17 thoughts on “Congress Fiddles With Monster Rockets”

1. Go tomorrow? Rand, you’re beginning to sound like me. I must apologize for my evil influence on ya. Next thing ya know, you’ll be advocating better ways to get to mars.

2. @ Rand, Excellent article, but there’s a factor of which you may be unawares;

   Even when commercial crew is operational, NASA plans to STILL buy Soyuz seats from the Russians.

   Why? Because even though there will be two docking adapters for crewed American vehicles, NASA is planning on using the “rental car approach” where the crew takes their capsule up, it remains while they are there, and they return in the same capsule. There will be no overlap (and the vehicles won’t be utilizing their full 7 person capacity, either). Only one US vehicle will be present at any given time.

   What this means is that either we accept that occasionally there will be only Russians on ISS, or, one American will be a Soyuz passenger. The latter is NASA’s current plan.

   Why is NASA doing it this way? I have no idea, because it makes no sense to spend all this money to get American access to ISS and then still be dependent upon Russia.

   Sorry for the rant, but this issue isn’t receiving the publicity it IMHO ought.

   1. You’re right. I was unaware of that. If so, it seems kind of insane. I have to believe there’s some political reason for it.

      1. It’s the opposite, actually, they plan to offer seats on commercial crew vehicles to the Russians so they can decommission Soyuz.. which should be amusing, as the Russians have no interest in doing either.

         1. Trent, IMHO, you’re mistaken, sort of. Yes, they do plan on giving seats on US spacecraft to Russians, but in exchange for US rides on Soyuz.

            With the “Rental car” approach, they can’t do without Soyuz, unless they leave ISS unmanned, or have some crew say far longer than usual.

            If there’s a worst way to do something, you can rest assured, government will find it and do it!

      2. Rand, I’ll see if I can find you a cite for that.

         NSF has it in an article;
         http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/05/iss-program-station-reconfiguration-future-crew-vehicles/

         And I’ve heard it verbally from a recently retired Boeing guy.

         I’ll see what else I can find out. IMHO, it’s absolutely insane to do it this way, so therefor, it’s gotta be political.

         1. It seems to me they should replace the docking and berthing adaptors with a universal unit?

            1. No, the berthing adapter has different requirements (e.g., larger diameter for bigger payloads).

            2. I understand they want bigger portals for cargo, but it’s not an exclusive requirement. Why not an adapter that is larger for crew?

            3. Because it’s not necessary, and it would cost a lot more.

   2. I am glad they will still buy seats on soyuz. I want to see if they drop prices now to compete and or will more private seats get sold. We have to provide rides for canada et cetera, they can use those seats.

      1. Gee, thanks a bunch. So considerate of us Canadians!
         /sarc

3. I kept getting a poll shoved in front of the article and gave up trying to read it.

4. Bravo.

   Even more return on investment for “the general welfare and security of the United States” (Space Act) than funding commercial crew, in my humble opinion, would be funding SpaceX to accelerate reusability.

   1. Sam,
      As Dave Huntsman has pointed out often, NASA’s tech development plans actually _forbid_ work on reusable launch systems. After all, X-33 proved it was impossible for decades to come, right?…

      Which adds to the satisfaction of seeing SpaceX use CRS flights to test first stage reusability…indirectly.

5. I thought you were pitching this editorial to Space News?

   1. I was. They didn’t seem interested.

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