3 thoughts on “TPIS In The News”

1. The linked article is good and there’s a link within it that’s even better, IMO. Emphasis added.

   The Orlando Sentinel is the latest news source to get its hands on internal NASA documents describing the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), one of two systems in NASA’s current plan to go beyond earth orbit. SLS would fly just twice in the next 10 years at a price tag of up to $38 billion, according to an August 5 article. Congress is unlikely to be pleased, and that’s even before the looming budget axe hanging over the next decade is factored in.

   SLS is based upon technologies developed during the space shuttle era, integrating larger solid rocket boosters, the space shuttle’s external fuel tank, and space shuttle main engines for the first stage. For beyond earth orbit manned missions, the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) would sit on top. Critics say SLS looks a lot like the Ares V design proposed under the Constellation program, which spent $13.1 billion through April 2011 without producing flyable hardware.

   Congress has dictated NASA build SLS by 2016 with a budget of around $14 billion. But that was before the August debt crisis showdown.

   Without a SLS to provide lift for Moon and deep space missions, the Orion MPCV becomes an overpriced capsule that has already consumed $5 billion without demonstrating flight-ready hardware. The earliest date for an unmanned MPCV launch would be December 2017, with a test flight around the moon. A manned spin around the moon – but no landing – would occur in August 2021.

2. Hatch’s motivation is obvious. What’s the connection for the Nevada senators? Is business in another state close enough to matter, or are they in the ATK supply chain? Idaho has ATK facilities, but I think they’re the ammunition division.

3. Am I alone in fantasizing about the space program I would launch with $38b?

   You only need about 3% return to be able to continuously fund a billion a year (otherwise know as a decade of SpaceX compressed into a year.)

   1st year. Put two general purpose ships in orbit based on BA330. Let them make money doing lunar shakedown cruises.

   2nd year. Fuel and supply them for a mars expedition. The mars twelve are going to research ISRU and stay to settle.

   3rd year. Assist SpaceX if they haven’t got the lander Dragon ready yet.

   4th year. Send about 50 mt of supply to the martian surface in anticipation of the researchers soon to follow.

   5th year. Land a dozen researchers on mars. This would be ahead of any other schedule I’ve seen anywhere else. Two ships would then be in mars orbit waiting for refueling for any future unspecified uses.

   6th year. Continue to oversupply the mars research colony.

   7th year. Triple the number of researchers on mars. Over the past seven years working with banks on a package to send anyone that wants to go to mars.

   8th year. Open up mars to colonization based on an individual claim charter.

   9th year. Open up the rest of the solar system to colonization.

   10th year. See how the other folks are doing. How’s that planning doc coming?

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