Transterrestrial Musings

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[ If the manufacturing facilities for the external tanks in Michaud, Mississipi are destroyed, maybe Shuttle will be retired sooner than we think. ]

There may not be any unique, irreplaceable manufacturing equipment at Michaud. Making External Tanks is really a rather low-tek, Rust Belt sort of manufacturing: make big aluminum cylinders out of sheet aluminum, and then spray on some foam, some of which is applied with hand held spray devices.

Besides, a hurricane wiping out the present External Tank factory might result in NASA opting for an extensively improved, redesigned ET. Result: the Shuttle lives on even longer!

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 09:10 AM

...make big aluminum cylinders out of sheet aluminum...

You're displaying a profound ignorance of ET construction and manufacturing, David.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 09:13 AM

Well then, explain it to us.

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 09:20 AM

They are precisely milled from aluminum-lithium alloy stock, with hundreds of tiny channels to maximize strength while minimizing weight. It's a very expensive process, requiring custom-built tooling. If it were as simple as you say, they wouldn't cost sixty million dollars each.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 09:36 AM

I might add that you should consider the possibility that you don't know as much as you think you do about many other space topics that you freely pontificate on, both here and at Jeff Foust's site.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 09:38 AM

60 million each, and they are expendable? No wonder it cost so much to launch.

Makes me wonder how much more it would cost to have just built the engines onto the external the way Buran did and create a heavy lift rocket that we could strap a lighter, simplier, orbiter to (or ontop of).

Posted by rjschwarz at August 28, 2005 09:42 AM

Don't you suppose LochMart has insurance on the Michaud faculity?

It might shut down shuttle but still leaves several years to rebuild for any SDHLLV.

Posted by Mike Puckett at August 28, 2005 10:18 AM

I doubt if they carry insurance for it. I doubt, in fact, that they even own the plant--they probably lease it from the government. And the government self insures (i.e., the taxpayers would pay to rebuild it).

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 10:23 AM

Some naive questions:

* How long does it take to manufacture a tank?

* How many are in development at any point in time?

* Where are the finished tanks stored?

* Is there off-site backup for CAD-CAM data used to develop the tools?

Posted by Larry Y. at August 28, 2005 10:26 AM

Sorry, I don't know the answers to any of those questions, though I imagine that tanks are stored both at Michaud and at the Cape, and on barges enroute. You might be able to find out at the NASA web site.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 10:36 AM

As a hurricane will inevitably one day head for KSC, putting the orbiters at risk, this is possibly another argument for space transports that can self-ferry (suborbitally or otherwise) out of the way of forseeable hazards like this.

Of course, those vehicles won't necessairily have to launch from coasts where they can drop pieces of themselves in the ocean, either...

Frank

Posted by Frank Glover at August 28, 2005 10:52 AM

A quick note about the external tank: You're suprised at the $ 60 million dollar cost? Well, it's somewhere around 1/9th of the cost of the entire launch, depending on what numbers you use for the cost of the launch (which is usually another entire debate).

Posted by Phil Fraering at August 28, 2005 12:12 PM

Minor pet peeve, Rand -- Michoud is in Louisiana, in New Orleans East (which is not a separate town so much as the side of the city east of the industrial canal). NASA documents make this mistake too, believe it or not.

David, you obviously have never visited Michoud. The tooling there is quite impressive, and custom-built built to produce a product to quite close tolerances. It is NOT like slapping together a bunch of sheetmetal.

Mike, MAF is a "goco" facility (government owned, contractor operated). Lockheed Martin doesn't own the facility. Since it's government owned, I'd wager it's self-insured.

Larry, you might find more conclusive info on LM's Michoud Operations website, but from (sometimes faulty) memory, it takes around 18 months to produce an ET depending on build rate, when I was last involved with ET we were delivering six per year and so had perhaps nine or ten in various states of production, finished tanks are stored on-site for a while before barging to KSC for storage in the VAB, and the CAD-CAM data (such as it is) has a backup mirror at MSFC. Again, this is from memory, and predates RTF.

Posted by T.L. James at August 28, 2005 12:21 PM

Well, KSC did get hit last year, but they have been extremely rare in the past (I think that was the closest hurricane to the KSC part of Cape Canaveral since records on hurricanes were kept). I think the crucial piece of equipment is the VAB. Aside from the obvious possibility that you might have an orbiter or similar valuable hardware in the building, it is the key building for assembling any major launch in KSC (as I understand it).

Supposed the building can take a direct hit from a Category 2 hurricane, nameky it can resist substained wind speeds of 183 km/hr (and gusts up to 200 km/hr). Truly a remarkable building.

I didn't get your remark about "self-ferrying". If a shuttle (or other rocket) is on the pad and a hurricane is coming, it can launch or abort (again as I understand it, got this from talking at length with someone who had served on a NASA panel that studied the risks of hurricanes to the KSC complex). If it launches, then I suspect that they have a lot of flexibility with where it ends up. But frankly, if you can launch, you're ready to go on with the mission no matter what happens to KSC. An abort means the vehicle gets hauled back to the VAB. I seem to recall that the vehicle can handle some weather on the pad, but it's not as sturdy as the VAB.

Of course, those vehicles won't necessairily have to launch from coasts where they can drop pieces of themselves in the ocean, either...

Much less third party risk when you drop things in the ocean. you're not going to tag someone's house or other expensive real estate, and there's a lot lower population density. Also, the ecological effects are negligiable. After all, this is dwarfed by the debris (flotsam and jetsam) that comes off ships.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at August 28, 2005 12:33 PM

[ David, you obviously have never visited Michoud. The tooling there is quite impressive, and custom-built built to produce a product to quite close tolerances. It is NOT like slapping together a bunch of sheetmetal. ]

Yes, yes. A product made with quite impressive tooling and custom-built to quite close tolerances ... except for the bits that break off and kill astronauts.

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 12:38 PM

I thought it was in Louisiana, so I went to a NASA site to check... :-(

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 01:00 PM

Much less third party risk when you drop things in the ocean. you're not going to tag someone's house or other expensive real estate, and there's a lot lower population density.

It would be much better to just design vehicles that don't shed parts in normal operations...

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 01:02 PM

Awright, it's MSFC's fault. Michoud only does what is in the current contract.

NASA approves new design for Shuttle external tank fitting

July 31, 2004

...

A Critical Design Review Board of NASA managers, engineers and aerospace contractors last month approved the new design, a significant milestone in the effort to return the Shuttle to safe flight. The approval allows workers to begin incorporating the new fitting on External Tank No. 120, the tank slated for flight on the next Shuttle mission, designated STS-114.

Investigators believe that during Columbia's launch in January 2003, insulating foam from the bipod area fell off the external tank and damaged the left wing of the Space Shuttle. The new design addresses ( "addresses" --always a weasel word) the Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommendation to reduce the risk to the Shuttle from falling debris during liftoff. It eliminates the foam covering from the bipod fitting and replaces it with four rod-shaped heaters. The heaters will serve the same primary function as the foam, preventing ice buildup on the tank's bipod fittings.

"This is a fix that really gets to the root of the technical problems that caused the loss of Columbia," said Michael Kostelnik, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for International Space Station and Space Shuttle Programs. "By eliminating this debris source, as well as potential debris from other areas, we are making the Shuttle a safer spacecraft."

The External Tank Project Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., first began developing redesign concepts for the bipod fitting after insulating foam from the left bipod ramp area detached during the October 2002 launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis.

The newly designed heaters will be placed below the fitting, in covers made of a strong alloy composed of nickel, chromium and iron. They will sit on top of a copper plate sandwiched between the fitting and a hard, dense material that separates the heater from the tank.

The design will be retrofitted on the 11 existing tanks and incorporated into the manufacture of all new tanks. Lockheed Martin Space Systems will do the work at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Delivery of the retrofitted tanks to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, is expected in October.

...

http://www.physorg.com/news601.html

But there is some justice in this world:

July 31, 2004: "This is a fix that really gets to the root of the technical problems that caused the loss of Columbia," said Michael Kostelnik.

Thirteen months later:

Date Released: Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Source: NASA HQ

Farewell Message From Mike Kostelnik

Dear NASA Friends and Colleagues,

The safe launch and landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery completes a very successful STS-114 Return to Flight mission and brings closure to another important chapter in NASA's human spaceflight history...

...

... Columbia happened on my watch and I felt a personal obligation to myself and to the human spaceflight team to stay until we had safely returned to flight. With the safe landing of STS-114 my contributions to human spaceflight are now complete and I am able to leave the Agency in good conscience and seek fresh challenges in other directions... "

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=17852

Bye bye, Mike. It sure will be hard to replace you.

Seek fresh challenges in other directions. Har har har.

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 01:10 PM

[ Makes me wonder how much more it would cost to have just built the engines onto the external the way Buran did and create a heavy lift rocket that we could strap a lighter, simplier, orbiter to (or ontop of) ]

The Buran design did not allow re-use of its main engines. Both Buran's main engines as well as its counterpart to the External Tank were single shot, disposable items. No savings there.

Plus, Buran, a.k.a. Shuttleski, was side-mounted just like the Shuttle.

One thing Buran did demonstrate was unmanned orbital flight and horizontal runway landing.

Dropping the sarcasm for a moment, I might suggest that a re-designed side mounted Shuttle and Shuttle C might be good, if the main engines wre moved to the External Tank and the ET were made into a re-entry vehicle with robust vehicular skin
covering the cryogenic tank insulation. What about the additional "dry" weight thus gained? Compensate for that with big kerosene/O2 first stage boosters ... the way God and Werner Von Braun intended the Shuttle to be.

/////////////////////////////////

How long to manufacture an ET?

For Release: April 28, 1999

June Malone
Media Relations Office
(256) 544-0034
June.Malone@msfc.nasa.gov
http://www.masc.nasa.gov/news

RELEASE: 99-069

NASA Completes Purchase of Material for 60 Shuttle External Tanks

NASA and Lockheed Martin Michoud Space Systems, of New Orleans, La., have completed negotiations on a contract worth $625.6 million for the final purchase of materials needed to build 60 new Space Shuttle external fuel tanks. ( I interpret that as $625.6M for the materials, not for finished tanks. Here one gets an a peek into the extent of the ET gold mine.)

"Together, with two earlier purchases of materials and equipment, we now have everything we need to build our sixth production order of external tanks for the Space Shuttle Program," said Parker Counts, manager of the External Tank Project Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

This sixth purchase of tanks will be the first comprised totally of Super Lightweight Tanks. This newest version of the tank is the same size as the previous Lightweight Tank design, but weighs approximately 7,500 pounds less. Its liquid hydrogen tank and the liquid oxygen tank are made of a new aluminum lithium alloy, a lighter - but 30 percent stronger - material than the previous aerospace aluminum alloy used for the Lightweight Tank.

The lighter tank allows the Shuttle to deliver various elements of the International Space Station - such as the Unity module launched last December - into the proper orbit.

NASA has purchased a total of 119 external tanks. To date, 93 have been flown. The last of the fifth production order is scheduled to be delivered in August 2001.

Production of the new order of tanks will start in 2000 at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, with the first one scheduled for delivery to the agency's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in 2002.

"It takes about 20 to 22 months to build a tank once the purchased materials are received at the factory," Counts said. "The first tank of this new order will fly probably in 2002. This buy should carry the Shuttle program well into the next century."

...

Gosh, I sure hope a hurricane doesn't blow all the extremely hi-tek ET materials away.

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 01:52 PM

Michoud's levies is said to be 19.3 feet above sea level its lowest point. I fear that is sea level and not high tide.

Katrina's storm surge is predicted at about 18 - 20 feet (above high tide?) along with much higher waves.

Posted by Bill White at August 28, 2005 05:36 PM

One forecast:

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 18 TO 22 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE
LEVELS...LOCALLY AS HIGH AS 28 FEET...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS
BATTERING WAVES...

Posted by Bill White at August 28, 2005 05:40 PM

High tide in that area will be around 6 AM (there's only one high tide/day there). However, the tidal range is normally small (less than 2 feet).

Posted by Paul Dietz at August 28, 2005 05:58 PM

Elsewhere I just saw a link to this movie made for FX. I hadn't heard about it before.

The Synopsis is chilling.

Posted by Bill White at August 28, 2005 06:13 PM

So maybe it's time to abandon machined aluminum altogether... how about plastic?

"That's how Shielding Project researcher Raj Kaul, working together with Barghouty, came to invent RXF1. RXF1 is remarkably strong and light: it has 3 times the tensile strength of aluminum, yet is 2.6 times lighter -- impressive even by aerospace standards."

And much cheaper to manufacture I would guess?

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/25aug_plasticspaceships.htm

Posted by ken anthony at August 28, 2005 06:15 PM

Okay, I read more of the synopsis to Oil Storm - - chilling and corn-ball hokey. ;-)

Posted by Bill White at August 28, 2005 06:16 PM

I don't get it. Some here frequently opine that it is time to retire the Shuttle. Yet here is a veritable Act of God ready to do the deed, Divine Porovidence ready to wipe the Shuttle slate clean, and some of youse guys are grumpy and fretful about it.

...

This extremely advanced technology Michoud External Tank factory: I bet this facility had a prior history manufacturing something antecedent to the Shuttle ET's. Maybe oil storage tanks or barges or barge-mounted large gasoline tanks. One doubts that the Michoud location was a virgin green field before NASA decided to build External Tanks there.

Can anyone comment on the Michoud factory's history? It's true, I myself have never been there.

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 06:34 PM

David, lots and lots and lots of people could very easily die in the next 24 hours.

Yup. I'm fretful.

Posted by Bill White at August 28, 2005 06:37 PM

Can you name names? I'm certainly not. My wish is that it would do so, in an irretrievable way, with no collateral casualties. So who is it that you're whining about here? Or are you just blowing smoke again (as usual)?

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 06:38 PM

History of Michoud: http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/facility/michoud.htm

There's a connection to Napoleon!

Posted by Paul Dietz at August 28, 2005 06:48 PM

[ They are precisely milled from aluminum-lithium alloy stock, with hundreds of tiny channels to maximize strength while minimizing weight. It's a very expensive process, requiring custom-built tooling. If it were as simple as you say, they wouldn't cost sixty million dollars each. ]

I think it was a mistake to try to pare weight from the Shuttle system by milling the inner side of the External Tanks in that expensive way, since the ET's are one shot disposable items. A better way to deliver more payload mass to orbit would be to manufacture the ET's as cheaply as possible and apply the money saved toward building liquid fuel Shuttle first stage boosters with more thrust for more seconds than the Solid Rocket Boosters provide.

Furthermore, this concern with making the ET's ever lighter - from original to Lightweight to Super Lightweight -- gives me the suspicion that someone in the past has suggested putting an aerodynamic fairing over critical parts of the External Tank insulation. I suspect that this suggestion was rejected in part on the grounds that the ET had to be kept as light as possible.

In sum, the ET's are badly designed, inside as well as outside.

Posted by David Davenport at August 28, 2005 07:00 PM

David, this may come as a shock to you, but no one cares about your ill informed and innumerate opinions about launch system design.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 28, 2005 07:07 PM

Actually, I've been thinking... if anything bad happens to the facilities because of this, it does highlight some very bad problems with the design and construction process of the shuttle _and its designated successor vehicles_.

When they designed the shuttle, they designed it to produce the maximum amount of pork over the largest possible geographic area: orbiter built in California, Solid Rocket Boosters built in Utah, External Tanks built in New Orleans, engines designed up at Marshall, and built who-knows-where, and tested in Mississippi... launch site in Florida, landing site in California, and training site in Texas... and they're all in the "critical path" for launching a shuttle.

Griffin has decided that the only problem with the shuttle program was that they tried to build a reusable vehicle, and it wasn't all stacked together vertically. He's designed the whole thing around some (but not all; I doubt he'd abandon cryogenic propellants, for instance) of the details of the Columbia accident and the need to keep the workforce details the same.

If _I_ were building a next-generation launcher, I'd try to keep as much of the design and construction team IN THE SAME PLACE.

The management style that NASA has cast in stone basically gives it all of the disadvantages of geographic dispersal and no resulting redundancy whatsoever.

Posted by Phil Fraering at August 28, 2005 09:24 PM

Dave, stop digging.

The Michoud tract, encompassing what is now New Orleans East from the Twin Span to the High Rise and between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne was granted by Napoleon to his nephew (or whatever he was) Antoine Michoud. Later, a sugar refinery was built on the site to process sugarcane from the surrounding swamps -- two of the brick smokestacks still stand (well, for the moment) in front of the main entrance to Bldg. 101.

The Michoud facility was built late in WWII to manufacture plywood cargo planes. It came on line just in time to turn out two of the cargo planes by the time the war ended (Saturn Blvd., the main road on the back of the property, is one arm of the runway built on site for this original purpose), at which point it was mothballed.

During the Korean war, it was reactivated for the production of engines for tanks (the military kind, not the fluid-storage kind). It was then mothballed for another ten or so years, until NASA selected it in 1963 (as I recall) for production of the Saturn Ib and Saturn IC stages.

Following completion of the Apollo project, the facility was almost entirely re-facilitized for the External Tank. As I recall there are a few fixtures here and there left over from the Apollo project, including some of the cleaning cells in the VAB, and more if you throw in the huge Niles milling machines which are rumored to date to Great White Fleet days. But otherwise the ET production line was built from scratch.

"In sum, the ET's are badly designed, inside as well as outside."

Sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, did you?

Posted by T.L. James at August 28, 2005 09:46 PM

Once again, this threat demonstrates how stupid and fragile is reliance of ONE system, ONE vehicle for space access. Unless you build your vehicle infrastructure indestructible, you always stand a chance of losing your spaceflight capability entirely due to some natural or manmade disaster.
The entire VSE is heading down the same path, and unless they have enough budget to somehow deal with the hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes its a bet against the nature. The longer the schedule, the more likely it is that something is going to happen to some "critical path" infrastructure.
Note that this has nothing to do with the quality of the vehicles themselves and level of competence of people running them ( unlike Challenger and Columbia ) So you could put together and operate perfect shuttle-derived everything, but if a freak accident wipes out ATK SRB production facility, your entire Vision is screwed.

I say let a thousand flowers bloom instead, and build THE Spaceflight Industry, not THE Space Vehicle.

Posted by kert at August 29, 2005 02:53 AM

In curiousity due to some discussion here, I checked to see how much mass the milling saves on the External Tank. According to this website, it's 24,000 pounds:

http://www.ducommunaero.com/ora_specifics.html

By the way, Titan IVs (and I assume the previous models) were produced by milling out solid hunks of aluminum as well.

Posted by Tom at August 29, 2005 09:00 AM

Looks like the left (west) eyewall went over, or near, Michoud. It remains to be seen if the surge pushed in from the east, or later from the north, overtopped any levees.

Posted by Paul Dietz at August 29, 2005 09:01 AM

I really appreciated reading the comments from those who seem to have worked at Michoud. I really find perfect TL James response to Dave Davenports' knowledge of engineering.

Posted by Leland at August 29, 2005 09:10 AM

A report has come in. Sounds like there was some wind damage, and some water ingress, but not catastrophic destruction.

Posted by Paul Dietz at August 29, 2005 12:47 PM

[ By the way, Titan IVs (and I assume the previous models) were produced by milling out solid hunks of aluminum as well. ]

So Shuttle ET's are built like Titan IV's? Thnak you, that sure helps makes access to space affordable.

[ A report has come in. Sounds like there was some wind damage, and some water ingress, but not catastrophic destruction. ]

Relax, the Dhuttle system cannot be killed. It is undead. An Occult Power protects the Shuttle.

[ Thomas James points out correctly in comments that Michaud is in Lousiana. That's what I had thought, but I made the mistake of checking it on line. That's what I get for relying on NASA web sites for information ]

Hey buddy, at least I knew what state Michoud is in.

Next topic: the stinkiness of the current Vsion for SE. Don't worry, one assumes that the VSE will go the way of the SLI in the first Bush Jr. admin.

Posted by David Davenport at August 29, 2005 01:17 PM

I was referring to future vehicles. The shuttle clearly has no real self-ferry capability. It either takes itself to orbit, or rides a 747 from point to point. AFAIK, there's just one 747 with the mods for this, so if a Major hurricane were seen to be coming at KSC, any orbiters there either ride it out in the VAB, or maybe one gets to escape via the carrier aircraft...

The future vehicles I'm assuming, would be SSTO or TSTO RLVs that might suborbitally take themselves elsewhere. Expendables indeed must launch over water, or uninhabited land. A decent RLV doesn't expend anything, and could depart from inland sites, in any practical direction for major storm avoidance, much as airfields sometimes empty out in similar situations.

Posted by Frank Glover at August 29, 2005 02:23 PM

Earlier in the day, I thought about looking up the post regarding odds of a second launch before year end. I decided not to make some crass comment about an assured schedule slip due to Katrina. Besides being a bit crass, I figured professionally, it really was a non-issue since the next mission's ET should already be at the VAB.

My understanding is that the ET is not safe and sound at the VAB, but was sent back to Michoud for "enhancements". That will be very unfortunate for the STS program.

Also, lets not forget that Michoud got a glancing blow as the eye went a bit east, but Stennis looks to have received a direct hit. The latter is more inland with structures designed for rather substantial loads. However, it is an important, if not necessarily unique, installation to more than just the Shuttle.

Posted by Leland at August 29, 2005 02:31 PM

The ET is being sent back to Michoud for modifications, but it hasn't gotten there yet. Delivery was delayed in part because of Katrina, if I understand correctly.

Posted by Paul Dietz at August 29, 2005 04:13 PM

[ Expendables indeed must launch over water, or uninhabited land. A decent RLV doesn't expend anything, and could depart from inland sites, in any practical direction for major storm avoidance, much as airfields sometimes empty out in similar situations. ]

Do you plan to operate without any insurance? Or do you expect liability insurance for your HobbySpace (TM) RLV to be trivially cheap?

By way of comparison, note that commercial airliners do sometimes crash and damage property on the ground.

Posted by David Davenport at August 29, 2005 04:56 PM

Do you plan to operate without any insurance? Or do you expect liability insurance for your HobbySpace (TM) RLV to be trivially cheap?

Insurance will be a cost of doing business. It will be affordable, according to preliminary discussions with insurers.

You know, David, we're not stupid. People really have thought about these things.

By way of comparison, note that commercial airliners do sometimes crash and damage property on the ground.

Yes, that would explain why no airliners are ever allowed to take off and fly over land, and must take off from coastal "air launch" sites.

Oh, wait. They are allowed to do that.

Did you have a point?

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 29, 2005 05:12 PM

[ By way of comparison, note that commercial airliners do sometimes crash and damage property on the ground.

Yes, that would explain why no airliners are ever allowed to take off and fly over land, and must take off from coastal "air launch" sites.]

No, Rand, airliners do operate inland. However, unlike our federal government, which has so-called sovereign immunity, airlines can be sued for personal and for property damage caused by their aircraft going astray.

Nest question? I do realize that some of these details elude you no matter how many times you re-read *The Fountainhead* and *Atlas Shrugged*.

Posted by David Davenport at August 29, 2005 08:05 PM

Here's the not-so-otherworldly source of NASA's new "vision::

http://www.spacepolitics.com/

"...

ATK, which arguably has the most to gain or lose on NASA's pending decision for new crew and cargo launch vehicles, has enlisted a number of former astronauts as lobbyists. Six former astronauts—Daniel Barry, John Blaha, Charles Bolden, Daniel Bursch, Franklin Chang-Diaz, and Thomas Jones—have registered as lobbyists representing the company. Another former astronaut, Scott Horowitz, already works for ATK; he was pushing for a SRB-derived CEV launch vehicle even before he left NASA last year.

..."

Posted by David Davenport at August 29, 2005 08:12 PM

However, unlike our federal government, which has so-called sovereign immunity, airlines can be sued for personal and for property damage caused by their aircraft going astray.

First, the government can be sued if it lets you--this is not an excuse. Second, no one was talking about government launch systems (including you, since you asked about insurance for "Hobbyspace RLV").

Nice try, though.

Well, actually, it wasn't. It was kind of pathetic. You should take Thomas' advice, and quit digging. But we know you won't, because you seem to like to flaunt your ignorance and illogic in public. You should get a blog, instead of polluting my and Jeff's comments sections with all this crap.

And note that, contra your equally pathetic attempt at ad hominem, quotes from Ayn Rand weren't required to point out the invalidity of your argument.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 29, 2005 09:02 PM

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