to high enough orbit, that it does not cost 7000 kg of propellent per year to keep it flying. So maybe only 500 to 1000 kg of propellent per year [or less than 100]. After achieving a lower yearly cost of keeping ISS in orbit per orbit. One might pause for operational period, and then go to next stage of getting to a higher orbit, and finally ending up with ISS in stable orbit such L-1 or other L-points. The pause after first stage might include adding further shielding. And before starting first stage in terms propulsion, one may add further shielding.
g,
I’m with you on EML-1 facilities, but not sure ISS is the right infrastructure there. We’d have to bolt on a boatload of shielding, for one thing. In my eyes it’s just too fragile.
I did get to help out with the most recent revision of the Boy Scout Space Exploration merit badge, and provided a substantial amount of the text they used for the update. When the new booklet was published in April I was quite surprised to see that they had added a whole page (p. 76) on Free Space Facilities, focusing on EML-1 and EML-5. They also included topics like space resources, solar power satellites, asteroid facilities, and many of the other things spacers like to talk to each other about. Because frankly, no one else knows what this stuff is. Teachers are always coming up after my lectures and asking “What is this EML-1? Why have I never heard of it?”
So hopefully there will be a dawning awareness of the value of a cislunar economy, and how space can be of benefit to Earth. Now everyone go out and get your local Scouts earning their Space Exploration merit badges – now with “NewSpace” content!
–g,
I’m with you on EML-1 facilities, but not sure ISS is the right infrastructure there. We’d have to bolt on a boatload of shielding, for one thing. In my eyes it’s just too fragile.–
Well other perhaps needing to replace ISS own propulsion unit, one could use it to raise the orbit. It seems there could be better ways to do it, which includes things like ATV and improvement of booster modules. And all of above.
Relevant to current situation with Russia, one could certainly have as option of using more Russian launch use. Which doesn’t mean rushing to get Russia to sign an agreement, and it seems much better to get even more competition as to getting best and cheapest way to boost the station. So if Russia goes south one simply excludes them and have the competition make up the the difference. It seems at this point one would more or less include Russia with expectation that current problems will to resolved by time one is actually spending funds to start boosting the station. Of course current problems can seen as political obstacle to making any kind specific contract of future Russian services. It’s not good for business that Russia is correctly violating international agreements and we might even have limit our current contracts because of present and future Russian violations.
Another aspect is we might use ion propulsion once the ISS has gotten to much larger orbit- the higher the orbit, will give more solar power and maybe it used to lift the pergree. So once get apogee above Van Allen, then maybe ion could to lift the perigee and doing this would be most efficient way of using ion- rather than spiraling out.
So not suggesting we need to use more thrust than that which has been used- though perhaps this could increased a bit. But rather more frequent re boosts. And so having to spend more time re boosting will interfere will experiments and entire period of re boosting
will effect number of crew on station and etc. So need a plan.
ISS isn’t suitable for L1/L2 and we would still want a LEO station as a staging point.
But a BA330 would be. And with the money saved from withdrawing from the ISS NASA could afford both a BA330 in Earth Orbit as a staging point and a BA330 in the EM L1, and probably have money left over for placing another BA330 in one of the stable lunar orbits.
Really why are folks interested in hanging on to the ISS? Its a worst money pit than the Space Shuttle was.
A BA330 is not an ISS. For one thing, it has nowhere near the amount of power.
It has enough to its needs, and if a customer requires more I am sure BA will find a solution. Or does your faith in private enterprise end at the atmosphere?
I think we’re stuck with it unless Bigelow manages to deploy a commercial station first, in which case the SLS camp may succeed in scuttling ISS and sucking up its funding, or if a Russian departure kills it after 2020. In the latter case you may see a big fight between an effort to preserve a NASA-funded LEO presence and SLS/Orion.
All Mr. Bigelow is waiting for is a taxi to serve his station. He firm has been in hold mode since COTS/CCP detoured space firms away from the America Prize he offered. After all, what New Space firm would settle for a mere $50 million for successful demonstration of a crew system (i.e. actually flying astronauts on it) when they are able to get 10 times that much from NASA for just showing progress with milestones payments for every new milestone they think up 🙂
And folks wonder why the crewed Dragon first promised by Mr. Musk to fly in 2011 is now delayed to 2017…
ISS is there, it’s paid for, and it’s actually starting to support the beginnings of various commercial services.
If NASA withdrew from ISS and tried to just put BA330’s in interesting places, it’d very quickly have no funding for BA330’s, because the Congressional Station coalition would refuse to sign off on all those Station workforce layoffs and would invent something for them to do. probably something a lot less long-term useful than a hybrid of surplus Station and commercial hardware.
Nothing wrong with espousing the ideal. Just be clear on what is and isn’t meanwhile possible.
The uncertainty that the Russians have just created about access to ISS is going to kill off the commercial ventures pretty fast. You aren’t going to invest money in doing experiments if you are not going to access to get the results, or even worst, someone else feels free to take them since you don’t have access anymore.
The sunk cost argument (its paid) really has little relevance given that its a money pick costing $3 billion a year. The station huggers in Congress are a bigger problem, but most would probably let go if you make them look like they are supporting Russian aggression by supporting the ISS. The voters in most of those districts still equate Russia with communism, and nothing turns them off against a candidate than hearing they are soft on communism. It would be fairly easy to show how much of the $100 billion was given to Russia for their work on the ISS and how much of the $3 billion is going to Russia.
Also you are unrealistic thinking that just because NASA will be buying one or more BA330 their “station” workforce will decline. I expect for every Bugelow Aerospace employee there will be 10, 20 or more NASA employees doing evaluations, assessments, studies, experimental reviews, etc. for each of the BA330 NASA leases. That is simply the culture of the modern NASA. It took NASA less than 2 years from proposing the Mercury capsule to flying it, when no one knew how to build a manned capsule. Its taken twice that long for NASA to just write the specs for commercial crew. Don’t worry, those NASA folks won’t be unemployed, they will still be generating power point presentations , white papers and reports. Its the NASA way. They just won’t be subsidizing Russian aggression along the way.
Eh? I don’t have much at all to argue with in what you say here, aside from the assertion that “..you are unrealistic thinking that just because NASA will be buying one or more BA330 their “station” workforce will decline.” Where’d either the Update or my comments here say that?
You may be mistaking for a prediction my comment about the political impossibility of the drastic near-term layoffs it would take for NASA to implement your proposal and immediately convert a major part of the current Station budget to leasing BA330’s.
Mind, I think we’d both like to see NASA get there. I just don’t think it’s politically realistic to call for it to happen suddenly rather than very gradually.
“ISS isn’t suitable for L1/L2 and we would still want a LEO station as a staging point.”
ISS isn’t used a staging point. But could be used as a stage point if it’s at L-1.
Or if someone wants to go to Moon or Mars they aren’t going to go to ISS current orbit
and inclination. If ISS was at L-1, they might go to ISS before going to Moon or Mars.
As for ISS not being suitable for L-1. ISS wasn’t designed for L-1. But it could be modified
and one could do things different in L-1. There is no debris problem problem in L-1. There is not orbits
which intersect at L-1 which have velocity difference of over 5 km/sec [+11,000 mph]. Any uncontrolled object going faster than 50 m/s leaves L-1. So things might going faster than .5 km sec in L-1 but they can’t continue going at this velocity without leaving L-1.
So in L-1 one does not need to de-orbit garbage into Earth’s atmosphere. Instead could one depose of garbage by pushing it away at 1 mph. And you probably would see again any time soon. But one could also keep the garbage for use immediately for shielding or put it in some spot you call a garbage dump and if enough garbage piles up, some one might think it’s worth recycling for some purpose. So if put ISS in L-1 one would also be going in direction of reusing trash in space rather vaporizing it in Earth’s atmosphere.
And of course moving ISS to L-1 is not the alternative of someday “needing” to de-orbit the entire space station. So ISS without going to higher orbit, probably will survive for another 20 years, whereas in L-1, it could be up their for centuries and have no need for a lot money to keep it up there for a century of time. Now, as said it will be more expensive to go there and come back and more to supply it, but not more to keep it in space.
So as long as ISS in in LEO, we are stuck with it’s operating costs, and therefore coupled with SLS operational cost, NASA has no funds to do other things. So if it’s in LEO and if NASA wants do more human exploration ISS face prospect of planned de-orbit or waiting for it to decay to point it’s consider not worth it’s operation costs- de-orbit it. But if put in L-1, NASA can continue with ISS, or it can spend money on other things and it does not need to de-orbit ISS. So other countries might do things with ISS, and/or NASA might “leave” ISS operation, and later decide to go back to doing things on ISS, and etc.
The inclination has nothing to do with it. ISS use as a staging point isn’t foreseen in NASA’s plans because of SLS. Having a gateway station at 51 degrees is an excellent choice, because it is so easily accessible from all over the world.
The problem isn’t the orbit ISS is in, but its design. ISS couldn’t function at L1/L2. Maybe it could be upgraded, but the modifications are apparently of such a scale that you’d be better off building a new (small) station, probably an inflatable one.
As for an L1/L2 gateway station, I’m all for it. But even more importantly, we need to get launch costs down. I think the best way to do that is to create a large and fiercely competitive propellant launch market. Above all we’d need a spacecraft or transfer stage capable of accepting propellant in orbit. In fact, that’s the only thing we need to get started. It would probably be unmanned, but could evolve to manned variants. We could spend loads of money on new hardware like an L1/L2 station, but money is tight and what we really need to do is to spend money on launches. Make the spacecraft reusable so you only have to buy relatively cheap propellant to launch instead of an expensive spacecraft that tends to be even more expensive than its already expensive launch.
The advantage of LEO as some place to stage is it’s the least delta-v to orbit- and ISS inclination and orbit is not the least delta-v to orbit. Or only thing which launchies to 51 inclination orbit from KSC are launches which going to ISS. And reason is launching to 51 inclination gets less payload to orbit.
So reason ISS is at 51 inclination is because it’s an inclination the Russians , launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan can get to a LEO orbit.
So what one could do with ISS, is not no it’s orbital inclination, but one increase it’s orbital height. And of course the Russian can still launch to it, But at some point in raising ISS higher and well out of LEO, it starts to use less delta-v to launch at the best inclination of the site, rather than being required to use the 51 inclination as only option.
Now if want to observe Earth from LEO, 51 inclination is pretty good, though polar orbit get more coverage of Earth, but you want to go beyond LEO there nothing special about 51.
The only way I know to lower ISS yearly operational costs is to raise it’s orbit, if raise ISS current orbit, one will have more radiation exposure due to ISS high inclination and southern anomaly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
And ISS is currently exposing it’s crew to higher radiation due to it being in 51 inclination. And raising ISS higher will further increase this radiation unless one adds more shielding. So if a space station was at KSC launch inclination it would not have this problem and could higher orbit than ISS currently is and have less radiation.
If ISS inclination is not raised, ISS will be de-orbit relatively soon- say 5 to at most 20 years, and I would bet it will be less than 10 years.
So if you want ISS burning up, you would not want to rise it’s orbit. But I don’t see any benefit to Bigelow is ISS is de-obited in 10 years. I don’t see any benefit to any one who is interest in space exploration, for ISS de-orbiting in 10 years.
And due to ISS having a termination date relatively near terms, this inhibts current operation- how could make future long term commitment in terms of infrastructure if facing prospect that ISS might be there in 10 years?
One of political advantages of saying ISS will not be de-orbited before some future date, is exactly related to this “problem”. But of course no matter what is said, one has the reality that relatively soon, ISS if remains in it’s current orbit, will be end up de-orbiting- by happy circumstance it might last 20 years, but it’s not a good bet.
“As for what the current US Station workforce should be told to do if we lose the current Station (whether via overt takeover or due to politically-caused operational problems) the obvious answer is, build, launch, assemble and operate a new and better (and if done properly many times cheaper than ISS’s $100 billion-plus cost) space station, ASAP.”
Whatever for?
Oh and the Ukraine situation is not going to drag on for years. Putin will have it in his pocket very soon.
Yep, and then he will have his new Iron Curtain along the Polish border, eye to eye with NATO.
As the piece explained, Station has political implications and political momentum. If we lose the current Station, we’re going to do something with that block of NASA funding. The only question is, will it be the least stupid thing possible or the most.
As for the Ukrainian situation dragging on, Putin would certainly like to finish taking the parts he wants then switch it all off again. The West probably won’t let him, and the Ukrainians certainly won’t. It will drag on.
“As for the Ukrainian situation dragging on, Putin would certainly like to finish taking the parts he wants then switch it all off again. The West probably won’t let him, …”
Oh yes they/we will. You’ll notice no one is talking about Crimea. Furthermore, the West will stop thinking about Ukraine because Putin will be moving in Estonia.
“..because Putin will be moving in Estonia.”
At which point, the situation will be dragging on for years. You refute yourself.
Quibbling about whether it’ll still be called “the Ukrainian situation” aside, the bad political effects on US-Russian ventures will continue. Barring unlikely policy changes, for years.
“Quibbling about whether it’ll still be called “the Ukrainian situation” aside..”
Sorry you can’t change your position. You said Ukraine – I said Ukraine. Now you want to call Estonia ,Ukraine, yet then put the quibble aside. And in all of this verbal pretzel-twisting you are missing the point.
YOU made Eastern Europe relevant in your article and in this thread.
All that happens in Eastern Europe is irrelevant to what happens with ISS except to point out that Russia is no longer “a partner”. We don’t object to Crimea; will not object to the rest of Ukraine nor will we lift a finger in Estonia.
Nor will we lift a finger if Russia forbids us to put another astro on ISS
THAT is the point. Eastern European/Baltic events are irrelevant.
“As the piece explained, Station has political implications and political momentum. If we lose the current Station, we’re going to do something with that block of NASA funding. The only question is, will it be the least stupid thing possible or the most.”
I read the explanation but I don’t buy it. Very few citizens even know ISS exists so there’s no political pressure from citizens worrying about the station. The pork has been all dealt out so there’s no benefit to the pols.
Secondly, you know very well what happens to a block of NASA money once the project for that block gets cancelled – it doesn’t stay with NASA. It’s lost to NASA – usually as a bargaining chip so that a pol can get a bridge ot nowhere build in the pol’s district.
Very few people care about ISS – both citizens and pols. It impacts their lives not at all. So long as we had it, no one cared about spending to use it. But no one is going to want to pony up tens or hundreds of billions to build a new one.
Few Americans care a lot, but the majority are aware of and care a little about what NASA people do in space, which these days is almost entirely Station. This has political consequences.
You are also incorrect about the political money mechanics involved on a couple of levels. NASA funding over time is fairly steady; cancel one project within NASA and another tends to get the funding. Only for big enough projects, the mass of constituents means they’re very hard to ever really cancel, EG SLS – and, we predict, Station.
All this is in the Update, or in past Updates, or available elsewhere. Agree or disagree, it’s a free country.
Disagree, except for this:
“Few Americans care a lot, ….”
“But no one is going to want to pony up tens or hundreds of billions to build a new one.’
Which is great because it makes the case for leasing from Bigelow Aerospace even stronger.
Plus the decision to include the Russians in the critical path dates to the Clinton Administration. What a gift to the Republican candidate in 2016, to show that the Russian loving Clintons set the American space program on a path to embarrassment and destruction by subsidizing the Russians. The Tea Party will especially echo that argument around the blogsphere and demonize those politicians that don’t want to replace the “Russian bailout station” with an station built by American Free Enterprise.
“Which is great because it makes the case for leasing from Bigelow Aerospace even stronger.”
Throughout this thread and others, you go off on companies working with NASA as a detriment to the industry and to the companies themselves. In this thread, you want Bigelow to work with NASA to replace the ISS. Why would this arrangement be different than the ones you were complaining about?
Why would leasing to NASA reduce the government interference as opposed to selling Bigelow mods to NASA outright or even avoiding NASA as a customer?
I don’t disagree with you that NASA and Bigelow can put up an ISS replacement for less money than was spent on the ISS but I might disagree with you on your other examples where working with NASA has caused great harm over the alternative.
Wodun,
Consider the list of firms that benefited from working with NASA in the past on space commerce – Space Services, RpK, Armadillo are three that come to mind at once.
Actually the best arrangement would be for NASA get out of HSF entirely. Just provide grants to researchers the way the NSF does and leave them to pay the commercial vendors just as NSF scientists charter ships or aircraft as needed for their work.
The second best would be to just pay Bigelow per astronaut flown to a BA330, just as with the commercial and space tourists, treating space flight the same as conference travel.
But NASA has a control streak a mile wide and barring NASA being dissolved then for them to lease an entire BA330 would probably the best that could be hoped for although the SLS advocates pushing for a station to be launched on it could come close as it would probably end up being one of NASA endless paper studies, clearing the way for a private space station industry to emerge.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned often is that the ISS needs some substantial reconfiguring to be able to properly host new US capsules. They need to move the PMM as well as a few other smaller components and perform several spacewalks in support of the reconfiguration. Currently that work isn’t slated to be finished until mid-2015. It would seem prudent to accelerate that reconfiguration as much as possible.
The words ‘scuttling’ keep coming up.
Why on Earth wouldn’t we just sell it (or, US interest in it anyway). If Russia pulls out, their slice is ‘abandoned’.
Yes, a quick hab module or two would be on my personal short list (along with a spare Dragon), but the infrastructure would still be worth buying NASA’s interest out, yes? (And -then- moving it, etc.)
What -is- the biggest slice of money here anyway? It isn’t salaries for the astronauts on station, and it isnt lift….
Henry Vanderbilt said;
The deal was made in the late nineties, when they really needed the hard currency. They probably lowballed the price to close the deal and they may well be losing money – or at least not making very much – on each new engine at this point.
Bolding mine.
Henry, if you’re right, and I think you probably are (I’m very familiar with the economic situation in Russia in that era) , that’s a very, very important detail. It’s perhaps the most important one of all, for both understanding the current crisis regarding space, and in predicting Russian moves.
It boils down to this; if they are losing money on each engine now, they have motives beyond political to kill the deal, or at least renegotiate it. That, coupled with the political motives, would IMHO explain why they made noises in recent years about the engine’s use for US military payloads, and also make their current threats almost certain to be carried out.
Thanks for the explainer on production costs, too. 🙂
Yes, anytime Russians are being difficult, one explanation to consider is that it’s a negotiating tactic. And Russians are reputed to be better than average at playing multiple games at once.
At the same time, cash flow is cash flow, and their economy is not in the greatest shape. They may want to be cautious about giving up income. We do not totally lack leverage.
But then, national politics may trump the company interests involved. Which level is Rogozin playing on? Keeping us guessing is to his advantage.
FWIW, my guess would be RD-180 sales are currently “not making much money” rather than at an outright loss at this point, else they’d have been renegotiating harder, earlier. But that’s just a guess.
“Yes, anytime Russians are being difficult, one explanation to consider is that it’s a negotiating tactic. And Russians are reputed to be better than average at playing multiple games at once.”
Because a Hillary or Kerry would be terminated within couple days on the job- most countries can’t afford such clowns.
Regarding a replacement engine, could Xcor possibly come up with one in the timescale involved? IIRC they have a contract to develop an RL-10 replacement.
They’ve never built an engine with that scale and performance (no one has, actually, except the Russians, if you don’t count the SSME, which isn’t hydrocarbon).
OK, but given their track record they probably have better shot that PWR of cost of actually delivering something. I wonder what the development/unit cost of such an engine would be, could it be on par with the Russians?
Also regarding the size/performance issue, could Atlas 5 use a cluster of smaller engines like Falcon 9? Or would the modifications to the structure be too expensive?
I would love to know the benefits gained from the ISS. I don’t mean microgravity experiments that are done on the station. I’m more interested in acquired knowledge that will help us in furthering space development. For example, can we say that it has taught us how to build spaceships in space? Any good websites out there that go into this?
Okay, comprehensive reaction to all previous comments here.
First, the Russian-forced modifications to the international political situation that have occasioned all this vigorous discussion. Gregg is almost certainly right that Putin will grab more of Ukraine. There are regions with solid Russian-identifying majorities in the south and east of Ukraine that Putin can pick off with relative ease. There was a caller to the Space Show a couple weeks back who said that Putin has to do this, and soon, as the infrastructure supplying water and electricity to Crimea lie in these areas of Ukraine and that the Ukrainian gov’t. has already cut off both. He claimed there is a one-month supply of water in Crimea. If this guy is right, Putin will have to move in ca. two weeks or less. Even if Dr. Livingston’s caller is not right, the temptation to gobble up the Russian-majority parts of Ukraine has a certain inevitability about it. Russia, as a culture and a nation, just can’t seem to resist the urge to go on the occasional land-grab in the “near-abroad” as they like to call it.
Where I think Gregg is wrong is in supposing Putin would grab up the rest of Ukraine. Annexing the Russian-majority areas can be credibly described as a painful sort of win-win for both the Putin and Ukrainian governments. The former gets to strut about and crow of his great victory over the fascists in Kiev. The “fascists in Kiev” in turn, are rid of chronically restive regions that were always going to be thorns in their side even if they could be held.
Attempting to take the rest of Ukraine would be less enjoyable for the Russian Federation. For one thing, the excuse of persecuted Russian-speaking majorities allegedly being abused by non-Russians would go right out the window. There would be significant prompt military resistance and guerrilla warfare after the likely destruction of regular military formations in non-Russian Ukraine. Putin would have to resort to the sorts of scorched-earth reprisal tactics formerly employed against the Chechens to pacify the non-Russian parts of Ukraine. This wouldn’t play nearly as well in the rest of the world as it did when applied in Chechnya. The Chechens, being a nation of tribal criminals and raving Islamic nutcases, were not very sympathetic victims. Ukrainians are. Our NATO allies would, quite reasonably, be formally requesting major forward deployments of American troops and equipment into their territories as a precaution and, most probably, a new, long-term “normal” for the alliance. If Obama tried to resist this, I think he might well be removed from office.
The wackiest of Gregg’s notions is that a Russian move on Estonia would have no significance. Estonia is a NATO ally. As soon as a single Russian boot touches Estonian soil, Article 5 of the NATO Treaty comes into play and we are at war with Russia. We either pony up and fight or the NATO Treaty becomes a dead letter and the post-WW2 system of American alliances comes apart like a cheap suit with Russians and the Chinese picking up the pieces. I don’t think even the dithering and spineless Obama would be inclined to let that happen on his watch, though I wish I could be more certain. Underestimating the pusillanimity of the Obama administration has proven a mug’s game thus far.
If Putin moves on the Baltics, Obama caves, NATO dissolves, Russia pushes on into the former Warsaw Pact, China gobbles up the eastern Pacific and Hell, in general, comes to breakfast, then the impact on ISS and the American space program become nearly irrelevant flyspecks on a panoramic window of global catastrophe. Fortunately, I think there are enough Democrats from Red states that a bi-partisan impeachment could succeed against an Obama who refused to uphold the NATO Treaty in extremis. Given Obama’s exquisitely tuned political antennae where his personal political survival is concerned, I don’t think things would reach such a pretty pass. Obama has demonstrated he is quite flexible on matters of “principle” when his political advantage is otherwise at risk.
So, bottom line: Putin takes the Russky areas of Ukraine, an abbreviated, but much more ethnically cohesive rump Ukraine remains. The U.S. military forward deploys into Poland, the Baltics and other parts of the former Warsaw Pact which are now NATO members, perhaps even into what remains of Ukraine after making it a NATO member as well, and we settle down to waiting out the Russians in a Cold War 2.0.
Now, on to implications for the U.S. space program(s) including the all-important domestic politics. As I think the Russians will take more of Ukraine, I also think the current risible sanctions regime will be widened and toughened appreciably post-annexation 2.0. The Russkies will keep all their retaliatory embargoes in place and probably impose others as well. ULA has received its last RD-180. Atlas V will either fly with some other engine or it will die. It’s also probable that, once the Russian’s second annexation of Ukrainian territory occurs, U.S. astronauts have taken their last ISS-bound ride on Soyuz.
I think ULA will be quite slow to acknowledge and accommodate this new geopolitical reality. For awhile, at least, they will try to have their bought dogs in Congress keep things as much like they were, pre-Ukraine crises, as possible. The usual suspects, in this case, won’t be able to deliver.
Up to now, the pro-ULA caucus has also pretty much been the pro-SLS caucus. These folks have presented a united front in sniping at COTS, commercial crew and, to a lesser extent, ISS. The recent merger of ATK’s aerospace and defense ops with Orbital Sciences, changes this calculus. Orbital is in somewhat better shape than ULA in terms of how long they can stretch their existing stockpile of NK-33’s, but likely Ukrainian developments will ensure no more Russian engines of any kind are in Antares’s future, nor is any Ukrainian-fabricated first stage hardware much beyond what has already been delivered; their current supplier is in territory likely to be annexed by Russia. It’s this latter supply chain problem that is likely to bite before a lack of Russian engines.
Orbital has openly discussed the likelihood of having their new ATK division gin up a solid first-stage booster for Antares. ATK would like this as it keeps their large-diameter solids workforce in orders – perhaps several a year for several years at least. SLS solid boosters – a hanging-on-by-the-fingernails-barely-there market of perhaps two units every two to four years – wouldn’t survive even a cursory cost-benefit/ROI analysis anent a solid Antares first stage. If they go this route, Orbital de facto takes ATK out of the SLS caucus and puts it squarely where Orbital is now, in the ISS caucus. The SLS and ULA caucuses are suddenly stripped of their Utah base and reduced to a rump consisting mostly of Alabama die-hards. With the defection of ATK, the SLS caucus probably falls below the threshold of sustainability. It’s entirely possible that SLS could be cancelled well within Obama’s remaining tenure.
ULA, after sufficient bitch-slapping by new realities, will awake to the need to do something to avoid imminent collapse. The block buy will be dead without further respect to SpaceX legal maneuvers because ULA will lack the wherewithal to deliver a significant number of the Atlas V cores called for. ULA may try to fiddle the number of Delta IV cores up and Atlas V’s down, but they may not have suitable Delta IV production capacity to compensate. SpaceX is tanned, rested and ready. I don’t see any way ULA can credibly keep SpaceX out of the DoD/USAF/NRO pasture any longer. The F9 has even greater margins, most ways, over unaugmented Delta IV than it does over similarly unaugmented Atlas V. SpaceX is likely to win all or most of the lower-end gov’t. payloads for F9, saving Delta IV Heavy and multi-SRB versions of Atlas and single-core Delta for FH to pick off when it becomes operational and certified in perhaps as little as two year’s time.
What will ULA do about the RD-180? If they can’t get the gov’t. to pay for a hurry-up reverse-engineered version, they will probably do nothing. Even if they get a free ride on an RD-180 clone development, the likely higher unit costs won’t do their bottom line any good and the Atlas V will remain pathetically uncompetitive with F9 and FH. They need to develop a clusterable LOX/RP-1 engine of Merlin 1-D class and follow SpaceX’s lead on resuseability. Nothing else is going to save them. I have severe doubts they can pull this off.
This is without even considering the destabilizing effects on ULA of imminent Atlas V non-viability. ULA was glued together as a merger of more or less equal Boeing and LockMart divisions. With Atlas V cratered, the original rationale for the combo goes out the window. Boeing might see advantage in sawing Delta IV loose from the bloated corpse of Atlas V and taking it back, dissolving ULA as an entity in the process.
In the area of new engine development, the likeliest scenario is an attempted hurry-up cloning of the RD-180. Congress has already indicated a preference for moves in that direction. As many have noted here, and I concur, this will not, long-term, save the Atlas V. Nor will any new (RD-180 non-clone equivalent) or resurrected/re-engineered (F-1B) large LOX/RP-1 engine. Atlas V was on deathwatch even before the current Ukrainian crisis. SpaceX was going to eat its lunch. That was on rails. Renewed Russian aggression merely accelerates a process already underway. That five years of extra life ULA thought it had bought with its block buy gambit is turning to quicksand beneath its corporate feet.
The rational course of developing an independently-sourced, clusterable, Merlin 1-D-equivalent LOX/RP-1 engine will, in all likelihood, not be promptly – or perhaps even ever undertaken. Much as I’d like to see XCOR build a really big piston pump booster engine, a Merlin 1-D-class motor is much closer to their current ambit. I don’t think, with everything Lynx-related on their plate, XCOR has any resources available to pursue this as a company-funded speculative project; they’d need a customer and a contract. I wish they’d get one from a wised-up and humbled ULA, but that doesn’t look likely. Still, it pays to remember Dr. Johnson’s admonition about that which wonderfully concentrates the mind. Perhaps next year in Jerusalem.
Should the Russians renege on Soyuz rides to the ISS for U.S. and allied astronauts, SpaceX appears to have, in the Dragon 2.0, what the fictional X-75 armored shuttle was in Armageddon – the critical gadget at the critical time, even though, as yet, untested. The development schedule could probably best be accelerated by simply eliminating the pad abort test and going straight to the in-fight abort test, then declaring Dragon 2.0 fit for duty. A successful in-flight abort test would make Dragon 2.0’s first manned mission incomparably safer than Young and Crippen’s first jaunt skyward in Columbia. This would also have the significant advantage of turning a test article, unneeded for the cancelled pad abort test, into a vehicle capable of flying a regular ISS mission.
The other commercial crew participants would face booster issues with the abrupt defenestration of Atlas V. Boeing would, one presumes, re-pot CST-100 onto Delta IV and, possibly, F9. Given Delta’s pre-ULA Boeing heritage, and F9’s diameter being much closer to that of Atlas V than Delta IV, both change initiatives could go fairly smoothly. SNC’s Dreamchaser would have to do likewise. Neither vehicle was probably within a year of following Dragon 2.0 into orbit even before the Ukraine blew up. The re-potting to a different booster(s) is unlikely to improve this lag for either party. Unfunded Blue Origin is, as always, a wild card in this whole affair, but I don’t count on their being able to bring anything very promptly to this party.
Now to the future of ISS itself. If, as I expect, Russian-U.S. relations go back into the long-term deep freeze, we can expect the Russians to arrange a tense divorce and, likely, amputate their bits of ISS to form the core of a new, all-Russian station. We should happily let them go. What they currently bring to the party is replaceable. As Henry notes, the likeliest scenario involves a fresh upgrade/build-out of ISS using yet-to-launch NASA hardware and at least one Bigelow BA330. Dragon 2.0 will allow a larger permanent ISS staff and generate somewhat more, and more prompt, demand for freight runs and crew transport than formerly. This would cement Orbital firmly in place with SpaceX and Boeing in the ISS caucus. The extra budget needed to support a modestly quicker ISS ops tempo would come from the picked bones of the defunct SLS.
An accelerated operational capability for Dragon 2.0 and the need for an ISS BA330 will also accelerate Bigelow’s current timetable for deployment of BA330-based independent space stations in other orbits than ISS’s problematic 51 degree inclination and even such deployments beyond LEO in cis-lunar space.
So, in the end, I think what happens is a sort of gumbo of Tom Matula’s and Henry Vanderbilt’s notions. I’m a bit more optimistic than either seems to be about the probable tonic effects on American space efforts of a second Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory that stops short of World War III. I think Henry and, oddly, also Tom, assume current retrogressive political blocs in the U.S. Congress will prove more powerful than I foresee. Perhaps because of this, I think Tom misses what I see as the likeliest outcome; rather than being an ISS-vs.-Bigelow throwdown, the fallout of the Ukrainian Anschluss will improve and accelerate the future prospects of both ISS and Bigelow. I don’t think either of these worthy gentlemen would be sorry to see me turn out right. Ditto for the sooner-than-expected demise of SLS.
I think we’ll all have a pretty good notion of whether I’m right or not well within the coming 365 days. I’ll either be a seer or a sap.
This is one of the best articles I’ve ever seen; a concise, easily understandable overview of the current space situation.
It also clearly explains the political dynamic of SLS, and gets into why NASA is broken.
Regarding the RD-180, I think the biggest issue that conundrum raises is the statement that even after the cost of setting up US production, it’d cost several times as much per engine than getting it from Russia. I think that may be right, and if so, the reasons why are of paramount importance; why can’t we at least come close to Russian prices? This, to me, indicates an underlying problem, one that is a grave threat to our economic competitiveness, not just in space but in all else.
Thanks for the kind words. This Update is aimed at (among other things) influencing policymakers who may not be primarily focused on space issues, so feedback that we achieved reasonable clarity is good to hear.
RE lower Russian RD-180 prices, there’s less there than meets the eye. It’s not some one single powerful edge they have, but rather a number of factors combining.
– The deal was made in the late nineties, when they really needed the hard currency. They probably lowballed the price to close the deal and they may well be losing money – or at least not making very much – on each new engine at this point.
– They built the engines using processes and production machinery already paid for by other projects; thus up-front costs were low for them. A US production line would be starting from scratch. Worse, starting from scratch and having to pay extra to come up with machines and processes not routinely available here because the Russians just do things differently.
Much of the predicted higher US cost per RD-180 clone is simply a matter of writing off that predicted billion-dollar plant setup cost over the likely production run. if they end up producing a hundred engines, that’s $10 million per engine for the plant even before you start adding up things like labor and overhead and parts and materials and testing.
I just saw somewhere that Russia’s average income is up to around $18,000, versus ours at something over $50K – that alone is going to make Russian manufactures somewhat cheaper where all else is equal (which it seldom is.) But the basic story here is that the $10m per RD-180 is a one-time smoking deal, not an indicator of any current massive Russian advantage.
I’ve always taken it as an indicator not of how competitive the Russian’s are at the engineering of rocket engines, but how dysfunctional we are. Of all the products where Russia can’t possibly compete with us, which is a vast list, rocket engines are notably absent. I don’t think it’s that they devoted all their genius to rocket production instead of tank and rifle production, much less consumer goods, I think it’s that we used the same big-government model of engine production that they did. In fact, I’d say they’re significantly behind us in clever billing and cost overruns.
I’d say it’s a bit of both, actually.
The Russians did put a lot of resources into developing expertise at staged-combustion engines, to the point where they’re good enough at it to routinely use the cycle for new engines.
We built SSME in a barely reusable version, reengineered it into a moderately reusable version, and ever since, well, I’ve lost count of how many US projects to build the Ultimate Staged-Combustion Booster Engine have eaten a lot of time and money, tested some development hardware, then died.
It’s never quite clear whether they die from technical problems or from sticker shock at what it’ll take to carry on to a production engine, but die they all do.
And yeah, world-leading US expertise in cost-plus project-milking is a major factor. Who ya gonna call, AerojetPWR? Better have a lot of time and a LOT of dimes.
Perhaps they need a different approach to engine development. Instead of spending gobs of time and money trying to squeeze the last second of Isp out of an engine only to have something that’s too expensive to produce, design for a reliable engine of good performance that can be built in large numbers for reasonable cost. See: SpaceX Merlin D. The perfect is the enemy of the good enough.
Yes, excellent article.
“As for what the current US Station workforce should be told to do if we lose the current Station (whether via overt takeover or due to politically-caused operational problems) the obvious answer is, build, launch, assemble and operate a new and better (and if done properly many times cheaper than ISS’s $100 billion-plus cost) space station, ASAP.”
I think better is to boost ISS to higher orbit. The higher the orbit more international it is. So Earth/Moon L-1 is accessible from all over the world. Or don’t need to launch to a 51 inclination, or L-1 is more international than GEO or LEO 51 degree inclination.
So if put at L-1 than ISS does need yearly reboosting, it stay in L-1 with little need of station keeping and does require reboosting like ISS because of atmospheric drag.
Of course it does cost more to go to L-1, and one should increase amount of radiation sheilding. But also ISS gets more solar energy at L-1 as compared to LEO.
But I am not saying ISS has to be re-boosted to L-1, instead it could boosted 1/2 way to the Moon. So it could be say perigee of say 20,000 km and apogee of 100,000 km. Which is orbit which lasts forever with stationkeeping- or no atmospheric drag. Or less, say 500 km by 50,000 km. Or whatever.
Or the final destination might be considered to be a L-point, but don’t have to get to the final point right away.
So needs to boosted and needs shielding. Shielding does not have to be entire station. Basically sheilding on station can be a solar flare shelter. And roomy solar flare shelter. And so being solar flare shelter it should also shield against GCR and Van Allen belt radiation. And have access to rest of station when there is less radiation [not flying through van allen belt, nor solar flares are happening, and hopefully be able to predict GCR well enough to choose time when it’s at lower level.
So this transforms ISS into a vehicle to test operation in deep space. It’s doing another leg of what we need a space station to test in order to send crew to Mars [or Moon].
And all of this should cost less than building another station. Though we also build more space stations. If it was in L-1 one could have stations a few km distance to each other. And if going 1/2 way to L-1, one can also do this. You could do it at LEO also. But one say further one gets away from LEO the more leg room one gets.
Why should NASA build another station when Mr. Bigelow has been waiting since 2010 to put one up? Bigelow Aerospace could have a BA330 up as soon as commercial crew is available. It NASA leases the entire BA330 it will only cost NASA $450 million a year, far less than the $3 billion is currently spending each year on the ISS.
Politics is the art of the possible. Sometimes we write about how things should be in the best of all possible worlds, and sometimes we write to try to influence policymakers to actually consider taking finite practical steps in the right direction. This piece is the latter.
Put another way, Station is not just a complicated piece of hardware orbiting 220 miles up, it’s the organization behind the hardware, and politically speaking the organization has a life of its own beyond the particular hardware. The policy advice we came up with here is aimed at producing the most good and the least harm we thought practically achievable in the event the organization loses its current hardware and is casting about for what to do next. IE, the mix of repurposed surplus hardware from Station (there’s a group within NASA already working on this, so it’s not a stretch to think it’d probably have to be included) and commercial Bigelow modules (we tried to be subtle and not actually name Bigelow, but who else ya gonna buy US commercial space hab modules from?)
“…who else ya gonna buy US commercial space hab modules from?)”
Astrotech (formerly Spacehab). Tons of experience in habitable space modules attached to Shuttle.
Boeing. They built Destiny and the Nodes for the ISS.
Those are just the ones with a proven track record. Bigelow’s two test stations count as TRL-9 as well, but they’re not the only game in town.
“Why should NASA build another station when Mr. Bigelow has been waiting since 2010 to put one up? ”
Well, American tax payer has spent over 100 billion on ISS and it’s considered an asset in terms of international cooperation. De-orbited ISS, is actually worse than ending Saturn V.
ISS cost more and it’s focus international activity in space.
So I might hate the UN, but I think it would bad idea to burn the UN building- burning up ISS into our atmosphere, politically speak has no plus points to it, unlike burning down the UN building.
Destroying ISS is lose in terms of internationally and a lose in terms of domestically, with no up side.
So move ISS out of LEO.
As far a Bigelow, we put a space station in LEO at JSC inclination and it could related to space tourists and fuel depots. And/or one put Bigelow, station also in L-1 or lunar suface, Mars orbit, Mars surface, or whatever. Basically Bigelow would more business if moved ISS out of LEO. And as said blowing up ISS should not be a option we consider down the road.
Calculate how many hundreds of tons of propellant it would take to boost the ISS to L1, figure out how you’re going to get all that propellant there to do the job and get back to us.
“Calculate how many hundreds of tons of propellant it would take to boost the ISS to L1, figure out how you’re going to get all that propellant there to do the job and get back to us.”
Well, I think we start from this baseline:
“The ISS requires an average 7,000 kg of propellant each year for altitude maintenance, debris avoidance and attitude control. Based on current usage, it will need 105,000 kg through 2014. ”
So as metric, if ISS uses another 100 tons to reboost in coming years, that would better than limiting it to only 50 tons used in coming years.
So to boost to higher orbit one talking about somewhere around 1000 tons of propellant.
Also one consider that if NASA were to pay to deorbit ISS, it would probably ask for at 1 least 1 billion dollars.
I would say there is some merit continuing ISS at it’s current location, for some indefinite time period. Or I don’t we should put ISS into higher orbit within say 2 years.
And I think many things would need to be done before doing this. What I am suggesting is not to de-orbit ISS and not to wait, until de-orbiting ISS is only viable option [simply due to budget and lack of time to do anything other course of action].
Or in other words, various activity is going on with ISS and there is no need to disrupt immediate plans.
So I would say putting ISS into higher orbit is not a long term goal, but intermediate goal to begin the process which could take years to complete. And since it will take a long time and you don’t want to remove the station from service for a long time [and one wants to do this at lowest cost in terms of each step] I would suggest it would done in stages. So major first stage, would getting ISS to high enough orbit, that it does not cost 7000 kg of propellent per year to keep it flying. So maybe only 500 to 1000 kg of propellent per year [or less than 100]. After achieving a lower yearly cost of keeping ISS in orbit per orbit. One might pause for operational period, and then go to next stage of getting to a higher orbit, and finally ending up with ISS in stable orbit such L-1 or other L-points. The pause after first stage might include adding further shielding. And before starting first stage in terms propulsion, one may add further shielding.
g,
I’m with you on EML-1 facilities, but not sure ISS is the right infrastructure there. We’d have to bolt on a boatload of shielding, for one thing. In my eyes it’s just too fragile.
I did get to help out with the most recent revision of the Boy Scout Space Exploration merit badge, and provided a substantial amount of the text they used for the update. When the new booklet was published in April I was quite surprised to see that they had added a whole page (p. 76) on Free Space Facilities, focusing on EML-1 and EML-5. They also included topics like space resources, solar power satellites, asteroid facilities, and many of the other things spacers like to talk to each other about. Because frankly, no one else knows what this stuff is. Teachers are always coming up after my lectures and asking “What is this EML-1? Why have I never heard of it?”
So hopefully there will be a dawning awareness of the value of a cislunar economy, and how space can be of benefit to Earth. Now everyone go out and get your local Scouts earning their Space Exploration merit badges – now with “NewSpace” content!
–g,
I’m with you on EML-1 facilities, but not sure ISS is the right infrastructure there. We’d have to bolt on a boatload of shielding, for one thing. In my eyes it’s just too fragile.–
Well other perhaps needing to replace ISS own propulsion unit, one could use it to raise the orbit. It seems there could be better ways to do it, which includes things like ATV and improvement of booster modules. And all of above.
Relevant to current situation with Russia, one could certainly have as option of using more Russian launch use. Which doesn’t mean rushing to get Russia to sign an agreement, and it seems much better to get even more competition as to getting best and cheapest way to boost the station. So if Russia goes south one simply excludes them and have the competition make up the the difference. It seems at this point one would more or less include Russia with expectation that current problems will to resolved by time one is actually spending funds to start boosting the station. Of course current problems can seen as political obstacle to making any kind specific contract of future Russian services. It’s not good for business that Russia is correctly violating international agreements and we might even have limit our current contracts because of present and future Russian violations.
Another aspect is we might use ion propulsion once the ISS has gotten to much larger orbit- the higher the orbit, will give more solar power and maybe it used to lift the pergree. So once get apogee above Van Allen, then maybe ion could to lift the perigee and doing this would be most efficient way of using ion- rather than spiraling out.
So not suggesting we need to use more thrust than that which has been used- though perhaps this could increased a bit. But rather more frequent re boosts. And so having to spend more time re boosting will interfere will experiments and entire period of re boosting
will effect number of crew on station and etc. So need a plan.
ISS isn’t suitable for L1/L2 and we would still want a LEO station as a staging point.
But a BA330 would be. And with the money saved from withdrawing from the ISS NASA could afford both a BA330 in Earth Orbit as a staging point and a BA330 in the EM L1, and probably have money left over for placing another BA330 in one of the stable lunar orbits.
Really why are folks interested in hanging on to the ISS? Its a worst money pit than the Space Shuttle was.
A BA330 is not an ISS. For one thing, it has nowhere near the amount of power.
It has enough to its needs, and if a customer requires more I am sure BA will find a solution. Or does your faith in private enterprise end at the atmosphere?
I think we’re stuck with it unless Bigelow manages to deploy a commercial station first, in which case the SLS camp may succeed in scuttling ISS and sucking up its funding, or if a Russian departure kills it after 2020. In the latter case you may see a big fight between an effort to preserve a NASA-funded LEO presence and SLS/Orion.
All Mr. Bigelow is waiting for is a taxi to serve his station. He firm has been in hold mode since COTS/CCP detoured space firms away from the America Prize he offered. After all, what New Space firm would settle for a mere $50 million for successful demonstration of a crew system (i.e. actually flying astronauts on it) when they are able to get 10 times that much from NASA for just showing progress with milestones payments for every new milestone they think up 🙂
And folks wonder why the crewed Dragon first promised by Mr. Musk to fly in 2011 is now delayed to 2017…
ISS is there, it’s paid for, and it’s actually starting to support the beginnings of various commercial services.
If NASA withdrew from ISS and tried to just put BA330’s in interesting places, it’d very quickly have no funding for BA330’s, because the Congressional Station coalition would refuse to sign off on all those Station workforce layoffs and would invent something for them to do. probably something a lot less long-term useful than a hybrid of surplus Station and commercial hardware.
Nothing wrong with espousing the ideal. Just be clear on what is and isn’t meanwhile possible.
The uncertainty that the Russians have just created about access to ISS is going to kill off the commercial ventures pretty fast. You aren’t going to invest money in doing experiments if you are not going to access to get the results, or even worst, someone else feels free to take them since you don’t have access anymore.
The sunk cost argument (its paid) really has little relevance given that its a money pick costing $3 billion a year. The station huggers in Congress are a bigger problem, but most would probably let go if you make them look like they are supporting Russian aggression by supporting the ISS. The voters in most of those districts still equate Russia with communism, and nothing turns them off against a candidate than hearing they are soft on communism. It would be fairly easy to show how much of the $100 billion was given to Russia for their work on the ISS and how much of the $3 billion is going to Russia.
Also you are unrealistic thinking that just because NASA will be buying one or more BA330 their “station” workforce will decline. I expect for every Bugelow Aerospace employee there will be 10, 20 or more NASA employees doing evaluations, assessments, studies, experimental reviews, etc. for each of the BA330 NASA leases. That is simply the culture of the modern NASA. It took NASA less than 2 years from proposing the Mercury capsule to flying it, when no one knew how to build a manned capsule. Its taken twice that long for NASA to just write the specs for commercial crew. Don’t worry, those NASA folks won’t be unemployed, they will still be generating power point presentations , white papers and reports. Its the NASA way. They just won’t be subsidizing Russian aggression along the way.
Eh? I don’t have much at all to argue with in what you say here, aside from the assertion that “..you are unrealistic thinking that just because NASA will be buying one or more BA330 their “station” workforce will decline.” Where’d either the Update or my comments here say that?
You may be mistaking for a prediction my comment about the political impossibility of the drastic near-term layoffs it would take for NASA to implement your proposal and immediately convert a major part of the current Station budget to leasing BA330’s.
Mind, I think we’d both like to see NASA get there. I just don’t think it’s politically realistic to call for it to happen suddenly rather than very gradually.
“ISS isn’t suitable for L1/L2 and we would still want a LEO station as a staging point.”
ISS isn’t used a staging point. But could be used as a stage point if it’s at L-1.
Or if someone wants to go to Moon or Mars they aren’t going to go to ISS current orbit
and inclination. If ISS was at L-1, they might go to ISS before going to Moon or Mars.
As for ISS not being suitable for L-1. ISS wasn’t designed for L-1. But it could be modified
and one could do things different in L-1. There is no debris problem problem in L-1. There is not orbits
which intersect at L-1 which have velocity difference of over 5 km/sec [+11,000 mph]. Any uncontrolled object going faster than 50 m/s leaves L-1. So things might going faster than .5 km sec in L-1 but they can’t continue going at this velocity without leaving L-1.
So in L-1 one does not need to de-orbit garbage into Earth’s atmosphere. Instead could one depose of garbage by pushing it away at 1 mph. And you probably would see again any time soon. But one could also keep the garbage for use immediately for shielding or put it in some spot you call a garbage dump and if enough garbage piles up, some one might think it’s worth recycling for some purpose. So if put ISS in L-1 one would also be going in direction of reusing trash in space rather vaporizing it in Earth’s atmosphere.
And of course moving ISS to L-1 is not the alternative of someday “needing” to de-orbit the entire space station. So ISS without going to higher orbit, probably will survive for another 20 years, whereas in L-1, it could be up their for centuries and have no need for a lot money to keep it up there for a century of time. Now, as said it will be more expensive to go there and come back and more to supply it, but not more to keep it in space.
So as long as ISS in in LEO, we are stuck with it’s operating costs, and therefore coupled with SLS operational cost, NASA has no funds to do other things. So if it’s in LEO and if NASA wants do more human exploration ISS face prospect of planned de-orbit or waiting for it to decay to point it’s consider not worth it’s operation costs- de-orbit it. But if put in L-1, NASA can continue with ISS, or it can spend money on other things and it does not need to de-orbit ISS. So other countries might do things with ISS, and/or NASA might “leave” ISS operation, and later decide to go back to doing things on ISS, and etc.
The inclination has nothing to do with it. ISS use as a staging point isn’t foreseen in NASA’s plans because of SLS. Having a gateway station at 51 degrees is an excellent choice, because it is so easily accessible from all over the world.
The problem isn’t the orbit ISS is in, but its design. ISS couldn’t function at L1/L2. Maybe it could be upgraded, but the modifications are apparently of such a scale that you’d be better off building a new (small) station, probably an inflatable one.
As for an L1/L2 gateway station, I’m all for it. But even more importantly, we need to get launch costs down. I think the best way to do that is to create a large and fiercely competitive propellant launch market. Above all we’d need a spacecraft or transfer stage capable of accepting propellant in orbit. In fact, that’s the only thing we need to get started. It would probably be unmanned, but could evolve to manned variants. We could spend loads of money on new hardware like an L1/L2 station, but money is tight and what we really need to do is to spend money on launches. Make the spacecraft reusable so you only have to buy relatively cheap propellant to launch instead of an expensive spacecraft that tends to be even more expensive than its already expensive launch.
The advantage of LEO as some place to stage is it’s the least delta-v to orbit- and ISS inclination and orbit is not the least delta-v to orbit. Or only thing which launchies to 51 inclination orbit from KSC are launches which going to ISS. And reason is launching to 51 inclination gets less payload to orbit.
So reason ISS is at 51 inclination is because it’s an inclination the Russians , launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan can get to a LEO orbit.
So what one could do with ISS, is not no it’s orbital inclination, but one increase it’s orbital height. And of course the Russian can still launch to it, But at some point in raising ISS higher and well out of LEO, it starts to use less delta-v to launch at the best inclination of the site, rather than being required to use the 51 inclination as only option.
Now if want to observe Earth from LEO, 51 inclination is pretty good, though polar orbit get more coverage of Earth, but you want to go beyond LEO there nothing special about 51.
The only way I know to lower ISS yearly operational costs is to raise it’s orbit, if raise ISS current orbit, one will have more radiation exposure due to ISS high inclination and southern anomaly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
And ISS is currently exposing it’s crew to higher radiation due to it being in 51 inclination. And raising ISS higher will further increase this radiation unless one adds more shielding. So if a space station was at KSC launch inclination it would not have this problem and could higher orbit than ISS currently is and have less radiation.
If ISS inclination is not raised, ISS will be de-orbit relatively soon- say 5 to at most 20 years, and I would bet it will be less than 10 years.
So if you want ISS burning up, you would not want to rise it’s orbit. But I don’t see any benefit to Bigelow is ISS is de-obited in 10 years. I don’t see any benefit to any one who is interest in space exploration, for ISS de-orbiting in 10 years.
And due to ISS having a termination date relatively near terms, this inhibts current operation- how could make future long term commitment in terms of infrastructure if facing prospect that ISS might be there in 10 years?
One of political advantages of saying ISS will not be de-orbited before some future date, is exactly related to this “problem”. But of course no matter what is said, one has the reality that relatively soon, ISS if remains in it’s current orbit, will be end up de-orbiting- by happy circumstance it might last 20 years, but it’s not a good bet.
“As for what the current US Station workforce should be told to do if we lose the current Station (whether via overt takeover or due to politically-caused operational problems) the obvious answer is, build, launch, assemble and operate a new and better (and if done properly many times cheaper than ISS’s $100 billion-plus cost) space station, ASAP.”
Whatever for?
Oh and the Ukraine situation is not going to drag on for years. Putin will have it in his pocket very soon.
Yep, and then he will have his new Iron Curtain along the Polish border, eye to eye with NATO.
As the piece explained, Station has political implications and political momentum. If we lose the current Station, we’re going to do something with that block of NASA funding. The only question is, will it be the least stupid thing possible or the most.
As for the Ukrainian situation dragging on, Putin would certainly like to finish taking the parts he wants then switch it all off again. The West probably won’t let him, and the Ukrainians certainly won’t. It will drag on.
“As for the Ukrainian situation dragging on, Putin would certainly like to finish taking the parts he wants then switch it all off again. The West probably won’t let him, …”
Oh yes they/we will. You’ll notice no one is talking about Crimea. Furthermore, the West will stop thinking about Ukraine because Putin will be moving in Estonia.
“..because Putin will be moving in Estonia.”
At which point, the situation will be dragging on for years. You refute yourself.
Quibbling about whether it’ll still be called “the Ukrainian situation” aside, the bad political effects on US-Russian ventures will continue. Barring unlikely policy changes, for years.
“Quibbling about whether it’ll still be called “the Ukrainian situation” aside..”
Sorry you can’t change your position. You said Ukraine – I said Ukraine. Now you want to call Estonia ,Ukraine, yet then put the quibble aside. And in all of this verbal pretzel-twisting you are missing the point.
YOU made Eastern Europe relevant in your article and in this thread.
All that happens in Eastern Europe is irrelevant to what happens with ISS except to point out that Russia is no longer “a partner”. We don’t object to Crimea; will not object to the rest of Ukraine nor will we lift a finger in Estonia.
Nor will we lift a finger if Russia forbids us to put another astro on ISS
THAT is the point. Eastern European/Baltic events are irrelevant.
“As the piece explained, Station has political implications and political momentum. If we lose the current Station, we’re going to do something with that block of NASA funding. The only question is, will it be the least stupid thing possible or the most.”
I read the explanation but I don’t buy it. Very few citizens even know ISS exists so there’s no political pressure from citizens worrying about the station. The pork has been all dealt out so there’s no benefit to the pols.
Secondly, you know very well what happens to a block of NASA money once the project for that block gets cancelled – it doesn’t stay with NASA. It’s lost to NASA – usually as a bargaining chip so that a pol can get a bridge ot nowhere build in the pol’s district.
Very few people care about ISS – both citizens and pols. It impacts their lives not at all. So long as we had it, no one cared about spending to use it. But no one is going to want to pony up tens or hundreds of billions to build a new one.
Few Americans care a lot, but the majority are aware of and care a little about what NASA people do in space, which these days is almost entirely Station. This has political consequences.
You are also incorrect about the political money mechanics involved on a couple of levels. NASA funding over time is fairly steady; cancel one project within NASA and another tends to get the funding. Only for big enough projects, the mass of constituents means they’re very hard to ever really cancel, EG SLS – and, we predict, Station.
All this is in the Update, or in past Updates, or available elsewhere. Agree or disagree, it’s a free country.
Disagree, except for this:
“Few Americans care a lot, ….”
“But no one is going to want to pony up tens or hundreds of billions to build a new one.’
Which is great because it makes the case for leasing from Bigelow Aerospace even stronger.
Plus the decision to include the Russians in the critical path dates to the Clinton Administration. What a gift to the Republican candidate in 2016, to show that the Russian loving Clintons set the American space program on a path to embarrassment and destruction by subsidizing the Russians. The Tea Party will especially echo that argument around the blogsphere and demonize those politicians that don’t want to replace the “Russian bailout station” with an station built by American Free Enterprise.
“Which is great because it makes the case for leasing from Bigelow Aerospace even stronger.”
Throughout this thread and others, you go off on companies working with NASA as a detriment to the industry and to the companies themselves. In this thread, you want Bigelow to work with NASA to replace the ISS. Why would this arrangement be different than the ones you were complaining about?
Why would leasing to NASA reduce the government interference as opposed to selling Bigelow mods to NASA outright or even avoiding NASA as a customer?
I don’t disagree with you that NASA and Bigelow can put up an ISS replacement for less money than was spent on the ISS but I might disagree with you on your other examples where working with NASA has caused great harm over the alternative.
Wodun,
Consider the list of firms that benefited from working with NASA in the past on space commerce – Space Services, RpK, Armadillo are three that come to mind at once.
Actually the best arrangement would be for NASA get out of HSF entirely. Just provide grants to researchers the way the NSF does and leave them to pay the commercial vendors just as NSF scientists charter ships or aircraft as needed for their work.
The second best would be to just pay Bigelow per astronaut flown to a BA330, just as with the commercial and space tourists, treating space flight the same as conference travel.
But NASA has a control streak a mile wide and barring NASA being dissolved then for them to lease an entire BA330 would probably the best that could be hoped for although the SLS advocates pushing for a station to be launched on it could come close as it would probably end up being one of NASA endless paper studies, clearing the way for a private space station industry to emerge.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned often is that the ISS needs some substantial reconfiguring to be able to properly host new US capsules. They need to move the PMM as well as a few other smaller components and perform several spacewalks in support of the reconfiguration. Currently that work isn’t slated to be finished until mid-2015. It would seem prudent to accelerate that reconfiguration as much as possible.
The words ‘scuttling’ keep coming up.
Why on Earth wouldn’t we just sell it (or, US interest in it anyway). If Russia pulls out, their slice is ‘abandoned’.
Yes, a quick hab module or two would be on my personal short list (along with a spare Dragon), but the infrastructure would still be worth buying NASA’s interest out, yes? (And -then- moving it, etc.)
What -is- the biggest slice of money here anyway? It isn’t salaries for the astronauts on station, and it isnt lift….
Henry Vanderbilt said;
The deal was made in the late nineties, when they really needed the hard currency. They probably lowballed the price to close the deal and they may well be losing money – or at least not making very much – on each new engine at this point.
Bolding mine.
Henry, if you’re right, and I think you probably are (I’m very familiar with the economic situation in Russia in that era) , that’s a very, very important detail. It’s perhaps the most important one of all, for both understanding the current crisis regarding space, and in predicting Russian moves.
It boils down to this; if they are losing money on each engine now, they have motives beyond political to kill the deal, or at least renegotiate it. That, coupled with the political motives, would IMHO explain why they made noises in recent years about the engine’s use for US military payloads, and also make their current threats almost certain to be carried out.
Thanks for the explainer on production costs, too. 🙂
Yes, anytime Russians are being difficult, one explanation to consider is that it’s a negotiating tactic. And Russians are reputed to be better than average at playing multiple games at once.
At the same time, cash flow is cash flow, and their economy is not in the greatest shape. They may want to be cautious about giving up income. We do not totally lack leverage.
But then, national politics may trump the company interests involved. Which level is Rogozin playing on? Keeping us guessing is to his advantage.
FWIW, my guess would be RD-180 sales are currently “not making much money” rather than at an outright loss at this point, else they’d have been renegotiating harder, earlier. But that’s just a guess.
“Yes, anytime Russians are being difficult, one explanation to consider is that it’s a negotiating tactic. And Russians are reputed to be better than average at playing multiple games at once.”
Because a Hillary or Kerry would be terminated within couple days on the job- most countries can’t afford such clowns.
Regarding a replacement engine, could Xcor possibly come up with one in the timescale involved? IIRC they have a contract to develop an RL-10 replacement.
They’ve never built an engine with that scale and performance (no one has, actually, except the Russians, if you don’t count the SSME, which isn’t hydrocarbon).
OK, but given their track record they probably have better shot that PWR of cost of actually delivering something. I wonder what the development/unit cost of such an engine would be, could it be on par with the Russians?
Also regarding the size/performance issue, could Atlas 5 use a cluster of smaller engines like Falcon 9? Or would the modifications to the structure be too expensive?
I would love to know the benefits gained from the ISS. I don’t mean microgravity experiments that are done on the station. I’m more interested in acquired knowledge that will help us in furthering space development. For example, can we say that it has taught us how to build spaceships in space? Any good websites out there that go into this?
Okay, comprehensive reaction to all previous comments here.
First, the Russian-forced modifications to the international political situation that have occasioned all this vigorous discussion. Gregg is almost certainly right that Putin will grab more of Ukraine. There are regions with solid Russian-identifying majorities in the south and east of Ukraine that Putin can pick off with relative ease. There was a caller to the Space Show a couple weeks back who said that Putin has to do this, and soon, as the infrastructure supplying water and electricity to Crimea lie in these areas of Ukraine and that the Ukrainian gov’t. has already cut off both. He claimed there is a one-month supply of water in Crimea. If this guy is right, Putin will have to move in ca. two weeks or less. Even if Dr. Livingston’s caller is not right, the temptation to gobble up the Russian-majority parts of Ukraine has a certain inevitability about it. Russia, as a culture and a nation, just can’t seem to resist the urge to go on the occasional land-grab in the “near-abroad” as they like to call it.
Where I think Gregg is wrong is in supposing Putin would grab up the rest of Ukraine. Annexing the Russian-majority areas can be credibly described as a painful sort of win-win for both the Putin and Ukrainian governments. The former gets to strut about and crow of his great victory over the fascists in Kiev. The “fascists in Kiev” in turn, are rid of chronically restive regions that were always going to be thorns in their side even if they could be held.
Attempting to take the rest of Ukraine would be less enjoyable for the Russian Federation. For one thing, the excuse of persecuted Russian-speaking majorities allegedly being abused by non-Russians would go right out the window. There would be significant prompt military resistance and guerrilla warfare after the likely destruction of regular military formations in non-Russian Ukraine. Putin would have to resort to the sorts of scorched-earth reprisal tactics formerly employed against the Chechens to pacify the non-Russian parts of Ukraine. This wouldn’t play nearly as well in the rest of the world as it did when applied in Chechnya. The Chechens, being a nation of tribal criminals and raving Islamic nutcases, were not very sympathetic victims. Ukrainians are. Our NATO allies would, quite reasonably, be formally requesting major forward deployments of American troops and equipment into their territories as a precaution and, most probably, a new, long-term “normal” for the alliance. If Obama tried to resist this, I think he might well be removed from office.
The wackiest of Gregg’s notions is that a Russian move on Estonia would have no significance. Estonia is a NATO ally. As soon as a single Russian boot touches Estonian soil, Article 5 of the NATO Treaty comes into play and we are at war with Russia. We either pony up and fight or the NATO Treaty becomes a dead letter and the post-WW2 system of American alliances comes apart like a cheap suit with Russians and the Chinese picking up the pieces. I don’t think even the dithering and spineless Obama would be inclined to let that happen on his watch, though I wish I could be more certain. Underestimating the pusillanimity of the Obama administration has proven a mug’s game thus far.
If Putin moves on the Baltics, Obama caves, NATO dissolves, Russia pushes on into the former Warsaw Pact, China gobbles up the eastern Pacific and Hell, in general, comes to breakfast, then the impact on ISS and the American space program become nearly irrelevant flyspecks on a panoramic window of global catastrophe. Fortunately, I think there are enough Democrats from Red states that a bi-partisan impeachment could succeed against an Obama who refused to uphold the NATO Treaty in extremis. Given Obama’s exquisitely tuned political antennae where his personal political survival is concerned, I don’t think things would reach such a pretty pass. Obama has demonstrated he is quite flexible on matters of “principle” when his political advantage is otherwise at risk.
So, bottom line: Putin takes the Russky areas of Ukraine, an abbreviated, but much more ethnically cohesive rump Ukraine remains. The U.S. military forward deploys into Poland, the Baltics and other parts of the former Warsaw Pact which are now NATO members, perhaps even into what remains of Ukraine after making it a NATO member as well, and we settle down to waiting out the Russians in a Cold War 2.0.
Now, on to implications for the U.S. space program(s) including the all-important domestic politics. As I think the Russians will take more of Ukraine, I also think the current risible sanctions regime will be widened and toughened appreciably post-annexation 2.0. The Russkies will keep all their retaliatory embargoes in place and probably impose others as well. ULA has received its last RD-180. Atlas V will either fly with some other engine or it will die. It’s also probable that, once the Russian’s second annexation of Ukrainian territory occurs, U.S. astronauts have taken their last ISS-bound ride on Soyuz.
I think ULA will be quite slow to acknowledge and accommodate this new geopolitical reality. For awhile, at least, they will try to have their bought dogs in Congress keep things as much like they were, pre-Ukraine crises, as possible. The usual suspects, in this case, won’t be able to deliver.
Up to now, the pro-ULA caucus has also pretty much been the pro-SLS caucus. These folks have presented a united front in sniping at COTS, commercial crew and, to a lesser extent, ISS. The recent merger of ATK’s aerospace and defense ops with Orbital Sciences, changes this calculus. Orbital is in somewhat better shape than ULA in terms of how long they can stretch their existing stockpile of NK-33’s, but likely Ukrainian developments will ensure no more Russian engines of any kind are in Antares’s future, nor is any Ukrainian-fabricated first stage hardware much beyond what has already been delivered; their current supplier is in territory likely to be annexed by Russia. It’s this latter supply chain problem that is likely to bite before a lack of Russian engines.
Orbital has openly discussed the likelihood of having their new ATK division gin up a solid first-stage booster for Antares. ATK would like this as it keeps their large-diameter solids workforce in orders – perhaps several a year for several years at least. SLS solid boosters – a hanging-on-by-the-fingernails-barely-there market of perhaps two units every two to four years – wouldn’t survive even a cursory cost-benefit/ROI analysis anent a solid Antares first stage. If they go this route, Orbital de facto takes ATK out of the SLS caucus and puts it squarely where Orbital is now, in the ISS caucus. The SLS and ULA caucuses are suddenly stripped of their Utah base and reduced to a rump consisting mostly of Alabama die-hards. With the defection of ATK, the SLS caucus probably falls below the threshold of sustainability. It’s entirely possible that SLS could be cancelled well within Obama’s remaining tenure.
ULA, after sufficient bitch-slapping by new realities, will awake to the need to do something to avoid imminent collapse. The block buy will be dead without further respect to SpaceX legal maneuvers because ULA will lack the wherewithal to deliver a significant number of the Atlas V cores called for. ULA may try to fiddle the number of Delta IV cores up and Atlas V’s down, but they may not have suitable Delta IV production capacity to compensate. SpaceX is tanned, rested and ready. I don’t see any way ULA can credibly keep SpaceX out of the DoD/USAF/NRO pasture any longer. The F9 has even greater margins, most ways, over unaugmented Delta IV than it does over similarly unaugmented Atlas V. SpaceX is likely to win all or most of the lower-end gov’t. payloads for F9, saving Delta IV Heavy and multi-SRB versions of Atlas and single-core Delta for FH to pick off when it becomes operational and certified in perhaps as little as two year’s time.
What will ULA do about the RD-180? If they can’t get the gov’t. to pay for a hurry-up reverse-engineered version, they will probably do nothing. Even if they get a free ride on an RD-180 clone development, the likely higher unit costs won’t do their bottom line any good and the Atlas V will remain pathetically uncompetitive with F9 and FH. They need to develop a clusterable LOX/RP-1 engine of Merlin 1-D class and follow SpaceX’s lead on resuseability. Nothing else is going to save them. I have severe doubts they can pull this off.
This is without even considering the destabilizing effects on ULA of imminent Atlas V non-viability. ULA was glued together as a merger of more or less equal Boeing and LockMart divisions. With Atlas V cratered, the original rationale for the combo goes out the window. Boeing might see advantage in sawing Delta IV loose from the bloated corpse of Atlas V and taking it back, dissolving ULA as an entity in the process.
In the area of new engine development, the likeliest scenario is an attempted hurry-up cloning of the RD-180. Congress has already indicated a preference for moves in that direction. As many have noted here, and I concur, this will not, long-term, save the Atlas V. Nor will any new (RD-180 non-clone equivalent) or resurrected/re-engineered (F-1B) large LOX/RP-1 engine. Atlas V was on deathwatch even before the current Ukrainian crisis. SpaceX was going to eat its lunch. That was on rails. Renewed Russian aggression merely accelerates a process already underway. That five years of extra life ULA thought it had bought with its block buy gambit is turning to quicksand beneath its corporate feet.
The rational course of developing an independently-sourced, clusterable, Merlin 1-D-equivalent LOX/RP-1 engine will, in all likelihood, not be promptly – or perhaps even ever undertaken. Much as I’d like to see XCOR build a really big piston pump booster engine, a Merlin 1-D-class motor is much closer to their current ambit. I don’t think, with everything Lynx-related on their plate, XCOR has any resources available to pursue this as a company-funded speculative project; they’d need a customer and a contract. I wish they’d get one from a wised-up and humbled ULA, but that doesn’t look likely. Still, it pays to remember Dr. Johnson’s admonition about that which wonderfully concentrates the mind. Perhaps next year in Jerusalem.
Should the Russians renege on Soyuz rides to the ISS for U.S. and allied astronauts, SpaceX appears to have, in the Dragon 2.0, what the fictional X-75 armored shuttle was in Armageddon – the critical gadget at the critical time, even though, as yet, untested. The development schedule could probably best be accelerated by simply eliminating the pad abort test and going straight to the in-fight abort test, then declaring Dragon 2.0 fit for duty. A successful in-flight abort test would make Dragon 2.0’s first manned mission incomparably safer than Young and Crippen’s first jaunt skyward in Columbia. This would also have the significant advantage of turning a test article, unneeded for the cancelled pad abort test, into a vehicle capable of flying a regular ISS mission.
The other commercial crew participants would face booster issues with the abrupt defenestration of Atlas V. Boeing would, one presumes, re-pot CST-100 onto Delta IV and, possibly, F9. Given Delta’s pre-ULA Boeing heritage, and F9’s diameter being much closer to that of Atlas V than Delta IV, both change initiatives could go fairly smoothly. SNC’s Dreamchaser would have to do likewise. Neither vehicle was probably within a year of following Dragon 2.0 into orbit even before the Ukraine blew up. The re-potting to a different booster(s) is unlikely to improve this lag for either party. Unfunded Blue Origin is, as always, a wild card in this whole affair, but I don’t count on their being able to bring anything very promptly to this party.
Now to the future of ISS itself. If, as I expect, Russian-U.S. relations go back into the long-term deep freeze, we can expect the Russians to arrange a tense divorce and, likely, amputate their bits of ISS to form the core of a new, all-Russian station. We should happily let them go. What they currently bring to the party is replaceable. As Henry notes, the likeliest scenario involves a fresh upgrade/build-out of ISS using yet-to-launch NASA hardware and at least one Bigelow BA330. Dragon 2.0 will allow a larger permanent ISS staff and generate somewhat more, and more prompt, demand for freight runs and crew transport than formerly. This would cement Orbital firmly in place with SpaceX and Boeing in the ISS caucus. The extra budget needed to support a modestly quicker ISS ops tempo would come from the picked bones of the defunct SLS.
An accelerated operational capability for Dragon 2.0 and the need for an ISS BA330 will also accelerate Bigelow’s current timetable for deployment of BA330-based independent space stations in other orbits than ISS’s problematic 51 degree inclination and even such deployments beyond LEO in cis-lunar space.
So, in the end, I think what happens is a sort of gumbo of Tom Matula’s and Henry Vanderbilt’s notions. I’m a bit more optimistic than either seems to be about the probable tonic effects on American space efforts of a second Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory that stops short of World War III. I think Henry and, oddly, also Tom, assume current retrogressive political blocs in the U.S. Congress will prove more powerful than I foresee. Perhaps because of this, I think Tom misses what I see as the likeliest outcome; rather than being an ISS-vs.-Bigelow throwdown, the fallout of the Ukrainian Anschluss will improve and accelerate the future prospects of both ISS and Bigelow. I don’t think either of these worthy gentlemen would be sorry to see me turn out right. Ditto for the sooner-than-expected demise of SLS.
I think we’ll all have a pretty good notion of whether I’m right or not well within the coming 365 days. I’ll either be a seer or a sap.