Jeff Foust has the numbers on the deal worked out late last week. This is depressing:
In exploration, the CR directs NASA to spend at least $1.2 billion on the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and $1.8 billion on the Space Launch System “which shall have a lift capability not less than 130 tons and which shall have an upper stage and other core elements developed simultaneously.”
So NASA is forced to waste almost fifteen percent of its budget on a jobs program that will likely result in another programmatic failure in terms of actually flying anything. It’s also frustrating that the technology request was unfunded, though NASA probably will be able to come up with the money for it somewhere else.
As Major Tom points out in comments:
Griffin gave Ares I/Orion a larger budget (~$3.5B in FY10 rising to $5.5B in FY11 versus $3 billion in FY11) and easier requirements (25-tons versus 130-tons to LEO, ISS servicing versus BEO missions). Yet after five years of trying, Ares I and Orion never got past the lower-stage suborbital test stage. There’s no reason to believe that SLS/MPCV, if constrained to the same technical base, contracts, and workforce, can get a 5x bigger LV and more complex capsule operational in the same time for less money.
But it’s the law!
So NASA is forced to waste almost fifteen percent of its budget on a jobs program that will likely result in another programmatic failure in terms of actually flying anything.
Yes, it’s depressing, but I’d rather have another programmatic failure than an SDLV that will keep flying for the next thirty years.
You know what else — sadly — ended up being a huge waste of time and money? The Augustine Report. Apparently, not a single Congress member or staffer bothered to read it. Did they not see the part where it explained how even with those 5bill+ budgets for years, Ares I and Orion weren’t likely to be ready by even 2017? And now Congress turns around and demands more capabilities for 60% the money. I’m literally shaking my head as I type this, and figuratively shaking my fist.
I just attended the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. In one area, they had full scale versions of Boeing’s CST-100, another company (Orbital?) showed their CCDev design, Lock-Mart’s Orion and the SpaceX Dragon.
The CCDev was a pretty good looking mockup.
Boeing brough some actual test (pressurization module) along with a mockup.
LM’s Orion mockup looked like it could’ve been made from cardboard.
SpaceX had the actual Dragon capsule they flew last December.
Now, I’m sure that LM has more than just a low-fidelity mockup to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars they’ve spent so far on Orion. At least, I truly hope so. But compared to Boeing’s display, they looked pretty pitiful. Compared to what SpaceX was showing, LM’s showing looked very sad, indeed.
Any idea when that CCDev2 announcement is going to happen now?
Its not unexpected. Utah is pretty strongly in the Tea Party camp and the Tea Party seems to be running the budget show in the House at the moment.
rand, shouldn’t the 4 space shuttles be placed on ebay and the proceeds going to nasa ?
You know, I think commercial companies are too risky. We can’t afford to stake the lives of our NASA employees on airliners that were built for *profit* at the expense of safety. Furthermore, today’s airliners aren’t big enough. What if we want to send Marshall Spaceflight Center (the whole thing) to a conference? A piddling 747 wouldn’t do.
We need to have NASA build it’s own airliner, that will not only take 10,000 NASA employees across the Atlantic at a time, but would be much safer than these commercial deathtraps. Let’s give them $5 billion a year to do that…and NOTHING else.
@MfK
Really good. Please post everywhere.
What does the Tea Party have to do with NASA funding?
Nothing, but the desperate are always trying to get their digs in. We could only wish the Tea Party was in charge of the budget.
Thomas, that makes the opposite of sense. The Tea Party is mainly about lowering spending, and mandating that 15% of NASA’s budget be utterly wasted doesn’t align with that at all.
The Tea Party is about restoring America to it’s former glory, and the includes NASA of the Apollo era.
So NASA is forced to waste almost fifteen percent of its budget on a jobs program that will likely result in another programmatic failure in terms of actually flying anything.
With stupidity, the Gods themselves, contend in vain.
Hopefully CCDEV wont die.
Now where did I put those blueprints for that Saturn V thing?
Thomas, that doesn’t sound like the Tea Party I saw last year. Rick Santelli’s rant of “stop spending stop spending STOP SPENDING” got the whole thing started as I recall.
Yes,it did. But if noticed the far right wing of the Republican Party has basically taken it over and to them NASA & Apollo are symbols of America’s former glory. Symbols President Obama is trying to destroy.
The Tea Party is about restoring America to it’s former glory
No. This is why you fail. The tea party is made up a diverse group with diverse views. They are united by just one thing. Stop spending us into the abyss.
Offhand I can’t think of any Tea Party spokesman or elected representative saying anything at all about NASA. Is there a particular quote you are thinking about? I believe the Tea Party stays pretty much on message: cut the budget and shrink the government.
“The Tea Party is about restoring America to it’s former glory, and the includes NASA of the Apollo era.”
We need less glory, and more commonplace. (and we tend to get used to [if not jaded by] anything new pretty quickly, anyway) The Spirit of St. Louis was glory. But we’re looking for the space equivalent “(fill in airline) flight 197 to Paris now arriving…”
With the technological and commercial maturity that implies.
If anyone there gives it any thought at all, I’d hope the Tea Party would support such goals as well.
A quick look at historic launchers shows the Saturn V at 119MT to LEO. Congress is mandating a launch vehicle that will have to be *bigger* than the largest launcher we’ve ever had before? And they have decided that it will “incorporate” a certain listing of parts manufactured in their Congressional districts?
You’re right, the Space Program has transformed into a Jobs Program that occasionally fires off a rocket.
The exact placement of the deck chairs is not foremost in my thoughts at the moment.
Bill,
Yes, this one.
http://theteapartyplatform.com/2010/07/06/platform-item-29–nasa-and-space-exploration.aspx
[[[Platform Item 29: NASA and Space Exploration
The Tea Party Movement supports the continuation of space exploration and believes it to the long term strategic benefit of this nation to maintain our superiority in space.]]]
The comes a long statement on Sputnik and how America beat the Russians in space as an example of the importance of NASA to the nation. It closes with…
[[[ So, with this in mind, I ask the question in a different way, “If America surrenders its superiority in space and becomes dependent upon hitching rides to the Space Station will the frontier of space remain void of military objectives?” Will our satellite communications become vulnerable to those to whom we surrender our position in the Space Program? Is it likely that our nation could become hostage to a rogue dictator or some other leader intent on doing this nation harm? ]]]
Now I know the Tea Party, like President Obama, loves vague statements that supports may interpret as they wish so its hard to nail it down on anything specific. So if any of you have a statement by any of the newly elected Tea Party Congressional Representatives or Senators that supports President Obama’s space policy and CCDev, Please provide a link to it.
Hmmm, what is up with Rand’s site that everything is in italics?
Oh yes, and let’s not forget how the Tea Party greeted President Obama’s space policy announcement a year ago….
http://gawker.com/#!5518586/new-tea-party-faction-the-space-coast-patriots
New Tea Party Faction: The Space Coast Patriots
[[[At a demonstration outside NASA’s Kennedy Center in Florida yesterday, Space Coast Patriots carried birther signs and yelled nonsensical slogans about Obama’s supposed scrapping of America’s space program during his visit there. ]]]
Georg Felis Says:
April 13th, 2011 at 8:30 am
A quick look at historic launchers shows the Saturn V at 119MT to LEO. Congress is mandating a launch vehicle that will have to be *bigger* than the largest launcher we’ve ever had before?
I agree with your ultimate point, however, I’m not sure about your figures.
IIRC the 130 ton SLS is in English/Standard tons, NOT metric tons. That means they’re looking for a launcher that can lift a payload of 260,000 lbs to LEO. The Saturn V was capable of lifting 262,000 lbs to LEO.
What they want to do is build the equivalent of ANOTHER Saturn V. The original ultimately had to be cancelled, because it was so ridiculously expensive that it couldn’t be sustained. I’m sure the same will be true of its progeny. But as long as a brings lots of jobs to the specified Congressional districts for the next few years, that’s all that matters.
Tom Matula said:
“Its not unexpected. Utah is pretty strongly in the Tea Party camp and the Tea Party seems to be running the budget show in the House at the moment.”
and much else,…apparently based on a site most people who have actually been attending the various tea party rallies have never seen, or heard of.
Tom,…many groups would *like* to speak for most people who do Tea Parties. None do. Dinna be fooled, by these would-be commanders of the people. There exists *no* authority to tell you or anyone else what a united Tea Party wants, because the exists *no* united Tea Party.
Yeah, some people in Utah probably support ATK, and go to a Tea Party rally or three. That doesn’t mean they have any influence with those of us here in Oregon, or with the Tea Party-backed congressmen who come from places that are not Utah, and not with many who do, because even Utah’s Tea Party groups are not united to any appreciable degree.
The only thing they have in common is concern about budget deficits, gross over-spending, and taxes. The rest are all outliers.
Regards,
Tom Billings
So Matula’s evidence is a lone comment on a website in which almost anyone can post. And that comment has just one person providing any support to what it is said. I’m not surprised Bill Hensley has never seen it. Google might be able to find almost anything, but just because it is found does not mean it is significant.
And what does the comment say:
I don’t hear others talking about this.
In other words, the commenter is upset that nobody else in the Tea Party is interested in his pet boondoggle/pork barrel spending, and he thinks they should be. I’d say the link bolsters Ed Minchau’s, Ken Anthony’s, and Bill Hensley view point.
As for the gawker article, first the quoted people refer to themselves as Republican; which is how Matula refers to himself while he votes for Harry Reid. Second, I’m unsurprised that individuals at KSC would complain about activity that will cost them their jobs. Third, while the gawker notes that Obama increases funding for NASA, it does not note that KSC funding was drastically cut. Indeed, the gawker pokes fun of the protestors as complaining about being cut while getting more money; which is a mischaracterization if not outright lie. So I’m not sure how much trust I put into the gawker’s claim that these protestors represented the Tea Party at all.
core elements developed simultaneously
So if it ever does work, it will exclusively work only for the elements originally designed to work together. It’s not even as good as the EELV effort, which had many flaws, but at least was premised on the idea of a standard capability to allow universal access.
Tom Billings, Leland,
So do you have any links showing the Tea Party representatives support CCDev? I didn’t think so….
Anyone know when the Falcon Heavy is supposed to be operational? Are they still intending to have a first launch next year?
They never intended a first launch next year. It was scheduled for 2013.
Thanks Rand. Lazy me finally went and found out that the earliest launch is set for 2013 from Vandenberg, and one planned from KSC in 2014. This still beats the intended SLS completion by two years, and the 2016 date for SLS is an unachievable joke as it is.
With orbital refueling depots, I think Falcon Heavy could just about equal Saturn 5 for BEO and trans-Lunar capability.
[response to kayawanee] Whoops, you’re right, I had a Metric/Runes moment. When nearly all the civilized world uses metric, sometimes it gets difficult to convert kilos/liters/newtons/meters into drams/furlongs/hogsheads/fortnights.
So in inflation-adjusted dollars, how much are we paying to reinvent the Saturn V (With glued-on Morton Thiocol solids)?
Well, Georg, counting $1.5 billion as “the budget for SLS” implies that it is enough to do what congress directs it to do. Now, if NASA paid that money to a company like SpaceX, they could probably accomplish the job within budget, but dont expect that sort of performance from Old Space.
Hey, everyone, we’ll have another go at this when the 2012 budget comes up this summer. There is still time to make a case, on sound fiscal conservative grounds, that this is a boondoggle to be zeroed out.
We won a fight last September, with bipartisan support and we can win again. (The Utah folks may be a lost cause. . . . . )
And every successful test by SpaceX and others will prove the case even further.
So continue to cultivate the staff of your local Congresscritter and both of your Senators, whomever they may be and whichever of the four functioning parties they belong to. And please, don’t let this devolve into an ideological lineup. The New Space agenda has supporters everywhere.