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Bailing The Lifeboat

I got a few emails in response to my "Lifeboat" column at Fox News. I probably would have gotten more if the site hadn't been under a DoS attack the day it ran... :-(

Shaun Bill (I assume that really is the correct order of his first and last names...) writes:

I enjoyed your piece on the "lifeboat situation" aboard the
International Space Station.

The X-38 program is very innovative and, from what I can tell, managed very well (at least for NASA). It is also unnecessary. First off, while "reusable" is nice, it does not alway mean "cheaper."

That's a good point, that I can't make enough. While ultimately, reusable systems will be the lowest cost, that's only true if they are used sufficiently to amortize their higher procurement costs. At our current level of space activity, reusables can't pay for themselves, which is why, if NASA is truly interested in reducing costs, they should be focusing more on market, and less on technology.

Instead of thinking of a mini-shuttle (X-38), NASA should take a page from Science Fiction - escape pods. Several years ago someone suggested we drag out the blueprints for the old Apollo CM and, with a little updating, simply use that portion which returned to earth. A cluster of three, three person capsules (or four, two person capsules) would be more than sufficient. Build a pod that can last a year or more (Soyuz must be swapped every six months). After a year, a shuttle drops off a new one and takes home--the old one to be refurbished and used again. Using the parafoil design developed by X-38, they should be able to steer a pod to within feet any intended landing zone.

That was studied extensively in the late '80s--I worked on some of the studies. My concern is that it is still more expensive than need be, and doesn't address the fundamental problem, which is lack of redundancy on orbit, and lack of routine rapid access to orbit.

X-38 is a wonderful piece of engineering, but NASA went with style over practicality.

I won't comment on that, other than to say I'm not all that impressed with parafoiled lifting bodies as "wonderful engineering." The problem, as I said, is not in the design per se, so much as in the requirements.

Next, Sean Blair (presumably no relation to either the British PM or the Aussie Oppressor) writes:

You seem to be saying the CRV was a bad idea from the word go.

Yes.

Two Soyuzs is not a satisfactory alternative - it keeps you dependent on the Russians, and also dependent on 30-year-old technology that has had a lot of problems, according to James Oberg's latest book.

That "dependence" is a function of how important you believe the requirement itself to be. I believe that it is overstated, but that if we really are concerned about safety, we should be spending the money planned on ill-conceived "lifeboats" instead on building a robust space infrastructure.

Plus Dennis Tito didn't exactly have a comfortable or even especially safe landing.

As far as I know, Dennis made it back safely, with no public complaints. Are the taxpayers supposed to pony up billions of dollars so that astronauts can be more "comfortable" in the event of an unlikely contingency?

The CRV would be steerable, unlike Soyuz. And we pretty much have one built already: if you've got a prototype 95 per cent finished, does it really save money to keep it in a box and not to test it?

Yes. There's a concept called "not throwing good money after bad." Past poor financial decisions don't justify future ones.

Obviously its functions can and will be expanded beyond lifeboat duties - the US Air Force thought the same basic design would have multiple uses back in the 1960s:

The 1960s were a long time ago.

Your other idea seems to be this macho idea that if Scott of the Antarctic didn't have a rescue vehicle, why should 21st century astronauts? Leaving aside the obvious point that a rescue vehicle would have done Scott a great deal of good, what sort of added mental pressure would crewmembers feel if they knew there was no way out of their situation whatsoever, or worse
still that it was first come, first served?

I don't know, but as far as I know, no one held a gun to anyone's head to become an astronaut. If they don't want to accept the risks of the job, there are plenty of people who will. Poll the astronaut corps. If they're really complaining that the taxpayers won't spend billions of dollars on this unlikely event, then NASA did a lousy job of selection, and we need new astronauts. I know lots of people who would be happy to take their place, without an X-38, or for that matter, a CRV at all.

So finish the X-38 work, get started on the CRV, keep up agreements signed with international partners and have a fully-crewed station rather than the halfway house we have at the moment.

If the only thing that's keeping us from honoring the international agreements is the lack of a CRV, then let's agree that we don't need a CRV, and send the extra crew up.

Peter Wiseman writes:

I found some of the article interesting, found some parts to be flawed in concept.

Well, that's interesting. I find the CRV itself to be flawed in concept.

A. There are not enough ports in the future to support a Progress and two Soyuz with the ability swap out old Soyuz without having to play musical chairs to keep the backmost port open for a Progress supply vehicle.

I'll bet it's a lot cheaper to add a docking port than to build an X-38 CRV. Want to take the bet? If not, then we have a fundamental flaw in the space station design (which actually wouldn't surprise me all that much).

B. Soyuz only lasts sixth months where one CRV can some where around two years saving money in launch costs. The CRV is reusable where the Soyuz is a one time deal.

Now this is an interesting issue. How are you going to know what the orbital life of a CRV is? How will it be tested? Will you simply take the designer's word, leave it up there for two years, and hope that he was right?

The cost of launch issue is bogus. Crew have to be launched to station anyway. If they're launched on a Soyuz (which many will--tourists if no one else, since NASA refuses to take them on Shuttle) the flight is already paid for--use of the Soyuz for the rescue mission is gravy.

C. The X-38 CRV is 85% complete with 50 million necessary to complete the 510 million dollar project. The CRVs produce may also transfer seven people using a rocket such as the Ariane 5, which would be cheaper than using the shuttle.

Oh, you're one of those people who believe NASA cost numbers. How quaint. Funny, even NASA doesn't do that any more, at least not the Administrator. Considering that they had Arthur Anderson doing their accounting, I wouldn't put a lot of trust in them myself.

And your point about it being used as a crew transfer vehicle might be valid, if that had been a design requirement. It wasn't.

For it to perform such a mission would require much more than fifty million dollars. There are many issues associated with integrating it into an expendable launch vehicle, that I won't go into here, but have not been incorporated into the basic design requirements. And the cost of a CRV on top of an A5 is not less than Shuttle, on the margin. The marginal cost of a Shuttle launch (that is the cost of flying the next one, assuming that you're already flying several that year anyway) is no more than a hundred fifty million. I doubt very much that you can do that mission on Ariane for that amount, since you're throwing the vehicle away.

I would understand criticizing the X-38 CRV before all the works and money went into it, but not as it nears completion.

It's never too late to point out the flaws in a flawed concept. We can't save the money we've spent, but we can still save the money we're going to spend. Even now, it doesn't justify the money that has yet to be spent on it.

I believe once the ISS can support more than three people the CRV will be completed and used in the future.

Since the only stated use of CRV is for rescue in some sort of station disaster, does that mean that you believe that such an event is inevitable? If that's the case, then we should be spending more to prevent it, rather than bandaid solutions like CRV.

Finally, a writer who prefers to remain nameless, and who works closely with the program, writes:

Thank you for your very thoughtful and thought provoking article about the X-38/CRV - Man the "Lifeboats" on FoxNews. It got a lot of people to talking and raised some excellent questions.

Normally I agree with what you say, especially when you write about NASA programs. However, this time I have to disagree.

We could start with a standard disclaimer - I am not a principle in the X-38/CRV program but I am an interested bystander. I work at the Johnson Space Center and am pretty well connected with the X-38/CRV program.

First, the plan for the Assembly Complete Station is that it would have both the CRV and the Soyuz - so that all of the crew could fit into the CRV but it would not be an all-or-nothing situation.

That's a good point, and one that I hadn't considered. However, it means that you still have a failure mode, in which a sick crewmember would have to use one of the vehicles (presumably Soyuz) and then they'd still be in the situation that I described--no emergency palliative other than returning the entire crew home. But it does indeed provide one more layer of robustness than what I described in my column.

The affected crew members could return to Earth, leaving three people behind to maintain the systems. This is not as flexible as it could be, of course. Having both might also give the Russians an incentive to hold down costs and the inevitable friction (delays, needless changes, indecision) that comes with working with the Russians. They might realize that we could live without the Soyuz.

You imply that the Soyuz is a full replacement for the CRV - it is not. Crew members can only fit into a custom seat in it - if they suddenly had to evacuate to two Soyuz vehicles, you had better hope that a big guy didn't end up trying to fit into a small woman's seat! Relying on Soyuz vehicles leaves the Russians in the critical path - and that guarantees additional delays, additional expenses, etc. Working with the Russians is an understood situation now but it is not easy - if they had some competition they would be a lot more willing to make the system work. Today, they see the program as a chance to make money and get revenge for perceived past wrongs. I have worked with the Russians extensively (and personally like many of them) but working with them is never easy.

This is a worthy goal, and one that I'll expand on a little later. I am not thrilled with being dependent on Soyuz. I just think that we should have more ambition and vision than that represented by X-38.

One thing the CRV would provide is a Safe Haven - the crew could retreat to it, isolate themselves, and command the Station from it. There are probably many situations that the crew could wait out (or possibly fix) and not abandon the Station - but they would always have that confidence that they could escape if needed. They would certainly be more willing to stay and work a problem if they had some confidence that they could get away when needed. This could possibly be done from a Soyuz but would require additional (expensive) modifications to the Soyuz.

Well, that's an interesting way of looking at it. I'm not sure it's valid. What does "more willing to stay and work a problem" mean in the context of "not having any choice"? If they don't have a return vehicle, it seems to me they'll be damned motivated to fix the problem, since not staying is not an option...

This reminds me of a story that Buzz Aldrin told me once. He was being interviewed by Hugh Downs, and Hugh was noting the fact that the LEM had a single engine, and it had to work, or he and Neil would be stuck on the Moon. Hugh asked him, "What would you be doing with your last minutes, if the engine didn't start?" Presumably, he expected something about how Buzz would want to send last messages to his family, or maybe go for a walk without his helmet to make it quick, or some such rot. But being the PhD engineer from MIT, Buzz replied, "Well, I suspect that we'd be doing our damndest to figure out why that engine wasn't starting, and fixing it..."

You correctly point out that many explorers have gone to places where they did not have an escape plan - so why provide one for the Station crew? This is not a reasonable argument - it could be extended to deleting fire escapes in apartments, parachutes in experimental aircraft, life boats on oil tankers, etc. If an escape can be provided we should provide it - the best reason is that it allows the crew to stay and work around problems rather than come home and not try to even leave the system in a safe configuration.

I have no objection to reasonable measures to provide crew safety. But your statement implies that astronauts' lives are of infinite value. I doubt that even they would agree with this assessment, and if they do, they're probably not good astronaut candidates.

We always have to make cost/benefit trades. Fire escapes on apartment buildings don't cost that much to add, and fires do occur in apartment buildings with unfortunate regularity. And people who live in apartment buildings are signing leases for living spaces--not knowingly signing up for potentially hazardous duty. I don't consider this a valid analogy. Similarly, parachutes and lifeboats are affordable. But NASA is asking for much more than a parachute or a lifeboat. As I pointed out in my columns, they are asking for a backup ship to assuredly deliver the Titanic passengers all the way to land. This is an unreasonable requirement, at a high cost.

You should know better than to say that we should design the system so that it is redundant and safe - of course we try to do that but this environment still has some surprises for us.

All environments do. That's why many are called, and few are chosen. As I said further up the column, if the current astronaut corps is not willing to serve on ISS without a CRV, there's a long line of people, amply qualified, who would be happy to step up and replace them, without such a stipulation.

It makes no sense to defend a program for anything except technical merit and need - and the X-38/CRV passes that test. This message could go on with additional examples and amplification, but let's keep it short.

Thanks, but you haven't made the case in my mind. Perhaps the readers think differently.

But let me expand a little on my real concern, which I touched on in the last couple grafs of the column.

Am I happy with the current ISS design?

No.

Do I want the crew to have some option, in the event of an emergency, other than to die?

Yes.

Do I think there are better alternatives to CRV?

Absolutely.

What I'd like to see is something that not only provides the function of crew rescue in the event of a (hopefully rare) emergency, but also adds value to our space infrastructure for routine purposes. I have some specific thoughts on that subject, but it's getting late, and I still have a lot of things to do before bed, I don't have time to lay them out right now. But they may form the core of Thursday's column.

Posted by Rand Simberg at June 17, 2002 09:08 PM

Comments

Will someone please explain sunk costs to these chuckle-heads. It is the technical version of 'good money after bad'. You don't use sunk costs, cost already spent on a project that can't be recouped, to justify continued investment in a program. Never. It is one of the first things you learn in a finance course. It as basic to finance as Newton's laws are to physics.

Posted by Joe at June 18, 2002 06:35 AM

I agree, Joe. Besides, completeling the CRV would help perpetuate the current launch infrastructure, since the whole system is designed around the expectation that we won't have spacecraft that can launch on short notice in an emergency. The SLI is also going to help maintain the current space infrastructure...reading about SLI, I'm reminded of exactly all the same promises that were made when the Space Shuttle was in development...

Instead of spending any more money on CRV or SLI, NASA should switch paradigms. Instead of an organization that helps a few large and bloated companies maintain a monopoly on space, NASA should become an organization that enables the private sector to access space by subsidizing technology development, infrastructure, and providing a share of the market demand (eg. ISS). Letting real market forces come into play will make things a lot more efficient, both for the private sector and for NASA. Instead of developing CRV, NASA should be enabling the private sector to develop crewed spacecraft with rapid turnaround times (assuming they're reusable), and then letting companies compete to offer them SERVICE, and possibly a limited amount of hardware. However, I fear that this can't happen since so many jobs depend upon the current scheme. That same standing army of space shuttle workers, among others, is also what makes the current human space program so expensive. If CRV and SLI both go forward, our manned space program will continue to go in circles for another 20 to 30 years.

Posted by James at June 18, 2002 09:50 AM

Taking the concept of sunk costs a bit further - just because we've spent money on ISS doesn't mean that it should be the focus of human spaceflight for the next ten years. I have not found any evidence that the costs will be justified, and there is still a lot more money to be spent on the program for further construction and continued operation. It's not just the ISS budget...it's the astronomical (excuse the pun)Shuttle budget as well. Perhaps, instead of dropping CRV, we ought to be re-evaluating the entire ISS program from the ground up. This station is billed as a waystation to Mars - so why are no partial-g studies planned, and why isn't there a centrifuge large enough to accomodate humans? Why didn't we develop the heavy lift vehicle that we'll need for Mars in time to construct the ISS? Why is the ISS using a life-support system that would be totally inadequate to send humans to Mars? Why does ISS use massive, expensive (to build AND launch) solar panels, instead of the nuclear reactor that a Mars mission will need? It seems to me that the CRV is just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by James at June 18, 2002 09:59 AM

We just need a craft that can take off from a conventional runway fly into space. Drop people off and pick people up from a space station and then fly back down to earth and land at that same conventional runway. It seems to me that NASA almost got their with the X-15 cause that space plane actually flew into space a few times. They just needed to put some wheels on that plane so that it could take off and land on its own. With a little more work they could have made a space plane that didn't need a lift assist from a B-52 or a large stretch of desert to land. But the Soviets put a metal ball in space using an extravagent roman candle and that caused NASA to just drop the whole space plane idea altogether it seems. And I really really wish they would get back on that track of making of space plane. Cause I really want to just be able to go down to DFW airport, climb into a space plane with my two peices of carry on luggage and take a trip to a orbital hotel for some real high times ;)

Posted by Hefty at June 18, 2002 10:03 AM

What a timely article! It just so happens that NASA (specifically the ISS Program Office at the Johnson Space Center) is looking at implementing a "Safe Haven" capability onboard ISS instead of having a full crew return capability.

Posted by at June 20, 2002 10:22 AM

Forget the X-38 and the 7 person crew module. Why not just equip the Shuttles to stay docked to the space station for up to six months. That gives you a top-of-the-line escape vehicle and crew quarters for 7 astronauts in addition to the existing 3 astronaut crew quarters on the ISS. When I take my kids to a ball game I don't drop them off and then come back later to pick them up - I stay for the whole game!

Posted by at June 20, 2002 03:48 PM

.

Posted by at October 17, 2004 05:02 PM


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